Related UN chief names new envoy to Syria Syria is ready to cooperate with new UN envoy Geir Pedersen as long as he avoids the methods of his predecessor, its deputy foreign minister said in remarks published Sunday. Pedersen, who assumes the role at the end of November, is the fourth negotiator to have been appointed the UN's special envoy to Syria since the country's war broke out in 2011. A seasoned Norwegian diplomat, he replaces Staffan de Mistura, who announced he is leaving the post last month after a four-year stint. "Syria will cooperate with the new UN envoy Geir Pedersen provided he avoids the methods of his predecessor," Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Meqdad said, quoted by Al-Watan newspaper. It would work with him if "he announces his support for the unity of Syria's land and people and does not side with the terrorists as his predecessor did," he added, referring to rebel groups. The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has long accused de Mistura of bias during his tenure. Its opponents have said the change in UN envoy would have little impact on the fate of the country as international will and consensus were lacking. Yahya al-Aridi, spokesman for the Syrian Negotiations Commission, this week told AFP he hoped Pedersen would be "more decisive" and call things out for what they are. De Mistura, an Italian-Swedish diplomat, announced he was stepping down to spend more time with his family after four years in the demanding post. He had been appointed in July 2014 after veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi resigned following two years in the position. Brahimi stepped in after late UN chief Kofi Annan quit just six months into the role which he described as "mission impossible". Pedersen was a member of the Norwegian team to the secret negotiations that led to the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians. Search Keywords: Short link: November 4, 1936 The San Diego Union The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year. Wednesday, November 4, 1936 In 1936 Jeanette E. Daley was elected to represent the 78th Assembly District, becoming the first woman elected to the state legislature from San Diego. Daley, a Democrat, benefited from a Democratic wave that carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a landslide re-election victory over Republican challenger Alfred "Alf" Landon of Kansas. Daley was re-elected to the assembly in 1938 and 1940. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1944. Here are the first few paragraphs of the story: IZAC, MRS. DALEY, RITCHIE ELECTED; ROOSEVELT SWEEPS CALIFORNIA, U.S. HASTINGS IS BEATEN BY BELLON Carrying through the nationwide Democratic sweep, San Diego county voted nearly 2 to 1 for President Roosevelt, and with him swept in Ed V. Izac as Democratic congressman, and two Democrats, Jeannette E. Daley and Paul Richie, for California assembly. Izac got 35,188 to 25, 047 for Ed Sample, Republican, and 506 for Esco L. Richardson, Communist. Stream Above Flood The county, from 317 of the total of 479 precincts, gave the countys new political complexion decisively. One lone Republican, Assemblyman Charles W. Stream, appeared to be swimming above the flood, as outside returns from 34 of mainly rural 80th assembly districts 149 trickled in. Chairman Ed F. Hastings of the board of supervisors, veteran county representative at the courthouse from the first supervisors district, was swamped in 80 precincts by his opponent Walter Bellons tide of 8833 to 6674 votes. In the 78th assembly district, Mrs. Daleys vote was 14,095 to Republican Ralph W. Wallaces 12,978. In the 79th, Paul Richie, incumbent Democrat, was borne along with a high wave of 14,079 balots compared to 9539 for Charles C. Niehouse, Republican. Returning to the supervisors, it appeared that in addition to Bellon, at least one other new face would show around the supervisors table when the board is re-formed Jan. 4. This would be Supervisor John Faddis, representing the new city third district, on this mornings showing of 7545 votes from 73 precincts out of 93. In the countys second supervisor district, T. LeRoy Richards, incumbent who some mouths ago successfully braved a recall election, was reported to have 4632 votes against 4947 for C.D. Springer, in 52 precincts out of 94. The third district, as newly formed in the countywide redistricting, will be represented on the board for the first time. Supervisor Ray Trussell, a resident of Escondido, lived in the old third district, and was barred from entering the race in the new third district, far removed from Escondido and now centered in the city of San Diego. The vote, in precincts, was 7545 for John Faddis; 4668 for S.P. McMullen, and 2288 for write-in candidate, James Hervey Johnson. A total of 317 precincts gave President Roosevelt 42,774; Landon, 21,963; Socialists, 303; Prohibitionists, 314; Communists, 273. View anniversary front pages online at sandiegouniontribune.com/150-years. For more from the Union-Tribune digital archives, go to newslibrary.com/sites/sdub. Searching is free, with registration. A fee is required to view full stories. As thousands of Central Americans continue their northward journeys through Mexico, the prospect of their eventual arrival at the U.S. border has been raising concerns in Tijuana. Shelter capacity in the city is limited, and several facilities already are overcrowded with women and children preparing to petition U.S. authorities for asylum. An existing wait list has swelled to more than 2,500 people, and reaching the front of the line can take as long as six weeks. U.S. officials at the San Ysidro Port of Entry might process 30 or even 60 from the line in a day. Some days they might not take any, according to the migrants who are waiting to be accepted for processing. With at least three migrant caravans now making their way north the third group of more than 1,000 Salvadorans waded over the Suchiate River from Guatemala on Friday the issue has become increasingly urgent at the countrys northern border, prompting meetings to develop contingency plans of how Tijuana and Baja California would cope with the presence of thousands of Central American migrants in the city for an indefinite period. Advertisement No city in the world is ready to respond to a group of 6,000 to 7,000 people who arrive all at once, said Cesar Palencia, head of the office of migrant affairs at Tijuana City Hall. That is our biggest concern, that the federal government wont do anything and in the end, it will be municipalities and the state who end up having to offer support. The three caravans stretched across the southern Mexican states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, together totaling more than 6,000 migrants. Still, there remains much uncertainty as to when, where and how many of those migrants currently in transit will finally make it to the U.S. border, and if Tijuana will even be a destination. Last spring, a Central American caravan swelled to 1,500 in southern Mexico ended up with only about 300 in Tijuana, with some 250 of those applying for asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Father Pat Murphy, director of the Casa del Migrante, poses for a photo with an image of John Baptist Scalabrini, founder of the Scalabrinian missionaries. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) Many of the shelters poised to provide assistance to these new caravan members are already offering shelter to an existing flow of Central Americans and Mexicans seeking asylum in the United States but also to sizable numbers of Mexicans deported from the United States. As they envision scenarios with the current caravans, migrant advocates in the city fear repeating the experience of 2016, when the city was flooded with thousands of Haitians who had made their way to the Port of Entry in hopes of entering the United States. The sudden and unexpected influx not only overwhelmed the capacity of U.S. authorities to process their asylum petitions; they flooded Tijuanas migrant shelters, and evangelical groups stepped up to offer their facilities to house the overflow. Should large numbers of Central Americans arrive, we dont have enough space, said Claudia Portela, coordinator at the Desayunador Padre Chava, a soup kitchen and 40-bed mens shelter near the U.S. border. When the Haitians came, there was a lot of solidarity, but there were also people who ended up sleeping in the street, she said. Its like 2016 all over again, said the Rev. Patrick Murphy, director of the Casa del Migrante, a 150-bed shelter for migrant men run by Catholic missionaries of the Scalabrinian order. My biggest fear is that the federal government wont respond, that theyll have a million excuses. In Baja California, federal, state, and local officials have been meeting with shelter operators in recent weeks to come up with a plan. Were meeting, and thats good, weve had a lot more meetings than before the Haitians came, Murphy said. But I dont see a lot of evidence that theyre super ready. Marcela Celorio, Mexicos consul general in San Diego, has been following developments closely as part of a group of government officials, shelter representatives and human rights advocates at the border. Compared with other border cities in northern Mexico, Tijuana has far greater capacity to assist migrants, she said. And among the three levels of government, there is this commitment to coordinate and respond in an effective way. Some are even seeing potential benefits if large numbers of Central Americans come to the border. The citys booming maquiladora industry has thousands of openings that they might fill, one industry leader said. But for that to happen, they would first need Mexicos federal government to grant them legal resident status and work permits. The caravans of Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries come at a sensitive moment in Mexico, as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador prepares to assume Mexicos presidency on Dec. 1. The phenomenon has become a hot-button issue in the United States just as voters prepare for mid-term elections on Tuesday. As he seeks support for Republican candidates, President Donald Trump repeatedly has brought up the issue of the Central American migrants. Though caravan leaders say their plan is to go to ports of entry and ask for asylum, which would not break any U.S. laws, the president has sent thousands of military personnel to the border and vowed to build tent cities to hold them as they await hearings. A statement sent out by a network of 30 migrant shelters and human rights centers in northern Mexico warns that those arriving in border cities face not only long waits to be processed at U.S. ports of entry, but insufficient shelter space, and limited facilities for children. It also cautions against sleeping in the streets, due to cooling temperatures, and warns of the presence of organized crime members and occasional corrupt police officials who can prey on migrants. But neither the shelters warnings nor President Trumps statements so far have deterred those who say they are desperate for safe haven. On Wednesday morning, a crowd of dozens of people clustered by the San Ysidro Port of Entry around a woman with a beat-up, gray notebook that has been used by migrants for months to track whos next to request asylum. As she announced the numbers of those who would be allowed in, several stepped forward with identification documents to verify their places in line. A Mexican immigration official then led them toward the U.S. port. A mother and father, grinning that it was finally their turn, carried a large duffel bag between them, their children scurrying to keep pace in their excitement to enter. Tijuana has a dozen shelters operated by churches and nonprofit groups that assist migrants, and among them have no more than 1,400 beds, according to the citys migrant office. They have been especially hard pressed in recent months to offer space to the large numbers of women and children from Central America and southern Mexico. Honduran Dany Rigoberto Alvarado, 35, visits his family at the Centro Madre Assunta, a shelter for women and children in Tijuana, on Wednesday. From left: Elsa Marina Pineda (wife), Manuel Alvarado,11, Josue Alvarado, 8, Brian Alvarado (back), 15, and Dany Alvarado, 13. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) One shelter, the Centro Madre Assunta, built to hold 42 women and children, was housing 110 at the end of last week. In the citys Zona Norte, another shelter, Movimiento Juventud 2000, was also over its 100-person capacity capacity last week, with 160 people, almost all mothers with children, crammed into small tents placed on the floor of a common room. Carmen Zendejas, 28, said crime in the town of Tuxpan, Michoacan, prompted her and her farmworker husband to flee with their three daughters, ages 4 to 11. There have been many kidnappings in the schools, and wed get phone calls from people trying to frighten and extort us, she said one day last week, still weeks away from an asylum interview. She said she hoped to make it to the United States, to work, bring up our children, nothing more. Outside the Centro Madre Assunta, Dany Rigoberto Alvarado, a 35-year-old electrician from Honduras, stood separated by a fence with his wife and four boys. Weve suffered very much to get this far, said Alvarado, who said he had been targeted by opponents of the countrys ruling party, and gang members had begun pressuring his eldest child to join them and wear their tattoos. He fears his enemies could reach him in Mexico, he said, and wont feel safe until he has reached the United States. The Associated Press contributed to this report. sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com @sandradibble Along Bright Avenue in Whittier, wedged between a hair salon and tutoring business, is the home and interior design store Amanda Alvarado toiled and sweated over many years to afford. The 32-year-old grew up in Boyle Heights, a working-class barrio where luxuries are few and far between. But even before Alvarado hit adolescence, her mother, a Mexican immigrant, taught her a lesson money could not buy. Belia Lagunas became an American citizen. Politically active, she traveled to Sacramento to push for sound barriers along Interstate 5 that sat parallel to the Eastside neighborhood. The most enduring political lesson Lagunas passed on to her children might have been the simplest. As soon as she became a citizen, she went out and voted, Alvarado recalled. That was the first thing she wanted to do. Advertisement (Los Angeles Times) Lagunas, who died at 63 in 2012, carefully studied voter guides and did not miss elections. When she went to the polls, she took her two daughters. When Alvarado turned 18, she cast her first ballot, got her I Voted sticker and never looked back. After everything she went through to get to where she was, she said of her mother, I couldnt let that go to waste. Voters like Alvarado are a valuable political commodity. They make up the relatively small percentage of eligible Latino voters who cast ballots. Those numbers are lower during nonpresidential elections, such as Tuesdays. But its hard to think of another midterm in recent history in which the president and Republicans and Democrats alike are talking as if the U.S. is facing a do-or-die situation. In such a scenario, Latinos like Alvarado are poised to play a pivotal role in a number of key races across the country whether they vote or not. By most appearances, Latinos who want to strike a political blow against Republicans and by extension President Trump have plenty of incentive. The president has put Latinos in a harsh spotlight, from stoking fears about a migrant caravan traveling from Central America to tweeting about crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally. The charge that Latinos have been slapped around by Trump was conveyed in a recent campaign video advertisement asking Latinos to vote and put an end to the Trumpadas, wordplay for the Spanish word trompadas punches to the face. (Los Angeles Times) Twenty-nine million Latinos are eligible to vote in this years midterm election, making up 13% of all eligible voters in the U.S. The growth was driven by young U.S. born Latinos who are turning 18. About 44% of Latinos who are eligible to vote are 18 to 35. But the relative youth of the Latino electorate is also what experts say contributes to low voter turnout rates. On the one hand more Latinos than ever vote and they are gradually shaping the demographics of voters, said Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center. But the numbers of those who do turn out to vote is growing at a slower rate than those who potentially can. For Alvarado, the routine of voting started in the household. Her husband and his parents also vote. I think we need to make sure millennials are aware of it now so when they have their kids they can instill that in their kids, she said. Marilu Guevara is the executive director of League of Women Voters, which is focusing on improving voter participation in Latino communities in Los Angeles County. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Marilu Guevara, executive director with the League of Women Voters, said engaging young Latinos is of paramount importance. We do this work in between elections and during election times, especially with young people, because we feel their parents might not have had the practice of voting and didnt instill it in them, she said. It might not be a practice in their home, so somebody needs to tell them how important it is to do it cause otherwise, apathy continues through generations. After the 2010 election, lawmakers in some states began to introduce measures including strict voter ID laws to cutting back early voting opportunities. Blacks and Latinos are more likely to report problems such as having trouble finding their polling place and lacking proper identification, according to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. Most recently, in Dodge City, Kan., the only polling site was moved outside the city limits and about a mile from the nearest bus stop. The city has a large Latino population, and the action drew accusations of voter suppression. Sonja Diaz, the founding director of UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, a think tank focusing on Latinos, said while the burden of increasing Latino voter participation falls on civic engagement groups and family members, political candidates and parties also have to invest in engaging those voters. In Southeast Los Angeles County, a region long plagued by corruption and low voter turnout, the institute found that voter engagement ahead of the June primaries led to greater voter turnout in those precincts. Over the last two years, political groups, nonprofit organizations, high schools and college campuses have also been increasingly engaging Latinos in an effort to boost voting participation. At age 17, Elizabeth Valdivia volunteered as poll worker. This year, she began working with organizations such as the League of Women Voters to bolster the Latino turnout. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) In late October, Elizabeth Valdivia, 27, was at Mount Saint Marys University for an overview of the propositions on the California ballot by the League of Women Voters. About 50 students, most of them women, listened in the Rose Hills Auditorium. When she was in high school, Valdivia participated in school walkouts to call for immigration reform. She worried about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Barack Obama ran for the presidency, she saw it as a sign of deep changes happening in American politics, changes that were more reflective of young civic-minded people like herself. Growing up, politics had rarely been discussed at home. Valdivias mother, who had been a green card holder since the late 1980s, applied for her citizenship and registered to vote to help elect Obama. Valdivia said shed never asked her mom why she hadnt become a citizen sooner. I think it became important for her because it was important to me, Valdivia said. Only 17 at the time, Valdivia volunteered as poll worker. Two years later, in 2010, she voted for the first time. This year, Valdivia began working with organizations such as the League of Women Voters to bolster the Latino turnout. On a recent Thursday night, Valdivia cradled a stack of voter registration forms as she made her way inside the cafeteria of Hollywood High School, where English classes for adults were taking place. Standing in the center of the brightly lit room, surrounded by murals of celebrities and Oscar statutes, she used a bullhorn to introduce herself and laid out her talk about the importance of voting. Most of the students were immigrants who could not vote. Valdivia asked them to hand the forms to a son or daughter, friend or neighbor, who might be a U.S. citizen. Confused, the students handed back the forms, with the exception of 61-year-old Martha Restrepo, a Colombian immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 2016. May I have three more for my family? she said, lifting her fingers. Im going to vote because those that dont have no right to complain. ruben.vives@latimes.com For more Southern California news, follow @latvives on Twitter. Ramona Ripston, whose four decades at the helm of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California shaped the liberal agenda in Los Angeles and beyond, died Saturday at 91. She had been in failing health since she suffered a fall in March, said her son, William Caplin. During 39 years as executive director of the ACLU, Ripston pushed her organization and its supporters to embrace causes beyond traditional civil rights work such as police brutality, school funding and gay rights. She had no qualms about being out in front of an issue. She never put her finger up to see which way the wind was going to blow, said Santa Monica civil rights attorney Carol Sobel, a longtime friend and colleague. Advertisement Her efforts earned her many critics. Leaders of the national ACLU broke with her over some proposals. Former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates derided her as Ramona the Ripper and conservative radios Rush Limbaugh labeled her and her husband left-leaning commie socialists. But her tenacity also won her many admirers. Just knowing her caused one to lean in every direction she leaned in, said legendary television producer Norman Lear, one of many celebrities with whom she forged alliances. Lear noted that he was campaigning for progressive candidates in Florida when he learned of her death and said, Had I not known Ramona Ripston and been influenced by her, who knows if I would be here. Ripston, born in Queens in 1927, graduated from Hunter College with a political science degree and then worked as a fashion model. She married a wealthy lingerie manufacturer but became bored as a housewife and began volunteering at the New York Civil Liberties Union. The marriage ended, but her interest in civil rights endured. She was named head of the ACLU of Southern California in 1972. At the time, it was a tiny outfit with a half-dozen employees working over a wig shop in downtown L.A. By her retirement, the organization had 90 employees, four offices and a national reputation for activism. From the start, Ripstons appearance announced a break from the past. Tall and thin with a waterfall of blond hair and a models bearing, she strode into contentious court hearings or political rallies in stylish ensembles and spike heels. She just didnt look like the rest of the people in the ACLU, Sobel said. It made it easier for some men to deal with her. She had a knack for grabbing media attention. Shortly after the Rodney King beating in 1991, Ripston pushed her way to the front of a packed Police Commission meeting and dumped boxes of petitions calling for Gates resignation on the table where the chief was sitting. Lawsuits filed under her leadership forced the state to upgrade substandard public schools, the LAPD to disband a special unit that was spying on citizens and L.A. County to redraw its voting map, ushering in the election of the first Latina supervisor. Ripston advocated for the homeless and proposed an economic bill of rights for all citizens, telling ACLU staffers that if you dont have food on the table or a bed to sleep in equality and justice are just illusions. That was a very bold position at the time, said Hector Villagra, who succeeded Ripston as the ACLU of Southern Californias executive director. Former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Ripston would be remembered as a real giant who showed moxie, chutzpah, courage. If she believed in something and she thought she was right, she wouldnt back down, Villaraigosa said. Ripston was married five times. She had decided early in her life to keep her name on principle and joked, That turned out to be a good thing. Her last husband, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, died in March. She is survived by her daughter, Laura Ripston, of Los Angeles; her son; and three grandchildren. Her son, Mark, died in 1994. Times staff writer Marisa Gerber contributed to this report. harriet.ryan@latimes.com Twitter: @latimesharriet San Diego will have a front-row seat Tuesday in an election that will either change the political course of the nation, or merely be very interesting. One and possibly two local congressional races could factor into whether Democrats take control of the House. If the House flips, Democrats will have greater leverage to apply the brakes on President Donald Trumps dominance over policy and almost certainly will launch investigations of the president and his administration. Any forecasts that the much-ballyhooed blue wave will carry Democrats to a majority, however, are tempered by projections in past elections that turned out to be spectacularly wrong. Whatever the result, the divisive politics of recent decades only seems to have become worse and shows no sign of dissipating anytime soon. But if Democrats do take the House, the contest in the 49th Congressional District will be emblematic of what has happened. Its not going out on a limb to say Democrat Mike Levin, an environmental attorney, is heavily favored to win what has been a Republican bastion along the north San Diego County and southern Orange County coast. Recent polls have him ahead by between seven and 14 points. The GOP literally gave up on their candidate, Diane Harkey, weeks ago she even said so. Advertisement A lot of things helped create this environment for Democrats, but theres no bigger reason than Trump himself. The bottom line is this election is all about him. The anger and vitriol Trumps policies, commentary and personality triggered in Democrats and many independents have been channeled into a level of political activism not seen in years. Nobody was even talking about the prospect of Democrats gaining the House majority this year until after he was elected. Motivated anti-Trump voters have made many other Republican-held districts election battlegrounds, including a half-dozen or so in California. But they seemingly went on steroids in the 49th, in part because of Darrell Issa, the 18-year Republican incumbent. He is particularly loathed by Democrats not just because he is a Trump supporter but because they considered his investigations of the Obama administration unfair and highly partisan. He was essentially chased out of office, declining to run again. While the regular protests outside Issas Vista office were noted for their civility, the political division in the district remains raw and deep. The tide quickly turned against Harkey, a state Board of Equalization member, after she advanced out of the June primary. She has been pummeled by Levin and Democratic ads about her high ranking from the NRA, failure to vote against offshore oil drilling, lack of support for health care protections and equivocation over the cause of climate change. Harkey has ramped up her support and rhetoric for Trumps recent extraordinary proposals to deal with illegal immigration. The move has the potential to fire up her Republican base, but is a questionable way to attract the swing voters she needs. The results in this and other California districts are expected to be central to whether Democrats succeed in winning the House. Trump may have put the Republican districts in play, but Mark Z. Barabak of the Los Angeles Times credits a largely forgotten election reform for making some of them more competitive. About a decade ago, California voters took the redistricting process for legislative and congressional districts out of the hands of lawmakers whose goal was to keep districts safe for all incumbents and gave it to an independent commission. Changing demographics may have shrunk the Republican voter-registration advantage in districts like Issas under the old process, but probably not to the extent under the fairer system. One district that shouldnt be competitive in a partisan sense under any redistricting process is the 50th, held by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine. The district covers most of San Diegos East County and stretches up into southern Riverside County. A district in that region is going to be very Republican no matter how you shape it. Yet the congressman is facing a serious challenge, though its an outlier in this election. Hes in political trouble because hes in legal trouble. Hunter and his wife have been indicted on dozens of federal counts alleging personal use of $250,000 in campaign funds. They have pleaded not guilty to all charges. That has given Democrats a rare opportunity to win a district they wouldnt dream of occupying under normal circumstances. Hunters opponent is Ammar Campa-Najjar, who worked in the Obama White House and Department of Labor. He was slightly behind but within the margin of error in two out of the three most recent polls. Nevertheless, Hunter continues to be viewed as the favorite. Hunter, a Marine veteran, has leaned on his military background, hard-line views on illegal immigration, family history in the region and support for Trump, who won the district overwhelmingly in 2016. Still, Campa-Najjar is within reach of pulling off a huge upset and, in the process, possibly affecting the balance of power in Congress. If that happens, it will have had almost nothing to do with the political trend that is defining this election. Tweet of the Week Goes to Humberto Peraza (@HumbertoPeraza), partner at The San Diego Group. Can we fast forward to Wednesday? A barren stretch of high desert in the northeast corner of Nevada is where Bitcointopia would rise. Residents would live in homes built by 3D printers, or in shipping containers. A police force would be aided by R2D2-like drones. Driverless buses would replace the need for cars. The city would be powered by Tesla and watered by the North Fork Humboldt River that cuts through middle of the land, a scene framed by the snowcapped Ruby Mountains in the distance. Here, above all else, bitcoin would rule. Advertisement Morgan Rockcoons, 31, envisioned a new kind of community, one not dependent on the U.S. dollar, an experiment based on artificial intelligence and automation and technology. He has likened it to the futuristic city Walt Disney dreamed up as Epcot Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow decades ago in Florida. This past summer, cryptocurrency enthusiasts began buying into the dream and buying up parcels of land in Elko County to secure their own slice of Bitcointopia. Problem is, Rockcoons didnt own the land he was selling, federal investigators said. Last Sunday, Rockcoons was arrested in San Diego on charges of wire fraud. The indictment adds to his ongoing legal troubles in federal court here in which he is accused of trading bitcoin while thwarting anti-money laundering banking rules. He has pleaded not guilty. Mr. Rockcoons has entered a denial of the allegations in Court and we will vigorously defend him, his Las Vegas-based attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said in a statement. As land sale scams go, the one outlined in federal court records and by those claiming to have firsthand knowledge is a fairly straightforward one. A slick website advertised a development of up to 1,000 acres, with 1- to 3-acre lots for sale for half a bitcoin per acre thats about $3,100 per acre in U.S. currency in the current market. Chris Rice, who was hired as Bitcointopias chief marketing officer, said at least 25 plots were sold. But federal authorities said it was land that Rockcoons had no right to sell; all he owned were two non-contiguous lots in the area, totaling less than 5 acres. What made the sale of Bitcointopia successful, at least at first, was Rockcoons ability to sell a progressive, non-comformist Utopian vision in a climate of discontent, according to people who know him. And he had a captive audience in the crypto world where he is both loved and scorned. The bitcoin community, were a lot of dreamers, Rice explained in an interview with the Union-Tribune. We want to see the world change, and this was like the start of a seed to change. Undercover sting Rockcoons, who sometimes goes by the name Morgan Rockwell or his alternate musician identity Metaballo, was already a loud voice in the cryptocurrency world when he was arrested in February. Besides regularly preaching the benefits of digital currency in podcasts and on social media, Rockcoons advertised on a bitcoin exchange site as a prolific bitcoin seller, according to a search warrant affidavit. Cryptocurrency, with bitcoin being the most popular, is a long string of code with monetary value that people hold onto as an investment or use to buy goods. Blockchain is the digital method that stores and records digital currency. According to federal law, people who work as bitcoin exchangers are considered money transmitters and must be registered as such with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the arm of the U.S. Treasury Department that works to combat money laundering with regulations. As with other banking, exchangers must also know the identity of their customers and report any transactions over $10,000 to the government. Authorities said Rockcoons did not follow any of the rules. In 2015, an agent with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations went undercover, posing as a drug manufacturer who extracts THC from marijuana to make butane hash oil. He solicited Rockcoons bitcoin exchange services, telling Rockcoons that the anonymity of bitcoin was preferred because of the nature of his business, according to the affidavit. The agent mailed $14,500 cash to Rockcoons, and Rockcoons gave him 9.998 bitcoins while taking a $5,300 service fee, the affidavit states. After his arrest at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, where hed been living, Rockcoons told Bitcoin Magazine that the agent tried to entrap him and had told him the hash oil was for medical use, which is legal in California. Rockcoons said he was living in a tent in the Mendocino National Forest at the time and was working on a voice-operated bitcoin wallet. I was living like a mountain man, so I didnt really need money but eventually I needed to buy food so I decided to sell some coin; when someone asked me to buy some I usually just always turn it down, but I needed cash to eat, he told the magazine. The charges, which Rockcoons characterized on his Twitter account as the insane Federal Government hell bent on banning Bitcoin use, stirred up even more anti-government, anti-regulation sentiment that was already prevalent among the bitcoin community. Many rallied to support his cause. Thats how Rice, a North Carolina content creator and bitcoin enthusiast, met Rockcoons. A desert Tomorrowland Rockcoons, who says he was born and raised in Chula Vista, remembers being captivated by his childhood trips to Disneyland, especially Tomorrowland, he told VICE magazine in a June interview. As a teenager, he aspired to live in Las Vegas, a city that seemed full of technology, where all the innovators and dreamers live together in one place. After years of living here, I became disappointed that it wasnt, he told VICE. Rockcoons over the past few years has heavily promoted bitcoin in an attempt to incorporate it into the Vegas economy, but progress has been slow. So he started to toy with the idea of starting a community from scratch. The vision itself was really cool, Rice said. He wanted to create a community for bitcoin and bring that to life in combination with todays technologies. Im a Libertarian/anarchist, I like that mentality what we were trying to. Granted, Bitcointopia was not the first. Dozens of crypto-rich entreprenuers are working to form a Utopian blockchain-based community in Puerto Rico, especially attractive for its tax breaks. The movement is being led by former child actor and blockchain innovator Brock Pierce. And in 2014, Bitnation billed itself as the worlds first Decentralised Borderless Voluntary Nation that is basically a blockchain-based virtual governance, but without the tangibility of a physical community. Perhaps most parallel to Bitcointopia is the self-funded project by lawyer Jeffrey Berns, who got rich on Ether, another cryptocurrency. Perhaps coincidentally, his vision is also taking shape in Nevada, off the Truckee River near Reno. Berns company, Blockchain LLC, which has purchased 67,000 acres for $170 million, already has preliminary county approval for a town, with thousands of homes, a school and drone delivery system, The New York Times reported Thursday, the same day Berns announced details of his project at Devcon in Prague. The day before, Nevadas public electricity utility company announced it had partnered with Blockchains LLC to work together on energy projects powered by blockchain technology. All communities share the same idea that blockchain can facilitate more than recording digital currency, but can provide a system to store personnel data and vote outside the confines of a central government or big corporation. Laws & Rules will be defined by the people who live at Bitcointopia, Rockcoons website explains. To build a real republic based on direct democracy & Blockchain voting is the goal of this city. Bitcoin stands as the base legal tender & BitCongress the basis of the city government. In his interview with VICE, Rockcoons explained the draw of such a community. I think theres a real motivation to fix the political and legal systems of the countries that were in. Forming this city is basically to motivate the U.S. government to get their act together; to improve their designs, their technology and also the legal system, he said. There are people around the world who are fed up. Im a patriot, but I want to push my country to upgrade itself. The federal reserve can collapse, our dollar can tank and Id rather be at Tomorrowland. There was talk of Bitcointopia seceding from the U.S. and forming a new country under the Treason Act of 1495. But Rice, when he was hired to market Bitcointopia in June, said he advised Rockcoons to back off on that selling point, which might seem too extreme for some, and instead focus first on building the community. Rice said it was important to him to present Bitcointopia as inclusive, not cultish. We want this to be a real city, where people can visit, Rice told VICE. Rice told the Union-Tribune that the plan was to build five model homes, then invite the big technology companies Google, Tesla and smaller startups like Knightscope, which makes policing drones, to take a look. Dashed dreams Aaron Forsgren, a 45-year-old bartender in northeastern Utah, saw Bitcointopia advertised on Twitter. A fan of sci-fi, the possibilities excited him. Plus, it was close to where he lived. He said he didnt expect the place to be built overnight, but invested on the off-chance that it might actually work 10, 20 years from now. I got a little extra bitcoin. I thought why not? Who doesnt want a Utopia or whatever, Forsgren told the Union-Tribune. I did it on a whim, without researching. Then I started looking into it. Yeah, it was not good. A San Diego man who asked to be identified by the handle Makali saw Bitcointopia as a vacation home or quiet place to work in the company of like-minded individuals. It was also an antidote to San Diegos housing crisis. This was a way for me to put my stake out there, he said in an interview. He said Rockcoons came across as a compelling figure and passionate defender of bitcoin. He started talking about bitcoin and partnerships and all the land he had and funds were not a problem at all, Makali said. Both Makali and Forsgren, after buying one-acre plots for half a bitcoin each, said they quickly became suspicious when Rockcoons wouldnt produce the deeds. Other buyers in online chatrooms were also becoming alarmed, while those whod had past run-ins with Rockcoons claimed he owed them money. Joseph Fitzjerrells, a crypto artist who sells under the moniker Crypto the Giant, saw Bitcointopia as a way to help legitimize Bitcoin, as well as a nice respite from Hollywood where he currently lives. He hoped to open an art studio/gallery/souvenir shop to sell his crypto-vector designs and T-shirts to residents and tourists alike. He said he was promised riverfront property for residential and commercial use with his 0.2 bitcoin, but he never received a deed. He kept telling me he would refund me, Fitzjerrells said. He would be like Ill send it to you today, and then would send nothing. It happened several times, to me and countless others. Rice said he became suspicious when Rockcoons couldnt front the cash for a plane ticket to Las Vegas for him to make an important marketing pitch. Promises to harness the power of the Humboldt River a protected waterway for energy were also questioned. Theres no way people are going to let him manipulate that river, Forsgren said. Rice got a real estate agent friend to investigate the ownership of the land, a swath north of Interstate 80 between the cities of Elko and Wells. It is mostly U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, he learned. Records showed Rockcoons Bitcoin Inc. owned only two parcels totaling less than 5 acres. Rice also discovered Rockcoons had not secured any permits for the work envisioned. Morgan was a good salesperson, Rice said, he just sold a dream that wasnt legit. Rice and other hired executive officers parted ways with Rockcoons. Rice then began to cooperate with the federal government. The case has put those involved in an awkward position. Suddenly, a community that is suspicious of Big Government and courtrooms in favor of decentralized democracy and economy, is working with the same authorities who are prosecuting Rockcoons for his bitcoin exchanging charges the cryptocommunity still fully protests. Its so ironic Going to the federal government to bring down one of their own the optics are strange and weird, Makali said. On Oct. 20, Rockcoons tweeted to Donald Trump following a presidential get-out-the-vote visit to Elko. Thanks for coming to Elko, we are building a brand new MegaCity here that will provide millions of jobs for Americans in the immediate future thanks to Bitcoin, AI and Nevada. Rockcoons was arrested eight days later. He remains in federal custody following his arrest on the newest charges. kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @kristinadavis California is in no recession and has been spending billions more on K-12 education each year. But school districts across the state and across San Diego County are facing looming budget crises that have materialized already for some and will materialize as soon as next year for others. Local districts are deficit spending for years in a row, depleting their reserves and making multimillion-dollar cuts to make ends meet. At least 10 districts in the county are projecting that they will not be able to meet their financial commitments next school year, including Chula Vista Elementary, Jamul-Dulzura Union, Mountain Empire Unified, Oceanside Unified, San Diego Unified, San Marcos Unified, San Ysidro, Sweetwater and Vista Unified. More districts wont be able to meet their financial commitments after next year. Some are in worse spots than others, including Oceanside Unified, which made $7 million in cuts this year and recently adopted a plan to cut $14 million next year and another $21 million the following year, and Sweetwater, which last month had to reduce roughly $20 million for its current year budget because of accounting errors and budget oversight. Advertisement Budget troubles are affecting even districts in supposedly wealthier areas such as San Dieguito Union High School District, which is projected to deficit spend millions for three years in a row, and Coronado Unified, which is projecting a $3 million negative fund balance next year if it doesnt make budget cuts. This is actually a more serious time than during the recession, said Michael Simonson, assistant superintendent of business services for the San Diego County Office of Education, which reviews the budget of every school district in the county by September each year. Most districts are going to be in a position where theyre going to have to start making reductions either this year or in the next year. I think its fair to say just about everyone will be in that position. Despite continued increases in state spending, districts and experts have long said that California still does not spend enough on education. One study released last month estimated that California needed to spend $25.6 billion, or 38 percent more than it did two years ago to adequately educate all students. But there are at least three specific factors that districts say are making it harder for them to make ends meet: Rising pension costs: To address looming pension debt, the state in 2014 started increasing school districts share of pension costs. In 2013-2014, school districts paid 8 percent of their teachers salaries to the states teacher pension fund. This year, they had to pay 16 percent. In two years, they must pay 19 percent. For Grossmont Union High School District, pension costs have risen by roughly $4 million this year alone, said Scott Patterson, the deputy superintendent of business services. Pensions now take up more than 10 percent of the districts operating budget, Patterson said. Over time, its really eroding our ability to even maintain our current service levels, Patterson said. Rising special education costs: District officials say that a rising number of students needing special education services and a higher frequency of severe special education needs are driving up costs. For example, in 2013-2014, Chula Vista Elementary School District spent $15 million of general fund dollars on special education, said Oscar Esquivel, the districts deputy superintendent of business services. Last school year, that rose to $32 million, Esquivel said. Declining enrollment: School districts get a certain amount of state funding per student who attends school, so the fewer students a school district enrolls, the less money it can get. Oceanside Unified, for example, expects to lose about 400 students annually, which equates to a loss of $4 million each year, said Shannon Soto, the districts deputy superintendent of business services. While one might think fewer students means fewer costs, district budget officials estimate that of the revenue they lose due to a loss of students, they can only capture up to 40 percent of savings because of overhead costs. We still have to turn on the lights and hire the principal and have the custodian and drive the buses and everything else that are pretty much fixed costs that dont decline because of the fact that youve lost some number of students, Patterson said. Some school district officials also said theyre wary of increasing costs for utilities and health-care benefits. Local school districts have been using a number of strategies to put off large-scale budget cuts. Many, including Coronado, San Dieguito, Rancho Santa Fe Elementary, Escondido Union High and Borrego Springs Unified, have been pulling from their reserves to make ends meet. But reserves are an unreliable solution because they are finite, one-time funds with no revenue source and do not solve budget issues in the long-term, according to Brent Watson, director of district financial services for the county education office. While its difficult to reverse enrollment decline, districts can work on increasing their attendance rates, which are what the state uses to allocate state funding to schools. School districts can also ask voters to pass bond measures. But money borrowed through bond measures cannot be used for everyday operations and are strictly limited to certain projects, mainly facilities construction and renovation. And districts have no control over what is perhaps their biggest concern pension costs, which are dictated by the state government. In letters to multiple school districts last month, Watson suggested one main solution for school districts that they make on-going cuts as soon as possible. Long-term structural solutions are necessary to bring expenditures in alignment with revenues. The sooner on-going budget solutions are implemented, the greater impact they will have on the budget long-term, Watson wrote. At the same time school districts are facing the prospect of budget cuts, however, several of them have been increasing spending by giving out raises. Those raises come on top of the automatic pay increases that teachers get each year based on salary schedules that are negotiated with unions. Salaries and benefits are the biggest spending category for school districts. Districts have to balance the need for budget reductions with union demands for raises, while also acknowledging that San Diego has a high cost of living and that districts need to compete with other schools and districts for quality staff. We are continuing to try to attract the best and brightest for our students, said Greg Ottinger, chief business officer for San Diego Unified. The district has raised salaries by 2.5 percent in the past two years but now needs to cut $41 million next year and at least another approximately $36 million the following year. The district in the most alarming financial state is Sweetwater, which started this school year with zero reserves and a negative fund balance. The district scrambled last month to write a revised budget that keeps the minimum reserve required by law. The districts budget troubles were severe enough that its credit rating was downgraded and its outlook has been revised to negative by Fitch Ratings. Sweetwaters budget was the only one to be disapproved by the county and its the only district that could now face a county takeover. But the county has concerns about other districts, such as San Marcos Unified, which is expected to have to make $11 million in budget cuts next year and $35 million the following year to avoid negative fund balances in the next two years. Theres also San Ysidro, which will need to make $2.7 million in cuts for 2020-2021 to avoid a negative fund balance. The county office warned in letters to San Marcos Unified and San Ysidro that unless ongoing budget solutions can be identified for fiscal year 2019-20 and beyond, this structural imbalance is not sustainable and is of great concern to our office. A San Marcos official did not respond to a request for comment, and San Ysidro officials were unavailable for comment. Kristen Taketa Email: kristen.taketa@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @Kristen_Taketa One view of politics: its an ugly trade dominated by billion-dollar ad buys, social media trolls, dark forces stirring low fears and cheap sentiment. Another view comes from Kianna Santana and Robert Weichelt: at the grassroots level, politics is an ennobling exercise in representative government, a chance to go door-to-door and literally meet voters where they live. We like that human interaction, Santana, a 20-year-old Mesa College student, said of her fellow campaign volunteers. Saying, Hey, I am here to listen to you. You just get sucked in, said Weichelt, 52, owner of a real estate firm, explaining why hes been involved in 11 campaigns this season. The energy is just so amazing. Advertisement These two volunteers tell the same story, but from opposite sides of a campaign. On Saturday, Weicheltwalked Linda Vista precincts, knocking on doors for Bonnie Dumanis. In North Park, Santana did the same thing for Nathan Fletcher, the other candidate for county supervisor. I believe that a person like Nathan is the change we deserve on the county Board of Supervisors, Santana said, noting that Fletcher would become that bodys only Democrat. This is a change we havent had in decades. Dumanis, Weichelt countered, is a registered Republican but no ideologue. If theres a person who is less partisan than Bonnie, he said, Id like to meet her. She doesnt represent Republicans or Democrats, she represents the community. Santana, Weichelt and countless other volunteers enjoyed perfect precinct-walking weather Saturday. There were clear skies, warm breezes and with the midterms just days away a 100 percent chance of nonstop canvassing. Both found reasons to be encouraged. In Linda Vista, Weichelt met the Swist family Sara, 40, her husband, Mike, 41, and their Great Dane, Manfred, 130 pounds. Between the dogs barks Hes just a big softy, Sara reassured everyone they noted theyd already voted. For Dumanis. Robert Weichelt, left, campaign volunteer for Bonnie Dumanis, candidate for the 4th District seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, talks with Linda Vista resident Sara Swist while going door-to-door for Dumanis. (Howard Lipin/U-T) We really appreciate your support, Weichelt said as his wife, Carla Weichelt, was nuzzled by Manfred. In North Park, Santana expected a residence on Dwight Street to hold a single Fletcher supporter. Instead, homeowner Maria Carrillo said she shared the bungalow with her husband and three adult children all Fletcher voters. I thought I was only going to get one and I got five! Santana said. That was awesome. Nathan Fletcher, candidate for the 4th District seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, addresses supporters before the group fanned out, going door-to-door. (Howard Lipin/U-T) Despite an endless stream of campaign mailers and TV commercials, candidates seem to believe in the power of the personal appearance. Both gubernatorial candidates visited San Diego on Friday, moving on to other California locales Saturday. John Cox, the Rancho Santa Fe businessman who is the GOPs standard bearer, held rallies in the San Gabriel Valley, Riverside County and Bakersfield. His rival, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris stumped for Democratic congressional candidates in Los Angeles and Orange counties. In the hotly contested race for the 49th congressional district, which includes parts of San Diego and Orange counties, Republican Diane Harkey addressed supporters in San Juan Capistrano, then joined volunteers in door-to-door canvassing. Mike Levin, the Democrat in the race, greeted volunteers at his Solana Beach office, then sat down to take his turn making calls from the campaigns phone bank. In the closely-watched race for the 50th congressional district, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti rallied about 100 supporters of Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democratic candidate. This is a hinge of history, Garcetti said, before helping the candidate canvass the affluent Rancho Verde neighborhood in southern Escondido. We either change the direction of this country or we will see it further decline and divide us. Supporters for the incumbent, Rep. Duncan Hunter, were also spread out across the sprawling district, knocking on doors in Fallbrook, Temecula, Escondido and San Marcos. Karolyn Smith, a 45-year-old U.S. Army veteran, was among the volunteers campaigning in Santee. The response, she said, was good: The word out of every single persons mouth is that we do not want socialism and progressive ideologies in the 50th district. Despite their differences, volunteers from rival camps shared a raft of common experiences. Doorbells jolted dozing dogs into frenzied action behind backyard fences. If no one came to the door, volunteers left door hangers urging a vote for their candidate. If someone had already voted for your candidate Edie Roe, for instance, who assured Weichelt that she was a longtime Dumanis fan there may be a quick exchange of pleasantries and jokes, a small celebration of this civic bond. And if residents remain undecided, as Brian Suzuki confessed to Santana, theres a final pitch that walks a fine line, neither a strident demand nor an expression of hopeless resignation. He is the only Democrat running for the Board of Supervisors, Santana said, smiling. Were hoping we can count on your vote. Hope: another common trait among the foot soldiers of door-to-door politicking. Staff writer Sandra Dibble contributed to this report. People typically come to the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) for help in resolving person-to-person conflicts, from workplace disputes to neighborhood feuds. Recently, weve seen the macro-issue of partisan rancor having a visceral impact on just about everyone. Is there any way to heal this rift? Thats a question mediators hear all the time. Here are some thoughts about how conflict resolution strategies could mend our society. The run-up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections has been consumed by speculation about how the victors will be emboldened. Will Democrats sprint toward impeachment? Or will Republicans quash the special counsels probe? This is the wrong conversation. Americans should take this moment to ponder two more urgent questions: Are we stuck in a quagmire of bitter partisanship? Or can we hit the reset button on how we communicate when our views dont coincide? Since the 2016 election cycle, professional mediators have watched the red-blue slugfest with a trained eye. Such scorched-earth battles keep us employed. Whether the adversaries are spouses, neighbors or co-workers, we broker peace when wars of attrition are exhausting all combatants. Advertisement Based on our experience, the midterm results will not deliver anything that resembles conflict resolution. The winners will crow about their supposed mandate. The losers will hatch retributive plots. The partisan chasm will widen. And democracy will continue to suffer. Lets pretend for a moment that our Red and Blue Americas can set hostility aside and come to the mediation table. How would we proceed? There are two ways to reach a settlement in a standoff. When the adversaries have no real connection say, two motorists who collide in traffic we hammer out a formal agreement so the parties can go their separate ways. This is called a distributive strategy. Opponents barter over who gets what. Eventually, the finite pie is divvied up, but no one is entirely satisfied with the outcome. Such lingering resentment is a problem when adversaries must co-exist like divorced couples with children, condo owners with shared walls, or citizens living together in a free society. In those cases, mediators use integrative strategies to expand the asset pie so everyone feels accommodated. First, we ask both sides to identify their underlying interests. Then we look at where those interests might intersect. When we find places where the opponents are much closer than they realize, we guide them in crafting a mutually beneficial outcome. Heres where the magic happens: When adversaries work together for the first time on a joint venture that serves both their needs, they discover new pathways for collaboration. Like neuroplasticity in the brain, when we learn to do something that yields satisfaction, we rewire how we think and behave. This is already taking place in the area of criminal justice reform, especially with juvenile offenders. After decades in which the war on crime was a wedge issue that roiled tensions about racial injustice and public safety, Republicans and Democrats have been cooperating on an integrative model of restorative justice that serves interests on both sides. No one wants to see at-risk youth jailed for rash mistakes that crossed the line into criminal conduct. We may not agree on much, but few Americans want to watch children enter the notorious pipeline to prison. And no one likes to spend tax dollars needlessly. Keeping a teenager out of incarceration is far cheaper than surrendering him to it. Prevention programs that connect teens with adult community mentors cost far less than prosecution and imprisonment. Because those youth make amends to their victims, personal responsibility is codified and enforced. People on the left are pleased by the social progressivism; people on the right are happy about cutting government spending. Everyone gets something when we exercise our capacity for ingenuity and enterprise, which are, in the end, signature American traits. Steven P. Dinkin is a professional mediator who has served as president of the San-Diego based National Conflict Resolution Center since 2003. Do you have a conflict that needs a resolution? Please share your story with The Mediator via email at mediatethis@ncrconline.com or as an online submission by visiting www.ncrconline.com/MediateThis. All submissions will be kept anonymous. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti stopped by Escondido to help Democratic congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar kick off his get-out-the-vote push Saturday. Campa-Najjar is challenging Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) for his seat in the conservative 50th Congressional District. Recent polls have showed the gap narrowing between the 29-year-old first-time candidate and the five-term incumbent, who was indicted in August on charges of campaign finance violations. Hunter still holds a narrow lead, but it is within the margin of error. In his remarks to the volunteers, who filled the cramped campaign headquarters, Garcetti spoke about the importance of electing someone who values unity over self-preservation. You want someone who understands how Washington works but brings an outsiders perspective and his own hardships that hes overcome, Garcetti said in an interview after his speech. I think that thats really compelling to Americans who are sick and tired of entitled congressmen like Duncan Hunter. Advertisement Given how close the race is, Campa-Najjar stressed that the next three days could be the difference, saying that he wanted to knock on 70,000 doors in that time. His campaign has benefited from an influx of youthful canvassers from outside the district, as representatives of both California Young Democrats and UCLAs Bruin Democrats set out alongside retired nurses, teachers and campaign workers. After working phone banks across congressional districts closer to home, such as the 48th and 25th, the college organization wanted to make a big canvassing push, said N.J. Omorogieva, 21, a fourth-year student at UCLA and president of the Bruin Democrats. Eleven students made the trip down to San Diego County to canvass for the candidate. Students want to be part of something bigger than their campus, Omorogieva said. We have a lot of people who are not from California who are here today, and theyre like, We want to make an impact. Tripoli is coming back under control of the central government after militias agreed to withdraw, but the question of who commands the Libyan army remains a bone of contention The Presidency Council of the Government of National Accord (GNA) gave the go-ahead on Friday, 26 October, for the implementation of new security arrangements for the Libyan capital Tripoli. The previous day, the Interior Ministry began to deploy forces around the outskirts of the city to create a security belt, stationing units in and around government buildings and vital facilities after militia forces, which had controlled them for several years, agreed to withdraw. The action to put into place new security arrangements in and around Tripoli follows an outbreak in armed clashes in the southern suburbs of the capital between Tripoli-based militia groups and others from outside the capital. The fighting resulted in dozens of dead and hundreds of wounded and forced hundreds of families to flee the violence which lasted a month, from 26 August to 25 September. The clashes made it possible to end the Tripoli-based militias hold over the capital and its government establishments. For several years, militia leaders had reaped vast financial and material gains from their control over government buildings and facilities which strengthened their influence over the governments political and economic decisions. However, after recent developments, the leaders of the four main militia groups in the capital the Tripoli Revolutionaries Battalion, the Special Deterrence Force, the Nawasi Battalion and the Abu Slim Central Security Apparatus agreed to carry out the new security arrangements that had been drafted under the supervision of the UN Special Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) which was spurred into action on the security track by the recent flareup in violence. UNSMIL brokered a ceasefire between the warring parties on 4 September in the western town of Zawiya. It bolstered this with another agreement that included a plan for the withdrawal of the militias from government buildings and national facilities and the handover of the task of guarding these structures to the official security force. UNSMIL head Ghassan Salame has expressed his determination to undo the intolerable and unsustainable status quo in the capital. This meant that it was out of the question merely to replace one armed group with another and that security had to be placed in the hands of the official state army and police forces recruited from all parts of the country. For their part, militia leaders, who had become very rich warlords during recent years, appear to have been swayed by a combination of the ramifications of the clashes, UNSMIL officials statements, international pressure and warnings, and the potential effects of all this on the gains they had accumulated during recent years. Early last week, the commander of the Tripoli Revolutionaries Battalion (TRB), Haitham Al-Tajuri flew back from the UAE and launched a series of raids against government buildings controlled by former TRB leaders who refused to hand over the buildings to the official security forces in accordance with the new arrangements. Al-Tajuri, a former police officer who had risen to prominence as the most powerful militia leader in the capital, had not been present in Libya during the clashes between the four Tripoli-based militia groups, AKA the Tripoli Cartel, and the 7th Infantry Brigade, AKA the Kaniyat Brigade, which had marched on the capital from its base in Tarhuna in late August with the stated purpose of freeing the capital from the hegemony of the Tripoli Cartel. The Kaniyat Brigade is known to have considerable influence among important political, security and economic circles in the capital. According to the Interior Ministry of the GNA, the new security arrangements include the creation of a security belt around the capital, confiscation of vehicles without proper license plates and with smoked glass windows, arrests of outlaws and wanted persons, and intensified efforts to safeguard security and protect public and private property in collaboration with the security directorates and agencies within their scopes of jurisdiction. Once the security situation in the capital is under control, similar arrangements will be extended to all other Libyan cities. The Presidency Council, the GNA and UNSMIL are determined to stimulate state institutions and enable them to perform their functions in the preservation of public security. Mohamed Abu Abdullah, director of Interior Ministrys Information Office, explained that the goal of the security plan is to revive the old structure of the ministry, take control over all official government buildings and prisons from militia groups and to place these facilities in the hands of the municipal councils of Greater Tripoli for the sake of the public benefit. The Interior Ministrys agencies will be responsible for protecting 29 vital locations in the capital, he said, adding that the security arrangements will be carried out jointly by the police and armed forces drawn from the Tripoli, central and western military zones. In previous statements, Salame explained that three methods would follow for dealing with armed groups under the new arrangements: offering their leaders safe refuge and allowing them to leave the country and reside abroad; screening their personnel for those able to be incorporated into the official security agencies; and rehabilitating others to enable them to re-assimilate into civilian life with alternative work opportunities. As the new security arrangements were being put into place in Tripoli, in Cairo the seventh round of meetings between Libyan military officials from Libyan National Army (LNA) command in the east and officials from the Tripoli-based Presidency Council collapsed due to ongoing differences between Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and Presidency Council Chairman Fayez Al-Sarraj over the post of LNA supreme commander. Both sides are determined to retain the upper hand over the armed forces. Haftar refuses to cede control over the military to any of the currently existing political institutions in the country, arguing that their legally stipulated terms have ended and that they are, therefore, illegitimate. He has stressed that the army will be subordinate to no other authority but the popularly elected president of the country. Haftars spokesman, Brigadier General Ahmed Al-Mismari, said that Libyan army officers who had attended the last round of Egyptian-brokered meetings that aim to reunify the Libyan army insist that the post of supreme commander of the army must not be the product of international legitimacy, by which they alluded to Al-Sarraj. Rather, they said the supreme commander of the army must be the president of the state elected by the Libyan people. Al-Sarraj continues to maintain that, under the Libyan Political Agreement signed between Libyan factions in Skhirat, Morocco, in December 2015, the Presidency Council (which is currently the internationally recognised political authority in Libya) is the supreme commander of the armed forces. Libyan news sources report that Cairo is currently trying to organise a meeting between Haftar and Al-Sarraj in order to resolve their dispute over the post of supreme commander of the Libyan army in the framework of Egypts efforts to help the Libyans end the current political stalemate. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Tripoli makes progress Search Keywords: Short link: Union-Tribune reporter John Wilkens discusses todays package of stories and graphics about the rising number of county voters shifting their registration to No Party Preference. Q: How did this story come about? A: With the midterms approaching, enterprise editor Mark Platte wanted us to take a deeper look at voters to better understand the historic shifts involving the two main political parties, and to chart the jump in people who now consider themselves independents. One of the questions he asked was whether San Diegos decades-long reputation as a conservative stronghold matched up with the registration numbers. Advertisement Q: What did you find? A: Data reporters Michelle Gilchrist and Lauryn Schroeder gathered and analyzed the registration numbers dating back to 1964. One of the interesting things is that the party with the five highest registration totals leading into November elections over that time wasnt the Republicans. It was the Democrats. But those peaks were in the 1960s and 1970s, and Republicans took over during the three subsequent decades. And then Democrats gained the advantage again starting in 2012. Q: Where does the no-party crowd fit in? A:There were so few of them in 1964 154 they werent even a blip on the registration radar: 0 percent. But their ranks have steadily increased, and those affiliated with the two main parties have decreased. Now there are more people registered as NPP than Republican. And the gap between the independents and the Democrats is narrowing. Q: Why are people switching to NPP? A: Reasons vary. As columnist Michael Smolens noted recently, the county has a history of political independence. State figures show that NPP registration here is larger than it is in any other Southern California county and one of the largest in the state. Beyond that, one theme that emerged when we spoke with some of the voters who have switched is a dissatisfaction in some cases disgust with the attitudes and actions of the two main parties, both nationally and locally. Voters say they are tired of politicians who put party before country. The shift to No Party Preference isnt just happening in a few pockets of the county. The maps Lauryn put together show it has happened in all but four of the countys 180-plus zip codes. Q: How will all that play out on election day? A: Political scientists have been tracking the rise of independents for a while, and so far what mostly happens is people who used to be Democrat or Republican still vote that way. For many, its ingrained. And the ballots are still mostly filled with candidates aligned with one of the two major parties, even in the races that are supposedly non-partisan, so its not like theres a lot of choice. It will be interesting to watch what happens in future elections if the NPP registration continues to grow, and more candidates align themselves with that designation. Californias primary-election rules allow the top two finishers in statewide races to move on to the general election, regardless of party, which makes it easier for voters to indulge their independent streaks. john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com Efforts to make Otay Mesas Brown Field an economic catalyst took a step forward recently when San Diego approved plans for three dozen new hangars, two hotels and 1.5 million square feet of retail and industrial buildings. Community leaders say the long-awaited project will transform the mostly dormant airport, which some critics call an eyesore, into a boon for business along the international border and in the San Diego region overall. We consider this a significant step closer to realizing the maximum potential of Brown Field airport, Cynthia Gomper-Graves of the South County Economic Development Council told the City Council late last month. This project is essential to the long-term development and economic stability of Otay Mesa and the entire south County, she said. It is an asset that has been dormant far too long. It has not been used to its full potential as a source of transportation, nor as an economic stimulator. Advertisement A developer credited with boosting a similar airport in Carlsbad has agreed to spend $200 million on the hangars, hotels, retail space and associated infrastructure, including sewer lines, utilities and roads. Aircraft owners will be given the opportunity to rent or own the hangars built by the developer, Richard Sax, a somewhat unusual approach that he said was key to boosting McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. Were transporting that model down to Brown Field, Sax said. The project, which will receive no government subsidies, is projected to yield $1.8 billion in taxes and other revenue for the city over the next 50 years. City officials say theyve been losing about $500,000 a year operating Brown Field. The City Council unanimously approved a series of leases for the project at its Oct. 16 meeting. The project will boost the cross-border economy, said Councilman David Alvarez of Logan Heights, whose district includes the citys border communities. Other recent moves include the Cross Border Xpress, a bridge over the border from San Diego to the international airport in Tijuana, and a new growth blueprint the council approved for Otay Mesa, which has more acres of undeveloped industrial land than anywhere else in the city. The project is expected to generate 4,000 permanent jobs in Otay Mesa when its complete, and about 8,000 temporary construction jobs. But more than that, sharply increasing the number of flights into Brown Field is expected to make the acreage surrounding the airport more appealing to developers and businesses that will boost the local and regional economies. Brown Field has the longest runway of any airport in the region at 7,972 feet, which city officials say makes it ideal for large corporate jets. Sax plans to build the project, which will occupy 208 acres of the 880-acre airport, in four separate phases over roughly 20 years. The first phase, which he is required to complete within five years, includes a 14,500-square-foot aviation facility, five hangars for large planes totaling 75,000 square feet and 28 hangars for small planes that must be at least 1,200 square feet each. The first phase will cost an estimated $26 million and take up 35 acres. The next three phases will each include additional hangars and industrial and commercial buildings. One hotel will be built in the second phase, and another will be included in the third. Both hotels will be geared to business travelers. One will have 150 rooms and the other will have 125 rooms. A consultant hired by San Diego estimates the project will generate $1.4 billion for the citys airport fund during the next 50 years and another $400 million for the general fund. Those revenues include lease payments, fuel fees from airplane operators, hotel taxes and possessory use taxes, which are similar to property taxes. The project, which has been in the works for more than 10 years, was delayed by an environmental lawsuit and the need to secure mitigation land to make up for significant habitat that will be destroyed. Brown Field has vernal pools and is home to an endangered owl and the San Diego ferry shrimp. The developers also got the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council, a powerful local organized labor organization, to endorse the project. The project will affect development of a new long-term master plan process that the city launched two years ago for Brown Field. That plan, being created in conjunction with a new master plan for Montgomery-Gibbs Field in Kearny Mesa, has been delayed by a recent decision to conduct a more thorough environmental analysis. In March, San Diego agreed to build a modern customs inspection facility at Brown Field to end a stalemate in negotiations with federal officials who had long demanded upgrades to an existing 42-year-old building. The city will spend roughly $1 million to build a new, 1,200-square-foot facility. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick The changing picture of voter registrations in San Diego County a drop in the ties to traditional parties and a rise in no-party registration masks what history suggests will be the largest bloc of people on Election Day: those who dont vote. Its a trend thats especially pronounced during midterm elections. In November 2010, more than 900,000 people in the county cast ballots in a general election that saw California bucking a nationwide Republican surge by returning Democrats Jerry Brown to the governors office and Barbara Boxer to the U.S. Senate. That turnout was about 64 percent of registered voters, a better-than-average showing in midterm elections here dating back to 1982. Advertisement But it was only 39 percent of the total voting-age population (everyone over the age of 18) in the county. Even excluding felons, non-citizens and others ineligible to cast ballots, an estimated total of more than 1 million people who could have voted that day didnt. Four years later, in another midterm that saw Brown win again at the top of the ticket, turnout in the county dropped to 45 percent as about 690,000 people voted. That was just 27 percent of the voting-age population; again an estimated 1 million residents opted out completely. In the June primary, turnout fell again, to about 40 percent, as almost 675,000 county residents voted. That represented about 26 percent of the voting-age population, which means an estimated 1.5 million who could have participated chose not to. If theres a silver lining in that dismal electoral cloud, its that San Diego County has been outshining the state on turnout. In November 2010, statewide turnout was almost 60 percent of registered voters (the countys rate was 64 percent) and the participation among the voting-age population was 37 percent (county: 39 percent). In November 2014, about 42 percent of the states registered voters cast ballots (county: 45 percent) and just 25 percent of all those who could have participated did (county: 27 percent). And in June, statewide turnout was almost 38 percent (county: 40 percent). Among Californias total voting-age population, 23 percent took part (county: 26 percent). All of the numbers go up during presidential elections. In the 10 contests since 1980, when Ronald Reagan won his first term as president, turnout among registered voters in San Diego County has only dipped below 70 percent twice. It peaked at 84 percent in 2008 and almost matched that in 2016 (81 percent). Even in presidential races, though, participation isnt what it could be. In 2012, 49 percent of the countys voting-age population cast ballots, which means an estimated 1 million people who could have participated didnt. Four years later, things improved slightly: 52 percent of the voting-age population took part. County Registrar of Voters Michael Vu said between 65 percent and 70 percent of registered voters are expected to cast ballots in Tuesdays election. john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com Tuesdays midterm election arrives on unsteady electoral seas, and like sailors who have lost faith in their captains, more voters in San Diego County seem to be charting their own courses. Theyve registered as No Party Preference in record numbers. That group is now at 30.4 percent of the electorate, larger for the first time ever than Republicans and only 5.6 percent the closest ever behind Democrats. Similar trends are unfolding elsewhere in California. Statewide, no-party registration has gone from 20.2 percent in 2010 to 26.8 percent this year. Polling shows former Republican Steve Poizner, in the race for insurance commissioner, is likely to become the first No Party Preference candidate to win statewide office. Advertisement The independent streak here is bigger than it is in any other Southern California county, and larger than those in all but three of the states 58 counties, according to the most recent figures from the California Secretary of State. (Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo are the leaders, in that order.) The reasons are varied for the shift, which involves both former Republicans and former Democrats, as well as first-time voters. Some are responding to politics on the national level, some to local races. Others find themselves disgusted by the us-versus-them tribal instincts and win-at-all-costs rhetoric and tactics of elected leaders. More and more people are turning toward the center because both the Republicans and the Democrats are becoming fringe groups beholden to their own narrow interests, said Lars Staack, a Poway resident who switched from Republican to NPP. Unless they make some changes, the two parties will slowly become more and more irrelevant. How all that plays out in Tuesdays election, and beyond, remains to be seen and analyzed. In the last midterm, in 2014, just under 45 percent of those registered to vote actually did. Then, as now, they faced a collection of candidates, even in races that are supposed to be nonpartisan, who mostly identify as Democrat or Republican. You have to vote for somebody, and more often than not thats a representative from one of the two parties. Many of those who have switched to NPP still follow their earlier partisan leanings, according to political scientists who watch what the voters do, not what they say. But the unmooring from traditional allegiances by voters could have significant repercussions for who runs for office in the future, and for how the victors govern. And the trend shows no sign of ending. This years midterms arrive with an increasing number of San Diego voters moving their registrations away from the two traditional parties. Fifty years ago, in 1968, NPP registration was just 4 percent in the county. By 1988, it was up to 11.4 percent, then 14.8 percent in 1998 and 23.1 percent ten years ago on its way to its current level of almost one-third of registrations. NPP registration is widespread, too. Its increased in all but four of the countys more than 180 ZIP codes. Something else to consider: the average age of voters in the county is trending downward, from about 57 in 2010 to 49 now. Those who are registered without party preference are, on average, younger (51) than those who are registered as either Democrats (58) or Republicans (60). San Diego County voter registration by ZIP code If the map is not displaying properly, disable ad blockers or click here There are 187 zip codes in San Diego County. That total includes codes assigned to individual post offices, as well as geographic zip code areas. There are 114 zip codes listed in the registrars current voter registration database. One hundred and seven are geographic areas and shown on the map. Republicans switching San Diego has a reputation as a conservative stronghold that belies the fact that Democrats have outnumbered Republicans here since 2012, at least in terms of registration. The reputation was almost 30 years in the making. Beginning in 1984, and continuing through 13 general elections held every other year, Republicans had the advantage. Most of that time they totaled at least 40 percent of registrations, topping out at 48 percent in 1990, while Democrats were routinely in the 30s. The Republicans stand now at 28.1 percent, their lowest total since 1964 in a state thats among the most reliably blue in the country. Statewide, Republicans make up 24.5 percent of the registration total. Josh Golden, 33, of Carlsbad, used to be among their ranks. Raised in a family with strong ties to law enforcement, he went to Providence College in Rhode Island, where he helped run the campus Republicans group. Registered as a Republican at 18, he was involved in campaigns for Republicans in state and federal elections. He moved to San Diego in 2007 to work for the Border Patrol and remained loyal to his party through the 2012 presidential election, when Mitt Romney lost to incumbent Barack Obama. It seemed to me the party was going in the wrong direction, too focused on social issues, he said. When Donald Trump became the Republican nominee in 2016, he said, he switched his registration to No Party Preference. I just think theyve lost touch and sowed discord in the democratic process, he said. Which is not to say he now finds himself agreeing with Democrats. Theyre too focused on political correctness, which doesnt attract me, Golden said. Republicans are offended by how people live their lives and Democrats are offended by what people say. Golden, who left the Border Patrol at the end of 2008, works now as vice president for a human-resources company. Married, with no kids, he said hes concerned about ongoing political divisions that keep legislators from accomplishing much. Im looking for candidates who will put their country ahead of their party, he said. Staack, the Poway resident, switched his registration from Republican to NPP for similar reasons. Its become kind of a worn-out phrase, but I didnt leave the Republican Party, he said. The Republican Party left me. The final nail in the coffin, according to the former Army officer turned teacher: Trump. Its not necessarily his policies, Staack said. Hes not a man of honor, and I could not follow him anywhere. Staack, 56, said he thinks voters are tired of inflexibility from both parties. He is. As the married father of a 17-year-old, hes also bothered by the harsh tone of much of the political rhetoric. We as a nation are becoming less and less tolerant and less and less civil, he said. It doesnt bode well for us. Democrats switching Democrats have seen their registration-numbers slide, too. In 1964, they were at 50.9 percent of the total and for the next 12 elections they never fell below 40 percent . Then, in 1988, they dropped to 39.8 percent and have been in the 30s ever since, with a low mark of 34.2 percent in 2006. They are now at 36 percent. Terri Leyton, 54, of Linda Vista, counted herself among them for more than 30 years, until she switched recently to no-party. Like other Democrats who have made the change, the businesswoman and single mom said she was motivated more by whats happened at the local level than the national one. She pointed to the June primary for county supervisor in District Four. Officially a nonpartisan race, it included four Democrats running against Republican Bonnie Dumanis, the former district attorney. The county Democratic Party endorsed Nathan Fletcher for the seat, and he is in a run-off Tuesday against Dumanis. Leyton said she was OK with the endorsement Ive met Nathan and I like him but not with a hit piece mailer the party sent out during the primary opposing fellow Democrat Lori Saldana, a former state legislator. Leyton said Saldana is a friend. Thats what triggered my Demxit, she said, a reference to Brexit, the vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Leyton first registered as a Democrat when she was 18 and a student at Granite Hills High School in El Cajon. Trumps election energized her political activism marches against him, phone banks in favor of Democratic candidates but she said her change in voter registration is also a message to party bosses. What it says is, I dont like your tactics and I am not bound by the constraints that you set, she said. You can send me a Democratic Party endorsement flier, and I may use that as a guide, but Ill vote outside that in a heartbeat. I think a voter not bound to a party may in fact be a more-informed voter, a better voter. Carol Gendel feels much the same way. The 72-year-old San Marcos resident, a self-described lifelong Democrat, is now registered NPP. Im really trying to look at the issues and not just vote the party line, she said. She, too, is sending a message to Democratic leaders: Guys, you need to pay attention. Pay attention to who youre endorsing, she said. Pay attention to the dangers of one-party rule, not just in Washington, but in California. I believe super-majorities are unhealthy for democracies, the retired substitute teacher and customer-service representative said. Democracy works better when the parties have to collaborate rather than one side just pushing things through. Gendel grew up on the East Coast and has been interested in politics since she was 8. After moving to San Marcos 11 years ago, shes volunteered on a half-dozen campaigns for Democrats, including a current one for a candidate she declined to identify because of concerns her comments might be used against the office-seeker. As she reached out to voters in recent months, some of them especially the younger generation told her they dont think casting a ballot matters. Oh my God, I get so upset with them, she said. I tell them Im doing this for them. My generation, we screwed up. Its their lives, their future. They need to speak up and get involved. A first-time voter Jerry Yang is 18, a San Diego native whose parents emigrated from China. He grew up in a household that stressed how living in the United States is a privilege. And with that privilege comes responsibility. So hes getting ready to vote for the first time on Tuesday. Our generation is the generation that is going to inherit the world and all of its problems, he said. Hes been reading through the voters guide and talking about the propositions and candidates in his political science class at Scripps Ranch High School, where he is student-body president. What happens in the election is definitely going to have a profound impact on the course of the nation, he said. So why dont more of his peers vote, especially in midterms? Nationwide, only 16 percent of younger adults (those under 30) voted in the 2014 election, far worse than any other age group. It can be pretty tough to believe that your vote counts, he said. But I tell people its like picking up trash at the beach. It may not seem to matter if you pick up an empty bottle and throw it away, but if everybody does that, it makes a difference. Theres been talk nationwide of a surge in young-voter registrations that will favor Democratic candidates. Yang, though, fits into a different trend. Hes turned off by the fierce ideology in both parties. America was founded on the idea of free speech, and that entails respecting other peoples opinions, he said. Im not seeing that. Theres not as much communication and cooperation as I would like. So he registered the new-fashioned way. He went No Party Preference. john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com A bomb squad was called to the Birdland area of San Diego Saturday night to remove three grenades from a vehicle, authorities said. It wasnt immediately clear whether the grenades were live or inert. San Diego police and fire officials said a 911 caller reported the grenades about 6:15 p.m. The devices were in a vehicle on Meadow Lark Drive, south of Blue Jay Way. The area is a residential neighborhood between Interstate 805 and state Route 163. Advertisement Officers verified that the devices looked real and called Metro Arson Strike Team bomb technicians. According to 10News, the man who found the grenades said he had purchased items in a storage locker. He came across them as he went through the wooden box he had put in the bed of his truck. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard A car slammed into a La Jolla fire station Saturday night, coming close to firefighters but causing no injuries, authorities said. Three people were in the car when it veered off the road and took out a section of the wall at San Diego Fire-Rescue Departments station 9 on Ardath Lane near Torrey Pines Road, police and fire officials said. The crash, which happened about 7:30 p.m., severed a natural gas line to an exterior barbecue. A San Diego Gas & Electric Co. crew was called in to make repairs to the line. Crews were eating dinner when they heard a loud noise. A car ran into the wall outside the station, San Diego Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Joseph Scuri told OnScene TV. They were about 12 feet away, eating dinner in the kitchen. Advertisement Scuri said damage was limited to a patio wall at the station. A structural engineer was evaluating the extent of damage to the building, according to a Fire Department tweet. The cause of the crash was under investigation. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard An injured border-crosser left behind by a group on Otay Mountain lit a signal fire for help that burned into the brush on Saturday, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital while aircraft and firefighters on the ground doused the blaze, which charred about one-third of an acre off Minnewawa Truck Trail, a Cal Fire official said. The 25-year-old Mexican citizen told authorities that he was part of a larger group that crossed into the United States illegally. He was left behind after he hurt his ankle, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Eduardo Olmos said. Olmos was not sure when the group had entered the U.S., but he said its common for foot-guides to stop for a night or two on the mountain to try to elude authorities. Advertisement He said Cal Fire took custody of the man, but then transferred custody to the Border Patrol. When the man is released from the hospital, agents will take him to a Border Patrol station and process him for immediate removal from the U.S., Olmos said. People in the area of Otay Lakes Road, near Pio Pico RV Resort and Campground, called 911 about 11:20 a.m. to report smelling smoke. Two air tankers and two helicopters were sent, along with several fire rigs, Cal Fire Capt. Issac Sanchez said. It took about an hour to stop the blaze from spreading, he said. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Preston Fouts told OnSceneTV said a traveler who became injured set the fire as a signal to get help. One firefighter at the incident suffered an ankle injury, Fouts said. Video showed a Cal Fire investigator helping a handcuffed man out of a Cal Fire pickup, then medics put him in an ambulance. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard One of the pleasures and challenges of this job is you do a lot of traveling. Ive been in 23 states over the last three months. The general impression I get is that Im not covering a midterm election campaign. Im covering two separate electorates. The biggest difference is atmospheric. In urban and suburban America, Donald Trumps outrage du jour is on everybodys lips: Did you see what he tweeted now? Did you see his racist ad? Where will the Mueller investigation go? In rural America, by contrast, all that stuff is like a thunderstorm in Inner Mongolia. Its something happening very far away with no particular relevance here, and so no ones paying much attention. In urban America people talk about Trump constantly. In rural America people generally avoid the subject. Even if 80 percent of the locals support Trump, you never know how somebody will react if you mention his name they might call you a racist so its not a safe topic of conversation. Advertisement The other big impression I get is that grand canyons now separate different sectors of American society and these canyons are harder and harder to cross. On the one hand, as Amy Walter of Cook Political Report has pointed out, very little has changed over the past two years. In 2016, 54 percent of white voters supported Trump, and the exact same percentage of those voters support him today. In 2016, 38 percent of college-educated white voters supported Trump and 38 percent support him today. A lot has been said, but few minds have been changed. On the other hand, everybodys political positions are more dug in. College-educated suburban woman really dont like Republicans. White men without college degrees really dont like Democrats. Urban America is really blue. Rural America is really red. The race in 2016 entrenched those positions on the presidential level. The 2018 race entrenches them all the way down the ticket. Im with Ron Brownstein of CNN and former Republican Rep. Tom Davis: This is not a wave election; its a realignment election. The results Tuesday will not be shaped by some crest of momentum behind the Democrats. They are going to be shaped by the fact that people are hardening into their categories, and those categories tend to produce a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. The Republicans were saddled with an unpopular president, and the normal thing to do would have been to try to get House races to turn on local issues. But Trump makes everything about himself, and so has nationalized all the races. Congressional elections are now mostly just mini-versions of presidential elections. The quality of any individual candidate matters a lot less, and theres much less variation in how different candidates are conducting their campaigns. In Missouri, for example, the Republicans are running Josh Hawley for Senate. Hawley could have run an interesting campaign that would have crossed a lot of boundaries. He went to Stanford and Yale Law School. He wrote a fine book on Theodore Roosevelt, and several excellent essays for the journal National Affairs, including an erudite one on epicurean liberalism. But hes embraced Trump and run as a pretty standard Trumpkin Republican. Nationalized politics forces local candidates to act mostly like Trump or Pelosi stand-ins and less like themselves. The one word that the two electorates have in common is unraveling. Both groups have a sense that America is unraveling. If you ask them what issues matter most, theyll say health care or immigration. But thats not the right question to ask, because it doesnt get at the sense of existential anger and angst that is really driving things. Of course, the two electorates tell entirely different unraveling stories. In rural America, the sources of unraveling are the immigrants (symbolized by the caravan) and the radicalized mobs of educated elites (symbolized by the media). In rural America, basic values like hard work, clear gender roles and the social fabric are dissolving before peoples eyes. Timothy Carney had a very fine piece in the Times on Thursday that captured the sense of social despair. I got a loaded .22 right by my door, one man in rural Pennsylvania told Carney, I dont trust nobody in my apartment complex. Urban Americans see the unraveling coming from the rising tide of nativism, the way Trump eviscerates social norms, the underground army of alt-right extremists with guns. If anything, the blue sense of unraveling is more comprehensive. Democratic ideology is increasingly dominated by the educated upper-middle class. As polls show, those Democrats are losing faith in capitalism itself, in the American dream itself. White liberals describe racism as a bigger problem precluding black advancement than do African-Americans. As Emma Green noted in The Atlantic, for many, progressivism isnt just a set of political beliefs; its a set of liturgies, rituals and moral doctrines for the secular unchurched. Politics is no longer mainly about disagreeing on issues. Its about being in entirely separate conversations. The Venn diagram is dead. Theres no overlapping area. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. The Islamic State group on Sunday killed at least 12 US-backed fighters as the jihadists launched an attack from their holdout in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border, a Britain-based monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces fighters where killed in a car bombing and subsequent clashes between Al-Bahra and Hajin in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Search Keywords: Short link: Amid a wave of domestic violence, Trump has ramped up his divisive rhetoric in the hope of saving the Republicans from a mid-term elections defeat US President Donald Trump has brushed aside charges that his angry, divisive rhetoric against opponents is to blame for series of violent incidents to hit the United States. In Pittsburgh, a lone gunman on Saturday killed 11 Jews while praying at a synagogue, marking the worst anti-Jewish crime in American history. Only a few days before, at least 13 homemade bombs were sent by mail to former US presidents and key Democratic Party leaders by a Trump supporter in Florida. Only a few days before the crucial mid-term Congress elections on 6 November, Trump insisted on denial, claiming that continued questions about his divisive rhetoric were partisan attacks launched by his political opponents. Contrary to the advice of advisers, Trump insisted Tuesday to visit Pittsburgh to offer his condolences to the victims of the anti-Jewish attack. The trip came amid a last-minute midterm campaign push and forestalled, for now, a planned address on immigration. Trump expressed concern his midterm messaging could be knocked off-kilter by the attack. Pittsburghs mayor called Monday for Trump to wait to visit until after burials, but with an 11-rally itinerary set for the end of the week, there was little flexibility in the US presidents schedule. In the wake of the slaying at the Pittsburgh synagogue, Trump demonstrated more grievance than grief. Those grievances are rooted in how he believes he is being mistreated by the media. For days, he has complained openly to allies and aides that he doesnt believe he was given sufficient credit for his early comments denouncing the shooting. Those comments were quickly overtaken by inflammatory tweets from the president. Trump chose to use his bully pulpit Monday to attack the media. There is great anger in our country caused in part by inaccurate and even fraudulent reporting of the news, Trump tweeted, calling the media the true enemy of the people. Trump also believes the Florida pipe bomber is slowing Republican momentum in the final week of the midterm campaign. That is one of the reasons, aides said, he is making an unprecedented investment for a sitting president: eleven rallies in six days. It doesnt matter if theres a midterm election or not, the presidents going to fight back, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. The president is going to defend himself, she added. Despite controversy over the role the presidents rhetoric played in fuelling the recent wave of domestic violence, many Republican candidates running sought Trumps help in boosting their chances to either maintain their seat or defeat Democratic opponents. US Senator Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker both ran against Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, and had been campaigning for re-election largely independent of the president. But with polls showing their races tight ahead of the 6 November elections, each walked onto a stage with Trump last week at separate rallies in Texas and Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, Trump told the boisterous crowd that Walker could be nasty during the 2016 presidential campaign but now was a great friend. Earlier in the week Trump told Texans that Cruz, who he once derided as Lyin Ted, was now Beautiful Ted. When election season began, many Republican candidates tried to avoid making the vote a referendum on the president, who remains unpopular with a majority of Americans. Instead, they trumpeted the strong US economy and tax cuts passed by Congress last year. But those issues did not resonate with voters. Faced with the prospect of losing control of the US House of Representatives and a tough Senate battle, Republicans have turned for help to Trump. The party is also adopting his blistering rhetoric on matters such as immigration and national security. Democrats must win two seats in next weeks elections to assume control of the Senate and 23 to take the House, a more likely outcome. Immigration is at the heart of Trumps push to help Republican candidates in the coming days. He has frequently warned that a migrant caravan making its way to the southern border from Central America poses a security threat. Democratic candidates say endangered Republicans are embracing Trump now because independent voters view last years tax bill as a boon for the wealthy and are concerned about issues such as healthcare. Last month, Democratic chances of taking both the Senate and the House seemed bright. Then Republicans, with Trump leading the way, seized on the battle over the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to tag the nominees opponents as a liberal mob, suggesting that the country would plunge into anarchy if Democrats took control of Congress. The message was quickly amplified by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and allies such as the Congressional Leadership Fund. Both groups funded ads accusing Democrats of being closet radicals and socialists. The Congressional Leadership Fund, tied to outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan, released a wave of radio ads this month targeting Democratic contenders in tight races in states such as Kentucky, Minnesota and Virginia. If Democrats take back power, their far-left mobs would hasten dysfunction and grind our economic progress to a halt, said Matt Gorman, NRCC communications director. A Republican source familiar with the partys strategic thinking said the effort was aimed at keeping Republican voters from crossing over to Democratic candidates by appealing to their base social values. Nevertheless, most independent analysts still predict the Democrats will pick up the 23 seats they need to gain control of the House and would be in a position to derail or stall Trumps policy agenda. A Reuters analysis of election-prediction data by the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and the University of Virginias Centre for Politics showed that while Republican ratings had improved since early September in seven of 65 competitive races, Democrats had gained in 48 races. But in Ohio and other districts where Republicans have risen in recent opinion polls, their resurgence reflects Trumps success in charging up his base, helped by his multiple political rallies and this months confirmation of Kavanaugh. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Adding fuel to the fire Search Keywords: Short link: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday he will meet this week in New York with North Korea's number two, Kim Yong Chol, to resume denuclearization talks. Pompeo's announcement comes just a day after North Korea's foreign ministry said the North will "seriously" consider reviving its nuclear weapons program unless US sanctions are lifted. "I will be meeting this week in New York City with my counterpart, Kim Yong Chol," he said on Fox News Sunday, adding that it would be "a good opportunity to continue the denuclearization discussions." Search Keywords: Short link: Press Release November 4, 2018 De Lima calls for Senate probe on 2 'Build, Build, Build' projects Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has called for a Senate inquiry into the construction of the PhP23-B North Luzon Expressway--South Luzon Expressway (NLEX-SLEX) Connector Road Project and the PhP171-billion North-South Commuter Railway Project which would displace some 180,000 families in Metro Manila. In filing Senate Resolution No. (SRN) 927, De Lima has urged the appropriate Senate committee to look into the impending demolition of thousands of residents in 38 communities in Manila affected by the two construction projects. "Mega-infrastructure projects such as these rarely, if at all, mention the social costs of these endeavors, particularly the physical and economic displacement of thousands of people just to give way for their construction in Metro Manila's densely populated areas," she said. "Some residents of Sampaloc, Manila have long been apprehensive of their forcible eviction and relocation to give way for the construction of these projects. They have repeatedly stressed that the concerned agencies have failed to adequately consult with them concerning the right-of-way negotiations," she added. The Build, Build, Build (BBB) program, which is the centerpiece program of the Duterte administration, has scheduled to roll out the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road Project and the North-South Commuter Railway Project this year. These two construction projects, however, will result in the massive demolition of houses in at least 38 barangays in Manila composed mainly of homes and small businesses. Thousands are reportedly to be relocated in far and inaccessible sites. De Lima, who chairs the Senate committee on social justice, welfare and rural development, pointed out that wrong displacement and relocation of these affected residents would further exacerbate economic and social problems. According to her, their relocation to unfamiliar locales would result to zero-to-low occupancy rates of the housing projects due to lack of access to livelihood opportunities, power, water, community facilities, and poor estate management. 'There is a need to closely scrutinize the plan of our government agencies with respect to urban development regarding these projects and give due consideration and proper recognition to the individuals and families who stand to be uprooted," she said. "The government should ensure that the rights and interests of the people, first and foremost, are safeguarded and protected, and as such, should exercise due diligence and exhaust all possible alternatives prior to the development of any infrastructure project that involves the acquisition of private lands and the relocation of its inhabitants," she added. The Senator from Bicol said the government should make changes in its National Resettlement Policy Framework and operationalize it through an executive order or a law that would set up a clear roadmap to address gaps in "no relocation, no demolition" policy. "There is a need for the government to ensure that in its 'Build, Build, Build' program, essential institutional reforms are simultaneously undertaken," she added. Westpac Banking Corp's New Zealand unit lifted its full-year cash earnings, growing both deposits and lending against the backdrop of a strong economy and changing banking environment. Cash earnings, the preferred measure of the Australian-owned banks, rose 5 percent to $1.0 billion in the 12 months to Sept 30, the Sydney-based lender said in a statement. Home loans and business lending both grew 4 percent over the past year, supported by customer deposit growth of 6 percent. The result coincides with today's release of a 'culture and conduct' report on the country's major banks, conducted jointly by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Financial Markets Authority following revelations of unethical and potentially criminal practices to the Australian royal commission of inquiry into banking misconduct. The local Westpac unit reported that net interest margin widened 12 basis points to 2.15 percent. Operating expenses fell 3 percent to $936 million while its net interest income lifted 8 percent to $1.87 billion. It reported impairment expenses of $3 million, compared with net impairment benefit of $76 million in the prior comparative period The low levels of impairment expenses reflected the net impact of stable asset quality and recoveries across the dairy portfolio, it said. Generally favourable conditions on the farm helped lift our agri lending by 5 percent, while deposits from farmers increased 14 percent. This reflects a good turn around in the dairy sector from three years ago and a broadly healthy agricultural sector, said New Zealand chief executive, David McLean. On the conduct and culture report, he said Westpac NZ had been "working closely with the regulators". "We are firmly focused on putting customers first and delivering positive customer outcomes. We will be working through any issues regulators identify to ensure we retain the trust of our customers and other stakeholders. Where any issues are identified we are committed to fixing those quickly. The bank's three-year business transformation project was delivering benefits to "simplify the banking experience, streamline dated processes, and improve services and fees for our customers," he said. McLean said 13 banking fees or charges had been reduced or removed in the past year, on top of 11 fees or charges in the previous year. Westpac NZ also removed individual sales targets for frontline branch and contact centre staff, with incentives strongly focused on customer service and feedback. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. 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Related News: 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) reaffirms guidance and progresses growth plan 18th November 2021 Morning Report Blis Technologies Limited (NZX: BLT) Challenging market conditions in US impact half year result EROAD Limited (NZX: ERD) NZ Commerce Commission Clears Coretex Acquisition NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Digital acceleration delivering on NZME's 2023 strategy Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli has met in Shanghai with board members of a power consortium comprising Shanghai Electric and Dongfang Electric. The meeting, held on the sidelines of the China International Import Expo (CIIE), tackled future investments by the consortium in Egypt in fields including clean coal technology and renewable energy. The coalition has won a contract to establish a power plant in Hamrawein, the Red Sea, using the clean coal technology. At their meeting with Madbouli, the consortium's top officials asserted that the project will be totally safe and meet world standards with nearly zero emissions. An Egyptian delegation is scheduled to visit China to inspect a similar power plant, noted the officials. As infrastructure, environment and construction studies are about to be completed, the project will kick off later in November, according to the officials. The premier, for his turn, reiterated his call for shortening the timetable of the project to three years only. Search Keywords: Short link: Orion Health Group has raised the minimum price it expects for its coming share buyback by about 3 percent. The buyback, part of the firms recent restructuring, will likely be priced at $1.20 to $1.25 a share, the health technology company said today. The lift, from the previously indicated range of $1.16 to $1.26 a share, reflects a better understanding of expected cash holdings with the completion of the sale to Hg last week, the firm said. The buyback, expected later this month, follows the companys decision to sell its Rhapsody unit to UK private equity firm Hg for $205 million, dilute its stake in its population health management unit, and retain full ownership of its hospitals division. After capitalising the firms joint investments, the remainder of sale proceeds were to be allocated for the buyback. Shareholders approved the transactions in late September. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) reaffirms guidance and progresses growth plan 18th November 2021 Morning Report Blis Technologies Limited (NZX: BLT) Challenging market conditions in US impact half year result EROAD Limited (NZX: ERD) NZ Commerce Commission Clears Coretex Acquisition NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Digital acceleration delivering on NZME's 2023 strategy Kaileh died in Oman on 2 Oct 2018 at the age of 63. He died of complications Of cancer, that he struggled with for years. DAAL Media and Research Center, will commemorate the memory of the late Palestinian thinker, Salama Kaileh, on Thursday, 15 November at 6:00pm. Salama Kaileh, (1955 2018), a prominent Marxist thinker, born in Berzeit in Palestine, he earned his bachelor degree in political sciences from Baghdad University in 1979, he took part in the Palestinian resistance. He moved to Syrian in 1981 before he was jailed there for 8 years in 1992. He published over 30 books including The Revolution and Problems of Organizing, 1983, Arabs and the Issue of the Nation 1989, The dilemma of Pan Arabism 1990, From Hegel to Marx: issues of the Dialetic 2 Volumes 2004. Kaileh died in Oman on 2 Oct 2018 at the age of 63. He died of complications Of cancer, that he struggled with for years. program Thursday, 15 Nov, 6:00pm 13 Abdel-Hamid Said st, from Talaat Harb st. Downtown, Cairo Search Keywords: Short link: 15 killed as truck hits 31-car lineup in China Beijing, Nov 4 (AFP) Nov 04, 2018 An out-of-control truck ploughed into a 31-car lineup in northwest China killing 15 people and injuring 44, authorities in the city of Lanzhou said Sunday. The accident occurred Saturday night as the driver of the heavy duty articulated truck lost control on a downhill stretch of expressway and collided with cars lining up at a toll booth, Lanzhou's propaganda department said. Ten of the 44 hurt sustained serious injuries, authorities said. The big rig driver Li Feng was put under investigation and police watch, according to the official news agency Xinhua. The semi-trailer was registered to Li's home northeastern Liaoning province, more than 2,000 kilometres from the scene of the accident. It was Li's first time driving the stretch of road, the China Daily said. State broadcaster CCTV aired video from the scene showing heavy snow and many crippled and twisted vehicles. Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are often flouted or go unenforced. Last week a scuffle between a bus driver and a passenger caused a bus to plunge from a bridge into a river in southwest China, killing all 15 people on board. According to authorities 58,000 people were killed in accidents across the country in 2015 alone. Violations of traffic laws were blamed for nearly 90 percent of accidents that caused deaths or injuries that year. Races to watch in US midterm elections Washington, Nov 4 (AFP) Nov 04, 2018 A number of notable races are taking place on Tuesday in the US midterm elections, when Americans go to the polls to elect governors and members of the US House of Representatives and Senate. Here is a look at some of the most interesting contests: - Beto-mania - One of the most expensive and closely watched Senate races is in Texas, where incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz is facing Democratic Representative Beto O'Rourke. O'Rourke, 46, whose given names are Robert Francis but who goes by Beto, is mounting a suprisingly strong challenge to the 47-year-old Cruz in the reliably Republican "Lone Star State." O'Rourke, a three-term congressman and former member of a punk band, is drawing enthusiastic support from many urban dwellers in Texas while Cruz does better in conservative rural areas. Plucking the Senate seat from Cruz, who battled Donald Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, would be a major victory for the Democratic Party. - Dueling female candidates - Arizona will have a woman representing the southwestern state in the US Senate for the first time as two women battle for the seat being vacated by Jeff Flake, a Trump critic who is not running for reelection. The Republican flag-bearer is Martha McSally, a 52-year-old former US Air Force fighter pilot and two-term member of the House of Representatives. McSally's Democratic opponent is Kyrsten Sinema, 42, a three-term member of the House of Representatives who spent several years of her childhood in poverty after her parents divorced. McSally and Sinema are running neck-in-neck in a state which President Donald Trump won by 3.5 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election. - Democrats in danger - Democratic Senate candidates are in danger of losing their seats in Missouri, North Dakota and Indiana. In Missouri -- which Trump won by 18 points in 2016 -- Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, 65, is facing a strong challenge from Republican attorney general Josh Hawley. Trump has campaigned personally for the 38-year-old Hawley and called him a rising star in the party. In North Dakota -- which Trump won by 36 points in 2016 -- Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp, 63, is fighting for her political survival against Republican Kevin Cramer. Cramer, 57, who has served three terms in the House of Representatives, currently leads in the polls. In Indiana, Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly, 63, has a small lead over his Republican challenger Mike Braun, a 64-year-old businessman, in a state which Trump won by 19 points in 2016. Bob Menendez, 64, a Democrat from New Jersey who has served in the Senate since 2006, could also be in trouble after facing corruption charges. The case ended up with a hung jury and a mistrial and the charges were dropped. Menendez is being challenged by Republican businessman Bob Hugin, 64. - Close eye on Florida - Two of the most-watched races in the country are in Florida. Democrat Bill Nelson, 76, was first elected to the Senate in 2000 and was easily reelected in 2006 and 2012. But Nelson, who served as a payload specialist on a Space Shuttle in 1986, is facing a tough challenge this time from Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott. Gun control is a big issue in the race following the February shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 people dead. Another close race in Florida is for governor to replace the 65-year-old Scott. Democrat Andrew Gillum, 39, the African-American mayor of Tallahassee, is locked in an acrimonious battle with Ron DeSantis, 40, a member of the House of Representatives and ardent Trump supporter. Trump has personally campaigned for DeSantis and has had harsh words for Gillum, considered by some to be a potential future star of the Democratic Party. - First black female governor - In Georgia, Stacy Abrams, 44, the former minority leader of the state House of Representatives, is running for governor against Republican Brian Kemp, the 55-year-old Georgia secretary of state. Abrams, who has received the support of Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities, would be the first black woman to become governor of a US state if she wins. The race has seen allegations that Kemp has attempted to prevent tens of thousands of mainly black voters from taking part in the election. Horn of Africa bordering Gulf of Aden and overlooking southern entrances to Red Sea has become arena of heightened international competition in recent years, potentially threatening Arab and Egyptian interests The Horn of Africa is an extremely important strategic region in terms of the worlds geopolitical divisions. In both ancient and modern history, the region has long been crucial to maritime communications and transport. It also possesses numerous factors that attract powers from outside the region, such as its natural resources and the interplay between its political and cultural contradictions, as is the case with all the worlds strategic regions. The Horn of Africa is much larger and more influential geopolitically than it is geographically. Geographically, it is made up of only Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Geopolitically, it also includes many countries and political forces whose patterns of influence make the Horn of Africa a vast territory that stretches beyond the easternmost projection of Africa to an area which protrudes into the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and overlooks the southern gateways to the Red Sea up to the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Somalia as well as Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula. The Horn of Africa derives a significant amount of its strategic value from its close connections to the Red Sea, which as a crucial link between East and West is one of the most important maritime routes in the world. This value naturally increased with the discovery of oil in the Gulf, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, and with the use of the Red Sea to transport this to the West. The Red Sea and the Horn of Africa have thus naturally become an arena for international conflict because they are key to controlling petroleum shipping routes as well as the movement of naval fleets between the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The region has experienced developments of great international importance, especially relating to the repercussions of the UN intervention in Somalia and the right claimed by the international community to intervene for humanitarian purposes. The UN has begun to play a new role in various crises in the region, indirectly contributing to the secession of South Sudan from the rest of Sudan and the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia. The pace and intensity with which many countries have moved forces, established bases, and deployed fleets in the region have made their stated tasks pale in comparison to their purposes in establishing their presence. Numerous governments have troops based in Djibouti to fight terrorism in East Africa. NATO forces have arrived with a mandate to protect humanitarian aid in Somalia. The largest force in the external military history of the European Union has set up a base in the region in order to fight piracy. In the midst of this intense international military presence one does not find only the major powers, however, since regional forces have also begun to assert themselves forcefully in the region since the Arab Spring revolutions, among them Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey and Iran. Saudi Arabia, for example, has obtained the right to use a military base in Djibouti to support its military operations in Yemen. The military agreement between the two countries, signed in December 2017, provides for a joint committee to meet every few months to study developments, military cooperation, and ways to strengthen Djiboutis army. The UAE has built a base in the Eritrean port of Assab also for use in the war in Yemen. In addition, the Emiratis, via the DB World Company, have signed a 30-year concession with the government of Somaliland for the port of Berbera, again to support operations in Yemen. The Emiratis have pledged $440 million to develop this port located in the west of the country overlooking the Gulf of Aden. They have also signed another 30-year agreement to develop the port of Bosaso in Puntland in Somalia at the cost of $336 million to expand and modernise the port. Sudan has invited non-Arab regional powers to its coasts on the Red Sea, signing a strategic alliance with Turkey and leasing the port of Suakin for 99 years. Prior to that, Sudan also invited Iran to establish a military presence on the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia and the UAE brokered the Ethiopia-Eritrea Reconciliation Agreement that was signed in Jeddah in mid-September, highlighting the influence of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in the framework of the new peace strategy for the Horn of Africa. The agreement was hailed as a success in the light of the complicated relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which had fought each other both directly and by proxy in Somalia and which had hosted opposition factions from the other side. As a result of the agreement, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accepted the terms of the Algiers Agreement delimiting the borders of the two countries and recognising Eritreas right to the area of Badme. Finally, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also brokered the Somali-Eritrea Reconciliation Agreement, during which Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo visited Eritrea in July. Previously, Eritrea had used Somalia to stage operations against Ethiopia and taken advantage of the prevalent anarchy in Somalia for its own ends. The Strategic Environment Developments in the Horn of Africa over the past four decades have been closely connected to developments in the larger world order. Beginning in the 1960s, the region became highly polarised as a result of Cold War rivalry between the US and the former Soviet Union. Both sides exploited disputes between the countries of the Horn of Africa and especially between Somalia and Ethiopia. These centred around border problems inherited from the colonial era, and they flared into fierce armed conflicts in 1964 and 1977. The superpowers utilisation of these disputes internationalised the conflict in the Horn of Africa and rendered it contingent upon fluctuations in the global conflict between the two superpowers. The conflicts have been extremely complex because of their multi-dimensional nature. This has been evidenced clearly in border conflicts that condense fierce disputes between rival ethnic groups, such as in Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti, cultural, religious and economic factors, and the effects of wars of independence, civil wars and military coups. Most conflicts in the Horn of Africa can be attributed to two main sources: the legacies of colonialism and crises of national cohesion. The artificial borders imposed by the former colonial powers on the region were detrimental to Somalia in particular, which was split into five parts, the north being occupied by the British, the south by the Italians, Djibouti by the French (as French Somalia), western Somalia by Ethiopia, and eastern Kenya which the British annexed to Kenya before the latters independence. Since independence, Somalia has reiterated its desire to reunify these five regions, which it calls Greater Somalia. However, it has been unable to take steps towards this end. To the north, the pro-Ethiopian bias of the European colonial powers made it possible for the former Haile Selassie regime to annex Eritrea in the framework of a federal system in 1952 and then to incorporate it into the Ethiopian Empire in 1962. The purpose was to give Ethiopia a maritime outlet onto the Red Sea, but it ignored the natural rights of the Eritrean people and ignited a brutal war that lasted 30 years and only ended when Eritrea won its independence. Crises of national cohesion have been main causes of internal conflict in the countries of the Horn of Africa, most of which are a compilation of national, ethnic and tribal groupings with incompatible primary allegiances. As a result, a tribalist spirit has continued to prevail over notions of common citizenship, and this has been aided by national assimilation programmes in which the ruling regime, inevitably in the hands of one or other national or ethnic group, excluded other national and ethnic groups from power and political participation. Government investment, expenditure and state resources were typically channelled towards meeting the needs of the dominant national or ethnic group. This was particularly evident in Ethiopia under first imperial and then Marxist rule, when the ruling Amhara elites mistreated other national groups. Somalia, which is ethnically, religiously and linguistically homogeneous, was also not spared such crises. Government policies under former president Siad Barre were governed by a tribalist spirit, since Barre gave control of all the major political centres in the country to members of his own Darod-Marehan tribe and then narrowed the scope of political participation to members of his own family who controlled key government and military posts. The resultant sense of discrimination felt by the other tribal/clan groupings in the country led to insurrections against the regime that escalated into tumultuous waves of civil war that sometimes threatened the very existence of the state. The weak military capacities of the Horn of Africa countries have been one of the repercussions of the bloody domestic conflicts in these countries, as have the decline in conflicts between these countries due to their weak standing armies. The economic deterioration that now grips the countries of the Horn of Africa has also hampered the allocation of sufficient resources to the military. International Competition Long attracted to the Horn of Africa for its geopolitical advantages, the major powers during the colonialist era raced to acquire maritime stations along the coasts of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in order to safeguard their shipping routes between East and West. Some of these powers established bases along these coasts, as did Britain when it occupied Egypt, Sudan, Aden, Socotra and northern Somalia, France when it occupied Djibouti, and Italy when it occupied Assab (in Eritrea) and southern Somalia. During the Cold War, the region experienced another form of competition for influence and control. The former Soviet Union sought to establish its presence in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa to accomplish political, economic, military and ideological ends. It succeeded in asserting its control over the whole of the Horn of Africa from 1977 to 1986, exploiting outbreaks of armed conflict, such as the Ethiopian-Somali War during which it established military bases on the Eritrean islands, and gaining control over the southern Red Sea and the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait. It also sustained a heavy presence in the Gulf of Aden, the Berbera port in Somalia, and South Yemen. It only withdrew from these areas as part of the policies that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced to cut back on military and government expenditures. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the US took control of world affairs. This was marked in the Middle East by the US-orchestrated Arab-Israeli Peace Process which unfolded under the conditions of a balance of power heavily tilted in favour of Israel. In Africa, Washington began to resolve conflicts there in ways tailored to Western interests and those of the US in particular. In the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region, the power balances shifted towards the US and its Western allies as Washington moved to intensify its direct military presence in the region, which in turn altered the interplay of regional forces. After the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, the US and its allies escalated their drive to bolster their military and intelligence presence in the region, fabricating justifications such as the threat of terrorism in East Africa, the need to protect humanitarian aid in Somalia, and the worsening of piracy, in order to add a gloss of legitimacy to this intensive presence. When the US prepared to launch attacks in different parts of the world in response to the 11 September attacks, it homed in on the need to eliminate terrorism in East Africa to keep it from becoming a refuge for terrorist groups. Washington feared that the conditions of instability and conflict on the continent could facilitate terrorist infiltration. The bombings of its embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 were also still on its mind. The US determination to fight terrorism in East Africa was consistent with its interests in this strategically located region, which also offered it the opportunity to control international maritime trade. The East African countries hastened to declare their solidarity with the US campaign against terrorism. In December 2000, the former Bush administration received the then Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi and former Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, and in January 2003 it received Djibouti president Ismail Omar Guelleh. Both Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni declared that their countries were also plagued by terrorism. Various counter-terrorist mechanisms were put into play. One was to promulgate anti-terrorist laws, passed by the Tanzanian and Ugandan parliaments in 2003. The Kenyan government issued an international crimes act in 2003 and a law to protect witnesses to terrorism in September 2004. It also established a National Counter-Terrorism Centre. Among the most important instruments at the level of US-African cooperation were an Initiative to Combat Terrorism in East Africa (2003), the establishment of a US military base in Djibouti, the creation of a Horn of Africa Joint Working Force, and the exchange of intelligence. Governments in the region froze the assets of organisations accused of funding terrorism (such as the Taqwa and Baraka organisations), closed the offices of the Al-Haramein Organisation, and responded in varying degrees to US demands to cut back religious education. In 2006, US forces took part in joint military manoeuvres with forces from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The fight against terrorism in East Africa had repercussions on the development and stability in the region. Most of its countries allocated large chunks of their budgets to security. The conditions of the regions Muslims, accounting for 49 per cent of the population and already suffering from political and economic hardships, worsened as a consequence of the counter-terrorism operations, especially in areas where they were a minority and more vulnerable to falling under the shadow of the counter-terrorism laws and human rights violations perpetrated in the name of fighting terrorism. Consequences Of Counter-Terrorism The counter-terrorism strategies in the region have largely ignored the cultural and religious make-up of the inhabitants of East Africa and relied on military and security instruments that have precipitated clashes with various political forces, as has occurred in Somalia. As terrorism has no clear legal definition, each side has used it in order settle political scores. The fight against terrorism has made it possible for Israel to augment its presence in the region, for example, and it has participated in the search for terrorist operatives in Somalia and interrogated detainees in collaboration with US security agencies. The counter-terrorist measures in East Africa have not succeeded in eliminating groups suspected of terrorism, while popular hostility towards the US has increased. Islamist takfiri groups continue to exist in Somalia, some affiliated with Al-Qaeda and others with the Islamic State (IS). This confirms that the US criteria for branding groups as terrorist are not objective and that they are shaped by the nature of US interests in the region. The East African coast and the Bab Al-Mandeb area are also intrinsically linked to Egyptian national security, and as a result competition among international and regional forces in the region has sometimes turned it into a source of threat to Egyptian national security. This has made it necessary to search for better methods of ensuring the security of the Red Sea in a manner conducive to the interests of the Arab and African countries on its shores. However, in order to do this, it is essential to understand the motives of the competing forces and to transcend an analytic approach confined by the mere geographical dimensions of the Red Sea. Instead, we should broaden our parameters to the geopolitical dimensions described above that lure countries having expansionist agendas to the region. In accordance with its new vision for the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden and Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, the US intends to assert its military and political hegemony in the region to protect US and Israeli interests and to neutralise potential threats. It intends to ally with countries from the region and friendly countries outside of it, with the intensive US and Israeli presence casting its shadow over the regional balances of power and Arab-African transactions. The growing US and Israeli role in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region, combined with the decline of the European role, carries numerous risks for the security of the Arab and Islamic worlds. The Zionist influence over US policy is no longer confined to the Palestinian question, but now extends to other parts of the world and is working to rearrange regional balances in a manner that serves US and Israeli interests at the expense of Arab parties. The mounting international and regional rivalry to establish military bases in the Horn of Africa, combined with the contest to win political influence, poses a great challenge to Arab national security and to Egyptian national security in particular, especially since such increased foreign military presence erodes the sovereignty of the countries of the Horn of Africa. * The writer is an expert in national security affairs. * A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Competition for the Horn of Africa Search Keywords: Short link: Dozens of Yemeni rebels killed in Red Sea port city: medics Hodeida, Yemen, Nov 4 (AFP) Nov 04, 2018 Dozens of Yemeni rebels have been killed in battles and air strikes in Hodeida, medics said Sunday, as pro-government forces advanced in the insurgent-held Red Sea port city. Fifty-three Huthi rebels were killed and dozens were injured over the past 24 hours, medical sources in the area told AFP. According to a pro-government military source, clashes intensified in Hodeida city and centred around its university on Saturday and Sunday morning. Saudi-led coalition warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes to support pro-government forces in the fighting which began on Thursday evening, according to military officials. Thirteen pro-government troops were killed, medical sources in Aden and Mokha -- where the fighters were transported -- told AFP. The clashes erupted just hours after the government said Thursday it was ready to restart peace talks with the Iran-backed Huthis. The offer followed a surprise call by the United States for an end to the Yemen war, including air strikes by the coalition. Hodeida port is the entry point for more than 70 percent of imports into the impoverished country, which is teetering on the edge of famine. After UN-backed peace talks collapsed in September, the coalition announced it was relaunching an assault on Hodeida. Yemeni government officials said Tuesday that the coalition had sent more than 10,000 new troops towards the battleground city. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the war in 2015 to bolster Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the rebels took over the capital Sanaa. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 2015. Some rights groups estimate the toll could be five times higher. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for a halt to violence to pull Yemen back from the "precipice". Rebels kill at least seven civilians in eastern DRCongo: army Beni, DR Congo, Nov 4 (AFP) Nov 04, 2018 Rebels killed at least seven civilians and abducted 15 others, including children, in fresh overnight raids in the far eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, civilian and military sources said Sunday. Fighters of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) staged two raids Saturday night in the North Kivu region bordering Uganda, Teddy Kataliko, leader of the civilian administration in Beni district, told AFP. According to his account, rebels at Mangboko burnt a lorry driver in his vehicle and killed six other civilians, while in Oicha, they killed one person and abducted 15 others -- for a total death toll of eight. Beni district administrator Donat Kibwana said seven people were killed and 15 people were abducted, including 10 children. Army spokesman Captain Mak Hazukay also put the death toll at seven. Kataliko denounced the army as ineffective, saying: "It is not normal that the army cannot manage to keep the population safe," but Hazukay insisted that soldiers had reacted quickly to stop the rebel incursions. The ADF, which US authorities designated a terror group in 2001, is a militia created by Muslim rebels to oppose Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni but which also operates in the DRC. It is blamed for a string of attacks in the region since 2014 that have killed at least 700 civilians, and 15 Tanzanian peacekeepers in a December assault last year. Pompeo says he will meet N.Korea number two in New York Washington, Nov 4 (AFP) Nov 04, 2018 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday he will meet this week in New York with North Korea's number two, Kim Yong Chol, to resume denuclearization talks. Announcing the meeting on Fox News Sunday, Pompeo said it would be "a good opportunity to continue the denuclearization discussions" underway since US President Donald Trump's historic summit in June with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pompeo's announcement follows a North Korean foreign ministry statement that the North will "seriously" consider reviving its nuclear weapons program unless US sanctions are lifted. But Pompeo dismissed the warning, saying, "I'm not worried about that." "We are very focused. We know with whom we are negotiating, we know what their positions (are) and President Trump has made his position very clear," Pompeo said. He added there would be "no economic relief until we have achieved our ultimate objective." At their summit in Singapore in June, Trump and Kim signed a vaguely worded statement on denuclearization. But little progress has been made since then, with Washington pushing to maintain sanctions against the North until its "final, fully verified denuclearization," and Pyongyang condemning US demands as "gangster-like." "The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible," said the statement, released under the name of the director of the foreign ministry's Institute for American Studies. "What remains to be done is the US corresponding reply," it added. The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2018 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, November 4, 2018 07:02 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a88c3a 4 Food chocolate,agriculture,west-sumatra,Italy,Eurochocolate Free Speaking at a recent business forum at Europe's largest chocolate festival, Eurochocolate, in Perugia, Italy, West Sumatra Governor Irwan Prayitno promoted chocolate as a leading local commodity. Also presented were areas of chocolate cultivation in West Sumatra that produce high-quality chocolate with a production capacity of more than 58,594 tons according to data published in 2017, as reported by Kompas.com. In his speech, Irwan also raised concerns about inequality in the world chocolate industry. "Through this Eurochocolate forum, consumers are reminded that the world chocolate industry has not provided prosperity to farmers," Irwan said in a press release from the Indonesian Embassy (KBRI) in Rome. Eurochocolate organizing committee chair Daniela de Paolis expressed hope that the organizing of the festival could bring together quality chocolate producers, such as those from West Sumatra, with foreign importers and distributors in Italy. At Eurochocolate in 2014, Indonesia also participated in promoting cocoa farming in Southeast Sulawesi. Read also: In search of Indonesia's best-quality coffee On the sidelines of his visit to Italy, Irwan also held a meeting with a number of Italian businessmen at the head office of the Italian Industrial Confederation, also known as Confindustria, in Rome, on Oct. 23. On this occasion, Alessandro Durante from the Italian Mechanical Equipment Federation invited cooperation on agricultural mechanization to increase farmer productivity. Additionally, Durante also welcomed the invitation from Payakumbuh Mayor Riza Pahlevi to establish cooperation in the field of food product packaging, such as for rendang (beef simmered in thick coconut milk and rich spices), to enable it to be marketed in Italy and Europe. Indonesian Ambassador to Italy Esti Andayani said that the Indonesian Embassy in Rome was always ready to facilitate the promotion of export products and attract foreign investment to the West Sumatra province. She said the regional government and entrepreneurs in West Sumatra should actively follow up on the results of the governor's visit, as there was a large demand for agricultural commodities, especially chocolate, palm oil, coffee and essential oils. "Businessmen in the regions need to collaborate with partners in Italy, especially for packaging food products such as rendang, making it easier to forge markets in Europe," Esti said. (liz/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Yoshihiro Kitaura (The Japan News/Asia News Network) Sun, November 4, 2018 17:01 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a945bd 2 Food Japanese-food,udon,Musashino-udon Free When people think of Japanese udon noodles, Sanuki udon from Kagawa Prefecture or Inaniwa udon from Akita Prefecture often springs to mind. However, Tokyo also has its own variety called Musashino udon, which is served at a number of restaurants mainly in the Tama area of western Tokyo. How did udon culture take root in Tokyo, which has a reputation for its soba noodles? To find out, I first visited Kodaira in the Tama area, a city that has united to promote Musashino udon. The citys enthusiasm for its noodles is evident in articles dedicated to the dish that appear in local newsletters. I ordered udon at a restaurant called Nekkozaka that featured in one of the newsletters. The dish took quite a while to arrive about 15 minutes but I was eventually greeted with a plate of cold, grayish udon noodles accompanied by a bowl of warm, soy-sauce based dipping sauce and a vegetable side dish. We use flour with wheat bran, so our noodles are not pure white like Sanuki udon, said manager Wataru Ono, 64. The thick noodles take precisely 14 minutes and 30 seconds to cook, he added. One serving is quite filling because the udon is slightly heavier than regular udon and comes with a side dish of vegetables, which the locals call kate. Kodaira is not the only city with restaurants serving Musashino udon. In Masuya in Higashimurayama, udon is boiled using a traditional kamado wood-heated oven rather than a gas or electric stove. Certain flavors are impossible to produce unless you use firewood, said 87-year-old manager Masu Kamiyama, on why he sticks with the traditional cooking method. What originally linked the Tama area to udon? One clue can be found in the local topography, said Teruo Miyazaki, the head of the Kodaira-based Musashino udon preservation and promotion society. Most of the Tama area sits on the Musashino plateau, which people once called Nigemizu no Sato, or water-mirage land. Settlement on the barren plateau dates back to the Edo period (1603-1867). People began living there after 1653 when part of the Tamagawa Josui waterway was completed along a 43-kilometer stretch from what is now the city of Hamura, all the way to the current area of Shinjuku Ward. Even so, it was difficult to draw large quantities of water to farmland because the plateau is higher in altitude than the Arakawa and Tamagawa rivers, which run alongside it. Only certain people, like village leaders, were able to have rice fields, which require a lot of water, Miyazaki said. Many farmers began cultivating wheat, which will yield harvests with only rainwater for irrigation. The difficulty in securing water caused by the geography of the region helped expand wheat production and thereby increased the opportunities for local residents to eat udon. In farming households, udon was served instead of white rice on festive occasions such as wedding banquets. There were times when women were told, You cannot get married unless you can make udon, said Miyazaki, who comes from a longtime farming family in Kodaira. Musashino udon is made of wheat flour that is grown on the Musashino plateau. It is said that the name was coined by Yuji Kato, an udon expert and professor emeritus at Kokugakuin University, who died in 2003. I guess many people think of soba when they hear about noodles in Tokyo, but Tokyo does have its own regional udon. The name I have given it is Musahino udon, Kato wrote in his book Wagaya wa Udon-shugi! (My household is udon-ist!). Read also: Six restaurants in Japan that serve halal food As urban development has expanded in the Tama area, the number of wheat farmers has declined, causing concern among members of the Musashimurayama-based Murayama Udon no Kai civil association. The group started growing wheat on farmland in the city in an effort to encourage people such as tourists to eat udon made from locally grown produce. Starting next year, they hope to offer udon made from locally harvested and milled wheat throughout the year. From December 2017 to February this year the Tokyo Federation of Societies of Commerce and Industry and the Tama Tourism Promotion Council held the first stamp rally involving 26 Musashino udon restaurants across seven Tama-area cities, including Higashikurume, Kiyose, Nishitokyo and Higashiyamato. Some small but famous restaurants were involved. One of Musashino udons strong points is that you can discover flavors that match your tastes, said an official from tourist agency JTB Corp., which planned the event. As time passes, culinary culture inherited from the Edo period seems to be attracting attention for its potential as a tourism resource. Topics : This article appeared on The Japan News newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) - Sun, November 4, 2018 14:03 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a90e52 1 Lifestyle sneakers,Veja,sustainable-shoes Free French fashion brand Veja, known for its sustainable sneakers, supplies shoes to 1,800 retailers in 45 countries and earned US$21 million in revenue from 550,000 pairs of sneakers, according to a report by CNN (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/28/business/veja-sneakers/index.html). Veja founders Sebastien Kopp and Francois-Ghislain Morillion were inspired by their visit to clothing and food factories in South America, Asia and Australia while running a non-profit group. In their visit, they were deeply concerned with how products were made. Veja was therefore founded in France in 2005, three years after Sebastien and Francois established a non-profit organization that studied corporate social responsibility policies issued by companies around the world. Aiming to manufacture sneakers made of the most ecological materials and involving ethical suppliers, Sebastien said the idea behind the brand was to rethink the creation of a popular product. The pair then bought rubber from rubber tappers in the Amazon, despite its price being higher than that of synthetic materials, and made use of ecological cotton that was grown in ways that could return nutrients to the soil, rather than causing damage to it due to the usage of chemicals. It helps to fight against deforestation, as [they] prefer to work for us than to cut trees to raise cattle, Sebastien told CNN, regarding the rubber. To create its shoes, Veja also utilizes recycled plastic bottles by making a waterproof mesh for some of its sneaker models. The bottles are reportedly collected from the Brazilian streets of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The shoe-making process does not come cheap, as it was reported that the sneakers range in price from $95 to $195. Despite the relatively high price, sales are said to have grown 50 percent annually since 2015. Read also: Crocs just won't go away, this time thanks to rapper Post Malone A lot of our clients are discovering what is behind Veja after they buy one or two pairs, Sebastien said, referring to the companys sneakers, which are inspired by vintage volleyball shoes. People want to change the way they are consuming much more than before." Celebrities such as Emma Watson, Marion Cotillard and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have been photographed wearing Veja shoes, which can be identified by its signature minimalist V logo. (acr/mut) The annual art and cultural event Tlatah Bocah was held on Oct. 27-28 in Sanggar Bangun Budaya, Duren village, Magelang, Central Java. It showcased the diverse traditional and contemporary arts by children from various art centers located on Mount Merapi's slopes. This years performers and most of the spectators were local kids, along with guest performers from Kendal, Jombang, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Jakarta. International artists from Japan and Brazil also participated in the event. Highlighted performances included traditional dances originating from Mt. Merapi, such as the Topeng Ireng (the black mask), Jathilan and Topeng Buto (the giant's mask). Presented in a playful and lively manner, they are regarded as different from kraton (palace) dances, which come with sets of rules. Other dances performed in the event included the Singo Barong, Basaba, Ngremo and Ludruk. Read also: Jakpost guide to recreational places for children Nontraditional performances such as pantomime and puppet theater shows were presented by Badala from East Java and Papermoon from Yogyakarta. Visitors could also engage in art workshops that provided paper-mask making, T-shirt painting and shibori (Japanese dye technique) courses. Gunawan Julianto, initiator of Tlatah Bocah, said that in the event children were encouraged to learn to collaborate in diversity. Tlatah Bocah should remind parents that childrens lives are supposed to be filled with play and learning in happiness, he said. (wng) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, November 4, 2018 14:24 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a91797 1 City Transjakarta-lanes,BusCollision,traffic-accident,motorcycle Free A Honda Scoopy motorcyclist died in a traffic accident after being hit by a Transjakarta bus on Jl. Gatot Subroto on Saturday. The incident occurred at 1:35 p.m. when the victim fell off his bike. The motorcycle fell to the left while its driver fell to the right, just as a Transjakarta bus passed by, Jakarta Traffic Police law enforcement division head Sr. Adj. Comr. Budiyanto said on Saturday, kompas.com reported. He said the left rear tire of the bus ran over the victim, who suffered a heavy wound to his head. The victim died on the spot, Budiyanto said. He said the victims body was transported to Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital for an autopsy and the Transjakarta bus driver, Anis Yusnipar, was questioned by the police. (ami) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Viet Nam News/ANN) Hanoi Sun, November 4, 2018 16:23 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a938a8 2 SE Asia #Vietnam,#France,#bilateral,#business,#economy,Vietnam,France,bilateral-cooperation,bilateral-relations,economy Free Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his French counterpart Edouard Philippe affirmed their determination to deepen the Vietnam-France strategic partnership for shared benefit during their talks in Hanoi on Nov. 2 as part of the French PMs ongoing visit to Vietnam. PM Phuc lauded the tour to Vietnam by Philippe, saying it is the second high-level visit between the two countries in 2018 after the visit to France by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong back in March. The two sides agreed to increase delegation exchanges at all levels, especially high level, while promoting the role of co-ordination and direction mechanisms for bilateral co-operation, and forging stronger partnerships in politics, economy, defense, science-technology, culture, and education-training. The two leaders underscored that economic collaboration continues to be a priority in bilateral ties, stressing the need to speed up major joint projects and foster the relationship between Vietnam and the European Union. Philippe stated that France supports the early signing and ratification of a free trade agreement between Vietnam and the EU, underlining Frances commitment to maintaining development co-operation with Vietnam in the future. Both sides concurred to promote collaboration in building e-government and modernizing state administrative governance, which is a new and promising cooperation area. They will encourage and create favorable conditions for businesses of both sides to enhance their economic and investment partnership in areas of Frances strength and Vietnams demand such as infrastructure, energy, aviation-aerospace, health care, science-technology, communications, climate change response, and smart cities. They highlighted the significance of co-operation in education and training, including the development of the University of Science and Technology of Hanoi to an international-standard facility. The two sides agreed to expand ties in culture, stressing the determination to turn cultural institutions of each country into centers for cultural cooperation and exchange, including the Vietnamese Cultural Centre in France and the French Institute in Vietnam. They shared the hope to strengthen partnership in security and defense as well as increase visits of French military ships to Vietnam, and support Vietnam in joining UN peacekeeping operations. The two PMs agreed to enhance coordination in ensuring the success of the 11th conference on cooperation between Vietnamese and French localities scheduled for early April 2019 in Toulouse, France. They pledged to work closely at multilateral forums, especially the UN and the Francophonie, while supporting each other in developing relations between France and Asia Pacific countries as well as between Vietnam and EU members. The two sides will also promote collaboration in coping with global challenges, especially climate change. Both Vietnamese and French PMs stressed the significance of ensuring peace, stability and strengthening regional and international co-operation. They affirmed their commitments to maintaining navigation and aviation freedom, and solving disputes in the East Sea through peaceful measures in line with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982. The French PM expressed his hope to enhance the role of France in the Asia-Pacific region. The same day, Phuc and Philippe witnessed the signing of a number of cooperation agreements between the two countries in various areas, including training, e-government development, healthcare, climate change response, environmental protection, urban management, energy and aviation including a $6.5 billion deal to purchase 50 Airbus aircrafts by the private budget carrier Vietjet Air. Topics : This article appeared on the Viet Nam News newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, November 4, 2018 08:08 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a89b8b 1 News travel,destination,Indonesia-tourism Free Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, has been placed seventh in Lonely Planet's top 10 countries to visit in 2019, highlighting the island-nation as a diverse destination. Lonely Planet, a BBC Worldwide-owned travel guide, published its Best in Travel 2019 book, with destination lists that include among others "Top Countries" that are tapped as the top vacation spots to visit next year. Indonesia, the only Southeast Asian country on the list, made it to seventh place and is described as rich in diversity that spans right across the nation, noting new eco-resorts offering orangutan encounters in Sumatra and tribal traditions in Papua. "More than 17,000 islands make up the medley of cultures, cuisines and religions across the archipelago, offering a kaleidoscope of experience," so the travel guide describes Indonesia. Lonely Planet further highlighted that much of the country remains safe for visitors, despite recent earthquakes in some areas and the ongoing recovery process, explaining that Indonesia is located on the volcano-lined Pacific Ring of Fire. Read also: Jakpost explores Sumba The archipelago is also easier than ever to explore, following substantial investment in new air, land and sea connections. Moreover, with a recent immigration policy, the tropical country now also welcomes nationals of 169 countries visa-free. Sri Lanka topped Lonely Planet's country list, with the travel guide noting it as a nation with much to discover, as previously off-limit locations have become more accessible. "Already notable to intrepid travelers for its mix of religions and cultures, its timeless temples, its rich and accessible wildlife, its growing surf scene and its people who defy all odds by their welcome and friendliness after decades of civil conflict, this is a country revived," the statement said of its number-one country destination for 2019. Germany and Zimbabwe round up the top three, followed consecutively by Panama, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan. Meanwhile, completing the top-10 list after Indonesia are Belarus, Sao Tome & Principe and Belize. (mut) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, November 4, 2018 16:02 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a928d7 1 Guide To Jakpost-guide-to,#JakpostGuideTo,art,Education Free It is never too late to learn to create arts and crafts, from something as simple as drawing, to designing an exhibition. Enjoying art could also be the way to discover oneself, especially in finding hidden potential. These are places in Jakarta where you can explore some art disciplines. Indoestri Makerspace Indoestri Makerspace is housed in a two-story building with a backyard where a cafe named Dawn & Willow stands. It is in West Jakarta near Rawa Buaya Station. Established in 2014 by Leonard Theosabrata, the co-founder of Brightspot Market and The Goods Dept., Indoestri underlines the importance of process in order to achieve high quality products essential for building a sustainable brand. It organizes workshops focusing on four disciplines: woodworking, metalworking, textile and leather and surface with the workshops including ukulele making, indigo batik making and lamp finishing. But they have expanded their workshops to urban farming, photography, calligraphy and jewelry. Some of them are divided into intermediate and advanced levels, but both still welcome beginners as they will learn the basics in class as well. The average duration for a workshop is around six to seven hours, but participants can extend depending on their curiosity of the theme. Indoestri also has in-house seminars and guest workshops for those who want to build or revamp their own brands. It provides three types of membership: full, limited and basic. Full membership, for instance, allows people to access their workshop upstairs where they provide woodworking and metalworking machines. However it is not necessary for people to enroll as a member if they want to join a workshop. Workshop prices start at Rp 750,000 (US$49). Address: Jl. Lingkar Luar Barat No. 36, West Jakarta, 11750. Contact: +6221 541-5510 Read also: Jakpost guide to recreational places for children Ganara Art Back in 2013, Ganara was established under the name Ganara Art Studio, providing classes focusing on childrens sensory and motor skill development through art. In 2015, they launched Ganara Art Space focusing on art classes for teens and adults. They also established Ganara Pottery, Art Gallery, Printmaking and Playground afterward. In Ganara Art Studio, they have applied a new learning experience since Oct. 1, dividing classes into several levels. Each child will be grouped in a level-based system based on their age. They can choose the type of class depending on their level with different objectives and outcomes, Lina Nata, general manager of Ganara Art, wrote in an e-mail to The Jakarta Post. At the end of the package, they will receive reports from the classes they attended and be eligible to take part in an exhibition with other Ganara students. As an example, children aged 1 to 2 years old can join the Level 1 group and select from two options of classes: sensory and toddler clay. The former will introduce and develop basic fine motor skills, while the latter is held to develop basic social skills. For now Ganara Art Studio has four levels of child classes, with ages ranging from 1 to 12 years old. Parents of children in Level 1 are allowed to accompany their children in class. The duration of each session is 1.5 hours. Membership packages are offered depending on the number of sessions booked. Walk-in students for one session are welcomed with the price starting at Rp 300,000. For Ganara Art Space, classes are open to participants aged 13 and above. The classes offered are acrylic painting, oil painting, pottery and printmaking. Beginners can join the two-hour classes. Membership packages are available and the fee for walk-in participants starts at Rp 300,000 per session. As for their upcoming plans, Ganara Art is set to open a music class. Address: Jl. Kemang Raya No. 8B, Bangka, Mampang Prapatan, South Jakarta (their other branches are in Pluit Village, North Jakarta, and Scientia Square Park in Serpong, South Tangerang). Contact: +62822-110-110-50 Read also: Jakpost guide to daycare Aside from those aforementioned places that offer short periods of learning, there is a non-formal institution at high school level for those who want explore art and self-discovery in a more intense fashion. Erudio School of Art (ESoA) Erudio School of Art (ESoA) was launched in 2012 as an alternative to mainstream schools in Indonesia. Founded by Monika Irayati Ira Irsan, it is inspired by the philosophies of Ki Hajar Dewantara, Indonesia's founding father in education. The school also draws inspiration from Summerhill, an independent boarding school in Suffolk, Britain. With currently 82 students, ESoA does not merely focus on art. Its project-based curriculum allows students to explore their true potential by making them aware of social issues and giving them freedom to express themselves. At the end of each semester, they have to present their projects to the public through an exhibition or other medium depending on their preference. Similar to other high schools in Indonesia, the education program is designed to be completed in three years. The first-year students, for instance, will be given a main theme to be explored. One of their current themes is trust in humanity. They have to find the definition of trust according to their understanding, then look for issues that are relevant to it, Ira told The Post on Wednesday, Oct. 24, at the ESoA campus. They will do some research and find their preferences in terms of their style of art. The first-year students have to display their projects at school, while the second-year students have to hold an exhibition outside campus. They are assigned to work in groups and find a venue and curator as well as set the budget. The third-year students have to organize a solo final presentation in the event type of their choice, whether it is an exhibition, product launch or focus group discussion. Often labeled as home by their students, ESoA applies flexible rules, but they must have an agreement in terms of class attendance and uniform. Freedom sounds very scary for adults because they dont trust them [the students], but theyre very responsible although their way of learning isnt common, said Ira. The school provides a studio, workshop tools and facilities for students who want to continue to higher education by giving them special classes to prepare for the national examination. At the end of their learning period, students will receive a senior high school equivalency diploma (Paket C) and/or a BTEC Foundation diploma in art and design, as the school collaborates with UK-based Pearson Education. The institution accepts middle school graduates who have a passion for art and are always curious. Aside from filling out the registration form and paying the registration fee of Rp 600,000, they also have to prepare their portfolio. They have launched ESoS (Erudio School of Science) and plan to move to Gunung Sindur, Bogor, in 2019. Address: Jl. Lebak Bulus I No. 55, West Cilandak, South Jakarta Contact: +6221 758-187-03 (mut) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, November 4, 2018 10:06 1112 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a8af60 1 News Train,Banyuwangi,Cilacap,Transportation,travel,tourism,KA-Wijaya-Kusuma Free The newly launched KA Wijaya Kusuma train that connects Banyuwangi in East Java and Cilacap in Central Java has gained significant popularity among tourists. Introduced on Sept. 1, the train currently carries 180 percent of its capacity on a single trip. The number is derived from the total number of passengers embarking and disembarking the train en-route. Reports from the new Cilacap - Banyuwangi route are good, [showing] tourists interest. [Its because of] the rapid increase of tours to Banyuwangi, Mukti Jauhari, state railway operator PT KAIs Corporate deputy director of Passenger Transport Marketing and Sales, said during KAIExpo 2018 press conference on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com. Read also: Priority class train available daily between Jakarta and Semarang The majority of tourists heading to Banyuwangi are from Yogyakarta, Surakarta in Central Java and Madiun in East Java, while those heading to Cilacap mostly get off in Surabaya, East Java. For tourists headed from Jakarta to Banyuwangi, Mukti recommends transiting in Yogyakarta, while tourists from Bandung in West Java can transit in Surakarta. KA Wijaya Kusuma has four executive-class cars with a capacity of 200 passengers and three premium-class cars that can accommodate 192 passengers. Previously, KA Sritanjung, which had only economy class seats, was the single train available on this route. The train is scheduled to depart daily from Banyuwangi at 11:05 a.m. and arrive in Cilacap at 4:42 a.m. the next day, while the return trip is scheduled for a 2:10 p.m. departure from Cilacap and a 7:02 a.m. arrival in Banyuwangi the next morning. (iru/kes) Every profession has unique sets of principles, jargons and inherent standards to which members are required to operate. Sometimes, what seems apparent and overt from an outsider perspective is completely different when viewed by a professional. For example, a person reading a political manual may feel adept but when explained by a seasoned political scientist, the grey areas become evidently useful and riveting. This same approach finds its support within the noble profession of law. As H. Boimah Fahnbulleh, Jr puts it, reading a Bible or Koran doesnt make you a Christian or Muslim. This profound statement applies similarly to the law. Ones ability to read the constitution does not in anyway makes him a legal scholar and therefore, in most instances, such faint interpretation to the provisions of the law is preposterous, baseless and inherently flawed. While there are numerous techniques and principle to statutory interpretations, the best available and widely used methods by lawyers (mainly judges) are plain meaning rule and framers intent. You cannot just read the law without holding true to its value the spirit and intent. Too many at times, non-lawyers are embroiled in statutory interpretation, resorting into misinformation of the public and misrepresentation of the true meaning of the provisions. There are three branches of government espoused in the constitution of Liberia which defines this republican form of government so dearly enjoyed. From my elementary school teaching, we were told that the three branches of government are the executive, legislative and judiciary. We were also informed that the legislative branch makes the law, the judiciary interprets the law and the executive enforces the law. Strangely, my elementary teacher ( not vouching for the teaching experiences of other former elementary students reading this paper)) did not inform me that the Executive Branch of Government is the only of the three branches that is headed by a single individualThe President of Liberia. The legislature is not headed by a single person; neither is the judiciary. It is still debated, in political quarters by non-lawyers, whether the legislature is headed by the speaker or the Protemp. Legally, there is no singular head. The speaker is a presiding officer and administrator of the lower house, while the Protemp is the administrator of the Senate. The constitutional mandate positioning the speaker as the third in succession where the president and vice president are incapacitated simultaneously (Article 64 LIB Const.), is a political aspirational provision which does not speak to the leadership designation within the legislature. The mere fact that somebody will need to fill a leadership void is disproportionally perpendicular to the idea that such person is the head of the legislature where the constitution has not provided any direct designation or provided a clue in subsequent or preceding provisions. Similarly, the judiciary is headed by the supreme court-not a single individual with the Chief Justice being an administrator of the courts. All justices have equal opinions in the adjudication of all matters before the court. It is evident that the powers of the president, as the singular head of the executive, are enormous and far-reaching. He exudes the authority to appoint and dismiss government officials within the executive as indicated in the constitution (Article 54&55 LIB Const.). He (used primarily because Liberia has a male president with no intention to discredit the female gender) also appoints all judges and justices, including the chief justice (Article 68&69 LIB. Const.), even though he cannot dismiss any justice directly, who are removed through an impeachment proceeding (Article 71 LIB. Const). The president directs the foreign policy of the country and can enter into bilateral agreements, treaties, and conventions beneficial to Liberias interest (Article 57 LIB Const.). He is authorized to extend the session of the legislature (yes for real) and call for a special sitting (Article 32b LIB Const.). He signs bills into law and has a veto power, even though we refuse to reference such action as lawmaking. He commands the army and all military orchestration and avalanche within the power of the Government and People of Liberia. To further enunciate the profoundly innumerable powers of the president, the constitution provides that All cabinet ministers, deputy and assistant cabinet ministers, ambassadors, ministers and consuls, superintendents of counties and other government officials, both military and civilian, appointed by the President pursuant to this Constitution shall hold their offices at the pleasure of the President. (Article 56b LIB Const.). The most important clause in the above-quoted text is and other government officials, both military and civilian, appointed by the President pursuant to this Constitution shall hold their offices at the pleasure of the President. This grants the president the enormous power to decide the fate, aspirations, and delicate operations of any person who is appointed by the [HIM] except judges and justices of the supreme court. The limitation of such powers to the judges and justices comes within the constitution. Any other position that is not mentioned within the constitution, as in the case of the removal of the justice or judge, (71 LIB. Const), shall operate at the behest of the President at all times and in all situations. Tenure vs autonomy or tenure and autonomy It is important to clarify the mystifications enmeshed in the relationships of autonomy and tenured positions. Several questions come to mind. Is it fair and smart to say that tenure breeds autonomy or autonomy is unachievable unless tenure is attached? Do we support the concept that tenure is just an ancillary embodiment of autonomy? Should autonomy be differently captioned and/or authorized from tenure? Are the two mutually exclusive complementary? These questions can simply be answered from interpretation garnered in Article 89 of the Liberian Constitution which reads in part the following Autonomous Public Commissions are hereby established: A. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION; B. ELECTIONS COMMISSION; and C. GENERAL AUDITING COMMISSION It is no doubt that the constitution intends for these commissions to be autonomous. However, it continues, in subsequent provisions, that the Legislature shall enact laws for the governance of these Commissions and create other agencies as may be necessary for the effective operation of Government. Incontrovertibly, governance as used in the quoted text suggests that tenure is not proportional to autonomy. An agency can maintain autonomy, as evidenced by the constitution, while its head does not have tenure, a governance issue to be determined by the legislature (and the President). If the opposite was correct, the drafters wouldnt have asked the legislature to define the governance structure of these commissions but would have used the autonomous status to agree that a tenured position complements the autonomy. This perfunctorily shows that an agency can become autonomous without tenure for its key officers. The question then is what constitutes autonomy in a bill to establish a public commission? Autonomy has many and complex components but the essential point is that commissions/agencies and state-owned enterprises are legally entitled to freedom of action in managing their affairs within the restraints of the laws of Liberia. The claim for autonomy rests upon the argument that the institutions can properly undertake the work expected of them by the community which supports them only if they have freedom of choice and of action. Autonomy can be exercised from different other authorities other than tenured positions. A public commission and its officials can have autonomy through the act of the legislature whereby they cannot be removed from office except through a cause biz., fraud, proven misconduct unbecoming of a public official, gross neglect of duties, incapacity, etc (Article 13 and 20 of the Liberia Revenue Authority Act provides elaborate clarity in this regard); must be allowed to operate without presidential interference especially when such decision is within the confines of the law creating the commission; and must sign a performance contract such that if the head is underperforming based on the provisions of the performance contract, can be removed by the president. There are a plethora of other measures that grant autonomy. Tenured is not an absolute method. Therefore, the president has the prerogative, authority, and powers to scrap and add any tenure position he so desires. His action will be underpinned by his legal authority granted through the constitution. Recommendations to the Legislature and the President While this paper provides legal justifications to the authority granted to the president to remove and add tenure positions (a singular right under the constitution), there are recommendations in support of maintaining some tenure position for reasons enunciated herein. At least, the president will be acting in his authority to set procedures for commissions and agencies that will maintain the tenure but at different levels. The first recommendation is to retain the tenureship for the following commissions/agencies: General Auditing Commission, Elections Commission, the Civil Service Commission, and the Liberia Revenue Authority. Mr. President, Im also recommending, while it is your constitutional right to remove or add tenured positions, that you extend tenure authority (for the above-mentioned entities) only to the heads and not the deputies or other positions below. Undisputedly, the head of the institution drives the policy direction of the commission/agency. Wherein a deputy works efficiently under the supervision of the head, it becomes difficult for such deputy to operate in contrast to such policy direction. This seemingly breeds respect, coordination, growth and institutional motivation. It will be expedient, not contrary to law, for heads of these institutions to hold ONLY tenure position! In addition, it is recommended that the lifespan of such tenure should not extend beyond the presidential timeframe of the appointing authority. About The Author: Urias Goll is an environmental economist and 2018 prospective graduate of the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law. He can be reached through uriasgoll@gmail.com President George Manneh Weah A consultant of the South-South Professional Inc. informed me that the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD) has asserted that former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her lieutenants did not award 66 fraudulent concessionary agreements to private investors during the last twelve years. Well, yes, President Dr. George Weah has rejected the findings of a foreign audit firm that former President Sirleaf administration awarded 66 fraudulent agreements and replaced it with African Peer Review Mechanisms conclusion that 66 agreements met internationally best practices, the consultant added. Predictably, the real motive of this action along with previous efforts on the part of Dr. Weah government is to reduce the possibility of prosecuting former President Sirleaf and her lieutenants, if any, stated the consultant. Further, the consultant stated that although the Draft PAPD had stated that concessionary agreements were short on benefits and that affected communities should be consulted, and significant benefits should accrue to the communities, the Final PAPD changed such statements. The first sentence of the last paragraph on page # 14, PAPD states that the 2018 APRM (African Peer Review Mechanism) concluded that these concessionary agreements in Liberia met internationally best practices and brought benefitsnevertheless, implementation of the business and investment policies have been deeply flawed due to a combination of limited capacity to effectively monitor compliance with the agreement and lack of political will for enforcement. Interestingly, how did APRM reach the conclusion that the concessionary agreements brought benefits, but at the same time concluded that implementation of business and investment policies have been deeply flawed due to the lack of political will to enforce policies? How did private investors bring benefits to the communities, if the same private investors did not implement business and investment policies because government bureaucrats failed to enforce policies? In any case, does APRM have the technical personnel to conduct an audit? I do not know if African Peer Review Mechanism hires specialists, including auditors, investigators, lawyers, etc., to perform a quality audit. However, it was established in 2003 as a self-monitoring initiative to promote good governance in Africa and contributes to the goals of the Millennium Development Corporation. (www.africaportal.org). On the other hand, the report of the Audit Firm (Tim Woodward Partner-Moore Stephens LLP) was completed on May 10, 2013: (www.leiti.org.lr). Audit Firm Concluded: Concession agreements contained invalid clauses; 66 agreements: Legal requirement for private use permit applications not met; 18 agreements Lack of social agreements between land owners and investors; 10 agreements Lack of Public Procurement and concession commission approval; 18 agreements Inconsistent Private Use Permit contract; 2 agreements Private Use Permit over Community Forest land; 19 agreements Without testing the consultants assumption that President Weah government is searching for ways to shield the former President and her subordinates from prosecution, if any, let us look at previous efforts? And, yes records of this administrations indicate that the idea to shield former President Sirleaf and her advisers from prosecution is not new. For instance, CDC administration is silent about the Wologizi Mountain corruption case (big boy # 1 and big boy # 2); and Global Witness May 29, 2018 report, which shows Exxons 2013 purchase of Liberias Block 13 oil leases. In fact, the Minister of Finance, Planning and Development, Mr. Samuel Tweah laid out the vision of Dr. George Weah on the prosecution of individuals during the July 26, 2018, Independence Day Speech. He stated that President Weah government would not institute any audit or investigation of his predecessor. Dr. Weah government prefers reconciliation than prosecuting people, the Minister added. For example, the government will not implement recommendations from KPMG forensic audit findings, which demand that individuals should account for the US $19 million Central Bank of Liberia paid on behalf of First International Bank (Liberia) Limited. (developingmarkets.com). Further, he stated that there was no need to rush with the process of prosecution since a government would commence prosecution any time in the future. Was the Minister assuming, wrongly, that Liberia did not have the law on statute of limitation? Or is delaying the process of investigation another way to prevent prosecution since the statute of limitation law might set in? The statute of limitation law states that no one (defendant or plaintiff) can initiate an investigation or prosecution of an issue that has been open for more than three or five years. Will the process of investigating the L$16 billion sagas go beyond three years? Again, why is CDC administration taking more time to determine if the Central Bank of Liberia and Ministry of Finance received and recorded L$16 billion? These two institutions are required to have recorded and kept business transactions, especially so since the Central Bank of Liberia printed more banknotes than the initially approved amount. Where are the documents exchanged between former President Sirleaf and her lieutenants pertaining to the printing and receipts of the banknotes in 2016 and 2017? Who authorized the printing of banknotes in one country (i.e., according to the former President) or the three countries as asserted by the current Minister of Information Cultural Affairs and Tourism? Delaying an investigation, for example, the L$16 billion saga, is one thing; however, changing the findings of an investigation is quite different. It is interesting because asserting that the 66 agreements were not fraudulent, replacing the audit findings that 66 agreements were fraudulent might go beyond the mission to prevent prosecution of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her advisers. This is because the audit findings imply that multinational corporations gave bribes in exchange for the 66 fraudulent concessionary agreements. The 66 fraudulent agreements finding does not only indicate that President Sirleaf failed and did not fight corruption, but it also undermines the propaganda that big business is transparent and efficient. Also, it adds on to another corruption findings that that multinational corporations are corrupt, according to African Union Committee on financial illicit flows from Africa. The former President of South Africa, Mr. Thabo Mbeki Committee on illicit financial flows out of Africa concluded that multinational corporations siphon 95% of the US $60 billion out of Africa every year. Further, the African Union Committee stated that local government bureaucrats are responsible for only 3% to 5%, a statement that does not support the views of private investors who continue to assert that poor countries are failing because of the failures of local bureaucrats. Multinational corporations did not only expose their corrupt actions in Africa says Transparency International. The international nongovernmental agency stated that multinational corporations are always offering bribes across the world in order to make more money. They (private investors) initiate bribes because they use bribes to grease the wheel of business, proponents of private investors argue. Well, globally, multinational corporations are not only perceived as corrupt, but they have challenges in trickling down a reasonable share of the dividends of the wealth of countries. Additionally, many countries that limit the involvement of private investors countries such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, Botswana, etc. are winning against big business. Germany, Japan, Botswana continue to generate more revenue because government bureaucrats are involved in the management of profit-making activities. Therefore, more findings showing that big business is corrupt might have a negative impact on the propaganda that big business is transparent, honest and not corrupt. Therefore, former president Sirleaf and many sympathizers of private investors are encouraging the friendly government to put corruption charges against big business under the rug. So, Dr. Weah and the Ruling Party (CDC) might be under the influence of former President Sirleaf and big business. Like everyone else, former President Sirleaf wants a good legacy. And I guess, that is part of the reason she is encouraging her international friends to arrange countless recognitions and awards. And, asking her President, Dr. Weah, is understandable, except that Liberians might find it difficult to protect the countrys resources from unscrupulous investors. jyanqui@aol.com Montreal, CA (H4T1V6) Today Cloudy with occasional light rain late. Low around 5C. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Cloudy with occasional light rain late. Low around 2C. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Forerunner for the signing of a programme contract for the Medieval City, an institution that operated successfully from 1986 until 2004 A cooperation memorandum that will define the conditions and the funding of the works for the promotion and protection of the Medieval City of Rhodes was signed on Saturday at the Knights Palace, according to ANA. The memorandum was signed by Greek Alternate Shipping and Island Policy Minister Nektarios Santorinios, Deputy Culture Minister Constantinos Stratis, the regional governor of southern Aegean Giorgos Hatzimarkos and the mayor of Rhodes Fotis Hatzidiakos. A series of important works to the Medieval City's infrastructures along with excavations and maintenance works had been held in the institution's framework. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Norbert Nagel, Morfelden-Walldorf, Germany License: CC-BY-SA Australian Celtic punk-rock act The Rumjacks are marking their 10-year anniversary with a tour of Europe, revisiting career milestones and presenting their brand-new album, Saints Preserve Us. They will be performing at Athens's Piraeus Academy on Saturday and at the Ghetto bar in Patra on Sunday, with doors opening at both venues at 8.30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at www.viva.gr or by calling 11876. Piraeus Academy, 117 Pireos, Gazi, tel 210.882.0426; Ghetto, 8 Evmilou, tel 2610.622.677 Read more at ekathimerini.com RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Horcruxs License: CC-BY-SA At the 94 Opa! restaurants, spread across the prairies, British Columbia and Ontario, patrons can savor traditional Greek delicacies like souvlaki, calamari, spanakopita, tzatziki, and Greek salad Greek-Canadian fast food giant Opa! of Greece is celebrating 20 years of introducing Greek food to a wider Canadian clientele. The chain has contributed to the recognition of Greek cuisine in Canada and has earned a reputation based on quality ingredients and meraki. At the 94 Opa! restaurants, spread across the prairies, British Columbia and Ontario, patrons can savor traditional Greek delicacies like souvlaki, calamari, spanakopita, tzatziki, and Greek salad. The chains CEO, Theodore Dorris Karras, spoke to Troy Media about two decades of great food and friendly service, in the spirit of Opa!, an exclamation used by Greeks while listening to popular music and dancing with family and friends. Karras noted that Opa! began 20 years ago by Nick Tiginagas and Don Gebauer, who opened the first location in Market Mall in Calgary. At the time, Greek food was rarely found in food courts, but Opa! changed that. The great advantage of the Greek food served by Opa! was that it was healthy. Moreover, it was tasty, so it was a matter of time that it gained many loyal fans. After Calgary, Opa! spread to more locations throughout Ontario and Western Canada, thanks to Tiginagas passion and dedication. We offered fresh, real food prepared right in front of customers to their specification, points out Karras. Though this kind of customization has come to be expected by consumers today, 20 years ago, it was a novel idea. As consumers have become more health conscious and as their pallets have become more adventurous, weve also grown alongside them, continuing to develop new menu items that remain faithful to our tradition of offering fresh Greek food at competitive prices served by franchisees and staff who pride themselves on connecting with each customer they serve, he continued. Karras added that the Opa! franchise continues to expand, with another dozen locations opening in the next year throughout British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. Ultimately, the company plans to extend from coast to coast. Also in the cards is an expansion into the United States, with the chains first U.S. location expected to open in the Fashion Square Mall food court in Las Vegas in late spring 2019. Read more at greekreporter.com RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Photo Source: facebook.com/OPAofGreece Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has signed a landmark agreement with China Banking Association (CBA) which will benefit 2,000 financial firms in the Centre and 695 member units of the Association. This will be a significant addition to the Centres global network of strategic partnerships. DIFC and CBA will collaborate on sharing best practices and delivering enhanced services to their communities of over 2,000 active registered firms operating in the Centre, and 695 member units in the Association in the areas of financial services and FinTech. Additionally, the two entities will explore ways of providing education and professional training to the relevant members of their respective communities, in areas of common interest and mutual benefit. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Arif Amiri, chief executive officer of DIFC Authority, and Guangwei Pan, chief executive officer of China Banking Association. This partnership with China Banking Association is a strategic milestone in cementing DIFCs longstanding connection to Chinas financial community. What we aim to create, together with China Banking Association, is a stream of opportunities and best practices that allow our communities to collaborate on unlocking new areas for development, said Arif Amiri. The world-class infrastructure we have built in DIFC is rapidly becoming the ideal gateway for Chinese institutions to access the fast-growing markets of the MEASA region and undertake activities that support Belt and Road initiatives. This is not limited to large financial institutions, but also applies to some of Chinas most exciting FinTech firms, he added. Guangwei Pan said: As the economic powerhouse of the UAE, the first Arab state of the Persian Gulf that built a strategic partnership with China, Dubai is a perfect place for Chinese banks to tap into the MEASA markets and work with local institutions in Belt and Road Initiative. This reciprocal MoU identified numerous areas in which the two entities can work together, such as Fintech, trainings and regulatory information sharing. As China is opening its door wider and recently launched more favourable policy for foreign financial institutions, this MoU comes just at the right time, further benefiting the UAEs financial institutions for their development in China. DIFC is home to the regional headquarters of Chinas four largest banks in terms of total assets; ICBC, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, and Agricultural Bank of China. These banks manage and oversee investments across Africa, Central Europe and the Middle East through the internationally-recognised platform of DIFC. Earlier this month, DIFC has received a high-profile delegation from the Peoples Government of the Hubei Province in China to discuss collaboration opportunities as part of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative. The parties also explored new areas of growth that would be of interest and benefit to Chinese institutions based in the Centre. TradeArabia News Service APM Terminals Bahrain, the exclusive operator of Bahrains Khalifa Bin Salman Port (KBSP), has announced the initial public offering (IPO) of 18,000,000 of its shares equating to an offer size of BD11.88 million ($31.2 million). The IPO, which will offer 20 per cent of the companys total issued share capital, is now open to Bahraini and non-Bahraini corporate and individual investors, starting November 8. APM Terminals Bahrain is a joint-venture between Netherlands-based APM Terminals International BV (80 per cent) and YBA Kanoo Holdings of Bahrain (20 per cent), a leading diversified regional business group. The offer shares are priced at BD0.660 per share, equating to a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 5.7x 2017s net earnings of BD10.4 million. The IPO stands to raise BD 11.88 million, in what is the first IPO for a transport and logistics company in the Kingdom to list on the Bahrain Bourse. Mark Hardiman, CEO/managing director, APM Terminals Bahrain said: Today is a significant moment for APM Terminals Bahrain as we move forward to launch our IPO, with an opportunity to invest in a successful public-private partnership and Bahrains only commercial port. Being the only commercial port, KBSP plays a vital role in the economic development of the Kingdom of Bahrain by facilitating smooth trade flows, which has been possible with APM Terminals bringing in the required expertise, competitiveness and operational excellence as per international standards. We are excited about the IPO and look forward with confidence to our next stage of growth for APM Terminals Bahrain as a publicly listed company, he added. The company which operates a global network of 74 operating ports and terminal facilities and over 117 Inland Services operations spread over 58 countries, is part of the A P Moller Maersk group, a global business headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, with activities in the transport and logistics which includes the biggest container ship operator in the world. APM Terminals Bahrain has been successfully driving forward the operations of Kingdoms only commercial port, KBSP since 2009. Over the past nine years, the company has contributed towards positioning KBSP as a hub with its world-class operations and logistical solutions, serving both the country and the wider region, in line with the Kingdoms Economic Vision 2030. Najla Al Shirawi, the CEO of Sico, the mandated lead manager for the IPO, said: The much-anticipated public offering of APM Terminals is a proxy on the Kingdoms growing non-oil economy, it offers investors extremely attractive pricing and a dividend yield of 15.5 per cent on the offer price based on dividends paid in 2017. Given the strong investor appetite that we have been witnessing we wanted to ensure that retail investors have equal access to the market opportunity by allocating up to 15,000 priority shares per retail applicant within their 30 per cent allocation. We look forward to a highly-successful, fully-subscribed IPO in the weeks to come. The APM Terminals Bahrain IPO offering will commence on November 8 and will be open for a period of 17 days until November 24 during which potential investors can submit their applications. The prospectus of APM Terminals Bahrains IPO is electronically available on the websites of Bahrain Bourse and the company as well as Sico. IPO Application forms and printed copies of the prospectus can be collected from the ten approved branches of Ahli United Bank (AUB) in Bahrain, in Manama, Seef Mall (Muharraq), Gudaibiya, Riffa, Sitra, Budaiya, Hamad Town, Isa Town Mall, Exhibition road, Mercado Mall (Saar); as well as from Bahrain Bourse and APM Terminals Bahrain. Furthermore, clients of the brokerage units of any of Sico, AUB, Global Investment House BSC or BBK BSC can also apply for shares through their brokers. Shares will subsequently be allotted on November 29. The IPO is structured with 70 per cent of the shares on offer allocated to institutional investors (i.e., those applying for over 100,000 shares) while 30 per cent of the shares have been allocated to retail investors (i.e., those applying for up to 100,000 shares). Immediately following the IPO, on December 9, the companys shares will be listed and will commence trading on the Bahrain Bourse under the ticker symbol APMTB. All applicants that have been allocated shares in the IPO are then eligible to trade by opening an account with a Bahrain Bourse registered brokerage if they do not already have one. Furthermore, applicants allotted shares in the IPO will be eligible to any dividends distributed by the company for the full year ended 31 December 2018.The company has also appointed Sico to provide price stabilization and market making services from the start of trading on the Bahrain Bourse. Sico is the mandated lead manager, underwriter and market maker, while AUB has been appointed as the receiving bank with ten of its branches across Bahrain registered for the IPO offer, along with two additional receiving desks at Bahrain Bourse and APM Terminals Bahrain during the offer period. Bahrain Bourse is the Listing Exchange for the company and Trowers & Hamlins and Hassan Radhi & Associates are the legal advisors. KPMG Fakhro is the financial due diligence advisor and auditor to APM Terminals Bahrain; while Bahrain Clear is the allotment agent for the IPO and share registrar for the company. TradeArabia News Service A'Saffa Foods, a fully integrated poultry and processed food producer based in Oman, was recently honoured with Omans Most Trusted Brand award in the poultry segment. The award instituted by Apex Press and Publishing was presented to a representative from ASaffa Foods at a special function held at the Crowne Plaza, Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre, under the auspices of Sayyida Tania Al Said and the patronage of Talal Al Rahbi, deputy secretary general of Supreme Council for Planning and the general coordinator for the Tanfeedh programme. In its 2018 edition, Omans Most Trusted Brand Awards endorsed top performing brands in the country, based on public feedback obtained in a survey conducted by Apex Press and Publishing. The awards ceremony was attended by their highnesses, excellences, chairmen, managing directors, chief executive officers, and senior executives from the corporate sector. Sidhartha Lenka, head of marketing and sales, said: Nothing comes close to the recognition and appreciation received from a customer. It is hence an honour to be voted as the most trusted brand in Oman in the poultry category. This award is a reflection of our commitment towards quality products; and our customer-centric approach. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to all those who voted for us, he added. Lenka elaborated: ASaffa Foods has had a strong presence in Oman and beyond for more than a decade. Being named a trusted brand is a great compliment to our entire team; who work tirelessly to understand and ensure that our customers needs are constantly met. ASaffa Foods is investing heavily in enhancing their operations and developing their people, while remaining focused on delivering innovative food solutions to meet the needs of customers. Achievements such as these are an important part of the companys strategy and vision. The companys board of directors have approved an expansion plan to raise chicken meat production capacity by 100 per cent and continue in their endeavour to foster and support food security, self-sufficiency and increased employment opportunities in the sultanate. The total capital expenditure outlay of the expansion is RO45 million. It is noteworthy that ASaffa Foods has also won the mid-cap category for Best Performing Companies, at the Alam Al-Iktissad Wal-Amal (AIWA) magazines Awards this year. The company takes pride in being accredited and certified by the international certifying body TUV and has been given the ISO 9001:2008 - Total Quality Management System, ISO 14001:2004 - Environmental Management System and HACCP - for Food Quality and Hygiene Proud. Having a fully integrated parent farm, hatchery, feed mill, processing plant and other processing facilities, ASaffa Foods is also a winner of the prestigious international Cobb Champion Award for breeder performance, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Adnoc Distribution, the UAEs largest fuel and convenience retailer, has signed an agreement with Japan Cooperation Centre Petroleum (JCCP) to supply, install and pilot the use of a photovoltaic (PV) solar power system at one of its service stations on Yas Island. The signing ceremony, held at Adnoc Distributions head office, was attended by Abdulla Salem Al Dhaheri, director of marketing, sales and trading at Adnoc Group and member of the Adnoc Distribution board of directors; Kanji Fujiki, the Japanese Ambassador to the UAE; Saeed Mubarak Al Rashdi, Aanoc Distributions acting chief executive officer; John Carey, Adnoc Distributions deputy chief executive officer; Eiji Hiraoka, JCCPs senior executive director; and Ryota Seno, Abu Dhabi general manager of Cosmo Engineering. The renewable energy agreement, which will see PV solar power installed at the Yas North service station, reflects Adnoc Distributions commitment to efficiency, sustainability and the environment as it transforms and modernises its operations by piloting and adopting the latest technologies. Saeed Al Rashdi, Adnoc Distributions acting chief executive officer, said: "For many years, the UAE and Japan have together been building strong bilateral relations that span trade and investment, culture, tourism and education. Solar energy and, more broadly, energy efficiency are areas of particular strength in Japan, and we are delighted to be the host for this project as it aligns well with our own goals for Adnoc Distribution. "As we transform our business model to become more customer-centric, we continue to invest in upgrading our operations to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Our agreement with JCCP is an important addition to our programmes to drive greater efficiency with the organisation. As well as the work we are doing on solar power, we have a growing natural gas vehicle, NGC, operation available at 24 stations, and are actively installing electric vehicle chargers. There is serious momentum to our alternative fuels offering," he added. JCCP has previously worked with Adnoc Group on several environmental awareness initiatives to fulfil its objective of promoting mutually beneficial cooperation between oil-producing countries and Japan. This includes regular environmental seminars, lectures and training sessions presented by JCCP and hosted in cooperation with the Adnoc Groups environment departments. Ambassador Fujiki said: "I am very happy to be witnessing this exciting moment today as this signing will help further promote the utilisation of solar energy use in the UAE, a steady step towards achieving a green economy in line with the UAEs pioneer leaders vision. This is a pilot step in a number of initiatives that will help introduce small power generation facilities for businesses to use and for households in the UAE in the near future." "I would like to commend the leadership and the management team of the Adnoc Group and Adnoc Distribution for adopting the direction of utilising renewable energy, which will help transform their business model into a green decarbonised one in collaboration with Japans JCCP and Cosmo Engineering. This is another bold step in the right direction, following last years IPO of Adnoc Distribution," Ambassador Fujiki added. Eiji Hiraoka, JCCPs senior executive director, said: "JCCP has worked relentlessly to promote friendly relations between oil-producing countries and Japan since 1981, while the UAE remains one of our main partners, Adnoc Group and Adnoc Distribution are among our key stakeholders in the country and thus we are keen on achieving maximum technical cooperation, knowledge and personnel exchanges across the downstream operations including promoting world-class operational technologies similar to the ones implemented in Adnocs Yas North Service Station." RAKGas, a wholly Ras Al Khaimah Government-owned oil and gas exploration and production company, through its international subsidiary RAKGas Zanzibar, has signed an oil and gas production sharing agreement with the Government of Zanzibar. This is the first such agreement Zanzibar has signed following its implementation of the Oil and Gas (Upstream) Act of 2016, a statement said. Negotiations regarding the Production Sharing Agreement for the acreage known as Pemba Zanzibar Block, which measures 11,868 sq km, have now been concluded and RAKGas Zanzibar is executing the agreement with the Zanzibar Government and the Zanzibar Petroleum Development Company. Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, arrived in Zanzibar after receiving a formal invitation from President Dr. Ali Mohamed Shein of the Zanzibar Government to witness the signing of this historic agreement. RAKGas has been pursuing exploration opportunities in the Middle East and Africa and this year opened a licensing round in Ras Al Khaimah to allow for prospective companies to bid for acreage. RAKGas International chief executive officer Kamal Ataya said: This Production Sharing Agreement between RAKGas and the Government of Zanzibar is an important milestone for everyone involved and heralds a fruitful partnership between Ras Al Khaimah and Zanzibar. RAKGas is proud to be the company to enter into Zanzibars first-ever exploration project. TradeArabia News Service Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has signed an amendment to the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the consortium led by Saudi Arabias Acwa Power for Phase Four of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. The amendment includes adding 250 MW of photovoltaic solar panels, at a cost of 2.4 US cents per kilowatt hour, the world's lowest. The agreement was signed by Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive of Dewa and Mohammad Abdullah Abunayyan, the chairman of Acwa Power in the presence of Ishaq Al Hammadi, the managing director at Acwa Power-UAE and Abdul Hamid Al Muhaidib, the executive managing director of Noor Energy 1. Senior Dewa officials, Waleed Salman, the executive VP of Business Development and Excellence; Nasser Lootah, executive VP of Generation; and Jamal Shaheen Al Hammadi, VP of Clean Energy & Diversification were also present. Noor Energy 1 was launched in a partnership between Dewa, Acwa Power and Chinas Silk Road Fund to build the Phase Four of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. With this addition, the total capacity of the fourth phase of the solar park will rise from 700MW to 950MW, said a statement from Dewa. Following the amendment, the total investment for the ambitious project has reached Dh16 billion. This achievement is part of Dewas efforts to achieve the objectives of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050. Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said: "The capacity expansion of the Al Maktoum Solar Parks further consolidates the UAEs leadership in the field of sustainable development and provides another impetus to our clean energy strategy." "The UAEs leaders accord this sector high priority in their vision for the nations future. Furthermore, being at the forefront of technological advancement in this sector is critical to Dubais aspiration of becoming one of the leading cities of the world. We see this project being a unique model for large clean energy projects elsewhere in the world," stated Sheikh Hamdan. "This ambitious initiative also adds a new facet to our cooperation with two of our strongest partners, Saudi Arabia and China. The project brings together a distinctive combination of advanced knowledge and expertise to create the largest single-site solar park in the world," he added. According to Dewa, the project will use three technologies to produce clean energy: 600MW from a parabolic basin complex, 100MW from a solar tower and 250MW from photovoltaic panels. The fourth phase is the largest investment project in the world using Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) on a single site, and is based on the Independent Power Producer (IPP) model, said the Dubai utility firm. This project has already achieved many world records. It achieved the lowest Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of USD 7.3 cents per kilowatt hour (kW/h) for the CSP technology, the lowest worldwide. The project will have the worlds tallest solar tower at 260 metres, and the largest thermal energy storage capacity in the world of 15 hours, which allows for energy generation round the clock, it added.-TradeArabia News Service The Embassy of Ireland, Abu Dhabi has announced the opening of a visa application centre in Dubai, in partnership with VFS Global, a leading outsourcing and technology services specialist for diplomatic missions worldwide. Earlier this year in June, the Embassy had opened its first visa application centre in Abu Dhabi. The Dubai centre, the fourth outsourced processing centre for Ireland visas in the GCC, has started accepting visa applications from non-UAE nationals who are based in the UAE and who require a visa in order to enter Ireland. In addition, they will no longer need to visit the Embassy and instead they should submit their visa applications only at the VFS Global centres in the UAE. Opening the visa application centre in Dubai, minister Mary Mitchell OConnor, TD Ireland, and accompanied by ambassador Aidan Cronin, Embassy of Ireland, Abu Dhabi, said she very much welcomed the opening of the centre and that the new external visa application centre located in downtown Dubai and operated by VFS Global will provide an excellent streamlined service for non-UAE nationals who are based in Dubai and who require a visa in order to enter Ireland. Ambassador Cronin also welcomed the opening of the centre and added that this is the second visa application centre in the UAE and the fourth outsourced processing centre for Ireland visas in the GCC. He also said that VFS Global provides a whole range of services for the customer. The centre in Dubai is located at Level 3, Falcon Phase 2, Wafi Mall, Umm Hurair 2. Commenting on the new centre, Vinay Malhotra, regional group COO for Middle East, South Asia & China, VFS Global, said: VFS Global operates Ireland visa application centres across 15 countries. We are committed to providing an enhanced experience in visa application services to our customers who will be delighted with the convenience the new centre offers. UAE has a large number of travellers to Ireland for leisure and business, and this new centre will bring visa application services to their close proximity. The visa application centre is managed by professionals who are trained to provide secure and time-efficient processing of entry permit requirements in a friendly ambience. Applicants can also opt for the comfort of a Visa @ Door step service or the Platinum Lounge for even more personalised service. Some of the key features of the centre include convenience in terms of location, appointment system, automated queue governance for smooth flow of applicants and a dedicated website for easy access to information including visa categories, requirements, check-list and applicable fees. Apart from these, VFS Global staff is well trained in the secure handling of passports, documents and personal information. - TradeArabia News Service Siblings Rahaf, 8, and Ahmed, 2, outside their tent at the Dharawan settlement in Yemen in May 2017. Displaced from Taizz governorate since early in the conflict, they miss their home. UNHCR/Mohammed Hamoud UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie today called for the urgent establishment of a ceasefire in Yemen and a lasting settlement to the conflict. She welcomed recent discussion of a halt to hostilities, and called on the United Nations Security Council, working with countries in the region, to find a negotiated end to the conflict and to uphold international laws on the protection of civilians. She appealed for greater understanding of refugee protection laws, and for all countries to play their part in alleviating the human suffering in Yemen. Jolie is currently visiting South Korea, where several hundred Yemenis are being hosted after fleeing the conflict. She said: As an international community we have been shamefully slow to act to end the crisis in Yemen. We have watched the situation deteriorate to the point that Yemen is now on the brink of man-made famine, and facing the worst cholera epidemic in the world in decades. When conflict develops to this extent, many people have no choice but to flee if they are to have any chance of survival. The only way to enable refugees to return home, and to bring down the overall numbers worldwide, is to end conflicts themselves. I hope there can be greater understanding of the human realities causing people to flee, the strict legal criteria and process by which refugee status is determined by UNHCR, working with national authorities, and our shared responsibility to assist refugees until they can return home. Without a global response based on international law and collective responsibility, we risk much greater instability and insecurity over the long term, which would have a negative impact on all countries. Angelina Jolie is in South Korea in her role as a Special Envoy for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, advocating for vitally needed support for refugees globally. Her visit to Seoul follows that of UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on 23-24 October. Meeting with South Korean Justice Minister Park Sang-ki, who heads the ministry responsible for domestic refugee policies, Jolie expressed appreciation for South Koreas efforts to help around 500 Yemenis who arrived in the countrys tourist island of Jeju in May. She acknowledged the importance of the thorough procedures and vetting in place as well as efforts to provide protection until the time when they are able to safely return to their country of origin. She also expressed UNHCR's wish to work more closely with the Korean authorities on strengthening their asylum system. Angelina Jolie conveyed UNHCRs thanks to the people of South Korea for their support to refugees worldwide. The private sector in South Korea is donating millions, largely from some 230,000 generous individual donors, demonstrating South Koreans' strong sense of solidarity with refugees and UNHCR. She noted that South Korea, with its own history of overcoming war and displacement and as one of the largest economies in the world, has the potential to play an important leadership role in the region. Jolie also welcomed South Koreas recent efforts to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula. In Seoul, the Special Envoy also met South Korean actor and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Jung Woo-sung. They discussed the recent public concerns in Korea over the arrival of Yemenis in Jeju, as well as their respective missions with UNHCR. Jolie was a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador from 2001-2012 before she was appointed Special Envoy for the organization. Jung became a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador for Korea in 2015. Images from the Special Envoy's visit are available on Refugees Media. 'Operation Cactus' reflects mighty India's military and diplomatic skills: Ashok K Chordia Hyderabad, Nov 4 (UNI) `Operation Cactus', the most difficult India's air-born operation in Maldives, reflects India's military and diplomatic skills and it has showcased India as an emerging Regional Power, Group Captain Ashok K Chordia (Retd), who was part of the operation and author of book "Operation Cactus", said. Speaking at a seminar on Operation Cactus: Anatomy of One of Indias Most Daring Military Operations organized by Social Cause, Hyderabad, to mark the 30th anniversary of the operation and release of the book here on Sunday, Ashok K Chordia said that the decision to launch an airborne operation, more than 2500 kms away in the Maldives was a difficult politico-military choice. Digital platforms successfully used de-duplication of LPG connections: Pradhan New Delhi, Nov 3 (UNI) Petroleum & Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said here on Saturday that digital platforms have been successfully used in the schemes of DBTL in de-duplication of the LPG connections and Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana(PMUY) in release of 5.75 Crore Ujjawala connections in just two and half years. An MoU for collaboration in LPG services was signed between Oil Marketing Companies (IOCL, HPCL & BPCL) and Common Service Centres (CSC) e-Governance Services India Limited in presence of Mr Pradhan and Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Speaking on the Occasion, Mr Pradhan said that this MoU will help in filling the gaps in reaching the rural and far-flung areas, by appropriate use of the technology and harnessing the enterprising spirit of the people of India. The Minister said that CSCs work at the grassroot level will help in reaching the people at the bottom of the pyramid. He said that the pilot scheme is already running and he expects to involve over 1 lakh CSCs, particularly in rural area, in next 2-3 months. Describing the CSCs as the change agents, he said that they will help in booking and delivery of LPG cylinders and booking of new connections. He informed that in the PMUY, 80 per cent refillings are being done. CSC SPV and OMCs have agreed to facilitate their distributors to avail services through Common Services Centers including booking new LPG connection (Ujjwala & General category), booking of LPG refills (14.2 Kg cylinders) and supply & distribution of LPG cylinders (storage up to 100 Kgs,) through CSCs. Common Services Centre will help beneficiaries to provide the above OMCs service near to their home, accessing through Digital Seva Portal. Congratulating the partners in the MoU, Mr Prasad said this is an apt example of Digital inclusion, using technology for the benefit of the common man. He said that the number of CSCs has increased almost 4 fold in last four and half years, and it is offering a bouquet of services, providing direct benefit to the common man, largely in non-metro areas. Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) and CSC SPV agreed to provide the benefits of Ujjawla connection,refilling of new connection and other services through CSCs for last mile access at their doorstep. Common Services Centre will help beneficiaries to provide the above OMCs service near to their home, accessing through Digital Seva Portal. Beneficiary can visit the nearby CSCs across India to get the services of OMCs. CSCs will help a beneficiary in booking a new gas connection request, refilling request and delivery of Gas Cylinder and help to scan, upload KYC documents for verification of his/her identity for new booking connection. Beneficiaries can collect the Gas Cylinder from their nearby Common Services Centres. CSCs will also provide requisite information about the scheme and promote it among citizens so that maximum number of beneficiaries can avail the benefit, according to an official statement. UNI RSA ADG 1826 Union Minister Goyal announces handloom cluster at Mirabai's village 20 Nov 2021 | 9:58 PM Imphal, Nov 20 (UNI) Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce and Industry and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal has announced that a Mega Handloom Cluster will be set up at Nongpok Kakching village of Imphal East district, the native village of Tokyo Olympics Silver Medalist, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, at a cost of Rs. 30 crore to honour her feat that has made the whole country proud. see more.. Govt committed to check irregularities in sand mining: Janak 20 Nov 2021 | 9:53 PM Patna, Nov 20 (UNI) Bihar mining and mineral Minister Janak Ram on Saturday said that the government was committed to check irregularities in sand Mining in the state. see more.. Directions for unlock 9 issued, COVID test compulsory for those coming to Bihar from outside 20 Nov 2021 | 9:51 PM Patna, Nov 20 (UNI) Under the Unlock 9 directives issued today, the COVID test has been made compulsory for those coming to Bihar from the other states. see more.. Meghalaya celebrates World Fisheries Day 20 Nov 2021 | 9:30 PM Shillong, Nov 20 (UNI) Along with the rest of the world, Meghalaya on Saturday celebrated World Fisheries Day as part of the States Golden Jubilee Celebration. see more.. By Anish Singh New Delhi, Nov 4 (UNI) Amidst China's expansion of its naval forays into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the Indian Navy has emerged as a key instrument of Indias foreign policy and developing an effective mechanism for defence diplomacy initiatives for proactive engagement with IOR littorals that include Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Mauritius, Australia among others. As a concerted effort to expand its footprint in the IOR, the Indian Navy has signed technical agreements for sharing of white shipping information with 18 countries and also operationalized the same with 11 nations, an official in the defence ministry said. The white sharing agreements, which enable exchange of unclassified information, are not security pacts per se, but would help augment existing capabilities to develop Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), thus aiding maritime security. Also, it has set up a grid of coastal surveillance radar system (CSRS) in the IOR that will enable greater maritime transparency in the IOR. The surveillance radar systems have been set up in Mauritius, Seychelles and and an automatic identification system (AIS) at Sri Lanka. It is also moving forward for installation of a CSR chain at Maldives after months of political turbulence in the Island nation. We have offered CSRS solutions to some other countries too, said the official. In an effort to provide a common platform for its littoral countries, the Indian Navy had launched Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in 2008. Its a voluntary. initiative that seeks to increase maritime co-operation among navies of the littoral states of the Indian Ocean Region by providing an open and inclusive forum for discussion of regionally relevant maritime issues. The Indian Navy is organizing the 10th edition of symposium on November 13 and 14 at Kochi in Kerala. It is expected that Chiefs of Navies and delegates from 30 countries will attend the event. India has signed the Communication Capability & Security Agreement (COMCASA) with the US, Implementing Agreement for Logistics Support with Singapore, Logistics Support Agreement with France and Implementing Arrangement for Deeper Cooperation with Japan which is set to transform the Indian Navys reach and capabilities well beyond the IOR. Also, it has operationalized the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the US which provides for undertaking fueling with the US navy tanker under the ambit of LEMOA. All these initiatives have been undertaken to position the Indian Navy as a dependable partner for IOR littoral nations and to emerge as the First Port of Call to meet their maritime security needs. UNI ASH AR 1605 US denounces terrorist attack against Coptic Christian in Egypt Washington, Nov 4 (UNI) US had strongly condemned a deadly terrorist attack on a bus carrying Coptic Christians near the Monastery of St Samuel in Minya, Egypt. "Todays deadly attack on a bus heading towards a Coptic Christian monastery in Upper Egypt. We extend our condolences to the families of these innocent victims. We remain steadfast in our support of Egypts efforts to combat terrorism and violence against religious communities," the Department of State said in a statement on Friday. At least seven people were killed on Friday and 18 others wounded when attackers opened fire on the vehicles, according to the local media. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Ariana Grande. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia Reigning Queen of Petty Ariana Grande has released her new single Thank U, Next shortly before 11 p.m. EST. Thats half an hour before Saturday Night Live. It was widely reported that her ex, Pete Davidson, pulled a sketch about their breakup earlier this week. Apparently commenting on the relationship is only off-limits for one half of the Couple Formerly Known as Grandson. Frankly, we should have known the couple would not last when pete davidson was an interlude instead of a full track on Sweetener. Post-breakup, Grande has been deep in the stu getting the next album ready. On Saturday morning, the No Tears Left to Cry songstress went on an extended tweetstorm hinting at a new album and single, both titled Thank u, next. The songs lyrical content is thankful/grateful/not shady, but its timing couldnt be shadier. Not only is Grande scooping Davidson, shaping the narrative to her wishes, but shes also edging in on Carly Rae Jepsens claim for most optimistic breakup anthem of the fall. Will Party for One or Thank U, Next be the autumnal bop? Only the heartbroken will decide. Daredevil Reunion Season 3 Episode 11 Editors Rating 3 stars * * * Previous Next Photo: David Giesbrecht/Netflix Daredevil cant build momentum to save its life. Why does it have a baffling compulsion to follow up its show-stopper episodes by stopping the show? When done right, this can admittedly be effectiveAftermath was a very good episode that did a lot of work to do narrative justice to an act of shocking violence but most of the time, Daredevil immediately follows big pivotal moments with episodes like Reunion, where most of the cast spends most of their time sitting in a room, talking. For almost its entire running time, Reunion doesnt leave the church that Dex assaulted while dressed as Daredevil at the end of Karen. Matt, whos badly beaten, but not as broken as the end of the previous episode suggested, immediately goes to hide in the church basement with Karen after the FBI swarms the scene, making it impossible to make a clean exit while shes still a target. Dex has exited the church to change into his FBI uniform (unbeknownst to him, Sister Maggie spots Daredevil leaving) and with Nadeem, takes control of the scene, saying Daredevil is still in the church and that they must find him ignoring Maggies account of the opposite. This tips her off to something being amiss with the Feds, who are looking for Karen Page and consider her a suspect, and so she decides to get to Matt and run interference. In the basement, Matt, wracked with guilt over Father Lantoms death, tells Karen how she has to run, because the man in the Daredevil suit is an FBI agent, and the FBI is now in Fisks pocket. Then the two come clean to each other. Karen tells Matt that Fisk knows. Matt tells her he knows presumably hes thought so since Fisk set him up at the prison, but he doesnt really elaborate. What he doesnt know is why Fisk is targeting Karen. So she tells him about her plan to get Fisk riled up, how she killed Wesley, and that she never told him because he always thought of her as innocent. It was nice you thought of me that way, she says. Every once in a while, Daredevil just straight up says what its been trying to do all along, and thats often a shame. This could have been a great line from Karen, one that cuts to the heart of the Karen/Matt/Foggy dynamic, but its really not backed up, because Karens growth and agency in this season mostly takes place in isolation from Matt and Foggy, who never really have to deal with how patronizing of Karen they are. At the very least, Matt knows he has no room to talk, telling Karen that he wants to kill Fisk, and that any judgment she has for him is deserved. Karen, however, is over blaming people. She just feels sad for him, because killing as she learned from getting her brother killed in a car crash because she was drunk and high isnt something you feel like you can take back. Itll change everything about how he feels about himself. Meanwhile, the NYPD arrives at the scene, led by Detective Brett Mahoney. He tells Nadeem that his story isnt lining up, that Karen Page cant be a suspect, that too many witnesses have said Daredevil was there to kill Karen. Nadeem rebuffs him, and Mahoney seems to know what that means. All this time, Nadeem is struggling against his conscience, trying to rein in Dex and wrap up the scene he didnt sign on for a night that would end with a dead priest and another innocent in the crosshairs. Sister Maggie, like any good Daughter of Christ, is very good at spotting guilt, and so she works on Nadeems, asking him if hes a moral person, telling him that Lantom died protecting Karen Page from evil, and whether hes going to help that same evil find her. Shes very good at this. Inside the church, Matt and Karen continue to hash things out: She knows Maggie is his mom, and notes that Matt is foolishly engaging in his favorite activity, pushing people away. He has friends, and hes dumb for ignoring them. That gives Matt an idea. During all this, Fisks power grab is now complete. At the hotel, he holds a press conference where his lawyer announces that Fisks conviction has been overturned, and he is free. (I have a hunch that Daredevil is skipping some steps here, but sure.) Fisk makes his first statement to the media as a free man, placing all the blame on Daredevil, the monster who framed him, and who is now on a rampage through New York. In his eyes, Daredevil is the true Public Enemy No. 1. Back in his penthouse, Fisk gets his ankle bracelet removed and Hatley tells him that, as a DOJ asset, hell continue to receive police protection. He asks about Vanessa, and is told shes being brought back to the States. That leaves only one thing left for him to feel whole again: the white painting Vanessa had gifted him. This leads to the episodes most interesting scene, one that doesnt seem to be of much consequence but nonetheless fascinates me. Fisk arrives in person in the townhouse of the woman who now owns his painting, seeking to negotiate in person after shes turned him down at any price. He tries to play to her sympathies, and says it was a gift from his wife when hes with it, he says, hes with her. The painting was taken from him, and he wants it back. The owner, however, tells Fisk that it was stolen from her first. It belonged to her father, and when the Gestapo came, they killed him and took it. To her, the painting is a connection to the people she loves, people who are no longer here, thanks to wolves like Fisk. She will not let him take it. Fisk seems distressed, and for a moment, its honestly difficult to tell which way the scene will go. Ultimately, Fisk decides to give up, and says good-bye to the painting he believes that Vanessa would want the owner to keep it. All this time has passed and we still havent gotten to the titular reunion, which is in fact very brief. Foggy arrives following a call from Matt, and waltzing onto the scene, distracts Nadeem long enough for Karen to come out and surrender herself to Brett Mahoney and the NYPD. A pissing match follows. Dex is furious and cant abide failing his new authority figure, but Nadeem relents, discreetly telling Mahoney that the FBI is compromised and Karen will die if she enters into their custody. Dex, in turn, tells Nadeem he messed up, implying that hes not long for this world. With Karen out safely, Matt sneaks away from the church and meets his friends on a rooftop. Together, they figure out one last option for bringing Fisk down, by focusing on the man who has everything to lose Rahul Nadeem. Cut to Nadeem, who is speeding to his home, worried for his family. He tells them they have to leave now and then the attack comes. But hes able to get them to safety, and Matt arrives in costume to help him defend them all. Desperate for help, but suspicious that the man sold out to Fisk would want to save him, Matt realizes he has to prove he trusts Nadeem. The guy saved Karen Pages life, after all, so he owes him one. He takes off his mask. Now theyre in it together. Demi Lovato. Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic Demi Lovato is out of rehab, according to TMZ. Over the weekend, she reportedly left the rehab facility she was admitted to nearly three months ago and was photographed leaving a restaurant on Saturday night. Lovato entered rehab in July, after suffering from a nearly fatal overdose and experiencing severe health complications while she was hospitalized. In her final post on social media before entering treatment, she wrote that she needs time to focus on my sobriety and road to recovery. In late October, Lovatos mother, Dianna De La Garza, told Maria Menounos that her daughter was 90 days sober. I couldnt be more thankful or more proud of her because addiction being a disease, its work, she said. Its very hard. Its not easy, and there are no shortcuts. Lovato was expected to be in rehab for several months, working with an addiction specialist who is based in Chicago. It is unclear if her release is directly connected to her 90 days sober, though it is a milestone E! News reports that the weekend could just be temporary. TMZ also reported that she went to dinner at Matsuhisa restaurant in Beverly Hills, happy, smiling and laughing through dinner. An unusual number of guest hosts joined SNLs gilded Five Timers Club during the last stretch of season 42. Tonight, Jonah Hill joins the ranks of those recent additions Scarlett Johansson, Dwayne Johnson, and Melissa McCarthy and those repeated invites since his initial gig in 2008 make perfect sense. His boyish and bawdy tendencies fit right in at SNL. He has a natural ease with the format and an absolute willingness to take it on the chin. (Sketches have regularly mocked his status in Hollywood and made him the focus of more than one toilet clogging.) On top of all this, hes crafted one of the best guest-host characters this side of Tom Hankss Mr. Short-Term Memory: precocious 6-year-old and future Catskills comic Adam Grossman. (A reminder: Were listing sketches not in chronological order but from best to worst.) 1. Benihana This time around, Hills Borscht Belt bambino Adam Grossman sits at Benihana with his nanny Miss Lily (Leslie Jones) and fellow diners Jake and Tony (Mikey Day and Kenan Thompson). Though busy telling his new friends about his parents divorce and achieving every kids dream two Hanukkahs, he tries to put Miss Lily in her place by spouting cliches about Caribbean people and wailing Bob Marley songs. (This, despite the fact she is not Jamaican.) Eventually, Adam learns Jake and Tony are engaged, which only makes him excited to marry his good pal Eli. Im a top and Elis a bottom, he cries. I meant bunk beds! Im six, I dont understand double entendre. If Jones constant crack-ups dont make it clear, the Adam Grossman character hasnt worn out his welcome at all. 2. Teacher Day Something just happened in drivers ed class at Madison High School: Its teacher, Gail (McKinnon), fell to the ground. And there she lies, inert, as maudlin piano music plays and she negotiates the following moments with members of her class (Hill, Bryant, and Pete Davidson). Apparently, teach didnt know she was wearing Heelies, but she wont stand up what if she broke both legs and has to get a full-bottom mermaid cast? What if the kids keep laughing like theyre watching an episode of Friends? The writing is wily, the pacing unusual and McKinnon is brilliant, as usual. The whole sketch is just a slow waltz with McKinnon, whose languid, melodramatic Gail makes the entire case giggle uncontrollably. 3. Jonah Hill Monologue With Tina Fey leading the way, Hill visits the Five-Timers Lounge into which other inductees including Tom Hanks and Justin Timberlake have been ushered. While excited to don the Five-Timers jacket, Hill is a little nonplussed by the fact that only Drew Barrymore and Candice Bergen are hanging out. The guys are no longer allowed in. Turns out, says Fey, Theyre all just a bunch of horny perverts. Steve Martin, for instance, just whips out the banjo and plays it with no consent. As Bergen gets sloshed on a drink called the Pete Davidson, Hill gets fitted with a new Five-Timers jacket one with a lot more sequins than in days past. Its always fun to have drop-ins from the likes of Fey and Bergen, but its even better when the material rises to meet them. This intro toys with #MeToo headlines and the mythos of the club in a really satisfying way, including a moment in which Hill has to rethink the statement, I wanna jacket right now! 4. Caravan Cold Open In this edition of The Ingraham Angle, conservative pundit Laura Ingraham (Kate McKinnon) and her guests condemn the caravan of Guatemalan migrants making their way through Mexico toward the U.S. In consulting with Jeanine Pirro (Cecily Strong), she learns that the caravan includes not only Guatemalans and Mexicans but also ISIS, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos, and several Babadooks. Also, after reviewing footage of the caravan (which looks suspiciously like a zombie attack from World War Z), Pirro tells her the horde is dating Brad Pitt and have adopted the celebrity portmanteau Bradivan. A description of pregnant moms is even more deliciously weird. Then, right at the end, Alec Baldwin takes a hit for his recent arrest. Its funny and some of the language isnt far off from actual Fox News, which means Ingraham and company may be scouring the sketch for a few ideas to use on air. 5. Weekend Update Colin Jost and Michael Che ponder upcoming midterms and the migrant caravan in Updates first half. While Trump sent troops to the border to stop one caravan, Jost imagines that another one just pulled up to landscape Mar-a-Lago. Though not a regular voter, Che feels young liberals who move to metropolitan areas are as much to blame for the nations electoral difficulties: You know how those red states stay so red? By sending their liberal kids to coastal cities to study improv. Then Pete Davidson arrives to give his first impressions of some candidates. For instance, Congressman Peter King looks like what happens if a cigar came to life. At the end of his monologue, Davidson delivers a heartfelt message regarding his breakup with Ariana Grande, saying that its nobodys business and that he wishes her all the happiness in the world. The second half includes some smart and silly material including a joke about a Columbian nun who became a porn star, destroying the otherwise spotless reputation of the Catholic Church. Two characters also show up: Melissa Villasenor as Every Teen Murder Suspect on Law & Order and Kenan Thompson as former Red Sox player David Ortiz. Villasenors character craftily plays on the cliches of the procedural, leaping from needlessly defensive to completely guilty with almost no coercion, in the span of a minute. While Thompson has done Ortiz many times in the past, talking about Dominican food and all kinds of potential lunches, theres something breezy and even more charming about this latest appearance. 6. KCR News As Albanys local meteorologist Drew Mellencamp (Cecily Strong) prepares to give a weather report, shes interrupted by her short-term boyfriend Matt (Hill), bearing roses. The co-anchors of KCR News (Leslie Jones and Kenan Thompson) know whats up, and Drew tries to slow Matts roll by saying no before he asks and encouraging him to get off of his bended knee. Matt is persistent, though, standing in front of the green screen in his green shirt and delivering a rap of love before having his proposal utterly rejected. Before the end of the sketch, however, theres a twist that leaves Matts jaw on the ground. The writers deserve credit not only for the playful concept here, but for the sharp jokes they wrote on their way into the sketch. 7. HuckaPM This sleep aid is one that answers the question, How do you sleep at night? It just so happens that the recipient of the question is also the drugs namesake: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. After she spends the day slinging whoppers for Trump (like how the migrant caravan is full of MS-13 and also Chupacabras), Huckabee Sanders needs to be knocked clean out. This little pill, full of Quaaludes and something Michael Jacksons former doctor calls one and dones, sends Sanders to her bed, her floor, and over her third-floor banister. Though Sanders may be less fun to poke than Sean Spicer or Kellyanne Conway, its fun to see the writers dig into her psyche a bit. And Bryants physical commitment in this bit is excellent. 8. Dog Infomercial Domestic partners Sonja and Damien Regulante (Strong and Hill) present their idea for beautifying those bald, ugly pugs: pug wigs. Along with the help of Sonjas mother (Bryant) and Damiens son Zeke (Mooney), the cast brings out pugs wearing hairpieces with styles reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, Ed Sheeran, and Rachel from Friends. They swear this is a legit business and not a front for anything, even going so far as to bring out Damiens Dad (Thompson) with a like-minded business: pug beards. Yeah, a writer wanted to stick wigs on pugs in the ten-to-1 a.m. spot, what else do you need? Plus, the pug with the Tina Turner wig is a wonderfully clueless little minx. 9. Midterm Ad Democrats are totally, totally, totally pumped and very, very, very confident about taking back the House, if not the Senate, on Tuesday right? In this ad, a variety of Dems going about their daily routines taking care of the kids or working in a flower shop talk proudly about the forthcoming blue wave. Its just that their hands are shaking, theyre day drinking, and theyre screaming at their children to go inside til Tuesday! This clever parody taps into a genuine, uneasy undercurrent in the Democratic midterm campaign. While its not a fear Dems want to face, maybe a chuckle can keep hearts lighter until polls close Tuesday night? 10. Political Musical This Off-Broadway show, Divided We Stand, is not afraid to dive headfirst into our political climate. As white performers play hopeful immigrants or a Statue of Liberty that insists theres no way youre getting into me, its clear the well-meaning show is self-involved and completely off the mark. The New York Times theater critic is quoted as saying, simply, Jesus Christ. Eventually, one of the critics wonders, Whose parents paid for this? Presumably this bit wont play as well in rural areas, but anyone who has seen a navel-gazing political show that hopes to inoculate the players from criticism will enjoy this. 11. Americas Got Talent In this very special Wait, Theyre Good? compilation of AGT contestants, the judges and the crowd get stunned again and again by underdogs. Stacy (McKinnon) is shy, but she brings it with Lady Marmalade. Bubba (Hill) hasnt heard the word music before, but he belts out Go, Go, Go Joseph from Andrew Lloyd Webbers Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Though one guy (Thompson) is comatose, when the first few bars of Aint No Mountain High Enough start up, he leaps up from his wheelchair in a sparkly vest and sings his heart out alongside his wife (Jones). Meanwhile, the judges and Howie Mandel (Kyle Mooney) in particular absolutely flip out. This is a smart observation about Americas Got Talent, but its a lot of sketch for just one observation. Jonah Hills induction into the Five-Timers Club is a worthy one, and the hit-to-miss ratio might be the highest of his five shows. Theres a lot more than just game or talk show parodies here. The scene featuring McKinnons performance as incapacitated teacher Gail is strangely irresistible, and the scene about an on-air proposal delivers a lot of fun, little surprises. Politically, its smart rather than searing, but theres room for some endearing drop-ins on Weekend Update. Plus, the return of Adam Grossman never disappoints. Next week: Liev Schreiber hosts. Calvert City Jingle All the Way 5k and Fun Run set for December 4 Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 03, 2018 | 04:27 PM | MAYFIELD Graves County Sheriff's deputies responded to the Super 8 Motel on Links Lane to follow up on a drug tip. They said that 47-year-old Angela Cannon, and 62-year-old Michael Boatfield, were conducting illegal drug activity inside a room at the motel. Cannon and Boatfield gave deputies consent to search the room where methamphetamine, legend drugs, syringes, pipes, and other paraphernalia were located. They were arrested and taken to the Graves County Jail. Both are charged with possession of meth, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and illegal possession of drug paraphernalia. Two Mayfield residents were arrested Saturday on numerous drug charges following a tip that was received. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 04, 2018 | 10:30 AM | MARSHALL COUNTY Marshall County voters will head to the polls Tuesday with the rest of the nation to choose the candidates who will represent them over the next term, with several hotly contested races on the ballot and some guaranteed changes coming to the makeup of the county's government.On the county level, incumbent Republican Kevin Neal will face Democrat State Rep. Will Coursey in the race for county Judge/Executive. Neal has served as Judge/Executive since 2015. Coursey has been a State Representative since 2008.Sheriff Kevin Byars, a Democrat who has held the position since 1997, will be defending his seat against Republican challenger Eddie McGuire. McGuire has 17 years of law enforcement experience, including 7 years as a police supervisor.Whatever the results of Tuesday's election, Marshall County voters will be electing a new county attorney. Jeff Edwards is not running for re-election, leaving the seat wide open for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. Independent Jason Darnall, who has worked in the office for 14 years, is looking to fill the vacant seat, as is his Democratic challenger Zachary Brien, who currently serves as Benton City Attorney.Also not seeking re-election is District 1 County Commissioner Bob Gold. Voters will instead choose between Democrat Justin Lamb and Republican Joshua Medley. In the Second District, Incumbent Democrat Johnny Bowlin will face off against Republican Kevin Spraggs. Democrat Richard Cocke, elected 3rd District Commissioner in 2015, will defend his seat against Republican Monti Collins.There will also be a new Coroner in Marshall County beginning next year. Mitchell Lee retired at the end of last year, leaving the seat open. Republican Michael Gordon will challenge Democrat Barry Taylor for the seat. Former Benton Police Chief Tracy Watwood has been serving as interim Coroner since Jan. 1.Marshall County voters will also help elect several candidates to state and national races. Incumbent Republican James Comer and Democratic challenger Paul Walker are both running for the 1st Congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Voters will also participate in a statewide referendum to decide if a "victim's bill of rights" will be added to Kentucky's Constitution.In the race for Kentucky's open 6th District state legislature seat, Republican Chris Freeland will face Democrat Linda Story Edwards. Incumbent Republican Danny Carrol is running against Democratic challenger Julie Tennyson for the 2nd District State Senate seat.Contested city level races include Benton City Council and Calvert City Mayor. In all, 10 candidates are running in the Benton City Council nonpartisan race; Tim Moores, Ann C. Riley, Kevin Farley, Stuart Wyatt, Rita Murray, Stanley "Butch" Holland, Gene Gilliland, Sherra Riley, Drew Williams, and Charles Edmonds. Only 6 candidates will be chosen. Incumbent Lynn Jones is running against challenger Von Puckett for Calvert City Mayor.There are also several non-contested races on the ballot in Marshall County. Click the link below to view the full Marshall County ballot. On the Net: Home Just In From the Kathmandu Press: Sunday, November 4, 2018 Major Nepali and English broadsheet dailies published from Kathmandu on Sunday have given priority to different issues from sociocultural, political and economic spheres. At least two broadsheets have published reports about main opposition leader Sher Bahadur Deubas statements about his partys internal affairs and contemporary political issues. Likewise, two other newspapers have reported irregularities in the governments Youth Self Employment Programmes. Important Deuba says efforts for communism will not succeed Former Prime Minister and Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba says his party will not let efforts to bring communism in the country become successful, reports Gorkhapatra. An aggressive Deuba addressed a party function in Kathmandu yesterday and admitted that efforts towards communism became stronger after his party weakened its control due to internal issues. Therefore, Deuba said he would retire only after reviving the partys lost strength, according to The Kathmandu Post. Govt undecided on how to enact bills for provinces Despite coming under fire for being unable to provide umbrella laws to the provincial governments, the federal government is still undecided about how it will introduce the lawsby enacting the bills through Parliament after calling a new session or through ordinances. The Himalayan Times lead story reports that the government, however, has directed line ministries to prepare urgent bills and ordinances simultaneously so that either could be used to address the concerns of the provinces. Ignored Govt forms committees to skip parliamentary probe In order to skip stricter parliamentary probes, the government has invented a new strategy, forming its own investigation committees to look into controversial decisions, according to a brief story in Annapurna Post. The government has formed several committees to look into the issues that the parliamentary committees have begun to consider, the report informs. Minister Adhikari gets torn visa The British Embassy in New Delhi or its agent in Kathmandu handed over a torn visa to Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Rabindra Adhikari, Nepal Samacharpatra reports in its banner story. After getting the torn document, Minister Adhikari cancelled his trip that was scheduled to begin yesterday. Adhikari was preparing to attend the World Tourism Fair from November 5 to 7. Kathmandu traffic management becoming more challenging everyday The traffic management in Kathmandu Valley is becoming more challenging everyday as the number of vehicles continues to grow up, Gorkhapatra reports in a three column story. Higher police officials have cited insufficient police personnel and lack of traffic lights at major junctions intensified the problem. Around 40 per cent of the countrys total vehicles play roads of Bagmati zone, which includes Kathmandu Valley and districts in its surrounding, according to the report. UML, Maoist lawmakers pay unequal levies It has been months since then CPN-UML and then CPN-Maoist Centre have merged to form the Nepal Communist Party. However, lawmakers of the party have been paying unequal levies to the party as if they are lawmakers of different parties, Kantipur reports in a two column story. Lawmakers belonging to former UML pay Rs 13,000 a month whereas those of former Maoist Centre pay Rs 12,000, according to the report. Number of young vapers rises alarmingly Traders have been introducing vapourises, popularly known as vapes, as a healthier option for quitting conventional smoking. However, scientific studies have concluded that it can cause more serious health problems, The Kathmandu Post reports in a highlighted story, adding the number of young vapers is rising in the country. Interesting Nepalis invest Rs 100 billion in five hydro projects Abhiyan reports in its lead story that Nepalis have invested Rs 100 billion in five big hydropower projects that collectively will produce 726 megawatt electricity. This has proved that doing big hydropower projects is possible with domestic investment as well. Senior academic appointed to Welsh Government Youth Work board This article is old - Published: Sunday, Nov 4th, 2018 A senior academic at Wrexham Glyndwr University has been appointed a board member of the new body setting the strategic direction of youth work in Wales. Simon Stewart, the Dean of Faculty of Social and Life Sciences at Wrexham Glyndwr University, was announced as one of six Interim Youth Work Board members in October. Mr Stewart, who is the only university representative on the board, was made Dean of Glyndwrs Faculty of Social and Life Sciences in August. Announcing the appointments, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, Eluned Morgan said: The candidates bring a range of skills and knowledge that will play a vital role in informing how we go about securing the strategic direction of youth work in Wales. Highly experienced in their respective fields, they will each play a pivotal role as they consider evidence, engage with young people and stakeholders, and challenge our thinking about what can be achieved in the field of youth work. I look forward to working with them closely as we approach a busy and exciting time for youth work in Wales. Between them, the six board members, working alongside Board Chair Keith Towler, have been tasked with developing an ambitious new approach to youth work in Wales and changing the way young peoples services are provided. Simon has worked across statutory and voluntary services in England and Wales, managed a Youth Work charity in Northern Ireland addressing the needs of young people affected by trauma, and also worked at a national level for the Boys and Girls clubs of Northern Ireland. In his roles with Glyndwr University, he has met with youth services from Cardiff to Rhondda Cynon Taf and Carmarthen to Gwynedd. With a masters thesis on rural youth work and the particular needs of rural young people, Simon who has been an external expert for the British Council youth in action programme is now developing a specialism in international youth work and intercultural learning. He said: The Welsh Government want to see every young person in Wales reach their potential and the right kind of support is crucial in ensuring that potential is realised. High-quality youth work will play a key role in that support ensuring that young people develop the skills, aspirations and resilience they need to play a part in Wales future. Thats why I am delighted to have been appointed to the Interim Youth Work Board, and why I am looking forward to helping shape a new direction for youth work in Wales. Here at Glyndwr, our approach to teaching Youth Work is rooted in practice our lecturers are all youth work professionals of many years standing, who know what works on the ground and how it relates to their teaching. Most of all, we put young people at the heart of what we do. Listening to young people, and taking what they say on board, is at the heart of successful youth work and something Ill be doing regularly in my work with the Welsh Government. Find out more about Wrexham Glyndwr Universitys BA here and MA here courses in Youth and Community Work. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) -Over one hundred people came out Saturday to participate in Tallahassee's Yoga for a Cause event. The event was already scheduled to help raise money for Hurricane Michael relief, but sadly had a different meaning after Friday's tragic shooting. Hugs, tears and smiles filled Adams Street as people in the community relaxed and enjoyed an hour long yoga Session. Yoga for a Cause organizer said she was glad to see community members and even some people who go to Hot Yoga Tallahassee at the event. "I think the message is consistent that you know their dedication and bravery to other people is just overwhelming,"said McKenzie Lohbeck. They are showing up today because they want to show their love and support and that to me was just gosh overwhelming, because I can't imagine the things they have gone through and they continue think about other people." Lohbeck also said this was the biggest Yoga for a Cause event she has ever held. TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- At this time, the tropics are quiet. The National Hurricane Center does not expect to see any area of interest in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, or Atlantic Ocean within the next five days. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-03 23:42:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TIANJIN, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- As China undergoes fast urbanization, Chinese cities are expected to be more environmentally friendly and "smarter" with increased use of technologies, officials and experts Saturday agreed at a city development forum in north China. Held in Tianjin Municipality, the Urban Development Mayors' Forum has gathered China's city officials, experts and entrepreneurs to discuss development strategies for Chinese cities. Li Yizhong, head of the China Federation of Industrial Economics, said industries underpin China's urban development but urged cities to adjust their industrial structures and address pollution problems. "The technological transformation of companies, especially those in heavy and chemical industries, must be accelerated and outdated capacities must be phased out," Li said at the forum. Li also called for developing new industries and promoting clean energy use in cities. Liu Zhengrong, vice president of Xinhua News Agency, who also spoke at the forum, said future urban development shall be green, smart and integrated, while depending more on quality information services. Shi Jun, vice head of the China Industry-University-Research Institute Collaboration Association, also highlighted integrated development and urged Chinese cities to embrace this global trend and take the lead. The one-day forum was held in Tianjin's Binhai New Area, which is taking the lead in China's new urban area development. It is home to the Sino-Singapore Ecocity known for its green and smart city development. The forum also discussed the integration of city operation and technologies, including cloud computing and helicopter use. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-03 23:47:58|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close XIAMEN, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Red Dot Design Museum opened in Xiamen, eastern China's Fujian Province, on Saturday. The Red Dot Design Museum Xiamen, the third such museum in the world, features international award-winning works. It was transformed and renovated from the former Terminal 2 of Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport. It is the largest airport museum in the world, with two floors of more than 4,500 square meters of exhibiting space, displaying works under the three categories of the Red Dot Design Award. Back in 2012, the Red Dot Design Museum inked a long-term partnership with Xiamen and Red Dot exhibitions, which has since become an integral part of Xiamen International Design Week. In November 2016, Professor Peter Zec, founder and CEO of Red Dot, signed an agreement with Xiamen Culture Media Group, announcing that the Red Dot Design Museum and Red Dot's China headquarters would be based in Xiamen. The professor said that China's design industry has quickly developed in recent years, and that he hopes the museum will bring together world-leading design resources and design thinking courses to empower world-class enterprises and cultivate top creative design talent. Founded in 1995 in Germany, the Red Dot Design Award is one of the most important design awards worldwide. In 1997, the first Red Dot Design Museum was built in Essen, Germany, and in 2005, the second was built in Singapore. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-03 23:53:00|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Workers at Mpund Wild Honey, a Chinese-run firm, show the fully packaged honey in central Zambia's Kabwe town, on Nov. 3, 2018. The Zambian firm involved in honey production said on Saturday that it would use the forthcoming first China International Import Expo (CIIE) which runs from Nov. 5 to 10, to seek more markets for its products. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun) KABWE, Zambia, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A Zambian firm involved in honey production said on Saturday that it would use the forthcoming first China International Import Expo (CIIE) which runs from Nov. 5 to 10, to seek more markets for its products. Mpund Wild Honey, a Chinese-run firm, flagged off the export of the first consignment of 3.45 tons of honey to the Chinese market worth 34,000 U.S. dollars last month. The firm said it is participating at the expo because it wanted to capture more customers in China. Fredrick Chomba, a supervisor at the firm situated in central Zambia's Kabwe town, confirmed that the firm was attending the import expo with the sole purpose of finding more markets for its honey. The firm, he said, was looking to expand its market not only in China but other parts of the world and in Africa as well. Established in 2015, the firm engaged about 319 bee farmers through its out grower scheme who have been trained and imparted with bee keeping skills. He said the firm, which also has its own beehives, buys the honey from the farmers once it was ready, adding that this has helped empower the local people to earn some income. He however said the firm intends to train about 1,000 beehive keepers in its endeavor to boost production. The firm gets its honey from Kapiri Mposhi town in central Zambia as well as from northwestern part of the country, he added. Ramson Mwansa, one of the beehive keepers commended the firm for coming up with the project, saying it has helped them in ensuring that they were earning incomes. The 42-year-old father of six children said the firm was giving them the beehives for free as well as training them before buying the honey from them. He said the initiative has helped him be able to take care of his family by taking his children to school as well as inputs for his farming. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 00:08:08|Editor: ZX Video Player Close CHICAGO, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A study from Northwestern University (NU) has found some of the clearest evidence that animals can judge time. By examining the brain's medial entorhinal cortex, the researchers discovered a previously unknown set of neurons that turn on like a clock when an animal is waiting. NU researchers set up an experiment called the virtual "door stop" task. In the experiment, a mouse runs on a physical treadmill in a virtual reality environment. The mouse learns to run down a hallway to a door that is located about halfway down the track. After six seconds, the door opens, allowing the mouse to continue down the hallway to receive its reward. After running several training sessions, researchers made the door invisible in the virtual reality scene. In the new scenario, the mouse still knew where the now-invisible "door" was located based on the floor's changing textures. And it still waited six seconds at the "door" before abruptly racing down the track to collect its reward. "The important point here is that the mouse doesn't know when the door is open or closed because it's invisible," said James Heys, a postdoctoral fellow at NU and the study's first author. "The only way he can solve this task efficiently is by using his brain's internal sense of time." NU researchers took the experiment one step further by imaging the mice's brain activity. Using two-photon microscopy, which allows advanced, high-resolution imaging of the brain, they watched the mice's neurons fire. "As the animals run along the track and get to the invisible door, we see the cells firing that control spatial encoding," said Daniel Dombeck, an associate professor of neurobiology in NU's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. "Then, when the animal stops at the door, we see those cells turned off and a new set of cells turn on. This was a big surprise and a new discovery." "Not only are the cells active during rest," he said, "but they actually encode how much time the animal has been resting." The researchers have found these new time-encoding neurons, now they can study how neurodegenerative diseases might affect this set of cells. "Patients with Alzheimer's disease notably forget when things happened in time," Heys said. "Perhaps this is because they are losing some of the basic functions of the entorhinal cortex, which is one of the first brain regions affected by the disease." "So this could lead to new early-detection tests for Alzheimer's," Dombeck added. "We could start asking people to judge how much time has elapsed or ask them to navigate a virtual reality environment - essentially having a human do a 'door stop' task." The study has been published online in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 00:33:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close CHONGQING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A novel about human-robot relations won the best saga novel prize of the 9th Xingyun (Nebula) Award for Global Chinese Science Fiction, which was announced Saturday. "Gate of Memories" by Chinese writer Jiang Bo tells of a time when humans turn their bodies into machines to extend lifespan but face a looming attack from super AI. "The Monster Reunion" by Chen Qiufan scooped the best novelette prize while "Memories of Chengdu" by Baoshu claimed the prize for best short story. This year's Xingyun Award, which featured ten categories, was issued by World Chinese Science Fiction Association in southwest China's city of Chongqing. Dong Renwei, one of the founders of Xingyun Award and a sci-fi writer, encouraged Chinese sci-fi writers to weave more Chinese elements into the genre born in the West and increase the global readership of Chinese sci-fi. Sci-fi is enjoying a boom in China that is embracing technological innovation. A number of sci-fi novels are being adapted into movies and TV series, including Hugo Award winner Liu Cixin's "The Wandering Earth" and "The Three-Body Problem." Kathmandu, November 4 The student wing of main opposition Nepali Congress, Nepal Students Union, has failed to hold its general convention to elect the new leadership once again, owing to multiple disputes within the organisation. The current executive committee led by Nain Singh Mahar completed its term in August. The party then used its prerogative to extend the term for next three months, which is expiring on November 18. In the meantime, Mahars committee decided to hold the convention on November 2, 3 and 4. It was not possible as leaders opposing to Mahar protested the decision citing Mahars people tried to amend the statute unilaterally. On the other hand, leaders in both the mother party and sister wing are divided on the partys decision of imposing a 32 year age bar for the student unions membership. Now, the party has two options for the next courseeither to form an ad hoc committee with a mandate of holding the convention in next six months or extending the term of current committee by six more months. The partys mahasamiti meeting, expected in next few weeks, has the authority to decide for extension. But, leaders opposing Mahar say none of the options will work unless the party takes back the decision about age bar. Mahar, however, seems committed to the convention and says he will retire only after handing over the leadership democratically. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 00:58:18|Editor: ZX Video Player Close CHICAGO, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. researchers suggested that the cerebellum has a hand in every aspect of higher brain functions, not just movement, but attention, thinking, planning and decision-making. Having access to more than 10 hours of scans on each of 10 people though the Midnight Scan Club dataset, and using the cortex's networks as a template, the researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis could identify the networks in the cerebellum. Notably, the sensory networks, vision, hearing and touch, are missing, and only 20 percent of the cerebellum is devoted to movement, roughly the same amount as in the cerebral cortex. The remaining 80 percent is occupied by networks involved in higher-order cognition: the attention network; the default network, which has to do with daydreaming, recalling memories and just idly thinking; and two networks that oversee executive functions such as decision-making and planning. "The executive function networks are way overrepresented in the cerebellum," said postdoctoral researcher and first author Scott Marek. The researchers measured the timing of brain activity and found that the cerebellum was consistently the last step in neurologic circuits. Signals were received through sensory systems and processed in intermediate networks in the cerebral cortex before being sent to the cerebellum. There, the researchers surmise, the signals undergo final quality checks before the output is sent back to the cerebral cortex for implementation. "If you think of an assembly line, the cerebellum is the person at the end who inspects the car and says, 'This one is good; we'll sell it,' or 'This one has a dent; we have to go back and repair it,'" said senior author Nico Dosenbach, an assistant professor of neurology, of occupational therapy and of pediatrics. "It's where all your thoughts and actions get refined and quality controlled." People with damage to their cerebellum are known to become uncoordinated, with an unsteady gait, slurred speech and difficulty with fine motor tasks such as eating. The cerebellum also is quite sensitive to alcohol, which is one of the reasons why people who have had too many drinks stumble around. But the new data may help explain why someone who is inebriated also shows poor judgment. Just as a person staggers drunkenly because his or her compromised cerebellum is unable to perform the customary quality checks on motor function, alcohol-fueled bad decisions might also reflect a breakdown of quality control over executive functions. The researchers also performed individualized network analyses on the 10 people in the data set, and found that while brain functions are arranged in roughly the same pattern in everyone's cerebellum, there is enough individual variation to distinguish brain scans performed on any two participants. The researchers are now investigating whether such individual differences in cerebellar networks correlate with intelligence, behavior, personality traits such as adaptability, or psychiatric conditions. The findings have been published in Neuron. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 02:23:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TEHRAN, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Persepolis will be looking for a response next week against Kashima Antlers of Japan after they were beaten 2-0 on Saturday in the first leg of the AFC Champions League final, Tehran Times daily reported. The Iranian team will have a difficult task ahead in Tehran's Azadi Stadium on Nov. 10 as their key midfielder Siamak Nemati will be absence in the second leg after being sent off in the injury time. "We lost the first leg but we are looking forward to the second leg in Tehran. We can beat Kashima Antlers at the Azadi Stadium and I am sure our fans will give us a great support," Persepolis captain Jalal Hosseini said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 08:39:16|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close BUENOS AIRES, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A second-half own goal from Nacho Fernandez handed Estudiantes a 1-0 home victory over River Plate in the Superliga Argentina on Saturday. The hosts took the lead in the 50th minute when a Gaston Fernandez free-kick took a deflection off Nacho Fernandez's shoulder and looped into the far corner of German Lux's goal. The result at Estadio Cuidad de La Plata left River eighth in the 26-team standings while Estudiantes rose to 12th. In the western city of Mendoza, Godoy Cruz beat Atletico Tucuman 1-0 to climb to fourth in the standings. Despite the result, Atletico Tucuman remained second, four points behind leaders Racing Club. And in the seaside city of Mar del Plata, Banfield overcame hosts Aldosivi 4-1 to jump to ninth. A member of Search and Rescue (SAR) team sprays disinfectant liquid to debris of the crashed Lion Air JT 610 at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Nov. 3, 2018. (Xinhua/Agung Kuncahya B.) JAKARTA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Rescue team on Saturday detected again the sound of a ping locator installed at the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the air plane that went down Monday into waters off western Indonesia, officials said. In the meantime, all turbines and two landing gears have been discovered, head of the National Search and Rescue Office Muhammad Syaugi said. Syaugi said he was certain that the position of the CVR is not far from the coordinate of the main ship dragging anchors on waters of Tanjung Pakis of Karawang district of West Java province. The signal of the ping locator was first detected on Wednesday along with the signal of the flight data recorder, but since Thursday the signal of the CVR had disappeared, Syaugi said. "We have heard the sound sent by the ping locator of the CVR," he said, adding that the position might be close to the sea floor under the main ship. Two turbines or turbo jet engines of the almost new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft had been recovered, one of them had been lifted to the surface and another would be lifted on Sunday, said Syaugi. However, one of the two landing gears already found had not been lifted to the surface. He added that both the divers and remotely operated vehicle had not recovered the fuselage of the ill-fated plane. The search and rescue operation has retrieved more body parts of the victims of Lion Air plane incident which killed all the 189 people aboard. The Indonesian transport ministry will embrace the world aviation authorities to audit the safety of Lion Air company. Boeing will also send investigators to assist the investigation on the cause of the disaster. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 09:14:26|Editor: ZX Video Player Close by Fone Ying Kyu YANGON, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has held here an art and music festival Voices for Wildlife, aiming to support the government's combat on illegal wildlife trade as well as to raise awareness of wildlife conservation in the country. Friday's festival showcased varieties of wildlife-themed activities, displaying wildlife-themed artworks and performances by local artists. Yangon region authorities have recently announced a ban on all illegal sales across the region, devising Yangon as the first city in Southeast Asia to become "Illegal wildlife trade free" region. Wildlife trafficking is in fact the fourth biggest transnational crime after drugs, weapons and human trafficking. "We congratulate the regional government of Yangon on taking this step to end this crime across the region and will continue working closely with the national, regional and state governments to support the roll out of this ban nationwide," Christy Williams, country director of World Wildlife Fund (WWF)- Myanmar told a media conference on the day. "Our wildlife is our true wealth, more precious than gold and it is our responsibility to protect this wealth, our natural heritage for future generations," said local artist Arker Kyaw. Meanwhile, local and international non-governmental organizations are accelerating efforts to expand the area of land for wildlife reserve in the country. The authorities have designated 42 protected areas which accounts for 5.79 percent of total country area so far in Myanmar. In accordance with the conservation of biodiversity and protected areas law promulgated in May this year, wildlife protection is classified in three levels -- totally protected, normally protected and seasonally protected species. Elephant, tiger, leopard, gaur, bear, golden deer, pangolin, etc are included in the list of totally protected species. As part of its efforts to combat illegal wildlife trade, Myanmar ceremonially burnt confiscated ivory and wildlife parts in the capital of Nay Pyi Taw in October. The public burning of wildlife parts, the first of its kind in Myanmar, has sent a clear message that trade in illegal wildlife parts is unacceptable. Noting that poaching and illegal trade of wildlife in Myanmar have been increasing, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation said in a statement that "the confiscated items of wildlife were destroyed to raise public awareness for law enforcement on illegal trade of wild fauna and flora, for legal action taken against illegal wildlife, trading and poaching and for promoting international cooperation with Myanmar in fighting the illegal trade in wildlife." "It is crucial to sustainably conserve our country's natural resources including land, water, forest, mountain and wildlife for the sake of our future generation. We designate and establish protected areas for biodiversity conservation," said Minister U Ohn Win at the wildlife parts destruction ceremony. In its cracking down on wildlife crime cases, about 284 suspects were arrested in connection with 140 such cases since fiscal year 2016-2017. The wildlife crimes mostly occurred in Yangon, Bago and Ayeyarwaddy regions. The national wildlife enforcement task force, formed in 2016, has been implementing an action plan to combat poaching and illegal trade in cooperation with local and international organizations. Elephant conservationist U Kyaw Myint Tun was selected as the monthly gratitude honor to the people in July by Myanmar's State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi for his actively participating in wild elephant protection and conservation. Joining hands with the authorities in protecting wild elephants from being poached, U Kyaw Myint Tun was awarded the Hero of Elephant Conservation by the WWF and the Friends of Wildlife (FOW). Two poachers were caught in 2016 with arms used to poach wild elephants, and four guns and materials used to kill elephants were seized in 2017 due to his active cooperation with the government. Myanmar has signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to protect wild elephants, setting aside 9,205 square miles for elephant sanctuaries. The government government has also planned to shut down illegal wildlife trade markets in Golden Triangle border region, which is between Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, by 2020 with the help of the wildlife conservation groups. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 10:14:32|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close by Xinhua writer Zhu Sheng BERLIN, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- As China is set to host the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai for the first time from Nov. 5-10, numerous German companies have already announced their intention to participate in the event in a bid to seize new cooperation opportunities. The CIIE is expected to give firm support to trade liberalization and economic globalization, and actively open the Chinese market to the world, according to its official website. GATEWAY The Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) is CIIE's organizer for Germany and encourages German enterprises to showcase their competitive products and services through the new platform. The CIIE will be an opportunity and an important gateway for German companies to enter the Chinese market, said Thomas Koenig, DIHK director for East Asia. "We are confident that the CIIE is one of the first steps for making sure that there are good conditions for German companies to do business in China," he told Xinhua in a recent interview. The event is an excellent opportunity for German companies to celebrate their successes in China, yet provides a chance for new German companies with little to no China exposure to see the country as a destination for their products and ideas, he added. "We've heard that more than 150,000 domestic and international buyers are expected to attend the expo, which doesn't happen often," said Simone Pohl, delegate and chief representative of the Delegation of German Industry & Commerce in Shanghai. "So the CIIE has received a warm response from the German business community, as they would like to establish closer business contacts with Chinese companies," Pohl added. "For the German and other foreign companies that are already in the Chinese market, the CIIE is a great opportunity to deepen business ties between the German and Chinese sides," said Pohl. "While for the newcomers entering the Chinese market, the CIIE is a starting point for them to learn about and experience the market." LARGE SCALE The expo has attracted 2,800 exhibitors from over 130 countries and regions. Of the world's 44 least developed countries, more than 30 will be present at the event. More than 100 new products and technologies are expected to debut at the expo, according to statistics from the organizers. "There will be a total of 170 German companies participating in this year's CIIE. We are very pleased to see such a large scale of participation, which underlines the German-Chinese friendship and partnership," Koenig said. The German pavilion will highlight new technology, ideas and products relevant to the Chinese market, he continued. In addition, Koenig said that the CIIE is about showcasing the new opportunities that exist in today's China, a country open for investment. "China does encourage more exchanges with foreign companies, and also it is very open for business. And that kind of spirit is something we DIHK of course very much support," Koenig added. Germany is one of the expo's 12 guests of honor. China has been Germany's largest trading partner for two years. Pohl said that German companies have high expectations for the expo. "Germans like to plan things and prepare in advance. We plan to showcase not only the business side but 'the whole of Germany' during the CIIE," Pohl added. According to the Economic and Commercial Counsellor's Office of the Embassy of China in Germany, the number of German exhibitors is third highest after the United States and Japan. German companies like Siemens, Bayer, Metro, SAP, BMW will be present at the event. BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES Lothar Herrmann, CEO of Siemens Greater China, told Xinhua in a recent written interview that Siemens hopes to enhance exchanges with partners and customers from across the world at the CIIE. "This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's historical opening and reform. The CIIE is a strong gesture of China to commit to continuing opening-up in a new era of globalization," Herrmann said. "As a long-standing partner for China, Siemens welcomes and appreciates China's efforts in opening-up," he added. Another German exhibitor Bayer also told Xinhua that it expects to take this opportunity to let the present audience know more about Bayer's strategy and products and to seek new cooperation possibilities. "Hosting the CIIE is a major decision of China with a view to start a new round of high-level opening-up policies and an important initiative to open up its market to the world," said Bayer in a statement replying to Xinhua's interview. As a world-class high-end expo, the CIIE will create adequate opportunities for the attending countries and corporations to display, exchange and cooperate, the statement read. Bayer considers China as a crucial market for its global business strategy and as an important driver for growth. It is optimistic about its future prospects in China and its ability to contribute to China's development through innovation and science. Philippe Palazzi, chief operating officer and management board member of Metro AG, said "China is an important growth market for Metro and we'd like to take the opportunity of the CIIE to showcase our strength in imports and global sourcing, which is one of our core competences as an international player in food distribution." "We also want to use such a great platform to enhance our exchange and communication with local customers, business partners and other stakeholders as we are committed to the long-term development in China," Palazzi told Xinhua. Palazzi also wishes to explore the CIIE to discover more suitable business import partners to provide high quality products to meet the demands of customers in China. Meanwhile, German software corporation SAP told Xinhua that the CIIE provides a new platform for global businesses to collaborate and promote common prosperity in the world economy and trade. SAP believes the event is a great opportunity to share its expertise as well as learn from others about changing industry dynamics. "We look forward to meeting companies we can collaborate with as we are always seeking to expand our ecosystem of partners," the corporation said in a statement. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 10:49:36|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- A total of 572 officials have been punished during Chinese central authorities' first round of inspection of a national crackdown on gang crimes. Ten inspection teams have been sent to 10 provincial-level regions in China to carry out the inspection that lasted one month. With the inspection teams' work, a total of 1,791 cases of corruption related to gang and organized crimes as well as the "protective umbrellas" behind such crimes have been put under investigation, according to statistics from the office of the leading group of the inspection. Also, during the inspection period, the 10 inspected regions have busted 96 gangs and assets worth of over 5 billion yuan (726 million U.S. dollars) related to such crimes have been sealed or seized. The second and third rounds of inspection are scheduled to be carried out next year so that all provincial-level regions will be inspected. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 11:34:41|Editor: ZX Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday welcomed a joint aid operation, delivering vital humanitarian assistance to 50,000 people in Syria's Rukban camp. The UN chief recognized in a statement that while "the long-needed delivery is an important achievement, the overall humanitarian access to this informal desert camp remains wholly inadequate." As such, he called on all relevant actors "to ensure continued, full, safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to the tens of thousands of displaced Syrians in this remote area, and to all people in need throughout the country." "The population at Rukban has not received assistance since January this year, and they are increasingly desperate," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock recently told a Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria. "We are delivering food, sanitation and hygiene supplies, nutrition and health assistance, in addition to other core relief items in cooperation with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent," said Ali Al-Za'tari, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria. The inter-agency aid operation is expected to take three to four days as it also conducts an emergency vaccination campaign "to protect some 10,000 children against measles, polio and other deadly disease," and undertakes rapid needs assessments. The delivery was initially scheduled for Oct. 27, but was postponed due to security reasons. With basic commodity shortages, protection concerns, increasing violence and the death of several children reportedly without access to medical treatment, the overall situation in the camp remains critical. Rukban camp, which is a cluster of about 10,800 makeshift tents and mud huts in the desert close to the border with Jordan, has been labeled by news reports as "one of the most desperate places in Syria." The UN urges all parties to allow safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to all in need in line with their obligations under International Humanitarian Law. "While this much-needed delivery is an important achievement, a longer-term solution must be found for the many civilians living in Rukban," said Al-Za'tari. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 11:49:42|Editor: ZX Video Player Close CANBERRA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The population of Australia's bilbies has been holding steady despite a rising threat from natural predators, a survey has found. Rangers across Australia's deserts involved in the Bilby Blitz program have spent six months surveying 248 areas of land in the Northern Territory and Western Australia for traces of the greater bilby and its predators. Richard Moyle, the Central Land Council's land management officer, confirmed that rangers found evidence of bilby activity in 58 of the areas. "Everyone loves a bilby, they're cute, they're furry so they have that appeal," Moyle told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Sunday. "They're a bit of a flagship species in that if you can preserve the bilby, you preserve the habitat (and) get rid of the threats which are fairly common across arid Australia." The greater bilby, also known as the rabbit-bandicoot is a desert-dwelling marsupial native to Australia that grows to 55 centimeters in length on average excluding its tail. The lesser bilby was declared extinct in the 1950s. The species has largely been wiped out by feral cats, foxes, weeds and fire. Moyle said rangers found evidence of feral cats in 111 of the search areas and foxes in 50 of them. Bilby Blitz was launched by Threatened Species Commissioner Sally Box in March to connect indigenous rangers with their non-indigenous peers. By connecting the two groups, the program is able to benefit from ancient indigenous methods of tracking bilbies as well as modern technology such as motion-activated cameras and a smartphone application to log evidence of activity. The app can be set to English or two common indigenous languages to accommodate the traditional rangers. "That helps indigenous rangers whose levels of education are varied to be able to have significant input in a scientific way of collecting data," Moyle said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 12:19:45|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close Chinese Consul General in Houston Li Qiangmin delivers a speech at the third annual meeting of the Alliance of North American Chinese Physicians (ANACP) in Houston, Texas, the United States, Nov. 3, 2018. Common interests between China and the United States outweigh differences, and opportunities for the two countries to collaborate in health care are broad, said Chinese Consul General in Houston Li Qiangmin on Saturday. (Xinhua/Liu Liwei) HOUSTON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Common interests between China and the United States outweigh differences, and opportunities for the two countries to collaborate in health care are broad, said Chinese Consul General in Houston Li Qiangmin on Saturday. Demand in China for health services has increased substantially, creating opportunities for health care collaboration, as China joins the ranks of middle-income countries, said Li during a speech at the 2018 annual meeting of the Alliance of North American Chinese Physicians (ANACP). "China attaches great importance to health care in its people-centered development," Li said. "I believe overseas Chinese medical professionals can tap into your cultural background and achieve more in the cooperation of relevant areas." The ANACP has committed itself to "coordinating Chinese physicians in North America, building a bridge of communications between Chinese and American physicians, and serving as a platform to help Chinese physicians improve medical skills, display talents and fulfill their dreams," said Li. Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the China-U.S diplomatic relations. Li said the past four decades showed that the China-U.S. relationship cannot succeed without local cooperation. Relationship between China and Houston is one example. "The Chinese side was impressed by Houston's strong development momentum and excellent investment environment," Li said. "I believe that more and more Chinese companies will come and invest in Houston." Li believes that with China's commitments to its reform and opening-up, Houston will serve as a bridge and pioneer in China-U.S. exchange and in practical cooperation in energy, health care, innovation, culture and education among others. Speaking at the event, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner praised Chinese physicians' contributions to helping build a brighter future for Huston. "Of the doctors that we have, the Chinese doctors who are here in the city, we are proud of each and every one of them," Turner said. "We have some outstanding physicians that had happened to make the city stronger and healthier." U.S. congressman Al Green at the ceremony awarded a certificate of special congressional recognition to the ANACP in honor of its services to Houston community. It is the first time that the ANACP holds annual meeting with the Chinese American Neurological Association and the American Association of Chinese Rehabilitation Physicians. Members of these organizations discuss topics like stroke care and neuromuscular diseases during the three-day meeting. The ANACP aims to support North American Chinese physicians through education and community services to achieve higher-quality patient care, better personal life and professional career. Home Just In Parliamentary committee visiting Nijgadh airport site to assess deforestation need Kathmandu, November 4 A subcommittee of the International Relations Committee in the House of Representative is travelling to Nijgadh of Bara district, where the government has proposed constructing an international airport for regional flights. The team led by former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal will assess how many trees of the local forest area should be chopped down for the project. The evaluation will follow concerns raised by environmentalists and stakeholders who claimed the projects environmental costs are too high. The team will head to Bara on Monday, according to the Committees Secretary Suraj Kumar Dura. Lawmakers Divya Mani Rajbhandari, Chand Tara Mukari, Deepak Prakash Bhatta and Nirjala Raut are members of the Nepal-led team. Civil Aviation Minister Rabindra Adhikari and Environment Minister Shakti Basnet will also join them. The team will return to Kathmandu on a helicopter tomorrow itself. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 12:44:49|Editor: ZX Video Player Close SHANGHAI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Madagascar will promote its agricultural products at the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), said the country's minister of tourism ahead of the event in Shanghai on Nov. 5-10. The island country will showcase products such as vanilla, cocoa beans, coffee beans and cloves, in addition to minerals, which include gemstones and gold, Jean Brunelle Razafintsiandraofa, also the head of the Madagascar delegation, told Xinhua on Saturday. China offers a great opportunity for everyone, and everyone must know how to seize this opportunity, the minister said. Madagascar also seeks to develop its "sustainable tourism," which puts emphasis on preserving the island's endemic flora and fauna while also developing its infrastructure, Razafintsiandraofa said. The minister hailed the fast implementation of the cooperative contracts signed between his country and China. "(For cooperation) with other countries, there are always promises," yet the realization would be subject to many conditions, he added. The minister said he was impressed by China's rapid development. According to him, China has been heavily investing in improving the environment and is diligently developing measures for environmental protection. The CIIE has attracted 2,800 exhibitors from over 130 countries and regions. It is expected to give firm support to trade liberalization and economic globalization, while actively opening the Chinese market to the world, according to its official website. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 13:09:52|Editor: ZD Video Player Close by Matthew Rusling WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The midterm elections to be held on Tuesday are the first major electoral battle since U.S. President Donald Trump clinched the White House. Now, after two years, Democrats are eager to get back in the ring and slug it out with the GOP. But no one has the crystal ball to tell who will win, especially after pundits, polls and political soothsayers have been wrong before. HOUSE RACE TIGHTENING The wild card in this year's midterms is the House of Representatives, while Republicans are expected to keep control of the Senate. Democrats need to take away at least 23 Republican seats to have control of the House. On Saturday, the often-cited Real Clear Politics "Battle for the House 2018" poll had Democrats ahead by 203 to 196. The race has been tighter in recent weeks, with Democrats making gains even in areas that tend to lean conservative, the non-partisan Cook Political Report found. There are currently 17 Republican-held districts that are seeing a slight or strong lean toward Democrats, mainly in upper-middle-class suburbs, including in the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. However, Republicans have gained ground in some rural districts, such as outside the cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati, where conservatives have rallied to support Trump, according to the Cook report. "Trump definitely has galvanized the Democratic base and it is likely to turn out in big numbers on Tuesday," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua. Republican Strategist and TV news personality Ford O'Connell, however, said that while historical precedent is in Democrats' favor, "the only question here is whether the Republicans in the House can minimize their losses and hold onto the House by a sliver." Christopher Galdieri, an assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, said Democrats "have been fired up about 2018 since shortly after the 2016 election." "We've seen evidence of that in the number of strong candidates running, including in districts that have not had competitive races in years, Democratic fundraising, and shifts toward Democrats in special elections for Congress and state offices in 2017 and 2018." But a win is not necessarily in the bag, he cautioned. "That does not mean winning the House is a lock, by any means," he said. Galdieri said Republican voters look likely to turn out at their usual midterm levels. Republicans have turned out in midterms in recent years while Democrats tended to stay at home. But this year Democrats look to be "at least as enthusiastic about voting as Republicans are, if not more so." The Senate is expected to remain firmly in the hands of Republicans, with the oft-cited Website FiveThirtyEight predicting a 1-in-7 chance that Democrats will win the Senate. "Republicans are going to retain control of the U.S. Senate, the only question is by how much. Because so long as they win Texas, Tennessee and North Dakota -- and everyone thinks they're going to -- they have 50 senators," O'Connell said. Historical records show only twice since 1934 has any sitting president's party gained seats in both houses of Congress -- in 1934 and in 2002. In both cases, the gains weren't particularly large. House losses in midterm elections, however, tend to be large. In the 1938 elections the Democrats at the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt took a beating, losing 71 seats, according to political publication PolitiFact. "The president's party almost always loses seats in the midterm, so it will not be a surprise if there are Democratic gains," West said. INVESTIGATIONS If Republicans win the House, they will continue to control Congress and the White House, allowing Trump to continue to press toward his legislative agenda as he has since he took office. But if Democrats win, the consensus among pundits and politicians is that Democrats plan to launch some investigations against Trump. CNN last week cited unnamed sources inside the Democratic party as saying that the party is quietly gearing up to implement some investigations against Trump, and the issue has grabbed numerous headlines over the past couple of weeks. Indeed, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told the San Francisco Chronicle last week that investigating the president's tax records is one of the "first things we'd do." Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat, said earlier this week that his party would launch an investigation into what he described as Trump's fast and loose use of his cell phone. "(Democrats) will have subpoena power and the ability to get documents and testimony," West said on what could happen if Democrats win the House. O'Connell said "Democrats are going to launch many investigations and launch many subpoenas" if they control the House. TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN HOOK: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION As the race tightens, Trump continues to hit the campaign trail in support of GOP lawmakers, hammering on illegal immigration, at a time when the United States hosts around 12 million illegal migrants. The issue is now grabbing global headlines, as a migrant caravan of thousands is heading through Mexico toward the United States. Many Trump supporters are working class males who see themselves as displaced by illegal migrants, at a time when blue collar jobs have gone overseas. The Democrats have blasted Trump's stance on illegal immigration, and many voters on the progressive left disapprove of Trump's stance. The past week has seen Trump make a number of stops in several U.S. states including Missouri. "We're going to keep these people out of our country. Vote Republican," Trump said to a cheering crowd, referring to illegal immigrants. Galdieri said that Trump's campaign took off back in 2015 "because of the hard line he took on immigration -- that led him to the GOP nomination and to a win in the electoral college." "So I suspect he thinks of (his stance on immigration) as his greatest hit, and an approach that can help Republicans in advance of next week's elections," Galdieri added. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether this tactic will help GOP candidates. "This is a hot-button issue for many of Trump's core supporters, but it's an open question as to whether they'll transfer their enthusiasm to candidates other than Trump," Galdieri said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 13:29:57|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- More than 3,200 Central Americans who had been heading towards the United States have applied to Mexico for asylum over the past two weeks, the government said on Saturday. The applicants, mainly Honduran, are part of a massive caravan of migrants headed on foot towards the United States. In a joint statement, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and Interior Ministry said a total of 3,230 asylum applications have been received to date. With U.S. President Donald Trump taking an increasingly hostile stance towards the migrant caravan, many have opted to try and remain in Mexico. More than 400 of the applicants have decided to abandon the procedure and have asked to be deported, officials said. "It is a migratory exodus," Interior Minister Alfonso Navarrete said on Wednesday, adding the migrants were fleeing poverty and a lack of opportunities. Authorities estimate the first caravan includes 5,347 people at this point, with 4,347 making their way north through Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Veracruz and another thousand traveling through the southern state of Oaxaca. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 14:20:02|Editor: ZD Video Player Close KHOST, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified armed men shot dead a provincial police official in an eastern Afghan province, in a latest string of targeted killing, a provincial governor spokesman said Sunday. Abdul Jalil Abdurahimzai, who served as office secretary of provincial police department in eastern Khost province, was shot dead in an area in neighboring Logar province, spokesman Talib Mangal told Xinhua. The incident happened early Sunday morning, along the way between Logar and the Afghan capital of Kabul, where unknown armed men pulled Abdurahimzai out of his car and shot him dead at the spot, Mangal added. The civilians considered to be supporting government, civilian government employees, religious leaders, tribal elders and persons involved in peace and reconciliation efforts came under attack in targeted killings over the past years. No armed groups have so far claimed responsibility for the incident. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 14:45:05|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will pay an official visit to China on Nov. 5-7 at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. The two will hold the 23rd regular meeting between Chinese and Russian prime ministers. During his stay in China, Medvedev will also attend the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. The following is a brief profile of the Russian prime minister. Medvedev was born on Sept. 14, 1965, in the Russian city of Leningrad, now known as St. Petersburg. He completed post-graduate studies in law at Leningrad State University in 1990. From 1990 to 1999, Medvedev taught as an associate professor at Leningrad (St. Petersburg) State University. He also worked as an advisor to the Chairman of the Leningrad City Council, and an expert consultant with St. Petersburg City Hall's Committee for External Affairs. In 1999, Medvedev worked as deputy chief of staff of the Russian Government Executive Office. From 2000 to 2005, he served in sequence as deputy chief of staff, first deputy chief of staff and chief of staff of the Russian Presidential Executive Office. In November 2005, he was appointed first deputy prime minister of the Russian government. In March 2008, Medvedev was elected as the Russian president. He assumed the post of prime minister in May 2012, and again in May 2018. During his terms of office as president and prime minister, Medvedev traveled to China six times for official visits or international events. He is married and has a son. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 14:45:05|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close An Afghan Special Force member stands guard at a security checkpoint on the road leading to Nazyan district in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2018. Up to 18 militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) were killed and one of their hideouts destroyed in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar, a statement said Sunday. (Xinhua/Saifurahman Safi) KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Up to 18 militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) were killed and one of their hideouts destroyed in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar, a statement said Sunday. "The incident occurred on Saturday, in the restive Nazyan district of the province, where Afghan defense forces launched an air-strike killing 18 fighters affiliated with the IS," Afghan Ministry of Defense said in the statement. The statement did not give details on whether civilians suffered life or property loss, nor the IS fighters operational in the region commented on the incident. The mountainous province, 120 km east of Kabul, has been the scene of clashes between security forces and IS militants from time to time. The clashes have forced thousands of villagers to flee to safer places. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 15:00:43|Editor: ZD Video Player Close A vendor waits for customers at an electronic market ahead of the Diwali festival in Mumbai, India, Nov. 3, 2018. Diwali, the festival of lights symbolizing the victory of good over evil, commemorates Lord Ram's return to his kingdom Ayodhya after a 14-year exile. (Xinhua/Stringer) Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 15:00:07|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close by Xinhua writer Fan Xiaolin HAVANA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The upcoming visit to China by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel represents a new starting point for China-Cuba friendly relations in the new era and will encourage the two peoples to work on a new chapter in their friendship, Chinese Ambassador to Cuba Chen Xi told Xinhua. At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Diaz-Canel, who was elected as president of the Council of State and chairman of the Council of Ministers in April by Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power, will pay a state visit to China, during which he will attend the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Diaz-Canel's visit to China, which will take place not long after he took office, "fully demonstrates the sincere will of the Cuban side to develop relations with China, and the firm determination of the new generation of Cuban leaders to inherit and deepen the friendship between China and Cuba," Chen said. Cuba is the only socialist country in the western hemisphere and the first Latin American and Caribbean country to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, Chen said. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations more than half a century ago, no matter how the international situation has changed, the two countries and their peoples have always understood and helped each other and forged deep comradely and brotherly relations, he recalled. In recent years, the frequent high-level exchanges between China and Cuba have generated a strong momentum for the development of bilateral ties. Political mutual trust between the two countries has been continuously strengthened, practical cooperation has been expanding day by day, cultural and people-to-people exchanges have been rich and colorful, and bilateral relations have made further progress in the new era. The Chinese and Cuban economies are highly complementary, Chen said, adding that China-Cuba economic and trade cooperation has a long history, enjoys great potential and has expanded at a rapid pace. China has become Cuba's second largest trading partner, and Cuba is currently China's first largest trading partner in the Caribbean area. The investment cooperation between the two sides has also steadily progressed, with Chinese enterprises actively participating in cooperation with Cuba in such fields as new energy, bio-pharmaceutical manufacturing, information and communications, and infrastructure construction. As Cuba's Mariel Special Development Zone continues to expand and its business environment is becoming more mature, Chinese enterprises are getting more interested in cooperation with the zone, and the negotiations on related joint venture projects are making positive progress, the Chinese ambassador said. As China and Latin American countries have reached broad consensus on jointly building the Belt and Road, Chen said, China and Cuba are facing new opportunities and enjoying broad development space in innovating cooperation models, expanding cooperation fields and making use of their complementary advantages. In the next stage, China will work with Cuba to promote the sustained and in-depth development of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit. Recent years also witnessed fruitful and colorful cultural exchanges between China and Cuba, Chen said, citing China's participation in this year's Havana International Book Fair as the guest of honor, the photo exhibition on the Belt and Road in Cuba in September, and the Cuban National Ballet's visits to China. Meanwhile, he said, biological science and technology projects such as the China-Cuba Center for Molecular Immunology and the Joint Laboratory are being implemented in an orderly way. In addition, recent years also witnessed closer people-to-people exchanges between China and Cuba, with more students studying in each other's countries and more Chinese tourists traveling to this Caribbean island country. China is willing to work together with Cuba to push their special friendship as "good friends, good comrades and good brothers" to a new level in accordance with the important consensus reached earlier by the leaders of the two countries, Chen said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 15:05:08|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BUENOS AIRES, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- All parties should strengthen cooperation and give full play to the mechanism of the Group of Twenty (G20) to adhere to multilateralism and jointly oppose unilateralism and protectionism, said Hao Mingjin, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, on Friday. Hao made the remarks when heading a Chinese delegation to attend the parliamentary forum and speakers' summits in the context of G20, which was held from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 in the Argentine capital. He said given the challenges of a changing world, all parties should work together to improve global governance, stick to innovation-driven development, foster new drivers of growth and build an open world economy. All parties should strengthen exchanges and cooperation at the parliamentary level and make more contributions to solving the problems of the era, he added. Hao said China will further expand its openness to achieve a win-win result and work to build a community with a shared future for mankind. The parliamentary meeting is part of the G20 agenda. Buenos Aires will host the G20 Leaders' Summit from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 15:10:08|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close by Evan Duggan VANCOUVER, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Balancing on top of ladders, two volunteers placed cans of kidney beans onto the top of an 8-foot-tall (2.4-meter-tall) tree sculpture made entirely from canned food in a local shopping center. The tree stood next to a massive black and yellow beehive made from cans of tuna and beans, both for the annual "canstruction" competition at the shopping center in the east of Vancouver. The event is a major fundraiser and food drive for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, and is part of an international charity that raises food and money for food banks in more than 160 cities worldwide. In the competition, teams of architects, engineers, designers and students come together to build structures made of canned and non-perishable food products. Over 1.3 million cans of food have been collected since the event was set up in Vancouver several years ago. This year's "canstruction" began on Saturday with 10 teams building various structures and sculptures from cans of tuna, soup, beans and other food. Each team had 12 hours to complete their structures as shoppers stopped by and took photos. The displays will remain in the mall until Nov. 11. Then the food will be taken to the local food bank. Each team had to use materials following a strict list that includes only non-perishable and healthy food. "There are over 4,000 cans in the sculpture," said Nikki Johnston, who was working on the beehive sculpture with her team from a Vancouver-based structural engineering firm called Fast + Epp and Simon Fraser University. "We came up with the idea of a beehive," she told Xinhua. "Inside the hive, we have our queen bee sitting on the throne and we've got a bunch of bees sticking out that are made from Mrs. Dash (spice jars). We want to keep everything food-oriented and as nutritious as possible. We're not allowed to use candy." Behind her, the display was taking shape. The queen bee sat inside the massive domed hive. Her torso was a large can of beans and the designers used black pipe-cleaners for her antenna and jacket stripes. The leaves of the tree are made with green tea, Johnston said. "We've been some busy bees today, trying to get this up and running," she said. "We think it's really important not just being a company, an organization that contributes to building our cities, but also being socially responsible," she said. Elsewhere in the mall, another team had set up a "Smurf Village," inspired by the animated show. Next to that display was a "Whoville" village from the Christmas classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." The Greater Vancouver Food Bank is expecting the event to bring in about 45,000 cans of food this year, said Jodie Ou, an event coordinator from the food bank. She added that a lot of the food used is from public donation by individuals and a local grocery store chain. "We have 10 teams building since 7:00 a.m.," she said. "They ordered food from Save-On-Foods (a chain of supermarkets), designed their structures and then built it. Only five people are allowed to be building at once." Many people think of Vancouver as a rich city, but figures show that every week, there are over 27,000 people in the Vancouver region who have to depend on food from the food bank, Ou said. "That's a large number of people that we are helping," she said. "Our shelves are actually quite empty, so we are trying to do big events to raise awareness of people for the food bank. It's been quite tough." She said awards will be handed out at the end of the competition for "the most nutritious display," "the best teamwork," "the overall best design" and more. Shoppers can vote for their favorite ones after making donations to the food bank at the mall. Home Just In Province 1 minister accused of threatening to kill Jhapa local Kathmandu, November 4 A local of Gauradaha in Jhapa district has accused his Provincial Minister for Internal Affairs and Law, Hikmat Karki, of threatening to kill him. Tanka Khanal from Gauradaha Municipality-2 has filed a complaint at the local police station stating the minister threatened to kill him over a local road construction project. Earlier, locals had staged a demonstration against the contractor of road project stating the contractor did not follow the agreement. They had also obstructed the construction works. Khanal says the Minister issued the threat in retaliation to the locals efforts. Khanal adds that Karki called him on Saturday morning and said, Who did authorise you to obstruct the road? I will soon come there and finish you. Karki is also a resident of Gauradaha Municipality. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 15:15:10|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter to the launching ceremony of a Belt and Road international science organizations alliance Sunday in Beijing. Xi said in the letter that promoting cooperation in science and technology among countries constituted an important part in building the Belt and Road, and played a positive role in improving people's livelihood, promoting development and coping with common challenges. He expressed the hope that scientists from different countries can make full use of the alliance as a platform to carry out major science and technology cooperations, foster more talented people in innovation and entrepreneurship and enhance innovative ability in science and technology. Xi also called on scientists to make contributions to promoting people-to-people communication and sustainable economic and social development, the building of a green and innovative path for development and building a community with a shared future for humanity. The ceremony was also the opening of the second international seminar of the Belt and Road science and technology innovation. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 15:55:16|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close CHANGSHA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's electric locomotive making industry is on fast track, as demonstrated by the quickly expanding business of one of its major manufacturers. According to the latest figures from CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co. Ltd (ZLCL), a rail transit equipment maker and subsidiary of China Railway Rolling Stock Corp.(CRRC), the value of its orders in the last five years exceeded 45.5 billion yuan (6.6 billion U.S. dollars). Now the Zhuzhou-based company, located in central China's Hunan Province, is enjoying huge success. ZLCL was established in 1936, specializing in repairing imported steam locomotives. In 1978, as China started reform and opening-up, ZLCL began shifting its focus to making electric locomotives. It managed to make a signature product, the Shaoshan electric locomotive, which paved the way for China's rail transport to go electric. As the technology behind the Shaoshan brand matured, the locomotives became widely used in China's rail transportation system. Even today, many regular trains in China are still equipped with such locomotives. "In the first 20 years after the reform and opening-up were launched, ZLCL concentrated a lot on research and development of the Shaoshan series, which became a major part of China's locomotive-making history," said Liu Youmei, with the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Meanwhile, many spin-off companies were also born during the stage of ZLCL's development, including those in train making and in core part making. Approaching the new millennium, ZLCL's technology experienced an upgrade, with direct-current drive upgraded to alternating-current drive, ordinary trains transformed into high-speed trains and light-loaded trains into heavy-loaded trains. In 2006, a new locomotive model jointly developed by ZLCL and Siemens was launched. Two years later, the models were heavily used to carry coal to the south of China, where a snow disaster had struck. ZLCL also sped up its business overseas. It developed high-speed trains for Malaysia, which were the fastest running trains on meter-gauge railway. The order was also the biggest among all of China's exported high-speed trains. In 2014 and 2016, ZLCL exported its high-speed trains to Macedonia and the Czech Republic, respectively, winning international recognition. More subway trains are being manufactured in ZLCL's factories and will be delivered to Chinese cities like Guangzhou, Nanning and Kunming as well as to other countries in the future. Even on hot summer days in India, China-made subway trains operate perfectly, said an Indian buyer, adding they are probably the best performing subway trains in India. Rail transit is about high-end equipment making, and is an important symbol of China-made equipment "going overseas", said ZLCL president Zhou Qinghe. "I will do my best for ZLCL," said Yang Ying, 53, a deputy chief engineer with ZLCL who has worked for the company for 30 years. "We will try to make more China-made quality equipment for the world." Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 16:05:17|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close By Xinhua writers Wang Huihui, Liang Xizhi LONDON, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The China-UK relationship in the golden era will receive a shot in the arm as the upcoming China International Import Expo (CIIE) provides a unique opportunity to further strengthen British cooperation with China. Richard Burn, the British trade commissioner for China, told Xinhua in an interview that as Country of Honor, Britain will send a high-level delegation to attend the week-long event, which will see the presence of Prince Andrew, Britain's International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and other officials and business leaders. "We are delighted the UK is one of the Countries of Honor at the CIIE. We recognize this is a very important event for China as it demonstrates its commitment to free trade, to open markets and buying more imports from overseas countries. It will give Chinese consumers better range and better quality products," he said. Britain will open a national pavilion that focuses on innovation and features world-leading companies in healthcare and life sciences, financial and professional services, education, creative industries, automotive, AI, big data, among others. A total of 30 British companies from different sectors, including finance, retail, healthcare, culture, education and high-end manufacturing, will participate in the business exhibition, scheduled for Nov. 5-10. "Britain is very strong in many areas where China is looking to buy products. We have the national pavilion ... so the main focus of the national pavilion will be Britain's capability in innovation," Burn said. The trade commissioner said Britain is looking forward to showing their products and services, building stronger relationships and identifying more Chinese buyers for their products. The China-UK "Golden Era" is now promising wider and stronger cooperation that benefits both sides after the visits of British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to China earlier this year. A few facts showcase the close cooperation between the two countries: Britain is the first Western country to issue RMB sovereign bonds and the first major Western country to apply for full membership in the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The landmark Hinkley Point C nuclear power station project, with one third of investment from a Chinese company, has been described by local media as "Britain's first new nuclear power station in a generation." According to China's Ministry of Commerce, bilateral trade volume between China and Britain reached 79.03 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, with China's imports from Britain up 19.4 percent year on year. Meanwhile, more than 500 Chinese enterprises have set up their offices in Britain, with a total of 21.8 billion U.S. dollars invested in projects ranging from traditional areas like trade, finance and telecommunications to such emerging areas as new energy, high-end manufacturing, infrastructure and research centers. "China is a very important market for UK. Prime Minister May came to China in January, and she and (Chinese) President Xi reaffirmed their commitment to building on the 'Golden Era' and launching the second phase of the 'Golden Era.' More and more companies are interested in taking the opportunity to export to China," said Burn. Apart from big multinational companies like HSBC and Standard Chartered that have achieved success in China for years, emerging British companies will also seek opportunities during the expo. As China's first-ever import expo, the CIIE has a particular appeal for multinational companies to explore the huge Chinese market further, drawn by a buying power that has exploded in the 40 years since the country's reform and opening-up. The event, which provides a platform for Chinese businesses, investors and consumers to connect with companies from Britain and around the world, has drawn British companies including Jaguar Land Rover, British Airways, Astra Zeneca, Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and DeLonghi Kenwood, according to the British Embassy in Beijing. China's Ministry of Commerce forecast in November 2017 that China would import more than 10 trillion U.S. dollars' worth of goods and services in the next five years. "This development comes as China bids farewell to growth based on exports and state-led investments, and is increasingly encouraging its 1.4 billion people to consume. The old model of 'Made in China' goods heading to markets around the world is gradually shifting to one where China is itself becoming a destination for products made elsewhere," said David Liao, president and CEO of HSBC China. "The CIIE is a great opportunity for companies to enter the Chinese market," said John Edwards, British consul-general in Shanghai. "Doing business is a long process. Before you do business in China, you have to understand China." He added that the CIIE will provide the newcomers with the opportunity to understand the Chinese market and consumers and find Chinese business partners. "This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up, which created China's economic miracle. The CIIE comes at a very important point as China enters the next period of reform and opening-up," Edwards said. "The CIIE is not a one-off but sustained opening-up. It's not a normal standard trade fair but a very special symbol of China's opening-up." Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 16:20:19|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TEHRAN, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Iranians held rallies in Tehran on Sunday to mark the 39th anniversary of the seizure of the former U.S. Embassy in the capital city. The demonstrators took to the streets and gathered outside the former U.S. embassy in central Tehran, now named "den of espionage." They carried placards and chanted slogans against the United States and its regional allies including Israel. Since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. mission by Iranian students, following the overthrow of the then U.S.-backed Iranian king, Iranians have been marking the occasion every year by holding rallies on the anniversary dubbed as "National Day against the Global Arrogance." The occasion this year coincides with the re-imposition of a comprehensive package of sanctions slapped against Tehran by Washington. The White House announced on Friday that the fresh sanctions on Iran, which will take effect on Nov. 5, will be the "toughest" and "unprecedented," targeting "critical sectors" like energy, shipping, shipbuilding and finance in the Islamic republic. The United States has kept accusing Iran of agitating regional instability and exporting violence, despite repeated denial from Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump, who announced termination of the hard-won Iranian nuclear accord on May 8, said the deal was "one of the worst and most one-sided deals the United States has ever entered into." The U.S. embassy was stormed by Iranian students on Nov. 4, 1979, and its personnel were held hostage for 444 days. The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 and the ties between the two countries have since remained severed. Children show pottery artworks during the eighth annual Tunis Pottery and Handcrafts Festival in Tunis village, Fayoum Province, south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, on Nov. 1, 2018. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa) FAYOUM, Egypt, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Crowds of local and foreign visitors have been walking around the little pottery and art shops of Tunis village in Fayoum Province, south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, during the eighth annual Tunis Pottery and Handcrafts Festival. The three-day festival, which kicked off on Nov. 1, showcases unique artworks of pottery and several other handcrafts including wood and granite carving, basket making, handmade carpets, needleworks, clay objects and hammered copper. "I have been working in pottery for about 27 years and our festival now attracts visitors from different nationalities including France, Switzerland, Britain, Austria, Italy and many others," said Rawya Abdel-Kader, a pottery workshop owner in her 40s. The owner hoped the festival will help promote her products for exportation. An artist works during the eighth annual Tunis Pottery and Handcrafts Festival in Tunis village, Fayoum Province, south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, on Nov. 1, 2018. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa) Held in the famous pottery-making village of Tunis, with Alexbank as a main sponsor in cooperation with Fayoum province and the Tourism Promotion Authority, the festival exhibits works of 78 exhibitors in the festival from Tunis village and other provinces nationwide. Christian, a British visitor, was touring the pottery shops around the festival along with his two teenage daughters. "It's my first time to come here but everything is really friendly and pretty. I like these little pottery shops. It's being fun to walk around here this morning," the British man told Xinhua. "I like the pottery school over there as I could see potters while making pots. It's really a nice bit of Egypt which we haven't visited before," he added. His 16-year-old daughter Cherry said that it was interesting to see creative people making things like baskets and pottery that she didn't see back home in England. "It's my first trip outside Europe, so it's just nice to see a different culture," Cherry added. Alexbank has been the festival's main sponsor since 2015. "We cooperate with the Potters Association of Tunis Village, financing the stands and stalls for exhibitors, providing accommodation for those coming from all over the country and making business cards and fliers for them to market their products," Laila Hosny, head of CSR and sustainable development office of Alexbank, told Xinhua. Artworks are seen during the eighth annual Tunis Pottery and Handcrafts Festival in Tunis village, Fayoum province, south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, on Nov. 1, 2018. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa) "We have 14 pottery workshops with some of them exporting pottery to foreign countries including Australia, Austria and the United States. One of them has one of his pieces displayed in the British Museum," she added. Among the shops that attracted many visitors is a small one displaying wooden models of dinosaurs, crocodiles, elephants, Cairo Tower, Eiffel Tower and other artworks. "It's our first year to join the festival and we feel that our artistic works will get the admiration of the visitors. The festival is a big chance for any artist who wants more popularity for their works," said Elia al-Nari, an exhibitor in his late 30s. Al-Nari added that most of his wooden works are made of olive and ficus trees. The authorities of Fayoum province have been developing Tunis village year after year to make it suitable for the growing popularity and fame of the festival, building a special gate with entrance for the village and paving its alleys with interlock tiles. Fayoum Governor Essam Saad said that his governorate provides all necessary support for the village and its festival. "Tunis village is a model to be followed worldwide. All villagers here work hard in beautiful handcrafts, impressing foreigners and exporting their works abroad," Saad added. "We're here to support these handcrafts and we hope this festival will be as impressive as ever and will be fruitful for Egypt," the governor told Xinhua. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 18:20:42|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close GAZA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The easement of Israeli restrictions on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip aims at preventing the explosion of the situation in the Palestinian enclave, according to Palestinian analysts. In recent days, the 2 million population in Gaza have witnessed a significant improvement in power supplies after Israel allowed the shipment of the Qatar-funded industrial fuel for the operation of the sole power plant in the territory. Israel also expanded the fishing area to nine nautical miles and improved the functioning of the border crossing points. The analysts hoped that these steps, sponsored by Egypt and the United Nations, will strengthen the understandings between the Palestinian factions in Gaza and Israel over the possibility of a cease-fire. "The indicators are positive in the calm talks, and the possibility of reaching a cease-fire agreement seems very close," said Mukhaimar Abu Saada, a Gaza-based political analyst. However, the potential agreement "is limited to steps for humanitarian facilities without including a sea passage between the Gaza Strip and Cyprus," Saada told Xinhua. On the ongoing Palestinian anti-Israel March of Return rally, the analyst said such steps can "ensure a reduction in violence on the border" despite the fact that they "do not guarantee a complete halt." Borders between Gaza and Israel have been in tension since the start of protests on March 30, in which at least 220 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire and more than 22,000 others injured in confrontations occurring on an almost daily basis. These protests demand to break the Israeli siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since after Hamas violently took over the coastal enclave in the summer of 2007 from fighting with forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority. Hamas and other Palestinian factions announced, on many occasions, that the rallies will continue until the Israeli blockade is lifted. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently welcomed the mediation of the UN and Egypt to "prevent the collapse of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip," according to Israeli media. "We are working to prevent any forces from entering Israel and causing harm to our soldiers and residents. In return, we are working to prevent a humanitarian crisis and ready to accept the mediation efforts of the UN and Egypt to achieve calm," said Netanyahu. Adnan Abu Amer, a writer and political analyst from Gaza, said both the Palestinian factions and Israel are under more pressures to "strengthen their position between calm and possibilities of escalation." Israel requires humanitarian steps toward the Gaza Strip to impose full calm, while the Palestinian factions calls for concrete steps to end or at least ease the siege of Gaza, Amer told Xinhua. Israel's repeated demands of dismantling weapons of the Palestinian factions and hand over their soldiers are what hampered the settlement of the situation in the Gaza Strip, he noted. Earlier this week, 34 homemade rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. In response, the Israeli army raided 80 military targets belonging to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza. Meanwhile, Palestinian reconciliation efforts have faltered despite the signing of several previous agreements between Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction. The last Egypt-brokered agreement signed between Fatah and Hamas was in October last year. It provided for a handover of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian consensus government, but failed because of differences between the two rivals on the implementation. Recently, Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to take "crucial" decisions against the Gaza Strip, including a halt to his full funding in response to the continued internal division. "Any steps to relax humanitarian facilities in Gaza without the approval of the Palestinian Authority perpetuate the internal division," Hani Hani al-Masri, a political analyst and writer from the West Bank told Xinhua. "Hamas deals with the reconciliation file as an option, not as a priority. So it prefers to reach a unilateral truce before reconciliation and threatens to use rockets and marches to ensure the flow of fuel and national funds," Masri added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 18:35:45|Editor: mym Video Player Close SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban key commander Mullah Haqyar is among 21 insurgents who were killed in Qush Tepa district of the northern Jawzjan province on Sunday, deputy to provincial governor, Abdul Rahman Mahmoudi said. "A group of Taliban rebels under notorious commander Mullah Haqyar launched coordinated offensive against a military base in Jarkodok area of Qush Tepa district early today morning, but the attack was repulsed and the rebels after leaving 21 bodies including notorious commander Mullah Haqyar behind fled away," Mahmoudi told Xinhua. Describing Mullah Haqyar as key commander, the official said that the physical elimination of notorious commander could prove a major blow to the insurgents in Jawzjan and adjoining areas. Taliban militants have not commented on the incident. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 18:55:49|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan (R) meets with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 3, 2018. (Xinhua/Shen Hong) BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan here on Saturday met with visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Wang said that Pakistan is China's only all-weather strategic cooperative partner. The friendship between the two countries has stood the test of time and has always enjoyed strong vitality. China will continue to place Pakistan in the priority direction of neighboring diplomacy, said Wang, pledging to work with Pakistan to maintain frequent exchanges of high-level visits and meetings, strengthen strategic communication and further enrich and expand the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor construction. Wang said that China expects to strengthen communication and coordination with Pakistan on major international and regional issues, jointly safeguard the rules-based multilateral system, and constantly strengthen all-weather mutual trust and all-round cooperation so as to build closer community with a shared future between the two countries in the new era. Khan said that Pakistan is deeply proud of the bilateral friendship and always adheres to a friendly policy towards China. He said that the Pakistani side admires China's achievements in reform and development and looks forward to learning from China's experience in governance, strengthening coordination with China on international and regional affairs and continuously enriching the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 19:45:57|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Israel's Ministry of Economy will support startup companies, mainly in life sciences, in a plan worth 100 million new shekels (27.1 million U.S. dollars), a local website reported Sunday. The purpose of the program is to help such companies pass from the research and development stage in the laboratory to the establishment of a plant, the Hebrew-language website Calcalist said. In the first stage of the program, 10 companies will receive a grant of up to 10 million new shekels. The Israel Innovation Authority estimates that 1,450 life sciences companies operate in the state, employing more than 85,000 workers. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 19:50:58|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close by Jamil Bhatti, Liu Tian ISLAMABAD, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- After getting a degree in information technology, Adnan Basheer, who once worked as salesman and IT technician in different companies, was struggling for his career as, in his words, the "odd jobs" could not provide enough income to meet his financial needs. His time came in 2008 when Basheer established his own company on a friend's advice and started importing electronic products from China and distributing them as a wholesale dealer in Pakistan. "Within a few months, I quit my job because I was earning many times more than what I was getting from my job," said Basheer, now the owner of Global Alliance Private Limited in Islamabad. He told Xinhua that import business from China gave him a chance to access the huge market and the 38-year-old man started exporting Pakistani specialties to China last year. According to him, the revenue of his company is getting multiplied with orders from China. Apart from importing electronic products from China, Basheer has also been exporting edible products, which is a main sector of Pakistan's exports, to China since last year. "I have exported over 1,000 tons of high-end Himalayan salt to China this year, which was mined at the Khewra Salt Mine," he said, adding that the supply was warmly welcomed by Chinese buyers for its special taste, better competitive rate and purity. The salt mine is located in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province and is the second largest and oldest salt mine in the world. The rose-colored rock salt was found, according to history, by Alexander's troops in 320 BC and its trade dates back to Mughal era. Actually, Pakistan has a vigorous product line, including exclusive varieties of mangoes, oranges, basmati rice, leather, oilseeds, kernels and a variety of seafood from the fresh waters of the Arabian Sea and several other raw materials, which have great potential to be exported to China on competitive rates, local analysts said. Pakistan's incumbent government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan, shortly after being sworn in in August, expressed a desire to boost the country's overall annual exports to 27 billion U.S. dollars from the existing 23.4 billion dollars in the ongoing fiscal year to end on June 30, 2019. During a visit to Pakistan in September, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would dispatch buying missions to Pakistan to enlarge its imports from the country so as to decease Pakistan's trade deficit. Local economists said China's gesture to increase its imports from Pakistan is the real advantage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for Pakistan and it will help the South Asian country increase its revenue and narrow the predetermined trade volume. Director of Islamabad Council for International Affairs Saeed Chaudhry told Xinhua that China's efforts are linking Pakistan to the more open market and global trading, which can change the economic and financial status of the country by supporting its industries and corporate sector. Basheer's salt now has to firstly reach Lahore before it can be sent to Karachi, which would take about 10 days through congested old highways. "I'm expecting that after the CPEC transportation projects, my goods can be sent directly to Karachi from Khewra, and at that time by using the new motorways, it would only take about five days to Karachi," Basheer said. According to him, a series of transportation infrastructural development projects of CPEC are forming a modern logistic network for the country, which reveals the great influence of CPEC over Pakistan's business development. For the first time, China will hold an International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai. At the invitation of the Chinese government, Imran Khan will attend the upcoming expo, where there will be booths for Pakistani companies exporting various items to China. Chaudhry believes that the CIIE would provide extra advantages to Pakistani products to woo new buyers at the Chinese and the international arena. Basheer said that there are a lot of opportunities for Pakistani businessmen and traders to export products to China because Pakistani entrepreneurs can make better offers to the Chinese buyers comparatively, but they also need to improve and upgrade their businesses through training, innovations and efficiency to meet the required Chinese standards. Chaudhry suggested that Pakistani companies and entrepreneurs should take advisory services of Chinese companies and counterparts to learn how to improve their businesses, which could help them increase exports to China. A great chance of increasing exports and minting more revenue is at hand for Pakistan, but there is a need to make special comprehensive efforts to grab it, which will finally lead the country to economic and social prosperity, said Chaudhry. #USFK U.S. service member detained for refusing sobriety test after car accident A U.S. service member stationed in South Korea was detained by local police after refusing to take a field sobriety test following a minor car accident, authorities said Saturday. ... #Netflix Netflix raises subscription fees in S. Korea amid controversies over network usage Netflix has raised its monthly subscription fees in South Korea as a vice parliamentary speaker proposed a bill to keep the U.S. streaming giant from getting a free ride on network... HELSINKI, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) --Risto Siilasmaa, the chairman of the telecommunication company Nokia, said here Friday that Europe should fight for the continued existence of the rule-based global system. Siilasmaa gave his comments as the Confederation of Finnish Industries published a survey predicting that the rate of globalization will accelerate, but instead of growth in trade in goods, focus of growth will be in services, data and digitalization. Siilasmaa said that while globalization in traditional trade is challenged currently, digitalization takes globalization forward at high speed, but remains somewhat unnoticed due to the modest inclusion of the ICT sector in statistics that measure economic development. He meanwhile warned against backtracking in globalization. "Globalization has raised huge numbers of people from poverty. If we take steps back, the standard of living of billions of people will decline." Siilasmaa also noted globalization has been criticized, for example, on account of the poor conditions in production plants in developing countries. "But people got the work first. Now the pressure groups working for improved conditions should be seen as part of globalization," he formulated. A survey carried out by Boston Consulting Group indicated that small and medium sized companies in Finland were most concerned about the hazards of protectionism as they cannot relocate production for different markets in the way major companies can. Three thirds of them believed though that digital services and technologies help them grow internationally. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 20:16:03|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close CAIRO, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Interior Ministry announced on Sunday the killing of 19 militants involved in a terrorist attack that left at least seven Copts dead in Upper Egypt's province of Minya on Friday. In a statement, the ministry said the terrorists were killed in a fire exchange with security forces in a mountainous area in Minya's western desert. The operation fell within the framework pursuing terrorists carrying out antagonistic operations in the country, according to the statement. On Friday, a bus carrying a number of Copts was attacked near the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor in Minya, leaving seven dead. Last year, almost in the same place, at least 28 Copts were killed in a similar attack. The country has been suffering a wave of terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers following the military removal of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. Terror attacks had been concentrated in restive North Sinai before spreading to several provinces including the capital Cairo and starting to target the Coptic minority via church bombings. Most of the attacks were claimed by the Wilayat Sinai, a Sinai-based group affiliated with the Islamic State regional terrorist group. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 20:26:04|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The pro-government Yemeni forces on Sunday advanced in the Red Sea coastal city of Hodeidah controlled by the Shiite Houthi rebels after two days of intense battles, local sources said. The government forces of the Giants Brigades captured new sites from the Houthi gunmen amid a wide-scale offensive to capture the strategic port city. "The Engineering Faculty of Hodeidah along with other institutions was seized by the Giants Brigades," an army commander loyal to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government told Xinhua by phone. Several areas surrounding the Kiko-16 highway were captured by the government forces following hours of intense fighting, the army commander said on condition of anonymity. The ongoing fighting between the two warring rivals, along with daily Saudi-led airstrikes, left scores of casualties. More than 50 Houthi rebels were killed during helicopter shelling and ground fighting within the past 24 hours, medical sources based in Hodeidah confirmed to Xinhua. Landmines and Houthi mortar shells killed 20 soldiers during the ongoing offensive in Hodeidah, according to other sources of government-controlled medical centers. Early in the day, the Houthi-affiliated Masirah television network reported that a ballistic missile fired by the their fighters targeted pro-government forces in Hodeidah, causing heavy casualties. The Yemeni government is seeking to expel Houthi rebels out of Hodeidah in recent days despite warnings by international humanitarian agencies. The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014. Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile. The United Nations has listed Yemen as the country with the world's biggest humanitarian crisis, with 7 million Yemenis on the brink of famine and cholera causing more than 2,000 deaths. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 20:26:04|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close VILNIUS, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iron Wolf, Lithuania's biggest international military exercise in the second half of this year kicks off on Sunday to enhance mobility. The international military exercise is attended by forces from 14 countries. During the training, Lithuanian Army and the personnel from Germany-led enhanced forward presence (EFP) multinational battalion deployed in Lithuania, which includes soldiers from Belgium, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway, and Luxembourg, are joined by personnel from Britain, Estonia, Italy, the U.S., Canada, Slovenia and Ukraine. According to Lithuanian Army, around 3,500 troops and 1,000 units of military hardware are involved in the training. The exercise will last for two weeks. This year, the Iron Wolf is held not only in military polygons, but will involve "civil territories and their surroundings", movement of military hardware on public roads, according to the Lithuanian Army. This year's exercise is aimed at training the ability to rapidly redeploy the forces to different parts of the country to conduct defense activities, according to the Lithuanian Army. "Uniqueness of this exercise is the movement of around 1,000 units of various military vehicles on Lithuanian public roads, including battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored vehicles, artillery cannons," the Project Officer of Mechanized Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf Major Skomantas Povilionis told Lithuanian national radio LRT on Sunday. "One of the main tasks is to train the mobility of the military units," said Povilionis. During the drill, Lithuanian and allied forces will also train combined field operations, conduct battle fire exercises. Lithuania, a small Baltic country with a population of less than 3 million, is NATO's Eastern-flank member country. In recent years, Lithuania has increased its defense spending and stepped up military training citing security tensions in the Eastern Europe. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 21:46:20|Editor: yan Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Shanghai, east China, Nov. 4, 2018. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) SHANGHAI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who will attend the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Xi recalled the meeting between the two presidents during the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in September and the consensus reached, calling on both sides to push for new progress in deepening the comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership while implementing the outcome of the summit and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China and Kenya should maintain high-level exchanges, expand cooperation in all areas, and continue to support each other on issues involving respective core interests and major concerns, said Xi. Xi welcomed Kenyatta to the import expo and said that China is ready to help increase the added value and competitiveness of Kenyan products and expand imports from Kenya. On projects of railway construction, Xi said China is willing to work with the Kenyan side to conduct feasibility studies and hopes Kenya will provide a good business environment for Chinese companies operating there. Xi said both sides should strengthen communication and coordination in regional and international affairs and jointly defend the multilateral system and order. Kenyatta thanked China for hosting the expo, which he dubbed a major innovative move to open its market. He also thanked China for making Africa an important direction in its opening-up. He spoke highly of Xi's proposal of the BRI and his efforts in promoting the FOCAC, calling them "China's important contribution to world peace and common development." Kenya is ready to work with China in safeguarding multilateralism and the free trade system and contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, said Kenyatta. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 21:51:24|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's internet giant Tencent and Nature Research announced that they will reward early career researchers who have brought a positive influence to society. The Research Awards for Driving Global Impact was launched by Tencent in partnership with Nature Research during WE Summit in Beijing on Sunday. The award aims to remarkably enhance research influence. The award focuses on a different area of research each year. In 2019, the award will give opportunities to young researchers in the field of brain science. The applicants are required to demonstrate the positive impact of their research on the economy, society, public policy or service, health, environment or living quality or highlight the potential impact. In addition, applicants should also state their plans to make their visions come true. The award is with the objective of providing support to early career scientists to advance their research programs and translate research into societal impact, said Edward Cheng, vice president of Tencent. "We have strikingly few approaches for treating the devastating brain disorders which pose a challenge to the wellbeing of individuals, the strength of our social networks and our global economies," said Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Springer Nature. "This award, for candidates performing exciting research across a broad spectrum of brain research, will promote a deeper understanding of what makes us human and advance global health and well-being." Submission of applications opens on Nov. 4 this year and closes on Feb. 9 of 2019. The winners list will be released in November of 2019. WE Summit has been held annually since 2013. The event draws scientists and innovators from around the world to predict future challenges and explore solutions to progress human development. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 21:56:25|Editor: yan Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Shanghai, east China, Nov. 4, 2018. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) SHANGHAI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who will attend the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) opening Monday in Shanghai. Xi said this year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries. China and Vietnam should uphold the tradition of close high-level exchanges between both parties and states, press for the dovetail of China's Belt and Road Initiative and Vietnam's "Two Corridors and One Economic Circle" plan and confirm priority areas in cooperation, Xi said. As China's largest trading partner in Southeast Asia, Vietnam will participate in the first China International Import Expo as a guest of honor, Xi said, stressing China will import more Vietnam products that are marketable in the Chinese market. Xi also said both sides should work together to maintain maritime peace and stability, and advance maritime cooperation. Phuc said Vietnam will engage in pragmatic cooperation with China and enhance connectivity of the Belt and Road Initiative and the "Two Corridors and One Economic Circle" plan. The international import expo shows China's commitment to opening up and free trade, Phuc said, adding that Vietnam will properly address maritime issues according to the consensus and principles reached by the leaders of both countries. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 22:36:34|Editor: yan Video Player Close ZAGREB, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- From listed company to family business, Croatian firms participating in the upcoming China International Import Expo (CIIE) have expressed their hopes in finding business opportunities in China. Zagreb-based KONCAR Group, whose business scope includes electricity, transport and energy, is among over 30 Croatian companies which will participate in the CIIE in Shanghai. For KONCAR, CIIE is a great opportunity to showcase the company's production program. "Participation at the CIIE will open an opportunity for KONCAR Group to establish new contacts with representatives of Chinese energy and transport companies," Renata Godek, KONCAR's communication director, told Xinhua. She explained that the company will present in Shanghai its production program in the transfer and distribution of electricity, as well as the production of track vehicles. Godek believes that China is one of the world's most important markets which is increasingly opening up to the world. KONCAR realized that and has already associated itself with some Chinese companies. As early as 2006, a joint venture with China's TBEA Co., Ltd. was established in northeastern China's Shenyang. In June 2018, KONCAR and China XD Electric Co., Ltd. signed a joint venture agreement. The two will manufacture gas-insulated switchgear together and deliveries will begin in 2020. "Experiences with Chinese partners open up new opportunities for business," Godek concluded. Along with KONCAR Group, one of the biggest companies in Croatia with a staff of 4,000, family agricultural company Riba Drazin will also take part in the CIIE. Based in the traditional fishing village Kastel Kambelovac on the eastern shore of the Adriatic coast, Riba Drazin, which offers marinated and salted seafood, is a small family business with just four employees. This will be its first attempt on the Chinese market. "We hope to make good connections in China and maybe find someone who would promote and sell our products in China," Zivko Drazin, owner of the company, told Xinhua, saying that they will present around 20 products such as octopus' salad, olives with almonds or marinated anchovies. Drazin hopes that Chinese consumers could be specially interested in crithmum -- a healthy sea plant, and pepefish, which is Drazin's original product that is protected on Croatian and international market. It is a combination of marinated anchovies and mini red peppers, usually served with bread, cheese and wine. In 2017, trade volume between Croatia and China reached 807 million euros (about 919 million U.S. dollars), increasing by 22.75 percent from 2016. In the first half of this year, bilateral trade volume has increased 18.4 percent compared with the same period of 2017, according to figures from the Chinese Embassy in Croatia. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 22:46:40|Editor: yan Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 people were killed and eight others injured Sunday after a container truck rammed into a car and two two-wheelers in northern Indian state of Haryana, police said. The accident took place on Gohana-Panipat highway near Mundlana in Sonipat district about 110 km north of New Delhi, the Indian capital city. "This evening a container truck rammed into a car and two-wheelers here and killed 12 people, besides injuring seven others," a senior police official posted at police control room Sonipat told Xinhua over telephone. "Following the accident bystanders informed police, who reached to the spot to carry out rescue work." Officials said the police removed the bodies from the spot and shifted injured to the nearest medical facility. "The injured were admitted at Khanpur medical college hospital and bodies have been kept at mortuary." Reports said the truck was coming in the wrong direction and driver of the truck escaped from the spot after the deadly accident. Deadly road accidents are common in India often caused due to overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving. An official report says on an average 400 deaths take place every day in India due to road accidents. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 22:56:42|Editor: yan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- African Union (AU) on Sunday called for collective commitment and concrete actions so as to strengthen science, technology and innovation for the development of Africa. (AU Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology Sarah Anyang Agbor made the call during the First Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government (C10) Championing Education, Science and Technology in Africa. The event is underway with the theme "Strengthening Education, Science, Technology and Innovation for Africa's Development," the AU said in a statement on Sunday. Calling AU member countries to reiterate their efforts towards actions that will strengthen education, science and technology outcomes in Africa, Agbor further underlined the focus on results, implementation and measurable targets. The commissioner also indicated the urgent need to explore opportunities that are available in the continent in a bid to enhance investments through increased mobilization of resources. "It is important that we commit sufficient resources and adopt multi-sectoral approaches which are essential to realizing the aspirations of Agenda 2063 (AU's 50-year flagship plan) and attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals," she said. Agbor also stressed the importance of the policy interventions and strategies that were developed by the pan African bloc AU so as to strengthen outcomes in education, science and technology, and innovation throughout the continent. AU's policy interventions in education, science and technology, and innovation include the Continental Strategy for Technical, Vocational, Education and training that aimed to foster youth employment. Major outcomes of the summit are expected to be presented during the next AU Summit of Heads of State and Government, the AU said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 23:11:45|Editor: yan Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Israel's Energy Ministry announced on Sunday that it will launch a tender for gas and oil exploration in the Mediterranean Sea, with the aim of exporting most of the energy found, in view of the low demand in domestic market. This is the ministry's second attempt to find such investors, about a year after the failure of the first round. In 2016, the ministry announced the opening of the sea, off the coast of Israel, to gas and oil exploration, after four years in which the sea was closed to competition. The closing took place after companies not involved in the Israeli energy market took advantage of the licensing policy to search areas with an unclear purpose. On the other hand, the closing fixed the status of the "Tamar" and "Leviathan" gas drill fields in the Mediterranean Sea as a duopoly in the gas supply market. The ministry, which reopened the sea for searches, hoped that with the regulation of investors and approval of a government gas pipeline, investors would rush to Israel, just as they rush to tenders in Cyprus, Egypt and Lebanon. In practice, no such investors came. The announcement of the results of the first tender was rejected three times due to a small number of participants. Finally, the Greek company Energean Oil & Gas and a consortium of four Indian government companies agreed to obtain search licenses. The Greek company plans to start the search soon, while the Indian companies have not yet done anything about it since the license was granted. Despite the failure of the first tender, Israeli Minister of Energy, Yuval Steinitz, decided to launch another one so as not to lag behind tenders in neighboring countries and the dream of turning Israel into a regional supplier. In addition, according to existing studies in the economic waters of Israel, there is another 2 trillion cubic meters of gas, and also a probability of finding oil. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 23:11:45|Editor: yan Video Player Close PARIS, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday welcomed the outcome of independence referendum of New Caledonia that voted against independence of the South Pacific archipelago from France. "I must first express my great pride that we have together passed this historic stage. I also want to express as a head of state the pride that the majority of the Caledonians had chosen France," Macron said in a televised address. "It's a sign of confidence in the French Republic, in its future, in its values," he added shortly after partial results showed the "No" vote was largely ahead in the independence referendum. According to partial results Sunday, about 60 percent of 175,000 people eligible to vote -- mainly descendants of colonial settlers, voted to remain loyal to Paris. "The only loser is the temptation of scorn, violence, the only winner is the spirit of dialogue ... the spirit of responsibility that has led to an exceptional participation of New Caledonia people," the French President stressed, inviting " everyone to look to the future to build the New Caledonia of tomorrow." Speaking about the pro-independence indigenous Kanaks, Macron pledged "to guarantee the long-term dignity of all parts of the society." Located more than 16,700 km from France mainland, New Caledonia became a French colony in 1853. Dubbed "confetti of the French empire," the archipelago was declared a French overseas territory in 1946, that depends heavily on France for economy, defense and education. The Nickel-rich island is home to 269,000 people, 39.1 percent of whom are indigenous Melanesians, known as Kanaks, while 27 percent are Caldoches, descendants of French settlers, alongside a smattering of other minorities from Polynesia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-04 23:31:49|Editor: ZD Video Player Close GUANGZHOU, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's largest trade fair in southern Guangdong Province saw an increase in export to countries along the Belt and Road and new buyers from these regions. The 124th biannual session of China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, concluded on Sunday, with the number of foreign buyers and export turnover declined slightly by about one percent year-on-year. Statistics showed the fair received 189,812 buyers from 215 countries and regions and the export turnover reached 206.5 billion yuan (29.8 billion U.S. dollars). Exports to countries and regions along the Belt and Road increased 2.7 percent to 9.6 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 32.3 percent of the total. While new buyers attending the fair totaled 77,733, up by 2.34 percent, those from countries and regions along the Belt and Road grew by 4.2 percent. Seven of the top ten buyers were countries and regions along the Belt and Road. A total of 10,739 buyers from the United States attended the fair, the second largest source of buyers, after China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. "The number of buyers from developing countries and emerging markets has increased at the fair, and that of new buyers has continued to grow. The structure of buyers has continualy been optimized, and quality steadily improved," said the fair spokesman Xu Bing. "Diversified global buyers can help enterprises efficiently consolidate the traditional markets, explore emerging and potential markets, and optimize their layout in the international market," he added. The China Import and Export Fair, held every spring and autumn in the city of Guangzhou, is seen as a barometer of China's exports. Aerial photo taken on Oct. 19, 2018 shows the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), the main venue of the upcoming first China International Import Expo (CIIE), in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Fan Jun) ZAGREB, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- From listed company to family business, Croatian firms participating in the upcoming China International Import Expo (CIIE) have expressed their hopes in finding business opportunities in China. Zagreb-based KONCAR Group, whose business scope includes electricity, transport and energy, is among over 30 Croatian companies which will participate in the CIIE in Shanghai. For KONCAR, CIIE is a great opportunity to showcase the company's production program. "Participation at the CIIE will open an opportunity for KONCAR Group to establish new contacts with representatives of Chinese energy and transport companies," Renata Godek, KONCAR's communication director, told Xinhua. She explained that the company will present in Shanghai its production program in the transfer and distribution of electricity, as well as the production of track vehicles. Godek believes that China is one of the world's most important markets which is increasingly opening up to the world. KONCAR realized that and has already associated itself with some Chinese companies. As early as 2006, a joint venture with China's TBEA Co., Ltd. was established in northeastern China's Shenyang. In June 2018, KONCAR and China XD Electric Co., Ltd. signed a joint venture agreement. The two will manufacture gas-insulated switchgear together and deliveries will begin in 2020. "Experiences with Chinese partners open up new opportunities for business," Godek concluded. Photo taken on Nov. 1, 2018 shows the scenery of Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Wang Jianhua) Along with KONCAR Group, one of the biggest companies in Croatia with a staff of 4,000, family agricultural company Riba Drazin will also take part in the CIIE. Based in the traditional fishing village Kastel Kambelovac on the eastern shore of the Adriatic coast, Riba Drazin, which offers marinated and salted seafood, is a small family business with just four employees. This will be its first attempt on the Chinese market. "We hope to make good connections in China and maybe find someone who would promote and sell our products in China," Zivko Drazin, owner of the company, told Xinhua, saying that they will present around 20 products such as octopus' salad, olives with almonds or marinated anchovies. Drazin hopes that Chinese consumers could be specially interested in crithmum -- a healthy sea plant, and pepefish, which is Drazin's original product that is protected on Croatian and international market. It is a combination of marinated anchovies and mini red peppers, usually served with bread, cheese and wine. In 2017, trade volume between Croatia and China reached 807 million euros (about 919 million U.S. dollars), increasing by 22.75 percent from 2016. In the first half of this year, bilateral trade volume has increased 18.4 percent compared with the same period of 2017, according to figures from the Chinese Embassy in Croatia. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 00:06:59|Editor: yan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed an autonomous system for a fleet of drones to collaboratively search lost hikers in forests. In a paper to be presented at the incoming International Symposium on Experimental Robotics conference, the researchers described the drones using only on-board computation and wireless communication, requiring not GPS, according to MIT's official website. Helicopters and drones can't get a glimpse through the thick tree canopy and ordinary autonomous drones that can bob and weave through trees demand GPS signals that can be unreliable in forest. The new technique equipped each quadrotor drone with laser-range finders for position estimation, localization, and path planning. The drone can create its own 3-D map of the terrain. Algorithms help it recognize unexplored and already-searched spots, so it knows when it's fully mapped an area. Then, an off-board ground station combines individual maps from multiple drones into a global 3-D map that can be monitored by human rescuers. When located, the drone would tag the hiker's location on the global map and rescuers could then use this information to plan a rescue mission. "Essentially, we're replacing humans with a fleet of drones to make the search part of the search-and-rescue process more efficient," said the paper's first author Tian Yulun, a graduate student at MIT. The researchers tested multiple drones in simulations of randomly generated forests, and tested two drones in a forested area within NASA's Langley Research Center. In both experiments, each drone mapped a roughly 20-square-meter area in about two to five minutes and collaboratively fused their maps together in real-time. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 00:52:09|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close COLOMBO, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday issued a special gazette notification to convene Parliament next Wednesday, as the political crisis in the island country deepened. The president's office said the Gazette notice was issued on Sunday evening, with Sirisena saying Parliament would convene next Wednesday at 10 a.m. local time. On Oct. 27, Sirisena prorogued Parliament till Nov. 16, hours after he dissolved his cabinet and sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, replacing him with former President Mahinda Rajapakse. Wickremesinghe has called his sudden dismissal illegal and has called for Parliament to convene immediately to prove his majority in the 225-member House. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 01:02:10|Editor: yan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania on Sunday distanced itself from remarks against gays made by Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Paul Makonda. On Wednesday, Makonda announced the creation of a surveillance squad that will hunt down gays in the east African nation's commercial capital of about 5 million people. Makonda told a news conference that the operation was scheduled to start on Monday, Nov. 5. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation on Sunday distanced itself from Makonda's remarks. A statement by the ministry said Makonda was airing his personal views that did not reflect the official position of the government of the United Republic of Tanzania. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, on behalf of the government of the United Republic of Tanzania, wishes to clarify that Mr. Makonda was only airing his personal opinion which does not represent the official position of the United Republic of Tanzania," said the statement. According to the statement, Tanzania will continue to abide by all international treaties on human rights to which the country was a signatory. "The United Republic of Tanzania will also continue to respect and uphold all human rights as provided for in the country's constitution," added the statement. Makonda said last week that the team he had formed will trawl social media in order to track down and arrest people in same-sex relationships. Homosexual acts are illegal in Tanzania, forcing many gay, lesbian and transgender people to hide their sexuality. Makonda has brushed aside international condemnation over his remarks, saying, "I prefer to anger those countries than to anger God." Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 01:12:13|Editor: yan Video Player Close CAPE TOWN, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Lobby group AfriForum said on Sunday it has obtained a court warrant to seize movable assets of Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and of the EFF over a row on land reform. The assets will be used to pay an amount of more than 337,758 rand (about 23,300 U.S. dollars) owed to AfriForum by Malema in his personal capacity, and the EFF as party, said AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel. The warrant was issued by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Nov. 1, Kriel said. The warrant will now be sent to the sheriff concerned for the latter to identify and record movable assets of Malema and the EFF, in order for the assets to be sold by public auction, said Kriel. Malema and the EFF owe AfriForum this amount, due to the North Gauteng High Court issuing two cost orders against Malema and the EFF in favor of AfriForum since March 2017. Malema and the EFF had disregarded the court's orders to pay the legal fees of AfriForum, resulting in AfriForum now obtaining this warrant to seize their assets, according to Kriel. The cost orders stem from a lawsuit brought by AfriForum against Malema and the EFF to obtain an interdict to prevent them from inciting people to grab or enter land illegally. Malema and the EFF have staunchly advocated for land seizures from white farmers. On March 7, 2017, the North Gauteng High Court ruled in AfriForum's favor and granted the interdict, upon which Malema and the EFF applied for the interdict to be set aside. This application was scheduled to be heard on Sept. 12, 2017, but the court had to postpone the case after the documents of argument of Malema and the EFF were filed late. The court, therefore, issued a punitive cost order against Malema and the EFF. AfriForum is determined to collect the amount due from Malema and the EFF and to use the money in the continuing fight against illegal land grabs and incitement to do so, said AfriForum's Head of Community Safety Ian Cameron. "Julius Malema and his party, that encourage violence and anarchy, can be assured that AfriForum will use their money and assets against them in this manner in order to fight for justice," Cameron said. AfriForum will soon decide which moveable assets of Malema and the EFF will be seized, Kriel said. The legal row is the latest chapter in the unfolding land reform in the country, amid a heated debate on the government's drive to enforce land expropriation without compensation. AfriForum has embarked on an international campaign to get the government to stop the controversial land reform. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 03:27:30|Editor: yan Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) on Sunday killed and wounded 32 U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters during an offensive in eastern Syria, a war monitor reported. Taking advantage of the bad weather, the IS launched a "violent attack" on the SDF fighters who were poised to launch second wave of battles against the last IS-held pocket in eastern Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based watchdog group said that the IS attacked the positions of the SDF in the al-Bahra area near the town of Hajin, one of the IS-held towns on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province. The attack led to the advance of IS in that area and the retreat of the first defense line of the SDF as the attack was surprising, according to the Observatory. The attack started with suicide bombings and the U.S.-led coalition attempted to provide aerial support to the SDF by striking the advancing IS militants in the area. Ten U.S. armored vehicles also took part in confronting the IS attack, said the Observatory, adding that the U.S.-led airstrikes couldn't do much because of the intensity of fog. Earlier in the day, the Observatory said that 14 people were killed by the U.S.-led airstrikes. Meanwhile, the battles on the eastern bank of the Euphrates are still ongoing after the advance of the IS and the coalition is still shelling the area to force the terror-labeled group to retreat. The attack of IS on Sunday came as the SDF was amassing forces to conduct another round of battles to defeat IS in its last strongholds in eastern Syria after a failed first attempt that started on Sept. 10. It also came as the Turkish forces were shelling the SDF positions on the eastern side of Euphrates River as Ankara made it clear that it wants to defeat the SDF as this group is led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units. Earlier in the day, the Observatory said that the Turkish intelligence moved 700 Syrian rebels from areas in the countryside of Aleppo in northern Syria to areas near the eastern Euphrates. The Turkish stance reflected the desire to defeat the Kurdish militia in the eastern Euphrates after they had already pushed them to retreat from the western side of the river in two cross-border operations in 2016 and 2018. On Friday, the U.S. deployed forces along the line separating the eastern part of the Euphrates, where the SDF is located, from the Turkish-backed rebels on the western bank of the river to avert any confrontation. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 03:37:31|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed on Sunday the formation of the constitutional committee with the visiting Russian President's Special Envoy on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev. Lavrentiev's visit came days after Russia, Turkey, Germany, and France held a summit in Turkey's Istanbul to discuss the formation of the committee. The media office of the Syrian presidency said that Assad met Lavrentiev and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin in Damascus, during which the Russian guests put Assad in the picture of the development at the quartet summit that took place on Oct. 27. The Russian envoy also discussed with Assad efforts exerted by Moscow with regional and international parties to remove the obstacles to progress on finding a political solution for Syria. According to the report, both sides agreed to continue joint work to remove all the obstacles facing the formation of the constitutional committee. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hopes that by the end of 2018, Syria's constitutional committee will start functioning. The constitutional committee is expected to include 150 members, equally divided into three groups, one chosen by the government, the second by the opposition and the third by UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. In recent remarks, de Mistura said the objection remains, mainly from the government, over the third list that the UN is tasked with to include civil society representatives, religious and tribal leaders, experts and women in the committee. The formation of the constitutional committee was agreed upon during inter-Syrian talks in Russia's Sochi this January that were brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey. In his recent remarks, Putin said that "now we need to agree on the third part with the participation of public organizations and representatives of various public bodies." He also noted that the work was not easy as each side would be striving to "fill this part with those people who they trust." Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 03:42:34|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BEIRUT, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Attempts to break the months-long government formation in Lebanon slowed down on Sunday, local TV Channel NBN reported. "It is not clear whether there will be any progress in this regard or not in the absence of Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri who traveled to Paris for personal reasons," it said. Hariri has been facing various hurdles in his attempt to form a 30-member national unity government because of rifts among rival politicians over the representation of the main Christian parties and Druze sect. Few days ago, Lebanon was capable of clearing a major hurdle after Lebanese Forces (LF) Leader Samir Geagea said that he accepted Hariri's offer to grant the LF four ministries. Meanwhile, the Druze representation will be solved by giving two portfolios to the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) headed by MP Walid Jumblatt and a third Druze minister would receive consensual support. However, one obstacle has remained. Sunni MPs from outside Hariri's Future Movement have been demanding to be represented by at least one seat in the government but Hariri refused the demand while Hezbollah has insisted it to be accepted. A solution has not been found yet for this issue. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 03:42:35|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close HOUSTON, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Students from five American high schools presented Chinese art performances Saturday night in Houston, the fourth largest city in the U.S., showing their great passion for Chinese culture. The show, themed East Meets West, was organized by North Houston Chinese Association (NHCA). Featuring dragon dance, traditional Chinese instruments performance, Chinese opera, costumes show and others, the performances received cheers and acclamation from the audience. Using both English and Chinese, show hosts briefly introduced the Chinese history and culture to the audience. Singing a famous Chinese folk song "Nan Ni Wan" in fluent Chinese, Kristi Cobb was highly welcome by the audience. Cobb told Xinhua that culture events are perfect opportunities for Americans to learn and understand China. "It seems that many American people can learn about the Chinese people and their culture. Through these kind of programs wen can make more friends and share more love," she said. Founded in 2009, NHCA provided a platform for cultural exchange and social gathering, seeking to promote Chinese culture and enriching the life of Chinese Americans in the community and beyond. File photo: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron attend a news conference at the Syria summit in Istanbul, Turkey on October 27, 2018. (REUTERS) DAMASCUS, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed on Sunday the formation of the constitutional committee with the visiting Russian President's Special Envoy on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev. Lavrentiev's visit came days after Russia, Turkey, Germany, and France held a summit in Turkey's Istanbul to discuss the formation of the committee. The media office of the Syrian presidency said that Assad met Lavrentiev and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin in Damascus, during which the Russian guests put Assad in the picture of the development at the quartet summit that took place on Oct. 27. The Russian envoy also discussed with Assad efforts exerted by Moscow with regional and international parties to remove the obstacles to progress on finding a political solution for Syria. According to the report, both sides agreed to continue joint work to remove all the obstacles facing the formation of the constitutional committee. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hopes that by the end of 2018, Syria's constitutional committee will start functioning. The constitutional committee is expected to include 150 members, equally divided into three groups, one chosen by the government, the second by the opposition and the third by UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. In recent remarks, de Mistura said the objection remains, mainly from the government, over the third list that the UN is tasked with to include civil society representatives, religious and tribal leaders, experts and women in the committee. The formation of the constitutional committee was agreed upon during inter-Syrian talks in Russia's Sochi this January that were brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey. In his recent remarks, Putin said that "now we need to agree on the third part with the participation of public organizations and representatives of various public bodies." He also noted that the work was not easy as each side would be striving to "fill this part with those people who they trust." Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 04:22:41|Editor: yan Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Libyan government forces on Sunday clashed and expelled armed smuggling groups from the western city of Sabratha, according to security sources. "Sabratha witnessed clashes between the anti-Islamic State operations chamber and general intelligence forces (of the government) against militias of the military council, who were expelled from the city in October last year," a security official told Xinhua who requested anonymity. The official said the clashes erupted in southern Sabratha when the militias attempted to enter and take over the city. Another security source told Xinhua that the government forces took control of the city after hours of fighting, killing four militia fighters, injuring dozens, and capturing many others. The municipal council of Sabratha confirmed that the city is under control, and schools will reopen on Tuesday. In October 2017, the anti-Islamic State operations chamber of the Government of National Accord announced taking over Sabratha and defeating rival militias accusing of smuggling migrants. Sabratha, located some 70 km west of the capital Tripoli, is considered a hotspot for migrants smuggling to Europe, according to international reports. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 04:27:43|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Sunday condemned attack of the western Libyan city of Sabratha by militias accused of smuggling migrants. "UNSMIL condemns the attack on Sabratha and warns against further escalation," the mission said in a statement, adding that such move is "prohibited by the International Humanitarian Law." According to local security sources, clashes erupted between government forces and militias on Sunday when the militias attacked the city and attempted to control it. A few hours later, the government forces defeated the militias, killed four of them and injured and captured others. The municipal council of Sabratha confirmed that the city is under control and that schools will reopen on Tuesday. In October 2017, government forces announced takeover of Sabratha and defeat rival militias accusing of smuggling migrants after weeks of fighting. Sabratha, located some 70 km west of the capital Tripoli, is considered a hotspot for migrants smuggling to Europe, according to international reports. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 04:27:44|Editor: yan Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Deputy Commander of the Security Force of Libyan city Sirte, Ali Erfeda, on Sunday was severely injured in an assassination attempt by unknown gunmen in Libya's western city of Khoms. Taha Hadid, the security force spokesman, said that the deputy commander was rushed to hospital. Hadid confirmed that security services of Khoms started an urgent investigation into the incident to find out those responsible. The UN-backed government formed the Sirte Security Force to fight against the Islamic State militants in the city of Sirte, which is located some 450 km east of the capital Tripoli. The government forces took control of the coastal city and defeated the terrorists in December 2016 after nearly eight months of fierce fighting. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 05:22:53|Editor: mmm Video Player Close LONDON, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Manchester City moved two points clear at the top of the English Premier League after thrashing Southampton 6-1 at the Etihad on Sunday. The Blues raced into a three-goal lead inside the opening 18 minutes thanks to an own goal from Wesley Hoedt and the brilliance of Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling. In the sixth minute, Hoedt struck high into his own net when trying to clear Leroy Sane's a low cross. Six minutes later, Aguero scored from close range on a cross from Sterling, his 150th Premier League goal. David Silva made it 3-0 in the 18th minute before Danny Ings pulled one back from the spot after Ederson brought him down in the area. Sterling then netted either side of the break to complete an impressive personal performance, while Sane added a late sixth to cap off a fine afternoon for Pep Guardiola's men. Guardiola said, "It's a joy to be manager of them because they follow what we tell them. "In training, I try to argue why we should play this way. It's a joy and a pleasure for the staff." Chelsea's impressive early-season form continued as they beat Crystal Palace 3-1 at the Stanford Bridge to move past Liverpool to the second place on goal difference. The hosts sent ahead after the half-hour mark when Alvaro Morata swivelled to score from close range following good work by Pedro. Palace pulled it even eight minutes after the restart through Andros Townsend, but two goals in the space of five minutes, first from Morata and then Pedro, put Chelsea firmly in control of the contest. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-05 06:28:03|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close LISBON, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Portuguese government condemned the terrorist attack that left at least seven people dead in Egypt, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The Portuguese government conveyed their sincere condolences to the families of the victims and hoped for a speedy recovery of the injured in the attack, the statement said. Portugal expressed its deep solidarity with Egypt and the Egyptian people at this difficult time and reiterated their commitment to the eradication of terrorism in all its forms, it concluded. On Friday, a bus carrying a number of Copts was attacked near the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor in Upper Egypt's province of Minya, leaving at least seven dead. Coun Perez reiterates warning to barangay leaders involved in drugs 07 Aug 2017 Hits:37 Comments(0) Liga ng mga Barangay President, Councilor Jerry Perez yesterday reiterated his warning to all barangay officials from using or selling drugs. Perez said he is closely monitoring the activities of all the barangay officials and vowed sanctions against erring leaders. Aqui gane na mio barangay ya quita ya iyo na puesto cunel dos barangay leaders quien mas temprano ya sale positivo na... Vesti PROASTE pentru milioane de soferi! Vor avea parte de noi reguli extrem de dure Vesti proaste! Toti soferii din Romania sunt vizati de noile modificari propuse de Ministerul Afacerilor Interne (MAI). Acestea vor avea menirea de a educa mai bine conducatorii auto care sunt indisciplinati in trafic. Una din modificarile [citeste mai departe] A severely malnourished boy rests on a hospital bed at the Aslam Health Center, Hajjah, Yemen., last month. Malnutrition, cholera, and other epidemic diseases like diphtheria ravaged through the displaced and the impoverished communities ravaged by the Saudi-run, U.S.-backed war. Read more The exposed ribs and hollow eyes of 7-year-old Amal Hussain shocked much of the world when her photograph appeared in the New York Times last month, taken by the journalists who met her in an overworked hospital in the Yemeni city of Aslam, near the epicenter of the long-running Saudi-led, U.S.-supported war that is sparking the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The Times' Declan Walsh reported that the little girl's physician, Dr. Mekkia Mahdi, "tugged on the flaccid skin of Amal's stick-like arms. 'Look,' she said. 'No meat. Only bones.'" The horrific image of the emaciated, barely alive child brought on a global outpouring, including offers of money for Amal's family and calls for a ceasefire that might end the three-year-old conflict on the Arabian Peninsula. But it was too late to save Amal. The hospital that struggled to control the girl's nonstop bouts of diarrhea and vomiting had to release her to make room for new patients, in a nation where hundreds of thousands of displaced or isolated people are now under siege from disease and starvation. She was taken back to a teeming, disease-laden refugee camp where Amal the human face of a genocide that the world has yet to come to terms with died a few days later. And yet even the pictures of a dying child made next to zero impact in one place that can truly change the dim direction of history: The 2018 U.S. midterm election that comes to a conclusion on Tuesday. Earlier this year, a rare bipartisan effort in the Senate to end American support for the Saudis' ceaseless bombing campaign of its next-door neighbor drew 44 votes and that was long before the murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi made the despotic regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) into an international pariah. A new Congress could play a crucial role in forcing a ceasefire by voting to stop supplying MBS with the bombs, the refueling services, the intelligence, and the other help we've been providing for a bloody, immoral conflict a move that could force the hand of the pro-MBS Trump administration. But if you've been watching the barrage of TV ads, reading the flyers in your overstuffed mailbox or checking out the occasional debate, America's role in causing a large-scale humanitarian crisis hasn't even been an asterisk in the 2018 midterms. Even worse, the lack of political boldness or even a debate on the Yemen issue has hardly been unique. While some incredibly important issues climate change, saner gun laws have seemed surprisingly muted at times in this campaign, other key topics like ending mass incarceration, living wages for workers or an endless overseas war on terrorism barely made even a blip. You've heard it again and again this year's election is the most important midterm ballot of our lifetime, that nothing less than the fate of democracy is on the line when you finally pull the lever. That's not wrong. But what's striking now that it's nearly all over except the shouting (which will never end) is that the Most Important Midterm of Our Lifetime was just as mediocre and insipid on the big issues facing America as all the presumably less important ones before it. There's plenty of blame to go around here. At the top of the list, of course, is President Trump there's a special place in hell (and no, I'm not using that as a figure of speech) for America's distractor-in-chief who has used his choke hold on our attention-deficit media to make 90 percent of the midterm news about his lying and blatantly racist appeals to voter hysteria on the Central American caravan, "anchor babies, transgender people or nonexistent "Democratic mobs." And shame on the journalists who've played along with that. But while it's appalling to see the president totally basing his campaign efforts on fear, it's been disappointing to see too many Democrats embrace a campaign style that seems fearful, or at least too bland for the dangerous moment we live in. For most of my adult lifetime, the national Democratic establishment has played it way too safe, so after a decade in which the party lost more than 1,000 seats nationwide, of course they would double down on that dubious strategy. No matter where you live in the United States, the ad that you saw for your local Democratic candidate probably centered on one issue: health care. And make no mistake: If you're going to pick just one issue to run on, it's a good one. Not only is it a matter of literal life and death that affects every family in some way, but many incumbent Republicans practiced a form of political hari-kari in voting for bills that would have cut off insurance for pre-existing conditions, a feature of Obamacare that currently ranks just below "free beer" in voter popularity. Focus-group approved, the Democrats took this and ran with it but with little else. Here's some of the issues squeezed out by Trump's fearmongering and the Democrats' single-minded focus on health care: A living wage and other steps to attack runaway income inequality. Polls even this one taken by the pro-business, anti-wage-hike National Restaurant Association show that roughly 70 percent of American voters not only believe that America's federal minimum wage needs to be increased but that they wouldn't mind paying extra when they go out to eat to make it happen. Congress hasn't raised the federal minimum wage of $7.25 one of the world's stingiest since 2007, and yet you've heard next to nothing about this tailor-made political issue. Ending mass incarceration. Voters who supported lock-'em-up crime laws and candidates in the 1980s and '90s have increasingly come around to the idea that America's system of mass incarceration is immoral, ridiculously expensive and generally unsustainable. This notion has played out in urban DA races across the country most notably Philadelphia's 2017 election of Larry Krasner but also has surprising support from Republicans like Jared Kushner and the Koch brothers. So why the lack of focus in congressional and state legislative races? Afghanistan and America's "forever war" against terrorism. It was somewhat jarring on the Sunday morning before the election to learn that the mayor of a Utah town North Ogden's Brent Taylor, the father of seven was killed while serving in Afghanistan, possibly an "insider" assassination by a member of that nation's security forces. America has been fighting there since 2001, nearly as long as some of this year's voters have been alive. The 2018 election would have been a good time to ask American voters if we're OK with a perpetual war. But no one really asked. Fixing democracy. Read the op-ed section of any American newspaper almost any day, and you'll probably see an opinion piece about the threats posed to democracy by everything from an Electoral College that elects minority presidents to gerrymandering to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act to the public's lack of confidence in our election systems, etc., etc., etc. Yet these concerns haven't translated into a bold political agenda. Why not? To be clear, this isn't a blanket indictment of every campaign. Some candidates Democrat Jess King, running for Congress in east-central Pennsylvania, leaps to mind are out there with bold and more consequential platforms. But these exceptions throw the general timidity of the 2018 race into sharp contrast. The Democrats are so certain that a) not being Donald Trump, spoken softly and b) swinging the moderate-sized stick of keeping Obamacare (a promise they know they can keep) will be enough to retake the House on Tuesday. They're probably right. But voters have a right to ask how much a "change" election is going to change the problems in their everyday life, like shrinking paychecks, or a loved one behind bars. Even in the face of Trump vetoes and GOP filibusters in the Senate, let's hope that House Democrats use the next two years to vote on a much more ambitious agenda than the one that many of them campaigned on, and thus set the stage for 2020. It will come too late, of course, to save Amal Hussain. Hopefully it won't come too late for American democracy. Amazon has reportedly held advanced talks about opening its planned second headquarters in Northern Virginia's Crystal City business enclave, but Philadelphia officials aren't indicating that they've given up hope of claiming the massive, job-creating corporate complex for themselves. The Amazon.com Inc. discussions have revolved around specific buildings in the Arlington County district and have included such details as when employees may move in and how an announcement of the site's selection might be made, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing public- and private-sector officials it did not identify. "There's a lot of activity," one unidentified person reportedly close to the process told the Post. People "seem really positive, and they seem pretty confident." The area, part of metropolitan Washington, is, along with Philadelphia, among the 20 locations that remain under consideration by the Seattle company for its so-called HQ2 office development, where it has said it will employ as many as 50,000 people. The company has said it would make its decision before the end of 2018. Whether or not Crystal City is the final victor in the competition begun by Amazon last year when it issued an open invitation for cities to pitch themselves as headquarters hosts, the reported negotiations indicate that the company is entering a final phase of its selection process, garnering concrete proposals from public officials and evaluating specific real estate options. John Grady, president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., which has teamed with Philadelphia's Commerce Department on the city's HQ2 bid, declined in an interview Saturday to speculate on what the reported talks meant for Philadelphia's hopes or to remark on any potential recent activity regarding the city's bid. "We think Philadelphia has competed well and shown itself through this process," he said. Commerce Department spokeswoman Lauren Cox said in an email that her office has "no new information to share about the status of the HQ2 process." Jerry Sweeney, who is overseeing the development of one of the Philadelphia sites pitched to Amazon the Schuylkill Yards project in University City as chief executive of Brandywine Realty Trust, said the city will have benefited from its overtures to Amazon even if it is not selected. "If we don't win we will congratulate Amazon on orchestrating a game-changing process, and also the winning city," Sweeney said in an email. "Just as importantly, we will use all we learned during this process to both pursue and capture another job-growth success story." Leaders of other development companies associated with sites proposed as potential headquarters locations by the city Wexford Science & Technology's uCity Square project in University City and Liberty Property Trust in South Philadelphia's Navy Yard either declined to comment or did not respond to messages. A message seeking comment from Amazon also yielded no response. Mike Grella, Amazon's economic development director, reacting to the Post's story, posted on Twitter: "Memo to the genius leaking info about Crystal City, VA as #HQ2 selection. You're not doing Crystal City, VA any favors." Amazon's plans call for spending more than $5 billion on the new headquarters, which it has said could eventually encompass eight million square feet of offices, an amount of space equal to more than six Comcast Center towers. The Washington area Northern Virginia in particular has topped many analysts' lists of likely choices, thanks to an existing regional presence of Amazon workers, as well as its easy transit options, available office space, and accessible airports. Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos also has a home in Washington and owns the Post newspaper. There is no indication that any company representatives have returned to Philadelphia since their initial forays to each of the finalist cities earlier this year. The Post said in its report on Saturday that Crystal City area officials "have discussed how to make an announcement to the public this month, following the midterm elections" and that JBG Smith, the enclave's dominant real estate developer, has stopped marketing some of its buildings for lease so they'll be available for Amazon's use. John Boyd, a Princeton-based corporate-location adviser whose company has helped Boeing Co., PepsiCo Inc., and others with site searches, said he was especially interested in what Bezos had meant last week when he said in an onstage interview that he planned to rely on his intuition alongside the quantitative data Amazon is compiling for his HQ2 site deliberations. "You immerse yourself in that data, but then you make the decision with your heart," Bezos told journalist Walter Isaacson during the Thursday event in New York hosted by the education nonprofit FIRST. The comment was "very significant and indicative of this idea of social impact," Boyd said, "and I think that's something for Philadelphia and Chicago and Newark, N.J., to feel good about." Maralyn and Bernard Klein were among many who attended services Saturday at Philadelphia's Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, the first Jewish Shabbat after last weekend's fatal shootings at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Read more Early Saturday morning, a gray sky hung over Philadelphia and soft raindrops fell. But that didn't deter upstate New Yorkers Maralyn and Bernard Klein as they walked along South 18th Street toward Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel. Their destination: the Center City synagogue's sanctuary for the naming ceremony of their new granddaughter, Zemira. Also in their minds was another baby-naming ceremony that was supposed to happen last Saturday a rite of passage that turned into still-reverberating horror when a shooter armed with an arsenal of guns and a mountain of hate murdered 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue. Maralyn Klein, 82, didn't miss a beat when asked if she hesitated to come. "They're not going to scare us," the bubbe harrumphed. "We were going to come no matter what, and especially being it's our granddaughter's baby naming. The maniacs don't get to win." In congregations around the Philadelphia region this weekend the first Jewish Sabbath since the Oct. 27 massacre in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill section love and tolerance took a defiant stand against bigotry and hate. Answering the call to #ShowUpforShabbat issued by the American Jewish Committee and backed by other groups such as the Anti-Defamation Legion and the Jewish Federations of North America, people of all faiths turned out for services and other observances Friday night and Saturday. Some Jewish congregations are planning solidarity ceremonies next Friday, as well. The effort has also been endorsed by the Orthodox Union, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the Jewish Community Center Association of North America, as well as Jewish communities in England, South Africa, China, and other nations. On social media, congregation members around the country talked about their synagogue sanctuaries swelling with participants in response to calls for unity as well as services in memory of those killed in Pittsburgh. Many Jewish congregations have felt an outpouring of support. Melissa Johnson, executive director of Main Line Reform Temple in Wynnewood, said her congregation has received interfaith messages of support and condolences, including from Muslims, Presbyterians, and Baptists. "People are reacting to us, and saying, 'What can we do?' " Johnson said. "One of the first things we're saying is to encourage people to vote." At Shabbat services at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, City Councilman Allan Domb, on behalf of Mayor Kenney and his Council colleagues, read a citation of remembrance for the Pittsburgh victims and for unity against a "historic" rise in anti-Semitism. State Sen. Larry Farnese (D., Phila.), addressing a full sanctuary, vowed his support and that of his legislative colleagues. "It is time that we put a stop to this not just here in Philadelphia, Pa., but across the country," Farnese said. Leaders at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel and other Jewish congregations said some of the most touching shows of support have been personal, heartfelt gestures from their spiritual neighbors. Children from the Tenth Presbyterian Church's preschool reached out with handmade posters and expressions of support to Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel's preschoolers earlier in the week. Saturday morning, Tenth Presbyterian congregant Jan Witmer went to synagogue to worship "to show you need to keep walking in faith no matter what happens." Toni Alperin-Goldberg, a Beth Zion congregant, said she had been emailing friends of other faiths to come Saturday. "Three are already inside," she said, heading for the temple steps. Pastor Shawn Johnson of Harvest Sanctuary Christian Fellowship Church in North Philadelphia was also heading into the synagogue Saturday morning. "We always try to do better, not worse," Johnson said. "When something of this nature happens, we raise our hands up to the Almighty, and we fight our battles in prayer." During the service, Rabbi Abe Friedman told those gathered that their fight must be for all people, regardless of religion, gender, race, or sexual identity. "The only credible claim for human dignity is one that extends to all people," he said. And like his colleagues at the Main Line temple in Wynnewood, he urged personal responsibility, including voting on Tuesday. "We have a sacred responsibility to choose representatives who will carry out our fight for dignity," the rabbi said. Members of the U.S.military place razor wire along the U.S.-Mexico border on the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. Read more The total price of President Donald Trump's military deployment to the border, including the cost of National Guard forces that have been there since April, could climb well above $200 million by the end of 2018 and grow significantly if the deployments continue into next year, according to analyst estimates and Pentagon figures. The deployment of as many as 15,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border potentially equal in size to the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan occurs as the budgetary largesse the military has enjoyed since Trump took office looks set to come to an end. Although the costs of the border deployments will be a tiny slice of a $716 billion annual defense budget, they arrive as the Trump administration is calling on the Pentagon to cut unnecessary expenditures. The White House recently ordered the Pentagon to slash next year's budget for the military by about $33 billion in response to the largest increase in the federal deficit in six years. Veterans and Democratic lawmakers have complained that Trump is wasting military dollars in a politically motivated stunt ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, at a time when the Pentagon budget is under pressure. "Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to make comprehensive, common-sense, and humane reforms to our immigration system, the President continues to turn to politically-motivated fear mongering and uses [Department of Defense] resources and personnel as a means to drive his troubling anti-immigration agenda," more than 100 House Democrats wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Nov. 1. Retired Gen. Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the deployment as "wasteful" in a message on Twitter and said Marines and soldiers were already overstretched. Administration officials have defended the deployment. Mattis said this week that the military doesn't do stunts. The commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan, argued that the deployment is necessary to "effectively and safely" handle the possible arrival of as many as 7,000 migrants walking toward the border in caravans from Central America. But military planning documents, dated Oct. 27 and published by Newsweek, predicted that only 20 percent of the migrants, or about 1,400 at the higher end of estimates, were likely to complete the journey to the border, raising questions about the size of the deployment. "The military has a lot of things that it needs to be doing these days," said Susanna Blume, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. "Looking at estimates of the size of the caravan, you could ask the question as to whether this is the most appropriate use of U.S. active-duty forces." It isn't clear how many U.S. troops will end up on the U.S.-Mexico border. About 2,000 forces from the National Guard are already there, operating under an order Trump issued in April. Northern Command has said more than 7,000 additional active-duty troops will join them in Arizona, Texas and California. Trump said this week that he will be deploying between 10,000 and 15,000 troops but didn't make clear whether those figures included the National Guard. The cost of the National Guard deployment from April 10 through Sept. 30 amounted to $103 million, according to Pentagon figures. The Defense Department expects the Guard deployment to cost an additional $308 million through the end of next September, including the last quarter of 2018, so long as the operations continue apace. Active-duty forces, which Trump deployed under his recent order, generally are less expensive because they don't require additional pay or benefits. Travis Sharp, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessments, estimated that the cost of deploying 8,000 active-duty troops through mid-December in addition to the Guard would amount to $40 million to $50 million. Should the administration deploy 15,000 active-duty troops, as Trump suggested, the estimated cost would rise to as much as $110 million, Sharp said. The forces could end up staying past mid-December, depending on the status of the caravans, which by most accounts are still weeks away from the border. An extension of the deployment could result in costs in excess of those estimates. As of Saturday morning, about 3,500 active-duty service members have been deployed as a part of the mission, dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot, said Maj. Mark Lazane, a Northern Command spokesman. They include about 2,250 in Texas, 1,100 in California and 170 in Arizona, he said. Photographs taken Friday at the port of entry in Hidalgo, Texas, show U.S. soldiers stringing concertina wire while working with CBP. The soldiers are wearing standard camouflage uniforms along with body armor and helmets, and appear unarmed. Lazane said soldiers who do not typically use firearms in their day-to-day jobs while stateside will continue to work without them, though Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, the chief of Northern Command, has the authority to change that if desired. Democrats have complained that in addition to paying for the border deployments, the Defense Department internally allocated $7.5 million to advanced planning for a 37-mile barrier along the side of a military bombing range in Arizona that abuts the border. Democratic lawmakers said the barrier alone could cost as much as $450 million. Mattis offered a safety justification for the barrier in testimony to Congress earlier this year, suggesting that any migrants crossing the border through the range could end up hurt. Critics have said the project amounts to a move by the president to build part of the border wall he promised on the campaign trail by tapping military resources. Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said last week that the White House had instructed the Pentagon to prepare a $700 billion budget for 2020 about 4.5 percent less than the $733 billion the department had planned. Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general and director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for National Defense, said many of the units deploying to the border are fulfilling duties approximate to their wartime missions and could end up with good training from the field. He said the expenditure would be marginal in terms of the overall American defense budget. "The military needs every dollar it can get. Having said that, this is not in the scheme of things a huge thing," Spoehr said. "It probably will pass almost unnoticed in terms of the budget." The Washington Post's Dan Lamothe contributed to this report. Police investigators work the scene of a shooting, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, in Tallahassee, Fla. A shooter killed one person and critically wounded four others at a yoga studio in Florida's capital before killing himself Friday, officials said. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon) Read more A man who had been repeatedly accused of groping women and linked to misogynistic YouTube rants walked into a yoga class and opened fire on Friday evening, according to Tallahassee police, shooting six people and killing two of them. Police said the shooting suspect, Scott Paul Beierle, 40, killed himself minutes before they arrived at the Hot Yoga studio, which sits above a row of restaurants at a northern Tallahassee, Florida, shopping center. "In my public service career, I have had to be on some bad scenes. This is the worst," City Commissioner Scott Maddox wrote after seeing the attack's aftermath. "Please pray." About a dozen people were inside Hot Yoga when a man with a black bag walked in around 5:30 p.m., the Tallahassee Democrat reported. The studio had advertised a Pilates certification class for the weekend. Among the yoga students were Florida State University student Maura Binkley, 21, and 61-year-old Nancy Van Vessem, a local physician and a faculty member at Florida State. Both women were killed in the gunfire. Police were still investigating a motive behind the shooting. Beierle had been arrested twice in the past six years by the university's police, according to criminal records. The first time was in 2012, when two women accused him of grabbing their buttocks on campus, the Democrat reported. He was detained again two years later for trespassing in a dining hall. About a month after the 2014 arrest, BuzzFeed News reported, Beierle posted a series of YouTube videos about his hatred of women under the name "Scott Carnifex." In a video titled "The Rebirth of my Misogynism," he angrily recalled an incident in his eighth-grade home economics class, describing "the will that a group of females can generate when they target anyone, be it an adult male or a classmate." Other outrages in his life included women who gave him their phone numbers and later told him they had boyfriends. In one video he identified with Elliott Rodger, an avowed misogynist who killed six people at the University of California at Santa Barbara earlier that year. In other videos Beierle spewed racism, according to the Associated Press. He denigrated black women as "disgusting" and suggested planting land mines to stop people trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border, AP said. Charges were dismissed for both of Beierle's university arrests, but he agreed to a plea deal after a final arrest by Tallahassee police in 2016. According to a police report, he was living in an off-campus apartment in his late 30s noticeably older than the other residents and one day offered to put lotion on a 19-year-old sunbathing by the pool. When the woman declined, she told police, Beierle "slapped her butt, and grabbed it and then shook it." On Friday evening, survivors said Beierle kept walking in and out of the yoga studio as class began, according to Melissa Hutchinson, who works at a restaurant below Hot Yoga and later cleaned a survivor's blood off the kitchen floor. "They said he just kept coming in and out the doors and was a little sketchy," Hutchinson told the Democrat. "But nobody said anything." The man eventually stopped in the studio's doorway, pulled a gun from the bag and loaded it in front of the students. Only then did people try to flee or fight. "Everyone started pounding on the windows and the walls," Hutchinson said. "I heard a couple people at Riccardo's heard the pounding. They weren't sure what it was. They said it sounds like someone was hitting sheet metal." Then the sound of gunshots filtered through the ceiling of Riccardo's pizzeria, Food Glorious Food and the other establishments on the shopping center's lower level. Shanta Combs told the Democrat she was drinking with friends at Bar on Betton when they heard the bartender yell: "'Active shooter, get down, get away from the window!" Panicked and wounded people fled down a staircase from the studio and ran inside for shelter. Combs said she embraced a woman who couldn't stop hyperventilating. Then "I see this kid in a white T-shirt with blood coming out of his forehead," Combs said. The person in the T-shirt had been pistol-whipped while trying to fight off the gunman, police later said. Another customer at the bar, Kristin Jacobs, was among several who praised the survivor's actions. "I am alive because one guy in a yoga class in his bare feet ran at a shooter," she told the Democrat. Police said the first officers arrived about three minutes after the 911 call, at 5:40 p.m. Seven people had been shot inside the studio, including Beierle, who appeared to have killed himself, police said. Four of the wounded were expected to survive, including one whom the Democrat reported had been shot nine times. Binkley and Van Vessem died of their wounds. A doctor of internal medicine and director for Capital Health Plan, Van Vessem also worked at Florida State. The suspected gunman had been barred from that campus after his first groping arrest. "To lose one of our students and one of our faculty members in this tragic and violent way is just devastating to the Florida State University family," school president John Thrasher said in a statement to the Associated Press. As officers shuffled in and out of the shopping center behind him in the early morning, Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo told reporters he did not yet know what connection, if any, Beierle had to the victims. The suspect had been living in Deltona, on the other side of the state, DeLeo said. Investigators were trying to figure out "what made him come to our community and commit this heinous act." Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is the Democratic nominee for governor in Tuesday's election, left the campaign trail and returned to his city overnight to see survivors in the hospital. "No act of gun violence is acceptable," he wrote on Twitter. His Republican opponent, Ron DeSantis, called the shooting "heartbreaking." The Tallahassee Democrat reported that a crowd stood outside the barricaded shopping center late into the night, some in tears. "It's awful that this is a thing," Hutchinson told the newspaper, and laughed nervously. "It's very terrible that this is a thing." On November 3, 2018, Democrat Scott Wallace (right) stumped for votes at a bus tour in Chalfont with Gov. Tom Wolf (left) and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey. Read more With less than 72 hours to go until the polls open Tuesday, Scott Wallace stood inside a tidy living room in Lansdale, surrounded by more than a dozen excited and anxious volunteers. The 67-year-old Democrat is running for Congress in Bucks County's First District, one of the most expensive and hotly contested races in the nation where, with a win, he could help his party take back the U.S. House. His opponent, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, is a self-described centrist Republican who has led most recent polls by a slim margin in the district, which includes a part of Montgomery County. "I talked to someone yesterday who said, 'That Brian guy, he's a Democrat, isn't he?' " Wallace said to the crowd. "He runs around saying he's an independent, never mentions the word Republican." Wallace instructed his supporters, as they knocked on voters' doors this weekend, to not "be embarrassed to use the term Democrat or Republican." The midterm election, he told them, is about "that crazy guy down there" in the White House. Wallace, a multimillionaire philanthropist, has sought throughout the campaign to tie his rival to President Trump while Fitzpatrick has eschewed his party's ID. "I don't like and have never liked injecting labels like that," Fitzpatrick said Saturday. "I just think that people should talk about what their principles are, talk about what they believe in." Democrats have a small registration edge in Bucks County, which makes up a large portion of the First District. But voters here are known to split their tickets Bucks County supported Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in 2016 and Fitzpatrick has strong name identification. Several political analysts have called the race a toss-up. Wallace spent the last Saturday before the election rallying volunteers, greeting voters at their doors, and attending a bus tour with Gov. Wolf and Sen. Bob Casey, two Democrats who are leading their races by double digits in the latest polls. Fitzpatrick shook hands at a veterans' exhibition, an Eagle Scout ceremony, and gatherings for the Hindu festival of lights, known as Diwali. He discussed upcoming events, like the Bucks County Tour of Honor, and constituents' issues. At the Doylestown American Legion, Fitzpatrick questioned Trump's closing pitch ahead of the midterm election. In recent weeks, the president has stoked fears about a caravan of Latin American migrants heading north to this country and floated a plan to end birthright citizenship. "I think it should be focused on the economy," he said, arguing that GOP tax cuts have been a boon to business and jobs. "People are happy with the economic status of the country right now." Still, some Fitzpatrick voters in Bucks County said immigration was a top issue. >> VOTERS GUIDE: The races, candidates, and issues in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware "I want the laws followed," said Scott Russell, a Plumstead resident who attended Saturday's veterans event. "Letting in illegal immigrants is all very negative to me." Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic Party's second-ranking member in the Senate, was part of the bus tour of Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia, where Wallace and other candidates stumped for votes. Durbin predicted the Democrats would emerge from the general election with 51 Senate seats, retaking the majority. "The latest tracking poll yesterday had us in two races of incumbents where we were down a point or two points," said Durbin, declining to name those candidates. "We're winning the others and we're picking up seats in Nevada and Arizona as of yesterday. So it is really up for grabs." Speaking to a crowd of about 150 outside a ShopRite in Cheltenham, across the street from Philadelphia's northwestern border, Durbin said "you've got one of the best" senators, pointing to Casey, who is seeking a third term, challenged by Rep. Lou Barletta. "We've got to make sure that all of us who have been complaining and griping for two years get up and vote," Durbin said to cheers. Philadelphia Rep. Dwight Evans said Democrats' hopes of taking the majority in the House depended on the Keystone State. "Pennsylvania is the backbone of this movement," he said. "We need 23 seats. We have 18 in Pennsylvania. In order to make a change in the majority, it comes to Pennsylvania." A group of balloon-wielding protesters walks west on Chestnut Street led by Claude Taylor, the founder of the Mad Dog PAC. Taylor is in the center in a tan jacket. Read more Just days before the midterm election, one of Twitter's most well-known anti-Trump protesters led a group of demonstrators around Independence Mall while they wielded balloons depicting a cartoon version of the president as a baby. Claude Taylor, a former low-level staff member in the Clinton White House, brought his Mad Dog PAC along with a 12-foot inflatable "Trump rat" to Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon for a "Trump baby balloon mini-march" meant to build opposition to the GOP, President Trump, and the National Rifle Association. "We're here to make sure people know that Trump is on the ballot," Taylor said. "We're not aiming for subtlety." As about three dozen marchers snaked around Independence Hall, the group chanted "Vote Tuesday!" while motorists honked and others on the sidewalk either snapped photos or grimaced and moved aside. There were no obvious counterprotesters present. Joli Weber, an advertising professional from Lambertville, N.J., joined Sunday's protest as a means to "get people to vote," but first posed for a photo with Taylor, telling him she was "starstruck." "I consider him to be the Gen. George Washington of the anti-Trumpers," she said as the group marched by a statue depicting the actual George Washington. In addition to the marches, the Mad Dog PAC has funded massive "Impeach Trump" banners and provocative billboards attacking Republicans across the country who support the president's agenda. Federal campaign finance data show the group, as of last month, had raised more than $830,000 since December 2017. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 PMN CLIP ART FOR USE AS DESIRED: Voter registration box at the Democratic party's booth at the 163rd Bloomsburg Fair September 25, 2018. Democrat voter vote register. TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer Read more Good news, Philly: this weekend's one hour longer, thanks to the end of daylight saving time. Did you set your clocks back? With all that extra time, you'll want to take a moment to read a new in-depth investigation from the Inquirer and the Boston Globe. The report reveals that a 2002 pledge from U.S. bishops to snuff out sexual abuse in the Catholic Church failed to police one group themselves leading to the crisis the church faces today. And, if you've ever wondered about the differences between letters to the editor, editorial and opinion pieces in the paper (and who's behind the Inquirer Editorial Board endorsement guide), you're in luck. Deputy Opinion Editor Erica Palan explains it all in this week's "Behind the Story." Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning. Oona Goodin-Smith, Tauhid Chappell (morningnewsletter@philly.com) The week ahead This weeks most popular stories Behind the story with Erica Palan Each week we go behind the scenes with one of our reporters or editors to discuss their work and the challenges they face along the way. This week, reporter Katherine Nails asked Deputy Opinion Editor Erica Palan about opinions, editorials, endorsements and everything in between, including questions from our readers. What is the role of the Deputy Opinion Editor? I'm responsible for making sure we have timely, unique, and thought-provoking Opinion pieces on Philly.com and in the Inquirer every day. The goal of the opinion pages is to provide a platform for a variety of voices and viewpoints including our audience and civic leaders. We do this, not only because those voices and viewpoints are valuable, but because they can provide understanding and insight into complicated issues facing our region and world. Readers should feel like they can find pieces that affirm as well as challenge their points of view. The value of this is that it allows readers to gain a deeper and richer understanding of how the news impacts people's daily lives and to explore viewpoints that they might not have previously considered. What's the difference between an editorial, a column and an opinion/commentary piece? An editorial is the institutional view of the Inquirer's Editorial Board. Topics vary, but editorials are often focused on local/regional issues. When we're choosing editorial topics, we often ask ourselves, "How could this editorial make change?" Editorials are unsigned. In print, editorials always run in the space with an Editorial label. Online, you can differentiate an editorial from other content, because the word "Editorial" appears in the headline and the Inquirer Editorial Board is the author. A column is written by one of our staff columnists. (That is: People we employ specifically to write opinionated pieces.) Columnists often do original reporting for their columns, but they aren't reporters. Reporters are required to write without an opinion. In the print paper, you can tell something is a column because the author's photo will appear with it. Online, you can tell a columnist's work because his or her name will appear at the end of the headline. Some columnists have particular beats like Trudy Rubin, who writes about international affairs while other columnists are generalists, writing about topical issues that vary from column to column. An opinion or commentary piece is written by someone outside our newsroom. The author could be anyone from an elected official to your next door neighbor. While columns appear throughout the paper, opinions (or op-eds, meaning opposite of editorial) run on the editorial pages at the back of the A section. You can find our Opinion section online at Philly.com/opinion. We also run letters to the editor, which are direct responses to particular stories or issues. You can send your 200-word letter to the editor to inquirer.letters@phillynews.com. What is the Inquirer Editorial Board? How does it relate to the rest of the newsroom? The Editorial Board is a group of writers and editors who are tasked with defining the institutional point of view of the paper. The team includes former reporters, columnists, and editors. The Board operates separately from newsroom, which means that while we talk often with our news-side colleagues, we are editorially independent. (That means that reporters and news editors don't get to weigh in on what's written in an editorial and the Editorial Board doesn't get a say in what kinds of news stories are written.) The Editorial Board is part of the larger Opinion department at the Inquirer. What are endorsements, and why does the Editorial Board publish them? Prior to each election, the Editorial Board identifies the races where an endorsement can help readers understand where candidates stand on issues and why we think voters should support (or not support) a particular candidate. Then, the Board hosts meetings with candidates from the major parties running in those races. (Read our endorsement guide here.) Because it's often hard for voters to get a clear picture of what candidates stand for, we take this job seriously and spend time researching the candidates. We dig into their positions on the issues we think are most important for their constituents and prepare questions to guide conversation. After the meetings, the Board deliberates. Based on our research, our discussions with candidates, and positions we've taken on issues in previous editorials, the Board makes a decision about which candidate to endorse. Sometimes, it's an easy choice and sometimes there's a lot of debate amongst our Board members. Sometimes, too, the choice is hard; when we prefer "none of the above." But we believe any choice is better than sitting out an election. We know you may not always agree with our views, but our ultimate goal is to help you understand the positions of candidates so you can make the most informed decision on Election Day. Where do opinion pieces come from? How are they chosen for publication? Opinions can come from anywhere and anyone. Many people ranging from elected officials to everyday Philadelphians send in pieces for consideration. I also do targeted outreach to potential contributors based on the news of the day. Sometimes it will be someone from an advocacy organization writing about a piece of legislation. Other times, I'll see a smart take on Twitter and ask the person to expand their thoughts. Sometimes, we'll do a call out for our readers to share their opinions on specific topics. We also partner with organizations such as the Washington Post, The Philadelphia Citizen and Manhattan Institute's City Journal to share newsworthy viewpoints that our readers might have otherwise missed. It's tough deciding which pieces get published. We only have so much space in the paper. Editing each piece requires an editor to fact-check, shape arguments, smooth out language, do digital and print production, copy edit and more. When making choices about what to publish, we consider factors such as quality, timing and balance of coverage. Some subjects generate a lot of submissions; that's when we especially look for fresh perspectives. How can readers submit opinions? Email them to oped@phllynews.com or send directly to me at epalan@philly.com. If your piece is tied to a particular event or date, it's good to submit a week or so ahead of time. Pro tips: Paste the copy directly into the body of an email and not as an attachment. 600 words is a good length. Include a 1-2 sentence author bio at the bottom. Bonus points for writers who include relevant links. Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly We hope you have a wonderful birthday @aimeebsiegel! Thanks for capturing the city's fall foliage at its peak. Be sure to tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we'll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out! #CuriousPhilly: Have a question about your community? Ask us! Have you submitted a question to Curious Philly yet? Try us. We're listening to our readers and doing our best to find answers to the things you're curious about. Our readers' latest question: How does the Philadelphia Streets Department go about replacing, correcting, and updating street-name signs? The answer: It's no small task. Meet the three people responsible for maintaining the city's 100,000-plus street signs. What were Comment of the week Have driven by there hundreds of times and didn't know its important history. It would be nice to save the property or at least scale the development back considerably. The traffic there is already pretty bad and another 100 cars or so certainly won't help much either. As always, money talks. Mv Reader on a new . Mv Reader on a new townhouse development approved for an Underground Railroad site in Whitemarsh Township, Pa. Your Daily Dose of | Green Fur Twenty-five years ago, he retired from his role as the original Phillie Phanatic. Now, he's behind the team that helped craft Gritty, the Flyers' orange Muppet phenom. Meet Dave Raymond, mascot guru. I arrived at the Leeway Foundation office in Center City Philadelphia in the summer of 2016 at age 24. I'm a South Asian trans-identified scholar-in-training and I was looking for a site to conduct my dissertation research. At that point, all I had were research questions about how organizations, specifically foundations and philanthropic entities, support and fund trans and gender-nonconforming people. In every other workspace environment I had ever been in, I served as the de facto brown trans spokesperson amongst coworkers who were predominantly white and cisgender that is, those who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. At the Leeway Foundation, a funder that supports women and trans artists, I no longer had to remind people of my pronouns (they/them at the time) or speak up for the needs of trans and gender-nonconforming communities. People always used the proper pronouns there, respected how I decided to show up every day and regarded this respect as a baseline of behavior for all employees. From a personal perspective, it was a uniquely wonderful experience. Professionally, my project was to create what were called "trans inclusion documents," a resource guide for the foundation's panelists to use before making decisions about Leeway grants. My role was to integrate ideas from many authors and perspectives into something that panelists, who themselves came from different backgrounds and experiences, could grasp, and eventually create a kind of operating manual for organizations about how to work with and support trans and non-gender-conforming people. In a cisgender-defined world, there are few supports for trans and gender-nonconforming people, let alone thoughtful recommendations that can help organizations make meaningful strides toward not just acceptance but affirmation. This set of guidelines, called TRANSforming Inclusion, encourages institutions to move beyond institutionally mandated gestures of "inclusion" or "diversity" i.e., pronouns in an email signature and gender-neutral restrooms in the office and think about what it means to truly recognize and make space for trans and gender-nonconforming people in organizational staffing, programming, and outreach. It requires remodeling over-saturated conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion and asking not just "How can we be more diverse?" but reconsidering organizational missions, visions, and goals and, along the way, interrogating the underlying gendered (and relatedly, racialized, classed, and ableist) thinking that informs our organizational efforts. It makes sense that this work was taking place in Philadelphia, a city that has embraced trans and gender-nonconforming communities for years. Notably, the Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference will host its 17th annual event in 2019. But Philly, like all places, still has a great deal of work to do: Trans and gender-nonconforming people of color, particularly black transgender women, continue to face high rates of violence and are more likely to face poverty or homelessness and lack health care. There are approximately 1,500 arts and culture nonprofit organizations in Philadelphia. Arts and culture is a powerful force in the city, with an economic impact of $4.1 billion each year. This is an opportunity for decision-makers, arts and culture organizations, and the people who support them to reconsider their own biases and assumptions. This resource guide will not single-handedly fix such disparities. My time at Leeway taught me that embracing and affirming people necessarily means engaging in messy and complicated processes. As Denise Brown, Leeway's executive director, reminds us, "Someone had to get out of a chair for me to be where I am." TRANSforming Inclusion is just one attempt to describe and guide us through the journey of affirmation and inclusion of those most marginalized. My hope is that TRANSforming Inclusion will provide a road map for many other organizations in the city and region. I look forward to continuing the dialogue about what it might take to affirm trans and gender-nonconforming communities, in all of their diversity and beauty in Philadelphia and beyond. V Varun Chaudhry, a scholar-in-residence at the Leeway Foundation, is an anthropology Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University and a predoctoral fellow in the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon. The Leeway Foundation is hosting a TRANSforming Inclusion panel discussion on Nov. 8, at 3 p.m. in the Skyline Room at the Parkway Central branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Kurnool: In a horrifying incident, a school teacher allegedly slit the throat of a Class 9th student with a blade in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district on Saturday for allegedly rejecting his marriage proposal. The teacher, Shankar, who teaches Hindi at Rockwell High School, allegedly entered into the girl`s residence forcefully and attacked her with a blade after she reportedly turned down a marriage proposal. The locals, on hearing the girl's loud cry for help, rushed to the scene and shifted her to a local hospital. They also caught the teacher and thrashed him before handing him over to the police. The accused also received injuries and was sent to the hospital by the police for treatment. A case under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code has been registered and further probe is on. Both the teacher and the student are out of danger. (With ANI inputs) Congress on Sunday released the second list of 16 candidates upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. This comes a day after the Rahul Gandhi-led party on Saturday released a list of 155 candidates for the 230-member MP Assembly. Polls for Madhya Pradesh assembly will be held on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11. , 155 16 pic.twitter.com/A9SdKmcT6m MP Congress (@INCMP) November 4, 2018 Name of the candidates are Ram Niwas Rawat, Baijnath Kushwaha, Rajendra Bharti, Sidhharth Lada, Mahendra Singh Yadav, Chandra Prakash Ahirwar, Gopal Singh Chauhan, Brajendra Singh Yadav, Vikram Singh Natiraja, Kamleshwar Prasad Dwivedi, Rambhajan Saket, Manoj Malye, Dr. Mahendra Singh Chouhan, Govardhan Dangi, Mukesh Patel, Valsingh Meda Name of the corresponding constituency are: Vijaypur, Sabalgarh, Datia, Shivpuri, Kolaras, Guna -SC, Chanderi, Mungaoli, Rajnagar, Sidhi, Devsar - SC, Amla - SC, Narela, Biaora, Alirajpur - ST, Petlawad - ST The list released by Congress on Saturday included Ajay Singh, the leader of opposition in the state, and former Union minister Suresh Pachouri. The party has also fielded former chief minister Digvijay Singh's son Jaivardhan Singh and brother Lakshman Singh from Raghogarh and Chachoura seats respectively. Ajay Singh, son of former chief minister late Arjun Singh, will fight from Chruhat. The list, however, does not include either of the party's two chief ministerial probable - Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath and Guna lawmaker Jyotiraditya Scindia. The BJP, which is in power in the state since 2003, had released its first list of 177 candidates Friday. (With Inputs from agencies) RAIPUR: Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar on Saturday focussed on the need for a dialogue with Naxals to solve their problems and added that issue cannot be resolved by bullets. "The Naxal issue in Chhattisgarh will not be resolved by bullets but through talks. The grievances of Naxals should be addressed as they started a 'movement' for the rights of people. Those who have diverted from the mainstream should be brought back," he said. When asked if he was referring to Naxals as revolutionaries, he said: "I want to clarify that I said the issue can be solved through talks with those (Naxals) who call themselves revolutionaries by indulging in acts of terrorism." #WATCH Goliyon se faisle hal nahi hote.Unke sawaal ko address karna padega, aur unko darra kar, ya lalach dekar kranti ke jo log nikle huye hain unhe rok nahi sakte hain. Na idhar ki bandook se hal niklega na udhar ki, baatcheet se hal niklega:Raj Babbar in Raipur (3.11) pic.twitter.com/7A2VeA3hzk ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 He also hit back at the several allegations levelled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claiming that the Congress was "backing" Naxals. "The Congress party had lost its state leadership (in Naxal attack in May 2013). BJP keeps on accusing the Congress of directly or indirectly backing Naxals which reflects BJPs mental sickness. How can the Congress party which lost its senior (state) leadership in a Naxal attack take their side," Babbar asked. In a press conference in the run up to the state assembly elections, Babbar also attacked Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh for pushing the state's "health" into "critical condition". Babbar said that Chhattisgarh ranked 20th in the list of 21 states for providing health services, and posts of doctors and nurses were lying vacant. "The chief minister has dashed the hopes of people who were thinking that health facilities would improve after a doctor became CM. Health facilities are pathetic in Chhattisgarh. A doctor CM has pushed the state's health services into the ICU during his 15-year rule," Babbar alleged. He said the Raman Singh government had failed to build a single hospital in Bastar region for security forces getting injured in anti-Naxal operations. These injured jawans have to be airlifted to Raipur or require admission in private medical facilities, he added. Voting in Chhattisgarh will take place in two phases on November 12 and November 20 and counting of votes will be taken up on December 11. New Delhi: Sara Ali Khan's much-delayed debut project 'Kedarnath' has struck controversy again. Only days after the first official trailer of the film was unveiled by director Abhishek Kapoor, it invited the wrath of priests from the temple town for hurting religious sentiments. Demanding a ban on the film, the teerth purohits of Uttarakhand's Char Dham have stated that 'Kedarnath' hurts Hindu religious sentiments as it promotes 'love jihad'. According to Pinkvilla,com, the chairman of the priests based in Kedarnath have threatened to launch a protest against the film if it doesn't get banned from releasing. "We will launch an agitation if the movie is not banned as we have been told that it hurts the Hindu religious sentiments by promoting 'love jihad', Vinod Shukla, chairman of priests said." The chairman added that the priests have also found a dance in the film as vulgar as it has been shot around the Kedarnath shrine. As per him, the locals have also found the trailer objectionable and are protesting against its release. Meanwhile, BJP leader from Uttarakhand Ajendra Ajay have also demanded a ban on the film. Tweeting his unhappiness on his social media, Ajay e said that protests have already begun in Rudraprayag and Kotdwar and tagged the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification Prasoon Joshi to stop the film from being released. NEW DELHI: Supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by state party chief Manoj Tiwari and Aam Aadmi Party members got into a scuffle during the inauguration event of Signature bridge in Delhi. In videos, Manoj Tiwari can be seen being stopped by police and AAP supporters from attending the inaugural event. Claiming that police and AAP members misbehaved with him, he said that he is an MP and had only come to welcome Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. "I was invited to the inauguration event. I am MP from here. So what's the problem? Am I a criminal? Why has the police surrounded me? I am here to welcome him (Arvind Kejriwal). AAP and police misbehaved with me," Manoj Tiwari said. #WATCH BJP Delhi Chief Manoj Tiwari, his supporters and AAP supporters enter into a scuffle at the inauguration of the Signature Bridge in Delhi; Police present at the spot pic.twitter.com/NhvqxudDTT ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 He also said that the work for the bridge was stalled for several years and he got the construction started again when he became the MP. "In my constituency (North East Delhi), I re-started construction of the bridge after it was stalled for many years and now Arvind Kejriwal is organising an inauguration ceremony," he said. Hitting back at Tiwari, AAP claimed that the BJP is indulging in hooliganism. "Thousands of people have come here to celebrate without an invitation card, but the MP (Manoj Tiwari) considers himself VIP. He is doing hooliganism. BJP people thrashed AAP volunteers and local people. They are admitted to hospital," Aam Aadmi Party leader Dilip Pandey said. The much-awaited Signature Bridge on the Yamuna will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on November 4 and will be thrown open for public on November 5. It will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi. Being deemed as a tourist spot with the 154-meter-high glass box, the bridge will give a bird's-eye view of the city to visitors. Announced in 2004, the bridge has missed several deadlines since 2011. The proposal for the bridge was mooted in 2004 but it received approval of the Delhi Cabinet in 2007. It was initially expected to be completed at a modified estimate of Rs 1,131 crore for the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi in October 2010. In 2015, the cost of the project rose to Rs 1,594 crore. Reportedly, the bridge was proposed for the first time as early as in 1997 at an initial cost of Rs 464 crore. Manoj Tiwari had earlier attacked the Delhi government for wasting public money in the construction of this bridge. "Fifteen years and Rs 1500 crore was spent to build a 675-meter bridge. This is so shameful," Tiwari had tweeted. Replying to the state BJP chief's tweet, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said the bridge might be a shame for the BJP but is a proud moment for Delhi. New Delhi: Fuel prices saw yet another fall on Sunday with petrol being retailed at Rs 78.87 per litre and diesel at Rs 73.64 per litre in the national capital. In Mumbai, petrol and diesel were being retailed at Rs 84.28 per litre (decrease by Rs 0.21) and Rs 76.88 per litre (decrease by Rs 0.18), respectively. Petrol & diesel prices in #Delhi today are Rs 78.78 per litre (decrease by Rs 0.21) & Rs 73.36 per litre (decrease by Rs 0.17),respectively. Petrol & diesel prices in #Mumbai today are Rs 84.28 per litre(decrease by Rs 0.21) &Rs 76.88 per litre (decrease by Rs 0.18), respectively pic.twitter.com/NdWrcgQ6gY ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 Fuel prices have seen a steady decline in the last few days but had remained steady for most parts of this week. Despite the decline, the rates are still far higher than what the common man is used to paying and the government has repeatedly blamed international factors. On Saturday, the petrol price had witnessed a drop of 0.19 paisa in both the cities. On the other hand, the diesel price was decreased by 0.11 paisa in the former and 0.12 paisa in the latter. The petrol and diesel rate cut comes as a relief amid a relentless hike across the country in previous months. Recently, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had claimed that crude prices were not under the control of the Indian government and were determined by international forces. He said, Oil prices are beyond the control of the Indian Government. It is an international commodity. We promised to the people of this country that we will not push our country into indebtedness. That is the reason we took some burden on us. Amid the spiralling fuel prices, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on October 4 announced a reduction of Rs 2.50 per litre on both petrol and diesel prices after curbing excise duty on the commodity by Rs 1.50 per litre. Before the price cut, petrol in Delhi had hit an all-time high of Rs 84 per litre and diesel was at record Rs 75.45. This came down to Rs 81.50 per litre for petrol and Rs 72.95 in case of diesel. In Mumbai, petrol had hit a peak of Rs 91.34 hit on October 4 and diesel was sold at a record high of Rs 80.10. The states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, received more snowfall on Sunday leading to blockage of various roads and hampering traffic movement. Surface and air links between the Kashmir Valley and rest of the country were snapped while Srinagar witnessed snowfall in November for the first time since 2009. "In the last two decades, it was only the fourth time that it has snowed in Srinagar in November with 2009, 2008 and 2004 being the earlier instances," an official of the MeT Department had said. The Jammu-Srinagar national highway was opened for one-way traffic, a day after being closed due to heavy snowfall and landslides, and over 700 stranded commuters were rescued overnight from the Jawahar tunnel area, officials said. The only all-weather road linking the Kashmir Valley with the rest of the country was opened for traffic coming from Srinagar to Jammu after nine hours of clearance operations, they said. The operation along the Jawahar tunnel and Qazigund and Banihal-Ramban stretches was launched around 5 am on Sunday, said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Ramban, Anita Sharma. In a major overnight rescue operation, over 700 stranded passengers were evacuated from both sides of the Jawahar tunnel, a police spokesman said. The SSP said they were Jammu-bound commuters and were rescued from the Kashmir-side of the tunnel and the Verinag Zing area, where more than one feet of snow had accumulated. The evacuated people, including tourists, were accommodated in shelter sheds, religious places and sarais in Banihal's Nowgam and Gund areas, and in Qazigund, he said. In addition, 1,000 civilians, who were stuck in other parts of the highway, were also provided food and shelter in Banihal by police and the civil administration, the spokesman said. The SSP said stranded passengers who were evacuated from the Jawahar tunnel area and brought to Banihal late Saturday night, were allowed to move towards Jammu on Sunday. Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik Sunday took stock of the situation arising due to heavy snowfall and ordered immediate restoration of essential services such as road connectivity and electricity in the affected areas. Malik directed the administration to expedite efforts to mitigate the difficulties of people and meet their requirements in view of the inclement weather conditions, an official spokesman said. Regarding the restoration of road connectivity, the governor was told that all inter-district roads have been restored and the Srinagar-Jammu highway has been opened, he said. The power supply was restored on Sunday to 90 per cent of Srinagar city and most rural areas of the Kashmir Valley after overnight heavy snowfall damaged transmission towers and snapped surface and air links with the rest of India. After an unprecedented Valley-wide breakdown, electricity supply was restored in 90 per cent areas of Srinagar and in nearly 70 per cent rural areas, officials said. Hashmat Qazi, the Chief Engineer (Electric Maintenance) of Kashmir, said electricity supply would be restored everywhere within hours. Record-breaking snowfall has thrown life out of gear in Doda and adjoining districts in Chenab Valley with farmers and orchardists fearing huge financial losses. The local meteorological department has figures for only 20 years after its establishment and such a heavy snowfall in the first week of November had happened for the first time in the past two decades, said meteorologist Ramesh Sharma. Locals claim such a heavy snowfall has happened in the areas after more than four decades, catching them unprepared for the ensuing winter. The snowfall in the inhabited areas, ranging from three inches to over three feet, was recorded in different areas of the district, forcing a closure of Bhadarwah-Basohli highway, Kishtwar-Sinthan Top road and Bhadarwah-Chamba interstate road while many far-flung areas got cut-off, officials said. The people complained about drinking water scarcity and virtual breakdown of electricity in the majority of the villages. In the hills of Uttarakhand, snowfall has also blocked various roads in the state. Visuals of fresh snowfall in Pithoragarh and snow-clearing work at Kedarnath were released by ANI. Overnight snowfall in hills and showers in the lower areas of Uttarakhand added to chill across the state and brought boulders onto the roads at various places, blocking them. Snowfall was witnessed at the Manali hills in Himachal Pradesh on Sunday with the minimum temperature recorded at 2.8 degrees Celsius, according to the weather office. "Hills overlooking Manali, including the Solang ski slopes, experienced moderate spells of snow in the past 24 hours," an official at the meteorological office. The Rohtang Pass, located at an altitude of 13,050 feet and 52 km from Manali, has accumulated a fair amount of snow, hampering the movement of traffic towards the Lahaul Valley. He said picturesque Kalpa, some 250 km from Shimla, experienced 21.2 cm of snow. "High-altitude areas of Lahaul and Spiti, Chamba, Kullu and Kinnaur districts had experienced snow," the official said. Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district was the coldest in the state with a low of minus 2.1 degrees Celsius, while it was minus 0.6 degrees in Kalpa, 9.8 degrees in Dharamsala and 7.9 degrees in the state capital Shimla. As news of the snowfall flashed across the plains, tourists started arriving at Manali and the nearby hills. The state`s lower areas, including Dharamsala, Solan, Nahan, Chamba and Mandi have been experiencing cold climatic conditions after rainfall. The weatherman said the weather would now remain dry as the western disturbances receded from the region. A thick security blanket on Sunday was ensured by the police and orders banning assembly of four or more people were imposed at Kerala's Sabarimala and the nearby areas, a day ahead of the opening of the Lord Ayyappa temple for a special puja. Violent protests were witnessed in October against the verdict of the Supreme Court allowing entry of women of menstrual age into the holy shrine. This is the second time the hill temple will open for 'darshan' after the Supreme Court allowed entry of women of all age groups into it. Police said 2,300 personnel, including a 20-member commando team and 100 women, have been deployed to ensure smooth 'darshan' and security of devotees, a move that came in for criticism from the erstwhile royal family of Pandalam, the BJP and the Congress for such fortification. If necessary, around 30 women police personnel in the rank of circle inspector and sub inspector and above the age of 50 would be deployed at 'Sannidhanam' (temple complex) for security, they said. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPc, banning assembly of four or more people, is in force at Pamba, Nilackal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam for 72 hours from midnight Saturday. The pilgrims will be allowed to go up the pathway only on Monday afternoon, an official said. The shrine will open at 5 pm Monday for the "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special puja slated for the next day, marking the birthday of last king of Travancore Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, and close at 10 pm on that day. Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and chief priest Unnikrishnan Namboodiri will jointly open the temple doors and light the lamp at the 'Sreekovil' (sanctum sanctorum). All the roads leading from Nilackal to the base camp of the temple town Pamba are barricaded and have been declared out of bounds till Monday morning by the police. The police are checking each and every vehicle that passes in and around the temple town. On Sunday, after protests, the police allowed the media to travel till Nilackal. The police said that it has not received a request from any woman (age groups 10-50) for security assistance in order to visit the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. The temple had witnessed high drama in October following frenzied protests leading to around a dozen women in the age group of 10-50 being prevented from reaching it and police and the agitators fighting a pitched battle over the LDF government's decision to implement the court order. Dismissing reports that media was being restrained from going to Sabarimala, Kerala Director General of Police Loknath Behara said there was no bar on entry of journalists. No restriction of any sort has been imposed on media persons, he said. "To ensure necessary protection to the media, we are not allowing them now. As soon as security arrangements are complete, media will be allowed in Sabarimala and nearby places." During October's pujas, media persons were attacked by a section of protesters and police had to face criticism. The Sabarimala Karma Samiti, a platform of right-wing outfits, including VHP, appealed to media houses not to depute women journalists in the menstrual age group to cover the developments in Sabarimala. In its letter to editors, a copy of which was released to the media, it said even the entry of women journalists belonging to this age group as part of their job was also likely to aggravate the situation. The Samiti alleged that even though the Supreme Court has decided to hear the review and writ petitions on the issue on November 13, the state government was intentionally ignoring the "mass movement" against the judgment and was trying to "hastily" enforce it using police force. "In such a situation, the devotees are left with no other choice but to continue with the peaceful agitation," it said. Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Mullapally Ramachandran said the situation in Sabarimala was "explosive" and accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government of failure to handle it. BJP leader M T Ramesh said if police tried to hinder devotees from visiting Sabarimala, it would lead to "serious repercussions". Ramesh warned the police against examining the holy kit (Irrumudi Kettu) that is carried on the head by the pilgrims. At least 12 women had made a vain attempt to reach the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, a celibate, after the Supreme Court permitted women in the 10-50 age group to offer prayers there. So far, 3,731 people have been arrested and 545 cases registered in connection with last month's violence. BJP and various Hindu outfits are on a warpath against the Left-front government over its decision not to seek a review of the apex court verdict. Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said that there appeared to be some shady goings on as the media had never before been banned into the temple town. "If the media is kept away, then the authorities want to hide something," he said. State Congress President Mulapally Ramachandran said, "Parties like CPI, academics, intelligentsia and socio-cultural icons should prevail upon (Chief Minister Pinarayi) Vijayan to see that he handles this very sensitive issue in a more mature way." The latest intelligence report on Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) has revealed that the terror group has opened its branch in Nepal with an aim to recruit terrorists to launch attacks on the Indian soil. Sources say that the Pakistan Embassy in Kathmandu is not just actively involved but is also said to have provided funds for conspiring attack in India. The intelligence report also reveals that Pakistani agency ISI has opened an Islamic NGO run by an LeT operative. Recently, two ISI operatives working in Pakistan Embassy in Kathmandu visited Biratnagar in Morang district in Nepal. India, which has an open border with Nepal, has often raised concerns of national security due to the porous nature of the borders. Recently, Indian agencies had shared their concern over Pakistan using its High Commission in anti-state subversive activities in Bangladesh and anti-India activities. The input indicates Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka orchestrating terror attacks in Bangladesh and into West Bengal. Pakistan ISI under the cover of Diplomats meeting secretly to terror groups in Bangladesh and asking them for big terror attacks in Bangladesh and into India. "One Pak diplomat of Pak High Commission posted in Dhaka held a secret meeting recently with a Bangladeshi terror group and promised to arrange arm training for batch of 100 newly recruited terrorists for suicidal attacks. Input suggest that some of them would be sent to West Bengal for terror attacks after completing training," an intelligence officer told Zee News. Recently, the Sheikh Hasina government had refused to accept the new Pakistan envoy, alleging that Pakistan is using diplomacy as a cover for ISI activities. Bangladesh Government believes that the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka has emerged as a center of anti-government activities as well as activities against India too. "This is of serious concern to India as well as Bangladesh. We are aware of how Pakistan is using their Diplomats to destabilized India. Most of the diplomats are under-cover agents of ISI. There are reports that Pakistan High Commissions in Dhaka is involved in distributing Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN)," an officer working in Security Agency said. Another Intelligence report sent to Ministry of Home Affairs last month had revealed that Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) held a secret meeting to discuss carrying out attacks during the Bangladesh general elections. During the meeting, the terror outfit discussed plans to buy weapons and suicidal vests with the help of other terrorist groups in Bangladesh. It was decided during the meeting of the JMB to recruit 300 more new cadres before the general election in Bangladesh. The group is also trying to conduct two-week training in Chittagong district with a plan to establish 50 new training centres in various districts of Bangladesh with the help of Lashker terrorists who are of Pakistani origin. Bangladesh is slated to hold the country's 11th national election in the third week of December this year as the term of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League (AL) party comes to an end in January 2019. Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday slammed the Maharashtra government over the "brutal murder" of suspected man-eating tigress Avni and accused it to be a "straight case of crime". Taking to Twitter, in a series if tweets, Gandhi lashed out at Maharashtra Minister of Finance and Planning, Forests, Sudhir Mungantiwar, and accused him of giving orders for the killing despite several requests from many stakeholders. Earlier on Friday, the tigress who is suspected to be responsible for the deaths of 14 people in the past two years, was killed in Maharashtra's Yavatmal as part of an operation. Avni is survived by her two cubs who are 10-months-old. She was shot dead by sharp-shooter Asgar Ali, son of famous sharp-shooter Nawab Shafat Ali, at compartment no 149 of Borati forest under the jurisdiction of the Ralegaon police station. Gandhi tweeted, "I am deeply saddened by the way tigress Avni has been brutally murdered in Yavatmal, Maharashtra. It is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, S Mungantiwar, Minister for Forests, Maharashtra, gave orders for the killing. She said she will be taking up the matter "very strongly" with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. "I will take up the matter very strongly with CM Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis. I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case. Legally, criminally as well as politically." The Minister also came down heavily on Mungantiwar for giving order to private marksman Shafat Ali Khan's son to carry out the hunting operation. "Every time he has used Hyderabad-based shooter Shafat Ali Khan, and this time his son has also appeared in the scene illegally to murder the tigress. His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. He has been doing this regularly and this is the third tiger being murdered besides several leopards and wild boars." "Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilise, capture and qurantine the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under orders of Mungantiwar. Shafat Ali Khan has killed 3 tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad," she also tweeted. She questioned Maharastra government's decision to take services of Khan and his son. "I fail to understand why a state government should even bother about such a man let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts," she said. Gandhi also expressed concern over the well being of the two cubs left behind after the killing of their mother. "This ghastly murder has put two cubs at the edge of a sad death in the absence of their mother," she said. Meanwhile, speaking to news agency PTI, Mungantiwar on Sunday said, Avni was shot dead as a last resort when all attempts to tranquilise her failed and she attacked officials. He said nobody in the Forest Department wanted to kill the tigress and, thus, hundreds of personnel from the department were trying to capture her alive since the last 3 months. In September this year, the Supreme Court had said Avni could be shot at sight, which prompted a flurry of online petitions seeking pardon for the tigress. HYDERABAD: Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan on Sunday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was adopting various strategies to prevent opposition parties from forming the 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) even as the Telangana BJP rejected it. Noting that next general elections were crucial for the Congress, Chavan told reporters here that lot of people are coming together on a common platform to protect the Constitution and democracy. Alleging that Modi was adopting various strategies to ensure that 'Mahagathbandhan' does not materialise, Chavan said, "Modi's strategy for winning elections will be religious polarisation, massive use of money, and using tactics to make sure that our alliance doesn't materialise." Asked about BJP leader Ram Madhav's reported statement on the option of ordinance for early construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, Chavan said they (BJP) have suddenly started thinking of Ram Mandir after four-and-half-years. "They think they can win by this... Their (electoral) promises.. Nothing happened and now (they say) build a temple." "What was this government doing? Why did it not build a consensus among different communities so that an acceptable solution could have been arrived at?" he asked. Asking people to be cautious over alleged attempts at 'religious polarisation' and the Ayodhya issue ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the Congress leader expressed fears that there could be some attacks on places of worship. To another query, Chavan said 'unfortunately' under Modi's rule all institutions of democracy have been 'subverted.' Chavan alleged that Modi was using all investigating agencies against Opposition parties, to browbeat them. Reacting to Chavan's charges, Telangana BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao told PTI that 'Mahagathbandhan' was a "failed alliance" and "it is a losers' league". "It is a survival game.. Inspired by Congress party's dynastic system.. Modiji does not need to scuttle the formation (of grand alliance).. People of India have no interest in this alliance and they will reject it," Rao added. On the Ram temple issue, Rao said those who were saying that BJP was indulging in polarisation politics were ignorant. On the charge that Modi was adopting strategies to prevent formation of grand alliance and win elections, Rao said, "BJP doesn't need money or muscle power or polarisation to win polls. We have proved this time and again in many states.. people are electing us because of good governance and relentless focus on the lowest rung of people, farmers and the downtrodden." Amritsar: Railway Safety Chief Commissioner S K Pathak Sunday began his probe into the train tragedy here on Dusshera in which about 60 people were killed and several others injured. Member of Parliament Gurjeet Singh Aujla met Pathak and said the statements of eyewitnesses were not being recorded presently. The Congress MP said Pathak told him that the statements of railway officials were being recorded currently and he would meet general public later. Amritsar MP Aujla said he requested the official to stage a mock accident under the supervision of experienced engineers and experts to ascertain how the accident took place. The MP said since there has been a "delay" in ordering this inquiry, the probe team must ensure that all material of evidential value are forensically checked against possible tempering. The speedometer of the train involved in the accident must be checked for errors and tempering, he demanded. The gatemen are supposed to transmit information to the higher authorities and train drivers of impediments on the tracks, he claimed and asked the official, probing the tragedy to ascertain if the gatemen at the nearest crossing had informed the station control room. Aujla said Pathak assured him that he would consider all his points during the inquiry. South Korean First Lady Kim-Jung Sook on Sunday arrived in the national capital for her four-day visit to India. Kim will be taking part in the Deepotsav festival and groundbreaking ceremony of Queen Huh Memorial park in Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya on November 6, news agency ANI reported. She will also be visiting the Taj Mahal and interact with craftsmen of chikankari embroidery style in Lucknow. Kim had last come to India along with South Korean President Moon Jae-in as part of the first-ever state visit by him to India in July this year. Moon had kicked off his India visit with a tour of the famous Akshardham Temple here. The South Korean first lady is on a four days visit from November 4 to 7. "It is the first time in 16 years that a South Korean first lady is making a foreign visit without the president. The legend of Queen Heo Hwang-ok binds the two countries together culturally, and her visit will further promote our people-to-people ties," a senior official at the cultural wing of the South Korean Embassy here said. Kim is scheduled to attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Queen Suriratna (Heo Hwang-ok) memorial in Ayodhya on Tuesday. According to Korean legend, the Princess of Ayodhya went to Korea in 48 AD and married King Kim-Suro. A large number of Koreans trace their ancestry to this legendary princess, who is known as Queen Heo Hwang-ok in South Korea. The tombs believed to be that of Heo and Suro are located in Gimhae in South Korea's South Gyeongsang Province. Kim will be the chief guest at the 'Deepotsav' event organised by the Uttar Pradesh government on November 6 in Ayodhya. "The First Lady's participation in the festivities in Ayodhya will showcase our close civilisational links as well as the ongoing deepening engagement between our two countries," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in a statement. In July, the two countries had signed an agreement for expansion of the Suriratna memorial project. As per the itinerary shared by the MEA, the Korean first lady, during the Delhi leg of her visit is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among other engagements on Monday. Kim will interact with the craftsmen of 'chikankari', a traditional embroidery style of Lucknow, on Tuesday. She will attend the ground-breaking ceremony for the memorial and 'Deepotatsav' in Ayodhya later that day, it said. On Wednesday, she will move to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal, the MEA said. In July, Kim had visited the Humayun's Tomb in the national capital and expressed her desire to visit Taj Mahal in her next visit. "This time we had little time, so we are not able to visit the Taj. But, I knew that the Humayun Tomb's design had inspired the makers of Taj Mahal. So, next time, I will surely visit the Taj Mahal," she had told PTI after visiting the Humayun's Tomb. Indian Ambassador to South Korea Sripriya Ranganathan had earlier this week called on the First Lady and the mission in Seoul had said that her visit would "strengthen" the people-to-people and cultural ties. (With PTI Inputs) Kottayam: Several Hindu outfits in Kerala agitating against the entry of women of menstrual age into the famous Sabarimala Temple have urged media outlets not to depute women journalists to cover the issue as the Lord Ayyappa temple is set to open Monday for a special puja. The 'appeal' was issued by Sabarimala Karma Samiti, a joint platform of right-wing outfits, including the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Hindu Aikyavedi, ahead of the temple's brief opening, which will be the second time after the Supreme Court allowed entry of girls and women in the age group of 10-50 into it. The samiti has been spearheading the agitation against the apex court order lifting an age-old ban on entry of women in menstrual age group into the temple, whose deity Lord Ayyappa is a celibate. When the temple opened for monthly puja for five days last month, the first time after the court order, women reporters, on their way to cover the occasion, were heckled, their vehicles attacked and young female devotees forced to turn back as protesters, including activists of Hindu fringe groups, laid a siege to the road leading to Sabarimala. In its letter to editors, a copy of which was released to the media, the samiti said even the entry of women journalists belonging to this age group as part of their job was also likely to aggravate the situation. "Recognising your right to support or oppose the devotees stand on this issue, we hope you will not take a stand which would aggravate the situation," it said. The doors of the temple will be opened Monday evening for puja on the occasion of "Chithira Aattavisesham" on Tuesday, the birthday of the last King of Travancore, Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma. The temple will be closed at 10 pm on Tuesday but would reopen for darshan from November 17 for the three-month-long annual pilgrim season. The samiti said devotees belonging to all denominations in Kerala and other parts of the country and even abroad were on a path of 'unabated' agitation subsequent to the apex court judgement allowing entry to young women at the Sabarimala Temple against the wish of the large majority of devotees. It alleged that even though the Supreme Court has decided to hear the review and writ petitions on the issue on November 13, the state government was intentionally ignoring the "mass movement" against the judgment and was trying to 'hastily' enforce it using police force. "In such a situation, the devotees are left with no other choice but to continue with the peaceful agitation," it said. The whole issue is about the adamant stand of the state government in forcibly bringing in young women aged between 10 and 50 years which is against the age-old traditions and customs of the Sabarimala Temple, the samiti said. CHANDIGARH: The government of Punjab has transferred the teachers of a government school in state's Fazilka district, who were accused of allegedly stripping girl students to check for napkins after one was found discarded in the school's toilet. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who had earlier ordered an inquiry into the incident, issued the transfer orders. The Chief Minister's office had ordered the State Education Department Secretary, Krishan Kumar, to initiate an inquiry into the incident. The Chief Minister directed Kumar to complete the investigation by Monday and take necessary action. The teachers were reportedly trying to find out which of the girls were wearing a sanitary pad. The Chief Minister took action against the accused teachers after he was informed that instead of educating the girls about proper disposal of the pads, the teachers decided to strip them. Further disciplinary action, as per conduct rules, will be taken once the formal report is received, an official spokesperson of the Punjab government said while commenting on the incident. The Chief Minister had asked Kumar to personally update him with the final inquiry report, he added. A video clip showing some girls crying and complaining to their parents that their teachers stripped them on the premises of their school in Kundal village three days back had also gone viral which prompted the authorities to swung into action. Hyderabad: The BJP has fielded Syed Shahezadi, a young Muslim woman, as its candidate from Chandrayangutta constituency in Hyderabad, to take on AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi in the December 7 state assembly election. A novice in electoral politics, Shahezadi, who was a leader of ABVP, a student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, hails from Adilabad in Telangana. Shahezadi, who completed post-graduation in political science from Osmania University in Hyderabad, alleged there has been no improvement in the condition of common people in Chandrayangutta and other parts of old city of Hyderabad though All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has been elected for the past two decades. She said she can work for people's welfare by implementing central government schemes. "I am asking what did he (Owaisi) do for you (people)? What change has come in your lives? What about your children's education and how many of them are employed? How many have become engineers and doctors," she told PTI. A communal atmosphere prevailed in the old city of Hyderabad, AIMIM's stronghold, and there has been no change in the lives of common people, including ordinary Muslims, with AIMIM at the helm, she alleged. Owaisi has been elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014. Dismissing allegations that BJP is a communal party, she said such a mindset has been established that the organisation was opposed to Muslims. It is the BJP which made the late A P J Abdul Kalam President of India and BJP's Muslim leaders like Sikandar Bhakt, Najma Heptulla and M J Akbar held important positions, she said. Budget has been increased for Maulana Azad Urdu University in Hyderabad and for madrassas in Uttar Pradesh under a BJP government, she claimed. Having studied in government schools and colleges, Shahezadi said, she understands poverty, public issues and the issues concerning Muslim women. She thanked BJP's leadership for making her the candidate though she does not have money power. "If there is any party which encourages youth, it is BJP. It is BJP which encourages Muslims also. Because, I am the example," she said. BJP's Telangana unit president K Laxman said Shahezadi can expose the "misdeeds of AIMIM and how they are exploiting poor Muslims." Shahezadi hailed the Modi government's decision on triple talaq issue and she wants to work for the empowerment of the Muslim women, he said. Laxman said she was keen on contesting from Chandrayangutta which the party considered and decided to field her from the segment. DEHRADUN: After former Union Minister MJ Akbar, another senior-level BJP leader has been accused of sexual harassment by a woman following which the party has removed him from his post. According to ANI, the BJP central leadership on Sunday removed Sanjay Kumar - party's General Secretary in Uttarakhand - from his post after a woman party worker accused him of sexual harassment. BJP removes its Uttarakhand General Secretary Sanjay Kumar from his post after a woman party worker accuses him of sexual harassment. pic.twitter.com/LXfmb1iHhC ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 The action against Kumar was taken as the central leadership of the party is highly concerned about the image of the party after the allegations surfaced. The charges of sexual harassment against Kumar were discussed during a meeting during which it was suggested that he should be immediately removed from his post. The decision taken by the BJP top brass was conveyed to the state unit leaders in Uttrakhand. After Kumar was accused of sexual harassment, severe protests had erupted in Uttarakhand. The BJP high command had summoned Kumar to New Delhi over the issue. When he reached Delhi, Kumar was apprised of the decision taken by the BJP top brass. The party will soon announce a new general secretary for Uttarakhand. Former minister MJ Akbar had resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on October 17 after being accused by journalist Priya Ramani of sexual harassment during his tenure as a newspaper editor. His name cropped up on the social media when he was in Nigeria, as the #MeToo campaign raged on in India. Multiple women have come out with accounts of alleged sexual harassment by him when he was a journalist. Akbar had termed the allegations "false, fabricated and deeply distressing" and said he was taking appropriate legal action against them. KOLKATA: A delegation of Trinamool Congress leaders arrived in Assam's Tinsukia district on Sunday and met the family members of the five persons who were killed by suspected ULFA terrorists on Thursday night. The TMC delegation gave Rs 1 lakh each as compensation to the families of the five people killed by the ULFA gunmen, according to ANI. The TMC delegation is being led by Derek O' Brien, who is the TMC parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha. Dhola(Assam): TMC delegation led by Derek O Brien meets families of the five people killed by ULFA terrorists in Tinsukia pic.twitter.com/XUP0S2aEQG ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 The TMC delegation came to Tinsukia via Dibrugarh. Assam: TMC delegation led by Derek O Brien arrives in Dibrugarh, they are going to Tinsukhia to meet families of the five people killed by ULFA terrorists pic.twitter.com/EUMfslB2EC ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 Other members of the delegation include the party's Lok Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra. The deceased, identified as Ananta Namasudra, Abinash Namasudra, Subal Das, Dhanai Namasudra and Syamal Biswas from the Bengali community, were killed at around 7 PM on November 1 in Bishnoimukh village near Dhola-Sadiya Bridge Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had condemned the attack and directed law enforcement agencies to take stringent action against the culprits. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on Friday expressed anguish over the killings and said an "environment of violence" was prevailing in the country. Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee demanded a court-monitored inquiry and called for the resignation of Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal over the incident. A TMC delegation of six MPs had gone to Silchar on August 2 to assess the situation in Assam in the wake of the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on July 30 but was stopped at the airport. They were not allowed to leave the airport and were sent back the next day. Meanwhile, the Congress on Saturday observed 'black day' across West Bengal in protest against the killings of five Bengali-speaking people in Assam's Tinsukia district on Thursday. Several top state Congress leaders took out protest rallies in the city and accused the BJP-led government in Assam of pursuing divisive politics. "Both the Assam government and the central government should take steps to ensure safety and security of Bengalis living in Assam," state Congress president Somen Mitra demanded. A 12-hour state-wide bandh was called on Saturday to protest the gunning down of five men in Tinsukia district during which the protesters squatted on railway tracks, pelted stones at vehicles and burnt tyres on roads in some districts of Assam. The ULFA is a separatist outfit operating in North-East India for the indigenous Assamese people. Beijing: China on Sunday said it supported Pakistan's "quest for peace through dialogue" to settle the outstanding disputes with India as it backed Islamabad's "engagement" with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). A joint statement, issued here, after Prime Minister Imran Khan's talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, said that China backed Pakistan's efforts to improve ties with India to settle "outstanding disputes", without directly mentioning the Kashmir issue. "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," the joint statement said. The ties between India and Pakistan had strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016 and India's surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In recent years, China has refrained from taking a public stance on the India-Pakistan ties, expressing hope for resolution of the disputes through dialogue. On the Kashmir issue, China's oft repeated stand was that it should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. India too supports dialogue as the way to resolve the issue with Pakistan but maintains that the talks and terrorism cannot go together. For its part, Pakistan supported active participation of China at the platform of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Also significantly, China tacitly expressed its backing for Pakistan's efforts to secure the NSG membership. India has also been seeking entry into the 48-member elite nuclear club, which controls nuclear trade, but China has repeatedly stonewalled its bid. While India, which is backed by the US and a number of western countries has garnered the support of a majority of the group's members, China has stuck to its stand that new members should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making India's entry difficult as the group is guided by the consensus principle. India is not a signatory to the NPT. China's repeated stonewalling on India's membership bid in the NSG has become a major stumbling block in bilateral relations. "The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to multilateral, non-discriminatory arms control and non-proliferation endeavours," the joint statement said. "They noted with concern the continued pursuit of double standards in the application of non-proliferation norms and procedures and called for policies upholding rule of law and long-standing rules," it added. China appreciates and supports steps taken by Pakistan for strengthening the global non-proliferation regime, the statement said. China also heaped praise on Pakistan for its efforts to counter terrorism and said it recognised Islamabad's efforts in actively strengthening financial regulations to combat terrorism financing, and called on all relevant parties to view Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts in an objective and fair manner. But at the same time China is pressing Pakistan to crackdown on Uygur Islamic militants crossing in and out of the volatile Muslim-majority Xinjiang province bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. "The Pakistani side reaffirmed its support to the Chinese side in safeguarding its sovereignty and security, and combating separatism, terrorism and extremism including East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)," the statement said. China blames the separatist ETIM, an al-Qaeda linked group, for the violent attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the country. Both China and Pakistan agreed to further enhance cooperation against "three evils' of extremism, terrorism and separatism", the statement said. Both sides, however, underscored the need for all states to avoid "politicisation" of the UN sanctions regime and the work of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF has placed Pakistan in its grey list for not doing enough to counter terror financing. All-weather friends, China and Pakistan also agreed to enhance their defence cooperation. Both sides have agreed to make full use of the China-Pakistan Defence and Security Consultation mechanism, deepen cooperation in areas such as military exercises, training cooperation, personnel exchanges, and equipment and technology cooperation, it said. On the controversial USD 60 billion CPEC over which India has raised objection as it passes through PoK, the statement said China and Pakistan have "complete consensus" ruling out differences. "The two sides reaffirmed their complete consensus on the future trajectory of the CPEC, timely completion of its ongoing projects and joint efforts for realisation of its full potential with a focus on socio-economic development? the statement said. On the debt concerns over the CPEC projects, it said "both sides dismissed the growing negative propaganda against CPEC and expressed determination to safeguard the projects from all threats." The CPEC is the flagship project of China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and includes a maze of roads and port projects. Once completed, it aims to connect China's largest province Xinjiang with Pakistan's Gwadar port in Balochistan, allowing Beijing access to the Arabian Sea. Open source Militants in Donetsk region shelled the supervising station of Ukrainian military and Marinka entry-exit checkpoint, the press office of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reports. Russian occupants keep using weapons within certain humanitarian road corridors at the crossing points of boundary line during its work working hours, disregarding their obligations to cease fire and ensure the safety of the civilian population. Yesterday at 6:25 p.m., they directly targeted the positions of Joint Forces units from the side of Oleksandrivka settlement, not far from Donetsk, using small arms and heavy machine-gun fires. Marinka supervising station placed near the entry-exit checkpoint, where the border officers serve with the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, got under the shelling, reads the message. Related: Russian militants attack Ukrainian positions in Donbas 11 times over day It was also reported that no one got hurt within the firing range. The servicemen of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and the personnel of the Joint Forces provided a proper security level, reads the message. All entry-exit checkpoints on the boundary line in the Joint Forces Operation zone opened on schedule today, November 4. According to final clauses, the document will be introduced in three months Open source November 4, the law on the resumption of credit granting comes into force in Ukraine. Recently, the relevant document was published in official Government publication Voice of Ukraine. The law enters into force the day after it is published and shall take effect three months after the day this law enters into force, reads the document. Related: Poroshenko signs law on prevention of illegal raids It is expected that the law will allow reducing the creditors risks in carrying out credit operations, and this should facilitate the access of business entities and individuals to the use of bank loans. It is also stipulated that the rights of the lender-mortgage holder would be protected; the document will legally protect the institution of guarantee. In addition, banks will be able to receive important information about the particular borrower for credit relations. It will be impossible to alienate the subject of the mortgage without the consent of the lending bank. Related: Law on gender equality in military service takes effect in Ukraine The risks of the evasion of credit obligations in the inheriting of the borrower will be decreased. Ukrainian Parliament endorsed this decree in May 2018; 237 MPs gave a positive vote (with 226 voted necessary to pass). The Parliament adopted a law on the resumption of credit granting in July; 239 voted for it. The leader of Ukraine was demonstrated the technical specifications of unmanned aerial vehicles of different types, including military UAVs President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko visited the production of powerful drone company Baykar Makina. The visit was held within the working visit of the Ukrainian Leader to Turkey, the press office of the Presidential Administration reports. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko visited the production of Baykar Makina company, which is one of the world leaders in the production of powerful unmanned aerial systems, reads the message. Related: Ukraine, Turkey agree to coordinate efforts on political prisoners release, - Poroshenko In particular, the Ukrainian Leader and Ukrainian mission were demonstrated the technical features of the UAVs of different types, including the military ones. Also, the sides negotiated on cooperation between the defense systems of Ukraine and Turkey, reads the message. Related: Ukraine, Turkey free-trade area to be set by late 2018, - Erdogan As 112.international reported earlier, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko went to Turkey on a two-day visit. At the moment, he has completed most of what was planned. Only the grand opening of the Ukrainian Consulate in Antalya left. The next place where the Ukrainian political prisoner is going to be transferred to is still unknown Open source The family of Ukrainian political prisoner Roman Sushchenko received a letter from him from Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow, Ukrinform reports. We have received a long-awaited letter from our Roman Sushchenko from Matrosskaya Tishina, dated October 11. He arrived there on Sunday, October 7. He said that he would probably stay there for 10 days, his father doesnt know anything about the final point of serving the sentence, allegedly, no one from the personnel of the remand center possesses this information. Three more people were in the cell with him, Sushchenkos daughter Yulia claimed. Related: Ukraine's Balukh transferred to Kerch penal colony According to her, this is the last known information on his location, there is no official information about the next place he is going to be taken to. Ukrainian Roman Sushchenko, the reporter of Ukrinfiorm news agency, was detained in September 2016 in Moscow and accused by the FSB of espionage. For this, he faces 20 years in prison. Ukraine has appealed to Russia with a demand to release the Ukrainian journalist multiple times. Related: Russia keeps distracting world's attention to political prisoners, - Atlantic Council Moscow City Court of Russia has sentenced Roman Sushchenko, the citizen of Ukraine to 12 years in the hard labor colony for the espionage. Russias FSB believes that Sushchenko came from Paris to Moscow to visit his cousin in September 2016 to collect information on Mariupol attack. The court session against Sushchenko took place in the closed regime and the court announced only introductory and resume parts of the decision. Police reclassified the assault on the public activist Kateryna Handziuk, who also was an adviser to the mayor of Kherson, as a completed murder. This is reported by the press service of the National Police. "Today, November 4, investigators have changed the qualification of the attack on a Kherson city council official, qualifying it as a completed crime," the statement said. At the same time, it is specified that the crime against Handziuk is being investigated under paragraphs 4, 6, 11 and 12, Part 2, Art. 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (ordered murder committed by a group of persons, for mercenary reasons, with particular cruelty). Earlier it was reported that the police conducted an inspection of the body and the investigation into the death of Kateryna Handziuk. After the examination regarding the causes of death, they promised to give legal qualification. Kateryna Handziuk, Adviser of Kherson's Mayor, known as a public activist died aged 34, according to the Facebook page dedicated to her. Katya died. The details will be given later. Please, do not disturb her relatives. Friends will give more information within a day,' reads the message. Lawyer Masi Nayyem and entrepreneur Vladyslav Hrezeiev have also confirmed the information. Katya Handziuk died. Having had numerous operations after acid burns, thrombus detached. One hour ago, the entrepreneur claimed. As it was reported earlier, four suspects in the attempted murder of Adviser of Kherson Mayor Kateryna Handziuk pleaded guilty. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko confirmed the death of Acting Head of the Executive Committee of Kherson City Council, Adviser of Khersons Mayor, and public activist Kateryna Handziuk and required of the law enforcement bodies to punish her murderers. He claimed this at the opening ceremony of Ukrainian community Ukrainian family in Antalya. Related: Poroshenko visits Baykar Makina drone factory in Turkey Open source The Russian Orthodox Church called the signing an agreement on cooperation between Ukraine and the Ecumenical Patriarchate "a political step that lies outside the canonical field." This was stated by the chairman of the external church relations department, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, TASS reports. "The last steps and decisions of Patriarch Bartholomew, including the signing of this agreement, lie outside the canonical field but is exclusively in the political plane. Fulfilling an order from overseas players aimed at weakening and dismembering the united Russian church, Patriarch Bartholomew is in a hurry until political situation has changed and the current president is in power in Ukraine, "he said. According to him, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople opposed himself to canonical world Orthodoxy and "can no longer claim to be the ecumenical coordinator for other Orthodox churches." "If the Patriarchate of Constantinople had previously acted as a coordinating center for them with the consent of the local churches, now such a center no longer exists: the Patriarchate of Constantinople voluntarily dismissed itself," the metropolitan said. "The agreement we signed today completes this process (creation of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church), creates all conditions, in order the process of granting, or rather preparing for the Cathedral, the process of providing Tomos, was carried out in absolutely strict accordance with the canons of the Orthodox Church," Poroshenko claimed. Poroshenko added that the November 3 becomes a historic day. "I am sure that the decision of the Autocephalous will lead to the unity and the union of all Orthodox in Ukraine," Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew claimed this after signing the agreement. On October 11, the Synod lifted the anathema from Filaret, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, and Makariy, the Primate of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Filaret stated that a united Jubilee Bishops' Council would take place soon to create a unified Ukrainian local church. Related: Ukraine's court chooses preventive measure for suspected of attempt on far-rght C14 coordinator On October 17, Twitter unveiled accounts associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency. At least 39 of them presented themselves as related to American military. Defense and security officials are worried that Russia is trying to influence the mood of the American armed forces by campaigning in social media, Voice of America reports. A number of U.S. military have reported to the Voice of America that Russia is trying to spread misinformation among the servicemen. In the case of the U.S. military, according to current and former U.S. and Western officials, the Kremlin's aim is likely to establish what is known as reflexive control. By seeding U.S. troops with the right type of disinformation, they say, Russia can predispose them to make choices or decisions that are favorable for Moscow. The exact extent to which U.S. military personnel have been targeted or swayed is unclear. There are cases when Russian agents in Twitter pretended themselves to be US servicemen. On October 17, Twitter unveiled accounts associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency. At least 39 of them presented themselves as related to the American military. "We know it goes on," said Ed Wilson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. "That's why we've amped up and increased the attention that we're paying," Ed Wilson added. "We're taking a renewed look at how we train and educate the broader force," he said, noting that efforts go beyond just the military to the Defense Department's partner agencies. The former commanding general for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, Army Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, described the need to educate and shield troops from disinformation campaigns as a matter of "force protection." "It doesn't matter if it's a physical force or an information force," Funk said. "Are you concerned about it? Of course. Do you have to have campaigns where you inform your soldiers of those kinds of things that happen? Sure." US Secretary of Defense Mattis stressed that not only the US military suffered from foreign cyber operations and claimed that the military should be attentive to attempts of influence, like the rest of society. This is the first UN humanitarian convoy since January Yesterday, a UN humanitarian convoy arrived in the Rukban refugee camp in southern Syria near the border with Jordan, DW reports. "We provide the delivery of food, sanitation, and hygiene items, medical care for about 50 thousand people living in the camp," said in a statement. A vaccination campaign to protect 10,000 children from measles, polio, and other deadly diseases will also be conducted. Earlier Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoygu claimed the delivery of S-300 missile system to Syria. We have completed the delivery of S-300 systems. It includes 49 units of equipment: lighting radars, basic determination systems, of course, command vehicles, and four missile launchers, he said. Action to pay tribute to the memory of public activist Kateryna Handziuk takes place near the building of the Ministry of Interior in Kyiv. This was reported by the 112 Ukraine correspondent. Before the start of the rally, when people were laying out the words She was killed with sanctuary lamps, there were some kind of clashes with law enforcement officers. They (the police) claimed that such actions were a violation. But now these lamps are burning, we can also see posters with the inscription: Who is the killer of Katya Handziuk? Friends, acquaintances, and everyone who knew this woman require an objective investigation of the attempt on her life," the reporter noted. In addition, similar actions were also announced in Lviv, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky, Odesa, and Zhytomyr. Earlier we reported that the entire evidential base in Kateryna Handziuks case was collected by law enforcers, and the materials will be submitted to the court in the near future, head of the National Police of Ukraine Serhiy Knyazev wrote on Facebook. The investigation is almost complete, the entire evidential base has been gathered, and we will submit the materials of the criminal proceedings to the court in the near future. If the guilt of the detainees is proved, they face up to 15 years or life imprisonment, Knyazev said. He added that the police expect that the detained organizers of the attack on Handziuk will give additional testimony about those who ordered the crime. Earlier, post about the death of Kateryna Handziuk, Adviser of Kherson's Mayor, appeared in social media. According to preliminary information, the death was caused by thrombus detachment. Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine's Prosecutor General, took the case under his own control. He reported that the attack on the adviser was a part of the plan to destabilize the situation in the south of Ukraine. Later the investigation was transferred to the central office of the Security Service. According to preliminary information, the death was caused by thrombus detachment Open source Kateryna Handziuk, Adviser of Kherson's Mayor, known as a public activist died aged 34, according to the Facebook page dedicated to her. Katya died. The details will be given later. Please, do not disturb her relatives. Friends will give more information within a day,' reads the message. Related: One of suspects in attack at Handziuk get out under house arrest Lawyer Masi Nayyem and entrepreneur Vladyslav Hrezeiev have also confirmed the information. Katya Handziuk died. Having had numerous operations after acid burns, thrombus detached. One hour ago, the entrepreneur claimed. As it was reported earlier, four suspects in the attempted murder of Adviser of Kherson Mayor Kateryna Handziuk pleaded guilty. Related: Handziuk has 11 surgeries since attack Kateryna Handziuk was attacked near her place. The attacker soaked her with acid. The woman was hospitalized. 30 percent of her body was burned: head, arms, legs, chest, and left eye. The attack on the employee of the City Council of Kherson was reclassified from "Hooliganism" to "Serious physical injuries committed with the aim of intimidation," and after a while - on "Attempted murder with a special cruelty." Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine's Prosecutor General, took the case under his own control. He reported that the attack on the adviser was a part of the plan to destabilize the situation in the south of Ukraine. Later the investigation was transferred to the central office of the Security Service. Related: Handziuks video message: Looking bad but better than justice in Ukraine Suspected in the attack was detained on August 3. His name is Mykola Novikov, previously detained for robbing and illegal weapons handling. He is a member of one of the criminal organizations in Kherson region. According to MP from National Front Anton Herashchenko, obviously, the detainee was fulfilling someone's order. Whereas, Herashchenko added that they know roughly who was the proponent. The Police have already published the picture of the second possible suspect in the attack on Kateryna Handziuk. Head of the General Staff is convinced that successful combat launches from the restored short- and medium-range air defense systems open up prospects for further development of the Ukrainian defense complex For the first time over the last 19 years, combat tests of the S-300B1 S-300V1 air defense system, providing a defense against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and aircraft, have been conducted in Ukraine. Head of the General Staff of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko stated this on Facebook. "The last days I have been present at the drills of air defense units in the south of Ukraine. The results of the shooting confirmed our ability to significantly increase the combat strength as soon as possible. For the first time in 19 years, the S-300V1 mobile air defense system test took place, and the weapon destroyed two targets," he said. Earlier the tests of new Ukrainian weapons and military equipment were held at the military firing range of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Oleksandr Turchynov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine (NSDC), claimed this, the press office of the Council reported. According to Turchynov, they held the tests of the new operative-tactical unmanned complex, which is capable of carrying out reconnaissance, coordinating the firing, providing resistant to the electronic warfare means communication at the operational depth up to 200 km, being in the air for up to 24 hours. Also, the combat unmanned complex, which can carry a powerful high-explosive or thermobaric war charge and accurately hit targets in the rear of the enemy was tested. The Secretary of the NSDC stressed that Ukrainian armorers in cooperation with foreign partners designed these unmanned complexes. The police expect that the detained organizers of the attack on Handziuk will give additional testimony about those who ordered the crime The entire evidential base in Kateryna Handziuks case was collected by the law enforcers, and the materials will be submitted to the court in the near future. This was reported on Facebook by the head of the National Police of Ukraine Serhiy Knyazev. The investigation is almost complete, the entire evidential base has been gathered, and we will submit the materials of the criminal proceedings to the court in the near future. If the guilt of the detainees is proved, they face up to 15 years or life imprisonment, Knyazev said. He added that the police expect that the detained organizers of the attack on Handziuk will give additional testimony about those who ordered the crime. Earlier, post about the death of Kateryna Handziuk, Adviser of Kherson's Mayor, appeared in social media. According to preliminary information, the death was caused by thrombus detachment. Related: Police reclassify case of Ukraine's activist Kateryna Handziuk as completed murder Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine's Prosecutor General, took the case under his own control. He reported that the attack on the adviser was a part of the plan to destabilize the situation in the south of Ukraine. Later the investigation was transferred to the central office of the Security Service. Suspected in the attack was detained on August 3. His name is Mykola Novikov, previously detained for robbing and illegal weapons handling. He is a member of one of the criminal organizations in Kherson region. According to MP from National Front Anton Herashchenko, obviously, the detainee was fulfilling someone's order. Whereas, Herashchenko added that they know roughly who was the proponent. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko confirmed the death of Acting Head of the Executive Committee of Kherson City Council, Adviser of Khersons Mayor and public activist Kateryna Handziuk and required of the law enforcement bodies to punish her murderers. He claimed this at the opening ceremony of Ukrainian community Ukrainian family in Antalya. Related: Poroshenko requires law enforcers to make every effort to punish Handziuk's murderers PLEASE NOTE! Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate! All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited! (One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS. Lusavor Hayastan (Bright Armenia) party has released a statement about the format of its participation in the upcoming early elections of parliament. Lusavor Hayastan party has put the mission of systematic, irreversible reforms at the foundation of its establishment. The partys participation in the first parliamentary elections by the Yelk alliance of parties became historic and fateful not only in the modern history of our people, but also individually for each party of the Yelk alliance. The revolution that took place in Armenia has qualitatively changed the political priorities in the country by enabling equal participation opportunities for the first time to each subject that takes part in political processes. As a result of long discussions with the Hanrapetutyun [Republic] party, Lusavor Hayastan party has made a decision to participate in the upcoming elections of the National Assembly [parliament] by the Lusavor Hayastan party list, with its own vision and programs. Lusavor Hayastan will also involve in its list representatives from other political forces and active civil groups sharing similar ideology. After the Yerevan City Council election, highly valuing the jointly passed path together with the Hanrapetutyun party by the Luys alliance, the parties will continue cooperation in the Yerevan City Council within the framework of the Luys faction. Lusavor Hayastan party thanks its partners from the Yelk alliance by finding the many years of extra-parliamentary and parliamentary productive work with the two Hanrapetutyun and Civil Contract parties, to be invaluable and important. We believe that the powerful potential of united joint work is not exhausted, therefore we wish each of them good luck in the upcoming election for the benefit and welfare of the Republic of Armenia and citizens of the Republic of Armenia, the statement says. Early election of parliament will take place December 9 in Armenia. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan In the current context, this latest move to build a naval facility on PNG territory is unprecedented. As a former colonial administrator of PNG, the focus of Australias bilateral relations has always been rationalised on the notion that a stable PNG is vital to Australian strategic interest. A delicate approach respecting PNGs sovereignty has underpinned previous dealings. Australia, a traditional ally of the United States, is frantically trying to deter the expanding influence of China in the South Pacific. Australia's upgrade of its security cooperation with PNG advances Australia's interest in counteracting China's growing influence in the Pacific Islands. PORT MORESBY - Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and his Papua New Guinean counterpart, Peter ONeill recently signed off on a bilateral arrangement committing both countries to building a joint naval base on PNG's northerly island province of Manus. Patrick Kaiku - "The agreement to build a joint naval base on PNG territory is seriously flawed" It is the first time an Australian naval base has been constructed on territory of a sovereign state in the Pacific Islands. This Australian strategy challenges the neutrality and political legitimacy of small states caught up in the geopolitical tussle for influence. The agreement to build a joint naval base on PNG territory is seriously flawed. The announcement comes as PNG prepares to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meet later this month. The decision by PNG to be party to a joint naval base agreement has not been debated in PNG's parliament and nor has civil society been engaged in discussions. In previous arrangements of Australia-PNG cooperation, beginning with the 2004 enhanced cooperation program and the 2013 Manus offshore processing of asylum seekers, the PNG courts belatedly ruled these bilateral agreements unconstitutional. Australian engagements with PNG have an unsavoury history of not conforming to a legitimate process of debate, capitalising on the weak political system in PNG. PNG is presently undergoing financial woes with dwindling foreign reserves and a national budget burdened by an all-time high deficit. One can understand why the PNG prime minister is readily committing to the joint naval base. Much-needed financial resources from Australia may be an incentive for Peter O'Neill's decision. PNG's national security is not predominantly military but emphasises areas of surveillance of fisheries resources and border protection targeting illicit activities of transnational non-state actors. The Manus joint naval base agreement is an expression of militarisation. The danger with the base is that an innocuous defensive posture by Australia and PNG can easily be misread as offensive to China or another neighbouring state. Technically, PNG is taking sides in the geo-political rivalry between China and the United States and its ally, Australia. By allowing the use of its territory to project military capabilities against another state, PNG is backsliding on its commitment to non-aligned principles and long-standing foreign policy orientation affirming universalism. After PNG gained independence in 1975, it pronounced as its foreign policy orientation the principles of friend to all, enemy to none. This ideal was paramount for PNG so it could navigate the bipolarity of the Cold War. Ever since, PNG has conformed to this basic tenet in its international relations. Since 1993, PNG has been a member of the group of states that constitute the non-aligned movement. The non-aligned movement was created in 1961 and is explicit about its role in global politics. It seeks to create an independent path in world politics that would not result in member states becoming pawns in the struggles between the major powers. PNG must go out of its way to reinforce these principles in its dealings with various big powers. Peter ONeills commitment of PNG to the naval base agreement with Australia is an open-ended military alliance against a perceived belligerent power. For small states who find themselves caught up in great power rivalry, the dilemma of entrapment in unwarranted military alliances is real. This agreement diminishes PNG's neutrality and capacity to seek future cooperation from the states it is allying against. For the foreseeable future, PNG will continue to need Chinas cooperation on issues such as the banning of exported illegal logs to that country. Taking sides in a geo-political rivalry, especially against China, could be detrimental. China is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council and possesses veto powers. China has previously used its veto in the UN Security Council to stall humanitarian intervention in the 1998-2003 Solomon Islands civil unrest because of Solomon Islands diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. Staying clear of the geo-political rivalry between the United States and its allies and China is a sure way of maintaining flexibility and independence in PNGs multilateral engagements. Papua New Guineamust not take sides in exacerbating present misunderstandings in the Pacific Islands. We were on the track well before dawn and climbed to the rim of the ridge surrounding a collection of hamlets in a small valley. It was steep, rugged limestone country. With binoculars I could see apparently normal early morning village life, with women and children bustling about their houses. The Numbaira lived on the headwaters of the mighty Purari River in the same valley system as the fearsome Kukukuku. They had a reputation as warriors who loved a fight and resented intruders. They had attacked a Government patrol some years earlier. Close to the southern extremity of the area I heard reports of tribal fighting even further south at a village called Numbaira. Two policemen Id sent to have a look were warned off with alarming threats and derisive insults, so I decided Id better take the whole patrol in to investigate. Though the people were reputed to be surly and uncooperative, I found them tractable enough and the patrol proceeded smoothly. BRISBANE - I was on a routine census, health survey and general administration patrol in the Tiaora Division South of Kainantu in 1956. Bob Cleland in more recent times. "As the heavy rifle jolted into my shoulder I was instantly appalled Id deliberately attempted to take a human life" Suddenly, cries of alarm drifted up to us through the still morning air and the villagers began rushing about and disappearing into the long grass and craggy limestone outcrops. One of my policemen said to me, Look, they have lookouts whove seen us. Some distance away, across a gorge, was a distinct smoke column rising as a warning signal. Within five minutes, there was no sign of life in the hamlets or elsewhere in the valley. We needed to reach the Government Rest House on a spur some few kilometres away, well positioned for a strategic defence, but to get there we had to follow the track down through the Numbaira hamlets and then up a ridge to the Rest House. We came into the open and descended to the village. Apart from the noise of our own progress, there was dead silence. We checked all the houses but found no one. The people had taken all their possessions with them; not a good sign. As we continued to the Rest House, we were forced us into a long single file by the rough terrain and the narrow path through tall grass and limestone pinnacles. With me were European Medical Assistant John Birkin, his three Medical Orderlies, two Police Lance Corporals, eight Constables, and about 25 carriers, interpreters and other personnel. Each policeman carried a .303 rifle but no ammunition. John carried a .22 calibre rifle and I had a .303, both with ammunition. Suddenly and silently, a volley of dozens of arrows showered us, falling almost vertically from the sky. The patrol faltered but stayed together and continued with the interpreters, on my instructions, calling out something like, Dont fight us. We have rifles. You cannot win. Five minutes later, there was another volley accompanied by distant yells and yodelling. As we started the climb up the spur in more open country, a small group of tribesmen followed at a distance, yelling insults and firing arrows, all of which fell short. Fifteen minutes later we made the Rest House with the tribesmen still just out of arrowshot and continuing their belligerent behaviour. One carrier and one policeman had minor arrow wounds and were treated by John. With several police and the interpreter, I stayed near the lower perimeter of the 100-metre clearing around the Rest House, watching. I quote from my Patrol Report: At this stage, a single round of .303 ammunition was fired into the air well above their heads. They hesitated, but after a minute or so, continued firing arrows. A second round was fired into the ground about ten minutes later about 50 yards in front of the hostile group. Seeing the puff of dust, they retired to sit on a kunai hillock about mile away. That was simple, unemotional and understated language for the purposes of my official report. The reality was, in fact, highly emotional. This was a first-time event in my mere two years experience as a field officer. I knew I had to stay calm and act within the very tight limits of policy and the law while containing the hostile situation. The police Lance Corporal, Kapo, who I knew well, was experienced but excitable and upset that one of his Constables had been slightly wounded by an arrow. John, the Medical Assistant, seemed to be seeing this as a bit of a Boys Own adventure. And the hostile group below us, led by the Numbaira Luluai or head man, was in a high state of anger and belligerence. Before I fired the first shot, the attackers had been inching closer so they were now almost able to lob an arrow on the Rest House. Other groups at several points behind them, though quieter, were also closing and firing occasional arrows. It was then I fired the warning shot. About fifteen seconds later, the light crack- crack-crack of Johns .22 sounded as he emptied his magazine into the air. Bloody fool, I thought. The anti-climactic effect of the small calibre .22, coming after the crashing shot of the .303, with its echoes reverberating around the enclosed valley, was comical. The tribesmen must have thought so, too. They stopped retreating, let off a chorus of excited yells and whoops, and consolidated their positions, continuing their verbal abuse and firing arrows. As they advanced again, it seemed they were testing us before getting more serious. The Lance Corporal beside me said, You had better shoot the Luluai, Kiap. I said, No, Kapo, well wait and see what they do. Their attitude and threat didnt change. Kapo said, Kiap, shoot the Luluai. Without him, the rest will not attack. I knew that to be so, but I waited. The Luluais group, as well as the other groups, continued to close, probably emboldened by our lack of further reaction. I concluded enough was enough. I carefully aimed at the Luluai and fired. As the heavy rifle jolted into my shoulder I was instantly appalled that Id deliberately attempted to take a human life. I visualised serious reprisals. I imagined the inevitable enquiry into my actions and the devastation of my career. Then the bullet hit the ground about 50 metres in front of the Luluai with a huge burst of dust and pulverised limestone. I remained motionless in the same expansion of time and finally came to with Kapo saying, Ah, good Kiap, theyre all running away now. My report continues: After a rest of two hours, during which the group did not move, the writer with a Lance Corporal and the Interpreter approached to within 300 yards of the hostile group and engaged them in shouted conversation. With much persuasion and cajoling, the Luluai came forward of his own accord. He was taken into the Rest House and taken into custody. The Luluai, the Government appointed village headman, would have been recognised by an earlier patrol as a leader, appointed and counselled, among other things, to keep the peace in his village and assist Government patrols when they visited. He was certainly a leader and a big man, but his other duties were clearly being ignored. In the back and forth shouting preceding his surrender, I emphasised he was a Luluai and suggested he would be shamed in the view of many people if he didnt do his job properly. If he gave himself up, I promised that we would take him with us to Kainantu for a short time and return him to his village in due course. That night the hamlets were quiet and women and children returned to their houses. The next day four more tribesmen visited the Rest House saying they would go with their leader to Kainantu. It turned out theyd been a part of the small belligerent group. In the Court for Native Affairs, convened later that day, I sentenced them all to three months gaol in Kainantu for riotous behaviour. The object behind the sentence was to take these men to Kainantu and incarcerate them, but also to allow them to learn Melanesian Pidgin, let them experience parts of the wider world outside their village and teach them a little about law, agriculture and economics. In discussions with Assistant District Officer Mick Foley, it was agreed I would personally return them to their village as promised and use them to establish good relations with that village and others in the area. That didnt happen! Headquarters in Port Moresby decided I should go to Sydney to attend a year-long course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration. About the same time, Mick Foley went on leave. So, when the five Numbaira men completed their sentence, they were released in Kainantu and expected to find their own way back home. Sometime later, the Numbaira people attacked another Government patrol. What could have been a significant forward step in pacification and development turned out to be only a slight hiccup in their traditional aggressive way of life. And I have been forever thankful that I underestimated the distance between us when I fired that second shot. While the long-overdue ginger emoji was warmly welcomed this week, the same couldnt be said for a new controversial foot emoji released by Apple. The foot emoji, which comes in an array of skin tones, was part of an influx of emojis added to the already vast collection available for Apple users. Yet the online community were quick to lambast the black option, accusing Apple of overthinking diversity and going too far. Love the new emoji but whose foot is brown or black at the bottom? one Twitter user asked. The black foot emoji has caused controversy online. Source: Twitter/ Emojipedia Yall overthink diversity and inclusion like s***. Who got a black a** bottom on their foot? one frustrated user wrote. One commenter was more concerned about those who actually have black soles, urging them to seek medical assistance. Doing too much if the bottom of your foot is black you should be visiting your doctor, their tweet pointed out. While a wave of criticism swept the web, there was strong opposition suggesting the new emoji should not be taken too seriously. I dont get why everyone is so pressed about the bottom of the foot being black too. Lol look at the angle, if the sole isnt black, how will you know the race of the emoji? one user said. While Apple are yet to comment on the furore online, the tech giant said this week they are committed to providing inclusive emojis for all. Apple is working with the Unicode Consortium to add more disability-themed emoji to the keyboard for Unicode 12.0, slated for release in 2019, a media release said. Love the new emoji but whose foot is brown or black at the bottom? KeetaRay (@1KeetaRay) October 31, 2018 The party of Myanmar's embattled head of state Aung San Suu Kyi said Sunday they were defeated in six constituencies in a national by-election, showing uneven support for her government after a string of controversies. Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) swept to power in 2015 in a landslide victory, ending decades of military rule. But her tenure has been full of stumbles, most notably with ethnic groups involved in peace talks with the military -- which has been marred by skirmishes and ongoing civil war in states like Kachin and Shan. The dissatisfaction came through in the results of Saturday's by-election, in which 13 seats in the lower and upper houses of parliament and regional assemblies were up for grabs. "Currently, we won seven seats and lost in six places," NLD spokesman Dr. Myo Nyunt told AFP. Four of the six seats were previously held by NLD candidates. While official tallies have not yet been released by the Union Election Commission, preliminary results show the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) had beaten NLD out on three seats. In some constituencies voters went with ethnic political parties, while people in Rakhine state's Yathedaung township threw their support behind the son of a prominent politician who has in the past capitalised on the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists' dissatisfaction with Muslim communities. Dr. Myo Nyunt said the losses of these six seats is due to his party's unpopularity with ethnic minority groups and people working for the government. "We heard that ethnic groups are not satisfied with our performance regarding the peace process," he said. Political analyst Maung Maung Soe told AFP that the low voter turnout in most of these constituencies hurt the NLD's showing, and voter apathy could really impact them in the next election in 2020 -- adding that in comparison, the military-aligned USDP has unwavering support. "Although NLD supporters are many, they are currently losing supporters from ethnic groups and intellectuals as well as from the media," he said. For press freedom advocates, Suu Kyi's shine has worn off due to the jailing of two Reuters journalists who reported on the killing of 10 Rohingya men by the military. They were sentenced to seven years in prison in what has largely been regarded as a sham trial. Outside of Myanmar, the international community has also soured on the former Nobel Laureate, as her image as a rights icon has been shattered due to her handling of the Rohingya crisis. More than 720,000 people of the stateless Muslim minority group have fled Bangladesh since a military crackdown in August 2017, which UN investigators have alleged amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity. Myanmar has denied almost all the allegations, justifying the actions of the military as necessary to combat terrorism. The by-elections are a rare test of support for embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi's government Voters cast their ballots in a small but important by-election in Myanmar on Saturday A young university student backpacking her way through Thailand has revealed how a terrifying taxi ride during a drunken night out left her bloodied on the side of the road pretending to be dead. After completing a year abroad studying in Shanghai, on a whim Rachel Turner decided to fly into Chiang Mai before bussing her way down to Ko Pha-ngan in early August 2017. Travelling alone, the then 22-year-old made friends with a group of backpackers at her hostel who convinced her to buy a ticket for the incredibly boozy half moon festival. There was just a lot of alcohol, the hotel was giving out shots for free, it was one of those events when you just start drinking in the middle of the day, she told Yahoo7 News. Rachel Turner made a last minute stop off in Thailand after spending a year abroad. Image: Supplied Everyone else is in the same boat, everyone is going crazy and I just got swept up in it all. You think youre untouchable but that is just not the case. The outdoor rave festival was held in the depths of a rainforest, north of the Ban Tai village, and before long Rachel had lost her friends among the half-dressed revellers covered from head to toe in fluro body paint. I remember doing one lap around the event and thinking this kind of sucks, she said. I drank a bit more and then thought I need to go back now or I am going to throw up. Given she was leaving so early, Rachels attempts to find a tuk tuk (Thai taxi) back to the hostel proved to be harder and far more expensive than expected. It wasnt until midway through the half moon rave festival that Rachel realised how intoxicated she was. Image: Getty I walked a bit down the road but it didnt really click that I had perhaps walked too far. This guy in high vis, who looked completely legit, comes up and says Im a motorbike taxi I will take you back, Rachel explained. We were driving for a while, he actually went past my hostel and said I know somewhere better. Still intoxicated, Rachel said it took her a minute to register what was happening. A second request to pull over was met with a response of, shut up, youre coming with me, youre not going to the hostel. The streets too desolate to scream for help, Rachel said she was left with three options. Story continues I could go with him (thats not really an option), she recalled. I can try and crash the bike. I can grab his arm and at least get him to slow down. Rachel was forced to leap from the motorcycle, where she tore all the skin off her right leg. Image: Supplied She opted for plan C, pulling his arm, forcing him to slow down momentarily, allowing enough time to launch herself off the bike. It took all the skin off my right leg, she said, recalling how she laid motionless on the ground as her kidnapper stood over her body. He yelled out are you dead? I didnt move and he yelled sh** and drove off. Picking herself off the ground, Rachel stumbled back to her hostel where she tended to her own wounds at the time oblivious to the severity of the events that had just transpired. I just remember sitting on the pool table with my antiseptic wipes trying to clean out my leg, she said. I remember sitting on the ferry the next day and I just broke down crying the stupidity and severity of the situation just hit me. Desperate to see some elephants and more Thai wildlife, Rachels trip home to the UK took a detour to Koh Phangan. Image: Supplied Suddenly desperate to get home, she called the airline to change her flight. One year on from the terrifying ordeal, Rachel explained to Yahoo7 News that she knows she put herself in that vulnerable position. Thailand is a beautiful country, its just that at the end of the day, I wasnt thinking, I got carried away and I made mistakes that are now so recognisable. Bahrain sentenced the head of the country's Shiite opposition movement to life in prison Sunday for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar in a ruling rights groups have called a travesty. Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-banned Al-Wefaq movement, and two of his aides had been acquitted by the high criminal court in June, a verdict the public prosecution appealed. The public prosecutor said in a statement that the three had been unanimously sentenced by the appeals court for "acts of hostility" against Bahrain and "communicating with Qatari officials... to overthrow constitutional order". Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, severed all ties with Qatar in 2017, banning their citizens from travel to or communication with the emirate over its alleged ties to both Iran and radical Islamist groups. Sunday's verdict against the charismatic Shiite cleric can still be appealed. Ruled for more than two centuries by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty, Bahrain has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shiite-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. - 'Unlawful verdict' - Opposition movements, both religious and secular, have been outlawed since 2011 and hundreds of dissidents imprisoned -- many of them stripped of their citizenship in the process. Salman's Al-Wefaq was dissolved by court order in 2016. The cleric is currently serving a four-year sentence in a separate case -- "inciting hatred" in the kingdom. The leftist opposition National Democratic Action Society, or Al-Waad, was banned the following year over allegations of links to terrorists. Human rights groups have said cases against activists in Bahrain -- men and women, religious and secular -- fail to meet the basic standards of fair trials. Amnesty and HRW categorise Salman and other jailed opposition leaders prisoners of conscience. Advocacy groups, including Amnesty, slammed Sunday's ruling against the 53-year-old Salman and his aides, Hassan Sultan and Ali al-Aswad as political reprisal. "This verdict is a travesty of justice that demonstrates the Bahraini authorities' relentless and unlawful efforts to silence any form of dissent," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director. "Sheikh Ali Salman is a prisoner of conscience who is being held solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression." Bahraini activists said Sunday's verdict highlighted a broader regional policy towards freedom -- the same policy that saw Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered this month. "Despite the ongoing scrutiny on the Gulf region, with Saudi Arabia being under the spotlight for its brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Bahrain has made a decision that reeks of arrogance," said Sayed AlWadaei, head of advocacy for the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. - Upcoming election - The verdict comes ahead of controversial parliamentary elections that Bahrain's King Hamad has called for November 24. Dissolved opposition parties, including Al-Wefaq and the secular Al-Waad, do not have the right to put forward their own candidates in the vote. Bahrain last year ratified an amendment to the constitution granting military courts the authority to try civilians charged with terrorism, a term loosely defined by the country's penal code. In June, Bahrain amended its law on political rights, prohibiting "leaders and members of political associations dissolved for violating the kingdom's constitution or its laws" from running in legislative elections. Bahrain is a key ally of the United States and home to the US Fifth Fleet. The archipelago is also home to a permanent British military base. US President Donald Trump has eased restrictions on arms sales to Bahrain since taking office. Washington had urged Bahraini authorities not to overturn Salman's acquittal. Alistair Burt, the British Foreign Office's minister responsible for Middle East affairs, said he was "very concerned" by the life sentence, in a statement released Sunday. Bahraini authorities accuses Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom. Iran denies the allegations. Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of Bahrain opposition movement Al-Wefaq, looks on during a rally against parliamentary elections in this file picture taken on November 20, 2014 Bahraini men hold placards bearing the portrait of Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Shiite opposition movement Al-Wefaq, during a protest against his arrest on May 29, 2016 Republicans and Democrats were making frenzied, final pushes Sunday to motivate their voters ahead of midterm elections seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump's divisive first two years in office. With Trump continuing a hectic schedule of campaign appearances and former president Barack Obama making a last appeal for a Democratic candidate in Chicago, both sides say voter turnout will be key. With political passions at a rare peak, early voting in some states already running far ahead of normal levels. "It's all about turnout," said Senator Chris Van Hollen, as Democrats wage what polls say is an uphill battle to win control of the Senate. He appeared on "Fox News Sunday." And with Democrats favored to retake the House of Representatives, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel concurred that: "It's going to depend on voter turnout on Election Day." But in the first midterm under Trump -- an utterly unconventional president -- there are many unknowns, above all the bottom-line impact of a president who has driven both supporters and foes to a rare fever pitch of emotion. - Many unknowns - The party of a first-term president tends to lose congressional seats in his first midterm. But a healthy economy tends to favor the incumbent -- and the US economy has been growing with rare vigor. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll on Sunday suggested that while Democrats retain an edge in their battle for the House, Republicans could profit from increasingly positive assessments of the economy and by Trump's harsh focus on border security. It found registered voters preferred Democratic candidates for the House over Republicans by 50 percent to 43 percent; but that was down from a 14-point advantage in August. Another wild card: The campaign's closing days come just a week after a gunman, who allegedly hated immigrants and Jews, killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, and after a fanatical Trump supporter was arrested in Florida on charges of mailing pipe bombs to prominent Trump opponents, including Obama. The president's critics say the highly charged atmosphere he has helped create made the two attackers feel comfortable to carry out their crimes. Republicans, trying to move past that, have been enthusiastically pressing the economic argument. American voters have watched the economy grow for two years under Trump, McDaniel said on ABC. "They're making more money. More jobs are coming back. That's a great closing argument." But the president -- to the unease of some in the party -- has instead used his nearly nonstop schedule of campaign rallies to keep the spotlight on what he calls the security threat from migrants seeking to enter the US through Mexico. Democrats meantime insist that only they will protect the healthcare gains made under President Barack Obama, that Trump has employed inhumane measures to keep migrants out, and that the divisiveness he has fostered must end. "The Republican effort to take away important healthcare protections is one that Senate Republican candidates have been running away from," Van Hollen, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said on ABC. But he was cautious about prospects for his chamber on Tuesday, saying, "Senate Democrats really face the toughest political map in 60 years." Democratic supporters attended a campaign event on November 4, 2018 in Montpelier, Vermont as both US parties made a final, frenzied push two days before key midterm elections Turnout in US presidential and midterm elections since 1950 and by age group since 1988, ahead of midterm elections on Tuesday. US President Donald Trump has a nearly non-stop schedule of campaign appearances, like this one at a rally in Pensacola, Florida on November 3, 2018 US Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat in a tough battle for reelection, campaigning in St Louis, Missouri Supporters cheer US President Donald Trump at a "Make America Great Again" rally at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade, Montana. As a child living in poverty in Mexico, he peddled fruit just to eat. A lifetime later, as the world's most wanted drug lord, his empire was so vast he commanded a fleet of submarines to move his wares. But having been convicted in February for flooding the United States with tons of cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine over 25 years, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman will now be sentenced in New York on Wednesday. Prosecutors have requested life imprisonment, plus an extra 30 years for good measure. While in prison for the last three-and-a-half years Guzman, 62, has lost much of the aura of the feared and, for many in Mexico, beloved drug kingpin he once enjoyed. He lost weight and says he has health problems. Guzman's head is shaved and he wears humble blue prison garb. His trademark moustache is gone. In May, his lawyers complained that his detention in solitary confinement in a high-security prison in Lower Manhattan violated the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." "Mr Guzman has been over two years now without any access to fresh air or natural sunlight," his lawyers said, adding that he'd "been using toilet paper as makeshift earplugs." It has been a humiliating fall from a position of power and lifestyle of luxury for Guzman, whose nickname "El Chapo" translates as "shorty," due to his five-foot, two-inch (1.57-meter) frame. In his heyday, the man towered over his rivals, casting a long shadow over Mexico's criminal underworld. During Guzman's reign, his Sinaloa drug cartel's empire expanded across the globe, its tentacles stretching from the Americas to Europe and Asia. After two prison breaks, Guzman was finally captured by Mexican marines in January 2016 and extradited to the United States in January 2017, ending his decades-long cat-and-mouse game with the authorities. While his cartel is synonymous with violence and drug addiction, Guzman became a hero of Mexico's underworld, with musicians singing his praises in folk ballads known as "narcocorridos" -- tributes to drug capos. He fooled the government with his cartel's engineering feats, building tunnels to ship drugs under the US-Mexico border and to help him escape the authorities. While he nurtured a Robin Hood image back home, his cartel fought bloody turf wars with rivals, contributing to the drug conflicts plaguing Mexico. Guzman grew so rich that he was on Forbes magazine's list of billionaires, but he dropped out in 2013 after spending much of his wealth on protection. - 'Very poor' - "I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats," Guzman boasted to Sean Penn in a clandestine meeting that the US actor wrote about for Rolling Stone magazine in 2016. Guzman said in a separate video message to Penn that his family was once "very humble, very poor" and that his mother made bread in the village of La Tuna. "I sold oranges, I sold soft drinks, I sold candy," he said, claiming he entered the drug business at age 15 because there were "no job opportunities." "The only way to have money to buy food, to survive, is to grow poppy, marijuana, and at that age, I began to grow it, to cultivate it and to sell it," he said. Guzman was born on April 4, 1957, in Badiraguato, a town known as the cradle of several drug lords. He was recruited by Guadalajara cartel boss Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, known as "The Godfather" of Mexico's modern drug cartels. After Felix Gallardo was arrested in 1989, Guzman's Sinaloa cartel began its meteoric rise. But he had enemies. A gunfight in May 1993 at the airport of Guadalajara ended the life of the western city's archbishop, Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, allegedly because he was mistaken for Guzman. He was arrested in Guatemala in June 1993. Eight years later, he pulled off his first prison break, sneaking out inside a laundry cart in 2001. - Love-struck capo - It took 13 years for the authorities to grab him again, in February 2014, in a condo in the Sinaloa resort of Mazatlan, where he was hiding with his wife, Emma Coronel, and their US-born twin daughters. But 17 months later, Guzman fled again, humiliating President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration. This time, his henchmen had built a one-mile (1.5-kilometer) tunnel that opened in his cell's shower. He zoomed out by hopping on a modified motorcycle mounted on rails. But it only took six months for the marines to catch him again in Los Mochis, a coastal town in Sinaloa. Officials say his soft spot for Mexican-American actress Kate del Castillo led to his downfall. Mexican officials leaked to the media phone intercepts of his flirtatious text messages to the star, who brokered Guzman's meeting with Penn. Guzman married at least three times. He has several children, including two sons accused by the US authorities of having "significant" roles in the Sinaloa cartel. Another son, Edgar, was shot dead in 2008. Former drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, pictured in January 2016 following his recapture, faces sentencing for flooding the United States with tons of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs over a quarter century "El Chapo," pictured with US Drug Enforcement personnel as he is extradited to the United States in 2017, has lost much of the aura of the feared drug kingpin Hollywood star Sean Penn interviewed "El Chapo" for a 2016 Rolling Stone article Graphic on "El Chapo" Despite an aggressive crackdown by social media firms, so-called "junk news" is spreading at a greater rate than in 2016 on social media ahead of the US midterm elections, according to researchers. Oxford Internet Institute researchers concluded that Facebook and Twitter remain filled with "extremist, sensationalist, conspiratorial, masked commentary," and other forms of "low-quality" news. In analyzing some 2.5 million tweets and 6,986 Facebook pages over a 30-day period, the study found that less than five percent of the sources referenced on social media were from public agencies, experts or political candidates themselves. "We found that the proportion of junk news circulating over social media has increased in the US since 2016, with users sharing higher proportions of junk news than links to professional content overall," the report released Thursday said. It added that "junk news once concentrated among President (Donald) Trump's support base has now spread to include communities of mainstream political conservatives." Philip Howard, director of the institute and a study author, said the latest research did not seek to analyze how much of the content came from automated accounts or "bots," or whether it was directed from foreign entities. But he noted that "this style of producing junk news probably has a Russian origin," adding, "that's what the Russians used in the 2016 election, and now there are domestic sources copying that style." - Tweaks not enough? - Howard said the efforts by Twitter and Facebook to root out misinformation amounted to "tweaks," and that "the evidence suggests little tweaks don't add up to a big impact." As part of the research, the authors created an online tool to allow anyone to follow and analyze low-quality news and posts. Responding to the study, Twitter and Facebook questioned the conclusions and methods used by the researchers. "We respect and appreciate strong independent research but we challenge some of the findings here," a Twitter spokeswoman said in a statement to AFP. "Many of the links deemed as 'junk' by the researchers are media outlets that reflect views within American society. Banning them from our service would be a knee-jerk reaction and would severely hinder public debate, the potential for counter narratives to take hold, and meaningful discussion of news consumption." Twitter said many of the sources cited in the study were "not foreign, not bots, and for the most part not coordinated. They are real people sharing news that reflects their views." - Opposite conclusions - Facebook pointed to other research suggesting a decline in misinformation. "The conclusions drawn in this research shouldn't be seen as the authority on this topic," Facebook said in a statement. "The central takeaway of this study -- that, 'the proportion of junk news circulating over social media has increased since 2016' -- is actually based on data from Twitter and then applied to 'social media' more broadly." The Oxford researchers said that its definition of "junk" is based on specific criteria, including a lack of professional journalism practices, use of hyperbole or misleading headlines, and relying on untrustworthy sources of information. Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University professor specializing in social media who is not affiliated with the Oxford study, said she was not surprised by the findings because of the design of social networks. "Because clicks lead to revenue, social networks elevate junk news," she said. "If we are starting to feel like this is a world of reality TV, it's by design, That's how the system was built." Grygiel said that Twitter's algorithms give priority to "verified" users, but that those who get the verification badge are more likely to be celebrities than academics or intellectuals, and this can result in proliferation of gossip and "tabloid-style" news. She noted that while social networks have begun to crack down on "coordinated and inauthentic" efforts by foreign entities, this has not impacted what many consider as "low quality" news. "I wouldn't say they're focused on downgrading tabloid content," Grygiel said. Even as efforts ramp up to root out misinformation such as Facebook's "War Room," seen here, researchers say low quality and "junk news" is still flourishing on social media Facebook and Twitter dispute the conclusions of a study claiming "junk news" is more prevalent now than in 2016 Facebook has established a team for its "War Room" designed to root out misinformation, but some researchers say it's not enough A dog owner who rescued a stray husky close to death has urged others to take a leaf out of his book and give other dogs in similar situations a chance to live. Rico Yudha Soegiarto, 26, rescued Hope after she was left to die on the streets after being hit by a vehicle. She has since undergone an amazing transformation thanks to Mr Soegiarto. I want to tell people around the world that anything is possible, he said. Hope was frail and close to death when Mr Soegiaro found her. Source: Caters If I can save a dogs life, others can too. And trust me if you adopt a dog, that dog will love you more than anyone else. Hope was almost skeletal, with painfully flaky skin and two major open wounds on her legs when she was found walking the streets of Bali, Indonesia. But thankfully Mr Soegiarto spotted her last June and rescued her straight away. The female husky was in such a bad situation that the dog lover, who already owned a male husky, didnt realise her breed until he brought her home and washed her up. Hope is now unrecognisable from her days on the street. Source: Rico Soegiaro Hope weighed just four kilograms and was so malnourished she ate two kilograms of dog food and drank one litre of water at Mr Soegiaros home before taking her to the vet. Her road to recovery was tough and demanding but Mr Soegiarto, who works at a resort in Bali, refused to give up. A year after taking a motley of medicines and traditional herbs, showered with lots of love, affection and encouragement, Hope now stands the happiest and craziest among Ricos five dogs. She only weighed nine pounds when I first saw her but today she weighs a healthy 46 pounds, he revealed. Mr Soegiaro now wants others to take his lead and help dogs in need. Source: Caters Throughout her recovery, Rico gave her traditional herbs along with prescribed medicines so to heal her wounds quickly. He changed her bandages every day, bathed her and fed her healthy food. The transformation in Hopes health was slow but visible. It was going to be tough for her to regain weight and strength but I didnt lose hope, he said. I gave my best and today she is a healthy and happy dog. My family also supported me throughout the tough time. Story continues Hope has now blossomed into a beautiful dog with shiny, soft fur and glassy eyes. Her powerful story and loving nature has made her centre of attention in the neighbourhood. She lives in a comfortable house, spends her days playing with her dog friends but her favourite game is jumping into the water with Mr Soegiarto in a nearby beach. All she does is eat and play, he admitted. Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman goes on trial in New York on Monday, accused of running the world's biggest drug cartel and spending a quarter of a century smuggling more than 155 tons of cocaine into the United States. The mammoth trial in a Brooklyn federal court, which will cost millions of dollars and is expected to last more than four months, will see one of the world's most notorious criminals face the US justice system. Prosecutors spent years piecing together a sweeping case against Guzman, who was extradited in 2017 after twice escaping prison in Mexico -- first hidden in a laundry cart, then slipping down a tunnel that reached his prison shower. Guzman has been branded the world's biggest drug lord since Colombia's Pablo Escobar, who was dubbed "The King of Cocaine" and was one of the wealthiest men in the world until police shot him dead in 1993. Experts say the government has a near water-tight case likely to send Guzman, 61, to a maximum security US prison for the rest of his life. But at what price? "Is it going to stop even one additional pound of cocaine from coming into the United States? Probably not. The machine keeps rolling," says Rob Heroy, a North Carolina lawyer who has defended other Mexican drug barons. The Sinaloa cartel that Guzman founded in 1989 is still hugely powerful. His co-defendant Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada remains at large, and violent drug trafficking continues unabated in Mexico. Last year, there was a record 29,000 murders in Mexico. In the United States, opioid addiction has spiraled into an epidemic. In 2016, an average of 174 Americans died every day from drug overdoses. - 'Most expensive trial in history' - Jury selection will be conducted in security conditions reserved only for the most dangerous defendants. US District Court Judge Brian Cogan will preside over the process behind closed doors. The 12 jurors, with six alternates, will remain anonymous. US Marshals will escort them to and from court every day. These ordinary men and women will determine whether Guzman -- the diminutive father of two whose nickname means "shorty" -- is guilty or not of 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges. According to the indictment, the Sinaloa cartel, which Guzman is accused of leading from 1989 to 2014, became "the largest drug trafficking organization in the world... with thousands of members." US prosecutors contend that from 1989 to 2014, the cartel smuggled at least 340,892 pounds (154,626 kilograms) of cocaine into the United States, as well as heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana, raking in $14 billion. Guzman pleads not guilty, but the government has presented so much evidence -- more than 300,000 pages and at least 117,000 audio recordings -- that the defense complains they haven't had enough time to review it all. Heroy estimates the trial will cost US taxpayer "more than $50 million," a price tag that includes protection programs for at least some of the several hundred witnesses expected to testify. "It's probably set up to be the most expensive trial in the history of the US," he told AFP. Even Guzman's lawyers are in the dark as to all the former associates, hired hands or rivals who have turned informants. - Informants - Some of the informants have already been absorbed into the US witness protection program, given new identities and homes around the country. Others are already in jail, housed in special wings to protect them from reprisals. If cooperating with the government can endanger their lives, and those of their families, it can also help reduce their own sentences. "No one is going to have pictures of him (Guzman) carrying cocaine, taking the suitcase with money," said Heroy. "The case is going to be based on these informants." Guzman has been held in solitary confinement in New York since Mexico extradited him in January 2017, one day before Donald Trump took office. He spends 23 hours a day in his cell. The only visitors he is allowed are his three lawyers and twin, seven-year-old daughters, from whom he is separated by a thick glass screen. The judge has banned his 29-year-old beauty queen wife, Emma Coronel, from visiting. Instead, she has attended almost all his pre-trial hearings, waving and blowing him kisses from the gallery. Arrested for the first time in Guatemala in 1993, El Chapo spent more than seven years in a Mexican prison before his first escape in 2001. Re-arrested by Mexican marines in February 2014, he escaped again 14 months later. Guzman was re-captured in January 2016 after a visit from Hollywood actor Sean Penn and a Mexican actress, who wanted to make a film about his life, allowed Mexican authorities to trace his whereabouts. This time, Mexico decided to wash their hands and put him on a plane. Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (C) is escorted by Mexican police in the border city of Ciudad Juarez as he is extradited to the United States in January 2017 Mexican police participate in an operation to bust a clandestine lab for making synthetic drugs in Carrizalejo, in the state of Sinaloa, in July 2018 Mexican security forces arrested Damaso Lopez, a top Guzman lieutenant, in May 2017 Guzman's wife Emma Coronel (R) leaves the US federal courthouse in Brooklyn with her twin daughters after a hearing in her husband's case in June 2018 Coronel has attended almost all of her husband's pre-trial hearings, waving and blowing him kisses from the gallery Lithuania's capital Vilnius on Friday installed new traffic lights featuring female symbols to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote in the Baltic state. The right for women to vote was written into the Lithuanian Constitution on November 2, 1918, putting it among the first countries to grant women suffrage, ahead of France or the United States. President Dalia Grybauskaite, who chairs Council of Women World Leaders, hailed the date as "a win for democracy that put the country (Lithuania) among the leaders of modern states". City officials said the lights along a busy downtown street right next to Vilnius' largest business centre also serve as a reminder that European countries need to keep pushing to close the gender gap. Vilnius University professor Dovile Jakniunaite said authorities must put more effort into tackling the gender pay gap and domestic violence against women. "This joyful date could encourage authorities to show more initiative in these areas," she told AFP. In Lithuania, women's gross hourly earnings are on average 14.4 percent below those of men, compared to the EU average of 16.2 percent, according to official statistics. "Modern society does not exist without fully empowered women, yet globally all of us are still halfway on this journey," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius tweeted. The right for women to vote was written into the Lithuanian Constitution on November 2, 1918, putting it among the first countries to grant women suffrage, ahead of France or the United States City officials said the lights along a busy downtown street right next to Vilnius' largest business centre serve also as a reminder that European countries need to keep pushing forward to close the gender gap In Lithuania, women's gross hourly earnings are on average 14.4 percent below those of men, compared to the EU average of 16.2 percent, according to official statistics Floods killed 12 people on the island of Sicily, including nine members of a single family, pushing Italy's week-long storm toll beyond 30, rescuers said Sunday. After a river burst its banks, the bodies of the family including children aged one, three and 15 were discovered in the coastal town of Casteldaccia east of the capital Palermo. Rescue services said the house where they were spending the weekend was submerged in water and mud. The other victims' ages ranged from 32 to 65. Three family members managed to escape, one by climbing a tree where he stayed for more than two hours, the Agi news agency reported. "I lost everything, I have nothing left, just my daughter," one of the survivors, 35-year-old Giuseppe Giordano, told journalists. His wife, two other children, his parents, brother, and sister, his nephew and the boy's grandmother all died, he said. After flying over Casteldaccia on Sunday, Sicilian prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio described scenes of "total disaster". Officials have opened an investigation to determine whether houses built near the river had complied with safety norms. In a separate incident in Sicily, a 44-year-old man was found dead in his car near Vicari, also in the Palermo region. He had been trying to reach a service station, where he was the manager, to help a colleague trapped there. A 20-year-old passenger in the car with him is still missing. Rescue workers are also searching for a doctor, 40, forced by the storms to abandon his car on the road near the town of Corleone after trying to drive to work at the hospital there. Two other people, a man and a woman, died after their rental car was swept away by a torrent in the region of Agrigente, rescuers said. Violent winds and strong rain had killed at least 20 other people this week around Italy, especially in the north. Two were reported killed on Friday, including a 62-year-old Germany tourist struck by lightning in Sardinia. Six regions remain on high alert for storms. The severe weather has caused massive damage and disruption. Trees in sprawling mountainside forests in the northeast of the country were flattened like matchsticks by violent winds. "It's like after an earthquake," said the governor of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia. "Thousands of hectares of forest were razed to the ground, as if by a giant electric saw." On Sunday, after flying over the area with Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Zaia said the storms had destroyed 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of pine forest in all. Salvini posted photos of the devastation in a series of tweets Sunday after also flying over the Alpine town of Belluno. "We need 40 billion euros ($45.5 billion) to secure the national territory," he said. He pledged to collect and spend that sum but, in a barbed aside to the European Union, said he hoped his plans would not provoke overspending complaints from Brussels. Europe has objected to Italy's proposed budget, which it says will worsen the country's already huge deficit. The canal city of Venice, on Italy's northeast coast, has also experienced some of its worst flooding ever, and withstood winds of up to 180 kilometres an hour (110 miles an hour). The picturesque fishing village of Portofino near Genoa, a holiday resort on the Italian riviera, was reachable only by sea after the main road collapsed. Floods in Sicily have closed many roads this week, and mayors ordered schools, public parks and underpasses shut. On Sunday, troops were deployed to check the condition of the main roads on the Mediterranean island. Italy's civil protection agency has described the weather lashing the country this week as "one of the most complex meteorological situations of the past 50 to 60 years". Torrential rains caused rivers across Sicily to burst their banks, leading to deadly flooding on the island The latest deaths in Sicily bring the toll from a week of storms across Italy to at least 30 Map locating Casteldaccia in the Palermo region of Sicily where nine members of the same family drowned in floods Storms wrought havoc in the port of Rapallo, near Genoa, on Italy's northern coast last week The canal city of Venice has experienced high winds and some of the worst flooding in years A kind-hearted female cop has breastfed the crying baby of a suspect in a police station. The five-month-old boy and his five-year-old older brother were taken into a police station after their mum was arrested in the resort city of Mar del Plata in eastern Argentinas Buenos Aires Province. Policewoman Leila Ayelen Diaz leapt into action when the baby started crying and she realised that he was hungry. The police officer, who has a nine-month-old baby herself, said she had acted on instinct. The baby was wet and she started to cry. We didnt know how to calm her. Then I decided to breastfeed her, Ms Ayelen Diaz said. It was a very emotional moment for everyone. An image of the touching moment was posted to social media. Source: CEN/Australscope She said that cops had taken the children inside the police station after their mother was arrested in the street as it was cold outside. Police officers also changed the babys nappy and found something for the older boy to eat. Another cop, Matias Bravo, captured the moment on camera and later shared the image on social media. One commented it was a beautiful gesture, while another online commentator said it was pure love!. The children were later handed over to social workers. There is no report on the reason for the mothers arrest. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday he will meet this week in New York with North Korea's number two to discuss denuclearization and a possible second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "I expect we'll make some real progress, including an effort to make sure that the summit between our two leaders can take place where we can make substantial steps toward denuclearization," Pompeo said on CBS's "Face the Nation." Pompeo's meeting with Kim Yong Chol later this week comes with the two sides at loggerheads nearly five months after a historic summit in June in which Trump and Kim pledged to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. North Korea's foreign ministry warned earlier in the week that Pyongyang will "seriously" consider reviving its nuclear weapons program unless US sanctions are lifted. Pompeo dismissed the statement, telling "Fox News Sunday," "I'm not worried about that." "We are very focused. We know with whom we are negotiating, we know what their positions (are) and President Trump has made his position very clear," Pompeo said. He added that there would be "no economic relief until we have achieved our ultimate objective." News of the meeting, and the possibility of another summit, also comes just two days before crucial US midterm elections seen as a referendum on Trump. Trump has often pointed to the detente with North Korea -- the subject of saber-rattling rhetoric and soaring tensions early in his term -- as a signature foreign policy accomplishment. Pompeo emphasized in both television appearances that there have been no missile or nuclear tests since the summit in Singapore, and remains of US troops killed during the Korean War have been returned. "We've had success in just a handful of months since this past June, and we continue to make good progress. I'm confident that we'll advance the ball again this week when I'm in New York City," he said on CBS. - Slow progress - But the progress has fallen well short of the promise of the summit, with Washington pushing to maintain sanctions against the North until its "final, fully verified denuclearization," and Pyongyang condemning US demands as "gangster-like." "The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible," said the foreign ministry statement, released under the name of the director of the foreign ministry's Institute for American Studies. "What remains to be done is the US corresponding reply," it added. Kim Yong Chol, Pompeo's counterpart in the talks, is a general, a former top intelligence chief and right-hand man to the North Korean leader. He visited the White House in the diplomatic run-up to the Singapore summit, and has been Pompeo's chief interlocutor in the months since. In mid-October, Pompeo evoked the possibility of a second summit, preceded by talks with Kim Yong Chol. "We're working on finding dates and times and places that will work for each of the two leaders," Pompeo said at the time. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol (R), North Korea's number two, plan to meet in New York to discuss a possible second summit; seen here in a July 7, 2018 picture More than 50 years after its founding, the Nukus Museum of Art in Uzbekistan's remote Karakalpakstan region still startles and charms visitors in the spirit of its eccentric late founder. But having survived Soviet censorship and predatory foreign art dealers in the 1990s, some fear the world's second-largest collection of Russian avant-garde art, faces a fresh threat. The Friends of Nukus Museum, a Dutch-registered charity that has provided thousands of dollars in support to the museum annually since 2001 is expected to disband at the end of this year. The main reason, its chairman David Pearce told AFP, is an impasse over gifts donated to the museum including books and audio equipment more than three years ago that have disappeared. "As far as we are concerned they have been confiscated or stolen," said Pearce, whose charity also serves as an important voice for the museum abroad. The museum's new administration refused a request from AFP for an interview about the charity's claims. - End of an era - Doubts about the museum's new leadership have increased concerns for the state-run museum's remarkable collection. Its unique trove of Russian avant-garde art from the first half of last century was assembled during the Soviet era at considerable personal risk by the collector Igor Savitsky. The Savitsky collection captures a flowering movement later crushed by the Bolsheviks. It may be housed in the remote town of Nukus -- population 300,000 -- but only the State Russian museum in Saint Petersburg has a larger collection of this kind of art, which was essentially forbidden under communism. Concern for the collection was first sparked by the sacking in 2015 of the museum's director, Maranika Babanazarova, who had worked closely with The Friends of Nukus Museum. Babanazarova was widely regarded as a scrupulous gatekeeper of the approximately 90,000 items at the museum which, as well as the avant-garde works, span Uzbek folk art and millennia-old archeological artefacts. The end of her stewardship also severed an important link back to Savitsky, who had begged her to take over his position as director of the museum on his deathbed in 1984. Today, few museum staff remember the man himself, but there are still some exceptions. Valentina Sychyova, the museum's 71-year-old chief curator, first encountered Savitsky roaming the corridors of its original building in 1971. "He was wearing ripped trousers and a crumpled, clay-specked shirt," she recalled. "I assumed he was a maintenance worker or a builder." Russian-born Sychyova was simply visiting relatives in the then-Soviet republic. But after an enthralling conversation, she ended up working for him, she told AFP. - Forbidden collection - Savitsky's collecting habit repeatedly took him to Russia and back. His efforts would one day see the Nukus museum hailed as a "Louvre of the Steppes" by excited European art critics. But in an era when state-sponsored socialist realism eclipsed all other forms of art, his was a dangerous undertaking. Artists featured at the museum include little-known Russian painters such as Lev Galperin. He was among those artists whose work was repressed during the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Others, like Ural Tansykbayev, a native of the Karakalpakstan region, became celebrated artists in the socialist realism style. They left their earlier, less propagandistic works to fester in cellars and attics. Savitsky, usually short of cash, deferred payment to artists and their relatives for many of the works that he rescued. At the turn of the millennium, the museum still owed money for parts of the collection. Some artists, however, donated their paintings, happy to have found an appreciative audience -- and astounded that local authorities in the far-flung region were quietly supporting Savitsky rather than locking him up. Nukus' geographical distance from the centres of Soviet power afforded Savitsky and the state-owned museum he founded vital breathing space. But Pearce and others have wondered aloud whether his legacy would now be better served if at least part of the avant-garde collection was rehoused in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, or even Europe. Last year the museum whetted art world appetites outside the country when it sent over 200 works as temporary exhibits to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. - 'Burn me with them' - Nukus is never likely to see more than a trickle of visitors, despite the state investing up to $20 million in a museum expansion completed in 2017. But ex-director Babanazarova is among those who would find it hard to see the precious works ripped away from the town permanently. It was Savitsky's love for this adopted region and efforts to support Karakalpak cultural heritage that persuaded the influential local officials he befriended -- including her academic father -- to indulge his vision. During the economic chaos of the 1990s, her team fended off shady Western art dealers who arrived cash-in-hand promising untold riches. Rapacious Uzbek officials also heaped pressure on the collective, but Savitsky's disciples refused to sell out his legacy, Babanazarova told AFP. Choosing a favourite from the collection is hard for her. "People sometimes ask me, 'If the museum was burning down and you could only save a painting, which one would that be?'" she said. "I always tell them I would sooner stand in the halls and burn with them." The Savitsky collection of Russian avant-garde is the second only to the one at Saint Petersburg's State Russian Museum . 2:1 12- , 1:... The banquet hall at Sri Lanka's ousted prime minister's official residence is packed with supporters -- many sleeping on chairs and the floor -- who have come to stand guard as he tussles for power with an old rival. Thousands of loyalists from across the country are camped out at the Temple Trees residence in Colombo, a colonial-era bungalow where Ranil Wickremesinghe has been holed up since his shock dismissal more than a week ago. Day and night they top up coconut oil lamps and keep jasmine-perfumed incense sticks burning in the 5,000-capacity banquet hall -- usually reserved for state dinners and VIP weddings -- while the 69-year-old plots his next move. President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe on October 26 but he has refused to accept the decision or to leave the residence so former strongman leader Mahinda Rajapakse -- who was named in his place -- can move in. S.M. Faheed, a 73-year-old diehard supporter of Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP), vowed to stay there until the constitutional crisis is resolved. "I will not leave until Ranil is given the PM's chair," Faheed said. "We are here to support him and make sure no one tries to throw him out of Temple Trees." "If I have to, I will stay here till I die." Wickremesinghe has asked lawmakers to vote to decide between him and Rajapakse and end the crisis, but parliament has been suspended since his sacking. "If I win... (Rajapakse) must stand down. If he wins, I will leave Temple Trees and move away," Wickremesinghe told AFP on Friday. But he will have trouble convincing his followers to give way. - Prayers for victory - Shakuntala Devi travelled 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the Tamil city of Jaffna in the north of the country to join the crowd that grows each day. Volunteers bring meals to Devi and others while Buddhist monks chant prayers that are broadcast on a public address system within the premises. Devi said she wanted to show solidarity after Wickremesinghe's government built 5,000 homes for people like her who were displaced by the civil war that ended in 2009. "I came to show my gratitude to the prime minister," she said. Another protester who gave her name as Sandya said: "We want to tell Sirisena: If you have any shame, call parliament and let our leader take back his seat." Others in the huge crowd echoed her views, with one person saying Sri Lanka had "become the laughing stock of the world". "Sirisena is the most ungrateful man. May he be cursed and be struck by lightning," said Jayanthi Jayewardena, an elderly supporter. Sirisena won the presidency from Rajapakse in 2015 with the help of Wickremesinghe and his UNP. The two formed a coalition, but have since fallen out badly. Matters came to a head with the sacking, which Wickremesinghe acknowledged had surprised him. - 'Desperate people' - Sirisena has cut Wickremesinghe's official bodyguard retinue and pool of limousines. A depleted plain clothes contingent now keeps watch over the residence while a private cleaning company has also been hired. A few police commandos in camouflage uniform can also be seen. Legislators loyal to Wickremesinghe keep up back-to-back press conferences at the residence which has become the centre of media attention, with crowds mobbing visiting politicians and asking for selfies. In comparison Rajapakse has remained low-key, quietly organising a campaign to win over MPs to support him when parliament eventually meets. Huge sums have allegedly been offered to potential defectors and some lawmakers have already left the UNP. Wickremesinghe, who has been speaking to local and foreign journalists while conducting talks with allies, said he was concerned that the power struggle could degenerate into street violence. "There can be trouble in the country if this goes on," he said. "We will be calling on our people not to resort to violence... but you don't know what arises in a situation like this. A few desperate people can start off a bloodbath." Thousands of loyalists from across the country are camped out at the Temple Trees residence in Colombo Wickremesinghe has asked lawmakers to vote and end the crisis Crowds mob visiting politicians and ask for selfies Sri Lanka's main Tamil party on Sunday urged the president to reconvene parliament and end a worsening political crisis, as the minority ethnic community emerge as kingmakers in the power struggle. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) could tip the balance should parliament be recalled this week to decide between two rivals claiming the lawful right to head Sri Lanka's government. The nation of 21-million has been gripped by constitutional turmoil since President Maithripala Sirisena sacked his former ally, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and his cabinet on October 26. Wickremesinghe says his dismissal was illegal as he commands a greater majority in parliament than Mahinda Rajapakse, the former strongman president controversially installed in his place. The TNA has already said it would vote against Rajapakse in a no-confidence motion when parliament reconvenes. Both rivals have been marshalling numbers behind the scenes, worrying civil society groups who protested Sunday in the capital Colombo against the horse-trading. TNA legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan said the president had called the Tamil legislators to a meeting Wednesday -- the same day parliament was expected to reconvene. "We have asked the president to immediately call parliament and end this crisis," TNA legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan told AFP. Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) risks losing legislators to Rajapakse's camp as the days drag by. Some members of his party have alleged they were offered portfolios and huge amounts of money to switch allegiances. Seven MPs have already switched sides and been granted portfolios under Rajapakse's new administration. The Sunday Times of Colombo newspaper described the sacking of the prime minister as "sheer political expediency" and outside the law. The state-run Sunday Observer, now controlled by Rajapakse loyalists, defended the change of government but acknowledged the crisis should be resolved. According to latest counts, Wickremesinghe now has 102 MPs from the 225-seat assembly after another defection while Rajapakse and Sirisena also have 102. Most of the remaining 21 MPs -- including the TNA -- are set to oppose Rajapakse, observers said. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) party, which has seven lawmakers, said its members had also rejected offers to join the Sirisena-Rajapakse camp. Meanwhile, thousands of supporters continue to occupy Wickremesinghe's official residence saying they would resist any move by Sirisena to evict their prime minister. Supporters of ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe gather at the prime minister's official residence, which Wickremesinghe has refused to leave Ukrainian anti-corruption campaigner Kateryna Gandzyuk, seriously injured in an acid attack in July, has died in hospital, supporters and the government said Sunday. "Katya (Kateryna) is dead. Details will be available in a while," posted a Facebook group that publishes updates about Gandzyuk's health and news on the investigation into the shock attack in the ex-Soviet country. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confirmed the news and offered condolences to Gandzyuk's relatives at a meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian community in Turkey's Antalya, where he is on an official visit. "I appeal to law enforcement officers to do everything possible so that the murderers of Kateryna Gandzyuk are found, put on trial and punished," Poroshenko tweeted. Johannes Hahn, the EU commissioner responsible for bloc enlargement negotiations and neighbourhood policy, said he was saddened by the news from Ukraine. "Attacks against civil society activists are unacceptable," Hahn tweeted. Gandzyuk, 33, who worked as an adviser to the mayor of Ukraine's southern city Kherson, was leaving home early on the morning of July 31 when a man poured about a litre of acid over her and ran away. Gandzyuk was immediately hospitalised in a serious condition, with burns on 30 percent of her body, including her upper torso, arms, and face. Gandzyuk was an outspoken critic of corrupt practices in law enforcement agencies, particularly the police. The country has seen an increase in attacks on anti-corruption activists and campaigners. Journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed by a car bomb in 2016 while driving near his home in Kiev. In 2017, the stabbed body of human rights activist Iryna Nozdrovska was found in a river outside Kiev. In July, Vitaliy Oleshko, a former volunteer fighter in the rebel Ukrainian east and a local activist, was shot dead outside a hotel in the southeastern city of Berdyansk. Activists protesting outside the parliament in Kiev in September after the brutal attack on anti-corruption campaigner Kateryna Gandzyuk, who has now died French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday kicks off a week of commemorations for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, which is set to mix remembrance of the past and warnings about the present surge in nationalism around the globe. Some 70 to 80 world leaders including US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are preparing to fly to the French capital next weekend for a ceremony marking a century since the guns fell silent. This Sunday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined Macron in the border city of Strasbourg to attend a concert in the city's towering Gothic Cathedral celebrating the friendship between former wartime enemies France and Germany. The 40-year-old French leader will next embark on a week-long tour during which he will criss-cross war-hit areas in northern and eastern France and attend individual ceremonies with the leaders of Germany, Britain and Mali. The centrist president is expected to use the international spotlight to issue a rallying cry against nationalism, having recently warned that the world risked forgetting the lessons of the 20th century's great conflicts. "I am struck by similarities between the times we live in and those of between the two world wars," he told a French newspaper last week, adding that nationalism was a "leprosy" spreading worldwide. Trump, who has made "America First" his rallying cry, will be among the leaders gathered for the main ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, 100 years to the day since the armistice. The commemorations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the Champs-Elysees avenue will be held under tight security following a string of deadly jihadist attacks in France over the past three years. Macron is to visit Western Front battlefields from Verdun to the Somme. On Tuesday, in honour of the "black army" of former colonial troops who fought alongside the French, he and Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will visit Reims, a city defended by the African soldiers. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May will join Macron at the Somme on Friday, while on Saturday he heads to the village of Rethondes, where the armistice was signed, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. - Peace forum - War commemorations aside, Macron is set to use his tour of northern France to visit areas hit hard by industrial decline, where far-right leader Marine Le Pen performed strongly in last year's presidential election. "After paying homage to those who died for their country it will be back to dealing with social and economic problems," said Bruno Cautres of political think-tank CEVIPOF. The former investment banker -- who has struggled to shake off an image as a "president of the rich" -- will zip through 17 towns, holding Wednesday's weekly cabinet meeting in the Ardennes where the German army had its headquarters for four years. "Each stop will be an opportunity to speak about the current concerns in those areas, which are trying to bounce back from de-industrialisation or major changes in agriculture," an aide to Macron said last week. The president, whose approval rating is languishing in the low 20s, has dismissed rumours that he is suffering from burnout. He sparked rampant speculation by taking a few days off ahead of the tour, which aides have insisted were to gather his energy before an intense week of diplomacy. This week is an opportunity for Macron to "reflect a strong presidential image" both at home and abroad, Cautres said. Macron is attempting to position himself as a champion of centrist politics and multilateralism in the run-up to European parliamentary elections in May, saying he expects the duel to be one between "progressives" and "nationalists". After next Sunday's ceremony, world leaders are set to attend a three-day peace forum opened by Merkel, an event which France wants to turn into an annual multilateral peace conference. French President Emmanuel Macron and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier attended a military ceremony in Strasbourg, eastern France, as part of World War I centenary celebrations Macron and Steinmeier attended a concert in the Notre-Dame cathedral in Strasbourg French soldiers move into attack from their trench during the Verdun battle in 1916, it what was the longest campaign on the Western Front Unions representing workers in the building and construction trades are once again supporting U.S. Rep. John Katko in the 24th Congressional District race. Katko, R-Camillus, on Saturday touted endorsements from eight unions: The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 43 and Local 97; the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 158; the International Union of Painters & Allied Trades of America and Canada, District Council 4; Laborers' Local Union, Local 633, New England Regional Council of Carpenters, Local 277; Plumbers & Steamfitters, Local 73; and Teamsters Local 118. Many of the unions endorsed Katko in the 2016 election after supporting ex-U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei, a Democrat, during the 2014 campaign. Greg Lancette, president of the Central and Northern New York Building and Construction Trades Council, is among the labor leaders who supported Maffei in 2014 and endorsed Katko two years ago. He lauded Katko for ensuring the unions have good paying jobs in the region. "He works across party lines to be an independent voice and deliver results," Lancette said. "He's prioritized investing in our infrastructure and is working to ensure funding is delivered for the I-81 rebuild. This is why John Katko is once again our choice." Other union officials praised Katko for his efforts on behalf of their members. Patrick Carroll, business manager of the United Association of Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 73, highlighted Katko's role in keeping the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant open. The Oswego County power plant nearly closed, but Exelon acquired the facility from Entergy and kept it open. The plant is a major employer in the county more than 600 employees work there and it contributes millions in property tax payments to local governments and the Mexico school district. "No congressman has represented the people of Oswego County better than John Katko," Carroll said. Katko welcomed the support from central New York labor unions. "Since coming to Congress, I've been honored to work on behalf of our local labor community in Washington," he said. "I've worked across the aisle to prioritize an investment in I-81 and in infrastructure, create jobs, and ensure fair trade deals. I'm proud to have once again earned the endorsement of the many hardworking men and women represented by these unions." Most of the labor support in the race has gone to Democratic challenger Dana Balter. The unions supporting her campaign include 1199 SEIU, a large labor group representing health care workers, and UNITE HERE Local 150. For the second consecutive election in the 24th district race, the New York State AFL-CIO didn't endorse a candidate. To win the federation's support, a candidate must receive two-thirds of the vote at the convention. Neither Balter or Katko met that threshold. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 In early April, Dana Balter wasn't viewed by national Democrats as a serious candidate to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. John Katko in the 24th Congressional District race. Her fundraising numbers were OK, but not great. Her name recognition, as a first-time candidate, was low. It seemed Katko would, as he did two years ago, win re-election with ease. A lot has changed in seven months. Balter, D-Syracuse, defeated the national Democrats' preferred candidate, Juanita Perez Williams, by 25 points in the June primary. In her first fundraising quarter after the primary, she raised more than $1.5 million a record for a Syracuse-area congressional candidate. The race went from being a long shot for Democrats to a possible pickup opportunity, although Katko is still favored to win on Tuesday. A visiting assistant teaching professor at Syracuse University, Balter has campaigned on public policy issues. She supports Medicare-for-all, a single-payer health insurance system that would be open to all Americans. Over the summer, she unveiled an agenda to address campaign finance, electoral and lobbying reforms. Getting big money out of politics, she has said repeatedly for months, is her top priority if elected to Congress. After being a candidate for Congress over the last 14 months, the experience has reinforced her belief that campaign finance reform is needed. Balter estimated that by the end of the campaign, $8 million could be spent on the 24th district race. More than $7 million has been spent by the candidates and outside groups, according to Federal Election Commission filings. "When I think about the things our community needs ... there are so many better things that we could with those dollars that could actually make our communities better," she said in an interview with The Citizen. "I supported campaign finance reform before I even ran for Congress. It wasn't until I became a candidate and I really saw from the inside what the system looks like that I understood the depth of the problem." Her government reform agenda includes a pledge to hold town hall meetings in each of the district's four counties Onondaga, Cayuga, Oswego and Wayne if she's elected to Congress. She has long criticized Katko for not holding open forums. Before she announced her candidacy in September 2017, she was an activist who organized rallies focused on, among other things, calling for Katko to participate in town hall meetings. As Katko runs on his legislative successes, Balter seeks to, in her view, set the record straight. Katko touts rankings that show he's one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, and he highlights his willingness to buck his party on key votes, such as repealing the Affordable Care Act and voting for a farm bill that contains cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Since Donald Trump became president in 2017, Katko believes he's spoken out when he feels it necessary to question or disagree with Trump. But Balter doesn't believe he's done that enough. In television commercials paid for by her campaign, she has labeled Katko a "Trump yes man" and cited a FiveThirtyEight analysis that found he votes with Trump's position 90 percent of the time. The most notable example Balter mentions is Katko's vote for a tax overhaul last year. Katko and other proponents said the tax law has contributed to economic growth, lowered income taxes for millions of Americans and reduced corporate taxes for businesses. But Balter maintains that the law, named the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, largely benefits the wealthy and that families, especially those in the middle class, received "modest increases" in their paychecks. "It's not enough, and it certainly doesn't justify the giant giveaways to millionaires, billionaires and corporations," Balter said. Balter wants to repeal the tax law, in part because it adds nearly $2 trillion to the deficit. She said tax reform should focus on the middle class, working families, seniors, students and people with disabilities. "We know from our past history our economy does best when our middle class is thriving, and that should be the goal of the tax policy," she said. Her to-do list is long. She wants to preserve Medicare and Social Security, and believes it can be achieved by making the top 5 percent of income earners pay into the programs at the same rate as everyone else. Balter believes Medicare-for-all would take some time, but supports other health care improvements. She wants Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, which she contends could save money and help reduce household expenses for families. In states that didn't participate in the Medicaid expansion, she wants to encourage them to join. And she believes the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate should be restored. The provision requiring people to buy health insurance coverage was repealed through the tax overhaul Trump signed last year. She is concerned with the ongoing trade war between the United States and other countries, namely China. She's had conversations with soybean farmers who have been adversely impacted by the trade dispute. Within a two-month period, she said, these farmers lost 20 percent of the value of their crop. "We're talking about family farms that are operating on razor-thin margins," she explained. "You can't sustain that kind of a loss." She disagrees with Trump's trade policies and labeled them "protectionist." Engaging in a trade war, she continued, was a mistake. Balter also differs with the president's view on immigration issues. She cited security experts who have said that a wall isn't going to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump wants to build a wall along the southern border as a way to crack down on immigrants entering the country illegally. There are immigration reform proposals Balter supports. She agrees with Democrats and Republicans who have said the system is broken. She believes there should be a bipartisan solution to fix the problem. She supports granting legal status to Dreamers, young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. But unlike Katko, who believes any bill for the Dreamers should be included in a legislative package with border security provisions, Balter wants to see that addressed separately. "Dealing with the Dreamers is a perfect place to start," she said. There are other ideas she supports, including bolstering border security, improving the visa system and the administrative processes for the immigration system. On issues of regional importance, Balter wants the federal government to play a bigger role in combating the spread of harmful algal blooms on Cayuga, Owasco, Skaneateles and other lakes in central New York. There needs to be concern about runoff into the water bodies, she explained, but she also said there is a broader issue: climate disruption. Climate disruption, she added, is a "major underlying cause of these problems." She supports promoting sustainable agriculture practices and having the federal government, through funding and other resources, encourage farms to use the processes. It's one reason, she said, why she wants to serve on the House Agriculture Committee if elected to Congress. Balter is a proponent of a larger federal role in combating poverty, especially in Syracuse and the surrounding areas. She supports anti-poverty programs, such as Medicaid and SNAP, and wants to place a greater emphasis on educational opportunities. She also supports increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour to help those who work full-time, but still live in poverty. And she endorsed job training programs to help fill positions that are vacant because employers can't find skilled labor. She has discussed with unions the possibility of connecting the labor groups with school districts to promote vocational and technical programs. Reducing gun violence is another priority. Balter recalled a conversation she had with a young child who approached her last month. The child, who was wounded at a Syracuse park, recognized Balter from a television commercial. The child told her, "I need you to stop the gun violence." "I don't know how we can ignore a plea like that and we have to stop insisting on making this a political issue," she said. Balter supports universal background checks and repealing the Dickey Amendment, a provision from the '90s that opponents say prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence. As Election Day nears, Balter said the same people who inspire her to run for Congress would inspire her if she's elected to be their representative. The child who approached her and urged her to stop gun violence is one example. A man in Wayne County who discussed how expensive his health insurance is is another. Balter believes there are endless opportunities to make 24th district communities stronger, and she wants to lead the way. "It's about carrying those stories and carrying those voices to the floor of the House, to the halls of Congress, to make sure that central and western New Yorkers are heard there and that what Congress is doing is going to make life better for us here at home," she said. "I think that is incredibly inspiring, and I can't wait to get started." Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 5 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 1 For the past two years, U.S. Rep. John Katko has faced criticism. He's been urged to condemn President Donald Trump on multiple occasions. There have been requests for town hall meetings. His votes are scrutinized. On Tuesday, he hopes 24th Congressional District will look at his record not just since 2017, but for both terms he's served in the House of Representatives and grant him a third term. Katko, R-Camillus, is running on his legislative achievements. According to Congress.gov, he's introduced 53 bills. Twenty-seven have passed the House and five have been signed into law by either Trump or former President Barack Obama. Both figures increase if you count bills that are included in larger measures passed by Congress and signed by the president. Most of the bills he's ushered through the House focus on transportation security. He chairs the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Protective Security, where he oversees the Transportation Security Administration. He has been recognized as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress. When introducing new bills, he attempts (most times successfully) to persuade a Democrat to sign on as an original cosponsor. As he did during the 2016 campaign, his first re-election bid, he insists he wants to run on his record. But he faces a different political climate and a more formidable opponent. Dana Balter, a Democrat, is an activist-turned-candidate for Congress. She has raised $2 million and has built an impressive voter mobilization effort. While Katko touts his record as a bipartisan representative who is unafraid to break with his party, Balter aims to dispel that notion. She has aired ads labeling Katko a "Trump yes man" and refers to a FiveThirtyEight analysis that found the GOP congressman votes with the president's position 90.2 percent of the time. It can be argued that Katko's most significant vote in Congress was his support for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a major federal tax overhaul that reduced individual income tax rates, lowered corporate tax rates, repealed the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate penalty and doubled the standard deduction. Since that vote nearly one year ago, he has maintained that the tax law benefits a vast majority of his constituents. Balter disagrees. She says the tax law gives most of the benefits to the wealthy. Katko dismissed that criticism in an interview with The Citizen. "It's tax cuts for businesses and individuals," he said, adding: "The people that most need the break are getting it." The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in his view, led to economic growth. There is record-low unemployment, he said. (The jobless rate in October was 3.7 percent, according to a new report.) He believes the tax cuts are helping businesses compete in a global economy. He acknowledged, though, that more can be done. One of the flaws with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is that the income tax cuts are temporary. He would like to make them permanent. There are numerous policy differences between Balter and Katko. They differ on health care. Balter supports Medicare-for-all, which would expand the program to include every American. Katko pans this proposal and labels it a government takeover of health care. He supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, a 2010 health care law, as long as there's a suitable replacement. His vision for health care legislation includes medical malpractice reform, prescription drug price reform, allowing interstate competition and funding high-risk pools. Properly funding medical research is another priority. He supported the 21st Century Cures Act, which allocated $4.8 billion for research to find cures for Alzheimer's disease, cancer and heart disease. The handful of health care reforms he supports are part of a short-term goal, with medical research and potential cures as a long-term aim. "Nationalizing health care is not going to get it under control," he said. "It's going to make it get out of control." Katko reiterated that he would not vote to cut Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. Balter and Democratic-aligned groups have claimed he would side with the GOP and cut the social insurance programs. He mentioned the Medicaid expansion that's part of the Affordable Care Act as one reason why he opposed Republicans' attempts to repeal the law. And on a telephone town hall with AARP members last month, he announced his opposition to transforming Medicare into a voucher system. "Under no circumstances whatsoever would I sanction a decrease of cutting of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid," he said. There are questions about the long-term viability of Medicare and Social Security, and Katko believes it's going to take a bipartisan effort to preserve and protect the programs. He support any plan that achieves that as long as it doesn't affect those who are already receiving benefits or paying into the system. He would be open to changes for new workers because they would "have their whole lifetime to plan for" retirement. On jobs, Katko wants to bolster technical training to prepare students for careers in manufacturing. He held a roundtable discussion with first daughter Ivanka Trump at a P-Tech school in Syracuse. He supports more federal funding for technical schools that will help young people learn a trade and connect them with potential employers. He offered mixed reviews of President Trump's trade policies. He has long criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement because he believes it contributed to manufacturing job losses in central New York. He is pleased with the Trump administration's progress in renegotiating NAFTA. But he is concerned with other trade relationships. China and the United States have been locked in a trade war. Both countries have imposed retaliatory tariffs on products. The tariffs impacted, among others, soybean farmers in Katko's district. Katko said a "scalpel is better than a sledgehammer." The longer the trade war lingers with China, he said, the more harmful it will be to the U.S. economy. "If that continues, we're going to have to do something to force the president's hands," he said. He highlighted his efforts to address infrastructure needs and improve water quality. He successfully advocated for a $600 million increase in two programs, the Drinking Water and Clean Water state revolving funds. The additional funding could be used to combat harmful algal blooms, which have been present on Cayuga, Owasco and Skaneateles lakes in Katko's district. Katko is optimistic about ongoing studies examining tributaries and determining where remediation may be needed. "We're well on our way to having a real good handle on what's causing the algae bloom outbreaks," he said. To address gun violence, he wants to boost early intervention programs to prevent young people from joining gangs and getting involved in criminal activity. He was recently approached by former gang members he prosecuted as an assistant U.S. attorney. They're willing to work with him on ways to intervene. Katko also wants to address mass shootings. He introduced a so-called "red flag" law that would give states priority for federal grants if they adopt extreme risk protection orders that meet certain guidelines, such as preserving due process rights and establishing a "clear and convincing evidence" standard for removing guns from potentially dangerous individuals. The proposal, Katko said, protects Second Amendment rights while allowing law enforcement to intervene and remove guns from an individual who is determined to be a risk to themselves or others. If elected to a third term, he wants to continue working on poverty issues and immigration. An immigration reform agreement hasn't come to fruition yet, but he is hopeful. Aside from issues, he didn't have to look far for inspiration. When asked what would motivate him to continue doing the job, he shifted the focus to the people he represents. "My constituents, always," he said. "Always and everywhere." Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Keith Batman is a Cayuga County legislator, former Scipio town supervisor and ex-Southern Cayuga school board member. After several years of local government service, he's pursuing a new role: state assemblyman. Batman, D-Scipio, is challenging Republican Assemblyman Gary Finch in the 126th Assembly District race. The district covers parts of Cayuga, Chenango, Cortland and Onondaga counties. Election Day is Tuesday. There are similarities between the two candidates. Both have local government experience Finch was an Aurora village government official before ascending to the state Assembly and they are focused on many of the same issues. But throughout the campaign, especially in the final few weeks before the election, Batman sought to separate himself from his GOP foe. If elected to the state Assembly, Batman would have a list of priorities ensuring there are good paying jobs, addressing corruption in state government, health care and the opioid crisis, and infrastructure. Infrastructure is an issue he's worked on for many years as a local government official, whether it was broadband in Scipio and southern Cayuga County or Owasco Lake drinking water systems. He acknowledged there are additional infrastructure needs, such as bridges, culverts and roads. With surface transportation infrastructure crumbling, Batman wants a statewide plan for addressing the problem. When he was Scipio town supervisor, they developed a plan that established a priority for various bridge, culvert and road projects. He believes the state should encourage every municipality to have a plan for improving and maintaining roads. Broadband will remain a focus. The state has a broadband expansion program, but it's likely that there will be rural and urban areas where high-speed internet isn't available or residents are underserved. Batman wants the state to identify who is underserved and unserved, and work to expand broadband to those areas. Economic development is on his agenda, but he wants to take a different approach. He agrees that taxes must be reduced and regulations must be addressed to improve New York's business climate. But he also views cultural and social programs as an important part of boosting the economy. "Everything we do in a community, many things we do in a community, have economic implications," he said in an interview. There is low unemployment, but many good paying jobs are available. The problem is that the jobs go unfilled because companies can't find skilled laborers. To address the workforce needs, Batman wants a greater emphasis on community colleges. Community colleges, he said, are "the backbone of vocational training." But he feels the state needs to increase its investment in these programs. One way to achieve that is through the state's existing community college full-time equivalent funding formula. The formula, he explained, is already in place and additional FTE aid, as its known for short, can bolster these community college programs and provide vocational training opportunities. On tax policy, Batman admits he doesn't have a blueprint or solution for addressing New York's status as a high tax state. The income tax rates, in his view, aren't the problem. It's the property taxes that are having the most impact. "Our property taxes are killing us," he said. "(The property tax) is a regressive, oppressive tax that hurts all middle-class people. We need to focus on property taxes." While he supports a property tax cap to limit increases, he doesn't believe it's the long-term answer. He also supports mandate relief. As a local government official, he is aware of the challenges posed by mandates. But he doesn't believe the tax cap and mandate relief alone will solve New York's property tax woes. "We have to reexamine how we fund local governments and school districts," he said. "If we don't recognize that that's the problem and to get moving in that direction, we will never have a solution ever." He added that New York has to "rethink how we fund local government and get away from a reliance on property taxes." Batman supports the state taking over the local share of Medicaid costs roughly $8 billion a year and ensuring there is a requirement, if it happens, that local governments provide tax relief. He doesn't believe it should be a dollar-for-dollar requirement because that would continue to harm counties. He has split with Finch on a few hot-button issues. He supports legalizing the recreational use of marijuana (Finch opposes it) and he would vote for the Reproductive Health Act, legislation to codify Roe v. Wade into state law. (Finch voted against that measure in the Assembly.) Finch also opposes the New York Health Act, a bill to establish a statewide single-payer health insurance system. Batman is open to such a program if the federal government doesn't adopt a Medicare-for-all system, which he said has "real promise." "If the federal government doesn't act, New York is big enough where it has to act," he said. If Batman is successful on Tuesday, he plans to begin working right away to assemble a staff. He said he will reach out to members of the Assembly from both parties, and he hopes Finch will be open to meeting and sharing his experience. He also wants to embark on a listening tour to develop his agenda for the first 100 days in office. "My motivation has always been and will remain doing what the community and whatever district I represent need," he said. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SYRACUSE Calling Dana Balter an "extraordinary candidate," U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand offered a glowing endorsement of the Democratic challenger in the 24th Congressional District race and urged her supporters to get out the vote over the next few days. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., headlined a rally at Teamsters Local 317 in Syracuse Saturday afternoon. Central New York Democrats packed inside the union hall to hear from New York's junior senator, Balter and the party's slate of candidates for state-level offices. Balter is challenging U.S. Rep. John Katko, a Republican, in the 24th district. In the final months of the race, she has outraised the GOP incumbent and continues to boast a strong voter mobilization effort. During the rally, she noted that there are more than 1,200 volunteers assisting her campaign. "I know that you have put in thousands of hours knocking on doors, making phone calls, talking to voters," Balter said. "It's why we won the primary in such stunning form, and it's why we're going to win on Tuesday." Balter, who received a standing ovation before her remarks, said Tuesday's election is about choices. She briefly outlined her differences with Katko, a two-term congressman, on education, gun safety and taxes. She repeated her call for getting "big money" out of politics and claimed Katko has received $1 million from corporate political action committees. The source of campaign funds has been an issue in the 24th district, and it's been a topic raised by both candidates during televised debates. Balter, whose platform includes campaign finance reform, told the crowd that voters face a choice: They can support someone who will spend "every day fighting to get big money out of politics so we can return our government to the hands of the people," or they can support Katko, who she said accepts donations and then "votes to make life better for his megadonors." "I think the choice is pretty clear," she added. Gillibrand's appearance is her latest show of support for Balter's candidacy. Her Off the Sidelines PAC, an initiative she launched to encourage women to get involved in politics, was an early donor to Balter's campaign. After the June primary, which Balter won by 25 points, Gillibrand's PAC made another donation. Why Balter's candidacy is important, Gillibrand said, is that she's a voice for central New Yorkers and she will challenge President Donald Trump, a Republican. "She's a voice for hardworking families in this district who do not see Washington working for them," she said. "Washington is entirely controlled by the special interest and the moneyed interests. This president continues to divide this country across every line ... (Balter) is not going to be a lackey for President Trump. She's not going to vote with President Trump. She's going to stand up to him on behalf of you and your families and what's important to this district." Gillibrand highlighted many of the issues Balter has raised during her campaign. Balter, she said, believes health care is a right. The Democratic challenger supports establishing a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health insurance system. She also focused on Balter's support of ensuring access to education, good public schools and reducing student loan debt. Job training is another priority. "She is going to go to Washington and she's going to fight for you," Gillibrand said of Balter. "She's going to fight for all of us and the things that matter." The 20-minute-long rally featured remarks by Assemblywoman Pam Hunter, the newly elected chair of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. Two Democratic state Senate candidates, John Mannion and Rachel May, also addressed the crowd. Mannion is running for the 50th Senate District seat. His opponent is Republican candidate Bob Antonacci. In the 53rd district, May defeated Democratic state Sen. David Valesky in the primary to face Republican candidate Janet Burman. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 On a recent morning after scraping the frost off my car windshield and thinking that it will be at least five months before we begin to trade Today, we celebrate All Saints Day at Westminster. All Saints Day was actually Nov. 1, but we observe it on the first Sunday of November by holding a special worship service in which we remember our members, friends and family members who have died this past year. We light a candle as each name is read, and toll the church bells in their honor. It is a solemn, beautiful, poignant service to remember the saints among us. Presbyterians believe that all people of God are saints. The apostle Paul, in his letters to the early churches, addressed the members as saints not because of what they accomplished but because of who they were as followers of Christ. We recognize the holy in all people of faith, not just those who are martyrs or miracle workers. The Presbyterian Church (USA) website says this: Rather than putting saints on pedestals as holy people set apart in glory, we give glory to God for the ordinary, holy lives of the believers in this and every age. I love that phrase: ordinary, holy lives. It is best illustrated by the people we will be remembering today. Among the many family members and friends for whom we will light candles today, five we remember were members of Westminster Presbyterian Church. Let me tell you a little about each of them. Doris Bierer died last year at the age of 102. She grew up in the church in the days when it was still called Second Presbyterian. Doris family was actively involved in the church, and Doris remembered attending Sunday School and youth activities and dances. She continued her love of God and her church throughout her whole life, which she lived quietly and humbly. In later years, when she could no longer attend, she would correspond with my Sunday school students, answering their individual letters with detailed descriptions of what the church meant to her. She was a generous supporter of Westminster in her own quiet way. Betty Schemerhorn was another lifelong Presbyterian of strong Scottish stock. Betty and her husband, Earle, were active in so many ways, as elders and deacons, teachers, volunteers and faithful worshipers classic pillars of the church. Bettys severe appearance and tight gray bun belied her warmth and generosity of spirit. She was a woman of few words, but those she used were well chosen and wise. Marge Pyhtila joined the church later in her life to be a part of the congregation that her daughter loves and serves. Marge had a wonderful smile, and quickly made friends with all ages. She enjoyed being in worship and keeping in touch with her church family after she became more homebound. Marilyn Fandrich, my own dear mother-in-law, grew up in First Presbyterian Church, where she taught Sunday school, sang in the choir and was active in their womens group. She knitted countless blankets over the years to give away to others. She joined Westminster only a few years ago, at a time when her health was failing. Right up to the end, even when other words failed her, Marilyn could belt out the words of all the old familiar hymns. John Gary Rhodes sang in the Westminster Choir, filling the sanctuary with his beautiful tenor voice. He especially loved singing duets with his daughter Lori Rhodes Pettit, our organist and choir director. Christmas Eve services will not be the same without Garys solo of Oh Holy Night. His exquisite voice was matched by his passion for the words he sung, taking us soaring with him as he led worship through the gift of song. What Ive just described are the ordinary, holy lives of saints. These and many others are the saints who walk beside us, who teach our children, who take care of the sick, who make us laugh, who feed the hungry, who say kind words and offer smiles to strangers, who give of themselves, who welcome the marginalized and friendless, who share their gifts, who love the unlovable, who follow Jesuss commandment to love one another as I have loved you. We sing today for all the saints who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia! Alleluia! We give thanks for the saints of God we know and love, those still living and those who have died. Alleluia indeed. Jill Fandrich is a ruling elder and clerk of session at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 17 William St., Auburn, where she edits the newsletter, church website (westminsterauburn.org) and Facebook and Twitter pages. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 This year's mid-term congressional elections are anything but typical. The level of division throughout the nation, fueled largely by the performance of Republican President Donald Trump, has generated a surge in political interest and activism. Rhetoric on both ends of the political spectrum is as heated as ever, and regardless of Tuesday's outcome, it's likely to stay that way. Faced with that backdrop, voters in central New York will have to decide between incumbent U.S. Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, and challenger Dana Balter, D-Syracuse. While she's made some recent efforts to appear more moderate, Balter, a Syracuse University professor, largely falls well to the left of center. She's a firm backer of universal, government-run health insurance. She's clearly opposed to the tax cuts the GOP-controlled Congress and Trump pushed through at the end of last year, saying they didn't provide adequate relief to middle class citizens while greatly increasing the federal budget deficit. She wants big and bold action to combat climate change, and while being careful to say she doesn't want to abolish the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, is a vocal critic of how the U.S. has been treating undocumented immigrants. Katko's most controversial vote in line with Trump has been his approval of the tax cuts, and while we have some concerns about aspects of that legislation, we also see evidence that it has helped fuel the remarkable economic growth America has experienced in 2018. Friday's job market report is clear: The economy is as strong as ever. We've been critical of Katko at times over the past two years for not being vocal enough about some of Trump's most disturbing words and actions, pointing out that he was much more willing to blast former President Barack Obama when he had a disagreement. That said, it would disingenuous to claim that Katko has been completely silent. He blasted the president for his statements over the summer supporting Russia over the U.S. intelligence community in the 2016 election interference investigation. He called on the Trump administration to abandon its policy of separating children from their undocumented parents and guardians, and tried to put together a bipartisan immigration solution, only to be stabbed in the back by the president and the far right-wing faction in the House. Katko also voted against Trump's first major legislative initiative, the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Voters also must consider Katko's productivity as a congressman. Unlike many representatives who prefer to grandstand in front of cameras, Katko rolls up his sleeves to dive into one of the fundamental responsibilities of Congress crafting legislation to help make the nation a better place to live. He's done it with legislation related to air travel safety, fighting the opioid epidemic and local initiatives such as the effort to establish a Fort Ontario national park. All of that said, making an endorsement in this race is a tough call. We believe GOP leadership in Congress has largely failed in its constitutional responsibility to be a check on the executive branch. But when electing a member of the House, voters need to consider not just the national picture but also what is best for the local congressional district. While we'd like him to go a little more to the center, there's no question that Katko is closer to it than Balter. And central New York is as moderate as a district can get, despite the loud noise from residents at the far left and right. There's a reason that Katko was the first person in a decade to win re-election to this seat in 2016: He's a good fit for central New Yorkers. But we also see a potential advantage for Katko in the national picture. While predictions are as tricky as ever these days, Democrats appear likely to take back control of the House while the Senate will remain in GOP hands. In that environment, Katko's record as a moderate Republican with a bipartisan legislative track record will put him in a position to help bring moderate policies back into play and also restore the lost art of legislative compromise. Despite the nasty political ads from both side and outside groups in this campaign, we do think both of these candidates are qualified people who care deeply about this region and this country. Central New York is fortunate in this regard. We are not being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. When we weigh all the information, though, Katko emerges as the better choice for the 24th Congressional District. The Citizen Editorial Board includes publisher Rob Forcey, managing editor Mike Dowd and executive editor Jeremy Boyer. Love 14 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 12 Normally College GameDay guests range from fun to harmless to mildly annoying. Today, with the show in Baton Rouge ahead of tonights marquee Alabama-LSU contest, LSU alum James Carville found a new lane: so crazy ESPN is forced to issue an on-air apology later in the day. Heres Carvilles rant on the targeting penalty called on LSU defender Devin White, which Rece Davis actually set him up for: ? James Carville suggests there is a conspiracy in the SEC to benefit Bama. pic.twitter.com/4zes5Vkw6K Go Big Redcast ? (@GoBigRedCast) November 3, 2018 Tennessees best defensive player couldnt play against Alabama because of the SEC, Missouris best defensive player couldnt play against Alabama because the SEC kicked him out. A&Ms best defensive player couldnt play against Alabama because he was taken out. And now, the best defensive player in the conference is not going to play the first half for nothing, he did nothing wrong. Whoops! There was a bit of joking pushback from Davis, and the whole on-set crew seemed like they were in on a joke, as you can see more from the end of this clip: Davis had to know what was coming, given the invitation and the fact that Carvilles stance was on record two weeks ago via an op-ed in the Baton Rouge Advocate. ESPN, of course, does plenty of business with the SEC, and even if they didnt, having Carville voicing the idea that the playing field isnt level (well, not level in a way we havent come to accept as a given) wasnt a great look. They must have realized it one way or another, because a few hours later, ESPNs Chris Cotter tossed in this apology to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, via AL.coms Matt Scalici: ESPN just apologized on the air for James Carvilles comments about Greg Sankey on Gameday pic.twitter.com/OUoGeS1s3h Matt Scalici (@MattScalici) November 3, 2018 Carville does not seem quite so remorseful: Grabbing bite to eat @philsoysterbar and I see gutless ESPN cut in their show to bow down to the SEC. well I got documentary evidence they knew what they were gonna get on air but still cant help but suck up to power. #GeauxTigers #speaktruthtopower #releasethetexts pic.twitter.com/G29ew5mf9K James Carville (@JamesCarville) November 3, 2018 When it comes to GameDay guests going forward, maybe ESPN can find a solid middle ground between James Carville and The Chainsmokers. Should Beaufort County elected officials demand that every alleged incident of Child Rape be investigated in Beaufort County? Yes, without fail, irrespective of the parties involved; this heinous crime must be investigated, and the truth be known, and responsible parties prosecuted. Chris Malone, Republican (three-term incumbent). Occupation: Case Manager - G4S Compliance and Investigations. Education: St. Mary of the Plains College, bachelor's degree in speech and theatre. Career highlights: House deputy majority whip, chairman of House Appropriations of Health and Human Services, and Wildlife Resources committees. Former Wake County School Board member, Wake Forest Fire Department Board of Directors member, chairman of Wake County Republican Party House District 40. Terence Everitt, Democrat. Occupation: Lawyer. Education: Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. and completed Leadership Wake Forest. Career highlights: Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors member. Wake County Transit Advisory Committee member. Michael Nelson, Libertarian. Occupation: IBM manager. Education: Whittier College, theater arts degree. Career highlights: Board of Directors member of former Raleigh Ensemble Players. Former homeowners association president. N.C. House District 35 (Northeast Wake County).Call it a backyard battle between two Wake Forest residents. Democrat Terence Everitt, a lawyer, is challenging three-term incumbent Republican Rep. Chris Malone in a rematch for the N.C. House District 35 seat on Nov. 6. Libertarian Michael Nelson is waging a third-party bid for the job.Everitt lost to Malone by a 53-47 percent vote in the 2016 general election. But the district, in a fast-growing suburban area of Wake County that has been trending toward Democrats, has been reshaped since then, making it slightly more compact.A federal court order that found 28 legislative seats had been drawn unconstitutionally because they relied too heavily on race required changes to the district boundaries. The General Assembly altered the map, but a court-hired special master reconfigured that version. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the special master's changes.The North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation , which closely tracks state elections and voter behavior patterns, rates the district as competitive.Everitt didn't respond to multiple emails requesting comment on his campaign and platform. Information was gleaned from his campaign page . Education is a top priority for all the candidates, but how they plan to improve education couldn't be more different.Malone said.Malone said getting teachers to the national average of pay would help, but that alone wouldn't improve education in North Carolina.Malone said.Malone helped spearhead legislation to automatically place high-performing, low-income students in advanced math courses. Students who score a 5 on the end of year tests would be given the chance to participate in challenging math classes.Everitt doesn't think the General Assembly has done enough to invest in public education.Everitt's campaign website argues.Malone says he supports school choice initiatives like charter schools and homeschooling.Malone said.Nelson, too, is in favor of school choice programs.Nelson said.Nelson said more power needs to be given to local and county school boards so they can better tailor education to their communities.Nelson said.The candidates support reforming the legislative redistricting process, but Malone is more cautious on the approach.Malone said.Everitt's campaign website says he supports the creation of an independent, nonpartisan redistricting process for legislative and congressional districts.Everitt's website states.Nelson placed blame on Republicans and Democrats for using redistricting to maintain control.Nelson said,There will be six proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. Malone is backing all six.Malone said.Nelson opposes all the proposed amendments except for the one that would lower the income tax cap to 7 percent.Nelson said.The Libertarian candidate said the other amendments either give too much power to the legislature or are unnecessary. Nelson criticized the proposed Voter ID amendment for being poorly written.Nelson said. Brenden Jones, Republican. (first-term incumbent). Occupation: Small business owner. Education: Fayetteville Technical Community College, mortuary science associate's degree. Career highlights: Serves as House majority freshman whip. Former Columbus County Board of Elections chairman. Southeastern Community College Board of Trustees member. Member of Tabor City Committee of 100, and Columbus County Jobs Foundation. Former Columbus County Board of Elections chairman. Barbara Yates-Lockamy, Democrat. Occupation: Retired school administrator. Education: Southeastern Community College, associate degree. N.C. A&T University, business education degree. University of South Carolina, master's in education degree. Career highlights: Serves as Columbus County Board of Education chairwoman. On the N.C. Caucus of Black School Board Members, and the N.C. School Boards Association. "Please vote no to all six on the premise that no major efforts were created to provide residents with an understanding and education on permanent laws that will affect us for the rest of our lives." House District 46 (Robeson and Columbus counties.)The devastation of two hurricanes in two years has very much been in the news in North Carolina. In House District 46, which lies near the coast, it's the dominant issue, with both candidates stressing the impact devastating storms have had on the mostly rural area.The race features first-term Republican incumbent Brenden Jones of Tabor City seeking re-election against Democratic challenger Barbara Yates-Lockamy of Whiteville.The N.C. FreeEnterprise Foundation, which closely tracks state elections and voter behavior patterns, rates the district as "competitive," with neither party having an inherent advantage.The district still hugs South Carolina, but boundaries have changed since Jones was elected. It no longer incorporates any of Bladen County. It still includes eastern Robeson County, but Lumberton was drawn out, and half of Columbus County was moved into District 16.The District 46 map was altered by the General Assembly to accommodate adjustments to other districts that a federal court ruled had to be redrawn because they unconstitutionally relied too heavily on race during previous redistricting.Yates-Lockamy said.The candidates differ on who in state government to hold responsible for the slow recovery from Hurricane Matthew, which struck in 2016.Jones is vice-chairman of the House Select Committee on Disaster Relief, and an advisory member of an investigative subcommittee created to look into the slow pace of Hurricane Matthew recovery funding under Gov. Roy Cooper. He did not respond to repeated requests from Carolina Journal for an interview.He has been highly critical of Cooper's handling of hurricane recovery on his Twitter feed. For example, on July 23 he tweeted:Yates-Lockamy said.The candidates also differ on six proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. They are the right to hunt and fish, Marsy's Law crime victims' bill of rights, creating a Bipartisan State Board of Ethics and Election Enforcement, selecting judges for judicial vacancies through a nonpartisan, merit-based system, capping the income tax rate at 7 percent, and requiring photo identification to vote.Yates-Lockamy opposes all six.she said.Jones voted in the General Assembly to approve placing all six amendments on the ballot. In June he posted on Facebook his support for the wildlife harvesting amendment.the post stated.Yates-Lockamy supports raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid, raising teacher pay to the national average, and restoring the Earned Income Tax Credit.Jones has supported keeping taxes low, reining in government spending, stimulating private-sector job growth, and fighting for rural transportation. The late Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, politician, and philanthropist in addition to being the first black president in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was a revolutionary leader who suffered greatly for nearly seven decades of his life to ensure the liberation of his people. Because his memorial is fast approaching, the following article will take a closer look at Nelson Mandela biography to remind us of the hero he was. READ ALSO: A timeline of Madiba's life: How he became the father of the nation According to Nelson Mandela Wikipedia, his fame lies in the fact that he was a visionary, democrat, and international leader who displayed much humility and respect for his associates as well as his adversaries. To add, Mandela was persistent in combating all forms of unfairness, discriminations, and injustices. Interested in knowing when was Nelson Mandela born among other details of this icon? Read on as this short excerpt on Nelson Mandela biografie will help you understand why he is considered as one of the greatest humans to ever walk on this planet. Biography of Nelson Mandela Born: 18th July 1918 in Mvezo situated in the Eastern Cape Age: He will have been 100 years old as of 2018 Died: 5th December 2013 Origin: Born in the Madiba clan in Qunu, South Africa Marital status: Divorcee and married Occupation: Activist, politician, and philanthropist Famous for: Nelson Mandela was the first black president in South Africa after been detained for 27 years and is considered one of the greatest leaders of the world. Facebook: @nelsonmandela Twitter: @NelsonMandela Nelson Mandela early life Where was Nelson Mandela born is a commonly asked question. Mandela was born in the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, British South Africa to his mother Nonqaphi Nosekeni and father Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela. His father was a principal advisor to the acting king of Thembu community. When Rolihlahla was only nine years old, his father passed away and young Nelson Mandela was adopted into the royal family and the king raised him as one of his sons. Nelson Mandela education Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was an educated individual who believed that education and life-long learning was paramount to ones future. Mr Mandela pursued his primary education at a school in Qunu, and it is here that he got his English Christian name Nelson from his teacher Miss Mdingane. Nelson Mandela attended the Clarkebury Boarding School, and because he was a smart student, it only took him two years to complete his junior certification instead of the normal three years. Upon the completion of his junior certificate at the school, he was enrolled to Wesleyen secondary school where he finished his secondary education. Mandela then later joined the University College of Fort Hare to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree but was expelled before completion because he engaged in a student protest. When he returned home, after his expulsion from the university, the King Mqhekezweni was not pleased, and he told him that he will find a wife for him and his cousin Justice if he did not return to Fort Hare. The two then decided to run away to Johannesburg and arrived there in 1941 to escape the arranged marriage. Nelson got a job as a mine security officer. He later finished his degree through the University of South Africa and attended his graduation at Fort Hare in 1943. Mr Mandela then proceeded to the University of Witswaterstand to pursue a law degree, but his involvement with ANC interrupted his studies once more. In collaboration with his friend, Oliver Tambo, the two started the first black legal firm in South Africa to provide inexpensive and free consultation to black clients who could not afford the exorbitant legal fees. Later on, while in prison, Nelson Mandela re-enrolled through the University of London to complete his Law degree, and he attained his LLB in 1989 through the University of South Africa, graduating in absentia. READ ALSO: Madiba's former prison guard says he is happy Nelson Mandela is being celebrated The Political history of Nelson Mandela Even though Mandelas involvement in politics dates back to 1942, it is in 1944 that he joined the African National Congress (ANC) officially after creating the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). Through his participation via ANCYL, Mandela managed to rise to top ranks. It is during this time that Mandela committed himself to overthrowing the apartheid system that was set in place by the national partys white government. His devotion saw him appointed as the President of ANC Transvaal office that led to his participation in the 1952 Defiance Campaign as well as the 1955 Congress of the People. During the life of Nelson Mandela, he was arrested on several occasions for rebellious activities and was vainly prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Mandela secretly joined the outlawed South African Communist Party (SACP), and in 1961, he led a sabotage movement against the government that saw him get arrested and incarcerated in 1962. Later on, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for planning a coup. According to information about Nelson Mandela, he served 27 years in jail split between Robben Island, Victor Vester, and Pollsmoor penitentiaries. Due to the growing domestic and international pressure as well as uncertainties of a racial civil war, President F.W de Klerk freed Nelson Mandela in February 1990. Mandelas release was followed by negotiations with President Klerk in an attempt to end apartheid. The result of the negotiations was the 1994 multiracial general election where Mandela was elected as the first black president of South Africa. After his election, Nelson Mandela led the reconciliation of the nations racial groups and established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to probe past human rights mistreatments. On the economic front, Mandela reserved his predecessors liberal framework even though he had his own socialist beliefs. Internationally, Nelson Mandela mediated in the Pan Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He decided not to run a second presidential term, and his deputy Thabo Mbeki, succeeded him as the leader of the state. Mandela then moved back to his home town Qunu where he turned his focus in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through charity and through the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Nelson Mandela marriage life In the life of Nelson Mandela, he was married thrice and fathered six children. In addition, he was a grandfather to 17 grandchildren and many great grandchildren. Due to his devotion to politics and attaining freedom for the oppressed in South Africa, Mandela had very little time for his kids and family. According to Nelson Mandela life story, he is painted as a stern and difficult father but loving towards his grandchildren, especially after he was released from jail. READ ALSO: A look at the wisdom of Madiba: 16 Great quotes from Nelson Mandela Mandelas first wife was Evelyn Ntoko Mase who was the cousin of Walter Sisulu. The two had two sons Madiba Thembi Thembekile (1946-1969) and Makgatho Mendela (1950-2005) as well as two daughters both known as Makaziwe Mandela. This is because the first one died nine months after birth and the second one was named in her honour. According to the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Mase gave him an ultimatum to choose between her and his involvement in ANC, which led to their divorce in 1958. In 1958, Nelson Mandela married Winnie Madikizela, the first black social worker in Johannesburg. The couple had two daughters, Zenani (1958) and Zind-ziswa (1960) but Mandela was detained at Robben Island in 1962, which means that he missed out on his daughters growing up. Mandela divorced Winnie in 1996. Mandelas third spouse was Graca Machel, whom he got married to in 1998 during his 80th birthday. Graca was Samora Machels widow. Nelson Mandela honours, awards, and international recognition Throughout Nelson Mandela history, he is painted as a controversial figure even though his critics on the right pronounced him as a communist terrorist while those on the radical left considered him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid supporters. Due to his engrossed participation in activism, Mandela received international acclaim and was deemed the icon of democracy and social justice. This made him win over 260 accolades including the much coveted Nobel Peace Prize. Death of Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela, commonly referred to as Madiba, which means father of nation, was pronounced dead on December 5, 2013 at the age of 95 years. His death was caused by a prolonged respiratory infection, and it was announced by Jacob Zuma, who was the president at the time. Mandela's demise was followed by an observance of a national mourning which lasted for 10 days. Nelson Mandela was laid to rest on the 15th of December, 2013 in Qunu in the Eastern Cape Province. READ ALSO: The perks and luxuries of being one of Nelson Mandelas grandchildren The life of Nelson Mandela is exemplary. It is a proof that with persistence, determination, and a fighting spirit, one can accomplish anything in life. Even after being sentenced to life imprisonment, Mandela did not give up hope and he even continued studying to obtain his LLB. Among the important lessons one can take home from Nelson Mandela is that one is responsible for the life he leads, and that education is power. One always has to look at the bright side of life, live with a purpose. READ ALSO: Cassper Nyovest new album 2018 Best Trevor Noah quotes about love and life Bonang Matheba biography Cassper Nyovest house - inside pictures, location and price Bonang Matheba house - picture, location and price Source: Briefly.co.za Music icon Akon said he is really considering running for the title of president of America during its next elections. According to Akon, many Americans are living in uncomfortable fear and he wants to change that. PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed! Akon recently founded his very own currency - AKion - and now plans to run for president of the United States of America. Akon was born in Senegal and he feels that the current president, Donald Trump, has views on immigration that's causing divide in the country. The musician feels unsafe and like he has no power in the US, according to a report by EWN. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app In order to change things in America, Akon wants to take over from Donald Trump in 2020. I've been thinking about running for 2020 very seriously. But I didn't want to just do it because I feel like I want to continue doing what I'm doing and hope that builds me enough momentum [for people] to say, 'You know what, if you run we'll support you.' READ ALSO: Zoleka Mandela writes a heartfelt post to Ma Winnie on her pregnancy Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news! Source: Briefly.co.za Thula Sindi is a clothing brand that is described as 'modern, sophisticated, simplicity'. The brand was born in 2005 and brought to the fashion world dynamic, trendy, and gorgeous clothes. The Thula Sindi shop recently celebrated 1 year in the industry. PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed! Thula Sindi, the man behind the very successful Thula Sindi clothing brand, happily announced on social media that his shop, located in Garsfontein's Menlyn Mall, turned one. While one year in the fashion business doesn't sound like much, it's actually a wonderful achievement. Making a success of yourself and your business is not easy in a business as fierce and cutthroat as the fashion scene. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app Thula was born in Klerksdorp. He realised at a young age that his passion lied in fashion. I found fashion a perfect medium to mix colours, concepts and proportions. He graduated from the National School of the Arts in 2001 and then studied at the London International School of Fashion. Thula was meant for greatness. Just one day after his graduation from the fashion school he landed his first job. He became head designer at the Dutch textile company Vlisco. In 2005, Thula showed what he had to offer at the South African Fashion Week (under Vlisco). He then went on to create his own range which hit the SA Fashion Week the following year. After this, Thula earned one award after another and eventually walked away as SA Tourism's SA Designer of the Year in 2012. READ ALSO: From street kid to designer: Ntsikelelo Solani slays fashion in Hillbrow container This young designer is going amazing places. His clothes are stunning and stylish - the kind of clothes women who 'made it' wants to wear. Check out some of Thula's designs: Thula's Designs (Image Source: thulasindi.com) Source: UGC Thula's Designs (Image Source: thulasindi.com) Source: UGC Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news! Source: Briefly.co.za - AfriForum handed in a warrant to seize the Economic Freedom Fighters' assets - The warrant is for a debt of more than R300 000 that the EFF and Julius Malema owes AfriForum - The debt comes from a court case between the EFF and AfriForum in 2017 over land grabs PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed! Civil rights group AfriForum handed in a warrant to seize the movable assets of EFF leader Julius Malema as well as the EFF at the Pretoria High Court. This is to cover a debt of R337 758 that Malema and the political party personally owes AfriForum. Maroela Media reports the warrant will now be sent to the relevant sheriff who will take note of the EFF and Malema's assets, with the aim of selling it at a public auction. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app This debt has been left unpaid since March 2017, when the Pretoria High Court issued two cost orders against Malema and the EFF. The cost orders were to pay for AfriForum's legal fees after a court case the group was involved in to stop the EFF and Malema from inciting illegal land grabs. The court ruled in AfriForum's favour, and an interdict was granted. However, the EFF applied for an appeal, which would have been heard on the 12th of March. The court had to postpone this appeal after the EFF handed in the relevant papers late. But when the EFF didn't show up for the postponed court hearing, the court awarded AfriForum the case and the EFF was given a punitive cost order. The court also ruled that the EFF must pay AfriForum's legal fees. READ ALSO: Twitter left divided over the Limpopo roads Malema's company allegedly built Briefly learned that Ian Cameron, AfriForum's leader of community safety, said they are determined to get the money and use it to further fight against illegal land grabs. AfriForum also opened a case of contempt of court against the EFF, which the AfriForum CEO, Kallie Kriel, is confident Malema will be held accountable for as well. This case is to be heard in court on 14 November. Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news! Source: Briefly.co.za - The ANC's Secretary-General, Ace Magashule, celebrated his 59th birthday on Saturday, 3 November - The ANC held a surprise party for Magashule in Pretoria, led by President Ramaphosa - Ramaphosa joked and said he hopes Magashule gets more handsome and wise with age PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed! The ANC and President Ramaphosa held a surprise party for Secretary-General Ace Magashule on the 3rd of November. Magashuke turned 59 and the ruling party wanted to give him a special treat. Important members of the ANC met in Pretoria for a meeting and decided to surprise Magashule as well. The president, Jessie Duarte (Deputy Secretary-General), and Paul Mashatile (Treasurer General) helped cut the gigantic green, black, and yellow cake. Bottles of champagne were also popped in Magashule's honour, according to a report by IOL News. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app Ramaphosa was happy to toast to his Secretary-General: We take a lot of pleasure and joy to wish you a happy birthday on a very special day when the NEC is meeting. It isn't every leader of the ANC who gets birthday wishes from such a galaxy of leaders... all gathered at the same time. It is indeed a special day, with its own Ace Magashule characteristics. You turn 59 today. The secretary general is still growing up. You can see today he appears even more handsome. I think he's even going to get more handsome by the years and also hopefully wiser. READ ALSO: Ramaphosa says there will be no land grabs - wants to use "Madiba magic" Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news! Source: Briefly.co.za - South Africa's Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, refuses to step down as minister - According to Gigaba, there is a plot to get rid of him - Gigaba has been through a tough time - he was accused of lying under oath and a personal video of him was leaked to the public PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed! After a week that must have felt like it came straight from the pits of hell, Malusi Gigaba decided he will not give up without a fight. The Home Affairs minister will not step down from his post, according to a report by TimesLIVE. Gigaba added that there is a well-thought-out plan to end his career. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app When you look at what happened to the minister lately, you can't really blame him for thinking of conspiracies. First, Nicky Oppenheimer, a South African business tycoon, accused Gigaba of lying to Parliament. According to the billionaire, there were no signed agreements that international passengers could pass through the Fireblade Aviation terminal, but their meeting with Gigaba was minuted. Then South Africa's Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, also said that Gigaba lied during the case between him and Fireblade Aviation. He was under oath when he told these alleged lies. READ ALSO: Man dumps his new bae because she did not make the bed To add to his woes, Gigaba was recently embarrassed when a very private video of his was leaked. Briefly recently reported that according to Gigaba's spokesperson, Vuyo Mkhize, the EFF is behind the leak. In the meantime, civil society groups, as well as the DA, has been speaking up against the minister. According to a report by IOL News, they all want Gigaba fired. Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news! Source: Briefly.co.za HHP was laid to rest this week and his funeral was clouded by drama. Lerato Sengadi, the late musician's wife, was rejected by his family and they didn't even have a chair ready for her. However, she kept her head high and went anyway, even if she wasn't allowed to pay him tribute. PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed! Lerato may have been legally acknowledged as the wife of HHP, but his family refused to accept her. The late musician was buried in his hometown, Mahikeng, as reported on by TimesLIVE. The family chose not to include her in HHP's obituary. The way things happened during the funeral really got under South Africans' skin. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app Many people admired Lerato's strength as she was treated badly by her in-laws. Others were appalled by the widow's treatment as she wasn't even allowed to sit with the family. READ ALSO: HHP's friends stood by Lerato Sengadi's side during court case Here's what tweeps had to say: @Namile_M - There is a whole lot of women who are in Lerato's shoes daily. . . Some in-laws are mistreating boMakoti. Let us marry into families with love. #HHPFuneral @czar_mini - If I was Lerato I would exhume the body and go have the funeral my husband wanted. Ubuntu was forced on her. Ngingenzela nje ukuba fundisa abantu !!! #HHPFuneral Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news! Source: Briefly.co.za News / National by Staff reporter THE Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company is expected to smash production records as it guns for a three million carat haul this year, driven by US$100 million invested in operations over the last two years.ZCDC extracted 2,4 million carats between January and October 2018, far higher than the 1,8 million carats achieved last year.President Mnangagwa indicated in his weekly column in The Sunday Mail recently that diamond output was expected to shatter previous records.ZCDC chief executive officer Dr Moris Mpofu told The Sunday Mail Business last week they had a "stretch target of three million carats"."This is an increase of 54 percent from 1,56 million carats produced in 2017, and 168 percent from 895 000 carats produced over the same period in 2016," said Dr Mpofu.As of now, production is 80 percent of its stretch target of three million carats. "Stretch target" refers to a difficult level of success.ZCDC's stellar performance came despite a myriad of challenges particularly in the second quarter of 2018 as fuel and foreign currency shortages as well as price hikes took a toll on the national economy.Dr Mpofu said to circumvent energy challenges, ZCDC was setting up a solar power plant in Marange for its operations.The diamond miner is tendering for pre-feasibility, and its initial assessment is that the solar plant will be between 15MW and 20MW and cost around US$24 million.Surrounding schools and clinics will benefit from the solar power plant.ZCDC has already powered a secondary school and a clinic using solar energy as it moves towards sustainable mining practices.The company was established in 2016 after Government resolved not to renew operating licences of six diamond miners.It has since transitioned from an alluvial to a conglomerate-based mining model with an investment of over US$25 million in probably the largest crushing plant Zimbabwe with capacity to crush over 450 tonnes of ore per hour.ZCDC has invested over US$100 million in exploration, mining, processing, cleaning and valuation.The State-owned firm's balance sheet has grown from US$45 million in 2016 to over US$250 million by September 2018.In its maiden production year, ZCDC mined 961 000 carats from speculative alluvial mining and tailings dumps processing, which was then doubled to 1,8 million carats last year after investing in mobile crushing equipment to enhance conglomerate processing capacity while the fixed 450 tonne per hour plant was being installed.Last year, Government capitalised the firm to the tune of US$80 million through treasury instruments, resulting in organisational stability, investment in business growth and mining sustainability.US$20m for DVMCAfter the uninterrupted roll-out of its diamond value management initiatives, ZCDC resumed sales in the third quarter of 2018 following test sales at the start of the year.Dr Mpofu said ZCDC expects to conduct periodic sales after adoption of an approved diamond sales calendar.The launch of online bidding the Zimbabwe Electronic Diamond Trading System last month is part of ZCDC's investment in downstream diamond value management efficiencies.Dr Mpofu said ZCDC plans to invest US$20 million in the establishment of a state-of-the-art Diamond Value Management Centre to enhance capacity in cleaning, sorting, valuation, sales and security."This will be a high-tech facility that is expected to satisfy all international best practices of effective and efficient diamond value management."The DVMC will feature technology such as the fully-integrated sort house which will see the use of hands-free technology to sort diamonds using advanced machines that sort diamonds according to colour, clarity, size and shape or possible cut. The technology will ensure operational efficiency in the downstream processes," said Dr Mpofu.ZCDC has also started exploring possible partnerships with other international diamond companies that have well-developed value management technologies.Vision 2030As local firms position themselves to contribute towards attainment of an upper middle-income economy by 2030 (Vision 2030), ZCDC plans to invest US$400 million in its operations over the next five years.Dr Mpofu said 25 percent of the investment would be for exploration and evaluation, as the miner moves to build bankable reserves to ensure investor confidence and better resource mobilisation.Work is underway at three sites outside Marange where ZCDC is searching for viable kimberlite deposits."ZCDC will be conducting aero-magnetic surveys, ground penetrating radar, bulk sampling and other forms of exploration and resource evaluation to discover and evaluate diamonds deposits across the country."The company has established a fully-fledged exploration department which it has resourced with skills, drill rigs, mobile processing plants and earth moving equipment required for exploration work," said Dr Mpofu.ZCDC targets to be among the top five producers of rough diamonds in the world with targeted production of at least 10 million carats per annum by 2023. News / National by Staff reporter President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the First Lady, Auxillia Mnangagwa this Sunday joined the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) members at Mbungo in Masvingo for their conference where they were praying for the rains as well as celebrating Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi's belated birthday.It was a double celebration as the President shares a birthday date with Bishop Mutendi.The ZCC leader was born on the 15th of September 1939, while President Mnangagwa was born on the 15th of September in 1942.Bishop Mutendi said the church dedicated this weekend to pray for the rains.He also said the current difficulties the country is facing on the economic front will soon be over, likening the situation to a woman in labour who has to go through intense pain in the last phase of giving birth.Like a woman going through the difficulties that come along with pregnancy, Zimbabwe is also going through hard times but joy is on the horizon," Bishop Mutendi said.President Mnangagwa concurred with Bishop Mutendi that these are the stages of pushing and soon the country's difficult economic phase will be a thing of the past.He said hard work is essential in improving the economy."When the child is born, the mother forgets the pain so let's push and stay strong. Where there is unity and love even the economy thrives," the President said.The proceedings were rounded off with the cutting of two cakes for each of the birthday boys. News / National by Staff reporter A hailstorm hit some parts of Murewa yesterday afternoon bringing business operations to a halt while motorists had to stop.The storm caught most people unaware while others took the opportunity to enjoy the unexpected weather phenomenon.Ms Nancy Gwede who was travelling from Nyadire Mission to Harare around 1600 hours said the storm started when they had just left Murewa Centre near Mukwa Centre and stretched for over 6 kilometres after Chivake River Bridge. The editor in chief of HuffPost Canada has some suggestions for how to bring more diversity to journalism. Andree Lau has an accomplished career as a journalist she helped launch Huffington Post B.C. in 2012 and also worked for the CBC in various regions of Canada. Lau weighed in on the conversation surrounding the lack of diversity in the industry after Vancouver journalist Sunny Dhillon made headlines in late October. Dhillon recently parted ways with The Globe and Mail, citing concerns about lacking diversity in the media. He wrote a piece about his departure, titled Journalism While Brown and When to Walk Away. Huffington Post In the piece, Dhillon suggested that his perspective as a journalist of colour didn't matter to his editors. The CBC has requested comment from The Globe and Mail, but hasn't yet received a response. Following these events, Lau spoke with host Renee Filippone during CBC's The Early Edition to share her experience as a newsroom leader who is of Chinese-Canadian descent. What was your reaction to Dhillon's article? My heart sank. I was disheartened and saddened and frustrated that this is still a conversation that we still need to have.... And that someone like Sunny felt that he needed to put that out there, to remind everyone that we still have a lot of work to do in our industry. I'm a manager and I know lots of things play into people feeling unsatisfied at their jobs. I don't want to speculate about The Globe and Mail's work flow. But it does put the whole conversation back into the spotlight. We have leaders who talk about it [the need for diversity] and we work really hard to get back at it, but then you kind of slip back into the day-to-day demands of putting news out with dwindling resources. It always takes something like this to put it back on the front burner. Why do you think there are so few diverse people leading newsrooms across this country? A few reasons. I think they [people of colour] get to a certain level and they get frustrated. Because they're not seeing enough change, or change not happening fast enough, and they get discouraged. Those very talented people are the ones we need to move up into the next level, and they end up leaving. Story continues Also there a lot of people entrenched in Canadian media who aren't leaving and they're only hiring within their circles, within their comfort level. Why do you think it's important to have diverse people telling diverse stories in the media? We're supposed to reflect our communities. We're supposed to be sharing stories that matter to people. Canadians should see themselves and hear themselves reflected in that. I think there has been progress ... But you can have a very diverse newsroom and still have decisions made for you from more senior levels, about how to cover a story. As a Chinese reporter starting out, I would always be assigned stories about family tax, even though I would pitch something else I knew the Chinese community was talking about. And it has to go beyond just seeing people of colour. We're talking about diversity in terms of socioeconomic status and gender representation. All of these things need to be considered. This interview aired on The Early Edition on Nov. 1st and has been edited for clarity and structure. To hear the complete interview, click on the audio below. About 200 people protested outside a courthouse in Woodstock, Ont., on Saturday against the transfer of convicted killer Terri-Lynne McClintic from a federal prison in Ontario to an Indigenous healing lodge in Saskatchewan. "Send her back!" the protesters chanted at the rally. McClintic, 28, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Tori Stafford, 8, in 2010 and was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years. Stafford, a Woodstock school girl, was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered in 2009. Many of the protesters in her hometown wore purple, which was Stafford's favourite colour. Rodney Stafford, Tori's father, told the protesters that McClintic doesn't deserve to serve out her sentence in a healing lodge. 'It's not right,' father says "A convicted killer was moved somewhere she doesn't belong and I want do everything I can to put her back because it's not right. Why should these criminals be able to live a better life than myself, the one going through this issue?" "Terri-Lynne's got to go back to max security where she belongs," he said. "My little girl Victoria deserves so much better and she deserves justice." Stafford said, when Tori was born on July 15, 2000, he was sitting in a chair, holding her, and he told her that he would protect her until the day he died. "You can't understand the pain and the hurt that goes through you when you realize that one of your bear cubs has been taken, one of your children is gone. It's tough to deal with every day," he said. "On the inside, it's killing me. But each time I walk past one of you guys, and you guys give me support, that gives me that much more strength to stand here and do what I want to do, and that's stand up for my daughter," he told the protesters. Lorenda Reddekopp/CBC Stafford said he was only one voice against the transfer, but support has grown since he first found out. Story continues "A month and half later, I have a nation of support. It just goes to prove that one person can actually make a difference." McClintic moved earlier this year McClintic was serving time at the Grand Valley Institution for Women, a maximum security prison in Kitchener, Ont. After four years, she was moved into the prison's medium security area. Earlier this year, Correctional Service Canada moved her to a healing lodge on the Nekaneet First Nation near Maple Creek, Sask., according to Stafford's grandmother, Doreen Graichen. McClintic and her boyfriend, Michael Rafferty, grabbed Stafford from a Woodstock street. The girl's body was found three months later in a wooded area near Mount Forest. Rafferty was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder in Tori's death. The protesters said they want the federal government to pass legislation, which they call "Tori's law," that would ensure any person convicted of the murder of a child would spend his or her entire sentence in a maximum security prison. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said on Thursday that a review into the decision to move McClintic from the federal prison to the healing lodge will be coming shortly. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon in Rome, September 2018. (Photo: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters) BARCELONA With the clock ticking down to the U.S. midterms, Europe is bracing for the return of Steve Bannon, who plans, as early as next week, to resume his campaign to remake European politics in the bellicose mold of Donald Trump. He will arrive with a well-funded demolition team of pollsters, strategists, message massagers and TV booking agents a reincarnation of his campaign war room, now dubbed the Movement: part foundation, part loose alliance of populist/nationalist parties and part one-stop political campaign machine. Its mission: blowing up the existing power alignment and dominant liberal mindset of the 28-nation European Union, which stretches from Portugal to Romania, Finland to Malta. The wealthiest trading bloc in the world, the EU has been targeted by Trump as a foe. Bannon first descended on Europe this winter, after he was declared persona non grata in the White House over his indiscreet babbling to journalist Michael Wolff. More recently, he has been criss-crossing the United States, speaking to mostly empty rooms, on behalf of obscure Republican candidates who dont always bother to show up with him. But the weakening of the EU has been going on in his absence, with Britain Brexiting, Germany facing an uncertain future after the announced departure of EU heavyweight Chancellor Angela Merkel, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of Italy threatening to suspend compliance with EU rules, and the increasingly unloved French president, Emmanuel Macron, pleading with Europeans to fight against the nationalist leprosy. The test will come in May, when elections are scheduled for the 751-seat European Parliament. Bannon aims to help nationalist and other hard-right parties get elected to at least one-third of those seats, which would essentially create a bloc with a veto over any proposals. Roland Freudenstein, deputy director of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, warns that Bannon can do serious damage to public discourse and says he wont be surprised if the American cooks up A European-style Pizzagate. Freudenstein is expecting a Bannon-directed onslaught of fake news and propaganda once the strategist sets up his Movement headquarters in Brussels, and deploys his tools, including sophisticated polling, rapid-fire dissemination of fiery talking points and internet targeting of potential voters. Currently, operations are being run out of the mansion of Belgian lawyer Mischael Modrikamen, Bannons partner in the Movement, in a wealthy suburb of Brussels. Story continues The European Parliament is apparently expecting the worst: Last week, it passed a resolution calling on EU member countries to protect voters from manipulation by data harvesters like Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm Bannon helped run. But right-wing parties are rolling out the red carpets at the news that Bannons leased private jet the only way the populist agitator, who condemns the global elite, travels these days will soon be touching down in the Old World. Among those cheering his imminent arrival: the pro-life, anti-immigrant Vox party in Spain, the first Spanish ultra-right party to attempt to escape the taint of the nations fascist past since the death in 1975 of longtime dictator Francisco Franco. Lending his imprimatur to Vox which was formed four years ago to counter separatist movements in Catalonia and other regions in Spain Bannon brought the party copious media attention and sent it shooting higher in the polls. Vox supporters during a recent rally in Barcelona. (Photo: Jose Colon/MeMo/Sony for Yahoo News) Elsewhere across Europe, an influx of refugees from the Mideast and Africa, and a series of bloody terror attacks by Islamic radicals, has led to the rise of anti-establishment parties from the Freedom Party, formed 12 years ago to halt the Islamization of the Netherlands, and now the second-largest party in the Dutch Parliament, to the anti-immigration League, now calling the shots in Italys ruling coalition. Europe is going through significant political changes, said Matthew Goodwin, visiting senior fellow at the London think tank Chatham House and author of National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Were seeing these parties break through in democracies that havent seen many populist movements before in Germany, Sweden, the U.K. He says that voters dont feel loyal to the main political parties and that the political system is far more volatile as a result. Bannons take: Europe is on fire! Its the center of the political universe! Macron and Merkel are in death spirals, he told Yahoo News Alex Nazaryan. And Hungarys [Viktor] Orban and Italys [Matteo] Salvini are the opposing force. Which is to say Bannon correctly smells blood and is zeroing in for the kill. And its not just blood he smells. Bannon says wealthy Europeans are donating millions to the Movement, which he would like to be seen as a right-wing counter to the Open Society Foundations, founded and funded by the billionaire George Soros. Bannon reportedly charges as much as $20,000 for speeches, in which he tests out new themes and refines his talking points. His public talks fill halls with listeners who pay as much as $40 a ticket. Thats a far better reception than he has been getting in the States, where his grandiose plan to remake the Republican Party by electing his own slate of senators to vote out Majority Leader Mitch McConnell never recovered from Bannons endorsement of Roy Moore, who performed the incredible feat for an Alabama Republican of losing to a Democrat. Bannons Red Tide Rising campaign tour took him last month to such high-profile venues as the volunteer firehouse in Elma, N.Y., where he attracted a crowd of 200 enthusiastic Republicans not including any of the candidates he was supposed to be stumping for. His new propaganda film, Trump@War, rife with scenes of violent Democratic mobs, is flopping spectacularly: a mere three dozen people showed up for a free screening in Staten Island. In Tampa, a scheduled GOP fundraiser dinner celebrating two years of Trumps presidency, featuring the amazing speaker Steve Bannon and his new film, drew such a tepid response, according to a report in the Tampa Bay Times, that organizers slashed prices, filling the 250-seat venue only when tickets were offered free. Just two candidates appeared one running for the state legislature, the other for the county water board. But in Europe, the Movement has been signing up member parties right and even farther right. Besides the League and Vox, National Rally, as Marine Le Pens French party is now called after wavering is giving a hesitant oui. (Parties dont have to pay Bannon to participate, although they must be invited.) Even Brazilian congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Brazils nationalist president-elect, is interested in joining forces, especially against cultural Marxism. Steve Bannon with Frances Marine Le Pen at a press conference last March. (Photo: Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images) At least Bannon has a consistent message. Speaking in Budapest, he branded Hungarys prime minister Viktor Orban, who erected a border fence to keep out Muslim invaders, as Trump before Trump! Just a few weeks before, in Zurich, he had also used that label to refer to billionaire Christoph Blocher, the vice president of the anti-immigrant Swiss Peoples Party, who has been influential in keeping Switzerland out of the EU. Salvini, a strident, openly racist ideologue who heads Italys Northern League party, was designated Italys version of Trump. Bannon didnt compare Marine Le Pen, leader of Frances nationalist, populist and anti-EU National Rally (formerly the National Front) directly to Trump. But he made the point indirectly, asserting in a speech to members of the party that the opposition party media and globalist elite had kept the National Front out of power by disparaging it with negative reporting: You argue for sovereignty, they call you a nationalist, he began. You argue for freedom, they call you a xenophobe. You argue for your country, they call you a racist. Well, he announced, the days of those smears from globalists were over. Let them call you racists, he said. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor. Because every day we get stronger and they get weaker. Not every right-wing European party wants to be part of Bannons Movement. Germanys Alternative for Deutschland, an antiforeigner, anti-Islam party that won 94 seats in Germanys 598-seat Parliament last year, declined membership in his club, predicting the Movement will not succeed. Belgiums nationalist Flemish party, Vlaams Belang, wants nothing to do with it. Polands Law and Order party has said it wont join, as has Austrias Freedom Party. Even Hungarys Fidesz, led by Orban, hasnt signed on. And there has been pushback from the left. Partnering with Bernie Sanders to launch a worldwide network of liberals called Progressives International, Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, is planning an all-out assault on Bannons plans. Using the slogan Hope is back! he just announced a new coalition of leftist parties European Spring to run in Mays European elections against nationalists, right-wing populists and rabble-rousers. While its unclear if he plans to debate Bannon in public forums, Varoufakis told BuzzFeed he is spoiling for a showdown with the American, saying Lets have a big fight. European parliamentarian Sophie in t Veld, a delegate from the Netherlands, makes the case that Bannon has misjudged the European political scene. It will take more than the Bannon charm to repeat, here in Europe, the wonderful work he has achieved on behalf of huddled masses and Christian zealots in the U.S., she wrote in an article titled The Kids Arent Alt-Right. Bannon speaks at Atreju 2018, a conference of right-wing activists, in Rome, last September. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty Images) Bannon has had some of his most notable successes in southern Europe. Of all the European hotspots where the jet-setting populist agitator checked into luxury hotel suites, none thrilled Bannon more than Rome, where he is involved with an ultraconservative Catholic think tank, the Dignitatis Humanae Institute. His documentary Torchbearer, a warning about what happens to empires that abandon God, narrated by long-bearded Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson, looking like a deranged Moses, was made there. During the run-up to Italys 2018 general elections, Bannon became fascinated with Salvinis League party, formerly known as Northern League. It began as a Milan-based secessionist party that demonized Southern Italians, but is now fueled by anti-immigrant fervor. Seeing the star quality of Salvini, a 45-year-old ex-Communist, Bannon visited him in February around the time that Italian media noted a change in the Leagues campaign motto to Italians First! When Bannon returned to Rome in March, his likeness was splashed across the front page of Italys most-read paper on election day, under the headline: It feels like the same climate just before Trump. The League came in third, forming a coalition government with the first-place party, Five Star. Salvini ended up as minister of the interior and deputy prime minister, garnering worldwide notoriety for barring rescue ships, which had picked up capsized Africans, from docking at Italys ports. Bannon trumpeted Italys election worldwide, boasting that the fact that half of Italians had voted for anti-establishment parties is a harbinger of a populist uprising in Europe. Spain, like Portugal, had seemingly been inoculated against right-wing nationalism by its decades-long experience with fascism. In 2014, however, frustrated members of the Popular Party Spains conservative mainstay defected to create the more extreme Vox party, which wants to erect a concrete wall in Spains two tiny North African enclaves to keep out illegal immigrants. More radically, Vox aims to dissolve the countrys 17 autonomous governments and centralize power in capital Madrid a proposal akin to eliminating all state governments, courts and legislatures in the United States. Vox Secretary-General Javier Ortega, center, celebrating Hispanic Day in Barcelona, Oct. 12, 2018. (Photo: Jose Colon/MeMo/Sony for Yahoo News) With no seat in any legislative bodies, and boasting only 5,000 members early this year, Vox made headlines this spring when it announced that Bannon was coming to Madrid to consult. But after months of promises, Bannon was a no show. Hes mercurial, explained Secretary General Javier Ortega at an appearance in Barcelona. He changes his mind, but he doesnt tell anybody. Bannon still hasnt appeared in Madrid, but Bannonismo (and Trumpismo) have nevertheless bolstered Vox. Early this month, some 10,000 Spaniards piled into Madrids Vistalegre Palace, where the partys two handsome leaders jolted the crowd into a flag-waving frenzy. Together, promised buff Secretary-General Javier Ortega, we will make Spain great again! The crowd roared. Then the strapping Santiago Abascal, a former legislator in the Basque region, in the north, took the microphone. Abascal carries a Smith & Wesson, practically unheard of in Spain. If you love your country, he began, channeling Bannon, you are called a xenophobe and a fascist. If you say immigration needs to be controlled, you are racist and fascist. If you love tradition, you are backward and fascist But from now on, Abascal vowed, We will wear the insults like medals on our chest. The following week, in a notable first, Ortega, whose party was previously shunned as ultra right, marched alongside leaders of mainstream conservative parties, the Popular Party and Ciudadanos, in Barcelonas celebration of Hispanic Day, which attracted thousands of supporters. The party now claims more than 11,000 members. Just last week, a new poll showed that over 5 percent of Spanish voters now put their money on Vox, giving the long-shot party a good chance of taking seats in Mays elections for the European Parliament. And headlines proclaimed that Steve Bannon would be coming to Spain to meet with Vox officials by the end of the year. Additional reporting by Alexander Nazaryan in Washington Melissa Rossi, a writer based in Barcelona, is the author of the geopolitical book series What Every American Should Know. (Plume/Penguin). _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Iran's top leader said on Saturday that U.S. President Donald Trump's policies face opposition across the world as Washington prepares to reimpose sanctions on Iran's vital oil-exporting and financial sectors, state television reported. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said Iran's arch-adversary the United States had failed to reassert its domination over Iran since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah. "The world opposes every decision made by Trump," Iranian state television quoted Khamenei as saying during a meeting with thousands of students. "America's goal has been to re-establish the domination it had (before 1979) but it has failed. America has been defeated by the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years." Sanctions to be restored Monday Washington will on Monday reintroduce far-reaching sanctions on Iran's vital oil sales and banking sectors to try to force the Islamic Republic into negotiations to scrap its nuclear energy and ballistic missile programs and end its support for proxies in conflicts across the Middle East. Caren Firouz/Reuters However, the Trump administration said on Friday that eight importing countries would temporarily be allowed to keep buying Iranian oil when sanctions come back into effect. Iran is the world's No. 3 oil exporter. Turkey said on Saturday that Ankara had received initial indications from Washington that it would be granted a waiver, but is awaiting clarification on Monday. Most international sanctions on Iran were lifted in early 2016 under a deal Iran signed with world powers the year before under which it curbed its uranium enrichment program, widely seen abroad as a disguised effort to develop an atomic bomb. EU efforts to save Iran deal Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif spoke by telephone with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and his counterparts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark about European measures to counter the U.S. sanctions, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. Story continues "Mogherini and the European ministers ... highlighted the importance of the finance ministers' commitment to Europe's financial mechanism to save the Iran nuclear deal and said the mechanism will be operational in the coming days," IRNA said. Diplomats told Reuters last week that the new EU mechanism to facilitate payments for Iranian exports should be legally in place by Nov. 4, when the next phase of U.S. sanctions hit, but will not be operational until early next year. The EU, France, Germany and Britain all co-signatories, along with Russia and China, to the nuclear deal with Iran said in a joint statement on Friday they regretted Trump's decision to restore sanctions on Iran. With the sanctions clampdown, Trump is seeking to push Iran to end uranium enrichment outright, and halt its ballistic missile development and support for proxy forces in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. "Iran ... will not permit the Trump regime, which has made American foreign policy devoid of any principles, to reach its illegitimate goals," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by IRNA. Trump denounced the nuclear deal, approved by his predecessor Barack Obama, as flawed in Iran's favour and withdrew Washington from the pact in May. Can you spot me? Told ya we wore bright clothes to stand out. Im in the hot pink. The adult. Not the child. (Getty Images) By Rachel Steinbauer Editors note: The team at Yahoo Canada met Kiwi royal fan Rachel via our all-royals podcast, Make It Reign. Earlier this week, she sent us this photo of the Duchess of Sussex via Twitter. We needed details! The following is her up-close-and-personal account of the Sussexes stop in Wellington, New Zealand. *** So, I have to set the scene here. Im like a normal, sane (OK, slightly cooler than average) 40-something-year old woman. I have a lovely husband, two kids, loads of friends and a good job. But I have a secret. I am a huge fan of all things royal. Like, massive. Well, not all things royal, mainly the fab four and the Queen and all the little kids, oh! And that really hot Swedish Prince, Carl Phillip. Google him (but thats a whole other story). When I heard from Kensington Palace via a tweet that Harry and Meghan were headed down under to tour Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand, planning went into overdrive. Days off work were arranged, and my sister, Melissa and friend, Jo, were ready and waiting to be my accomplices. We are all huge fans of the royals and have a message group set up especially to discuss the important matters what Kate wore, what Meghan wore, do they like each other and when will we next see Baby Louis?! (For goodness sake, a six month photo wouldnt go amiss!?) And we still love Princess Diana. We were living in London when she died, and last year of the 20th anniversary of her death, we had a high tea with all our ex London friends to remember her. We got out all our scrapbooks and books from when we were kids and drank a lot of champagne. This is the level of dedication, people. Princess Diana-themed cupcakes at our memorial tea. All photos courtesy Courtesy Rachel Steinbauer So to hear Harry and his freshly minted gorgeous wife was coming to town was beyond exciting. This is what its like to keep up with the Sussexes for a whirlwind 24 hours. Sunday, Oct. 28 12 p.m. Wardrobe planning: Now Wellington, New Zealand, is an amazing city to live in. Its known as the coolest little capital in the world and often voted one of the best cities to live. Its also well known for its indecisive weather it can be super windy and has very patchy weather, especially at this time of year, but you cant beat it on a good day (you can Google that too). It has the best coffee youll find anywhere, great craft beer, Lord of the Rings was made here and everyone wears black. Its like the city is full of people terrified to wear colour. So the first part of the planning was wearing the brightest colours we could find to stand out in the crowd. Tick. Story continues 2 p.m. Celebratory drink and important floral choices: Well we couldnt let Meg and Haz come to town and not celebrate with a glass of champagne, right? Just one thing to keep in mind: were not amateurs here you cant be in the middle of a stakeout with a full bladder. Nil liquid by mouth after 2.30 p.m.! Jo popped across the road to the market after a big discussion around what colour flowers we needed. Yellow was decided. Perfect for our bright theme yellow flowers, my hot pink and navy ensemble, Jos navy blue and emerald green and Mels teal top and plum jacket. Like little bright jewels in sea of black and washed out grey. ALSO SEE: Meghan Markle dresses down for rainy day in New Zealand 2:30 p.m. Finding the right walkabout spot: OK, this was a bit stressful. We got down to the square, Harry and Meghan were due to arrive at 4:45 p.m. The crowd was building and the front railing spaces all seemed taken. But we were not mucking around, we are professionals! We spotted a space big enough for one person so claimed it, and slowly but surely wedged all three of us in. Most people were still sitting and everyone was chatting and very excited. The lovely girls next to us had been there since midday and talked to security we were right where their car was due to pull up. Wed be able to see them get out and greet the dignitaries but there was a mixed opinion as to whether wed get to be in the walkabout. The security guard had said only if there is time. We did a quick survey of the other side where the walkabout was going to start, but it was already getting a few people deep, so we decided to take the chance. 3:30 p.m. Just over an hour til they arrive: The crowd continued to grow and the atmosphere was humming. People were starting to bank up behind us, and we could sense they wanted to wedge into our spot but sorry haters, no chance. We were still sitting but they were standing. Some dude in an orange jacket said excuse me, can I go there? pointing to the prime spot at the front of the railing where our feet and handbags were. We threw our heads back and laughed in a hysterical ARE YOU ACTUALLY SERIOUS?! kind of way, and he backed off. 4:15 p.m. Dignitaries and media arrive: The crowd started getting very excited when some fancy cars pulled up. Literally no one in Wellington has ever been excited to see the mayor before, but he got a big whoop when he turned up (but not from me, Im still mad hes made us pay for parking in the city on the weekends). The British high commissioner arrived looking A.MAZ.ING in a bright blue dress. We see she got our memo on colour. She got a loud whoop too. It was time to stand up and claim our front row position. Orange jacket guy was at least two layers back by now. The media buses turned up and the crowd knew things were close, because they had all been covering the government house welcoming and were now setting up position on the media stand. Now, because I take my royal fan duties seriously, I follow many of the British royal reporters on Twitter so knew lots of the faces. They were even more surprised when we started calling out their names and got a few of them to stop by. The crowd around us went quiet as they tried to earwig on the conversations we were having #SuddenlyTheCoolestPeopleInTheCrowd 4: 45 p.m. The arrival of the Sussexes: The crowds had been steadily growing over the last few hours and at this point it was well over a thousand people. We were 10 deep and everyone was excited. The weather had decided to play ball and the sun was out! The mood was super buzzy and we all had that butterfly feeling in our tummies where you know something amazing is going to happen and you want it to hurry up but you dont want it to end? That feeling. Then the royal convoy rounded the corner. The crowd started going hysterical! They pulled up and then a MASSIVE black van pulled up in front of us totally obstructing our view. Whaaaaaaat?! Oh boy, talk about 2,000 people being outraged all at once. We started chanting Move the van, move the van (not very original and totally ineffective as it turns out, these security people were not frightened of us). Meanwhile, Haz and Megs were greeting the officials and started moving up the stairs hooray! We could see them up the stairs! They were teeny tiny and far away but we could see them! And they were holding hands! Just the cutest. And Meghan was wearing a trench coat designed by a local designer, Karen Walker! We love Karen Walker! We wear Karen Walker! Meghans just like us! Phones were out on their strongest zooms and we were all taking grainy blurry photos of the two. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing. ALSO SEE: An etiquette expert says this habit of Meghan Markles is unprofessional 5:05 p.m. The walkabout: With the official wreath-laying complete, which looked all very lovely when we re-watched on Twitter later, the beautiful people took off on their walkabout. Roars were heard from across the square as they reached new areas. We were all so happy for them, because were very mature adults, but secretly we knew Harry and Meghan would like us so much more so we started yelling at security guards to get them to come around here, pleeeeassse. As the roars got closer we started getting our hopes up. A Kensington Palace official and New Zealand government official appeared and we started leaning over the barrier. Bring them over hereeeeee! we yelled. We waved our flowers. We have flowers!! (like, no one else had ever given them flowers, ever). When they singled out a lady with a dog and two little kids and got them across the barrier right in front of us, we knew we were in. A wild Harry spotted in the crowd. Classic Kiwi gift. Harry rounded the corner and it was all on. Utter hysteria! He stood chatting to a group and someone in the crowd tossed a knitted buzzy bee at him (New Zealand gave his mum and dad a wooden buzzy bee when they visited in 1983 with baby William, so now its like the iconic kiwi baby gift to give). He caught it and gave a thumbs up. Then she appeared. OMG. We were all yelling and those yellow flowers were getting thrust out and waggled around. Then it happened. Meghan was in front of me, shaking my hand. My best friend Meghan and our flowers. This woman is beyond gorgeous. Like, I didnt think she could take a bad picture but those pictures do not do her justice. She is luminous. Her eyes are brown with amber flecks and her skin is perfect with her cute little freckles showing through. Talk about star quality. Teeth? Beautiful. Smile? Full and genuine. And when she shakes your hand she looks you in the eye and you know you are forever best friends now. She had the most gorgeous citrine and diamond drop earrings on that were glinting in the sun and we got a close up, real life look at that stunning engagement ring. ALSO SEE: Meghan Markle just comforted a crying fan in New Zealand So beautiful. I was like I love your cookbook, Jo was saying ooooh, congratulations on your pregnancy! Meghan said, oh thank you, thank you very much. Melissa meanwhile, who has had a bad cold, shook her hand and said oh please sanitize your hands Meghan, Ive got a bad cold. Sigh. Theres always one. She took our flowers and looked at us like they were the best thing shed ever seen. But I guess we are besties now and thats how we look at each other. She was just so happy to see us. They stopped to chat with the lady and her dog and the two cute little girls for a few minutes and then they were off. It all happened so quickly, but no one really wanted to leave. The Markle fairy dust had been sprinkled on us and we just wanted to relive the moment. Monday, Oct. 29: 9 a.m. Maranui Cafe, Lyall Bay event 2: After a champagne debrief and a bad sleep (too excited to sleep properly) Jo and I headed to Lyall Bay for a last glimpse of Meghan and Harry. It was so strange to think they were going to a cafe that we had been in so often since our school days. I bet those floors had been washed, the windows sure had. There wasnt going to be a walkabout but there was still a decent crowd and a great excited buzz in the air. The media were in place and Jo had arrived early to get a good spot. 10 a.m. The second coming: The convoy arrived Meghan and Harry leapt out and the crowd went crazy. A quick hand-in-hand stroll along to the cafe, a few waves and then inside for a chat with the young kids working in mental health (awesome cause, fantastic to see their support of it). They reappeared and had a quick chat with some young kids from a local school who had lined up to talk to them. Meghan popped back to the cafe to ask for the treats they hadnt eaten to be given to them afterwards. So sweet! 10:45 a.m. The departure: And then they were off, back in the car and a few more waves to the crowds through the blackened windows. Jo and I headed off to a cafe down the road for some brunch and a debrief because keeping up with the Sussexes is hungry work. The cafe backs onto the airport, and lo and behold we spot my BFF running across the tarmac with her gorgeous ginger husband and onto a helicopter! Off to the next engagement. BYEEEEEEE MEGHAN, BYEEEEEEE HARRY!!! PLEASE COME BACK AGAIN SOON!!! Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Check out Yahoo Canadas podcast, Make It Reign our hot takes on all things royals in a non-stuffy way on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. By Parisa Hafezi DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's top leader said on Saturday U.S. President Donald Trump's policies face opposition across the world as Washington prepared to reimpose sanctions on Iran's vital oil-exporting and financial sectors, state television reported. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said Iran's arch-adversary the United States had failed to reassert its domination over Iran since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah. "The world opposes every decision made by Trump," Iranian state television quoted Khamenei, a Shi'ite cleric with ultimate authority in Iran, as saying during a meeting with thousands of students. "America's goal has been to re-establish the domination it had (before 1979) but it has failed. America has been defeated by the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years." Washington will on Monday reintroduce far-reaching sanctions on Iran's vital oil sales and banking sectors to try to force the Islamic Republic into negotiations to scrap its nuclear energy and ballistic missile programs and end its support for proxies in conflicts across the Middle East. However, the Trump administration said on Friday that eight importing countries would temporarily be allowed to keep buying Iranian oil when sanctions come back into effect. Iran is the world's No. 3 oil exporter. Turkey said on Saturday that Ankara had received initial indications from Washington that it would be granted a waiver, but is awaiting clarification on Monday. Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said his country and other leading oil importers would benefit from the U.S. waivers. Most international sanctions on Iran were lifted in early 2016 under a deal Iran signed with world powers the year before under which it curbed its uranium enrichment program, widely seen abroad as a disguised effort to develop an atomic bomb. But Trump denounced the nuclear deal, approved by his predecessor Barack Obama, as flawed in Iran's favor and withdrew Washington from the pact in May. Trump's decision was welcomed by Washingtons Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab allies, involved in proxy conflict with Shi'ite Iran for decades. The United Arab Emirates' minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said on Saturday that Iran's "aggressive policies" were "largely responsible" for the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif spoke by telephone with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and his counterparts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark about pending European measures to counter the U.S. sanctions, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. GAME OF THRONES General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force that oversees its operations abroad, responded to Trump's Game of Thrones-inspired tweet on Friday that warned, "Sanctions are Coming." "I will stand against you," Soleimani said on Instagram, posting a similarly themed photo and repeating remarks made in July. The EU, France, Germany and Britain - all co-signatories, along with Russia and China, to the nuclear deal with Iran - said in a joint statement on Friday they regretted Trump's decision to restore sanctions on Iran. Diplomats told Reuters last week that the new EU mechanism to facilitate payments for Iranian exports should be legally in place by Nov. 4 but not operational until early next year. They cautioned, however, that no country had volunteered to host the entity, which was delaying the process. A senior French diplomat said on Saturday there was no way any trade with this mechanism could be conducted before the end of 2018. For now no other countries, including China, would be part of it although that could change over time. The other parties to the nuclear deal see it as an important bulwark against the risk of wider war in the Middle East and have reaffirmed their commitment to it. Iran has said it could leave the pact if the EU cannot protect its economic benefits. With the sanctions clampdown, Trump is seeking to push Iran to end uranium enrichment outright, and halt its ballistic missile development and support for proxy forces in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. "Iran ... will not permit the Trump regime, which has made American foreign policy devoid of any principles, to reach its illegitimate goals," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by IRNA. (Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli, Dubai newsroom, John Irish in Paris, Nevzat Devranoglu in Ankara and Nidhi Verma in New Delhi; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Mark Heinrich) The family of a terminally ill woman forced by a Covenant Health religious policy to have her assisted-dying assessment on an Edmonton sidewalk says they don't feel confident that there will be any change to that policy. "I don't feel like anything is going to come out of it," Doreen Nowicki's daughter, Michele Emmanuel, said Friday after meeting with Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman on Thursday night. The family met with Hoffman, at her request, for about an hour after CBC News revealed last week the story of how Covenant treated Nowicki, a 66-year-old ALS patient. In May 2017, Nowicki was a palliative care patient at the Edmonton General Continuing Care Centre, a Covenant Health facility. Her disease had progressed to the point she could no longer walk or speak. She decided to pursue a medically assisted death. CBC Covenant Health, Alberta's publicly funded Catholic health provider, says medical assistance in dying (MAID) runs contrary to its faith. By policy, the organization refuses to facilitate medically assisted death and the provincial government, under Hoffman, has exempted Covenant Health from having to provide those services. For more than a week, Hoffman has repeatedly refused to directly answer questions on Covenant Health's policy, which ethics and legal experts say is inhumane and infringes on patients' rights. 'We told our story' But Emmanuel said her family came away from the meeting with the sense Hoffman was not committed to forcing Covenant to change the policy, which they say is cruel. "We told our story. She listened," Emmanuel said. "But we didn't feel confident that anything would be changed." She said Hoffman appeared to be sympathetic, telling the family she would raise the issue with former premier Ed Stelmach, the current chair of the Covenant Health board. But the minister would not give any "specific response" to questions about what, if anything, she planned to do. Story continues Covenant has said it is reviewing the language in its policy "related to the use of the term 'exceptional' in identifying patients who may require onsite MAID assessments. "The interpretation of that word may not have been what was intended in some cases and we are reviewing to ensure improved clarity going forward," it said in a statement. In an interview late Friday, Hoffman told CBC News she will be monitoring that review, "and if I am not happy with the way that they have amended their policy, I will enact my own." She did not commit to a further review by her ministry on patients' access to assisted dying services in religious facilities, including the procedures themselves. Second patient forced onto street On Friday, CBC News revealed another patient had to leave a Covenant Health facility to access MAID services. When Bob Hergott, a 72-year-old ALS patient, sought a medically assisted death in 2016, he was effectively paralyzed; he could only communicate by typing on a tablet with one functioning finger. Hergott's best friend of 25 years, Verna Young, said Covenant told her friend he could not access any assisted-dying services on its property. Using one finger to steer his motorized wheelchair, Hergott had to leave the hospital and cross the street to a bus shelter so he could sign his form requesting an assisted death. Young said the experience clearly upset Hergott, who eventually had to leave St. Joseph's Hospital, where he had lived for five years, for the assisted dying procedure that ended his life. She said Hergott took a taxi to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, an Alberta Health Services facility. Covenant declined an interview request about Hergott's care. In a statement, the health provider said Hergott, who was the first Covenant patient to request MAID, regularly left the hospital for medical appointments and social activities. Covenant said his care team determined he could safely go off-site to access MAID services. 'This is shameful' While Covenant has publicly apologized for its treatment of Nowicki, her family said the Catholic health provider has yet to privately apologize. Covenant continues to defend its MAID policy. In a news release issued Friday, Liberal MLA Dr. David Swann urged Hoffman to enforce a patient's right to not only assessments but also to medically assisted deaths at Alberta's religious-based health facilities. "(Covenant) will not even allow them to fill out paperwork at their facilities," the Liberal release said. "This is shameful. This is also illegal." Nowicki's family still hopes that, by speaking publicly, it will force change that ensures no other patient has to endure what she did. "I told (Hoffman) that we weren't doing this for any profit or fame or fortune," Nowicki's husband Terry said. "I said, 'We're doing this so nobody else will go through the same thing that we went through.' " Added Nowicki: "And I believe she said that it shouldn't happen again, and she was sorry that it had happened. And that was the end of it." If someone you know has had a similar experience, or you have information about this story, please contact us in confidence at cbcinvestigates@cbc.ca. @jennierussell_ Not-so-wild world: Canada one of five countries holding remaining majority of wilderness The world is rapidly becoming less wild according to a groundbreaking study published this week, co-authored by a Prince George ecosystem professor. The Wildlife Conservation Society reported that 70 per cent of the world's wilderness is located in just five countries. Of those five, Canada holds the second-largest area of wilderness after Russia. According to the study published in Nature, Australia, the U.S., Brazil, Russia and Canada are the five countries that hold the majority of the world's remaining wilderness. Oscar Venter, an ecosystem science and management associate professor from the University of Northern British Columbia, helped write the study over a three-year period along with researchers from the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society. "Before we undertook this work, there was a general idea that wilderness...these are very large landscapes, far from people and... they're kind of inherently safe, that we don't have to worry too much about them," Venter told Daybreak North's Carolina de Ryk. On water and land But they discovered only about 13 per cent of the world's oceans and only about 23 per cent of land areas can still be considered wilderness, he said. The study mapped the globe from 1993 to 2009 and showed that 3.3 million square kilometres of intact wilderness areas on land were encroached upon by industrial-scale human activity. That area is about the size of India, Venter said. "Once humans move into these landscapes and convert them to things like agriculture or residential areas, there's still a lot of biodiversity there. but you lose a lot of the species that are more sensitive to human activity." Species at risk When stacked against other countries, Canada is holding up fairly well with a lot of intact wilderness free from human activity remaining, according to Venter. Although Canada's wilderness is more stable than other places in the world, B.C. is home to more than 1,500 species at risk, according to the B.C. Conservation Data Centre. Story continues The provincial government has promised a new endangered species law some time next year. This week, a group of scientists published a report containing ideas for what that law might include. "What we're trying to do is help society find ways to do human businessin ways that aren't so damaging," said Karen Hodges, professor of conservation ecology at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus. "There are plenty of places that we can do our business betterthat we can adjust where we place our resource extraction." The report includes examples from areas around the world with endangered species law for habitat protection, timelines for recovery teams, and strict guidelines for government actions once protection is recommended. There are no specific targets for wilderness conservation but Venter and his colleagues will be presenting their findings at the 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cairo, Egypt this month. With files from Daybreak North, Radio West To hear the full interviews listen to media below: Read more from CBC British Columbia A psychologist speaking at a Department of Health cannabis symposium in Fredericton says it takes more than just education on drug use to keep youth from consuming drugs. Harvey Milkman, a drug researcher and professor of psychology at Metropolitan State University in Denver and Reykjavik University in Iceland, said introducing youth to "natural highs" that come from sports, music and arts are important to keeping kids off drugs. "The best approach to prevention is helping people to see that there are better things to do," said Milkman. "Education has its limitations," he added. "It's necessary, but it's not sufficient." Milkman has seen first hand how drugs can affect a nation's youth and how activities can reduce drug use. While at Reykjavik University in the late 1990s, Milkman said Icelandic youth were using drugs and alcohol at an alarming rate, which caused societal issues. "We had 42 per cent of the teenagers getting drunk within the last 30 days. "I mean getting drunk. Drinking five or more in a row and getting really raucous and not really comfortably navigating the streets of Reykjavik." Activities curbed use Joe Mahoney/Canadian Press Milkman said increased alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use among Icelandic teens led to a sense that something needed to be done. "The society just reached a boiling point and decided to make some changes," he said. Milkman said the government aggressively pushed youth to participate in after-school activities, funded by the state, in areas of sports, art and music. The results of those moves were dramatic. "We went from 45 per cent of the population that was abusing alcohol now it's down to seven per cent," said Milkman "Cigarettes have gone from 23 per cent to three per cent. [Cannabis] has gone also from 17 per cent to two per cent." Parental role crucial It isn't enough to have youth go into after-school activities, he said. Parents also need to be involved in the process. Story continues "We know from the research more time that the parents spend with the kids per week and per day, the less substance misuse there is," "It's not [just] quality time, it's quantity time." Milkman said parents and their children sign agreements, with teachers present, stating how much time they will spend together. It is expected that the pact will be followed. "Even though you're working two jobs, that's not an excuse," said Milkman. "You make time for other things, so make time for your kids." By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Yemeni children are dying from starvation and disease as trucks with life-saving supplies are blocked in port, leaving medical staff and desperate mothers imploring aid workers to do more, a senior U.N. official said. Geert Cappelaere, Middle East director for the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), described "heart-breaking" scenes of emaciated children in hospitals in the main port city of Hodeidah and the capital Sanaa, both held by Houthi insurgents. "We have evidence that today in Yemen every 10 minutes a child under the age of 5 is dying from preventable diseases and severe acute malnutrition," he told Reuters from Hodeidah. The United Nations says about 14 million people, or half Yemen's population, could soon be on the brink of famine in a man-made disaster. Already 1.8 million Yemeni children are malnourished, more than 400,000 of them suffering from severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition that leaves them skeletal with muscle wasting, Cappelaere said. "But there is more. Many children are dying from vaccine-preventable diseases. Today not more than 40 percent of the children throughout Yemen are being vaccinated," he said. Measles, cholera and diphtheria can be deadly for children, especially those under five, and are exacerbated by malnutrition. "Because of this brutal war, because of obstacles, obstructions being made, it is unfortunately not possible do much more," Cappelaere said. "We may not yet be at the level of a famine but we should not wait until we have declared a famine to step up and to pressure the parties to the conflict to stop this senseless war," he said. U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths aims to convene peace talks this month to seek a ceasefire in the three-and-half year war, which pits the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and the Iran-allied Houthi insurgents. As Cappelaere spoke, coaltion forces were massing for an assault on Hodeidah. "HEART-BREAKING" Seven trucks carrying life-saving medical equipment and medicines had been blocked at Hodeidah port for two weeks awaiting clearance after being off-loaded, Cappelaere said. "It was heart-breaking that an hour before I was sitting at al-Thwara hospital, and I have all the doctors, all the medical staff pleading with me to get more medical supplies, to get more medicines," he said. A UNICEF spokeswoman said the trucks had been cleared by Houthi authorities on Friday and supplies would be distributed. Several extremely malnourished children were in the hospital ward, Cappelaere said. "All the mothers were telling me that they are simply missing that small amount of money to transport their children from their communities to the hospital," he said. Hodeidah is a lifeline for food and other goods for much of the country. But, said Cappelaere, "There was hardly any activity in the port. Only one ship was berthed, that was it. "Today it looks more like a graveyard than anything else." (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Angus MacSwan) Just try asking for a child to put away their toys, or a teenager to get off their tablet, or an adult to stop smoking in the breezeway and you realise people dont like to be told what to do. Politicians get stubborn when pushed and prodded about economic policy. Parents get irate when someone offers them some much needed advice on parenting. Drivers get obstinate when a well meaning driver points out the road rules. Autocrats get violent when human rights activists challenge their actions. Dont tell me what to do! Even in foreign affairs we dont like it Take for instance, the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. There was much hope as human rights campaigners were at their loudest and political momentum seemed to be shifting towards a more democratic and peaceful China. Freedom of the press! Stop arresting people who are innocent! Tell us the truth about Tiananmen Square! The prominence China received in hosting the 2008 Olympics, and the controversy surrounding its human right record that became global news, did very little to alleviate oppression amid the Tibetan people. One may suggest that China has never responded particularly well to people telling them what to do and many voices in the west went seemingly unheard. Some years later under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, human rights violations are still rampant, and global players like the United States are trying to balance the desire to speak out against Chinese abuse of power, with its own countrys economic strategy. Let me break it down for you: people dont like to be told what to do. Many human rights campaigners that have sought justice have been silenced over the years in China, but others have used back-channels and quiet diplomacy to seek change to the brutal human rights regime. Any attempt to rectify a dreadful human rights record in China, will need to come from within, and not a western power dictating how the Chinese should conduct its domestic affairs. The church as a dictator We dont need to travel to China to see pigheadedness. We need only look at our own lives and we see stubbornness. An unwillingness to admit when we are wrong, and a resolute commitment to not being told what to do. Ironic then, that the church can spend so much time in a rules-based, tell people what they can/cannot do kind of mentality. Im not saying we shouldnt hold each other accountable, but rather that we cannot simply exist as communities of faith standing on our podiums telling the world how not to live. In fact, the church has very little credibility in the eyes of the world to do that anyway. I think, the role of a follower of Jesus is not necessarily to tell people what to do, but rather show who Jesus is. We should spend more time therefore revealing to the world the nature of God, instead of highlighting what we think are all the things wrong with it. What if we spent less time forcing people to change, and more time helping them understand why they need to? What if we attempted to live out the character of Christ far above and beyond our desire to get people to do what we think they need to do? Sometimes I wonder whether people deep down know what they should do anyway. The church then is not helping when it pounds peoples heads, to tell them what to do. When Matthew chapter 10, verse 16 says, Be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves, Im not sure that was licence to become the moral police. I know theres a fine-line here, between quietly suggesting to someone on how they could change, and squatting a fly on their head with a hammer. I just think we know by experience, that people do not change (often) when you simply tell them what to do. You can keep trying, but we all know that experience tells us, people get stubborn when you them what to do. Dont give people rules. Give them Jesus. Pete Brookshaw is the Senior Minister of The Salvation Army Craigieburn. He has a Bachelor of both Business and Theology and is passionate about the church being dynamic and effective in the world and creating communities of faith that are outward-focused, innovative, passionate about the lost and committed to societal change. He has been blogging since 2006 at www.petebrookshaw.com about leadership and faith and you can find him on: Facebook: www.facebook.com/petebrookshaw Twitter: www.twitter.com/petebrookshaw Peter Brookshaws previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/peter-brookshaw.html Australian detectives will travel to Brazil today as part of the ongoing investigation into the murder of Cecilia Haddad.Detectives from NSW's Crime Command Homicide Command are set to head to Rio de Janeiro, where they will work with local law enforcement to develop a brief of evidence surrounding the alleged murder of Sydney businesswoman Cecilia Haddad.It follows the arrest of Haddad's ex-boyfriend Mario Marcelo Santoro, 40, by Rio de Janeiro police back in July.The arrest was the result of a warrant application by Australian detectives, who spent two months in the wake of Haddad's death in late April building a case.READ MORE: Victim's mother says she heard accused scream 'open up'Santoro fled Australia the morning Haddad was discovered in Lane Cove River, strangled, with gym weights loaded into her pocket.Local authorities in Rio believe Santoro fled, believing he could dodge the Australian legal system due to the lack of an extradition agreement between Australia and Brazil.However since that time, both Brazil and Australian authorities have finalized a Mutual Legal Assistance request, enabling them to build a joint case for Santoro's prosecution.In its current form, the Rio police case file consists largely of circumstantial evidence, WhatsApp messages provided to Rio police by Cecilia's family.NSW police officers will add to this a number of physical items and photographic evidence from the crime scene. The World's Smallest Flightless Bird From South America Bird Colonizers For almost 100 years, researchers have been baffled as to how tiny, flightless birds made their way to an isolated island.The researchers of a new study now know how the birds got to the island and successfully colonized it.Inaccessible Island rails are the world's smallest flightless birds, weighing in at just about 34 to 49 grams. But apart from the birds' size and striking features, what's even more incredible about the tiny birds is that they live on an island aptly named Inaccessible Island, an isolated island in the middle of the southern Atlantic Ocean.It was in 1923 when British physician Percy Lowe of the British Museum first described the Inaccessible Island rail and gave it a separate Atlantisia genus, after the mythical island of Atlantis. Back then, he believed that the birds got to the island by walking to it via a foot bridge that had previously linked the island to Africa or South America.However, the real story of how the Inaccessible Island rails got to the island remained a mystery for nearly a hundred years.Now, researchers of a new study published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution may have cracked the mystery. Researchers analyzed the DNA samples they collected from a male Inaccessible Island rail seven years ago and compared it to the DNA of its other relatives in other places such as Africa and South America.What they found was that its DNA was closest to its relatives in South America, the dot-winged crake, suggesting that is where they originally came from. By looking further into the differences between the DNA of the two species, the researchers also found that it would have taken 1.5 million years for the two birds to accumulate genetic changes, which could mean that the Inaccessible Island rails traveled to the island around that time.According to researchers, it's possible that the birds got to the island either by flying or from floating debris, then the birds evolved to lose their ability to fly over the course of time since the island was abundant in food and free of predators.Evidently, this is not uncommon for birds in the rail species. In fact, at least 32 isolated, living rail species are less capable of flying, or have lost the ability to fly entirely.Today, while Inaccessible Island rails continue to thrive, efforts to prevent the accidental introduction of predators such as rats or cats are very important in keeping the species alive. The lawyer representing a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy after eight years on death row has fled Pakistan in fear for his life. Saif Mulook told news agency AFP he had to leave so he could continue to represent Asia Bibi, whose conviction was overturned by judges on Wednesday. Officials have since agreed to bar Ms Bibi from leaving Pakistan in order to end violent protests over the ruling. Campaigners blasted the deal as akin to signing her "death warrant". Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 of insulting the Prophet Muhammad during a row with neighbours, and many are calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty following her acquittal. Mr Mulook told the BBC earlier this week she would need to move to a Western country for her own safety. A number of attempts have previously been made on her life. Several countries have offered her asylum. Pakistani Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry defended the government against allegations that a deal reached with an Islamist party was capitulating to extremists. He said the government would "take all steps necessary" to ensure Asia Bibi's safety. Mr Mulook, however, called the agreement "painful". "They cannot even implement an order of the country's highest court," he told AFP before he boarded the plane to Europe. Mr Mulook said he had decided to leave as it was "not possible" to continue living in Pakistan, adding: "I need to stay alive as I still have to fight the legal battle for Asia Bibi." He told Pakistan's Express Tribune he would return to the country to defend his client - but needed the government to provide security. The protests were led by the Tehreek-i-Labaik (TLP) party. As party of its deal with the TLP, the government said it would not oppose petitions filed against the Supreme Court's verdict. What else is in the deal? All protesters arrested since Asia Bibi's acquittal will be released, and any violence towards them will be investigated. The government will also start legal proceedings to put Ms Bibi on a list which would ban her from leaving Pakistan. In return, the TLP is asking its supporters to stop the protests and disperse peacefully. The authorities earlier said that Ms Bibi was scheduled for release later this week. What was she accused of? The trial stems from an argument Ms Bibi, whose full name is Asia Noreen, had with a group of women in June 2009. They were harvesting fruit when a row broke out about a bucket of water. The women said that because she had used a cup, they could no longer touch it, as her faith had made it unclean. Prosecutors alleged that in the row which followed, the women said Asia Bibi should convert to Islam and that she made offensive comments about the Prophet Muhammad in response. She was later beaten up at her home, during which her accusers say she confessed to blasphemy. She was arrested after a police investigation. In Wednesday's ruling, the Supreme Court said that the case was based on flimsy evidence and her confession was delivered in front of a crowd "threatening to kill her". Why is this case so divisive? Islam is Pakistan's national religion and underpins its legal system. Public support for the strict blasphemy laws is strong. Hard-line politicians have often backed severe punishments, partly as a way of shoring up their support base. But critics say the laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. The vast majority of those convicted are Muslims or members of the Ahmadi community, but since the 1990s, scores of Christians have been convicted. They make up just 1.6% of the population. The Christian community has been targeted by numerous attacks in recent years, leaving many feeling vulnerable to a climate of intolerance. Since 1990, at least 65 people have reportedly been killed in Pakistan over claims of blasphemy. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! Iranian girls take part in a demonstration outside the former US embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday marking the anniversary of its storming by student protesters that triggered a hostage crisis in 1979. Farsi writing on their palms praising the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (AFP) London: US sanctions against importers of Iranian oil threaten the crude oil market's precarious balance and risk surging prices, all under Saudi Arabia's watchful gaze, according to experts. In the next weeks all eyes will be on Iranian exports, whether there will be some cheating around US sanctions, and on how quickly production will fall, said Riccardo Fabiani, an analyst for Energy Aspects. The US will from Monday target buyers of Iranian oil in order to deprive Tehran of its main source of income. Going after Iran's oil money will hit Tehran where it hurts, but it also means hitting a major pillar of the global oil market Iran is the OPEC cartel's third-largest producer -- with major consequences for world supply. Iran exported the equivalent of 2.5 million barrels a day in April, before the announcement of sanctions turned buyers away. Even if the United States grants exemptions, Washington will demand that the volume imported from Iran be significantly reduced, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo, who expects prices to rise. However, oil prices have fallen by nearly $15 in less than a month, after peaking in early October at their highest level in two and a half years, with a barrel of Brent at over $85. Part of the explanation lies in the ambiguous position of the US, which initially insisted that the sanctions were designed to reduce Iranian exports to zero barrels, but has since has softened its position. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday announced exemptions for eight countries, without naming them. Turkey indicated that it was one of them and analysts believe that India, one of the world's largest importers, is also on the list. India said to the US that they can't stop before March, they are facing a major currency crisis, explained Joel Hancock, analyst at Natixis. Only 19 percent of Vietnamese firms in a survey feel the ongoing U.S.-China trade friction would hinder their business over the next three years. According to a recent survey conducted by HSBC, Vietnamese businesses are among the worlds most optimistic about international trade prospects and also among the most confident when it comes to succeeding in the current environment. HSBCs latest report, Navigator: Now, next and how for business, which polled over 8,500 businesses across 34 markets, showed that 91 percent of Vietnamese respondents, compared with 75 percent globally, indicated they believe the outlook for trade is favorable in spite of geopolitical factors that are curbing enthusiasm elsewhere. They cited a favorable economic environment, decreasing costs of shipping, logistics and storage, and an increasing demand for their products as the top three drivers of trade growth. This could reflect the prospective boost to exports in sectors such as textiles as well as electronics as production and demand shift away from China. Free-trade-agreements (FTAs) are another factor that makes Vietnamese companies enthusiastic about international trade since 60 percent of the firms participating in the HSBC survey believe FTAs will have a positive impact in emerging markets, while 45 percent of firms in developed markets have high hope for these agreements. The majority of Vietnamese respondents are positive about the partnerships established with key trading partners, with 69 percent believing that ASEAN membership will help their business in the next three years. Similarly, 65 percent of Vietnamese firms believe the forthcoming European Union-Vietnam free trade agreement will have a positive impact on their business in the near future. The two sides agreed on a final text for the trade agreement earlier in June. Vietnamese businesses optimism reflects an economy thats been one of Asias star performers, which has been growing fast, said Winfield Wong, Head of Wholesale Banking, HSBC Vietnam. They are optimistic as they consider themselves well-positioned thanks to a strong domestic economy, confidence in the global economy, as well as far-reaching trade deals and burgeoning trade relations with major markets. Vietnamese firms are also looking to expand and enter overseas markets. Over a quarter of businesses are eyeing opportunities in Japan, while 23 percent are looking to expand into China, and a fifth are considering South Korea for expansion. We are seeing an increasing demand from clients, particularly those in manufacturing and energy sectors, looking to expand their operations," Wong said. These ambitions are supported by sustainable local economic growth and interest from overseas firms looking to move here, he added. We are seeing an increasing demand from clients, particularly those in manufacturing and energy sectors, looking to expand their operations, Wong said. These ambitions are supported by sustainable local economic growth and interest from overseas firms looking to move here. Two bodies in car fished out of Hanoi river The car when salvaged off the river. Photo by VnExpress/Son Tuyen A woman still had her hands on the steering when a car was fished out of the Red River in Hanoi Saturday morning. It took the rescue team five hours to locate the car at the bottom of the Red River. The car was found near the pier of Chuong Duong Bridge at 1:30 a.m. Saturday. Many boats helped with the salvage operation. The rescue team had to cut the car open in order to get the victims out. There were two women in the car. Bui Kim Chi, 21, was holding the wheels, while Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, 29, was found in the back seat, police said. Huong was the car owner while Chi, a fresh university graduate, was working for a real estate company. The damaged guard rail has been repaired. Photo by VnExpress/Phuong Son The car was heavily damaged in the front and at the back. It appears that at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, the car had crashed through the guard rails of Chuong Duong Bridge and plunged to the bottom of the Red River. Police are investigating the case further. CORRECTION: An earlier version of the report said the victims were a man and a woman, but most recent police statements affirmed they were two women. Standing at the site of the epic battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jacques Allaire wept at the memory of his 4,000 fellow fighters. The 94-year-old colonel and former POW accompanied French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Saturday to the remote valley where the bloody battle raged for 56 days before Vietnam's shock victory that would spell the end of France's colonial rule in Indochina and pave the way for Vietnam's independence. "This is like being in a dream, I'm thinking of my comrades, of all my men," said Allaire, who was captured by soldiers in 1954 and held for more than seven months. As the fate of the French became clear in March 1954, he received a written order from his commander: "Cease combat and destroy your weapons." He kept the note throughout his captivity and carried a copy of it in his jacket pocket to the battle site Saturday, an area he called "unrecognizable." "It was a small village, far from everything (in 1954). Today it's a city, which proves that Viet Minh fighters didn't fight for nothing," he said. The ferocious battle in the rugged, remote valley killed 13,000 people on both sides in under two months, as Vietnamese fighters hemmed in French forces -- equipped with superior weapons -- and bombarded them with heavy artillery. Vietnam's win over the French led to the country's division into the north, headed by revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, and a pro-U.S. southern regime. That set the stage for two decades of war which would end with unification and America's defeat in the Vietnam War in 1975. Today France is one of Vietnam's most important allies, with soaring trade worth $7.6 billion and cosying military alliances. Philippe, who is in Vietnam for a three-day visit until Sunday, is the second senior French leader to visit Dien Bien Phu after President Francois Mitterrand in 1993. "It is difficult to imagine that for several months this was the site of intense fighting rarely seen," Philippe said, after touring France's former underground command center and lighting incense at a memorial plaque. "For those who lived through those moments, I know the emotion is very intense and once again the message that I want to convey here, is a message of admiration, of respect and of pride," he said. 'No more hatred' Former Vietnamese soldiers Nguyen Tran Viet (L), Tran Quoc Hanh (C), and Hoang Bao, war veterans of Dien Bien Phu campaign, look at Viet's old photograph at his house in Hanoi during an interview with AFP on November 1, 2018. Photo by AFP/Nhac Nguyen Ahead of the visit, several Vietnamese veterans recalled the fight-to-the-death spirit that carried them to victory, despite the odds they faced. Hoang Bao was barely 20 years old when he trekked hundreds of kilometers (miles) to the site, facing off with the French full of hate and ready to die for his country's independence. But today, retired colonel Bao is happy to call his former foe a friend. "We have no hatred toward the French any more," the 85-year-old told AFP in Hanoi, wearing his dark green military uniform decorated with medals. But he said there are important lessons to be learned to avoid the mistakes of the past. "The French didn't learn our history well, so they lost... Vietnam is different from other countries, we are not willing to surrender," he said. Facing the French in battle was complicated for some fighters like Bao, whose lives were closely intertwined with their colonial rulers, sometimes going to school or working alongside them. But driven by patriotism and a fierce thirst for independence, many Vietnamese took up the struggle fortified by bitter memories of invasion by the Chinese, Japanese and French. They were also buoyed by slogans that urged everyone to pitch into the war effort. "One slogan was: We would rather die than be slaves again and (we will) sacrifice everything for independence and freedom," said Tran Quoc Hanh, an 83-year-old former colonel. The battle for Dien Bien Phu is still bittersweet for many who wear the victory as a badge of honor, but lament the steep death toll. "We lost so many comrades," said Nguyen Tran Viet, an 87-year-old former army medic. "We should live peacefully now, never let war happen again," he said. German Ambassador to Vietnam Christian Berger speaks at a conference to launch the German Festival in Hanoi. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy Vietnam and Germany have got their bilateral relationship back on track after it soured over accusations of the kidnapping of a fugitive. On Friday, the German Festival returned to Vietnam after a three-year hiatius. Themed German experiences in Hanoi, the two-day festival was held near the Hoan Kiem (Sword) Lake in Hanoi. At the launch of the event, German Ambassador to Vietnam Christian Berger said its activities reflect the diverse cooperation between the two countries. There are up to 40 organizations, agencies and companies from Germany attending the event to present their services and products, aside from exhibitions on the relations between Vietnam and Germany, and meetings that gather Vietnamese alumni that return from courses in Germany, he said. At a meeting in Germany with Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son, State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, Andreas Michaelis, said he highly appreciates Vietnam's achievements in socio-economic development and international integration. He said that the two nations have effectively cooperated at international and regional forums, and Vietnam has fulfilled its international commitments. He also said Germany will continue to support Vietnam to train human resources for the Industrial Revolution 4.0, and to train and employ Vietnamese nurses. The two sides agreed to increase cooperation in other areas like the judiciary and participation in peacekeeping operations within the United Nations. Deputy Minister Son is on a state visit to Germany at the invitation from Germanys foreign affairs ministry. Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son (R) and Andreas Michaelis, State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, Andreas Michaelis, meets in Germany on November 1. Photo courtesy of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs The kidnapping In early August last year, Vietnam said it regretted accusations made by the German government that it had kidnapped a former Vietnamese oil executive from Berlin to bring him home to face charges of financial malfeasance. Le Thi Thu Hang, Vietnam's foreign ministry spokeswoman, then said at a press briefing that Trinh Xuan Thanh, who is accused of gross mismanagement at a subsidiary of national oil and gas giant PetroVietnam, had turned himself in to Vietnamese police in late July after a 10-month international manhunt. A statement on the Ministry of Public Security's website, the only official source of the case in Vietnam, did not reveal why and how Thanh had returned to Vietnam. "Vietnam respects and wants to develop a strategic relationship with Germany," Hang said at the briefing. Thanh, former board chairman and general director of PetroVietnam Construction Corporation, has received two life sentences for charges of mismanagement and embezzlement which caused losses of around VND3.2 trillion ($147 million) in total at the state oil giant. Vietnam and Germany established strategic partnership in 2011. Germany is currently Vietnam's biggest trade partner in the EU. The Azad University system in Iran has issued a guideline restricting the dress code for its male and female students. Based on the new instructions, the female lecturers and students are not allowed to wear loose dresses in the common areas of dormitories, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) affiliated Fars News Agency (FNA) reported on Saturday, November 3. Furthermore, female students are prohibited to wear short sleeve mantos (manteau, or a loose dress that hides the curves of the body). Wearing Mantos with lively colors and thin body cloaks, as well as using "excessive" jewelry and heavy makeup have also been forbidden. Meanwhile, male students should avoid "unconventional" hair styles, very short sleeve shirts and tight pants, boxer shorts, low seat pants, ties and bow ties. Azad University is led by the conservative former foreign minister (1981-1997), U.S. educated physician 73-year old Ali Akbar Velayati. Dr. Velayati is renowned for having more than twenty official posts, including senior adviser to the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) in international affairs. Universities have been a hotbed of opposition to the Islamic Republic in the past twenty years. Earlier this year, hundreds of students were arrested during nationwide protests. Meanwhile, Velayati has been on the official "Wanted List" of Interpol since March 2007, for allegations of "Aggravated Murder and Damages" related to the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) bombing, July8, 1994, that left 85 people dead and hundreds injured. The arrest warrant is based on the allegation that senior Iranian officials planned the attack in an August 1993 meeting, including the Supreme Leader Khamenei, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then president, Ali Fallahian, then intelligence minister, and Velayati, then foreign minister. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 4 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Azerbaijan is a strategic energy partner for the European Commission, together with other Eastern Partners, the European Commission told Trend talking about how the EU can contribute to the promotion of clean energy strategy in Azerbaijan. "Concerning the energy policy pursued with Europe's Eastern Neighborhood, the energy work program for 2018-2019 involves finding ways to stimulate the construction of missing infrastructure links, bring partner countries' energy-related rules more in line with EU rules, promote energy efficiency and renewable energy as well as nuclear safety and work on conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources in the safest and most efficient way," said the European Commission. The EU strongly supports the Southern Gas Corridor project, which is jointly implemented by Azerbaijan and its foreign partners. The Southern Gas Corridor provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project, and on June 12, the opening ceremony of TANAP pipeline was held in the Turkish province of Eskisehir with the participation of the presidents of Azerbaijan - Ilham Aliyev, Turkey - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ukraine - Petro Poroshenko and Serbia - Alexander Vucic. The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline. The next stage is the commissioning of the TANAP gas pipeline, through which gas will flow into Turkey and further to Europe. --- Follow the author on Twitter:@Lyaman_Zeyn Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 4 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: A delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of Turkmenistan has recently taken part in the Agriscape-2018 exhibition and conference in Abu Dhabi, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message. The event is dedicated to the attraction of investments in agriculture and food safety issues. The organizer was the Abu Dhabi Food Security Center. Turkmenistan is working to ensure food security in the country, to expand exports of products manufactured in Turkmenistan, to ensure the sufficiency of goods, to support entrepreneurship and to attract foreign investments, the message said. Earlier it was reported that 760,000 hectares of land are planned to be used for winter crops and 1.6 million tons of grain are planned to be harvested in Turkmenistan in 2019. Earlier, Turkmenistan received a special award by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for achievements in the field of food security. Shelling by militants in Syria's Hama and Idlib provinces over the past 24 hours has left four Syrian servicemen killed and another one injured, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian Reconciliation said in a statement on Saturday, Sputnik reported. "Over the past day they [militants] attacked settlements of Dejaj [in Idlib province] and Abu-Dali in Hama province. Four servicemen of the Syrian Arab Republic were killed and one serviceman was injured," the statement read. The center said it had recorded continued violations of the ceasefire regime by illegal armed groups operating in the Idlib de-escalation zone. Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with the government forces fighting against numerous opposition groups and terrorist organizations. Russia along with Turkey and Iran are guarantors of the ceasefire regime in Syria. Damascus will cooperate with Geir Pedersen, new UN special envoy for Syria, if he does not use the methods that outgoing envoy Staffan de Mistura did, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said in an interview for local Al Watan newspaper, Sputnik reported. "We will cooperate with the new special envoy, Geir Pedersen, the way we did with two previous special envoys, if he refrains from using the methods of his predecessor," Mekdad said. He went on to cite other conditions for Damascus' cooperation with Pedersen. "He must declare his commitment to Syrian territorial integrity and to the people of the Syrian Arab Republic; he cannot take the side of the terrorists like his predecessor did; he should stand for the ideals and the superior values enshrined in the UN Charter, which aim at ensuring people's freedom within the framework of the terrorism fight," Mekdad said. On October 31, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that he had appointed the Norwegian diplomat to serve as his Special Envoy for Syria, replacing outgoing envoy de Mistura. Pedersen has significant diplomatic experience, including serving as Norway's Representative to the Palestinian Authority from 1998 to 2003, as ambassador to the United Nations from 2012 to 2017 and ambassador to China since. At the United Nations, Pedersen served in various roles, including as Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for Southern Lebanon and as Director of the Asia and Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs. New Caledonia, a French island territory in the Pacific, located 18,000 kilometers (11,000 miles) from France, has begun voting in an independence referendum, with about 175,000 people able to cast their vote at 284 polling stations. If a majority of voters do not support the independence bid, a new vote could be held in two years, Sputnik reports. According to recent surveys, conducted on the island, from 63 to 75 percent of people are poised to vote against breaking away from France. French President Emmanuel Macron stated in May that "France would be less beautiful without New Caledonia." With a population of some 269,000, New Caledonia has been under French control since it was colonized in 1853. Native Kanaks represent about 40 percent of the island's population. The island now holds the status of a French special collectivity with its own congress and government. The territory enjoys rather broad autonomy, but issues of defense, justice, education and foreign affairs are managed by Paris. In the late 1980s, a rising pro-independence sentiment led to intense clashes between pro-independence Kanaks and inhabitants of European descent who opposed independence. In 1988, the Matignon Accord proposed an end to direct French rule, while the 1998 Noumea accord set the timetable for a vote on the territory's independence from France to be held in 2018. Over the past few decades, New Caledonia has turned into a multinational region. It has been one of the most economically attractive territories in the Pacific and has seen high levels of migration, mostly from neighboring Asian countries. Additionally, New Caledonia remains one of Frances most attractive travel destinations. It is also rich in mineral resources, including nickel, cobalt, chrome, iron, manganese, silver, gold, lead, and copper. In particular, New Caledonia produces 10 percent of the worlds nickel. However, in economic terms, the island is largely dependent on France, which ensures 30 percent of its public spending. Prices in the French special collectivity are 20% higher than the Eurozone average, and the levels of unemployment remain high due to numerous social and ethnic inequalities. Militants of the Taliban radical movement have captured a joint Afghan National Army (ANA) and police forces base in Afghanistan's central Uruzgan province, Sputnik International reported citing the Pajhwok news agency. According to the Pajhwok, citing a local official, 25 servicemen and police officers were stationed at the base, located in the city of Terinkot. There is no information on the number of security personnel killed or injured in the attack. The Taliban also seized weapons and vehicles from the military base. Uruzgan provincial council confirmed the incident but provided no details on the issue. Later in the day, Tolo News broadcaster reported that two militants of the Taliban movement were killed and three others were injured in a separate clash with Afghan security forces in northern Balkh province. At the same time, seven Daesh fighters were killed in a foreign airstrike in Nangarhar province, according to the media. Afghanistan has long been suffering from unstable political, social and security issues due to the activity of the Daesh terrorist group and the Taliban. The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces are currently conducting joint offensive operations to combat terrorism across the country. Turkey will not allow the exploitation of gas reserves in Turkish and north Cypriot waters of the eastern Mediterranean, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, Reuters reports. The eastern Mediterranean is believed to be rich in natural gas, and attempts to tap resources there have revived tensions between Turkey and Greece, which has a defense protection pact with the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government. Turkey and Cyprus have overlapping claims of marine jurisdiction and both plan to carry out exploratory drills this year. Ankara only has diplomatic relations with a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the island that is not recognized by other countries. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the delivery of a naval corvette and submarine, Erdogan said countries that thought they could operate in the east Mediterranean or Aegean seas without Ankaras agreement were mistaken. We will not accept attempts to extract natural resources in our country, Cyprus or in the eastern Mediterranean, Erdogan said. US President Donald Trump slammed US Democrat Senator from Indiana Joe Donnelly for allegedly doing "what Russia did" in his election campaign, saying that Donnelly was trying to "steal the election", according to Sputnik. According to a recent poll by US TV channel NBC News and Marist Institute for Public Opinion, Donnelly, who has been serving as US Senator from Indiana since 2012, currently has support of 48 percent of voters, while his major Republican opponent Mike Braun is only two percent behind. "Rumor has it that Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana is paying for Facebook ads for his so-called opponent on the libertarian ticket. Donnelly is trying to steal the election? Isnt that what Russia did!?" Trump posted on Twitter. On November 6, US voters will cast ballots to fill 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, one-third of the 100-member Senate and other local and state positions. The outcome of the 2018 midterms will determine if the Republican Party can maintain control of both chambers of Congress. Washington has repeatedly accused Moscow of meddling in the 2016 presidential election in the United States, imposing several rounds of sanctions against Russia in reliance to this alleged meddling, among other issues. Russia has strongly refuted all allegations as unfounded. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump lauded his wife Melania for being a great first lady, and acknowledged that it was not easy to be FLOTUS while being married to him, Sputnik reports. But it seems that Melania has been successfully handling her role, having once again shown loyalty to her husband. The First Lady of the United States Melania Trump has largely steered clear of politics in the run-up to the midterms, but just a few days before Election Day she seems to have joined her husbands crusade against the Democrats and fake news. In a fundraising email sent by the Republican National Committee on Saturday, Melania called on Americans to support President Donald Trump to help prove that the Democrats and media are wrong. Democrats and the opposition media are doing everything they possibly can to discredit Donald with false accusations by spreading their fake news and making it appear that he does not have the support of Americas voter, FLOTUS wrote in the email. The letter continued: This is a battle we must win together. Im asking you and other Americans across the country to personally register your support and help prove that the Democrats and media are wrong. Until now, the first lady had been more focused on promoting her Be Best initiative, which deals with issues such as child welfare, opioid abuse and online bullying. Last month, she embarked on her first solo tour of Africa, having visited four countries in five days to advance childrens well-being issues, such as education, hunger, poverty, and disease. The midterm elections to the US Congress are set to be held on November 6, with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate being up for grabs. On Friday, a White House spokesperson announced that the US first family had already cast their votes via absentee ballots in New York a few weeks ago. The mayor of a Utah city was killed in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday in an apparent insider attack, the states lieutenant governor said, Reuters reported. The death of Brent Taylor, mayor of North Ogden and a member of the Utah National Guard, was confirmed by Utah Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox, who posted a tribute on Facebook. I hate this, Cox wrote. Im struggling for words. I love Mayor Taylor, his amazing wife Jennie and his 7 sweet kids. Taylor had left his position in North Ogden, a city of around 17,000 people about 45 miles (70 km) north of Salt Lake City, earlier this year to serve in Afghanistan. It was his fourth deployment, according to The Deseret News, a Utah newspaper. The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan said in a statement on Saturday that a U.S. armed forces member was killed but did not identify him. Initial reports indicate the attacker was a member of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. Initial reports also indicate the attacker was immediately killed by other Afghan Forces, the mission said in a statement. The attack was the latest in a series of green-on-blue incidents in which members of the Afghan forces have killed U.S. or coalition advisers this year, and it followed the death of a Czech soldier in the western province of Herat last month. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said in September that training and vetting of Afghan forces was being stepped up to minimize such attacks, and that some training and advisory operations have been scaled back while security is assessed. Last month, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Scott Miller, escaped unhurt when the bodyguard of a provincial governor opened fire on a group of U.S. and Afghan officials in the southern province of Kandahar. A week ago, Taylor urged Americans to vote in Tuesdays congressional elections, saying he hoped whether the Republicans or the Democrats win, that we all remember that we have far more as Americans that unites us than divides us. KYODO NEWS - Nov 4, 2018 - 21:07 | World, All Residents of New Caledonia voted against cutting ties with France on Sunday by a tighter-than-expected margin in the territory's long-awaited independence referendum. Local media estimated the final result to be 57 percent to 43 percent in favor of remaining a French overseas territory, with official figures expected to be announced Monday. Independence has long been a goal of indigenous people in the semi-autonomous territory, who were dispossessed of their traditional lands in 1853 when the French took control of the archipelago. Voter turnout was almost 80 percent in the referendum, which asked eligible voters: "Do you want New Caledonia to accede to full sovereignty and become independent?" Voters from both sides of the divide were pleasantly surprised by the high turnout, with many saying it reinforced the legitimacy of the result. "This is a vote for our country's future so I'm glad people took it seriously," said Edmond Lecomte, who was watching live results at a viewing party held by the anti-independence group Republicains Caledonie. Anti-independence supporters said they were relieved by the result. "We're not ready for independence," said Rocky Gutugutuua, who was at the same viewing party. "We're not ready to manage a country on our own, and the pro-independence groups have not been able to explain how they will." But members of the pro-independence movement also celebrated the result with flags and dancing in the street outside the headquarters of a pro-independence party. Despite losing the overall vote, Jean-Louis Koroma, secretary general of the pro-independence group Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste, said the level of support for independence was higher than anyone was expecting. "The (French) loyalists said that we would not even be able to win 30 percent of the vote, but we have done so much better than that," he said. "This is also a victory, in a way." Although the majority of voters chose to stay part of France, an agreement drawn up 20 years ago between the French government, pro-independence and French loyalist groups allows for two extra referendums to occur in 2020 and again in 2023, if necessary. Koroma said that he and other pro-independentists will immediately regroup and start working toward the next referendum. "This was an important step in the transition, and now we will keep up the momentum for the future," he said. Calls for New Caledonia to become a sovereign nation overwhelmingly come from the territory's indigenous Melanesian people, the Kanaks, who comprise almost 40 percent of the population. "Throughout the 1970s, New Caledonia watched the winds of liberty going through other Melanesian countries in the Pacific like Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, so why not us?" Mickel Forrest, permanent secretary for external affairs for pro-independence group Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste, told Kyodo News. However, unlike neighboring Pacific nations, New Caledonia is a wealthy territory, and its residents enjoy a high standard of living. In 2017, the territory's per capita gross national income was almost $33,000, more than 10 times that of Vanuatu, located just to the territory's north. New Caledonia's wealth is partly due to its large nickel reserves, accounting for roughly one-quarter of the world's supply. Forrest believes income from the nickel industry will be enough to provide for the archipelago's people. "There are only 270,000 people (in New Caledonia) and we have three nickel smelters. If there is better sharing of the wealth with indigenous populations, it is possible (to support the whole economy)," the 39-year-old said. However, Christopher Gyges, campaign chief for Republicains Caledoniens, disagrees. Gyges believes the quality of life in New Caledonia is overwhelmingly due to France, which provides up to half of New Caledonia's total budget through both financial aid and in-kind support, such as paying the salaries of all of the territory's secondary school teachers. "(Without France) everybody's standard of living would go down, but especially the poor segment of the population," Gyges 34, told Kyodo News. "They are the ones who are most dependent on assistance from the government in terms of welfare." Gyges explained that as the world nickel market has gradually weakened, New Caledonia has become more dependent on France to support the industry. "Our major nickel smelter, just outside of town, would probably have had to close down without support from the French government. That would have killed our economy," he said. Also of concern to French loyalists is the growing presence of China in the Pacific. "There's a severe concern that if France pulls away, China will right away be coming in," he said, noting with concern rumors that the Vanuatu government had agreed for China to build a military base on the island. Both Vanuatu and China have both denied the speculation. However, economics aside, the issue of independence lies at the heart of how many Kanaks see their own identity reflected on the national and world stage. Emmanuel Maureureu-Gion, a 23-year-old Kanak man, said he longs to see the name of the territory changed to Kanaky New Caledonia so the Kanak identity would be better recognized globally. "In Melanesian tribes, your name is very important. When you meet a Kanak you know from their name who they are, which clan they come from, and so on, so it's very significant," he said. Although the pro-independence group lost the battle for independence on Sunday, the war is yet to be won. "Kanak is here to stay," said Koroma. KYODO NEWS - Nov 4, 2018 - 21:41 | Arts, All, Japan Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami said Sunday he will donate manuscripts of his books as well as vinyl records for an archive at Waseda University, hoping it will become a "feel-good place" on campus. "Nothing would make me happier if such a facility were of use to those who want to study my works, whether Japanese or foreigners," said Murakami in a very rare appearance in a press conference. "I hope it will be the start of an exchange not just of my works but also of cultures." The world-renowned writer acknowledged that when he was a student at the university he did not attend classes and instead very often spent time reading old books at a theater museum on campus. (Haruki Murakami (R) is pictured with Waseda University President Kaoru Kamata) "Such an experience has helped my writing," said Murakami, who entered the university in 1968 and graduated seven years later. "This kind of place is needed." Murakami, also a translator of American literature, including "The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler and "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, said, "I feel strongly that language interactions have made me grow." "I would have suffocated if I was only engaged in Japanese literature," said Murakami. "I hope (the new facility) will be a space that is open to the inside and outside." The Japanese author's novels, translated into more than 50 languages, have become a global phenomenon, propelling him to the status of likely contender for the Nobel Prize in literature. The 69-year-old said he had considered other places, including foreign universities he has worked at, as archive sites for his documents but said he chose the Japanese university because it is the school he graduated from and felt right. "After nearly 40 years of writing, there is hardly any space to put the documents such as manuscripts, related articles, whether at my home or at my office. I don't have a child so I was also worried that they may be scattered after my death," Murakami said, adding that keeping them in one location is also convenient. Murakami said he will also donate letters he exchanged with other authors and translated works to the Tokyo institution, possibly also a manuscript of his popular novel "Norwegian Wood" that he wrote in notebooks, if he can find them. He also expressed hope to launch a scholarship for researchers. The press conference, the first held by Murakami in Japan in 37 years, took place as the novelist, previously known to have avoided the spotlight, has been increasing his public appearances in recent months, including debuting as a radio show host in August. "I felt that the donation (of my archives) was very important to me so I thought I needed to properly explain," Murakami said, when asked about the reason for holding the press conference. Waseda University President Kaoru Kamata told the press conference, "We hope to establish a research base for Murakami fans around the world and scholars seeking to further study Japanese literature and culture which they will see as a must-go place." In the envisioned facility, Murakami said if possible he wants to organize a concert using his collection of over 10,000 vinyl records and also create a space that resembles his working room with audio devices and bookshelves. Murakami, who opened a cafe for jazz enthusiasts in Tokyo while still a student at Waseda University, has said music is an essential component of his career in literature. "I start working around 4 or 4:30 a.m. but the night before, just as if I am going on a field trip, I select vinyl records that I want to listen to the following day and place them by my pillow," he said. "My joy is to work while listening to those records." Murakami debuted with the novel "Hear the Wind Sing" in 1979, which won him the Gunzo literature prize for up-and-coming writers. The 1987 novel "Norwegian Wood" named after a Beatles song catapulted him to fame in Japan and around the world. He has won several foreign literary prizes, including the Franz Kafka Prize in 2006, the Jerusalem Prize in 2009 and the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award for 2016. The baby is presumed to be that of former student activist Anupama S Chandran, who has alleged her child was taken away by her father late last year without her consent. Indian economy is on the path of development as a result of various reforms. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has said in its latest report that in 2018 India's economy is growing faster than China and this year will leave it behind. The WEF states that the Indian economy will be faster than the GDP rate of China. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said in its World Economic Outlook report that this year, China's GDP will be 6.6 percent while India's growth rate will be 7.3 percent. In 2019, compared to China's 6.2 in the next year, India will grow at 7.4 percent GDP The main reason for China's economic slowdown is its trade war running with the United States. Due to trade war, China's exports are affected negatively. China was the world's fastest growing economy in 2017. At the same time, according to the central bank of India, the growth of India's GDP in 2018-19 is expected to be 7.4% In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the IMF said that in the current year, India will again achieve the status of world's fastest growing economy. This will be 0.7% higher than China. India's economic growth rate was 6.7% in the year 2017. Ranbir - Alia is one of the most lover couple in Bollywood who keeps creating buzz by sharing lovely photos. Today we will talk about parents of Ranbir Kapoor who are entertaining audience since decades. Neetu Singh and Rishi Kapoor gained lot of name and fame in Bollywood and made a clear way for their son Ranbir.Currently this couple is in New York City where Rishi Kapoor is undergoing treatment for some undisclosed medical condition. Today, actress Neetu posted a photo of the couple enjoying a walk in one of the parks of New York. Neetu shared a picture where we can see flowers in hues like yellow, orange, red, magenta and pink in the backdrop. She wrote that nature teaches us to appreciate life and such gifts. The trailer of Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumars 2.0 to be released today at 12 pm Rishi Kapoor's health has been the topic of concern since weeks now. His family urged the media not to spread rumours. Earlier their were talks that actor was suffering from blood cancer. But few days back, his good friend Rahul Rawail took to Twitter and informed that Rishi Kapoor is under medical observation in USA.The actor under the care of the finest doctors and they can only diagnose the problem, if there is one, once the investigation has been done. (Bloomberg) -- An economic development director at Amazon.com Inc. isnt happy about a Washington Post report that the e-commerce giant is in advanced talks with a Washington suburb about being the location for its second headquarters. In a tweet Saturday morning, Amazons Mike Grella addressed the genius leaking info, saying: Youre not doing Crystal City, VA any favors. And stop treating the NDA you signed like a used napkin. Grella didnt say who he thought leaked the information, nor did he address the story itself. In earlier tweets, Grella criticized another story in the Post -- owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos -- for speculating about the possible second headquarters location based on flight patterns of Bezos jet. The search team has earned his trust and the highest use of his time isnt looking at vacant buildings and land -- he has a company to run, Grella wrote. If a companys location intent was judged by where its CEO flies, Grella said in a follow-up tweet, Amazon might also go to Davos, Switzerland; Sun Valley, Idaho; Rome or Hollywood, and Google, Facebook and Tesla might be relocating to Black Rock Desert, NV," a reference to the annual Burning Man cultural festival. Grella doesnt have direct knowledge of the headquarters search and negotiations, according to a person familiar with the process. Bud Perrone, a spokesman for JBG Smith, Crystal Citys top developer, declined to comment. Amazon in 2017 announced plans to invest $5 billion and hire 50,000 people over the next 18 years. A decision is scheduled by the end of the year, with 20 cities in the U.S. and Canada in the running. The search has prompted months of speculation about the most likely winner. Many experts have named the Washington area as a front-runner given Bezos ownership of the Post and the companys stepped-up lobbying efforts. Crystal City is a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from the nations capital, that features a concentration of high rise offices, hotels and residential buildings. Story continues (Updates with JBG Smith in seventh paragraph.) --With assistance from Katherine Burton. To contact the reporters on this story: Spencer Soper in Seattle at ssoper@bloomberg.net;Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Bernard Kohn, Ros Krasny For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2018 Bloomberg L.P. Bulgaria passport Authorities in Bulgaria have clamped down on the shady sale of international passports to foreigners from some parts of Eastern Europe in exchange for bitcoin. Erring citizens of Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, and Macedonia have been allegedly involved in the perpetration of such illegal activities. Officials Arrested The citizenship issuance which was authorized by Bulgarian officials has landed suspected officials in the police net. Among those who were apprehended by the Prosecutors General Office are Bulgarian State Agency for Bulgarians matters abroad Peter Haralampiev, General Secretary Krasimir Tomov and the member of the agency Mark Stoyov. Corroborating the apprehension of these officials, the Chief Prosecutor of the State Ivan Geshev stated: Peter Haralampiev, Krasimir Tomov, and Mark Stoyov have been arrested for fraud with the issuance of Bulgarian passports to Ukrainian, Moldovan and Macedonian citizens. While the legal counsels of the accused officials have denied their clients involvement in the receipt of unauthorized payments, the Prosecutor General insists that they have evidence to prove the process was facilitated with a digital asset as the means of exchange. The scandal has put the government in a bad light but the Vice Prime Minister of Bulgaria Valeri Simeonov maintains that he has no intention of relinquishing power because of the level of corruption in the agency. Apart from the involvement of government officials in this action which is punishable by the law, 20 individuals were recently detained in Bulgaria for selling the countrys passport to desperate citizens of Ukraine, Moldova, and Macedonia. The suspects allegedly received close to $5.6 thousand for just a document. Leveraging the EU Concession Bulgaria became a member state of the European Union (EU) in 2007. The EU passport provides citizens of other EU member states with the concession of traveling and living within the territories of the EU with little or no restriction. Story continues The business of selling fake passports is being leveraged by several illegal immigrants who are keen on obtaining papers to enter EU countries. An underground syndicate in Greece with a branch in the Czech Republic was swooped upon by the Europol in 2016. Five among its operators were Ukrainians while other leaders of the group were citizens of Sudan and Bangladesh. These criminals specialized in the sale of fake Schengen visas, residence permits, and drivers licenses. The fee for obtaining forged documents depended on the region of the individual involved. Immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia could obtain their passports for 3,000 to 3,500 while European citizens could pay as much as 8,000. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Busted: Bulgarian Officials Caught Selling Passports for Bitcoin appeared first on CCN. Amsterdam, 5 November 2018 - Heineken N.V. (`HEINEKEN`) (EURONEXT: HEIA; OTCQX: HEINY) today announced that it has signed definitive agreements with China Resources Enterprise, Limited (`CRE`) and China Resources Beer (Holdings) Co. Ltd. (`CR Beer`) to create a long-term strategic partnership for Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau (together `China`). In the context of this partnership, HEINEKEN will become CRE`s 40% minority partner in holding company CRH (Beer) Limited (`CBL`), which controls CR Beer, the undisputed market leader in the world`s largest beer market, China. The terms of the signed definitive agreements are in line with the non-binding agreements previously announced in HEINEKEN`s media release on 3 August 2018. Chairmen statements Commenting on the strategic partnership, HEINEKEN Chairman of the Executive Board & CEO Jean-Francois van Boxmeer said: "I am pleased we have quickly come to definitive agreements with CRE and CR Beer to join forces in China. Our long-term strategic partnership will help HEINEKEN to significantly expand the availability of the Heineken brand, and will strengthen CR Beer`s offering in the rapidly growing premium beer segment in China. We look forward to growing together by leveraging HEINEKEN`s global reach and marketing capabilities to help accelerate the international development of CR Beer`s Chinese beer brands worldwide." Chen Lang, Chairman of CRE, said: "We are looking forward to join forces with HEINEKEN in China. We believe that our strategic alliance will maximize synergies, enhance the long-term competitiveness of both companies and further increase our market share in China`s premium beer market. It will bring together the competitive advantages of HEINEKEN`s international premium brands with CR Beer`s leading position and rich experience in the Chinese beer market. In HEINEKEN we found the perfect partner to achieve our ambitions in China and to support our international business growth. We now look forward to closing the transaction." Story continues Next steps Completion of the strategic partnership between HEINEKEN, CRE and CR Beer and the Company Transactions are subject to customary and applicable (including regulatory) approvals. If regulatory approval is successfully obtained, the transaction is expected to complete in 2019. Further announcements will be made as and when appropriate. Strategic rationale and background As part of the strategic partnership, HEINEKEN China`s current operations will be combined with CR Beer`s operations and HEINEKEN will license the Heineken brand in China to CR Beer on a long-term basis. China`s beer market, the world`s largest beer market by volume, is now the second largest premium beer market globally and is forecast to be the biggest contributor to premium volume growth in the next five years, driven by its rapidly growing middle class. Profitability of the Chinese beer market is expected to improve significantly, driven by premiumisation, demand for international beer brands and cost optimisation. The combination of HEINEKEN and CR Beer in China is highly complementary. CR Beer has a best-in-class route to market (RTM) network, a wide brewery footprint and a deep understanding of the Chinese market. HEINEKEN has proven premium brand building capabilities and a world-class international brand portfolio, led by the iconic Heineken brand for which it has built strong equity over the years in China. Under the strategic partnership agreement, HEINEKEN will be CRE`s exclusive partner for international premium lager beers in China. HEINEKEN and CR Beer will investigate which other premium brands from HEINEKEN`s portfolio can be licensed to CR Beer in China. HEINEKEN and CRE will also investigate if the Dutch brewer`s global presence and marketing capabilities can be leveraged to support and accelerate the international growth of CR Beer`s Snow brand and its other Chinese brands to become the Chinese beers of choice. Terms of the binding agreements The geographical coverage of the strategic partnership with CRE and CR Beer is China. Under the binding agreements, HEINEKEN and CRE or CR Beer (as applicable) will enter into the following transactions simultaneously: 1) HEINEKEN will acquire a shareholding of 40% in CBL and CRE will own the other 60% in CBL. The Partnership will be governed by a shareholders agreement. CBL holds a controlling interest of 51.67% in CR Beer, a company listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited, operating the beer business in China. Post completion of the transaction, HEINEKEN will have an effective 20.67% economic interest in CR Beer (see appendix for shareholder structure overview) and will accordingly expect to get representation on the board of CBL and of CR Beer. HEINEKEN will invest a total amount of HK$24.3 billion in CBL, which translates into an implied purchase price of HK$36.31 per share in CR Beer. 2) CRE will acquire 5.2 million Heineken N.V. shares (equivalent to a 0.9% shareholding in Heineken N.V.) which are currently held in treasury for a total consideration of 464 million or 88.66 per share. 3) HEINEKEN will contribute its operating entities in China, including three breweries, into CR Beer for a total consideration of HK$2.4 billion, through a share sale transaction. Combined, these transactions will result in a net investment of 1,948 million (at exchange rates on 3 August 2018) by HEINEKEN. 4) HEINEKEN and CR Beer will enter into a Trademark License Agreement (TMLA) for the Heineken brand in China. HEINEKEN and CR Beer also signed a Framework Agreement to govern the use of other premium brands owned by HEINEKEN which may be licensed to CR Beer in China, as well as to allow CR Beer to leverage HEINEKEN`s global distribution channels to support and accelerate the international growth of CR Beer`s Snow brand and its other Chinese brands. Upon completion HEINEKEN`s pro-forma net debt/EBITDA (beia) ratio is expected to slightly exceed the target of 2.5x. HEINEKEN remains committed to return to the long-term target of below 2.5x. The transaction will be immediately accretive to margins and accretive to EPS in the near term. Press enquiries John-Paul Schuirink E-mail: pressoffice@heineken.com Tel: +31-20-5239-355 Michael Fuchs E-mail: pressoffice@heineken.com Tel: +31-20-5239-355 Investor and analyst enquiries Federico Castillo Martinez E-mail: investors@heineken.com Tel: +31-20-5239-590 Chris MacDonald / Aris Hernandez E-mail: investors@heineken.com Tel: +31-20-5239-590 Editorial information About HEINEKEN HEINEKEN is the world`s most international brewer. It is the leading developer and marketer of premium beer and cider brands. Led by the Heineken brand, the Group has a portfolio of more than 300 international, regional, local and speciality beers and ciders. We are committed to innovation, long-term brand investment, disciplined sales execution and focused cost management. Through "Brewing a Better World", sustainability is embedded in the business and delivers value for all stakeholders. HEINEKEN has a well-balanced geographic footprint with leadership positions in both developed and developing markets. We employ over 80,000 employees and operate breweries, malteries, cider plants and other production facilities in more than 70 countries. Heineken N.V. and Heineken Holding N.V. shares trade on the Euronext in Amsterdam. Prices for the ordinary shares may be accessed on Bloomberg under the symbols HEIA NA and HEIO NA and on Reuters under HEIN.AS and HEIO.AS. HEINEKEN has two sponsored level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) programmes: Heineken N.V. (HEINY) and Heineken Holding N.V. (HKHHY). Most recent information is available on HEINEKEN`s website: www.theHEINEKENcompany.com and follow us on Twitter via @HEINEKENCorp. About China Resources Enterprise, Limited Founded in 1992, China Resources Enterprise, Limited is the Hong Kong flagship subsidiary of China Resources (Holdings) Company Limited in the comprehensive consumer goods and retail services businesses. The Company focuses on three businesses: beer, food and beverage. For the beer division, China Resources Beer (Holdings) Company Limited is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code 291.HK. It is the parent company of China Resources Snow Breweries Limited, the largest beer manufacturer, seller and distributor in China. Since 2008, "Snow" has become the world`s best-selling single beer brand by volume. Market Abuse Regulation This press release may contain inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation. Please click here for full media release. This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: HEINEKEN NV via GlobeNewswire HUG#2223831 ISLA, Mexico (AP) Hundreds of Central American migrants from a 4,000-strong caravan winding its way through southern Mexico and toward the U.S. border splintered off on their own Saturday after broken promises of bus transportation. Patience appeared to be wearing thin among the exhausted trekkers after Veracruz Gov. Miguel Angel Yunes reneged on an offer Friday to provide buses to leapfrog the migrants to the Mexican capital. Tempers flared as the migrants struggled with exhaustion, blisters, sickness and swollen feet. Caravan organizers have pleaded for buses in recent days after three weeks on the road, hitching rides and walking. The group scattered between several towns in Veracruz Saturday, raising questions of whether they would stick together. Several thousand planned to spend the night in Isla, about 700 miles (1,126 kilometers) south of the U.S. border, while another large contingent hunkered down in Juan Rodriguez Clara and yet another reached Tierra Blanca, 80 miles (129 kilometers) to the north. In a statement, the migrants lambasted Mexican officials for directing them northward through the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, calling it the "route of death." Some migrants branched off in the belief that they were near the metropolises of Puebla and Mexico City, where they aimed to rest and receive medical attention. A trek via the sugar fields and fruit groves of Veracruz takes them through a state where hundreds of migrants have disappeared in recent years, falling prey to kidnappers looking for ransom payments. Authorities in Veracruz said in September they had discovered remains from at least 174 people buried in clandestine graves. Some security experts have questioned whether those bodies belonged to migrants. Ibis Villanueva, 32, said he decided to strike out on his own for Puebla because he felt frustrated by the lack of organization in the caravan. "We don't believe the coordinators anymore. Yesterday they said we were going on bus, today no," said the sunburned welder from Honduras. Story continues Gerardo Perez, a 20-year-old migrant, said he was tired. "They're playing with our dignity. If you could have only seen the people's happiness last night when they told us that we were going by bus and today we're not," he said. The caravan's 'strength in numbers' strategy has enabled them to mobilize support as they move through Mexico and has inspired subsequent migrants to try their luck via caravan. Mexico now faces the unprecedented situation of having three caravans stretched over 300 miles (500 kilometers) of highway in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, with a total of more than 6,000 migrants. On Friday, a caravan from El Salvador waded over the Suchiate River into Mexico, bringing 1,000 to 1,500 people who want to reach the U.S. border. That caravan initially tried to cross the bridge between Guatemala and Mexico, but Mexican authorities told them they would have to show passports and visas and enter in groups of 50 for processing. Another caravan, also of about 1,000 to 1,500 people, entered Mexico earlier this week and is now in Chiapas. That group includes Hondurans, Salvadorans and some Guatemalans. The first, largest group of mainly Honduran migrants entered Mexico on Oct. 19. At its peak that caravan swelled to an estimated 7,000 participants. Mexican officials appear conflicted over whether to help or hinder their journeys. Immigration agents and police have at times detained migrants in the smaller caravans. There has also been pressure on the main caravan, with federal police pulling over freight trucks and forcing migrants off, saying that clinging to the tops or sides of the trucks was dangerous. But several mayors have rolled out the welcome mat for migrants who reached their towns - arranging for food and camp sites. Mexico's Interior Department says nearly 3,000 of the migrants in the first caravan have applied for refuge in Mexico and hundreds more have returned home. With or without the government's help, uncertainty awaits. President Donald Trump has ordered U.S. troops to the Mexican border in response to the caravans. More than 7,000 active duty troops have been told to deploy to Texas, Arizona and California ahead of the midterm elections. He plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum. __ Associated Press writer Amy Guthrie in Mexico City contributed to this report. Shares of California Water Service Group (NYSE:CWT) will begin trading ex-dividend in 3 days. To qualify for the dividend check of US$0.19 per share, investors must have owned the shares prior to 08 November 2018, which is the last day the companys management will finalize their list of shareholders to which they will send dividend payments. Is this future income a persuasive enough catalyst for investors to think about California Water Service Group as an investment today? Below, Im going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. See our latest analysis for California Water Service Group 5 checks you should do on a dividend stock If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics: Does it pay an annual yield higher than 75% of dividend payers? Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout? Has dividend per share amount increased over the past? Is is able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings? Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future? NYSE:CWT Historical Dividend Yield November 4th 18 Does California Water Service Group pass our checks? The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 61%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting lower payout ratio of 54%, leading to a dividend yield of around 2.0%. However, EPS should increase to $1.37, meaning that the lower payout ratio does not necessarily implicate a lower dividend payment. When thinking about whether a dividend is sustainable, another factor to consider is the cash flow. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow. If there is one thing that you want to be reliable in your life, its dividend stocks and their constant income stream. In the case of CWT it has increased its DPS from $0.58 to $0.75 in the past 10 years. During this period it has not missed a payment, as one would expect for a company increasing its dividend. These are all positive signs of a great, reliable dividend stock. Story continues Compared to its peers, California Water Service Group produces a yield of 1.8%, which is on the low-side for Water Utilities stocks. Next Steps: Keeping in mind the dividend characteristics above, California Water Service Group is definitely worth considering for investors looking to build a dedicated income portfolio. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. There are three essential factors you should look at: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for CWTs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for CWTs outlook. Historical Performance: What has CWTs returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Thousands of people attended the funeral of Maulana Sami ul-Haq, a prominent Pakistani cleric known as the "father of the Afghan Taliban," in Pakistan's northwestern city of Noshera on November 3. Sami ul-Haq, 81, was killed in a knife attack at his home in the city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, on November 2. The funeral was held under tight security and was also attended by the governor and the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, as well as leaders of political and religious parties. Local TV channel Geo News quoted the clerics son, Hamid ul-Haq, as saying he was stabbed to death by unidentified attackers. "My father was his on way to a sit-in protest in Islamabad. He returned to his house due to closure of roads and went to his bedroom. Later, he was found dead in pool of blood, Hamid ul-Haq told Geo News. Police say that the motive behind the killing was not immediately known and no group has so far claimed responsibly for the attack. The killing prompted scores of Sami ul-Haq's supporters to riot, damaging shops and vehicles in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The clerics family appealed to his followers to remain peaceful. For decades, Sami ul-Haq ran an Islamic school -- the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary -- that educated several key Taliban leaders. The madrasah is located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistans northwest. One of his students from the 1980s, known later as Mullah Mohammad Omar, went on to found the Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in 1996 after years of chaos and civil war following the Soviet Union's military withdrawal. Sami ul-Haq was known as the father of the Afghan Taliban due to the immense influence and respect he enjoyed among the leaders of the militant group. He was the head of his faction of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam party and was twice elected as member of the Senate, the upper house of Pakistan's parliament. Pakistani media reported that he had been aligned with Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Party during for the July 25 elections, which the party won. Prime Minister Imran Khan, currently on an official visit to Beijing, condemned the killing and ordered an investigation, his office said in a statement. In recent weeks, dozens of Afghan clerics had appealed to Sami ul-Haq to use his influence with Afghanistan's Taliban to help convince the militant group to begin peace negotiations. With reporting by AP, Reuters, dawn.com People used to tell me that they loved to come to the Cotton Club because they felt so at home there. It was easy to find and hard to leave, Fannie Mae Duncan once said. Duncan, who succeeded against all odds as an African-American woman entrepreneur in the Pikes Peak region before, during and after the civil rights movement, is the subject of a new Rocky Mountain PBS series on Colorado Experience. The 30-minute Part One airs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and Part Two is at the same time Nov. 15. The full-hour episode will be available to stream at rmpbs.org starting Thursday. Kate Perdoni, Colorado Springs-based producer for RMPBS, was given the chance to produce an episode of Colorado Experience and was inspired to focus on Duncan with encouragement from Kathleen Esmiol, author of the 2013 book Everybody Welcome A Memoir of Fannie Mae Duncan and the Cotton Club. It was supposed to be a half-hour program, Perdoni said. But she had more than enough material for an hour thanks to the Pikes Peak Library Districts special collections, the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum and interviews with Duncans family members and former employees. Duncan graduated from the integrated Colorado Springs High School (now Palmer High) in 1938, the first in her family to get a diploma. She went on to serve at the segregated soda fountain at what was then Camp Carson and, after a few years, decided to go into business for herself at age 26. Duncan bought the building that would become Duncans Cafe and later the Cotton Club at 25 W. Colorado Ave., across from the Antlers hotel, when she was just 28. Opening a business in downtown Colorado Springs as a young black woman was unheard of at that time, Perdoni said. Racism was so part of the culture in America at that time no matter where you were. In that era of segregation, Duncan invited people of all colors to eat, drink, dance and listen to live jazz at her club. She resisted the police chief at the time who said she couldnt serve whites, and also so many white people complained that they wanted to see the acts she was booking. Ultimately, the police just let her be, Perdoni said. Duncans Everybody Welcome motto and sign posted in her club window brought her success. She hired many of the great entertainers of the day, including Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Etta James, Sammy Davis Jr., BB King and Fats Domino. Duncan also founded the 400 Club in Colorado Springs, which provided for people in need regardless of race or religion. And she turned a local mansion into a place where blacks who werent welcome at local hotels could stay. For nearly 30 years, Duncan ran the Cotton Club and built the block up to include several other businesses a hair salon, barbershop, barbecue restaurant and record shop. That ended in 1975 when the city took over the property through eminent domain and tore it down as part of an urban renewal program. By 1975, the Cotton Club had fallen out of favor with the city fathers, The Gazette reported. The city gave her $168,000 for the buildings she owned, over her objections. Duncan and her family were so devastated. It happened because there were people who didnt want African-American businesses across from the Antlers. She had really wanted to pass this down to her family, to continue her legacy and wasnt given that chance. There was nothing she could do, Perdoni said. Embittered, Duncan moved in 1981 to Denver, where she died in 2005. Her legacy as a pioneer in race relations lives on in Colorado Springs, where an annual diversity festival, Everybody Welcome, was established in 2005 and has become part of the annual What IF... celebration. I like to think I honored Duncans legacy with the documentary, Perdoni said. Just to be at the screening, to watch the film in a crowd of people who were laughing and cheering and crying and to share it with the community was such a cool experience. A bronze statue of Duncan by Fort Collins artist Lori Kiplinger Pandy will be erected in front of the Pikes Peak Center early next year. A celebration, Everybodys Welcome, is slated for 5-7 p.m. Nov. 14 at Studio Bee to honor Duncan and raise money for the effort. Tickets are $55 and are available at pikespeakcenter.com. This photo shows stones placed on a memorial Wednesday to Irv Younger who was killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Will a blue wave wash over Colorado? Here's what to watch on election night | Cronin and Loevy Jesus was a refugee. So were Abraham, Joseph and Moses, who led millions of Israelites out of captivity in Egypt. Biblical passages about immigrants harken back to this Exodus experience. When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt (Leviticus 19:33-34). Today, refugee is a fighting word and red-hot political issue. The man who killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27 railed about HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), which helps Jewish refugees. HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people, wrote the gunman in a final social media post before his deadly attack. For the Springs-based Greenberg Center for Learning and Tolerance, theres no better time than the present for the community to explore the issue. The Center is partnering with the Rocky Mountain Womens Film Festival to host Refugees: A Journey to Understanding on Nov. 12. The free event includes a screening of the documentary film, This Is Home: A Refugee Story, followed by a discussion featuring the filmmaker, a local refugee and a representative of Lutheran Family Services, which has helped settle hundreds of refugees in the Springs area. Founded by David and Paulette Greenberg, recipients of Temple Shaloms 2003 Humanitarian Award, the Greenberg Center promotes learning, understanding and acceptance that honors the cultural dignity of all mankind. This Is Home, which won an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival, follows four refugee families from Syria over the course of eight months as they settle in Baltimore. The families deal with common logistical concerns (navigating language barriers, finding work, getting their kids enrolled in school, understanding public transportation) at a time when the Trump administrations new travel ban put a stop to further immigration from Syria. Filmmakers are drawn to whats happening culturally, said Sarah Mishler, marketing director of the Rocky Mountain Womens Film Festival, which also partnered with Benet Hill Monastery to screen the film there. Mishler said This Is Home rapidly rose to the top tier of the 750 films considered for this years 31st annual film festival. It has a strong story that reflects where were at in society by exploring different angles of this issue and how we handle them, she said. The world had more than 68 million refugees in 2017, an all-time high, according to UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has cut the number of refugees whom America will accept in 2019 to 30,000, a four-decade low. Trump announced his candidacy with a 2015 speech depicting Mexicans who come to the U.S. as rapists and people who have lots of problems, including drugs and crime. Last month, Trump ordered military troops to the border to halt members of a migrant caravan traveling from Latin America toward the U.S. The president said the caravan included criminals and unknown Middle Easterners and claimed it was funded by Jewish financiers and Democratic activists. Amid all the claims and counterclaims, organizers hope the local event generates more light than heat. The debate in our current political climate surrounding the topics of immigrants and refugees is deeply divisive, said Will Stoller-Lee, who works with Fuller Seminary and serves as program chair for the Greenberg Center. We wanted to host an event to hopefully change the tone of this debate. Who are these refugees who are coming to our community? How are they selected? What is the resettlement and assimilation process for them? We believe this film and panel discussion will offer the attendees a chance to explore these complicated issues and view the newest arrivals to our community through the lens of empathy and understanding. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. The Gazette is examining the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Nathaniel Czajkowski, whose death remains unsolved, in its new weekly podcast, Colorado Cold Case. Episode two, The Day After, is available today for free download, along with previous episodes, at gazette.com/coldcase. In this episode, we begin to piece together the scenes of two shootings. What do we know? What do we still need to find out? Follow along as we build this case. PODCAST: Colorado Cold Case In Colorado Springs, there are at least 108 cold cases dating back to 1949. Listen, and maybe you can help us solve these cases. Contact the writer at 719-636-0362 or find her on Twitter: @njKaitlinDurbin. This week may be all about Halloween, but it is also a good time to start thinking ahead to Thanksgiving. Silver Key Senior Services is prepar EDITORIAL: Church security can't be an afterthought around Colorado Springs and beyond BILL OWENS | You are the state's CEO; take time to sit at your desk and do your job Editor's note: A previous version of this story identified the cooperative as Wood Source Fuels. It has been corrected to Forest Management & Marketing Limited. In 2002, a massive blowdown and a spruce beetle infestation snatched the life from hundreds of thousands of trees in the Rio Grande National Forest in south-central Colorado. Forest Supervisor Dan Dallas thought he had time to make the best of the destruction. A similar beetle infestation in the 1940s that had impacted 60 percent of a 225-square-mile portion of the Flattop Mountains resulted in Dallas counterparts from that era logging high-quality timber for homebuilding through the 1990s. Dallas estimated he had 20 to 30 years to do the same in the Rio Grande. But just a decade after the lush conifers in the Rio Grande were attacked, he found that some of the trees had deteriorated to the point that they would be worthless to traditional markets. Without a market, Dallas role becomes custodial, waiting for a stray spark to ignite. The way were going now with the current forest dynamics, I am going to have limited management ability, Dallas said. Theres no way I can actively manage the spruce zone unless something changes. But change potentially is on the horizon: With the help of visionary private investors and a $200,000 U.S. Forest Service grant, an unprecedented multistakeholder cooperative could equip the Rio Grande and forests throughout the United States with tools for landscape-scale management. The perfect lab When Phil Seligman looked at the Rio Grande National Forest in early 2013, he saw land that was ripe for wildfire. This place was ready to pop, said the president of Wood Source Fuels, noting that intense drought and beetle kill facilitated the explosion of the 109,615-acre West Fork Complex fire later that summer. In Colorado, more than half a million acres of trees were impacted by insects and diseases in 2017, Colorado state Forest Service reported. For the sixth year in a row, spruce beetle was the states most widespread and damaging forest insect pest, with 206,000 acres of active infestations detected, about 67,000 of which were new. Since 2002, 617,000 acres of high and midelevation forests in the Rio Grande have been infested by spruce beetles. Although spruce beetle activity has decreased dramatically (from 93,000 acres in 2016 to 47,000 acres in 2017). Seligman has shipped timber with Union Pacific Railroad for more than 10 years, building a network of partners in the logging industry across the country. In 2010, he became involved with biomass after Tri-State Generation & Transmission asked him and Nate Anderson, a research forester with the Rocky Mountain Research Station, to conduct a study on the viability of generating electricity from biomass at the Nucla Station power plant. He estimated that biomass was almost as cheap as coal. Although Tri-State passed on the opportunity to adopt biomass as a fuel source, the study planted the seed of cooperative forest management in Seligmans mind. Seligman then arrived in the San Luis Valley and found a perfect lab to continue the work on biomass utilization that he and Anderson had started in Nucla. In addition to biomass, other end uses can include everything from landscape chips to animal bedding, with companies already expressing interest. Unlike in most laboratories, though, Seligmans work in the Rio Grande National Forest could alter its wildfire conditions for generations to come. An unprecedented partnership Seligman met Dallas, and the two began the uphill battle to form a cooperative that engages every player in the biomass market: buyers in the across the county and overseas, Union Pacific Railroad, an insurance company, tire distributor and forestry equipment dealer, among others. After years of arduous negotiations, Seligman secured a $231,700 Wood Innovations Grant from the U.S. Forest Service in 2017 to create the cooperative Forest Management & Marketing Limited and invest in market expansion. The co-op represents people who see potential in our forests to be healthier and a resource, Dallas said. All you have to do is look at a map of the Union Pacific Railroad and see that it has tracks that go through other forests and almost any of those forests have a large scale die-off for one reason or another. Seligman said, This was a tool built for the Forest Service. We feel that working with an entity like this that gives the Forest Service necessary contracts that they need but have historically had trouble getting. A critical collaborator is the Union Pacific, which will transport the biomass to processors and producers. The cooperative plans to start construction as early as December on a chip plant in Antonito that would employ six to seven people and pull wood from the Carson and Rio Grande national forests. If Seligmans biomass estimations add up, they could build a larger biomass conversion plant that would employ about 200 people and source from the Carson, Rio Grande, San Juan and San Isabel national forests. In the Rio Grande National Forest, 3,208 acres (and growing) are available for biomass harvest. We have a continental-scale problem, so if we can involve four forests, thats a big deal, Seligman said. The extra jobs from the chip and conversion plant, the railroad, on-the-ground logging, and other related operations could bring economic help to one of Colorados most distressed counties. Between 2016 and 2017, Rio Grande County lost 11.5 percent of its businesses and 10.9 percent of its employment. Its poverty rate is 19.2 percent at a time when the state as a whole added 14.3 percent more jobs and expanded its business sector 7.2 percent. My jurisdiction starts and stops at the forest boundary, but we have a wider interest, Dallas said. The forest is an integral part of the communities in the area; were part of their fabric given our employees live here, send their kids to school here, and what not. So to the extent that we can play a larger role, well take it. A framework for proactivity At the bare minimum, that responsibility is to protect residents and the areas assets from fire. Its a challenge threatening the country and that has led to an explosion in fire suppression costs. In 2017, the costliest fire season on record, the Forest Service footed a $2.9 billion bill for more than 71,000 fires on more than 10 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Acres burned to date in 2018 have surpassed 8.2 million. When are we going to become proactive and not reactive? Seligman said. Were spending so much money on fire suppression, and the more money we divert to it (instead of mitigation), the bigger the next fire season will be. Seligman and Dallas believe the cooperative, if successful, is a key piece of that transition. The possibilities are larger than this room, larger than this forest and we know that, Dallas said. Even if (we) can change one or two of these dynamics in here, we are advancing the needs of forest management in sites across the U.S. impacted by spruce beetle, lodgepole pine and others. Twitter: @lizmforster Phone: 636-0193 Gegeyan wrote: AdityaHongunti wrote: A United States manufacturer of farm equipment reported a 1988 third-quarter net income of $32 million, compared with $25.5 million in the third quarter of 1987. This increase was realized despite a drop in United States retail sales of farm equipment toward the end of the third quarter of 1988 as a result of a drought. (B) In the third quarter of 1988, the manufacturer paid no wages during a six-week strike, but stocks on hand were adequate to supply dealers. GMATNinja b]mikemcgarry[/b] chetan2u sayantanc2k the difference between 2 incomes is around 6 million . which is a HUGE amount. and ption B says wages werent paid for 6 weeks . SO are we supposed to say that the wages which werent paid for 6 weeks made up for 6 million? i mean are we supposed to accept such huge leaps?? 6 weeks of wages make up for 6 million???? though i understand that other profits may also be there. But shoudl we be satisfied with just one source of profit? That's the exactly what I thought, so I ruled out B. Help, please? That's the exactly what I thought, so I ruled out B.Help, please? Skywalker18 wrote: Income = Revenue - Expenses The sales decreased towards the end of the third quarter, but income increased Quote: In the third quarter of 1988, the manufacturer paid no wages during a six-week strike, but stocks on hand were adequate to supply dealers. Income = Revenue - Expenses. We're trying to explain how income could go up. Revenue for this company presumably went down by some amount, but we don't know by how much. went down by some amount, but we don't know by how much. Expenses definitely went down because the company paid no wages for six weeks. We don't know how big the savings were, but knowing that absolutely $0 were paid out to workers for half of the quarter is not trivial. And even if we don't have a specific figure here, knowing that a core expense of manufacturing disappeared for half the quarter goes a long way towards explaining the logical paradox. Bottom line: A key expense went down. went down because the company paid wages for six weeks. We don't know how big the savings were, but knowing that absolutely $0 were paid out to workers for half of the quarter is not trivial. And even if we don't have a specific figure here, knowing that a core expense of manufacturing disappeared for half the quarter goes a long way towards explaining the logical paradox. Bottom line: A key expense went down. Because stocks on on hand during the strike were adequate to supply dealers, we also know that the company did not incur additional expenses specifically to make up for the lack of labor during this time. BillyZ wrote: During her presidency of the short-lived Womans State Temperance Society (1852-1853), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as she was a staunch advocate of liberalized divorce laws, scandalized many of her most ardent supporters in her suggestion that drunkenness should be made sufficient cause for divorce. (A) as she was a staunch advocate of liberalized divorce laws, scandalized many of her most ardent supporters in her suggestion that drunkenness should be (B) as she was a staunch advocate for liberalized divorce laws, scandalized many of her most ardent supporters by her suggestion of drunkenness being (C) in being a staunch advocate for liberalized divorce laws, had scandalized many of her most ardent supporters with the suggestion of drunkenness being (D) a staunch advocate of liberalized divorce laws, scandalized many of her most ardent supporters by suggesting that drunkenness be (E) a staunch advocate of liberalized divorce laws, she scandalized many of her most ardent supporters in suggesting that drunkenness should be suggested that patient walk recommended that employee take The question is an interesting mixture of modifier usage and the subjunctive mood.The first point of elimination is the use of the modifier immediately after Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The first part of the underlined portion modifies or describes Stanton. By using the conjunction as at the beginning of the modifier, the meaning is changed. Her being a staunch advocate of liberalized divorce laws was not the reason for her scandalizing many of her most ardent supporters, but the use of the conjunction as makes it sound as if it were the reason. So, Options A and B can be eliminated.Option C is not vastly different. The use of the prepositional phrase in being a staunch advocate for liberalized divorce laws also conveys the same meaning as in Options A and B.The choice comes down to D and E.Option E has two errors. One is the unnecessary pronoun she. The subject of the verb scandalized is Elizabeth Cady Stanton, so there is no need for another subject.The other error is not so much an error as it is a redundancy. In subjunctive usage, the helping verb should does not have to be mentioned. It is understood.The use of the present subjunctive:After verbs such as mandate, recommend, decide, determine, suggest etc, there is a specific construction that is used.The construction is as follows:Verb + clause beginning with the relative pronoun thatThere is also a specific construction for the clause:Verb + that + noun + verb in the base form (play, sing, eat etc.)The doctorthefor an hour everyday.Im giving below another example:E.g.: The managertheleave as he was ill.In such constructions, there is no need for a helping verb in the clause beginning with the relative pronoun. So, verbs such as must and should are redundant.Therefore, D is the most appropriate option in this question.Jayanthi Kumar._________________ barakhaiev wrote: This is a DS problem from . What is the mean age of all students of the city's schools? 1. The average age of the students in each of the city's schools is 12 2. The number of students in each of the city's schools is 70 My dad once said to me: Son, nothing succeeds like success. Signature Read More Let there be 2 schools A and BTo find. Mean age = sum of ages of students in A and B / sum of number of students in A and B= age A + age B/ no. A + no. B1. The average age of the students in each of the city's schools is 12.We have two schools A and B.For A.Avg1 = sum of ages of student in school A/ no. of student in school A12 = sum of ages of student in school A/ no. of student in school Asum of ages of student in school A = 12 * no. of student in school AAvg2=sum of ages of student in school B/ no. of student in school B12 = sum of ages of student in school B/ no. of student in school Bsum of ages of student in school B = 12 * no. of student in school BMean Age=sum of ages of student in school A+sum of ages of student in school B /no. of student in school A+ no. of student in school B= 12 * no. of student in school A + 12 * no. of student in school B/no. of student in school A+ no. of student in school B=12(no. of student in school A + no. of student in school B)/no. of student in school A+ no. of student in school B=12.Sufficient.2. The number of students in each of the city's schools is 70.Mean Age=sum of ages of student in school A+sum of ages of student in school B /no. of student in school A+ no. of student in school B= sum of ages of student in school A+sum of ages of student in school B /70+70=sum of ages of student in school A+sum of ages of student in school B /140.sum of ages of student in school A+sum of ages of student in school B --we do not know this.Insufficient.OA A._________________ As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ A man who had interned for former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime and making graffiti for allegedly writing, "Die Jew Rats," "Hitler," "End It Now" and "Jew Better Be Ready" inside a Brooklyn synagogue. Image of suspect in the Union Temple incident (NYPD) James Polite, 26, was arrested on Friday. The discovery of the graffiti at Union Temple forced the cancellation of a progressive political event and raised more worries about anti-Semitism in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that claimed 11 lives. Polite, who is bipolar, is at Woodhull Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. In a 2013 DNAinfo article, Polite said that he was kicked out of his home for being gay, and then cycled through a number of foster situations. But he met Quinn at an LGBT rally for Barack Obama in 2007, and she took him under her wing, offering him internships at the Council and later writing him a recommendation to attend Brandeis University, which accepted him. Quinn recalled in the same article, "Once he got in, I called the school to alert them that I wanted him to be watched out for and taken care of. The school must have been like, Who the hell is this pushy broad? But I just didnt want anything to go badly," and described other ways how she and her staff helped him. Polite was profiled by the NY Times last December as part of their Neediest Cases series: "Mr. Polite struggled at Brandeis. Smoking marijuana, he said, became a coping mechanism to manage his stress. He had first tried the drug at a foster home in his early teens, but in college his habit grew to three times a day. He was placed on a health leave of absence in late 2015 and required to enter a rehabilitation program. During treatment, he learned he had bipolar disorder, for which he is now medicated." On Saturday, Quinn released a statement: I am simply and utterly devastated. Devastated for the Union Temple community and the violation they have experienced due to a vile expression of bigotry and anti-Semitism. It's indefensible. The level of hatred and intolerance that has been rising in this country over the last several years in something every single American should be concerned about and should stand up against. And this is no different. I know this young man, and along tie many others in the New York City Council and social services agencies throughout the City, have done everything I could over the years to help him as he grew up in and out of the foster system, in and out of the mental health system, and in and out of homelessness. The actions he is accused of break my heart and devastate all of us who tried to help him get on solid footing over the years. And while he has experienced hardship that most people can't eve imagine, his actions are inexcusable. I stand with the Jewish community today and every day, and pray for all New Yorkers who deserve the very basic right to enter their place of worship without fearing for their lives. that Quinn "customarily checked in with Mr. Polite almost every day" but "began hearing from him less. When she did talk to him, his speech and conversations were incoherent. That meant he was off his medications. And when Mr. Polite was not on his medications, that is when some of his ramblings turned anti-Semitic." Polite allegedly also posted rants on Facebook under a different name. Friend Tykasia Daniels-Sosa expressed surprise to the Daily News, "I was shocked over what happened. He seemed to be doing good, at least from what he told me." Another friend, Mel Green, said to the News, "It's absolutely the drugs. James would never do this if he wasn't on drugs. He was always standing up for people. He's not hateful or a bigot at all." Polite was also arrested for arson as a hate crime and criminal mischief for allegedly setting fires both inside a Williamsburg synagogue and outside other Jewish places of worship. According to the Times, "The police recognized Mr. Polite from the surveillance video at Union Temple." These strikes are becoming harder and harder for the Iranian Regime to manage, primarily because they are so well organised. So, despite the Regimes suppressive measures, the strikes are continuing in full force. It is now clear from the comments of top officials that the Iranian Regime is scared of the protests getting worse and causing a full-on revolution. Many of the Regime, including former Minister of Intelligence Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi and Friday prayer leader in Lavasan Saeid Lavasani, have tried to blame the protest of the Regimes enemies, which is ironic, considering that the Regime has time and time again shown itself to be the enemy of the Iranian people. Of course, the enemy of the Iranian Regime is the Resistance, which is helping to direct and organise these protests to make them more effective. Others, like the former minister in Rouhanis cabinet Abbas Akhoundi and so-called social expert of the regime Mohammad Fazeli, believe that the protests are down to the Regimes inability to deal with the economic and social problems of the Iranian people, especially their lack of rights. This is true, but it should be noted that the Regime is only unable to deal with these problems because they genuinely dont care. The Regime could fix the problems in a very short period of time, but they wont. Instead, they are content to beat the Iranian people down in the vain hope of stopping the protests. Truckers strike Meanwhile, truckers across Iran have launched their fourth round of strikes this year, but in addition to their previous demands of fair pay and better working conditions, they are also seeking the release of their colleagues, who were arrested during the first round of strikes. In October, 17 striking truck drivers were arrested in Qazvin and charged with waging war against God; a capital offence in Iran. The Nationa Council of Resistance of Iran wrote: The Iranian Resistance calls on all youth to support the striking drivers, and calls on the labour unions and the International Labor Organization and other organizations defending the rights of workers and the working people to condemn the repressive measures taken by the Iranian regime against drivers and to support their strike to get their rights. Sport Sharjah down Khorfakkan, Bani Yas win Khorfakkan went 3-1 down to visiting Sharjah who seem to have put the international halt to perfect use as they clearly outshone their rivals away from home in the tenth round of Pro League match as the tournament returned into action following a lengthy international break. - Actor Derek Ramsay threw some words about Angelica Panganiban and Carlo Aquinos rumored status - The celebrity said that he wants his former girlfriend to find the right guy for her - He also expressed that he knows Carlo even before when he was dating Angelica PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Kapamilya celebrity Derek Ramsay took the guts to issue some statements about the rumored relationship of Angelica Panganiban and Carlo Aquino. KAMI learned that the actress is the former girlfriend and live-in partner of Derek who dated each other for more than five years. Carlo initially revealed in a previous episode of Gandang Gabi Vice that Dereks only edge to him when it comes to Angelica was his chance to live-in with the actress. In a separate interview, Derek took the opportunity to air his side on the speculations that his former partner is currently in a relationship with the Magic Temple star. Derek expressed that he hopes Angelica will find the right man for her and he believes Carlo can be the guy he is referring to. The Kapamilya heartthrob also emphasized that he used to be with Carlo before since the latter always visited them at home when Derek was still dating Angelica. He even disclosed that he wishes for the rumors about the two Exes Baggage stars to be true because he knows that they are sweet with each other. I hope so, I always said that I hope Angel would find the right guy and they used to date each other before. Carlo used to come to the house when Angel and I were dating back then so kilala ko si Carlo, Derek quipped. Id be a fan. They really, really look good together, theyre sweet together. I hope the rumors are true na nagkabalikan sila, he added. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! Meanwhile, Derek threw praises to the promising love team for the success and good reviews of Exes Baggage. He said he has yet to watch the movie but he wants to find time to finally see the full-length film because of the positive feedbacks that he has been hearing about it. I heard they did really well, hindi ko pa napapanood pero I want to see it. I heard a lot of great things about the film, the actor uttered. In a previous article by , the celebrity finally spoke up about his rumored transfer to GMA-7. Born on December 7, 1976, Derek is a British-born Filipino actor and model who was raised in Cainta, Rizal. He already starred in several romantic films including The Escort, Etiquette for Mistresses, and Ex with Benefits. POPULAR: Read more news about Derek Ramsay! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Many of you had asked us to shoot The Nun prank and we did it! So, today we are proud to present you an extraordinary lady, Scary Nun! In this episode, she is going to roam the streets of the Philippines and scare innocent people to death! (Laughs evilly) on HumanMeter! Source: Kami.com.ph Humans may have been enjoying cacao, the substance used to make chocolate, for much longer than experts had thought. Researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada have found that humans grew cacao trees and consumed cacao starting around 5,300 years ago. They published their findings in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution in late October. The researchers found evidence of cacaos use at an ancient village in the highlands of southeastern Ecuador. They examined the remains of very old objects at the Santa Ana-La Florida archeological site. The village was part of the Mayo-Chinchipe culture of the Andes. Time has had little effect on the village and ceremonial center. The researchers were able to find a lot of evidence of the use of cacao. Scientists had already mostly agreed that cacao was first domesticated in South America instead of Central America, as they once believed. But the new discovery shows cacao was domesticated about 1,500 years earlier than was known before. The scientists found evidence of cacao being used at the site from 5,300 to 2,100 years ago. Cameron McNeil is a professor at Lehman College in New York. She is editor of the book Chocolate in Mesoamerica. She told the Associated Press that Santa Ana-La Florida is the earliest site now with domesticated cacao. McNeil was not involved in the new research. The University of British Columbia researchers found extremely small pieces from the cacao tree in the remains of containers and other objects, as well as genetic material from the tree. They also identified a substance found in the cacao tree but not in its wild relatives. This suggests that humans grew the tree for food purposes. A tropical tree known as Theobroma cacao produces large, round pods that contain the bean-like cacao seeds. A soft, light-colored substance covers each seed. Today, the seeds are cooked and turned into many chocolate products. But thousands of years ago, cacao was used to make drinks. Michael Blake is a professor of archaeology at the University of British Columbia who helped lead the study. He said that the objects on which cacao was found suggest a lot about how people used the substance at the time. They clearly drank it, Blake told the Reuters news service. There is no established history of indigenous populations in South or Central America using cacao to make chocolate the way people do now, the researchers reported. Indigenous populations in the upper Amazon area today still use cacao to make special drinks, they added. Archeological evidence suggests cacao domestication moved into Central America and Mexico about 4,000 years ago. It is not clear how cacaos use spread between South and Central America. But by the time Spanish explorers arrived in Central America in the late 1400s, people were using it to make hot and cold chocolate drinks with spices. By the 1580s, Spain began importing cacao and spreading it to other European countries. By the 1800s, technology developed in the Netherlands made it possible to turn cacao into a solid chocolate product. Michael Laiskonis teaches chocolate-making classes at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. He said he has observed a growing interest in natural cacao tastes. He said he introduces his students to the history of chocolate. He tells his students, for example, about a recipe from the 1600s that mixed Mayan and Aztec versions of cacao drinks with European influences. Laiskonis said chocolate is something thats always been transforming. Im Pete Musto. Pete Musto adapted this story for VOA Learning English using materials from the Associated Press and Reuters news service. Ashley Thompson was the editor. We want to hear from you. What other special foods do you think people have been using for much longer than we know? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Quiz - New Discovery Suggests Chocolate-Making Substance is Older than Once Believed Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story consume(d) v. to eat or drink something journal n. a magazine that reports on things of special interest to a particular group of people archeological adj. related to the science that deals with past human life and activities by studying the bones and tools of ancient people domesticate(d) v. to grow a plant for human use tropical adj. of, relating to, occurring in, or used in the area between either one of the two imaginary lines that circle the Earth to the north and south of the equator pod(s) n. a long, thin part of some plants that has seeds inside indigenous adj. produced, living, or existing naturally in a particular region or environment spice(s) n. a substance, such as pepper or nutmeg, that is used in cooking to add flavor to food and that comes from a dried plant and is usually a powder or seed introduce(s) v. to cause someone to learn about or try something for the first time recipe n. a set of instructions for making food transform(ing) v. to change something completely and usually in a good way Artists and rights activists are pushing the Cuban government to change a law that they fear will hurt creativity and increase censorship. The law is to take effect next month. It bars artists and musicians from providing their services in any place open to the public, including privately owned spaces, without first getting government approval. The Cuban government in 2010 adopted a reform measure to require government approval only for state-run places. Since then, artists and musicians have presented their work in private as part of a wider push for economic, social, and political reforms in Cuba. Artists and musicians have been able to produce more work and expand their offerings, with increased internet access and greater freedom to travel. But that has also made it harder for the government to collect taxes and oversee their works. The new law worries some independent artists, who fear they will not be able to get state approval. That could cost them their livelihood. Luis Puerta is an artist who has supported his family by selling his paintings in private. He told the Reuters news service, I never thought of emigrating before, but now I am. Some believe the new law will prevent artists from speaking out. Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara describes himself as an artivist. The word is a combination of artist and activist. He said, This is a measure of repression because you wont get government approval if you are not within the socialist ideology. Otero Alcantara has led a campaign against the measure. On social media, he and other artists have described it as a law that converts art into a crime. Alcantara and others have also hosted performances to protest the measure. They also have sent letters to Cuban officials. Marco Castillo, an artist with Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters), said the law would be a painful return to a gray, anti-cultural past of censorship. He was talking about the early 1970s, when the Cuban government persecuted artists for what it said was a lack of support for the Revolution. The government later apologized for the treatment. The Cuban government did not answer a request for comment from Reuters. State-run media reports say that Decree 349, as the law is known, aims to prevent tax avoidance and the spread of art done in bad taste or created to incite public disorder. Is the protest working? There are signs that the artists are making their voices heard. Amnesty International has backed their campaign against the law. The organization warned that the law could be used broadly to crack down on dissent. The European Union also raised concerns about the law during recent talks with Cuba on human rights. The Communist Party newspaper Granma reported this month that the culture minister would work with artists to revise the law. I'm Jonathan Evans. Hai Do adapted this story for Learning English based on a Reuters report. Ashley Thompson was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story livelihood - n. a way of earning money in order to live ideology - n. the set of ideas and beliefs of a group or political party persecute - v. to treat someone unfairly especially because of race or religious or political beliefs crack down - v. to control or put limit on someone or something The inventor of the World Wide Web has warned that the worlds biggest technology companies have become too powerful and may have to be broken up. Tim Berners-Lee made the comments to reporters with the Reuters news agency. The British-born computer scientist said he is not pleased with the current state of the internet. Berners-Lee said one big problem is that, since the 1990s, the internet revolution has created a very few large U.S.-based technology companies. Today, those companies have grown to have a huge financial and cultural influence across the world. What naturally happens is you end up with one company dominating the field, so through history there is no alternative to really coming in and breaking things up, he told Reuters. He added: There is a danger of concentration. Berners-Lee, who is 63, is credited with inventing the internet in 1989. The idea came about when he was working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. Scientists from all over the world came to CERN. But others could not see their research because of differences in computers. Berners-Lee thought it would be easier if all the computers could talk to one another and exchange information directly. So he proposed linking the machines. His proposal would later become known as the World Wide Web. It took two years before researchers were able to successfully link a computer server and web browser through the Internet. The World Wide Web was officially launched in August 1991. Berners-Lee is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Oxford. Even with his concerns about the technology industry, he does not think it would be a good thing for governments to act too quickly to try to split the companies up. Berners-Lee said, Before breaking them up, we should see whether they are not just disrupted by a small player beating them out of the market, but by the market shifting, by the interest going somewhere else. He also expressed concern about the way Facebook dealt with a misuse of data involving the British political research company Cambridge Analytica. The incident led to the release of personal information involving about 87 million Facebook users. Berners-Lee said the Cambridge Analytica situation demonstrated the possible dangers of putting so much information in the hands of so few companies. Such incidents, he said, are causing people to lose the feeling of individual empowerment. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg apologized after the Cambridge Analytica incident and promised to do more to protect user data. Berners-Lee said he sees social media services as increasingly being used as tools to spread hate. If you put a drop of love into Twitter it seems to decay. But if you put in a drop of hatred, you feel it actually propagates much more strongly. And you wonder: Well, is that because of the way that Twitter as a medium has been built? When Berners-Lee was asked who had been his biggest intellectual influence in life, he said it had to be his parents. They were building computers, so I grew up living in a world where everything was mathematics and the excitement of being able to program something was very fresh, he said. Im Bryan Lynn. Reuters news agency reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story dominate v. to have main control over a person or thing alternative n. something that is different from what is usual concentration n. large amount of something in the same place disrupt v. prevent something from continuing as usual or planned shift v. change direction decay v. to gradually become bad or weak propagate v. spread or promote something widely The city of San Francisco is home to some of the nations largest technology companies, including Twitter and Uber. At the same time, it has one of the largest homeless populations in the country. Homelessness and job displacement for local people continue to rise. But, one program is helping to connect the two worlds for job seekers. Del Seymour created the program. He was once homeless himself. For years, Seymour suffered from using illegal drugs. And I wandered these streets like a zombie, day or night, for 18 years, using drugs, selling drugs, being arrested. I have 14 felony arrests in this neighborhood. He spent those years in a neighborhood known as the Tenderloin, an area with an extremely high rate of homelessness and drug use. However, in recent years, large companies like Twitter, AirBnB and Uber have moved in or near the Tenderloin area. But they started importing people from other regions and countries to work in the neighborhood, Seymour said. That was hard for Daniel Henry, a formerly homeless man who hopes to get a technology job. My friends see how tech savvy I am and [say], You should be working in tech, and I was like, Youre right, I should. A few years ago, Seymour started making phone calls to technology companies. He thought it was unfair for the companies to ignore local people, including homeless ones. Youre not going to come in my neighborhood and ignore my people, he said. Youre going to include us in your business. To everyones surprise, the companies started answering. As a result, Seymour started Code Tenderloin. It is a nonprofit organization that is giving homeless and other needy people a path to employment, including jobs in technology companies. The organization offers classes in coding for computer languages such as HTML, CSS and javascript. It also gives six-week training classes in job readiness. The class teaches students public speaking, resume building, interviewing and other skills. Victoria Westbrook is director of programs and operations at Code Tenderloin. She says the organization works with all kinds of people who have barriers to employment. So that can mean anything from reentry (getting out of prison), homeless, at risk of becoming homeless, victims or survivors of domestic violence. It can be pretty much anybody that is under- or unemployed. Code Tenderloin students visit technology companies to meet people, ask questions and learn from employees. Alphonso Williams is a Code Tenderloin student. He says he enjoys each visit to a new tech company. I learn something new. Hopefully I can learn something else. CodingIm really getting into coding. There is no cost for classes at Code Tenderloin and, in some cases, computers are provided. Although only a small number of students have found full-time technology jobs, a number of others have gotten internships through the program. And, many others have found other full-time jobs. Jennifer Friedenbach is the executive director of Coalition on Homelessness, a nonprofit organization in San Francisco. She says it is important for homeless people to believe that they can find work. Even if you dont land a coding job, you might land a different job, she says. The movement toward that is really important for folks lifting themselves out of poverty. Seymour adds that the organization works with students individually to give them extra attention and skill support. Im Alice Bryant. Deana Mitchell reported this story for VOA News. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story zombie n. a person who moves very slowly and is not aware of what is happening felony n. a serious crime region n. a part of a country or the world that is different or separate from other parts in some way savvy adj. having practical understanding or knowledge of something code v. to change information into a set of letters, numbers or symbols that can be read by a computer resume n. a short document describing your education, work history and skills that you give an employer when applying for a job internship n. a job given to a student or recent graduate who works for a period of time in order to get experience The top picture pink shows fluorescence, the bottom picture is not fluorescing. Credit: Colin Watts A chemical that highlights tumour cells has been used by surgeons to help spot and safely remove brain cancer in a trial presented at the 2018 NCRI Cancer Conference. The research was carried out with patients who had suspected glioma, the disease that killed Dame Tessa Jowell, and the most common form of brain cancer. Treatment usually involves surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible, but it can be challenging for surgeons to identify all of the cancer cells while avoiding healthy brain tissue. Researchers say that using the fluorescent marker helps surgeons to distinguish the most aggressive cancer cells from other brain tissue and they hope this will ultimately improve patient survival. The research was presented by Dr. Kathreena Kurian, a Reader/Associate Professor in brain tumour research at the University of Bristol and consultant neuropathologist at North Bristol NHS Trust, UK. The study was led by Colin Watts, Professor of Neurosurgery and chair of the Birmingham brain cancer programme at the University of Birmingham, UK. Dr. Kurian explained: "Gliomas are difficult to treat with survival times often measured in months rather than years. Many patients are treated with surgery and the aim is to safely remove as much of the cancer as possible. Once a tumour is removed, it is passed on to a pathologist who examines the cells under a microscope to see if they are 'high-grade', fast growing cells, or 'low-grade' slower growing cells. And we can plan further treatment, such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy, based on that diagnosis. "We wanted to see if using a fluorescent marker could help surgeons objectively identify high-grade tumour cells during surgery, allowing them to remove as much cancer as possible while leaving normal brain tissue intact." The researchers used a compound called 5-aminolevulinic acid or 5-ALA, which glows pink when a light is shone on it. Previous research shows that, when consumed, 5-ALA accumulates in fast growing cancer cells and this means it can act as a fluorescent marker of high-grade cells. The study involved patients with suspected high-grade gliomas treated at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Kings College Hospital in London or Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, UK. They were aged between 23 and 77 years, with an average (median) age of 59 years. Before surgery to remove their brain tumours, each patient was given a drink containing 5-ALA. Surgeons then used operating microscopes to help them look for fluorescent tissue while removing tumours from the patients' brains. The tissue they removed was sent to the pathology lab where scientists could confirm the accuracy of the surgeons' work. A total of 99 patients received the 5-ALA marker and could be assessed for signs of fluorescence. During their operations, surgeons reported seeing fluorescence in 85 patients and 81 of these were subsequently confirmed by pathologists to have high-grade disease, one was found to have low-grade disease and three could not be assessed. In the 14 patients where surgeons did not see any fluorescence, only seven tumours could be subsequently evaluated by pathology but in all these cases, low-grade disease was confirmed. Professor Watts said: "Neurosurgeons need to be able to distinguish tumour tissue from other brain tissue, especially when the tumour contains fast-growing, high-grade cancer cells. This is the first prospective trial to show the benefits of using 5-ALA to improve the accuracy of diagnosing high-grade glioma during surgery. These results show that the marker is very good at indicating the presence and location of high-grade cancer cells. "The advantage of this technique is that it may highlight more quickly high-grade disease within a tumour during neurosurgery. What this means is that more of the tumour can be removed more safely and with fewer complications, and that's better for the patient." The researchers caution that the study looked at patients who were already suspected to have high-grade tumours, and a larger study in which more patients have low-grade disease would provide more information on the use of this technique. They say that other types of markers may need to be tested for detecting low-grade glioma cells. Next steps could include testing the 5-ALA in children with brain tumours, or to help surgeons distinguish between tumour tissue and scar tissue in adult patients whose brain cancers have recurred following treatment. Professor Anthony Chalmers is Chair of NCRI's Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Working Group and Chair of Clinical Oncology at the University of Glasgow, UK, and was not involved in the research. He said: "There is a desperate need for better treatments for brain tumours and to achieve that we need more high quality research in this area. "The benefit of using a fluorescent marker is that it helps neurosurgeons see more accurately where the high-grade cancer is within the brain, in real time. In treating cancer, we are trying to improve survival by tailoring treatments to each individual patient. This technique provides on-the-spot information to help surgeons tailor the operation according to the location, size and grade of the tumour. We know that patients who have near total removal of their tumour have better outcomes, so we are optimistic that, in the long term, these new data will help to increase survival times for glioma patients." Provided by National Cancer Research Institute Researchers have identified a genetic variation that may influence chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) disease severity. TMEM106B is one of the first genes to be implicated in CTE. It may partially explain why some athletes present with severe CTE symptoms while others are less affected despite similar levels of head trauma. The study provides preliminary evidence that this genetic variation might help predict which individuals are at greater risk to develop severe CTE pathology and dementia, according to the researchers. It also provides insight into the disease mechanism underlying CTE, which could aid in the development of biomarkers for diagnosis during life and in the identification of targets for treatments. Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and the VA Boston Healthcare System (VABHS) studied 86 former contact-sport athletes whose brains were donated to the VA-BU-CLF brain bank and found to have evidence of CTE, but no other pathology. The athlete brains were examined for genetic variation in TMEM106B, a gene thought to be involved in the brain's inflammation system. Overall, the genetic variation was not different in those with CTE compared to those without. "However, among the athletes with CTE, variation did predict increased CTE pathology and brain inflammation. Additionally, the risk allele increased the likelihood of developing dementia by 2.5 times suggesting the variant might predict an increased risk for developing the symptoms of CTE," explained first author Jonathan Cherry, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in neurology at BUSM. "These findings may help explain why some individuals experience more severe CTE related outcomes while others are spared despite similar exposure to contact sports. By better understanding why some individuals are more at risk for CTE, we can identify novel therapeutic targets to help treat all with the disease," said corresponding author Thor Stein, MD, Ph.D., neuropathologist at VA Boston Healthcare System and assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at BUSM. The researchers caution that it is still unclear what variation in TMEM106B means on an individual level for people at risk for CTE. Therefore, genetic testing for clinical care is not currently recommended. The study appears in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications. Polish health officials are calling on people to vaccinate themselves and their children after measles cases were reported in the region around Warsaw. Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski said 17 recent measles cases in the Mazovia Province all resulted from parents failing to get their children vaccinated. The Polish cases come as the World Health Organization has reported tens of thousands of measles cases across Europe. At a news conference on Sunday, Szumowski and other health officials stressed that measles vaccinations are safe. Measles is a highly contagious disease and WHO says it is one of the leading causes of death worldwide in young children. It's easily prevented with a vaccine. 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MOST OF, IF NOT ALL MUGSHOT LAWS WERE CRAFTED TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC FROM FEES FOR REMOVAL OF ONLINE MUGSHOTS AND TO FURTHER PROTECT THE PRESS FROM THOSE VERY SAME "MUGSHOT LAWS".WE DO NOT ACCEPT PAYMENT FOR REMOVAL OF ARREST INFORMATION AND/OR BOOKING PHOTOGRAPHS. MORE... Broward County, FL - Thirty-one years ago a Coral Springs woman awoke to a ski-masked man standing over her bed. He put a gloved hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming, told her he had a gun and raped her. The attacker escaped for three long decades. But he evidently did not change his predatory ways, investigators discovered. Evidence left behind at the Coral Springs crime scene on Oct. 22, 1987 led investigators this year to a 60-year-old man with a Minnesota conviction for criminal sexual conduct and burglary a crime that happened just two months after the South Florida assault and was carried out in a nearly identical fashion. Frank Montana is now behind bars at the Broward Main Jail thanks to newly conducted DNA testing of old evidence. The similarities between the two crimes were of note. In both instances the attacker broke in while his victims slept. He claimed to have a gun and before raping the women, he clasped his hands around their throats and squeezed until they could not breathe, according to an affidavit to arrest. The statements provided by the female victim in Minneapolis, Minnesota and [the Coral Springs womans] sworn statement establish the defendants pattern of behavior and predatory nature, an arrest warrant said. For the Minnesota rape, committed on Dec. 15, 1987, Montana was sentenced to five years in prison. This week Montana was extradited to South Florida to answer to the local allegations. Montana went before a Broward County judge on Thursday, who ordered that he be jailed without bond on two counts of sexual battery with a weapon. When the 27-year-old Coral Springs woman was raped she was wearing a tampon. Tests conducted on it in the Broward Sheriffs crime lab in 1987 showed that semen was present, the warrant said But DNA was not tested in 1987, according to the warrant. At that time, no further investigative leads or suspect information was developed and the case was subsequently closed. In March of this year, the cold case was reopened and DNA tests were performed. The tampon that had been in evidence for 31 years yielded a DNA profile. According to the warrant, it was a match with a man named Frank Cruz one of nine aliases used by Montana. E-levy is not the best of ... Just days before the eighth annual Napa Valley Film Festival was to begin, co-founders Marc and Brenda Lhormer have been ousted. The Board of Directors of Cinema Napa Valley (CNV) announced Saturday afternoon it is ending its association with employees Marc and Brenda Lhormer and Zin Haze Productions, effective immediately. Patrick Davila is chairman of the board of Cinema Napa Valley. He is also director of operations for Meadowood Napa Valley Resort in St. Helena. We acknowledge the foundation that Marc and Brenda have laid and are excited about this years festival lineup and events. We look forward to a fresh start for 2019 under the Cinema Napa Valley name, stated Davila. On Sunday afternoon, the Lhormers released the following statement: This move was sudden and without warning. It is also frustrating timing given that weve been leading the charge with our team all year in developing, planning and promoting this weeks eighth annual Napa Valley Film Festival. We each play critical roles in the careful orchestration and production of each years festival to assure that all attendees audience, artists, sponsors and partners, volunteers have the best possible set of experiences. We have lived and loved this festival since its inception. We are proud of the festival we have created, and we love and support our team and this community. According to the press release, Cinema Napa Valley will present The Napa Valley Film Festival as planned from Nov. 7-11. As it prepares for 2019, CNV will be moving forward under a new name for the festival (Cinema Napa Valley) with the support of numerous key sponsors and community organizations. Cinema Napa Valley, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, was founded in 2009 and has its headquarters in Napa. The Lhormers are founders of both the film festival and the nonprofit organization, Cinema Napa Valley. When the Lhormers spoke to the St. Helena Stars editorial board in late June, Brenda said they are working on our succession plan. Were not going to be around for very much longer. When pressed if it was going to be one year, three years or five years, she responded, Youll know soon, we will announce it very soon. She added that she and Mark hope the festival retains a feeling of community, which is very important to us. I hope that is always part of the experience. In reviewing last years film festival, the Lhormers said it was a challenge, because of the October wildfires in Northern California that happened less than a month before the start of the event. Marc said, Attendance was down 15 percent, which was largely from the people making plans to come in the last four to six weeks before the festival. Those people were looking at the images on the television. Attendance at film festivals is not counted by how many people attend the festival, but instead by how many films each person sees, Marc said. In 2016, the total was 50,000 during the week-long festival. Last year, the estimate was 42,500, or about 11,000 people. Last year, it cost nearly $6 million to stage the Napa Valley Film Festival, almost $3 million in cash and another $3 million in in-kind donations. Marc said, The film festival is a very difficult business. After the film festival ended, organizers donated $11,000 to the Napa Valley Community Foundations Disaster Relief Fund. Other generous donations in November included a $6,000 grant from the Grace Family Foundation to underwrite tickets for local students and veterans to see the inspiring documentary film Blood Road on Veterans Day, and the Lexus donation of $25,000 worth of tickets to select movies for victims of the fires. The Lhormers founded the festival in 2009 and presented the first NVFF in 2011. As well as co-founders, Marc is the executive and artistic director and Brenda is co-director. Before that, the Lhormers ran the Sonoma Valley Film Festival for seven years, from 2001 to 2008. They also produced the movie Bottleshock. Brenda graduated from Stanford University in 1983 and worked in marketing and communications; Marc earned his MBA from Stanford in 1986. He was in operations and entrepreneurship when the two met in 1987. They married in 1991. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. I remember as a child learning of the horrifying events of the Nazi era: The persecution and eventual extermination of the Jews, attacks on the Roma and other ethnic minorities, killings of the disabled, repression of political opponents, commission of flagrant war crimes, and the erosion of every norm of a modern society. Nothing like that could happen here, I thought. I mean, were a civilized country, a beacon for the world, the Good Guys. We even have Superman, who fights for Truth, Justice and the American Way. Right? Well, son, my history-minded father said with a sigh when I raised the question, I wouldnt be so sure about that. As I grew older and more passionate about history in my own right, I realized that the American story is indeed more complicated. For every All men are created equal moment, there was something less savory: Slavery and Jim Crow, displacement and killing of native peoples, environmental shortsightedness in the pursuit of gold and other resources, imperialism, patriarchy, marginalization and imprisonment of ethnic minorities and immigrants. And yet, somehow America seemed to stand out. For all our faults and failings, we always seemed to be striving for redemption. Where corrupt and tired nations simply gave in to their worst impulses, we seemed to be working to overcome them, to really represent to the world what Ronald Reagan liked to call The shining city on the hill. Like the sinner who can still achieve Grace, America always seemed to reach beyond its baser instincts to try to embody some kind of higher goal for people around the world. Thats why people will risk their lives to come here. I profoundly hope we have not stopped reaching for that kind of Grace. Ive watched with growing unease the coarsening of our political discourse and the erosion of our civic life. My head reeled at the sight of armed bullyboys brawling in the streets of my beloved Charlottesville last year, like it was Munich of 1930, not America of the 21st century. The treatment of immigrants, the threats of bombing and assassination, senseless killings of black worshipers and shoppers, the assaults on LGBTQ people, religious minorities, and others, have become a depressing new normal. The shooting Oct. 27 in Pittsburgh, the deadliest act of antisemitism in our history, struck me as a low point for America. Antisemitism is among the most corrosive kinds of prejudice. It is more than simple xenophobia or racism it embodies a pernicious worldview that suggests that the malign hand of the Jew is behind all the worlds misfortunes. It requires its adherents to believe that Jewish people are at once somehow superhuman enough to pull all the levers of power and inhuman enough not to care who they hurt. It strips Jewish people not just of membership in their own communities, but of their very human identity. The Jewish people have experienced an almost unimaginably long record of persecution, violence, and intolerance. Since the Romans decided to deal with a troublesome and rebellious minority by destroying their temple and scattering them from their homeland, Jews have endured a lonely quest for acceptance, never fully permitted to be part of the communities where they settled. If there is one place where they should be welcome, where they should find home, put down roots, and most of all, enjoy safety, it should be right here in our shining city on the hill. I certainly hope the recent violence and hatred we have seen in America, particularly the growth of vocal antisemitism, proves to be yet another of our temporary interludes of failure. I hope that on the other side of whatever political period were experiencing, Americans will once more strive for redemption and be that beacon of hope to the world. Because if not, if the worst could happen here, then it truly could happen anywhere. You can reach Sean Scully at 256-2246 or sscully@napanews.com. Catch the latest in Opinion Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. We have said this before, but it is well worth repeating: No other right is as well established in the Constitution as voting. No other specific right is mentioned more often in the Constitution than voting. The 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments all specifically refer to the right to vote. Indeed, it is one of the few freedoms enumerated in the Constitution specifically as a right, (the only others being the right to peaceably assemble; the right to keep and bear arms; the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects; right to a speedy and public trial; and the right of trial by jury). And yet for too many people, voting is at best an afterthought. In the 2014 election, for example, a dismal 57.5 percent of eligible citizens bothered to cast a ballot, down from just over 62 percent in 2012 (and even that total was none too encouraging). The worst performance in recent years was 2000, when just 54 percent of those eligible bothered to vote. The hard-fought 2016 election had a gratifying local participation, with 82.3 percent turnout in Napa County, but in this years June primary, just 49 percent of county voters bothered to cast a ballot, despite several significant races and ballot measures being at stake. Yet today, voting is easier than ever. All voters in Napa County are signed up to do so by mail, meaning the ballot simply arrives in the letter box. All ballots can be cast for no cost through the U.S. mail with the county paying the postage. There are also collection stations available around the county where you can drop them off. In other words, there is simply no excuse for not voting this year. If you have not done so already, we urge you to cast your vote on the Nov. 6 election. The Register Editorial Board has considered several key races and questions on the ballot this fall, and here we review our recommendations: Napa City Council: We endorsed former council member Mary Luros and we believe any of her four principal competitors would be worthy second choices: Liz Alessio, Bernie Narvaez, Peter Mott or Ricky Hurtado. Napa Valley College Trustee: We endorsed incumbents Kyle Iverson (Area 4) and Mary Ann Mancuso (Area 3) and challenger Jeff Dodd (Area 2). Affordable and Workforce housing: We recommend a Yes vote on countywide Measure I, which raises the Transient Occupancy Tax 1 percent in the unincorporated area and designates it to support affordable and workforce housing projects. We also urge a Yes vote on the identical measures in each of the five municipalities: In Napa, Measure F; in American Canyon, Measure H; in Yountville, Measure S; in St. Helena, Measure E; in Calistoga, Measure D. Proposition 6: We strongly urge a No vote on this measure, which would repeal last years gas tax hike. This would seriously impair the ability of state and local governments to repair and maintain roads, bridges and other infrastructure. U.S. Congress, District 5: We continue to believe that Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, deserves your support to represent this region in the House of Representatives. Whether you agree with our recommendations or not, however, we urge you to cast your ballot. Our democracy depends on it. For information on these and other races, including statements by the candidates and arguments for and against ballot questions, see the county registrar of elections page at countyofnapa.org/Elections and the California Secretary of State site at sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections. The Napa Valley Register Editorial Board consists of Publisher Davis Taylor, Editor Sean Scully, and public members Cindy Webber, Ed Shenk, Mary Jean Mclaughlin and Chris Hammaker. The bright Georgia sun arose above the pine mountains of Warm Springs on the morning of April 12, 1945, lighting the Little White House on top of the Pine Mountains. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was vacationing there before heading to San Fransisco for the much-anticipated opening of the United Nations he formed the previous month. A worn-out and exhausted FDR, the longest serving president, awoke that morning, and with the assistance of his personal valet, bathed and shaved at around 8:45 a.m. Paralyzed in both legs since being a young man, now at age 63, he had given up wearing the heavy leg braces and was mostly now just in a wheelchair. His valet then helped him dress into a three-piece business suit and wheeled him into the main living room area of his beloved cottage. FDR then started to work at his table with the bright morning sunlight streaming through the windows behind him. He looked very tired and haggard. World War II was winding down rapidly in Europe as the Nazis were being slaughtered in great numbers and surrendering to Joseph Stalins Russian forces as Dwight Eisenhowers 2nd and 3rd armored divisions were on the south very near Berlin. FDR was pleased all was going well in the fighting and prayed for the war to finally shift to Japan, where General Douglas MacArthurs forces were feverishly fighting the Japanese at sea and on land. On this particular morning, President Roosevelt pored over his mail, dictated messages to Stalin and Churchill and then was introduced to a Russian-born painter Elizabeth Shoumatoff, who painted numerous portraits of influential American and European figures throughout the 20th century. She is now best remembered for painting the unfinished portrait of FDR. The reason she chose to leave it unfinished is that Roosevelt died while posing for it just a few hours after she began working on it. In the mid-1930s, Elizabeth Shoumatoff befriended Lucy Mercer Rutherford, a woman best known for her love affair with FDR, which lasted behind his wifes back for two years during World War I, nearly 20 years before he was elected president in 1933. Lucy Rutherford was amazed by a portrait that Shumatoff painted of her and she used her extensive connections to acquire new clients for the aspiring portraitist. FDRs charisma and wit struck Shoumatoff very deeply, but the global turmoil of the war in Europe and the Pacific caused FDR to postpone his meeting with her until April 12. By this time his health had deteriorated so badly he was surrounded by medical staff at all times. At the little cottage that morning, FDR lit a cigarette by badly fumbling hands and puffed out both cheeks as he exhaled the smoke and returned to signing papers. Shoumatoff observed his very worn and thin features as he was looking down continually observing his work. She was struck by his exceptionally good facial color under the lines and deep facial fatigue. The gray look had suddenly disappeared. She was told by doctors later on this was caused by the approaching massive cerebral hemorrhage, that a very large blood vessel in his brain was about ready to burst. All continued on as normal until about 1 p.m. when Roosevelt lifted his left arm very shakily and drew it across his head. His arm dropped hard on the table with force. His cousin Daisy Suckley asked FDR if he had dropped something. Roosevelt said nothing. With violent shaking, he again attempted to lift his left hand and again drew it across his forehead and then around to the back of his head. It again dropped very hard. Suckley, alarmed, arose from the sofa where she was sitting and approached Roosevelt, who with much difficulty looked up directly into her eyes and in a barely audible pausing voice said to her, I have a terrific pain in the back of my head. As soon as he said his last words, Roosevelt shuttered violently and fell forward, his head hitting the table top, slumping at the same time totally unconscious. Daisy screamed. The frightened Shoumatoff quickly alerted the White House staff. But it was too late; Roosevelt suffered a massive stroke and died at 3:35 p.m. Shoumatoff never finished the painting and it became famous for representing the great wartime and Depression-era president in the final moments of his life. It is currently displayed at the Little White House in which Roosevelt died. Shoumatoff later painted what became known as the finished portrait, which she created from memory and from a final photo taken of FDR the day before he died. The finished version hangs on the wall beside the famous unfinished one in the FDR on site Museum in Warm Springs, Georgia. As a footnote, she was also commissioned by former President Lyndon B. Johnson to be painted in January 1973. LBJ was a great admirer of FDR. His portrait was completed three days before he suddenly collapsed and died of a massive heart attack at his ranch in Austin, Texas. Shoumatoff became known in presidential circles as the Macabre Presidential Portrait Painter, because two presidents she painted died shortly afterwards. Elizabeth Shoumatoff died on Nov. 30, 1980. Roger Knapp lives in Napa and is an avid reader and chronicler of presidential history. The man-elephant conflict has refused to die down in Udalguri district of Assam. In yet another incident, one Kuili Orang (60), an inhabitant of number one Segunbari village under Paneri police station was trampled to death by a wild jumbo while he was on way to work at near Segunbari Border Outpost of 37 Barttalion of Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) in Udalguri district along the Indo-Bhutan border on Saturday morning. The rising casualties have evoked fear among the border populace who have been spending sleepless nights specifically in the post-harvesting season when jumbos frequent paddy fields and confront humans. The villagers have been vocal for the lackadaisical attitude of the district administration and the Forest department in tackling the menace. It is quite unfortunate that the Forest department citing various excuses have turned deaf ears to the menace and a few nature lovers and wildlife activists have been playing an active role to help villagers tackle the man-elephant conflict by adopting slew of measures including distribution of flash lights, holding awareness meets with villagers etc, said a villager of Hattigarh in Udalguri on condition of anonymity. He suggested that the Forest department should wake up from its deep slumber and adopt measures including roping in of kumki or the trained captive elephants used in operations to chase wild elephants in the region. The local youths of affected villages have exhorted the Forest department to co-ordinate with the Forest department for their voluntary participation with the Forest personnel to aid them cope up the necessary man-power and monitor the movement of herds specifically in the post-harvesting season which witnesses rising cases of causalities in man-elephant conflict. The new restrictive measures against Cuba, announced by the US Security Adviser John Bolton will not make the country abandon its positions in the international arena, the director of the US Department of Cuban MFA, Carlos Fernandez de Cassio told reporters. "The measures announced by the US will not prevent us from continuing to build a prosperous socialist and democratic society in accordance with the will of the Cuban people. They will not change our country's obligations of solidarity to other peoples but will harm the people of Cuba, Cubans living abroad and those who wants constructive relations between the two countries," Fernandez de Cassio said. "Cuba will continue defending its sovereign right to choose its own political system and its future. We will still hold the position of dilaogue with the US, just like with the rest of the world," TASS reported quoting de Cassio. The spokesman admitted that such rhetoric and aggressive US actions are also related to political processes before the congressional elections and are aimed at receiving dividends by the Republican Party. According to Bolton, it is planned to expand sanctions measures against Cuba within a few days. The US broke diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1961 in response to the nationalization of American property on the island. After that, Washington announced the introduction of a trade and economic embargo against the country. Armenian Foreign Minister and Otto Luchterhandt discuss Nagorno-Karabakh settlement Armenian contract soldier dies amid violation of rules for handling weapons Man, 29, jumps from Yerevan bridge Armenia MFA confirms PM Pashinyan's readiness to meet with Azerbaijans Aliyev on December 15 Quake shakes coast of Vanuatu State minister: Nationwide quarantine, specific restrictions planned to be imposed in Karabakh Artsakh President convenes National Security Service consultation Opposition MP: Armenia FM stated that Turkey has proposed new precondition: corridor Armenia military expert: US Embassy warns its citizens to avoid Karahunj-Davit Bek, Kapan-Chakaten road sections Armenia opposition MP: Air carrier operating flights from Syunik Province cannot have any security guarantees Singapore is good example for Armenia, says President Sarkissian Iran seizes foreign ship in Persian Gulf 2 Azerbaijanis injured in anti-tank mine explosion at Karabakh conflict zone US, Turkey presidential advisors discuss situation in South Caucasus Synopsys boss pays tribute to Armenian Genocide victims Russia peacekeepers escort 15 convoys to, from Artsakh in one week Catholicos Karekin II to Patriarch Kirill: We appreciate your warm attitude towards Armenian Church, people China fines Alibaba for violating antitrust law 36 new cases of coronavirus reported in Karabakh UK Premier Johnson considering boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics Artsakh President visits Askeran city, meets with regional capitals youth President to Russia Patriarch: Armenian people highly value your efforts aimed at achieving peace in our region 870 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia 8 injured in tragic accident on Yerevan-Gyumri motorway are discharged from hospital China, Russia, US agree to promote political dialogue on Iran Azerbaijan mother, son commit suicide on same day One pedestrian dies on the spot, other hospitalized after hit by car in Armenia village area US beauty consultant is accused of killing woman by injecting silicone into her butt Brazil Amazon deforestation reaches highest level in 15 years Newspaper: Armenia soldiers are prohibited from filming episodes from their service, posting them on internet Newspaper: Armenia opposition is forming large-scale resistance network Armenia President visits National University of Singapore Gia, wanted by French law-enforcement authorities, found at Armenia's Bagratashen checkpoint Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia agree to meet in Brussels European Council: Pashinyan and Aliyev agreed to establish direct communication line at level of defense ministers Armenia's Representative to OSCE speaks about Azerbaijan's recent attack at Permanent Council's session Armenia serviceman Meruzhan Harutyunyan, killed in Syunik Province, was buried at Yerablur Military Pantheon Armenian News-NEWS.am's special report: Drive from Kapan to Tchakatashen is 150 km instead of previous 8 km 3 Armenian servicemen killed during Nov. 16 Azerbaijani attack posthumously awarded presidential medals Left-wing trade unions hold protest against Turkey's Erdogan in Izmir Armenia FM presents situation following Azerbaijani attack during meeting with Lithuanian Seimas Vice-President Armenia delegation covers Azerbaijan's Nov. 16 attack during online meeting of CSTO PA Permanent Commissions Armenia PM receives delegation led by Vice President of Lithuanian Seimas Lavrov, Cavusoglu discuss bilateral ties and regional issues Karabakh: Azerbaijani side, in Shushi, transfers bodies of 3 Armenian soldiers killed on Nov. 16 NEWS.am daily digest: 19.11.21 Armenian Embassy in Russia: Armenia citizens - mother and child - evacuated from Afghanistan Georgia refuses to be a part of '3+3' format with regard to South Caucasus The occupied Hadrut of our days (PHOTOS) Arabologist: Photo of map of Turkic world shown by Erdogan and Bahceli is simply a gift for Armenian diplomacy Situation is tense in Armenia's Kasakh, residents protesting against acting village head (LIVE) Opposition With Honor legislature faction MP: No one knows if Armenia petitioned to Russia for military assistance Armenia opposition MP: There is a threat that Baku will always get what it wants through use of force Lavrov is certain that the Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan summit will take place Ann Linde: OSCE working very closely with Russia to resolve Karabakh conflict Karabakh FM congratulates newly appointed Abkhazia counterpart Dollar relatively stable in Armenia Armenia parliament majority members do not deny possibility of exchange of territories with Azerbaijan Armenia ruling party MP: Public and competent authorities need to know circumstances behind captures of soldiers Armenia ruling party MP assures that situation on the border is currently stable Armenia ruling party MP: Confidentiality of process of preparing for demarcation is strictly necessary Armenia PM: Citizens of EEU countries will be able to receive loans in all territories of member states Armenian serviceman, 19, dies in Georgia's Akhalkalaki Armenia legislature majority faction lawmaker: Russia military intervention is not end in itself High commissioner: Diaspora is considering ways to help hundreds of Ethiopia Armenians Opposition With Honor parliament faction: Armenia authorities trying to push territorial losses issue to backburner Legislature majority faction MP: Armenia authorities do not make any demands on Russia Opposition Armenia Faction in parliament: Authorities are unable to distinguish between priority and secondary issues 3 more die of coronavirus in Artsakh Bruno Retailleau: France must support Armenia more firmly against aggressions by Azerbaijan Armenia parliament majority faction: Border delimitation preparation process will start from point zero PM: Armenia exports to other EEU countries increased by 27.8% Armenias Pashinyan: Azerbaijan provocations are aimed at disrupting arrangements reached by trilateral statements California Armenian couple accused of fraud flee leaving their 3 children behind 799 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Katherine Clark: Azerbaijan must acknowledge and respect Armenian sovereignty Eurasian Intergovernmental Council enlarged meeting underway in Yerevan Russia peacekeepers patrol along Karabakh border delimitation line MOD: According to current data Armenia has 6 military casualties as result of Tuesdays attack by Azerbaijan Turkish Islamic preachers organization denies reports of his death Newspaper: What happened to missing Armenia soldiers during recent hostilities? Armenia MOD dismisses reports about not allowing officers with higher rank than major to go up to combat positions US virtually completes development of new tactical nuclear gravity bomb B61-12 Newspaper: Officers with higher rank than major not allowed to combat positions during recent hostilities in Syunik Opposition MP: Granting corridor to Azerbaijan through Syunik Province will be gravest crime against Armenia US Department of State representative says why Azerbaijan is not invited to Summit for Democracy Armenian human rights activists to submit letters to ECHR regarding soldiers captured and considered missing Armenia FM stresses importance of addressable response to Azerbaijan's actions during talk with Greek counterpart Ex-ruling party official: Armenia authorities found reason for MOD's resignation after his visit to Karabakh Republican Party of Armenia spokesperson: Nikol Pashinyan gave a confessional testimony in parliament yesterday Armenia President talks about states' collective responsibility at Bloomberg New Economy Forum Turkish website reports poisoning of Fetullah Gulen Armenia FM holds phone talks with Cypriot counterpart, presents situation created after Azerbaijani attack Mirzoyan, Zas discuss CSTO's possible actions to stabilize situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border, if necessary Mothers of deceased servicemen demand Armenia PM's resignation Azerbaijani Armed Forces open fire at tractor in Armenia's Verin Shorzha village Putin: Events unfolding on Armenia-Azerbaijan border attest to fact that situation has not calmed down in the region Lithuania supports Armenia's territorial integrity NEWS.am daily digest: 18.11.21 Ex-ruling party official: Incumbent authorities created deliberately organized chaos in Armenia Dear Newsie Readers, Newsie has now permanently ceased it's services as of Friday 20th December 2019. Newsie has been an owner-funded operation since day one. Coming up to three years old, while we still firmly believe Newsie has a place in the New Zealand media landscape, the cost in both time and money has become too burdensome for the owners to continue alongside other ventures. With the current government looking to restructure public broadcasting, and seemingly supporting NZME buying a ring-fenced Stuff, the time seems right to call it a day. Should it happen, the combination of NZME and Stuff will ensure New Zealands national media will die a death by a thousand opinion-based articles. Newsie has always tried to stick to balanced news, to inform readers of the facts of a situation, amid being largely ignored by government. Hopefully, one day someone else will take up the challenge to fight the good fight. The good news, however, is that there were no job losses as a result of Newsie closing. Thanks to careful structuring, everyone involved in Newsie will retain their current positions. We hope you all have a happy Christmas and new year. Stay safe, and stay out of the news. The team at Newsie (Bloomberg) -- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. adopted a cautious tone on the outlook for the global economy even as signs emerged of a possible end to a U.S. and Chinese trade war. Chinas largest e-commerce company reported quarterly earnings well above analysts estimates, while also trimming its prediction for full-year sales by as much as 6 percent. Shares slid as much as 2.7 percent. Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma has warned that conflict between the worlds two largest economies could last 20 years, raising concerns about the toll that tensions would have on Alibaba and its core customers. Yet the Hangzhou-based company managed to record 54 percent revenue growth by adjusting its e-commerce formula and expanding into newer businesses like cloud computing. U.S. President Donald Trump is said to have asked his cabinet to draft terms for a potential trade deal. The fact Alibabas guiding down is telling, it means theyre seeing something, said Mitchell Kim, an analyst with Kim Eng Securities. Its either that they see consumer confidence declining significantly, or merchant confidence declining significantly. Alibaba posted second-quarter earnings-per-share of 9.60 yuan ($1.40), well above the 7.43 yuan expected by analysts. However, for the fiscal year ending March, the company is now predicting revenue of 375 billion yuan to 383 billion yuan, equating to growth of as much as 53 percent versus the 60 percent it guided toward previously. Consumers see uncertainty in the future and are cutting back, Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai told analysts. He pointed particularly to big-ticket items such as automobiles and home appliances, as well as consumer electronics. Despite reducing its sales outlook, Alibaba said it will continue to invest in new sectors. The closely watched customer management revenue, which includes the high-margin business of helping merchants with marketing, grew 25 percent -- down a tad from the previous quarters 26 percent. Other divisions however remained humming -- the cloud business grew 90 percent. Youku, its Netflix-style video service, more than doubled its average daily subscribers, while the international business -- a relatively smaller piece of the pie -- grew 55 percent. Story continues Domestically, Alibabas main e-commerce platforms are grappling with a migration of smaller merchants to cheaper platforms such Pinduoduo Inc., backed by nemesis Tencent Holdings Ltd. Platforms like Pinduoduo are charging much lower in commissions, posing significant competition to Alibaba, said Steven Zhu, an analyst with Pacific Epoch. Alibaba is trying to counter that by stepping up its marketing services and investing in its own grocery stores and delivery to boost sales. The company is just over a week away from its annual Singles Day shopping festival, a litmus test of not just the companys health but also Chinas overall consumption. Chinese online retail sales growth is already slowing, to 24 percent in the third quarter from 36 percent in the second. Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang, who succeeds Ma as chairman next year, will preside over the Nov. 11 event as it broadens the shopping categories to include purchases made in affiliated shopping malls and food deliveries. This is the third time in Alibabas 19-year history that weve encountered a setback in the global economy, Zhang said. The global economy is in a state of uncertainty. (An earlier version of this story corrected the attribution in the sixth paragraph.) --With assistance from Lisa Pham, David Ramli and Jinshan Hong. To contact the reporter on this story: Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at ychen447@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2018 Bloomberg L.P. in particular, the moment where [ Spoiler (click to open) ] she introduced her all-female cabinet before slamming to door in diane lane's face. still have 2 more to go but every episode ive been all 'wow claire did that!!'in particular, the moment where Reply Thread Link This show is such a dumbass clusterfuck and I will not be wasting my life on this final season. Reply Thread Link Omfg I completely forgot about this! I hope its awesome Reply Thread Link i just finished and i am not sure how i feel about the final 10 minutes. the last 2 episodes i was like 'how are they gonna wrap this up' and it wrapped up i just dont know if i like it or not. Reply Thread Link [ Spoiler (click to open) ] ending mirrors the UK version but it's the uk's version of claire stabbing francis instead of doug. interesting. ah, just read that the Reply Parent Thread Link to me i think it's pretty obvious that what's described in the last ten minutes was supposed to be the ACTUAL series finale had spacey not been fired, so they just wrote around it and it more or less works i guess Reply Parent Thread Link [ Spoiler (click to open) ] doug yelling 'he made you' and all that and it shouldve been francis yelling that at claire? i agree. i just dont know if i liked it or not. you mean with Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ Reply Thread Link I don't know why, but... Just started watching. May as well finish it. Reply Thread Link okay so im on episode 4 and this show jumped the shark worse than ever. as mjb would say, waist of time. why am i watching? Reply Thread Link heard it was bad Reply Thread Link They really should've just let this die. Reply Thread Link I have watched this show pretty religiously from the start and during this season I didn't remember who half these people were, what they actually had on each other, how one character was connected to another, or what they knew from season to season. basically it's a fucking mess this season that can't find it's footing but im just watching to see Claire kill all men so. Reply Thread Link Yep, I felt like I was in such a fog this season. I didn't even remember that Mark Usher was in the last season at all until a few episodes in lmao. The introduction of those Koch siblings after six years of watching was disorienting. Reply Parent Thread Link and all this weird family drama were apparently supposed to care about with literally none of them earning it? like why the fuck do we care about Duncan being the maids kid, we barely fucking know Duncan. and like Cathy Durant and Jane Davis were long time friends? I had to remember who Jane even was. and Jane and Mark Usher were friends from way back? and like...? idek, I could follow GoT better than this season of HoC. edit: this entire heavy backstory of apparently Frank being BFF's with those Koch siblings for NO REASON? why would Frank have been so tight with private sector oligarchs to the point he was sharing Claire's abortion histories with them?! this made absolutely no sense in context with Frank's character, or why those siblings were like "Frank made us promises"...like about what. was this last season shit? it feels all knew and like it happened off screen IDEK. Claire had an all female cabinet and thats all I cared about I guess. Edited at 2018-11-04 08:22 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Same here, I loved the first couple of seasons but now I have no idea who half of the people are anymore. I don't even remember who the fuck her vice president is suppose to be. At this point I just tune out all the scenes Claire isn't in. Reply Parent Thread Link the fact that it still revolves so much around frank made me more mad than if they would have let this end with season five, that would have sufficed as an ending for me tbh. claire spends all her time dealing with frank's loose ends and i feel like i barely learned anything about her as a character despite her being the lead because of it, it's still all about him. like if you're gonna go to the extreme of soldiering on and reworking the season around his absence then actually do that, you know? Reply Parent Thread Link The acting is this season's saving grace. The performances are so earnest despite the embarrassing writing and subpar directing. While I admire Wright saving jobs, since production work is very slim in this region and HoC has been transformative for a lot of the crew, from a storytelling standpoint they should have let it die. Edited at 2018-11-04 07:34 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link i found it entertaining because I have always loved Robin Wright in this role as Claire, but it was definitely a hasty, clunky, messy rewrite. The suspenseful moments, cinematography and acting were good touches. Some parts were downright laugh out loud bad, but so was season five. I love Claire's soliloquys (liiiiving for "Do you miss Francis?" crash cuts and her going off the deep end in military chic tailored suits) I wish I felt okay about rewatching the first few seasons because their feel and pacing was so different from the soap opera this mess turned into. Reply Thread Link I kind of wonder how they would have gone if they recast Frank. It would be funny to see politicians inferred as interchangeable in such a meta way, but I always wanted The Claire Show so shrug Reply Parent Thread Link I couldn't keep track of who each character was, why they hated one another, who was talking shit about who etc. Mess. But living for claire slaughtering everybody. Though her pieces to camera were cringe as fuck. Reply Thread Link her little aside with the bird in the first ep made me want to disappear from second hand embarrassment and the season didn't get better from there for me lol. Reply Parent Thread Link that so was fucking brutal. I lolled when she was flailing around the white house in tears with her mascara running. What was the point of that even? Reply Parent Thread Link I got mad the other day cuz my little sisters where trying to tell me that Shakira is not that famous and has not sold many albums compare to Romeo Santos and I'm Dominican and don't really care about him. I trying telling them the opposite but they said I was wrong *shrugged* Reply Thread Link Are they very young or something? Because I can't imagine ever thinking that when Shakira is literally the biggest Latin American artist of all time. Romeo is definitively the biggest name in bachata, but c'mon... Reply Parent Thread Link Yes I forgot that detail lol. They are young. I shouldn't even argued with them but they sounded so ignorant smh. Reply Parent Thread Link Lol, her accent is like a mix of costeno and Spanish And OP, the source is correct but the 1st tweet is repeated. Seeing the video she is so right, Colombians love to forget when a lot of us migrated to Venezuela because our conflict and how they helped us, a lot of us are sympathetic but a bunch of colombians aren't and are being extremely xenophobic, we are supposed t be better than that Reply Thread Link I was drunk when I made this post last night, so no surprise I got something wrong, lol! In fact, when I woke up at noon I wasn't sure if I had submitted the post or if I dreamed, it. I'll fix it in a bit. I also saw how in the press conference she said the government had lowered the education budget and she was very passionate when criticizing it... So obviously Duque/Uribe supporters have been calling her names and saying she's lying. Smh. Reply Parent Thread Link is it true that she lowkey fiscally conservative? mmm anyway i have so much respect for ha. an icon Reply Thread Link Idk if this is what are you talking about but She owes the Spanish goverment tax money Reply Parent Thread Link She might be, as most middle class South Americans tend to be. I wouldn't be too surprised, especially considering the financial decisions taken by her ex-boyfriend (who was also her ex-manager) regarding her investments. She does owe the Spanish government taxes though, like 80% of the celebrities living there. Reply Parent Thread Link Paga lo que debes. Reply Thread Link Lmao Reply Parent Thread Link Slightly OT but it always blows my mind when I see the view count of Latin artists on YouTube like Reply Thread Link That video gave me too many feels. Reply Thread Link I know I say this in every Shakira post, but I saw her perform recently and it was sooooo fun and she is so gorgeous! Reply Thread Link An elderly Australian nun who lost a long legal battle with Manila to stop her deportation attacked Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's "reign of tyranny" as she returned home Sunday. Sister Patricia Fox, who spent almost three decades working with Philippine labourers, farmers and urban poor, was accused of illegally engaging in political activism as Duterte's government cracked down on foreign critics on its soil. The 71-year-old apparently angered the fiery president by joining a fact-finding mission in April to investigate alleged abuses against farmers, including killings and evictions by soldiers fighting guerrillas in the southern Philippines. Welcomed by supporters at Melbourne airport, Fox told reporters she was happy to be home but had found it hard to leave. "At present, the Philippines, the human rights abuses are just increasing and it is a reign of tyranny at present," Fox said. "There has been a culture of impunity for a long time and it is getting worse." Fox had been arrested briefly on charges of violating her visa's terms against activism in the Philippines and the slow turning wheels of the country's bureaucracy began moving to strip her of her papers. Immigration authorities last week refused to extend her tourist visa and ordered the 71-year-old out by Saturday. She decided to return to Australia rather than risk being forcibly removed. Church figures have previously criticised Duterte's policies, particularly his signature war on drugs that has left almost 5,000 people dead since he took office in 2016. Human rights groups charge that the actual death toll is about five times that total. 13 hours ago The Top 3 Large-Cap Stocks to Buy Under $100 Owning Quality Large-Cap Stocks Doesn't Have to Break The Bank There are certainly a lot of advantages associated with investing in large-cap stocks. These are companies with a market capitalization of over $10 billion and play a huge role in determining the overall direction and trend of the indexes. Read Article PRAGUE -- In 2018, Kazakh authorities sought to harass and intimidate RFE/RL journalists working in the region, often in connection with their coverage of political protests and movements. Members of Kazakhstans National Security Service (KNB) contacted members of RFE/RLs Kazakh Service on several occasions in Astana and other cities asking to meet to discuss their work, and visited RFE/RLs Almaty bureau seeking the names and contact information of the services editors On two occasions this summer, authorities detained Sanat Urnaliyev, a reporter for the service in West Kazakhstan, who was investigating criminal charges against the independent newspaper Uralskaya Nedelya for instigating a protest in support of a banned political movement. The first time, the journalist was questioned for 40 minutes; several days later, he was detained before the start of a protest and released six hours later to prevent him from reporting on it. Urnaliyev and eight RFE/RL reporters in other cities were similarly detained by police in 2016 to prevent them from covering protests against proposed land reforms. RFE/RL journalist Saniya Toiken, a recipient of the 2017 International Womens Media Foundations Courage Award, was summoned to a police station in April as a witness in a case involving a banned political movement, and later made to sign a document stating that she understood police instructions regarding the court decision. In July, Toiken filed a complaint with the police and prosecutors office in her region claiming she was being harassed online in connection with the case. There has been no response to the complaint to date. Karaganda regional reporter Elena Kulakova has also been subject to online harassment, accused in reports posted on several websites believed to be close to the KNB of spreading shameful false information about Kazakhstan. In July, an anonymous letter was left at her apartment that contained threats relating to her reporting about a banned religious group in the region. Kulakova filed a complaint about the incident with regional police and the prosecutors office, but has received no information about the investigation. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Chinas been minting two billionaires a week as of last year, and a new cohort of Chinese entrepreneurs is challenging Silicon Valley, making the billionaire battle yet another staging ground for the U.S.-China power struggle. Indeed, the UBS/PwC Billionaire Insights report 2018 is ominously titled New Visionaries and the Chinese Century, and notes that the disruptive forces of Chinas young entrepreneurs are set to swell the ranks of the worlds billionaires for years to come. Billionaires are at the vanguard of a new industrial revolution, which is harnessing the great power of technology to disrupt old industries and create new ones, according the 2018 Billionaire Insights report, which contains highlights of whats to come by years end. In part, we can thank the war over intellectual property for helping to boost Chinese billionaires, and this is where the race really heats up. In the U.S., in its 2018 brief, UBS notes that while 62 new Silicon Valley unicorns popped up, China has produced 50 and they are proving restless innovators and disruptors. Last year, the number of billionaires in the world hit 2,158, according to the report. Billionaire wealth grew 19 percent to $8.9 trillion in that same periodthe largest increase in history. Americas billionaires grew their wealth by $3.6 trillion, while APAC billionaires grew theirs by 2.7 trillion. By region, the UBS/PwC billionaire map looks like this for 2018: (Click to enlarge) Of the 40 main breakthrough innovations over the last 40 years, billionaires have driven almost 80 percentand 70 percent of those breakthroughs are technology-related. China is closing infast. UBS says that 80 percent of the companies behind those breakthroughs are based in the Americas, and 20 percent are in the Asia-Pacific region. Its the pace, rather than the numbers, that might make this the Chinese Century. UBS notes that the U.S. added 22 billionaires last year, bringing its total to 585. But five years ago, it added 87 billionaires in a year, suggesting that the pace is slowing down significantly. But in China, billionaire growth is described as an explosion. From 2006 to 2017, the number of Chinese billionaires grew from 16 to 373. Related: MIT Invests $1 Billion In Artificial Intelligence From 2016 to 2017, there is also a clear pattern. The U.S. growth pace was slowing, while the Chinese continued to mint billionaires at a much faster pace: (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) The 2017 figures indeed show that China is turning out two new billionaires every weeka pace that, if maintained, could soon let it outrun the U.S. in this race. According to NYT, based on current rates of growth, Chinese billionaires will outnumber their American counterparts within four years. And again, the name of this game is technology. Wealth-Xs Billionaire Census 2017 concurs, noting that Chinas billionaire population has surged over the past five to 10 years, led by developments in the technology, consumer retail, and real-estate sector. But there is a major element that differentiates the Chinese billionaire from the American counterpart. [] the average wealth and liquidity of Chinas billionaires are below the global average $2.7bn and $300m respectively indicating how relatively few are in a position to cash out of their primary business," according to Wealth-X. Billionaire wealth in Asia is very volatile because it is so closely linked to the public markets. "So they can be a billionaire one day, but not the next. Only 40% of billionaires [in the US] have their wealth tied to public markets, compared to 70% in Asia," John Mathews, a Group Managing Director and Head of Private Wealth Management (PWM), told Business Insider a year ago. According to a report from Credit Suisse's AG Group last week, there is one area where the U.S. has a much clearer and sustainable lead: Millionaires. It had more than 17 million millionaires as of the middle of this year, with China boasting only 3.5 million. By Damir Kaletovic for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Safehaven.com: Education Reporter Mathew Burciaga is a Santa Maria Times reporter who covers education, agriculture and public safety. Prior to joining the Times, Mathew ran a 114-year-old community newspaper in Wyoming. He owns more than 40 pairs of crazy socks from across the globe. 28kg of methamphetamine worth HK$13 million found in hydraulic cylinders at Hong Kong car wash Hong Kong police have seized 28kg of suspected methamphetamine with a street value of about HK$13 million (US$1.66 million) after it was found hidden inside two hydraulic cylinders at a car wash. Two men were arrested at the facility in the northwestern town of Yuen Long on Friday after officers received a tip-off about the substance. Narcotics Bureau chief superintendent Lam Chi-ming on Sunday said a 25-year-old delivery man surnamed Pun and 32-year-old suspect surnamed Lam would be charged with trafficking dangerous drugs. The second suspect was in charge of the car wash, which is on Tai Tong Road. Superintendent Ng Wing-sze said cracking open the steel cylinders had proved a challenge. Our colleagues only managed to cut into the two hydraulic cylinders after a few hours of using professional tools, she said. Chief inspector Tam Tsz-wai said the cylinders together weighed 500kg and each measured a metre long and 30cm wide. They were believed to have come from cranes. Both suspects were said to belong to a drug syndicate, Tam added. Superintendent Lam appealed to staff at logistics companies to look out for suspicious items if transporting heavy goods to remote places, or when cargo did not match its business. This article 28kg of methamphetamine worth HK$13 million found in hydraulic cylinders at Hong Kong car wash first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. MANILA, Philippines (AP) An Australian nun who angered the Philippine president by joining anti-government protests used her final hours in the country to call on Filipinos to unite and fight human rights abuses. Sister Patricia Anne Fox left the Philippines for Australia on Saturday night. The Bureau of Immigration ordered her deported in July, put her on a blacklist and then downgraded her missionary visa to a temporary visitor's visa, which expired Saturday. President Rodrigo Duterte has bristled at criticism of his leadership, particularly by foreigners like Fox, who he says have no right to meddle in Philippine domestic affairs. Most of the criticism has focused on his bloody anti-drug campaign, which has left thousands dead, alarmed Western governments and rights groups and prompted two complaints of mass murder before the International Criminal Court. "At present in the Philippines the human rights abuses are just increasing and it's a reign of terror and tyranny," Fox told reporters after arriving at Melbourne airport on Sunday. During a farewell news conference in a Catholic school before leaving for the Manila airport with a convoy of supporters, the 71-year-old Fox called on Filipinos to speak up and help the marginalized fight to gain land, houses and jobs. "The big challenge now is not to lose hope, to know that if we all move together, we can bring about change," Fox said. "Pope Francis said that if you're a Christian and there's massive human rights violations ... you should take action, make noise. Where the oppressed are, the church people should be there, not only always talking but with them and hopefully more vocal," she said. Fox told The Associated Press separately by phone that Duterte's anti-drug crackdown was "horribly barbaric" and she vowed to return to the country if allowed to resume her 27 years of missionary work for the poor. "I know a lot of mothers, wives who have lost someone. You have no right to take a life just like that without justice," Fox said. Story continues Dozens of activists, laborers, priests, nuns and tribal people, some in tears, thanked Fox by celebrating a Mass in her honor before sending her off. A lawyers group backing Fox, the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, said that by persecuting a frail and low-key missionary, Duterte has turned her into an "overnight rock star." Known for being soft-spoken, Fox is a coordinator of a Roman Catholic order of nuns and has worked for the poor in the Philippines. She promotes human rights and the welfare of workers, farmers and ethnic groups and has spoken against Duterte and his government, which has also been criticized for stifling dissent. She recalled in Melbourne that after she had spoken publicly in support for Coca-Cola workers seeking benefits in the Philippines, their picket was "broken up brutally, 10 of them were arrested and were five days in jail and not charged." "And so they were having a press conference and I did say to them, when they wanted me to speak, that the teachings of the Catholic Church clearly say you have a right to assembly, you have a right to unionize, you have a right to regular work. Now that, in the deportation order, was anti-government. One of the commentators said that now the social teachings of the Catholic Church are anti-government," she said. The immigration bureau said Fox violated her missionary visa by venturing far beyond her community in suburban Quezon city in metropolitan Manila and interfered in domestic politics by joining protests and news conferences that tackled "political and human rights issues against the government." Fox's lawyers said she joined the marginalized as part of her missionary work and called the Duterte administration's actions "political persecution." They expressed fears that the move to evict Fox could undermine the crucial civic and religious work of foreign missionaries in the country. Aside from Fox, the government has separately blocked a critical Italian politician, Giacomo Filibeck, and another Australian, Gill Hale Boehringer, from entering the Philippines this year. "The law is clear: The entry and admission of an alien is a matter of privilege, and not a right," Bureau of Immigration spokeswoman Dana Sandoval said Saturday. Bahrain sentenced the head of the country's Shiite opposition movement to life in prison Sunday for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar in a ruling rights groups have called a travesty. Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-banned Al-Wefaq movement, and two of his aides had been acquitted by the high criminal court in June, a verdict the public prosecution appealed. The public prosecutor said in a statement that the three had been unanimously sentenced by the appeals court for "acts of hostility" against Bahrain and "communicating with Qatari officials... to overthrow constitutional order". Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, severed all ties with Qatar in 2017, banning their citizens from travel to or communication with the emirate over its alleged ties to both Iran and radical Islamist groups. Sunday's verdict against the charismatic Shiite cleric can still be appealed. Ruled for more than two centuries by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty, Bahrain has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shiite-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. - 'Unlawful verdict' - Opposition movements, both religious and secular, have been outlawed since 2011 and hundreds of dissidents imprisoned -- many of them stripped of their citizenship in the process. Salman's Al-Wefaq was dissolved by court order in 2016. The cleric is currently serving a four-year sentence in a separate case -- "inciting hatred" in the kingdom. The leftist opposition National Democratic Action Society, or Al-Waad, was banned the following year over allegations of links to terrorists. Human rights groups have said cases against activists in Bahrain -- men and women, religious and secular -- fail to meet the basic standards of fair trials. Amnesty and HRW categorise Salman and other jailed opposition leaders prisoners of conscience. Advocacy groups, including Amnesty, slammed Sunday's ruling against the 53-year-old Salman and his aides, Hassan Sultan and Ali al-Aswad as political reprisal. "This verdict is a travesty of justice that demonstrates the Bahraini authorities' relentless and unlawful efforts to silence any form of dissent," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director. "Sheikh Ali Salman is a prisoner of conscience who is being held solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression." Bahraini activists said Sunday's verdict highlighted a broader regional policy towards freedom -- the same policy that saw Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered this month. "Despite the ongoing scrutiny on the Gulf region, with Saudi Arabia being under the spotlight for its brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Bahrain has made a decision that reeks of arrogance," said Sayed AlWadaei, head of advocacy for the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. - Upcoming election - The verdict comes ahead of controversial parliamentary elections that Bahrain's King Hamad has called for November 24. Dissolved opposition parties, including Al-Wefaq and the secular Al-Waad, do not have the right to put forward their own candidates in the vote. Bahrain last year ratified an amendment to the constitution granting military courts the authority to try civilians charged with terrorism, a term loosely defined by the country's penal code. In June, Bahrain amended its law on political rights, prohibiting "leaders and members of political associations dissolved for violating the kingdom's constitution or its laws" from running in legislative elections. Bahrain is a key ally of the United States and home to the US Fifth Fleet. The archipelago is also home to a permanent British military base. US President Donald Trump has eased restrictions on arms sales to Bahrain since taking office. Washington had urged Bahraini authorities not to overturn Salman's acquittal. Alistair Burt, the British Foreign Office's minister responsible for Middle East affairs, said he was "very concerned" by the life sentence, in a statement released Sunday. Bahraini authorities accuses Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom. Iran denies the allegations. Cathay Pacific should have alerted shareholders earlier about massive data leak: calls for Hong Kong stocks regulator to probe matter The five-month delay by Cathay Pacific Airways in notifying 9.4 million passengers about a data leak has sparked questions over whether the airline should have alerted its shareholders more promptly. Legal experts said news of the breach in May could affect the companys share prices and urged regulators to look into why it took so long for Hong Kongs flag carrier to come clean. One senior lawyer involved with public bodies overseeing financial policies and regulations noted that Cathay Pacifics announcement on the night of October 24 was filed as inside information. The announcement showed the airline was treating the incident as inside information, as opposed to a voluntary disclosure, so its only a matter of when Cathay made that call, said the legal source who did not wish to be named. This was echoed by shareholder advocate David Webb: From what is publicly known, it appears the board and senior management knew, or should have known, about the data breach by May 2018. They should have recognised it was price-sensitive information to be disclosed under the Securities and Futures Ordinance. They should have recognised it was price-sensitive information to be disclosed under the Securities and Futures Ordinance David Webb, shareholder advocate Under section 307B of the ordinance, a listed company must disclose inside information to the public, as soon as reasonably practicable after [it] has come to its knowledge. The largest data breach in Hong Kongs history however was kept secret from Cathay passengers and shareholders for months, after the airline detected the unauthorised access in March and confirmed it in early May. The Post first learned about the leak and reached out to Cathay for a response at about 8pm on October 24. Two hours later, instead of issuing a press release or responding to inquiries, the airline announced it was hacked on the stock exchanges disclosure platform. Story continues The airline confirmed about 860,000 passport numbers and 240,000 Hong Kong ID card numbers, among other personal information, were accessed. Cathays share price plunged 3.3 per cent the next day higher than the Hang Seng Indexs drop of 1 per cent on the same day. Goldman Sachs warned Cathays reputation could be affected, but said the expected price of HK$17.2 per share would be maintained. Syren Johnstone, executive director of the LLM (compliance and regulation) programme at the University of Hong Kongs law school, said in general, while a case of data hacking might not necessarily be inside information, it also depended on what had been accessed and the implications for a companys security system as a whole. Johnstone said Cathays delay to inform the market was a concern that required further investigation by regulators to establish facts. He said he expected the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to take a closer look at why the hacking was announced after Cathays interim results in August, when the data breach had been confirmed internally but not publicly. Directors should have been aware of the data breach long before their August board meeting to announce the interim results Syren Johnstone, HKU law school Directors should have been aware of the data breach long before their August board meeting to announce the interim results, Johnstone added. If they were not aware, it suggests they may not have appropriate safeguards in respect of their disclosure obligations, which is itself a breach of the Securities and Futures Ordinance. Webb suggested the SFC take the case to the Market Misconduct Tribunal over the 2.8 per cent difference in Cathays share price to the market average. If the tribunal rules against the parties involved, then shareholders who purchased shares between May and October 2018 would be able to use that finding as evidence in a claim that they had overpaid for the shares because they had not been informed about the data breach, he said. Cathay did not respond to a Post request for comment. The airlines company secretary David Fu Yat-hung also did not reply by press time to an inquiry about when it would have disclosed the breach had it not been approached by the media. Both the SFC and Hong Kong stock exchange said they would not comment on specific cases. A Post analysis of three major disclosures over data leaks suffered by Hong Kong-listed companies showed they made their cases public no longer than six days after the discovery of the incidents. On November 14, the personal information of five million customers of toy maker VTech Holdings Limited was suspectedly accessed illegally. The case was noted by the company 10 days later and it announced the breach on November 30. VTech alerted customers about the scale and types of data leaked, while shareholders and potential investors were reminded to exercise caution when dealing in its shares because a data breach assessment was pending at the time. In 2017, personal information such as ID card numbers, passport numbers and credit card numbers of about 200,000 customers of travel agency WWPKG Holdings were leaked. Earlier this year, data such as the credit card details of some 380,000 clients of telecommunications company HKBN were breached. WWPKG and HKBN released inside information announcements within two days of the detection of the breaches, and held press conferences to explain details. In the United States, a delay in the disclosure of a data breach could result in a penalty by the countrys regulator. In April this year, Yahoo, now known as Altaba, was fined for taking more than two years to disclose a large data breach affecting more than 500 million accounts, involving emails, birth dates, and passwords. The details of the case were reported to Yahoo's senior management and legal department, but not disclosed until two years later in an acquisition talk with Verizon. Altaba settled with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over a US$35 million (HKD$280 million) fine. This article Cathay Pacific should have alerted shareholders earlier about massive data leak: calls for Hong Kong stocks regulator to probe matter first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. Chinas vice-premier Han Zheng has praised Hong Kong literary giant Louis Cha Leung-yung for promoting traditional Chinese culture with his works and supporting Beijings one country, two systems governing principle for Hong Kong. Cha, 94, also known by his pen name Jin Yong, died in a Hong Kong hospital with friends and family at his bedside on Tuesday. With well over 100 million copies of his books sold worldwide and countless adaptations, ranging from films to video games, Cha was universally regarded as the most influential Chinese novelist of the 20th century. Cha also co-founded the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao Daily News. Beijings liaison office in the city said in a statement on Friday night that 13 current and former state leaders of China, including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and Han, had mourned the passing of Cha. But the office only published Hans letter of condolence to Chas family on Sunday. In the letter, Han said: Mr Cha was a famous writer and an outstanding newspaperman. He spent his life safeguarding and promoting Chinese traditional culture. With great skill, he wrote of his feelings towards the country. He was prolific and achieved extraordinary things, he added. Han also described Cha as a loyal and noble patriot who loved his country, loved Hong Kong, and supported the one country, two systems principle. In a reference to Hong Kongs mini-constitution and the 1997 handover, the vice-premier said: Cha contributed his energy and wisdom to the drafting of the Basic Law and the establishment of the Hong Kong special administrative region. He will forever be admired by the people, Han concluded. The State Councils Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office also wrote a letter to Chas family on Friday, praising the writer as a patriot who carried morality and justice on his shoulders and created masterpieces with his magic hands. Story continues Chas funeral is expected to be private, and details of it have not been disclosed. Books of condolences will be opened at the Hong Kong Heritage Museums Jin Yong Gallery in Sha Tin for the public to pay tribute to the novelist from November 12 to 30. This article Chinese vice-premier Han Zheng pays tribute to loyal and noble patriot, author Louis Cha first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. Political cartoonist calls off Hong Kong show ahead of opening amid claims of threats from Chinese authorities A political cartoonist whose works satirise leaders of mainland China and Hong Kong called off his first international solo exhibition in the city one day before its opening, as event organisers claimed he had received threats from Chinese authorities. On Friday afternoon, website Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) one of three co-organisers of the exhibition of artist Badiucaos work announced the cancellation, citing safety concerns. The decision follows threats made by the Chinese authorities relating to the artist, the statement said without providing further information. Patrick Poon Kar-wai, researcher of another organiser, Amnesty International, said: Badiucao told the HKFP he was under pressure, and his exhibition, as well as the opening ceremony on Saturday evening must therefore be cancelled. The source and nature of the threats were unclear as the organisers declined to reveal further information, citing lack of knowledge and the artists own request. Badiucao, a Shanghai-born and Australia-based cartoonist who produced drawings critical of Chinese current affairs and political figures, was supposed to display his works highlighting portraits of political leaders, exhibits of torture equipment and iconic Hong Kong neon blended together for 11 days from Saturday in a co-working space in Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island. To kick off the exhibition, Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung, artist Sampson Wong and Russian band Pussy Riot were invited as guests at an opening ceremony on Saturday evening. The exhibition was the first of a series of events jointly held by HKFP, Amnesty and the group Reporters Without Borders in November to discuss the state of free expression in Hong Kong since a large-scale civil disobedience movement in 2014. Joshua Wong wrote in a Facebook post: I condemn any and all efforts made by the Chinese authorities to threaten and harm freedom fighters and democracy defenders in Hong Kong. Story continues When asked whether the event organisers made a report to Hong Kong police, Tom Grundy of the HKFP said: It involved the Chinese authorities and Badiucao, not Hong Kong nor us as organisers. The organisers also declined to comment further on whether Badiucao reported the incident to the authorities in Australia. Hong Kong police said only that anyone who considered their personal safety under threat or felt intimidated may report the case and seek assistance. Badiucao had not replied to inquiries from the Post. The Hong Kong Journalists Association issued a statement on Saturday evening expressing extreme concern over the cancellation. The association regrets the incident, has concerns about the pressure on Hong Kongs freedoms of expression and speech, and opposes any form of threat against such freedoms by any individual, group or government, the statement said. On Saturday night, guests originally invited to the exhibitions opening ceremony organised a panel discussion to express their concerns and show solidarity with the artist. Also present were Cedric Alviani, Asia bureau head of the Reporters Without Borders, Oscar Ho Hing-kay, a cultural management professor at Chinese University, and HKFPs Grundy. Sampson Wong said he had been unable to get in touch with Badiucao since Friday and was worried about the artists safety. Pussy Riot member Olya Kurachyova said she was not surprised about an exhibition being banned but was sorry it happened in Hong Kong. This article Political cartoonist calls off Hong Kong show ahead of opening amid claims of threats from Chinese authorities first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro waves at supporters as he arrives to watch an aerial performance by the private pilots' group Esquadrilha do Ceu" or Sky Squadron", at Barra beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Bolsonaro appeared in public Tuesday for the first time as president-elect. He visited a church led by ultraconservative pastor Silas Malafaia and spoke briefly to the faithful on stage. "I am sure that I am not the most capable, but God capacitates the chosen ones," he said. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) SAO PAULO (AP) President-elect Jair Bolsonaro reiterated Thursday that he plans to move Brazil's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, joining the United States and Guatemala. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly welcomed the plan. In a tweet Thursday, Bolsonaro said: "As previously stated during our campaign, we intend to transfer the Brazilian Embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel is a sovereign state and we shall duly respect that." It was the first time since being elected Sunday that Bolsonaro referred to his plan to move the embassy. In Israel, Netanyahu issued a statement praising Bolsonaro. "I congratulate my friend Brazilian President-Elect, Jair Bolsonaro, for his intention to move the Brazilian Embassy to Jerusalem, a historic, correct and exciting step!" Netanyahu spoke to Bolsonaro earlier this week, congratulating him on his victory and inviting him to visit Israel. If Bolsonaro follows through on his pledge, Brazil would become the third country to have an embassy in Jerusalem, after the U.S. and Guatemala. Paraguay briefly moved its embassy to Jerusalem as well, only to move it back to Tel Aviv after its new president, Mario Abdo Benitez, was elected. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of a future state. Israel claims all of the city, including the eastern sector, home to Jerusalem's most important religious sites, as its eternal capital. Most countries maintain embassies in Tel Aviv, saying the final status of Jerusalem must be determined through negotiations. Some Brazilians have raised concerns about the idea, saying it would hurt Brazil's relations with Muslim nations. Former Brazilian Ambassador to the U.S. Rubens Barbosa has warned that such a move could hurt Brazil's poultry exports. He says that Brazil "would be throwing away $6 billion per year in poultry sales to Arab countries." More than 50 years after its founding, the Nukus Museum of Art in Uzbekistan's remote Karakalpakstan region still startles and charms visitors in the spirit of its eccentric late founder. But having survived Soviet censorship and predatory foreign art dealers in the 1990s, some fear the world's second-largest collection of Russian avant-garde art, faces a fresh threat. The Friends of Nukus Museum, a Dutch-registered charity that has provided thousands of dollars in support to the museum annually since 2001 is expected to disband at the end of this year. The main reason, its chairman David Pearce told AFP, is an impasse over gifts donated to the museum including books and audio equipment more than three years ago that have disappeared. "As far as we are concerned they have been confiscated or stolen," said Pearce, whose charity also serves as an important voice for the museum abroad. The museum's new administration refused a request from AFP for an interview about the charity's claims. - End of an era - Doubts about the museum's new leadership have increased concerns for the state-run museum's remarkable collection. Its unique trove of Russian avant-garde art from the first half of last century was assembled during the Soviet era at considerable personal risk by the collector Igor Savitsky. The Savitsky collection captures a flowering movement later crushed by the Bolsheviks. It may be housed in the remote town of Nukus -- population 300,000 -- but only the State Russian museum in Saint Petersburg has a larger collection of this kind of art, which was essentially forbidden under communism. Concern for the collection was first sparked by the sacking in 2015 of the museum's director, Maranika Babanazarova, who had worked closely with The Friends of Nukus Museum. Babanazarova was widely regarded as a scrupulous gatekeeper of the approximately 90,000 items at the museum which, as well as the avant-garde works, span Uzbek folk art and millennia-old archeological artefacts. The end of her stewardship also severed an important link back to Savitsky, who had begged her to take over his position as director of the museum on his deathbed in 1984. Today, few museum staff remember the man himself, but there are still some exceptions. Valentina Sychyova, the museum's 71-year-old chief curator, first encountered Savitsky roaming the corridors of its original building in 1971. "He was wearing ripped trousers and a crumpled, clay-specked shirt," she recalled. "I assumed he was a maintenance worker or a builder." Russian-born Sychyova was simply visiting relatives in the then-Soviet republic. But after an enthralling conversation, she ended up working for him, she told AFP. - Forbidden collection - Savitsky's collecting habit repeatedly took him to Russia and back. His efforts would one day see the Nukus museum hailed as a "Louvre of the Steppes" by excited European art critics. But in an era when state-sponsored socialist realism eclipsed all other forms of art, his was a dangerous undertaking. Artists featured at the museum include little-known Russian painters such as Lev Galperin. He was among those artists whose work was repressed during the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Others, like Ural Tansykbayev, a native of the Karakalpakstan region, became celebrated artists in the socialist realism style. They left their earlier, less propagandistic works to fester in cellars and attics. Savitsky, usually short of cash, deferred payment to artists and their relatives for many of the works that he rescued. At the turn of the millennium, the museum still owed money for parts of the collection. Some artists, however, donated their paintings, happy to have found an appreciative audience -- and astounded that local authorities in the far-flung region were quietly supporting Savitsky rather than locking him up. Nukus' geographical distance from the centres of Soviet power afforded Savitsky and the state-owned museum he founded vital breathing space. But Pearce and others have wondered aloud whether his legacy would now be better served if at least part of the avant-garde collection was rehoused in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, or even Europe. Last year the museum whetted art world appetites outside the country when it sent over 200 works as temporary exhibits to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. - 'Burn me with them' - Nukus is never likely to see more than a trickle of visitors, despite the state investing up to $20 million in a museum expansion completed in 2017. But ex-director Babanazarova is among those who would find it hard to see the precious works ripped away from the town permanently. It was Savitsky's love for this adopted region and efforts to support Karakalpak cultural heritage that persuaded the influential local officials he befriended -- including her academic father -- to indulge his vision. During the economic chaos of the 1990s, her team fended off shady Western art dealers who arrived cash-in-hand promising untold riches. Rapacious Uzbek officials also heaped pressure on the collective, but Savitsky's disciples refused to sell out his legacy, Babanazarova told AFP. Choosing a favourite from the collection is hard for her. "People sometimes ask me, 'If the museum was burning down and you could only save a painting, which one would that be?'" she said. "I always tell them I would sooner stand in the halls and burn with them." Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena announced Sunday that parliament would reconvene a week later than expected, prolonging a bitter power struggle that has crippled the country. Sirisena had on Friday promised that he would recall parliament on Wednesday to decide between two rivals claiming the lawful right to head Sri Lanka's government. The nation of 21-million has been gripped by constitutional turmoil since Sirisena sacked his former ally, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and his cabinet on October 26 -- appointing former president Mahinda Rajapakse in his place. Sirisena shut the legislature a day after the sacking, preventing a vote demanded by Wickremesinghe to prove his majority. On Sunday the expected recall was pushed back until November 14. "I do by this Proclamation summon Parliament to meet at the Chamber of Parliament on the Fourteenth day of November, 2018 at 10.00 am," Sirisena said in an official proclamation. The United Nations had led a chorus of international voices demanding an early resumption of parliament to end the constitutional crisis that has paralysed the administration and caused economic upheaval. Wickremesinghe says his dismissal was illegal as he commands a greater majority in parliament than former strongman Rajapakse. Sunday's announcement by Sirisena came as the country's main Tamil party urged him to end the worsening political crisis. - 'End the crisis' - The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) could tip a vote to decide between the two rivals and has already said it would vote against Rajapakse in a no-confidence motion when parliament reconvenes. Both men have been marshalling numbers behind the scenes, worrying civil society groups who protested Sunday in the capital Colombo against the horse-trading. TNA legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan said the president had called the Tamil legislators to a meeting Wednesday -- the same day parliament was originally expected to reconvene. "We have asked the president to immediately call parliament and end this crisis," TNA legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan told AFP. Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) risks losing legislators to Rajapakse's camp as the days drag by. Some members of his party have alleged they were offered portfolios and huge amounts of money to switch allegiances. Seven MPs have already switched sides and been granted portfolios under Rajapakse's new administration. The Sunday Times of Colombo newspaper described the sacking of the prime minister as "sheer political expediency" and outside the law. The state-run Sunday Observer, now controlled by Rajapakse loyalists, defended the change of government but acknowledged the crisis should be resolved. According to latest counts, Wickremesinghe now has 102 MPs from the 225-seat assembly after another defection while Rajapakse and Sirisena also have 102. Most of the remaining 21 MPs -- including the TNA -- are set to oppose Rajapakse, observers said. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) party, which has seven lawmakers, said its members had also rejected offers to join the Sirisena-Rajapakse camp. Meanwhile, thousands of supporters continue to occupy Wickremesinghe's official residence saying they would resist any move by Sirisena to evict their prime minister. Guangzhou Seagull Kitchen and Bath Products, which relies on the US market for over a third of its revenues, has been running its production lines in China around the clock for the past three months, according to its workers. Uniformed employees outside its factory compound said they were working 12-hour shifts to expedite orders for early next year, making sure their tap handles arrive in the United States ahead of a scheduled tariff increase. The bathroom fixtures Seagull makes are on the list of US$200 billion worth of Chinese products on which the US imposed a 10 per cent duty starting on September 24, and which is set to rise to 25 per cent on January 1 if Beijing does not make trade concessions. Many of us have to work rotating [12-hour] shifts from 8pm to 8am or 8am to 8pm each day, said a migrant worker in his forties, who declined to be named. He and his colleagues were having a late lunch, costing 12 yuan (US$1.70) each, in a small restaurant outside the factory on the outskirts of Guangzhou, the capital of south Chinas Guangdong province. Analysts have said the practice by Chinese exporters of accelerating production and shipment now to avoid the upcoming tariff increase or front-loading orders is one probable reason behind Chinas strong export performance since Washington started to levy its first round of tariffs on Chinese imports in early July. The practice may be widespread, because Chinese exports of chemicals, non-ferrous metals, plastics and special industrial machinery were the fastest-growing Chinese export categories in September, according to Chinese customs data, despite all of them being included on US tariff lists. But fulfilling next years orders so far in advance could lead to a significant slowdown in future sales if US clients reduce their next orders accordingly. Chinas official purchasing managers index has shown new export orders have been contracting since June. A tactic that works for now Story continues Ding Shuang, the chief China economist at Standard Chartered bank, who has just visited exporters in the eastern province of Zhejiang, said many companies were doing the same as Seagull and the production frenzy could last the rest of the year. Increased demand for shipments has pushed up shipping rates and some exporters are even having trouble finding any space on cargo ships, Ding said. But the situation could quickly turn bad next year, he warned, as exporters face a double blow from fewer new orders and a sharp depletion of existing orders. So far, the trade war has not had any significant impact on Chinas trade and broad economy. Manufacturers front-loading may be partly responsible. Chinas exports rose 14.5 per cent in September from a year earlier, accelerating from a 9.8 per cent rise in August. Meanwhile, its trade surplus with the US, its biggest export market, widened to a record US$34 billion last month. In Guangdong, Chinas export manufacturing hub, the economy expanded 6.9 per cent during the first three quarters of 2018 from a year ago, or slightly higher than the nationwide growth rate of 6.7 per cent for the period. Guangdongs exports posted a modest rise of 0.4 per cent in the first nine months of the year, rebounding from a 3.3 per cent decline in the first half, implying strong third-quarter gains. The stronger exports figure was supported by activity at factories like Seagulls. The question is what will these factories do once those orders have been completed, particularly if US clients reduce or even stop orders because of the extra tariff costs. An exit strategy? Listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Guangzhou Seagull is one of a few Chinese listed companies to have disclosed the possible impact on their operations from the US tariffs. The maker of high-end kitchen and bath plumbing products and bathroom furnishings for brands in the US, Europe and Asia said in a statement that its tap components, the main product line it exports to the US, were on the new tariff list. The companys US sales exceeded 372 million yuan in the first half of this year, accounting for about half of its export revenue and more than 35 per cent of its total revenue. Seagull said it was working with its US clients to apply for a one-year exemption from the tariffs. If this does not work, its US clients will have to raise sales prices. Some of its US clients have asked Seagull to shoulder part of the extra costs, but the company said it was trying to avoid that. It said it had started talking to some US clients about moving production out of China. We will proactively explore the proposal of setting up factories abroad to maintain relations with US clients, it said in a statement. Its investor relations office declined to comment further on its plans for managing the impact of the trade war. It also declined to reveal information about its internal production arrangement. Ground shifts beneath Chinese firms Guangzhou Seagull was set up in 1998, backed by Taiwanese businesspeople, with Chinas labour-intensive export-oriented manufacturing industry thriving thanks to cheap labour and high demand from the United States, Europe and Hong Kong. Mainland officials rolled out red carpets for investors from Taiwan and Hong Kong to build factories. A local worker in Guangzhou cost 400 to 500 yuan a month, whereas a skilled Hong Kong worker made 20 times that at the time. The business grew quickly in the 2000s by making products mainly for the US and Europe, but the fundamentals that made it successful have changed since. Labour, rent and raw material costs have soared, eating up profits and making Chinese products less competitive. Tariffs have only made things worse. One consequence is a growing number of Chinese manufacturers speeding up relocation of factories to other countries in Southeast Asia, where costs are lower and US tariffs do not apply. Overseas customers are increasingly ordering from such factories, rather than the mainland, to reduce costs. Huida, another leading Chinese bathware manufacturer, said its export revenue fell almost 13 per cent year on year in the first six months to 373 million yuan. Weve lost a lot of overseas orders, and other companies in the industry are looking for ways to minimise the losses, chief executive Wang Yanqing was quoted as saying last week at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou. Huaji Dengyu Auto-Parts, meanwhile, warned in a corporate filing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that tariffs would hit its business because its engine valves are covered by them. Sales of US$21 million in the US in 2017 accounted for almost 80 per cent of its export revenue and more than 41 per cent of its total revenue. Workers fear for future The full impact of the trade war, however, will only begin to show later this year, industry watchers said. The impact of US tariffs on Chinese exports could show as early as October, and the main pressure will be reflected in the export volume in the first quarter of next year, Hua Chuang Securities analysts wrote in a recent research report. There is little sign of the US and China de-escalating tensions, with US President Donald Trump threatening to put tariffs on all Chinese imports. Zhao Xijun, an economist from the School of Finance at the Renmin University of China, said Chinese manufacturers needed to understand that the international trade environment had changed, and be prepared for heavy duties to last for some time. Chinese enterprises also need to speed up the diversification of their sales, to countries other than the US, to make up for a decline in US orders, he said. Although Beijing is trying to play down the impact of tariffs, the impact on those reliant on sales to the US could be severely affected. Workers at Guangzhou Seagull said they could make about 6,000 yuan a month, including overtime from their extended shifts more than workers at smaller factories nearby. But its still a low pay because we are overloaded with work, one said. It seems the company has no plan to hire new workers. There could even be lay-offs next year if existing orders are filled and there is a lack of new orders. Another said he had been working at the factory for many years to support his family. Our workers really had no idea what the so-called trade war was all about, but now that we are starting to feel its effects, we are starting to worry, he said. This article Trade war: Chinese exporters front-loading beats US tariffs but for how long? first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. More from South China Morning Post: Two Filipino mothers pin last hopes on final appeal to stay in Hong Kong as separation from families loom Two mothers who face separation from their families after being refused the right to remain in Hong Kong have expressed fear and anxiety as they pin their last hopes on the citys highest court overturning the Immigration Departments decisions. The cases of Filipino women Milagros Tecson Comilang and Desiree Rante Luis will be heard before the Appeal Committee on Wednesday, which will decide whether their applications will be formally heard before the full bench of the Court of Final Appeal. Comilang and Luis have been battling for the right to remain in Hong Kong since 2011 and 2014, respectively. The judgment will also have an impact on at least a dozen ethnic Chinese Hong Kong women whose spouses have been refused residency in the city and are seeking court reviews. Mark Daly, a human rights lawyer who is representing these families, said: Immigration decisions should not be given a blanket exemption from fundamental human rights norms, particularly childrens and family rights. Comilang, a former domestic worker, was left to raise her daughter who was born in the city after she and her husband Ahmed, a permanent resident, divorced and he withdrew his support for her dependency status. Luis came to Hong Kong as a domestic helper in 1991. She married her husband, also from the Philippines and a domestic helper in the city, in 1997. She gave birth to three children, and at least one of them, now 16, became a permanent resident in 2010. Two other sons, aged 14 and seven, suffer from medical conditions such as heart disease, so Luis was granted an extension of stay to look after them. Her extension ended in 2012 and immigration authorities concluded the children could depend on their father. I have mixed feelings theres frustration, fear and anxiety Milagros Tecson Comilang Story continues I have mixed feelings theres frustration, fear and anxiety as we do not know what will be the result, Comilang said, adding that she however remained positive about her case. I feel calm that they would give me the opportunity to remain with my daughter. Her daughter, 12, said: I have positive thoughts that my mom will win the case. Comilang said: I told her that I might not be allowed to stay. But she said, it wont happen, you will be by my side. She always tells me mom you will not go anywhere, I need you here, nobody can take care of me. Why will anyone ask you to leave? Shes very supportive, she does not want negative thoughts. Luis said: I am so nervous, I do not know what will be the decision. Her worry is that her two younger sons have medical conditions and need regular check-ups. I dont know what will happen if I am not with them as all their lives, Ive been with them Desiree Rante Luis I dont know what will happen if I am not with them as all their lives, Ive been with them. My husband works. We dont know what to do. We can survive, by the grace of God, so long as were together. If the Court of Final Appeal refuses the applications, it will mean the families of Luis and Comilang will be separated, potentially splitting parents and children apart. Separately, in another case, a Hong Kong-Chinese woman whose Pakistani husband has been refused a dependent visa and is appealing a Court of First Instance ruling, has written to the Immigration Department on compassionate grounds. My husband and I have been hoping that we can have a normal family life just like all other ordinary families in Hong Kong. Sadly, however, I suffered from great emotional and mental hardships in this long application process, said the woman, who cannot be named. This article Two Filipino mothers pin last hopes on final appeal to stay in Hong Kong as separation from families loom first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday kicks off a week of commemorations for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, which is set to mix remembrance of the past and warnings about the present surge in nationalism around the globe. Some 70 to 80 world leaders including US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are preparing to fly to the French capital next weekend for a ceremony marking a century since the guns fell silent. This Sunday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined Macron in the border city of Strasbourg to attend a concert in the city's towering Gothic Cathedral celebrating the friendship between former wartime enemies France and Germany. The 40-year-old French leader will next embark on a week-long tour during which he will criss-cross war-hit areas in northern and eastern France and attend individual ceremonies with the leaders of Germany, Britain and Mali. The centrist president is expected to use the international spotlight to issue a rallying cry against nationalism, having recently warned that the world risked forgetting the lessons of the 20th century's great conflicts. "I am struck by similarities between the times we live in and those of between the two world wars," he told a French newspaper last week, adding that nationalism was a "leprosy" spreading worldwide. Trump, who has made "America First" his rallying cry, will be among the leaders gathered for the main ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, 100 years to the day since the armistice. The commemorations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the Champs-Elysees avenue will be held under tight security following a string of deadly jihadist attacks in France over the past three years. Macron is to visit Western Front battlefields from Verdun to the Somme. On Tuesday, in honour of the "black army" of former colonial troops who fought alongside the French, he and Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will visit Reims, a city defended by the African soldiers. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May will join Macron at the Somme on Friday, while on Saturday he heads to the village of Rethondes, where the armistice was signed, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. - Peace forum - War commemorations aside, Macron is set to use his tour of northern France to visit areas hit hard by industrial decline, where far-right leader Marine Le Pen performed strongly in last year's presidential election. "After paying homage to those who died for their country it will be back to dealing with social and economic problems," said Bruno Cautres of political think-tank CEVIPOF. The former investment banker -- who has struggled to shake off an image as a "president of the rich" -- will zip through 17 towns, holding Wednesday's weekly cabinet meeting in the Ardennes where the German army had its headquarters for four years. "Each stop will be an opportunity to speak about the current concerns in those areas, which are trying to bounce back from de-industrialisation or major changes in agriculture," an aide to Macron said last week. The president, whose approval rating is languishing in the low 20s, has dismissed rumours that he is suffering from burnout. He sparked rampant speculation by taking a few days off ahead of the tour, which aides have insisted were to gather his energy before an intense week of diplomacy. This week is an opportunity for Macron to "reflect a strong presidential image" both at home and abroad, Cautres said. Macron is attempting to position himself as a champion of centrist politics and multilateralism in the run-up to European parliamentary elections in May, saying he expects the duel to be one between "progressives" and "nationalists". After next Sunday's ceremony, world leaders are set to attend a three-day peace forum opened by Merkel, an event which France wants to turn into an annual multilateral peace conference. 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #44 Posted on 4 November 2018 by John Hartz Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... SkS in the News... SkS Spotlights... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming A post-sunset swimmer at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, Calif., this month. (Mike Blake/Reuters) The worlds oceans have been soaking up far more excess heat in recent decades than scientists realized, suggesting that Earth could be set to warm even faster than predicted in the years ahead, according to new research published Wednesday. Over the past quarter-century, Earths oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year than scientists previously had thought, said Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the startling study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The difference represents an enormous amount of additional energy, originating from the sun and trapped by Earths atmosphere the yearly amount representing more than eight times the worlds annual energy consumption. In the scientific realm, the new findings help resolve long-running doubts about the rate of the warming of the oceans before 2007, when reliable measurements from devices called Argo floats were put to use worldwide. Before that, differing types of temperature records and an overall lack of them contributed to murkiness about how quickly the oceans were heating up. The higher-than-expected amount of heat in the oceans means more heat is being retained within Earths climate system each year, rather than escaping into space. In essence, more heat in the oceans signals that global warming is more advanced than scientists thought. Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming by Chris Moody & Brady Dennis, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Oct 31, 2018 Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... In his Op-ed, In praise of 'real' science, published in the Times Colonist (Victoria, BC), Geof Johnson wrote: In the online journal Skeptical Science, John Cook, a research assistant professor at the Centre for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, writes: The assertion that humans are, one way or another, at the root of global warming is the position of the academies of science from 80 countries. Quote of the Week We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted, said Resplandy, who published the work with experts from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and several other institutions in the United States, China, France and Germany. But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didnt sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already. Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming by Chris Moody & Brady Dennis, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Oct 31, 2018 SkS Spotlights... Climate Action 100+ is a five-year initiative led by investors to engage systemically important greenhouse gas emitters and other companies across the global economy that have significant opportunities to drive the clean energy transition and help achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Investors are calling on companies to improve governance on climate change, curb emissions and strengthen climate-related financial disclosures. Investor representatives from AustralianSuper, California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), HSBC Global Asset Management, Ircantec and Manulife Asset Management have helped to lead the design and development of Climate Action 100+. The initiative is coordinated by five partner organisations: Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC); Ceres; Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC); Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC); and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). It builds on the successful investor engagement programmes coordinated by the partner organisations over a number of years. Coming Soon on SkS... How (not) to talk about climate change (Climate Adam) (Climate Adam) Climate sensitivity uncertainties leading to more concern (Greenman) (Greenman) Climate change science comeback strategies: 'In it for the money' (Karin Kirk) (Karin Kirk) What the US midterm election means for climate change (Dana) (Dana) New research this week (Ari) (Ari) 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45 (John Hartz) (John Hartz) 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #45 (John Hartz) Climate Feedback Reviews Washington Post accurately describes ocean warming study with potential implications for future carbon budget Climate Feedback asked a team of scientists to analyze the article, Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming by Chris Moody & Brady Dennis, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Oct 31, 2018 Three scientists analyzed the article and estimate its overall scientific credibility to be 'high'. A majority of reviewers tagged the article as: Accurate, Insightful, Sound reasoning. Review Summary This article in The Washington Post covers a new study estimating the amount of heat energy that has accumulated in the ocean in recent decades. Such estimates have been limited because the most complete network of ocean temperatures did not exist until the 2000s. The new study uses an indirect method, instead relying on changes in atmospheric gases caused by warmer oceans. This method leads to a larger estimate of the ocean warming that resulted from human activities. Scientists who reviewed the article found that it did a good job of describing the study, while noting that the studys conclusions (and implications) require additional investigation. In particular, discussion among scientists has focused on clarifying what impact this studys results have on our understanding of climate sensitivity (how much warming occurs from a given amount of greenhouse gas emissions) and, consequently, how much the world can emit before reaching 2 C warming. Washington Post accurately describes ocean warming study with potential implications for future carbon budget, Edited by Scott Johnson, Climate Feedback, Nov 3, 2018 SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Theres only one thing happening between now and Tuesday, and its the Republican partys disgraceful racist fearmongering in hopes of staving off electoral disaster. Naturally, Saturday Night Live addressed the topic in this weeks cold open, and the result was both funnier and more accurate because it didnt feature Donald Trump. Whether Alec Baldwins absence was previously-planned or the result of recent events in his own life, Kate McKinnon took the lead, and the sketch focused on Fox News role in pumping garbage into peoples minds, instead of the bonehead in the White House. Thats good, because if Donald Trump somehow disappeared in a puff of racism tomorrow, the entire infrastructure that made his presidency possible would still be chugging right along. Like so: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Fox News is pretty grating even in a SNL-ified form, but Cecily Strongs spot-on Jeanine Pirro impression is a delight, and Keenan Thompson is a delight no matter what hes doingin this case, a very Kenan Thompson-y Sheriff David Clarke. But although Kate McKinnon picks up some of Laura Ingrahams tics, she is nowhere near unpleasant or smug enough. Heres a taste of the genuine article, if you can take it: Advertisement Advertisement That perpetual sneer! McKinnon comes closest to nailing it in the moment when she crosses her arms, leans back in her chair, and shakes her head in rage at the perfidy of Brad Pittbut Ingraham can somehow project that kind of contempt 24x7. If you didnt make it to the end, you missed her best line: Advertisement Advertisement Of this, my friends, you can be sure: Your views on immigration will have zero impact and zero influence on a House dominated by Democrats who want to replace you, the American voters, with newly-amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants. Yes, thats Laura Ingraham claiming that Democrats want to replace Americans with immigrants, a year after Charlottesville and a few weeks before Pittsburgh. Ingraham has also done more than her share to spread conspiracy theories about George Sorossee, e.g., Far-Left Billionaires Soros, Steyer Uniting to Remake America, which features his headshot superimposed on stacks of $100 billsso the missing ingredient in McKinnons impression might be the blood on Ingrahams hands. Cecily Strongs Jeanine Pirro comes closer to reality, but is still much too kind. Heres the Saturday Night Live version of fearmongering about the people in the migrant caravan: Advertisement Advertisement Everyone youve ever seen in your nightmares, Laura. Its got Guatamalans, Mexicans, ISIS, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos, and several Babadooks. Thats funny! Now heres how the passage that seems to be parodying, when the actual Jeanine Pirro addressed the same topic: Now Im not saying theyre all criminals. What I am asking is, who are they? What I am saying is, I want to vet them. Screen them. I want to find out who among them is a criminal. Who among them is a gang member, like the notorious MS-13 gang members who arrogantly rode into our United States by invitation during the Obama years and are now in New York and elsewhere, brutally and savagely murdering innocent American citizens. I want to know, who is a pedophile? Who is a sex offender? Who thinks theyre entitled to beat their wives? I want to know who has an alcohol problem, who has a drug problem, who likes to drive drunk, and who has no problem hauling drugs for the cartel. Advertisement Advertisement Its just a long string of rhetorical questions that boil down to When did asylum seekers stop beating their wives? including one that is literally When did asylum seekers stop beating their wives? It isnt any better on tape: Advertisement Jeanine Pirros delivery and affect are begging for an impressionist, and Strong should consider playing her in a sketch, series of sketches, or feature-length film about a more naturally hilarious topic, like Robert Durst. But the virulent hatred Fox serves up is difficult to make a joke about: its so over-the-top and vile that any comedic exaggeration ends up accidentally being an improvement. If Fox News started routinely claiming that the country was about to be overrun by Babadooks, wed all welcome it as a return to sanity. After all, whens the last time you heard about a right-wing terrorist murdering a room full of Babadooks? Slates expanded voting rights coverage is made possible by the support of Slate Plus members and readers like you. In perhaps the most outrageous example of election administration partisanship in the modern era, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is running for governor while simultaneously in charge of the states elections, has accused the Democratic Party without evidence of hacking into the states voter database. He plastered a headline about it on the Secretary of States website, which thousands of voters use to get information about voting on election day. Its just the latest in a series of partisan moves by Kemp, who has held up more than 50,000 voter registrations for inconsistencies as small as a missing hyphen, fought rules to give voters a chance to prove their identities when their absentee ballot applications are rejected for a lack of a signature match, and been aggressive in prosecuting those who have done nothing more than try to help those in need of assistance in casting ballots. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the latest appalling move by Kemp to publicly accuse the Democrats of hacking without evidence is even worse than that: Kemp has been one of the few state election officials to refuse help from the federal Department of Homeland Security to deter foreign and domestic hacking of voter registration databases. After computer scientists demonstrated the insecurity of the states voting system, he was sued for having perhaps the most vulnerable election system in the country. His office has been plausibly accused of destroying evidence, which would have helped to prove the vulnerabilities of the state election system. Things are so bad with the security of Georgias election system that federal district court judge Amy Totenberg minced no words about the problems: Advertisement The States posture in this litigation and some of the testimony and evidence presented indicated that the Defendants and State election officials had buried their heads in the sand. This is particularly so in their dealing with the ramifications of the major data breach and vulnerability at the Center for Election Services, which contracted with the Secretary of States Office, as well as the erasure of the Centers server database and a host of serious security vulnerabilities permitted by their outdated software and system operations. A wound or reasonably threatened wound to the integrity of a states election system carries grave consequences beyond the results in any specific election, as it pierces citizens confidence in the electoral system and the value of voting. Advanced persistent threats in this data-driven world and ordinary hacking are unfortunately here to stay. Defendants will fail to address that reality if they demean as paranoia the research-based findings of national cybersecurity engineers and experts in the field of elections. Advertisement Advertisement Ultimately, Totenberg has not required the state switch to paper ballots for the upcoming election because she ruled that the request was too close Election Day, an unfortunate pattern among federal courts these days. Advertisement If anyone is to blame for vulnerabilities with the voting system it is Kemp. And now hes trying to turn those vulnerabilities into crass political advantage by blaming Democrats without evidence for the states failings. The press release entitled After Failed Hacking Attempt, SOS Launches Investigation into Georgia Democratic Party provides no details. It quotes a spokesperson saying While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes. Advertisement WhoWhatWhy issued a report early on Sunday morning that seemed to explain what was going on. Just before noon on Saturday, a third party provided WhoWhatWhy with an email and document, sent from the Democratic Party of Georgia to election security experts, that highlights massive vulnerabilities within the states My Voter Page and its online voter registration system. According to the document, it would not be difficult for almost anyone with minimal computer expertise to access millions of peoples private information and potentially make changes to their voter registration including canceling it. Advertisement If this is true, it doesnt show Democrats hacking to manipulate election results. It shows Democrats, like many others, pointing out the glaring security flaws in Georgias voting system. To turn this around and blame Democrats is an act of political chutzpah by an election official on par with nothing else Ive seen. Advertisement It is bad enough there is a partisan election official running Georgias elections. It is also bad enough that this partisan election official is in charge of his very own election, an election where he is running in a very tight race against Democrat Stacey Abrams, and that he has engaged in acts of voters suppression aimed to decrease the turnout for the candidate who would be this nations first black woman to win a governors mansion. It is still worse that we have an election official who, according to audio leaked to Rolling Stone, expressed concern about the states citizens exercising their rights to vote via absentee ballot: [Democrats] have just an unprecedented number of [absentee ballot applications], he said, which is something that continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to votewhich they absolutely canand mail those ballots in, we gotta have heavy turnout to offset that. But what Kemp has done now goes beyond the pale. Hes accused his opponents of election tampering without evidence on the eve of the election, and plastered the incendiary charge on an official state website in the days before his office will administer that election. This is some banana republic stuff. Brian Kemp needs to step aside from running this election. If he doesnt and he wins, lots of people will now believe the fix was in. Considering these latest actions, that belief will be justified. A top official in President Donald Trumps administration thought that the best way to describe the Florida governors race, in which the Democratic candidate is vying to become the states first black governor, was with the phrase cotton-pickin. Public policy matters. Leadership matters, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a rally in Lakeland. And that is why this election is so cotton-pickin important to the state of Florida. I hope you all dont mess it up. Perdue, a former Georgia governor, was in Florida campaigning for Ron DeSantis who is running against Democrat Andrew Gillum. Advertisement Wow: While campaigning for racist Ron DeSantis, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue manages to use the phrase cotton picking when making the argument against electing the first black governor in Floridas history. #FLGov pic.twitter.com/zDmbqB50ua American Bridge (@American_Bridge) November 3, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DeSantis campaign declined to comment on the statement. You would have to ask Governor Perdue about any of his remarks, Stephen Lawson, a spokesman for DeSantis campaign, told Politico. We were happy to have him in Polk County campaigning with us. Advertisement This is not the first time a Trump ally has used the racially charged phrase. David Bossie, the presidents former deputy campaign manager, was temporarily suspended as a contributor fo Fox News after he used it on air. Bossie told Joel Payne, a black Democratic strategist, that he was out of his cotton-picking mind. Before Bossie could apologize, host Ed Henry characterized the phrase as obviously offensive. Fox News also issued a statement criticizing Bossies choice of words. David Bossies comments today were deeply offensive and wholly inappropriate, a Fox News spokesperson said. His remarks do not reflect the sentiments of Fox News and we do not in any way condone them. Fox chyron: "Pundits call Trump supporters racist" Fox contributor (and Trump supporter) to black guest during the segment: "You are out of your cotton-picking mind." I mean... pic.twitter.com/jBnBmBcml7 Lis Power (@LisPower1) June 24, 2018 Advertisement Perdues choice of words to describe the Florida gubernatorial contest was particularly eyebrow-raising considering how race has played such a prominent role in the race. The day after the primary elections in the state, DeSantis called Gillum articulate and said voters should not monkey this up. DeSantis refused to apologize, insisting his choice of words had zero to do with race. Advertisement Early voting has been huge in Texas for this years midterm election, leading some to speculate it could be a good sign for Democratic Rep. Beto ORourkes uphill bid to beat Sen. Ted Cruz. The raw numbers are astounding. Almost five million people have voted early in the 30 Texas counties where 78 percent of registered voters live. That means more people have cast a ballot over 12 days of early voting in those counties than turned out for the entire 2014 midterm election. And early voter turnout has surpassed that from the 2012 presidential election. In total 4,514,930 Texans have cast in-person ballots and 369,598 cast mail-in ballots, according to the Texas Tribune. Advertisement The early voting numbers are giving a boost of optimism to ORourke supporters, who are seeing it as a sign that he may very well come out on top in the closely watched race against Cruz. If this continues, we win, ORourke said Friday after a rally. I feel very good about our prospects, not just on Election Night, but on being able to deliver for the next six years that follow on every priority, from health care to education to immigration to criminal justice reform. Texas is going to be the leader that this country has been waiting for. Republicans, however, are cautioning Democrats about being too confident, pointing out that historically there are far more Republicans among voters in Texas than Democrats. Although polls have shown a tight race, they still widely favor Cruz to come out on top. The surge in early voting is not a phenomenon that is limited to Texas. In 22 states and Washington, D.C. more people voted early than did so in the last midterm election, reports the New York Times. Were in uncharted territory with the size of this vote, said Michael P. McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who tracks early voting. In some states, its closer to the presidential election than to the 2014 midterm election. President Donald Trump is taking advantage of claims that an accuser reportedly admitted to lying about alleging she was assaulted by now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to suggest all of the women who came forward during the confirmation process were not telling the truth. At a rally in Montana Saturday afternoon, the presidents strategy became crystal clear as he didnt mention the name of the accuser who reportedly recanted her story. If he had, his supporters may have realized they likely never heard of that woman before because her accusation never received the attention of others, most notably Christine Blasey Ford. Advertisement One of his accusers just came out a little while ago and said it was all a lie and said she never met now Justice Kavanaugh. It was a made up story. She made up the story, Trump said. It was a lie. It was a total like. It was fake. You know what fake means? It was fake. She lied about the story about rape. About rape, she lied. And were supposed to sit back and take it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump was clearly referring to the move by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley to request the Justice Department and FBI investigate Judy Munro-Leighton after she reportedly admitted that she lied about writing an anonymous letter that claimed Kavanaugh had raped her. When investigators tracked her down, she reportedly admitted she didnt write the letter and had, in fact, never met Kavanaugh. Munro-Leightons allegations were not widely reported at the time though so her name never became widely known. And now the president is using her to cast doubts on all the other accusers. Today, Chairman @ChuckGrassley referred Judy Munro-Leighton to @TheJusticeDept for investigation for making materially false statements to the Committee during the course of its investigation. https://t.co/pNfhLRnETy Senate Judiciary (@senjudiciary) November 2, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement What about the others? When are they going to say what happened? Trump asked, referring to Kavanaughs other accusers. Later Trump patted himself on the back for sticking with Kavanaugh, wondering what would have happened if he dropped out because of a filthy dirty lie. Trumps words at the Montana rally were a more direct version of a tweet the president sent earlier in the day focusing on the reportedly recanted statement without actually naming Munro-Leighton. A vicious accuser of Justice Kavanough has just admitted that she was lying, her story was totally made up, or FAKE! Trump wrote on Twitter. Can you imagine if he didnt become a Justice of the Supreme Court because of her disgusting False Statements. What about the others? Where are the Dems on this? Advertisement Advertisement The latest victim of an insider attack in Afghanistan was the mayor of North Ogden, Utah. Brent Taylor, 39, had taken leave from his job as small town mayor to go to Afghanistan as part of Utahs National Guard and was killed Saturday in Kabul, apparently by a member of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. The attacker was immediately killed by Afghan forces. It marked the second deadly insider attack in Afghanistan in less than a month. Advertisement Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox identified the dead servicemember as Taylor, a married father of seven. I hate this, Cox wrote on Facebook. Im struggling for words. I love Mayor Taylor, his amazing wife Jennie and his seven sweet kids. Utah weeps for them today. This war has once again cost us the best blood of a generation. Taylor had been mayor of the town of 17,000 people since 2013. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called Taylor a hero, a wonderful father and a dear friend while Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said he was heartbroken at the news. Taylor was sent to Afghanistan as part of an advisory team to train an Afghan commando battalion. Hatch on the death of North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor: Brent was a hero, a patriot, a wonderful father, and a dear friend. News of his death in Afghanistan is devastating. My prayers and love are with Jennie and his 7 young children. His service will always be remembered. pic.twitter.com/UHHbhTciYo Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) November 3, 2018 Advertisement When Taylor got the order to deploy to Afghanistan in January, he went on Facebook and did a live video to explain the situation to his constituents. Serving as the mayor of North Ogden city has been one of the greatest honors of my life and the highlight of my civilian professional career, he said at the time. Service is really what leadership is all about. When he deployed in mind-January, police escorted Taylor and his family around town as hundreds of residents lined the streets to see him off, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. Taylor, who had already served two tours in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan was expected to be in Afgahnistan for one year. In 2018 the international research and reputation of the University of Sydney has been recognised through improvements in all four of the most prestigious global rankings, which is a testament to the high quality of our research and collaborations. University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Dr Michael Spence AC I am extremely proud of the work of our people and our focus on multidisciplinary research that has global reach and impact. Over the past seven years the University of Sydney has invested more than $1.5 billion in multidisciplinary research initiatives that bring together leading research teams to focus on some of the worlds biggest challenges from finding new treatments and preventions for obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease to creating next-generation nanoscale devices. Established in 2014, the US News Best Global University rankings are designed to provide insights into how universities compare globally and assist prospective students with exploring their options. The rankings use Clarivate Analytics InCites to rank the top 1,250 institutions globally and focus on global research performance indicators such as reputation, publications, books, conferences, international collaborations and citations. Harvard University once again ranked as the top institution globally. The home of the Kentucky Derby saw some decadent and depraved behavior Saturday. During the Breeders Cup Classic, a reportedly-intoxicated Kentucky man (not quite Florida Man, but getting there!) snuck into a restricted area, climbed on top of a horse, and tried to ride it onto the track. Heres more on that from Karla Ward of the Lexington Herald Leader: A Georgetown man was arrested after police say he mounted a horse at Churchill Downs and tried to ride out onto the track during Saturdays Breeders Cup racing. Kentucky State Police said in an arrest citation that Michael Wells-Rody, 24, was manifestly under the influence of alcoholic beverages when he snuck into a restricted area he was not authorized to be in and took off on a horse. He made it out of the tunnel area and into the track entrance, police said in the citation. When asked to leave the horse and the area, the subject became loud and disorderly by causing an alarm to Churchill staff members, the citation states. Well, thats certainly unusual. And while its not the weirdest behavior ever seen at a sporting event, or even at an event at Churchill Downs for that matter, its something that could have gone very wrong. Maybe Wells-Rody had a few too many, or maybe hes just been playing too much Red Dead Redemption 2. Fortunately, this didnt lead to anything bad for the horse in question, the other horses at the track, or the events staffers. This did lead to some consequences for Wells-Rody, though, who was charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct. And he wound up with quite the mugshot, as seen above. Hes due in court Monday for arraignment on those charges. [The Lexington Herald-Leader] Want to try full-frame for yourself? The last-generation Sony A7II, brand new, plus the FE 2870mm /3.55.6 lens, plus an extra battery, charger, memory card and case, is on end-of-run sale for a mere $998. Here are the main differences with the current model: BSI sensor in the III has more dynamic range. New one has the A9's autofocus (more or less), worth it if you do action or need tracking. Minimum sensitivity is 1 EV on the II and 3 EV on the III, if you commonly shoot in very low light. The III has silent electronic shutter, the II doesn't, and the III has a higher continuous shooting rate. The III features a new battery with better life, a joystick, and two cards slots. However both have IBIS (in-body image stabilization, dust and weather sealing, and 24 megapixels. The III is a better camera. But the A7III, at $2,198 with the same lens, also costs well over double the blowout price on the A7II. If you're the kind of photographer who shoots mainly things like scenics, vacation pictures, landscapes, family and friends and personal daily life, and portraits (or if you're the kind of person who likes a steal of a deal), the A7II could serve you well. Oh, and you might also like it if you've been in this game long enough to recall the excitement when a full-frame camera dipped below $2,000 for the first time! Such a good sale price protects you substantially from major resale loss. Great deal. Check it out. It's available from Amazon with more extras too. Mike [CORRECTION: I mistyped "2470mm" this morning. The lens is a 2870mm. Sorry for the error. Mike the Ed.] Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from: Oskar Ojala: "$998 for a brand new A7II is a steal (never mind they even throw in a lens). There's just one big but with the Sony system: too many interesting lenses to covet!" Vietnam's fast-growing budget carrier VietJet famed for its bikini-clad air hostesses signed a deal with France's Airbus on Friday for 50 planes worth $6.5 billion, according to a copy of the deal. Airbus signed "a commercial contract with Vietjet Air for the delivery of 50 A321neo" planes, read a document of the deal from the office of French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who attended the signing ceremony in Hanoi during an official visit. The pact was part of a raft of agreements signed between Vietnam and France, one of Hanoi's top European trading partners that is eager to boost investments in the Southeast Asian nation. Vietjet also inked a Memorandum of Understanding worth $5 billion with France's Safran group for engines and equipment maintenance, the document said. Vietnamese airlines have been eagerly growing fleets to serve burgeoning passenger numbers, where domestic travel has soared in recent years and international air travel is on the rise. Vietjet stormed into Vietnam's airline sector in 2011 when much of the market was dominated by the national carrier Vietnam Airlines. The country's first budget carrier, owned by Vietnam's only female billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, has raised eyebrows with its racy marketing campaigns featuring nearly-naked models and by staffing inaugural flights with air hostesses wearing bikinis. In just five years Vietjet quickly caught up with Vietnam Airlines to capture 42 percent of the domestic market in 2016, and 27 percent of the total market, according to data from the CAPA Centre for Aviation. Over the past two years it has turned its attention to adding more international routes to its roster, including to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, as it seeks to serve Vietnam's growing middle class with a thirst -- and budget -- for travel. The number of passengers travelling internationally jumped to 30 million in 2017 from 23 million the year before, according to official Vietnam aviation data. From foes to friends The French premier is in Vietnam for a three-day visit largely aimed at drumming up business deals with one of Asia's fastest growing economies, which clocked 6.8 percent GDP growth last year. Both sides signed deals worth a total of nearly $12 billion, including in the energy and IT sectors. Trade between the former colonial foes has boomed in recent years, and France is now Vietnam's third leading European trading partner after Germany and Italy, with two-way trade hitting $7.6 billion last year, according to the French Prime Minister's office. Vietnam, an export-driven manufacturing hub with a population of 93 million people, has eagerly courted trading partners in Europe after the United States pulled out of the sprawling Trans-Pacific trade pact that Hanoi stood to gain enormously from. Philippe visited Dien Bien Phu on Saturday, the site of the epic battle between France and Vietnam in 1954 that would spell the end of France's colonial empire in Indochina and pave the way for Vietnamese independence. The French premier's trip also includes a stopover in the bustling economic hub Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday where he will inaugurate a French medical centre and host a business forum with French tech entrepreneurs before heading to New Caledonia. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe attended the opening ceremony of the French Medical Center in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday morning, as part of his three-day visit to Vietnam that started on Friday. The facility boasts international-standard medical examination services and develops cooperation with French health care experts and companies. Accompanying the prime minister were French Minister of Solidarities and Health Agnes Buzyn and Minister of Public Action and Accounts Gerald Moussa Darmanin. The attendees at the event also included French parliament members and corporate leaders who recognize Vietnams enormous growth potential. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe shakes hands with attendees at the opening ceremony for the French Medical Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, November 4, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre Later on the same day Prime Minister Philippe will meet with Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan and be present at a France-Vietnam business forum in the southern metropolis. In 1973 Vietnam and France established diplomatic relations, which evolved into strategic partnership five years ago. Hanoi and Paris have strengthened their bilateral ties through visits of high-level delegations in recent years. Their multifaceted cooperation was latterly forged following a visit to France by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong in March 2018. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Check out todays leading news stories: Politics -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is scheduled to leave Hanoi for Shanghai on Sunday morning to attend the first International Import Expo of China (CIIE 2018) on November 4 and 5. Society -- Vietnams Ministry of Public Security has announced a draft decree detailing several articles under the cybersecurity law and is collecting feedback from local citizens over two months starting in November. -- A Mercedes car was running along the Chuong Duong Bridge in Hanoi when it crashed into the railings and plunged into the river at around 7:00 pm on Saturday. Two bodies were found as of 2:30 am on Sunday, while eyewitnesses believed there were three people in the vehicle prior to the accident. -- Police in My Tho City, located in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, have initiated a manhunt for a car driver who hit a 62-year-old woman riding a bicycle and left her on the street while taking her to the hospital. The victim was later brought to the infirmary by local residents and is being treated for vertebral fracture. -- Residents in a fishing village in the south-central province of Phu Yen have been unable to go to the beach after developers of a resort project blocked their paths with a brick wall. -- A herd of four forest elephants was caught damaging trees and crops in Anh Son District in the north-central province of Nghe An on Saturday. -- A total of 43 people tested positive for drugs after police officers carried out an inspection of a club located within the Muong Thanh Hotel in the Mekong Delta province of Ca Mau on Saturday night. -- A 20-year-old man in the southern province of Dong Nai was found dead after purportedly being suffocated by a python on Saturday evening. Business -- VinFast, the carmaking arm of Vietnam's leading property developer Vingroup, on Saturday inaugurated a smart electric motorbike factory in the northern city of Hai Phong, whose capacity during the first phase of operation is 250,000 motorbikes per year. Lifestyle -- Saigon Books Company on Saturday introduced a book vending machine at the Sense Market in District 1. A total of 20 machines are expected to be installed at the Nguyen Van Binh Book Street and local malls and apartment complexes following a trial period. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! As the midterm elections loom in the US, Dateline reporter Amos Roberts discovers many of the working class voters who put Donald Trump in the White House are now having second thoughts. Voters in this district backed Barack Obama twice, but swung heavily to Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election. Jerry, a swing voter and retiree who worked in the manufacturing industry, tells Dateline, We liked what he said. I liked the change but I didnt think it would be that drastic in the way itd come. He is doing exactly what he said. But the way he is going about it, treating people like dirt, I dont like the way its happening. As an antidote to Trumps populism, Democrats are pinning their hopes on candidates who are down-to-earth and more in touch with local needs. Twenty-nine-year old Democrat candidate Abby Finkenauer could become the youngest woman to enter Congress, and for her, politics is personal. They said the state house would be too tough for a young lady. A girl still paying off her student loans wasnt tough enough to beat a millionaire [her opponent] for Congress. Well I say, Watch me. Abby is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman Rod Blum, self-made millionaire, in Iowas first district. Early polls indicate that she has a good chance of winning. The Democrats need to flip 23 seats to take control of the House of Representatives, and if that happens theyll have the power to block Trumps agenda. Dateline goes beyond the party politics to talk to the Midwest voters who will determine the outcome of this election. Voters like Jeff Schmitt, a fourth generation farmer, who stands to lose millions because of the trade war between the US and China. Despite the personal cost, Jeff remains a staunch Republican and Trump supporter. I voted for Donald Trump mainly because I didnt see him as a politician. Hes a businessman. If you are going to run a country, everything kind of comes back to business. I think in the long-term, we will be better off. We just have to be able to weather the storm as they say. Mayor of Monticello and a former Republican Brian Wolken and his hard-core Republican father Richard Wolken reflect how Americas political divide is affecting families along generational lines. It wasnt really until I took a gap year after college and travelled that my views really started to sway towards the Democratic Party, Brian tells Dateline. He [Donald Trump] is my president. I respect him but hes just a loose cannon. Hes got the country divided. Trump is way too extreme. I think we definitely need to get him in check. But its not just disillusioned Trump voters like Brian and Jerry who could sway the results in the mid-terms; young voters from the states many colleges could also hold the key. Iowa has one of the highest percentages of college educated voters. Next Gen America is an organisation running the largest youth voter turnout operation in the country. Katie Brennan, their regional organising director reveals, Young people are the largest voting block in the US. Unfortunately, they vote at half the rate of other age groups. Getting people to realise that we do actually have the power, and we do need to be engaged and involved is incredibly important. How will they decide to vote at the midterms on 6 November? Tuesday, 6 November at 9.30pm on SBS. Stan Grants ABC News show Matter of Fact looks set to be axed / rested / put on hiatus, according to The Australian. Grant departed NITV & Foxtel for ABC two years ago to become Indigenous Affairs Coverage and to host a new Friday night current affairs program, The Link, but it only lasted 8 months. Matter of Fact launched in January with Grant talking to smart people about big things. Grant joins Griffith University in December as professor of global affairs, but will serve as an indigenous and international affairs analyst at ABC. Matter of Fact airs 9pm Monday Thursday on ABC News. Screenworks and Matchbox Pictures have announced five early career regional writers for a new TV series Best Medicine project: Sue McPherson from Eumundi in Queensland, Jane Hampson from the Northern Territory, Meg Courtney-Hawke from Campbells Creek Victoria, Tristan Bancks (pictured) from Bangalow NSW, and Charlotte Brookes from Lismore NSW. They will work alongside Holly Phillips and other consultants in a script development lab in Lismore. Head of Development at Screen Australia, Nerida Moore said: This is a fantastic opportunity for regional writers to develop their skills in TV, get noticed and launch their careers. Create NSW Acting Director Screen Investment, Engagement and Attraction Sally Regan said: Create NSW is proud to continue our partnership with Screenworks and support emerging regional writers with this unique writers room initiative. Matchbox prides itself on quality of storytelling through diversity of voices, explained Matchbox Pictures Director of Scripted Development Debbie Lee. Partnering with Screenworks, Create NSW and Screen Australia to tap into Australias under-represented regions provides a rich opportunity to harness the creative power of fresh and distinctive writing talent and we are thrilled to be working with such an exciting team on Best Medicine. Best Medicine is an original concept written by Tim Williams. When an out-of-work actor finds himself performing as a Clown Doctor in a teenage cancer ward, his life takes on unexpected new meaning through a ward of complex teenage patients. Photo: Instagram BEIJING (Reuters) - China will provide Pakistan with economic aid but more talks are needed on the details, a senior Chinese diplomat said, after new Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan met Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday. Pakistan's foreign reserves have plunged 42 percent since the start of the year and now stand at about $8 billion(6.17 billion pounds), or less than two months of import cover. Last month, Pakistan received a $6 billion rescue package from Saudi Arabia, but officials say it is not enough and the country still plans to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avert a balance of payments crisis. It would be Pakistan's 13th rescue package from the multilateral lender since the late 1980s. Speaking to reporters in Beijing's Great Hall of the People following Khan's talks with Li, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said his country would help. "During the visit the two sides have made it clear in principle that the Chinese government will provide necessary support and assistance to Pakistan in tiding over the current economic difficulties," Kong said. "As for specific measures to be taken, the relevant authorities of the two sides will have detailed discussions," he added, without giving details. Khan told Chinese President Xi Jinping the previous day that he had inherited "a very difficult economic situation" at home. Though China is Pakistan's closest ally, Khan's newly elected government has sought to re-think the two countries' signature project, the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which Beijing touts as the flagship infrastructure programme in its vast Belt and Road Initiative. Pakistan has looked to amend CPEC to put greater emphasis on projects that focus on social development, rather than purely on infrastructure. Following the meeting, Khan's office said in a news release that the two governments had signed a number of agreements and memoranda of understanding in the fields of agriculture, poverty reduction, forestry, law enforcement and socio-economic development. Story continues Pakistan is also due to speed up the launch of special economic zones in the country to spur "industrial development". Kong said there would be no change in the number of projects under CPEC. "There is no change at all. If there were, it would only be to increase, not decrease" the number of projects, he added. However the scope of the project would increase and will tilt in favour of people's livelihoods, Kong said, also without elaborating. After visiting Beijing, Khan is set to be a key note speaker at a major import fair in Shanghai, an event that China hopes will show the world the country welcomes foreign companies and their products. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Kim Coghill) The man known as the "father of the Taliban" has been buried in Pakistan surrounded by thousands of followers after being stabbed to death. Prominent Pakistani cleric Maulana Samiul Haq was buried in Akora Khattak, his hometown, in the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Believed to be in his 80s, he was killed in a knife attack at his home in Rawalpindi on Friday. It is not clear why Haq was killed and no group has admitted to being behind the attack. Haq was head of the Haqqania madrassa, where many Pakistani militants and Afghan Taliban members - including the group's founder, Mullah Omar - studied. A respected teacher, he taught a strict interpretation of Islam, earning him the title of "father of the Taliban". In a statement, the Afghan Taliban said his death was "a great loss for the entire Islamic ummah [community]". His influence over the Taliban was confirmed when Afghan officials asked him recently to help convince the militant group to open peace negotiations. His son, Maulana Hamid ul-Haq, said his father was stabbed "multiple times" in the house he owned in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. But Haq's nephew, Mohammad Bilal, told Reuters his uncle was also shot. Haq was a former senator who ran a faction of the religious Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party - and was close to Prime Minister Imran Khan's PTI party. Mr Khan is currently visiting Beijing, but his office said in a statement that he condemned the killing and had ordered an investigation. The cleric's death comes at a time of turmoil in Pakistan, where protests have broken out in a number of cities after the acquittal of a Christian woman sentenced to death on blasphemy charges. The GoFundMe page set up for Chloe Sullivan and Michael Parrott: GoFundMe A couple whose newborn baby died while they were on holiday in the Dominican Republic, leaving them stranded with unpaid medical bills, have flown home after friends raised 20,000. Chloe Sullivan, from Kent, was forced to rush to hospital last month while in the Caribbean country amid concerns about her unborn baby. She and her fiancee Michael Parrott, who were with their four-year-old daughter Esme, paid a deposit and told staff at the IMG Medical Centre that the rest would have to be covered by their insurance. According to a GoFundMe page set up to raise funds, doctors proceeded to perform an emergency C-section, despite the hospital reportedly being aware that the mother's insurance would not cover the full treatment. Baby Arlo was born but died the following day after suffering from respiratory problems. The couple were desperate to get home with Arlos body but the hospital took Miss Sullivans passport and insisted the couple pay $20,000 (16,000) in medical bills despite initially quoting $11,000 (8,400) for treatment, the page said. Staff reportedly even threatened to contact Interpol. The couple's friend Harry Cottam wrote on the page: Their hearts are broken and they just want to get home, however the hospital refused to let them leave until they paid the medical fee which had now increased to over $20,000. They physically do not have that kind of money nor can they access that easily. Chloe and Michael asked if they would allow them to pay in instalments and the hospital refused, keeping them in a room surrounded by security and police. Chloes four year old daughter was with them the whole time, I cant imagine how scared she must have felt. Miss Sullivan desperately reminded the hospital that the couple had told staff before any treatment that they could not pay, but the hospital responded with we saved your life, you should be grateful, the page said. A British embassy representative reportedly advised them to pay the bill and offered no other solution. Story continues The page added. They are in an impossible position. Their hearts are breaking and they cannot grieve for their baby boy. If anyone can help in any way at all they will be eternally grateful. They are so sorry to ask this of our friends and family. Within days, friends had banded together to raise the money for the couple, with the total now standing at 20,000. A later update on the page said the target had been reached and the family had been able to fly home. Thank you so much to everyone who donated, the generosity of every single person has been amazing and Im sure Michael and Chloe will never forget it, it said. One hundred years after the end of the First World War, here is a look at the key figures: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia At the outbreak of the war in 1914, the Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, sided with Britain and France against Austria-Hungary and Germany. His strict rule made him an unpopular leader in Russia, but early military victories in the war boosted his popularity. In 1917, Nicholas lost support of the army and these tensions led to the communist Russian Revolution in the same year. He was ousted from power and then executed alongside his wife and five children on July 17 1918. Kaiser Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany Wilhelm II supported Austrias invasion of Serbia in 1914, but allegedly wanted to scale back Germanys military plans following Britains decision to enter the war. His German forces were keen to continue warfare and began to exclude him from military decisions. Wilhelm was forced to abdicate following the end of the war in 1918, making him the last Kaiser of Germany. He went into exile in the Netherlands. Kaiser Wilhelm II awarding decorations to soldiers (PA) British Prime Minister HH Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith was appointed Prime Minister of Britain in 1908. He was leader of the Liberal Party and introduced significant welfare reforms including pensions and unemployment insurance. When the First World War began, his decisions were initially popular, but the government faced a crisis over munitions shortages. Following military failures and the introduction of conscription, he was forced to resign in 1916 and was replaced by the Secretary of State for War, Lloyd George. Lord Kitchener, British Secretary of State for War Prior to Lloyd Georges appointment, Lord Kitchener was appointed Secretary of State for War when fighting broke out in 1914. He anticipated that the war could last longer than expected and launched an enlistment campaign, which included posters with pictures of him and the famous Your country needs you slogan. Story continues This campaign led to him becoming a popular figure with the public, but his support for the failed Gallipoli Campaign ruined his reputation. Sent on a mission to Russia in June 1916, Lord Kitcheners ship was sunk by a German mine and he drowned. Lord Kitchener and the Lord Mayor of London on the day of the recruitment speech at the Guildhall (PA) British commander Field Marshal Douglas Haig Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig became Commander in Chief of British troops on the Western Front in late 1915. His plans for the Battle of the Somme in 1916, which led to a high number of British casualties, made him one of the most controversial figures of the First World War. In 1918, he launched an offensive against the Germans which claimed thousands of Allied lives but broke German lines and led to victory. US President Woodrow Wilson In 1917, German submarines sank several American ships, which led to the involvement of the United States. President Woodrow Wilson had previously sought to be neutral, but, following the German offensive, the US joined the conflict on the side of the Allies. Following the armistice, President Wilson was instrumental in the creation of a new League of Nations, which was established in 1920. American President Woodrow Wilson and his Cabinet (PA) Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Archduke Franz Ferdinand became heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in 1896, following the death of his father Karl Ludwig. This meant that Franz was the closest link to his uncle, the reigning Emperor Franz Josef I Franzs marriage to Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, was unpopular with Austrias ruling elite as she was considered a commoner. Franz and his wife were assassinated on a trip to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. Franz Josef I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary Franz Josef was popular within his empire, having been in power since 1848. He was on holiday in Bad Ischl, Austria, when he learned that his nephew, Franz Ferdinand, had been assassinated. Although he was involved with the breakout of warfare, Emperor Josef had little involvement in events resulting from the First World War and died from pneumonia aged 86 on November 21 1916. British troops have hailed a massive military exercise in Norway as hugely beneficial to young soldiers who never fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. More than 2,330 UK personnel, plus hundreds of vehicles including Foxhounds and Jackals, seven ships and Hawk jets, are in Norway to take part in Trident Juncture. Natos biggest exercise since the end of the Cold War, it involves more than 50,000 troops, 65 ships, 10,000 vehicles and 250 aircraft from all 29 member states of the alliance and partners. Welcome to #Norway! Heres what you need to know: Norwegians are born with skis on, and they really love their fish. #TridentJuncture pic.twitter.com/1U1qKi7k43 NATO (@NATO) November 3, 2018 Lieutenant Colonel Caroline Lewin, the commanding officer of 2 Signal Regiment who is currently based at a multi-national brigade headquarters in Akrestrommen led by the Armys 4th Infantry Brigade, said the exercise is beneficial. There will be soldiers and officers in this force who have learnt something and will take that forward to be better prepared for future eventualities of conflict, she told the Press Association. For young soldiers who didnt go to Iraq and Afghanistan, this is the first opportunity they have had to do that little bit of overseas expeditionary training that makes them feel like this could be real and that is a great lesson. The mother-of-two from York said that in the face of the current international threats, it is important for allies to work together, adding that exercising troops is the only way to test those frictions. Story continues A briefing held during Nato Exercise Trident Juncture in Norway (Georgina Stubbs/PA) Staff Sergeant David Grimshaw of the Royal Army Medical Corps confirmed Trident Juncture has been good for the more inexperienced troops and personnel to see how the UK works with its Nato partners. The 36-year-old from Wigan said: When we have worked in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, the more old and bold amongst us know how it works and how the integration happens. For the younger guys to see the vast amount of nations out here and how they work together I think that is really good for them. He said so far during the exercise they have seen a steady trickle of patients with issues including non-freezing injuries, coughs, colds and the odd trapped finger. Royal Navy Type 23 frigate HMS Northumberland conducts a gunnery exercise in the early morning hours at a training range in Norway as a part of #NATO exercise #TridentJuncture | Capable and Ready pic.twitter.com/vX7FbEnqBq NATO MaritimeCommand (@NATO_MARCOM) November 2, 2018 Trident Juncture began last week in Norway a country which shares a border with Russia and comes amid rising tensions between the Kremlin and the alliance. Based around a fictitious attack on Norways sovereignty resulting in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty being triggered, it is testing Natos collective capacity and capability to respond. Those taking part have been split into opposing northern and southern forces, with offensives and counter attacks being carried out across central Norway, the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea. Lance Corporal Dean McGrady, of the reconnaissance platoon from the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment, said so far they have been kept really busy during the exercise. A @USMarineCorps Venom helicopter takes off from Camp Leatherneck in Rennebu, Norway during Exercise Trident Juncture. Shot in slow motion @NATO #TridentJuncture2018 pic.twitter.com/bpGK8LYbM8 Georgina Stubbs (@georginafstubbs) November 1, 2018 Asked if Trident Juncture feels realistic, he said they are dealing with a thinking enemy, adding: We are not getting told to come down this way, it is that we have to expect and adapt to it. It is a bit of a different exercise for us. Captain Conor McCracken, commander of the 1 Royal Irish reconnaissance platoon said being integrated with the local population adds a whole new dynamic to the exercise. You can interact with them, whereas in a lot of other exercises it is role play this is the best way to exercise I think with the civilian population around you, he said. Parts of the exercise have been held in snowy conditions (Georgina Stubbs/PA) Operating out of the open-topped RWMIK Land Rover, the 27-year-old from Belfast, Northern Ireland said they recently experienced temperatures that had dropped down to -20C. Praising the water and windproof Gore-tex tunics his troops have been issued with for Trident Juncture, he said: This is actually the best bit of kit I have been issued with in the Army. The bodies of Tala and Rotana Farea were discovered on the banks of the Hudson River in New York City: AP Police have ruled out the possibility of foul play in the case of two Saudi Arabian sisters whose bodies washed up on the New York City waterfront bound together in duct tape. Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 23, were discovered near the Hudson River on 24 October, two months after they were last seen in Fairfax, Virginia, where they had been living in a shelter amid allegations that they were abused at home. Police believe the pair had been staying in expensive Manhattan hotels since 1 September until a credit card they were using had been maxed out. A jogger then saw them praying at a playground near the river hours before their bodies were found. New York City Police chief of detectives Dermot Shea said those who knew the Farea sisters had told investigators they would rather inflict harm on themselves commit suicide than return to Saudi Arabia. Stopping short of saying the pair had taken their own lives, Chief Shea said police had no credible information that any crime took place. The medical examiner has yet to rule on their death and the case remains under investigation, he added. When found, police said the sisters bodies were taped together, facing each other and fully clothed and appeared to have been alive when they entered the water. However, officers were unable to find any obvious signs of trauma. The mysterious deaths of the Farea sisters have drawn worldwide attention with their discovery caoming the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the countrys Turkish consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. Tala and Rotana moved to the US from Saudi Arabia with their mother in 2015, settling in Fairfax, a suburb of Washington DC, police said. The sisters left their family home and were placed in a shelter-like facility after an earlier disappearance, in December 2017. At the time, Shea said, It was raised that they were the subject of abuse. Rotana was enrolled at George Mason University, in Fairfax, but left in the spring. Story continues Police released sketches of the sisters faces and posted repeated calls for the publics help in identifying them on social media. Once they were identified, police sent detectives to Virginia to piece together the last months of their lives. The jogger who said he saw the sisters praying went to the police on Wednesday. He told detectives it had been haunting him, Mr Shea said. Additional reporting by AP PARIS (Reuters) - The French archipelago of New Caledonia in the South Pacific voted 59.5 percent against independence from France in a referendum on Sunday, with two thirds of the ballots counted, local TV station NC La 1ere reported on its website. It said that participation rate stood at 80.7 percent. Full results were due from 1130 GMT onwards. The referendum, the result of a 30-year long decolonisation process, is the first auto-determination vote to be held in a French territory since Djibouti in the Horn of Africa voted for independence in 1977. (Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Sophie Louet; Editing by Mark Heinrich) North Korea says a report containing allegations of widespread sexual abuse of women in the country is "an extremely dangerous provocation". Human Rights Watch (HRW) interviewed more than 50 North Koreans who fled the country in the last seven years and published their findings earlier this week. The women said they suffered rape, assault, sexual harassment, verbal abuse and intimidation at the hands of North Korean police and other officials. One woman said it was so commonplace she did not think being abused was unusual. Responding to the report, North Korea's association for human rights studies branded the women interviewed as "human scum". The association called the report "preposterous" and claimed it was "a part of [a] political scheme fabricated by the hostile forces ... to tarnish the image of the DPRK", the country's official acronym, according to the state Korean Central News Agency. "It is also an extremely dangerous provocation aimed at reversing the tide of peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula," the statement said. The 86-page report concludes that unwanted sexual contact and violence is so common in North Korea it has come to be accepted as part of ordinary life. It reads: "While sexual and gender-based violence is of concern everywhere, growing evidence suggests it is endemic in North Korea." The US-based rights group's report included testimony from an anonymous former textile trader in her 40s, who recounted being treated like a sex toy "at the mercy of men". "On the days they felt like it, market guards or police officials could ask me to follow them to an empty room outside the market, or some other place they'd pick," where they forced sexual encounters, she said. "It happens so often nobody thinks it is a big deal. We don't even realise when we are upset," she added. Another trader said: "They consider us [sex] toys. We [women] are at the mercy of men." Story continues She continued: "Sometimes, out of nowhere, you cry at night and dont know why." Those interviewed all left the country after 2011, when the current leader, Kim Jong Un, rose to power. In a summary of the report, HRW said: "The government fails to investigate and prosecute complaints, or to provide protection and services to victims, and even asserts that the country is implausibly free of sexism or sexual violence." "Sexual violence in North Korea is an open, unaddressed, and widely tolerated secret," said HRW executive director Kenneth Roth. North Korea has warned it could revive its policy of building up its nuclear arsenal if the United States does not lift economic sanctions against the country. In a statement, North Korea's foreign ministry said the "improvement of relations and sanctions is incompatible". "The US thinks that its oft-repeated 'sanctions and pressure' leads to 'denuclearisation'," it said. "We cannot help laughing at such a foolish idea," it said. North Korea said the lifting of US-led sanctions would be a direct response to Pyongyang's "proactive and goodwill measures" - a reference to its unilateral suspension of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and closure of a nuclear testing ground. It said it could bring back its "pyongjin" policy of simultaneously advancing its nuclear force and economic development if the US failed to change its stance. It is the first time Pyongyang has threatened to resume its nuclear weapons programme since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump met for the first time in June. The summit in Singapore was described by critics as heavy on theatre but weak on substance. Mr Kim requested a second meeting with Mr Trump in a letter in September. The US president said secretary of state Mike Pompeo was working on the details, adding: "We will be doing that". Reacting to criticism that more promises should have been extracted from Mr Kim at the last summit, Mr Pompeo told NBC at the time: "We have our eyes wide open. "There is a long way to go to get chairman Kim to live up to the commitment that he made to President Trump and, indeed, to the demands of the world in the UN Security Council resolutions to get him to fully denuclearise." On Friday, Mr Pompeo said he planned to resume talks with North Korea on taking firmer steps towards denuclearisation and organising another summit between Mr Trump and Mr Kim. "A lot of work remains, but I'm confident that we will keep the economic pressure in place until such time as chairman Kim fulfils the commitment he made to President Trump back in June in Singapore," he said. This week marks the centenary of the end of a war which cost the lives of a staggering 16 million people. World War One, the Great War, ranks among the most deadly wars in human history; it was the conflict in which modern warfare was invented, and the major battles which came to define its horror and its hopelessness were all fought in one small stretch of land in northeastern France and western Belgium. Just to the southeast of the Belgian town of Mons, there is a place which seems perfectly to capture the courage and the sacrifice of so many compelled to fight, but inescapably too, the pointlessness and the waste. On Friday, Theresa May will visit St Symphorien, marking the start of a series of high-profile events reflecting the centenary. They will include a Peace Forum in Paris organised by French President Emmanuel Macron and attended by world leaders including Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. I've visited St Symphorien a number of times and each time I find it profoundly moving. It's one of 23,000 cemeteries and memorials cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) and it contains the graves of 513 soldiers; 284 Germans, 227 British and two Canadians. My guide for this visit is CWGC historian Max Dutton. We walk past a row of German graves - some with names, others without. There are 40 Germans here and 65 Commonwealth soldiers who's identity isn't known. "It's hard not to be moved by coming to a War Graves Commission's cemetery," Max tells me. "It's hard to think of anything but the sacrifices of these men and what it meant for them on a personal level, for communities back home as well, losing all of their loved ones out on the Western Front," he says. We walk to the bottom end of the cemetery and a row of white headstones. One has a cluster of poppies at its base. "This is John..." Max says. We are at the grave of Private John Parr. Max then tells the story of the teenage soldier who had lied about his age to join up. Story continues "John was in the Middlesex Regiment before the First World War and he comes across with the British Expeditionary Force. They are searching for Germans here near the Belgian town of Mons. "And he goes out on his bicycle and they spot the Germans and his mate goes back to tell base. "But John is killed in action and he becomes the very first British combat casualty on the western front dying on 21st August 1914." We then turn and walk just 10 feet to the next row of headstones. "This is George. George is the very last British soldier to die in combat during the First World War. "He's a barman from Leeds. He was here in these fields in 1914 - perhaps he'd met John. "But he fights throughout the First World War and then is killed just an hour and half before the minute hand ticks to 11 o'clock." Private George Ellison was the last British soldier to be killed, but others, from other nations died after him. On Armistice Day - 11 November 1918 - more than 10,000 soldiers, from both sides were killed or injured. The very last Commonwealth soldier to die was a Canadian called George Price and he too is buried in St Symphorien. According to war records, Private Price was shot and killed at 10.58am on 11 November 1918, just two minutes before the armistice came into effect. And so they rest just yards apart; the first and the last, and in between them, 1.1 million British and Commonwealth soldiers lost; two million German soldiers. Behind each name on each headstone is a story. Private John Parr's story is reflected in words from his mother Alice now held in the National Archives. In September 1914, from the family home in Finchley, just weeks after the war started she wrote to his regiment. "I have not heard from him at all..." she wrote. "The war office can tell me nothing..." "I should be very grateful for any information as to his whereabouts...." It's a letter from a mother about her boy. Alice Parr was to be the first to grieve; the first of so many from countries all over the world to lose their sons in this war. The first and the last lie in St Symphorien because the first and the last major battles were fought in the fields surrounding the cemetery. Four years of fighting - no ground gained and so many lives lost. "It began here and it ended here and between those points, one point one million people died for the British and Commonwealth forces alone. But it go anywhere?" Max Dutton asks. "Geographically, no. Did it change the world? Absolutely. Did it change the world for the better? Almost certainly not. "After all, the Second World War is just over the horizon," he says. "I recommend everybody should come and visit the Western Front. There is nothing like coming and seeing where these men fought and died and now rest forever... what are the lessons to be learnt? "I think everyone has to come and take their own lessons," he says. (Photo: Brett Taylor via Getty Images) University tuition costs could be cut to 6,500 under proposals from a commission established by Theresa May to devise plans for reforms to higher education. The Treasury would have to pay 3 billion a year to implement this move - which would lead to either a cap on student numbers or a third less income from fees for universities. University vice-chancellors, politicians and higher education experts are reportedly critical of the proposal, warning that it could threaten social mobility and force struggling institutions to close. Earlier this week, news emerged that struggling universities are facing bankruptcy with growing numbers of institutions resorting to short-term financial loans to stay afloat. Reasons for this include increased competition for students, falling numbers of 18-year-olds and tighter immigration controls on international students. The prime minister came under pressure on the issue after Jeremy Corbyns pledge to abolish tuition fees won support from young voters in last years general election. It is widely believed that Mrs May wants to attract the youth vote by promising a cut in fees. Responding to reports about the tuition fees reduction, Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner MP said: We need radical change in our education system, not tinkering around the edges. The next Labour Government will deliver our fully-costed plan to scrap tuition fees in universities and further education colleges as well as restoring maintenance grants and the EMA to make our system of student finance fair and sustainable. (Photo: mangpor_2004 via Getty Images) An early draft suggests cutting tuition fees to between 6,500 and 7,500 a year, with the shortfall made up by the Treasury, according to The Times. There is speculation as to whether or not the chancellor will agree to offering financial backing to this measure. Tuition fees were tripled to 9,000 in September 2012, and increased to 9,250 in 2016. Students from the EU, who pay the same 9,250-a-year fees as those in England or 9,000 in Wales, may have to pay higher fees under a new system if they were charged the same as international undergraduates. These fees range from 9,000 to more than 35,000 a year, depending on the course and the university. The average amount is currently 12,000. Story continues According to The Times, Vice-chancellors suspect that if the Treasury is asked to make up the difference universities will face cuts in the long run as they fight for funding alongside schools, defence, health and crime. One said that universities feared the worst if it became a choice between dying babies and medieval French. He said: It puts funding of universities in competition with health and defence. Over time it would be insane to think we would keep all that [funding]. They would have to do something to limit the cost to the public purse so that would lead to number controls. How do you do a five-year forecast if you dont know how many students there are? Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group of leading universities, said: Reducing funding for teaching would impact directly on the student experience, leading to higher student-to-staff ratios, less hands-on lab and practical work and student services stretched past breaking point. If these reports are correct, students, parents and universities will need a cast-iron guarantee from government that it will introduce teaching grants to fully cover the shortfall and meet future demand. Those grants would need to be on a per student basis. Many experts believe that the review will recommend that fees vary depending on courses. The Department for Education said that it would not be drawn on speculation about the Augar review. A spokesman said: People are rightly concerned about value for money, thats why were reforming the system to make it fairer. We have already increased the repayment threshold for graduates and are open-minded in our approach. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. Related... What Theresa May's Tuition Fees Review Means For Young People - HuffPost Verdict The Conservatives' Tuition Fee Review Will Cut Off Talent From The Creative Industries This article originally appeared on HuffPost. The final quarter of 2021 is on its way and theres so much positivity about the rapid growth of the... Mohammed Hanif in the New York Times: After spending eight years on death row, Asia Bibi, a Christian, was acquitted by Pakistans Supreme Court this week. For many here it seemed like a good day. The countrys highest court had finally delivered justice and released a woman whose life has already been destroyed by years in solitary confinement. The court decision quoted Islamic scriptures, bits of letters by the Prophet Muhammad and a smattering of Shakespeare. A great wrong was righted. And thats why Pakistans new religious right, which has rebranded itself as the protector of the Prophets honor, has threatened to bring the country to a halt. Posters were put up with fatwas against the judges who had issued the Bibi decision. The judges guards and cooks were urged to kill them before evening; anyone who did would earn great rewards in the afterlife. Pakistani conservatives, emboldened by gains in the general election this summer, goaded the generals into rebelling against the army chief, whom they accused of being an Ahmadi, a persecuted religious minority. They called Prime Minister Imran Khan a Jew child. More here. Sophie McBain in New Statesman America: When Ammar Campa-Najjar was nine years old, his Palestinian father moved his family to Gaza, the narrow strip of Palestinian territory that has been under an Israeli blockade for over a decade. His family was living there when the second intifada broke out in 2000, and Israeli security forces crushed a violent Palestinian uprising with deadly and often indiscriminate force. He remembers when the electricity and water supply were cut off and sheltering in his kitchen while his neighbourhood was bombed. He remembers how a military Hummer crashed into his familys car, causing him to burn his back and fracture his thigh and putting his younger brother into a coma. It was a pretty formative experience. I saw the deep economic injustice that was happening and certain conditions that are better left imagined than described. But then you see them happening here, in America too, the wealthiest and most powerful country, Campa-Najjar tells me when we speak on the phone. I thought to myself when I came back to America why am I seeing similar conditions in the US? Campa-Najjar, a 29-year-old former Obama staffer whose boyband good looks have inspired Buzzfeed and Vogue articles, as well as much Twitter mirth, is running for Congress is Californias 50th district on a progressive agenda. Like many of the candidates New Statesman America is profiling ahead of the midterms, he has been endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group that is likely to emerge as a leading force should the Democrats flip Congress this year. Its members support policies such as Medicare-for-all, an increased minimum wage and an expansion of social security. The Californian 50th district has been held by Republican Duncan Hunter for over a decade, and before that it was held by his father. Donald Trump won the district by 15 points in 2016. But Campa-Najjars chances were boosted significantly in August when Hunter was indicted for using more than $250,000 of campaign funds for personal expenses. Campa-Najjar has also launched a powerful grassroots campaign and has the endorsement of his former boss, President Barack Obama. Recent polling has put Campa-Najjar within one or two points of Hunter in the midterms. More here. Jeffrey D. Sachs in Project Syndicate: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest? asked Henry II as he instigated the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in 1170. Down through the ages, presidents and princes around the world have been murderers and accessories to murder, as the great Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin and Walter Lunden documented in statistical detail in their masterwork Power and Morality . One of their main findings was that the behavior of ruling groups tends to be more criminal and amoral than that of the people over whom they rule. What rulers crave most is deniability. But with the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by his own government, the poisoning of former Russian spies living in the United Kingdom, and whispers that the head of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, may have been executed in China, the curtain has been slipping more than usual of late. In Riyadh, Moscow, and even Beijing, the political class is scrambling to cover up its lethal ways. But no one should feel self-righteous here. American presidents have a long history of murder, something unlikely to trouble the current incumbent, Donald Trump, whose favorite predecessor, Andrew Jackson, was a cold-blooded murderer, slaveowner, and ethnic cleanser of native Americans . For Harry Truman, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima spared him the likely high cost of invading Japan. But the second atomic bombing, of Nagasaki, was utterly indefensible and took place through sheer bureaucratic momentum: the bombing apparently occurred without Trumans explicit order . More here. Sheldon Lee Glashow in Inference Review: IN THE ANNUS MIRABILIS of 1905, Albert Einstein made several seminal contributions to science. Among them were the special theory of relativity and the recognition of the wave-particle duality of lightthe latter a characteristic of the quantum theory soon to emerge. Modern physics rests on quantum mechanics and relativity. Both revert to classical physics under everyday circumstances: quantum mechanics for things sufficiently large; special relativity for things sufficiently slow. Within their domains, both theories have consequences that seem crazy, counterintuitive, and contrary to experience. For decades I have striven to convey the delights of modern physics to science-averse undergraduates, but many of them persist in rejecting the concepts as either unacceptable or unbelievable. Antoine Lavoisier and James Prescott Joule were wrong! Relativity revealed energy and mass to be interconvertible, satisfying a single, unified conservation law. Who could believe that simultaneity is relative, or that no missile nor missive can travel faster than light? A clock in motion, said Einstein, ticks more slowly than an identical clock at rest. Relativistic time dilation is ordinarily negligible, except to science fiction writers, philosophers, and physicists who study rapidly moving particles. What Is Real? is a book focusing on the counterintuitive nature of quantum theory, the difficulties in its interpretation, and the various doomed attempts to introduce hidden variables into its structure. I found it distasteful to find a trained astrophysicist invoking a conspiracy by physicists and physics teachers to foist the Copenhagen interpretation upon naive students of quantum mechanics. More here. Warner rebounds to set up Class B title match against Colman-Egan Perennial power Warner didn't start well but ended up in a familiar position Friday night in the Class B division of the state high school volleyball tournament. At PMs behest, aviation academy faces turbulence Nepals only civil aviation academy in Sano Thimi, Bhaktapur, which houses nearly a dozen important infrastructures for training future aviation workforce, appears almost certain to be closed after the governments latest decision to build an international exhibition hall there. Inside John Gallegos South Valley home sits a treasure trove of art. From acrylic to oil to mixed-media its all there. Rather than it being a collection of art, Gallegos likes to think of it as his journey through art. Art has been with me all my life. Ever since I was a child, he says with a giant smile. My art has evolved through my life experiences and through my education. I dont think you can be an artist without living some life. My art is a codex. Gallegos will be one of 18 artists participating in the South Valley Studio Tour on Nov. 11. The tour will see the artists welcoming the public to visit their studios. Each stop on the tour will be marked with a red balloon, and a number corresponding to a printed map. Maps, information about the 18 artists in this years tour, and more details about the event can be found at southvalleystudiotour.com. The South Valley is a unique area within the urban environment of Albuquerque. It is a semi-rural enclave that is rich in culture as well as birds, cottonwood trees, farms and space. As artists who have chosen this place to work and live, the event which is in its second year highlights the creativity and natural beauty of the area. Gallegos journey in art began while growing up in Santa Fe. Though he was surrounded by world-class art, he had his mind set on a career in science. Then he arrived in Las Cruces at New Mexico State University. This is where his love for art began to blossom. I was going to be a physicist, he says with a laugh. But art pulled me over. I got my BFA and then I was off to Chicago to get my MFA. I think having a formal education in art has given me a different context. Im constantly learning, which is what I love about what I do. Gallegos is the type of artist that works in various mediums. In his studio, there are numerous pieces of art. They range from acrylic to oil to mixed-media. Some are from nearly 30 years ago. I never get rid of anything, he explains. I keep everything because eventually the purpose will become clear to me. While Gallegos works across all mediums, he works within five areas landscape, geometries and abstracts, loteria and calavera also known as imagines culturas and ephemera. Each one of these gives me ideas that I can run with, he says. I feel like artists have to see an idea all the way through. My ideas can take years to complete. Gallegos isnt known for his subtlety as his pieces have a straight-forward message. I dont want to beat you over the head with what I want to say, he says. But its pretty clear by looking at my work that Im getting the message across. Theres also one key to Gallegos stream of thought within art. I believe drawing is the basis for everything, he says. We draw letters. We draw mathematical equations. I have sketchbooks that hold my thoughts. I do thumbnail sketches at night and then think of how I can execute it properly. INDIANAPOLIS There are two more political rallies on President Donald Trumps schedule for Saturday and two more on Sunday and three more on Monday. And thats after two on Friday. Hes in the midst of a final sprint to Tuesdays midterm elections, and hell be in Montana and Florida later Saturday to campaign for Republican candidates. The president says in an early morning tweet that Everyone is excited about the Jobs Numbers 250,000 new jobs in October. Also, wages rising. Wow! The government reported Friday that employers added 250,000 jobs last month. Unemployment remains low and pay rose at a healthy pace. Trump held rallies Friday in West Virginia and Indianapolis, where he stayed overnight. Trump opened those rallies by highlighting the latest economic news. The total price of President Donald Trumps military deployment to the border, including the cost of National Guard forces that have been there since April, could climb well above $200 million by the end of 2018 and grow significantly if the deployments continue into next year, according to analyst estimates and Pentagon figures. The deployment of as many as 15,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border potentially equal in size to the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan occurs as the budgetary largesse the military has enjoyed since Trump took office looks set to come to an end. Although the costs of the border deployments will be a tiny slice of a $716 billion annual defense budget, they arrive as the Trump administration is calling on the Pentagon to cut unnecessary expenditures. The White House recently ordered the Pentagon to slash next years budget for the military by about $33 billion in response to the largest increase in the federal deficit in six years. Veterans and Democratic lawmakers have complained that Trump is wasting military dollars in a politically motivated stunt ahead of Tuesdays midterm elections, at a time when the Pentagon budget is under pressure. Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to make comprehensive, common-sense, and humane reforms to our immigration system, the President continues to turn to politically-motivated fear mongering and uses [Department of Defense] resources and personnel as a means to drive his troubling anti-immigration agenda, more than 100 House Democrats wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Nov. 1. Retired Gen. Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the deployment as wasteful in a message on Twitter and said Marines and soldiers were already overstretched. Administration officials have defended the deployment. Mattis said this week that the military doesnt do stunts. The commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan, argued that the deployment is necessary to effectively and safely handle the possible arrival of as many as 7,000 migrants walking toward the border in caravans from Central America. But military planning documents, dated Oct. 27 and published by Newsweek, predicted that only 20 percent of the migrants, or about 1,400 at the higher end of estimates, were likely to complete the journey to the border, raising questions about the size of the deployment. The military has a lot of things that it needs to be doing these days, said Susanna Blume, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Looking at estimates of the size of the caravan, you could ask the question as to whether this is the most appropriate use of U.S. active-duty forces. It isnt clear how many U.S. troops will end up on the U.S.-Mexico border. About 2,000 forces from the National Guard are already there, operating under an order Trump issued in April. Northern Command has said more than 7,000 additional active-duty troops will join them in Arizona, Texas and California. Trump said this week that he will be deploying between 10,000 and 15,000 troops but didnt make clear whether those figures included the National Guard. The cost of the National Guard deployment from April 10 through Sept. 30 amounted to $103 million, according to Pentagon figures. The Defense Department expects the Guard deployment to cost an additional $308 million through the end of next September, including the last quarter of 2018, so long as the operations continue apace. Active-duty forces, which Trump deployed under his recent order, generally are less expensive because they dont require additional pay or benefits. Travis Sharp, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessments, estimated that the cost of deploying 8,000 active-duty troops through mid-December in addition to the Guard would amount to $40 million to $50 million. Should the administration deploy 15,000 active-duty troops, as Trump suggested, the estimated cost would rise to as much as $110 million, Sharp said. The forces could end up staying past mid-December, depending on the status of the caravans, which by most accounts are still weeks away from the border. An extension of the deployment could result in costs in excess of those estimates. As of Saturday morning, about 3,500 active-duty service members have been deployed as a part of the mission, dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot, said Maj. Mark Lazane, a Northern Command spokesman. They include about 2,250 in Texas, 1,100 in California and 170 in Arizona, he said. Photographs taken Friday at the port of entry in Hidalgo, Texas, show U.S. soldiers stringing concertina wire while working with CBP. The soldiers are wearing standard camouflage uniforms along with body armor and helmets, and appear unarmed. Lazane said soldiers who do not typically use firearms in their day-to-day jobs while stateside will continue to work without them, though Gen. Terrence OShaughnessy, the chief of Northern Command, has the authority to change that if desired. Democrats have complained that in addition to paying for the border deployments, the Defense Department internally allocated $7.5 million to advanced planning for a 37-mile barrier along the side of a military bombing range in Arizona that abuts the border. Democratic lawmakers said the barrier alone could cost as much as $450 million. Mattis offered a safety justification for the barrier in testimony to Congress earlier this year, suggesting that any migrants crossing the border through the range could end up hurt. Critics have said the project amounts to a move by the president to build part of the border wall he promised on the campaign trail by tapping military resources. Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said last week that the White House had instructed the Pentagon to prepare a $700 billion budget for 2020 about 4.5 percent less than the $733 billion the department had planned. Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general and director of the Heritage Foundations Center for National Defense, said many of the units deploying to the border are fulfilling duties approximate to their wartime missions and could end up with good training from the field. He said the expenditure would be marginal in terms of the overall American defense budget. The military needs every dollar it can get. Having said that, this is not in the scheme of things a huge thing, Spoehr said. It probably will pass almost unnoticed in terms of the budget. The Washington Posts Dan Lamothe contributed to this report. Saturday Oct. 27 at 8:15 a.m. I was voting in Albuquerque. At that same moment a hate-filled white man entered Sabbath services at Congregation Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, Penn., with the stated goal of killing all Jews. In the end, 11 were murdered and six wounded, including four police officers. We mourn with the families of the murdered and pray for the full healing of the wounded. Judaism is more than a religion, and Jews are more than strangers to us. We are family, and we feel the pain of our family in Pittsburgh. We in the Albuquerque Jewish community know that we live in an amazing community. A few minutes after 10 a.m. that Saturday, an Albuquerque Police sergeant arrived at the synagogue to make sure we knew what had happened and to assure us he would be at our front door until he could get a patrol car on the property. He assured me APD would also be present tomorrow during our school session and programs. When I thanked the sergeant, he replied: No need. Its what my mother would want me to do. I was moved speechless as we shook hands. By noon Saturday I had received calls and email from the clergy of several of our partner churches as well as from the Dar Salaam Foundations Imam and its vice-president. In the days that have followed, the calls and emails of support and comfort continue to pour in. Each also reinforced that an attack against one of us is an attack against all of us. Sadly, rather than face the real problem, several of our national leaders, on both sides of the aisle, are trying to make this about guns. Guns are part of the problem. But in these murders, and so many others, guns are a symptom. For the past 25-plus years, our political leadership has, by example, moved us to become a society that expresses our hate for others through violence. Mostly, that violence is verbal and emotional. In Pittsburgh, the violence was physical and deadly. We need to confront this change in the American ethic and work together and with others to restore us to the country and society we meant to be. Yes, as a Jew, and as an American, our thoughts are with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. Thoughts and prayers may bring some comfort to the pray-er and the prayed about, but they do not bring about change. Judaism teaches that God expects our positive actions to lead to change. Voting is positive action. Teaching kindness is positive action. Standing up for what is ethical is positive action. We need to step out front and change our world for the better. It is the only way we will ever be safe in our sacred spaces, our homes or in our communities. Building an armed fortress and locking ourselves in does not make us safer. It lets the hate grow and ultimately win. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham has expanded her lead over Republican Steve Pearce in a high-profile New Mexico governors race that has become increasingly pugnacious in recent weeks, a new Journal Poll found. Fifty-three percent of likely general election voters surveyed last week said they would vote or had already voted for Lujan Grisham, while 43 percent said they would support Pearce. The remaining voters surveyed would not say which candidate they planned to vote for or were undecided. Michelle Lujan Grisham has a comfortable lead as we head toward Election Day, said Brian Sanderoff, president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc., which conducted the poll. A previous Journal Poll conducted in mid-September found that 50 percent of proven, likely voters surveyed said they would vote for Lujan Grisham, while 43 percent said they would vote for Pearce. The new poll found Lujan Grishams lead over Pearce has specifically increased in recent weeks among female voters and independents, or those who decline to affiliate with a political party. Among women surveyed in the new poll, Lujan Grisham had a significant advantage over Pearce 59 percent of female voters surveyed said they would vote for Lujan Grisham, while 37 percent said they favored Pearce. Male voters were slightly more likely to vote for Pearce than for Lujan Grisham. Its not unusual to see a gender gap, but its more amplified in this race than is typical, said Sanderoff, who suggested that Lujan Grishams call for more state spending on public schools and health care might be resonating with female voters. Lujan Grisham, who lives in Albuquerque and was a state Cabinet secretary under three different governors, won a bruising three-way primary election in June, with roughly two-thirds of the votes cast in the race. She has faced attacks from Pearce, a former state lawmaker from Hobbs with business interests in the oil industry, over her past ties to a consulting firm that landed contracts to run the states high-risk insurance pool, but has responded by calling Pearce dishonest and linking him to President Donald Trump. Lujan Grisham has also outraised Pearce in the governors race, and the candidates combined campaign spending of more than $13.6 million along with large amounts of money spent by out-of-state groups could make this years race for governor one of the most expensive in state history. This years contest was wide open because Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, is barred from seeking a third consecutive term in office. She will step down at the end of the year. Both Lujan Grisham and Pearce are members of the U.S. House who are forgoing re-election bids to run for governor. Its the first time two sitting members of Congress have faced off for New Mexico governor in a general election. Geographic disparity The Journal Poll found that Lujan Grisham had a decisive lead over Pearce in the states north-central region, which includes Santa Fe, while Pearce held a similar advantage in the states more conservative east side. But Lujan Grisham also had a comfortable edge among voters in New Mexicos most populous city, since 55 percent of voters surveyed in the Albuquerque Metro area said they would vote for her, while 40 percent expressed support for Pearce. As in the previous poll, Lujan Grisham also held a decisive advantage over Pearce among Hispanic voters, while Pearce had a narrow edge among Anglo voters. The sample sizes for other racial groups werent large enough to provide statistically meaningful numbers. In the final run-up to Election Day, Lujan Grisham has also benefitted from a national and state political climate that favors Democratic candidates, Sanderoff said, as the prevailing voter mood has complicated Pearces efforts to win over undecided voters. While statewide early and absentee vote numbers have shown Democrats and Republicans voting at a similar rate, Democrats entered this years general election cycle with a substantial voting registration advantage over Republicans. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats surveyed said they would vote or had already voted for their partys nominee, while 89 percent of Republicans who took part in the poll said they would cast their ballot for Pearce. Most of the Democrats and Republicans are sticking with their partys candidate, Sanderoff told the Journal. Pearce has not been able to convince a lot of Democrats to switch sides. Lujan Grisham also had a more than two-to-one edge among voters who self-identified as moderates, a label that can cut across party affiliation, as 65 percent of moderate voters surveyed said they would back Lujan Grisham and 31 percent said they would support Pearce. Stakes are high The stakes in this years race are high, since whoever is elected governor on Tuesday will have final say over how an estimated $1.2 billion of new money or revenue in excess of current spending is spent for the budget year, starting in July 2019. The unprecedented revenue infusion, which could be even larger, is due primarily to skyrocketing oil production levels in southeastern New Mexico. However, the new governor will also face challenges. The states two large public retirement systems are both facing sustainability questions, and New Mexico could be on the hook for damages in a long-running water dispute with Texas. In addition, the state has long struggled with chronically high poverty rates, and whoever is elected will inherit a looming deadline to approve a plan that ensures that Native American, Hispanic and other at-risk students receive an adequate education. In a landmark case, a retired District Court judge ruled in July that the state was failing to meet its constitutional obligations to those students. Scientific sample The Journal Poll is based on a scientific, statewide sample of 993 likely general election voters, including new registered voters who said they were very likely to vote in this years election. The poll was conducted from Oct. 26 through Nov. 1. The voter sample has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples. All interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers, with multiple callbacks to households that did not initially answer the phone. Both cellphone numbers (71 percent) and landlines (29 percent) of proven general election voters were used. FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. Deb Haaland is not the first Native American woman to run for Congress, but she could be one of the first elected Tuesday. More than 100 Native Americans are seeking seats in Congress, governors offices, state legislatures and other posts across the country in what political observers say has been a record number of candidates. The uptick comes amid the #MeToo movement and as President Donald Trumps administration has taken stances that many tribes say are attacks on their status as sovereign nations. The Native folks on the ballot are getting lots of support, and I think that speaks volumes for our country, said Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today, has been tracking the names largely through crowdsourcing. On Election Day, he will co-host a program focusing on the Native American candidates that will be broadcast online, and on television and radio. Its needed because nobodys ever done it before, said Trahant, of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe in Idaho. Native Americans make up about 2 percent of the U.S. population but often are underrepresented in political office. Congress has two Republican representatives: Markwayne Mullin, Cherokee, and Tom Cole, Chickasaw, from Oklahoma. Both are seeking re-election. In New Mexico, Haaland has outraised her opponent in a congressional district that is considered safe for Democrats. Republican Yvette Herrell, a member of the Cherokee Nation, is in a hotly contested race for an open seat in a southern New Mexico district. Herrells campaign spokesman, Rob Burgess, said she hasnt made being Cherokee a focus of her campaign because she wants the race to be about the issues, rather than her heritage. Democrat Sharice Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, is a formidable challenge to a vulnerable four-term incumbent for a congressional seat in Kansas. A win by any of them would put a Native American woman in Congress for the first time. Haaland said shed be proud to have that designation to ensure the country recognizes the inequities tribes face, and the fight theyve been waging for decades for fishing, land, water and voting rights, and protections for Native women from violence. She knows it wont be easy. The U.S. Interior Department under Trump recently reversed a decision to hold land in trust for a Massachusetts tribe. And many tribes say recent characterizations of tribes as a race, rather than political nations, in a federal court in Texas and by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services undermine their sovereignty. If elected, Haaland said she would not waste opportunities to impart some knowledge, some history, some perspective on any of my colleagues, and make sure tribal leaders are heard. In statewide races, Minnesota will have its first Native American lieutenant governor. The candidates, Peggy Flanagan and Donna Bergstrom, both are members of tribal nations that are bands of Ojibwe. Coeur dAlene tribal member Paulette Jordan is seeking to become Idahos first Native American governor. Though she has generated excitement, especially among Idahos younger voters, the states overwhelmingly conservative population means the numbers likely wont fall in her favor. Trahant will be joined by Antonia Gonzales, anchor and producer of public radio program National Native News, to broadcast the results. They partnered with California-based TV network First Nations Experience and Native Voice One, both of which are geared toward covering indigenous issues. Micah Wright, executive in charge of the television network, said pre-election testing highlighted another challenge in Indian Country staying connected with reporters who will be sending in results. He said one person who tried to phone in couldnt because a tribe had blocked Skype believing it slowed service. Taking on something this ambitious is a risk and, at the same time, its a risk worth doing, said Wright, of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal When Toni Seidler, a teacher of 34 years, gets on an airplane, she tells people shes a waitress. She doesnt want a lecture. I dont want to hear about what they have to say about education, she said. Everyone always blames the teacher. She says that, over the decades, she has noticed that as the perception of teaching gets lower, the number of teacher vacancies gets higher. As of the first of October, 1,173 educator positions, which includes counselors, librarians and nurses as well as teachers, in the state were open 342 more than last fall. And 740, or 63 percent, of this years openings are teacher vacancies, compared with 476 the year prior. That means that 740 of New Mexicos classrooms, or about 53,455 students, are being taught by long-term substitutes versus certified teachers. The student estimation assumes elementary teachers have between 15 and 20 students, while middle and high school teachers have about 100 students a day, based on multiple periods per school day. The educator vacancy report was prepared by the New Mexico State University College of Education Southwest Outreach Academic Research Lab. The report comes at a time when school districts are trying to keep up with a growing supply and demand issue by looking out of state and even out of the country. For instance, Albuquerque Public Schools offered teaching jobs to about 60 people from the Philippines this year. The central area of the state Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Rio Rancho and Santa Fe has the most openings and includes four districts with large enrollments, the report says. According to the report, Albuquerque has 277 teacher openings. Altogether, the district has 318 open educator positions. APS spokeswoman Monica Armenta said it makes sense for the Albuquerque district to have the most openings, since it is the largest school district in the state. APS, like every other public school district in America, is being impacted by a serious teacher shortage. Weve been talking about this for more than a decade, and now were living it, she wrote in a statement to the Journal. Some experts predict it will take a generation to turn the shortage around. Americans understand how important teachers are, and how important it is as a nation to grow our collective intellect, but teacher compensation hasnt kept up to match those values. In other districts: Santa Fe Public Schools has 66 teacher openings. Roswell Independent School District has 38 vacancies. Central Consolidated School District, which is in the Four Corners region of San Juan County, has 31 teacher openings. Rio Rancho Public Schools has 28 openings. Vacancies vary greatly by discipline. Special education, math and science teachers are among the positions with the greatest need. Special education teachers account for more than a third of the vacancies, with 267. Seidler, the head special education teacher at Albuquerques Garfield Middle School, is all too familiar with this, pointing out that it isnt just teacher vacancies that affect special education students. She said she is seeing fewer speech therapists and educational assistants being hired in special education as well. That means teachers are being asked to do more with bigger class sizes, and the kids are the ones who suffer, Seidler said. Kids get less of the kinds of supports they require to be successful, she said. Seidler also said she believes teachers have more on their plates these days because kids face more and different traumas than they used to. We are having to deal with so much more than weve ever had to deal with, she said. Teachers have to figure out how to get them food, how to get them clothing and then how to teach them math. Seidler calls teaching the hardest job in the world. But she loves it and says passion and wanting to make a difference keep her going at it. On the rise The NMSU report indicates that several factors are contributing to the shortage. The state has a teacher attractiveness rating of 2.18 on a scale of one to five, based off a tool that looks at compensation, working conditions, teacher qualifications and teacher turnover. Still, in response to the report, the New Mexico Public Education Department says the state is on the rise, touting the state teacher evaluation system, stipends for high-rated teachers and higher retention than other states. New Mexico is on the rise because of the hard work of our nearly 24,000 educators across the state with 13,000 more students reading on grade level and 11,000 more students doing math on grade level than ever before, Chris Eide, director of educator quality at PED, said in a statement. And because New Mexico has elevated the teaching profession by raising teacher salaries three times since 2011, putting a meaningful teacher evaluation in place, creating the states first-ever Excellence in Teaching Awards, and developing the Teacher Leader Network with nearly 1,000 teachers, more New Mexico teachers are staying in our classrooms than their national counterparts. The professions reputation is likely a compounding factor to the shortage as well. According to 1,900 survey responses collected by NMSU, 50 percent would not recommend a career in education and 31 percent were undecided. Seidler said she would only recommend becoming a teacher with caveats. Unless things change, I would say go teach in a more affluent state, she said. Its something she says kids pick up on, too. Kids are smart enough to not become a teacher, she said, adding that they notice the stress in their environment. Job insecurity The president of the local teachers union, Ellen Bernstein of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, agrees that the rhetoric around teaching affects staffing. She called the level of teacher vacancies a crisis. This is truly the worst its ever been, the president of 18 years told the Journal. When I started teaching, it was hard to find a job, she said about kicking off her career in 1982. There were so many teachers. Pay, working conditions and a lack of respect for teachers are all contributing to the current shortage, she said. Seidler, who is a member of the union, agrees pay is low, saying she makes within $5,000 of what she has made since 2002, despite a masters degree and 22 years as a head special education teacher. According to the NMSU report, more teachers in New Mexico feel job insecurity related to standardized testing than in other states. In New Mexico 32 percent of the teachers surveyed said they had testing-related job insecurity, the report said. The national average was 12 percent. The union president echoed this. Teaching has become test prep, Bernstein said. Really capable people choose to leave because thats not what they wanted to do in the first place. On average, about 35 percent of a teachers evaluation is based on the growth in their students test scores. The NMSU teacher vacancy analysis also notes policy changes that have made it more difficult in recent years to attract and retain students interested in pursuing degrees in education, such as educator preparation program admission requirements being raised. And universities are graduating fewer and fewer students. From 2010 to 2017, the University of New Mexico saw a 42 percent decrease in students finishing their educator preparation programs, from 434 to 251. This year, that number dropped again to 203 students finishing their education preparation programs. The UNM College of Education sent a statement to the Journal saying that the cost of a four-year degree is something many students question or struggle with. The college also said students say the return on that investment is limited, because the starting salary of a teacher is below that of other professions. To boost recruitment, the department has streamlined its programs to reduce credit hour requirements and, therefore, cost, according to the UNM College of Education. Its also working with high schools to identify people early for the educator prep program. NMSU also saw a 58 percent drop, with 294 students finishing their program in 2010 and 123 in 2017. NMSU had 115 students complete its educator preparation program in 2018. Karen Trujillo, director of NMSUs Alliance for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, said there are several reasons fewer people are becoming teachers, including a shift of focus toward testing. Before, potential teachers were evaluated more holistically, she said. Now there are more tests. Data collected from 12 of the states colleges and universities that offer teacher programs show that a total of 843 people finished the educator preparation programs in the 2017-2018 school year. Who wants to do it? said Seidler, adding its not surprising fewer people are becoming teachers. Our working conditions havent improved, our pay hasnt kept up with the cost of living, I dont feel trusted and respected. But her reason for teaching, which mirrors so many others in her profession, is that she sees the difference teachers make in kids lives. That love and passion keep her in the field. ALAMOGORDO A herd of about 40 bighorn sheep were released into the Sacramento Mountains behind the New Mexico Museum of Space History in an effort to reintroduce the species to the area last weekend. The transplantation of the sheep was orchestrated by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, which released around 20 sheep each day, said agency conservation officer Andrew Armendariz. Around 100 members of the public and wildlife enthusiasts attended the releases on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 27 and 28, and formed wings alongside the sheep trailers to help usher the sheep into the mountains. Guests were asked to keep their phones quiet and speak in whispers as to not spook the sheep as they exited. Once the doors were opened, the sheep rushed out and stumbled in brief confusion before darting quickly out into the hills. On Saturday, the sheep quickly formed a line and followed one another, while on Sunday the sheep were slightly less organized. On both days, the sheep were barely visible on distant hills under two minutes later. The sheep population introduced into the Sacramento Mountains was made up of ewes and rams of various sizes and ages, Armendariz said. The bighorn sheep were taken from herds located in the San Andreas National Wildlife Refuge and the White Sands Missile Range, Game and Fish spokeswoman Alexa Henry said. The goals are to re-establish desert bighorn sheep in a mountain range they have been absent from for nearly a century, and also expand the geographic range of the desert bighorn sheep and their population, Henry said. This will bring them back to a range they historically occupied. Building populations The department has been re-establishing both Rocky Mountain and desert bighorn sheep populations for decades across the state, Henry said. The Sacramento Mountains release was the first release of entirely new desert bighorn population since 1992, she said. Its our ultimate goal to have a self-sustaining population, meaning the sheep that we introduce will repopulate and expand their range from where theyre being released, Armendariz said. Theyll disperse right now and over time theyll catch each others wind and scent and gather back up and become a herd as they find their sustainable geographical area on the mountain. The release of the bighorn into the Sacramento Mountains was approved by the State Game Commission in 2013, and the desert bighorn sheep population is finally numerous enough that some can be transplanted to the area, Henry said. According to state Department of Game and Fish statistics, the population of desert bighorn sheep has grown from around 240 in 2003 to around 840 by 2014. Around 578 bighorn sheep have been transplanted since 1979, figures show, but this is the first time they have been moved to the Sacramento Mountains. The recent release into the Sacramento Mountains could be supplemented by future sheep releases depending on how well they fare, Henry said. Armendariz said the sheep are captured by helicopter. A net gun, like a big shotgun, sends out a weighted net and they get tangled up, he said. A ground-capturing crew hobbles them and will cover their eyes to limit the amount of stress they are put through. Theyre helicoptered to a capture site. Once theyre there, theyre weighed, blood samples are taken, their internal temperatures, theyre sexed, and they are also prepped and sized for radio collars and ear tags. The new sheep population will be monitored via radio and Global Positioning System tracking, with a new round of sheep possible in around two years if the current transplantation is a success, Armendariz said. Game and Fish will also be killing mountain lions in the area in an effort to balance the populations, he said. Armendariz said that hunting the sheep might be possible in the future, though at this point he isnt sure how permits to hunt sheep would be issued. If we have our target herd size of 40, in about 6-8 years we hope that that population will double in size, he said. If everything goes as planned and we (only) have the mortalities that we expect, which is typically about 15 percent mortality rate, and were able to sustain (the population), there will be a hunt-able population at that point. Armendariz asked that if members of the public find a dead sheep, they leave it alone so that its death can be investigated by the department. And please dont touch or take the tracking equipment we will find it, he said. Space Museum staff said they are looking forward to their newest neighbors. It will be interesting to see bighorn sheep from the Museum, Museum spokeswoman Cathy Harper said. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal Republican Yvette Herrell and Democrat Xochitl Torres Small are separated by just 1 percentage point in the campaign to represent southern New Mexico in the U.S. House, according to a Journal Poll. But Democrats hold substantial leads in the races for U.S. Senate and an Albuquerque-based congressional seat. In the 2nd Congressional District, Herrell, a state representative from Alamogordo, had support from 46 percent of likely voters in the Journal Poll, conducted over the last week by Research & Polling Inc. Torres Small, a water lawyer from Las Cruces, was at 45 percent, according to the scientific survey. Nine percent of likely voters said they were undecided. National political groups have flooded the southern district with independent spending and negative advertising this year as both parties have seized on the contest as critical to determining which party controls Congress for the next two years. Its extremely close, said Brian Sanderoff, president of Research & Polling. I think the deciding factor in this race will be which side is more successful in turning out their supporters on Election Day. Herrell and Torres Small are campaigning to succeed Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, who opted to run for governor rather than seek re-election. Republicans have held the seat for all but two years since 1981, and President Donald Trump won the district by 10 percentage points in 2016. But the party that controls the White House tends to lose seats at the midterm, Sanderoff said, and Torres Small is capitalizing on strong enthusiasm among the Democratic base. The Democratic Party appears to be well-organized in the district, and Democrats are turning out at much higher levels than for the last midterm race four years ago, he said. Typically, Republican candidates have a tremendous advantage in this congressional district, Sanderoff said. But theres a unique window here, where the mood of the state and nation and a strong Democratic candidate have made the race extremely close. The district is divided geographically by the Sacramento mountains. Republicans usually run up huge margins in Otero County and southeastern New Mexico, where the oil and gas industry is strong. Las Cruces, where New Mexico State University is based, and counties to the west tend to favor Democrats. That pattern is showing up this year, too. Herrell leads by 32 percentage points on the east side of the district, according to the Journal Poll. Torres Small has a 19 point edge in Las Cruces and the west. Herrell is campaigning as a conservative who will defend the Second Amendment and support Trumps push to build a wall along the nations southern border, part of which is in the 2nd Congressional District. Torres Small has been running as an independent Democrat in touch with the values of voters not just in Las Cruces, but also in the rural parts of the state. Voters havent had a chance to see the candidates appear in a televised debate together, in contrast to the races in the 1st Congressional District and for the Senate. Torres Small agreed to three TV debates but Herrell wouldnt participate, citing scheduling conflicts. The 2nd Congressional District poll is based on a scientific sample of 413 likely voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples. Both cellphone numbers (76 percent) and landlines (24 percent) of likely general election voters were used. 1st Congressional District In the Albuquerque area, Debra Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo and former state Democratic Party chairwoman, had support from 50 percent of likely voters in the 1st Congressional District, according to the Journal Poll. Her closest competitor, Republican Janice Arnold-Jones, had support from 38 percent, and Libertarian Lloyd Princeton was at 5 percent. Sanderoff said Haalands personal story appears to be resonating with voters, especially women. Haaland, whose parents served in the military, speaks about pushing through college and law school as a single mom and understanding the struggles of ordinary New Mexicans. Arnold-Jones, a former state legislator and ex-city councilor, hasnt had much outside help in the race, Sanderoff said, because Republicans have shifted their resources to contests they expect to be more competitive. Democrats have held the 1st Congressional District seat for about 10 years. This years winner will succeed Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for governor. As the years pass, Albuquerque continues to move more in a Democratic direction, Sanderoff said. Were seeing that here. The 1st Congressional District poll is based on a scientific sample of 419 likely voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples. Both cellphone numbers (68 percent) and landlines (32 percent) of likely general election voters were used. U.S. Senate Heinrich, facing his first re-election campaign, enjoys a big lead in an unusual three-way race that features former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Libertarian. Heinrich was favored by 51 percent of likely voters, according to the poll, followed by Republican Mick Rich at 31 percent. Johnson trailed at 12 percent. Heinrichs opponents havent raised enough money to target him with the kind of negative ads that incumbents often face, Sanderoff said. Typically, a senator seeking his second term is still vulnerable politically, Sanderoff said. However, Martin Heinrich was very fortunate in having opponents who didnt have the resources to run negative attack ads against him. Heinrich, in turn, is campaigning as almost above the political fray, with ads highlighting him as an outdoorsman and fighter for New Mexicos national laboratories. Hes run a very nonpartisan campaign, Sanderoff said. The Senate poll is based on a scientific sample of 993 likely voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples. Both cellphone numbers (71 percent) and landlines (29 percent) of likely general election voters were used. More on the poll The Journal Poll is based on a scientific sample of likely general election voters, including newly registered voters who said they were very likely to vote in this years election. The poll was conducted from Oct. 26 through Nov. 1. All interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers, with multiple callbacks to households that did not initially answer the phone. Bhaktapur destroys stale oil sweets in nine shops The Bhaktapur municipality monitoring committee has destroyed inedible sweets found in various sweet shops in the municipality area. The team led by committee coordinator and Ward No. 3 Cair Raj Krishna Gora inspected nine sweet shops. Most of the shops were found using excessive colouring agents in sweets and stale oil for cooking. The images of thousands of Central American migrants packed onto a bridge at the Mexico-Guatemala border flashed across TV screens as leading experts on the region met last month. For Andrew Selee and others gathered in El Salvador at an annual conference on Central America, the so-called caravan was a key topic of conversation. Central America Continents and regions Donald Trump Elections (by type) Elections and campaigns Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Hiking Honduras Immigration Immigration, citizenship and displacement International relations and national security Latin America Mexico Midterm elections North America Outdoor recreation Political Figures - US Politics Sports and recreation The Americas United States US Federal elections US federal government White House Internet and WWW Social media Technology "People were fascinated about how it had originated," said Selee, president of the Washington-based nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. "They were wondering, 'Why now? Why are the caravans happening? Is this going to be the new thing out there?' " But Selee said one thing didn't come up as they tried to sort out the situation: the US midterm elections. "I was in three meetings on migration where the caravan was talked about. ... Not one person mentioned that," Selee said. "It's just not on anyone's mind." Tweets from President Donald Trump, a rash of conspiracy theories and rapidly escalating political rhetoric in the lead-up to a major vote north of the border aren't what's piquing experts' interest in the large groups of migrants moving through Mexico. But questions about what's happening, why it's happening and why it's happening now are. "We're all trying to make sense of it," Selee said. Experts: US election has nothing to do with it Experts say many factors are likely contributing to migrants' decisions to leave Central American countries. But establishing exactly why more large groups appear to be forming now is more difficult to pinpoint. "It's hard to explain all this. It's hard to figure out what the reason is," Selee said. But there's one thing experts agree on. "To see this as somehow timed one way or another to influence the US midterm elections is a mistake," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "It is, without a doubt, having an impact on shaping the pre-election climate, and President Trump is making absolutely conscious and concerted efforts to inject this issue into the campaign, where he knows the Republican base cares deeply about it, but I see the timing as a coincidence." Mike Allison, a professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania who studies Central America, also said looking at the formation of migrant groups through the lens of US elections is missing the point. "This is simply the latest manifestation of a crisis that's really affecting the entire Americas," Allison said, citing drug trafficking, organized crime, corruption and the absence of democracy as underlying causes. Climate change also has started to fuel more migration, he said, as drier conditions in some areas have decimated crops. 'A human tragedy' Crowds started gathering outside a bus station in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in mid-October, drawing attention from local TV stations as they prepared to make the trek to the United States. Local officials and the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa issued statements encouraging would-be migrants to turn back. But the group continued on its journey, crossing through Guatemala and making it to Mexico. By then, it had swelled in size -- numbering more than 7,000 people, according to estimates from authorities at the time. In Honduras, President Juan Orlando Hernandez and his administration said political opponents trying to destabilize the government were behind the so-called caravan. Attention zeroed in on an activist and former congressman from Honduras who had been traveling with the migrants and posting updates about their journey. Bartolo Fuentes maintained he wasn't an organizer and described the group's formation as spontaneous. "You are giving me some kind of superpower," he told CNN en Espanol when asked whether he had organized the caravan. "There are people in this march from places I've never even been to. ... It's absurd to think that someone can convince all these people. ... These are simply excuses because here the government doesn't want to recognize that we have a human tragedy that people no longer can bear." The group's size, he said, represented an accumulation of the same number of migrants who would ordinarily leave Honduras bit by bit, usually in much smaller groups, in any two-week period. "Every day people leave for the United States," Fuentes said. "The difference is, they leave in hiding. No one notices." Conspiracy theories surge The group's size -- notably larger than those of other migrants who have banded together on the journey north -- drew swift attention in the United States, prompting threats from Trump to slash foreign aid if migrants didn't return home. The absence of an organizer leading the group, or a clear explanation of how it had formed, left a void quickly filled by conspiracy theories, baseless claims and political attacks. Trump described the group's advance as an assault on US borders, argued its members were exploiting loopholes in asylum laws and claimed -- without evidence -- that Middle Easterners were in its ranks. The US Department of Homeland Security said it knew of 270 migrants in the group with criminal histories but didn't specify how it learned that information. Trump, standing center stage at a campaign rally, suggested Democrats were paying people to migrate north so they'd end up with more votes. Vice President Mike Pence said he'd heard Venezuela was responsible. A Republican congressman wondered whether billionaire George Soros was bankrolling the group. A Democratic senator called the timing "unusual" and asked, "Who would this benefit if this is suddenly in the news?" Rumors spread through tweets and Facebook posts that were swiftly shared, amplifying the message. An investigation by USA Today found that the Soros conspiracy theory had spread to hundreds of millions of social media users. But the seeds of these conspiracy theories didn't stay in the Twittersphere. The suspect in the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue railed against Jews on social media, blaming them for the caravan's advance. Then he allegedly headed to the synagogue and opened fire. Trekking in flip-flops and broken sneakers After a week traveling with the caravan, CNN witnessed little, if any, organization. People joined and left the group at will. Exhausted by the journey, many decided to return home. Many migrants in the group told CNN they joined at the last minute after seeing messages on social media or local news stories that inspired them to leave behind a homeland where they had long ago given up on having a future. They walked miles in flip-flops, rubber clogs and sneakers that were falling apart. Few appeared to have any funds. Most slept in the streets. They told CNN they would have gone hungry if not for generous Mexicans and municipalities who offered them tamales and pineapple juice along the route. And they said they had no choice but to flee. "There is no work anymore. The government took our lands," said Carlos Gomez, an out-of-work farmhand who said he's traveling to the United States to support his eight children back home. Chantal Alejo, a 27-year-old transgender woman traveling with the group, said a post she saw on Facebook about the caravan made her immediately pack her bag for the journey. "There's a lot of persecution," she said, "and no work." The big questions: Why? And why now? Such motivations have spurred migrants traveling north for years. But the groups have been far smaller. "This one really grew bigger than anyone could have expected," the Migration Policy Institute's Selee said. One possible "detonator," Selee said, was the caravan that crossed through Mexico in April. That group sparked Twitter tirades from Trump, which brought even more publicity, creating a "demonstration effect," Selee said. In the case of the large group that drew Trump's attention when it set out from Honduras last month, Allison, the professor, said it's possible other factors -- such as false rumors in a TV report about funds being available for food and transportation -- contributed to the group growing to such a significant size. "Whether that's true or not," he said, "you had probably thousands of people in Honduras who are considering going sometime in the next few months, or in the next year or two. It just changed their calculation about when the best time to go is." Usually migrants from Honduras pay smugglers thousands of dollars to guide them north. So the prospect of joining a group for free, and the reassurance of safety in numbers, is an enticing combination. "On the one hand, it's got to be something really bad to make you walk from Honduras to the United States," he said. "On the other hand, it's also, 'Hey, here's an opportunity for me, no matter how remote, that we might be able to get there without exposing ourselves to the financial risks and the personal risks that usually that would take.'" Another factor: political tensions in Honduras, where President Hernandez claimed victory after a disputed election last year. "The political crisis isn't helping. I'm not sure it's the reason," Selee said. "But it is both fertile ground for activists who want to organize people to leave, and it also may create one more element of instability." The situation is complicated, Allison said. "There are contradictory things that we're still trying to tease out about the root causes," he said. In Honduras, for example, the murder rate -- one factor analysts typically cite when they study why people migrate -- has been declining. But despite the lingering questions about these large groups forming, Allison said the most important thing to do right now isn't to pinpoint why they're leaving; it's to address the humanitarian crisis that's emerging as they make the trek "These are people who really, with the information that they have available to them, have decided that this is their best opportunity. It's not something they take lightly. It's not something we should think they're being manipulated by Honduran politicians or US politicians to do," he said. "We need to respond to what's happening with both compassion and level-headedness." BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - Volunteer firefighters in Butte County fight fires, but also respond to other types of emergencies, and are constantly training to maintain skills and learn new ones. Saturday a new batch of trainees started a 17 day volunteer firefighting academy. Instructor and Fire Captain Joe Chavez started teaching the recruits on Saturday morning. They will train on weekends through February. There are 32 students in the new group. In 2017 there were 177 volunteer firefighters signed up in Butte County, for 17 different volunteer companies. CAL FIRE Public Information Officer (PIO) Rick Carhart told Action News Now there were 20,252 incidents that were dispatched to Butte Unit firghters in 2017. More than half of those calls were for medical responses (56 percent). As students were training on Saturday, the already trained firefighters in the Butte Unit responded to a rollover collision on the Skyway near Rocky Bluff, and to a vegetation fire in Berry Creek. PIO Carhart says CAL FIRE volunteers are most known for their response to vegetation fires, but that only accounted for one percent of calls in 2017. Carhart said in the fall fire calls start to shift from vegetation fires to structure fires. In order to keep your home safe, he suggests checking your heater, stovepipes, chimneys and appliances carefully before starting them up this winter. He also requests people refrain from the unsafe use of barbeques inside of home kitchens. "Don't use them for heat," he said. Also, CAL FIRE wants to remind people to be careful when they take out ashes from their woodstoves and fireplaces. "Don't store the ashes next to your house, and don't just throw the ashes in the garbage," Carhart pleaded. You need to make sure the ashes are cold before they are completely disposed of, he reminded. LOS MOLINOS, Calif. - For a third time, people in Los Molinos are protesting a rehab facility housing sex offenders on Highway 99 near their high school. A group gathered at noon Saturday to once again protest the Elijah House. Protesters said the facility houses sex offenders, and they say they want a majority of them removed from the community because they are not from the area. "We don't need sex offenders in the middle of our town," said Missy Vanrooyen, one of the protesters. "Yes, we might have other sex offenders in our town, but they're not thrown in our face. They're not in front of a restaurant and another major store here. Kids are afraid to come into town now." The Tehama County Chief Administrator says the county does not believe that Elijah House is violating any laws. By Dan Olmsted Right now the media is fixated on the first case of Ebola to reach U.S. shores (without the assistance of the CDC, that is). Dr. Thomas Frieden, CDC director, says the disease will be stopped in its tracks, and for once I believe him. This is what the CDC does well -- track an outbreak in real time, find contacts, quarantine if necessary, and put an end to it. Enterovirus 68, I'm afraid, may be another story. We first started hearing about the bug earlier this year, when a couple of dozen cases of paralysis in children started popping up in California. At that point we weren't hearing about how dangerous the respiratory symptoms were, just that some children ended up with various kinds of paralysis in association with it. Now the primary respiratory illness seems more virulent (a Rhode Island girl died just yesterday), and it's causing wider cases of paralysis (Colorado, Michigan, Boston ... and counting). Which story is bigger? I vote for the enterovirus. On the one hand, we've got one case of exotic and terrifying Ebola, a disease that makes your eyes ooze blood and is the proverbial "plane ride away." We keep hearing about how every terrible vaccine-preventable disease that is no longer a threat in the United States -- polio being a classic example -- is just a plane ride away, and that all 300 million of us need multiple injections starting in infancy in case it lands here. (Makes you wonder why we're not still getting yellow fever shots, doesn't it!) But when a disease does in fact land here, public health surveillance catches it in a heartbeat, even with a goof like the Dallas emergency room sending the Ebola victim home the first time. What's much more disturbing, on the other hand, is a disease that appears to be endemic - Enterovirus 68 -- that spreads much more easily. And -- this is key -- the endemic one appears to be acting strangely. Ebola is nasty, but we know its evil ways. We haven't seen an enterovirus causing any appreciable paralysis since -- well, since polio. That bug circulated in the same way, generally caused no major problems, but starting in the late 1800s, inexplicably got into the nervous system of a small percentage of those infected and became something else entirely. No one ever really got a handle on why that happened -- they just created a vaccine that wiped it out in the United States. Now, having basically learned nothing from that epidemic, we've got another bug whose behavior is similar -- and about which we also know nothing. Parents ask, Why? Why my child or why not my child? Colorado public health official Larry Wolk said of paralysis from E-68. And its a question we cant answer because we dont really know why some of these kids go on to develop this type of serious complication. Well, we do have an idea, one that AOA has been investigating for several years, since Mark Blaxill and I observed in 2011 that polio epidemics seemed to arise along with new and highly toxic pesticides -- namely, lead arsenate -- in the late 1800s. Because polio is an enterovirus, which reproduces in the gut, we proposed an interaction between the virus and the pesticide residue from fruits or vegetables. We theorized this let the virus into the nervous system, where it caused the characteristic damage to the anterior horn cells at the top front of the spinal column. Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News N Augusta Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. Days before voters hit the polls, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster is both confident and circumspect. "We feel good," McMaster said following a get-out-the-vote rally in downtown Aiken. "The people weve met all around the state are enthusiastic." About 40 people including local lawmakers who earlier endorsed the governor's campaign attended the Sunday afternoon event. McMaster said his chance of winning the election "looks good." But, he said, "you never know until the day comes." "We're not taking anything for granted," the governor said. "We want every vote, because you never know. Elections are highly unpredictable." McMaster, who became governor in 2017, faces state Rep. James Smith, a Columbia Democrat, on Nov. 6. During his Sunday speech, McMaster described his competition Smith and his running mate, state Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell, D-Lancaster as "nice people" who happen to be "wrong on their philosophies." The Smith camp has been touring the state recently, as well. McMaster's Aiken visit was one of the last stops on a statewide bus tour designed to electrify voters and further his optics in the political home stretch. McMaster made a tour stop in Aiken in the lead up to the primary election, as well. He secured four Aiken-area endorsements at the time. The governor said this bus tour, which running mate Pamela Evette was again a part of, was meant to remind people to vote, remind people why they should vote, and remind people what he represents. "So we're working hard, we're taking nothing for granted," McMaster said. Evette, during her respective speech, urged rally attendees to vote and to tell a friend to vote. "Call 10 of your friends, and make them understand how important this election is," Evette said. "Let them understand the differences and why they need to get out and not to let anything stop them." Aiken County sided with McMaster during the Republican primary and the successive runoff. Chapakot mayor injured in Kalikot boozy brawl Mayor of Syangjas Chapakot Municipality, Shiva Giri and his aide, among other officials were injured when a drunken brawl erupted at a hotel in Kalikot on Saturday night. President Barham Salih on Oct. 27 announced that he has developed a proposal for resolving the dispute over Kirkuk between Baghdad and Erbil. Without going into detail, he said his plan focuses on the ethnic and religious components in determining its fate, ignoring the interests of outside players in discussions about the city's future. The recent agreement by Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites on the formation of a national government with Salih as president, Adel Abdul Mahdi as prime minister and Mohammed Halbousi as parliament speaker raised hopes among many Iraqis that the outstanding issues between Baghdad and Erbil might be resolved, but will the new leadership be able to deliver? After nearly five months of post-election battling and political uncertainty, Iraqis are generally optimistic about the successful, peaceful democratic transition. The new leadership has been positively welcomed by major political parties as well as by Washington and Tehran. Some even see the new leadership as a sign the country is stabilising after four decades of chaos and division. Despite the current optimism, the ongoing issues between Baghdad and Erbil may surprise Iraqis with new, potentially destabilizing conflicts. These issues include easing tensions stemming from the Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum held in September 2017 that Baghdad opposed, oil policy and revenue sharing, allocation of the federal budget and disputed territories, particularly Kirkuk. On the budget issue, since 2003, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had received 17% of annual federal budgets, but that amount was reduced to 12.67% in the 2018 budget and the proposed 2019 budget much to the Kurds' displeasure. If genuine stability is the goal in Iraq, the country's long-standing issues must be tackled. At first glance, there are indeed reasons to be optimistic. The new president is known to be a moderate Kurdish leader who has worked for decades with both Shiite and Sunni Arab politicians. Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi, who has a long history of working and cooperating with Kurds, had previously served as vice president, oil minister and finance minister in Baghdad, while Speaker Salih had served as deputy prime minister in Baghdad and as KRG prime minister from 2009 to 2012. They both enjoy good relations with Washington as well as Tehran and with main political parties in Iraq. On top of that, the two leaders are also good friends, which should enhance their working together and make conciliatory approaches more likely. Moreover, the new Iraqi prime minister has been an advocate of federalism and was recently described by Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), as a friend of the people of Kurdistan. All of this suggests that the two leaders have the qualities and experience to manage political disputes between Baghdad and Erbil. It is still too early, however, to tell if Iraq's new leadership is up to the formidable challenges ahead. The initial indications are that serious negotiations over outstanding Baghdad-KRG issues are unlikely to take place as the problems are beyond Salih and Abdul Mahdis capacities. This is not simply because Salih's position is largely ceremonial, but also because unlike Former President Jalal Talabani, he lacks his own constituencys support, he does not control a military force, and he lacks the backing of the KDP. In fact, Barzani vehemently opposes Salih, having said that he would not allow Salih to step foot in Erbil if he became president of Iraq and that he would not care if the Kurdistan region split, requiring two administrations, as a result. Salihs victory over the KDPs preferred candidate for the presidency escalated tensions between the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which as reported by Al-Monitor, already disagreed over governance of Iraqi Kurdistan and related socioeconomic issues. In the KDP's eyes, the PUK has ruined Kurdish unity in Baghdad, and the Iraqi president, who is always a Kurd, does not represent the people of Kurdistan. This is the first time since 2005 that the two main Kurdish parties have been fragmented in Baghdad. Relations between the KDP and PUK are so tense that some observers are wondering whether Iraqi Kurdistan might be on the verge of civil war. Under the circumstances, Salihs efforts on the Kurdistan issue may be derailed by Barzani. Although Barzanis influence was reduced by the broadly opposed independence referendum, his party came in first in elections held Sept. 30 and therefore will remain the main ruling party in the Kurdistan region. Abdul Mahdi also has his own limitations. Like Salih, he lacks his own constituency, and like his predecessors, he is the product of a compromise, which means that in trying to effectively address the problems between Baghdad and the KRG, he is not strong enough to override the parties that selected him. Abdul Mahdi, a political insider since 2003, was nominated to be prime minister mainly because he posed no threat to the major parties, making his selection first and foremost a vote for continuity. Furthermore, resolving the outstanding issues with Erbil does not appear to be among the next governments priorities. Some more immediate challenges and tasks are likely to take precedence. Among them are rebuilding infrastructure destroyed in the war against the Islamic State and preventing a resurgence of the extremist group, addressing popular grievances over poor public services, balancing between the influence and interests of the United States and Iran and taking meaningful action against endemic corruption. Muqtada al-Sadr, the influential Shiite cleric and the leader of Sairoon bloc, has issued a self-proclaimed one-year deadline for the new government to implement reforms. The Kurdish issue is also more likely to be sidelined in the next four years because unlike previously, when the Kurds were kingmakers in Baghdad ahead of government formations, the KRGs bargaining position has become weakened since the disastrous independence referendum. Last but not least, some of the outstanding issues between the KRG and Baghdad are deep-seated structural and constitutional matters that previous governments have failed to tackle. In other words, even if the president and the prime minister are well intentioned and cooperate with each other, they have little room in which to address the issues. Agreement on disputed territories, oil sales and budgets need broad legal and political consensus among the major political parties, something that is beyond the capacity and leverage, and hence control, of the new leaders. Their abilities should, therefore, not be overestimated. They are unlikely to be able to do more than their predecessors in this regard. The two-week-long Shield of the Arabs I exercise that started in Egypt on Saturday brings together troops and advisers from eight Arab nations in a glimpse of the joint strength of the regions most powerful militaries. But the simulation also underscores the political divisions fragmenting a unified front against Iran even as the Donald Trump administration resumes hard-hitting sanctions against Tehran this week. Qatar is excluded from the joint exercise with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan. Advisers from Lebanon and Morocco will also participate. The Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), Washingtons name for a repeatedly delayed military consortium first floated by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, remains slated for a delayed January rollout but could face another postponement. A US official told Al-Monitor that the Donald Trump administration hopes to see a resolution to the diplomatic row between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors before the alliance is formalized. The US is correct that a regional grouping should include the entire GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], said Zack Gold, an analyst at CNA, a Washington-based defense think tank. If [the Americans] are sending the message of not joining an organization that doesnt include Qatar, its an important message to send. Doha said it would spend more than $1.8 billion this summer to upgrade al-Udeid Air Base, which hosts 10,000 US troops. Gold added that US military cooperation with Gulf countries hasnt been completely derailed by the Qatar crisis. In August, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that 800 American troops participated in Operation Bright Star, another Egypt-based exercise that brought together 16 nations. Saudi Arabia and Egypt also concluded a 10-day drill in late October dubbed Tabuk 4 and Riyadh hosted a 20-nation exercise named North Thunder in 2016 that included 350,000 troops from Arab and Islamic countries, including Qatar. But the long-delayed MESA pact may face more trouble getting off the ground in the coming months, as the US administration pushes for a UN-backed cease-fire in Yemen and a full probe into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Another US official told Al-Monitor in September that the meeting, first scheduled for April of this year, would also be focused on GCC reconciliation, not strictly on countering Iran. Tim Lenderking, the State Departments deputy assistant secretary for Gulf affairs, told the UAE newspaper The National in September that MESA would help create a strong shield against potential Iranian cyberattacks, and could help with a settlement to the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. But US officials have failed to get the idea off the ground for decades. In 1997, then-CENTCOM chief Gen. Anthony Zinni favored creating an Arab alliance in war plans to counter Iran instead of a US-led assault he feared would get bogged down by Iranians sticking by the regime and by the countrys mountainous terrain. An attempt by the Barack Obama administration to develop a GCC-wide missile shield also stalled. The Egypt exercise comes as the last two US defense secretaries have tried to keep US forces out of harms way by shifting the fighting to partners in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and supporting Arab nations with training, air power and refueling support. But that strategy, known in the Defense Department as by, with and through, has been beset by political turmoil and complex Middle East battlefields full of civilians. In September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allowed US refueling of Saudi and UAE warplanes in Yemen to continue by certifying that the coalition had made a good-faith effort to reduce civilian casualties after the August bombing of a school bus killed 40 children and caused an uproar in Congress. Elsewhere, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces have put the fight against the Islamic State on hold as Turkey launches cross-border attacks against the US-backed group, which has ties to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party. US assistance for a future Arab NATO could be limited to military sales, even though Jordan and Egypt are two of the largest recipients of US military assistance. The first US official who spoke with Al-Monitor said the MESA grouping would not likely get backed with US taxpayer dollars. The State Department cleared more than $22 billion in US arms sales to the Middle East in fiscal year 2018, which ended Sept. 30. One of the things that we want them to do is to be interoperable with each other, Gold said. Thats why we sell them similar arms. The leadership of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad announced Nov. 1 that they accept the understandings reached with Israel through Egyptian mediation: transitioning to nonviolent demonstrations along the fence while the siege of Gaza is eased, reports Shlomi Eldar. The joint announcement was made at the end of a meeting between the heads of the organizations (including Hamas' military arm) at Hamas political bureau chief Ismael Haniyeh's office in Gaza. The groups decided to give the plan a trial period of six months. Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have shown unusual restraint in recent weeks in order to prevent escalation of the conflict with Israel, distancing themselves from rocket attacks on Beersheba in southern Israel on Oct. 17. Rasha Abou Jalal reports that Hamas officials told Al-Monitor that those attacks were not planned in the resistance factions joint operation room, which is designed to ensure that any retaliatory Palestinian military action against Israel is done jointly among the factions [Hamas and the Islamic Jihad], to identify the opportune time to carry out such an action, and to determine its magnitude based on that of the Israeli attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus willingness to deal with Gaza has been a work in progress. Almost 10 years ago, Netanyahu announced that if he was elected [as prime minister], he would order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to invade Gaza, bring down the Hamas regime and destroy the terror nest that it has become, writes Ben Caspit. On Oct. 29, Netanyahu admitted for the first time that Israel has no interest in toppling the Hamas regime. The prime minister summoned political reporters and regaled them with a very detailed and convincing speech as to why Israel has no current interest in bringing down Hamas and would, therefore, make do with reaching an arrangement to keep Gaza from total collapse. The reasoning, in Netanyahus own words, was that the collapse of Gaza would blow up in our faces. He then went on to blame Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the collapse of Gazas humanitarian infrastructures. The mini arrangement was initiated by Egypt after the chances of a broader arrangement were deemed to be nil, writes Eldar. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas categorically refuses to enter Gaza and take part in an arrangement despite the enormous efforts expended on it. Another of the obstacles to the arrangement is Hamas' unwillingness to give up its demonstrations at the border, out of concern that if the arrangement doesnt work they would be hard to restart. An additional obstacle to an arrangement that seems to have been solved is Israels refusal to allow the monthly transfer of $15 million in Qatari funding for the salaries of Hamas administration personnel, adds Eldar. Egypt promises that the money will be transferred to the civil administration of Hamas and not its military arm, though its unclear how it could be overseen, so Israel seems to be leaning toward withdrawing its objection. What is remarkable about this chaotic and unresolvable situation is the way that history has been turned upside down, writes Caspit. At about the same time that the prime minister was saying this, the PLOs Central Committee meeting in Ramallah on Oct. 28 decided to call on Abbas to place recognition of Israel on hold along with any security coordination between the Palestinian forces, the IDF and Shin Bet. This call for measures expressed Abbas recent policy of burning the house down. They leave him watching with nervous anticipation at Israels attempts to rescue Hamas, while he remains isolated in Ramallah. What worries Netanyahu, adds Caspit, is that if Abbas returns to Gaza and takes the reins of power from Hamas, he and the Israeli right will immediately lose their ultimate excuse, i.e., that negotiations have reached a deadlock. Suddenly, there would be a single, unified Palestinian partner in Gaza and the West Bank with whom Israel would be obliged to negotiate. That is the one possibility that Netanyahu will do everything he can to avoid. If he has to reach an ad hoc alliance with Hamas in order to achieve this, then he has no choice but to do so. After all, the only thing more dangerous to Netanyahu than getting tangled up in war is getting tangled up in peace. A recent poll among Palestinians, including those in Gaza, revealed an increased openness to negotiations this year. Adnan Abu Amer writes that in the Gaza Strip, the situation never changes. The Israeli siege grows fiercer by the day and there is no prospect of alleviating or lifting it. Talk of an imminent Israeli war against Gaza is raising concerns among the Palestinians who fear its terrible consequences as they have not yet recovered from the previous three devastating wars. Palestinians in the Fatah-controlled West Bank are not supporting such negotiations with Israel as much as they used to. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas rules and has built an armed military arsenal, are supporting resistance less, according to the poll, reports Abu Amer. The big if is whether the arrangement [between Hamas and Israel], which is limited at this stage to six months until the situation in the Palestinian Authority (and Abbas position) become clearer, will bring about a renewal of the talks between Israel and Hamas with Egyptian mediation regarding the return of the bodies of soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin and the two Israeli civilians held in Gaza, concludes Eldar. The negotiations are not expected to be easy. Another weekend of rocket fire on Israel or violent demonstrations at the fence, or the breakdown of the arrangement for any reason, will force him to prove to his political rivals who are ready to pounce that he still stands strong against Hamas. The question now is whether Hamas and the other Palestinian factions celebrating their achievement understand that it is likely Netanyahus final act of defensive restraint, after which could come war in Gaza. The Oct. 29 decision by the Palestine Central Council (PCC) to suspend its recognition of Israel until the latter recognizes Palestine on the 1967 borders failed to attract much attention from Israel or the world. The resolution followed a hint in this direction made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his Sept. 27 UN General Assembly speech. The credibility of both Abbas and the PLO's various institutions, including the Palestine National Council (PNC) and the PCC, has been devastated ever since the Palestinian president and his security team failed to adhere to the May 4 decision of the PNC that had called for the suspension of all forms of security coordination with Israel. When asked by Al-Monitor about the seriousness of the Palestinian leadership in carrying out its threats this time, half a dozen well-respected officials, experts and analysts all answered in the negative. Hossam Ezzedine, a Ramallah-based political analyst, told Al-Monitor that he doesn't believe the Palestinian leadership will carry out the PCC decision. If you read carefully the final communique of the PCC, you will notice that all the agreed-upon decisions have to be implemented by a special committee set up and headed by the Palestinian president. This is unusual because normally, the PLO's Executive Committee is responsible for implementing decisions of the PLO's top bodies. Majed Arruri, director of the Istiklal Institute for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Rule of law based in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor that the PLO is at its weakest point in years and that its leaders are not willing to risk their own survival and VIP privileges by taking as hard a decision as suspending recognition of Israel or ending security cooperation. If the security cooperation ends, the Palestinian Authority [PA] will collapse automatically because it is not prepared to return to the place it was before the formation of the PA. On the ground, especially in terms of security coordination, we have heard these calls before, but they have not been implemented. In case security cooperation is halted, Israel would likely put Abbas under siege and could withdraw all travel permissions for Palestinian officials and stop turning over funds collected on behalf of Palestinians by Israel. Khaled Abu Arafeh, former minister of Jerusalem affairs during the short-lived Ismail Haniyeh government, told Al-Monitor that the latest decision of the PCC comes at a time of unprecedented internal confusion. Relations with the United States are thoroughly disturbed, and Israel's view of Gaza has been shaken up while the Palestinian leadership insists on refusing to offer Hamas any accomplishments. Arafeh said what is of importance is the growing rift between the presidency and the PLOs Executive Committee on the one hand and the Fatah parliamentary bloc on the other, and as result the idea of [further weakening] the Palestine Legislative Council was not agreed to. The PLC is the PA's legislature, and Arafeh's statement reflects a real problem for the top Palestinian leadership that is not often spoken about. Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, the Fatah spokesman for international affairs, told Al-Monitor that the Palestinian cause is experiencing serious threats from the US administration and Israel to divide Palestinian lands and undermine the legal rights Palestinians have under international law. The PCC resolutions are just the beginning of a new policy that will defend Palestinian rights and unity of Palestinian lands. Abu Zayyad conceded that this is the third time that Palestinian institutions have called for suspending the security coordination. But he argued that this time is different and that the decision by the PCC defending Palestinian rights will be implemented. The Supreme National Committee headed by the president and which was chosen by the PCC is meeting to see how and when the steps should be taken according to the institution's recommendations. A committee that includes PLO Executive Committee members, Cabinet ministers and influential leaders has been established to decide the best time and ways to implement the PCC decisions. US State Department spokesman Robert Palladino, in an answer to a question about the PCC, said Oct. 30 that the United States has been following the Palestinian council's decisions. Were aware of reports that the Palestinian Liberation Organizations central committee voted in support of suspending recognition of Israel. Wed also point out that were aware this is not the first time that the PLO central committee has made such a recommendation to President Abbas; we continue to urge all parties to engage constructively on how to build a brighter future for the Palestinians and Israel. For the time being, the attention of Israel and the United States is focused on the situation in Gaza and they are not paying much attention to Abbas or the PLO. They are unlikely to give credibility to the anti-Israeli calls of the PLO institutions until and unless they realize that the calls are serious and not simply a bargaining chip that Abbas wants to use to stay in power and to ensure that the status quo continues. A person of interest in the bludgeoning double murder of a former Alabama couple was captured this afternoon in Kentucky. Michael Collins, 45, was wanted in connection with the deaths of Eugene Frank Gurley, 72, and Patricia Gurley, 70, who attended high school in Birmingham and college in Calhoun County. Their bodies were discovered in their Louisiana business at National Pool Builders Tuesday night. Denham Springs (La.) Police Chief Shannon Womack on Friday said the preliminary autopsy results indicate the cause of death for both victims was blunt force trauma to the head. Today, authorities said a tip from the Greater Baton Rouge Crime Stoppers gave Collins' location in Scottsville, Ky. Acting on that tip, a Louisiana State Police Fugitive Task Force coordinated with authorities in Kentucky and took Collins into custody. He is currently being held in a Kentucky jail as a fugitive from Louisiana. Once he is extradited, he will be transported to Denham Springs, where he will be charged with two counts of first degree murder and one count of simple burglary. I cannot say thank you enough to all the law enforcement from Louisiana to Kentucky, Crime Stoppers for the tip and a huge thank you to the community for spreading the word to get Collins arrested as soon as possible," Womack said. "Our prayers continue for the Gurley family and I ask you to keep them in yours as well. The bodies of Eugene Frank Gurley, 72, and Patricia Gurley, 70, - who attended high school in Birmingham and college in Calhoun County - were discovered Tuesday night at National Pool Builders, which was owned by the couple. Denham Springs officers responded Tuesday to the scene in Livingston Parish, not far from Baton Rouge, on a welfare check. Womack said neighbors of the couple reported neither had been seen or heard from since Monday. Officers and the Gurleys son ultimately forced entry into the business and discovered the crime scene. Womack called the crime the most senseless and heinous in his career. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp on Sunday announced an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia over a failed attempt to hack the states voter registration system - two days before an election in which he is competing against Democrat Stacey Abrams to become governor. The announcement, which contained no details on the alleged "cyber crimes" that it suggests state Democrats were involved in, was immediately condemned as a political ploy by Democrats and some commentators, who believe Kemp should not oversee an election in which he is competing. "Brian Kemp's scurrilous claims are 100 percent false, and this so-called investigation was unknown to the Democratic Party of Georgia until a campaign operative in Kemp's official office released a statement this morning," Rebecca DeHart, executive director of the state Democratic Party, wrote in a statement to reporters. "This is yet another example of abuse of power by an unethical Secretary of State." Kemp's office has not said when the alleged voter registration hack attempt occurred or revealed any details about the nature of the attack. The deadline to register to vote in Tuesday's election passed early last month. The investigation was launched Saturday evening, according to Kemp's office, and was made public early Sunday. By midmorning, the headline "AFTER FAILED HACKING ATTEMPT, SOS LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO GEORGIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY" sat front-and-center on the secretary of state's government website - directly beneath a voter's guide to polling locations. "While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes," Kemp's press secretary, Candice Broce, was quoted saying in the statement. "We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure." The office said it had contacted the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security about the hacking attempt. The FBI could not be immediately reached for information. A DHS spokeswoman said in an emailed statement, "The State of Georgia has notified us of this issue. We defer to the State for further details." Abrams, who is polling almost neck-and-neck with Kemp, told CNN on Sunday that she had been unaware of her opponent's investigation into her party. "He is desperate to turn the conversation away from his failures, from his refusal to honor his commitments, and from the fact that he's part of a nationwide system of voter suppression," she said. Voting rights has become a major issue in the campaign, which has drawn national attention because Abrams, 44, if elected, would become the nation's first black female governor. Abrams, who four years ago started a nonprofit group whose goal was to sign up hundreds of thousands of unregistered people of color, has clashed repeatedly with Kemp, who she calls "the architect of voter suppression." Kemp investigated the group, which Abrams is no longer affiliated with, for fraud but found no wrongdoing. Kemp, 55, who has argued that the policies are aimed at preventing voter fraud, also has been criticized for having purged more than a million voters from the rolls during the past year. He has rejected calls, including one from former President Jimmy Carter, that he should step down as the state's top elections official while he is running for governor. Although lawmakers and elections officials in Republican-controlled states have cited concerns about cheating to enact strict voter registration and identification laws, there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the United States. Kemp's office came under intense scrutiny last month, when the Associated Press reported that more than 53,000 voter registration applications - 70 percent of them from African-Americans - had been held up because the identification information was not an "exact match" to other state records, because of discrepancies such as a dropped hyphen in a person's name. On Friday a federal judge ordered the state to immediately stop using the rule, saying it would likely lead to violating the voting rights of a large number of people. Less than two weeks ago, in a separate case, a federal ordered elections officials to stop automatically rejecting absentee ballots after advocates filed suit against a Gwinnett County, which threw out hundreds of ballots because of discrepancies in signature or missing addresses. Neither Kemp's campaign nor his secretary of state office immediately responded to requests for comment on the investigation. President Donald Trump is scheduled to host a campaign rally for Kemp Sunday in Macon. Businesses have pumped four times more money directly into Gov. Kay Iveys campaign as they have into the campaign of Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox since the June 5 primary, the main difference in the two candidates fundraising efforts. Over the five-month campaign, the Republican governor has raised about $2.5 million to about $1.6 million for Democratic nominee Maddox. Donations come from three main sources -- individuals, businesses and political action committees. Ivey has received about $883,000 from businesses, while Maddox has received about $223,000 going in the final days before Tuesdays election. Maddox almost matched Ivey in donations from individuals. Ivey has received $874,000, while Maddox has gotten $770,000. Ivey has received $756,000 from PACs, while Maddox has gotten $575,000. The numbers show Iveys campaign dollars came in roughly equal amounts from the three main sources, 35 percent from businesses, 35 percent from individuals and 30 percent from PACs. Maddox, meanwhile, got 49 percent from individuals, 14 percent from businesses and 37 percent from PACs. Ivey got donations from banks, construction companies, nursing homes, engineering and architecture firms, law firms, coal companies, beverage companies, road builders, insurance companies and lawyers. Maddoxs business donations came mostly from labor organizations and in smaller amounts from law firms. About one-fourth of Maddoxs total business donations came from Greenetrack, the gambling venue in Eutaw, which gave $60,000 in four installments. Tom Dart, president of the Automobile Dealers Association of Alabama, said business groups know Ivey and consider her a pro-business governor. I think when youre analyzing candidates you start with the incumbent and if the incumbent has been good for your business, good for whatever it is you represent, you pretty much stop there, Dart said. If theyve been accessible, you can talk to them and they have a good record, you generally stop there. You stay with a friend. Shes been that way. Shes been accessible. Dart said Ivey has appointed conservative judges to fill vacancies. That showed a pro-business, conservative demeanor for her, Dart said. Weve known her a long time. That plays into it. Shes spoken at all of our meetings over the years. Theres just been a long-term connection. Dr. Maryam Stevenson, an assistant professor in the political science department at Troy University, said strong support from businesses is to be expected with Iveys status as the incumbent and the favorite. Alabama voters have not elected a Democratic governor since Don Siegelman in 1998, and U.S. Sen. Doug Jones is the only Democrat to hold statewide office. We expect business to contribute to perceived winners as they are contributing more for some type of quid pro quo rather than from a sense of civic duty or partisanship, which is how individual voters will contribute, Stevenson said in an email. Therefore we expect the incumbent to receive the larger share of contributions from business largely because the perception is that the incumbent is typically in the better position to win and big donors want to tie themselves to the winner so they can benefit when they are in office. Additionally, Republican candidates generally tend to have a slight edge over Democrats as their policies are typically more pro-business. While both candidates received a large chunk of their cash from PACs, Ivey dominated in collections from PACs representing the states most powerful business interests. Almost half of Maddoxs PAC donations came from a handful of PACs run by Tuscaloosa accountant Michael Echols. The Echols PACs get their money from a wide variety of sources and have given $275,000 to Maddox. One notable source was Democratic activist and philanthropist George Soros of New York. Soros gave the Echols PACs $200,000 on October 15. Two weeks later, those PACs gave Maddox $150,000. The Echols PACs are similar to those run by contract lobbyists who represent multiple clients and who direct campaign contributions from a variety of sources to candidates. Ivey got money from some of those PACs but the bulk of her PAC contributions came from associations representing industries and business groups. Among those contributions: $50,000 from the Business Council of Alabama and $25,000 each from the Automobile Dealers Association of Alabama; the Alabama Forestry Association; Alabama Power Company; the Alabama Realtors Association; the Alabama Farmers Federation; Alabama Builders; the Alabama Trucking Association and the Alabama Medical Association. Jess Brown, retired political science professor from Athens State University, said Ivey is the entrenched favorite for the BCA and its influential members. They are investing heavily in her campaign because they fully expect her to promote their agenda and legislative initiatives, Brown said in an email. They do not expect her to have an agenda independent of the established corporate and agribusiness interests on Goat Hill. The key issue for BCA is a gas tax to build roads, and Ivey has already indicated support for that initiative to Goat Hill insiders. Corporate interests probably see no need to swap a known political commodity with conservative bona fides, such as Ivey, for a newcomer representing the party of unions and government employees. The BCA issued a statement about its support for Ivey, noting that the states unemployment rate has been at record lows in recent months and the Alabama Department of Labor says there are a record number of people working. The statement said, in part: The Business Council of Alabamas Progress PAC proudly endorsed Governor Ivey in September 2017. Since day one, she has displayed the courage to govern and has made job creation a top priority. The BCA understands that legislative success happens when the right people are elected, and thats what our political action is all about supporting pro-jobs candidates who believe in free enterprise. The BCA staff and its members spend countless hours, energy, and research, including candidate interviews and questionnaires, to determine the candidates who truly are pro-business. As for individual contributions, Great Southern Wood President Jimmy Rane, known for his Yella Fella character on TV ads, gave Ivey $100,000 in June. Ivey and Rane were students together at Auburn University and are longtime friends. The Maddox campaign has touted its success in attracting individual contributions, almost 3,500 in all, about 94 percent of all his donations. Ivey raised far more money than Maddox during the year leading up to the party primaries in June. Both candidates won their partys nominations over multiple opponents. Overall, the Ivey campaign has raised $6.9 million and spent $6.9 million since August 2017. The Maddox campaign has raised $2.5 million and spent $2.3 million since July 2017. Troy Universitys Stevenson, asked if Maddox raised enough money to be competitive in the race, said fundraising probably wont be a deciding factor. I don't know if it's so much a dollars issue as it is a momentum issue and a geographic issue, Stevenson said. Maddox waged his campaign largely in the metro areas, neglecting to a large extent the more rural ones where Ivey is currently favored (and where voters typically vote). His campaign also failed to seize on the momentum following the Doug Jones win, specifically failing with any significant GOTV (get out the vote) campaign. Retired Athens State Professor Brown said Maddox probably raised enough money to be competitive if he had entered the race with better statewide name recognition. Of the three key factors in a campaign (money, message, and manpower), Maddox needed to compensate for losing the fund-raising war by having a message or set of issues that resonated with independent voters and media, Brown said. He basically needed a highly salient message to overcome a funding disadvantage. That has not happened. At its core his message resembles the message of recent Democrat nominees for Governor who received 38 to 42 percent of the vote. The Maddox campaign has far outperformed the 2014 Democratic nominee Parker Griffith, when it comes to fundraising. Griffith raised $669,000 in cash contributions. Ivey has slightly outraised her predecessor, Gov. Robert Bentley, who raised a total of $6.8 million leading up his landslide victory over Griffith. The University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center is working in partnership with Lung Cancer Alliance to reach underserved Alabamians who are most at-risk for lung cancer. Through the newly formed Alabama Lung Cancer Awareness, Screening and Education program, the groups will work to improve knowledge and awareness of lung cancer and increase lung cancer screenings in six rural Black Belt counties Sumter, Green, Hale, Marengo, Choctaw and Dallas as well as in Jefferson County. A $1.6 million, three-year grant from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation is funding the initiative, according to the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in both men and women across the United States, killing more people than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. In Alabama, lung cancer is the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths and is No. 3 in the number of new cases diagnosed each year. The new program combines Lung Cancer Alliances expertise in lung cancer screening and expands the Cancer Centers successful Deep South Network Community Health Advisor model to decrease lung cancer disparities in underserved Black Belt counties and in Jefferson County, according to the Cancer Center. The purpose of the program is to encourage participation and increase screenings by providing community-based support to local health care facilities. As the only (National Cancer Institute) NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center in the Deep South, UAB has an obligation to address our regions cancer burden, said Michael J. Birrer, director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. Lung cancer screening holds the greatest promise for finding the disease early, when the possibility of a cure is greatest. However, only 4 percent of individuals nationally are screened for lung cancer each year. There is a great lack of awareness about the potential benefits of screenings and, for many, a reluctance to engage in the screening process, he continued. We hope using the successful CHA (Deep South Network Community Health Advisor) model will help improve screening rates among these at-risk individuals. The CHA model is a proven, community-based health promotion approach that identifies and trains natural helpers from the community who then seek to improve the health status of individuals from that community, according to the Cancer Center. For more than 20 years, the Cancer Centers Deep South Network has trained more than 1,200 CHAs and has had significant success in the areas of breast, cervical and colon cancers. ALCASE expands the use of these trusted and trained community leaders to lung cancer. ALCASE program leaders will partner with existing community resources, like Alabamas smoking cessation programs, identify Screening Centers of Excellence, and provide financial and transportation assistance to help eligible individuals access and afford lung cancer screenings. The Cancer Center will begin recruiting and training up to 150 CHAs in the seven-county program area in February 2019. We are recruiting men and women of all races and backgrounds over the age of 19 to join us in these efforts, said Claudia Hardy, director of Community Outreach in the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. The UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center Community Outreach Staff will host events in the targeted counties in the month of November to bring awareness of November as Lung Cancer Awareness Month and to introduce the ALCASE program to the communities. Nov. 5: Hale County 11 a.m.-noon at the Third Street Church of God (Fellowship Hall), 1102 Third Street, Greensboro. Nov. 7: Sumter County Noon-1 p.m. at the Sumter County Health Department Conference Room, 1121 North Washington Street, Livingston. Nov. 8: Jefferson County 10-11 a.m. at the JCCEO Headquarters, 300 Eighth Ave. W, Birmingham. Nov. 8: Marengo County 1-2 p.m. at the Bryan Whitfield Memorial Hospital Conference Room, 105 Highway 80 East, Demopolis. Nov. 8: Greene County 10-11 a.m. at the Green County Health Department, 412 Morrow Ave., Eutaw. Nov. 9: Choctaw County 9 a.m.-noon at Choctaw General Hospital, 401 Vanity Fair Drive, Butler. To learn more about the ALCASE program, community events or becoming a community health advisor, contact Claudia Hardy at 205-975-5454 or chardy@uab.edu. Child marriage prevalent among Chepangs: Study Jyotimaya Chepang of Dokatar in Kailash Rural Municipality-7 in Makwanpur district is only 29 but has already given birth to nine children. Out of the nine, only seven children are alive. Five-nation deal signed this year expected to add to fishermens burden in Dagestan village by increasing restrictions. Kraynovka, Russia After more than 20 years of dispute, five countries Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan have signed an agreement that will resolve the legal status of the Caspian Sea, and devised a formula to divide its resources. Besides vast oil and gas reserves, the Caspian Sea is enormously rich in fish, with sturgeon being the most valuable. The average price for caviar fish roe, specifically from sturgeon can run up to 25,000 roubles ($380) a kilo on the black market in Russia. But fishermen are expected to be the last to benefit with strict measures and fines in place, not only for selling the banned product it is illegal in Russia to privately harvest or sell black caviar, which comes from the endangered sturgeon fish but also due to the new sweeping and convoluted laws controlling the sea. Kraynovka is a small village on the shore of the Caspian Sea, an hours drive along a bumpy road from the nearest city of Kizlyar in northern Dagestan. There are 2,648 people living there currently. . Ruslan Amirov, fisherman In its booming years, the Soviet 60s, the village hosted a large fish factory employing most locals and villagers from the surrounding areas. Ruslan Amirovs parents moved to Kraynovka when he was five or six years old. He had already started fishing by the time he was 11. We didnt use any boats back in the day, you could put a net near the shore, where the water reaches your knees, and catch something, he reminisces. Fishermen fill canisters with petrol at the village port [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] There were plenty of fish back in the day. Now, the numbers are dwindling, according to statistics from the Federal Agency for Fishery. This, combined with the ban on fishing sturgeon and strict restrictions by border control, place a heavy burden on fishermens shoulders. Amirov lives in a small apartment that his mother received from the government while working at the factory. Now, half of that two-storey building is abandoned. The empty window frames used to frighten the village children as they passed by, but theyve grown used to it. Several houses in the village are this dilapidated. There is no central heating and power outages are frequent. Ruslan Amirov, who lives in this house, says people are barely surviving [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] Amirov has to provide for his small son and pregnant wife by fishing in the Caspian. He worked for two years in Sochi before the 2014 Olympics, making 50,000 to 60,000 roubles ($750 to 900) a month, but decided to return to where he grew up. People are barely surviving here. If there were any other jobs, no one would go to sea, says Amirov. Now, fishermen have to travel between 200 and 400km [to catch fish]. They are being caught [by border authorities], killed and drowned but they have to feed their families somehow; they have to pay off their debts. Theres no other solution, says Amirov. Whats the point of them looking for other jobs? Its easier to go to sea once and take the risk, then, theyll be able to pay off their debts. In December 1992, at a meeting of fishery representatives from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia, a protocol was signed establishing the Interdepartmental Commission on Aquatic Bioresources of the Caspian Sea. This commission has become the only body for joint management of the Caspians plentiful wealth. A fisherman at sea in his boat, or bayda [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] The official ban on fishing sturgeon in the Caspian was implemented in 2009 and has been renewed every year since. Stanislav Pritchin, an analyst at Chatham House and one of the most prominent experts on the Caspian Seas legal negotiations, says that theres no other way but imposing a ban as sturgeon is becoming extinct. The fishing industry is quite a painful topic because poaching is very common in the Caspian Sea. It is a very profitable industry, and sturgeon is a very valuable breed of fish, especially for black caviar. There is an official ban on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea, but in practice, it is very difficult to put such restrictions on fishermen, because for them it is a source of income, a source of profit, sometimes the only one, says Pritchin. Kraynovka used to be a central hub for fishermen in the booming Soviet 60s [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] Therefore, there are strict controls on the fishermen. I believe that this is a justified measure, given that the situation in the Caspian Sea and the environment, in general, is not the best. The area around the village and port has turned into a border control zone, so anyone crossing this virtual border without permission a document can be obtained in Kaspiysk, 18km from the capital, Makhachkala would be fined. Fishing hours are strictly regulated: fishermen have to be back at the port before sunset, around 7.30pm, which affects their customary fishing techniques. One example is the mugil, a fish which they can no longer catch as it must be netted at night. A boat being towed to sea by a specialised tractor [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] According to the Russian Foreign Ministry and Federal Agency for Fishery, the ban needs to be maintained until at least 2027 in order to replenish the sturgeon population. Dagestans fish industry has been and still is one of the leading sectors of the republics economy. Dagestan has significant potential to develop its fishing industry with all its components from fish and aquaculture production to the processing of aquatic organisms and product sales, says Russian agriculture deputy minister and head of the federal fishery agency, Ilya Shestakov. According to the agency, since the start of 2018, there have been 3,009 cases of administrative offences and 47 criminal cases registered in the Caspian. Border authorities have seized 1,358kg of sturgeon during this same period. New restrictions have limited the amount of time fishermen can spend at sea, limiting their income [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] An important component of the fight against this evil is, of course, the fight against the trafficking of illegally obtained aquatic biological resources. We are taking a number of steps to ensure full traceability of the origin of aquatic biological resources in our markets, and we believe that they will be applied together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia in the very near future, Shestakov told Al Jazeera. For women, theres even less work in Kraynovka and few want anything to do with fish. Zapir Amaradziev and his son. Amaradziev says his wife left because she was exhausted with the challenges fishing brought to the family [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] Zapir Amaradziev raises a 13-year-old son by himself, as his wife left nine years ago. He says that she got tired of this sort of life. Its like gambling here. If you go to sea and bring back some fish you are lucky, otherwise, you drown in debt, he adds. Amaradziev has accrued large debt through buying nets and petrol for the last fishing season. The ban on fishing sturgeon and strict restrictions by border control place a heavy burden on fishermens shoulders [Nikolay Korzhov/Al Jazeera] In August, he only managed to go to sea five times due to unfavourable conditions. The Caspian is famous for strong winds that fishermen cannot weather in their light, self-made boats, or baydas, equipped with fast engines and little else. When asked whether his son will follow in his footsteps, Amaradziev says that he desperately doesnt want him to become a fisherman. His son, sitting nearby, exclaims, Yeah, no way in hell! Amaradziev continues: Its getting worse and worse here. I would love to sell all this fishing equipment, including the boat, but I wouldnt know what else to do. To begin with, no one knows or can predict what will happen in the US midterms on November 6. Polls used to be very accurate. We, as the public, viewed them as predictors of voting. As a commercial product employed both by political campaigns and businesses, they were disciplined by the demands of the market and had been one of the few true successes of the social sciences. Yet something went wrong. Almost all the major political events of the past dozen years the election of a black president, the collapse of the Democratic majority in his first midterms, his re-election, the nomination of Donald Trump, the election of Donald Trump, plus a Republican sweep of the house and senate have been shocks and surprises. At this point, we cant consider the polls to be much more than guesses. Informed, calculated, well-considered guesses, but still guesses. The consensus of those guesses is that Democrats will take the House of Representatives and the Republicans will hold the Senate. Lets start with that scenario. {articleGUID} It would make for fabulous drama. More outrageous than House of Cards, not quite as murderous as Game of Thrones. The Democrats will control the house committees, meaning theyll control investigations and they will have subpoena power. Donald Trump, his family, and a multitude of his appointees have been accused of committing a wide-ranging and colourful assortment of crimes. So far, the Republican majority has been able to block any real investigations. With a Democratic majority, they will go forward with broad and endless publicity. Where does that lead? One possibility is a constitutional crisis. If recent history is a guide, the Trumpettes will claim extreme and unprecedented versions of executive privilege plus newly invented theories of why they dont have to answer questions. Congress and congressional committees have the authority to declare witnesses or those who refuse to be witnesses in contempt and detain them. However, the procedure, by agreement and by custom, is that Congress does not carry out contempt proceedings by itself. It refers them. To whom? To the Department of Justice. In recent decades, the Department of Justice has dishonoured that obligation when it suited their politics. In 1982, Anne Gorsuch was Ronald Reagans head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Like many EPA administrators appointed by Republican presidents, she thought it was her mission to diminish and destroy the agency she was in charge of. Congress disagreed. They asked her to turn over documents. She didnt do so. The House voted to cite her for contempt. It was referred to the Department of Justice, where it died. The same happened with EPA Assistant Administrator Rita Lavelle in 1983, White House Counsel Harriet Miers in 2008, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten in 2008, Attorney General Holder in 2012 and IRS Director Lois Lerner in 2014. At that point, Congress can attempt to assert its authority by going to court for a writ of mandamus, compelling government officials to carry out their duties, or by changing the process and reclaiming the right of enforcement. Best guess is that if they do either, it goes to the Supreme Court. Then there are two best guesses. The five Republican, conservative judges including Anne Gorsuchs son, Justice Neil Gorsuch vote to protect their guys whatever the circumstances. The other possibility is that Chief Justice John Roberts would not want the Supreme Court under his watch to lose the rest of its respect and moral authority in the eye of the US public. If so, he may swing from the rhetorical law and order side to the actual law. (Its a shame that the judicial and political systems are so degraded that any hope boils down to the possibility that just one person has a moment of honour, putting principle above partisanship). Even if key members of the administration manage not to testify, House committees should be able to get enough information to make it clear that crimes have been committed. If so, who actually prosecutes? On the federal level, it is, once again, the Department of Justice, which is part of the executive branch, answering to the president. {articleGUID} The states, however, are separate entities with their own attorney generals. Certain federal violations are also state violations. For example, if Trump and the Trump family cheated, failed to report, or committed some sort of fraud in their federal taxes, they would almost certainly have done exactly the same with their state and even city taxes. The attraction of high-publicity prosecutions is great. The Office of the New York State Attorney General has given us a president (Martin Van Buren), a vice president (Aaron Burr), a senator, and two governors. One Manhattan district attorney became governor, another, Thomas Dewey, very nearly became president. There is much talk of impeachment. If a House majority votes to impeach, it would be the equivalent of an indictment. Then it goes to the Senate for a trial. In the very unlikely event that Democrats get a one or two seat majority there, it still requires a two-thirds vote to convict, to remove the person from office. Even if strong incriminating evidence is uncovered, it remains impossible to imagine 15 Republicans crossing the aisle to vote against a president of their own party. If youre a pollster, it looks like a 1 out of 6 shot that Republicans keep the House. If youre betting, you can get much better odds, about 1:2. Should that happen, expect that whatever you dont like about Donald Trump, from his hair to his rump, from his anti-immigrant policies to the destruction of the commitment to liberal democracy, the demonisation of the press and the end of truth, to double, double-bubble, quadruple. So hunker down, find the psychic fallout shelters, and watch old Marx Brothers movies to have something to laugh about. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. In September 2018, the Tanzanian parliament passed amendments to the national statistics law that included a provision for criminal penalties for anyone who publishes information that does not comply with the National Bureau of Statistics methodology or that challenges official statistics. At the time of its passage, the new law drew little attention outside Tanzania, except among organisations like the World Bank and UNDP which independently produce global statistics on development and the economy. But, as the National Bureau of Statistics struggles to create the regulations that will give the new law effect, it is increasingly apparent that this is another attempt by the legislature and the executive to suppress freedom of speech in the East African nation. Free speech is increasingly under threat across East Africa. In an interesting evolution from the street battles and protests of the 1990s, legislatures in the region have emerged as the new front in the battle for freedom of expression. Perhaps taking cues from Kenya and Uganda which have since 2013 passed legislation that has strangled the press, the internet and other spaces for expression, Tanzania is also entering a period of authoritarianism by legislation. In this approach, ruling parties that dominate the legislature in the countries in question simply overwhelm opponents and citizens with complex, punitive and burdensome legislation that does not in itself strike at the heart of the political work but creates enough bumps and roadblocks to slow down the putative activist or stop the momentum of any political or social mobilisation. This approach works on the principle of: 90 percent of people obey 90 percent of the laws 90 percent of the time. That is, most people like to continue to obey the more banal laws on taxation or social organisation to pay taxes, obey parking regulation and not kill or steal. And most of the people who do mobilise for political action are not calling for general anarchy in their society but rather the loosening or undoing of a handful of unjust laws that make life difficult. They simply believe that a handful of state actions cut at the heart of what it means to live a life of freedom and dignity, and would like those laws undone. States like Tanzania and Kenya recognise that outrightly authoritarian laws will invite sharp criticism and resistance at home and abroad, so they focus on passing many seemingly innocuous laws that constrain everyday behaviour. Freedom of expression is a particularly soft target for such legislation because it often does not affect the financial wellbeing of citizens, so most unengaged citizens can dismiss such legislation as superfluous. It is easy to argue that freedom of speech does not affect food, shelter or clothing and can, therefore, be a secondary issue. But such legislation is often a gateway to more authoritarianism a signal that the state is already working to diminish basic rights of the citizenry. The more authoritarian the state, the more likely it is to introduce draconian laws on even the most basic things. In Tanzania, the state now wants to be the final word on how people in Tanzania count, to be the final authority on how information on who Tanzania is prepared and disseminated. Beyond the statistical law, the current administration has also introduced punitive taxes starting at $900 a year on blogging to control what is said online. All of these rules are part of a growing network of invasive, dehumanising legislation that authorities can publicly say serves a public benefit, but in actual fact, is part of a broader effort of dehumanising social and political control. Significantly, because such concerns are increasingly dismissed as secondary, those who speak up against these laws are perceived to be increasingly irrational and focusing on unnecessary things. On October 31, Zitto Kabwe, a leader of the ACT opposition movement in Tanzania, was detained for questioning following a press conference in which he accused the police of killing dozens of residents of Kigoma, where he is a legislator, during an operation to address illegal grazing. The police have, to date, declined to issue a statement regarding the alleged killings and Kabwe urged them to do so. Kabwe was charged with three counts of incitement and released on bail on November 2. His supporters insist he was detained and continue to be persecuted simply for challenging the official state narrative. Last year, Kabwe was detained and questioned over issuing false statistics on economic growth. This is a symptom of creeping authoritarianism, and by extension, subtle dehumanisation of the states victims and those who would speak up for them. Undoubtedly, the detention of such a high-profile figure is designed to intimidate lower-profile individuals that may want to challenge the government on other issues. It shows the extent to which the state is willing to go in order to maintain absolute authority over the countrys narrative. But it is also a demonstration of how ill-informed and clumsy authoritarianism by legislation can be. Kabwe is a legislator it is his job to ask such uncomfortable questions of the government. Yet, a blanket law challenging how information is produced and disseminated cannot make distinctions between a blogger producing fake news and a legislator doing his job. As numerous Tanzanian activists have pointed out, this is a symptom of democracy in decline. In international law, concepts like freedom of expression used to be called subsidiary rights secondary concerns that should be addressed but only after basic rights like food, shelter and clothing have been taken care of. But looking back on the last 60 years of political organisation, it is apparent that if these rights are addressed, if people are able to exist in the fullness of their humanity, they would often find creative and innovative ways to claim their basic rights. Of course, there are many institutions that recognise that it doesnt have to be an either/or conversation, but this weeks developments in Tanzania, and the increasing prevalence of authoritarianism by legislation in the region and around the world is a reminder to all of us to remain vigilant. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Ashiq Masihs request for asylum in US, UK or Canada comes a day after he criticised the government deal with TLP. The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted in a blasphemy case has pleaded for international help to leave the country, saying he feared for his familys safety. The request on Sunday by Aasia Bibis husband, Ashiq Masih, came a day after he criticised a government deal with far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) that left her in legal limbo, and called on authorities to protect her. Bibi, 53, who had been on death row since 2010 on blasphemy charges, was acquitted by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Her acquittal triggered massive protests by TLP, which paralysed parts of the country for three days, blocking roads and disrupting traffic. The government reached a deal on Friday to end the protests by agreeing to put Bibi on an exit control list, and saying it would not object to Muslim groups appealing the verdict. An appeal has been filed with the top court against Bibis release. Help us Masih criticised the government deal, saying it was wrong. I request [US] President Donald Trump to help us leave [the country], and I request the prime minister of the UK to do their level best to help us, to grant us freedom, Masih said in a video message, according to news agencies. I also request the prime minister of Canada, he said. Wilson Chowdhry, of the British Pakistani Christian Association, told the AFP news agency that Masih also wants asylum for some members of his extended family. The daughters are weeping. They still havent seen their mother. The family is totally shattered, he said. Masihs appeal came a day after Bibis lawyer fled Pakistan on Saturday, also citing threats to his life. In the current scenario, its not possible for me to live in Pakistan, Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP before boarding a plane to a European country. Pakistans far-right groups protesting against the acquittal of Aasia Bibi [Faisal Mahmood/Reuters] Blasphemy is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where the countrys strict laws prescribe a mandatory death penalty for some forms of the crime. Increasingly, blasphemy allegations have led to murders and mob lynchings, with at least 74 people killed in such violence since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Bibi had been on death row for eight years following her arrest in the central Pakistani village of Ithan Wali over an argument with two Muslim women, who refused to drink water from the same vessel as her due to her religion. The women accused her of having insulted Islams Prophet Muhammad during the altercation, a charge Bibi has consistently denied. Salman Taseer, the then-Punjab provincial governor, spoke in Bibis defence before being assassinated by his bodyguard in 2011. The TLP was founded out of a movement to support Taseers assassin, who was hanged in 2016. Shahbaz Bhatti, a federal minister for minorities, was also killed after calling for Bibis release. Protesters arrested Pakistans leading rights watchdog criticised the recent deal to end the protests, saying it was appalled at the governments failure to preserve the rule of law. But Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry insisted the government was not ignoring the actions of the far-right groups. No one should have this wrong impression that the state will ignore this behaviour, he told reporters on Sunday. The state will not ignore the rebellion. Meanwhile, police said they have arrested over 150 people across Pakistan for arson, violence and incitement during the protests this week. The verdict against three senior members of the now-outlawed Al-Wefaq movement comes months after their acquittal. Bahrains appeals court has sentenced three senior members of the countrys opposition movement to life in prison over charges of spying for neighbouring Qatar, according to a statement from the public prosecutor. The verdict against Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-outlawed al-Wefaq movement, as well as Sheikh Hassan Sultan and Ali al-Aswad came on Sunday, months after their acquittal by the high criminal court in June. Sultan and al-Aswad were tried in absentia. The trio was sentenced for acts of hostility against Bahrain and communicating with Qatari officials to overthrow constitutional order, the public prosecutors statement said. The latest ruling can be appealed. Salman is currently serving a four-year sentence in a separate case inciting hatred in the kingdom, which has seen mainly Shia protests against the Sunni monarchy since 2011. In November, Salman and two other members of al-Wefaq were charged with working for Qatari intelligence with the aim of overthrowing the Bahraini government. Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have declared Salman and other jailed opposition leaders prisoners of conscience. Tried in absentia, Ali al-Aswad was elected to Bahrains parliament in 2010, but resigned in 2011 in response to the governments crackdown [Al Jazeera] Sima Watling, Amnesty Internationals campaigner on Bahrain, told Al Jazeera from Beirut that the verdict was absurd. She said that Salman had phone conversations with the foreign minister of Qatar in 2011, urging Doha to mediate in Bahrains political crisis, and the interaction was used six years later as a proof for spying charges. The new charges are absurd, Watling said. It appears to be linked to the Qatar crisis and the Bahraini authorities are going forward with their crush on dissent. Any opposition or opposing voice is being crushed. Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, severed all ties with Qatar in 2017, banning their citizens from travel to or communication with the fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member. Parliamentary elections Sundays verdict comes days ahead of Bahrains November 24 parliamentary elections. Members of dissolved opposition parties, including al-Wefaq and the secular al-Waad group, are banned from running. The Sunni-ruled Gulf state has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011 when security forces crushed Shia-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. Opposition movements have been outlawed and hundreds of dissidents have been imprisoned with many stripped of their nationality. Bahrain last year ratified a constitutional amendment granting military courts the authority to try civilians charged with terrorism, a term that is loosely defined by the Bahraini penal code. In June, the kingdom amended its law on political rights, prohibiting leaders and members of political associations dissolved for violating the kingdoms constitution or its laws from running in legislative elections. Bahrain, a key ally of the United States and home to the US Fifth Fleet, accuses Shia Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom. Iran denies the allegations. The United Nations and rights groups including Amnesty and HRW have criticised the Bahraini monarchy over its treatment of protesters. New York, US Voters in the United States will take to the polls on Tuesday to cast their ballots in the midterm elections, in what is seen as a referendum on President Donald Trumps first two years in office. But for the hundreds of immigration advocates who gathered in central New York on Saturday, the fight for migrants rights will be far from over no matter the result. We want Americans to understand this is beyond Republican and Democrat or Trump and his administration, Patricia Okoumou, the activist who climbed the Statue of Liberty on July 4 to protest against forced separations at the US-Mexico border, told Al Jazeera. If we dont act, we are all complicit people need to open their eyes, Okoumou said, adding that it was time to acknowledge migrants and refugees as fellow human beings. It was a message echoed the busy Union Square in Manhattan, where people of all ages expressed solidarity with a US-bound caravan of thousands of Central American migrants and refugees. Activists said it was a last-bid effort to expose the horrific treatment of undocumented immigrants in the country, including family separations, detentions at the border and fear mongering from Trump and his Republican administration before the November 6 vote. Democrats are eyeing the midterm elections as an opportunity to take back a majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives from the Republicans, but activists said their fight is beyond the bi-partisan struggle for power. We are not putting all our eggs with the Democrats, said Denise Romero Gonzalez, an activist with the International Socialist Organisation (ISO). We were in a similar situation in 2008 and the idea then was that we would vote blue for [former President] Barack Obama, who was supposed to protect immigrants. But that didnt happen, she added. Elections are just one strategy. At the end of the day, there are Democrat politicians who are also invested in mass incarceration and deportation, Gonzalez told Al Jazeera. Patricia Okoumou, the activist who climbed the Statue of Liberty, at the protest on Saturday [Azad Essa/Al Jazeera] Since October 12, thousands of migrants and refugees mostly Hondurans have been collectively heading north to flee economic hardship, poor healthcare and violence, including political persecution. The immigration caravan is currently in Mexico. But this has not stopped Trump from seeking to drum up fear of immigrants and issuing repeated warnings that appeal to his conservative base. In the lead-up to the vote, he called the caravan an invasion and claimed gang members were among its participants all of which is unfounded. In a statement last week, the US Department of Homeland Security said, without offering any proof, that people from more than 20 countries including Somalia, India, Haiti, Afghanistan and Bangladesh had joined the caravan. Protesters called for the abolition of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement [Azad Essa/Al Jazeera] Trump has also stated that the caravan would not be allowed into the US. Last week, he deployed more than 5,000 troops to protect the border, even though under US and international law, members of the caravan are entitled to apply for asylum. At the protest in New York, the activists called for the humane treatment of those travelling in the caravan and said they should be allowed into the US. Holding up signs that read Abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Do not succumb to fear mongering, they shouted slogans such as Open the borders, their chants reverberating across the square. Barbara Mutnick, an organiser with the Jackson Heights Solidarity Network, said Trump was trying to divide the American people and trying to scapegoat immigrants. We feel no human being is illegal, and we fight for that, she said, adding that even progressive Democrats have been silent on the migration caravan issue. Activists say Trump is using the caravan to fuel fear among voters [Azad Essa/Al Jazeera] Dustin Reyes, activist with the Immigrant Justice Working Group, told Al Jazeera the US president is using the caravan to fuel fear. Nearby, a small group of hecklers, identified as Trump supporters, held up signs that mocked the rally and called for the caravan to be cancelled. Human rights abyss The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in October that even though anti-immigrant policy was Trumps hallmark, he could still be swayed by public outrage. Activists at the rally said they are hopeful the new wave of mobilisation around Trumps policies will force his administration and the representatives voted in Congress to take their concerns seriously. They also pointed out the US role in Honduras being in a state of dysfunctionality a human rights and security abyss since a 2009 coup, which Washington supported. At the time Hillary Clinton, Trumps Democrat rival in the 2016 presidential election, was US secretary of state. According to the World Bank, 66 percent of the people in the country live in abject poverty, with one in five living in extreme poverty, or earning less than $1.90 a day. Honduras has been in a state of dysfunctionality since a 2009 coup, which the US supported [Azad Essa/Al Jazeera] Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said last year the murder rate in Honduras was among the highest in the world with activists, journalists routinely targeted. Marred by corruption and abuse, the judiciary and police remain largely ineffective, HRW said. Yasmine Kemel, an activist with the New York-based Bay Ridge For Social Justice group, said history is precisely why many immigrants living in the US understand that it not about who is in office. I cannot forget that it was Obama who deported millions of people from the US and it was his administration that supported the coup in Honduras that has in part led to the situation in that country. It doesnt matter who is in office it is the extent to which we can mobilise people into action and force change to take place. Dramatic solutions Its time for the state to gear up its responsibility in developing and leading the theatre industry Suspects were involved in killing seven Coptic Christian pilgrims in Minya province on Friday, interior ministry says. Egyptian security forces have killed 19 people linked to a deadly attack on Coptic Christians, according to the interior ministry. The suspects were killed in a gunfight in the desert of Minya province in central Egypt after security forces pursued them, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The terrorist elements opened fire on the [security] forces who responded, the statement said. Those killed were part of the group that killed seven Coptic Christian pilgrims in the same province on Friday, the ministry said. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, claimed responsibility for the attack, although it provided no evidence of its involvement. Fridays attack was the latest in a string of assaults against the minority Coptic community. Armed men opened fire on buses carrying pilgrims to the Monastery of St Samuel in Minya province, killing seven people and leaving 18 wounded. On Saturday, hundreds gathered at the Prince Tadros church in Minya, a city some 260km south of the capital, Cairo, to bury six members of the same family who were shot dead in the attack. Among them were a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. The seventh victim, an Anglican bus driver, was buried on Friday evening in a village outside Minya. On Sunday, Pope Francis said he was pained over the attack on the pilgrims. I express my pain after the terrorist attack which two days ago hit the Coptic Orthodox church in Egypt, Francis said in Saint Peters. I pray for the victims, pilgrims killed just because they were Christian, he added. The Copts are an Orthodox denomination who make up an estimated 10 to 15 percent of Egypts more than 90 million people, although there is no formal religious census to determine an exact number. They are the Middle Easts largest Christian community and have long complained of persecution and insufficient protection. In December 2017, a gunman killed 11 people at a church and a Christian-owned shop near Cairo. More than 100 Copts have been killed in such attacks since 2011, according to The Associated Press news agency. Demonstration marking the anniversary of the 1979 hostage-taking incident comes as US sanctions against Iran return. Thousands of Iranians have rallied in Tehran to mark the 39th anniversary of the US embassy takeover, as Washington prepares to reimpose all sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. The crowd chanted Down with US and Death to Israel during the rally in the Iranian capital on Sunday, and state TV said similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns. Al Jazeeras Zein Basravi, reporting from Tehran, said the crowd is bigger and angrier during this years commemoration. {articleGUID} It has to do with the fact that the anniversary coincides with the deadline by the United States to reimpose sanctions that were lifted by the 2015 nuclear deal, he said. But many Iranians that we spoke to said that this deadline is meaningless and that foreign investment has already been scared offand that any economic damage has already been done. Shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian students stormed the American embassy, taking 52 hostages for 444 days. The US cut off diplomatic relations in response to the hostage-taking. In Iran, November 4 is also known as Student Day and the National Day of the Fight against Global Arrogance. Irans government celebrates the embassy takeover every year as a decisive blow against the United States, which had supported the autocratic rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Den of spies The embassy compound, widely known as the den of spies, is now a cultural centre. Anger and distrust of the US are surging again following President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw from Irans nuclear deal with world powers despite Tehrans compliance with the agreement, which was negotiated under the Obama administration. In May, the Trump administration announced the restoration of sanctions against Iran. The first round took effect in August, while the second round targeting Irans oil and gas, as well as its shipping and banking industries, will take effect on Monday, November 5. Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis and has seen sporadic protests in recent months, as Iranian officials tried to downplay the sanctions and their effects. The US said the sanctions are not aimed at toppling the government, but at persuading it to radically change its policies, including its support for regional armed groups and its development of long-range ballistic missiles. Iranian leaders said the sanctions are aimed at toppling the government and have ruled out negotiations with the Trump administration. At a gathering on Saturday, Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, portrayed the sanctions as part of a long tradition of American hostility towards the Islamic Republic, which he said had nevertheless prevailed. Khashoggi murder: Options for international investigation Being a signatory to the UN Convention against Torture, Saudi Arabia may face calls from other nations for extradition. Majority of US women disapprove of Trumps presidency Conservatives cannot afford to lose female votes to maintain the control of Congress. Migrant caravan: Mexico City bus offer withdrawn The migrants continue towards the US on foot after a governor revoked an offer of free transportation to Mexico City. Pyongyang expresses frustration over the slow progress of the lifting of sanctions while US insists on denuclearisation. North Korea has warned the United States it will seriously consider returning to a state policy aimed at building nuclear weapons if Washington does not end tough economic sanctions against the impoverished regime. In a statement issued late on Friday, the Norths foreign ministry said Pyongyang could revert to its former policy if the US did not change its stance over sanctions. The word byungjin may appear again and the change of the line could be seriously reconsidered, said the statement carried by the official KCNA news agency. For years, North Korea had pursued a byungjin policy of simultaneously developing its nuclear capabilities alongside the economy. In April, citing a fresh climate of detente and peace on the peninsula, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the nuclear quest complete and said his country would focus on socialist economic construction. At an historic summit in Singapore in June, US President Donald Trump and Kim signed a vaguely worded statement on denuclearisation. But little progress has been made since then, with Washington pushing to maintain sanctions against Pyongyang until its final, fully verified denuclearisation, and North Korea condemning US demands as gangster-like. North Koreas statement, released under the name of the director of the foreign ministrys Institute for American Studies, also called for an end to US sanctions. The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible, it said. What remains to be done is the US corresponding reply. Double game The statement is the latest sign of Pyongyangs increasing frustration with Washington. Last month, North Koreas state media carried a near 1,700-word-long commentary accusing the US of playing a double game, implicitly criticising Trump for his comments aimed at barring Seoul from lifting sanctions against Pyongyang. {articleGUID} Despite a flurry of diplomacy on and around the Korean Peninsula, differences are emerging between South Korea and the US, which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect it from its nuclear-armed neighbour. South Korean President Moon Jae-in has long favoured engagement with North Korea, which is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. He has dangled large investment and joint cross-border projects as incentives for steps towards denuclearisation, while the US has been adamant pressure should be maintained on Pyongyang until it fully dismantles its weapons programmes. In an interview with Fox News on Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated that sanctions will remain until Pyongyang carries out denuclearisation commitments made in Singapore, adding he will meet his North Korean counterpart next week. Qatar appointed the heads of its biggest bank and state-run oil firm to two key ministerial posts in a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday. The reshuffle ordered by Qatars Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was the first government reshuffle in Qatar, the worlds top liquefied natural gas producer, since early 2016. The countrys ruler also issued decrees restructuring the boards of both the state-run Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the worlds ninth-largest sovereign wealth fund with about $300bn in assets. Qatar National Bank (QNB) CEO, Ali Ahmed al-Kuwari was appointed to a new portfolio that combined commerce and industry under one ministry in the reshuffle, which also included changes to the justice, labour and social affairs ministries. It was not clear whether al-Kuwari would retain his post at QNB, the Middle Easts largest lender by assets, which is 50 percent owned by the countrys sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Another chief executive, Saad al-Kaabi of QP, joined the cabinet as Minister of State for Energy Affairs, according to the royal courts decree. Al-Kaabi, a US-educated engineer, rose through the ranks to become chief executive of QP in 2014 and is also a member of the board of the QIA. Among the executives of the worlds energy giants like Exxon, Shell and Total, he has the reputation of a reliable counterpart in energy projects that have made the tiny nation of 2.6 million people the worlds biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Qatar has been facing a diplomatic and economic boycott by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt since June 2017. The four countries accuse Qatar of backing terrorism and cosying up to Iran, charges that Doha denies and instead says the boycott aims to impinge on its sovereignty. US to reimpose all sanctions on Iran on Monday All measures lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal will be reimposed, despite Tehrans compliance with the agreement. As Saudi-coalition expands Yemen war, UN says famine accelerating UNICEF says 400,000 children are at risk of dying every day due to lack of food, but the war is making aid deliveries impossible. Riyadh has not offered a public explanation Prince Khaleds arrest nor his release. Saudi Prince Khaled bin Talal, a nephew of King Salman, has been released after almost a year in detention, according to his relatives. Princess Reem bint Alwaleed, Prince Khaleds niece, and two other relatives shared photos on Twitter on Friday showing the prince embracing his son, who has been in a coma for several years, and other family members. Thank god for your safety, the princess wrote on Twitter. The Saudi government has not offered an official explanation for Prince Khaleds arrest nor the conditions of his release. Prince Khaleds brother, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, was among more than 200 princes and other senior figures detained at Riyadhs Ritz-Carlton hotel over corruption allegations in November last year. pic.twitter.com/drFWupyKQy (@Reem_Alwaleed) November 2, 2018 Prince Khaleds release comes as the kingdom faces international pressure over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside its consulate in Istanbul on October 2. The killing of Jamal Khashoggi has left the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in its weakest diplomatic position since the horrific terror attacks of September 11, Ali Shihabi, head of the Arabia Foundation think-tank, a pro-Saudi institution, wrote in a report published on Friday. In the aftermath of the understandable global outrage at the Khashoggi murder, something will clearly have to give. Shihabi called for the release of women activists and other moderate critics of the government who have been detained in Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans widely condemned crackdown on dissent in recent months. November crackdown According to the Wall Street Journal, Prince Khaled, Prince Alwaleeds brother, was detained for 11 months for criticising the November crackdown. Prince Alwaleed was released in early January after an undisclosed financial agreement with the government. It appeared similar to deals that authorities struck with most other detainees in exchange for their freedom. The government critics said the crackdown was an attempt by the crown prince to sideline his potential rivals and consolidate power. Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade. Many Trump supporters say their support for the US president and the Republican party couldnt be stronger. Irvine, Kentucky President Donald Trump is not on the ballot next week in Estill County Kentucky, but for some residents, he might as well be. When Trump ran for president two years ago, promising more jobs, a crackdown on immigration and to make America great again, it resonated with 27-year-old construction worker Cortland Wilder, who joined 70 percent of fellow rural county voters helping to sweep Trump into office. Just days before the US midterm elections widely viewed as a referendum on Trump, Walker is among conservative voters in Trump-supporting states such as Kentucky headed to the polls in local races to show they have not wavered and believe the US president has done a good job since he was elected two years ago. Kentucky, which twice elected Democrat President Bill Clinton, has become reliably red, giving Trump 62 percent the vote in 2016 largely on the strength of rural residents like Wilder. Every one of my friends and family wants to vote for him more than they did the first time, Wilder, a father of two who lives in a district where Trump-backed Republicans have argued that residents forgotten by politicians before Trump came to power. Wilder hasnt been put off by Trumps pugilistic style. He knows Trump has angered allies, opened a trade war with China, criticised the fake news media, regularly provoked outrage on Twitter and dismissed as a witch-hunt a federal investigation into his campaigns relationship to Russias alleged 2016 election interference. Every one of my friends and family wants to vote for him more than they did the first time. Cortland Wilder, Trump supporter More important to him, he said, is jobs. They are plentiful in nearby cities where many work, even though unemployment around the small brick downtown stood at 9.4 percent in July. Walker attributes a recent $3-an-hour raise to Trumps tax cuts, despite criticism it will balloon the national debt. He believes Trumps policies mean fewer undocumented immigrants taking jobs. {articleGUID} Add to that Trumps two conservative Supreme Court justices who will favour conservative causes for years to come. It is propelling Wilder to vote in the bellwether 6th District Congressional race thats drawn Trump and high-profile Democrats to campaign for the candidates. A Morning Consult/Politico poll taken in late October found that 43 percent of voters approved of the job Trump was doing, while 54 percent of voters disapproved. But few Trump supporters that Al Jazeera has been following since the election have changed their minds. A package deal On the other side of Kentucky from Wilder, the story is much the same even among those weary at times of Trumps social media outbursts. Do I love Trump? Nope. I wanted him in the White House in order to fix our most pressing issue, which was economic security. So far, so good; things have gone as well or better than I thought they would, said Robert Berry, 42, of Owensboro in western Kentucky who buys and sells used car parts online. He added, Just as most in marriages would change things about their beloved spouse, I would change things about Trump. However, like a marriage, this is a package deal. A resident walks past an old theatre in Irvine, Kentucky, where 70 percent of voters opted for Trump in 2016 [Chris Kenning/Al Jazeera] In Simpsonville, Kentucky, located just West of the Bluegrass states renowned horse farms, Sovanna Chhan, 61, a retired Cambodian American factory worker who now works at retail store Wal-Mart, said he voted for Trump because of his stance on immigration even though hes an immigrant himself. Trump has stoked fears about immigration as he campaigns for the midterm elections that could determine whether Democrats retake the US House or Senate. At a recent rally in Kentucky, Trump warned that Democrats want to open Americas borders and turn our country into a friendly sanctuary for murderous thugs from other countries who will kill us all. {articleGUID} Chhan does not mind that Trump has not built a giant wall on the US-Mexico border as promised, or gotten Mexico to pay for it. They want to get him, because they dont like his policies on refugees. But I support him. Some refugees are good, come to work and pay taxes. But some immigrants come to destroy America, to hurt Americans, and hurt our economy, he said. There are jobs To the south, just 30 miles north of the Tennessee border, Sherry Perdue, a 56-year-old retired teacher who lives on a farm near Breeding, Kentucky, said she thinks Trump has done a good job, too. She recently attended a Trump rally, wearing a Kentucky Deplorable T-shirt and standing in a line of thousands who chanted, USA! and Trump! She voted for Obama in 2012 but found that the Affordable Care Act was not as helpful as shed hoped. Two years ago, she voted for Trump and is now an ardent supporter of his positions ranging from immigration to trade deals. Sherry Perdue, who voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016, says she happy with the work of the US president thus far [Chris Kenning/Al Jazeera] She said the wrenching confirmation battle over Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who she believes is innocent accusations that he assaulted a woman in the 1980s, galvanised her desire to vote next week. While coal industry jobs have not come rushing back despite Trumps promises, she said the nations economy, in general, was strong. {articleGUID} There are jobs you might have to travel a ways, but there are jobs. There are factories that have stayed, and I give him quite a bit of credit, she said, noting that her support of Trump in such divided times has cost her friendships including some former teaching colleagues. Ive been blocked on Facebook, Ive been cussed, she said. In Spencer County, Kentucky, located outside of Louisville, real estate agent Linda Greenwell, 69, said the economy is also driving continued support for Trump. She said shes had her best year ever, doubling her salary. Linda Greenwell, who is involved in her local Republican party, said voter registrations for the party have gone up since Trump was elected [Chris Kenning/Al Jazeera] Shes involved in the local Republican party and said voter registrations have gone up. In fact, across Kentucky, Republicans have added more than 58,000 registered voters since Trump took office while Democrats have lost more than 2,500 registered voters, The Associated Press reported, giving Republicans the majority among registered voters. Obama helped us a lot. And now we are going gangbusters with Trump, she said of the new registration. For the first time, we have a Young Republicans club in the high school. She hopes that Trump fever that swept Kentucky in 2016 will keep Congress in the hands of Trump and the Republicans. Every person we put into office who supports him gives him one more tool to do his job, she said. Colombo, Sri Lanka Sri Lankas President Maithripala Sirisena has ordered parliament to reconvene in 10 days, drawing sharp criticism from the party of the countrys sacked prime minister which decried it as too late. The announcement on Sunday came amid mounting pressure to let legislators hold a vote in order to resolve a protracted political crisis over two rival prime ministers. Sirisena had suspended parliamentary proceedings until November 16 after abruptly firing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last week and replacing him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, a controversial former president. The parliament will now meet on November 14 at 10am local time (04:30 GMT), according to an official gazette notification. Mangala Samaraweera, a member of Wickremesinghes United National Party (UNP), condemned Sirisenas decision to recall parliament two days prior to the initial suspension order, saying it was an eyewash to appease the ever increasing international and local pressure. The United Nations and many Western countries had urged Sirisena to summon the House immediately, after Wickremesinghe called his October 26 sacking unconstitutional and refused to step down. The deposed leader has demanded a vote to prove his majority. But in recent days, a steady stream of defections has eroded his narrow majority in the 225-member House. At least eight legislators from the UNP and a member of an opposition party have now crossed over to the Sirisena and Rajapaksa-led United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which had the backing of 96 legislators prior to the crisis. Nearly all politicians who left the UNP took up ministerial posts in the new cabinet. Too late The stream of defections, as well as the delayed summoning of parliament, has worried Wickremesinghes supporters and some observers that resuming sessions and holding a vote would only legitimise the former presidents return to power. Gayantha Karunatilleke, a UNP member, said the date for parliament recall was too late. {articleGUID} Whats the point convening parliament two days before November 16? We want the president to reconvene parliament immediately, he said, urging Speaker Karu Jayasuriya to defy the president and summon parliament in the next few days. Dharisha Bastians, a former editor at the Colombo-based Sunday Observer magazine, said Sirisena was mocking parliament by recalling the House just two days before the date set in the initial notice. The move would only bring 12 more days of bargaining and defections, she said in a Twitter post, and would allow the UPFA to obtain post facto legitimacy after an illegal power grab. Sirisena insists Rajapaksas appointment was in line with the constitution. Alan Keenan, researcher at International Crisis Group, called for international action, saying the US, India and other concerned governments must make it clear now that Rajapaksas ratification by parliament in the current context will not be enough to make his premiership legitimate. On Friday, the UNP submitted a no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa after the UPFA said it would not hold a vote to test the former presidents support even when the legislature reconvened. The UNP said the petition has the backing of 118 parliamentarians five more than the majority of 113 required to vote out a prime minister. But Dayasiri Jayasekara, a UPFA legislator and minister in Rajapaksas cabinet, said the alliance is confident that it can get the majority in parliament. The coalition is scheduled to hold a mass rally on Monday. It hopes to mobilise more than a 100,000 people in front of the parliament house in the capital, Colombo. Everyone is super confident and tomorrow you will see how confident the party is when a crowd at least five times larger than the UNP rally in Colombo, said Jayasekara, referring to the crowd of tens of thousands of people who attended a UNP rally last week. Attack on democracy Meanwhile, hundreds of people rallied in Colombo earlier on Sunday, calling Sirisenas actions an attack on democracy and protesting against allegations that legislators were being offered millions of dollars to switch support amid the intensified horse-trading between political parties. Activists gathered under an overcast sky in central Colombo, carrying placards that read, Do not trade off democracy and Dont sell my vote. Hundreds of people demonstrated in Colombo on Sunday over Sirisenas actions [Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP] A group of women from the countrys ethnic Tamil minority, who accuse Rajapaksa of grave human rights abuses against members of their community during the final phase of a decades-long civil war in 2009, chanted: We are scared to speak. We are scared to protest You have taken our rights! Dont kill democracy! The Tamil National Alliance, a coalition of parties representing the Tamils, vowed on Sunday that its 15 members would back the no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa. Our democracy is being stolen in broad daylight, activist Shreen Saroor said. The president has betrayed the people and members of parliament must not take money and cross over, because it is our vote they are trading now. The UPFA has denied the allegations of bribery. Sri Lankas new PM faces bribery accusations Needing support for his pick for prime minister, Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena faces accusations of bribing MPs to switch sides while the legislature is suspended. Thousands take part in annual anti-US demonstration, in show of defiance before latest bout of US-imposed sanctions. Tehran, Iran Sporting a blonde wig, red tie and an ill-fitting blue suit, a slightly overweight man took to the stage and began working the small crowd as if in a campaign rally. But this was the wrong rally. As the rotund impersonator was smiling and waving at passing traffic, another man stepped onto the stage to break the news to him: this was Tehran, the Iranian capital, and not some city in the United States. Bemused, the unwitting Donald Trump in this makeshift Iranian version let out a scream and ran off stage to the audiences delight. The short sketch about the US president injected a dash of humour to the events unfolding just a few metres away, where thousands of people gathered on Sunday to mark the 39th anniversary of Students Day. Held every year, the government-backed rally commemorates a seminal moment in the history of the Islamic Republic, when university students supporting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stormed the gates of the US embassy, took 52 Americans prisoners and sparked a 444-day hostage crisis. The event in 1979 triggered a complete breakdown of Washingtons ties with Tehran and ushered in a long period of hostility between the two. This year, commemorations at the old US embassy in the heart of Tehran came just hours before a deadline for the renewal of US sanctions, which were lifted in 2015 as part of a landmark multinational nuclear deal. The pact, which was negotiated for years by diplomats from all parts of the world, is now hanging by a thread following Trumps controversial decision in May to unilaterally withdraw the US from it and reimpose sanctions on Iran. With one Trump signature, the goodwill that had been built between Iranians and the rest of the world crumbled in a matter of months. Never threaten Iran On Monday, three months after the return of the first wave of US sanctions, Iran is being hit with the second and most impactful round of measures which will forbid it from selling oil freely on the international market. Unsurprisingly, the reimposition of the sanctions loomed large over Sundays rally, where protesters from all walks of life chanted in one voice the familiar anti-US slogan, Death to America. The countrys military chief, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps, used his speech at the rally to warn Trump against overreaching when dealing with Tehran. I want to say something to America and its weird president, Jafari said. Never threaten Iran, because we can still hear the horrified cries of your soldiers in the [desert] and you know it better, how many of your old soldiers in American society commit suicide every day because of depression and fear that they suffered in battlefields. So, dont threaten us militarily and dont frighten us with military threats, he added. Jafari said Trumps attempts to defeat Iran were doomed to fail [Vahid Salemi/AP] Over the past year, Tehran has accused Trump of waging economic warfare and devastating its economy. In his speech, Jafari assured the crowd that Trumps attacks on Irans economy were a desperate attempt to defeat the republic an attempt doomed to fail. But his optimistic tone stood in stark contrast to the widespread economic chaos Iran has endured during the past 12 months, including a nosedive in the value of its currency, a shake-up of President Hassan Rouhanis economic team which saw several senior ministers dismissed and nationwide protests against price hikes and dire economic conditions. Hostility towards Washington Whether Tehran opts to remain committed to the 2015 nuclear deal or not, Iranians are angry and say the next US president may not be able to fix the relationship with their country that Trump has broken. {articleGUID} On Sunday, Iranians appeared to set aside criticism of their own governments mishandling of the economy and instead raised their voices in the kind of familiar contempt that has come to define their countrys relationship with the US. My message to America is that many of their previous presidents before Trump took office and imposed many sanctions, also made many, announced their options on the table, but nothing happened, said one young woman who declined to give her name. As our supreme leader said, were seeing signs of Americas decline, she added, referring to recent comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Thousands of Iranians demonstrated in Tehran on Sunday [Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA-EFE] Faramarz, a 48-year-old government employee, said there was no chance of the US and Iran ever being friends again. It is impossible, she said passionately. Its like a friendship between a sheep and a wolf. How is it possible to be friends with an enemy who has sworn to destroy your roots and religion and the [Islamic] Revolution? America will finally understand that as long as this arrogance and wild and criminal nature exists, not only Iran but any free country would not welcome it. Parveen, a telecommunications engineer in her 50s who lives in the US, said Iran was right to overrun and shut down the nest of spies, a phrase Iranians commonly use to describe the American embassy building. Otherwise the revolution would be destroyed and America would have controlled [Iran], she said. I may disagree with some policies of the [Iranian] establishment but I agree with the foreign policies of the country and Im proud to be an Iranian. Most of the new jobs created in February were in leisure and hospitality the hardest-hit sector of the US economy. Assistant Secretary-General Zaki says he is willing to go to Saudi Arabia to help resolve the diplomatic crisis. At the beginning of the 20th century, my grandfather's older brother (who was then a little boy) moved with his family to America. Their path was a standard one a ship across the Atlantic and then quarantined on Ellis Island. They eventually settled in Pittsburgh. At the end of the 20th century, our family completed their relocation to America. We have no more close relatives living outside of America. I do not know what the political preferences of those relatives were who arrived in America before us, but we came into America as staunch anti-communists. Also, we had a complete list of those family members who did not survive the Shoah. We brought with us a clear understanding of who organized the Shoah. However, before we moved to America, we were unaware that most American Jews (many of whom are adherents of leftist, socialist ideology) did not want to see the truth about this. The reality that the Shoah was organized by their ideological cousins the German National Socialists is very unpleasant for a particular part of American Jewry. This is why a section of American Jews behave as if the Shoah did not happen at all. They act as if in America there is no openly anti-Semitic party the Democratic party. Moreover, some of them are even members of this party. Many American Jews behave as if they do not understand that the Democratic Party has made a complete ideological turn in 190 years of its existence from the far-right (and racist) party to the far-left (and anti-Semitic) party. The neo-Nazi who shot 11 people in the Pittsburgh synagogue is known for his posts on Twitter. Judging by his posts, he was ideologically close not only to the anti-Semite Perez and the anti-Semite Ellison (Chairman of the DNC and his deputy) but also to the anti-Semite Farrakhan. Farrakhan is also known to be a longtime friend and ally of many bosses of the Democratic Party (for example, Obama and the Clintons). Both Farrakhan and Ellison belong to the American Nation of Islam organization. Farrakhan, his followers, and friends call the Jews "termites" and supporters of the "Synagogue of Satan." Both Farrakhan and his followers live among us and regularly come to the polling stations. The political consequences of this attack are so apparent that even the predictable anti-Trump press blames Trump, but this time the blame is very sluggish and without former enthusiasm. After all, it is well known that when terrorist attacks occur, Americans prefer to vote for Republicans. In fact, President Trump, unlike the democratic opposition, immediately declared that this neo-Nazi (who, by the way, hates Trump) should be subjected to capital punishment. Of course, the voters are impressed. Why, in such cases, do Americans prefer to vote for Republicans? Because Republicans (more precisely, a certain part of Republicans) play the role of proxy for American conservatives. Moreover, if the ideology of the classical Republicans is very controversial (they advocate for low taxes but an unlimited federal government), then the doctrine of the conservatives is entirely coherent (they favor low taxes and a limited federal government, as required by the U.S. Constitution). Also, conservatives adhere to straightforward rules in the relationship between the state and the citizen. Conservatives respect the fact that a citizen cannot be blamed for something he or she is not able to change under any circumstances. Therefore, conservatives will never dare to condemn a person for who their parents are, their place of birth, nationality, or race. The norms of such behavior are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. At the same time, conservatives believe that some qualities acquired after birth can (and in some cases are merely obligated) serve as the basis for a confrontation between the state and the citizen. These qualities include ideology, political preferences, morality, and human behavior. In other words, anti-Semitism (like racism) is a taboo for American conservatives. After the events in Pittsburgh, fruitless discussions about anti-Semitism will begin again in the American press. They will be unsuccessful because the ideological and religious components of anti-Semitism will again be hushed up. For conservatives, such a position is unacceptable. The attitude shown by the Pittsburgh police officers is more acceptable to them. As you know, at first, two patrol police officers who answered the call started a shootout with a neo-Nazi in the synagogue. Both were wounded but remained on scene until the arrival of the SWAT team. The Pittsburgh SWAT began the assault and rushed under bullets, risking their lives to rescue, entirely unknown to them, Jews. Two SWAT officers were seriously wounded. They unloaded several magazines on the terrorist until he collapsed; then he crawled on his knees to the SWAT team, begging for mercy. Overall, less than 20 minutes passed from the first to the last shot in the synagogue. This is how real America behaves when it meets with Evil. This is how we all should consider the midterm elections. The 2018 elections are not just a midterm election. It is another episode in the eternal struggle between Good and Evil. Remember which Democrats came to the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem? Not one arrived. Recall that the most anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli speech ever heard at the U.N. was not spoken by a representative of a Middle Eastern country with the 7th-century worldview, but by Secretary of State Kerry in the last days of the Obama administration in December 2016. It seems that the words "anti-Trumpists" and "anti-Semites" have become synonymous. Anti-Semitism is irrational because it requires Jews to change what they cannot change by definition. Therefore, the answer to it should be such that even the most arch-irrational anti-Semite understands that neither his position nor any attempts to rationalize it are unacceptable by society in principle. Now leftists will again propose some purely symbolic "security measures." For example, to hang in a prominent place another ridiculous "Gun Free Zone" poster although from the very beginning it was clear that such signs are just a magnet for psychos of all stripes. There will be many symbolic acts of solidarity, such as turning off the night illumination of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Thank you, France, but no acts of solidarity and public lightings of candles will help. In pragmatic America, the Second Amendment to the Constitution provides a direct answer to the question of how to stop similar attacks in the future. Gary Gindler, Ph.D., is a conservative blogger at Gary Gindler Chronicles. Follow him on Twitter. As Jews and people of conscience of all ethnicities reel from the horrors that took place at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, we once again approach another heinous epoch in Jewish history: the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht. With that in mind, it's important to remember that Kristallnacht and its aftermath the Holocaust did not occur in a vacuum. With the exception of insular Holocaust-deniers, most people have heard and recognize the unspeakable horrors and inhumanity Jews suffered all over Europe during this horrific period in time. However, not so many are familiar with the vehement anti-Semitism that permeated Eastern Europe and Russia at the dawn of 20th century. Beginning in the 1880s and ending for the most part around 1922, there were three distinct, increasingly violent cycles of debasement committed against the Jewish people. In what is collectively known as pogroms, perpetrators on both the right and left took turns raping, murdering, and looting the property of helpless Jewish victims, lacking only in scale and organization what was to come a decade later. If nothing else, the pogroms portrayed Jews as defenseless and their blood and property as easy pickings for marauding bands of mercenaries, a fact not lost upon later generations of Ukrainians and Russians at the dawn of the 20th century as well as Hitler and his Nazi cohorts in the 1930s. Hitler came into power in 1933 with a plan to expand Germany's rule and to completely annihilate world Jewry. During this time between his ascension and 1938, progressively strident anti-Semitic laws known as the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in which governmental policies regulated every aspect of Jewish life. As conditions increasingly worsened for Jews, a Polish Jewish student, Herschel Grynszpan, whose family was being deported after a lifetime living in Germany, acted out against the Nazis and assassinated a German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, on November 7, 1938. Hitler could not have been happier: it was the pretext he had been seeking to up the ante of anti-Semitism from "law-based" to mob violence. By November 9, rioting was already in full swing in all quarters of the Reich, which by this time included Austria. Minister of propaganda Josef Goebbels encouraged Hitler to allow further punishment of the Jews through more "spontaneous demonstrations" of violence. According to Goebbels's diary, Hitler responded: "[D]emonstrations should be allowed to continue. The police should not be withdrawn. For once the Jews should get the feel of popular anger." And did they ever. On the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, unspeakable assaults upon Jewish women and men took place in Germany and Austria. When the majority of the mayhem finally ended on November 11, 30,000 Jewish men had been arrested and taken to concentration camps. Although figures vary, at least 100 fatalities were initially reported, the number growing into the hundreds due to subsequent mistreatment of those arrested. Over 1,400 synagogues were burnt to the ground, and more than 7,500 businesses were likewise looted and torched. Jewish hospitals, homes, and schools fared no better. Those two nights of havoc would ignominiously become known as Kristallnacht: the night of the broken glass. Soon, the world came to know the depredations wrought upon the Jewish people those nights. It was just the beginning, a precursor to the greatest ethnic mass murder of a people in the history of the world: the Holocaust. For certain, Kristallnacht was not a hidden event. In real time, correspondents throughout the globe published what had just occurred. All the major newspapers were well represented throughout Germany and sent in reports such as Hugh Greene's at the Daily Telegraph: Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout the afternoon and evening and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction. I have seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks in Germany during the last five years, but never anything as nauseating as this. Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. I saw fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers held up their babies to see the 'fun'. To further accentuate the results of this living hell, in the days following Kristallnacht, Hermann Goering and the other officials, including Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels decreed that the Jews were to blame for the destruction, and all insurance payments were confiscated by the government. Not only did the Jewish people have to pay for the repairs out of their own pockets, but they were also fined 1 billion reichsmarks for the assassination of vom Rath. Still not satisfied with their handiwork, these denizens of evil continued to dehumanize the Jewish people. Jews were no longer allowed to own businesses, nor could they attend public schools and universities, the movies, or the theater, nor use gymnasiums. Jewish doctors, if they were allowed to practice at all, could treat only other Jews. In addition to financial losses, the Kristallnacht pogrom also marked the beginning of mass deportations of Jews. Although the war would not officially begin until 1939, the die had been cast: concentration camps had already been built and were being filled by unfortunates caught up in the web of Nazi anti-Semitism. Fast-forward to 2018, It's indeed ironic and macabre that just days prior to the memorialization of Kristallnacht, Jews would suffer the greatest mass murder in the history of the United States. It's further proof that even in the greatest country in the world, anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hatred are still alive in the hearts and minds of some very sick people. But if any solace can be taken from this dastardly event, anti-Semitism in this country is not government-sponsored and is roundly denounced by all people of goodwill. Even stranger than Don Lemons fairy tale that white people are responsible for violent terrorism in this country, is the fact that no national conservative media figures refuted him. A shame, because it is so easily done. And so important to do. Lemon concocted his claim in front of CNNs Cuomo the Lesser, who stared dumbstruck as his colleague sketched his vision of white supremacists running amok with terror and violence in their wake. Cuomo has made a career of shutting up and nodding his head when black people like D. L. Hughley come on his show and insist that white violence against black people is wildly out of proportion. A lie. The following day, Lemon challenged his angry critics to check the numbers: White terror is eight times greater than other racial terror. In response, all that we heard from conservative media was fake outrage. Calls for his firing. Demands for a retraction. But not much in the way of using facts to show that Lemon was wrong. Dangerously wrong. Not that many people expected much else from most conservative pundits. These are the same people who cower in front of Its okay to be white signs. Well, its not okay to be white. That is Lemons stock in trade. And he and others ply it so well that most cannot see or even declare the obvious: That over the last five years, black mob violence in America has been -- by far -- the greatest source of domestic terror. Shall we review a few: How about before, during and after the trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of St. Trayvon of Sanford. You remember him: Hes the guy who could have been President Obamas son. Instead, he became a petty burglar, a small time violent crook, whose death inspired large-scale black violence in Los Angeles, Oakland, Baltimore, Grand Rapids, Toledo, Gainesville, Mobile, Chicago, and on and on and on. All aided and abetted by Lemon et al at CNN. I documented a few episodes in this article at the time: Just click here. But Trayvon was just a warm-up for the real display of black terror in America. That happened in the summer of 2014 in a suburb of St. Louis called Ferguson. There, a cop shot a 65 well-muscled black man named Michael Brown, after Brown tried to take the cops gun, then refused to stand down as he prepared to charge the officer. After days and days of looting, gunfire, molotov cocktails, property destruction, attacks on police, and yes, death, the Michael Brown riots continued on a low burn around the rest of the country. It became the beginning of a mantra, Trayvon, Michael Brown. No justice. No peace. No racist police. It even sparked the growth of a national movement: Black Lives Matter. You remember them: What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want them? Now. In Baltimore, soon after, a drug dealer named Freddie Grey died in police custody. Yes, there were riots. Yes, the black people of Baltimore burned and looted in an ecstatic frenzy for days. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake held a news conference where she bragged she was giving the rioters space to destroy. The next day, she denied saying it, even after being confronted saying it on video. Over 100 police were injured in those riots. Many after city officials abandoned them by refusing to send support when they were under attack from the black people. This is all on video. Easy to find. These riots are like dominoes: If you remember one, chances you, you remember the rest. In Milwaukee, a black cop shot a black man. Riots. Burning. Destruction. You know the drill: Everyone was having a good time by the light of a burning gas station. In Charlotte, black people terrorized the town after cops shot another black criminal in the commission of yet another crime. They did not like that. Around the country, every day, police are subject to slurs, taunts, threats, violence, and even murder from black people who just are not that into white people. These examples might not meet the standards of Don Lemons phony terror test. But the victims have not forgotten the enormous terror in this country. And how it continues today in different forms. On Halloween, hundreds of black people rampaged through Hyde Park in Chicago -- home to Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, and Louis Farrakhan -- destroying property, defying police, setting fires. Watch any of the videos, then try to tell the neighbors they are not being terrorized. But no one was arrested, so it never happened. Except on video. In South Jersey, two white kids were hospitalized with serious head injuries they received after they refused to give their trick or treat candy to the 10-20 black people who demanded it. Think thats not an act of terror just because the black people did not leave a thank you note? Or a sign that said Vote for Maxine? Or a demand for more free stuff? Guess again. In Dallas, five cops were killed during a Black Lives Matter parade. Afterward, black people looted a 7-11 then stuck around under the gaze of local police, dancing -- yes, dancing -- with joy, celebrating the carnage. At their funeral, President Obama figured it all out: the shooting of the five police was all about white racism. You know it, he urged the crowd to acknowledge. This is a very long list of black violence and denial, deceit and delusion from reporters and public officials. Lots more where this came from in my books, the latest being Dont Make the Black Kids Angry, and videos over at minds.com/ColinFlaherty. From the big cities to small suburban enclaves, black terrorism is real. And when stunned residents plead with city officials for help, all they get are weak admonitions about keeping their head on a swivel and dont forget -- calling the cops on black criminals is a very bad thing to do. Reporters like Lemon insist that absent a handwritten confession, or a sign, or a recorded audio and video, black mob violence in America must be considered random and not an act of terror. But we have something better than notes and idiots spouting hateful slogans: We have patterns. And how they are proof of bias. Just ask former district attorney and current U.S. senator from the great state of Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse. When is pattern evidence of bias? asked the liberal Senator Whitehouse at a recent hearing. In court, pattern is evidence of bias all the time. Evidence on which juries and trial judges rely to show discriminatory intent. To show a common scheme. To show bias. Black on white bias and hostility plus violence equals terror. We see it every day, no matter how often Don Lemon tries to deny it: Black violence is the terror that dare not speak its name. Colin Flaherty documents the denial, deceit and delusion of Den Lemon and others in books, articles and videos. Which you should read if you want to know what is really going on. It is absurd to claim that our military cannot defend our borders. Yet "That is illegal!" shout internationalists who never wanted our U.S. border protected anyway. Activists proclaim that the U.S. military is crippled under an 1878 law, the Posse Comitatus Act, found at 18 U.S.C. 1385. We can do nothing but watch helplessly, they argue, as foreigners flood across the frontiers. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of the military for law enforcement purposes. There is actually a lot of scholarly analysis published by legal experts in law review journals. But most political rhetoric is muddled propaganda. So is it a 'law enforcement' function to stop invaders from another country from crossing our border? Is it a military function if citizens of a foreign country approach our border to enter illegally? Or is that a police function? If securing our nation's borders is not a proper military role, then what is? Are foreign adventures around the world meddling in other countries' affairs (to use the rhetoric of opponents of military power) the only proper role of the military? What kind of thinking says it is okay to send the military around the other side of the planet, but not to defend our own country's borders at home? Even as thousands of opportunists are marching from Central America towards the U.S. - Mexican border -- proudly waving the flags of the nations they claim are persecuting them -- President Donald Trump has ordered 5,200 additional troops to block them. Trump has told tough-as-nails General "Mad Dog" Mattis to keep the invaders out of our country. (The deployment is called Operation Faithful Patriot.) If one group of thousands make it across, then just as happened in Europe -- those thousands will turn into floods of tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands crossing our frontiers. New regulations can clarify that protecting the border does not count as "law enforcement." Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions can order "rule making" to explain the meaning of the law. New regulations should further clarify that the prohibition of the Posse Comitatus Act is limited to law enforcement on domestic U.S. soil. Agency "rule-making" -- the promulgation of new regulations -- can define parts of a law that are unclear. Therefore, new regulations can identify what is "law enforcement" and what is not. This works because the courts are required to give deference to any reasonable interpretation of laws made by the agency entrusted with implementation. It is assumed that where Congress left definitions or details unclear, it was trusting the experience of the appropriate agency to fill in the details. This is governed primarily by Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), rehearing denied, 468 U.S. 1227 (1984). Posse Comitatus is the power of the Sheriff of a county or other official to call upon the "The entire population of a county above the age of fifteen, which a sheriff may summon to his assistance in certain cases; as to aid him in keeping the peace, in pursuing and arresting felons, etc." Black's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary 2nd Ed. In the U.S., after the military was used for civil administration in defeated southern states following the Civil War, concerns about the power of the military being abused came to a boil. The act says: "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." (The Air Force was added in 1956, but curiously not the Navy. It has been assumed that when a State's National Guard is called up under the President's authority, the prohibition also applies. Existing law allows the National Guard to operate either under a State's governor or directly under the president's command.) What does this mean? The concept of "a posse comitatus" was that within the borders of a county the proper county authorities (usually the sheriff) could call upon the able-bodied adult population (then male only) to assist the duly-constituted law enforcement officials. The concept was not that there could be a chain of command separate from county officials. Furthermore, posse comitatus strongly suggests internal police action within the interior territory of a county. This does not seem relevant to the international border. Is it 'executing the law' to block a trespasser at the border? Well, arguably, perhaps if a military soldier is exercising the discretion whether to allow a foreigner in to the country or not, that might seem too close to what the Border Patrol does. Arresting people at the border for prosecution sounds like law enforcement. But the fact that it happens at the border to stop people from unauthorized entry sounds like a military function to defend the country. These are difficult lines to draw. But blocking anyone from crossing the border without any discretionary decision is clearly a military defense of the border. Telling people to go the nearest official entry gate is a military, not police, function. Even transporting people due to the risks of exposure in the wilderness to the nearest official border crossing should be defined as military defense of the border (as opposed to just sending people back into the desert). When has the Army or Air Force been used "to execute the laws"? Precedents and scholarly analysis suggest the Posse Comitatus Act is violated (a) when the armed forces perform tasks ordinarily assigned to civil government and not to them, or (b) when the armed forces perform tasks assigned to them solely for purposes of civilian government. When there is a dominant military purpose, it is believed that an incidental benefit to civilian officials is not prohibited. However, that interpretation needs to be confirmed. Intimidation is part of the problem. If it remains unclear what is permitted, military officials will be afraid to participate in protecting the border. Furthermore, the DoD seems to have invented a lot of its own rules and traditions that are far more restrictive than what the act actually says. Issuing new regulations will provoke clear court decisions. This can take time. So a prompt beginning is needed. Also, the regulations should define taking people into custody and sending them back to the Mexican side of the border -- but at a safer venue -- as an exception to being on U.S. soil within the meaning of asylum laws. The military could shoot people who refuse to go back, or taser them. But we want use nonviolent procedures instead. If President Trump proclaims the right to enter Mexican territory to make sure trespassers get back to a safe point inside the wilderness frontier, Mexico's pride would demand that they come and retrieve those people themselves rather than allow U.S. personnel to do it. Congress should amend the law, but since it is unlikely that they will do so, clarifying the law through regulations is the best that the Trump Administration may be able to do. Indian locomotive arrives in Biratnagar for test run An Indian locomotive arrived in Biratnagar on Sunday to test the railway track laid from Bathnaha in India to Budhanagar-18 in Biratnagar. With the 2018 midterm election looming, one of the last relics of the once strong Democratic Party in West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin, finds himself in a fight for re-election. The big question is, will Manchin be able to tightrope-walk his way to victory, distancing himself from the Democratic Party nationally and his previous support for Hillary Clinton while claiming to be a backer of President Trump's policies? And if he wins, will this help or hurt the Mountain State going forward? One problem for Manchin is the decline of the coal industry and its effect on mining jobs during President Barack Obama's two terms in office. This was partly due to lower-priced natural gas replacing coal as a fuel source and partly due to the Obama administration's overt attempt to restrict the use of coal via Environmental Protection Agency rules, AKA Obama's war on coal. According to the Bureau of Business and Economic Research of West Virginia University, "[a]fter reaching nearly 158 million short tons in 2008, statewide coal mine output plummeted by nearly half to an annual total of 80 million short tons in 2016." In 2017, CNBC ranked West Virginia dead last among its Top States for Business. The network noted, "Mining employment is down 40 percent in just the past five years, with some parts of the state losing as many as 70 percent of their coal mining jobs." These facts were not lost on the people of West Virginia. The Democratic Party's demand for policies to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, which they believe contribute to global warming, began to erode their support even before Barack Obama was elected. But President Obama's push for green and renewable energy at the expense of the coal industry and West Virginia jobs set the stage for a political revolution. The trigger for that revolution quite likely was Hillary Clinton. During her 2016 presidential campaign, Clinton, speaking in reference to the green energy program, declared, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." No matter the context of this quote, those are fightin' words in West Virginia, and that is putting it mildly. Political representation in the state was already beginning to shift toward the Republicans during Obama's second term, but the hammer really came down in 2016 as the state Legislature, two congressional seats, almost all state executive officials, and one U.S. Senate seat switched from Democrat to Republican not to mention that Hillary lost the Mountain State to Donald Trump by 42 points, one of the largest margins of defeat in U.S. election history. The political fallout from this may not be over. Democratic Party registration in West Virginia has declined from two out of three in the early 1980s, or roughly 67%, to 42% in 2018. At the same time, the numbers of registered Republicans and independents are on the rise. On the surface, Joe plays the politician well. By all accounts, he is a decent, friendly person, who comes from a small West Virginia town, called Farmington, where he worked in his family's grocery store growing up. Joe's political stance might be called low-key liberal with a few conservative props thrown in. He supports the coal industry; unions; gun ownership; government health care, AKA Obamacare; and other entitlement programs. This still plays well in a state where almost everyone is from a small town or rural area, unions are accepted, gun ownership is common, and poverty is high in comparison to other states. Underneath is where things get really interesting. Thanks to 36 years in elected office, plus his personal business dealings, Senator Manchin has a net worth estimated from $3 million to $7 million to nearly $12 million, depending on the source of the information. And yet, despite his personal wealth, Manchin apparently has not contributed a dime of his own money to aid his re-election. Instead, he has depended on large individual contributions and numerous political action committee or PAC donations for almost 92% of his $10.5-million campaign war chest. According to available statistics, over 86% of the money has come from outside West Virginia. Admittedly, other politicians do the same thing. However, it is almost a sure bet that the majority of these funds are from Democratic Party sources or people who support the party, and like most donors, it is likely they are going to expect something in return. Manchin claims he has voted with President Trump over 60% of the time. But those numbers are inflated by confirmation votes for Cabinet officers and other appointed positions, including the confirmation of Brett Kavanagh to the Supreme Court, which some consider to have been a political throwaway vote. Focus on public policy alone, and you find that Manchin has supported Trump only 46% percent of the time. Voters are going to have to weigh Joe's sudden Trump enthusiasm against his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. In addition to Hillary's threat to terminate the coal industry, she is also infamous for calling Trump-supporters, including many West Virginians, deplorables and worse. One would have expected Senator Manchin to revoke his support, at least on the former issue, but no. After Hillary sent him a personal letter of apology and Bill Clinton begged him to stick with her, he did. Voters must be mindful that Senator Manchin is still a card-carrying member and supporter of the Democratic Party. These are the same people who support illegal immigration and physical harassment of their political opponents, and who claim that members of the MS-13 gang are misunderstood, all the while trying to restrict your right to own a gun. Most damning, these are the same people who have actually put coal-miners on the unemployment line and their families on welfare because of their unsubstantiated fear of climate change. If Manchin is re-elected, what does this mean for the future of West Virginia? First and foremost, Joe will vote for a Democrat to lead the Senate, no matter how liberal that Democrat happens to be. If Democrats take control of the Senate, this could lead to the impeachment of President Trump. This could also make the impeachment of Justice Kavanaugh a real possibility. No matter the effect on West Virginia, these are acts of political power, and it is highly unlikely that Joe would bite the hand that funds him or vote against the people who help him stay in office. Voters must also realize that the war on coal is not over, merely paused. Democrats believe that global warming is the gravest threat to mankind outside the Republican Party, and coal is the biggest fossil fuel villain. Expect them to attempt to find a way to shut the coal industry down once Trump is out of the way. Natural gas may be next. The only question is, will Senator Manchin silently acquiesce to the economic impoverishment of his native state, as he did when Obama was in office? Or will a letter of apology be required? The polls are swinging wildly and voter enthusiasm seems higher than usual for midterms in recent memory or maybe ever. Vice President Mike Pence predicts the Republicans will hold both houses and I tend to agree with him. In fact, I have a months-old dinner bet riding on his prediction coming to pass. Its not only that, freed of some of the more restrictive regulations and with tax cuts, the economy is booming and unemployment low, its a psychological thing. People are more optimistic and bullish than they were when Obama was president. I read this to mean they are willing to give the presidents party credit for their gains and want them to continue. Rasmussen weighs in on the situation with a word of caution for those predicting a blue wave. Democrats hold just a three-point lead on the latest Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot which has a +/- 2 margin of error. Look for our final Generic Ballot Monday morning. Just as in 2016, Democrats are more outspoken about how theyre going to vote in the upcoming elections than Republicans and unaffiliated voters are. Is it possible that another silent red wave is coming? Its true that the major media is uniformly opposed to Trump and his party, but as Rasmussen also notes, they have less sway on voters than they would hope: And why shouldnt consumer confidence be up? Charles V Payne @cvpayne Nov 2 Monster Jobs Report 250,000 Jobs 32,000 manufacturing 30,000 construction 5,000 mining 24,800 transportation & warehousing But wages soaring 3.1% says it all -- look at that chart Congratulations America With incredible vigor, the President has flown around the country in support of his partys candidates at rallies everywhere, drawing large crowds who wait for hours in line to get into the venues. These are not carried on most major channels and are barely reported, but its hard for me to find a better measure of support and enthusiasm. Of course, for congressional races, local issues traditionally are more significant, but it is in that case that polls tend to be weakest. District-wide polling seems to me to always be suspect as there is not enough of it done because of the cost to form much of a basis for analysis. My friend Porchlight watches polling carefully with a jaundiced eye and notes one such example: Porchlight: Polls are garbage. Look at this: GA-6 OCT 28-NOV 1 Siena College/New York Times 261RV McBath DEM 46% Handel GOP 41% McBath+5 261 registered voters the week before the election, are you kidding me? NYT/Siena again. 75% of House prognostication is based on the work of a single polling firm. Meanwhile prognosticators ignore hard early voting data. Hell of a slender limb, folks. Expect a lot of "what if the Reps hold the House?" stories in the next couple of days. Citing Richard Baris, she posts other interesting reports, including this one: One more. Here are new Trump approval numbers for the 18-44 age group in a certain House district: Strongly approve 28.21% Somewhat approve 28.21% Somewhat disapprove 5.13% Strongly disapprove 25.64% Unsure 12.82% Would you guess... CA-48? Rohrabacher looking good in a must-win district. The Kavanaugh accusations -- designed to appeal to women voters -- missed the mark except for the most blinkered: When asked, Do you think Democrats were genuinely concerned about Dr. Christine Ford and her allegations towards Judge Kavanaugh, or were they just using the allegation for political purposes in order to block Kavanaughs nomination? about 55 percent of all U.S. voters say the Democrats were just using the allegations to stop Kavanaugh from getting on the Supreme Court. About 55 percent of American women and 56 percent of men say the same, that Democrats were using the Kavanaugh allegations for political purposes. A minority of 45 percent of voters say the Democrats were genuinely concerned about Blasey Ford. Despite the establishment media and Hollywoods Believe Women campaign, the vast majority of American voters -- including 84 percent of women and 85 percent of men -- say when it comes to sexual harassment allegations, the standards of the legal due process should be applied. Only 15 percent of voters say the legal due process should be relaxed. Blexit -- a movement by black voters to leave the Democratic Party -- has grown, and this, too, spells bad news for the Democrats, who depends on a balkanized base of suburban women, Hispanics and blacks to carry them to the finish line. The latest Rasmussen account I can find shows black approval for Trump is now up to 40%, which has to be sounding alarm bells for the DNC. Nor can the Democrats rely on Hispanic voters: Confidence that African Americans, Asians and Hispanics have in their personal finances improving over the next four years should be enough to help GOP leaders retain control of Congress in the midterm elections and reelect President Trump, according to a new survey. While generally not fans of the president, the three key groups have a good feeling about their future and that should temper their concerns at the polls, said the survey from Zogby Analytics. So whos peddling the Blue Wave scenario? I tend to agree with Roger Kimball that it is those who cannot believe they lost in 2016: If only the Democrats sweep the midterm elections, they say to themselves, then we can put this awful anomaly, this hideous wrinkle in the order of the universe, behind us. Some such sentiment, I believe, was behind all the talk of a coming blue wave last spring and into the summer. I never believed that there would be such a cerulean tsunami, especially one that would sweep Democrats into control of the Senate. The House? Maybe. But even that seems to me to be increasingly doubtful. Adamant anti-Trump and NeverTrump commentators have circulated and then taken solace from the Blue Wave meme not because they are especially credulous, but because the election of Donald Trump offended their sense of existential propriety. The unforgivable datum is that Donald Trump, as I have said many times, was elected without their permission and indeed over their strenuous objections. That is the intolerable insult they cannot abide. It was an event that not only should not have happened but could not have happened. Hence the widespread access of denial, followed by anger, that greeted the advent of this great anomaly. The midterms seem to offer a chance to set the universe back on its proper track.[snip] I do not of course know what is going to happen next Tuesday. But if, as seems to me increasingly likely, the Republicans hold the House, the anti-Trump and NeverTrump fraternity will be dealt a cruel blow. Not only will they have lost, not only will their confident predications have been in vain, but their entire sense of the way the world works will have been further undermined. The thing that was impossible, that could not have happened, will have turned out to be not an inexplicable singularity but a corroboration of a new dispensation -- a dispensation, moreover, that has no place for them. While we cannot know how early voters voted, the number of Republicans voting early has shot up and shows a remarkable Republican advantage: That blue wave we kept hearing about is being overcome by a crimson tsunami, at least according to early voting tallies as Republicans prove to be more motivated than Democrats. NBC News reported that more people showed up to early voting, outpacing the 2014 midterms by leaps and bounds with a whopping 24,024,621 million ballots having already been counted. For comparison, 2014 only had 12,938,596 counted by this time, putting 2018 at nearly double. To be sure, both parties have been turned out in great number, but according to NBC, the Republicans are currently up with a two-point lead: As of Wednesday, 43 percent of early voters are Republican and 41 percent are Democrats. At this point in 2016, 43 percent of early voters were Democrats and 40 percent were Republicans. At this point in 2014, though, 44 percent were Republican and 40 percent were Democrats. From closer to home, we have this: With so many races so close, it won't take much to tip a contest one way or another. But the early voting by Republicans will probably force Democrats to walk back their predictions of a sweep and to tone down expectations of a "blue wave." (It will also negate the advantage of late-breaking surprise bombshells.) I hope Im right. I want to win my dinner bet. If I dont it will be something to watch the battle for the speakers seat between Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus (with its fair share of a dogs breakfast of racists, anti-Semites, lovers of communist dictators, corruptocrats and dopes), which thinks its their turn at the gavel. Help me -- and the country -- go and vote for Republicans and keep the Trump America humming. Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, the conservative former military man painted by the press as a madman, "Tropical Trump," and all that, is showing signs of a strategic mindset. In his first noticible foreign policy move, he's threatened to just shut down ties with Cuba. According to Reuters: BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian far-right president-elect Jair Bolsonaro said there was no point maintaining diplomatic relations with Cuba because it trampled on human rights and there was no business to be done with the communist-run island. In an interview published on Friday by Correio Braziliense newspaper, Bolsonaro criticized the Mais Medicos (More Doctors) program under which 11,420 Cuban doctors work in poor or remote parts of Brazil. He said that 75 percent of the doctors salaries was paid to Cubas government and their children were not allowed to join them in Brazil, citing the case of a doctor whose three young children had to stay in Cuba. That is just torture for a mother, Bolsonaro said. Can we maintain diplomatic relations with a country that treats its people that way? Seems family separations, something the Democrats have a big cow about, aren't such a big deal when Castro does it. The Miami Cubans over at Babalu blog, as you can imagine, are pleased. Alberto de la Cruz wrote: If you wondered why leftists hate Brazils Jair Bolsonaro so much, this is one of the reasons. What a move like this would show is two things: One, ties with Cuba are a waste of time, given that Castro doesn't allow private business to flourish, the communist regime doesn't believe in paying bills and as a result, the country doesn't have money. It's a permanent freeloader state, in search of a patron. And two, Bolsonaro seems very serious about improving ties with the U.S. by pitching Cuba overboard as useless. In past administrations in Brazil, leaders such as Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (pictured with Castro in the mobile-phone image above), have always chosen Cuba as a useful stick to beat Uncle Sam with, and at Uncle Sam's expense. Sticking it to Cuba instead of Uncle Sam is a shift in strategy indeed. Up until now, socialist-run Brazil has had an unusually warm alliance with Cuba, politically through its affinity-parties club known as the Sao Paulo Forum, a collection of ruling lefty parties in love with Castrodom around the continent. As the Reuters report states, the Cubans have famously sent their doctors, apparently to work in poor areas, which Brazil pays the Cuban government handsomely for, yet as Bolsonaro noted, the doctors themselves don't get paid much for. Plenty of them are spies, and the rest are undercutting real doctors' wages in the country. Brazil is perfectly capable of supplying its own doctors to poor areas, yet the Castroite ones imported from Cuba at starvation wages likely put the Brazilian ones, who must live in Brazil and work for market wages, at a disadvantage. Third, the Castroites have been caught red-handed meddling in Brazil's elections, with a $3 million secret campaign donation to elect leftists in 2005, uncovered by Veja magazine. As I wrote at the time when I was at IBD: Latin America: Brazilians are rightly angry over allegations of illegal campaign donations from Fidel Castro. True or not, they coincide with an alarming weakness in foreign policy that benefits the Cuban dictator. Was there a connection? We wonder for two reasons. First, Castro in recent years has aggressively sought influence across Latin America on a scale not seen since the 1960s. Second, Brazil has been oddly passive in response. ...and... Did Castro's campaign contributions, reported in Veja news magazine and said to total $3 million, end up compromising the foreign policy of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration? We don't know. But if Castro's cash bought anything in Brazil, it's tragic because Lula was elected president as an un-Castro a clean, responsible democratic leader. Brazilians hoped he'd be neither a corrupt machine pol nor a hard-core communist. If a couple of influential aides took money from Castro and enacted a passive foreign policy, it paints a very different picture what old Soviet analysts used to call Finlandization. Bolsonaro, who's been around the political block as a two-plus decades-back-bench congressman, would know about that. What we are seeing now is a strong move to walk back the lovefest with Cuba, which the United States this week has identified as ground zero of all the bad regimes plaguing Latin America. Countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador are all the handiwork, the puppet-states, in varying degrees, of the communists running Cuba. Brazil might just put a stop to that - with Bolsonaro freeing Brazil first. Image credit: Antonio Milena/Agencia Brasil, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0 New York Democrats had a field day blaming President Trump for the atmosphere that encouraged a vile defacement of the Brooklyn synagogue until the suspect caught on video surveillance cameras was apprehended and turned out to be one of their own. The grafitti messages, coming in the wake of the massacre at Pittsburghs Tree of Life Synagogue were chilling, and obviously intended to strike terror un the hearts of Jews: NYPD officials told Breaking911 that the suspect entered Brooklyns Union Temple around 8:30 p.m. Thursday night and used a black marker to deface three different locations with the messages, die Jew rats we are here, Jews better be ready, and Hitler. Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller News Foundation has assembled the stunning evidence of a man who was almost literally a poster boy for New York Democratic politicians hubristic, self-righteous political correctness. The suspect in the vandalism of a New York synagogue was a Democratic activist and former City Hall intern who worked on anti-hate crime issues, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. He is a queer black man informally adopted by a Jewish couple, and The New York Times charity, the Neediest Cases, helped pay for him to go to college where his focus was African American studies, according to a 2017 New York Times profile. From James Polite's Facebook page A political event with two Democratic candidates at the Union Temple of Brooklyn was canceled Friday after attendees found graffiti saying Die Jew Rats and Hitler, which one of the candidates said highlighted the need to vote out hate. Police arrested 26-year old James Polite later that night based on surveillance footage. (snip) A year ago, The New York Times profiled Polite, noting that he was an LGBT foster youth who could defy the statistics after becoming the adopted child of the Quinn administration, as Christine Quinn, then the speaker of the New York city council, put it. And it wasnt just me. It was the entire City Council staff. The adoptive child of the entire City Council Staff! Wow, they really did a job mentoring him! Hey, take a bow, Dems! He's yours. The Times charity, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, took over Mr. Polites case as he aged out of the foster care system, and helped him attend Brandeis. A university founded to provide opportunities for Jews kept out of the Ivy League by quotas. Brandeis has morphed into an ultra-leftist breeding ground for the likes of Polite. Mr. Polite hopes to graduate in May with degrees in African-American studies and political science, and took two classes over the summer to stay on pace, the profile said. In June, Childrens Aid used $856 from the Neediest Cases Fund for school supplies and fees not covered by his financial aid package. The Times profile also pictured Polite next to a smiling couple, Joshua Waletzky and Jenny Levison. They wanted to foster an L.G.B.T.Q. youth on the brink of aging out of the system, the Times wrote. Although Mr. Polite was not legally adopted his relationship with his biological parents has improved in recent years Ms. Levison called it a moral adoption. He says he considers the couple his second set of parents. The Times issued a correction in the profile: an earlier version of this article referred incompletely to the type of youth whom Josh Waletzky and Jenny Levison sought to foster. It was an L.G.B.T.Q. youth on the brink of aging out of the system, not merely a gay youth. But on Facebook, Polite mocked such hipsters as naive gentrifiers looking to feel good about themselves. In one post, at the bottom of which he named Waletzky and Levison, he wrote: According to CBS New York, Polite faces comparatively minor charges: Polite was charged with criminal mischief, hate crime, and making graffiti. I wonder if there are any federal statutes related to making a terroristic threat that could be brought against Polite? We can expect Mr. Polite to become almost as invisible as James Hodgkinson, who attempted to murder a large number of GOP congressmen at a softball practice. He exemplifies the wrong narrative, and I expect the media to live up to President Trumps label of enemy of the people in suppressing inconvenient news. I would be delighted to be proven wrong on this, and a thorough examination in public of the factors that led to this man apparently rejecting and turning on his oh-so-PC liberal backers. When the dust settles on the Honduran migrant caravan and the analyses are out, one of the things that will take the biggest beating is the soggy sob-story manipulative press coverage for what is clearly a complex issue. Yes, dishonest press coverage should take the cake. Why report facts objectively when it's so much easier to tug on the heartstrings and portray the migrants as just moms with toddlers, all fleeing violence and just looking for a better life? And with news organizations employing virtually no foreign correspondents these days, who's going to find out? Just follow the lefty narrative about the migrants, everyone, and let us Get Trump. Right? Wrong. This is also the era of first-person reporting and Internet instant transmission, so a little bit of the reality is getting out, and it's not pretty for the caravan. I have read several accounts from people who actually know Honduras and what is going on with the migrant caravan, and it's not what the press is saying. Two accounts stand out. First, a former longtime Honduran consul general in Arizona, Tony Banegas, was interviewed by ABC15 (this is a real good station with a strong report-the-news ethic that has interviewed American Thinker contributors with firsthand experiences in the past) for perspectives on the caravan. What Banegas said was not flattering. A diplomat, he expressed pity for the migrants, not because they were poor, but because they being used by the political left, which he delicately characterized as "the opposition party." "I know my country well, so I support a lot of projects, water projects, health projects, education projects, garbage trucks in my hometown," he says. "Things are much better in Honduras, we're not the most violent country in the world anymore." While conditions are improving he says, the unemployment rate is near 20 percent and 60 percent of the population live in poverty. The migrants joining the caravans are the poorest of the poor, he says, looking for a better life with nothing left to lose. But, he says these people are being exploited by their home countries. Being promised something in America they can't achieve. "There have been documented cases where the opposition party from the government right now are trying to support and encourage these people even with money to come," he said. What's more, he said they were being "exploited" because they weren't going to succeed here in the states, they simply didn't have the education or skills. Left unsaid, but obvious enough, they were being exploited by the left here, too, either as a means of expanding social services bureaucracies, adding to the warm-body count for districts that justify congressional seats, or serving as actual votes for Democrats. Someone here wants them here, and who cares if they can't make it here and are going to be grossly disappointed? We know Honduras is a country with a lot of good people in it. Banegas, if you look at the dates he served as a diplomat, 2006-2016, could have been appointed to his job by President Mel Zelaya, the rabid leftist who got thrown out of power after trying to make himself the Honduran Hugo Chavez dictator for life, in 2009, but Banegas obviously stayed in his diplomatic job all through the 2009 debacle without resigning in a huff, back when the Obama administration and America's enemies were making Honduras a pariah state. He also continued on as a diplomat with the democratic Honduras that followed. He's got a few lefty anti-Trump views mixed in with his statements, and ABC15 does highlight those, but the most detailed parts of the interview tell the real deal about the caravaners: They're pawns and they are being used by the left. Even more powerful, we have a first-person account about what's going on inside Honduras by an American woman married to a Honduran, inside Honduras, who's working hard to help the Hondurans make their own country a good place to live. Jennifer Zilly Canales, in a must-read account in the Dallas Morning News, writes: As the large caravans of Hondurans and other Central Americans parade north to the U.S. border, we who are here in Honduras are deeply troubled to see this wrong mindset affect many in our area. I personally feel ashamed and angry about the chaos some of these uneducated immigrants will thrust upon the U.S., and the way in which they have forsaken international laws and police barricades cannot be justified. I remember that her website, www.hiddentreasuresofhonduras.com was one of the must-read sites for what is going on in that country during the 2009 communist-throwout, so I think she's a sterling source. She points out that culture matters, and that poor Hondurans who are offered things for free often value them for exactly what they paid for them, which is to not value them at all, which suggests problems down the line for the states if these caravan migrants are let in: We on the frontlines in Honduras have offered high-quality free education in the school we operate to more than 100 youth in the past five years, and more than half have walked out because they admittedly had no interest in studying or preparing for the future. They are now vagabonds in our rural neighborhood, zipping up and down gravel roads on their bikes and falling into the traps presented by drugs, petty crime and sexual promiscuity. She also points out that the caravan itself is an enticement to irresponsibility, with children abandoned as their military-aged young fathers head off to the states in search of the gringo's free stuff. Seriously, the children are dumped. Just two weeks ago, a single father suddenly withdrew his three children from our school and joined the caravan in hopes of a better future. A respected friend of ours informed us that his children appeared on the news about a week ago and are now being held in the Honduran capital, where they will be placed in an orphanage. Is this the better life he was hoping to forge for his children? Another example is that of my husband and two of our teen foster daughters who were driving home from a ballet class around dinnertime several days ago and found the intersection of our rural neighborhood filled with close to 200 people all frantically trying to form another caravan to follow the first. There were people screaming and trying to get more people to abandon their homes as they would gamble everything for their slice of the American Dream. My husband and daughters were devastated, as we know too well that many marriages are broken, children abandoned, lies believed and laws broken when people choose this route. Seriously. With this garbage going on as the caravan takes off, is this what the press, and the Catholic Church, with its liberation theology acolytes, is really encouraging in a supposedly Catholic country? Is this kind of child-dumping what Pope Francis is encouraging us here in the states to support as he asks us to "walk with migrants"? It's unvarnished moral turpitude and right there ought to disqualify anyone who does it from entry into the U.S. One wonders if the immigration officers would even ask about such a thing - did you abandon a child in the streets to get the goodies here - but it sounds like something that would be very difficult to prove. What it all highlights is how thick the tissue of lies from the press really has been about an otherwise little-known country that has been painted as hell on earth, but which really isn't. The people who have been cited have spent their lives working to help Hondurans better themselves in a real way. Along comes a caravan, promising paradise (and big gringo benefit packages), and their work is undercut. Thank goodness they are saying something. Because with their accounts, the caravan stands exposed as a lefty political fraud. Image credit: Fox News screengrab A buddy shared a heart-wrenching story with me during dinner. His mom was killed Christmas Eve by a drunk-driving illegal alien. The illegal had been caught four times driving drunk by police, never deported. My buddy is number nine of his amazing mom's thirteen kids. She was old-school Italian, waking up 3 A.M. five days a week to bake fresh bread and prepare meals for their family. Dad cooked on weekends. Christmas Eve 2002, she decided to make a quick run to the store for a few ingredients she needed to bake pies. You can imagine the devastating horror their family felt upon being notified by police that their mother had been killed. The illegal alien drunk driver received seven years and served only three and a half. Two of my buddy's brothers attended the illegal alien's parole hearing to keep him behind bars, to no avail. The multiple-offender illegal alien drunk driver was set free to roam the streets of America, not deported. As I watched my buddy struggle to maintain his composure, my heart went out to him. I thought, "Why are all of mainstream media's and Democrats' compassion and sympathy always given to illegals and nothing for Americans?" While strolling with her dad on a San Francisco pier, 32-year-old Kate Steinle was shot and killed by an illegal alien. Kate's killer had a long criminal record. The sanctuary city repeatedly welcomed back the illegal, deported five times and a seven times convicted felon, with open arms. A liberal San Francisco jury found Kate's killer not guilty. President Trump said their verdict was disgraceful. Kate's dad recalls her last words as he held her in his arms: "help me, Dad." San Francisco politicians, mainstream media, and Democrats celebrated the leftist jury's outrageous not guilty verdict. These leftists did not express an ounce of sympathy for American citizen Kate Steinle and her family. Sixteen-year-old Kayla Cuevas was brutally murdered by MS-13 gang members who illegally invade our country. Did Democrat Nancy Pelosi express an ounce of sympathy for Kayla's mom, Evelyn Rodriguez? No. Pelosi angrily attacked Trump for calling MS-13 gang members animals. No compassion or sympathy for Americans. Folks, I could fill this article with incidences in which American lives have been devastated by illegal repeat criminals and illegal gangs coddled by Democrats who run sanctuary cities. Democrat California governor Jerry Brown actually signed a bill making California a "sanctuary state." Brown's bill says his state will not cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement, putting American lives at risk. Why is Brown gifting illegals rights while denying the rights of his American constituents? While Californians struggle to find housing, Brown is assisting illegals with housing. Illegals in California receive college tuition and numerous other benefits unavailable to legal citizens. So why are mainstream media and Democrats obsessed with opening our borders for the free flow of illegals and getting them addicted to government freebies? One reason is that we have allowed old hippies to indoctrinate our kids in public schools for decades. This has created a generation that believes that America is the greatest source of evil in the world, founded by white straight Christian men who stole everything from the rest of the world. Our youths believe that it is morally unjust for America to have borders. We must share what we stole. Insidiously, the second reason why Democrats desire to flood the country with illegals is to gain political power. Immigrants have contributed greatly to our culture. The vast majority of illegals are unskilled workers easily seduced by Democrat politicians who promise to take care of them. Democrats will do to illegals what they have done to blacks for decades: give them just enough to keep them poor, on welfare, and faithfully voting for Democrats. This is why mainstream media and Democrats pretend to have all the compassion and sympathy in the world for illegals while ignoring the dire consequence coddling illegals has on the lives of Americans. With just a couple of days before the election, the Senate race in Arizona is coming down to the wire with both candidates in a virtual dead heat. GOP Rep. Martha McSally has hit upon a new line of attack that skewers her Democratic opponent, Rep. Krysten Sinema, for her radicalism and for hiding her far left liberalism by advancing the fiction that she's a "moderate." Politico: The former fighter pilot credited President Donald Trump for the strong unemployment numbers: People are asking themselves, do I feel better off than a couple of years ago? The answer is yes. Because America, and Arizona, are back. Trump has seized on immigration with a hardline message in the final days of the midterm, vowing to attempt a revocation of the constitutional amendment that grants citizenship to those born in the United States. McSally made only passing mention of the issue on Friday night, vowing that we are going to secure our border. But the message that she and other top Republicans offered, after they helped serve dinner to backers at Arizonas state GOP headquarters, was focused on staying the course in a historically red state where Ducey is expected to cruise to reelection next week. Green Party candidate Angela Greens decision to drop out of the race Thursday and endorse Sinema provided new fodder for McSally, who has accused Sinema of condoning "treason" and continues to target the Democrat for shifting to the center after serving as a Green Party spokeswoman herself during the 2000 election. After jokingly referring to Sinema as the Green Party candidate, McSally added: Im sorry, the former green party activist whos in the liberal witness protection program right now. Shes continuing to hide but it just shows her true colors, right? Sinema has tried to conceal her radical past where she was a spokesman for the Green Party back in 2000 and an anti-war radical during the Iraq War. That "liberal witness protection program" line is a good one and she should try and cut an ad using it because it reminds voters that despite Sinema's rejection of national Democrats like Chuck Schumer and supporting the president's decision to send troops to the border, when her liberal masters in Washington crack the whip, she will be a reliable Democratic vote. This includes a "yes" vote on "Medicare for all" and other extremist issues. McSally, who originally tried to keep her distance from the president, has since embraced him (more or less) and has promoted his agenda. On Tuesday, that decision will probably be most responsible for her victory if she wins. Laws are for the little people might as well be the motto of MSNBC correspondent Mariana Atencio. The Venezuela native, whose wealthy family was able to send her to elite Choate Rosemary Hall prep school in Connecticut, fits right into the Trump-hating milieu at MSNBC, constantly dwells on the need for inclusivity, has been a cheerleader for illegal immigration and the caravan openly promising to defy our sovereign borders, and seems to imagine herself a champion of powerless. Except for handicapped people, apparently. The great Joe Concha of The Hill reports: A disabled Air Force veteran this week voiced frustration with an MSNBC news crew for blocking handicapped parking spots outside of a polling site in Houston. "Went to vote, and found this waiting for us," James Berrie, who has multiple sclerosis, wrote in a widely shared Facebook post. "The only van accessible spot and theyre filming in it. We asked them to move, pointed out how it was wrong, then went to vote, because it takes time to load up. But came out and still there. Not even packing up, still getting ready for their shot." Berrie told a local CBS News affiliate that the MSNBC crew "kept coming back like, 'well move in two minutes.' " 'Well move in like three minutes. Were going live. Weve got a shot. Were going live in like three minutes. We gotta do this,' and were just like, 'No. You have to move. Its not right. You know its not right,'" Berrie told the outlet. Laws be damned! Were dealing with people on an imagined holy mission. Forget about the sacrifices a veteran made they dont matter. Forget about voting, sucker! We are far more important than you. Berrie responded by using a favorite slogan of those who demand that no voter ID be required: "This is suppression," Berrie added in his Facebook post. "If I couldnt park I couldnt vote. Their van had no handicap placards." Twitter featured a lot harsher criticism of Atencio, and her apology We made the wrong call today by using a disabled parking spot for our live shot in TX. Theres no excuse. I apologize to the two people who were on their way to vote as its one of the most important parts of our democracy; wed never want to jeopardize anyones ability to do so Mariana Atencio (@marianaatencio) October 30, 2018 A look at scene of her violation reveals how obvious it was that she was violating the law: KHOU screen grab This is the emptiest apology ever. Why is it excusable when youre asked to move, but suddenly inexcusable when youre called out by the public? And jeopardize someones right to vote is exactly what you did. Amber Hillier (@amberhillier) November 2, 2018 The wrong call? No, you just got busted. You didn't even move. The guy in the van should have run your equipment over. Mike Barnett (@MikeBarnett63) November 3, 2018 You apologize to the two people you SAW trying to use that parking spot. But NOT everyone who drove by and didn't have the courage to ask you to move. Weak sauce. Don't apologize. Just recognize your ablist BS and do better next time. Bethel Prescott (@Bethel_Prescott) November 3, 2018 First, it is NEVER ok for a news van to park in a disabled space. You should know that. Second, YOU DIDNT MOVE after it was pointed out. Youre only apologizing because you got busted. #ShameOnYou Pixie SS (@pixiejss) November 3, 2018 With progressives, ALWAYS look at what they do, and ignore what they say, when trying to understand their values. KHOU's video report interviews Berrie Hat tip: David Paulin Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is in trouble for uttering a "racist" colloquialism. Or maybe he didn't say anything wrong. Or maybe, his political oppopents decided that saying the Florida governor's race is so "cottonpickin' important" constitutes an egregious breach of racial etiquette, for which he should be cast into the outer darkness. Poor Sonny. He's fallen victim to "racism creep" - the modern day phenomenon where the definition of "racism" bobs and weaves like Muhammed Ali, eventually ensnaring anyone that the racialists believe deserves to be laid low in the public mind. Oooh. Is that "racist" to mention the greatest heavyweight boxer in history who happens to be black?? So sorry. Politico: During a Saturday rally for Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, President Donald Trumps top agriculture official used the term cotton-pickin' to describe the importance of Floridas gubernatorial race, which also features Democrat Andrew Gillum, who is running to be Florida's first black governor. Public policy matters. Leadership matters, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a Lakeland rally, according to audio provided by American Bridge. And that is why this election is so cotton-pickin' important to the state of Florida. I hope you all dont mess it up. There are other things that matter, including definitions, context, and common usage. Words matter. It matters how they are used. It matters what context they are used in. And it matters that the definition of those words is generally accepted by most English speaking peoples on the planet. What doesn't matter is changing the definition of a word or a phrase entirely for purposes of political attack. That's what's happening here, and has been happening for at least a decade. For 8 years under America's first black president, the terms "racist" and "racism" lost their enormous power to shame, to injure, to humiliate by sheer overuse. What used to be words intended to shock morphed into just another line of political attack. Applying the epithet "racist" to someone whose only transgression was disagreeing with a black president had the unintended effect of inuring the American people to the power of the word itself. "Cottonpickin'" is only racist if someone chooses to make it so. Not to be too esoteric, but Politico mistakenly - or deliberately - hyphenated the words - "cotton-pickin'"- thus rendering the phrase more racially suggestive. Instead, many dictionaries combine the two words - "cottonpickin" to suggest a common colloquialism. As it is, no dictionary identifies the phrase - hyphenated or not - as a racial slur. When language is abused in this manner, we all lose. It cheapens our politics and renders political discussions meaningless. But that's the point, isn't it? The goal isn't discussion. It's chastizement. And in the process of berating political opponents and scoring meaningless points, we lose the basic ability to communicate with each other. The recent mass murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue makes us realize that even in the most enlightened societies, there are anti-Semites. They just keep quiet. They only show their true nature when society sends them signals encouraging Jew hatred. Have our leaders shown Jew hatred? Let us examine our presidents. President Trump is no anti-Semite. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It became the capital in 1980, but the six US Presidents who could have recognized Jerusalem declined. I will give some of them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they were cowards, not evil. Relative to them, Trump is heroic for his support of Israel. President Obama seemed to have animosity for Israel. In his first presidential Middle East trip, he carefully avoided visiting that country. He infamously walked out of White House negotiations with Prime Minister Netanyahu because it was dinner time. Did it ever occur to Obama that sharing a dinner is a great way to loosen up a negotiating rival? Obama also sent our tax money to an Israeli group to campaign against Netanyahu's re-election. This means that Obama did what Russia and Trump were accused of doing. These actions do not prove anti-Semitism, but they send the message that showing contempt for the world's only Jewish country is fashionable. President Clinton gets points for cheating on his wife with a Jew named Monica Lewinsky, but that is as positive as he gets regarding anti-Semitism. He also tried to help Netanyahu's opponent, Shimon Peres, win the election for Israeli Prime Minister because he saw Peres as more likely to negotiate with Yasser Arafat than Netanyahu was. Clinton cared more about brokering a deal for his legacy than about Israeli security. To be fair, Clinton does not hate Jews. He merely cares about himself to the exclusion of everyone else. President Carter showed his anti-Semitism with his book: "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid." Apartheid is the word that was used to describe South Africa's rampant discrimination against its blacks. By using that word, Carter implied that the Israelis are doing something just as evil to the Palestinians. President Franklin Roosevelt was fully aware of Nazi Germany's methodical extermination of the Jews, known today as the Holocaust. He could have ordered bombing raids for the railroads leading to the death camps and saved millions of lives. His advisors, including his wife, tried to talk him into this. Roosevelt was quite content to let the Jews die. In most of the above examples, I use animosity toward Israel as examples of anti-Semitism. Many Jews, notably Theodor Herzl, have long believed that a Jewish state is the best way to keep anti-Semites in the closet. The desire for a Jewish state is called Zionism. It reached a tipping point with the Holocaust. This led to the formation of Israel in 1948. Those who are against Jews probably realize that Israel's existence restricts anti-Semitic behavior. In 2015, Pope Francis said as much. Acts of violence against Jews are called pogroms and the Pittsburgh massacre is an example of one. Israel keeps the problem from getting worse. It is impossible to convert all anti-Semites. The best that we can do is to keep them silent. We do this by supporting leaders who believe in freedom for all, like Trump. We must also identify those who are against Israel, whether it be out of hate or mere demagoguery. They are the ones who feed anti-Semitism. Kalinchok starts Nepals third cable car service The countrys third cable car service on Saturday started its operations in Kalinchok, a revered pilgrimage place and tourist destination in Dolakha district. On October 20, 2016, John Cassidy, in The New Yorker, confidently declared about Donald Trump, "He's going out as a sore loser, raving at the world, threatening to unleash chaos." Joe Scarborough, on MSNBC, said on August 15, 2016, "That's a guy who knows he is going to lose. That's a guy who knows he is going to lose. You start talking that way and, again, I don't know that he's ever wanted to win. It's sad. It's sad and pathetic what's going on out there." Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight fame, announced on August 11, 2015, "Our emphatic prediction is simply that Trump will not win the nomination. It's not even clear that he's trying to do so." Clearly, these pundits and prognosticators were wrong. Days after the election, disbelief and shock lingered with the Washington and media elites. The New York Times reported the stunned response of reporters on election night. "Nobody predicted this," said Chris Matthews on MSNBC. "I don't know one poll that suggested that Donald Trump was going to have this kind of night," said Jake Tapper on CNN. What does this mean for today? Conventional wisdom says the Republicans might still hold the Senate, but the House is sure to go to the Democrats. Nate Silver declares that the Democrats have an 85.4% chance of taking the House. NPR's Jessica Taylor wrote on November 2, 2018, "Democrats appear confident they'll take back the House majority next Tuesday a fact top Republican strategists all but concede privately less than a week before Election Day." Nancy Pelosi confidently told Stephen Colbert, "Up until today I would have said if the election was held today we would win. Now I'm saying we will win." The Democrats and their media allies are projecting confidence heading into Tuesday. The question is whether it is really confidence or bravado. Regardless of what pollsters, pundits, and professionals may say, the fact is that no one knows what will happen on Tuesday. Will there be a blue wave? Is it going to be a split decision? Is it possible a red wave will form? I don't know, nor does anyone else. There are some interesting aspects of this election cycle, though, that are going underreported. The economic and jobs report that came out on November 2 was remarkable. Fox Business News's Network's Blake Burman notes, "U.S. employers added a better-than-expected 250,000 jobs in October. The unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent, the lowest rate in nearly 50 years. Average hourly earnings meanwhile rose by five cents to $27.30, or 3.1 percent year-over-year, the highest it's been since the Great Recession." Regular people have more jobs, more money and more economic opportunity now than they have in a long time. Will they want to vote against the party that brought about these benefits? Another undiscussed component is the sheer number of people who are attending President Trump's rallies compared to the relatively small crowds coming to the Democrat rallies. Adele Malpas of Real Clear Politics wrote on October 25, 2018, "A quick comparison reveals Trump's appearances have generated much larger crowds than those of prominent Democrats. In Nevada last weekend, the president hit the campaign trail with a rally in Elko County, which drew 8,500. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden campaigned before an audience of about 500. Former President Obama had only 2,000 people attended his event in the University of Nevada-Las Vegas's 18,000-seat arena. Trump held a rally in Houston where 100,000 people requested tickets even though the Toyota Center there can accommodate just 18,000." Another interesting observation is the fact that Republicans are leading in early voting in many states. Maxim Lott on Fox News quotes Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor at Harvard. "This is a good indicator of early enthusiasm. Certainly, this doesn't look like a Democratic surge in these states." A final thought is about cable news ratings. The October ratings numbers came in this week. Fox News came in first, which isn't unusual. What was interesting was that they had a viewership larger than that of MSNBC and CNN combined. The top five cable news shows for the month of October were all on Fox. What does this mean? I don't think it guarantees a red wave, but it does seem to indicate a lot of interest, from regular people on the right, in what's going on. The bottom line is this: no one knows what Tuesday will bring. Don't let the opinions of the experts discourage you. What happens on Tuesday is up to you. Vote. Bill Thomas has been in local church ministry for over twenty-five years. He is also an adjunct instructor in history, the Bible, and education for two different Christian colleges. He's authored two novellas, From the Ashes and The Sixty-first Minute, published by White Feather Press of Michigan, and three Bible studies, "Surrounded by Grace," "The Critical Questions and More," and "The Road to Victory," published by CSS Publishing of Ohio. Locals clash with police in Udaypur Locals at Maruwa in Katari Municipality of Udaypur clashed with police over transport of cement factory limestone on Saturday night. Sarlahi clash: NC announces protests, Mahato family refuses to receive body Life in Boharwa settlement of Sarlahi is yet to return to normal, four days after a violent clash between Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party (NCP) cadres left one dead and seven others injured. Do it yourself if you can We accept in principle that private equity can deliver (somewhat) excess returns over most other asset classes. But there are a lot of qualifications attached to that, and most of them are very relevant to whether and how pension funds should invest in private equity. The oft-teased and much-anticipated model will debut in a couple of months at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and the first production model will be auctioned for charity. Described as one-of-a-kind, the Supra in question will be delivered to the winning bidder when production starts in the first half of 2019.January 14th is the day of the world premiere, and Toyota is surely taking its time about it. BMW - which shares the engine, transmission, and platform from the Z4 with the Supra has already started production of the two-door roadster at Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria.The Z4 M40i is the most capable of the lot, and this sort of performance should trickle down to the Supra with the 3.0-liter inline-six engine too. In other words, look forward to 382 horsepower , Adaptive M Sport Chassis, Adaptive Sport Steering, and the M Active Limited Slip Differential.Lower down the lineup, Toyota will be much obliged to offer the 2.0-liter four-cylinder that BMW uses in rear- and all-wheel-drive models, including the 3 Series. Even though the Z4 isnt available with a stick shift, assistant chief engineer Masayuki Kai let it be known that a six-speed manual transmission has been developed.Codenamed A90, the fifth generation is extremely different from the A80 of the 1990s. The body style and inline-six engine option may be shared, but Toyota didnt develop the Supra of today with the same attention to detail and focus on performance as the previous generation.The automaker is aware of the hotchpotch it has created with the help of BMW, but on the upside, Gazoo Racing is working on a hardcore model that promises to handle as good as possible. Toyota is so serious about bringing performance back in its lineup, the GR Super Sport Concept has been confirmed for production with influences from the TS050 Hybrid and somewhere in the ballpark of 986 horsepower (1,000 PS). Canadian prosecutors want the book thrown at a Quebec pilot whose beef against a utility company turned into what some suggested was an act of domestic terrorism using an Aerocruiser homebuilt, a kit aircraft he designed. Government lawyers have asked for the full 10-year maximum sentence on mischief charges against Normand Dub, who came close to shutting down Quebecs entire power grid. He did succeed in cutting power to 180,000 Hydro Quebec customers, including a large Montreal hospital, but he could have potentially shut off the power for eight million customers. Federal officials were so spooked by Dubs plot they were granted a rare publication ban on the details over national security concerns. Most of Dubs trial was held in secret sessions and he was found guilty in September. Transcripts of the trial are heavily redacted. He will be sentenced Dec. 10. Although the precise details have been kept confidential, its apparent Dub dropped something on power lines from the aircraft that caused massive short circuits that rippled through the system. Hydro Quebec staff were able to isolate the problems and limit their effect but a system-wide failure was apparently narrowly averted. The (power) lines that were designated in this attack were the jugular and the spinal column of Hydro-Qubecs network, Crown Prosecutor Steve Baribeau told a court in St-Jerome. What terrorist wouldnt dream of doing what Mr. Dub did? Dubs lawyer argued that because he wasnt ideologically motivated the sabotage couldnt be considered terrorism. The court was told Dub had a long-standing dispute with the utility and a track record for taking action on his complaints. He is currently facing criminal charges for allegedly burning down the house of a municipal official over a property valuation and using a Molotov cocktail against another civic employee. Three of the largest wildfires to ever hit California all were burning at the same time earlier this year, but that wasn't enough to keep some pets away from their owners for long. The details: Though some families and pets were separated by the fires, many were lucky enough to find their way back to each other mostly thanks to the Carr Fire Pet Rescue and Reunification volunteers, Amanda Lee Myers of the Associated Press writes. The Carr Fire Pet Rescue and Reunification group is a network of about 35 volunteers, Myers writes. What they're doing: They are responsible for the effort in reuniting families with their pets more than two months later after the fires were finally extinguished. The group goes to great lengths to catch animals many of which are injured and traumatized, Myers writes. They stake out areas where missing pets have been spotted and trap them using food for bait. By the numbers: Nearly 80 pets have already been reunited with their owners, Robin Bray, the field coordinator for the group, told the Associated Press. More than 100 volunteers from U.S. civilian militia groups are en route to the southern border in an effort to enforce the countrys immigration laws, as thousands of Central American migrants make their way through Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S., reports the Washington Post. The big picture: The volunteers and so-called border vigilantes were motivated by President Trumps constant warnings that the migrant caravan posed a threat to the countrys national security. Trump has also claimed that "criminals and unknown Middle Easterners" are among those traveling. My phones been ringing nonstop for the last seven days. You got other militias, and husbands and wives, people coming from Oregon, Indiana. Weve even got two from Canada, Shannon McGauley, president of the Texas Minutemen, tells the Post. The backdrop: The Trump administration last week deployed 5,200 U.S. troops to the border to stop the caravan. By the end of the year, it plans to send as many as 15,000, which could reportedly cost taxpayers about $200 million. Newsweek, citing internal documents it has obtained, reported last week that U.S. military officials are worried about unregulated militia members self-deploying to the border in alleged support" of immigration authorities. Officials reportedly said that 200 militia members are currently operating along the southwest border and warned about reports of " incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments." Go deeper: By Trend President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov instructed to take steps to establish an intergovernmental Turkmen-Azerbaijani commission to discuss issues of cooperation in the field of transport, detailed study and timely solution of all relevant tasks, Turkmen media reports. The instruction was given during the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan. The head of the Turkmen state emphasized the importance of creating an international transport corridor Lazurit, which, while passing through the territory of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, will strengthen productive cooperation in a wide geo-economic area, including the regions of Central and South Asia, the Caspian and Black Sea basins, the Mediterranean. He also noted that Turkmenistan is ready to act as an active partner and participant in the Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) program, since the formation of a western transport corridor from Central Asia plays a huge role in the context of the realization of the goals of the revival of the Great Silk Road --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijan is a strategic energy partner for the European Commission, together with other Eastern Partners, the European Commission told Trend talking about how the EU can contribute to the promotion of clean energy strategy in Azerbaijan. "Concerning the energy policy pursued with Europe's Eastern Neighborhood, the energy work program for 2018-2019 involves finding ways to stimulate the construction of missing infrastructure links, bring partner countries' energy-related rules more in line with EU rules, promote energy efficiency and renewable energy as well as nuclear safety and work on conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources in the safest and most efficient way," said the European Commission. The EU strongly supports the Southern Gas Corridor project, which is jointly implemented by Azerbaijan and its foreign partners. The Southern Gas Corridor provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project, and on June 12, the opening ceremony of TANAP pipeline was held in the Turkish province of Eskisehir with the participation of the presidents of Azerbaijan - Ilham Aliyev, Turkey - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ukraine - Petro Poroshenko and Serbia - Alexander Vucic. The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline. The next stage is the commissioning of the TANAP gas pipeline, through which gas will flow into Turkey and further to Europe. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Damascus will cooperate with Geir Pedersen, new UN special envoy for Syria, if he does not use the methods that outgoing envoy Staffan de Mistura did, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said in an interview for local Al Watan newspaper, Sputnik reported. "We will cooperate with the new special envoy, Geir Pedersen, the way we did with two previous special envoys, if he refrains from using the methods of his predecessor," Mekdad said. He went on to cite other conditions for Damascus' cooperation with Pedersen. "He must declare his commitment to Syrian territorial integrity and to the people of the Syrian Arab Republic; he cannot take the side of the terrorists like his predecessor did; he should stand for the ideals and the superior values enshrined in the UN Charter, which aim at ensuring people's freedom within the framework of the terrorism fight," Mekdad said. On October 31, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that he had appointed the Norwegian diplomat to serve as his Special Envoy for Syria, replacing outgoing envoy de Mistura. Pedersen has significant diplomatic experience, including serving as Norway's Representative to the Palestinian Authority from 1998 to 2003, as ambassador to the United Nations from 2012 to 2017 and ambassador to China since. At the United Nations, Pedersen served in various roles, including as Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for Southern Lebanon and as Director of the Asia and Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend A delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of Turkmenistan has recently taken part in the Agriscape-2018 exhibition and conference in Abu Dhabi, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message. The event is dedicated to the attraction of investments in agriculture and food safety issues. The organizer was the Abu Dhabi Food Security Center. Turkmenistan is working to ensure food security in the country, to expand exports of products manufactured in Turkmenistan, to ensure the sufficiency of goods, to support entrepreneurship and to attract foreign investments, the message said. Earlier it was reported that 760,000 hectares of land are planned to be used for winter crops and 1.6 million tons of grain are planned to be harvested in Turkmenistan in 2019. Earlier, Turkmenistan received a special award by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for achievements in the field of food security. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Unique Experience: Sikles attracting hordes of tourists Sikles, a beautiful tourism destination in Kaski district, which offers majestic panoramic views of the mountains has been attracting a large number of domestic tourists recently. 1. Yes. Council members appear to have taken time to review each section carefully. 2. Yes. The council has set up town halls and a public hearing to inform the residents. 3. No. The council should have set up a charter review committee, including residents. 4. No. Some of the items proposed so far benefit the council more than the community. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say until after the public has had more opportunities to weigh in. Vote View Results Underground Railroad museum honors veterans ALBANY The Underground Railroad History Project will host an event honoring African Americans who served in the U.S. military from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12. The Stephen and Harriet Myers Residence at 194 Livingston Ave., which serves as a living museum, will offer light refreshments and an interactive, family-friendly program about armed conflicts from the Revolutionary War to the present highlighting the role of black Americans in each military venture. The guest speaker will be Oscar Williams, University at Albany-SUNY's Chair of the Department of Africana Studies. Carry a flag in Nov. 12 Veterans Day parade ALBANY Albany's Veterans Day Parade will be Monday, Nov. 12, starting at 11 a.m. rolling out from the corner of Central Avenue and Ontario Street. Vietnam War veteran Gene Loparco of "Operation: Please Remember Me" is looking for volunteers to march in the parade carrying one of 153 American flags down Central and Washington Avenue. "Each flag honors 10 of our own (military personnel) from the Capital Region," Loparco said. Participants can meet him at 10 a.m. at the parking lot on the corner of Central Avenue and Partridge Street to get a flag. The parade will move east on Central then continue east on Washington Avenue to Hawk Street, east of the state Capitol. The reviewing stand is situated on the steps of the State Education Building. Lynda J. Edwards Two people riding motorcycles without helmets died in separate crashes Friday in Galveston, bringing the death toll to at least four as 250,000 bikers assembled for the annual Lone Star Rally. Both the 54-year-old Rockwall woman and the 65-year-old League City man died after sustaining serious head injuries, Galveston police said. BEAUMONT HIGHWAY: Pickup driver killed rear-ending stalled 18-wheeler in NE Houston Another motorcyclist died late Saturday while speeding in the 4000 block of Texas 3 just before midnight when he lost control and crashed, Texas City police said Sunday. Police could not confirm if he was tied to Galveston's Lone Star Rally. Two other motorcyclists were killed Thursday in Hardin County en route to Galveston, according to the Department of Public Safety. James Horton, 34, and Casey Horton, 35, of Lewisville, were riding a motorcycle behind a Dodge pickup on S.H. 326 in Hardin County when the truck turned into the shoulder, intending to make a U-turn. While turning, the truck hit their bike, according to DPS. The Hortons, both of whom were wearing helmets, died at the scene, DPS said. According to a Facebook post, James Horton was a mechanic at the Lumberjack Harley-Davidson shop in Nacogdoches. The truck's driver and passenger were not injured, DPS said. The rally has seen a series of fatal crashes in recent years. In 2011, three motorcyclists were killed in separate crashes. In 2015, a man was killed when his motorcycle collided with a semitruck. And in 2016, a motorcyclist struck and killed two Katy residents as they walked along the Galveston Seawall. The Friday crash involving the Rockwall woman happened shortly after 6 p.m., when several motorcyclists approached East Beach Drive while heading east along Seawall Boulevard. As the man driving the lead motorcycle began braking to make the sharp turn onto East Beach Drive, which leads to Apffel Park at the island's east end, a trailing motorcyclist failed to notice the slowdown and struck the lead motorcycle. The striking motorcycle overturned, dealing "serious head trauma" to the Rockwall woman who was riding as a passenger, officials said. She died shortly after being transported to a nearby hospital with the male driver, who was treated for minor injuries. Officials did not suspect alcohol played a role in the crash, officials said, and no charges were filed over the incident. Less than three hours later, a man heading for the Galveston Causeway lost control of his motorcycle as he crested the 61st Street overpass. Witnesses told police the man was traveling "at a high rate of speed" as he left the nearby intersection of 59th Street and Broadway Avenue J. He died shortly after being taken to a nearby hospital. The DPS issued a news release Saturday urging drivers to "use extra caution around the estimated 250,000 motorcycles" expected at the Lone Star Rally. The festival ends Sunday. "As we roll into the weekend (police) only expects an increase of visitors and vehicles to the island," said Joshua Schirard, in a release from the Galveston Police Department. "As such, we would like to stress the importance of wearing proper protective equipment when you ride a motorcycle, including a helmet." The Texas Department of Public Safety issued a news release Saturday urging drivers to "use extra caution around the estimated 250,000 motorcycles" expected at the Lone Star Rally. The festival ends Sunday. "As we roll into the weekend (police) only expects an increase of visitors and vehicles to the island,"said Joshua Schirard, in release from the Galveston PD. "As such, we would like to stress the importance of wearing proper protective equipment when you ride a motorcycle, including a helmet." Brent Taylor, the mayor of North Ogden, Utah, and a father of seven, was killed in action Saturday while serving in Afghanistan as a member of the Army National Guard, officials confirmed. Taylor, 39, was killed in an apparent insider attack after a member of the Afghan security forces opened fire at a base in Kabul where foreign troops provide training to Afghan forces. The attack wounded another U.S. service member. Maj. Gen. Jefferson S. Burton, adjutant general of the Utah National Guard, confirmed that the person who opened fire on Taylor was killed immediately. More for you Report: Taliban maintaining foothold in Afghanistan amid increasing violence News of Taylor's death brought shock and grief to a Utah community in which he had served as mayor since 2013 and, before that, as a City Council member. "I hate this. I'm struggling for words," Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox posted Saturday. "I love Mayor Taylor, his amazing wife Jennie and his 7 sweet kids. Utah weeps for them today. This war has once again cost us the best blood of a generation. We must rally around his family. Thank you for your sacrifice my friend." At a news conference Sunday, a visibly emotional Gov. Gary Herbert, R, called it "a sad day for Utah." He said others had discouraged Taylor from deploying a fourth time, telling him, "You've done enough. You've done your part." And yet, Taylor insisted he wanted to go back. "He thought he could do some good in Afghanistan, to help the people be liberated," Herbert said. "That's an admirable quality that we all ought to emulate. What can we do to help our fellow man?" Herbert noted it is military protocol to wait 24 hours after contacting next of kin before publicly identifying a fallen service member, but acknowledged tributes to Taylor had already begun spreading on social media the day before. Taylor announced his deployment to his constituents in early January via Facebook Live, explaining that he had been called to help train Afghan commando units after President Donald Trump had ordered an increase in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. "There are three great loyalties that have guided my life and everything in it: God, family and country," Taylor said then. "While I am far from perfect in any of these respects, I have given my life to serve all three of these loyalties whenever and however I can. And right now there is a need for my experience and skills to serve in our nation's long-lasting war in Afghanistan." He anticipated that his deployment would last 12 months and reassured North Ogden citizens that the city would be left in good hands. Over the past 10 months, Taylor posted periodic updates of his Afghanistan service to Facebook, often sounding and looking optimistic. In September, he celebrated from afar his 15th anniversary with his wife, Jennie Taylor. In their marriage, they had endured five years apart during four of Taylor's deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, he wrote. Earlier that month, he wrote, he had watched his youngest child learn to walk via Skype. "(Jennie) is truly the center of our home and at the very center of all our lives," Taylor wrote. "I second Winston Churchill, who said: 'My most brilliant achievement was ... to persuade my wife to marry me.' " In his last Facebook post, dated Oct. 28, Taylor quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt - "In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved" - and spoke with pride about witnessing Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in eight years, despite threats of violence. "As the USA gets ready to vote in our own election next week, I hope everyone back home exercises their precious right to vote," Taylor wrote. "And that whether the Republicans or the Democrats win, that we all remember that we have far more as Americans that unites us than divides us. 'United we stand, divided we fall.' God Bless America." On Twitter, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called Taylor "a hero to all of us." "Brent was a hero, a patriot, a wonderful father, and a dear friend," Hatch wrote. "News of his death in Afghanistan is devastating. My prayers and love are with Jennie and his 7 young children. His service will always be remembered." In less than a day, a GoFundMe set up to help Taylor's family had raised more than $135,000. The motive for Saturday's shooting - the second insider attack at a base against foreign troops in less than two weeks - was not immediately clear. The Taliban praised Saturday's attack, saying it was conducted by a "sensible" Afghan. Burton noted that Taylor was extremely driven and had completed work toward a Ph.D. That he was killed in an insider attack was "additionally bitter for us," Burton said. "Knowing Brent Taylor, he was a bridge builder and a man who made friends and just loved people," Burton said. "It's bitter because he was with folks he was helping ... and that's what is ultimately so painful about this." Taylor's body is scheduled to be flown back to Dover Air Force Base Sunday night and funeral arrangements are pending, he said. --- Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report. Military officials are expressing alarm that a shrinking U.S. military presence in the Middle East has undermined their ability to respond to Iranian threats just as the Trump administration's imposition of oil sanctions increases the potential for confrontation. Concern about the Pentagon's decision to move ships, combat aircraft and missile defense systems out of the region has intensified in the run-up to Monday's deadline for reimposing energy sanctions on Iran, the White House's latest move to pressure Iran and curtail its support for armed proxy groups. Although officials don't believe Iran is capable of sustaining a prolonged large-scale attack on U.S. forces in the region, they are worried it could lash out by employing its robust arsenal of ballistic missiles or using mines to shut down waterways crucial to global commerce. The U.S. footprint in the region has reached a low ebb as the Pentagon, under President Donald Trump's strategy for reorienting national security priorities, seeks to direct the military toward competition with China and Russia rather than the insurgent groups that have been the focus of the post-9/11 period. The Pentagon is racing to match its global posture toward what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis calls "great power competition," even as the White House has elevated a separate goal of checking Iran's influence and activities across the Middle East. It is the campaign to contain Iran - including Trump's decision to withdraw from his predecessor's nuclear deal and announce an effort to drive Iranian forces out of Syria - that some military officials believe has increased the likelihood of confrontation. Multiple officials said that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations in the Middle East, has requested additional resources. The U.S. military has not had an aircraft carrier in the region since March. It has also removed a large share of its Patriot missile batteries along with certain combat aircraft such as the advanced F-22 Raptor, according to military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss force allocation. That shift has occurred as Iran had made public threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. Officials believe it would take several months to get ready for war with Iran, much longer than it would take Iran to take action that would damage global commerce. Lt Col. Earl Brown, a CENTCOM spokesman, said the command had the forces it needed to defeat the Islamic State, assist Afghan forces to battle the Taliban and conduct other missions. "While we are not going to discuss the movement of specific forces into and out of the region, the U.S. has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to rapidly deploy and mass forces whenever and wherever they are needed in a time of crisis," he said. A primary concern for some officials is the military's ability to respond in the Strait of Hormuz, the maritime chokepoint which Iran has threatened to shut down if provoked. "Now you're squeezing them economically and diplomatically, and it's uncertain what Iran's ultimate reaction will be," one official said. Since the USS Theodore Roosevelt headed to the Pacific this spring, there has been no U.S. carrier group in the Middle East, the longest period in years in which there has not been at least one in the region. Officials point out that it's not just the deterrent power of the carrier but the other ships, aircraft and assets it brings with it. Although Gen. Joseph Votel, the CENTCOM commander, declined to discuss shortfalls in the region, he said he supported the realignment toward China and Russia. Speaking during a visit last week to the USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship in the Persian Gulf, he said: "Would I love to have a carrier? Absolutely. No doubt about it. But I understand why we don't and I'm very grateful for vessels like the Essex right now." While Naval officials said there are four destroyers in the region, one typically is tasked with addressing the threat from Houthi rebels in Yemen in the area around the Bab al-Mandeb, on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. Often another will be in port for maintenance. Iran, meanwhile, has at least 1,000 fast boats - the small, armed vessels that Tehran has regularly used to harass U.S. ships - and the capability to lay thousands of mines in waters off its coast. Officials estimate that Iran could lay a thousand mines in less than a week. It would take a relatively small number of mines to close the strait or make it difficult to transit. Although its small fleet of Russian-made Kilo-class submarines, in addition to Chinese mini-subs, does not approach the sophistication of the U.S. undersea capability, officials said, they could impede commerce if stationed in the Strait of Hormuz. Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, who heads U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, said the evolving U.S. naval posture reflected the Pentagon's new, more fluid and unpredictable way of deploying forces. "There's no fixed positions anywhere on the globe where we anchor anything," he told reporters last month. He noted that the last carrier deployment was at a moment of heightened activity in the campaign against the Islamic State. "That was a different time that was a different context, different conditions," he said. At the Pentagon, senior officials including Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have identified Iran and North Korea as important challenges but ones that do not rise to the level of China's rapid advance in military technology and Russia's moves to assert itself globally. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Joint Staff spokesman, said the military's alliances and its ability to "surge forces" into the region would allow it to deter and respond to Iran. But concern continues to grow as well about Iran's missile capability. While U.S. officials have raised questions about Iran's ability to strike intended targets, a recent ballistic missile attack on militants in Syria, which was launched from Iran and came within about three miles of American troops, demonstrated its improved aim. After the strike, pro-Iranian forces said the attack sent a message to adversaries in the region about Iran's missile might. The distance flown by those missiles - over 300 miles - demonstrated that U.S. bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are within reach. Neither do officials feel confident in their ability to repel Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, estimated to number about 2,000. This year, the Pentagon removed four Patriot missile batteries from the region. It takes several air defense projectiles to shoot down one incoming missile. To counter the mine threat, the United States has minesweepers and specialized helicopters based in Bahrain but their ability to secure mined waterways could be slowed by Iranian missiles and fast-boats. Mara Karlin, a former senior Pentagon official who is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said Trump's decision to pull out of the nuclear deal had increased the risk of a clash. "If you're going to blow up the JCPOA, the prospects for conflict are higher, period," she said, using an acronym for that agreement. But Karlin said it was time to make adjustments to the heavy presence the Pentagon maintained in the region during the height of counterinsurgency operations, given the cost to the ability to confront enhanced competition from Beijing and Moscow. "It's a difficult adjustment and it does require some really hard discussions," she said. Voters are increasingly seeing their local leaders through the lens of their national party. Take, for example, a recent political campaign ad in the race for Jefferson County judge that names Democratic Party heavyweight Nancy Pelosi, a party leader largely removed from the day-to-day lives of Southeast Texans. The 30-second ad in support of Republican incumbent Jeff Branick evokes immigration issues, saying that his Democratic challenger voted no for border protection and has been rejected by voters three times. While former U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson called the commercial misleading and hurtful, the ad plays into the idea that voters are turning out for national issues. The historically Democratic county that President Donald Trump won by a narrow margin is a good bellwether of whether red or blue will prevail in Texas, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor. While Republicans touted Trumps victory at their campaign kickoff event earlier this year he was the second Republican president to win Jefferson County Democratic Party Chair Cade Bernsen said his party won the races that matter locally. Every contested race, we swept them, Bernsen said, pointing to the 2016 elections of two Democratic judges and Sheriff Zena Stephens, the states first black female sheriff. But with Texas politics becoming increasingly nationalized as local and state parties take on the issues and ideologies of their national counterparts, it might be too soon to tell how national issues and straight-ticket voting will affect local candidates at the bottom of the ballot. With the states traditionally low voter turnout, elections can easily be swayed by the most committed and therefore most partisan voters, Rottinghaus said. Party leaders and politicians often know which buttons to use to prime certain wings of the party, Rottinghaus said. According to Google Trends that show what residents are searching for in each Texas county, most Hardin, Jefferson and Orange county residents are interested in health care and immigration. But not all campaign strategies reflect that. At a news conference earlier this month, a handful of Democratic candidates from the top of Jefferson Countys November ballot gathered outside the still-gutted home of a Port Arthur resident. They used this backdrop to tell voters that the state and countys response to Tropical Storm Harvey has been unacceptable. And that electing Democrats not only will increase the money available for recovery in the near future, but also increase preparations done for future storms. Lampson was at the conference and, said that, if elected, he would create commissions and task forces to prepare for the next hurricane. Mike Collier, a candidate to replace Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, said the state administration made a mistake to not touch Texas rainy day fund that has billions of dollars waiting for, in the Democrats estimation, a situation like this one. If you cant tap the rainy day fund after four days of catastrophic rain, try to envision which circumstances you can tap that rainy day fund for, said Miguel Suazo, a candidate for Land Commissioner. But Republicans seem to be leaning toward national issues when firing up the base. When Gov. Greg Abbott visited Port Neches in late October, he didnt talk about recovery from Tropical Storm Harvey. A discussion of the states booming economic status came only after U.S. Rep. Randy Weber touted President Donald Trumps economic successes that have exceeded even the upper range of what Trumps financial advisers told him to promise during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, Abbott brought up the migrant caravan heading toward the United States from Central America a campaign issue for many Republicans. Weber criticized Democratic stances on gun control and taxes. When U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz was joined by radio/TV personality Sean Hannity at a locally rally, Cruz talked about his goal to repeal Obamacare and explained that building the wall would make the United States more secure. Voters seem also to be focusing on national issues when deciding who to choose to represent them. Caron Eichelberger, a 61-year-old Jefferson County resident, said she was especially motivated to vote because of immigration issues. More specifically, she hopes the migrant caravan will be stopped. And 65-year-old Mary Sansom said standing behind Republicans is the way to keep God first in the country. The only way to do it is to stand behind our Republican, our Christian values, she said. That doesnt necessarily mean victory for Republicans. Democrats have also been motivated by national issues. Its been made widely known that U.S. senatorial candidate Beto ORourke has drawn hundreds of people to the polls. But experts say whether ORourke wins or loses, hes still brought out voters for down-the-ballot candidates as well. Additionally, as is the case with most midterms, voters not in the presidents party are using this opportunity to give him a progress report. For some Jefferson County voters, that report doesnt look good. Lynn Freeman, 52, said Trumps performance as president has caused him not to even consider Republicans down the ticket. He said he believes theyll be in the presidents pocket instead of fighting for what local people want. Bruce Hodge, 42, said despite living in a traditionally red state, he hopes his vote this year will provide some sort of roadblock for Republicans in Congress. It doesnt work well to have one party in full control of the government, he said. kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com phoebe.suy@beaumontenterprise.com Stacey Abrams is spending the final weekend of the midterm elections hoping to make history as the nation's first black female governor. But to hear President Donald Trump tell it, the Georgia Democrat is unqualified. Trump has not said exactly why he thinks Abrams is unqualified, but he has communicated why he thinks Ron DeSantis, a former Republican congressman running for governor in neighboring Florida, is. On Monday, Trump sent out a tweet in support of DeSantis, citing his Yale undergraduate education and 5 years in the House of Representatives. On Thursday, he opined on Abrams, telling reporters: "She is not qualified to be the governor of Georgia, not qualified." "Take a look at her past, take a look at her history, take a look at what she wants to do and what she has in mind for the state. That state will be in big, big trouble very quickly, and the people of Georgia don't want that," Trump said. Let's take a look at Abrams' past and compare it with that of DeSantis, who Trump thinks would be "a great governor." Abrams has a doctorate from Yale Law School, the top law school in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. It's also the same law school as Trump's most recent Supreme Court pick, Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She also has a master's degree in public policy and has a longer lawmaking career than DeSantis, even serving as minority leader in Georgia's House of Representatives. DeSantis held no leadership positions while in Congress. And Brian Kemp, Abrams' Republican opponent in the governor's race, also held no leadership positions while serving the state Senate. (Kemp is Georgia's secretary of state, but he has been accused of using that position to suppress the vote of more than 50,000 Georgia residents by refusing to approve their registration applications. A judge has ordered that they be allowed to vote.) In fact, Abrams has more elite education and lawmaking experience than Trump himself. So how could she be "unqualified" for the job for which some say she's been preparing since the days when Trump was a Democrat? Racism and sexism, according to Trump critics. Judging by his comments and the policies he proposes, many Americans consider Trump to be racist and sexist. Given Abrams' identity as a black woman, some conclude that this makes her "unqualified" to be the most powerful politico in Georgia, a state that Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has a history of dismissing black women and the concerns and experiences that they bring to the table. Abrams supporter Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., - who Trump frequently calls "a low IQ" individual - is one of his most frequent targets of derision. And media icon Oprah Winfrey, who campaigned for Abrams this week, has found herself on the receiving end of Trump attacks, after conversations about her running against Trump in 2020 picked up. In the 2016 exit polls, 76 percent of black women said they were "scared" of a Trump win. And in a Gallup poll the summer before the election, 72 percent of black women said they "strongly agreed" that they were afraid of what would happen if their preferred candidate did not win the election. This is perhaps why black women are one of the groups that voted against Trump at the highest rate in 2016 - and are expected to continue to show their lack of support for the Republican Party in this year's midterm elections. Trump knows this and lobs vague but dismissive terms like "unqualified" toward Abrams because it is effective with his base by speaking to the "cultural anxiety" many expressed about a diversifying America without having to actually unpack his attack. To Trump's base, which is well represented in Georgia, Abrams is unqualified, despite her many merits. But also consider that Georgia is on track to be the first Southern state that will be majority-minority and that Abrams' identities, experience and worldview reflect those of many of the state's residents. Ultimately, Trump is arguing that Abrams lacks the qualifications to lead Georgia in the type of nation that he and his supporters envision. Anyone paying attention to Georgia's gubernatorial race knows that Abrams has no interest in backing Trump's vision. She wants to dismantle it. A gastroenterologist who practiced at Marble Falls, Texas-based Baylor Scott & White Specialty Clinic died Oct. 29 after a truck struck his vehicle in Lakeway, Texas, the Daily Trib reported. Michael Babineaux, MD, died at the scene, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Dr. Babineaux's car was struck by a 2007 Nissan Titan driven by Cameron O'Connell as he moved into the center lane to pass a vehicle in front of him. Mr. O'Connell was taken to an area hospital with injuries. The crash remains under investigation. EU support remains "unwavering" and no private concessions have been made on the Irish border, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has said. Mr Coveney was speaking after The Sunday Times reported on Prime Theresa May's "secret plan" to secure a Brexit deal, which would get support from Remain and Brexit MPs. Read More The article claimed Mrs May had "secured private concessions from Brussels that will allow her to keep the whole of Britain in a customs union, avoiding a hard border in Ireland". The article also quoted a "senior Whitehall source" as saying "Ireland is f*****" in a new deal which the newspaper claims Mrs May will be unveiling soon, and is confident can attract support from parliament. Mr Coveney said the article was written with a British audience in mind and such "running commentary" isn't helpful. "The EU27 has been united through the Brexit process. The UK has given written commitments last December and March that the Withdrawal Agreement will give a legal guarantee of no return to a hard border in Ireland in any circumstance - this is the backstop," Mr Coveney said. "In March the UK agreed this backstop will apply 'unless and until' a close future relationship eliminates any need for border infrastructure or related checks and controls. We want the EU and UK to get to negotiating that close future deal but the UK must first deliver on the commitments of leaving. "The EU support to Ireland has been and remains unwavering. "The negotiators are working hard and a running commentary isnt helpful. Todays Sunday Times piece is obviously aimed at a UK audience. "However Donald Tusk, Michel Barnier, Jean Claude Juncker and indeed Theresa May herself, have all said there will not be a deal without a legal guarantee of no hard border in Ireland. "We hope a deal can be done but were not there yet. The Times' article states the EU will write an all-UK customs deal into the legally binding withdrawal agreement from the EU. If this happens, the backstop - designed by the EU and which treats Northern Ireland as different from the rest of the UK - will no longer be required. It also claims Theresa May is on course to securing a Canada-style trade deal. A senior Whitehall source told the paper: "The PM will be able to say there's no more backstop, we've got rid of that - success. There's an exit mechanism - success. And you've got Canada - success. The small print is that Ireland is f*****". Ryan Farquhar spoke of his delight at getting back on the bike after a horrific near life-ending crash forced his retirement from the sport two years ago. And he was given a rousing reception from an adoring Belfast crowd. It's estimated over 35,000 were in the city for the Red Bull F1 showrun event on Saturday night. Farquhar and fellow road-racing veteran Jeremy McWilliams performed a demonstration of the awesome powers of a pair of KMR Kawasaki Supertwin bikes. They were among a crop of motorsport legends - and rising stars - to take part in the event which saw roads closed around the city to allow their mechanical beasts to stretch their legs. Read More McWilliams and Farquhar tore down the streets of Belfast at eye-watering speeds, performing wheelies and burnouts much to the delight of the crowd. Farquhar had suffered serious injury in the North West 200 in 2016. The five-time triangle circuit winner spent weeks in hospital, including suffering a serious relapse with a catalogue of injuries which included six fractured ribs and broken feet and the most serious, internal bleeding and the lacerated liver which ultimately required four operations. He had retired from the sport in 2013 after the death of his uncle Trevor Ferguson in a race, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, but his love of the road brought him back and he has talked of wanting to be back racing again after his North West crash. Read More On Saturday night - in front of thousands who had descended on the city to see the Red Bull showrun - Farquhar talked of his pride in naming his KMR Racing team after his daughters Keeley and Mya. The Dungannon man said he was delighted - although admitted there were some nerves - to get back on the bike in front of the cheering Belfast crowd for the first time since his crash over two years ago. He said that it was difficult to get a feel for the bike - given the fleeting run they were allowed in the time - and the added weight he had put on and felt "completely like a fish out of water". Also taking part in the show was stunt bike rider Mattie Griffin and Cork youngster Conor Shanahan. The 15-year-old vowed the crowds with his drifting prowess behind the wheel of his Nissan 180X. He joked it was probably the first time he would be driving been on a public - albeit closed - street. Former F1 driver David Coulthard was behind the wheel of the double championship winning 2012 Red Bull car. Before setting off he joked he would not be going any faster than 19.9mph give the 20 limit. But some among the crowd may say he crept above that as he roared down the Chichester Street straight. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Ryan Farquhar in action at the Red Bull F1 showrun. Photo: Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX McBurney/Red Bull F1 Showrun Belfast - 03/Nov/2018 - Pictured Ryan Farquhar (left) and Jeremy McWilliams burning rubber outside Belfast City Hall. David Coulthard of Red Bull Racing team brings a stellar line up of local motorcycle veterans, Jeremy McWilliams & Ryan Farquhar, stunt bike rider, Mattie Griffin from Galway, to Belfast's City Centre as spectators witness an amazing show of a Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car performing a full repertoire of donuts, burnouts and speed stretches in front of Belfast City Hall. Photo: Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX Ryan Farquhar in action in Belfast. Photo: Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX McBurney/Red Bull F1 Showrun Belfast - 03/Nov/2018 - Pictured Ryan Farquhar. David Coulthard of Red Bull Racing team brings a stellar line up of local motorcycle veterans, Jeremy McWilliams & Ryan Farquhar, stunt bike rider, Mattie Griffin from Galway, to Belfast's City Centre as spectators witness an amazing show of a Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car performing a full repertoire of donuts, burnouts and speed stretches in front of Belfast City Hall. Photo: Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX McBurney/Red Bull F1 Showrun Belfast - 03/Nov/2018 - David Coulthard of Red Bull Racing team brings a stellar line up of local motorcycle veterans, Jeremy McWilliams & Ryan Farquhar, stunt bike rider, Mattie Griffin from Galway, to Belfast's City Centre as spectators witness an amazing show of a Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car performing a full repertoire of donuts, burnouts and speed stretches in front of Belfast City Hall. Photo: Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX McBurney/Red Bull F1 Showrun Belfast - 03/Nov/2018 - David Coulthard of Red Bull Racing team brings a stellar line up of local motorcycle veterans, Jeremy McWilliams & Ryan Farquhar, stunt bike rider, Mattie Griffin from Galway, to Belfast's City Centre as spectators witness an amazing show of a Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car performing a full repertoire of donuts, burnouts and speed stretches in front of Belfast City Hall. Photo: Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX 03/11/18 Pacemaker Press Intl/Rod Neill. Ryan Farqhuar and Jeremy McWilliams entertain the crowds at the Red Bull F1 Roadshow / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ryan Farquhar in action at the Red Bull F1 showrun. Photo: Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX "The reaction from the people of Belfast has been absolutely fantastic and Im not just saying that in a nice to be nice kind of way, he said. The warmth of the fans has been amazing and the amount of people who have been coming over to say thank you for coming to Belfast, thank you for bringing the F1 car here, so big thanks to Red Bull for making this opportunity possible. It's not easy to get all the permissions." He added: "I believe that not a lot of people live in the city and most live in the suburbs and outside of town, so to have them come here at night is a testament to the huge level of support for motorsport there is in Ireland. Theres no question the Irish love F1. Theres a huge motorsport tradition here on two and four wheels, circuit racing, rally so it was really special. Im not sure if we wait another eight years Ill be able to fit in my race suit, so wed better come back again soon. Great night for Motorsport in Belfast, thanks @barronsimon and Geoffrey for looking after the IFS/@fonacabbelfast bike, apologies for last 5th gear burnout. pic.twitter.com/vHArUbafeS Jeremy McWilliams (@McWill99) November 4, 2018 F1 RedBull showrun at Belfast City Hall Posted by Belfast Telegraph on Saturday, November 3, 2018 The incident happened in Rathgill Park in Bangor. Pic Google Maps A man has been left with a broken leg after an attack in Bangor It happened in Rathgill Park on Saturday around midday. Police described the attack as "serious" with the 38-year-old victim left needing hospital treatment. The perpetrators were described as being aged in their mid to late 30s, one had short brown hair and the other had short blond hair. Police are appealing for anyone with information to contact detectives in Bangor on 101 quoting reference 604 03/11/18. Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. The Prime Minister has secured concessions from Brussels in order to get a Brexit deal that prevents a hard border and that doesn't separate Northern Ireland off from the rest of the UK, a new report claims. Number 10, however, dismissed the report as "speculation" but said good progress had been made in the talks. The Sunday Times reports Theresa May has secured a deal that will see the UK remain within a customs union with the EU. The newspaper reports preparations for a deal are more advanced than have been anticipated with a detailed document in the works. Read More Since Brexit talks began the EU has insisted on an agreement which would see Northern Ireland remain part of the Customs Union and part of the single market in order to avoid a hard border with the Republic in the event of a no-deal. Under the latest proposals, the EU would write a UK-wide backstop into the legally binding withdrawal agreement, meaning a backstop solely for Northern Ireland would not be needed. Read More The Times claims chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier revealed the concession on the Irish border at a private meeting in London last week which would see checks carried out at factories and shops rather than at any border. The deal, it's claimed, would include an exit clause in order to appease those that would see the deal as a way of keeping the UK forever in the EU. It also said good progress was made on the trade deal between the two which could secure a Canada-style agreement. The Times said it was able to compile the deal after extensive contacts with dozens of ministers, advisers, civil servants and EU officials. A Whitehall source told the Times the deal could be sold as a success for the Prime Minister, but that it would likely not go down well in the Republic. "The PM will be able to say theres no more backstop, weve got rid of that success. It is UK-wide success. Theres an exit mechanism success. And youve got Canada. The small print is that Ireland is f*****," the source told the paper. Downing Street officials dismissed the report as speculation pointing to the Prime Minister's previous statements good progress was being made in talks with the EU. It's thought Theresa May could propose a date for an EU summit for the middle of the month for the leaders to come together to announce any deal with the Commons voting on it in December. Three explosive devices were uncovered in a security alert in Antrim, with a local councillor claiming they appeared to have been abandoned beside a busy main road. Police were forced to close part of the main A26 on Sunday afternoon after the report of a suspicious object left in the area around noon. Traffic to the nearby Junction One shopping centre was affected. Army bomb experts attended the scene and found three explosives. Searches were conducted in a field. The alert ended just before 8pm and all cordons lifted. No homes were affected by the disruption. DUP councillor for the area Jordan Greer condemned those behind the incident. "While the three devices uncovered appear to have been abandoned they still posed significant risk to anyone in close proximity," he said. "Thanks to the PSNI and Army technical officers who swiftly ensured traffic diversions were in place and the safe disposal of the devices carried out. Sadly this type of incident remains all to common within Northern Ireland." Police have appealed for information. A woman - who police described as having severe disabilities - was left traumatised after her bedroom was ransacked in a burglary. Police said entry was forced into the home in Dungannon at around 8.20pm on Saturday night. Detective Inspector Trevor Stevenson added: "The sole occupant of the house, a woman with severe physical disabilities, reported that a man had entered her bedroom. "The suspect, described as 5' tall, aged in his 30s, with a full bushy beard and wearing a lightweight jacket and denim jeans, ransacked bedroom furniture, taking a sum of money and her mobile phone. He also searched other rooms in the house before fleeing through a window. "This was a despicable act, which must have been frightening for the victim who was not only vulnerable but also completely helpless. While not physically injured she has been left deeply traumatised by this horrific ordeal." Later police charged a 27-year-old man with burglary. He is to appear in court on Monday. As is normal procedure all charges will be reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service. The accused has been remanded in custody (Niall Carson/PA) A woman has been charged with the murder of a man at a house in south Co Dublin. Grace Miano, aged 50, of Tudor Lawns in Foxrock, was brought before a special sitting of Dublin District court on Sunday morning. She was charged with the murder of 27-year-old Limbani Mzoma at the same address on Thursday night. Miano, who was originally from Kenya, was arrested on Friday after the body of Malawian national Mr Mzoma was found with multiple stab wounds at the house at around 11.30pm on Thursday. Sergeant Colm OGiollain from Cabinteely Garda Station told the court Miano made no reply after she was charged and cautioned at 9.35pm on Saturday night at the station. Expand Close The man is said to have had body parts removed (Julien Behal/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The man is said to have had body parts removed (Julien Behal/PA) The court heard Miano had complained of pains in her head and legs since being taken into custody and that she had been seen by a doctor at the station on several occasions. She requested a medical and psychiatric assessment. Judge Grainne Malone directed that the accused should receive medical attention and that her solicitor, Jonathan Dunphy should liaise with authorities to have a psychiatric assessment carried out if required. Miano, who is receiving social welfare, was granted legal aid. She was remanded in custody to appear before Dun Laoghaire District Court on Friday morning. A post-mortem examination on the body has been completed. It is thought that Mr Mzoma sustained a violent attack and that some of his body parts were removed. Arron banks arriving at Broadcasting House for his appearance on the Andrew Marr Show Controversial Leave campaigner Arron Banks has insisted there is no Russian money and no interference after a criminal probe was launched into the source of 8 million of campaign funding for the Brexit referendum. In a typically combative performance, the businessman and co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that all the cash came from a UK-registered company, and repeated claims that he was being targeted by Remain-supporting politicians. The National Crime Agency (NCA) probe was launched into suspected criminal offences after the elections watchdog said it had reasonable grounds to suspect that Mr Banks was not the true source of the cash. It also said that the loans involved a company Rock Holdings based on the Isle of Man, which was impermissible under finance rules. There was no Russian money and no interference of any typeArron Banks But Mr Banks told Marr that it came from a UK-based insurance business, saying: There was no Russian money and no interference of any type. I want to be absolutely clear about that. The money came from Rock Services which was a UK limited company, it was generated out of insurance business written in the UK. Contrary to some of the press reports in the FT (Financial Times) and other Remain-leaning publications, we insure nearly half a million customers a year the size of Manchester. We turn over 250 million of premiums, its a sizeable business. The Electoral Commissions review of referendum finances focused on 2 million reported to have been loaned to Better for the Country by Mr Banks and his insurance companies and a 6 million donation which he made alone. Mr Banks lashed out again at the Electoral Commission, accusing it of being full of his political opponents, as well as elements of the media who opposed Brexit. He said Rock Services had all sorts of revenues, but did not detail them. I know its complex for journalists to understand but we know what this is about its about undermining Article 50 and the Brexit result, he added. Its a group of vicious MPs who have grouped together with the Guardian and the FT. Expand Close Arron Banks described Damian Collins as a snake in the grass (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Arron Banks described Damian Collins as a snake in the grass (PA) Mr Banks also attacked Damian Collins, chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is conducting its own probe into the referendum campaign. Asked why he had written to Mr Collins constituents in Folkestone and Hythe, calling him a snake in the grass, Mr Banks replied: Well, he is. The commission also referred Leave.EU, its chief executive, Elizabeth Bilney, and the organisation that ran it, Better for the Country, to the NCA last week after carrying out a review. Bob Posner, the commissions director of political finance, said: We have reasonable grounds to suspect money given to Better for the Country came from impermissible sources and that Mr Banks and Ms Bilney, the responsible person for Leave.EU, knowingly concealed the true circumstances under which this money was provided. This is significant because at least 2.9 million of this money was used to fund referendum spending and donations during the regulated period of the EU referendum. Ms Bilney also denies any wrongdoing. The fire service received more than 800 calls on Bonfire Night last year (Niall Carson/PA) An experienced firefighter has told of his constant fear for his crews safety on Bonfire Night after experiencing a warzone. Last year there were a number of incidents involving disorder and fire-starting, one of which resulted in serious injury to a police officer in Edinburgh, as well as lots of property damage. Watch manager Glynn McAffer said his crew was among those to be targeted with aggression. He added: It was like a war zone when we arrived, and my first thought was: Im not going in there. I had no other choice but to call our operations control and inform them that we required a police presence to ensure the safety of our firefighters. Expand Close Watch manager Glynn McAffer, second from right, and his crew (Scottish Fire and Rescue Service) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Watch manager Glynn McAffer, second from right, and his crew (Scottish Fire and Rescue Service) He added: Its difficult as you are there to do a job and protect the community but there is of course a frustration as you have come to hose down what they call fun. I have to think of the personal safety of my crew and if there are too many of them well just leave. For newly qualified firefighters it can be quite a daunting experience my job is to protect them. Crews responded to around 330 bonfires across Scotland between 5pm and 10pm that night, while operations control received more than 800 calls. The threat of attack is said to have played on the minds of many on the ground. Its just unacceptableGlynn McAffer Mr McAffer added: We were constant as soon as we came on duty until about midnight and we were told what areas to avoid and where to wait for police back-up. Its sad because you are basically treating every incident as if you will be attacked. One of the police officers was also injured its just unacceptable. He spoke out as the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service launches its #DoNotAttackMe campaign, which condemns violence against firefighters. The campaign comes ahead of the services busiest night of the year. Firefighters based at the citys Marionville Fire Station were called to respond to a massive bonfire engulfing five cars during Bonfire Night 2017. They had to withdraw and call for police assistance after being harangued by a large group of youths who filmed the firefighters. Bonfire Night takes place on November 5 every year and dates back to a celebration of King James Is survival of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. Theresa May will join Emmanuel Macron in France on Friday to commemorate the fallen from the First World War ahead of the centenary of its end. Downing Street said the Prime Minister would meet the French president for a ceremony on the Somme, where tens of thousands of British and French soldiers were killed in the bloody conflict. They will have a working lunch in Albert before laying a wreath at the imposing Thiepval Memorial, which is inscribed with the names of some 72,000 war dead who have no known graves. Expand Close The Thiepval Memorial (Gareth Fuller/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Thiepval Memorial (Gareth Fuller/PA) The Prime Minister will arrive in France via Belgium, where she will lay wreaths in a military cemetery in Mons on the graves of John Parr, the first British soldier to be killed in 1914, and George Ellison, who was killed just 90 minutes before the Armistice came into effect at 11am on November 11 1918. Mrs May said: Next week will mark one of the most significant moments in our nations history. One hundred years after the guns fell silent on the Western Front, each and every one of us can pause to reflect on the immense sacrifices that were made by so many. The killing fields of France and Belgium are scarred by the horrors of war, but the strength and closeness of our relationship today is a testament to the journey our countries have travelled together. Im proud to represent the immense gratitude of our nation at these commemorations and share these moments of reflection with our friends and partners in Europe. The wreath she and Mr Macron shall lay will comprise poppies, the British remembrance symbol, and their French equivalent le bleuet. Expand Close The Cenotaph (Anthony Delvin/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Cenotaph (Anthony Delvin/PA) Downing Street said the Prime Minister would also join senior royals at The Royal British Legion (RBL) Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday. The following day she will also join them at the Cenotaph, where federal president Frank-Walter Steinmeier will become the first German leader to lay a wreath at the monument to the dead. Events of remembrance are taking place as the centenary of the end of the First World War nears (Neil Squires/PA) Theresa May has paid tribute to the immense sacrifices made during the First World War as she hailed the strong relationship between Britain and its European allies. The Prime Minister spoke as the centenary of the end of the bloody four-year battle draws near. Mrs May will take part in a series of events this week, culminating in a national service of remembrance on November 11. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) On Sunday, a bugle will sound at the French graveside of war poet Wilfred Owen, marking 100 years since his death on November 4 1918, just seven days shy of peace being declared. Elizabeth Owen, the widow of his nephew Peter, will attend a ceremony in Ors, in the north of the country, where the instrument which was taken from a dead German soldier will be used to play The Last Post. Meanwhile, at the Tower of London on Sunday evening, about 10,000 flames will be lit, in remembrance of those who fought and died in the war. The light display installation, called Beyond the Deepening Shadow, will run each evening up to and including on Armistice Day. On Friday, Mrs May will join Emmanuel Macron in France to commemorate the fallen. Downing Street said she would meet the French president for a ceremony on the Somme, where tens of thousands of British and French soldiers were killed in the bloody conflict. Im proud to represent the immense gratitude of our nation at these commemorations and share these moments of reflection with our friends and partners in EuropeTheresa May Mrs May said: Next week will mark one of the most significant moments in our nations history. One hundred years after the guns fell silent on the Western Front, each and every one of us can pause to reflect on the immense sacrifices that were made by so many. The killing fields of France and Belgium are scarred by the horrors of war, but the strength and closeness of our relationship today is a testament to the journey our countries have travelled together. Im proud to represent the immense gratitude of our nation at these commemorations and share these moments of reflection with our friends and partners in Europe. The wreath she and Mr Macron shall lay will comprise poppies, the British remembrance symbol, and their French equivalent le bleuet. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Downing Street said the Prime Minister would also join senior royals at The Royal British Legion (RBL) Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday. The following day she will attend the Cenotaph alongside them, where federal president Frank-Walter Steinmeier will become the first German leader to lay a wreath at the monument to the dead. The new 50 note will feature a prominent British scientist, and members of the public are being asked to come up with nominations. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney announced at the Science Museum in London on Friday that the new polymer note will celebrate UK achievement in science. People are being asked to make suggestions via the Banks website over the next six weeks of an eminent late scientist from fields such as biology, astronomy and medical research. Mr Carney, who will make the final decision and announce it next year, asked the public to think science when putting forward names. Explore the world of science from the A of astronomy to the Z of zoology. Nominate the scientist you would like to see on the new 50 note: https://t.co/CwSzNmlkL6 #ThinkScience #50poundnote pic.twitter.com/F3JI2u3l7m Bank of England (@bankofengland) November 2, 2018 The invention here of the steam engine, the electric motor, the telegraph, powered the first two industrial revolutions, he said. In medicine and biology, the discoveries of penicillin, X-rays and the double helix by British scientists afforded people healthier and longer lives. The roll-out date is yet to be revealed but it will see the last of the paper notes removed from circulation. The note will be the last upgraded to a plastic polymer version, with the 20 no longer being manufactured out of paper from 2020 when it will be replaced by a design featuring artist JMW Turner. The new 50 will replace the current paper note which features industrial revolution pioneers Matthew Boulton and James Watt. That issue was introduced in 2011, but there were concerns about the notes being used for money laundering and tax evasion. The Bank said nominations must be of someone who is dead no-one living can feature on a note and a real person. This will prevent another Boaty McBoatface scenario where the fictional name for a research vessel attracted the most votes in a public campaign. No Time Lords from whatever gender are eligibleBank of England Governor Mark Carney Mr Carney said: So, Im afraid, no Time Lords from whatever gender are eligible. He said he does not believe it will be the final 50 introduced, nor does he fear the public will come up with an all-male list because there is a rich heritage of female scientists here. He did, however, dismiss fellow finance experts, saying: I have ruled out economists. When asked what his preference would be, he said he remains open-minded. Among those on the advisory committee creating a shortlist for the governor are scientists Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Dr Emily Grossman, Professor Simon Schaffer and Dr Simon Singh. Nominations close on December 14, and Mr Carney said the announcement should be made by next summer. John Paul McAllister (left) and his fiance Craig Park are stranded at a hospital in Reunion island in the Indian Ocean (Craig Park/PA) The fiance of a cancer sufferer stuck on an island in the Indian Ocean said they are both speechless after wellwishers donated more than 13,000 for an air ambulance to fly them home. Jon Paul McAllister, 38, and his partner Craig Park went on holiday to South Africa, Madagascar and the Seychelles to celebrate the end of Mr McAllisters chemotherapy treatment and their January engagement. Mr Park said a scan showed the treatment was shrinking the deposits left behind following surgery to remove a tumour and the couple were advised they were fine to go on the long-awaited trip. In Madagascar, Mr McAllisters health deteriorated rapidly and, having been transferred to improved medical facilities on nearby island Reunion, he is too sick to return home on a commercial flight. Friends started a fundraising campaign on Friday to pay for the overseas treatment and an air ambulance flight back to Scotland, which they said the couples insurance will not pay out for. The money raised is now more than a third of the way towards the 35,000 target. Mr Park told the Press Association: We are speechless. Peoples kindness and generosity is amazing. We werent expecting this at all. Jon Paul has spent his working life giving to other people. He constantly looks after all his clients, friends and family and is extremely selfless. He never asks for anything but this is one of those times where he needs help. Being 38 he never expected the news we received about his stage four cancer and after chemo he thought everything was ok. Its really taken its toll on him, and at this moment in time needs to be home, surrounded by loved ones and receiving the medical attention he deserves and needs. He is still constantly vomiting and unable to keep down fluids or food. The only thing keeping him alive is the drips he is on as he has no other way to get the proper nutrients and energy he needs. He hasnt drank or eaten food in over two weeks. Mr Park said translation problems mean they are struggling to understand exactly what is wrong with his fiance, with medics indicating scans suggest it could be another tumour. He added that before leaving home in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, social worker Mr McAllister had not received his final scan results. He said: His half way scan showed chemo was working and the deposits left behind after his tumour was removed were shrinking. We asked so many times if this holiday was ok and we were told just to go ahead with it, there was no reason we shouldnt go on holiday. Karen Bell, who set up the fundraising page, urged people to help the couple return home. She said: Were desperate to get Jon Paul home to receive the best treatment possible. British troops on the march in France during the First World War (PA) More than 136 million pairs of socks were supplied to troops during the First World War, according to monthly records kept by the War Office from 1914 to 1920. Details were kept on every aspect of warfare, including ammunition, food supplies and equipment for millions of soldiers. To commemorate the centenary of the end of the war, here are some of the standout numbers. 5.33 million: estimated strength of the Empire forces in November 1918. Of this number, more than 1.6 million of the troops were stationed at home in Great Britain. Expand Close A group of soldiers in action during the First World War (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A group of soldiers in action during the First World War (PA) 908,000: total number of British and British Empire armed forces deaths in the Great War. 619: number of British civilians killed in air raids from December 23 1914 to July 20 1918. This included 142 children, and a further 1,650 people were injured. 7.45 million: average daily expenditure of the war in the period April 1 1917 to May 5 the same year. 5.25 million: tons of ammunition shipped to France from August 9 1914 to November 10 1918. Expand Close British soldiers under cover in France (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp British soldiers under cover in France (PA) 1.25lb: daily ration of bread issued to troops in France at the beginning of the war, along with 4oz of bacon, 3oz of cheese and 3oz of sugar. By the beginning of 1918, the daily bread ration had been reduced to 1lb, with cheese down to 2oz. 3,000: death sentences passed on British and Empire troops and other camp followers from the start of the war to the end of March 1919, for offences such as desertion and mutiny. Of that number, 346 death sentences were carried out 266 of them for desertion. Expand Close British artillerymen in action during the opening of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp British artillerymen in action during the opening of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 (PA) 578: Victoria Crosses awarded to British forces in the period between August 1914 and May 1920. This is the highest military decoration for bravery in the face of the enemy. Figures taken from the March 1922 War Office publication Statistics Of The Military Effort Of The British Empire During The Great War Sir Jeremy Heywood, the former head of the Civil Service, has passed away aged 56 (PA) Tributes have poured in from across politics to Jeremy Heywood, the former head of the Civil Service who served four prime ministers, after his death at the age of 56. Theresa May, David Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown all hailed the tireless work and support of the ex-cabinet secretary, who passed away on Sunday from cancer. The announcement came just days after he had retired following decades as one of Whitehalls most senior mandarins in roles that led to him being regarded as a key behind-the-scenes influence in the shaping of modern Britain. He was invested as Lord Heywood of Whitehall on October 30 in recognition of his distinguished service to public life and accepted the life peerage on behalf of the whole Civil Service which he was so proud to have led, Downing Street said. This is extremely sad news and all of my thoughts are with Jeremys family and friends. - PM @theresa_may on the death of recently retired former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service Jeremy Heywood, Lord Heywood of Whitehall. https://t.co/68GYJYllua pic.twitter.com/5FaLhFH6ho UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) November 4, 2018 Mrs May hailed his impact on the country, saying: The many retirement tributes paid to Jeremy from across the political spectrum in recent weeks demonstrated his extraordinary talent supporting and advising prime ministers and ministers, and leading the Civil Service with distinction. He worked tirelessly to serve our country in the finest traditions of the Civil Service and he is a huge loss to British public life. I will always be grateful for the support which he gave me personally and will remember his achievements across his career as we regret that he did not have the chance to offer his talents for longer in retirement. Lord Heywood had been cabinet secretary since 2012, and previously served as principal private secretary to prime ministers Mr Blair and Mr Brown, chief of staff to Mr Brown and Downing Street permanent secretary to David Cameron. He revealed earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with cancer in June 2017, but remained in post during a summer of political upheaval triggered by the shock general election result. He took a leave of absence in June and announced on October 24 that he was stepping down, with acting Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill taking over the role on a permanent basis. Having been knighted in 2012, he was nominated for the peerage by Mrs May after stepping down. Expand Close Jeremy Heywood was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 2012 (John Stillwell/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jeremy Heywood was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 2012 (John Stillwell/PA) Mr Blair said Lord Heywood had been a quite outstanding public servant and someone I came to have enormous respect for both as a professional and as a person. The former Labour leader said: He worked with more prime ministers and at a more senior level than any civil servant in recent memory and served us all with integrity, distinction and infinite commitment. He was dedicated, smart and with a rare small p political skill which made him such a formidable Whitehall operator. The British Civil Service and all of us who worked with him will miss him deeply. Mr Brown described him as a leader of exceptional ability, unquestioned integrity and as we saw in the way he fought his illness remarkable courage, adding: Jeremy Heywood was the most dynamic civil servant of his generation, a leader who inspired confidence, whose expertise was recognised by all and whose impartiality was never in doubt. The country has lost a leader of exceptional ability, unquestioned integrity and - as we saw in the way he fought his illness - remarkable courage. Our hearts go out to Jeremy Heywoods family. Gordon Brown (@GordonBrown) November 4, 2018 Desperately sad news about Sir Jeremy Heywood. He was an amazing man, brilliant civil servant and dedicated to our country. It was a privilege to work with him. All our thoughts and love are with Suzanne and the children. David Cameron (@David_Cameron) November 4, 2018 And Mr Cameron said: He was an amazing man, brilliant civil servant and dedicated to our country. It was a privilege to work with him. In a statement released on Sunday via Downing Street, his wife Suzanne paid tribute to a man who crammed a huge amount into his 56 years and loved his work as a civil servant and was hugely proud of his colleagues. She added: He was a wonderful father, treasuring both time at home and travelling with our children, sharing with them his love of discovering new places, which he gained during his two years in Washington. He gave them a mix of challenge, a little teasing, total devotion and deserved praise. And he was a devoted son and a beloved and loving brother and uncle, always finding time to help, encourage and inspire. For me, he was my wonderful partner for 22 years. We shared everything and I will miss him more than I can say. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd during a meeting in Tehran (Office of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei /AP) Thousands of Iranians have staged a rally in Tehran marking the anniversary of the 1979 US embassy takeover as Washington restored all sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. The crowd chanted Down with the US, and Death to Israel during Sundays rally in the capital, and state TV said similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns. On Friday, Donald Trumps US administration announced the restoration of sanctions on Irans shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored after the US president withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear agreement in May. Expand Close The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks Tehran (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks Tehran (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) Iranian students stormed the embassy shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The US cut off diplomatic relations in response. Irans clerically-led government celebrates the embassy takeover every year as a decisive blow against the United States, which had supported the autocratic rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The embassy compound, widely known as the den of spies, is now a cultural centre. Anger and distrust over the US is surging again following Mr Trumps decision to withdraw from landmark nuclear deal with world powers despite Tehrans compliance with the agreement, which was negotiated under the Obama administration. Expand Close A movie-style poster inspired by Game Of Thrones which appeared on Donald Trumps Twitter feed (Donald Trump/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A movie-style poster inspired by Game Of Thrones which appeared on Donald Trumps Twitter feed (Donald Trump/AP) On Friday, Mr Trumps government announced the restoration of sanctions on Irans shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored. Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis, and has seen sporadic protests in recent months as Iranian officials have tried to downplay the sanctions and their effects. The US said the sanctions are not aimed at toppling the government, but at persuading it to radically change its policies, including its support for regional militant groups and its development of long-range ballistic missiles. At a gathering on Saturday, Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, portrayed the sanctions as part of a long tradition of American hostility toward the Islamic Republic, which he said had nevertheless prevailed. Voters have been voting on possible independence from France (AP) French president Emmanuel Macron has said the majority of New Caledonians who voted in a referendum on independence chose to remain part of France. In a televised address from Paris, Mr Macron pledged there is no other path than that of dialogue on the future of the South Pacific archipelago which has been part of France since 1853. Expand Close A man casts his vote at a polling station in Noumea (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A man casts his vote at a polling station in Noumea (AP) French prime minister Edouard Philippe will meet with officials in New Caledonia to discuss future plans. The referendum was the result of a process that started 30 years ago to end years of violence between those both for and against separation from France. PR Newswire COLUMBIA CITY, Ind., Nov. 04, 2018 COLUMBIA CITY, Ind., Nov. 04, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Ultra Electronics-USSI, a global leader in acoustic sensors, announces the presentation of a scholarly paper on underwater acoustic vector sensors at the 176th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, November 8 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. This paper will be presented to scientists in academia and industry by James McConnell and Timothy Rorick. USSI has over 50 years of experience in producing anti-submarine warfare (ASW) underwater warfare (UWW) solutions that incorporate acoustic vector sensor technology. McConnell and Rorick will share this expertise through a back-to-basics presentation focusing on the more common embodiment directional sensors take on for use in low-frequency underwater acoustic applications. James McConnell, paper co-author and USSI Business Development Manager for Advanced Transducers commented: "Invited papers are rare; however, the conference organizers recognize the expertise USSI has in this area and reached out to us for a positive contribution. The conference presentation will serve as a good marketing tool for USSI to reach a wider audience for our products and services. The Acoustical Society of America was founded in 1929 to increase and diffuse the knowledge of acoustics and promote its practical applications. To request an abstract of the presentation, email [email protected] Inquiries: Patrick Allison, Vice President Marketing & Sales 260-248-5628 Heather Lutton, Product Manager 260-248-3632 http://www.ultra-ussi.com Further information about Ultra: Ultra Electronics is an internationally successful defense, security, transport and energy company with a long track record of development and growth. The Group manages a portfolio of specialist capabilities generating innovative solutions to customer needs. Ultra applies electronic and software technologies in demanding and critical environments ranging from military applications, through safety-critical devices in aircraft, to nuclear controls and sensor measurement. These capabilities have seen the Group's highly-differentiated products contributing to a large number of platforms and programs. Ultra has world-leading positions in many of its specialist capabilities and, as an independent, non-threatening partner, is able to support all of the main prime contractors in its sectors. As a result of such positioning, Ultra's systems, equipment or services are often mission or safety-critical to the successful operation of the platform to which they contribute. In turn, this mission-criticality secures Ultra's positions for the long-term which underpins the superior financial performance of the Group. Ultra offers support to its customers through the design, delivery and support phases of a program. Ultra businesses have a high degree of operational autonomy where the local management teams are empowered to devise and implement competitive strategies that reflect their expertise in their specific niches. The Group has a small head office and executive team that provide to the individual businesses the same agile, responsive support that they provide to customers, as well as formulating Ultra's overarching, corporate strategy. Across the Group's three divisions, Ultra operates in the following eight market segments: SOURCE Undersea Sensor Systems,Inc. Images | Akorda Head of State Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wrapped up his working trip to Almaty city with a visit to Alatau Creative Hub innovative center, the presidential press office said on Friday. Unveiled in December 2020, the center has everything in place to develop programming skills, creative potential and virtual art. It offers 25 study clubs catering to all tastes. During the visit, President Tokayev familiarized with the centers library, childrens game zone, a vocal studio, an IT laboratory, a multimedia center of traditional music and other amenities. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev chatted and posed for photos with employees and visitors of the center. In addition, akim (mayor) of Almaty city Bakytzhan Sagintayev reported to the President on the development of the citys transport system. Labour has called for a digital services tax to be introduced in the next budget. It would be a charge on social media platforms, search engines and online retailers. A student at DCU who was facing deportation has been granted a stay until February 2019. Shepherd Machaya is a beneficiary of DCU's University of Sanctuary status, a scheme that offers scholarships to ten asylum seekers every year. The 32-year-old has been in Ireland for nine years and does not want to return to Zimbabwe as he claims he would be tortured. He was due to leave Ireland on October 21 but after a social media campaign, his stay has been extended. DCU Student's Union President Vito Moloney Burke has welcomed the news, but realises there is more work to be done: "It pays testament to all the work, all the staff, all the students, people around the country who were pushing for this movement. "It shows that if we can keep pushing the department and the relevant Ministers we can really make some noise here and hopefully get it over the line. "The important thing is to take this as a win and take it to spur us on but realise it's only a small win in the grand scheme of things." Digital Desk 'Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned to speak!' -Roger Riderhood By Patrick Flynn A transatlantic flight diverted to Shannon Airport this morning after a passenger was reported to have fallen ill. Norwegian Air Shuttle flight NAX7109 was travelling from Barcelona in Spain to Los Angeles in the US. The flight was about 150kms west of Belmullet in Co Mayo when the crew turned around. At the time, the crew had been in contact with controllers at the Irish Aviation Authoritys North Atlantic Communications Centre in Co Clare. They told controllers that they wanted to enter a holding pattern while they dealt with a medical issue. The Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner circled over the ocean for a short time before deciding to divert to Shannon Airport. The crew had also been in contact with medical professionals in a dedicated centre who advised them to divert. As a precaution, Shannon Airports fire and rescue crews were standing by for the flight which landed safely at 8.02am. The aircraft was also met at the terminal by airport authorities and National Ambulance Service paramedics. The patient, understood to be a man in his 20s, was transported to University Hospital Limerick for treatment. The flight was able to continue its journey again at 10.23am once the passengers baggage had been removed, in accordance with strict security procedures, and the crew received a new flight plan. Shannon Airport continues to handle the most unscheduled landings and diversions of any Irish airport. In 2017, of the 113 unscheduled landings, 24 medical emergencies. A 51-year-old woman remains in a serious condition in Tallaght hospital in Dublin following a hit-and-run in Kildare. It happened at around 8.30pm on Friday at the Canal Bridge in Osberstown in Naas. A woman in her 30s has died after getting into difficulty while kayaking in County Kerry. It happened at the Roughty River, Kilgarvan, shortly after noon today. As a scrawny 16-year-old in 1947, John Eveston remembers a Chevy truck pulling up while he was digging out rabbits on the family property near Goulburn. "It had a red cabin and black mudguards," he says. "I thought it was the best-looking truck I'd ever seen." The driver was looking for gravel to build a concrete bridge nearby. And while the shovel full that Eveston offered was too stony, they started talking as his dogs hunted out a rabbit. A life building bridges: John Eveston at home in Woy Woy with the Rip Bridge in the background. Credit:Louise Kennerley "He said 'you can use a shovel pretty well' and he was looking for a boy for an apprenticeship, Eveston says. "He gave me a job." That apprenticeship with the Department of Main Roads started a lifetime of bridge building. The rise of "payday lenders", offering high-cost short-term loans to "help" between pay cheques, is proof of the pressure a growing number of Australians face in meeting their financial obligations each week, fortnight or month. Low interest rates, burgeoning property prices and easy credit are among the reasons, but the reality for many Australians struggling under the weight of debt is that its stressful and unsustainable. Our household debt-to-income ratio has hit nearly 200 per cent, a rate that ranks among the highest in the world. When it comes to debt Australian households are global champions. We are more indebted than any other English-speaking nation, and we are in front by a very clear margin. The National Debt Helpline, a government-funded financial counselling service, is on track to receive a record number of cases through its call centres this year particularly from older Australians who can't meet their mortgage or rent payments. The Salvation Army has reported the same thing through its financial helpline, MoneyCare. A report by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission released in July showed that one in six Australians are struggling to pay off their share of the cumulative $45 billion owing in credit card debt. Stress and shame are common reactions to money problems. Credit:Louise Kennerley Jennifer*, a Sydney-based communications manager, can relate after she amassed almost $12,000 in debt on her credit cards over three years. Initially she only used her credit card for a couple of "extras" each month: a dinner out with girlfriends or a new dress. She would make an effort to pay off the balance each time she was paid but over time she became less disciplined about paying it off and more comfortable adding to the balance. There were holidays, more dresses, more nights out, a car service, a new laptop. Before she knew it she had two credit cards, each with almost $5000 owing and another $2000 loan she was paying off from a credit card she had transferred to a zero-balance account. It made her feel sick enough "mostly with shame" to seek help in the form of a financial planner. This proved valuable, and not just because of the payment plan she was able to devise. Australian National University students are angry they have lost the bus service that runs through campus, in the ACT government's new bus network, which begins next year. Student Nathalie Johnstone is worried about how she will get to medical appointments and even do her shopping. She lives on campus and is unable to drive or ride a bike due to a disability, so is completely dependent on public transport. The first-year policy studies and law student said without the Number 3 bus route, grocery shopping and medical appointments would be very difficult to access. ANU student Nathalie Johnstone, who is concerned about the loss of an important bus service at ANU. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos Id have to change a lot of buses in order to get to medical appointments. It would add about an hour to that process, she said. On Apr 14, 2018 the first parkrun in Malaysia, Taman Pudu Ulu parkrun was launched at Taman Pudu Ulu Park.parkrun is an organised free, weekly, 5km timed runs that are held around the world. The runs are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in.I have known about parkrun for a few years now and was happy to learn about it coming to our shores. However, I have yet attended the Taman Pudu Ulu parkrun due to its location.I was happy to learn about the Presint 18 parkrun, Putrajaya as the location is nearer to our home and decided the day before the launch and on its first event on Saturday, Nov 3 2018; to check the event out - not as a runner (because I'm still recuperating from my ankle injury) but to take my friends' photos.And to make it more momentous, Presint 18 parkrun, Putrajaya was the largest parkrun in Asia, with 337 runners and walkers with 287 people attending their first ever parkrun and they were supported by 30 volunteers; 19 of them volunteering for the first time ever at parkrun. Awesome!The run was flagged off by the President of Perbadanan Putrajaya Datuk Aminuddin Bin Hassim and among the runners who attended the first Presint 18 parkrun, Putrajaya was a group of more than 30 runners from Taman Pudu Ulu parkrun, Jerome Besnaud from West Coast Park parkrun, Vinh Lam from Bishan parkrun and Amer Ismail from Fulham Palace parkrun.I didn't inform anyone of my intention to drop by and check out the parkrun. Hubby and I just went to the Presint 18 parkrun quietly, parked ourselves mid-route to take some photos so I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by runners (my friends of course called my name, and there were those who said hi to Cik Arnab). Didn't expect anyone would recognise us. Hah hahIt was great to see such a great turnout for the parkrun and a good mixture of fast front pack runners who aimed for their best timing along with those who turned up with their families to enjoy a healthy lifestyle and the outdoors.I always love to take photos of kids out running happily alongside their parents (SCKLM Kids Dash is such a joy to take photos at) and this parkrun was no exception.The 5km route is an out and back flat course along Putrajaya Lake. The route starts at Kompleks Futsal towards Taman Wawasan and then runners make a u-turn before ending back at Kompleks Futsal Presint 18 (and faced a small uphill section for the final 100m or so).The parkrun Presint 18, Putrajaya RD as the lead bike.All in all, this is a really great event. What's not great about it?It's free.It's timed.You're running with others in a controlled environment.For our part, we only need to register before the run, print a copy of our barcode.Looks like a definite thumbs up from one of the runners who joined.I'm going to encourage my siblings who have recently started to be interested in jogging to join the parkrun. I think it'll be a great motivation for them to join this event and really catch the running bug themselves.Do visit their website more details on Presint 18 parkrun, Putrajaya or any other parkruns around the world and how to register for their weekly runs. Or you can also visit their Facebook page facebook.com/presint18parkrunputrajaya To view the photos we had taken during the run, do visit our Facebook page Cik Arnab & En Kura-Kura The developers of the vast new suburban area near the Murrumbidgee River at Ginninderry have suggested the ACT bureaucracy is stymying the inclusion of mature street trees and trying to limit parks because of the cost of maintaining them. Riverview also wants to charge homeowners in the new suburbs a $100-a year environmental fee to help manage the highly sensitive area, which adjoins the Ginninderra Falls as well as the river, largely inaccessible at the moment. Ginninderry is eventually to have 11,500 homes, on an area now largely farmland. The joint venture between the ACT government and the Corkhill Brothers is managed by Riverview, set up for the purpose and headed by David Maxwell for the Corkhill family. Kirsten Lawson has more here. Reflecting on the politics of science Fire crews will continue to work on the Pierces Creek bushfire for the next week, however, authorities say the threat is now contained. While the fire is under control, Pierces Creek fire incident controller Rohan Scott said he expected there to be the occasional flare up during the coming week, as there was still unburnt fuel within the containment lines. Two firefighters were treated for heat stress on Sunday. The pair were assessed, given the all clear, and sent home as a precaution. Crews were met with favourable conditions on Sunday and spent the day strengthening containment lines and mopping up hotspots in rugged terrain inaccessible to emergency vehicles. The winner of this year's Prime Ministers Prize for Science has some views on prime ministers. Hawke? "He was interested", the scientist who has interacted with every prime minister since Malcolm Fraser said. Bob Hawke, Professor Kurt Lambeck said, was particularly interested in the science of nuclear waste and showed that interest to scientists long after he had left office. Professor Kurt Lambeck at the Australian Academy of Science headquarters in Canberra. Credit:Steve Evans. But John Howard was the prime minister who showed the most appreciation of science and scientists. "I had no time for the man's social and international policies, but on science he was good", the professor said, speaking at the Australian National University. Ive always loved ghost stories. I was ten when I watched The Sixth Sense with my mum. Far too young to see bodies hung from the rafters and a boy terrorised by malevolent spirits, but these scenes stuck with me, fascinating me. When I was an edgy teen, Dad would take me on weekend trips to country NSW towns, remote locations the rest of the country had forgotten. His idea of family fun was subjecting his three girls and wife to whale museums, trinket (/junk) markets and most memorable of all, ghost tours. Even if one of us was scared and the rest of us were uninterested, we were expected to go. The man had secured the Groupon. Old stills of the National Film and Sound Archive - one of Australia's most haunted buildings. Strangely enough, Dad would act skeptical about the ghost sightings and tales recounted on the tour, even though he booked the damn thing, but I enjoyed it, revelling in the mystery of it all. A NSW coroner has likened the effects of drug prohibition to state sanctioned racism, saying future generations would look back at current laws on illicit substances with incredulity. Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame also took aim at sniffer dogs patrolling train stations as a "low-hanging" law enforcement tactic during an ongoing inquest examining government policy on prescription opiates and illegal drug use. Ms Grahame's comments came a day before the release of a report that claims governments have ignored evidence suggesting the majority of people who use drugs will not experience harm unless they come in contact with the justice system. Credit:Karen Foley Ms Grahame said she did not doubt that "in a hundred years from now people will look back" and be "incredulous" about the law's treatment of drug users under the current regime of prohibition. "It will be like the way we look back at when we didnt allow black people to vote," she said. It's clear waters ahead for Sydney's east coast, where sewage pipes that dump wastewater into the ocean are set to be switched off by the NSW government. Three outfalls at Vaucluse and Diamond Bay the last pipes in the state that release untreated sewage into the water will be closed and redirected to the Bondi Wastewater Treatment Plant, Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Sunday. Diamond Bay, where one of the last three ocean sewage outfalls in the state will be closed. Credit:Wolter Peeters The government predicts that the $86 million project will be finished in 2020, with geotechnical tests set to begin in the middle of next year before digging and the construction of new tunnels can start. A report commissioned by Sydney Water earlier this year found that visible plumes from the sewage outfalls posed critical health risks, with bacteria analysis showing that the area was not suitable for swimming. A popular Western Sydney swimming and fishing spot has particular significance for Australian adherents of one of the worlds oldest religious groups. Dressed in white cloth, Sydneys Mandaean community gathered on the bank of Penrith's Nepean River on Friday morning to celebrate Dehwa Honina the day, they believe, one of God's angels came to earth to cleanse the water and make the planet habitable. Dressed in white cloth, Sydneys Mandaean community gathered on the bank of Penrith's Nepean River on Friday. Credit:Wolter Peeters Sabean Mandaean Association Australia vice-president Paul Sobbi said rivers have deep significance for their community. A river always has a beginning and an ending, just as you have in life. And we cannot live as human beings without water, he said. We lasted two years. After 20 years working in education, I knew that the mantra of private schools, that I suspected was rubbish when I was 16, really was rubbish. Parents, not schools, teach kids values, and the vast majority do it well. "Values" transmission is a marketing ploy used to convince parents to pay for a service they can get elsewhere for free. What I hadn't considered was that to the extent a school draws its staff from the shallow pool of teachers who support minority-held values, there seemed to be a corresponding impact on academic standards. There are great teachers in both private and public schools but if you are selecting on values then you shrink the pool for recruitment. Credit:AFR Although not religious, we had no problem with our child learning about Christianity. Some of our best friends are Christian. And we had fallen prey to the Sydneys favourite pastime public school scaremongering. Much as we wanted to support public education, we could not possibly send our children to the local high school. A selective public school, sure. Our eldest child already attended one, but we had reservations about the pressured environment, so when our second daughter was offered a scholarship to a private school, we jumped at it. Its a cult! my husband hissed at me. Its not! I hissed back. We were sitting in the sandstone chapel of the so-called "elite" Anglican school our daughter attended. Both of us were suffering from horrible flashbacks to our own time at "elite" private schools, being lectured about values, top buttons, boaters and regulation underwear. When we left the school, the principal assured me that the public system "could not cater" for my child. Four years later, she made the Premiers All Rounder list with the assistance of fantastic teachers at our local high school, as well as the dedicated French and German staff at Open High (the NSW School of Languages). They had given her the freedom to learn without the oppressive nonsense of private school values. Her comprehensive public school had three times as many students on the Premiers List as the so-called "elite" private school. The furore over Sydney Anglican schools seeking to maintain their exemption from discrimination legislation, so they can employ teachers who support their values, is an opportunity to rethink the widespread conviction that private schools deliver better education, in particular better teachers. Assessing teaching quality is notoriously difficult. Even more difficult still is proving a connection between academic achievement and teaching (as opposed to family background, individual student motivation etc). I am not aware of a single study that directly compares the teaching skills of public and private school teachers in Australia. There are great teachers in both systems. However, what we do know about religious schools is that if they want their teachers to support values that are out of step with our legal system, they are drastically narrowing their recruitment pool. The letter signed by heads of Anglican schools. Credit:Fairfax Media There is a clear mismatch between the religious conviction of middle-class parents and the schools they use. This is a result of declining religious belief and "school choice" policies. The current system allows us to "shop" for schools and "good" parents do so diligently. As most of the schools the market offers are religious, when parents choose what they think will be the best school, their choice will invariably be religious. Perhaps it is time to go back to choosing our local public school, which might better reflect our values. Griffith University has seen more than 5000 living donors register to make an invaluable contribution to researchers and scientists' work, marking a decade of thanksgiving ceremonies. The university has hosted annual services, which are known to be a major event on the calendar and involve senior academics, anatomy staff and students and the donors' families and friends, to acknowledge donations. Carissa and Michaella Holland are prosectors for the Griffith University Body Donation Program. Credit:Griffith University Head of anatomy Professor Mark Forwood said the services, which included a piper and speeches of gratitude, were "moving" and expressed his appreciation for donors. "The ceremonies are a way of thanking those who have sacrificed their bodies to help students and staff learn and grow as professionals," he said. It was a long time coming, but we finally got to announce our weather winner last Friday - the person who came closest to picking Melbourne's first spring day over 30 degrees. Michelle Glennon will take home a swag of Age-branded items after winning our first weather competition. The mercury hit 30 degrees just before 2pm last Thursday. As Murphy's Law would have it, nobody picked Thursday but Michelle was the first of two people to select the following day. Here she is looking thrilled with her win: Numerous sources are reporting that a Russian man has been arrested for attempted murder, which is news for two reasons: (1) it happened in Antarctica, and (2) the motive was reportedly revenge for the victims insistence on giving away the ending of whatever book the perpetrator was trying to read. While that would absolutely be a Good Reason to Kill, it appears unlikely that part of the tale is actually true. Which doesnt mean Im not going to add this to the list. There is evidence of an Antarctican stabbing, at least. According to this October 23 report by Russias Interfax news agency, a district court in St. Petersburg issued a statement that included the following: , 9 , -, ., , . . Which, according to Google and me, means something like this: According to the investigation, on October 9 in the dining room of the command post of the Russian Antarctic station Bellingshausen, located on King George Island, [Sergei] Savitsky deliberately struck [the victim] at least one blow to the body using a knife as a weapon, intending to kill him. An informed source told Interfax later that the victim had been flown to a hospital in Chile for treatment, and that Savitsky had surrendered peacefully to the head of the station. That last part makes sense, of course, because its not like he really had anywhere else to go. Bellingshausen Station is not even on Antarctica proper, but rather is on King George Island, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Thats over 1000 km south of Tierra del Fuego, my friends, so Savitsky wasnt going anywhere warm by kayak, thats for sure. The station is connected by unimproved roads to three other stations on the same island, but youd still have to get there, and then, well, its not like the Chinese arent going to ask any questions if some Russian shows up running at them across the tundra. Come to think of it, I assume people down there do the smart thing if they see somebody running at them across the tundra and just get out the flamethrowers. Learn from history, folks. So thats another reason it makes sense that he just surrendered peacefully. There are no jails thereagain, not like you really need anyso according to this report, Savitsky was put under house arrest in the teensy little Orthodox church they have at Bellingshausen. He flew back to St. Petersburg on October 20, where he was met by police. According to this report, Savitsky is from St. Petersburg and the victim is from Tikhvin, which is nearby. So that may be why the district court in St. Petersburg has jurisdiction. There isnt a jurisdiction in Antarctica anyway, at least not in that sense. While seven countries have asserted claims to parts of it, none of those claims are formally recognized by anyone else. All such claims were frozen (!) by the Antarctic Treaty, which 53 nations have signed to date. Under Article VIII of the treaty, scientific personnel and staff members of any Antarctic station shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Contracting Party of which they are nationals in respect of all acts or omissions occurring while they are in Antarctica for the purpose of exercising their functions. (So not if theyre there on vacation, I guess.) Any disputes that may result, like if you mistakenly but understandably lit a guy up with a flamethrower because he was running at you across the tundra, not that you would be prosecuted for that, are to be resolved by mutual consultation. There are also no police down there. According to this New York Times report (Cold Cases: Crime and Punishment in Antarctica), the head of each station is generally also the top (only?) law-enforcement officer. At McMurdo Station, for example, the main U.S. base and the biggest one in Antarctica, the station manager is also a special deputy U.S. Marshal, who has training in evidence protection and the power to arrest Americans for offenses committed against other Americans. Something similar seems to have happened at Bellingshausen. But what happened to spark the assault in the first place? That remains unclear. Many reports say, as noted above, that the victim insisted on giving away the ending of whatever book Savitsky was reading at the time. But sadly, that seems to be just a rumor. None of the Russian sources Ive found mention this, nor did The Guardian, which relied on Interfax. And the earliest sources reporting the book-spoiler version of the story are mostly, shall we say, not known to have great concern for the checking of facts. Usually, tracking something like this back to the earliest or most local source you can find gives you the best results, so its suspicious here that the Russian reports dont mention it. A couple of them do offer a reason, though. According to these reports, the two men had been feuding over something, or maybe nothing, for several months. Small things really could get on your nerves down there, being so isolated and in close quarters and all. Or, maybe the guy gave away some book endings from time to time. If you were on page 1200 of War and Peace and then some guy lets slip that the Russians win, well, you can see how you would get pretty peeved. (Oops, sorry about that.) But regardless, they had apparently been feuding for months by the time of the incident. But this time was different, these reports say: the victim allegedly teased Savitsky by suggesting that he should dance on the dining room table for money. That would also probably merit being added to the list, even if it hadnt happened in Antarctica. But Im sticking with this headline. A motorcyclist has died following a crash with a utility in the Perth hills on Sunday morning. The incident occurred shortly before 11am at the intersection of Phillips and Coppin roads in Mundaring. The male motorcyclist was rushed to Midland Hospital but later died from his injuries. The man is the 133rd person to die on West Australian roads this year. Kerryn Phelps will be declared the winner of the Wentworth byelection, pushing the Coalition into minority government after a fortnight of counting. The result, to be announced by the Australian Electoral Commission on Monday, will see Dr Phelps narrowly come out ahead of Liberal candidate Dave Sharma by 1851 votes. The independent's win comes on the back of a historic 19 per cent swing against the government following the ousting of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his resignation from the blue-ribbon seat. Dr Kerryn Phelps will be declared the winner of the Wentworth byelection Credit:Nick Moir Dr Phelps was helped over the line by preferences from Labor and the Greens after she attracted 29.2 per cent of the primary vote to Mr Sharma's 43.1 per cent. Dr Phelps will win the seat with 51.2 per cent on a two-party preferred basis. In late June last year, former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson came to the defence of Guardian Youth Care, a troubled childrens charity he declared had done a fabulous job. On his Sky News program he criticised a report by the Herald that had probed the charitys solvency as well as its close connection to Roy Bijkerk, who served jail time in the early 2000s for conspiring to import cocaine. The very first time I met Roy Bijkerk a few years back he put on the table what he had been convicted of and when, Mr Richardson said. Former Labor power broker Graham Richardson has previously defended Guardian Youth Centre. Credit:Jesse Marlow The Department of Family and Community Services, he said, was deliberately withholding funds - revenge after Guardian threatened to expose a government funding model that crammed in vulnerable children together. Shanghai: Trade minister Simon Birmingham has said record levels of Chinese tourism to Australia is building trust between the two countries, in a speech in Shanghai that ended a year long diplomatic freeze. Amid a trade war between the US and China, Mr Birmingham, who is also the tourism minister, said that Australia celebrates Chinas economic success to date, adding that it was good for the region and Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen / Fairfax Media Chinese president Xi Jinping will give a key speech on Monday at the opening of an international trade fair in Shanghai that will be closely watched for pledges for reform to open Chinese markets to US companies. Mr Birmingham said he welcomed President Donald Trumps public comments that he held a constructive conversation recently with President Xi. Washington: Saudis who are angry at The Washington Post's coverage of the kingdom in the aftermath of Jamal Khashoggi's murder are calling for a boycott of Amazon.com because of its shared ownership by US billionaire Jeff Bezos. Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Credit:AP "Boycott Amazon" was the top trending hashtag on Twitter in Saudi Arabia for several hours on Sunday, as users circulated images showing the deletion of the Amazon smartphone app. They also called for a boycott of regional subsidiary Souq.com, acquired by Amazon last year. Neither Amazon nor The Washington Post were immediately available for comment. Many citizens have felt that their country is under attack since Saudi agents killed Khashoggi, a Post columnist and insider turned critic, at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. They've been particularly upset by an op-ed article by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently published in the Post, and by the newspaper's coverage - along with other international media - of gruesome information about the murder obtained from anonymous Turkish officials. "It became clear before our eyes that this is an organised media war," said Bandar Otyf, a Saudi journalist with more than 100,000 Twitter followers who was among those calling for the boycott. "As Twitter users and activists and citizens, we don't have power abroad, but we have simple things like boycotting." Dubai: Iranians chanting "Death to America" rallied on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and Donald Trump's imminent reimposition of sanctions on Iran's oil sector. Thousands of students gathered outside the leafy downtown compound that once housed the US mission in the capital Tehran to burn the American flag, an effigy of Uncle Sam and pictures of the US President. The state-organisaed rally was broadcast live on national TV. Hardline students stormed the embassy on November 4, 1979 soon after the fall of the US-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days. The two countries have been enemies and on opposite sides of various Middle East conflicts ever since. Trump has insisted without proof that "unknown Middle Easterners," "very tough fighters," and large numbers of violent criminals are travelling among the women, children and families heading north on foot. The Texas Minutemen, according to McGauley, have 100 volunteers en route to the Rio Grande who want to help stop the migrants, with more likely on the way. They are a bunch of guys with a big mouth and no substance to them. Veterinarian and rancher Michael Vickers "I can't put a number on it," McGauley said. "My phone's been ringing non-stop for the last seven days. You got other militias, and husbands and wives, people coming from Oregon, Indiana. We've even got two from Canada." Asked whether his group planned to deploy with weapons, McGauley laughed. "This is Texas, man," he said. And yet the prospect of armed vigilantes showing up beside thousands of US troops along with Border Patrol agents, police officers and migrants is considered serious enough that miliary planners have issued warnings to Army commanders. According to military planning documents obtained by Newsweek, the military is concerned about the arrival of "unregulated militia members self-deploying to the border in alleged support" of US Customs and Border Protection. A migrant runs to catch a ride as his fellow Central American migrants, part of the caravan hoping to reach the US border, get a ride. Credit:AP The assessment estimates that 200 militia members could show up. "They operate under the guise of citizen patrols," the report said, while warning of "incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments." The military report provided no further details about the alleged thefts. Manuel Padilla jnr, the top Border Patrol official in the agency's Rio Grande Valley sector, the nation's busiest for illegal crossings, said he has not issued any instructions to agents in the field or to landowners whose properties are adjacent to the river. But he plans to meet with community members next week, he said, to address their concerns. The night bus to the US border. Credit:AP "We don't have any specific information about the militias," said Padilla, reached by phone along the border. "We have seen them in the past, and when things start getting really busy, we have to make sure to let the community know they're out there." "But they're doing that on their own," Padilla said. McGauley said that in addition to weapons and camping gear, his group will have night vision goggles and aerial drones with thermal sensing equipment, capable of operating in darkness. He emphasised that the group would report any suspicious activity to authorities and would heed any instructions from Border Patrol agents or military personnel. Several landowners in the area said they do not want the militias around. Michael Vickers, a veterinarian and rancher who lives an hour north of the border in Falfurrias, said that he will not let militia members from outside the area onto his property and that he doubts most area landowners would trust outsiders. "They are a bunch of guys with a big mouth and no substance to them," said Vickers, a Republican who heads the 300-strong Texas Border Volunteers. The group doesn't call itself a militia, although it patrols ranchland to intercept migrants who hike through the brush to attempt to avoid Border Patrol checkpoints. The group uses ATVs, night vision goggles, spotlights and trained dogs. "People on the [Rio Grande] have been calling us," Vickers said. His group is in a "holding pattern," he said, adding, "we can have 100 volunteers in a hot area in four to eight hours. "We've already talked to a bunch of landowners who wanted to know if we'll be operating if the Border Patrol can't be there to keep their property from being vandalised and their crops from being messed up," he said. "We're ready to move." Others in South Texas are less enthusiastic. Lucy Kruse, 96, said immigrants often stop on her property as they walk through the bush country, sometimes breaking into a small cabin to sleep. Her family's ranch lies amid the thorny mesquite brush, cactus and tawny dry grass 128 kilometres north of the border. As the migrant caravans head north, she and other landowners in the area worry that the number of trespassers walking through their ranches will increase dramatically, but many say the militias coming to the area also pose a threat. "I will not let militia on my land," Kruse said. "They're civilians stepping into a situation where the Border Patrol is supposed to be in control and make decisions. They could damage property or harm workers. I would guess they would be trigger-happy. If they shot someone, they might just say the person they shot was reaching for a gun." Joe Metz, 80, lives in what looks like a pastoral tropical paradise near Mission, a town of 84,000 in the Rio Grande Valley. Tall, green sugar cane grows beside the wide river, and citrus trees dot the sandy small hillocks away from the banks. The Rio Grande is less than two kilometres from Metz's living room window, and a section of border wall crosses his property. He has watched for years as border-crossers ford the river and walk onto his land, their first step on American soil. The wall has slowed the flow significantly, he said, but between 50 and 100 people a day still cross through the farm next door. He worries that the caravan, which includes many women and children, will surge through the area, but he doesn't want armed vigilantes on his farm. "The militia just needs to stay where they are," said Metz, a Republican. "We don't need fanatical people. We don't need anybody here with guns. Why do they have guns? I have dealt with illegals for 30 years, and all of them have been scared, asking for help. The militias need to stay up north where they belong. We have no use for them here. They might shoot someone or hurt someone." But the heir to the state's largest and most influential ranch disagrees. Stephen 'Tio' Kleberg, who has lived most of his life on the 825,000-acre King Ranch outside of Kingsville, said that he will allow militia groups on his ranch, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island. On Thursday, he tweeted out the most racist presidential campaign ad in modern American history, a mash-up of falsehoods and nativism. He started his presidential bid warning that Mexicans were rapists and murderers; hes heading into the midterms arguing that, actually, its all immigrants crossing the southern border. Instead, Trump has returned to the rhetoric that launched his presidential campaign more than three years ago: fear-mongering and racism. On the eve of the midterm elections, the American economy is humming . Another quarter-million jobs in October have pushed unemployment down to 3.7 per cent, and, for the first time in a long, long time, wages are starting to rise. Doubling-down on hate has been one of Trumps core tactics, the one he returns to again and again. In the years since, weve seen the consequences of that rhetoric. In just the past week, the United States has witnessed a bomb plot aimed at taking out the leaders of the Democratic Party, the shooting death of two African-Americans by an avowed white supremacist, and the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. Trump bears at least part of the blame for these crimes. He is well aware of the rise in violent white nationalism in the United States. It was, after all, only one day after Trump announced his presidential bid that white supremacist Dylann Roof walked into a historically black Emanuel church in Charleston and slaughtered nine people. Trump had nothing to do with Roofs crimes. Rather, his campaign helped legitimise the racial animosities that have become more mainstream in the past few years. White supremacists celebrated Trumps comments after the violence in Charlottesville last year, while mainstream Republicans have worked to turn his nativist promises like his pledge last week to end birthright citizenship into actually policy. Nor has the shocking violence of the past few weeks changed the rhetoric coming from the Republican camp. The call to end birthright citizenship came after the attack on the Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead. So did Trumps pledge to send thousands of troops to the southern border in the next few days, to face off against an unarmed caravan of refugee-seekers who are still more than 1400 kilometres away. Even as crushing operations in the country's top two sugarcane producing states of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have begun, the farmers' outstanding of about Rs 125 billion, pertaining to the 2017-18 season, is likely to be reduced by almost 33 per cent, or Rs 40 billion, by the end of November. Following the Yogi Adityanath government-sponsored soft loan package of Rs 40 billion to help UP private millers settle payments, all the mills meeting the eligibility criteria have applied for these advances. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Over 30% of L&T's power order book is from green energy. It has also electrified 10% of Indian villages over the last decade and modernised ... Industrialist is keen on the e-governance space and has set up a subsidiary company in to get a grip on the solutions, government officials of the Northwestern European nation have said. Ambani has formed a subsidiary with the Estonian government's former chief information officer Taavi Kotka. The joint venture will be looking for solutions in the e-governance space, Viljar Lubi, vice-minister for economic affairs and communications of Estonia, which is a European Union member, told a group of visiting journalists recently. He, however, did not elaborate on the exact scope of the partnership, saying government only plays the role of a facilitator. A Reliance Industries spokesperson refused to share details of the project or plan. Multiple officials in Estonia, which is among the most digitised countries in the world, maintained that the role of private has been crucial in developing the digital infrastructure used by all most all of its citizens. The country claims of 99 per cent of digital penetration. Ambani, the richest Indian who runs the most profitable domestic company Reliance Industries, took an e-residency of the European nation in May this year, the officials said. An e-residency helps a foreigner access the EU opportunity by helping him/her form a company, among other benefits. "We've one of the founders of e-residency programmes, Kotka, who is currently working together with Reliance and to digitalise India in terms of accessing digital identity. "That is why Ambani became an e-resident recently," a spokesperson for Estonia's e-residency programme said. An email sent to Reliance Industries spokesperson on this aspect was also not answered. Asked if Ambani has visited Estonia, Lubi declined to comment, but named other Indian industrialists like Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy as among those who have visited their country to have a closer look at the work on digitisation. Lubi said while digitisation has helped to get connected its scattered and very low population base the country with a large land mass is home to only 1.4 million citizens -- it can help India as well because it has a large population to be reached out to. There are just about 2,000 Indians who have opted to become e-residents of so far, primarily to access the business opportunity presented by the European Union. Over half of them are freelancers, who unlike big companies, cannot afford to set up subsidiaries in any EU country, the official said. An e-residency enables a person to work for EU clientele and is lapped by startups looking for a footing in the EU. Lubi said Estonian journey to digitalisation started right after regaining independence in 1991 from the erstwhile USSR due to a resource crunch and later it discovered the efficacy of the same as the world went digital. At present, nearly all- - 99 per cent to be precise -- government services are digital in this country and an Estonian gets to know who all have accessed his/her records. If a citizen observes any activity on her information being accessed by an unauthorised entity, including any government department, then she can initiate legal action. The e-residency initiative was started in 2014 as a digital identity for foreigners. Apart from forming a company, an e-resident can access banking services, payment processing and also gets a digital signature. India ranks ninth among the list of countries from where e-residents are coming in, but the pace of growth is very fast, e-residency programme's managing director Kaspar Korjus said. The country is aiming to increase the number of e-residents from India to 1 million by 2025, he said, pointing out that India has over 50 million freelancers who will be keen on such an initiative. Korjus further said the increasing digitalisation and improved relations between the two governments will also help increase the number of Indians seeking e-residents in his country. By 2025, Tallinn is eyeing to have over 25 million e-residents, he said, and sounded bullish about netting so much given the rising interest in the programme. An e-resident has to pay 100 euros monthly fee along with an enrolment fee of 100 euros for a five-year membership, he said. Tallinn is looking at the programme as an initiative to build its soft power and create "friends of Estonia" who will be of help in a scenario of any threat the country, which borders Russia, he said. The e-residency programme has an annual budget of 4 million euro which it manages to net from the membership fees now, Korjus said, adding however in the future, the government may also look at the initiative as a revenue-generating opportunity as well. Seven in 10 teenage Indian girls want to finish graduation, three in four have a specific career path in mind, and nearly three in four do not want to marry before the age of 21. These are some of the findings of a new survey conducted by Nanhi Kali, a project by the Naandi Foundation, which works with adolescent girls. While 25% girls said they wanted to do post-graduation, 12% said they would like to complete a professional degree, the cross country survey which spoke to 74,000 girls in 28 states and seven cities, found. Further, 33% teenage girls said they would like to be a teacher, ... Amidst the raging controversy surrounding Kerala's Sabarimala temple, a 34-year-old Kali Puja in Kolkata is now getting media attention as it doesn't allow women to step inside the marquee premises, with belief reigning stronger than rights. "Our 34-year-old Panchamunda Kali Puja follows tantra (an ancient esoteric Hindu tradition). Tantric priests from Tarapith have been conducting the Puja every year. We had questioned our ancestors, but they said a female is not even allowed to touch anything," Gangaram Shaw, executive body member of the Chetla Pradip Sangha, told IANS. Kali Puja -- which is celebrated as Diwali in Bengal -- is scheduled to be held on November 6. Shaw mentioned that the restriction on entry has been there ever since the Puja was first held. Another committee member, Manoj Ghosh, said: "As organisers, we want women to be included in the Puja but this is not our Puja as we have to follow whatever the tantrics say." However, a priest of Tarapith temple (265 km from Kolkata), situated on the banks of the Dwarka River in Birbhum district, expressed immense surprise. Tarapith is famous for its tantric practices. "I am one of the aged priests here and I know there are no such rules that prevent the entry of women. Our temple is open for all and I am wondering who are those priests talking about such restrictions," exclaimed Mulmantra Roy, 81. The community Puja, with a budget of around Rs 300,000, is a major crowd-puller and, this year, the organisers plan to bring their 15-feet-tall idol on November 4. The immersion will take place on November 9. But they simply plead helplessness over bringing about any change with regard to the restriction. "People come in large groups and the ground that you can see beside the marquee helps in managing the crowd. We allow them to worship from outside. The restriction is really surprising as the Goddess herself is a woman, but it cannot be changed," Gangaram said. Commenting on the reason cited by the organisers, Indologist Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri said: "This is particularly a patriarchy-induced condition. Most of the Shakti Pujas are done following the tantra rituals and such practice is not prevalent anywhere. Finally, if the tantric has so many problems, then why are they worshipping the female goddess?" "This is not logical and they are projecting a sort of vainglory," Bhaduri affirmed. The women residents of the area seem least bothered about the restrictions as they don't want to break the age-old tradition. "I have seen this Puja when it started during my childhood days. Women can be part of the procession of bringing the idol and also join the visarjan (immersion procession). But once the rituals of the Puja begin, we cannot step inside the pandal. This has been the rule and we have followed it with devotion," Mithu Mantri, a woman resident said. Kim Jung-sook arrived in New Delhi on Sunday for a four-day visit during which she will participate in Diwali festivities and the ground-breaking ceremony of a memorial for a Korean queen in Ayodhya. Kim, who was received by Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, will be the chief guest at the 'Deepotsav' event being organised by the on Tuesday. On Monday, she will meet India's First Lady at the Rashtrapati Bhawan and will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She will also meet External Affairs Minister and attend an event at a school here. Later, on Monday evening, she will leave for Lucknow where she will meet Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister On Tuesday, she will leave for Ayodhya where she will attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Queen Suriratna (Heo Hwang-ok) memorial. "The First Lady's participation in the festivities in Ayodhya will showcase our close civilisational links as well as the ongoing deepening engagement between our two countries," the had said last week. According to Korean legends, Princess Suriratna from Ayodhya had travelled to Korea and married King Kim Suro and became Queen Heo Hwang-ok some 2000 years ago. The will also attend the 'Deepotsav' event in the evening on Tuesday. Kim will leave for Agra on Wednesday for a visit to thee Taj Mahal before heading home. Zimbabwean companies can take advantage of the current high growth trajectory of the Indian economy, Vice President M said here Saturday. He said India and Zimbabwe have shared very cordial relationship that dates back to the 17th century when they were trading in metals, minerals and textiles, however, the economic ties between the two nations have not fully reflected their immense potential. The bilateral trade between the two nations stands at just over $230 million and investment at $500 million, which is "far below the potential". "There are natural synergies and complementarities between the two economies and we need to tap them for our mutual benefit. Zimbabwean companies can take advantage of the current high growth trajectory of the Indian economy," he said while addressing the India-Zimbabwe Business Forum here. India, one of the fastest growing major economies in the world, with a current growth rate of 8.2% is on course to become a 5 trillion economy by 2025. The country has recently become the 6th largest economy in the world with a GDP of $2.6 trillion. "Indian companies could form partnerships in Zimbabwe both for the domestic economy and for the wider Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa(COMESA)," Naidu said. The Vice President said the key areas with potential for two-way trade and investment engagement include mining, equipment manufacture, information and communication technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food processing, auto components, medical devices, defence production, infrastructure and tourism sectors. Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector is key to India's economy. As Zimbabwe's economy is also largely based on SME sector, it can benefit from India's experience, he said. Inviting Zimbabwe companies to set up their business in India, Naidu quoted the World Bank's 'Doing Business 2019' report which said that India, which advanced to 77th place in the global ranking, is now the region's top-ranked economy. "Starting a business was made easier through consolidation of multiple application forms and introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (GST)," the report stated. "India is changing rapidly. The business environment is changing for the better. The archaic regulations are being dismantled. Seamless processes are being introduced," Naidu said. Later in the evening, Naidu laid a wreath at the Heroes Acre, a memorial housing the remains of those people who sacrificed their lives in Zimbabwe's struggle for independence. He will leave for Malawi on Sunday on the last leg of his six-day three-nation tour to Africa, which aims at deepening India's strategic cooperation with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The central government might consider more incentives for textile exporters, to bridge the gap between costing of products originating from the worlds least developed countries and India. The industry has given a representation. Under the global preferential treatment rules in this regard, textiles imported from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam are preferred over those from India. The earlier extension to Indian exporters of lower import duty in developed countries, including America, is no longer available. The reason is the growing size of the Indian economy it has crossed the threshold size in this context, of $3 trillion in Gross Domestic Product. We had become the world's six largest on this measure in 2017. The total in differential duty works out to nearly nine per cent s between products from India and the other smaller economies. With all the present incentives offered by the government and the rupee's recent depreciation, the total duty differential works out to five per cent, on which the government recently announced a two per cent export incentive under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme. ALSO READ: Margins of textile mills buoyed by cotton price fall, but hurdles lie ahead The US government has complained about the INdian incentives at the World Trade Organization (WTO), as legally unsustainable. has set up a committee on the issue. We want this MEIS incentive to be doubled to at least four per cent. Given the marketing skill of ndividual exporters, India would be able to bridge the gap fully, enabling us to boost shipment. Without this increased MEIS, the industry would not be able to compete with the preferentially treated countries, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, said Siddhartha Rajagopal, executive director, The Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council (Texprocil). He said the industry had given the government a representation in this regard. At an awards ceremony, Union textiles Minister asked Texprocil to reach out to the micro, smll and medium-sized (MSME) units in the sector, about a third of the Council's membership. She wanted these businesses to know, she said, that banking institutions have been given only 59 minutes for in-principle approval to loans for small traders and organisations. ALSO READ: Migrants' exodus from Gujarat to reduce India's textile output by 10-15% Expressing joy at the 26 per cent growth of cotton textiles this year, the minister stated this sets a benchmark to double the growth next year. She noted the interest subvention on pre-shipment and post-shipment finance for export by MSMEs had been increased from three to five per cent. Under the package, MSMEs registered under the goods and services tax will get a two per cent interest rebate on incremental loans up to Rs 10 million. A web portal has been launched through which such units may avail of loans up to this size. The segment accounts for about 45 per cent of the sector's manufacturing output and around 40 per cent of export. "The announcements have certainly come as a huge relief for the sector. The majority of them being in the informal sector, they find it extremely difficult to raise funds for their business activities, as credit appraisal is a major challenge, said Ujwal Lahoti, chairman of Texprocil. With just three days until Election Day, candidates are all but done with trying to persuade undecided voters, and they are using the last weekend before the midterm elections to encourage supporters to turn out on Tuesday. Candidates and party leaders across the country fanned out for their final weekend of campaigning, from Virginia to New Jersey to Montana. President Trump also continued a series of rallies, mostly aimed at helping Senate candidates, with plans to appear in five more states on Sunday and Monday before the polls open. The midterms could have a crucial ... Britain would remain in a temporary customs union with the EU, avoiding a hard Irish border, as part of a new deal being thrashed out between and Brussels, according to a Sunday Times report. Senior sources told the newspaper that Prime Minister has secured concessions from Brussels, with the EU agreeing to write an "all-UK" customs union into the divorce deal. This would avoid the EU's "backstop" solution that would have treated differently from the rest of Britain. There will be an "exit clause" from the customs union in a bid to convince Brexiteers that it is not a permanent arrangement as May looks to secure enough votes to get the deal through parliament, it added. Downing Street refused to confirm the report, telling AFP it was "all speculation", but that negotiations were "going well". The Irish border has proved the biggest obstacle to a deal, with both sides vowing not to reinstate a hard border between and for fear of destabilising the peace accord that ended decades of deadly sectarian violence. Under the reported deal, the EU accepts that regulatory checks on goods can be carried out in factories and shops rather than at the border, the Sunday Times said. That keeps open the possibility of Britain securing a future free trade agreement similar to the one signed between and the EU in 2016. The opposition Labour party has all but ruled out supporting any deal May reaches with Brussels, leaving the prime minister reliant on her slender parliamentary majority that comprises her own divided MPs and coalition partners the Democratic Unionist Party of She is expected to warn her most stridently anti-EU MPs that they will be held responsible for the consequences of a no-deal if they do not vote for her deal. However, if these Brexiteers are not convinced that the customs union is only a temporary measure they would almost certainly rebel. Her cabinet is due to hold talks over the plan on Monday, with a potential EU summit pencilled in for the end of November if they agree enough progress has been made. Parliament would then vote on the deal in December. Separately, more than 70 business leaders penned a letter to the Sunday Times calling for a second referendum. Cobra Beer founder Lord Bilimoria and former Marks and Spencer chairman Alex Chesterman were among those who warned Britain was "facing either a blindfold or a destructive hard Brexit" which would depress investment. "Given that neither was on the ballot in 2016, we believe the ultimate choice should be handed back to the public with a People's Vote," it added. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's legislator son Namal Sunday indicated that the long held demand of the Tamil minority community to release all Tamil prisoners may be fulfilled soon, a move aimed at persuading the Tamil legislators to support "President (Maithripala) Sirisena and Prime Minister would make a decision (on the issue) very soon," Namal tweeted in Tamil language. Since the war with the LTTE ended in 2009, the Sri Lankan government has denied that those imprisoned LTTE members are political prisoners. Tamils say some of the prisoners have been held over a long time under anti-terrorism law without even being formally charged. Namal's comments are aimed at persuading the legislators in the Sri Lanka's main Tamil party - Tamil National Alliance (TNA) - to switch their allegiance to in his bid to prove majority in the parliament. So far Rajapaksa has 100 MPs on his side while sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has 103 MPs in the 225-member assembly. Most of the 22 remaining MPs, including the TNA, are likely to oppose Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa camp had already enticed a TNA legislator to join ranks by giving him a deputy ministerial position. The TNA's parliamentary strength has been reduced to 15 as a result and there was speculation that at least 4 more of them were willing to support Rajapaksa. The TNA has said it will support a no-trust motion Rajapaksa, amid mounting pressure on President Sirisena to let the suspended parliament hold a vote to end the ongoing political crisis. In a statement, the TNA Saturday said Rajapaksa's appointment was a violation of the Constitution's 19th amendment. The alliance had "decided to vote in favour of the no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa," the statement said. Rajapaksa claims he has enough numbers to prove his majority and at least six of Wickremasinghe's men have defected to his side. The current suspension of parliament by the president is seen as a key to Rajapaksa negotiating for enough defections. Wickremesinghe was sacked by President Sirisena on October 26. His United National Party claims that Wickremesinghe's sacking was "unconstitutional and illegal". The president's move has plunged the country into a constitutional crisis with Wickremesinghe claiming he is still the prime minister. Sri Lanka's main Tamil party - Tamil National Alliance - Saturday said it will support a no-trust motion against newly appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, amid mounting pressure on President Maithripala Sirisena to let the suspended parliament hold a vote to end the political crisis. Rajapaksa claims he has enough numbers to prove his majority and at least six of ousted premier Ranil Wickremasinghe's men have defected to his side. The current suspension of parliament by the president is seen as a key to Rajapaksa negotiating for enough defections. Wickremesinghe was sacked by President Sirisena on October 26. His United National Party claims that Wickremesinghe's sacking was "unconstitutional and illegal". The president's move has plunged the country into a constitutional crisis with Wickremesinghe claiming he is still the prime minister. In a statement, the Tamil National Alliance said Rajapaksa's appointment was a violation of the Constitution's 19th amendment. The alliance had "decided to vote in favour of the no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa," the statement added. S Vilenthiriyan, one of the TNA legislators from the eastern province, has extended his support to Rajapaksa. He was made a deputy minister. At least 4 more of the TNA's 16 MPs are believed to be to joining Rajapaksa. Wickremesinghe's United National Party said they have handed over a motion of no-confidence against Rajapaksa. His call for a floor test in parliament has been ignored by Sirisena who has suspended parliament until November 16. Sirisena has been sending conflicting signals about his willingness to end the parliamentary suspension. Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has come under pressure from a majority of legislators to reconvene parliament. But Sirisena's suspension order leaves him with no option but to seek the consent of the president to recall the assembly. The suspension is aimed at helping Rajapaksa gain parliamentary majority by engineering defections from Wickremesinghe's party and other allied parties to build the 113 seats required for the majority, experts said. Some of the legislators have claimed that huge amounts are being offered to them to defect. Palitha Range Bandara, a legislator of Wickremesinghe's party, has said he was offered USD 2.8 million to extend support to Rajapaksa's bid to prove his majority. "I was asked to make a step forward to become a cabinet minister," Bandara told reporters as he played a voice recording of a conversation he allegedly had with a Sirisena loyalist, who told him that he would be rewarded with a Cabinet position. Bandara also said that he was possessing a telephone recording of a conversation with "a very powerful person". "I have a recording of a conversation with a VVIP which I will play very soon," Bandara said. So far Wickremesinghe has 103 MPs while Rajapaksa has 100 in the 225-member assembly. Most of the 22 remaining MPs, including the TNA, are likely to oppose Rajapaksa, experts said. The UNP said that Sirisena's people were "shamelessly trying to buy our MPs over to secure this unconstitutional and illegal seizure of power. The police must take action immediately". Wickremesinghe has refused to accept his dismissal, claiming to be the country's legitimate premier. He argues that he cannot legally be removed until he loses the support of Parliament and called for a floor test to prove his majority. On Tuesday, angry protests rocked Sri Lanka's capital as thousands of demonstrators gathered for a rally organised by Wickremesinghe's party against what it said was a "coup" by President Sirisena. As many as 151 migrants were held in different parts of Turkey on Saturday, security sources said. In Izmir province, at least 27 refugees, including women and children were detained off coastal Dikili district, Anadolu News Agency quoted a security source as saying. The source added that the migrants were attempting to complete a journey to Greece on a rubber boat. Out of the 27 migrants, 25 of them were Afghan nationals, while the remaining two were Syrians. In Aydin province, 30 refugees were detained by the security forces in Didim, while they were trying to cross into Europe. Turkish police also detained about 78 undocumented migrants of Pakistani, Iraqi, Iranian, Afghan and Algerian nationals near the Bulgarian border in Kirklareli province. Furthermore, 16 refugees were held by border guards, after they attempted to illegally enter Turkey from Syria in Yayladagi district of Hatay province. Turkish security forces have been engaged in an operation to detain the undocumented migrants who attempt to reach Europe by sea illegally by crossing Turkish waters. Turkey has seen a major influx of migrants who have been trying to reach the European continent especially since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 and the presence of the Islamic State terror group in parts of Syria and Iraq. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The mayor of Utah, Brent Taylor, was killed on Saturday in Kabul in what the United States-backed coalition called an "insider attack." The attacker was a member of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and was immediately killed by other Afghan forces, the NATO-led Resolute Support coalition said, according to CNN. A Facebook post by North Ogden City Councilman Phillip Swanson confirmed the death of Taylor, who was elected to the city council of North Ogden, about 45 miles north of Salt Lake City, in 2009 and became mayor in 2013. "We are devastated by the loss of our Mayor and friend, Brent Taylor. Brent had a profound influence on this community. He was the best of men with the ability to see potential and possibility in everything around him," the post read. Another servicemember, who has not been identified, was also wounded in the attack. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday removed its Uttarakhand organisation General Secretary Sanjay Kumar from his post after a woman party worker accuses him of sexual harassment. Once a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) campaigner, Kumar was holding the responsibility of the organisation for the last seven years. The victim has alleged that Kumar assaulted her at the party's headquarters in Balbir road, sent derogatory messages and also duped her in the pretext of providing a job. The issues came to the fore when the victim lodged a complaint before the party members. Soon after the #MeToo campaign raged in India, many women from all walks of life have opened up about the sexual harassment they faced in the past. Many women have leveled allegations against those who have allegedly sexually assaulted them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab Police on Sunday arrested a Border Security Force (BSF) official from Ferozpur for allegedly sharing sensitive information with Pakistan. The accused identified as Riyazuddin is an officer of the 29th battalion of the BSF. A case under Sections 3 and 4 of the Official Secrets Act 1923 and Section 3-A of the Security Act 1980 has been registered against him. The police have recovered two mobile phones and several sim cards from the possession of the accused. He is a resident of Latur district in Maharashtra and worked as an operator in the force. Station House Officer of Mumdot Police Station, Ranjit Singh said, "The arrest was made on the basis of a complaint filed by a Deputy Commander Rank officer of the Border Security Force. He was sharing sensitive information including confidential details like the photos of the barbed fences, footage of roads and contacts of various BSF personnel." He further told that during the preliminary investigation, Riyazuddin admitted to have been sharing sensitive details regarding the BSF with Pakistan. The accused revealed that he transferred the information through Whatsapp. This comes a month after an official in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was arrested for allegedly passing sensitive information to Pakistani agents. The accused identified as Nishant Aggarwal was working as a senior systems engineer at BrahMos Aerospace unit in Nagpur. He was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti Terrorism Squad in the month of October. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Spiritual leader Jagadguru Ramabhadracarya lashed out at the Centre over the ongoing Ram-Temple-Babri Masjid conflict in Ayodhya, and asked why the union government did not do anything on the issue, when an ordinance was brought by them on the Muslim practice of Triple Talaq. Launching an attack on the central government, he further asserted that 'the community is losing its patience now', "All are our own people but when they behave like others, we feel astonished. They can bring an ordinance on Triple Talaq but what is being done for us. It has been more than four years since he (Narendra Modi) became Prime Minister, if at least he had visited Ayodhya once, we would have felt good. Now our patience is wearing thin." Speaking to media persons after attending the Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti congregation of saints and seers, he said, "Today some decision will be taken. We have to pressurise the government for bringing an ordinance. It doesn't matter if the government remains or not but Ram temple has to be there. Before 6 December some honorable decision will be taken. Ram Mandir will be built in Ayodhya. There are two ways, either there can be an understanding for the construction of Ram Temple or an ordinance has to be brought." Furthermore, Ramabhadracarya asserted that an honourable solution for the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya should come before December 6, adding that the Sant Samiti will announce a firm decision on the issue today. During his address, he also outlined the duration of the movement. "I have been associated with Ram Mandir movement since its beginning. In all these years we have seen a lot of struggle. We have seen people laying out their lives for the cause; we also witnessed the demolition of the structure. We have seen a majority government, we have a lot of hopes but I don't know what to say now." He also criticised both the central government and the Supreme Court and called for a revolution. "We all are very worried. We got majority votes for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and have one expectation that they will solve the issue. But nothing happened; I can see everything going opposite. Today my only submission is that all saints must get together to take a firm decision. We can tolerate no more insult. The court is doing what it is doing, but I want to ask why the case is constantly being deferred. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi didn't give even four minutes to Ram Temple hearing last time, we want to ask why this discrimination with it. It is because probably they have considered us weak. Now it is time to stop giving call for peace and let there be a revolution. The decision of the temple must be taken before 6 December," he asserted. In 2003, Jagadguru Ramabhadracarya had also deposed as an expert witness for religious matters in the Allahabad High Court. On October 29, the Supreme Court adjourned the Ayodhya title suit till next year to fix a date for the hearing. The court was hearing the matter which challenged the 2010 ruling of the Allahabad High Court which divided the disputed land into three parts. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Sunday launched a scathing attack on the Congress, saying that it lacks leadership, strategy and principle. While addressing a public rally days before the first phase of the Assembly election in the state Shah said, "On one side, there is Congress with no leader, no strategy and no principle and on the other hand, there is the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Raman Singh. The Congress always opposed the Chhattisgarh and it was only after Atal Bihari Vajpayee became prime minister that the state was formed." He also drew a comparison between former Congress government at the Centre and the incumbent BJP government at the Centre. "Five years back, when there was the Congress government; it gave Chhattisgarh Rs 48,000 crore during the 13th Finance Commission. When the BJP government came in the 14th pay commission, Rs 1, 37,947 crores was given to Chhattisgarh. So, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government increased the amount by as much as Rs 90,000 crore," Shah said. Outlining the people-oriented policies of the central and state government, Shah further talked about Ujjawala Yojana among other schemes and urged people to vote for the BJP candidates. "Under the Ujjawala Scheme, 36 lakh poor women of the state were provided with gas cylinder and stove. Under Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana, over 2.5 lakh poor people have been provided with a house. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh government was the first one to start giving rice to poor at the rate of Rs 2/kg," Shah said. He urged the people of Chhattisgarh to re-elect Raman Singh in 2018 before once again electing Narendra Modi as Prime Minister in 2019. He also emphasised that both the state and central governments through their combined effort wish to make Chhattisgarh as the most developed state in India in the next five years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Egypt's Interior Ministry on Sunday confirmed that as many as 19 terrorists, linked to the recent attack on a bus carrying a group of Coptic Christians in Cairo, were killed by the country's security forces. The ministry further stated that the security forces had mounted an assault on the terrorist's hideout on Friday, Sputnik reported. At least seven people were killed and 16 others were wounded after gunmen attacked the bus on Friday. The incident occurred when the bus was heading towards the Saint Samuel Coptic Christian monastery close to Minya city, located about 270 km south of the Cairo when the gunmen opened fire indiscriminately at the passengers. The Islamic State (ISIS) had claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda website, Amaq news agency. The ISIS affiliate in Egypt has targeted the minority Egyptian Christians in church bombings and shootings repeatedly in the last few years, threatening further attacks against them. The dreaded terror group also claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings of two Coptic Christian churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria in April last year, which killed 45 people. Coptic Christians make up 10 per cent of Egypt's total population. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee President and Rajya Sabha member Raj Babbar, while commenting on the Naxal activity in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, said the "revolution" undertaken by them should be resolved through conversation. Addressing a media briefing here on Sunday, Babbar said, "I only want to say that the people whose rights have been taken away, who are in misery, who are not being given their right worth, are laying their lives to get back their rights. However, usage of guns by either of the parties will not lead to any solution. A solution will only come out by addressing their problems and having a conversation with them." "Decisions are not made with guns. We need to address their questions. With fear, sycophancy, greed, the people of a revolution cannot be stopped. This is my view and I have also shared it with my party," he added. Responding to a question on whether Naxals are leading the revolution, Babbar said, "Naxal movement was started for the rights. For these rights, we need to sit with people. Some people have lost their way and we need to bring them back on the right path." He also attacked Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh for the 'unfortunate state of health services' in the state and said that despite a doctor being head of the state, locals fail to get good public health facilities. "Chhattisgarh is one such state where the Chief Minister himself is a doctor. People had a lot of hope from him and expected that at least public health facilities will become better. However, unfortunately, in a survey of 21 states, Chhattisgarh featured on 20th place. The situation here has become worse," Babbar asserted. With just over a week for the first phase of Chhattisgarh assembly elections, the battlefield has been set and political parties have blown the election bugle. In the Chhattisgarh assembly polls, there are two phases of voting. In the first phase, voting will be held in 18 constituencies in the southern part of the state, while the second phase of elections will be held on November 20. Counting of votes for both the phases will take place on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India and Zimbabwe have agreed to take the bilateral relations between the countries to the next level by strengthening existing areas of cooperation and opening new areas of engagement Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, who was on a two-day official visit to the African country, met Zimbabwean President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and discussed issues of mutual interest between the two countries. The Vice President and the accompanying delegation also held bilateral talks with the Zimbabwean delegation, co-chaired by Zimbabwe Vice President Kembo Dugish Campbell Mohadi. The two sides reviewed the entire gamut of the bilateral relations and multilateral cooperation. Both the leaders condemned terrorism in all its forms and stressed that there can be no justification whatsoever for any act of terrorism. The leaders also expressed their commitment to work together at the United Nations and other multilateral for fighting the menace of terrorism. Zimbabwe also welcomed the defence training slots extended by India to Zimbabwe Defence Forces to train in premier Indian Defence Institutions. During the visit, Vice President Naidu also announced USD 310 million Line of Credit for up-gradation of Hwange Thermal Power Station, USD 23 million Line of Credit for rehabilitation of Bulawayo Thermal Power Plant and an additional USD 19.5 million Line of Credit for Deka Pumping and River Water Intake System. Apart from this, grant for construction of Mahatma Gandhi Convention Centre, USD 2.93 million grants for up-gradation of Indo-Zim Technology Centre and 10 Indian made Ambulances were also gifted to Zimbabwe. With an aim to enhance trade and economic relation, Vice President Naidu and the Zimbabwean President called upon the private sectors to explore and take advantage of the pro-business climate existing in both countries. Six Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) were also signed during this visit for cooperation in the fields of geology, mining and mineral resources, action plan on information and communication technology, cooperation in the field of traditional medicine and homeopathy, cooperation in the field of arts, culture and heritage, cooperation and collaboration on broadcasting, and visa Waiver Agreement for holder of diplomatic and official/service passport passports. Vice President Naidu also laid a wreath at National Heroes Acre Monument in Harare, where the national heroes of Zimbabwe are honoured and laid to rest. The Vice President also addressed the Indian community in Harare and laid the foundation stone of new Chancery project. Naidu was accompanied by Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Krishan Pal Gurjar, two Members of Parliament and other senior Government officials and a business delegation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Another member of the burglary gang that robbed five ATMs in Kerala's city earlier in the month was arrested from Bharatpur on Sunday. Meanwhile, another accused, Pappi Sardar, is already in Police's custody in connection with a bikes burglary case. A five-member-gang allegedly looted a total of Rs 38 lakhs from five ATMs in on October 12. Kaman Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Raisingh Beniwal informed that the Police had approached the Police after identifying the accused from the CCTV footage received during the investigation. Beniwal further said that three accused, namely Nasim Mev, Nazim Mev, and Sardar, are residents of and the other two are truck drivers from The three residents had earlier carried out such incidents in several states including and Delhi, he added. During the preliminary interrogation, the detained accused divulged information about the whereabouts of other members of the gang. A search operation is underway to nab the rest of the accused. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a political alliance in Sri Lanka that represents the country's Tamil minority, has decided to back the no-confidence motion brought by the United National Party against newly sworn-in Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. In a statement, the TNA on Saturday refused to recognise Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka's new prime minister and denounced the sacking of former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as "unconstitutional and illegal". The alliance added that the country's President Maithripala Sirisena did not have the absolute power to remove a sitting premier from office, Colombo Page reported. The TNA also condemned Sirisena's move to suspend the Sri Lankan Parliament, amid the political turmoil in the island nation, terming it as "undemocratic" and violation of parliamentary supremacy. Political turmoil erupted in Sri Lanka after Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe on October 26 and replaced him with Rajapaksa following the collapse of the governing coalition between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and UNP. The island nation also witnessed massive protests when hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Colombo against the sacking of Wickremesinghe and demanded reconvening of Parliament to end the constitutional crisis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Sunday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government over the killing of man-eating tigress Avni and termed it a "straight case of crime". Tigress Avni, who was believed to be responsible for the deaths of 13 people in the past two years, was gunned down by sharp-shooter Asgar Ali in Maharashtra's Yavatman on Friday as part of an operation. Reacting to the same, Maneka Gandhi, in a series of tweets, said, "I am deeply saddened by the way tigress Avni has been brutally murdered in Yavatmal." Vowing to take up the issue "legally, criminally as well as politically", the Union Minister also came down heavily on S Mungantiwar, Minister for Forests, and said that many animals and not only Avni, have been gunned down on the latter's directives. "It is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite requests from his own forest department and People all over India, Sudhir Mugantiwar, Minister for Environment and Forests, Maharashtra gave orders for the killing," she wrote in another tweet. "This is the third tiger being killed on directions of the Environment and Forest Minister. Earlier, a dozen leopards and 300 wild boars have been killed on his directions. I am shocked that such a person is continuing to hold a ministerial position," Maneka Gandhi added. The BJP leader also slammed sharp-shooter Asgar Ali, saying he was not authorised to gun down the tigress, and yet he carried out the task illegally. "Every time he has used the Hyderabad shooter, Shafat Ali Khan and this time his son has also appeared on the scene illegally to kill the tigress. His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilise, capture and quarantine the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under direct orders of Mungantiwar. The tigress was a mother. Now her two cubs will also die," she wrote. Further informing that she would write to the Maharashtra Chief Minister urging him to take strong action in the matter, Maneka said, "We cannot allow this kind of insensitive and merciless attitude towards animals to prevail. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Yoga Guru Ramdev on Sunday opined that if married couples have more than two children, their voting rights should be taken away. Addressing the gathering on the second day of the Gyan Kumbh, Ramdev said that bachelors like him should be honoured. "Individuals who are yet to be married, like myself, should get special recognition. Married couples having more than two children should not be allowed to vote," he said. Justifying this statement, Ramdev said that giving birth to more than two children can ultimately turn into a matter of grave concern, as the population is already rising at an alarming rate. "In the present scenario, the total population of the country has already reached more than 1.25 billion. In such a case, giving birth to more than two children can ultimately become a matter of grave concern. Today, we should make sure that every person in the country is aware of the excess population in the country," he said. The first Gyan Kumbh, which is being jointly organised by the Higher Education Department of the Uttarakhand Government and the University of Patanjali in Haridwar, was inaugurated on Saturday by President Ram Nath Kovind. The event aims at enhancing the quality of education in India. Speaking on the inauguration of the event, Ramdev had said that through the Gyan Kumbh, India has to be built by incorporating knowledge in every field of the society. "We will be successful in this and through this knowledge Kumbh, the entire country will be appreciated, just as we have the yoga revolution in the same way as the knowledge of all the world," he added. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday wrote a letter to Union Minister of Coal Piyush Goyal, stating the problems faced by the 'land losers' of Odisha whose lands have been acquired by Coal India Limited (CIL) subsidiary, Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL). The lands have been acquired by the MCL under the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act (CBA (A&D) Act) for coal mining. "More than 23,000 hectares of land has been acquired under the CBA (A&D) Act for coal mining projects of the MCL in Angul and Jharsuguda districts alone. Of this, only about 10,700 hectares of land has been utilized so far and 3,400 hectares is planned to be utilized within the next five years. Out of the balance area of 9,250 hectares, there are no plans for utilization of 3,600 hectares even in the next ten years," read the letter. The letter further stated that the MCL only takes the rehabilitation and resettlement of the people at the time of its actual utilisation for mining purpose which leads to them waiting indefinitely for it. "These persons are neither able to avail the facilities of development schemes nor can construct structures for their accommodation until they are actually rehabilitated and resettled," it added. The Odisha Chief Minister also suggested that the land which is not required for coal mining within the next five years 'may be denotified.' It was also requested that the Coal Company should take the responsibility of the local development work and provision of basic amenities for the people living in the area until the completion of rehabilitation and resettlement. The letter also made an appeal for compensation to the land-owners for the civil structures constructed by them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Launching a scathing attack at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said the Prime Minister is an 'Anaconda' who is swallowing up institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), among others. "Who is a bigger Anaconda than (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi. He himself is the Anaconda, who swallowed all the institutions. He is swallowing up institutions like CBI, RBI etc. Andhra Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders should know this," he claimed. Ramakrishnudu further asserted that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will fight dictatorship, hegemony, and pride- three qualities, he claimed, the BJP possesses. "Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is speaking of past Past cannot be present or future. But present and future will become past. The critics of TDP should understand this truth. TDP was not established against any single party. It was found against the system. Late NTR had founded TDP to fight dictatorship and hegemony. TDP was found for the security of marginal and downtrodden and for empowring minorities," he added. Reiterating TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu's stance, Ramakrishnudu said the party's primary responsibility is to save the nation, democracy, and constitutional values. "BJP leaders, Narendra Modi, and Amit Shah are violating the constitution and democracy. In such a situation is it not the responsibility of all of us as the citizens of India to face BJP and counter Modi's dictatorial policies? Instead of that why YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Jai Samaikyandhra Party (JSP) are criticising TDP in the same tune? Is it not irresponsibility and anti-constitutional?" he asked. The Andhra Pradesh minister further claimed that the TDP has been playing a key role in whenever needed from day one of its formation. "We did the same in Front and United Front. TDP has a greater responsibility towards the nation. That's why it cannot sit idle as a mute spectator when the safety of the nation is in trouble, democracy is in problems and constitution is in crises. YSRCP and JSP want to grab power but have no responsibilities towards the nation. For the same, they are supporting Narendra Modi, who is demolishing the systems and killing democracy," he said. "TDP was formed for the interests of the state of Andhra Pradesh. It was founded for creating a new political era by encouraging youth, educated and truthful people into TDP has been working in the same direction since last 36 years. Our call for self-respect brought worldwide identity for us. People stopped calling us 'Madrasis' and started identifying as Telugu people," added Ramakrishnudu. In response to the state finance minister's comments, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi asserted that Prime Minister Modi's critics do not have the courage to review the work done by him. "There is a competition going on in abusing popular and hardworking Prime Minister like Narendra Modi. People are not feeling ashamed of using bad words. However, if we see the history, Prime Minister Modi has always stood strong whenever somebody attacked him. These people, who are abusing him, also know this. They don't have the courage to review the works done by Prime Minister Modi," he told ANI. Ties between the TDP and BJP have been strained ever since the Chandrababu Naidu-led party pulled out of the Democratic Alliance (NDA) alleging that the BJP-led central government had betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh by not granting special category status to the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 2 Vote(s) - 5 Average 1 2 3 4 5 The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471804 11-04-2018 03:33 AM Post: #1 The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton Advertisement "The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton Sea, at a spot that seismologists long have feared could be the epicenter of a massive earthquake. But in recent months, this desolate location where the North American and Pacific plates rub together has become the focus of intense interest for a type of movement that is less the Big One than the Slow One. A muddy spring mysteriously has begun to move at a faster pace through dry earth first 60 feet over a few months, and then 60 feet in a single day, according to Imperial County officials....." http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me...story.html at a spot that seismologists long have feared could be the epicenter of a massive earthquake.But in recent months, this desolate location where the North American and Pacific plates rub together has become the focus of intense interest for a type of movement that is less the Big One than the Slow One.A muddy spring mysteriously has begun to move at a faster pace through dry earth first 60 feet over a few months, and then 60 feet in a single day, according to Imperial County officials....." LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471804 11-04-2018 03:38 AM Post: #2 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton ALADIN * weird wizard1* User ID: 464497 11-04-2018 03:43 AM Posts: 5,423 Post: #3 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton https://watchers.news/2018/11/02/salton-...alifornia/ Salton Buttes lava domes: Mud volcano threatens railroad track and state highway, California It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a ma s k on their nose and mouth ... LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 462574 11-04-2018 03:50 AM Post: #4 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton I'm in Santa Clara County. People here are very wicked and all they think about is money and screwing over anybody in their way. Maybe its best, you know . . ALADIN * weird wizard1* User ID: 464497 11-04-2018 03:56 AM Posts: 5,423 Post: #5 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton Sea, at a spot that seismologists long have feared could be the epicenter of a massive earthquake. But in recent months, this desolate location where the North American and Pacific plates rub together has become the focus of intense interest for a type of movement that is less the Big One than the Slow One. A muddy spring mysteriously has begun to move at a faster pace through dry earth first 60 feet over a few months, and then 60 feet in a single day. EDIT http://strangesounds.org/2018/11/a-movin...fault.html A moving geyser? Residents in California are concerned about a mud geyser that has moved along the San Andreas FaultThe San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton Sea, at a spot that seismologists long have feared could be the epicenter of a massive earthquake. But in recent months, this desolate location where the North American and Pacific plates rub together has become the focus of intense interest for a type of movement that is less the Big One than the Slow One. A muddy spring mysteriously has begun to move at a faster pace through dry earth first 60 feet over a few months, and then 60 feet in a single day.EDIT It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a ma s k on their nose and mouth ... (This post was last modified: 11-04-2018 03:58 AM by ALADIN .) LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471804 11-04-2018 04:53 AM Post: #6 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton the soil is moving?? because this place is where the San Andreas fault begins...according to this site... use google translate https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/294...california why is it moving??the soil is moving??because this place is where the San Andreas fault begins...according to this site...use google translate LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471804 11-04-2018 05:01 AM Post: #7 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton 'Slow earthquakes' on San Andreas Fault increase risk of large quakes, say ASU geophysicists https://asunow.asu.edu/2018018-discoveri...rge-quakes California fault finds new kind of movement not accounted for in earthquake forecasting "Geologists have long thought that the central section of California's famed San Andreas Fault from San Juan Bautista southward to Parkfield, a distance of about 90 miles has a steady creeping movement that provides a safe release of energy. Creep on the central San Andreas during the past several decades, so the thinking goes, has reduced the chance of a big quake that ruptures the entire fault from north to south...." It is related to this It seems that "they" release the info in pieces, so we have to put the pieces together.... "Geologists have long thought that the central section of California's famed San Andreas Fault from San Juan Bautista southward to Parkfield, a distance of about 90 miles has a steady creeping movement that provides a safe release of energy.Creep on the central San Andreas during the past several decades, so the thinking goes, has reduced the chance of a big quake that ruptures the entire fault from north to south...."It is related to thisIt seems that "they" release the info in pieces, so we have to put the pieces together.... LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471804 11-04-2018 05:04 AM Post: #8 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 05:01 AM) 'Slow earthquakes' on San Andreas Fault increase risk of large quakes, say ASU geophysicists https://asunow.asu.edu/2018018-discoveri...rge-quakes California fault finds new kind of movement not accounted for in earthquake forecasting "Geologists have long thought that the central section of California's famed San Andreas Fault from San Juan Bautista southward to Parkfield, a distance of about 90 miles has a steady creeping movement that provides a safe release of energy. Creep on the central San Andreas during the past several decades, so the thinking goes, has reduced the chance of a big quake that ruptures the entire fault from north to south...." It is related to this It seems that "they" release the info in pieces, so we have to put the pieces together.... "New research by two Arizona State University geophysicists, however, shows that the earth movements along this central section have not been smooth and steady, as previously thought. Instead, the activity has been a sequence of small stick-and-slip movements sometimes called "slow earthquakes" that release energy over a period of months. Although these slow earthquakes pass unnoticed by people, the researchers say they can trigger large destructive quakes in their surroundings. One such quake was the magnitude 6 event that shook Parkfield in 2004. "What looked like steady, continuous creep was actually made of episodes of acceleration and deceleration along the fault," said Mostafa Khoshmanesh, a graduate research assistant in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) . He is the lead author of a Nature Geoscience paper reporting on the research." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0160-2 "New research by two Arizona State University geophysicists, however, shows that the earth movements along this central section have not been smooth and steady, as previously thought.Instead, the activity has been a sequence of small stick-and-slip movements sometimes called "slow earthquakes" that release energy over a period of months. Although these slow earthquakes pass unnoticed by people, the researchers say they can trigger large destructive quakes in their surroundings. One such quake was the magnitude 6 event that shook Parkfield in 2004."What looked like steady, continuous creep was actually made of episodes of acceleration and deceleration along the fault," said Mostafa Khoshmanesh, a graduate research assistant in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) . LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 404077 11-04-2018 11:35 AM Post: #9 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton Back after the Whittier Narrows quake they were all worried that the aftershocks were moving to the end of the fault and suddenly stopped. This amateur seismologist I used to listen to on amateur radio was saying the plates probably stuck or locked & the energy never released. Made more sense than the theories USGS were pushing. Another thing to look at, check the location against old old maps that show when that area was like a big bay open all the way to the ocean. More that likely underground water flushing sand back out to sea. Go back in your old history & maps. And you'll find more / netter info than the USGS geologists are guessing at now days. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 472115 11-06-2018 03:05 AM Post: #10 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 11:35 AM) Back after the Whittier Narrows quake they were all worried that the aftershocks were moving to the end of the fault and suddenly stopped. This amateur seismologist I used to listen to on amateur radio was saying the plates probably stuck or locked & the energy never released. Made more sense than the theories USGS were pushing. Another thing to look at, check the location against old old maps that show when that area was like a big bay open all the way to the ocean. More that likely underground water flushing sand back out to sea. Go back in your old history & maps. And you'll find more / netter info than the USGS geologists are guessing at now days. LINK?? LINK?? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 404077 11-06-2018 08:45 AM Post: #11 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton LoP Guest Wrote: (11-06-2018 03:05 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 11:35 AM) Back after the Whittier Narrows quake they were all worried that the aftershocks were moving to the end of the fault and suddenly stopped. This amateur seismologist I used to listen to on amateur radio was saying the plates probably stuck or locked & the energy never released. Made more sense than the theories USGS were pushing. Another thing to look at, check the location against old old maps that show when that area was like a big bay open all the way to the ocean. More that likely underground water flushing sand back out to sea. Go back in your old history & maps. And you'll find more / netter info than the USGS geologists are guessing at now days. LINK?? This amateur seismologist I used to listen to on amateur radio was saying the plates probably stuck or locked & the energy never released. If you can show me how to link to an amateur radio from years back I'd be more than glad to! I'm sure if you comprehended more instead of just typing LINK?? people would be a little more inclined to help you get started. Maps?!?! Try doing a search for Baja Calif. or Mexico 1700s - 1900s. You can do it! I have faith in you! I know you can type more than four letters! This amateur seismologist I used towas saying the plates probably stuck or locked & the energy never released. If you can show me how to link to an amateur radio from years back I'd be more than glad to! I'm sure if you comprehended more instead of just typing LINK?? people would be a little more inclined to help you get started. Maps?!?! Try doing a search for Baja Calif. or Mexico 1700s - 1900s. You can do it! I have faith in you! I know you can type more than four letters! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471842 11-06-2018 10:15 AM Post: #12 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton Dire Straits! Saltons of Swing... Dire Straits!Saltons of Swing... LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 470397 11-06-2018 11:20 AM Post: #13 RE: The San Andreas fault begins its dangerous dance through California at the Salton Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Prakash Javadekar on Saturday said that Ram Temple was never a poll plank for the party. The BJP leader, who is election in-charge for Rajasthan, said that Ram Temple is a matter of belief for the people of the country. "Ram Temple has never been the poll plank for the BJP, as it is a matter of belief. The country has fought for the temple from the last 500 years, even when polls were not held in the country," he said while addressing a press conference here. Javadekar further hit out at the Congress party and asked them to clarify its stance on the construction of the Ram Temple. "One day in the favour of one community and the other day, a complete flip, a Shiv Bakht. That's the trait of the Congress party. Ghulam Nabi Azad is a victim of it. But BJP never makes any difference among its party leaders," he said. Rajasthan is scheduled to go for polls on December 7, while the counting will take place on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of the opening of the Sabarimala Temple for one-day special prayers, the leaders of the Congress party in Kerala held a protest in Pathanamthitta district on Sunday against the Supreme Court verdict allowing the entry women of all age groups in the temple. The temple will be opened for a day from the evening of November 5 to the evening of November 6. Speaking to ANI, Congress leaders PJ Kurien and Ramesh Chennithala accused the Centre and the state governments of politicising the issue instead of finding a solution to it. The former deputy speaker of Rajya Sabha, PJ Kurien, told ANI, "We don't want any violence, but the government (state) is trying to enforce the Supreme Court's order, trying to allow women between 10-50 years to enter the temple. My view is that the government (state) should call the interest of all parties and try to settle the issue." He suggested that similar to the Jallikattu row, an ordinance can be issued to solve the problem. "The government (state) can move to the court to review the order and try to find a solution, instead of converting Sabarimala into a place of conflict. Similar to the Jallikattu, an ordinance can be issued. If that is done, the whole problem will be solved," he said. Echoing the same sentiment, Ramesh Chennithala told ANI, "We want peace in Sabarimala. There should be a conducive atmosphere for all the pilgrims to go to Sabarimala. There is no pilgrim only police force at Sabarimala, this is atrocious. They (Centre and State governments) are creating problems and not doing anything for the pilgrims. There is a sizable decrease in the number of pilgrims in Sabarimala." Meanwhile, the police have not received any request from any woman for security assistance in order to visit the sanctum sanctorum. Keeping in view with the ongoing conflict over the Supreme Court's verdict, the state government tightened the security around the temple. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Following a scuffle with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters during the inauguration ceremony of New Delhi's Signature Bridge, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state chief Manoj Tiwari on Sunday threatened to teach lesson to police personnel, who attacked him during the event, within four days. Speaking to ANI, Tiwari said, "I am here till the time the bridge is being inaugurated. I have identified the police personnel who attacked me. There is only one person who is saying that I have attacked someone from the Aam Aadmi Party and he happens to be the Additional DCP-1 of this area. Within four days, I am going to teach all of them (police personnel) a lesson." Meanwhile, AAP leader Dilip Pandey hit out at the Delhi BJP chief, accusing him of doing hooliganism. "Thousands of people have come here to celebrate without an invitation card, but the MP (Manoj Tiwari) considers himself VIP. He is doing hooliganism. The BJP people thrashed AAP volunteers and local people. They are admitted to hospital," he told ANI. Earlier today, Manoj Tiwari was allegedly stopped by the police and the AAP supporters from attending the inauguration event. Speaking to the media following the tussle, Tiwari had said, "I am a Member of Parliament from this area. I got the work for this bridge restarted and this is how Arvind Kejriwal is treating me." "I was invited to the inauguration event. So what is the problem? Am I a criminal? Why have the police surrounded me? I'm here to welcome him (Arvind Kejriwal). The AAP and police have misbehaved with me," he had further said. The 575-meter bridge was inaugurated by the Chief Minister today and will be open for public use by tomorrow. The Signature Bridge project aims to reduce travel time and traffic congestion between the north-eastern and northern parts of the capital. The bridge, built over the Yamuna River, will be the first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge in India. The bridge also includes a glass-steel observation deck at the top of the bride, although it will not be available for public use for at least another three months, according to media reports. The deck offers a panoramic view of the city. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation led by party leader Derek O'Brien on Sunday met the families of the five people who were killed by United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) terrorists. The delegation, comprising TMC Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha legislator Nadimul Haq and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Mahua Moitra, announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to be paid to the kin of those who were killed. The deceased, identified as Ananta Namasudra, Abinash Namasudra, Subal Das, Dhanai Namasudra and Syamal Biswas from the Bengali community, were killed at around 7 pm on November 1 in Bishnoimukh village near Dhola-Sadiya Bridge. State Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had condemned the attack and directed law enforcement agencies to take stringent action against the culprits. The ULFA is a separatist outfit operating in North-East India for the indigenous Assamese people. Their main aim is to establish a sovereign Assam with an armed struggle. The central government had banned ULFA in 1990 citing it as a terrorist organisation, while the United States Department of State lists it under "other groups of concern. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran actor Anupam Kher was conferred a 'Distinguished Fellow' title at the Cambridge MIT Sloan School of Management here. "Thank you IndiaGlobal at Cambridge MIT Sloan School... This honour gives me a further sense of responsibility towards my country. A lower middle class Kashmiri boy from Shimla has come a long way," Anupam tweeted on Sunday. He also shared a few photographs from the event and he is seen holding up a frame which has details about the honour. The full-day India Global Summit at MIT Sloan School of Management was an opportunity to learn about India's emerging influence in the global economy. Anupam was one of the key speakers. The actor, who has featured in over 500 movies, has been busy shooting in New York for American series "New Amsterdam". Earlier, he resigned as chief of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) due to his work commitment. --IANS rb/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Athiya Shetty, who will turn 26 on Monday, says she finds a feel-good factor about spending her special day working. The actress is in Bhopal and will be shooting for the film "Motichoor Chaknachoor" with actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui. "My most special birthday had to be the one when I turned 18 and I got the narration of my first ever film. I always try to do some kind of work on my birthday since it gives me great energy and happiness. I just feel good about it," Athiya said in a statement to IANS. "I did get a chance to take a day off and come back home, but I chose to work. I don't get excited about birthdays. I am not a party person. Just being with my loved ones and family is how I usually celebrate my birthday," she added. Athiya is the daughter of actor Suniel Shetty. She started her film career with the 2015 film "Hero" and was later seen in "Mubarakan". Her new film "Motichoor Chaknachoor" is being described as a romantic wedding comedy. --IANS rb/ahm/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bihar government on Sunday dismissed 175 police constables and suspended 23 police officials for rampaging in the city after the death of a female colleague, who was reportedly denied leave despite being ill. More than 300 police constables had gone on a rampage here on November 2, damaging properties and attacking police officers, after a woman colleague who had reportedly been refused leave died. Of the 175 police constables dismissed, most were trainees. The government also suspended 23 police officials, including havildars and assistant sub-inspectors. According to officials, the action was taken after a high-level meeting of top police officers here. Hours after the police constables went on a rampage, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asked Bihar police chief K.S. Dwivedi to submit a detailed report at the earliest. --IANS ik/shs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A number of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ministers including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday seconded a demand by Hindu seers for an ordinance or law for construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The Congress on the other hand accused the BJP of remembering Ram temple when the election approaches and said the BJP also knows that any ordinance will be unconstitutional as the issue is pending before the Supreme Court. Speaking at an event at Bikaner in Rajasthan, Yogi Adityanath said: "Light an extra lamp for Lord Ram this Diwali as you see your sentiments taking shape, because the work will soon begin there (Ayodhya). The time has come to fulfil that resolve. After Deepawali, we will move forward." Union Minister Uma Bharti said no one could stop a Ram temple at Ayodhya. "A grand temple will be built, nobody can stop it. Rama Lalla will keep presiding where he is now," she said. Giriraj Singh, another Union Minister, said in Bihar's Nawada that "no power in the world" could come in the way of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. "The (Supreme) Court has taken several matters in the middle of the night. So if they have time for terrorists, why not for Ram who is the object of faith for 125 crore Indians? People had high hopes, their hopes were dashed and that is why they are filled with anger. No power in the world can come in the way of Ram Mandir," Singh said. Minister of State for Law and Justice P.P. Chaudhary said he "personally" felt that a law should be brought for construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya. "Ram Mandir should certainly be built. We want a judgment on this at the earliest. It is the desire of 85 per cent of the population that a judgment on it should come fast," Chaudhary said. "I cannot speak on behalf of the government, but my personal opinion is that since the court is taking very long in this matter, a legislation can be brought," he added. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said it was the government's right to decide where to install Lord Ram's idol. "Whether Ram's idol will be installed or not, nobody has a right to discuss this mater but the government. Government has the right to decide whose idol it installs and where. If there is a need to install Lord Ram's idol, then it is our duty to do it. And people should not worry about it. The opposition at this moment is worried," Sharma said. The Congress, however, dismissed the BJP's pitch as plain ahead of elections. Congress leader Tom Vadakkan told the media that the party has cleared its stand on the issue. "This matter is pending before the Supreme Court and in such condition bringing an ordinance or private member bill and time to time their (BJP) leaders remarks are completely unconstitutional." Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari said that the Congress party's stand was clear, which is to wait for the court's verdict. "The Congress party's stand is that we should wait for the court's decision or resolve it through talks," Tiwari said, adding that whatever the BJP leaders were speaking made no sense. A congregation of Hindu seers here on Sunday demanded the government bring an ordinance or a law for construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, stressing that even the courts have to respect the "public sentiments". --IANS aks/ahm/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Emphasising on the need for a social security buffer, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said the successive governments at the Centre have been underspending in the health and education sectors. "We are grossly underspending both on health and education as a percentage of GDP and government's budget," he said. There is a "prime need of social security buffer", not necessarily in the form the government is now giving, he said. According to him, insurance companies are the "gainers" with the government backed insurance scheme. "For example, we discovered 90 per cent of government expenditure in the crop insurance scheme - Fasal Bima Yojana - has gone to insurance companies and only 10 per cent has been paid out to farmers. That is a bad idea," he said at an interactive session organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce. He underlined the need for massive government investment in the public sector hospitals, primary and community healthcare sector where treatment will be free. "If we have a decent infrastructure available at the public sector hospitals, the question of needing a subsidized insurance scheme should not exist," he said. Tharoor, the MP from Thiruvananthapuram, said people's expenditure on their own health is increasing and the rising cost of treatment is problematic for daily wage earners and poor families. He added that higher education is over-regulated and under-governed and at the school level, it is focusing on memorization and passing of exams and not in creative thinking. --IANS bdc/ahm/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China on Sunday patted Pakistan for its "efforts" to have peace talks with India to resolve the "outstanding" Kashmir dispute. During the ongoing China visit by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Beijing and Islamabad issued a joint statement which had some references to India and the issues where it is involved. "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," the statement said. After taking to power in August, Khan had sought to resume dialogue with India after almost two years of chill in bilateral ties following a deadly attack by Pakistani terrorists at an Indian army base in 2016. India agreed for a meeting between its External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in September, only to cancel it after another attack by Pakistani terrorists. China says it has a neutral stance on the Kashmir dispute between Indian and Pakistan, but its officials have hinted that Beijing can try to broker peace between them, an idea junked by New Delhi. The artery of Beijing's Belt and Road project, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is planned through a part of Kashmir held by Pakistan and claimed by India. The statement also said that "negative propaganda" was being spread about the CPEC, in a clear reference to India which opposes the project. "Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to CPEC and agreed that it was a win-win enterprise for the entire region and would bring regional prosperity and development through enhanced connectivity." The officials in Imran Khan government had expressed concern over Chinese investments under the CPEC, fearing that country might not be able to repay its Chinese debts. There was no reference to the highly-anticipated Chinese financial aid to Pakistan, the main reason for Khan's visit. The "all-weather allies" as they call themselves said the UN sanction regimes should not be politicized. "Both sides underscored the need for all states to avoid politicization of the UN sanctions regime and the work of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)." China, a member of the 1267 UN committee, has blocked India's application to ban Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar. Pakistan in June was formally added to the FATF'S 'grey list' of countries which fund terrorists. In the statement, Beijing again backed Pakistan entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) where it has repeatedly refused India's admission. "China supports Pakistan's engagement with the NSG and welcomes its adherence of NSG Guidelines." China says India is a non-signatory to nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty and cannot be let in. It says if India can be given exception, why not Pakistan. The statement talked about Islamabad's support to China in fighting separatists in restive Xingjiang province. To Beijing's surprise, Islamabad had expressed concerns over the treatment of Uighurs Muslims in Xinjiang by Chinese authorities, who they suspect of being separatist and sympathizers of EITM. Islamabad also backed Beijing's entry into the eight-member South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation. On defence, security and counter-terrorism cooperation, both sides agreed to further enhance defence cooperation and maintain high-level visits and exchanges at various levels between the two armed forces. The statement said the two countries had decided to "make full use of the China-Pakistan Defence and Security Consultation mechanism, deepen cooperation in areas such as military exercises, training cooperation, personnel exchanges, and equipment and technology cooperation". --IANS gsh/mr/ahm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 12 Vote(s) - 2.33 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Page: 1 2 3 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is spo snouou Vocem sine nomine audivit! User ID: 350320 11-04-2018 06:26 AM Posts: 67,593 Post: #1 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is Advertisement To be clear: seeking asylum at the border is not illegal, but turning asylum seekers away is illegal. That exactly what this executive order would seek to do. Providing a bridge to safety to those seeking protection is a responsibility our nation took on after the Holocaust. Despite the rhetoric and policy efforts of this administration, U.S. and international law explicitly state that we must offer individuals a fair opportunity to request asylum. Contrary to the presidents assertion that the asylum system is riddled with abuse, it is in fact an arduous process complete with extensive examination and thorough background checks. Individuals approaching the border must first alert a Customs and Border Patrol agent that they are afraid to return to their home countries. This is not easy for anyone given language barriers, fatigue and hunger. Those who have experienced human trafficking, rape, and domestic violence have an especially difficult time communicating these fears to armed, uniformed border guards. As a result, only a fraction of those who could be eligible for protection are even referred to a screening called a credible fear interview conducted by an asylum officer. The majority of asylum seekers do not have legal counsel, have not been given any information about immigration law, and have not had a chance to explain their experiences to trained trauma specialists. This puts them at a severe disadvantage. Still, only if a survivor makes it past this point can she be seen by an immigration judge to present testimony and evidence in support of her asylum case. more: https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/...ot-illegal Once again, this administration is seeking to block people from entering this country based on unsubstantiated claims that they threaten our safety. Much like the 2017 Muslim ban, which failed in federal court, the administration's policies will impact people who have no criminal history at all and who are, in fact, victims of crime with a legal right to seek protection.To be clear: seeking asylum at the border is not illegal, but turning asylum seekers away is illegal. That exactly what this executive order would seek to do. Providing a bridge to safety to those seeking protection is a responsibility our nation took on after the Holocaust. Despite the rhetoric and policy efforts of this administration, U.S. and international law explicitly state that we must offer individuals a fair opportunity to request asylum.Contrary to the presidents assertion that the asylum system is riddled with abuse, it is in fact an arduous process complete with extensive examination and thorough background checks. Individuals approaching the border must first alert a Customs and Border Patrol agent that they are afraid to return to their home countries. This is not easy for anyone given language barriers, fatigue and hunger. Those who have experienced human trafficking, rape, and domestic violence have an especially difficult time communicating these fears to armed, uniformed border guards. As a result, only a fraction of those who could be eligible for protection are even referred to a screening called a credible fear interview conducted by an asylum officer.The majority of asylum seekers do not have legal counsel, have not been given any information about immigration law, and have not had a chance to explain their experiences to trained trauma specialists. This puts them at a severe disadvantage.Still, only if a survivor makes it past this point can she be seen by an immigration judge to present testimony and evidence in support of her asylum case.more: LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471716 11-04-2018 06:30 AM Post: #2 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is THEY'RE NOT SEEKIGN ASYLUM. They have gone past dozens of points at which they could have sought 'asylum' if they were genuine and desperate and in need of safety. They are ECONOMIC REFUGEES coming for the financial benefits. spo snouou Vocem sine nomine audivit! User ID: 350320 11-04-2018 06:30 AM Posts: 67,593 Post: #3 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is And we need to recapture it. A thread follows. 2) This decision needs to be understood as official misconduct of the very highest order. It isn't merely Trump using the military to play politics, which frames the issue too euphemistically. 3) Trump is using the military as a prop to sustain the monstrous and reprehensible campaign fiction that destitute migrants hundreds of miles away pose a national emergency. 4) It is *precisely because* this is such an absurd and monumental falsehood that he is sending in troops. Trump *needs* to do this, in order to create imagery on voters televisions that makes that fiction *appear* real. 5) Former military officers are now on record with @washingtonpost calling this out for what it is. One says the depiction of the migrants as an invasion is fantasy. Another bluntly asks whether the military is being used for political purposes: more: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/10586...76416.html 1) An important point is getting lost in all the discussion of Trumps decision to send troops to the border to protect us from the migrant caravan.And we need to recapture it.A thread follows.2) This decision needs to be understood as official misconduct of the very highest order.It isn't merely Trump using the military to play politics, which frames the issue too euphemistically.3) Trump is using the military as a prop to sustain the monstrous and reprehensible campaign fiction that destitute migrants hundreds of miles away pose a national emergency.4) It is *precisely because* this is such an absurd and monumental falsehood that he is sending in troops.Trump *needs* to do this, in order to create imagery on voters televisions that makes that fiction *appear* real.5) Former military officers are now on record with @washingtonpost calling this out for what it is.One says the depiction of the migrants as an invasion is fantasy.Another bluntly asks whether the military is being used for political purposes:more: LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471355 11-04-2018 06:30 AM Post: #4 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is These are PAID CONSCRIPTS! They are Not Immigrants. They are not Migrants. They not getting ASYLUM! We as a NATION can NO LONGER afford to SUPPORT Liberal Beliefs! 20 TRILLION DOLLARS DEBT Negates The POSSIBILITY! We Can NO LONGER AFFORD Uncontrolled immigration! There must be limits to our generosity! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471798 11-04-2018 06:31 AM Post: #5 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is Legally they are not assylum seekers. The left their country and went to mexico whic offered them assylum and they refused. So...they are invaders. If they were assylum seekers they would have accepted mexicos help. Instead they have looted and pillages their way through mexico spurning all offers of assylum. They have openly spoken against america chanting "death to america" while waving their own countries flags. So what does that tell you? You libs are dumber than dogshit. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471716 11-04-2018 06:31 AM Post: #6 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is OP wants open borders across the globe so his globalist NWO masters can flood the civilised world with violent criminals and rapefugees PENDULUM Registered User User ID: 383624 11-04-2018 06:33 AM Posts: 3,175 Post: #7 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:31 AM) Legally they are not assylum seekers. The left their country and went to mexico whic offered them assylum and they refused. So...they are invaders. If they were assylum seekers they would have accepted mexicos help. Instead they have looted and pillages their way through mexico spurning all offers of assylum. They have openly spoken against america chanting "death to america" while waving their own countries flags. So what does that tell you? You libs are dumber than dogshit. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471355 11-04-2018 06:33 AM Post: #8 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is This says it all! We as a NATION can NO LONGER afford to SUPPORT Liberal Beliefs! 20 TRILLION DOLLARS DEBT Negates The POSSIBILITY! We Can NO LONGER AFFORD Uncontrolled immigration! There must be limits to our generosity! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471716 11-04-2018 06:34 AM Post: #9 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:31 AM) The left their country and went to mexico whic offered them assylum and they refused. You libs are dumber than dogshit. We have the same assclowns here in Australia chanting for open borders and uncontrolled muslim immigration. We need to give the United Nations and their bullshit demands the boot from our countries before they cause even more damage. We have the same assclowns here in Australia chanting for open borders and uncontrolled muslim immigration.We need to give the United Nations and their bullshit demands the boot from our countries before they cause even more damage. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 441964 11-04-2018 06:35 AM Post: #10 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is spo snouou Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:26 AM) Once again, this administration is seeking to block people from entering this country based on unsubstantiated claims that they threaten our safety. Much like the 2017 Muslim ban, which failed in federal court, the administration's policies will impact people who have no criminal history at all and who are, in fact, victims of crime with a legal right to seek protection. To be clear: seeking asylum at the border is not illegal, but turning asylum seekers away is illegal. That exactly what this executive order would seek to do. Providing a bridge to safety to those seeking protection is a responsibility our nation took on after the Holocaust. Despite the rhetoric and policy efforts of this administration, U.S. and international law explicitly state that we must offer individuals a fair opportunity to request asylum. Contrary to the presidents assertion that the asylum system is riddled with abuse, it is in fact an arduous process complete with extensive examination and thorough background checks. Individuals approaching the border must first alert a Customs and Border Patrol agent that they are afraid to return to their home countries. This is not easy for anyone given language barriers, fatigue and hunger. Those who have experienced human trafficking, rape, and domestic violence have an especially difficult time communicating these fears to armed, uniformed border guards. As a result, only a fraction of those who could be eligible for protection are even referred to a screening called a credible fear interview conducted by an asylum officer. The majority of asylum seekers do not have legal counsel, have not been given any information about immigration law, and have not had a chance to explain their experiences to trained trauma specialists. This puts them at a severe disadvantage. Still, only if a survivor makes it past this point can she be seen by an immigration judge to present testimony and evidence in support of her asylum case. more: https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/...ot-illegal Mind your own business!!! Mind your own business!!! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471798 11-04-2018 06:37 AM Post: #11 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:34 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:31 AM) The left their country and went to mexico whic offered them assylum and they refused. You libs are dumber than dogshit. We have the same assclowns here in Australia chanting for open borders and uncontrolled muslim immigration. We need to give the United Nations and their bullshit demands the boot from our countries before they cause even more damage. Thats for sure. Im an Aussie too. I see whats happenning here. We have our own awesome people to deal with. But watching merka fall apart is funny. But its not at the same time. Because if we dont stop the awesome people here...whats about to happen to merka will also happen here. Thats for sure.Im an Aussie too. I see whats happenning here. We have our own awesome people to deal with. But watching merka fall apart is funny. But its not at the same time. Because if we dont stop the awesome people here...whats about to happen to merka will also happen here. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471355 11-04-2018 06:40 AM Post: #12 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is SHIP Every Last one of them to Australiastan! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 471798 11-04-2018 06:40 AM Post: #13 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:37 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:34 AM) We have the same assclowns here in Australia chanting for open borders and uncontrolled muslim immigration. We need to give the United Nations and their bullshit demands the boot from our countries before they cause even more damage. Thats for sure. Im an Aussie too. I see whats happenning here. We have our own L.I.B.F.U.C.K.S to deal with. But watching merka fall apart is funny. But its not at the same time. Because if we dont stop the L.I.B.F.U.C.K.S here...whats about to happen to merka will also happen here. See how thin skinned these L.I.B.F.U.C.K.S are? They chaged it cause..."FEEWINGS". FUCKEN IDIOTS. I CANT WAIT TO SEE MERKA FUCKEN BUUUUUURRRRRNNNNN....IF BUT TO ELIMINATE L.I.B.F.U.K.S. See how thin skinned these L.I.B.F.U.C.K.S are?They chaged it cause..."FEEWINGS".FUCKEN IDIOTS.I CANT WAIT TO SEE MERKA FUCKEN BUUUUUURRRRRNNNNN....IF BUT TO ELIMINATE L.I.B.F.U.K.S. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 470397 11-04-2018 06:47 AM Post: #14 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is LoP Guest Wrote: (11-04-2018 06:40 AM) SHIP Every Last one of them to Australiastan! They will then ship them to an island and deny them asylum also, They will then ship them to an island and deny them asylum also, LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 442089 11-04-2018 06:49 AM Post: #15 RE: 1.Seeking asylum at the border is not illegal 2.turning asylum seekers away is Why don't you complain about the crap country they are fleeing from? The USA shouldn't be the only great country in the Americas. Do some facebook revolution or something like they did in Libya and Egypt. Immigration is an antiquated solution to people's problems unless it is part of a bigger agenda OP. ;) OP is an obvious shill of some kindWhy don't you complain about the crap country they are fleeing from?The USA shouldn't be the only great country in the Americas.Do some facebook revolution or something like they did in Libya and Egypt.Immigration is an antiquated solution to people's problems unless it is part of a bigger agenda OP. ;) Advertisement Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) on Sunday said that it has seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition including China made weapons from two militants who were beaten to death by the locals in Assam's Silchar district. The SSB in a release said locals spotted around six suspicious looking persons in Harinagar market area. They caught "two of the suspected ultras and severely beat them". It said that after rescuing both suspected ultras, the SSB team along with police shifted them to a hospital in Silchar, where they were declared brought dead. However, the other four managed to escape, it added. "During the search, SSB and the police recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition from the possession of the suspected militants," it said. It said that the identities and cadre details of both ultras were not established yet. The recovery from the two extremists came three days after five persons were killed in Tinsukia district of the state when militants fired indiscriminately at a group of people on Thursday. --IANS aks/ahm/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Sunday demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the claim by a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case that former IPS officer D.G. Vanzara had given a contract to kill Haren Pandya, a senior BJP leader in Gujarat. "Sohrabuddin Shaikh knew that Pandya was killed in a cold blooded murder, plotted by the DG Police of Gujarat -- Vanzara," Congress leader Tom Vadakkan said at a press conference here. "I'm not saying this, neither is the Congress, it is the witness Azam Khan's deposition before the CBI court," Vadakkan said demanding an inquiry. Vadakkan's remarks came after Khan told a trial court in Mumbai on Saturday that Shaikh told him that he had got money from Vanzara to kill Gujarat's Home Minister and "he completed the job". Khan, an associate of Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati, also claimed that while he had told the CBI investigator about it in 2010, the officer had refused to record it as part of his statement. The Congress leader also urged Home Minister Rajnath Singh to give protection to the witnesses who have made these statement, "because we should not find them too in the obituary column suddenly". Slamming the BJP government in Gujarat where the BJP has been in power for over two decades, Vadakkan questioned, "How can a serving Home Minister be killed on a morning walk?" "The BJP government was in power and the enquiry is still unsolved and no interest on the part of the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and then Home Minister Amit Shah. The matter died a slow death - everybody is acquitted," he said. Pandya was shot dead in Ahmedabad on March 26, 2003. --IANS aks/ps/ahm/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Congress party worker and practicing woman lawyer in a complaint to the police in Panaji on Sunday alleged that an unidentified person had allegedly threatened her with gang rape, if she campaigned in Subhash Shirodkar's constituency. In her complaint submitted at the Panaji Police Station, Diya Shetkar said that she received a call on Sunday morning from an unknown person, who claimed to be Shirodkar's supporter, who used "abusive and vulgar" language while delivering the threat to her. "The unknown person abused the complainant and threatened her," the complaint said. "I was threatened with gang rape by the caller if I entered constituency of Shirodkar, a former Congress MLA who joined the BJP last month, and campaigned against him," Shetkar told the media. The police said a non cognizance complaint had been registered against an unknown person following the complaint. While Shirodkar could not be contacted, state Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Sadanand Shet Tanavde said: "I do not know about the complaint, but I will find out." Shirodkar, along with another now former Congress MLA Dayanand Sopte quit the Congress and joined the BJP last month amid much acrimony. --IANS maya/ahm/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After missing many deadlines, the iconic and much-awaited Signature Bridge on the Yamuna was inaugurated on Sunday by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and will open for the public from Monday. The opening came after a clash between BJP and AAP workers at the site, with BJP Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari, also an MP, punching a policeman during the fracas before order was restored. Claimed by the government to be the country's first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge, with the gesture 'namaste', the bridge will help people to enjoy a panoramic view of the city from 154-meter high observation deck -- to be open in around two months. "Some final work is left in the high observation deck and it will be opened earlier next year, while the roads will open from Monday," an official told IANS. The 575-metre-long suspension bridge, proposed in 2004 and approved by the Delhi cabinet in 2007, will reduce the travel time between North and North-East Delhi. The bridge, connecting Wazirabad across the river Yamuna, will take vehicular pressure off the existing Wazirabad bridge. It will also connect the Outer Ring Road on the western bank of the river with Wazirabad road on the eastern side. Dedicating the bridge to the people of Delhi, Kejriwal said people should ask political parties about the works done by them before voting. "Don't get into the of those building temples, else your son will become a priest and not an engineer. Before voting ask the parties how many schools, hospitals or bridges they built. If they fail to count, tell them they can't get your vote. "For the development of the country, the governments should build schools, hospitals and bridges and not temples or statues," Kejriwal said. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader added that "it is the time for the people to think if they want bridges or statues." The bridge was inaugurated in the presence of Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Cabinet Ministers Imran Hussain, Satyendar Jain and Gopal Rai among others. Sisodia, rn his address, said the bridge will be a landmark and a tourist destination. "Delhi was famous for India Gate and Qutub Minar but will now be known for this bridge. The bridge got its first pylon after we came to power. The work done before that was only 10-15 per cent," he said. The inauguration was followed by a laser show. The Twitter page of the bridge was also started. Ahead of the inauguration, BJP and AAP activists clashed, with BJP leader Manoj Tiwari attacking AAP workers and punching a policeman who intervened. Tiwari got into a scuffle with AAP workers before the function started at the site, leading to the violence. The BJP leader later blamed the AAP for the trouble. --IANS nks/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Border Security Force (BSF) has seized fake Indian currency notes of face value Rs 9.82 lakh from a Bangladeshi national in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district, an official said on Sunday. Acting on specific information, the BSF officials raided Halderpara village on Saturday and apprehended one Mohammed Sukur Ali, 41, seized the fake currency notes being smuggled from India to Bangladesh. "The patrol party chased him and managed to apprehend him. 491 fake currency notes in denomination of Rs 2000 were found on him. The notes were wrapped with plastic and kept in a bag," Prabhat Kumar Singh, Deputy Inspector General of BSF's South Bengal Frontier said in a statement. Indian currency amounting to Rs 5,440, two mobile phones, two SIM cards and his passport were also seized. "The apprehended person revealed his identity as Mohammed Sukur Ali, 41, of Chapainawabganj district in Bangladesh. The BSF has handed over Ali, and the items seized from him, to Gaighata police station for further legal action," he said. The BSF's South Bengal Frontier has so far this year seized fake Indian currency notes of face value Rs 34.48 lakh, and apprehended six smugglers. --IANS bnd/shs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After thousands of fish were found dead in the Yamuna in Mathura and Vrindavan on Friday and Saturday, devotees and pilgrims blamed official agencies for failing to keep the river clean. Lakhs of devotees visit Mathura on Diwali for special puja of Goverdhan and Yamuna, said to be sister of Yamraj, the Hindu god of death. "As I entered the water for a holy dip, I was put off by the stink of rotting fish all around," said a pilgrim from Gujarat, Pradeep Bhai. An Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board official in Mathura said that untreated waste water and industrial effluents had been discharged upstream, resulting in the deaths of fish due to oxygen depletion. Activists blamed the Okhla Barrage authorities for releasing untreated water without advance information. In Vrindavan, thousands of fish were seen floating in the river. "The whole area around Keshi Ghat visited by thousands of pilgrims daily is stinking and no one has come to clean up the area," complained Jagan Nath Poddar, convener of Friends of Vrindavan group. In Agra, hundreds of activists joined the River Connect Campaign's river cleaning exercise on Sunday. "We want people of Agra to participate in cleaning the river which is heavily polluted with reported mass fish deaths upstream of Agra," Devashish Bhattacharya, an environmentalist told IANS. Yamuna is the lifeline of Braj Mandal and sustains tourism in Agra region. "All historical buildings are located along Yamuna's banks. If the Yamuna is sick and polluted, the architectural marvels like the Taj Mahal cannot remain unaffected," said Ranjan Sharma, an environmentalist. Ahead of Diwali, which is falling on November 7, people usually clean up their homes but dump the garbage on the river bank which is already a victim of idol immersion activities, said Shravan Kumar Singh of the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society. Activists Jyoti Vishal and Padmini said the river cleaning activities will continue with passion and a degree of seriousness to involve the students. "You cannot leave cleaning of public places to government employees. Each one has to be responsible for his share of garbage. People have to be taught to segregate and deposit the waste at the designated places," said one activist, Harendra Gupta. --IANS bk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The four-year report card of Haryana's Manohar Lal Khattar-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is marked by significant developments in housing, particularly affordable housing. But the pace of infrastructure development leaves much to be desired. Over the last four years, the Haryana government, has undertaken a number of reforms in the real estate and housing sector, especially aimed at giving a big fillip to affordable housing. And the results are visible on the ground. Thanks to these reformist policies, today Gurugram, which is Haryana's show window for real estate development, has emerged as an affordable housing destination. Only a few years back, it was considered a hub of premier and luxury housing, beyond the reach of the masses. In line with the Centre's "Housing for All" mission, the Haryana government came up with a new policy allowing housing projects in a one to five acre area with a liberal floor area ratio (FAR) ranging between 250 and 275. Under this policy, developers are exempted from paying any license fee and internal development charges. The New Integrated Licensing Policy (NILP) was also introduced, lowering the minimum land cap for large housing projects to boost the affordable housing stock. The state government also liberalised the Affordable Housing Policy of 2013 drafted by erstwhile Congress government, making available 500 acres of additional land and increasing the sector-wise area from 10 to 15 acres. The minimum area cap was reduced from five to four acres. The government is also credited with bringing the "Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojana" -- an Affordable Plotted Housing Policy for low and medium potential towns -- to encourage development of high-density plotted colonies of five to 15 acres where small plots are made available through a liberal policy framework. The simplification of Change of Land Use (CLU) norms and introduction of the concept of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), on the lines of Maharashtra, have also given a big push to housing by increasing the FAR. Because of these policy initiatives, the stock of affordable housing units is expected to take a substantial jump in the state, with the creation of 100,000 units in Gurugram alone. The state government's report card to provide a convenient, comfortable and affordable urban transport system through Metro rail is reasonably good. The Metro network in Haryana has been extended to Bahadurgarh. In September 2015, Faridabad emerged on the map, after Gurugram, with the launch of Badarpur-Faridabad section on the Violet Line. And now, with trial runs on the 3.2 km Escorts-Ballabgarh section, the town is shortly expected to be part of Metro network. More recently, the government has given the nod to extend the Gurugram Metro to the Old city. At present 25.8 km of Metro lines are operational across Haryana. On the crucial issue of implementing the RERA, the state government, which initially faced flak for tardy implementation, with dilution of norms, has finally made amends. Its website is now operational and an Appellate Tribunal will shortly start functioning. Moreover, Haryana has earned the distinction of being the first state to have two RERA authorities -- one for Gurugram and one for the rest of Haryana -- for the convenience of aggrieved home buyers. The state has also made considerable progress on the ease of doing business. Not only have the CLU norms been simplified, an online service for granting CLUs has also been launched. The Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran has made six services online. The Haryana Housing Board has tweaked the property transfer and rules to get an occupation certificate faster -- in eight days. Notwithstanding these laudable reforms and policy initiatives, the performance of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, or PMAY -- part of the "Housing for All" initiative -- is not something to write home about. Against the Centre's target to build one crore houses in urban areas, Haryana's record, like many other states, is bad. The state is also a non-starter on the PMAY-Rural front. The government's TDR initiative to push housing has not shown the desired results and this scheme is now being extended for three months. On the infrastructure front, the state is facing innumerable challenges. Haryana's two key infrastructure projects to boost connectivity -- the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Eway and the Dwarka Eway -- are still incomplete after missing several deadlines. The original deadline of constructing the 135-km-long KMP Eway, under construction for 14 years, was July 2009. Attempts are now on to complete the remaining Kundli-Manesar stretch before the latest deadline of March 2019. Similarly, the crucial Dwarka Eway or the Northern Peripheral Road, conceived in 2007 and now handed over to NHAI, is still hanging fire after missing several deadlines, sealing the fate of about 100,000 buyers who have invested in homes along the Eway. The infrastructure in cities has taken a beating due to the mess on External Development Charges (EDC). More than Rs 10,000 crore of EDC collected by developers from property buyers a few years back is yet to be deposited with the authorities to carry out infrastructure development. Not only that, even the EDC collected by the authorities is not being properly spent to augment the infrastructure of cities. The glaring example is Gurugram, from where the state collects most of the EDC. The city, especially new sectors (58-115), is highly infrastructure-deficient, denying home buyers the basic needs of water, power, drainage, roads and social infrastructure, thereby adversely impacting real estate development. It is pertinent to point out that due to infrastructure deficiency/mess, Gurugram was denied the Smart City tag. Even in Karnal, the development work has taken off only about 17 months after it was declared a Smart City. The state government is now taking several pro-active steps to ensure speedy and balanced development. In this regard, it has taken the far-reaching step of amending the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Area Rules of 1976 to create an EDC account for every town to ensure that it is utilised for infrastructure development of the same town. Even a unified Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has been created for this purpose. The government has also come up with a scheme to collect pending EDC from developers through easy installments. In a first-of-its-kind of initiative, the state government is creating an urban property inventory via geo-tagging for better realisation of property tax to boost infrastructure. And, to fast-track urban development, the government has approved the development of five new, modern cities along the KMP, spread over 50,000 hectares. Besides this, the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran will be developing 53 residential sectors outside Gurugram. In a latest policy decision to boost real estate development, the Haryana government has reopened the license window for group housing for two months and is in the process of extending the tenure of licenses. (The writer is Founder & Editor, Ground Real(i)ty Media. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vbehl2008@gmail.com ) --IANS vinod/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A congregation of Hindu seers here on Sunday demanded the government bring an ordinance or a law for construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, and added they would hold meetings across the country to rally public sentiments in the matter. "The seers have declared - either bring a law or an ordinance for building Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. We agree to both conditions," Swami Jitendranand Saraswati, National Secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti that organised the two-day event that concluded on Sunday, told media. "In a democracy, public's mandate is a major factor. If people's opinion can make a government, then to form the public opinion (towards our cause) we are ready to do rallies and public meetings," he added. Besides resolving to push for a law on Ram temple, the Sant Samiti announced it would be holding large "dharm sabhas" (religious gatherings) at Ayodhya, Bengaluru and Nagpur on November 25 and in New Delhi on December 9. It also plans to hold public meetings in 500 districts across the country. The body has requested the people to light an extra lamp for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. On the question of the matter being sub-judice in the Supreme Court and the apex court scheduled to hear it in January next year, Jitendranand Saraswati said that when "public sentiments are roused, courts across the world take up matters overnight". "The government makes a system. The courts' job is to interpret the law, not to make it," he added. Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said it was important to be "sensitive towards the public sentiment" who want a grand Ram temple built at Ayodhya. "The entire seer community has three options before it, first is that of talks. We should continue talks. Second is that we wait for the court's decision, and request it to dispose of the matter at the earliest. The third option is that we speak to the government to take some step in this regard," Sri Sri said. He said it was not seers who needed a temple but the common people. "The seers do not need a temple. They have a temple wherever they sit. It is the public who want that a grand Ram temple be built. They have this hope. We should be sensitive towards their hopes," he added. The seers also demanded hi-tech fencing of Bangladesh border to stop infiltration, Assam-like NRC in all states of the country, tough law against illegal immigrants, identification and deportation of Rohingya Muslims, a separate ministry for cow welfare and passing of Ganga Management Act in Parliament. The Sant Samiti in a statement asked the voters to vote for those who believe in "Ganga, Geeta, Gayatri, Govind and Gau (cow)". It said that the seers believed that the present government would fulfil their expectations. --IANS mak/ahm/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A congregation of Hindu seers here on Sunday demanded that the government bring an ordinance or a law for construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, stressing that even the courts have to respect the "public sentiments". The two-day meeting that ended on Sunday also charted the future course of action for rallying public sentiments through a number of large public meetings over the next two months in various cities including Ayodhya, Delhi, Bengaluru and Nagpur. "The seers have declared - either bring a law or an ordinance for building Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. We agree to both conditions," Swami Jitendranand Saraswati, National Secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti that organised the event, told the media. "In a democracy, public's mandate is a major factor. If people's opinion can make a government, then to form the public opinion (towards our cause) we are ready to do rallies and public meetings," he added. On the question of the matter being sub-judice in the Supreme Court and the apex court scheduled to hear it in January next year, the seer said that when "public sentiments are roused, courts across the world take up matters overnight". "The government makes a system. The courts' job is to interpret the law, not to make it," he added. Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said it was important to be "sensitive towards the public sentiment" who want a grand Ram temple built at Ayodhya. "The entire seer community has three options before it, first is that of talks. We should continue talks. Second is that we wait for the court's decision, and request it to dispose off the matter at the earliest. The third option is that we speak to the government to take some step in this regard," Sri Sri said. He said it was not the seers who needed a temple but the common people. "The seers do not need a temple. They have a temple wherever they sit. It is the public who want that a grand Ram temple be built. They have this hope. We should be sensitive towards their hopes," he added. --IANS mak-vn-aks/ahm/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A section of intellectuals, close to the ruling Trinamool Congress, on Sunday condemned the massacre of five Bengali Hindus in Assam's Tinsukia district on November 1. They staged a protest demonstration here, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of creating unrest in the north-eastern state. "The terror outfit that was initially suspected has also denied involvement. Who then is responsible for the brutal killings?," Painter Subhaprasanna said. The intellectuals also slammed the Centre's role in the roll-out of the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC), which has allegedly caused tension in the state. "It is unbelievable that any human being can make unarmed people stand and shoot them ruthlessly. There was a cordial existence of Bengalis and Assamese in Assam but since the roll-out of the draft NRC, peace has been disrupted," Economist Abhirup Sarkar said. He said that the ruthless killings were a reflection of that unrest. A vicious environment of "aggressive regionalism" is prevailing in the country, said a Trinamool Congress delegation that visited Dhala in Assam's Tinsukia district on Sunday. --IANS bnd-bdc/shs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lunaticoutpost.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program , anaffiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.Amazon, the Amazon logo, MYHABIT, and the MYHABIT logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.Don't be a pest to the forum.No profanity in thread-titles or usernamesNo excessive profanity in postsNo Racism, Antisemitism + HateNo calls for violence against anyone..This website exists for fun and discussion only. 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Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar on November 15, 2000 to create a separate state. She was speaking at the 'Ganga Gram Swachchhata Sammelan' at Rajmahal, Jharkhand. "Ganga Gram" is a concept to transform the banks of the Ganga river there into ideal villages with emphasis on ODF, solid and liquid waste management, water conservation, groundwater recharge, modern crematorium, tree plantation, and organic and medicinal plant agriculture, a government statement said. In this regard, Bharti stressed upon public participation as a key to making the Ganga bank villages ideal "Ganga Grams". "Participate in solid and liquid waste management activities, do not litter around and pollute water sources, and take care of waste management to promote organic farming," she said. Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, highlighted the societal and financial gains from the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and said that in the past four years, sanitation coverage has gone up from a low 39 per cent to over 95 per cent in rural areas. Citing reports from organisations such as Unicef and WHO, he said that a family in an ODF village saves on an average Rs 50,000 annually on its medical expenditure. "With such a growth, Swachh Bharat Mission would have saved about three lakh lives by October 2019," he said. Bharti also laid the foundation stone of the Maskalaiyya Crematorium and Ghat and the Municipal Waste Water Project at Rajmahal. --IANS sd/shs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Kerala Minister on Sunday dismissed nepotism allegations levelled against him by the state opposition, saying they were baseless. Higher Education Minister K.T. Jaleel has come under fire after the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) said a close relative of the Minister who was a B. Tech graduate, was appointed as general manager in a state-owned corporation, which is all set to get a non-banking finance company license . The IUML is the second biggest party in the Congress-led opposition. Speaking to the media here, Jaleel said the appointment of a general manager in the Kerala State Minorities Development Finance Corporation, under his Ministry, was done according to the rules of the government. "We put out ads in several newspapers inviting people to apply for the varios posts. Seven candidates had applied and three was chosen for an interview, but none was found suitable. "Hence a person working with the South Indian Bank was selected. The state government has the powers to appoint anyone on deputation and in fact the previous two people who were appointed to this post were selected on deputation," said Jaleel. The Minister added: "The new appointee, who is an expert in banking, has started his work and was computerising the records and this act has turned the IUML leadership jittery, as the list of loan defaulters is getting prepared. Those who are now up in arms and levelling baseless allegations know that if the present process continues, many will be in trouble." Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and the state Congress President Mulapally Ramachandran have also demanded Jaleel to step down. The Minister pointed out that today there were many B. Tech graduates working in banks, adding that the former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan was an electrical engineer. --IANS sg/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian underdog Karen Khachanov ended a dramatic week with his first ATP 1000 title after stunning the to-be world number one Novak Djokovic 7-5, 6-4 in the 2018 Paris Masters final here on Sunday. The unseeded Russian triumphed his first ATP 1000 final over the four-time winner in one hour and 38 minutes, Xinhua news agency reported. "It's one of my biggest titles so far, biggest achievement. In general, it's a breakthrough season. And this title, it's a good year-end," Khachanov told a news conference. Khachanov was riding on a wonderful trip in the French capital this week, as he registered three victories in a row against world Top 10 players, John Isner, Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem, en route to Sunday's final. Djokovic broke for the first time for a 3-1 lead in the first set, only to see his Russian rival's quick response in the very next game. Khachanov continued to press on for his second break in the 11th game and served out the opening set at 7-5. The third break arrived for Khachanov in the third game of the second set. He built a 4-2 advantage later on with an ace, as Djokovic seemingly didn't recover from fatigue following his three-hour semifinal tussle against Roger Federer. Despite maintaining his next two serves, Djokovic failed to cut the deficit in his opponent's service. His long backhand in the 10th game earned the Russian hopeful a ground-breaking title of career. "Novak started with a really high intensity. I knew that that's normal the way he's playing from the beginning, like moving you left, right, left, right. Djokovic saw his 33rd ATP Masters 1000 title which could tie Rafael Nadal's record relinquished, but had already secured his top place at the upcoming ATP Rankings following Nadal's withdrawal from the tournament earlier this week. He admitted that he didn't recover well from the semifinals, but paid more tribute to Khachanov's performance. "I don't want to talk about that (fatigue). I want to talk about how well he played all week and he absolutely deserved to win the match today. All the credit to him," Djokovic said. --IANS pgh/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Leah Remini said she never presented an "authentic" version of herself to people when she was a Scientologist because she had to try and recruit them to the religion. Speaking to Jada Pinkett Smith on an upcoming episode of "Red Table Talk", she said: "Regardless of what was being presented to you, from me as a friend, you were seeing a side of me that was not 100 per cent authentic because my job was to always be a perfect person in front of you, or any celebrity, to solely get you into Scientology, fully indoctrinated, fully on board and deserting any other beliefs." Remini's appearance on the show came after she and Pinkett ended a feud which began when she said the "Girl's Trip" actress was a Scientologist last September, reports femalefirst.co.uk. The 47-year-old actress said she was grateful that the "old school" actress was the bigger person and "reached out" to resolve their differences. "It was really beautiful and she reached out to me. She was much more bigger than me in that way. It was nice to reconnect and release ourselves from all that nonsense that doesn't matter... "What was really emotional about it was realising that there was two broken little girls in us that were abandoned by their fathers and turned into fighters who clashed." --IANS dc/nv/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Lena Headey hopes her new film "The Flood" will further the understanding of immigration crisis around the world, and spreads a bit of compassion. In the film, Headey plays Wendy, a British immigration officer deciding the fate of an asylum seeker. "What I hope, personally, is we change 10 minds, or people reconsider how they feel about someone who has lost everything. Or maybe it will grow a bit more compassion, understanding, curiosity or bravery," Headey told variety.com. Helen Kingston's script for "The Flood" draws on real-life stories after her, producer Luke Healy and director Anthony Woodley spent time volunteering in Calais, France, a refugee hotspot. Headey describes the film as "a really smart take on what's happening." She said the the film deals with its subject matter without preaching or being overtly political. "I think it's a very quiet, strong bit of cinema and it's really honest about what's happening and how we are all responsible for it," added the actress, who is an ambassador for the International Rescue Committee. --IANS rb/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday while hiting out at Maharashtra Environment and Forests minister over the killing of the "maneater" tigress Avni said it was a 'straight case of crime'. "It is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite requests from his own forest department and people, Sudhir Mugantiwar gave orders for the killing. This is the third tiger being killed on his directions," Gandhi said in a statement. Avni was a five-year-old tigress identified as "T1" who had caused a widespread fear in Maharashtra's Vidarbha forests. She was shot dead early on Saturday near Borati village in Yavatmal district. Maneka further stated that Mugantiwar earlier had directed for killing a dozen of leopards and 300 wild boars. "I am shocked that such a person is continuing to hold a ministerial position. Every time he has used the Hyderabad shooter, Shafat Ali Khan and this time his son has also appeared on the scene illegally to kill the tigress. His son was not authorized to kill. This is patently illegal," she added. Maneka also said that she will be taking up the matter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis seeking strong action. "We cannot allow this kind of insensitive and merciless attitude towards animals to prevail. I am going to take up this issue legally, criminally as well as politically," she added. Avni died after three months of a massive hunt undertaken with the help of trap cameras, drones, trained sniffer dogs along with a team of forest department officials and spotters. As per the Supreme Court directives, forest department officials were required to first tranquilize and trap her, but in Saturday's operation, she allegedly attacked the stalking team which shot her. --IANS som/ahm/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A minor girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by her uncle in east Delhi, police said on Sunday. Police said the victim, 10, had gone to her aunt's residence in Shakarpur where her uncle, 32, sexually assaulted her in his wife's absence. "The accused threatened the girl with dire consequences if she disclosed his crime to her parents, before dropping her near her house," a senior police officer said. "The minor narrated the entire crime to her mother, who then approached the police. We have registered a case after the victim was sent for medical examination," he said. The accused has been absconding. --IANS sp/shs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One of the two persons killed in Saturday's gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district was a civilian, police said on Sunday. Police had earlier said that two militants were slain in fighting between rebels and security forces in Khudpora village. The bodies were recovered on Sunday and one of them turned out to be a civilian identified as Shahid Ahmad Mir. Police sources said the civilian's body was handed over to the family. The other person killed in the gunfight was a Kashmiri militant, Muhammad Irfan Bhat. Police said a couple of militants managed to escape during the encounter. --IANS sq/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Award-winning Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel says women are so "incredibly over-simplified" in romantic-comedy films that she finds it irritating. Romantic-comedy movies might be one of the most favourite genres of many. It is certainly not Martel's. "In reality, it's not like I am against the idea of love. It's the stupid idea about love that I am against... If love fails, then everything else fails in life," Martel told IANS here via an interpreter. "What bothers me the most about romantic-comedies is that it seems like for women, all that matters is love. That's not true. Women are so incredibly over-simplified in romantic-comedies that I find it irritating," added the winner of Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. She strongly believes that only casting women as protagonists in movies will not change anything. "It's not that I think that there are too many films made by men or women. It's actually the issue or films that are told from the wrong point of view. There are a lot of films that star women, but don't really show or bring to the surface anything new about women. "The focal point isn't that the film's protagonist is a woman or not because a film could have a male protagonist and it could still be a very feminist film." "It's not enough to have a female protagonist. That's not going to change the world or point of view. I also know many female directors who don't have a critical world view. And even if they put a female character as the protagonist, it's not any different from the norm." The indie filmmaker, whose fillms often get screened at prestigious film festivals like Cannes Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, was here for the recently concluded Jio MAMI 20th Mumbai Film Festival with Star. "It was such a wonderful coincidence that I was able to come and participate in the festival and also visit this country," said the 51-year-old, who was born in Salta, Argentina. Be it her debut feature film "La Cienaga" or "The Headless Woman", the stories of her movies tend to lean towards her home country. She is also working on a documentary about the murder of a member of an indigenous community in Argentina. "I enjoy visiting new places a lot, but the place that stimulates me the most is my hometown. This is because within my own community, I understand all the different layers. For example here, I find many things fascinating. But it doesn't go beyond that because I don't understand the layers. "What I find incredible (about Mumbai) is the amount of human effort around me in the city to try to make a life. Everywhere you look, there is human activity. They are trying to sell something or looking for a place to sleep and they are living. It's incredibly full of life," said Martel. She started directing short films since late 1980s, but has only four feature films to her credit. "I make things when I have an idea and when I have an idea, sometimes it's long and sometimes it's short. What happens is that I don't have ideas very often," said the filmmaker, who took almost a decade to make "Zama", an Argentine period drama. During the filming of "Zama", she had undergone cancer treatment. "Any situation that places you in front of death, even if you don't put effort into it, changes your perspective. Now I am much more concerned with enjoying everyday. And there are many things that I stopped caring about. "It's not that I cared about it much before, but I care about it even less now -- the idea of a career. I have stopped worrying about the things that I make... are they going to impact on or matter to someone as much as I am going enjoy them." In fact, winning awards or earning the title of "one of the most talented filmmakers in contemporary world cinema" are not a big deal for her. "Yeah. This is completely true (on getting the title)," she quipped while smiling and fixing her trademark cat-eye glasses. "No, it's difficult to say that as there are many directors," she said. Talking about awards, she said: "Of course, it is very pleasant to receive an award and I am very grateful. But it doesn't go beyond being a pleasant moment. While it's a pleasant moment for me, it doesn't tell me much about myself." Among various things, she would like to design her home from scratch, travel to some places that she hasn't been to and talk to and meet some people she is yet to meet. (The writer's trip to Mumbai was at the invitation of the festival organisers. Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted at natalia.n@ians.in) --IANS nn/rb/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Fortunegiants maintained their winning streak after a 45-38 win over Dabang Delhi KC in the ongoing sixth edition of the Pro Kabaddi League here on Sunday. Delhi's Chandran Ranjit and Naveen Kumar tried their best to make an impact on the match by getting 11 and 8 raid points however, they were let down by the experienced corner pair comprising Ravinder Pahal and Captain Joginder Narwal, who collected three tackle points in total between them. Also, Gujarat's raider Dong Geon Lee, who was brought in for Sunday's match, caused problems for Delhi after getting a super 10, while Rohit Gulia collected seven raid points. Gujarat started the match with a toe touch by Rohit on Vishal in the first raid of the match. They continued to dominate Delhi with Rohit getting a super raid with a bonus point and touch points on Vishal and Yogesh Hooda to make it 5-1 in Gujarat's favour by the 3rd minute. Gujarat later inflicted an all-out on Delhi by the 6th minute to take a huge 11-3 lead. It looked like Delhi were moving towards another loss, but they got a boost of optimism with Naveen and Ranjit, who managed regular touch points on Gujarat. The first-half ended with Gujarat taking a 9-point lead with the score reading 27-18 in their way. In the second-half, Delhi came with a positive attitude to get the Gujarat defence weakened by getting Parvesh and Sunil out by the 23rd minute to make it 20-29. Later, Gujarat got a super tackle as Naveen entered the lobby without a touch while Sachin got out of the mat. Rohit Gulia was also giving soft points to Delhi as he tried to tackle the raiders regularly. Parvesh Bhainswal got a super tackle with a strong thigh hold on Ranjit to extend Gujarat's lead to 24-36 by the 27th minute. Delhi tried to make a comeback by inflicting an all out on Gujarat when Ranjit got Parvesh and Sachin out in the 30th minute to reduce the lead to 7 points. Lee was causing trouble for Delhi with his agility and quick movements by regularly getting Ravinder to make mistakes. The 36th minute saw Ruturaj Koravi dash onto Ranjit to cause an injury to both of them. The 37th minute saw Yogesh Hooda concede a super tackle by Sachin Vittala as Gujarat stretched their lead to 44-38. Gujarat made sure to win the contest by slowing down the match with empty raids and hence won it 45-38. --IANS kk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Um blog sobre Macau Antigo! A blog about Old Macau ! The Odisha government on Sunday requested the Uttarakhand government to provide necessary support to the 42 Odia pilgrims stranded at Badrinath due to snowfall. State Joint Relief Commissioner P.R. Mohapatra wrote to the Chamoli District Collector requesting him to extend the necessary support to the pilgrims and arrange for their safe return to Odisha. He said the pilgrims were returning from Badrinath when, due to heavy snowfall and road blockages, they were stranded at a lodge on Saturday. They are starving and facing several problems due to power cuts, said Mohapatra. Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also spoke to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and requested him for the safe return of the pilgrims. He was assured of full support and medical care. --IANS cd/mag/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police in New York closed several streets due to a suspicious package in the commercial area of Herald Square in Manhattan, which turned out to be abandoned luggage. The police on Saturday had cordoned off 34th and 35th streets, between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, one of the busiest business areas of the city, to investigate the suspicious package, reports Efe news reported. "All clear," the New York City Police Department (NYPD) said later on its Twitter account. "Our officers were investigating an item which has been determined to be an abandoned piece of luggage," the NYPD added. New York was tense in October when several leading Democrats received bomb packages. Devices were also sent to addresses in Florida, California, Washington D.C. and other locations. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were among those targeted. Cesar Altieri Sayoc was arrested in Florida and accused of being behind the campaign. He will be tried in New York. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump said in a campaign rally in Florida that he won't allow a caravan of Central American migrants, which is heading towards the Mexico-US border, to enter the country. Speaking to supporters at the rally held on Saturday at a hangar at Pensacola International Airport, Trump said that there were reports of many "bad people" being part of the caravan and added that they would not be allowed to enter the country, reports Efe news. He accused Democrats of promoting an open border and wanting to invite caravan after caravan of immigrants - referring to Central American immigrants who have entered Mexico with the aim of reaching the US - and said that this would lead to more crime. The President also criticized Andrew Gillum, the Democratic Party's candidate for the post of Florida Governor, for seeking to abolish the federal agency, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which he said was "full of patriots" who arrested 127,000 illegal immigrants last year. Trump said that nearly all of the illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine entered the US through the southern border, and called for stronger borders. Saturday's rally was aimed at mobilising the Republican support base for the midterm elections, set to be held on November 6. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Deputy Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya Maria Ribeiro has stressed support of the UN to national and international efforts to establish stability in Libya. Ribeiro made her remarks on Saturday during a visit to the new headquarter of the Libyan Higher Commission of Elections in the capital Tripoli, Xinhua reported. Ribeiro told the Commission's Board of Directors Member Abdulhakim Belkher that supporting the efforts to organise and conduct future elections of Libya is a key goal of the UN. Earlier in May, the Islamic State (IS) carried out a deadly suicide attack on the headquarters of the commission, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 10 others. It was the most violent IS attack in Tripoli for years. Libya has remained in chaos following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi. The country is struggling to make a democratic transition amid political division and unrest as well as dominance of armed groups and militias with shifting loyalties. --IANS pgh/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US midterm elections will be held on November 6. Many knowledgeable observers are calling these midterms the most important elections in a generation. Thats because, even though this is an off-year election in which there is no presidential contest, the election itself is a referendum on Donald Trump. President Trump's aggressive and attacking leadership style and personality has taken a country that was already divided and driven the voters into polarised camps. He has consistently governed for and bonded with his Republican base and ignored and alienated those who vote Democratic. Trump has intensified his polarising tactics in the run-up to election day through his comments nationally, as also in his campaigning for Republican candidates in states across the country. He has asked his ardent supporters to see each election as being about him. This has energised them and galvanised those voters who oppose him. The battle lines have been drawn. The outcome will be determined on election day. The basic outcome will be control of the US Congress which has two chambers: The House (which has 435 members distributed based upon the populations of the 50 states) and the Senate (which has two members per state). Currently, the Republicans have a majority in both the House and the Senate. The much more important outcome will be what the results will mean for US governmental policy and practices. No matter how Congress splits, the President's approach to foreign policy and international relations will remain nationalistic and isolationist, with the most visible impact in India being in areas such as trade, treaties and immigration. The largest impact in the US itself will be in Congressional support for, or in resistance to, moving forward President Trump's agenda. That agenda has included tax cuts providing nominal benefits to the average citizen and substantial benefits to the wealthy and large corporations, and the dismantling of Obamacare -- the programme that was designed to provide reasonably-priced health-care coverage for all Americans. Trump's agenda has also featured downsizing and radically changing the focus of domestic agencies that Democrats value highly such as the Departments of Education, Interior, Labour, Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. From a purely legislative standpoint, it doesn't matter much whether the Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress, the control is split, or the Democrats gain control. The reason is that, for nearly a decade, Congress has been suffering from congressional dysfunction. There has been little across-the-aisle compromise and not much legislation has been passed. Where the control will matter is in terms of support for the President's agenda. After the election, President Trump will continue to govern, as he has primarily to this point, through executive order. A Republican majority in both chambers will aid and abet those orders and might occasionally pass legislation related to them. Split control would mean endless battles, with one chamber blocking or reversing the actions of the other. The most intriguing possibility is Democratic control of both chambers which would undoubtedly produce, among other things, attempts to curb Trump's immigration proposals and to reverse his Obamacare interventions. And, depending on what Special Counsel Robert Mueller finds, might even lead to articles of impeachment. In sum, the US mid-term elections matter not because they will bring about dramatic changes in law-making but because changes in the law-makers will influence the tone and tenor of our national dialogue and the attitudes of the American public. The United States of America is at a pivot point. Continued Republican control will reinforce and extend the current darkness, fear and withdrawal from the world stage. Split or Democratic control will signal the potential for sunlight, hope, optimism and a recommitment to international leadership. Which will it be? At this point, a few days before the election is held, the most likely possibility appears to be split control of Congress with the Republicans retaining the majority in the Senate and the Democrats gaining a majority in the House. Fivethirtyeight, a research firm that does projections employing its statistical analysis of the findings of several polling organisations, gave the Democrats a 6 in 7 chance of winning control of the House and the Republicans a 6 in 7 chance of keeping control of the Senate. That is no guarantee, however. Polls do not vote, people do. They will do so on November 6. The citizens of the US, India and the world will know the actual results then. After that, there will be no more conjecture, just the consequences. (Frank F. Islam is an entrepreneur, civic and thought leader based in Washington DC. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at ffislam@verizon.net ) --IANS frank/sac (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation Uma Bharti has advocated the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and said she is ready to provide any assistance required from her end. Calling the construction of the temple as her "dream", Bharti told ANI, "I have actively participated in Ram Janambhoomi Andolan. Hearing of a case is also underway in connection with it on me and LK Advani Ji, and I am proud of it. The construction of Ram Temple is my dream and whatever initiative is required from my end I am ready for it." Amidst demands for an ordinance to permit the construction of the temple before the Supreme Court pronounces its judgement in the Ayodhya title suit, Union Minister PP Chaudhary opined that a law can be made in case of judicial delay. "Ram Mandir should be constructed, the case is in the Supreme Court and we want it to be decided quickly. I can't say about the government, but my personal opinion is that if there is a judicial delay then a law can be made," he said. On October 29, the apex court had adjourned the hearing of the case until January 2019. The court was hearing petitions challenging the Allahabad High Court verdict of 2010, which stated that the disputed land in Ayodhya should be divided into three parts for each party - the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. While the matter is pending before the top court, a number of spiritual leaders have called for the immediate resolution of the matter, and have even claimed that construction of the temple will begin in December this year. On Saturday, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Sadhvi Prachi had said that December 6 must be fixed for the construction of Ram Temple and Hindus from all over the country must be called to Ayodhya for it. Sadhvi's remarks came a day after Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi said that a movement similar to the one initiated in 1992 will be carried out, if necessary. The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992, allegedly by a group of Hindu activists, claiming that the mosque was constructed by Mughal king Babur after demolishing a Ram Temple that originally stood there. Since then, several hearings have been held in the top court to resolve the issue. With just over a week for the first phase of Chhattisgarh assembly elections, the battlefield has been set and the political parties have also blown the election bugle. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is ruling the state for the last 15 years, is seeking to win its fourth electoral term, while the Congress will aim to dethrone the Chief Minister Raman Singh-led government and win the polls. In the Chhattisgarh assembly polls, there are two phases of voting. In the first phase, voting will be held in 18 constituencies in the southern part of the state. On a closer look, 18 out of 12 seats are located in Naxal-affected Bastar division and six are located in Rajnandgaon district. As many as 192 candidates are in the fray in the first phase of the state assembly elections. The first phase of the assembly elections assumes plenty of significance as both the arch-rival parties, BJP and Congress, are going all out to woo the people for votes while engaging in a political mudslinging amongst each other. Let us now chronicle the journey as to why the first phase of Chhattisgarh assembly elections is so special. It is well known that the Bastar division, on the one hand, is very popular in Chhattisgarh due to its beauty, while on the other hand, the region has suffered from decades-long Naxal violence. In the previous assembly elections held in 2013, the BJP, although retained power in the state, it, however, lost its mark in the Bastar division and the Congress gained the upper hand in the region. Out of a total of 12 seats, the Congress grabbed eight seats while the BJP mustered only four seats in its account. In the past five years, the Raman Singh-led government has stated that it has undertaken plenty of development work in Bastar. In fact, there are many assembly constituencies in Bastar division, where tickets have been given to the old faces of the party. The same situation also persists in Rajanandgaon district. The BJP has decided to field new faces in the region, which has six constituencies. But the most anticipated electoral battle will be witnessed in Rajnandgaon seat where incumbent state chief minister is pitted against former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's niece Karuna Shukla, who was also a part of the BJP for over 30 years, before switching to Congress in 2014. While Singh has won thrice from Rajnandgaon, it is to be seen whether the three-time chief minister will continue his winning spree or whether Shukla will play party pooper, if she emerges victorious. The BJP government has claimed to take strict steps in tackling Naxalism. However, local residents of Bastar are still struggling with the decades-long problem. This factor could harm BJP's prospects in winning a record fourth term in the assembly polls. There is a saying in Chhattisgarhi language that if a niece or nephew wins, celebrations will happen in the same house. In Dantewada seat of Bastar division, seven candidates from different parties are not only from the same family but are each other's relatives, who will be contesting against each other in the first phase of the assembly polls. BJP candidate Bhima Mandavi is the brother-in-law of Congress candidate Devti Karma. Also, Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate Nandaram Sori and Devti share a brother-sister relationship. Devti also shares an interesting connection, as she is the aunt of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Ballu Bhawani. Independent candidate Jaya Kashyap is Devti's niece. Lastly, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Keshav Netam and Sundaru Kunjam share a nephew-uncle relationship with Bhawani. Amid constant threats by Naxalites to boycott polls, there is an atmosphere of fear in Bastar Division. For instance, in Konta seat, many candidates have refrained from filing their nomination forms. In 2008 assembly elections, only four candidates were in the fray. In this year's and 2013 polls, six candidates each will contest from this seat. In Chitrakoot, where the number of candidates was 22 in 2013 polls, the number has fallen down to just 10 in this year's assembly elections. In Jagdalpur seat, where 38 candidates had tried their luck in the previous elections, this time only 26 of them are in the fray. Other constituencies such as Kanker, Kesh Kal, Bastar and Narayanpur will also see less participation of candidates in the upcoming polls. The Antagarh seat is a bright spot in the Naxal-affected Bastar division, where the number of candidates has seen an increase. In the 2008 assembly elections, only six candidates were in the fray and the number increased to eight in 2013. Now, 15 candidates will try their luck in this year's assembly elections. The second phase of Chhattisgarh assembly elections is slated to be held on November 20. Counting of votes for both the phases will take place on December 11. I'm Michael Peterson, a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, currently serving a parish in the Diocese of Toronto. I'm also a retired Canadian Forces chaplain , hence the Padre in the title. Mad just means eccentric, and on that note, I also blog on toy soldiers, madpadrewargames.blogspot.com. I'm on Twitter at @madpadre1. Ten people, including a family of nine, have died in floods around Palermo on the southern Italian island of Sicily, rescue services said Sunday as fierce storms continue to exact a deadly toll. They said the bodies of the family, including children aged one, three and 15, were found in their house in Casteldaccia next to a small river which had burst its banks. Three other members of the same family were able to escape, according to the Agi agency. Separately a man was found dead in his car while two other people are missing. Earlier this week in Sicily, floods closed many roads and mayors ordered schools, public parks and underpasses shut. Italy, especially in the north and around Venice, has been hit by a series of strong storms which have claimed at least 20 lives and caused massive damage and disruption. Trees covering the mountains in the Dolomites range were reduced to matchsticks, flattened by winds that tore through the Veneto region on Thursday. "It's like after an earthquake," Veneto governor Luca Zaia said. "Thousands of hectares of forest were razed to the ground, as if by a giant electric saw." Italy's civil protection agency described the weather lashing the country this week as "one of the most complex meteorological situations of the past 50 to 60 years". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ten people, including a family of nine, have died in floods around Palermo on the southern Italian island of Sicily, rescue services said Sunday. They said the bodies of the family, including children aged one, three and 15, were found in their house in Casteldaccia next to a small river which had burst its banks. A man was found separately in his car while two other people are missing, they said, as Italy grapples with fierce storms which have already claimed at least 20 lives this week. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A highway pile-up involving at least 31 cars killed 15 people in northwest China's Gansu province, officials said, leaving dramatic scenes of twisted and burnt-out wreckage. The pile-up occurred on Saturday after a heavy truck lost control and crashed into a line of vehicles waiting at a toll station on the Lanzhou-Haikou Expressway, state-run China Daily reported on Sunday. Officials said another 44 people were injured in the pile-up at the toll station which is close to Lanzhou, capital of Gansu. Investigation into the cause of the accident is underway, the report said. Last week, 13 people were killed after a fist fight between a woman passenger and a driver caused a bus to plunge from a bridge into the mighty Yangtze River in southwest China. Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are often flouted or go unenforced. Violations of traffic laws were blamed for nearly 90 per cent of accidents that caused deaths or injuries that year. Vice Admiral (retd) Manohar Pralhad Awati, a Vir Chakra awardee and a veteran of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, died of old age Sunday at Vinchurni village in Maharashtra's Satara district, his family members said. He was 91. Awati had joined the Royal Indian Navy in 1945 after completing his education. He was an expert in signal communication and commanded Indian naval ships such as "Ranjit", "Vendurthy", "Betwa", "Tir" and "Mysore". Awati was awarded the Vir Chakra for his exemplary valour as the commanding officer of "INS Kamorta" during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. Maritime history was his favourite subject and he was also the founder of the Maritime History Society. Awati is survived by wife Sandhya, sons Kailas and Kedarnath. His last rites were performed at his hometown. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman described Awati as an icon in the naval history. "Vice Admiral M P Awati (Retd) #PVSM, #VirChakra passed away; was the commanding officer of a naval unit of the Eastern Fleet,Dec'71. Captured three enemy ships carrying contraband goods. His actions led to destruction of an enemy submarine. An icon in naval history. My homage," she said in a tweet. Navy Chief Sunil Lanba said Awati's demise marked the end of an era. "Deeply regret to inform the sad demise of Vice Admiral MP Awati (Retd) early this morning, at his hometown Vinchurni, Phaltan, near Satara. He was 91. A giant of a man, one of our tallest heroes and greatest icons. It's truly the end of an era. May his soul RIP Adm S Lanba CNS," he said on the Navy's official Twitter handle. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vice Admiral (retired) M P Awati, who commanded a naval unit of the Eastern Fleet in the 1971 India-Pakistan war and whose actions led to the destruction of an enemy submarine, passed away at his hometown near Satara in Maharashtra Sunday, the Navy said. Awati, a Vir Chakra recipient, was 91. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman described Awati as an icon in the naval history. "Vice Admiral M P Awati (Retd) #PVSM, #VirChakra passed away; was the commanding officer of a naval unit of the Eastern Fleet, Dec'71. Captured three enemy ships carrying contraband goods. His actions led to destruction of an enemy submarine. An icon in naval history. My homage," Sitharaman said in a tweet. Navy Chief Sunil Lanba said Awati's demise marked the end of an era. "Deeply regret to inform the sad demise of Vice Admiral MP Awati (Retd) early this morning, at his hometown Vinchurni, Phaltan, near Satara. He was 91. A giant of a man, one of our tallest heroes and greatest icons. It's truly the end of an era. May his soul RIP Adm S Lanba CNS," he said on the Navy's official Twitter handle. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four women, including two Japanese nationals, were arrested in western Nepal for allegedly trying to convert dalits and landless people into Christianity, police said here on Sunday. The women were arrested when they were visiting door to door in poor dalits houses and approaching landless people in Butawal area with the purpose of converting them into Christianity by promising them financial assistance, they said. Some residents of Butawal followed the four women secretly and captured their movements in a video and handed it over to the police, following which the arrests were made, police said. The women have been identified as Japanese nationals Yasura Owa, 49, and Makihikula, 44, and Nepalese nationals Pushpa Ghimire, 25, and Tirthamaya Ghale, 35. Religious conversion is a crime and punishable offence in Nepal. However, there have been several media reports of secretly launching conversion campaign in the Hindu nation from time to time. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 42 pilgrims from Odisha's Ganjam district have been stranded without food near Badrinath Temple owing to heavy snowfall, officials said Sunday. Joint Commissioner, Relief, P R Mohapatra said the pilgrims from Bhanjanagar area of the district have been stranded at a pilgrim's shelter while they were returning from Badrinath shrine due to heavy snowfall. Mohapatra said the Uttarakhand government has been informed about the plight of the pilgrims and requested to provide necessary support. "As ascertained over telephone from one of the pilgrims, they are without food since Saturday night and facing problems due to power cut," Mohapatra said. "It is, therefore, requested to kindly provide necessary support to them and arrange their safe journey home," the Joint Commissioner said in a letter to the district Collector of Chamoli, Uttarakhand. Stating that the pilgrims would return as soon as the road is cleared, he said steps would be taken to rescue them from the area, if necessary. Meanwhile, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in a statement that he has spoken to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat for ensuring the safety of the stranded pilgrims. Family members of those stranded have also met officials of the Ganjam district administration and informed him about the plight of their kin. Bhanjanagar Sub-Collector Rajendra Minj said steps are being taken for the safe return of the pilgrims. We have spoken to the local authorities in Uttarakhand for helping the stranded pilgrims, Minj said. Ganjam district administration has also made arrangements to deposit money in the bank accounts of the stranded pilgrims if needed, said an official. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AAP leaders and workers staged a protest near the BJP headquarters here Sunday, demanding action against South Delhi legislator Ramesh Bidhuri for allegedly assaulting and misbehaving with people from the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh during a 'Run for Unity' event. The protestors tried to march from the AAP office on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg towards the BJP headquarters on the same lane, but were stopped by police. Bidhuri, a Bharatiya Janata Party MP, and his supporters have been accused of assaulting and misbehaving with party worker Chandan Chaudhary and others during the event in Sangam Vihar to commemorate the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on October 31. The AAP workers raised slogans against Bidhuri demanding that the BJP take action against him. "Bidhuri has insulted Purvanchalis. BJP will be taught a lesson by them in 2019 election," said Dilip Pandey, a senior leader and Purvanchali face of the AAP. Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari Friday issued a show-cause notice to Bidhuri in connection with the alleged incident. The MP has been given 10 days to give his version of the incident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) UN officials and volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent offered children vaccinations and distributed desperately needed aid on Sunday, the first such assistance to reach thousands in a remote camp for the displaced on Syria's border with Jordan since January. Residents said that humanitarians from international organizations entered their desolate camp for the first time since it was set up over three years ago, where nearly 50,000 have been stranded in limbo. Fadwa Baroud of the United Nations Office of the Resident Coordinator said it was the first time a UN aid convoy had accessed Rukban camp from inside Syria. Before January, aid only reached the camp from Jordan and aid workers were barred from accessing the camp out of security concerns. The Arab Syrian Red Crescent and the United Nations posted pictures of staff unloading trucks of life-saving assistance and administering vaccines on children in the camp. Residents posed with the aid trucks driving through the desolate camp, where 10,000 children are expected to be vaccinated. The US-led coalition fighting against Islamic State militants said its local allies, a Syrian armed group known as Maghawir al-Thawra, provided security for the aid convoys. Resident Abdul-Fatah al-Khaled, who also runs a camp school, said aid workers, including U.N. staff, were on the ground at the camp for the first time. "Before (January) the aid used to be distributed from the Jordanian side over the sand berms" or by rebel groups who resided in the camp, al-Khaled said. Al-Khaled said distribution of food and winter clothes began late Saturday. People started gathering in Rukban three years ago, fleeing IS militants and airstrikes by the US-led coalition, Russia and Syria. Jordan sealed its border and stopped regular aid deliveries in 2016 after a cross-border IS attack that killed seven Jordanian soldiers. The attack, and other violence, fueled accusations that militants were hiding among camp residents and raised concern that deteriorating humanitarian conditions amounted to collective punishment. The last aid delivery from Jordan was in January, leaving the camp's residents dependent on goods largely smuggled from government-held areas. The situation sharply deteriorated after the Syrian government blocked supply routes last month following a botched reconciliation deal with rebel groups in the area. Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, has blamed the US for the deterioration of the situation in Rukban, which is within a 55-square kilometre "deconfliction zone" set up by US forces stationed in the nearby Tanf military base. The US-led coalition has denied such allegations and blamed Russia and the Syrian government instead. "We continue to stand ready to enable future delivery of U.N. humanitarian relief to the people of Rukban until they are able to return home as we pursue our mission of an enduring defeat of (IS)," said Maj Gen (UK) Christopher Ghika, a deputy commander for the US-led Coalition. The UN said aid deliveries would continue for up to four days, describing the condition in the camp as "critical" with reported shortages of basic commodities, protection concerns, and increasing violence. At least four people have died in the past month due to malnutrition and lack of medical care as regional powers traded blame. Separately on Sunday, the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the pro-government daily Al-Watan that Syria would cooperate with the new UN envoy Geir Pederson if he avoids the "methods" of his predecessor, commits to the country's territorial integrity and stops supporting "terrorists, as his predecessor did." The government regularly refers to the opposition as "terrorists." Pedersen succeeds Staffan de Mistura, who steps down this month after four years of unsuccessful peace efforts. The conflict, now in its eighth year, has killed more than 400,000 people, displaced half of the country's population and left entire neighborhoods and towns in ruins. De Mistura's latest efforts focused on negotiating a joint government-opposition committee to draft a new Syrian constitution. The government has largely rejected those efforts, saying they amounted to meddling in its internal affairs. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior NCP leader and former deputy chief minister of Maharashtra Ajit Pawar can be arrested "anytime" in the alleged irrigation scam, state BJP president Raosaheb Danve has said. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), however, said Pawar had no role in the alleged scam and accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to vitiate the political atmosphere ahead of elections. Pawar was among NCP ministers who were in-charge of the irrigation department at different times between 1999 and 2014 when the Congress and the NCP were part of the coalition government in the state. The scam, pegged at Rs 72,000 crore, relates to alleged corruption and irregularities in approval and execution of various irrigation projects in the state during the Congress-NCP rule. It was probed by the ACB. "Police have reached the door steps of Ajit Pawar in the irrigation scam. Therefore, his condition is such that there is a sword hanging on his head and he can be arrested anytime," Danve said. He was addressing a gathering in industrial town of Pimpri-Chinchwad near Pune Saturday evening in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. When contacted, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde of the NCP said the matter is being investigated since the last four years and it has been proved that Pawar had no role to play in the issue. "This is an attempt to vitiate the atmosphere since elections are approaching. Those who have had relations with the accused in naptha racket (related to fuel adulteration) and who used power take benefits of government schools should not teach us but look at themselves," Munde said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) King Mohammed VI, in his quality as Commander of the Faithful, on Friday launched a Radio and TV program, Addourous Al Hadithia, designed to explain the Hadith, Prophet Mohammeds sayings, as it was authenticated by his companions and by Imam Malik. The Sovereign, who was accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, visited the headquarters of the National Broadcasting Corporation (SNRT) in Rabat to oversee the launch of the new religious talk show, Addourous Al Hadithia, to be aired by the Mohammed VI Radio of the Holy Quran and Assadissa TV channel. The sovereign then gave the signal for the recording and the airing of the inaugural talk show, presented by the Secretary General of the Higher Council of Ulemas, Professor Mohamed Yssef. This new royal initiative is meant to disseminate the authentic sayings of the Prophet and their meanings, to educate people about the Prophets Tradition as the second source of Islam, and to correct the false Hadiths circulated, especially via the Internet, to spread confusion and ideologies that are alien to Islam. The new program also aims to highlight the unity of the Moroccan Nation when it comes to religion and to counter attempts to distort this religion as these attempts are sometimes designed to attract would-be extremists. The weekly Addourous Alhadithia program will include lectures on the Prophets recommendations concerning the transmission of his sayings, on the Prophets companions and on the method of Imam Malik in the authentication, collection and codification of the Hadith. The program, supervised by the Higher Council of Ulemas and Al-Quaraouyine University, also features talk shows with Hadith scholars and theologians to be moderated by a TV or radio anchor. A question time will allow TV watchers and radio listeners to pose their queries by telephone, mail or WhatsApp. The program will also be broadcast live on the Internet. Temples are meant to promote harmony and there should not be any objection to the construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya which is the Lord's birthplace, American Hindu teacher and author David Frawley said Sunday. After releasing his book titled 'What is Hinduism' at the venue of the Mangaluru Literary Festival (Mangaluru Lit Fest-2018) here, he said there was no opposition towards constructing mosques and churches in the country and there should be no opposition for constructing a temple also. Temples are part of national heritage and meant to promote harmony among the people, he noted. In his speech, Frawley, who was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2015, said Hindu religion is the only religion which gave greatest importance to women. Hindus offer poojas to various Goddesses like Saraswathi, Kali, Lakshmi and woman is considered as mother of the universe in the religion, a concept not found in any other religion, he claimed. Frawley, also known as Vamadeva Shastri, said age-old practices of Hindus like Yoga, meditation and Ayurveda had received universal acceptance over the years. While following the customs, traditions and rituals, Hindus always had respect for the values of other religions, he added. On the second and concluding day of the literary festival, based on the theme Idea of Bharat, veteran Kannada novelist S L Bhyrappa was felicitated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Himachal Pradesh police has arrested another accused in the Rs 40-lakh online fraud case registered at Shillai Police Station here, officials said Sunday. A special investigation team (SIT) of Sirmaur police arrested the second accused, Satyajit Majumdar, from Kolkata in West Bengal, Sirmaur Superintendent of Police Rohit Malpani said. The SIT sought transit remand for Majumdar from a local court in 24 Parganas of Kolkata, he said, adding that the accused was granted interim anticipatory for transit and was directed to be present in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Paonta Sahib on November 16. Earlier, Subrata Sarkar, alias Rocky, was arrested by the SIT from Siliguri in West Bengal in October this year in connection with the online fraud case registered under section 420 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) on November 25 last year at Shillai Police Station, where it was alleged the accused promised fake jobs in multinational companies (MNCs) outside India to unsuspecting persons, he added. The entire fraud was estimated to be of around Rs 40 lakh. Sarkar's five-day transit remand was obtained from a local magistrate in West Bengal and the SIT returned to Sirmaur with the accused on October 28, he added. After obtaining his police remand from a Sirmaur court, Rocky had been taken to Kolkata to arrest other accused gang members, following which Majumdar was nabbed, Malpani said The crime took place in 2015-2016 when the complainant was allegedly duped of Rs 40 lakh in phases through fraudulent e-mails, he said. The complainant is a native of Shillai but was working in Jammu and Kashmir. Sarkar, along with the other accused, was operating a website -- Techno International Group registered on GoDaddy.Com, he said. Around 21 ATM cards, details of four bank accounts, two PAN cards, a Aadhaar card, laptops and seven mobile phones were seized from the accused, he added. "A joint team of cyber cell and Shillai Police Station had gone to Kolkata a month ago to trace the criminals and dig up details on them. The team did not disclose their police identity and posed as insurance agents during the operation," he said. The accused real name is Subrata Sarkar and not Aarnav Singhania which he used when cheating people, Malpani said. The main accused was picked up from Siliguri after raids were conducted in Srirampur, Kolkata and Siliguri. The gang has expertise in making fake bank accounts, websites and sending fake e-mails to allure job seekers, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A senior Pakistani minister on Sunday said that appeasement to "avoid bloodshed" sends a dangerous message to non-state actors, a day after the radical Islamist parties reached a deal with the government to end their protests against a Supreme Court verdict acquitting a Christian woman of blasphemy charges. Asia Bibi, 47, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. A three-judge apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar last week overturned her conviction, sparking protests led by the radical religious parties and other groups across Pakistan. In a series of tweets, Pakistan's Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari said that the history shows that appeasement never works. "Appeasement to avoid 'bloodshed' in a war-weary Europe led to massive bloodshed & destruction in the form of WW II," Mazari said. "Appeasement to "avoid bloodshed" sends a dangerous msg to non-state actors & undermines the very concept of democratic peaceful protest. The State has to enforce Rule of Law, Constitution & stand by state institutions esp when they are targeted. #IStandWithSupremeCourt," she tweeted. ".. & despite sceptics & beyond despondency I trust PM (Imran) Khan to deliver on his commitment to Rule of Law, Constitution & defence of state institutions as well as to human rights guaranteed in Constitution - not just in present situation but also on issues like Enforced Disappearances," she added. Mazari's comments comes in the wake of the three-day long protests led by the radical group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and other parties that paralysed the country from October 31 to November 2. The TLP only ended their ended sit-ins across the country following a deal with the government on the issue of acquittal of Aasia Bibi on Friday. As per the agreement, the government will immediately initiate a process to place the name of Asia Bibi on the no-fly list (exit control list). The government has also promised to take appropriate legal action to redress any deaths that may have occurred during the protests against the verdict and to release all people picked up in connection with the agitation starting October 30. Meanwhile, the interior ministry has initiated criminal proceedings against the rioters and booked 5,000 people, including TLP chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi and senior leader Afzal Qadri, on charges of rioting and disrupting peace during the demonstrations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A new archaeological museum, coming up in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hometown Vadnagar in Gujarat, will house coins dating back to 3rd century BC and artifacts excavated from the area over the last 13 years besides other rare items, an official has said. The design of the new museum, spread over 6,000 square metres, was approved by Modi in 2012, when he was chief minister, Y S Rawat, Officer on Special Duty at the state's sports, youth and cultural activities department, told PTI. Six years after the approval of the design, actual construction on the new archaeological museum began a couple of months ago. The construction was delayed by several years as two contractors backed out of the project due to issues arising out of the building's designs, Rawat said. The new museum will replace the old one built in the town in 1996 which was partly damaged in the 2001 earthquake, he said. The new museum is coming up on the outskirts of Vadnagar, while the existing one is located in city limits. "Designed by noted architecture Neelkanth Chhaya of the Ahmedabad-based Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), the museum will have six galleries, a canteen, scholars' space and carry Buddhist elements like a pillar with bells, among others," he said. "The museum will showcase artifacts unearthed during two excavation exercises - one carried by the state archaeological department between 2005 and 2012 and the other by the Archaeological Survey of India after 2014," Rawat said. In his travel accounts, 7th century Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang had talked about the existence of 11 monasteries in the area. A team of the state archaeological department had managed to unearth one monastery in Vadnagar in 2008. The ASI also recently unearthed a large structure along the eastern bank of the Sarmishtha lake in the town, but it is not that of a monastery, Rawat said. The new museum will display materials like coins dating back to 3rd century BC, seal impressions from the 4th to 8th century AD - indicating the region was a trading centre - terracota forms, iron nails, copper implements, pendents, images and beads, among other items, the officer said. Sculptures and ancient images from Hindu mythology collected from Vadnagar and nearby areas and copper plates dating back to 6th century AD - displayed in the existing museum - will be shifted to the new building, he said. "These materials are currently being documented and classified," Rawat said. Vadnagar, located about 100km from Ahmedabad, in Mehsana district, was fortified with mud ramparts between 3rd century BC and 1st century AD, he said. Around 1st century AD, mud walls were converted into brick walls remains of which still exit, Rawat said. "The accessibility to the existing museum has become difficult due to narrow and crowded lanes leading to it. "The new museum, on the other hand, is strategically located near the main highway so that tourists do not have problem accessing it," Rawat said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday voiced concern over bandhs called by various organisations, including the BJP, as the Gauhati High Court has declared it illegal in the state. The senior BJP leader said that the Assam government will discuss the issue in its next Cabinet meeting to explore possibilities of bringing a law against bandhs. "I feel we should not contempt the High Court. As a personal opinion, I am saying that as long as the bandh culture is declared illegal by the Gauhati High Court, it should not happen within the state of Assam. "If the BJP had called for a bandh yesterday, my answer would have been the same that it should not have been called as it would be a contempt of the court. But I cannot decide whether they (BJP) will call for it or not," Sarma said at a press conference here. On Saturday, a 12-hour Assam bandh was called by All Assam Bangali Yuba Chatra Federation, All Assam Bengali Students Union and some like-minded organizations to protest the killings of five persons in Tinsukia district earlier this week. On October 23, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chhatra Parishad (AJYCP) and 58 other groups had called a 12-hour Assam bandh against the Centre's bid to pass Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in Winter Session of the Parliament. "The Assam government should enact a law against bandhs. The High Court had given a direction in this regard. I will raise the issue in the next Cabinet meeting. In general, we should oppose the bandh culture, whosoever has called for it." When asked if he would oppose calling a bandh in Assam by BJP in the future, Sarma said: "I cannot speak for the party... I don't have the courage to oppose it. How can one person oppose it? But I will make my comment that it will be a contempt of court." He also advocated action against bandh sponsors if there is any destruction of properties. "I will not go in to the merit of a bandh. But as the High Court has declared bandhs illegal, we should oppose it. The government's stand is that every bandh, whether it is called by AGP, BJP, AIUDF, AASU or any other organisation, has been declared illegal by the High Court," Sarma said. The minister also appealed to the media to refrain from carrying of bandhs and stop giving it publicity. "The Gauhati High Court has declared it illegal within the state of Assam and nobody should encourage it. We should not look at who has called bandhs. We should condemn the act of bandh. And if that happens, Assam will be better," Sarma said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lionel Messi has been included in Barcelona's travelling squad to face Inter Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday. Messi broke his arm during Barca's win over Sevilla on October 20, with the club predicting he would be out for three weeks. The striker has not yet been declared fit by Barcelona's medical team but he will travel with the squad to the San Siro. "Leo Messi travels to Milan without the medical all-clear," the club posted on their Twitter account on Sunday. Messi had trained the same day, along with other players not involved in Saturday's 3-2 victory over Rayo Vallecano. Barcelona have won all of their last four matches without Messi, including a 2-0 win over Inter at the Camp Nou last month. They sit three points ahead of the Italians at the top of Group B. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta Sunday advocated redeployment of Army and strengthening of village defence committees (VDC) in Chenab valley of Jammu and Kashmir, claiming the recent assassination of a party leader and his brother in Kishtwar was part of a strategy to restart terror activities in the region. "To check the rise of militancy in Chenab valley, Army needs to be redeployed...I will be discussing the issue with Union minister Rajnath Singh," Gupta said addressing a function here. State Secretary of BJP Anil Parihar and his brother Ajeet Parihar were assassinated by suspected militants in a late night attack in Kishtwar town on Thursday while they were on way to their home. Gupta said he along with other senior leaders visited Kishtwar and every person there was asking for the safety of Hindus residing in the area. Chenab Valley lies between the middle and outer Himalayan range and is divided into three districts - Doda, Ramban, and Kishtwar besides two constituencies of Reasi. The valley also touches the Anantnag district of Kashmir. Chenab Valley comprises three districts, Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar of Jammu and touches the Anantnag district of Kashmir. Once a hotbed of terrorism, the valley has been peaceful after security forces purged the ultras from that area. Referring to the assassination of the Parihar brothers, he said "this is well planned strategy of the pro-Pakistan Hurriyat and its allies to restart terror activities in the Chenab Valley." He said the VDC's functional in the area needs to be strengthened otherwise there are chances that terrorists may resort to "killing of Hindus living in the remote villages". "Large number of VDC weapons has been withdrawn by vested administration in the Chenab valley over a period of time," Gupta said, adding VDC were sanctioned in the tenure of NDA-1 and played a very crucial role in the control and elimination of the militancy from the region. He said there was need of conducting security review of leaders and families who have fought anti-national forces in Chenab region in the last 30 years. "The selective killing of Hindu leaders in the region can lead to migration and this incident is eye opener for the security forces and the government," he said. Curfew was relaxed for four hours Sunday in Kishtwar town where it was imposed as a precautionary measure on Thursday night following the killing of Parihar brothers. The killing had triggered massive protests across Jammu region following which the authorities suspended internet services in the curfew-bound areas, while the internet speed was slowed down in the rest of the division, including the winter capital Jammu. However, the internet speed was restored in Jammu and other parts of the division Saturday evening. The Army also staged a flag march in the sensitive areas to help the district administration in Kishtwar maintain law and order. On Thursday, the Parihar brothers were walking towards their home in Parihar mohalla through a dark lane in Tapal Mohalla when they were fired upon from a close range by suspected militants around 8.40 pm. The assailants were apparently waiting for the brothers to return home. The government has constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the killing and directed it to expedite the investigation and submit its report as early as possible. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP is looking into allegations that an Uttarakhand leader sexually harassed a former party worker, its state unit said Sunday. "The party leadership has taken cognisance of the entire issue and appropriate action will be taken as per the set procedure, state BJP president Ajay Bhatt told PTI. Asked about the allegations against Uttarakhand BJP general secretary (organisation) Sanjay Kumar, the state unit media cell head Devendra Bhasin told reporters the party is aware of them and is looking into them. The harassment took place six months ago, it is alleged. There has been no formal complaint, party leaders said. "Whatever I know about the incident is through the newspapers. As the matter involves a general secretary it would not be proper for me to comment on it unless I hear from the leadership," Bhatt said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP has decided to remove a Uttarakhand general secretary over allegations of sexual harassment by a former party worker, sources said. "The party leadership has taken cognisance of the entire issue and appropriate action will be taken as per the set procedure, state BJP president Ajay Bhatt told PTI. Other sources said the leader has been removed from his position. An official announcement, however, is yet to be made. Asked about the allegations against Uttarakhand BJP general secretary (organisation) Sanjay Kumar, the state unit media cell head Devendra Bhasin told reporters the party is aware of them and is looking into them. The harassment took place six months ago, it is alleged. There has been no formal complaint, party leaders said. "Whatever I know about the incident is through the newspapers. As the matter involves a general secretary it would not be proper for me to comment on it unless I hear from the leadership," Bhatt said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police in Cameroon arrested 19 supporters of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who disputes the results of October presidential elections, at protests against President Paul Biya on Sunday, local authorities and witnesses told AFP. The arrests happened at two different places in the town of Bafoussam in the country's west where Kamto backers were picketing, they said. Kamto, who according to official results came second with 14 per cent of the vote behind incumbent Biya with seven percent, called Friday for an independent vote recount. He claimed victory in the October 7 polls, and has been declared an "outlaw" by the government. But Kamto, one of seven candidates seeking to unseat Biya who has ruled the West African country for 36 years, insists the process was marred by widespread fraud. Members of Kamto's Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) posted images on social media Sunday of their protest against what they called an electoral "hold-up". Sixteen MRC members who had protested the election results in the capital Yaounde, were freed two days after their arrest on October 28. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dalit leader Mayawati, whose Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting this month's Chhattisgarh Assembly polls in alliance with former chief minister Ajit Jogi's Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC-J), Sunday accused the "casteist" BJP and the Congress of trying to "abolish" the reservation system. Addressing a rally in Taraud village in the Akaltara constituency in Janjgir-Champa, the BSP chief alleged that both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress had worked towards making reservation "ineffective" and were trying to gradually "abolish" it. "Dalits, adivasis and the other backward castes people have been getting the benefits of reservation, particularly in government jobs, as a result of the efforts of B R Ambedkar," Mayawati said. She accused the Congress and the BJP of having a "casteist mentality". "Right from the beginning, those parties had a casteist mentality...they have worked towards making reservation ineffective and (are trying to) gradually abolish it," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said. The BSP is contesting the election -- to be held in two phases on November 12 and 20 -- in alliance with the JCC-J and the Communist Party of India (CPI). Of the 90 Assembly seats in Chhattisgarh, the BSP will contest 33, the JCC-J 55 and the CPI two. Jogi has been named as the chief ministerial candidate of the coalition. His daughter-in-law, Richa Jogi, is contesting from the Akaltara seat on a BSP ticket. "The Congress was in power for a long time in the country. Now, the incumbent BJP governments at the Centre and in the state have failed to fully comply with the quota norms as provisioned in the reservation policy. A similar situation is prevailing in Chhattisgarh as well," the BSP chief said. She also accused the Congress and the BJP of having an "internal nexus" to make reservations in job promotions for Dalits and tribals "ineffective up to a great extent". Mayawati further said the BSP had fought for reservation inside Parliament and on the streets, apart from running a campaign for implementation of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission to ensure a quota for the OBCs. She also lashed out at the BJP and the Congress over the SCs, STs and OBCs not getting reservation in the private sector. "If the coalition of the BSP, JCC-J and CPI comes to power in Chhattisgarh, it will do its best to ensure that adivasis, Dalits, backwards, minorities, labourers and farmers get their rights. "Uplift of the poor, farmers, labourers, tribals and Dalits is only possible in the state when this alliance comes to power. They will be able to lead a life with respect and dignity, besides Naxalism will also be contained," Mayawati said. Eighteen constituencies in the eight Naxalism-affected districts of the state will go to the polls on November 12 and the rest in the second phase on November 20. The results will be declared on December 11. In the 2013 state Assembly polls, the BJP had won 49 seats, the Congress 39, the BSP and an Independent candidate had won one seat each. Scheduled Castes (SCs) account for around 12 per cent of the population of Chhattisgarh. Triangular fights among the BJP, Congress and the BSP-JCC(J)-CPI coalition are expected in the Bilaspur division. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Latching on to the remark of Congress leader Raj Babbar on the Naxal movement in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, BJP chief Amit Shah Sunday asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to make clear his party's stand on Naxalism. Shah also claimed that Babbar had described Naxalism as a "revolution". Addressing a public meeting in Ambagarh Chowki town in Rajnandgaon district, Shah said, "A Congress leader yesterday described Naxalism as a revolution and said that Maoists were engaged in revolution. "I want to ask the Congress chief to make his stand clear on Naxalism. Your leader called it a revolution. What is your stand?" Shah was referring to the remarks made by Uttar Pradesh Congress president Raj Babbar during a press conference held in Raipur Saturday, when he had said Naxals had launched a "revolution" which cannot be stopped through guns, and the menace should be resolved through talks. When Babbar was asked whether he was suggesting Naxals were revolutionaries, he had said, "I want to clarify that I said the issue can be solved through talks with those who call themselves revolutionaries by indulging in acts of terrorism." On Sunday, the BJP chief campaigned in Khujji Assembly constituency, which will go to polls in the first phase on November 12. Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Hirendra Sahu from Khujji seat. "Revolution does not come through Naxalism. Revolution does not come by indulging in the act of violence and by bullets or bombs (but) revolution takes place when cattle were distributed to poor women to bring white revolution and milk revolution," Shah said. He hailed Raman Singh, who is seeking a fourth straight term as chief minister, for "bringing revolution" in the state through welfare measures. "When our 'chawal wale baba' (as the CM is popularly known) provides rice at Rs 2 per kg to the poor people then it is a revolution...When farmers sweat in their farms and get a good return on their produce, then it is revolution," he said. Playing on Babbar's remarks, Shah said Rahul Gandhi didnt's understand revolution. "You (Gandhi) don't know what is revolution. I want to tell people that the Congress consider Naxalism as revolution, but the BJP sees revolution in development," said the BJP chief. "Rahul baba Chhattisgarh was under the grip of Naxalism during your time (when the Congress government was in power from 2000 to 2003). Putting his life at stake, Raman Singh has destroyed the Naxalites and flushed them out from the state (during the last 15 years of the BJP rule)," he said. Taking a dig at the Congress chief, Shah said Gandhi considers Chhattisgarh as a "tourist spot" where he comes for a picnic. "Sometimes I see Rahul baba here. Chhattisgarh is not more than a tourist place for him. He comes here for a picnic. Rahul baba used to say 'Made in Chhattisgarh' should take place here. "Rahul your government was in power (at Centre) for 55 years. Your government ruled right from panchayat to parliament for 55 years, but what development took place in Chhattisgarh," he asked. Shah said development was ushered in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Today, handicraft items made by tribal women are being sold at airports through the initiative of the prime minister," he said. Shah said Chhattisgarh has become a power-surplus state under Raman Singh and supplying electricity to other states. "Chhattisgarh is among top states in cement and aluminium production," he said. When Ajit Jogi, first chief minister of Congress in Chhattisgarh from 2000-2003, was in power, the budget of the state stood at Rs 9,000 crore, which has increased to Rs 83,180 crore under the BJP government, which is in power in the state since 2003, he said. "No state in the country has witnessed a 10-fold rise in its budget, but the Chhattisgarh BJP government has done this during the last 15 years," he added. Shah is scheduled to address two more rallies in Khairagarh and Kondagaon assembly constituencies Sunday. Eighteen of the total 90 assembly constituencies in eight Naxal-affected districts in Chhattisgarh will go to polls on November 12 and rest in the second phase on November 20. Counting of votes will be held on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) LiuGong India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China-based infrastructure heavy equipment maker Guangxi LiuGong, is planning to invest Rs 2.5 billion to strengthen operations and make a global sourcing hub, an official has said. "We are committed to Planning to make as a second global sourcing hub after for some products for certain international markets," Liugong India director (sales and marketing) Nischal Mehrotra told LiuGong has 20 manufacturing plants, of which 17 are in China, one each in Poland, and India. Mehrotra said the company believes in India's growth story in the long run despite recent crises like IL&FS default which led to an abrupt slowdown in project execution besides impacting demand for the last two months. He said going by the vision of the Indian government, a lot of action waiting to happen in the infrastructure and space. The Chinese outfit has invested about Rs 3 billion in its existing manufacturing base at Pitampura in during the last 10 years but the company has proposed to pump Rs 2.50 billion in near future once the new emission norms are notified. Hydraulic excavators and compactors will be sourced from India for exports to the Middle East, and SAARC countries, the company Mehrotra said it has cumulatively sold over 4,000 machines in India and in the current fiscal the company hopes to sell 1,500 units. The company has also started manufacturing 7-tonne payloaders to strengthen its product range. Chris Hemsworth has begun shooting for Netflix thriller "Dhaka" in Ahmedabad. The "Avengers: Infinity War" star, who landed in the country last week, shared a few glimpses from the sets of the film on Instagram, Saturday. Hemsworth, 35, posted three stories on the photo-and-video sharing platform. He captioned the first story: "First day shooting in India." The actor introduced himself, stuntman Bobby Holland Hanton, and his make-up man in the video while he was getting ready for the shoot. "Day 1, we are in India... I'm Chris, I play dress ups for a living," he said. The second story followed Hemsworth having a good time on the city streets with the crew members as loud music blasted in the background. In the next video, the actor can be seen relishing a customised edible Thor "welcome package". "I've got to India... It's a welcome package... All edible, including my picture, hammer... Look at this, terrific," Hemsworth said in the story as he bites the chunks of chocolate gifts. "Dhaka", an action thriller, will revolve around the kidnapping of an Indian boy. The film marks the directorial debut of Sam Hargrave. It follows Rake (Hemsworth) who has been hired to liberate a kidnapped Indian boy, being hidden in Bangladesh capital, Dhaka. Physically brave but an emotional coward, the man has to come to terms with his identity and sense of self. "Infinity War" directing duo Anthony and Joe Russo have penned the script and they will also produce the feature via their AGBO banner. The film will also be shot in Thailand this year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Central Information Commission (CIC) has issued a show-cause notice to RBI Governor Urjit Patel for "dishonouring" a Supreme Court judgment on disclosure of wilful defaulters' list. The CIC has also asked the Prime Minister's Office, the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to make public the letter of former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan on bad loans. Irked over the denial of information on the disclosure of the names of wilful defaulters who have taken bank loans of Rs 50 crore and above by the RBI in spite of a Supreme Court order, the CIC has asked Patel to explain why a maximum penalty be not imposed on him for "dishonouring" the verdict which had upheld a decision taken by then Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, calling for disclosure of names of wilful defaulters. Patel, speaking on September 20 at the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), had said the guidelines on vigilance, issued by the CVC, were aimed at achieving greater transparency, promoting a culture of honesty and probity in public life and improving the overall vigilance administration in the organisations within its purview, the CIC pointed out. "The Commission feels that there is no match between what RBI Governor and Deputy Governor say and their website regarding their RTI policy, and great secrecy of vigilance reports and inspection reports is being maintained with impunity in spite of the Supreme Court confirming the orders of the CIC in the Jayantilal case", Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said. He concluded that it did not serve any purpose in punishing the CPIO for this defiance, because he acted under the instructions of the top authorities. "The Commission considers the Governor as deemed PIO responsible for non-disclosure and defiance of SC orders and CIC orders and directs him to show cause why maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for these reasons, before November 16, 2018," Acharyulu said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 19-year-old student of a college was allegedly raped by a man in Maharashtra's Nagpur district, around 820 kms from here, the police said Sunday. The accused and his friend were arrested within hours of the incident which occurred on the night of November 2 along the Hyderabad-Jabalpur highway at Hudkeshwar, an official said. The woman and her male friend are pursuing B.Com in a college and are classmates. The incident occurred when two men spotted the victim and her male friend sitting together behind bushes at an isolated place, he said. The men then attacked the duo and one of them dragged the victim's friend to the road while the other man raped her behind the bushes, the official said. Before leaving, the accused told the woman that his two friends would be coming in a short while and told her not to leave the spot, the official said. In the meantime, the male friend tried to stop vehicles plying on the highway for help, but to no avail, he said. The official said the male friend couldn't summon help immediately, as his mobile phone was switched off. "After sometime, a truck driver stopped his vehicle and took him to the nearest eating joint (dhaba) from where he contacted the police," he said. A police team rushed to the spot where they found the woman and took her to hospital, he said. Police registered a case of gang rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and within hours picked up two suspects who are identified as Anil Thete (46) and Baba Bhagat (38), the official said. Thete is a resident of Butibori and Bhagat of Hudkeshwar in Nagpur, he said. As per prima facie investigation, it was Thete who allegedly raped the woman while Bhagat abetted the crime. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Anti-Terrorism Squad of Rajasthan Police seized unaccounted cash worth Rs 1.2 crore, 2 kg gold and 2 quintals of silver from a consignment inside a train at Jaipur junction Saturday night. The consignment was found in the Delhi-Ahmedabad Ashram Express. "Following a tip-off about the hawala money in a parcel, a team of Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in coordination with the railway authorities and Government Railway Police (GRP) searched the parcel. "They found Rs 1.2 crore cash, gold biscuits weighing 2 kg and 2 quintals of silver in raw form," ADG (ATS and SOG) Umesh Mishra told PTI. He said the income tax authorities have been informed about the matter and they were probing the source and destination of the consignment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi Commission for Women Sunday lashed out at the city police over delay in the probe into the death of three minor girls in Mandawali allegedly due to starvation. The case was reported in July this year. The family was reportedly facing financial woes and doctors suspected that the three girls did not have food for days. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) solicited a reply on the action taken in the matter by the police, which in turn informed the women rights body that a report of the viscera samples deposited in the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) was still awaited, the DCW said in a statement. The Commission then issued a notice to FSL. However, the laboratory informed the body that the viscera report was lying with the FSL since September 28 and despite intimation, the police failed to collect the same, it said. The Commission has now asked the police to provide the status of the probe and called its approach "unpardonable". The police, in its response, said they received the viscera sample report from the FSL recently. The report will be sent on Monday to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, where a second postmortem of the minor girls was conducted earlier. We will take the opinion of the hospital to ascertain the cause of the death, a senior police officer said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Doctors of a hospital here claimed to have performed an emergency angioplasty on a 42-year-old man within 34 minutes of him being brought to the hospital, significantly reducing the door-to-balloon turn-around-time (TAT) of 90 minutes according to internationally-accepted protocol. Door-to-balloon time refers to the time taken for heart attack victims to receive balloon angioplasty treatment from the moment they walk through the hospital doors. Chennai resident Santosh Kumar, who was on a business trip to the national capital, collapsed after complaining of chest pain on October 9. He was rushed to BLK Super Speciality Hospital, where he was detected that he had developed an extensive anterior myocardial infarction, the most serious cardiac emergency as it can lead to cardiac arrest or severe damage to the heart, Navneet Singh, Director, Emergency and Acute Care at BLK Heart Centre, said. He was immediately shifted to the cath lab under care of Dr Neeraj Bhalla, senior consultant and Director, Cardiology. "A stent was placed to keep the artery flowing within a quick turnaround time of 16 minutes. The patient responded very well to immediate and efficient intervention," Dr Bhalla said. He said the total door-to-angioplasty time was 34 minutes which was much lesser than the international protocols of around 90 minutes. According to Bhalla chances to save a patient are usually very high if proper medical attention is provided within an hour of the event. Over 30 lakh people suffer from heart attack in India every year and many don't survive. One of the biggest reasons for non-survival is non-availability of timely treatment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dozens of Yemeni rebels have been killed in battles and air strikes in Hodeida, medics said Sunday, as pro-government forces advanced in the insurgent-held Red Sea port city. The bloodshed comes despite growing international pressure to end a years-long conflict that has left thousands dead. Fifty-three Huthi rebels were killed and dozens were injured over the past 24 hours, medical sources in Hodeida told AFP. Clashes intensified in the city and centred around its university on Saturday and Sunday morning, a pro-government military official said. Huthi media reported air strikes in Hodeida on Sunday but did not give a fighter casualty toll. Military officials said Saudi-led coalition warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes to support pro-government forces in the fighting which began on Thursday evening. Thirteen pro-government troops were killed, medical sources in Aden and Mokha - where the fighters were transported - told AFP. The clashes erupted just hours after the government said Thursday it was ready to restart peace talks with the Iran-backed Huthis. The offer followed a surprise call by the United States for an end to the Yemen war, including air strikes by the coalition. Hodeida port is the entry point for more than 70 per cent of imports into the impoverished country, which is teetering on the edge of famine. Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, a special envoy for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), appealed for an immediate ceasefire. "As an international community we have been shamefully slow to act to end the crisis in Yemen," she said in a statement during a trip to South Korea. "We have watched the situation deteriorate to the point that Yemen is now on the brink of man-made famine, and facing the worst cholera epidemic in the world in decades," Jolie added. "The only way to enable refugees to return home, and to bring down the overall numbers worldwide, is to end conflicts themselves." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday had called for a halt to violence to pull Yemen back from the "precipice". After UN-backed peace talks collapsed in September, the coalition announced it was relaunching an assault on Hodeida. Yemeni government officials said Tuesday that the coalition had sent more than 10,000 new troops towards the battleground city. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the war in 2015 to bolster Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the rebels took over the capital Sanaa and drove the government further south to Aden. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 10,000 people have since been killed. Some rights groups estimate the toll could be five times higher. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An early solution to the insurgency problem in is difficult given its complexity due to the multiplicity of militant groups and their different sets of demands, a senior officer has said. There are around 30 insurgent outfits, many of them splinter groups with different secessionist demands, while Naga groups, including the NSCN(I-M) and proscribed NSCN(K) are seeking 'Nagalim' or greater Nagaland, said Major General V K Mishra, GOC of 57 Mountain Division, involved in anti-insurgency operations in the state. These apart, 16 Kuki organisations are seeking a separate state for themselves and eight groups of the United People's Front, which is demanding a separate hill state within the territory of "The presence of so many groups adds to the complexity. You may reach out, but to whom?" the official said, talking to visiting journalists recently. "Given the complexity of the problem, it may take longer to achieve a solution," he said. "There are four major constituents in the problems affecting the state-- insurgency, ethnic issues, criminal activities and drugs," Mishra said. He said the and other security forces, including the Assam Rifles, are doing their best to weed out insurgency from the state. "Our attempt is to remove this fear among people," he said when asked about people being afraid to complain on receiving extortion calls from the insurgents. Chief Minister N Biren Singh has invited the insurgent groups for talks but the major outfits are yet to respond, a state government official said. Some of the minor groups have expressed willingness to sit for talks, but there has not been much response from the bigger ones, he said. Stating that the hills and valley were divided, Singh said the state government has taken initiative to close this gap. "Earlier, MLAs from the valley could not go to the hills, but I asked them to go to the hills. There must be trust," he said. United Liberation Front (UNLF) was the first militant outfit to be founded in the valley areas with separatist goals and is at present one of the most active in the state. The other major separatist outfits are People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) and People Liberation Army (PLA). While KYKL seeks a perfect Manipuri society, the Kuki Revolutionary Army seeks a separate state for the Kuki tribe. There are several other smaller outfits and groups with different objectives active in the north-eastern state. Added to this is the divide between the hill people and the dwellers in the valley. The Kuki militant outfits signed a Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with the government in 2008 and around 1,800 cadres of these groups are housed in 13 SoO camps. "The geography and location of Manipur itself have lot of implications," Maj Gen Mishra said. The state has an area of 22,000 square km, of which 1,843 km are valley area situated at the centre, while the rest are hills surrounding the valley. Nearly 60 per cent of the population of the state live in the valley area, while the rest are spread in the sparsely populated hills. Of those living in the valley, over 66 per cent belong to the Meitei ethnic group. The hills are inhabited mainly by different Naga and Kuki tribes. On October 31, Universal Friendship Organisation (UFO) held a rally in Imphal for unity and territorial integrity of Manipur, while Naga organisations held a blockade in the hills on the same day in opposition. Economic blockades by different organisations have also affected the state over time. The Naga Council had resorted to a 139-day economic blockade of two highways NH102 and NH37 from November 1, 2016. It ended on March 19, 2017. Nineteen suspected jihadists linked to a deadly attack on Coptic Christians in central Egypt have been killed in a shootout with police, the interior ministry said Sunday. Those killed in the exchange of fire were part of a cell that left dead seven pilgrims in Friday's attack in Minya province, a statement by the ministry said. "The terrorist elements opened fire on the (security) forces who responded," the statement said. The 19 suspected jihadists were found "as part of a pursuit of terrorist elements involved in carrying out hostile operations in the country, including the last armed attack which targeted citizens returning from the Saint Samuel monastery", the ministry said. The Islamic State group claimed Friday's attack - which killed six Copts and one Anglican - in a message via its propaganda agency Amaq. Raids were undertaken in the mountainous western desert of Minya province to track down the "fugitive terrorist elements", the interior ministry said. Several Egyptian TV stations broadcast images provided by the interior ministry, which showed the bodies of armed men strewn across desert sand. The television images also displayed a tent alleged to have been used by the suspected jihadist cell, and a black IS flag. Pope Francis on Sunday spoke of his pain over the attack. "I express my pain after the terrorist attack which two days ago hit the Coptic Orthodox church in Egypt," Francis said at Saint Peter's in the Vatican City. "I pray for the victims, pilgrims killed just because they were Christian," he added. Copts, a Christian minority that make up 10 percent of Egypt's 97 million people, have in recent years been repeatedly targeted by IS jihadists. In May 2017, masked gunmen ordered Christians travelling to Saint Samuel to get off their buses and recant their faith. The group refused and were shot one by one, leaving 28 people dead in that IS-claimed attack. IS also killed more than 40 people in twin church bombings in April 2017, and an IS gunman last December killed nine people in an attack on a church in a south Cairo suburb. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for citizens to battle against religious discrimination. "When an Egyptian falls in a terrorist attack, we suffer and all the people of Egypt suffer", Sisi said in an address to a youth forum in Sharm el-Sheikh. Copts have long complained of discrimination in Egypt and IS is not the only group to have launched sectarian attacks against the community. In December 2017, hundreds of Muslims attacked a church south of Cairo that had been operating without a permit for more than a dozen years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Finance Ministry is likely to finalise the second round of for (PSBs) towards the end of this month taking into account the latest quarter's performance, sources said. In this round of fund infusion, most of the banks would be getting growth capital for expanding their lending, particularly to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a slew of measures, including loan sanction of up to Rs 10 million in less than an hour and relaxation in labour and environmental laws for MSMEs to give a boost to the sector, the country's second-biggest employer. Second quarter result announcements of banks, barring one or two, would be over this week and subsequently the ministry would start discussions with them, sources said. After assessing the requirement, the ministry is expected to finalise the of about Rs 540 billion by November-end or by the first half of the next month. The ministry had earlier this year provided of Rs 113.36 billion to five PSBs to help them meet their interest payment commitments. Punjab National Bank (PNB), hit by the Nirav Modi scam, got the highest amount of Rs 28.16 billion, while received Rs 17.9 billion. got capital support of Rs 20.19 billion, Rs 21.57 billion and Rs 25.55 billion. The infusion was part of the remaining Rs 650 billion out of Rs 2.11-trillion capital infusion over two financial years. The government announced the Rs 2.11-trillion capital infusion programme in October last year. As per the plan, the PSBs were to get Rs 1.35 trillion through re-capitalisation bonds, and the balance Rs 580 billion through raising of capital from the market. Out of the Rs 1.35 trillion, the government has already infused about Rs 820 billion through recap bonds and the balance would be done during this fiscal. A Bangladeshi blogger, who fled his country after allegedly receiving threats to his life, has claimed that he entered India on a tourist visa and had been living near Kolkata for the past one and a half years. Md Sazzadul Hoque, 21, has penned his opinions on various issues, including secularism, atheism, sexual and human rights, and protested the persecution and killing of fellow bloggers in Bangladesh. Talking to PTI over phone from an undisclosed location, Hoque, who has apparently been living in Bengal since May 30, 2017, said it had become "increasingly difficult for him to live in Bangladesh" as he received regular threats from fundamentalists. "Even now, I keep receiving threats on Facebook, but the situation here is not as fearful as it is in my country," he claimed. A number of secularists and atheist bloggers, including Ahmed Rajib Haider, Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman, Ananta Bijoy Das, have been killed in Bangladesh by religious extremists since 2013. Roy, a Bangladeshi-American, was killed on a Dhaka street by a group of assailants wielding cleavers in February 2015. Weeks after Roy's death, Rahman, 27, was killed outside his Dhaka residence by men armed with machetes. Hoque rued that he had to abruptly stop his studies in Dhaka and escape to Bengal. Asked about his future plans, Hoque said, "I want to complete my studies and carry on blogging, but there is no one to support me, not even my family members," he said. Hoque lived with his mother, a younger brother and a sister in Chittagong. His father passed away in 2012. Growing up in a conservative family, he claimed he received his first lesson on atheism from a teacher, when he was studying in class 8. "There are many like me in Bangladesh. The difference is they do not come out in the open and prefer to keep their views to themselves, but I am vocal. I cannot keep quiet and wish to share my views with others," Hoque, who claimed to have started blogging in 2016, said. He asserted he would continue writing, no matter what the circumstances. "It feels terrible to have left my country, where my mother and siblings still reside. However, I am determined to continue writing, under all circumstances," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Changing landholding right from lease-hold to freehold would enable Noida residents have more control on their property and also help the city emerge as an attractive real estate destination, experts say. All plots or flats in Noida are currently sold on a leasehold basis and a buyer is given the flat or plot on lease for 99 years and is required to pay a certain sum as lease rent to the authority. But under the freehold system, the buyerwill get full ownership of the property. The Noida Authority, which manages all the land here, had given its in-principle nod to converting the landholding rights during its 195th board meeting on November 1. The proposal, if approved by the Uttar Pradesh government, will have wide-reaching impact on the real estate and its prices. "It would be a very good decision because everyone who has property in Noida would become its real owner only if it is a freehold land, otherwise they feel like tenants in their own houses, said N P Singh, President of Federation of Noida Resident Welfare Association (FONRWA). He said that due to the lease-hold system, selling a property is also difficult. Those had got their properties registered during the formative years of Noida four decades ago, find it hard to sell it because of concerns over the lease agreement ending in next 45 years. "Moreover, if the land holding rights are changed, people would be able to transfer their properties to their children without having to pay any transfer fees, which is around 2 per cent," he said. Noida Entrepreneurs Association (NEA) President Vipin Malhan said every owner of the property has to pay an annual lease rent of 2.5 per cent and a positive decision in this regard would empower the residents. "Earlier the lease period would be 99 years, then it was brought down to 90 years. Everybody thinks he or she is the owner of their house but on paper they are not. Nobody knows what would happen when the lease agreement ends," he said. He said the rates of property are "secondary issue" and they could go up or go down but more important is getting "ownership of our own land". "Suppose you buy a car on monthly instalments. It is only after you have paid the last EMI that you are actually relieved and feel that you are the owner of the car. It is a similar case, but here you are not relieved," he explained. He said another major drawback is that for any work or construction, people has to run to the Noida Authority to get clearance. Real estate consulting firm CBRE believes that for home buyers, it is a positive development and will help address a long-pending demand by the people residing in Noida. From the point of view of residential real estate business, Noida and places surrounding it such as Noida Extension and Greater Noida West are important destinations and a lot of investment has been made there by real estate developers, it said. "This move will ensure a more organized development of real estate business in the city and will help attract investors and home-buyers from all areas," said Rajat Johar, head of residential service, CBRE India. He said this decision will also help streamline the existing process and make the investment in real estate more attractive. "For the home owners particularly, it will have long-term benefits and it will positively impact residential property owners in all categories, Johar said. CBRE has reasons to believe that Noida has a lot of growth potential such as its proximity to the national capital which makes it a preferred location by people who are looking for affordable, yet easily accessible investment opportunity, both in commercial and residential real estate. "The city offers a right mix of business and residential real estate options. Commercially also, Noida has witnessed good development, which in turn provided the required fillip for development of residential real estate in the city, he said. CREDAI, apex body of Private Real Estate Developers Associations, agrees that it has been a long pending demand of the developers as well as residents of Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna to have freehold land. "A very heavy lease rent and transfer charges are levied on each and every transaction of land, apart from stamp duty. If land is converted into freehold from leasehold it will be a boost in the real estate activity in this region, said Jaxay Shah, President of CREDAI. He, however, said that first a municipal corporation-like body should be created which will learn how to manage the health, sanitation, horticulture and maintenance of the tricity area and only then the freehold process should kick in. "In the meantime the authorities should abolish transfer charges and allow land sales to operate like a freehold system based on a perpetual lease model. This will enhance the attraction of the area as a real estate destination, Shah said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) France does not "sweep anything under a rug" when it comes to the issue of human rights in Vietnam, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe insisted on Sunday, after sidestepping questions over the Asian country's dismal record on dissent. His comments came on the final day of a state visit to Vietnam, that was largely aimed at drumming up business deals with one of Asia's fastest-growing economies as both sides signed contracts worth a total of nearly USD 12 billion. But the French premier would not be drawn on the Communist government's handling of dissent, which includes jailing people for posting their opinions about hot-button issues on Facebook. More than 50 activists, rights campaigners and bloggers have been put behind bars in 2018, one of the harshest crackdowns in recent years. When questioned by reporters in Ho Chi Minh City, Philippe insisted, "we do not sweep anything under the rug, but we have discussions with the Vietnamese authorities that do not go through the press". "We do it in forums that are going well, the way we have always done," Philippe said after inaugurating a French medical centre in the city. The French premier's visit coincides with the recent release of a draft cybersecurity decree, which outlines how the draconian bill would be implemented. It is expected to come into effect in January, and observers say that it mimics China's repressive web control tools. It woul require tech companies to store data in the country, remove "toxic content" from websites, and hand over user information if requested by the government. Critics of the bill say it will serve as a chokehold on dissent in the one-party state, where activists are routinely jailed and all independent media are banned. Philippe will host a business forum with French tech entrepreneurs before departing in the evening for New Caledonia. The jam-packed three-day visit also included a stop at Dien Bien Phu on Saturday, the site of an epic battle between France and Vietnam in 1954 that would spell the end of France's colonial empire in Indochina. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 40-year-old alleged member of the Neetu Daboda gang was arrested after being injured in a brief exchange of fire with police on Sunday in east Delhi's Gazipur area, an official said. The accused, identified as Vinod, a resident of Goela Kalan village in Haryana's Jhajjar district, is a sharp shooter, police said. Based on a tip off, a trap was laid near a paper market in Gazipur, where the accused along with his associate were spotted arriving on a bike, a senior police officer said. The two men were identified and asked to surrender. However, the duo opened fire at the police team, which fired back in retaliation. Vinod was injured on his left leg during the gunfight, he said. Vinod was overpowered and arrested, but his accomplice, Ashok Pradhan, who carries a reward of Rs two lakh on his head, managed to escape, the senior officer said, adding the accused was taken to Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital for treatment. A semi-automatic pistol and six cartridges were seized from Vinod. The bike recovered was found to be stolen, Deputy Commissioner of Police (special cell) P S Kushwah said, adding a case has been filed against Vinod and Pradhan. According to the DCP, Vinod is involved in more than 12 cases, including that of dacoity, robbery, murder and extortion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The HRD ministry is to soon launch a campaign under which school kids will be encouraged to teach illiterate elderly members of their family, Prakash Javadekar said Sunday. Under the campaign, students from class 6 to 10 will be roped in for the eradication of illiteracy as they teach illiterate members of their family. "The children will be the Guruji of their illiterate family members under the 'padhna-likhna' campaign which the HRD ministry is going to launch most likely in next two months," the human resource development minister told reporters here. "Proposal is that we will provide material to the students and they will be asked to teach their parents or grandparents who are illiterate," he said. The minister said he conceived the idea after recalling his school days when he used to help his mother, a teacher, in educating illiterate people. He said this during his visit to Jhalana kacchi basti where he met people and party workers and took feedback about the government's work. He had tea with a family in the kacchi basti and spoke to the family members and children and there he motivated a child to teach his illiterate grandparents. "I asked the boy to be the 'sir' (or teacher) of his grandmother. I motivated him and this is how I work. The scheme will be formally launched in two months but today I did an informal or soft launch by asking the boy to do so," Javadekar said. During his visit to the kacchi basti, he had lunch at a Dalit family's residence. He had the meal at the home of Brij Mohan Kansotiya, whose wife is a beneficiary of PM Ujjwala Yojana and whose mother is a beneficiary of a social pension scheme. He also discussed with area residents and received feedback on government schemes and programmes. "Our work is to empower people, he said. State Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf, Mayor Ashok Lahoti and other leaders of the party accompanied him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four minor inmates of an orphanage for girls in Gujarat's Anand district were allegedly sexually harassed by its superintendent who was arrested Sunday, the police said. The accused, identified as Minesh Parmar, allegedly made sexual overtures at the girls and touched them inappropriately, a rural police official said. The Jeewan Anand Orphanage, located in Boriyavi village in Anand taluka, is run by a private trust. The four girl inmates have accused Parmar of making sexual overtures, touching them inappropriately and threatening them, the official said, adding that the accused also sought sexual favours from them. The matter came to light after the girls confided in a woman employee of the orphanage, who in turn approached the district child protection committee. An FIR was lodged at Anand rural police station Sunday afternoon after the statements of the complainants were recorded, following which Parmar was arrested. The accused has been booked under various sections of the IPC including 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (2) (criminal intimidation), and various sections of the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Fortunegiants continued their impressive run with a 45-38 win over Dabang Delhi KC in the Vivo Pro Kabaddi League Season VI here Sunday. Chandran Ranjit and Naveen Kumar tried their best to make an impact on the match by getting 11 and 8 raid points. They were led down by the experienced corner pair of Ravinder Pahal and captain Joginder Narwal who collected 3 tackle points in total between them. Dong Geon Lee was brought in for the match and caused problems for Delhi to get a Super 10. Sunil Kumar had a below par performance but his absence was covered up by Parvesh Bhainswal who got 6 tackle points. Gujarat Fortunegiants started with a toe touch by Rohit Gulia on Vishal in the first raid of the match. They continued to dominate Delhi with Gulia getting a Super Raid with a bonus point and touch points on Vishal and Yogesh Hooda to make it 1-5 in favour of Gujarat by the third minute. They then inflicted an All Out on Delhi by the sixth minute to take an 8 point lead with 3-11. The half ended with Gujarat leading by nine points. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lelectricite est devenue, de nos jours, un besoin dune importance majeure, et cela, dans tous les domaines dactivite. Que ce soit dans les maisons ou [] The Allahabad High Court has asked the Uttar Pradesh government if it has installed CCTV cameras to monitor police stations in the state and how personnel behave with visitors and victims. The court's Lucknow bench has asked Additional Advocate General V K Sahi to apprise it of the situation on November 27. A bench of Justice A R Masoodi passed the order Saturday on a habeas corpus petition. Petitioner Rishi Kapoor has alleged that his mother Sudha Kapoor was illegally detained at the Aashiyana police station here and hence, she be produced before the court and be further set at liberty. Hearing the petition, the high court summoned Sub-Inspector Ajit Kumar to submit a report on the manner in which the custody and welfare of the alleged detenue was ensured. The court also inquired about the installation of CCTV cameras at police stations in Uttar Pradesh. In April 2015, the Supreme Court had in a landmark verdict directed the Centre and state governments to put police stations and interrogation rooms under surveillance of CCTV cameras. The apex court had passed the directives on the recommendations of a three-member team of advocates constituted by it. Hearing a PIL, the Allahabad High Court had also some years back asked the principal secretary to file response as regard the installation of CCTVs in police stations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As the Lord Ayyappa temple opens Monday for a special puja, a thick security cover has been put in place after violent protests were witnessed last month against entry of women of all ages into the shrine. Orders banning assembly of four or more people have been imposed in Sabarimala and nearby areas, police said Sunday. Around 2,300 personnel, including a 20-member commando team and 100 women, have been deployed to ensure smooth 'darshan' and security of devotees, a move that came in for criticism from the erstwhile royal family of Pandalam, the BJP and the Congress for such fortification. If necessary, around 30 women police personnel in the rank of circle inspector and sub inspector and above the age of 50 would be deployed at 'Sannidhanam' (temple complex) for security, they said. Pathnamthitta Superintendent of Police T Narayanan told PTI that all arrangements have been made for devotees to have smooth 'darshan.' Ayyappa devotees from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have already reached Erumeli and they will be permitted to go to 'sannidhanam' only tomorrow. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPc, banning assembly of four or more people, is in force at Pamba, Nilackal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam for 72 hours from midnight Saturday. This is the second time the hill temple would open for 'darshan' after the Supreme Court allowed entry of women of all age groups into it. The temple had witnessed high drama last month following frenzied protests leading to around a dozen women in the age group of 10-50 being prevented from reaching it and police and the agitators fighting a pitched battle over the LDF government's decision to implement the court order. The shrine would open at 5 pm Monday for the "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special puja slated for the next day, marking the birthday of last king of Travancore Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, and close at 10 pm on that day. Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and chief priest Unnikrishnan Namboodiri would jointly open the temple doors and light the lamp at the 'Sreekovil' (sanctum sanctorum). Devaswom minister, Kadakampally Surendran, said the government would ensure complete protection to believers. So far no women in the 'barred' age group had approached police for protection to offer prayers at the hill shrine, he said. A high level meeting of senior police officers was held to take stock of the situation. During last month's pujas, media persons were attacked by a section of protesters and police had to face criticism. Dismissing reports that media was being restrained from going to Sabarimala, Kerala Director General of Police Loknath Behara said there was no bar on entry of journalists. No restriction of any sort has been imposed on media persons, he said. "To ensure necessary protection to the media, we are not allowing them now. As soon as security arrangements are complete, media will be allowed in Sabarimala and nearby places." The Pandalam royal family, closely associated with the Ayyappa shrine, said it was "pained" at the heavy security in and around Sabarimala. "Saddened that devotees will have to offer prayers at the shrine amid thick police cover," it said. Protesting the apex court verdict, a 'prayer yagna' will be held, the family said. Meanwhile, the Sabarimala Karma Samiti, a platform of right-wing outfits, including VHP, appealed to media houses not to depute women journalists in the menstrual age group to cover the developments in Sabarimala. In its letter to editors, a copy of which was released to the media, it said even the entry of women journalists belonging to this age group as part of their job was also likely to aggravate the situation. The samiti alleged that even though the Supreme Court has decided to hear the review and writ petitions on the issue on November 13, the state government was intentionally ignoring the "mass movement" against the judgement and was trying to "hastily" enforce it using police force. "In such a situation, the devotees are left with no other choice but to continue with the peaceful agitation," it said. Objecting to the samithi's appeal, the Network of Women in Media, India said it was 'unjustified' and 'unacceptable interference' in the functioning of the media and an 'unfair obstacle' in the way of journalists who happen to be women wishing to cover an important story of public interest. "We believe that the Samithi's stand amounts to depriving women journalists of their right to respond to the call of professional duty and responsiblity. It also goes against the freedom of expression and right to information that are fundamental rights to which all citizens are entitled," it said. Meanwhile, activist Rahul Easwar, president of Ayyappa Dharma Sena that is among the outfits spearheading the protests, in a video message said, "Like police, we are also fully prepared". Easwar, belonging to the Thazhamon family of Sabarimala thantris, was arrested twice last month in connection with the protests in and and around Sabarimala against the government's decision to implement the court verdict and also for making certain remarks. He is out on bail. Noting that the situation in Sabarimala was "explosive," Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Mullapally Ramachandran accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government of 'failing' to handle it. Thousands of police personnel had been deployed in Sabarimala which was akin to "challenging and suppressing" the devotees, he alleged. BJP leader M T Ramesh warned that any attempt by police to hinder devotees from visiting Sabarimala would lead to "serious repercussions." Police would not be allowed to inspect the 'irumudikettu' (offerings devotees carry for lord ayyappa), he said. So far, 3,731 people have been arrested and 545 cases registered in connection with last month's violence. BJP and various Hindu outfits are on a warpath against the Left-front government over its decision not to seek a review of the top court verdict. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha Sunday appealed to the Uttar Pradesh government to move the Supreme Court against a Delhi High Court verdict, awarding life terms to 16 former jawans of the Provincial Armed Constabulary in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre case. The organisation said it would also pursue in the apex court the appeals on behalf of the PAC jawans. At a conference, organisation's national vice president Pandit Ashok Sharma, district spokesperson Abhishek Aggarwal and city president Bharat Rajput said the case pertained to the discharge of the official duty by the jawans. Accordingly, the state government must go in an appeal to the apex court against the high court verdict. Extending their support to the convicted former PAC jawans, they said the organisation too would pursue in the apex court the appeal against the high court's verdict. In addition to this, the organisation would also send an appeal to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for a fair probe into the 1987 riots, they said, adding the appeal would be sent to the CM in his capacity as the 'mahant' of the Gorakhpur 'peeth'. Shrama said the award of life term to the former PAC jawans was not "justice". The Delhi High Court had Wednesday convicted 16 former policemen of committing "premeditated murders of unarmed, innocent and helpless people", and sentenced them to life imprisonment. A bench of justices S Murlidhar and Vinod Goyal of the high court had convicted the former PAC jawans, setting aside a 2015 verdict of a Delhi sessions court, acquitting them. The trial had been shifted to Delhi on a Supreme Court order. The high court bench had termed the case as the one of "custodial murders involving failure of official machinery". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a first for India, British banking major has executed a trade transaction involving an export by to an American client using the blockchain, which massively reduced the time taken for processing the documents. The blockchain-enabled letter of credit transaction facilitated a shipment between Reliance and the US-based Tricon Energy, a joint statement issued by India and Reliance said. "The use of offers significant potential to reduce the timelines involved in exchange of export documentation from the extant seven-ten days to less than a day," joint chief financial officer Srikanth Venkatachari was quoted as saying in the statement. The platform was integrated with the electronic bill of lading (eBL) platform to issue and manage an electronic bill of lading, it said, adding this allows a digital transfer of the title of goods from the seller to the buyer in the underlying trade. The statement claimed that the solution is a significant improvement for any organisation involved in buying and selling goods internationally, as it brings together all parties onto one platform. solutions is a distributed database that maintains a continuously-growing list of ordered records called blocks and is deemed to be very transparent as all the stakeholders can view progress real time. A slew of domestic lenders, including ICICI Bank, SBI and Yes Bank among others are working on blockchain solutions and count trade as one of the best use cases for the technology because of the ability to cut down on time. HSBC's head of global banking and markets Hitendra Dave said blockchain has a transformative impact on trade transactions and enables greater transparency and enhanced security in addition to making it simpler and faster. That apart, it can ensure cost-effectiveness, quicker turnaround and also potentially unlock liquidity for businesses, he added. For this transaction between Reliance and Tricon, the LC was issued by ING Bank, Brussels for Tricon Energy US with India as the advising and negotiating bank for Reliance, it said, claiming the how the transaction validates the commercial and operational viability of blockchain as an alternative to conventional exchanges for paper-based documentation. Explaining the current system, it said at present buyers and sellers use paper-based LCs to underpin transactions and physical documents are sent to each party in the transaction by post, courier or fax. While the current system provides a high level of certainty, the time and cost involved in processing the documents are deterrents for exporters. HSBC said it, along with five other globally supporting the 'Corda application', is seeking to expand the network on an open source basis to drive adoption across the industry. Successive governments in India did not spend enough on and health sectors both as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product and annual budgets, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Sunday. In the country, mostly the individuals spend for their treatment and the poor people end up losing everything for getting cured in the private healthcare space, Tharoor said at an interactive session organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce here. Regarding the sector in the country, he said it was "over-regulated". "The system followed here is not focussed on creative thinking. Here, students are taught what to think and not how to think. These are encouraged in our classrooms," he said. Tharoor said the government clearly needs to prioritize spending on health, far more than what it has done. "I would not exempt even my previous governments because over 70 years, the expenditure on health and education has been modest," Tharoor added. There is a prime need of social security buffer, not necessarily in the form the government was now providing, he said adding insurance companies are the gainers in the government-backed insurance schemes. "What we ought to do in the government is to massively invest in public sector hospitals, primary and community healthcare sector where treatment will be free. If we have a decent infrastructure available at the public sector, the question of needing a subsidized insurance scheme should not exist," he viewed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Praising the Indian community in Malawi for making "significant contribution" in economic activities, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu Sunday said India is on the move and global organisations like the World Bank and the IMF have also appreciated the country's economic progress. Naidu reached here earlier in the day on the last leg of his six-day three-nation tour to Africa, which aims at deepening India's strategic cooperation with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. "India is on the move. It is not Naidu which says so but World Bank and IMF also say so," the Vice President said while addressing the Indian community here. Not only banks but rating agency Moody's has also given good ratings to India, Naidu said, adding this is a happy for the country. Citing the success of the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, Naidu said in October the GST collection crossed record Rs one lakh crore. "That is how transformation is happening...One tax one slab throughout the country, that is the ultimate aim," he said. India, one of the fastest growing major economies in the world, is on the course to become a 5 trillion economy by 2025, he said, adding that the India story, as it is unfolding today, is a promising one. Naidu quoted the World Bank's 'Doing Business 2019' report which said that India, which advanced to 77th place in the global ranking, is now the region's top-ranked economy. "Starting a business was made easier through consolidation of multiple application forms and introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (GST)," the report stated. Some people were sceptical of Jan Dhan accounts and demonetisation but these moves have achieved their purpose, Naidu said. Praising the Indian community, the Vice President said, "I am happy to note that you have made significant contribution to find a place of leadership, in the economic activities of the country. Some of you have attained positions of excellence, in your respective professions." The Indian community enjoys a reputation of being peace-loving community and has been able to assimilate well with the locals, he added. According to the Indian Embassy here, there are about 8,500 Malawians of Indian origin who predominantly originated from Gujarat and are concentrated in major cities like Lilongwe, Blantyre, Limbe, Zomba and Mzuzu. The number of Indian nationals (NRIs) in the African country at present is about 2,500. Most of them hail from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. They are primarily engaged in trading, agriculture and agro business, pharmaceutical and hospitality. Earlier, on his arrival at the Lilongwe airport, Naidu was received by Malawi's Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Dr Emmanuel Fabian, Education Minister Bright Msaka and High Commissioner of India to Malawi Suresh Kumar Menon. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India will participate in China's first international import expo in Shanghai as part of its efforts to reduce over $ 51 billion trade deficit with the neighbouring nation, Indian officials said here on Sunday. The six-day China International Import Expo (CIIE) will be inaugurated on Monday by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Leaders of 18 countries, including Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, will take part in the event, which is aimed at showcasing China's import potential. An Indian delegation led by Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan has arrived in Shanghai to take part in the event, officials said. "India has built a pavilion at the expo highlighting its focus areas of agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, information technology and tourism," Prashant Lokhande, Counsellor Economic and Commerce of the Indian Embassy here told PTI. The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) along with relevant government agencies has built India pavilion at the expo, which is billed as the biggest event organised by China, the world's largest exporter, to showcase opportunities. Chinese official media says the scope of imports could be over a $ trillion dollars. The expo is being held amid China's trade war with the US, which slapped additional tariffs on Chinese goods worth about $ 250 billion, demanding Beijing to bring down the trade deficit amounting to $ 375 billion. China had retaliated with counter tariffs. India too has been pressuring China to take measures to bring down over $ 51 billion annual trade deficit, which was one of the main focus areas in the informal meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in April this year. Since then officials of the two countries held several rounds of talks for India to export its agricultural products like sugar and rice as well as its pharmaceuticals and IT in which the country has upper hand in the global exports. The Consul General of India's Consulate in Shanghai, Anil Kumar Rai, said the expo will enable India to showcase products in the areas in which it is strong. Though the expo, which would be held till Novemebr 10, has evoked tremendous interest in global industry, diplomatic sources said China is yet to liberalise its import market. It is the world's first import-themed national-level expo that will feature enterprise and business exhibitions, country pavilions for trade and investment, the state-run China Daily reported. About 82 countries and three international organisations will set up 71 booths at the country pavilions, covering an area of about 30,000 square metres. Twelve countries -- Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Vietnam and the UK -- will be the "Guest of Honour" at the mega business event. More than 3,000 companies from over 130 countries have confirmed participation in the enterprise and business exhibitions at the expo, with a total booth area of 270,000 square metres, the report said. An Indian man has hit a jackpot by winning a whopping USD 2.72 million in a monthly raffle in the UAE, a media report said on Sunday. Britty Markose, who works as a draughtsman in the capital Abu Dhabi, has said that he was expecting to win the jackpot. Markose, who is from Kerala and has been in Dubai since 2004, takes part in the Big Ticket for a couple of years but is not a regular, Gulf reported. "So many are winning (from Kerala) and every time I harbour great expectations. But this time I had a feeling that I will win". He added that this was the fifth time he had purchased a ticket," Markose was quoted as saying by the report. "My wife and my two sons are both in Kerala. I still have my loans here and I just made a top-up recently. I just have not decided but clearing off the debts will be my top priority, said Markose. Like any expat, he too has loans to repay and a dream house to build. Markose won the dirham 10 million (USD 2.72 million) jackpot and like any expat, he too has loans to repay and a dream house to build, the report said. The winners included nine Indians and one Pakistani. The only person to break that total dominance was Pakistan's Waris Ali Sardar Ali, who walked away with the fifth prize of Dh 70,000. Last month, another Indian expat Mohammed Kunhi Mayyala, who had purchased ticket at Big Ticket Abu Dhabi, won dirham 7 million. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani Sunday flayed caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for not implementing the Centre's ambitious PMJAY health insurance scheme in Telangana. Addressing a BJP workers meeting at Amberpet assembly constituency here, she said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise to help the poor tackle health problems had led to the launch of the Ayushman Bharat scheme, which provides Rs five lakh insurance cover. "It is sad why this scheme was not accepted in the state. Party workers tell me that there are several other schemes of the Central government which the TRS government is scared of implementing because they feel Modi will become more popular. Modi is popular and remains popular and that's why he became the Prime Minister," Irani said. She alleged that some programmes of the Central government were 'disrespected' and the TRS government wanted to politicise the schemes. "Was Ayushman Bharat implemented? The question arises what kind of fear does KCR (as Rao is popularly known as)and TRS have? Why was this help not extended by the state government to poor families, which protects them from high medical treatment costs?" she asked. Irani said that if people were deprived of such health schemes, then they would ensure that the TRS government was defeated, not just in the coming assembly election, but in next year's general elections as well. "I have come here to give this message," she said. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (previously Ayushman Bharat), touted as the world's largest health insurance programme, was launched pan-India by the prime minister from Jharkhand on September 23. The Telangana government had in Septemeber said it would not implement the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme for the time being, citing a state scheme that covered nearly 80 lakh families, drawing flak from opposition BJP. One of the reasons for not rolling out the scheme was that Telangana would continue to implement its own Aarogyasri' Health Scheme, which covers nearly 80 lakh families in the state, official sources had said. Irani accused the TRS government of going back on its promise of not providing houses to poor people. She also slammed the TRS government for not celebrating 'Hyderabad Liberation Day' and said that after coming to power, the party had forgotten to celebrate the day. "BJP is always with the party workers... whether it is Diwali or Danterash...BJP is one party which has dedicated itself to the service of the public," Irani added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of Iranians have staged a rally in Tehran marking the anniversary of the 1979 US Embassy takeover as Washington restores all sanctions lifted under the nuclear deal. The crowd chanted "Down with US" and "Death to Israel" during Sunday's rally in the capital, and state TV says similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns. On Friday, the Trump administration announced the restoration of sanctions on Iran's shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear agreement in May. Iranian students stormed the embassy shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Industry body Indian Refractory Makers Association (IRMA) has urged the government to remove duty on raw materials like magnesia and alumina required for manufacturing refractories. A refractory is an equipment which can handle the high-temperature required for making hot steel; and magnesia and alumina are the key raw materials required to produce it. At present, the duty on magnesia is 5 per cent and on alumina 10 per cent. The scarce availability of these raw materials is forcing the industry to import from other countries, which is raising input costs, Sameer Nagpal, Head Advocacy, IRMA said. Under the new steel policy, the government has set up a target of ramping up its steel making capacity to 300 million tonnes (MT) by the 2030-31. "Refractory is one of the key equipment used in steel making. Not just steel, refractories are also used by glass makers, aluminum, cement players etc and all these industries are growing in India. But raw materials availability to make one of the key equipment remains an issue," he said. Import of raw materials like alumina and magnesia from China increases the input cost, Nagpal said. He further said that minerals used to make refractory are also available in India and the government can explore the areas and auction the mines to the players. This will reduce the dependence on imports and reduce the input cost as well, Nagpal said. "We are trying our best to produce refractories of global standards in India and have potential to cater to the needs of steel and aluminium industries. Recently, Centre of Excellence for Refractories joined hands with IIT-BHU's Advance Research Centre for Iron and Steel to develop advance technologies to cater to the needs of domestic steel industry," he said. This will help Indian refractory makers to catch up with the global players and reduce dependence on imports, he added. The domestic refractory industry recognises that steel industry requires positive ecosystem to step up its production capabilities in view of the new steel policy, Nagpal said. IRMA is the apex body of refractory makers engaged in promoting use of domestically manufactured refractory. The body represents more than 90 refractory companies operating in India and over the years has become a credible voice of refractory industry in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jyothy Laboratories, a home-grown FMCG firm, is aiming to double its turnover to Rs 40 billion in the next three years on the back of both acquisitions as well as organic growth, a top company official said. The company expects the ongoing wave in the FMCG segment to push its growth further, helped by brands such as neem-based Margo. The Mumbai-based company, which is witnessing rural sales "picking up fast", would continue to introduce one new product every quarter. "Our dream is to build a Rs 40 billion company by 2021, which is three years from now. We want to double our turnover and we are working towards that," Joint Managing Director Ullas Kamath told PTI. "Some of that would be organic and there would be inorganic also to reach there. Around 12 to 14 per cent growth would come from organic and rest would come from inorganic growth," he added. posted a revenue of Rs 17.17 billion in FY 2017-18. The company had last week reported total income of Rs 4.32 billion for the July-September quarter of this fiscal. "The company is looking for 12 to 14 per cent top line growth and 16 per cent EBITDA (for this fiscal) . As of now, we are at 13.5 per cent (top line growth) for the half year and we would reach this number," Kamath said. Asked about the acquisitions, he said the company has already demonstrated its capacity to acquire and successfully integrate a business like Henkel. "We always look for some opportunity and if we get some opportunity, we are able to do that also," he said. Presently, fabric care accounts for around 40 per cent of its revenues, followed by dishwash (30 per cent), household insecticides (15 per cent) and personal care segment (15 per cent). On product innovation, he said the company is looking to extend its heritage brand Margo to facewash and handwash segments. "We are doing our consumer trials and probably we would have products next year," he said. The company is also witnessing a pick up in rural sales, helped by factors like hike in MSP, increased government spend and good monsoon, he said. Jyothy Laboratories, which had gone for a price hike last quarter, is keeping a tab on the rupee and oil price movement. "Our running cost is ok, but if dollar reaches 75 and crude reaches $80, then probably we may have a price revision in January," Kamath added. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Slamming the BJP and the Congress governments for the plight of farmers in the country, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) General Secretary Hannan Mollah said a march would be organised in the national capital from November 28 to 30 to press for the pending demands of the farmers. Asserting that farmers' issues continue to be at the centre of the Left parties' political activities, he claimed that successive governments' "failure" to bring "land reforms" has triggered the "agricultural crisis". "Agricultural crisis is manifested in different ways and there are historical reasons behind it. The main cause of agricultural crisis is failure to bring about land reforms. After Independence, if the farmers had got land then their condition would have been better," Mollah told PTI in an interview. Alleging that after Independence the government had not taken steps for land reforms with the agricultural sector as its prime focus, he alleged that the then ruling party maintained close affinity with landlords of major states. He also hit out at the BJP government at the centre, accusing it of not fulfilling his 2014 electoral promises to farmers while terming its announcement of hike in minimum support prices (MSPs) of 22 mandated crops and fair and remunerative price (FRP) of sugarcane "a hoax". Alleging that while agricultural inputs costs have increased many folds, farmer are not getting due price of their products, Mollah said, "The BJP is now seeking to hoodwink farmers by planning an aggressive campaign for the general elections next year." "Farmers across the country have realized who are the main culprits behind their plight. We have been working for farmers' cause since long. On many occasions, our efforts yield dividends to farmers. We are uniting farmers bodies across the country and have created a common platform," he said. A 'Kisan March' would be organised in Delhi from November 28 to 30 under the aegis of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), a conglomerate of 260 farmers bodies across the country, to press for their various demands, Mollah, who is also a convenor of the AIKSCC, said. He said the 2011 Census reveals that there are nearly 15 million less farmers in the country than there were in 1991. "This pattern of distress migration indicates that the agrarian crisis has burst from the seams of rural India, undermining both the country's food security and our collective food sovereignty," Mollah said, asking, "Why cant' the same government waive farmers' loan which is near about half of the loans waived for industrialists?" AIKSCC has sought President Ram Nath Kovind's intervention to resolve the "agricultural crisis" that renders 70 per cent of people in the country vulnerable, by addressing a joint session of parliament, the AIKS leader said. About the 'Kisan March', he said, "Farmers will come on tractors. On November 29, they will assemble at the Ramlila grounds here. We are trying to organise our rally at Boat Club. If we get do not get the permission to hold the rally there, it would be held at the Ramlia ground. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 23-year-old actor from Kolkata is the only Indian in an international ensemble cast of a unique immersive theatre experience which is attracting rave reviews in London. Ninad Samaddar, who recently completed a Master's course in acting at Central Saint Martins in London, takes audiences on an unusual tour around the British capital as part of 'The Curious Voyage'. The murder mystery meets treasure hunt performance, complete with a surprise musical, is created as a cross-continental experience, which began in Barrie, Canada, and concludes in London on November 10. "This play is a promenade immersive experience, which essentially means that the stage is not a particular building but a given area such as a town, city or neighbourhood," explains Samaddar. "This play is designed to be a three-day immersive experience for a Canadian audience. The last day is set in London, thus open to a one-day London immersive experience for Londoners. The audience are requested to participate in a lot of activities and truly the beauty of the piece lies in audience involvement," he said. 'The Curious Voyage', written, created and directed by Italian artist and playwright Daniele Bartolini, relies on a lot of improvisation and Samaddar feels his Indian sensibility added an additional perspective to the performance. "I think I was able to provide a unique perspective to this play as I realised my head works in a very different way in comparison here, hence speaking my ideas out loud proved to be quite helpful when it was needed," he said. During a death scene, he suggested leading the funeral procession with the Indian chant of 'Ram Naam Satya Hain'. But while that proved unfeasible due to the cold weather, it opened other possibilities to execute the procession. "Being around different people in a city like London, which comprises a small population of almost every part of the world, I can see myself through a different lens. It is amazing to recognise the different approaches I have to offer and it always came through in all the characters I've played," said the actor, who began his creative journey in school and then went on for Theatre Studies at Christ University, Bangalore. He was selected for the course in London last year and his ultimate goal is to gain enough experience to set up a theatre school in India. "My big dream that pushed me into this world has been to be a founder of a school of theatre in India. I know, it's a big expensive dream, but I intend to become a personality that is hardworking, inspirational and revolutionary in order to execute that dream," he said. Meanwhile, he hopes the immersive theatre experience with The Curious Voyage' will strike a chord with audiences and lead to more multicultural projects in future. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The January 1 violence at Koregaon-Bhima near here was triggered by "provocative and inciting" speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave a day earlier, the police has told a judicial commission. The police submitted an affidavit in this regard Friday to an inquiry commission set up by the government under Justice (retd) JN Patel to probe the violence. The Elgar Parishad was organised at the Shaniwar Wada here on December 31 last year to commemorate the victory of the Company forces, comprising a large number of Dalit soldiers, over the Peshwa army in 1818. It led to violence in the area on January 1 this year as well as protests by Dalit groups across the state, including a bandh on January 3. On behalf of the police, Additional Commissioner of Police (South Region) Ravindra Sengaonkar filed the affidavit, Shishir Hiray, special public prosecutor representing the state at the judicial commission, said. When contacted, Sengaonkar confirmed that an affidavit was filed. Elaborating on the content of the affidavit, Hiray Sunday said, "During the investigation of the case, the Pune police realised that the Elgar Parishad itself was the product of some sort of a conspiracy." "And the provocative and inciting speeches made at the conclave instigated the minds of people and the cumulative effect of a widespread conspiracy ultimately resulted in violence the next day at Bhima-Koregaon," he added, quoting from the police affidavit. Hiray said the affidavit of the Pune police was accompanied by recordings of speeches made at the conclave and copies of booklets distributed at the event, which they claimed were "provocative" and spoke of using violent methods to overthrow the democratic system. Earlier, Suvez Haque, Pune (Rural) Superintendent of Police at the time of the incident, had stated in his affidavit that the violence at Koregaon-Bhima was due to a sudden clash between two groups of people carrying blue and saffron flags. "The basic difference between the affidavits of the Pune police and the Pune rural police is that the latter's affidavit is talking about what happened in front of their eyes at Koregaon-Bhima on January 1, whereas the one by Pune police talks about why it happened," Hiray said. "So, the Pune police's affidavit is talking about the larger conspiracy," he added. Four days after the violence, based on a complaint filed by one Tushar Damgude at the Vishrambaug police station within the jurisdiction of Pune police, a case was registered against Sudhir Dhavale, Sagar Gorkhe, Harshali Potdar, Ramesh Gaychor, Deepak Dengle and Jyoti Jagtap. In his complaint, Damgude had alleged that "provocative" speeches and presentations made at the Elgar Parishad on December 31 had "promoted" enmity between two groups and led to violence at Bhima-Koregoan on January 1. The violence had led to the death of one person near Sanaswadi. The has imposed an electricity surcharge of 10 paise per unit on industrial and commercial consumers to finance its scheme to provide 25,000 solar pumps to farmers, a senior official said Sunday. In view of the forthcoming Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly polls next year, state minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule had recently announced that farmers would be provided one lakh solar pumps in three phases between 2019 and 2021, of which 25,000 would be given in the first phase. The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company has applied a 10 paise per unit surcharge from November 1 to collect funds for the farmers. Arvind Singh, principal secretary in the state department, confirmed the move. "The total expense of the scheme is Rs 8.25 billion and since the state has no resources to spend on the scheme, we have decided to collect funds by applying a surcharge on consumers," Singh said. He added that power consumers, comprising commercial and industrial users and excluding residential users, will have to pay an additional 10 paise per unit to the total consumption of monthly electricity units. "We expect to collect Rs 90 crore per month through this surcharge," Singh said. In the first phase, the government will provide solar pumps having a capacity of 3-5 horsepower (hp) to farmers. An official from the Power ministry said the price of a 3 hp pump operating on Alternate Current (AC) and Direct Current (DC) supply was Rs 2.40 lakh and Rs 2.55 lakh respectively. The cost of a 5 hp AC pump is Rs 3.25 lakh whereas the price of 5 hp DC pump is Rs 385,000. Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday lashed out at the BJP-led Maharashtra government over the "ghastly murder" of man-eating tigress Avni, calling it a "straight case of crime". Tigress Avni, who is believed to be responsible for the deaths of 13 people in the past two years, was killed in Maharashtra's Yavatmal on Friday as part of an operation. Avni is survived by her two cubs who are 10 months old. She was shot dead by sharp-shooter Asgar Ali, son of famous sharp-shooter Nawab Shafat Ali, at compartment no 149 of Borati forest under the jurisdiction of the Ralegaon police station. Reacting to the killing of Avni, Gandhi in a series of tweets lashed out at the Maharashtra government for giving the orders to kill her despite opposition from several stakeholders. "I am deeply saddened by the way tigress Avni has been brutally murdered in Yavatmal," she said in a tweet. "It is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, (Sudhir) Mungantiwar, Minister for Forests, Maharashtra, gave orders for the killing," she said in another tweet. She said she is going to take up the matter "very strongly" with Maharashtra Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis. "I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case. Legally, criminally as well as politically," she said. She also came down heavily on Mungantiwar for giving order to private marksman Shafat Ali Khan's son to carry out the hunting operation. "Every time he has used Hyderabad-based shooter Shafat Ali Khan, and this time his son has also appeared in the scene illegally to murder the tigress," she said in a tweet. "His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilise, capture and qurantine the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under orders of Mungantiwar," she tweeted. "Shafat Ali Khan has killed 3 tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad," she said in another tweet. She questioned Maharastra government's decision to take services of Khan and his son. "I fail to understand why a state government should even bother about such a man let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts," she said. Gandhi also expressed concern over the well being of the two cubs left behind after the killing of their mother. "This ghastly murder has put two cubs at the edge of a sad death in the absence of their mother," she said. Meanwhile, Mungantiwar Sunday said, Avni was shot dead as a last resort when all attempts to tranquilise her failed and she attacked officials. Speaking to PTI, Mungantiwar said nobody in the Forest Department wanted to kill the tigress and, thus, hundreds of personnel from the department were trying to capture her alive since the last 3 months. In September this year, the Supreme Court had said Avni could be shot at sight, which prompted a flurry of online petitions seeking pardon for the tigress. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has said it will play a key role in the formation of the next government in Madhya Pradesh as it expects a fractured verdict in the November 28 assembly polls. Madhya Pradesh president Pradeep Ahirwar said the party will vastly improve its tally and win 32 seats, and can even think of heading the next government. The state has a 230-member assembly. "Neither the nor the is going to get a majority. In this case, the would support us to form the government in Madhya Pradesh," he said without elaborating. The Dalit party, which refused to enter into a pre- poll alliance with the Congress, is going it alone in the central state, where the is in power since 2003. "We are going to win 32 assembly seats and create a record in our history of 34 years in Madhya Pradesh due to strong anti-incumbency wave against the and Dalit unity," he told PTI in an interview. "The key to next government formation will be with Behenji Mayawatiji (the president)," he said. "Our first priority is to form government in MP. We want Behanji to call the political shots in the state," Ahirwar said. The leader ruled out backing the BJP post-poll. Ahirwar said Mayawati will address rallies in the state between November 18 and November 26. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister will address three public meetings each in Rewa and Chambal divisions and one each in Bhopal and the Mahakoshal region, he said. Asked about leader Singh's remark that the BSP could not enter into an alliance with his party in MP due to the Centre's pressure on Mayawati, he dismissed the statement as a "total lie". "Whatever the former state chief minister (Singh) had stated was totally wrong. The BSP's history in MP is that it fights elections on its own strength. The Congress is going to pay a price in the polls due to Digvijay's comment," he said. Ahirwar said his party has pockets of influence in MP, where it won 11 assembly seats each in 1993, 1998 and two in 2003, seven in 2008 and four in 2013. According to estimates, Dalits account for 15 per cent of the population in Madhya Pradesh. "We are sitting pretty on 32 seats and in 75 other assembly segments our position is very strong," he said. "The BSP emerged strong in Morena, Rewa, Satna, Datia and Gwalior districts in the last assembly polls," he said. "We are going to open our accounts in Chhatarpur, Panna, Shivpuri, Sheopur, Damoh, Katni, Balaghat and Singrauli districts," Ahirwar claimed. The party's vote share was 8.97 per cent in 2008 which dipped to 6.29 per cent in the 2013 polls. He said the people in MP, especially farmers, are unhappy with the BJP government following the police firing on cultivators at Pipaliya Mandi in Mandsaur district that left six farmers dead last year. "The youth are peeved at lack of job avenues in MP. Vyapam, a massive admission and recruitment racket, had shattered their dream of getting government jobs," he added. In the last assembly polls, the BJP had won 165 seats, while the Congress bagged 58. Their vote share was 44.48 per cent and 36.38 per cent, respectively. To attract more investments, especially to sectors like aerospace, defence and automotive, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is planning to acquire additional 68,000 hectares over the next five years. Maharashtra on average nets around 30 percent of the total foreign direct investment coming to the country, making it a top destination for foreign companies. The corporation, which currently has a land bank of 84,000 hectares and nearly 288 industrial estates across the state, will have to invest nearly USD 2 billion into these land banks to create the necessary infrastructure, according to a top official of the corporation. "We have seen there is a huge demand in sectors like automotive, defence, aerospace, chemical engineering and garment industries. We are planning to acquire 68,000 hectares over the next five years to give a boost to these industries," MIDC joint chief executive Annasaheb Misal told PTI here over the weekend. He further said an investment of nearly USD 2 billion will also be needed to create the necessary infrastructure. "New investments are coming into the country. Of the total foreign direct investment that comes to the country, nearly 35-50 per cent come to Maharashtra. If we provide the necessary infrastructure we are sure more and more industries will come up in the state, " he said. Asked about the state government's decision to take back the lands from companies which didn't commence operations, Misal said, "During the past two years alone we have taken back 1,000 plots. We want serious players who will not just set up business here but also be a source of employment generation as well." The statement is interesting as only last week the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had said he was delaying the proposed mega refinerythe 60- million-tonne-per-annum West Coast Refinery) in Ratnagiri due to the issues with land acquisition. The refinery, which if built, will be the largest in the world is being planned as an equal joint venture between the three national oil marketing companies and the worlds largest oil company Saudi Aramco and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Similarly, the much-trumpeted Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project is facing serious delays due to protest by the farmers in the state and Gujarat and is a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The over Rs 1-trillion project is almost fully funded by Japan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 10-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her uncle in east Delhi's Shakarpur Sunday, police said. The girl had gone to her aunt's house, which was across the road from her place, where her uncle, 32, allegedly raped her, they said. She told her parents about the incident, following which police were informed, police said. A case was registered and the girl was sent for a medical examination, they said, adding that the man is absconding. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan Sunday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was adopting various strategies to prevent opposition parties from forming the 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) even as the Telangana BJP rejected it. Noting that next general elections were crucial for the Congress, Chavan told reporters here that lot of people are coming together on a common platform to protect the Constitution and democracy. Alleging that Modi was adopting various strategies to ensure that 'Mahagathbandhan' does not materialise, Chavan said, "Modi's strategy for winning elections will be religious polarisation, massive use of money, and using tactics to make sure that our alliance doesn't materialise." Asked about BJP leader Ram Madhav's reported statement on the option of ordinance for early construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, Chavan said they (BJP) have suddenly started thinking of Ram Mandir after four-and-half-years. "They think they can win by this... their (electoral) promises.. nothing happened and now (they say) build a temple." "What was this government doing? Why did it not build a consensus among different communities so that an acceptable solution could have been arrived at?" he asked. Asking people to be cautious over alleged attempts at 'religious polarisation' and the Ayodhya issue ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the Congress leader expressed fears that there could be some attacks on places of worship. To another query, Chavan said 'unfortunately' under Modi's rule all institutions of democracy have been 'subverted.' Chavan alleged that Modi was using all investigating agencies against Opposition parties, to browbeat them. Reacting to Chavan's charges, Telangana BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao told PTI that 'Mahagathbandhan' was a "failed alliance" and "it is a losers' league". "It is a survival game.. Inspired by Congress party's dynastic system.. Modiji does not need to scuttle the formation (of grand alliance).. people of India have no interest in this alliance and they will reject it," Rao added. On the Ram temple issue, Rao said those who were saying that BJP was indulging in polarisation were ignorant. On the charge that Modi was adopting strategies to prevent formation of grand alliance and win elections, Rao said, "BJP doesn't need money or muscle power or polarisation to win polls. We have proved this time and again in many states.. people are electing us because of good governance and relentless focus on the lowest rung of people, farmers and the downtrodden. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Kurta-Jacket' combo has become the latest fad among youngsters with over 1,400 pieces being sold daily from seven khadi outlets. Khadi India launched a range of 'Modi Jackets' and 'Modi Kurtas' at its flagship store at Connaught Place here on September 17 to commemorate the prime minister's birthday. KVIC Chairman V K Saxena told PTI that it plans to introduce the 'Modi Kurta-Jacket' range in more outlets pan-India gradually, after it became a hot selling outfit. The Connaught Place store recorded a total sale of Rs 14.76 crore in October 2018, registering a jump of 34.71 per cent from the year-ago month. "The response of Modi Jackets and Kurtas can be understood that at least 200 pieces are being sold on an average daily at each of the seven khadi India outlets across the nation, including Delhi, Kolkata, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bhopal, Mumbai and Ernakulam," Saxena said. He observed that the prime minister's clarion call for adopting khadi has created mass awareness about the indigenous fabric, thereby increasing its popularity, especially among the youth. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu Sunday laid the foundation stone of the building of new Indian Embassy here which will also have a Yoga centre. Naidu arrived here Friday night on the second leg of his six-day three-nation tour to Africa, which aims at deepening India's strategic cooperation with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. "VP M Venkaiah Naidu laid the foundation stone of the new Chancery Premises at the Ground Breaking Ceremony in Harare Zimbabwe. The building of the new Indian Embassy would bear architectural features such as Ashoka Chakra and a tranquil Yoga Centre," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Ravish Kumar tweeted. "This facility will be an iconic structure in Harare and help strengthening Indo-Zimbabwe ties further," Naidu said as he laid the foundation stone in presence of India's ambassador to Zimbabwe R Masakui and staff of the Indian Embassy in Harare. The project, after completion, will house office and residences of the Indian ambassador and senior embassy officials. Naidu sat through a presentation on what the chancery project, to be constructed on 17.8 acres, will look like after the completion. He unveiled a plaque to mark the occasion. India and Zimbabwe on Saturday signed six signed agreements, including on mining, Information and communications technology, visa waiver and traditional medicine as Naidu met Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his deputy Kembo Mohadi and held wide-ranging talks here. Naidu is leaving for Malawi Sunday on the last leg of his three-nation Africa visit. He will leave for New Delhi on Monday. According to Indian Embassy in Harare, there are about 9,000 Zimbabweans of Indian-origin, who are predominantly from Gujarat. The expatriate Indian community in Zimbabwe is very small numbering around 500 members. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Pacific islands of New Caledonia opted to remain part of France on Sunday, early results showed, as voters rejected independence in a closely-watched referendum seen as a measure of support for Paris in one of its many strategic outposts. Some 18,000 kilometres from the French mainland, New Caledonia is home to a quarter of the world's known supplies of nickel -- a vital electronics component -- and is a foothold for France in the Pacific. With 70 per cent of voting slips counted, 59.5 per cent of people had rejected the proposition that New Caledonia become independent, the local electoral authority said. Some 175,000 people were eligible to vote in the remote islands fringed by spectacular beaches, with opinion polls ahead of Sunday's ballot predicting a large majority in favour of staying French. But there are fears the referendum could inflame tensions between indigenous Kanak people, who tend to favour independence, and the white population which has settled since France annexed the islands in 1853. These differences caused ethnic strife in the 1980s which claimed more than 70 lives. It led to the 1998 Noumea Accord which paved the way for a steady devolution of powers as well as Sunday's referendum. Separatists had urged Kanak voters to choose self-determination for Kanaky, their name for New Caledonia, and throw off the shackles of the "colonial" authorities in Paris. The Kanak community is plagued by high school dropout rates, chronic unemployment and poor housing conditions. "My father, my grandfather fought for this country and today is the second fight in the ballot box," said pro-independence supporter Patrick Watrone as he voted Sunday. "Today, us young Kanaks, we have no jobs. If we are the ones who manage the country, we will have more opportunities," said Fabrice Ude, 28. But indigenous people make up less than 50 percent of the electorate and some Kanaks back staying part of France, not least due to the 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) the French state hands to the islands every year. Going it alone, "I'm not sure we have all the assets we'd need to succeed," said Marc Gnipate, a 62-year-old pensioner. Michaele Mikena, 61, also "voted no. I'm not afraid of independence, but I am attached to France, I owe it a lot". Under the 1998 deal, further referendums on independence can still be held before 2022. French President Emmanuel Macron, who is due to give a televised address after the results, has largely stayed clear of the campaign but during a visit to Noumea in May he declared "France would be less beautiful without New Caledonia". He also raised concerns over increasing Chinese influence in the Pacific, where Beijing has invested heavily in Vanuatu, a territory which broke from France and Britain in 1980. Accusing the US of "turning its back on the region in recent months", Macron said China was "building its hegemony step by step" in the Pacific -- suggesting an independent New Caledonia could be Beijing's next target. Australia has also expressed concerns about China's activities in neighbouring island states -- which the Lowy Institute think-tank estimates received USD1.78 billion in aid from Beijing from 2006-16 -- boosting its own spending in response. Home to 269,000 people, New Caledonia is one of a handful of French island outposts -- a legacy of the country's 19th-century empire -- which retain strategic importance. The referendum will be a test of the appeal of remaining part of France for such far-flung territories, which are heavily dependent on state handouts but where many feel overlooked by Paris. Both French Guiana in South America and the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte have been rocked since last year by major protests over living standards and perceived neglect. France also faces renewed calls for independence from nationalists on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The newly appointed board of governors of the Medical Council of India has approved a proposal to relax norms for DNB (Diplomate of National Board) degree holders wanting to teach in hospitals like PGI, AIIMS and other state medical colleges, Niti Aayog member V K Paul said on Sunday. DNB doctors, who get their training at private hospitals which do not have medical colleges, obtain their post graduate qualifications from the National Board of Examination (NBE). A notification to give effect to the new norms will be issued shortly, Paul -- who is also chairperson of new board of governors of the Medical Council of India (MCI) -- told PTI. As per the proposal, DNB degree holders working in over 100-bed broad specialties and super-specialties private hospitals will be eligible for faculty positions on completion of one additional year as senior residency at any MCI-recognised institution, he added. Hence, they are not treated at par with doctors who obtain post graduate degrees of MD (Master of Medicine) and MS (Master of Surgery) from medical colleges who have advantage in teaching jobs having attended teaching institutions. The stiff guidelines of the now dissolved MCI had practically barred DNB doctors from getting faculty jobs in MCI recognised medical colleges. The government in September had superseded the Medical Council of India and had appointed a board of governors to take over the council's power and functioning pending passage of the National Medical Commission (NMC) that seeks to replace the MCI. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A new sculpture in honour of Indian soldiers who fought during World War I was unveiled on Sunday in the town of Smethwick in the West Midlands region of England on Sunday. Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick had commissioned the Lions of the Great War monument, which depicts a turbaned Sikh soldier, to honour the sacrifices made by millions of South Asian service personnel of all faiths who fought for Britain in the world wars and other conflicts as part of the British Indian Army. "We are very proud to be bringing this memorial to Smethwick High Street to honour the sacrifice of all those brave men who travelled thousands of miles to fight for a country that wasn't their own, said Jatinder Singh, President of Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick. The 10-foot bronze statue was unveiled in Smethwick High Street to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I in November 1918, also referred as the Great War. The new Lions of the Great War monument has been placed between the High Street and Tollhouse Way in the town of Smethwick as part of a community project and collaboration between the gurdwara and the local Sandwell Council. The gurdwara donated around 20,000 pounds for the sculpture, with the council investing in creating the public space with seating and lighting to house the new monument. "It's so important we remember the sacrifices made by people for our country, said Councillor Steve Eling, Leader of Sandwell Council. Designed by local West Midlands artist Luke Perry, the statue stands on a granite plinth with inscriptions naming the regiments in which South Asian soldiers served during the Great War. "When I realised more than 1.5 million Indian soldiers had been sent to World War I, I just could not understand why their contribution had been ignored for so long in this country, said Perry. "Indians of all religions fought in the war and we are such a diverse multicultural country in part because of the sacrifices they made, so this is a wonderful statement which will be perfect for the Commonwealth Games and everything they represent, he said, in reference to the 2020 Commonwealth Games to be held in Birmingham, just west of Smethwick. The unveiling of the statue this Sunday comes just a week before Armistice Day on November 11, marked annually in an elaborate wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in central London led by Queen Elizabeth II, as well as other smaller events around the country. Earlier this week in the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Theresa May had paid tribute to the Indian soldiers who had fought as part of the British Indian Army. "Over 74,000 soldiers came from undivided India and lost of their lives; 11 of them won the Victoria Cross for their outstanding bravery and played a crucial role in the war across multiple continents," she said on Wednesday, when she also pledged to adorn a khadi poppy in honour of these soldiers. The Poppy Appeal is an annual fundraising campaign for war veterans held in the lead up to Armistice Day, with politicians and members of the public across the country wearing a cloth-based poppy on their lapels as a sign of respect for the war dead. A khadi version of the poppy was launched by Indian-origin peer Lord Jitesh Gadhia and the Royal British Legion for the first time this year as an evocative symbol of undivided India's contribution to the war effort. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi-based NGO has launched a unique campaign called 'Drive Safe Daddy' to check drunk driving and to aware motorists about the need to drive with care and caution, according to a statement issued Sunday. The campaign involves some students of the Delhi University and they will be interacting with drivers at IGL CNG gas stations across the city. "As the festive season and the Diwali fervour grips the city, roads in Delhi become more prone to accidents and tragedies as a result of drunk driving, which is at its peak during this time of the year," the statement said. Prince Singhal, road safety expert and founder of the NGO called 'Community Against Drunken Driving', said the campaign has been launched to reach out to the common man to sensitise them on the need of driving safely. According to Singhal, every year the rate of fatal accidents increases by about 22 -25 per cent during Diwali and the rising liquor sales and the incidence of drunk driving tragedies are enough to prove that fatalities are on a rise. "The idea behind this initiative is to engage with the drivers and sensitise them on the need and importance of road safety, especially during this festive season," he said. The campaign, which is spread over a period of three months to cover both Diwali and New Year festivities, would reach out to over 12,000 drivers of private, public and commercial vehicles, the statement said. The campaign would involve putting a photoframe on the dashboard of the vehicle where a picture of the drivers' family or loved ones would be put in order to remind them of driving safely as their family is waiting back at home, it said. The NGO is also distributing stickers and road safety booklet titled "Drive Safe India" as part of the campaign. "Drunk driving has become a regular practice in metros like Delhi, especially rising during festivals like Diwali with almost one in every five drivers driving drunk," it said. With underage drinking on a high and rising by almost 18 per cent every year, the number of drunk drivers rises by shocking numbers, the NGO said. "The number of drunk driving tragedies has been rising in the capital as Delhi witnesses five road accident deaths per day, the highest among 53 cities in the country, out of which 70 per cent can be attributed to drunk driving," the statement said. Delhi reports around 12,000 accidents annually with over 1,875 road accident deaths, out of which nearly 1,500 are due to drunk driving, the NGO said. About 54.1 per cent victims are in the age group of 15-34 years, it said. "Drunk driving is the single largest cause responsible for fatal road accidents. Nearly 50 per cent of head injuries at trauma centres at night are due to alcohol-related crashes," the NGO said. Nearly 67 per cent of all night time accidents are due to alcohol-related traffic accidents, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said here Sunday that "no power can stop" construction of grand Ram temple at Ayodhya. He said, the Bharatiya Janata Party "was is and will always" favour construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. "The issue is pending with the Supreme Court, hence, I cannot comment," he said. Maurya, however, hastened to added that, "We can tell for certain in one line that a grand Ram temple would be constructed whenever time comes." He was responding to queries about congregation of religious seers in Delhi to press for Ram temple construction through an ordinance by the Union government. Maurya said he respected the sentiments of honourable seers regarding the temple. He along with party organisation secretary Sunil Bansal was here to attend an event. The deputy chief minister reiterated his party's stand on the issue and said, "No power can stop construction of grand Ram temple at the birthplace of Ramlala." "As on date, the matter is pending with the Supreme Court and its verdict is awaited," he said, adding. "What we can firmly assure (people) is that not even a brick in the name of Babar would be laid or allowed to be laid at the birthplace of Ramlala". Taking a jibe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi without naming him, Maurya said "The people are realising the 'asaliyat'and 'nakaliyat' (what is genuine and what is fake) of those who are attempting to cheat the Hindu community by putting on 'janev'(religious thread)." "The Congress must explain as to why it intended hearing (of Ayodhya issue) in 2019," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With a large number of farmers marching to Bhubaneswar to stage a demonstration here Monday, the Odisha government stopped them Sunday midway at various places, triggering criticism from the opposition Congress and BJP. The farmers, who are on 'padayatra' demanding "price, prestige and pension", were stopped by the police at various places to foil their protest, alleged Naba Nirman Krushak Sangathan (NNKS) convenor Akshya Kumar. As the farmers marched to the state capital from Cuttack and Khurda, the administration clamped prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code at Hansapal and Tamando to stall the protest, said a leader of the NNKS, which is spearheading the agitation. He alleged the farmers have been held up at various places like Keonjhar, Balugaon, Jatasinghpur and Jajpur since October 29. Accusing the state government of trying to suppress the farmers' voice, Kumar and other NNKS leaders said the action is being taken also against the people for criticising the government. Bhubaneswar Deputy Commissioner of Police Anup Kumar Sahu said necessary arrangements have been made to prevent any untoward incident during farmers' demonstration in the state capital. Around 25 platoons of police, each having around 30 personnel, have been deployed to prevent law and order problems, he said, adding special attention is being given to ensure smooth traffic movement, especially on the national highways near the capital city. While senior Congress leader and former MP Pradip Majhi led a 'padyatra' from Khurda, NNKS convener Akshya Kumar and former Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda joined the peasants' march from Cuttack. The state government has shown little concern for the farmers despite their repeated demands, Majhi said, adding if the government fails to fulfil their demands by tomorrow, the state capital will be put under seize. The NNKS has been demanding minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 5,000 per quintal for paddy and a monthly pension of Rs 5,000 for the youths and Rs 1,500 for the elderly, said Kumar. Panda slammed the state government for trying to "throttle" the voice of farmers. Thousands of farmers from across the state are staging a peaceful agitation but the way the administration is trying to obstruct them is not justified, he said. The BJP also hit out at the Odisha government for failing to address the grievances of the farmers in the state. BJP state unit vice-president Samir Mohanty said his party supports the farmers' peaceful agitation. The Union government has taken several measures to double the farmers' income in the country, but due to wrong policies of the Odisha government, the farmers have been deprived of the benefits of the Centre's various schemes, Mohanty claimed. Dismissing the allegations, BJD spokesperson Sameer Dash claimed that the farmers across the country are facing problems. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government may have deregistered 4 million old vehicles to curb pollution in the capital but the enforcement data shows a dismal picture with only 3,196 (.079 per cent) such vehicles impounded by agencies after they were banned by the NGT in 2014. Two different agencies are responsible for enforcing the ban on 15-year old petrol vehicles and 10-year old diesel vehicles imposed by the Green Tribunal in 2014 traffic police and transport department of the government. The ban was ratified by the The data provided under the Right to Information Act to an activist, Deepak Juneja, shows only 3,196 such vehicles have been impounded since 2014 by both agencies which is just .079 per cent of the total 40 lakh vehicles. The transport department data provided under the RTI paints even a grimmer picture as it has been able to impound only 106 old vehicles since the NGT banned them in 2014, till August 31, 2018. After NGT had banned old vehicles in the capital, mandarins have been issuing circular to impose the ban and take strict action against the erring vehicle owners but the data shows hardly any progress on the ground. The registration numbers of the petrol vehicles which are 15 year old and diesel ones which are 10 year old have been "deemed to have been de-registered". They have been fed in mobile challan system of the which flash as and when their numbers are entered in hand-held devices by traffic officers. The Delhi traffic police has impounded 1,242 petrol vehicles that are 15 year old since 2014, while 1,848 diesel vehicles that are 10 year old between 2014 and till September 27, 2018. The challan data provided by the traffic police shows 1,411 challans were issued for 15 year old vehicles and 354 challans for 10 year vehicles during the period. Vehicular pollution is a major contributor to dangerous air quality in which is claiming over 10,000 deaths annually, according to a study. Nearly 15,000 people died prematurely in Delhi due to pollution by fine particulate matter in 2016, one of the major emissions from diesel vehicles, according to a study this year, which ranked the capital third in a list of cities reporting most deaths due to air pollution. Speaking to PTI, Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said old diesel vehicles cause seven times more air pollution than vehicles with latest BS-VI certification. The has recently banned sale of all Bharat Stage-IV certified vehicles from April 1, 2020. The Bharat stage emission standards are standards instituted by the government to regulate output of air pollutants from motor vehicles. The Bharat Stage VI (or BS-VI) emission norm would come into force from April 1, 2020 across the country. Roychowdhury said emission profile of all vintage cars show that a 10-year-old diesel mid-size car or SUV that meets BS-II and BS-III standards emits 7.5 times higher toxic particulate matter compared to the current BS-IV diesel vehicles. "Thus, emissions from one BS-II are equivalent to emissions from 7 current BS-IV diesel cars. This gap will increase even further when BS-VI emissions standards come into effect," he said. Roychowdhury said even deeper worry is that diesel emissions are Class-I carcinogens, according to the WHO, for strong link with lung cancer. "The International Council of Clean Transportation has further estimated based on this that there is four times greater cancer risk in Delhi from diesel vehicles compared to petrol vehicles. It estimates the potential to be more than 280,000 avoidable cancers due to long term exposure to diesel exhaust," she said. The air quality has been in the red zone in Delhi several times during the past decade, with the NGT and the SC repeatedly asking the state and the Centre to act against erring contributors to pollution. Last week, a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur expressed displeasure that orders passed by the NGT and the Supreme Court in 2015, prohibiting the plying of such old vehicles in the National Capital Region, had not yet been complied with. "Three and a half year have gone by but it appears that orders passed by the NGT and confirmed by this court are not being complied with yet. The counsel for has been asked to advise his client to act with promptitude," the bench had said. The apex court on October 29 directed the transport department to announce that plying of 15-year-old petrol and 10-year-old diesel vehicles in the has been banned and such vehicles would be impounded if found plying. The court had termed "very critical" the prevailing situation of pollution in and had permitted the court-mandated EPCA to take pre-emptive steps under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) without strict adherence to pollution stages delineated in the plan. Around 50 farmers of Gorakhpur and Sant Kabir Nagar district are growing orange fleshed sweet potato to fight against malnutrition especially in children in the two adjoining districts. The bio-fortified crop Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) is rich source of vitamin A. The idea of cultivating OFSP was conceived by a native of Gorakhpur Ram Chet Chowdhary, a retired agricultural scientist who has worked in Uganda from 2006 to 2012 as assistant technical expert with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nation. Chowdhary through an NGO is spreading awareness about OFSP and appealing children in schools to include the super food in their meals. While working in Uganda with the United Nations, I came to know about orange fleshed sweet potato which is a low priced crop of African countries and it is a big source of vitamin A and beta and it is almost 150 per cent higher than Vitamin A found in carrot, papaya, etc and that is why it is also known as super food," he told PTI Sunday. This food can be helpful in fighting malnutrition in areas of eastern UP, he said adding that in 24 African countries, the food is used for tackling malnutrition and the results are 100 per cent. In 2015-16, we conducted a survey in Gorakhpur and Sant Kabir Nagar and found that around 51 per cent children between 3 and 12 years of age are suffering with eye diseases due to deficiency of Vitamin A. So we started cultivating the super food in 2013 with the help of few farmers and from 2014 to 2017, Tata Trust provided us aid," he said. At present the cost of the super food OFSP is 30 per kg, but it is only available in local market near Ram Nagar Karjahan village area. Some NGO-trained women are preparing 18 varieties of products with it but still it has not reached to big stores of the city. Chowdhary is meeting government officials and ministers so that the OFSP could be adopted by the state as a miracle food. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A penalty of over Rs 83 lakh was imposed on violators on a single day on Sunday by the teams deployed to monitor implementation of measures to combat pollution in the Delhi NCR under the Clean Air Campaign, the CPCB said. The highest number of complaints were related to illegal construction and demolition activities. An aggressive ten-day-long 'Clean Air Campaign' from November 1 to 10 has been launched by Union Minister Harsh Vardhan to monitor and report polluting activities as well as to ensure quick action. These teams are visiting different parts of Delhi and adjacent towns of Faridabad, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Noida. Based on 368 complaints, a total fine of Rs 83,55,000 was imposed on Sunday itself by 52 teams in the national capital, said the Central Pollution Control Board. A total of 119 complaints of construction and demolition activities were received. Other complaints included that of vehicular emission, traffic congestion, industrial emission, open or garbage burning, leaf burning, road dust, unpaved road, fire in landfill sites, air pollution from generators among others, it said. A total of 52 complaints were received through social media and e-mail while 316 complaints were received through the 'Sameer app' that has been developed by the CPCB. About 43 teams visited sites of 248 complaints in Delhi while two teams attended to 11 complaints in Gurgaon, two teams to 31 complaints in Faridabad, two teams to 5 complaints in Noida and Greater Noida and three teams for 21 complaints in Ghaziabad. A total penalty of Rs 80 lakh was imposed on the violators on Friday and Saturday by the teams deployed to monitor implementation of measures to combat pollution in Delhi-NCR under the campaign The teams comprise the local Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) as the team leader, senior official from Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and representatives from the CPCB, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). The deployment of teams come ahead of the festival season when the air quality is expected to deteriorate to severe levels due to local factors as well as regional factors like the stubble burning. Other measures include halt on all construction activities involving excavation. Civil construction has also been suspended in Delhi and other NCR districts, besides closure of all stone crushers and hot mix plants generating dust pollution. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has also directed the Transport Department and the Traffic Police to intensify checking of polluting vehicles and control travel congestion in the region during November 1-10. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted by the Supreme Court after being sentenced to death for blasphemy has appealed to the international community, including US President Donald Trump, to help the family leave the Islamic nation, saying he feared for their safety. Though the apex court's judgement was pronounced on Wednesday, there has been no official confirmation yet about the status of Asia Bibi that whether she was released from the jail or where she has been kept after being released, if at all. On Thursday, an official of the Multan jail, where Bibi was languishing, had told PTI that she was released on early hours of that day. However, it is believed that Bibi and her family members are 'kept' at some safe place by the Pakistani intelligence agencies. Also the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) patron-in-chief Pir Afzal Qadri had claimed that the woman has been sent back to jail on "our demand". "I request President Donald Trump to help us to leave Pakistan and I also request the prime minister of the UK and Canada to help us. Help us in getting freedom," Bibi husband Ashiq Masih said in a video message. Masih also said that he feared for his family's safety. Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. The Supreme Court's judgement had triggered violent protests across Pakistan with agitators led by hardline political party TLP and other groups blocking major highways and roads, torching vehicles, damaging public and private properties and attacking policemen in different parts of the country. The protests were later called off late Friday night after the agitators reached a deal with the government, which assured initiation of a legal process to place Bibi on the exit control list that will prevent her from flying abroad. The government also assured not to oppose a review petition filed against the Supreme Court's judgement. Bibi's lawyer Saiful Malook fled Pakistan on Saturday, claiming that he was facing life threats from sections of lawyers and it was difficult for him to practice in the prevailing situation. He said he would return to Pakistan to represent his client at the hearing of the review petition if the army provided him security. Blasphemy is a hugely inflammatory issue in Pakistan and spark attacks and even killings at the hands of vigilante mobs. Meanwhile, police booked 5,500 people under terrorism and other charges in different parts of Punjab and Islamabad during the three-day protests following Bibi's acquittal. The Punjab police said it has registered over 100 FIRs across the province and booked over 7,500 people, including TLP chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi and patron-in-chief Afzal Qadri under terrorism, attempted murder and other charges. According to a source in the government, there has been an "instruction" from the "top" not to arrest the TLP leadership with whom the government has reached an agreement to end the country-wide protests. Pakistan's military establishment also played a vital role in persuading the TLP to end the protest, the source said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of people in Nepal Sunday greeted the arrival of the first passenger train from India to the country's Eastern industrial town of Biratnagar as part of a test run for the 18.1-kilometre proposed cross-border railway line. The train, having both Indian and Nepalese flags fluttering, arrived from Bathnaha in Bihar to Katahari in Nepal's Morang district. Thousands of people on the Nepalese side greeted the train, officials said. The test run was conducted with engineers from Indian Railways and officials from the manufacturing company were onboard, they said. Of the 18.1-kilometre railway track, 13.1-kilometre falls in Nepal. This line stretches from Budhnagar to Katahari. The estimated cost of the project is around Rs 4.48 billion, which will be provided by India under its economic cooperation. Although Nepal and India had planned to complete the project within two years, it got delayed due to various problems, including a dispute over land compensation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a first for the country's inland water transport, Prime Minister on November 12 will receive a in on the river Ganga, Union Minister said Sunday. In the maiden container since Independence on inland vessel MV RN Tagore, and beverages major is moving its 16 containers from to The cargo containers will reach on November 12. " transport in India is set for a revolution and the massive work done on waterways has started showing impact," Union shipping and Ganga rejuvenation minister told PTI. He said that Prime Minister will receive the travelled for the first time on - NW 1 on the Ganga at Varanasi on November 12 at the newly developed multi-modal terminal and shall dedicate the terminal to the nation. said this is the country's first container movement on inland vessel post-Independence, and a milestone moment in the history of India's transport sector. (India) has moved 16 containers -- equivalent to 16 truckloads -- filled with and snacks in the vessel MV RN Tagore which will make its return journey with fertilisers belonging to IFFCO that will be procured from its Phulpur plant near Shipping Secretary Gopal Krishna along with chairman Pravir Pandey had flagged off the vessel carrying the consignment in the presence of representatives. The event of flagging off the vessel last week had coincided with another momentous day for the IWT in India as IWAI's first foray into public private partnership (PPP) model became a reality with the handing over of operation and management of its terminals in to Summit Alliance Port East Gateway (India) Pvt Ltd (SAPEL) on a supply, operate and maintain (SOM) model. The government earlier has said container cargo transport comes with several inherent advantages and added that it reduces the handling cost, allows easier modal shift, reduces pilferage and damage, it also enables cargo owners to reduce their carbon footprints. The government is developing NW-1 (river Ganga) under JMVP from Haldia to Varanasi (1,390 km) with the technical and financial assistance of the at an estimated cost of Rs 5,369 crore. The project would enable commercial navigation of vessels with capacity of 1,500-2,000 DWT. Gadkari had flagged off a consignment of cars from Varanasi to Haldia in August 2016. Since then pilot movements on National Waterways are currently being done on various stretches. More than 15 of them have already been successfully completed, including integrated movements through NW-1 (Ganga), Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route and NW-2 (Brahmaputra). The PepsiCo cargo will be the first container movement on inland waterways in the country. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday he will meet this week in New York with North Korea's number two, Kim Yong Chol, to resume denuclearization talks. Announcing the meeting on Fox Sunday, Pompeo said it would be "a good opportunity to continue the denuclearization discussions" underway since US President Donald Trump's historic summit in June with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pompeo's announcement follows a North Korean foreign ministry statement that the North will "seriously" consider reviving its nuclear weapons program unless US sanctions are lifted. But Pompeo dismissed the warning, saying, "I'm not worried about that." "We are very focused. We know with whom we are negotiating, we know what their positions (are) and President Trump has made his position very clear," Pompeo said. He added there would be "no economic relief until we have achieved our ultimate objective." At their summit in Singapore in June, Trump and Kim signed a vaguely worded statement on denuclearization. But little progress has been made since then, with Washington pushing to maintain sanctions against the North until its "final, fully verified denuclearization," and Pyongyang condemning US demands as "gangster-like." "The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible," said the statement, released under the name of the director of the foreign ministry's Institute for American Studies. "What remains to be done is the US corresponding reply," it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Days after Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane expressed concern over the health of Manohar Parrikar, his cabinet colleague Vijai Sardesai Sunday said the chief minister was doing fine. Sardesai, whose Goa Forward Party (GFP) is a ruling constituent in the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance government, also said the "projections" being made about Parrikar's health are incorrect. "Parrikar's health is far better compared to his stay in the AIIMS in Delhi in September this year. The way the picture is being projected about his health is not true. Parrikar is much better now compared to when we had seen him after his discharge from Delhi," he told reporters. Parrikar, 62, was shifted to his private residence in Goa last month. He is currently recuperating at his private residence here. Responding to a query, Sardesai said, "It is natural that when a chief minister is immobile or missing in action, the administration gets affected. But we are there to take care of the unattended gaps". Referring to a Cabinet meeting presided over by the chief minister at his residence last month, Sardesai recalled that Parrikar was alert and sharp. "There were three issues which were on the agenda of the state cabinet, and were of utmost importance. I was shocked to see that Parrikar remembered them and took them up during the meeting," said the minister. Responding to a question, Sardesai said there is no issue of leadership change right now. "The issue was there when Parrikar was ill. Now he is better. Parrikar is still in power. He is still the CM. He has showed that he is there (by holding the meetings)," he said. State Health Minister Rane had said that he believed in "miracles", when he was asked about the health of Parrikar. He later said that Parrikar was suffering from pancreatic cancer. "Let him be peaceful with his family. That much right he has, after serving the people of Goa, that if he wants to spend some quality time with his family, nobody has the business to ask...," Rane had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A property broker was arrested after he passed off bundles of Bhagwati Jagran receipts as wads of notes worth Rs 65 lakh to a seller, police said Sunday. City Superintendent of Police Shlok Kumar said property dealer Naresh Kaushik was a broker in a deal for the sale of two shops at Rs 1.23 crore, a part of which was to be given in cash. Kaushik showed the property owner, Rajendra Nath Grover Rs 65 lakh in cash at his house, but after registration of the sale deeds for shops at the Ghaziabad sub-registry office, handed over to him bundles of 'Bhagwati Jagran' receipts of Rs 2,000 currency notes size, wrapped in a red cloth. Grover lodged a complaint with the police, which raided Kaushik's residence and recovered cash worth Rs 64 lakh from him, Kumar said. The police also arrested Kaushik on charges of cheating and forgery, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Railway Safety Chief Commissioner S K Pathak Sunday began his probe into the train tragedy here on Dusshera in which about 60 people were killed and several others injured. Member of Parliament Gurjeet Singh Aujla met Pathak and said the statements of eyewitnesses were not being recorded presently. The Congress MP said Pathak told him that the statements of railway officials were being recorded currently and he would meet general public later. Amritsar MP Aujla said he requested the official to stage a mock accident under the supervision of experienced engineers and experts to ascertain how the accident took place. The MP said since there has been a "delay" in ordering this inquiry, the probe team must ensure that all material of evidential value are forensically checked against possible tempering. The speedometer of the train involved in the accident must be checked for errors and tempering, he demanded. The gatemen are supposed to transmit information to the higher authorities and train drivers of impediments on the tracks, he claimed and asked the official, probing the tragedy to ascertain if the gatemen at the nearest crossing had informed the station control room. Aujla said Pathak assured him that he would consider all his points during the inquiry. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The RJD's youth wing members on Sunday clashed with the police during a Raj Bhawan rally to protest against "anti-people policies" of both central and state governments. Police said they resorted to mild lathicharge to disperse some agitating RJD members although no one was injured in the incident. "No one was injured during the incident nor anyone was arrested by the police. We are setting them free after giving notices. Besides, an FIR has been lodged against unknown persons in this regard," Patna City Superintendent of Police (Central) D Amarkesh said. He said police had to resort to lathicharge after some RJD workers broke the barricade to enter the VIP area at Hartali Mor. The RJD had organised the Raj Bhawan march to submit a memorandum over deteriorating law and order situation in the state and Centre's failure to check price rise and corruption. Following the police action on party workers, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who was not scheduled to participate in the rally, reached the spot at Hartali Mor to mark his protest. "It was the party's planned programme of Raj Bhawan march about which the authorities were informed in advance. The officials should have clearly said that they would not allow so many people except one or two if they wish to submit a memorandum (to Governor office) but that was not done by the police. Instead. they (police) resorted to lathicharge which was absolutely wrong," Tejashwi told reporters here. He said he will not sit idle if his partymen were heckled. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Rohingya refugee boy was shot and injured on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border as multiple rounds were fired from a Myanmar border security post, an official said Sunday. Nurul Islam, 15, was grazing cows when 17 rounds were fired from Myanmar's Rymongkhali security post, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) spokesman Major Iqbal Ahmed said. "Islam was lucky as a bullet scratched his elbow," he told AFP, adding the boy lives in Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh's southeastern Cox's Bazar district. The BGB would send a protest letter to their Myanmar counterparts, the Border Guard Police, over the shooting, he said. A local Bangladeshi official, speaking on condition on anonymity, said the incident might be aimed at delaying the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, set to begin in next week. "Otherwise, why would they fire at the Bangladeshi ground? It is to create pressure on the refugees and the UN," he said. Bangladesh and Myanmar officials last week said some 2,000 Rohingya refugees would return to their homeland in Myanmar's western Rakhine state as part of a repatriation deal. More than 720,000 of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya fled a brutal military crackdown in August last year, taking shelter in crowded camps in Bangladesh and bringing with them harrowing tales of rape, murder and arson in a military crackdown. Investigators have said senior Myanmar military officials should be prosecuted for genocide in Rakhine, but the country has rejected these calls, insisting it was defending itself against militants. Myanmar and Bangladesh announced a large-scale repatriation plan in November 2017. But the process hit bureaucratic hurdles almost immediately and failed to take off, as both sides blamed the other for the delay and rights group warned returning the Rohingya to Myanmar would condemn them to further reprisals. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Karnataka government will set apart Rs 20 crore for developing and upgrading the basic infrastructure at Baikampady industrial zone on the city outskirts, state Minister for Large and Medium industries K J George has said. Paucity of land was the problem encountered in the zone, he told reporters after a meeting of stakeholders of Kanara Small Industries Association (KSIA) at Baikampady Saturday. A total of 543 acres acquired for a steel company was under litigation and the government was to apprise the court soon of the demand from small industrialists, he said. The government had provided 160 acres of land for Coast Guard training centre besides assuring 50 acres for setting up a base of Rapid Action Force in the area, he said. The Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) had submitted a proposal seeking Rs 59 crore for development of infrastructure which will be taken up in a phased manner, he said. George said the KSIAs demand to allot the acquired land for MSMEs, electronic hardware park, logistics park and other projects was under consideration. The KSIA had been asked to submit a concrete proposal including private players willing to develop industrial parks which could be submitted before court. The minister said the government had set up K-tech innovation hub in the city, which is a Product Start-up Incubator-cum-Common Instrumentation Facility.' The aim of the hub was to encourage innovation, stimulate entrepreneurship, help in creating technology-based start-ups, provide employment and fuel economic growth, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti, an umbrella body of Hindu seers, Sunday "directed" the government to bring in a legislation or an ordinance to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya. A two-day conclave of the Samiti, which saw participation of over 3,000 seers from across the country, deliberated on a number of issues, including a central legislation for cow protection, cleaning of the Ganga river and construction of the Ram Temple. "We direct the government to either bring in a law or an ordinance (for the construction of the Ram temple). There will be no compromise on this," Ramanandacharya Hansdevacharya, the patron of the organisation, said in his concluding remarks of the conclave. He also announced that the 'sant samiti' would hold religious conclaves in Ayodhya, Nagpur and Bengaluru on November 25, to be followed by one in Delhi on December 9. Former BJP MP and working president of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas Ram Vilas Vedanti, however, did not favour enacting a law or promulgating an ordinance to facilitate the Ram temple construction, saying this would lead to communal riots. "The matter should be sorted out through mutual consensus as the court will not be able to give any decision on the issue for the next 10 lakh years," he said. The demand for a law for construction of the Ram temple has been growing after the Supreme Court last month said an "appropriate bench" would decide in the first week of January the schedule for hearing of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had on Monday pressed for the construction of the temple, saying it would lead to an atmosphere of "goodwill and harmony" in the country. The Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti (ABSS) also batted for the re-election of the BJP in the general elections next year. "We are very hurt that there has been no resolution to the Ram Mandir issue, but we are satisfied with the Central government's work for the country, religion, culture and national security," said the Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti in its list of "directives" to the government. The ABSS said people should vote for those who protect "Gai (cow), Ganga and Govind (god)". The organisation also demanded a central legislation for cow protection. To ensure that there is an uninterrupted and continuous flow of Ganga, a law should be enacted for the protection of the river, it said. Justifying the rechristening of Allahabad as Prayag, the Sant Samiti also demanded changing of the name of Delhi to Indraprastha. It also sought early completion of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam and said the Centre should assert diplomatic pressure on Bangladesh to take back their illegal migrants to India. An appeal was also made to citizens to identify Rohingyas and inform the security agencies about them. The ABSS also demanded a Uniform Civil Code and a 'National Population Policy' to control the "imbalance" of population. Giving a call to unite the Hindu society, Hansdevacharya said it was necessary to bring together Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and people of other sects of Hinduism. Terming NOTA as an "insult" to democracy, ABSS appealed to the people to choose their candidates. Speaking on the Sabarimala issue, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the head of 'Art of Living' said he was confident that the Supreme Court would look into the public sentiments and do a rethink on its decision. In a landmark decision last month, the apex court had allowed entry of women in the Kerala shirne, a move that has led to violent protests in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The apex church body in Nagaland has taken strong exception to the recent Supreme Court judgments decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults as well as adultery, terming them "detestable" and "unacceptable" to Christians. The Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) deliberated on the court rulings threadbare in its executive meeting held on October 30-31, it said in a statement on Saturday. "Legalising of such acts (homosexuality and adultery) is extremely detestable and unacceptable to the Christians under any circumstances," the statement by NBCC said. "This interpretation that granting of liberty, empowering adulterers and unnatural relationship with the encouragement and support of law is terribly wrong for our society," the NBCC added. In what was hailed as a historic move, the apex court had on September 6 unanimously decriminalised part of the 158-year-old colonial law under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises consensual unnatural sex, saying it violated the rights to equality. Following this, the top court struck down Section 497 of the IPC dealing with the offence of adultery, holding it manifestly arbitrary, archaic and violative of the rights to equality and equal opportunity to women. The NBCC warned Christians not to be swayed away by such laws as reinterpreting the Bible, and the biblical morality and ethics. The church body said "marriage is between a man and a woman only" and that it shall "never permit gay sex". "Though we are governed by the law of the land so as to be good citizens, however, when the laws are intentionally introduced and amended to liberalise or compromise morality and ethics of its citizens, we, the church must firmly stand guard against such move at all costs and always," it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is defending the Trump administration's reimposition of sanctions against Iran from conservative critics who argue more should be done to isolate the country. In an interview with "Fox Sunday," Pompeo refused to reveal which countries received waivers from US sanctions to continue importing Iranian oil. But he said the eight unidentified nations "need a little bit more time to get to zero." He would not rule out the Trump administration extending the waivers beyond six months Pompeo maintained that despite the waivers, "these sanctions have already had an enormous impact." He added that Trump's policy of "maximum pressure will be fully in place as of tomorrow."President Donald Trump removed the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal earlier this year, triggering the sanctions being imposed Monday. Pompeo said they are designed to "alter the Iranian regime's behavior," especially its support of terrorist groups like Hezbollah. Speaking to CBS' "Face the Nation" Pompeo said he was "confident" that Iran would not restart its nuclear program with the U.S. withdrawing from the deal. Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were expected to provide more details on the sanctions at a briefing Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Aamir Khan Sunday revealed that director Shakun Batra had approached him for a film on the life of spiritual leader Rajneesh, popularly known as Osho, but the actor said he is waiting for a bound script before he takes a decision. Shakun earlier told PTI that he was developing a story on Osho's life. He had said that it would be an ambitious project and he needed to right people on board. "He (Shakun) has discussed the project with me. I am waiting to hear the script. It all depends on how the script turns out," Aamir said in an interview here on his involvement with the film on Osho. Asked about the status of "Mogul", which he was going to produce with Bhushan Kumar's T-Series, Aamir said, "You must have read the statement. That's the status." The actor is the first mainstream name to have taken a tough stand in the wake of #MeToo movement. Without taking any names, Aamir had announced his and filmmaker-wife Kiran Rao's departure from the project as producers, after he learnt of sexual misconduct allegations against director Subhash Kapoor. Kapoor is no longer helming the film. Asked if there was any development with regards to "Mogul", he replied in the negative. Aamir was recently in New Delhi where he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with other members from the film industry. Commenting on the exchange, the actor said, "It was a good meeting. We discussed some of the issues that the industry is facing." The 53-year-old superstar was recently spotted at an airport holding a copy of "The Condensed Mahabharata by Vyasa", fuelling rumours that he has started work on his most ambitious project "Mahabharata". Reports say he will start work after the release of "Thugs of Hindostan". Asked about the speculation, Aamir said he is yet to zero in on his next project. "I have no idea what I am doing next. There are always lots of talks for everything. I am not committed for anything right now. I have not thought what I will do next. I am right now focused on 'Thugs of Hindostan'," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Signature Bridge over the Yamuna was inaugurated amid a surcharged atmosphere on Sunday with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal attacking BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the country needs bridges, schools and hospitals not temples and statues for progress. High drama prevailed before the inauguration of the bridge with Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari and scores of supporters staging a protest for allegedly not being invited to inaugural event of the newly-built city landmark. They also had a "scuffle" with some AAP workers. "Four days ago the 182 metre tallest statue of the world was unveiled and today this 154 metre high bridge is being inaugurated. The country has to decide if it needs statues and temples or bridges, schools and hospitals," Kejriwal said inaugurating the bridge. He said the thought of Signature bridge reminded him of the first Prime Minister of the country Jawahar Lal Nehru. "If Nehru had chosen to build temples and statues instead of institutions like BHEL and SAIL, then the country would not have progressed. The country would languish in 15th century if temples and mosques are given preferences over science, technology and research," Kejriwal said. He alleged that in order to stop his government from completing the bridge, the officials and engineers were issued threats of CBI raids against them. "The Signature bridge has been completed only because there is an honest government in Delhi," Kejriwal asserted. Deputy CM Manish Sisodia also alleged that "obstacles" were raised by the Modi government so that the Signature bridge was not completed in the rule of AAP government in Delhi. "If Modi government had contributed one inch to this bridge, I would myself chant Modi-Modi like those who are showing black flags," he said referring to BJP supporters who were camped nearby along with Manoj Tiwari. In a direct attack on Tiwari, Sisodia said if he was "so fond of" going to inaugurals then he should work constructively. "It is Modi government's rule that the CM of elected government in Delhi will not be invited to any inaugural function. We deliberately did not invite (Tiwari)," Sisodia said claiming no one from Delhi government was invited at inauguration of Skywalk at ITO. Earlier Sunday, Tiwari and his supporters allegedly entered into a scuffle with AAP members and staged a protest for not being invited to inaugural event. Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were not present when the protest took place. BJP, however, said that AAP leader Amantullah Khan used abusive language and pushed Tiwari. Meanwhile, Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police, eastern range, said the main function was held smoothly without any disturbance. "Our staff on duty at the place of function performed their task with utmost restraint and diligence. Though there was slogan shouting but police segregated the groups and did not allow any clash or violence to take place," he said. "The situation was handled very professionally by Delhi Police and not allowed to take an ugly turn," Yadav added. Tiwari is MP from North East Delhi and the bridge comes in his constituency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Surface links between Kashmir and the rest of the country remained cut off for the second day Sunday due to heavy snowfall in the Valley which has caused massive power outage, officials said. The Srinagar-Jammu National Highway is closed for vehicular traffic due to heavy snowfall Saturday which has rendered the road unsafe, an official of the Traffic Control department told PTI. A police spokesperson said more than 300 passengers, including tourists, who were stranded on the 294-km road due to snowfall, were evacuated to safety in a night-long operation. The heavy snowfall has caused massive damage to the power supply infrastructure in the alley, leading to power outage since Saturday. "We are facing near full power outage but efforts are on to restore the electricity supply at the earliest. Against a normal transmission of nearly 1,200 MW, the system is able to transmit only 80 MW due to the damage to transmission lines caused by the snowfall," an official of the divisional administration said here. He said breaking of trees have resulted in supply wires getting snapped at dozens of places while massive foliage hanging over the transmission lines had made it unsafe for restoration of electricity. "More than 7,000 employees of PDD are being assisted by other departments to clear the obstructions and repair the lines so that electricity is restored on war footing," the official said. Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Abid Rasheed Shah said electricity has been restored in several parts of the city while the work was in progress to restore normal supply in the remaining parts. "Electricity in parts of downtown Srinagar has been restored. We have restored electricity in some parts of the civil lines areas as well," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two unidentified men, who were assaulted by a mob at Assam's Cachar district after they were found carrying arms and ammunition, have succumbed to injuries, a police officer said on Sunday. The men, suspected to be militants, were rescued by the police on Saturday evening and taken into custody from a bus stop at Harinagar in Lakhipur sub-division of the district, he said. They were then admitted to Silchar Medical College Hospital in a serious condition. "As the two men are yet to be identified, we could not inform their family members. They were badly beaten up by the mob at the bus stop and were taken to the hospital in a critical condition," the officer said, adding that the duo succumbed to the injuries on Saturday night. Cachar Superintendent of Police Rakesh Roshan had earlier told PTI that three AK-56 rifles, one Chinese-make LMG, one 12 bore single barrel and one 5.56 mm rifles were seized from the possession of the two men. Roshan also credited local people for the apprehension and said the duo had come from Dima Hasao district. The incident comes three days after five Bengali-speaking individuals were gunned down by a group of assailants at Tinsukia district. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Swami Paramhans Das, mahant of Tapaswi Chawni temple in Ayodhya, has threatened self-immolation on December 6, if the construction of Ram Mandir in was not officially announced by then. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath must make the announcement by December 5. Paramhans sat on an indefinite fast on October 6, demanding a law be passed by the Modi government for construction of After a week of the fast, Paramhans was detained by the police and he was made to meet UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow, who convinced him to give up the fast, the chief priest claimed. Paramhans said, "When the government forced me to break my fast, the chief minister promised me he would soon announce the date for construction of Ram Mandir. He also promised me a conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi where I could personally make my demands but nothing has been done." "I am giving one month to the Modi government to take steps for the construction of Ram Janmabhoomi temple in This time from corporator to President of is from Bhartiya Janata Party but they are not doing anything for Ram Mandir," the mahant told PTI. Hindus have elected BJP only for the cause of Ram Janmabhoomi and the BJP is silent over the issue, so I have decided to give my life if BJP does not come forward for Ram Mandir, he added. The Babri Masjid was demolished 26 years ago in on December 6. Union minister Uma Bharti said Sunday while Hindus were the "most tolerant" people in the world, any talk of constructing a mosque on the periphery of a Ram temple in Ayodhya could make them "intolerant". The minister also invited Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to lay the foundation stone of the temple in Ayodhya with her, saying he would "atone for the sins" of his party by doing so. "Hindus are the most tolerant community in the world. I will appeal to all politicians: please don't make Hindus intolerant by talking about building a mosque on the outer periphery of the birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya," Bharti told PTI in an interview. She said when there could not be a temple in the holy town of Medina or a mosque in the Vatican City, it would be "unfair" to talk about a mosque in Ayodhya. Describing the Ayodhya dispute as one of land and not faith, the firebrand Hindu leader said, "This is now only a matter of dispute of land, not dispute of faith. It has been resolved that Ayodhya is the birth place of Lord Ram." She also stressed the need for an out-of-court settlement of the contentious issue, and urged all political leaders including Gandhi, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, BSP leader Mayawati and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee to support this. "We need support of all political parties on this issue. I invite all leaders including, Rahul Gandhiji, come let's lay the foundation stone of the Ram temple with me," Bharti said. By doing so, the Gandhi-scion could atone for the past sins of the Congress, which always created "hurdles" in building the temple in Ayodhya, she said. SP supremo Mulayam Singh, Banerjee, Mayawati and the Left parties should support the BJP on this issue as it is of national interest, she said. "But they aren't letting the matter get resolved. The Congress will have to quit the habit of dividing the country in the name of religion," Bharti said, reiterating that all political parties should unite on this issue. Bharti, who had participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s, said she was fully committed to the construction of Ram temple. "If they tell me that Ram Mandir will be built only over my dead body, then so be it," she said. Bharti, known as firebrand hindu leader of the party, has in past also pitched for early construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As the Lord Ayyappa temple opens Monday for a special puja, a thick security cover has been put in place by police and orders banning assembly of four or more people have been imposed in Sabarimala and nearby areas after violent protests were witnessed last month against the entry of women of menstrual age into the famed shrine. Police said 2,300 personnel, including a 20-member commando team and 100 women, have been deployed to ensure smooth 'darshan' and security of devotees, a move that came in for criticism from the erstwhile royal family of Pandalam, the BJP and the Congress for such fortification. If necessary, around 30 women police personnel in the rank of circle inspector and sub inspector and above the age of 50 would be deployed at 'Sannidhanam' (temple complex) for security, they said. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPc, banning assembly of four or more people, is in force at Pamba, Nilackal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam for 72 hours from midnight Saturday. This is the second time the hill temple will open for 'darshan' after the Supreme Court allowed entry of women of all age groups into it. The temple had witnessed high drama last month following frenzied protests leading to around a dozen women in the age group of 10-50 being prevented from reaching it and police and the agitators fighting a pitched battle over the LDF government's decision to implement the court order. The shrine will open at 5 pm Monday for the "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special puja slated for the next day, marking the birthday of last king of Travancore Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, and close at 10 pm on that day. Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and chief priest Unnikrishnan Namboodiri will jointly open the temple doors and light the lamp at the 'Sreekovil' (sanctum sanctorum). Dismissing reports that media was being restrained from going to Sabarimala, Kerala Director General of Police Loknath Behara said there was no bar on entry of journalists. No restriction of any sort has been imposed on media persons, he said. "To ensure necessary protection to the media, we are not allowing them now. As soon as security arrangements are complete, media will be allowed in Sabarimala and nearby places." During last month's pujas, media persons were attacked by a section of protesters and police had to face criticism. The Pandalam royal family, closely associated with the Ayyappa shrine, said it was "pained" at the heavy security in and around Sabarimala. "Saddened that devotees will have to offer prayers at the shrine amid thick police cover," it said. Protesting the apex court verdict, a 'prayer yagna' will be held, the family said. Meanwhile, the Sabarimala Karma Samiti, a platform of right-wing outfits, including VHP, appealed to media houses not to depute women journalists in the menstrual age group to cover the developments in Sabarimala. In its letter to editors, a copy of which was released to the media, it said even the entry of women journalists belonging to this age group as part of their job was also likely to aggravate the situation. The samiti alleged that even though the Supreme Court has decided to hear the review and writ petitions on the issue on November 13, the state government was intentionally ignoring the "mass movement" against the judgment and was trying to "hastily" enforce it using police force. "In such a situation, the devotees are left with no other choice but to continue with the peaceful agitation," it said. Activist Rahul Easwar, president of Ayyappa Dharma Sena that is among the outfits spearheading the protests, in a video message said, "Like police, we are also fully prepared". Easwar, belonging to the Thazhamon family of Sabarimala thantris, was arrested twice last month in connection with the protests in and and around Sabarimala against the government's decision to implement the court verdict and also for making certain remarks and is out on bail. Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Mullapally Ramachandran said the situation in Sabarimala was "explosive" and accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government of failure to handle it. Thousands of police personnel had been deployed in Sabarimala which was akin to "challenging and suppressing" the devotees, he alleged. BJP leader M T Ramesh said if police tried to hinder devotees from visiting Sabarimala, it would lead to "serious repercussions". The temple complex and nearby areas last month witnessed violent protests by Ayyappa devotees against the entry of young women. At least 12 women had made a vain attempt to reach the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, a celibate, after the Supreme Court permitted women in the 10-50 age group to offer prayers there. So far, 3,731 people have been arrested and 545 cases registered in connection with last month's violence. BJP and various Hindu outfits are on a warpath against the Left-front government over its decision not to seek a review of the apex court verdict. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam government Sunday handed over cheques of Rs 5 lakh as compensation to families of each of the five persons, three days after they were killed by unidentified gunmen in the district. BJP MLA from Sadiya, Bolin Chetia, visited the victims' houses and gave the cheques. "I have handed over the cheques that the state government had announced after the massacre," Chetia told reporters after meeting the victim families. The Assam government had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh and a job for the next of the kin of the deceased. Three members of a family were among five people shot dead by suspected ULFA (Independent) gunmen while two others were injured at Kheroni in the district Thursday night, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A four-member Trinamool Congress delegation arrived here on Sunday morning and headed to Kheronibari village in Tinsukia district to meet the family members of the five people killed by suspected militants. Led by Derek O'Brien, the TMC parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha, the team comprises the party's Lok Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra. "This is a humanitarian visit. This is a visit to stand with the grieving families. We hope to reach Tinsukia in about two hours and spend some time with the families," O'Brien told reporters outside the airport here. Unidentified gunmen in battle fatigue shot dead five individuals, including three members of a family, near the village in the district on Thursday night. Strongly condemning the incident, the senior TMC leader said, "What has happened is a dastardly killing of the most deprived and poorest Indian citizens... They have been murdered in cold blood." On Friday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed anguish over the killings and said an "environment of violence" was prevailing in the country. A TMC delegation of six MPs had gone to Silchar on August 2 to assess the situation in Assam in the wake of the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on July 30, but was stopped at the airport. They were not allowed to leave the airport and were sent back the next day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A four-member Trinamool Congress delegation Sunday met the family members of the five people killed by suspected militants in Tinsukia district of Assam, and demanded that the perpetrators of "hate crimes" be immediately brought to book. Led by Derek O'Brien, the TMC parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha, the team comprises Lok Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra, which went to Kheronibari village in the district to meet the family members. "We spoke to the family members and assured them of all assistance. We want justice for these families and will not stop our fight until and unless the perpetrators of hate crimes are punished," O'Brien told PTI. According to TMC sources, the party has given Rs 1 lakh to each family as aid. "This is a humanitarian visit. This is a visit to stand with the grieving families," the TMC leader had told reporters earlier Sunday outside the airport here. Unidentified gunmen in battle fatigue shot dead five Bengali-speaking people, including three members of a family, near Kheronibari village on Thursday night. Strongly condemning the incident, O'Brien said, "What has happened is a dastardly killing of the most deprived and poorest Indian citizens... They have been murdered in cold blood." On Friday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed anguish over the killings and said an "environment of violence" was prevailing in the country. A TMC delegation of six MPs had gone to Silchar on August 2 to assess the situation in Assam in the wake of the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on July 30, but was stopped at the airport. They were not allowed to leave the airport and were sent back the next day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A four-member Trinamool Congress delegation Sunday met the family members of the five Bengali-speaking men who were killed by suspected militants in the district, and demanded the perpetrators of "the hate crime" be immediately brought to book. The Assam government welcomed the TMC delegation, which was led by TMC parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O'Brien, and asked them to refrain from making any provocative statement which could vitiate the atmosphere in the state. The other members of the delegation were Lok Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra. "It is a sad day. I am at a loss of words. But in all sadness, it needs to be heard... To find out who is behind this (the killings), we will do whatever it takes in Assam, in Bengal, in the country and in Parliament," O'Brien said. Assam BJP MLA Bolin Chetia accompanied the TMC team to the homes of the victims in Kheronibari village of Dhola area. "We will do whatever it takes to find the perpetrators and whoever is responsible for this. We will go to the bottom of this," O'Brien told reporters after meeting the victims' families. Such incidents are happening across the country and the killings are an outcome of the divisive politics of the BJP-led Centre, he said. Wondering who is benefiting from these incidents, O'Brien said, "There is more than what meets the eye according to the stories that I am hearing from families and locals." He said the ruling party of West Bengal would keep fighting on behalf of the victims' families so that at least they come to know who were behind this crime. According to TMC sources, the party has given Rs 1 lakh to each family as aid. Unidentified gunmen in battle fatigues shot dead five Bengali-speaking people, including three members of a family, near Kheronibari village on Thursday night. "We want justice for these families and will not stop our fight until the perpetrators of the hate crimes are punished," O'Brien said. Earlier in the day, welcoming the TMC delegation, Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma appealed to the Trinamool leaders to refrain from making any "provocative statement". "We welcome the TMC team to visit the victims of the terrorist attack. Our only request to them is please do not give any provocative statement, which will vitiate the atmosphere of Assam," he told reporters in Guwhati. O'Brien said the most deprived and poorest Indian citizens were murdered in cold blood. "This is a humanitarian visit. This is a visit to stand with grieving families. "Our chief Mamata Banerjee has given us some directions. These people are Bengalis. They are the poorest. They are Hindus," he had said after landing in Assam. On Friday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed anguish over the killings and said an "environment of violence" was prevailing in the country. A TMC delegation of six MPs had gone to Bengali-majority Silchar on August 2 to assess the situation there in the wake of the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on July 30, but was stopped at the airport. They were not allowed to leave the airport and were sent back the next day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Conflict-ravaged Yemen has become a "living hell" for children with thousands dying every year from malnutrition and easily preventable diseases, a top UN official said Sunday. Geert Cappelaere, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at UN children's agency UNICEF, called on the warring parties to join proposed peace talks later this month and agree to a ceasefire. "Yemen is today a living hell -- not for 50 to 60 percent of the children -- it is a living hell for every boy and girl in Yemen," he told a conference in the Jordanian capital. According to UNICEF, 1.8 million Yemeni children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, and the lives of 400,000 severely affected children are under threat. Cappelaere said that 30,000 children die of malnutrition each year in Yemen, while a child dies every 10 minutes from easily preventable diseases. He said the figures were "a reminder for all of us to realise how dire the situation has become". "We call on all parties to get together later this month under the leadership of the UN special envoy... and agree on a ceasefire and a road to peace for Yemen," he added. The appeal came as fighting intensified in the key rebel-held Red Sea port city of Hodeida, despite growing international pressure to end a conflict that has left the country on the brink of famine. The port is the entry point for more than 70 percent of imports into the impoverished country. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the war in 2015 to bolster Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the Huthi rebels took over the capital Sanaa. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 10,000 people have since been killed. Some rights groups estimate the toll could be five times higher. The government said Thursday it was ready to restart peace talks with the Huthis, after a surprise call by the United States for an end to the war, including air strikes by the coalition. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday kicks off a week of commemorations for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, which is set to mix remembrance of the past and warnings about the present surge in nationalism around the globe. Some 70-80 world leaders including US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are preparing to fly to the French capital next weekend for a ceremony marking a century since the guns fell silent. This Sunday, Macron begins his own week-long tour around the country, which will see him criss-cross war-hit areas in northern and eastern France and attend individual ceremonies with the leaders of Germany, Britain and Mali. The 40-year-old French centrist is expected to use the international spotlight to issue a rallying cry against nationalism, having recently warned that the world risked forgetting the lessons of the 20th century's great conflicts. "I am struck by similarities between the times we live in and those of between the two world wars," he told a French newspaper last week, adding that nationalism was a "leprosy" spreading worldwide. Trump, who has made "America First" his rallying cry, will be among the leaders gathered for the main ceremony on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, 100 years to the day since the armistice. The commemorations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the Champs-Elysees avenue will be held under tight security following a string of deadly jihadist attacks in France over the past three years. Remembrance events begin this Sunday with a concert celebrating the friendship between former war-time enemies France and Germany, in the border city of Strasbourg, attended by Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Macron will then spend the week visiting the Western Front battlefields, from Verdun to the Somme. On Tuesday, in honour of the "black army" of former colonial troops who fought alongside the French, he and Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will visit Reims, a city defended by the African soldiers. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May will join Macron on the Somme on Friday, while on Saturday he heads to the village of Rethondes, where the armistice was signed, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. War commemorations aside, Macron is set to use his tour of northern France to visit areas hit hard by industrial decline, where far-right leader Marine Le Pen performed strongly in last year's presidential election. "After paying homage to those who died for their country it will be back to dealing with social and economic problems," said Bruno Cautres of political think-tank CEVIPOF. The former investment banker -- who has struggled to shake off an image as a "president of the rich" -- will zip through 17 towns, holding Wednesday's weekly cabinet meeting in the Ardennes where the German army had its headquarters for four years. "Each stop will be an opportunity to speak about the current concerns in those areas, which are trying to bounce back from de-industrialisation or major changes in agriculture," an aide to Macron said last week. The 40-year-old president, whose approval rating is languishing at a dismal 21 percent according to a YouGov poll released Thursday, has dismissed rumours that he is suffering from burn-out. He sparked rampant speculation by taking a few days off ahead of the tour, which aides have insisted were to gather his energy before an intense week of diplomacy. This week is an opportunity for the centrist to "reflect a strong presidential image" both at home and abroad, Cautres said. Macron is attempting to position himself as a champion of centrist and multilateralism in the run-up to European parliamentary elections in May, saying he expects the duel to be one between "progressives" and "nationalists". After next Sunday's ceremony, world leaders are set to attend a three-day peace forum opened by Merkel, an event which France wants to turn into an annual multilateral peace conference. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) LONDON (Reuters) - More than 70 business figures are calling for a public vote on the final terms of Britain's exit from the European Union, warning that the country faces "either a blindfold or a destructive hard Brexit", the Sunday Times reported.Firms are increasingly worried about the prospect of Britain leaving the world's biggest trading bloc in March without an agreement, or that politicians will sign up to a deal that limits companies' access to the continent's markets.A new group called "Business for a People's Vote", which includes Justin King, former boss of the Sainsbury's ... DUBAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Emirates is edging towards a deal with Rolls-Royce to power its latest Airbus A380 superjumbos but has not yet reached a final agreement, the Dubai-based airline said on Sunday.The fate of a lifeline order for up to 36 of the double-decker aircraft, of which Emirates already has over 100 in operation, has been widely questioned due to inconclusive talks over a separate deal between Emirates and engine makers."We are getting closer (to a deal with Rolls-Royce) but have not crossed the line yet," a spokesperson for the Dubai-based carrier said, asked about the status ... British bank HSBC has executed India's first financial transaction using blockchain for a deal involving an export by Reliance Industries to an American client. The blockchain-enabled letter of credit transaction was for a shipment from the Mukesh Ambani-led company to US-based Tricon Energy, and helped reduce the time required to process the documents. "The use of blockchain offers significant potential to reduce the timelines involved in exchange of export documentation from the extant seven-ten days to less than a day," RIL joint chief financial officer Srikanth Venkatachari was quoted as saying by PTI. The blockchain platform was integrated with the electronic bill of lading (eBL) platform to issue and manage an electronic bill of lading, it said, adding this allows a digital transfer of the title of goods from the seller to the buyer in the underlying trade. The statement claimed that the solution is a significant improvement for any organisation involved in buying and selling goods internationally, as it brings together all parties onto one platform. Blckchain solutions is a distributed database that maintains a continuously-growing list of ordered records called blocks and is deemed to be very transparent as all the stakeholders can view progress real time. A slew of domestic lenders, including ICICI Bank, SBI and Yes Bank among others are working on blockchain solutions and count trade finance as one of the best use cases for the technology because of the ability to cut down on time. HSBC's head of global banking and markets Hitendra Dave said blockchain has a transformative impact on trade finance transactions and enables greater transparency and enhanced security in addition to making it simpler and faster. That apart, it can ensure cost effectiveness, quicker turnaround and also potentially unlock liquidity for businesses, he added. For this transaction between Reliance and Tricon, the LC was issued by ING Bank, Brussels for Tricon Energy US with HSBC India as the advising and negotiating bank for Reliance, it said, claiming the how the transaction validates the commercial and operational viability of blockchain as an alternative to conventional exchanges for paper-based documentation. Explaining the current system, it said at present buyers and sellers use paper-based LCs to underpin transactions and physical documents are sent to each party in the transaction by post, courier or fax. While the current system provides a high level of certainty, the time and cost involved in processing the documents are deterrents for exporters. HSBC said it, along with five other banks globally supporting the 'Corda application', is seeking to expand the network on an open source basis to drive adoption across the industry. Since I moved into the world of public health, I have been amazed by two things: one, the enormity of problems and two, the fact that solutions are known. According to government data from 2016 , India's under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) i.e. children per 1000, dying before age five, is 39. That is, nearly a million children in India die each year before their fifth birthday. Yes, India has made progress. The U-5 MR was 122.5 in 1992. However, U5MR of countries typically considered as peers - Brazil, Russia, China - is less than half of India's. Even smaller South Asian nations like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal perform better. Breaking it down: Question 1 - Within a child's first five years, when are most deaths happening? We can look at child death data, per 1000 births, for three key timeframes - a) Birth to 28 days (Neonatal mortality rate), b) Before age 1 (Infant mortality rate), c) Before age 5 (U5MR). India's U5MR, Infant Mortality Rate and Neonatal Mortality Rate were 39, 34 and 25.4 respectively in 2016. This means 25.4 of 39 under-5 child deaths, i.e. ~65%, occur in the first 28 days itself. ~22% occur in the period from 28 days to 1 year, and ~13% between the child's first and fifth birthdays. The implication is that newborns and infants are the most vulnerable; if they survive the crucial first year of their lives, their likelihood of surviving the next four years and beyond is much higher. Question 2 then is, what is causing these deaths? In the first 28 days, most child deaths in India are caused by three factors - premature births (35%), infections viz., pneumonia, sepsis (31%) and birth asphyxia (20%). After this period, pneumonia and diarrhea are the largest causes of death, causing 15% and 12% respectively of child deaths under age 5. Another common thread is malnutrition, which is a contributory factor to 33% of child deaths in this period. Note: Causal analysis for death available for 2012, data presented in text is for 2016 where neonatal deaths comprise ~65% The tragedy (and opportunity) is that most of these deaths are preventable through known solutions. In addition to reducing morbidity, preventive health has economic benefits. The Global Nutrition Report estimates that malnutrition alone causes economic losses amounting to 11% of annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Africa and Asia. Preventive health is often limited by the fact that it does not generate visible outcomes instantly. But in the long run, it is essential for India to invest in preventive health to reap its much-touted 'demographic dividend'. Consider pneumonia, for example. It is responsible for ~15% of child deaths and simple actions like proper handwashing, ensuring personal hygiene of mother, child and surroundings goes a long way towards preventing it. Preventing child deaths involves a continuum of care. Health and nutrition of adolescent girls sets the base for healthy pregnancy and outcomes. Avoiding pregnancies in young age and birth spacing are important. Critical to preventing child deaths is focusing health and nutrition efforts in the golden window of the 1000-day period starting from a child's conception till the child turns two. When women conceive, it is important that they are registered early for Ante Natal Care (ANC) and receive at a minimum, four such checks during their pregnancy. Only 44.8% and 66.4% of women in rural and urban India respectively receive four checks. Nutrition is of utmost importance during pregnancy to ensure the health of mother and child. Families must be counselled to ensure that deliveries occur only in recognized hospitals. Improving these parameters requires strengthening the hands of frontline health and nutrition workers in villages. Key remains in transforming mothers and family members to become active and aware consumers who demand these services from the government system. Next is the delivery stage. Health facilities especially in rural areas are often mismanaged, with deliveries handled by inadequately trained and overburdened nurses. Strengthening labour room systems and working with nurses to improve knowledge, skills and confidence yields results. Possibility of infection is reduced, complications are managed better, breastfeeding is initiated early, initial vaccinations are administered, and the child is kept warm. When mother and child return home, the baton is returned to the frontline workers. They need capacity building for conducting more effective home visits, offering counselling and care. They need to use granular data to ensure no child is missed in routine immunization and children faltering on growth indices are tracked and managed promptly. Involvement of representatives from local government is essential to ensure availability of clean, potable water and sanitation facilities. These actions mitigate likelihood of diseases like diarrhea, prevent infections while improving nutrition. Such known solutions which seem simple but are tough to implement at scale in field conditions can negate several major causes of child death. Preventive health, particularly in rural areas, does not get the resources or attention that it deserves. The burden is currently borne largely by the Government and it continues to do its best. Data shows that the health sector receives significantly lower funds than other sectors like education and skill development. While granular data isn't available, indicative examples show health sector spend to be focused on infrastructure development, medical camps and Mobile Medical Units (MMUs). Each of these are undoubtedly worthy causes, requiring attention. But the implication is that preventive health isn't on the radar of most major corporate givers. Apart from building hospitals, which offer great opportunity to donors and politicians to show as tangible forms of development, CSR funds also need to be directed towards efforts which enable mothers and children to stay nourished, healthy and not require regular hospital visits to survive. I call upon CSR leaders to lead the way by investing in preventive public health and nutrition. A healthy and prosperous nation begins with its children. U5MR is a reflection of the state of development of a nation. Seemingly simple steps - strengthening frontline workers, better management and training at facilities, involving the community and local government can save lives and radically improve health and nutrition outcomes. Piyush Mehra is the CEO, Antara Foundation. He has worked in management consulting with Arthur D Little and KPMG. CAMEROUN :: Medical Mission for Cameroon Refugees in Nigeria: Date for Medical Services: December 10-16, 2018 Appeal for Financial Support..Nissis Vessels Foundation (NVF) in partnership with Raphas Hands Foundation (RHF) and MECA USA Inc., are co-leading a Medical Mission trip to Nigeria to provide Medical Services to Cameroonian refugees who are currently residing in refugee camps in Nigeria, after fleeing their homes due to the ongoing war in Cameroon. This mission will take place between December 10-16, 2018. Our mission is to serve these children of God to His glory. The aim of this mission is to provide Free Medical care (consultation, laboratory services, medications, surgeries etc.) to over 4000 refugees at the camp in Ikom/Ogoja, Nigeria. The refugees are reported to be suffering from the following diseases: hypertension, dysentery, asthma, pneumonia, malnutrition, anemia, cough, malaria, depression, gastritis, typhoid, leg fractures etc. Also, because of their new social environment, there are many recent cases of teenage and adult pregnancies which require prenatal attention. At this stage of the planning, the effort has been enormously blessed with more than 50 Health Care/Religious Professionals (Medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, nutritionists, psychologists, pastors etc..) that have volunteered to give of their time to freely provide medical services to the refugees. We are deeply Thankful to God for making His servants available for His mission. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Matthew 9:37-38). Our goal is to raise about $40,000 that is needed to support the cost of medical supplies, transportation, accommodation, bibles and feeding the refugees and volunteers for the 1-week campaign. A major component of the mission is the pastoral ministry which will involve ministering and bringing hope (Jesus Christ) to the refugees, as well as training refugees who will become bible study group leaders within the camp. Bibles (paper and audio) will also be donated to the refugees that we minister to. Your prayers for this mission and the refugees are greatly appreciated. I am writing to request that you find a place in your heart for these refugees by donating to this cause. This is an opportunity for you and me to be part of what God is doing and how He is taking care of the refugees at the camps in Ikom/Ogoja, Nigeria. Dear Brothers and Sisters, deposit your donation into the Wells-Fargo account below Bank: Wells-Fargo Routing #: 031000503 Account #: 8482031146 Your generosity will be appreciated by the refugees Organizers Dr. Julius Enoru (Nissis Vessels Foundation) (484-868-0082) Dr. Peter Agbo (Raphas Hands Foundation) (302-670-7349) Sheriff Godfrey Eta (MECA USA Inc.) (281-948-8725) news, latest-news Two killer pig dogs will be put down after a Canberra tribunal refused the pair a stay of execution. The ACT Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal upheld a decision by Domestic Animals to destroy two Bull Arab cross dogs which had scaled a two-metre fence to kill a German shepherd next door this year. "The tribunal considers that the combination of being hunting dogs with the attack of Khan [the German shepherd] leads to them being considered as a future danger to the public or another animal," a decision published last week said. The tribunal heard the Bull Arab crosses, named Kogan and Boo, had been cared for by the owners partner as he had been interstate for work in January. Between 8.30am and 7pm, the dogs jumped a two-metre high Colorbond fence and attacked and killed a German shepherd, Khan, who lived there. Khan's family returned home that evening to find Kogan and Boo in their backyard, Khan dead, and tufts of black hair and blood spread around a concreted area. There was blood on Kogan's nose. Rangers seized Kogan and Boo and Animal Services decided to destroy the pair as it could not be satisfied that the hunting dogs would not be a danger to the public or another animal if released back into the community. The dog's owner asked the ACAT to review the decision, offering to fix the fences to prevent future escape, build a new secure enclosure, and have the animals de-sexed. The tribunal heard the man used the animals for pig hunting and had an unused secured dog run in his backyard. The owner argued the decision to destory his animals had been unfair as they had not been temperament tested and assumptions made by the investigator had been incorrect and unfair given his animals were pig hunting dogs. He also complained about the length of time it had taken to complete the investigation. The owner asked the tribunal to declare the dogs dangerous, fine him, and the enclosures be inspected upon the dogs' return to him. He also argued there was no evidence that Boo had been involved in the fatal attack and, therefore, should not be euthanased. The tribunal heard character references attested to the owner's affection for his dogs and the dogs obedience and good behaviour. ACAT senior member Mary Brennan found that, based on the ferocity and severity of the fatal attack, the tribunal could not be "reasonably satisfied that either dog is unlikely to be a danger to the public or another animal". She dismissed the application to save the dogs. "The respondent submitted that their training as hunting dogs coupled with the killing of Khan, demonstrated a likelihood that this behaviour may be repeated," Ms Brennan wrote. "The tribunal's attention was also drawn to the fact that Khan was attacked at the site of his head and neck which, if repeated, would be likely to result in serious injury or death to any future victim. "The tribunal notes and regrets the distress this case has caused to the applicant." /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/30ac055e-93d8-4f04-8698-539be58562c0/r0_62_999_626_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg 08:31 Congress MP Shashi on Tharoor Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand". Tharoor had waded into a controversy at the Bangalore Literature Festival Sunday last by claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling" and "you cannot remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a chappal either". A criminal defamation complaint had been filed against him in a Delhi court earlier in the day for his "scorpion" remark. Tharoor again took a swipe at the prime minister, calling him "a hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand saying I know all the answers". "Modi is a one-man government and everybody dancing to what he says," he said at an event organised by an industry body, adding India now has the "most centralised PMO" in history. "Every decision is taken by the PMO (prime minister's office). Every file has to be sent to the PMO for approval," he claimed. On the next parliamentary election, Tharoor said that there will be both pre-poll and post-poll alliances between the Congress and other opposition parties, but Congress president Rahul Gandhi "may not be" the prime ministerial face. The coming Lok Sabha election is important in that it will deny the Bharatiya Janata Party a second term in power, the Congress MP said. He said the decision on the prime ministerial face of the Congress alliance would be a collective one and "it may not be him (Gandhi). The Congress has a broader notion of a leader unlike the BJP. We had people like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and others having tremendous track record". Gandhi is the unquestionable choice of Congress workers as their leader. "If free and fair elections are held among the Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi wins hands down," the Congress MP said. Continuing his criticism of the Modi government, Tharoor said, "We are having a top-down, over-centralised and inefficient government running the country and there is nothing positive in the Indian economy." "Demonetisation was a bad idea implemented badly and GST was a good idea implemented badly," Tharoor said. He said that the Indian stock is down across the globe. "The rupee was heading towards the 'Margdarshak Mandal' (a reference to a BJP panel comprising its elderly leaders)," he quipped and later clarified that the BJP panel had leaders above the age of 75. He said that communalism, cow vigilantism and mob lynching have been so extreme that India had never seen such "bizarre politics in the past". "There are damning statistics to prove that," he added. news, latest-news Ruth Landau can still remember walking the streets of Berlin, glass crunching underfoot, the morning after Kristallnacht. She was nine years old and her father wanted to show her what had taken place on the "night of broken glass", despite being a Jewish man and in serious danger of being captured by the Gestapo. Kristallnacht was a series of attacks by the Nazis on Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. More than 7000 Jewish businesses were destroyed and more than 90 Jews were murdered. On Wednesday Mrs Landau will speak at a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht at the Wesley Uniting Church in Forrest. The event will be a chance for Canberrans of all religious and cultural backgrounds to come together and remember the events of November 9 and 10, 1938 and all those lost in the Holocaust. Looking back, Mrs Landau said it was the culmination of a frightening time for her family in their native Germany. "The Germans had, for six years, been putting in more and more draconian laws targeting Jews," Mrs Landau said. "Kristallnacht was the sort of crescendo which said 'ok bugger all this, forget about the law, we can do what we like'. "It was orchestrated, it wasnt isolated. The fire brigades had been told not to come unless it was a non-Jewish building that was on fire." Mrs Landau's father had been staying overnight in different homes to avoid the Gestapo who had been making regular visits to Jewish homes and taking the men away. But on the morning after Kristallnacht he returned home to show his daughter the horrors that had been committed. "I remember it was very quiet and the glass was crunching and my father said, 'I want you to see this'," Mrs Landau recalled. "Even though he was in some danger himself still, he said 'I want you to see this and dont you forget it'. "And I haven't." On New Year's Eve of 1938 Mrs Landau and her parents left Germany bound for Australia after a six-year wait for a permit. All but one of her relatives perished in the Holocaust. She said she has been very disturbed in the interim 80 years seeing others persecuted and imprisoned by authoritarian regimes. The 80th anniversary commemoration occurs at a time of heightened tensions with the recent Pittsburgh synagogue shootings in the United States an example of prejudicial attacks committed on certain groups. Also speaking at Wednesday's event will be Peter Witting, another Canberran who witnessed Kristallnacht and managed to escape the Holocaust. He similarly recalls wandering the streets the following day and witnessing the shattered glass and anti-semitic graffiti that covered buildings. Wednesday's event will begin at 5.30pm with a peace walk beginning at the National Jewish Memorial Centre in Forrest and ending at the Wesley Uniting Church for the commemoration service. Yorta Yorta elder Uncle 'Boydie' Turner will be attending as a tribute to his grandfather, activist William Cooper, who led an Aboriginal delegation in 1933 protesting the treatment of the Jewish people. Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin will debut her new work To Mend Broken Crystals as a tribute to the events of 80 years ago. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/e8c7a6ea-15f4-4b37-9673-e98c8e320117/r0_333_6000_3723_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news About 13 per cent of the ACT residents expected to lodge a 2017-18 tax return failed to do so before the October 31 deadline. But the Australian Taxation Office expects the majority of outstanding returns to be lodged by registered tax agents over the coming months, with those who signed up with an agent before the deadline able to file returns as late as May 15 next year. Data provided to the Sunday Canberra Times by the tax office shows 182,113 individual taxpayers in the ACT lodged their 2017-18 returns before October 31. The figure represents about 87 per cent of the returns expected from ACT taxpayers. Many Canberrans just snuck in before the deadline this year, with 24,831 lodging their tax returns between October 26 and 31. The ACT ranked fifth among the states and territories in terms of taxpayers lodging on time. Tasmania led the way, with 99 per cent of those expected to lodge a return doing so before October 31, while NSW lagged behind all other jurisdictions with just 80 per cent beating the deadline. Individuals who did not register with a tax agent or lodge their tax return before October 31 could face penalties of $210 for every 28 days their return is overdue, up to a maximum of $1050. Australian Taxation Office assistant commissioner Kath Anderson said some of the main reasons people lodged returns late or not at all were because they didn't realise they needed to submit one, they were expecting a large debt, or they thought they would get a small refund and didn't consider it a priority. Others ran out of time or had fallen behind in their lodgements, then put off lodging their most recent tax returns because they were worried about facing penalties. Ms Anderson said more people were lodging their returns on time than in previous years, but the preliminary data on 2017-18 lodgements could still change. "In the coming months the ATO will conduct a range of data-matching activities to identify those taxpayers who are not required to lodge, for example, those who earned less than the tax-free threshold, as well as those who are yet to lodge," Ms Anderson said. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/7f189f28-8702-4619-9d68-c0e0056626ee/r0_113_2000_1243_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Sign up to receive our Breaking News Alerts and Editor's Daily Headlines featuring the best local news and stories. Ad blocker issue Your ad blocker may be preventing you from being able to log in or subscribe. No thanks, Im keeping my ad blocker on news, latest-news Danielle Tattam's four-year-old daughter Charli-Rose has been going to preschool for the past two years and the little girl has enjoyed every minute of it. "She goes to Wiradjuri, at the University of Canberra, and she's been going there since she's been two," Ms Tattam said. "She's been to a few different childcare centres, and she loves it at Wiradjuri." While Ms Tattam attends classes and lectures at the university, Charli-Rose is taking part in classes of her own at the preschool on campus, and the single mother said it's given her daughter a head start before she starts school in 2020. "It's always good to know that your child is learning things at preschool that will prepare them for school," she said. "They're prepared for learning the alphabet and things like that, but also music and creative things as well." A new program proposed by federal Labor if it wins government at the next election would see thousands of three and four year olds like Charli-Rose access preschool for free. Internal figures show an estimated 12,500 three and four year olds in the ACT would be able to access free preschool under the proposal. Under the plan, children would receive 15 hours a week of preschool at state or territory government-run facilities. Extra subsidies would also be made available for three year olds who attend privately-run childcare centres, with parents of four-year-olds already able to receive the subsidy. Labor data has predicted more than 7000 children north of Lake Burley Griffin would be eligible, with around 5500 southsiders also set to benefit. The figures also showed 4500 three and four year olds in the electorate of Hume - which covers Goulburn - would be able to access it, and 3700 eligible children in the seat of Eden-Monaro. The program aims to have 90 per cent of three and four year olds enrolled by 2023. Fenner MP Andrew Leigh said the program would work alongside the territory government. "The ACT government have expressed enthusiasm and to have continuity for four year olds in preschool," Dr Leigh said. "The difference between preschool and daycare is that early childhood is about education, not babysitting, and we want them to have access to play-based education." It's expected the program will cost $1.75 billion over three years from 2019 if Labor wins the next election. Dr Leigh said funding for the scheme would come from closing tax loopholes. "We've made a set of tough decisions of closing these loopholes, because it's not appropriate that there's currently tax breaks for people who are income splitting from trusts and people buying their 10th home," he said. Ms Tattam said while she would miss out on the proposed scheme as her daughter would be in school, it's a step in the right direction. "It would definitely help that preschool would be free. Anything that helps them prepare for primary school is always good," she said. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/fa5e2649-fa4c-4c5b-881b-b2042ebdd08c/r0_241_5000_3066_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news The Australian-accented woman's voice on Google Maps can sure murder the pronunciation of Italian street names. "In 800 metres, turn left at vie-ah lepard-die then turn right into via-ha guy-sep ledg-eo," and so on. Just as well. The car my wife Louise and I had hired for our two-week drive around Sicily had a navigation system, but it was set to Italian and there was no teenager or PhD in electronic engineering readily available to set it to English, even if such a thing were possible. The Google Maps app downloaded in Australia, with attendant Aussie-accented voice, was therefore a godsend. It made me wonder if we are all becoming too Google-dependent and hence utterly vulnerable if for any reason it fails. Driving around Sicily would have been a nightmare without Google Maps. She (and we called Google Maps "she" because of the voice) got us there every time well, almost. She came unstuck when a road or one direction of a freeway was closed or when negotiating the maze of narrow one-way streets in a Sicilian hilltop town. Approaching our hotel in Taormina (population 11,000), with the box at the bottom left of Google Maps giving arrival time as one minute and the distance as 80 metres, she said: "In 10 metres, turn left and your destination will be on the right." There was no left turn. Not there, nor anywhere for at least as far as the eye could see. We kept driving. Suddenly, the Google Maps bottom-left box changed to "destination 7.5 kilometres and 25 minutes" and her voice, seemingly more urgent now, yelled: "Continue south-west for 2 kilometres, then turn right into vahl hen-rio suje." Usually, the correction is a run around the block and she is very quick to recalculate. But not in Taormina. You need to go out of town and halfway down the hill on a one-way street, and then back up the other side. We had another crack at it. Very silly. Indeed, the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result, at least according to a late 19th century edition of Narcotics Anonymous. Of course, we got the same result. And like the last time, the 25 minutes turned out to be more than an hour. The third time, as we approached the segue point on Google Maps we turned another way and stopped the car, ignored her yelling to "continue south-west for three kilometres", and phoned the hotel. They sent a human to rescue us. And an aside here on Italian driving. The stereotypical Italian driver is an impatient, aggressive, risk-taker. But like many stereotypes, it's quite misplaced. Pushing in when you don't have right of way could be seen as aggression. But if people did not push in occasionally, they would get nowhere in the near gridlocked traffic. For every pusher-in, there are an equal number of gracious drivers who allow someone to enter the traffic. It seems more like a case of empathy. In Italy, all drivers know what it's like to face an endless stream of bumper-to-bumper traffic with no hope of getting anywhere without pushing in and hoping someone is gracious or resigned enough to let you do it. Similarly, hazardous overtaking on narrow country roads is not done so much out of a reckless death wish but in the knowledge that if someone comes the other way, they will slow up, move over and let you continue overtaking because without such give-and-take, things would grind to a halt. Sure, like everywhere, Sicily has its share of bad drivers, but driving behaviour arises from conditions, not some mythical national trait. But back to Taormina. On leaving and finally getting on the freeway, she (Google) ordered us to "take the exit to Catania and Syracuse", without reckoning on that exit being closed. It was 40 kilometres before she could find a place to turn us around. But on re-entering the freeway, I forgot to take a pay ticket. (Italy has a manual freeway-payment system.) Not to worry. On exiting 40 kilometres later, Google (like God) got us out of the poo into which she had put us in n the first place. Louise had keyed into her phone the whole explanation and Google translated it into Italian. We passed the phone with the translation to the bloke in the ticket box who charged the rate for 40 kilometres of freeway and let us through. Google-dependency won the day. However, we also sometimes used it for restaurants. But I don't think it was much better than taking pot luck walking about. When Google translates information into money, it does not have the purity that it has when translating languages or maps into directions. Consumers searching for goods and services on Google would be naive to imagine that the first page of any Google search contains the best deals for them. No, it contains, first, the best deal for Google and, second, the best deal for the merchant. The consumer comes a poor third. I know this from the other side. We rely on people's Google searches and holiday-letting sites to lease our two holiday villas. Many places that we know from first-hand knowledge represent much poorer value for money rank higher in the search engines. This is not sour grapes. It adds up. Holiday-letting sites get paid percentage commissions. They get more money if the rent is higher, so why wouldn't they put the poorer deal for the consumer up higher? Google gets paid by people pushing their sites higher. That cost gets passed on to consumers. Merchants pay money to people who say they can do search-engine optimisation on your website, for a fee. If they are effective, it again means the consumer is being dudded, as the higher ranking is not being produced by better service or lower price, but by computer tweaking. A way around this is for consumers not to always look at the items on the first page, but, say, shake a dice as to which page to look at first. Further, Google's news and opinion search results are often warped by the popularity of the populist, extreme and sensationalist, but searches for straight information remain untainted. A way around this is to encourage people not to click on sensationalist stuff. But all that aside, I am happy to be Google-reliant if the commercial side permits Google to provide language translation, map directions and quick access to relevant information. I say: "Che bello. Fantastico. Splendido." And until next week: "Arrivederci." crispinhull.com.au /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/aeea5729-e600-4fda-ac98-18df10653196/r0_343_6048_3760_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] Singapore stands as one of the hottest study abroad destinations in the world with strong research activities in higher education. The country may be small but is located strategically and attracts a large number of prospective international students specifically from Asia. The universities in Singapore are gaining recognition in the global education market because of its quality education and diverse student community. The country located in Asian Pacific region is one amongst the favourite destinations to Indian students and a large number of Indian students fly to this country every year. Though the Singapore universities offer less tuition fee compared to the top student-destination countries, getting a scholarship will help students from the burden of living expenses. Here are the top five scholarships for Indians to study in Singapore. How Many Types Of Scholarships Are There To Support Your Studies Lee Kong Chian Graduate Scholarships At National University Of Singapore (NUS) Candidates who are seeking admission to PhD in National University of Singapore (NUS) are eligible to apply for this scholarship. It provides a monthly stipend of approximately S$ 3,300 along with other expenses such as travel and books. It is awarded for one year and will be renewed depending upon the performance. INSEAD-Syngenta MBA Scholarships For Developing Country Leaders Students who are aiming for admission to MBA at INSEAD of both France and Singapore campuses are eligible to apply for this scholarship. Once they have been shortlisted for the MBA program at INSEAD, they can apply for this award. It will provide an amount of 22,500 per year. The duration of the scholarship will be one-year. Singapore International Graduate Award The scholarship is offered to candidates who are aiming to pursue PhD programs in science and engineering. The prospective international students with excellent academic grades are eligible to apply for this. One can do their research at pioneer institutes in the country such as National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU). A total of 240 scholarships are awarded every year. It offers financial assistance for up to four years. Science & Technology Undergraduate Scholarship From NUS This scholarship is offered to undergraduate courses in the field of computers, engineering or science (excluding pharmacy). Students from Asian countries are eligible except students from Singapore. However, students who apply for a full-time undergraduate degree at NUS are automatically screened for the scholarship. Along with a tuition fee, it also covers living expenses, accommodation and air tickets will be provided. Singapore Millennium Foundation Scholarship This scholarship is offered only to PhD Candidates who aim to take up the doctoral course in engineering, environmental science, physical & material sciences, renewable resources & water, and life sciences are eligible. It provides approximately S$4,000 per month for up to four years to PhD students. It also offers around S$6,000 per month for up to 2 years for post doctoral candidates. Top 10 Indian Universities In The Times World University Rankings 2019 Photo: The Canadian Press Recovery teams examine pieces of wreckage from Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea. Investigators succeeded in retrieving hours of data from a crashed Lion Air jet's flight recorder as Indonesian authorities on Sunday extended the search at sea for victims and debris. National Transportation Safety Committee deputy chairman Haryo Satmiko told a news conference that 69 hours of flight data was downloaded from the recorder including its fatal flight. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta on Oct. 29, killing all 189 people on board in the country's worst airline disaster since 1997. The flight data recorder was recovered by divers on Thursday in damaged condition and investigators said it required special handling to retrieve its information. The cockpit voice recorder has not been recovered but searchers are focusing on a particular area based on a weak locator signal. National Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said Sunday the search operation, now in its 7th day and involving hundreds of personnel and dozens of ships, would continue for another three days. Syaugi paid tribute to a volunteer diver, Syahrul Anto, who died during the search effort on Friday. The family of the 48-year-old refused an autopsy and he was buried Saturday in Surabaya. More than 100 body bags of human remains had been recovered. Syaugi said the number would continue to increase and remains were also now washing up on land. He said weak signals, potentially from the cockpit voice recorder, were traced to a location but an object hadn't been found yet due to deep seabed mud. Flight tracking websites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude during its 13 minute flight and a previous flight the day before from Bali to Jakarta. Passengers on the Bali flight reported terrifying descents and in both cases the different cockpit crews requested to return to their departure airport shortly after takeoff. Lion has claimed a technical problem was fixed after the Bali fight. Syaugi said a considerable amount of aircraft "skin" was found on the seafloor but not a large intact part of its fuselage as he'd indicated was possible Saturday. This year marks 100 years since the end of World War I. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany. The armistice was agreed upon at 5 a.m. on Nov. 11. While news spread quickly, fighting continued until 11 a.m. Army Pvt. Henry Gunther of the 79th Division was killed at 10:59 a.m., a minute before the Armistice took effect. He was the last American killed in World War I. As many as 4.7 million Americans served in the military during World War I. About 116,000 Americans died and 204,000 were wounded. The first observation of Armistice Day, in 1920, included parades and public gatherings, as well as a pause in business activities at 11 a.m. The following year the historic date was further marked with the somber burial at Arlington National Cemetery of an unidentified American soldier killed in the war. (The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.) A few years later, on June 4, 1926, Congress passed a resolution that the recurring anniversary of Nov. 11, 1918, should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace between nations and that the President should issue an annual proclamation calling for the observance of Armistice Day. Finally, by an act approved on May 13, 1938, Nov. 11 became a legal federal holiday, dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day. Unfortunately, the war to end all wars did not, and the United States was soon embroiled in World War II and then the Korean War. In 1954, after lobbying efforts by veterans service organizations, the 83rd U.S. Congress amended the 1938 act that had made Armistice Day a holiday, striking the word Armistice in favor of Veterans. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the legislation on June 1, 1954. From then on, Nov. 11 became a day to honor American veterans of all wars. This year, on Saturday, Nov. 10, Vision 2020 and Red Boiling Springs pays tribute to veterans during the annual Cathie and Troy Johnson 5K Run/Walk. There will be a table of honor where photos and stories are placed. Those veterans running and those running for veterans will be given special recognition during the award ceremony. For more information on the 5K Run, email vision2020@nctc.com or call 615-388-3046. The residents of the North Ooltewah neighborhoods are very concerned about the WWTA proposing to build a new sewage treatment plant on Mahan Gap Road. This location is one of 10 potential sites and is in our back yards and for 1,000 homes it is within a mile of their homes. We were here first and for many they have settled here for many years on their family property and/or retirement homes. The proposed site is not currently zoned for industrial use; however the WWTA is attempting to obtain a special exemption from the Planning Commission on November 12 so they can build a plant in an existing wetlands area and in the 100-year flood plain. The WWTA has performed a very cursory conceptual design review and rough economic analysis (back of an envelope type study were the WWTA description). They have only shared a few pieces of information that supports the site selection at Mahan Gap. WWTA says the Mahan Gap site costs of the plant would be somewhat lower than for the other plants sites. It is difficult to understand how the analysis can really determine what the cost difference is when (1) the design has not been defined (2) the detailed engineering review was a Table Top review without a site visit and their cost estimates for conceptual designs are typically + or 25% at best. So without more detailed analysis how can WWTA establish the best location? There were supposedly 10 total sites reviewed, but they have only shared two others. The impacts on for the other sites have less impact on residents and much less risk to the environment in case of accidents and spills at a new plant. A copy of the Consulting Engineers report has been requested but not produced yet. The residents have asked to be involved in the analysis similar to other communities recently where a mutual site location was found by working together. WWTA has declined to allow any of us to be involved. We have been told in public meetings that no consideration was given to the impacts on property values for the 1,000 residential homes near the proposed site. When the consultant was questioned about this he said if we could produce a study then they would look at it. Why is it the residents responsibility to produce a report on property value impacts? Why it is that WWTA does not consider the impacts to residential property values, quality of life for the local residents and the protection of the environment as important enough to be included in the analysis? The to the answer the questions about WWTA not permitting the residents involvement in the process and their lack of empathy or compassion for us can be observed by the way WWTA treats their existing customers and the environment. The WWTA has been criticized for many years for the uncaring attitude they have for their existing customers. The WWTA is misguided in their beliefs that the only thing their customers care about is lower cost. Their customers also care about being easy to work with, having input in the policies and procedures the WWTA imposes on contractors and customers and the environmental impacts from WWTA poor performance. The residents of North Ooltewah do not want sewage treatment plant in our back yard because we have lost all confidence in the WWTA to build a plant that will not intrude on our lives with Stink, noise, traffic impacts, hazardous materials in the air and in our waterways. The proof is in the data: The WWTA has had 29 (TDEC) reportable spills in the Ooltewah area alone during late 2017 thru Sept. 2018. The causes for the spills were initially identified as heavy rain fall infiltrating the sewage piping. The data does not support that conclusion since most of the spills were in the dryer fall periods as can be seen in the included charts. Eventually the WWTA has identified the recent higher frequency of spills is due to the repeat pump failures from pluggage from Improper materials being flushed by their customers. When are they going to address the real causes and stop blaming their customers? The inability of the WWTA to resolve the overflows in the Ooltewah area is just a clear indication they are not capable of managing their existing system. If the system is older and worn out, why is that the customers fault? WWTA is an autonomous organization that has been given the responsibility for providing sewer service. They have been in charge of this service for many years and have allowed it to deteriorate to the point it is difficult to maintain. So stop placing the responsibility on the customer you are supposed to serve, and start accepting the responsibility for the system and the failures. Maybe you should include the customers in resolving problems and consider treating people with some respect, empathy and compassion and I believe your job will be much easier. The following was written Mike Moon Chairman of the Board WWTA: Our mission of providing reliable, courteous and low-cost sewer service is one we take seriously. Weve been working for several years with the EPA as well as TDEC and others on a comprehensive plan to address the issues surrounding bypasses that occur during significant weather events at the Signal Mountain Treatment Plant. We self-report these instances to the appropriate agencies. This particular plant is handicapped by size as well as geography, but infiltration and inflow from the collection system is the real issue. We will continue to do all we can to address these issues while minimizing the effect on the customers we serve. "If the intent of the lawsuit is to bring attention to the issue, we applaud the action to raise awareness. However, if the intent is for a financial settlement for the Riverkeepers, we find this counterproductive to fixing the problem and it would place an undue burden on our rate payers. We will always vigorously fight to minimize the cost to our customers from such actions. The spills are the problem and the costs are a result of the spills that violate the current permits. Every other industry must comply with the EPA regulations to keep the waters clean, why is WWTA exempt? Again here is another example of the WWTA leadership blaming a lawsuit expense as the cause for increased customer bills? WWTA failure to have developed a long term strategy before now has caused the issues and expenses. It has become obvious to me that the only way to get the attention of the WWTA, commissioners, RPC and the public is to file suit, not for the financial gain but to get the right peoples attention. Based on this statement it appears WWTA feels they are exonerate by self reporting their own spills? The fact that they have spilled over 1,100,000 gals of sewage in 29 spills in Ooltewah is the issue here. This is unacceptable. The excuse is again not our fault that the system is too small. So if you have been in charge, why did you not act before it is a liability to the environment? We are fearful that this same attitude will prevail when a new plant is built and it stinks, spills sewage on our property and affects our property values. How can we trust an organization like this with our futures? Ooltewah residents have suffered enough put the sewage place in a safer place. Donald G. Johnson * * * A failed pump was blamed for the sewage spill on Snow Hill Road. These sewage pump stations (technically called Duplex Pump Stations) always have two pumps each capable of pumping the full incoming load of the station. As a contractor I in installed and maintained numerous sewage pump stations. The only reason a pump failure would cause a spill would be because the other pump wasn't working either. I'm always hesitant to trust the solution to the ones who brought us the problem. Steve Campbell McDonald, Tn. This time a week ago I was having supper with some friends when I was asked about the midterm elections. I said at the time, This last week of campaigning will be as good as the horses in the home stretch of the Kentucky Derby. I was wrong. It is even better. Do you realize that Tennessee had such a turnout in early voting, Secretary of State Tre Hargett just announced the 1,378,840 who have already voted this fall is less than 50,000 of the TOTAL votes in the midterms four years ago. We are already telling counties: Be ready, Mark Goins, the states coordinator of elections, told the Nashville Tennessean. We are going to have a historic midterm election, he easily predicted after a 119 percent increase in early voting compared to 2014 thats over double and, mind you, this is Tennessee, the state said to have the worst voter turnout in the entire country. Why the difference? From where I sit and watch I believe there is more angst or is foreboding now a better word? And every week it seems more vicious. I thought the liberals' response in the Kavanaugh hearings was the worst I had ever seen but there has been no let up. The Tennessee Senate race between Marsha Blackburn and Phil Bredesen, which CNN has called the most important Senate race in the country, has easily surpassed $50 million in spending and who would have ever thought both Donald Trump and Mike Pence would be in Chattanooga to passionately call for more Marsha votes. But its the mood that causes my worry. And some of these protesters whether they are paid or not --are so wacky they are dangerous. My heavens, not two hours up I-24 an effigy of Blackburn was just found hanging from a tree in Shelbyville. Of course, Shelbyville is home to radicals of both parties but with Chattanooga such an easy Sunday afternoon drive, mark my words the hecklers can hardly wait to descend on the UTC Arena late this afternoon. Last week, after a bombing threat was uncovered against some Democrat politicians, Trump firmly spoke out. No nation can succeed that tolerates violence or the threat of violence as a method of political intimidation, coercion or control. Yet not two weeks ago, Democrat Nancy Pelosi was helping with her partys efforts in Florida when she stopped at a restaurant. A crowd moved in and the video aired uncensored on several news outlets - was absolutely explosive. Look at Nancy Pelosi right here!! came the lusty shouts. Look at this piece of **** right here. ******* communist! You dont belong here you (expletive)! Get the **** out of here!... you and your (expletive) Democrats! After she entered the building, the protesters then began pounding on the door and if that isnt clearly disturbing the peace then we have more than politics to worry about. If that unfolds in Chattanooga tonight, whoever should clearly be hauled to jail and, if I was king, I would have the paddy wagon already parked at the front door. Youre going to love this: A group of what is being called some progressive women assembled for a totally nude group photo in Vermont and the only thing covering their genitals were signs that read, Grab em by their ballots! this a play off a pre-election tape that was passed around to diss The Donald. Yep, if those progressives appear tonight, they go to jail too! The boo birds were quick to jump on Obama in Florida over the weekend. At one point the former President had to admonish one jerk: Sir, sir, dont curse in front of kids, come on. Dont do that in front of them, come on, Obama calmly told one heckler. Please, this to a former President of our country. According to a Huffington Post story, Obama tried to settle the crowd. Were OK, were OK, were OK, he said after the unidentified person was reportedly removed by security and the crowd stopped chanting the ex-POTUS name. You know what? This is what I look forward to, is having a few hecklers to get me back in the mood. You know, its like, I enjoy that, Obama tried to make light of the snarly mood. You always gotta have a few in order to know that youre on the campaign trail, he said. But later he was clearly irked by another heckler, Hold on a second. Sir, sir. Heres the deal, if you support the other candidates, then you should go support the other candidates. Dont be here, said Obama, before telling the heckler to not come hollering here. That we have reached this point in our lack of civility and decorum is even more unbelievable than having the President and the Vice President here at the same time. Whew, we needed that extra hour of sleep. * * * * -- The New York Times reports: A consensus is emerging among Democratic and Republican strategists based on public and private polling, early voting and likely turnout that Democrats are on track to pick up about 35 seats in the House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections. Republicans now have a 23-seat House majority." * -- THE BEST BUMPER STICKER: Heaven has a wall and a strict immigration policy. Hell has open borders. royexum@aol.com Virginia Pitt Swopes passed away on Saturday, November 3, 2018. The body will lie in state after noon and the family will receive friends from 78 p.m. at the funeral home on Friday, Nov. 9. A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10, in the chapel of John P. Franklin Funeral Home. Interment will be in Highland Cemetery. Arrangements are by John P. Franklin Funeral Home, 1101 Dodds Ave., 622-9995. National Adoption Day gives permanent homes to 3 Pueblo County kids When Pueblo County celebrated National Adoption Day on Nov. 19, three families got bigger as foster children were welcomed into permanent homes. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Hidden away in a cool, dimly lit underground room, students pore over their Bibles. They caress the pages and hungrily consume each word. This secluded sanctuary serves as a house church and seminary. And it all takes place in the basement of a Chinese Christian's home. Heng, whose name I've changed to protect his ministry, knows these students are the future of Christianity in China. They will lead house churches of their own one day. And most likely, they'll have to meet in secret and face physical persecution. Although Christianity is technically legal in China, churches must meet publicly under the watchful eye of the government. The government reserves the right to censor and control their churches to the point of distorting the Gospel. And regulations passed inFebruary as part of a move to align "religion with Chinese characteristics" has led to extreme crackdowns on Christianity in many provinces across the country. Churches have been closed, crosses destroyed, Bibles burned, and Christians arrested. This has driven most believers underground, both figuratively and often literally. These secret house churches are considered illegal by the Chinese government, and the congregation could face serious persecution if they're caught. But the future church planters in Heng's basement are still willing to risk everything to study and learn more about Jesus Christ. Heng sees himself in these students ... both in their eagerness and in how a church plant introduced them to Christ. But he also knows the oppression they'll have to face because he has experienced that, as well. His own faith journey began as a teenager when he met a church planter. When Heng and his family attended a secret church revival, they all committed their lives to Jesus Christ and the ministry. Heng's family offered their home as the location for a new house church. It was there in the privacy of those cement walls that Heng's own Christian ministry blossomed. Soon after the house church began to meet, Heng and his family realized the need for a seminary where other believers could be trained as church planters. So despite the danger, they boarded students in their own home and began holding classes. In time, Heng got the chance to attend school and train himself. After attending seminary in another village, Heng went on to plant churches in villages all across China. But his journey wasn't free of obstacles. Heng was arrested several times and on one occasion spent 40 days in jail. Every day, the police beat him with batons and threatened his life. Many times he thought he would die in prison. When he was finally released, Heng didn't stop planting churches. He continued to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ! Just like the apostle Paul, Heng knew his present suffering was nothing compared to the glory he would receive in heaven. And because of Heng's ministry throughout China, countless people have come to faith. Please keep Heng and his fellow Chinese believers in your prayers on Nov. 4 as you observe International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Pastors and church planters like Heng desperately need the support of their brothers and sisters around the world as they work to grow the next generation of Christian leaders in their country. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:7, KJV). It is not only possible to have peace in the midst of darkness; it's a promise that Jesus gives to all who believe on Him. With the tragic headlines we witness daily, such as a Jewish community in Pittsburgh ripped apart by violence, it's understandable that we will sometimes be in a dark place, praying for God's peace to fill our hearts and minds. God knows every trial, hurt and doubt we face. He knows every question of "why?" And His promise of peace in the midst of our circumstance is exactly what He can and will give to us. Consider the following true story. In 1871, a successful businessman and lawyer lost all his material possessions in the great Chicago fire. This did not trouble Horatio Gates Spafford very much, for he had set his affection on "things above." However, two years later, when his wife and children were on board the Ville du Havre en route to France, their ship was rammed by an English vessel and sank, claiming the lives of 226 people. Although his wife survived, all four of their children perished in the icy waters. The man was given the tragic news and later shown the spot in the mid-Atlantic where the shipwreck occurred. Although heartsick with grief, Mr. Spafford suddenly felt an inrush of supernatural peace and comfort as he looked to the Lord for strength. With tears streaming down his face, he picked up a pen to record his feelings, and from his well-blest heart flowed these thrilling words: When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, 'It is well, it is well with my soul.' No one likes to get bad news. You can be going right along with your daily activities, and then in an instant everything in your life can changea phone call, a report, a vehicle accident, a pink slip or something else that rocks your world can take place. It doesn't even have to be a calamitous event to change your life in a moment of time. Have you experienced that? You are cruising right along in life, but then your husband comes home from work and says he wants a divorce, and your world comes crashing down. Or you wake up as usual to get ready to go to work, but once there, you find out you no longer have a job, and just like that, your world falls apart. Maybe you are saying, "Pastor, you are speaking right to me. I remember the moment when the doctor told me I had cancer, and everything I had leaned on, everything I had trusted in, all that I had built, all that I thought was going to give me securityall of it came crashing down around me." Can we have peace in our hearts when our world is turned upside down? Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27). The kind of peace that the world gives is conditionalit stands on a shaky foundation that can change with every passing whim. Some people find peace and security in money, until they lose their job or the stock market crashes. Other people find peace in relationships or in their marriage, until they fail. The kind of peace that Jesus promises His children is unconditional. It's a peace based on the foundation of God Himselfunchanging, loving, gracious, merciful and faithful. God's peace is not dependent on our circumstances; in fact, it thrives in the midst of our trials, tribulations and dark valleys. The peace that Jesus gives you and me is drawn from the very heart of God. It's a peace that reminds us in the deepest of our trials that He is faithful, He keeps His promises; it assures us that we are His and that nothingno person, no demon, no fear, no enemycan take us out of God's hand; and it comforts us with the truth that we are secure in Him. The peace of God in your life gives you the sense that you are not walking alone; God is walking with you. God's peace tells you that you do not have to sustain yourself; God is sustaining you. The peace that Jesus gives assures you that you don't have to get through the storm because God's voice is calming the storm and making a way through impassable waters. When our lives changewhen we find ourselves in the midst of difficult stormswe witness the power of God like we have never seen before. When the children of Israel stood at the banks of an incredible and impassable sea with an army bent on destroying them in hot pursuit, they witnessed the power of God to do the impossible. A clerk at an Alief-area convenience store was shot and killed Saturday night during a robbery, Houston police said. Three tall, thin men ran into Sunnys Food Store in the 9000 block of Dairy Ashford around 8:30 p.m., witnesses later told police. Safety tips for the holidays, progress on helping businesses recover after Harvey and notable happenings within Humble ISD were discussed at Atascocita BizCom on Nov. 1. The Lake Houston Chamber of Commerce hosted the event, which was designed for speakers to give updates to and address concerns of the community, at Atascocita High School. Among the featured speakers were Mark Mitchell, president of the Lake Houston Economic Development Partnership and Rhonda Arnold, Houston Airports chief community relations officer. Safer shopping Captain Toby Hecker of Harris County Precinct 4 Constables Office provided advice on how to stay safe while holiday shopping. He said to be watchful since a lot of shopping will be done and the presence of many bags on hand will draw attention. If you carry your bags out to your car, especially when youre at the mall he said. Get in it, drive around the mall once then go back and park. Capt. Hecker added that Constable Mark Herman will assemble a task force in and around shopping centers and checking cars. Other crime updates shared were that a skimmer was found at a gas station in the area this, and nine or 10 clerks in the area were arrested for selling alcohol to minors. The presentation ended with Capt. Hecker sharing a phone number that people can call to reach dispatch right away. 281-376-3472, he said. 911 is the easiest to remember, but its not the fastest. Remediations to continue Mitchell gave an update on the Harvey Small Business Grant Program, which has been operating since March and can help provide funds to businesses impacted by the hurricane. Milestones were reached, he noted, but there is still more work to be done. What I need from all of you is really some support and assistance in identifying companies that are in our six zip codes: 77044, 338, 339, 396, 345, 346, he said. Other criteria for a business to be eligible for the grant program include having operated for at least one year before Harvey, three months of personal bank statements and the latest tax returns. Mitchell also noted that area legislators are pursuing an expansion of the dredging program that is currently taking place. The U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers is currently removing sand and sediment from the San Jacinto River to return it to its pre-Harvey capacity levels. An expansion of the $70 million dredging project would tackle mouth bars of sand and sediment that have formed and changed the course of the river, he said. The program is just one of many going on in the region that are purposed to continue rebranding areas that were previously flooded, he said. For me, the most important thing is the new gates or the additional gates on Lake Houston, he said. Helping hands Atascocita High School also had three great things to share after trying times, said Will Falker, the schools associate principal. A campaign created to help with treatments for an instructor diagnosed with cancer has raised $7,000, he said. The campaign is called Deanns Tribe, named after career and technology education teacher Deann Otis who was diagnosed with cancer this year. It was created at the behest of office professionals Krista Johnson and Connie Parker. Falker also shared a story of Spanish teacher Shannon Summers collapsing in class due to a stroke. He recovered, but the students, teachers and the community thought they could do more to help. They wanted to make sure he was recognized, and so $3,000 will be given to the American Heart Association, he said. Finally, Falker said that Frozen star Kristen Bell chose deaf education teacher Ashley Greene-Woods as one of 10 recipients of a Hollywood-backed and Instagram-based classroom donation initiative called #10FeaturedTeachers. The next BizCom meeting will be on Dec. 6 at Kingwood High School. Correction: An earlier version of this article said that Deann Otis had died. In fact, she is still alive. Hidden between Huffmeister Road and Grant Road, a purple house sits on McSwain Road with several knicknacks and art pieces on the lawn. The home of the the appropriately named Purple Elephant Art Community stands out, even before visitors get to meet the artists. The Purple Elephant Art Community, founded in 2010 by Debra Reese, hosts the studios of eight artists with different specializations. Members include leather artist Marcos Flores, oil and pastel artist Jerrie Glidden, abstract artist and teacher Marce Maldonado, oil painters Devin Nelson and Alice Palmer, fine oil artist Constance Paul, sculptor Shirley Scarpetta and mixed media artist MV Poffenberger. Each artist has their own space for creations and materials. The Purple Elephant received its name from Reese due to her love of the color purple and her connection to elephants, Glidden said. Several paintings, sculptures and more, some made by artists in the community, decorate the entire area. Nelson said Reese collects and decorates with elephants and the color purple, including her dyed hair. Glidden prefers Purple Elephant to other art communities due to the tight-knit nature of the group. Before coming to Purple Elephant, Glidden recently left a community with more than 300 artists. When they did a show, it was overwhelming and it overwhelmed the people, she said. It just got to be so much that I just recently got out of there. This has got more of what I need for me because I was losing my creativity and my joy. Coming here, it was just a healing place. Nelson, who has been a part of the community longer than other members, said the art community has evolved over time and gains members mostly by word of mouth. The house has two studios inside, with a backyard full of sculptures, artwork and statues as well as more studios. Previously, a petting zoo and more quirks were a part of the backyard. The place used to be set up for a boutique sales kind of thing, Nelson said. The more people that were interested in it and the more the demand grew for a place for people to come create, it just turned into this. The art community also offers lessons. Maldonado teaches art classes to age groups 6 through 12, with private lessons for older kids. Other instructors, like Nelson, offer private lessons for adults. Recently, Maldonado taught classes based on Dia de Los Muertos, a holiday remembering the dead. [Private lessons] are the ones that are interesting, because you can take what they want to achieve specifically and tailor-make the curriculum for what they're doing, or what they want to be doing, she said. Every year, Purple Elephant artists hold art shows in the spring and fall, Colors of Spring and Shades of Autumn, respectively. Glidden said although some artists are used to working toward a show, the two art shows a year give the Purple Elephant community a chance to show all of their work. Community members are invited to view the work of artists while socializing and interacting with the artists themselves. Scarpetta said Purple Elephant would like to reach out to the community more in the future through volunteer work. One of the things we were discussing is eventually going out and giving back, she said. We would like to be able to go to shelters and teach classes to children or elderly people. We would really like to be more focused in the community. While each artist has their own space to sculpt, paint or build, the group is very connected, Scarpetta said. Artists in the community will ask for thoughts on each others work occasionally, and although collaborative work has not happened between the current group, Glidden said it is a possibility. I think the stars align with all of us being here at the same time, Scarpetta said. We have some extreme talent between all of us put together. I'm very blessed and honored to be with all of these people and we all just have that creative juice within ourselves.. A young girl once looked up from a playground to the sky and like many children imagined flying. But as a girl who was born without arms due to rare birth defect, she was told it was not even safe for her to play on the slide. As time passed, instead of focusing on what she could not do, the young girl shifted her attention on how she could do it, including to overcome her fears, like flying, and break through barriers to live her life to the fullest. That girl, Jessica Cox, stood applauded on Saturday in Conroe as she smiled and told a crowd full of children with special needs that eventually she was able to look down from the sky--at that very playground where her dream was born-- as the first licensed armless pilot in the world. Who is to say what we can or cannot do, Cox said. Cox believes those who may be telling a person with challenges that they cannot do something, should stop. She believes those who have challenges that may be telling themselves they cannot do something, should stop limiting themselves, and give it a try first. If you say I cant do it before youve even tried then you have already set yourself for failure, Cox said. Its a challenge of really acknowledging and knowing what you say becomes what you believe. Nearly 111 children with special needs registered for the Ninth Annual Challenge Air event at the Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport across from the Montgomery County Fair Grounds Saturday. The Conroe Fly Day event is held each year to help build confidence and self-esteem in the children who are given a chance to fly. Theres so many stories, Challenge Air Executive Director April Culver said. We have had children who are Autistic and nonverbal get on the headset and say, Mommy, I fly. The parents are balling. About 15 Challenge Air events are hosted per year nationwide with Conroe being one of the top three events. This year Challenge Air will celebrate its 25th anniversary next Friday in Dallas with an anticipated 200-250 attendees, where Cox will also speak. Culver said it is estimated that Challenge Air has flown 37,000 kids since its inception. At least one of those childrens siblings, who was inspired by the experience, has gone on to work in aviation. Some of those children, mark their calendar each year as one of the most significant events of their lives. There is an ongoing need for financial support for the events that costs more than $20,000 on average and features all volunteers, such as the 20 pilots in Conroe, who are not compensated for the fuel, equipment and time. I think it is a good reminder of how serving your neighbor really makes a difference, Conroe Fly Day Chairperson, Kevin Griffin said. Its make a difference in your life, the kids life, the parents lifethis is such a simple thing, but it changes everything for them, it really does. As the children landed in Conroe from their flights, they walked down a red carpet beaming through a cheering crowd. A little while later, Coxwho was presented with proclamations from the city of Conroe, the Texas Governor, the Blue Angels, and Officials from the National Guard and Air Force at the event-- would unexpectedly also walk before a cheering crowd to a familiar plane. For nearly eight months Challenge Air has been working with Dr. John Trowbridge of Kingwood and a corporation he works for to honor Cox by rechristening the very first plane she learned to fly in, which has been purchased by the corporation and is based in Conroe, with a new Federal Aviation Administration number that reflects her initials JC. Trowbridge surprised her with the announcement of the plan with a plaque and rolled out the plane to the hangar. This is a gift to the people of the future who will ask who was Jessica Cox, her name is on the side of the airplane, her name is on the side of the airplane, and thats the opportunity to say that she is a woman who said I can and everyone can if they choose, Trowbridge said. We have to inspire young adults to become pilots because we are hundreds of thousands of pilots short. If they look at this and say, I can do thatthen we have served our purpose and she has touched many more lives. Cox was all smiles as she sat in the white and black Ercoupe 415-D that she started her training in 2006-2007. I had no idea I was going to see this plane today, first of all its been over a decade since I sat in it, Cox said. So sitting in here all these memories rushed over me from when I did my training. The first train you start in you never forget. This plane is where it all happened, the two broken headsets, she laughed. All those memories were in here. Sitting in the hangar, a few tables from Cox sat Conroe resident Maxwell McBurney, 10, who has Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, in a white astronaut space suit experimenting with a balloon and a toy airplane and asking questions about Helium and Hydrogen related to speed and flammability as he awaited his first flight. The event was good, sometimes I would like to have a hydrogen balloon, Im excited I will get to fly, McBurney said agreeing with his mother that Cox and was amazed she could eat her food with only legs and remained distracted by his balloon and toy plane. I want to be an astronaut sometimes. His mother, Maryna McBurney shared he has been interested in flying space ships for so long and she encouraged him to start with planes. She learned about Challenge Air from a friend who saw a social media post Maybe we move on to helicopters then planes and then space ships, Maxwell McBurney said. mellsworth@hcnonline.com Droves of grief-stricken teens began arriving Sunday afternoon to pay their respects to slain sisters Isabella, 15, and Maria Perez, 14, who authorities found shot to death alongside their stepfather inside a Katy home after a possible murder-suicide. The children came with flowers and heartfelt condolences penned on cards and posters. They hugged, cried and consoled each other under a tree at the home where the Perez sisters lived in the 3800 block of Silver Hawk Drive. After learning of their death, Mayde Creek High School student Catalina Silva, 14, said she woke her parents up in tears. She had known Isabella and Maria since the 3rd grade and each memory, she said, was precious. She last saw the girls, who lived down the street from her in the Westfield subdivision, after school Friday to get a pep talk from them. I keep thinking about our last moments together, Catalina said, crying alongside her mourning friends. They were cheering me up because I was going through some stuff. THWARTED: Two at large, but a third caught in failed Cleveland robbery The sisters were close and their friends described being friends with both of them. Joe Lopez, 14, who had been dating Maria for more than a year, brought a toy soccer ball to add to the memorial because she loved sport. He said Maria had dreams of being a model. She was slated to celebrate her birthday next Saturday with a party, he said. Another teen in the huddle outside the home said she had been there since 9 a.m as police were wrapping up their investigation. News of the slaying quickly spread on social media, where 14-year-old Jessica Hernandez found out her best friend, Isabella, had been killed. Everyone was posting about it in Snapchat and Instagram. I didnt believe it, Jessica said, after being dropped off by her mother. I cried, mostly yelled, not believing that it was true. Deputies made the tragic find in an upstairs bedroom after a pre-dawn phone call from the teens mother, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. The mother, Reyna Isabel Perez, was unable to find her daughters or husband after returning home from a night out around 3:30 a.m. and phoned police, according to authorities. Deputies found the teens and their stepfather, Victor Portillo, shot to death in the bedroom. The slayings were likely a murder of two and suicide, Gonzalez said, attributing their deaths to a possible act of domestic violence. There was no reason to believe neighbors were in any danger, he added. He did not elaborate further on the nature of the domestic violence. Harris County records show Portillo owned the home where he and the girls died. At times, Isabella hinted to her pal that something was not right in her family. She always said there were problems but she could never really talk about it, Jessica said. It was too hard for her. I didnt force her to tell me anything. She has tried not to think about what led up to the shooting. I havent really focused on that. Mostly on the thought of them not being here, that I cant see them anymore, she said. When the teens return to Mayde Creek High School on Monday, they plan to honor the sisters by wearing red and black. A next-door neighbor said she did not hear the gunfire and only realized something was wrong when she woke up and saw police investigators outside. I dont know if there would have even been anything we could have done if we had heard the gunshots, the neighbor said, declining to identify herself. Its not clear when the three were shot, but Gonzalez did say that the slayings likely occurred inside the home. Initially, he said it was wide open in terms of what could have occurred. The murder-suicide investigation in Katy was the first of two domestic violence-linked slayings the sheriffs office was looking into Sunday. In the second, a man and woman in Tomball were stabbed to death after an argument with the womans estranged husband. The husband, Brian Bullock, 34, later turned himself in and was charged with capital murder. Gonzalez tweeted that even though October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month, lets not forget this is an issue going on all year. He characterized domestic violence as a deadly issue that affects so many lives in our community. A police officer speeding to an emergency call crashed into another driver early Sunday in north Houston. The lawman had his lights and sirens on around 12:30 a.m. as he headed eastbound on Loop 610 near Airline, swerving to avoid another driver before losing control of the patrol car and rear-ending another vehicle. The two men inside the other vehicle were taken to the hospital in stable condition with minor injuries. The Houston Police Department officer was not hurt, though he was deemed at-fault in the wreck, authorities said. Police shut down the freeway for hours to investigate the crash and clean up wreckage. No one involved in the wreck has been identified. WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo predicted Sunday that the remaining sanctions against Iran that resume Monday will change the Tehran government's behavior in the region. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Pompeo said the sanctions - the last ones to snap back after the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal - aim to get Tehran to stop supporting militants in the Middle East, stop testing missiles and treat its own citizens with more respect. And he defended President Donald Trump's tweet Friday featuring a "Game of Thrones"-inspired poster that warned: "Sanctions Are Coming." Pompeo said that Trump was "putting the world on notice that the terror regime which threatens Israel through Iranian funding of Lebanese Hezbollah, that the terror regime that attempted to conduct an assassination in Denmark over that past few weeks, that the terror regime that continues to fund Houthis launching missiles into Riyadh and into Dubai, that's going to stop. That behavior must change, and sanctions of the United States will be reimposed at midnight tonight." Asked what the administration would do if the Iranians restart their nuclear program, Pompeo replied, "We're confident that Iranians will not make that decision." Sunday marks the end of a 180-day deadline the United States set before the second round of sanctions lifted under the 2015 deal were to resume. Although the sanctions are against the financial and shipping sectors, the most significant measures prohibit purchases of Iranian oil, which provides 80 percent of Tehran's tax revenue. Starting Monday, all countries and businesses that buy oil from Iran risk secondary sanctions from the United States, and the administration has vowed to pursue offenders aggressively. Virtually all multinational companies that had started doing business in Iran after sanctions were suspended in 2016 have pulled out. That has helped send the Iranian rial plummeting and hurt ordinary Iranians amid spiraling prices for basic goods. But only a handful of countries support the U.S. action, and Iranian officials have said that the reimposed sanctions underscore how isolated the United States is. Many Middle East analysts also are skeptical that Iran will change its behavior in any way, in a show of defiance. On "Fox News Sunday," Pompeo defended the administration's decision to grant temporary waivers on oil sanctions to eight nations, including some of Iran's biggest oil customers. The secretary of state has not named the countries, though Turkey has said it has received notice and is among them. China, South Korea, Japan and India also are expected to get waivers. Pompeo said all had made significant reductions in their Iran oil purchases already but "need a little bit more time to get to zero." Pompeo also said the troops going to the southern U.S. border are intended to keep a caravan of migrants from entering the country illegally, but he suggested the migrants may be allowed to enter if they apply through the proper channels. "If they want to come here lawfully, that's the American tradition, it's the American way," he said on CBS News' "Face the Nation." "We continue to be the most generous nation in the world with respect to immigration. But illegal immigration will not be permitted." He also said the United States is still seeking to identify everyone involved in the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed last month in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. But he also said the incident will not be allowed to harm U.S.-Saudi relations. "We're working with the Turkish government, with the Saudi government and with anyone else who has relevant facts for us to be able to determine all of those who were responsible for this atrocious murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which the Saudis themselves have acknowledged was premeditated," he said. "We need to get to the bottom of it. We need to find out who was responsible, hold them accountable. "And do all of this while protecting enormously important strategic interests that the United maintains with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia." Asked what the administration will do if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan is found to have ordered Khashoggi's killing, Pompeo said, "We are going to chase the facts wherever they go, and we hold accountable each of those who we find responsible." Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz on Friday called the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul "despicable" but said that co-operating with Riyadh against their common foe Iran was Israel's priority. Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2. "Yet at the same time I say that it's very important for the stability of the world, for the region and of the world, that Saudi Arabia remain stable", Netanyahu said. "This is a process that will take time, but I believe in setting a goal and striving for it systematically, and I believe that this, too, will be achieved over time", added the prime minister. "Because I think that the larger problem is Iran". That's causing difficulties for the U.S. and Israel, which have embraced the ambitious 33-year-old as central to their efforts to counter Iranian influence in the Middle East. Israel considers Iran to be the main threat to its safety and has backed the United States in its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. The Trump administration, which has brought U.S. policy sharply in line with Israel's, has also sought closer relations with Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu's comments came a day after reports said that he had urged the White House to go easy on the crown prince - who is close to first son-in-law Jared Kushner - despite mounting outrage over Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Israel has been cultivating ties with other Gulf states. Netanyahu was in the Bulgarian city of Varna to meet southern Balkans leaders at a regional summit. The Israeli PM also said Friday that his invitation to a sitdown with four Balkan leaders was a sign of Israel's improved worldwide standing. Washington President Donald Trump is in the final stretch of a 44-city blitz for the midterm elections, but the America he's glimpsed from the airport arrivals and his armored limousine is hardly a reflection of the nation as a whole. The president has mostly traveled to counties that are whiter, less educated and have lower incomes than the rest of the United States, according to Census Bureau data. It's a sign that he is seeking to galvanize the same group of voters that helped carry him to victory in 2016. Trump has largely eschewed the big metropolises for smaller cities. He has been to Tampa, Nashville, Cleveland and Houston where the arenas could accommodate his crowds. But he's primarily been jet-setting to smaller places such as Elko, Nev. (population 20,078). Or, Mosinee, Wis. (population 4,023). Or, Belgrade, Mont., (population 7,874), named after Serbia's capital. In 2009, Barack Obama held a town hall in Belgrade to promote the Affordable Care Act. Since March, Trump has crisscrossed the country like a salesman with a set territory. The majority of his trips have been to just nine states. They are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Indiana, West Virginia and Nevada. Trump won eight of those states in 2016, but not Nevada. This year, seven feature a major Senate race with a Democratic incumbent. The former casino magnate has visited one city twice for the midterms: Las Vegas. Here is a portrait of the America that the president is seeing: Lower incomes Trump journeyed to counties where it's slightly more of a struggle to reach and stay in the middle class. Out of his scheduled rallies, 74 percent are in counties with median incomes that fall below the national level and mostly lag the median U.S. household income of $55,032. In September, Trump went to Wheeling, W.V. The typical household income in the county surrounding Wheeling is $41,986, or about $13,000 below the national level. The metro area has lost 818 jobs in the 12 months that ended in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And for West Virginia, coal mine jobs have declined this year after a hiring bump in 2017. "Your state is booming like never before," Trump told the crowd in Wheeling. "And our great coal miners are back to work." Trump has visited a few affluent counties. He stopped by Rochester, Minn., where incomes are high because of the presence of the world-renowned Mayo Clinic. And during a special congressional election in August, the president campaigned in Delaware County, Ohio, where the median household income of $94,234 is just shy of being double the national average. Fewer college degrees Just 18.1 percent of the adults in Elko County, Nevada, hold a college degree. That's compared to 30.3 percent nationwide. Of the 43 places Trump is visiting, 28 have a below-average share of college graduates. Elko's economy is unique because it relies on mining gold, instead of the office and health care jobs that often require a college diploma. The county has five active gold mines, according to the Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources. This makes it something of an outlier in country where mining metal ore accounts for 0.03 percent of all jobs. Trump went to Elko in part to help push for the re-election of Republican Sen. Dean Heller, who is in a tight race against Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen. Race Other than his rallies at big cities, Trump has generally been in communities that are overwhelmingly white. The U.S. population is 73.3 percent white, but almost three-fourths of the places where the president has stumped for midterms are above that average. In the county surrounding Council Bluffs, Iowa, 88.7 percent of the population is non-Hispanic whites. Trump told the crowd at his rally that Democrats would allow Central American gangs such as MS-13 to immigrate freely into the United States, a claim disputed by Democratic lawmakers. "They want to turn America, these Democrats and that's what they want into a giant sanctuary for criminal aliens and the MS-13 killers," Trump said. The biggest outlier in Trump's schedule may be his rally Sunday in Macon, Ga. Its county is 53.9 percent black, making it the lone place being visited by the president where minorities make up the majority of the population. Trump is going there to promote the gubernatorial candidacy of Republican Brian Kemp. He is running against Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is trying to become the first black female governor in U.S. history. Abrams would be the first black female governor in US history. As she battles Republican Brian Kemp and fights against Kemp's alleged efforts to to suppress voting, she has gotten tremendous support from America's queen herself: Oprah Winfrey. The race has drawn national attention, with Abrams receiving endorsements from Oprah Winfrey and former President Barack Obama. And in a nod to the allegations of voter suppression that have marked the gubernatorial race, Winfrey told the crowd that "every single one of us has something that, if done in numbers too big to tamper with, can not be suppressed and can not be denied". Abrams slammed her opponent for backing out of the debate that had been scheduled for six weeks, "As #GAGov". She touts her experience working with Republicans as a state legislative leader, but she doesn't back down on her promises to expand Medicaid insurance, prioritise public education and push for tighter gun restrictions. Kemp did not address the robocalls at his only scheduled campaign stop Saturday at a Cuban restaurant in a diverse north-Atlanta suburb. "Well, I think they would want them to vote, but not certainly not vote based on one's identity", Aubrey Shines said in a video message. Vice President Mike Pence is in Georgia today to stump for Kemp and President Donald Trump will be in the state this weekend. The pitches from Pence and Winfrey clearly fit Abrams' and Kemp's respective strategies. "The Democratic party, that the governor, the young lady that's running there... is the party that gave the South, where you are Oprah, the KKK, it gave us the Jim Crow laws that were there", he also said. Kemp was also ordered to issue a news release explaining how potential voters who are flagged could still vote by proving their citizenship, as well as a phone number for them to call with questions. She ruled that Georgia must immediately start allowing poll managers - not just deputy registrars - to clear flagged voters who show proof of citizenship. "We regret that we had to cancel but once Secretary Kemp pulled out at the last minute, the candidates could not agree to a new time", Channel 2 News Director Misti Turnball said in a statement. Glazer, who had been scheduled to interview a journalist and two political candidates at the synagogue minutes after discovery of the messages, went outside to tell the crowd that the event had to be canceled. Police say James Polite, 26, was taken into custody Friday afternoon, less than a day after the hateful messages were discovered by a congregant at the Union Temple in Prospect Heights around on the second and fourth floors of the house of worship. "I had this nightmare image in my head", Glazer says in an interview posted online today, explaining that she feared for the safety of the 200 people who had turned up for the event. According to local police the words "Die Jew Rats", "Hitler", and "Jew better be ready" were scrawled on the synagogue's walls in black marker. After Polite was arrested, he was sent to a psychiatric ward at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, according to reports. NYPD said that Polite entered the Union Temple, and wrote anti-Semitic statements in black marker throughout the building on November 1. "Ilana came out visibly upset to let us know what had happened", Shelby Quackenbush, who was at the event, tells Gothamist. The New York Daily News reported that the NYPD had logged 116 anti-Semitic "bias incidents" as of October 7 - including 12 assaults. It became known that he was also accused of arson in Williamsburg, including at the yeshiva (Jewish school), and the Jewish Banquet hall. Police arrested a suspected arsonist in the setting of fires and writing anti-Semitic graffiti in Brooklyn, New York. He's charged with hate crime criminal mischief and making graffiti. During a Wednesday morning briefing, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea noted that the department has seen "an increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes, particularly swastikas, on buildings in part of the city". Quinn called the defacement - which rattled worshipers just five days after 11 people were shot dead in an attack at a synagogue in Pittsburgh - "a vile expression of bigotry and anti-Semitism" and "indefensible". During the last sanctions period, China funnelled nearly all its Iranian transactions through the Bank of Kunlun, controlled by Chinese state energy group CNPC, which was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2012 but shielded the rest of the sector from penalties. Iranian state media said millions turned out for rallies in most cities and towns around the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and its hardline top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran's annual rally to mark the storming of the U.S. embassy and hostage-taking of 1979 had particular significance on Sunday (Nov 4) on the eve of renewed sanctions by Washington. "A normal, stable and developing Iran is good for all concerned", Dr Gargash tweeted. Iran said it was not troubled over the re-imposition of USA sanctions. "Tehran's hostile and aggressive approach has been the major source of instability", he said. Donald Trump was referring to a host of new sanctions set to be imposed on Iran by the United States after Washington ditched an agreement reached under Barack Obama's administration to lift sanctions in exchange for controls over Tehran's nuclear programs. ERROR: Macro /ads/dfp-ad-article-new is missing! Turkey indicated that it was one of them and analysts believe that India, one of the worlds largest importers, is also on the list, which will be published on Monday. Working from their small offices in Stockholm, analysts at a new watchdog that monitors global oil shipments have been run ragged by Iran's efforts to skirt United States sanctions this month. Iranian oil was of a quality which necessitated added refining before it could be used, CNA reported. China - the leading importer of Iranian crude - is still in discussions with the United States on terms, but is among the eight countries permitted to keep buying Iranian oil, according to two people familiar with the discussions. "We expect to issue some temporary allotments to eight jurisdictions but only because they have demonstrated significant reductions in crude oil and cooperation on many other fronts and have made important moves to getting to zero crude oil importation", the secretary of state said. Pompeo said on Friday that the sanctions were "aimed at depriving the regime of the revenues that it uses to spread death and destruction around the world". "The administration has indicated it will not support requests by foreign governments or companies for exemptions", the report said. All are among Iran's biggest oil customers, and they have argued that stopping their purchases immediately would cause oil prices to spike worldwide. "This is the Trump administration trying to force the rest of the world to go along with a policy that most countries do not accept", said Barbara Slavin, an Iran expert at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. "Iran is a formidable adversary, well practised in different techniques to keep selling oil and muddle the data, but that won't be a panacea for everything", said Rome. His comments came after the US Treasury announced sanctions on a network of businesses it said were tied to the Basij Resistance Force, a group that the department said works with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "Erdogan clearly seems to believe that he can use the Khashoggi crisis as a way to cut Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and by extension, Saudi Arabia, down to size", Heras added. Saudi Arabia initially claimed to have no information about his disappearance but later admitted he was killed by agents working without Riyadh's knowledge. "This is what is understood from the prosecutor's statement". On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described it as a violation of global law, while France said not enough was being done to find those responsible. Mr Pompeo said the U.S. had "deep and long-term strategic relationships" with Saudi Arabia and said "we intend to make sure that those relationships remain intact". Khashoggi, a Saudi critic and prominent columnist for the Washington Post, was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. "The president said we will demand accountability for those who were involved in the commission of this heinous crime", Pompeo said. "I really don't know how to express myself", she said. A member of Sri Lankan web journalist association holds a placard during a protest condemning the murder of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi in front of the Saudi Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka Oct 25, 2018. Iran has denied accusations it is building a nuclear bomb, saying weapons of mass destruction are prohibited under Islam. A political opponent of Erdogan's said Friday the killers who ambushed Khashoggi were allowed to leave the country after a phone call from Saudi King Salman to Erdogan. "There will be no coverup". "At the same time, President Trump has made very clear not only do we have important commercial relationships, but important strategic relationships, national security relationships with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and we intend to make sure that those relationships remain intact". Bin Salman has told President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to whom he is close, that low-level officials who had gone rogue had killed Khashoggi. But because of its deep investment in Prince Mohammed as the main linchpin of the administration's Middle East agenda, the Trump administration concluded it could not feasibly limit his power. She also accused the Trump administration, which covets Saudi arms deals and has forged a close partnership with Prince Mohammed to counter Iran, of trying to sweep the Khashoggi matter under the rug. Earlier, the United States called for a swift cessation of hostilities in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been fighting rebels supported by its arch-enemy Iran. The journalist's death and Saudi Arabia's inconsistent public statements regarding its responsibility have shocked the world. Unnamed Turkish official who listened to an audio tape that apparently recorded the torture had revelled that Kasogi's body was cut into pieces after he was killed on October 2. "Khashoggi's body was not in need of burying", said a senior Turkish official, who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity. Answering these questions, one month after Khashoggi's death, is "crucial" to the subsequent investigation and to the well-being of the journalist's family, the president argued. "They aimed to ensure no sign of the body was left". He echoed, however, the rhetoric of the United States administration, which so far has been reluctant to say or do anything that could upset the Saudi monarchy, likely awaiting the blame to be shifted upon a group of rogue agents and officials who have nothing to do with the House of Saud. A member of the USA armed forces was killed and another was wounded in an apparent insider attack on Saturday in the Afghan capital Kabul, according to Resolute Support, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation training mission in the country. The other service member, who was wounded, is undergoing medical treatment and in stable condition, according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation statement. The Utah National Guard has identified the service member killed as a member of the Guard. But Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer J. Cox wrote on his Facebook page that Taylor, 39, has been killed. "I hate this. I'm struggling for words". Utah weeps for them today. "Seeing that, not through the news media, but through his own experiences, really personalized it for so many of us in this now eternal war that we're continuing to fight. We must rally around his family". "Brent was a hero, a patriot, a wonderful father, and a dear friend". My prayers and love are with Jennie and his 7 young children. Taylor was deployed to Afghanistan in January with the Utah National Guard for what was expected to be a 12-month tour of duty. US Defense Secretary James Mattis said in September that training and vetting of Afghan forces was being stepped up to minimise insider attacks and some training and advisory operations have been scaled back while security is assessed. When he was elected to the City Council of North Ogden in 2009, and became mayor in 2013, he was determined to bring the booming economic growth that was happening in other parts of Utah to his town, which he felt had untapped potential at that time. The other 132 regions are considered "in dispute" between the Afghan Government and the Taliban movement or other rebel groups, said the SIGAR, which added that casualties among Afghan security forces set a reacord high. Data from Afghanistan's NATO-led Resolute Support mission showed that government forces had "failed to gain greater control or influence over districts, population, and territory this quarter", SIGAR said. Of the remaining districts, SIGAR assessed that 49 were under insurgent control or influence (12 percent). The control of Afghanistan's districts, population, and territory overall became more contested this quarter, with both the Afghan government and the insurgency losing districts and land area under their control or influence. General John Nicholson, who is now retired but at the time was head of Resolute Support, said in November 2017 that the Afghan security forces would expand control of the population to 80 percent over the next two years. Last year, US President Donald Trump unveilled a new Afghan war strategy that recommitted thousands of troops there and scrapped any timeline for a withdrawal. Hundreds of people, including scores of civilians, have been killed in Taliban attacks in recent weeks. The meeting was also attended by General Scott Miller, the top U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commander in Afghanistan. "From the period of May 1 to the most current data as of October 1, 2018, the average number of casualties the ANDSF suffered is the greatest it has ever been during like periods". When factoring in injuries, total casualties had declined slightly in the first six months of this year to 5,122, down from 5,272 last year. Regarding the progress toward the goal of reconciliation between the Taliban and Afghan government, Secretary Mattis had earlier said that, "We're getting two different messages from [the Taliban]". SIGAR added that data show the Afghan forces "made minimal or no progress in pressuring the Taliban over the quarter". Some 353 casualties (149 dead and 204 injured) were the result of airstrikes, up from 232 last year and coinciding with a sharp increase in the number of US airstrikes this year. The White House claims the American troops are deployed in Afghanistan to train Afghan forces and conduct counter-terrorist missions against militant groups. A driver and child were killed early Sunday in a head-on collision in south Houston. A man in a pickup was headed west on Almeda Genoa near Pembroke around 2 a.m. when he spotted headlights coming toward him, according to authorities. ON THE LAM: Suspects flee after Alief store clerk's shooting death He tried flashing his lights to warn the other driver, but the car kept coming at him and they collided head-on. The 28-year-old driver in the other vehicle and a 10-year-old girl in the back seat both died, Houston police said. The driver of the pickup was not hurt. Neither of the victims were immediately identified and authorities are still working to determine whether alcohol may have played a role in the wreck. The body of a 21-year-old woman was recovered from the Blanco River Friday night, San Marcos officials said Saturday. The woman has been preliminarily identified as Kate Rose Silva Xavier, a student at Texas State University, according to a news release. Xavier had been missing since Oct. 25. According to Trump, a lot of progress has already been made to help resolve the dispute between the two superpowers. In an interview on Fox News Channel's "The Ingraham Angle" show on Monday, Trump did not specifically mention the potential withdrawal of tariffs, but said he expects "a great deal" with China. Trump has also threatened to extend the tariffs to all Chinese imports if the meeting in Argentina fails to produce "a good deal". We talked about many subjects, with a heavy emphasis on trade. President Donald Trump looked to quell market jitters over escalating tariff war tensions with Beijing last night, after telling reporters that a trade deal between the United States and China is getting nearer. Shi also said he thought China had only a limited role to play on the North Korea issue. Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S. "We do hope that China and the United States will meet each other halfway and work together in the spirit of mutual respect and equality", Li told Trump's fellow Republicans. "We will see what happens at the G20 and with Liu's talks, but I am not optimistic that anything momentous will come out of this", Zimmerman said. A Chinese state-owned company was charged on Thursday with stealing technology from USA chipmaker Micron Technology Inc., part of a Justice Department crackdown against China in cases of suspected economic espionage. Stocks surged in Hong Kong and China on the report of constructive talks between Trump and Xi, while the offshore yuan jumped as much as 0.5 percent for the biggest two-day gain since August. President Trump on Friday signaled the U.S.is getting closer to a trade deal with China. In Beijing Trump's move was seen as an insult to Xi, who sent a personal emissary to Washington for the negotiations, and cemented a view that Trump's real goal is to thwart China's rise. Thursday's meeting was the first telephone conversation between the leaders in six months of which is openly reported. Washington, Europe and other trading partners say those violate China's market-opening obligations and some American officials worry they might erode USA industrial leadership. But Kudlow cautioned that Trump would "aggressively" pursue his agenda against China if no deals were reached on intellectual property theft, cybersecurity and tariffs on commodities, among other issues. The president's remarks helped USA stocks to trim their losses on a day that started with market optimism over a Bloomberg report quoting unnamed sources as saying that Trump had ordered his cabinet to draw up terms for a China trade deal. An Australian nun who angered the Philippine president by joining anti-government protests used her final hours in the country to call on Filipinos to unite and fight human rights abuses. Sister Patricia Fox was escorted to the airport by about 200 human rights activists who praised her years of service in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation and condemned the administration for forcing her to leave. Church figures have previously criticized Duterte's policies, particularly his signature war on drugs that has left nearly 5,000 people dead since he took office in 2016. The BI also ordered Fox's deportation for violating "the limitations and conditions in granting the missionary visa...and order her deportation to Australia, subject to her submission of all appropriate clearances". The Catholic nun had lived in the country for nearly three decades but had her missionary visa cancelled for challenging policies of President Rodrigo Duterte. Before she went to the airport, Ms Fox attended an emotional mass to say farewell to hundreds of her supporters who protested her expulsion and vowed to work for her return, possibly after Mr Duterte steps down in 2022. A former practising lawyer who worked with indigent clients in Australia, Ms Fox has said she has been educating landless Filipino farm hands and factory workers about their rights. After her missionary visa was cancelled and she was put on a blacklist, the nun was given a temporary visa that expired on November 3. Most of the criticism has focused on his bloody anti-drug campaign, alarmed Western governments and rights groups and prompted two complaints of mass murder before the International Criminal Court. 'I think they need to (be more forceful), we have to start being responsible for what's happening over there, ' she said. 'I'm so happy to be back but I'm sad at the same time, ' Sr Fox said on Sunday morning. "There will come a time I will return one day", she said. Her ordeal has stirred debate in the Philippines about the wider issue of whether expatriates should be free to take a stand on human rights. Sandoval explained that Fox's participation in anti-government rallies did not fall within the ambit of the religious missionary visa given to her. The reed-thin missionary had been in the Philippines advocating for the poorest for almost 30 years. She was arrested briefly on charges of violating her visas terms against activism and the slow turning wheels of the Philippine bureaucracy began moving to strip her of her papers. Australian nun Sister Patricia Fox enters the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 for her flight to Australia in the evening of November 3, 2018. The countrys Catholic leadership, which counts about 80 percent of Filipinos as followers, bemoaned her scheduled departure, saying "Sister Patricia Foxs deportation is a blow to the missionary spirit of the church". AKRON, Ohio - Among local issues, Summit County voters will decide four County Council races Tuesday as well as a proposed tax increase for human services. Voters in some Summit County cities - including Akron - also will consider charter amendments that would move their primary elections from September to May. County Council races The race for the County Council seat in District 7 pits incumbent Michael R. Soyars, a Democrat from Barberton, against Republican challenger Bethany McKenney of Akron. The winner will serve until Dec. 31, 2020, completing the term of Tim Crawford. Crawford left council to serve as the county's deputy director of law, insurance and risk management under the administration of County Executive Ilene Shapiro. In three races for at-large council seats, Republicans Cynthia Blake of Akron, Nick DeVitis of Tallmadge and Michael Washington of Cuyahoga Falls are looking to unseat incumbent Democrats Clair Dickinson, John Donofrio and Elizabeth Walters, all of Akron. Winners will serve four-year terms commencing Jan. 1, 2019. Human services levy Summit County voters will be asked to renew and increase a children services tax for the next six years. Issue 8 seeks a 2.25 mills renewal and a 1 mill increase, for a total of 3.25 mills for six years - 2019 through 2025. If the tax is approved, owners of a $100,000 home would pay an additional $35 per year in property taxes. The tax revenue represents about 58 percent of the agency's funding. In May, the Summit County Social Services Advisory Board recommended the renewal levy be placed on the ballot. Children Services has not asked for a tax increase in more than 30 years, Executive Director Julie Barnes has said. During that time, the cost and care of children affected by the opiate crisis have increased, and the agency's resources have declined. Charter amendments Voters in several Summit County cities are being asked to amend their charters to move their primary elections from September to May. The proposed amendments appear on ballots in Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Green and Tallmadge. Summit, Lucas and Cuyahoga are the only Ohio counties with cities that hold September primaries. By joining the other communities with May primaries, the six cities would save money because the county Board of Elections divides the cost of elections between participating cities. May primaries also have greater voter turnout. The move would also bring the Summit County Board of Elections into compliance with state law by allowing time to get complete ballots to overseas voters after a primary. With a 45-day deadline, the elections board now sends partial ballots to overseas voters. Once races are certified, complete ballots are mailed, which confuses some voters, the BOE has said. Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.com's Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. Guest columnist Adam White is a policy and planning assistant for the Research and Public Policy teams at The Center for Community Solutions. Community Solutions is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Cleveland. Local unemployment rates are predictable. Access to food assistance for struggling Clevelanders should be predictable, too. Last month, state officials moved to make food assistance more accessible for low-income Cuyahoga County residents on the basis of high unemployment -- despite no real change in county unemployment estimates. Thats because eligibility restrictions in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- formerly called food stamps -- depend on how county unemployment rates compare with the U.S. average. Adam White, Center for Community Solutions Federal rules require childless adults to work 80 hours a month to receive SNAP benefits for more than three months within a three-year period. But states can waive this requirement in areas where unemployment is higher than 120 percent of the national average over a recent 24-month period, estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). A year ago, Cuyahoga Countys 24-month unemployment rate was 118 percent of the U.S. average -- barely below the threshold to waive the work requirement. But this year, despite no real change in local unemployment, the steady decline in national unemployment bumped Cuyahoga County up to 132 percent of the national average. As such, Cuyahoga County is one of 12 counties newly granted exemptions from SNAP work requirements by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, effective Oct. 1. I recently authored a report that showed how Ohios county-by-county application of SNAP work requirements overwhelmingly favored rural white Ohioans in recent years, while ignoring more diverse, urban communities that are equally likely to experience high unemployment. Before last month, only 5 percent of Ohios African-American families lived in counties where work requirements were waived. The recent inclusion of urban Cuyahoga and Lucas counties helps mitigate this disparity. About 41 percent of Ohios African-American families now reside in exempt counties. Reducing disparities in food assistance is worth celebrating. But the fact is that no state policy was changed to guarantee these outcomes, and long-term SNAP eligibility remains uncertain for low-income, childless Clevelanders struggling to find work. If national unemployment ticks back up next year and Cuyahoga Countys remains flat, these folks may again become subject to the work requirement. This becomes especially problematic when we consider that unemployment in the city of Cleveland consistently outpaces the county as a whole. Clevelands most recent 24-month unemployment rate was 165 percent of the national rate -- well over the threshold for exemption. The same was true a year ago, when the county did not qualify for exemption. Lower countywide unemployment rates mask the economic hardships felt within Ohios large cities, which are home to sizable minority populations. If Ohio were to waive SNAP work requirements at the municipal level, rather than the county level, the exemptions would benefit Ohioans where they are most likely to experience unemployment, in both urban and rural areas. Importantly, Congress still needs to reauthorize SNAP by passing the Farm Bill before the years end -- an effort that has stalled due to ongoing debates around work requirements. Given this uncertainty at the federal level, Ohio should strive to create more predictability in its own SNAP policy to ensure food assistance remains accessible in areas of high unemployment. Under current policy, it is anyones guess whether cities like Cleveland will be subject to these eligibility restrictions a year from now. If they are, low-income Clevelanders will lose needed food assistance while looking for work, while those who are already working will face added administrative hurdles to continue receiving benefits. Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts, and stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using Notification Settings (in blue) just below. Readers are invited to submit Opinion page essays on topics of regional or general interest. Send your 500-word essay for consideration to Ann Norman at anorman@cleveland.com. Essays must include a brief bio and headshot of the writer. Essays rebutting todays topics are also welcome. Comments Policy Comments that are excessively crude, obscene or profane - especially when they consist of nothing more than gratuitous insults or aspersions upon the character of authors or other commenters - will be vigorously discouraged. Therefore, if you find your comment has been deleted, you will know why. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two people were arrested Saturday after a Case Western Reserve University student was shot in the torso near the campus in Clevelands University Circle neighborhood, according to a post on the colleges Facebook page. An undergraduate student is in stable condition after being shot in the torso on Murray Hill Road near South Residential Village, the post said. UPDATE 4: A message from President Barbara R. Snyder: To the Case Western Reserve Community: I am deeply relieved to... Posted by Case Western Reserve University on Saturday, November 3, 2018 Cleveland.com is on the scene and will provide further details as they become available. To comment on this story, visit Saturdays crime and courts comment page. CLEVELAND, Ohio Members of Case Western Reserve Universitys administration, as well as representatives from their police force, will hold a news conference Sunday afternoon to address an off-campus shooting that left an undergraduate student injured. Case President Barbara R. Snyder, Case Police Chief Jay Hodge and University Circle Police Chief Jim Repicky, among others, are expected to speak at the 3:30 p.m. news conference, an advisory from the university states. A representative from University Hospitals surgical team will also attend. cleveland.com will broadcast the news conference on its Facebook page. A video of the news conference also will be added to this post once it has completed. The Case student was shot in the torso on Murray Hill Road near South Residential Village, according to a post on the universitys Facebook page. The last update provided by the university states the student is in stable condition at University Hospitals. Later Saturday evening, University Circle police shot a man in the citys Little Italy neighborhood after he and another man opened fire on police. Officials are investigating whether suspects in the officer-involved shooting are connected to the Case students shooting. Two people were taken into custody in connection with the students shooting, Case officials said. However, they did not say if that included the man shot by University Circle police. If youd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section. CLEVELAND, Ohio Case Western Reserve University officials gathered with members of local law enforcement Sunday to provide an update on the Saturday night shooting of a Case undergraduate student and a subsequent officer-involved shooting of a possible suspect. University Circle police received a call about 8 p.m. Saturday that a 20-year-old man was shot on Murray Hill Road near South Residential Village, UCPD Chief Jim Repicky said at the news conference. Law enforcement believes the man was shot during an armed robbery or possibly a carjacking. The 20-year-old is a junior at Case, university president Barbara Snyder said. His identity was not provided, though officials said he is in stable condition at University Hospitals after undergoing surgery. Note: You can watch the full news conference in the video at the bottom of this post. Soon after the shooting was reported, University Circle police officers located two possible suspects in the Case students shooting on Mayfield Road, Repicky said. The suspects ran north on East 119th Street, and they were pursued on foot and via police cruiser by UCPD, Repicky said. One of the suspects was caught on East 123rd Street, while the other was determined to be hiding in a ditch behind the University Circle police department. Officers ordered the shooting suspect out of the ditch, and the suspect opened fire. Police returned fire, striking the suspect. The shooting suspect was taken to University Hospitals, where he remains in critical condition, a UH hospital spokesman said at the news conference. There were four UCPD officers involved in the shooting, though Repicky did not say how many of those four officers fired their weapons at the shooting suspect. Those officers who have not yet been named were placed on leave. Witnesses to the officer-involved shooting told cleveland.com Saturday they heard 15 to 30 shots fired between police and the suspect. The suspects identities were not released at the news conference, though Repicky noted they are age 18 and 19. They are not Case students, officials said. Cleveland police is handling the probe into the Case students shooting and the use-of-force investigation into the University Circle police shooting. Charges have not yet been filed in connection with the students shooting. Case police, as well as UCPD and Cleveland police, have increased their presence around campus and in the Little Italy neighborhood following the shooting, officials said. Of course its difficult to be able to guarantee that we can prevent instances like this from ever happening, but thats what wed love to be able to say, Snyder said. Case is also holding a Facebook Live broadcast on the universitys Facebook page Sunday at 7 p.m. to take questions from students about the situation and what safety measures have gone into place following the shooting, said Lou Stark, Cases vice president for student affairs. If youd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section. CLEVELAND, Ohio An 18-year-old woman was kidnapped and robbed Saturday night on the citys East Side, police said. The woman was found safe by officers about midnight at an address on Hale Avenue in North Collinwood, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said. The woman told officers that about 8:30 p.m., she was sitting in her car with her 16-year-old friend outside a house on East 149th Street, north of St. Clair Avenue. She said Noel got out of the car several times to go into the house, Ciaccia said. At a time when the teen was inside the house, three unidentified suspects approached her car at gunpoint and demanded that the 18-year-old get into the backseat, Ciaccia said. The woman told police that she was driven around and eventually taken to a Huntington Bank ATM, where she was forced to withdraw $120. The womans kidnappers dropped her off near the intersection of East 147th Street and Westropp Avenue and took off with her car, Ciaccia said. The womans missing car is a white Kia Optima with a specialty Ohio license plate: NIECE. The woman flagged down a passerby, who took her to the Hale Avenue address. Officers went to the home on East 149th Street where the woman and her teenage friend were initially parked. The residents, including several adults and children, allowed the police to search the home, Ciaccia said. Inside, police found a replica handgun and the womans ATM card, Ciaccia said. However, the teenager wasnt found. A missing persons report was filed for the teen. This post will be updated if additional details about the case are provided Sunday. (Updated 1:55 p.m.): The 16-year-old who was reported missing in connection with this case has been found safe in Toledo, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said. The investigation continues. If youd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section. INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- The Redwood Living Corp. is expanding its current corporate office in Independence into a three-story headquarters. According to its website, Redwood Living creates single-story apartment homes throughout Northeast Ohio, as well as in five other states. Vice Mayor Dave Grendel explained that Redwood previously had its corporate office in Beachwood, but moved to its current location on Pleasant Valley Road about 18 months ago. Grendel said the city offered Redwood a financial package to move its office to Independence. In this offer, the city gave Redwood a $50,000 "Job Creation and Relocation" grant. In return, Redwood committed to basing a minimum of 70 full-time employees with a $4,500,000 annual payroll at their new location within six months from the date of issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy. Redwood signed a three-year lease in 2016 and is bound to the terms above for the period of this lease. "We offered an incentive early on to be competitive with other communities," he said. The company adds approximately 20 new employees every year, and Grendel said it is on track to continue this pattern. Because of that growth, Redwood was looking to expand its headquarters to provide enough space for its current 100 employees. Grendel said that because many of the employees travel for work, there are only between 70 and 80 employees inside the building at any given time. The new headquarters will be in the same location on Pleasant Valley Road, but will now be closer to the road and farther away from nearby homes. The expansion means the city will be home to Redwood's main operations, including departments such as accounting and human resources. But Redwood can only build a corporate headquarters in Independence, as the current city building codes do not allow for construction of the single-story apartment buildings the company offers. At the October Planning Commission meeting, the site plan for the three-story, 76,000-square-foot headquarters was unanimously approved. Several variances dealing with lot splits to allow for adequate parking for the building were also approved. Finally, a variance approving the lot split of the property into two parcels was passed. Redwood plans to buy the land that its was previously leasing from a company called Valtris. Redwood will then be utilizing the back side of the larger parcel that came out of the split. The cost of the new headquarters building will be $20 million. The site plans that were brought before the Planning Commission were created by architecture group Vocon. Grendel said the site plans appear modern and "are a great addition to the streetscaping." Grendel said that Redwood Living adds to the city's economy with its tax dollars. "The employees seem happy [and with] Interstate 77 right there, it's convenient for them. They are a business we'd like to have here, and they've been cooperative with the city," he said. The next steps for Redwood will be attaining approval from the zoning board. The company is looking to begin construction as early as the beginning of 2019. Another building on Pleasant Valley may be made available, and Redwood is waiting to see that option before committing to the current location plan. LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- Driving under the influence: Police arrested a driver at about 1:48 a.m. Oct. 19 on Detroit Avenue near Wayne Avenue for operating a vehicle while impaired. The car was towed from the scene. Intoxication, Fry Avenue: Officers at about 4:35 p.m. Oct. 21 arrested a man on Fry Avenue near Detroit Avenue for intoxication. Theft, Detroit Avenue: Police responded Oct. 20 to Giant Eagle regarding a theft complaint. A suspected shoplifter, a woman, was cited for theft and released. Intoxication, Detroit Avenue: Police received a call after 8 p.m. Oct. 20 about a 34-year-old woman who reportedly was intoxicated and out of control. Officers responded and cited the woman for intoxication. Damage to property, Wagar Avenue: Police report that on Oct. 20, a tree branch fell on and damaged a car on Wagar Avenue between Detroit and Madison avenues. To comment on this story, visit Saturday's crime and courts comment section. CLEVELAND, Ohio An internal Cleveland police investigation resulted last month in an unpaid 25-day suspension for a sex crimes detective who neglected to send more than 187 rape kits for testing. The investigation, once again, laid bare the critical lack of resources and supervision in the unit responsible for handling some of the most serious crimes reported in the city. And there appears to be no solution in sight. Its the second time this year the city has disciplined or demoted sex crimes detectives or supervisors and at least the third such investigation involving the units work in the past two years That includes an investigation currently underway into whether the open cases of detective who retired this year were properly reassigned or left uninvestigated. No further information is available on that investigation, which is ongoing, Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia, the departments spokeswoman said. Ciaccia said sex assault investigations remain a priority for the department. Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams, Mayor Frank Jackson and Safety Director Michael McGrath (right to left) at a March 2018 press conference where discipline was announced after a detective failed to investigate 60 sex crimes reports.The Plain Dealer Police Chief Calvin Williams and Mayor Frank Jackson, acknowledged earlier this year that staffing was an issue departmentwide, including in the sex crimes unit. As to whether staffing is at the root of the units problems? Neither would comment. Jackson declined through a spokesman and referred questions to the police department. Ciaccia said the department is looking to add detectives to sex crimes, though she could not say how many. The department did not respond to questions on the larger staffing issue. Untested kits The investigation involving Det. Keith Hunter focused on 129 rape kits that sex crimes supervisors discovered in late 2016 had not been sent for testing in a timely manner, as required by law. Months later, in April 2017, they found that 58 additional kits had been stowed in a what one supervisor called a secret storage closet, according to the file on the eight-month investigation conducted by Sgt. Roger Stoudmire and obtained by The Plain Dealer. In addition to staffing issues, the more than 600-page report raised questions about how the unit tracked sex crimes evidence and cases, including whether some investigations were stalled or never started. Among the issues cited: Rape kits not tested because they lacked proper crime summaries. Rape kits submitted to the lab as property found, under incorrect crime report numbers. The Plain Dealer has asked Cleveland police for additional information on how cases labeled as property found were handled and whether those cases were counted among the citys reported rapes each year. Systemic issues Hunter, who has been with the department for two decades, is appealing his 25-day suspension, Cleveland Police Patrolmens Association President Jeff Follmer said. He remains in the unit, though hes no longer handling evidence submissions or investigating cases, according to Ciaccia. The rape kits at the center of the investigation all are now tested, and the cases assigned and investigated, she said. A suspension that long, Follmer said, is too steep a price for a problem that is systemic and has gone unaddressed by the department. Hunters suspension, in part, was for not informing his supervisors that he was falling behind, which he admitted, and for attempting to cover up the total number of kits that went untested, according to the investigation report. Telling a supervisor he couldnt keep up did not seem like an option to Hunter, according to Follmer. He was overwhelmed, Follmer said. But so was everyone else in the unit. It wasnt like he was going to get help. A city prosecutor declined to charge Hunter with dereliction of duty, a misdemeanor crime, concluding there was not enough evidence to support the charge, according to the investigation. Sgt. Anthony McMahan, Hunters supervisor, was also suspended for 10 days as a result of the investigation, which city records show he agreed not to contest. McMahan also agreed not to fight an earlier 15-day suspension for not acting when he found out that Tom Ross, a detective who transferred out of the unit for a promotion, took 60 case files with him and never completed the investigations or returned the files. Cleveland Rape Crisis Center President and CEO Sondra Miller said that after the backlog of untested kits was discovered the department shared a list of the survivors affected. Advocates already were in contact with some but we learned about most of those cases for the very first time when we received that list. The center has advocates embedded in the unit, and they try to contact victims to offer emotional support, resources and advocacy within 48 hours, she said. Its not clear why they were not informed about all of the cases. Survivors deserve a timely, compassionate response when they choose to report a violent crime, said Miller. And the public deserves for sex offenders to be held accountable. Overlooked evidence When confronted by his supervisors about the untested rape kits and the secret property storage room containing other kits, Hunter answered, in short, that hed forgotten about them. Commander James McPike said he thought Hunter had been dishonest in his response and ordered him to explain his actions in writing in what the department refers to as a Form 1. Hunter wrote in the memo that the additional kits got overlooked because they were in another location. At that point, Hunters supervisors agreed he should be disciplined and recommended that he be removed from the unit. The situation could have damaged the relationship forged between the department and the Medical Examiners office, which runs the county forensic lab, McMahan wrote. Included in the investigation file is an email from Medical Examiner Thomas Gilson, who gives a terse response to a plan in which his office had to use federal grant money to pay overtime to get the additional kits tested at an estimated cost of between $70,000 and $75,000. It is imperative that this not happen again, Gilson said in the message dated Feb. 2, 2017. It also threatened to tarnish departments already troubled image. Each kit, McMahan wrote represents a victim and presents a possible portal to identify additional unidentified suspects; a violation of trust and a definite blow to the reputation of the Division of Police, which we have to date tried so hard to repair. Evidence to be submitted for testing and evidence returned from labs after testing in sexual assault cases.E(Cleveland Police Dept. Internal Affairs Investigation file) Despite those recommendations, Hunters supervisors believed his punishment should be tempered by the enormity of the job: for two years he was responsible for submitting, transporting and logging in and out of the departments computer evidence system 10,000 or more pieces of sex crimes, homicide and other crime scene evidence. Photos included in the investigative file show the volume of evidence. Hunter, who had struggled to keep up when investigating sex crimes cases, ended up doing a myriad of jobs that in the past were handled by several police and civilian employees, adding more tasks to his daily list when assigned to projects, like the initiative to test thousands of older rape kits, and to fill in the Forensic/Evidence unit after retirements and transfers left positions unfilled. Beyond those challenges, according to the investigation, nobody seemed to know who Hunter reported to and there wasnt a manual or expectations for the job he was assigned to do. Chronically understaffed Clevelands sex crimes unit has been understaffed, based on outside experts and the departments own assessments for years, decades even. Over the past few years, the number of detectives assigned to investigate cases ranged from 11 to 17. Chief Calvin Williams goal was to have 23 detectives in the unit in 2018. Currently 13 detectives are assigned to the unit, making it one of the departments most understaffed units A caseload assessment by national experts at the Police Executive Research determined the unit needed at least 30 detectives to adequately investigate complicated sex crimes and child abuse cases. The extent of those staffing challenges was summed up by Special Victims Bureau Commander Daniel Ross, who in 2017 penned a memo summarizing the issues that led to the unit having a backlog of what he believed could he more than 650 open cases dating back five years, though exact numbers were hard to pin down because case assignments were kept in a log book and a spreadsheet and not always updated in both. Ross didnt rule out human error for some of the issues in the unit but concluded that the main choke point was staffing. This is not a complaint; it is a fact, Ross, then a lieutenant, wrote. It is well understood that staffing issues are one of the major issues that present constant challenges to this Division as a whole and that there is no immediate manner in which this issue can be addressed. However, people are a finite resource; a detective can only investigate so many cases at a time before something is bound to fall by the wayside. The unit, Miller said, has been in chronic distress for more than a decade now, which exacerbates any failures on the part of individual investigators or supervisors to give cases the attention they deserve. Investigators get burned out, supervisors are spread too thin and protocols are overlooked when caseloads get too high, Miller said. If the unit could catch up on past cases which would require an infusion of detectives and supervisors it might be able to find a better way forward, Follmer said. Thats not going to happen soon, he said, because the pace of hiring cant keep up, much less surpass, yearly retirements. Theres so much that could be done if they werent behind already, he said. The city has let this get behind and now it just cant get caught up. Truth be told, its going to be years. WILLOUGHBY HILLS, Ohio It was not without irony that Willoughby Hills canceled this years Sept. 8 Unity Day celebration, since city unity is in short supply. The political war between Mayor Robert Weger and city council, all Republicans, which has gone on for more than two years, has gridlocked city government and appears to be a fight for the soul of a city. There are those who say there has always been tension in the affluent Willoughy Hills between mayors and city councils, but even they agree that they have never seen anything like the blatant animosity between Weger and a coalition of City Council Vice-president John Plecnik and five of the seven other council members. Wegers only ally on council is Christopher Hallum; the rest often vote as a block. It has gotten so bad that Weger fired the six council members for malfeasance in early October. He took down their pictures at City Hall and changed the locks at the building to keep them out. It didnt last. Within days, a Lake County judge restored council members to their position pending a hearing Nov. 15. In August, council voted to place a set of nine sweeping amendments to the city charter on the Nov. 6 ballot. If passed, the amendments, crafted by members of council, would shift power from the mayor to city council Plecnik, 34, a councilman since 2013, has been a vocal opponent of the mayor for several years. Weger says he wants to work with council, but he never shows up at council meetings, said Plecnik. Hes missed half the meetings in the past six months. Weger denied that he missed that many meetings, but added that the council never asks for his input. Why should I come to the meetings? he asked. All they do is belittle and insult me. Council decimated city staff Council eliminated 13 positions in City Hall last spring, including the mayors long-time executive assistant and the Mayors Court clerk of courts. The court has closed and residents must go to the county courthouse to get permits. Plecnik campaigned on a promise to balance the budget without raising taxes or fees. He said he would find savings through cuts in administrative overhead to fund increases for roads, police and fire departments. Weger said there is not enough staff to handle the workload. Even Plecnik has complained that phones are not answered and citizen and council requests are not fulfilled. Mayors Court, which brought in about a million dollars a year, is now run out of the Willoughby Mayors Court. The revenue loss to Willoughby Hills, so far, is about $700,000 annually. The cuts also curtailed events at the popular Community Center, though that could change now that a part-time recreation director has been hired. There were other battles between the mayor and council. One of the biggest is the fight over a new law director after Thomas Lobe resigned in September 2017 because council had ordered Weger to fire him. Since then, after a court battle, council and the mayor have been unable to agree on a replacement, leaving the city without a law director for most of the year. I think its scary the way things are going, said resident Linda Cover said at a recent Town Hall meeting. Charter Battle The nine charter amendments were created by council and were placed on the ballot with little discussion and almost no public input. They were proposed at one meeting in August and passed as an emergency vote at a special meeting three days later. The most controversial one gives council the power to remove the mayor. Currently, the charter gives the mayor the right to remove council members. Other proposed amendments call for strict rules against nepotism; limiting the mayors ability to hire and fire staff without council approval; and forcing department heads to reapply for their jobs every four years. Another change would eliminate special elections unless council and the mayor declare an emergency. The amendments will be voted on individually. Plecnik said council has no intention of removing the mayor even if that measure passes. He said council wanted to bring Willoughby Hills charter in line with surrounding communities that do not afford the mayor the power to fire council members. It just makes sense to give that power to a group of people, like council, rather than give all the power to one person, Plecnik said. The charter now is for a strong mayor and a weak council. We would like to change that. Usually, charter reform is a long process that involves citizens as part of a charter review commission. It often takes more than a year. For example, Cleveland and Cleveland Heights commissions have spent months discussing changes and additions to their cities charters. Willoughby Hills has had several charter review commissions work on the charter in the past. If the hundreds of 'Vote Yes" and 'Vote No" signs around town are not enough proof that the referendum is divisive, residents have packed council meetings to make their feelings known. Those meetings get contentious. Ive been amazed at the dislike bordering on hatred Ive felt at these meetings," said Councilwoman Janet Majka. Recall drive against council Resident Tony Miller said councils actions on the charter amendments are unconscionable. He is heading a recall drive for the six council members behind them. I dont like the way council treats the mayor with a lack of respect, he said. And I really dont like how they created this charter referendum, which would let them fire the mayor. It borders on criminal." As complex as the problems facing the city are, there are several possibilities in play that could bring the squabbles to a close. If councils charter amendment referendum passes Nov. 6, the balance of power would shift to council leaving the mayor in more of a ceremonial position. If a Lake County judge rules on Nov. 15 that Weger had the right to fire six council members, his power would grow dramatically. If Miller gets enough signatures to hold a recall election for six council members, a special election could be held, which could also change the structure of the city government. Even if none of the events comes to pass, there will be an ending sometime next year. Weger said he will not run for re-election in 2019 after serving 10 years, leaving an open field for candidates which could include several current members of city council, though none have officially declared their candidacy. Also, four current council members are up for re-election next year (Laura Pizmoht, Janet Majka, Christopher Hallum and Laura Lenz) which could affect the stalemate. Meanwhile, Jonathan Entin, a professor of law and political science at Case Western Reserve University is fascinated with the Willoughby Hills case. (In the interest of full disclosure, one of Entins former students is Councilwoman Laura Pizmoht and Entin is acquainted with Plecnik.) Entin says there have been other cases where councils warred with a mayor and took power, but ultimately he questions whether its a good idea. But even if its legally permissible, you have to wonder whether you want that kind of system in a city thats already divided. At the end of the day, the decision should be made at the ballot box. He said considering the years of in-fighting and bad blood in the city between the mayor and council, it may be too late to save the marriage. CLEVELAND, Ohio University Circle police shot a man late Saturday in the citys Little Italy neighborhood, according to three police sources. A shootout between police and two suspects in an armed robbery and shooting happened about 8 p.m. on Coltman Road and East 120th Street in a field behind the University Circle Police Department. University Circle Police Chief Jim Repicky later confirmed the shooting. He said the man who was shot by his officers is at University Hospitals. His current medical condition is not known. Police are investigating the possibility that the shooting is related to the armed robbery and shooting of a Case Western Reserve University student on Murray Hill Road. The student is also at University Hospitals and is expected to survive, according to a statement from Case Western Reserve University. The universitys statement said two people are in custody, but did not say if that included the man shot by University Circle police. Police said they spotted the two suspected robbers a few minutes later on East 119th Street and Mayfield Road. The officers chased after them, police said. Two witnesses to the police-involved shooting, Jim and Amanda Wochele, said they saw the suspect run through the parking lot of their apartment complex on East 119th Street, down Coltman and into the field. They saw three or four University Circle police officers follow him in to the field. Both said they heard police officers yell, Put the gun down, followed by commands of put your hands up and multiple warnings of we will shoot, the Wocheles said. A shootout ensued, injuring one of the robbery suspects, according to police. The couple said they heard between 15 and 30 gunshots. Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams is at the scene, along with Cleveland polices use-of-deadly-force team that investigates all police-involved shootings in the city. University Circle police were also at the scene along with Case Western Reserve police. Williams and other Cleveland police officials at the scene refused to comment. Cleveland.com reporter Robin Goist contributed to this story. To comment on this story, visit Saturdays crime and courts comment page. PEPPER PIKE, Ohio - A week after the slayings of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, an estimated 850 people filled B'nai Jeshurun on Saturday to mourn the lives lost in the attack and seek comfort and solidarity through their faith. In a moving vigil, Rabbi Stephen Weiss prayed with clergy from across Greater Cleveland to end the hatred and violence that has shaken a community. They also discussed the racial attack of Oct. 24 in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, in which a gunman killed two people after failing to enter a predominately African-American church. "We become huggers and kissers when there is a tragedy,'' Bishop J. Delano Ellis of the Pentecostal Church of Christ in Cleveland told the crowd. "But why don't we do this more often? Why does somebody have to shoot someone before we realize that I need you, and you need me.'' The outpouring at the synagogue - mirroring those at other local congregations Friday evening and Saturday - came a week after a gunman entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh and fired shots from three handguns and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. On Friday, Weiss estimated about 400 people would celebrate the Sabbath at the Pepper Pike temple. Part of the reason was the American Jewish Committee, which pushed #ShowUpForShabbat, to "send a message that Jews will not be intimidated away from their synagogues,'' the organization said on its website. But the numbers more than doubled Saturday morning from the initial estimate. Usually, about 250 people attend Saturday services. Weiss said the synagogue hosted the vigil because the congregation is hurting from the Pittsburgh attacks. "The only hope that we have of overcoming the hate and division that is plaguing our society is by holding on tight to each other and lifting ourselves above it with love,'' Weiss said Friday. "This has shaken our sense of security. We wonder: Are we safe? It is hard to bring your children to their house of worship, and they must say hello to a police officer on the way inside. Hopefully, that will one day change.'' One by one, clergy walked to the synagogue's lectern and spoke about supporting a grieving community. Each spoke about how hatred could not be tolerated. "We are all human beings; when you attack one of us, you attack all of us,'' said Liming Wang of the Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Cultural Association. The Rev. Richard Gibson, the pastor of the Elizabeth Baptist Church in Cleveland and the co-chairman of the Greater Cleveland Congregations, agreed. "We love you; we stand with you, and we shall not be moved,'' he said. Afterward, he stressed that "our support will remain.'' Perhaps the most poignant moment of the service came when Greg Goldfeder, who grew up in the Tree of Life synagogue, spoke about his love of the neighborhood. He even brought out a Terrible Towel, the yellow cloth waved by Steelers' fans that has haunted Cleveland for decades. "The pictures of SWAT team members organizing in the streets where I walked to school were surreal,'' he said. He urged the crowd to do good for others, citing examples of people around the country who have done things in memory of those killed in Pittsburgh. Rabbi Hal Rudin-Luria, of B'nai Jeshurun, agreed that love is needed to rise above the violence. "A terrorist entered a synagogue on a Sabbath morning, intending to strike a blow at the Jewish people and America,'' he said. "What he succeeded in doing is reminding us how much we each love each other.'' The US will end trade benefits for Mauritania on January 1 for falling short of abolishing forced labor practices, the US Trade Representatives Office (USTR) said. Mauritania is not in compliance with requirements of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which provides duty-free treatment for certain goods, USTR said in a statement explaining the decision. Forced or compulsory labor practices like hereditary slavery have no place in the 21st century, Deputy US Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney said. Mauritania was the last nation in the world to abolish slavery in 1981, but a significant portion of the countrys black population is still enduring slavery. The verdict of the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission is in: Big agriculture: 1. Ohio governor: 0. The commission bowed to the farm lobby Thursday by voting 4-3 to table Gov. John Kasich's order designating as distressed the watersheds of eight tributaries of the Maumee River. The tributaries help sluice, via the Maumee, huge amounts of farm runoff into Lake Erie, feeding toxic algal blooms. By tabling the order, as a cadre of farm lobbyists looked on, the commission effectively pushed off until after Kasich leaves office in January any new state efforts to limit that runoff. However, let's not just point fingers at the farm lobby. At least one major candidate for governor, Republican Mike DeWine, has failed to assure Ohio voters that he will face down a state commission ready to cede protection of the state's most treasured natural resource to unelected influence-peddlers. On Wednesday, before the commission voted, the editorial board asked the major-party candidates for their positions. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray said through a spokesman that he supported the distressed-watershed designation and would fight for Lake Erie's future by bringing "everyone to the table," including farmers, "to find solutions and implement them quickly in an effective and sustainable manner." The DeWine campaign did not respond until Thursday morning, after the commission meeting started, when DeWine, also through a spokesman, declined to say whether he would renew the distressed-watershed order as governor. "I want to be confident in the science and data behind this executive order, this is an important issue and we need to get it right," he said in his statement, while adding that more needed to be done "to eliminate runoff, both agricultural and otherwise." DeWine also committed to bringing "people together from all sides" and repeated his support for a $1 billion 10-year bond issue to help clean up Lake Erie. Examining the "science and data" is another unmerited punt. There's no mystery about what's causing Lake Erie's toxic algal blooms, about which the data are abundant. The state and others have been studying the matter for years. Voluntary measures aren't working. That's why Kasich issued his order. What is a mystery is why anyone aspiring to lead Ohio would want to put the brakes on a distressed-watershed process that's not only urgently needed but that also has shown its worth, and workability, in the case of Ohio's largest inland lake, Grand Lake St Marys, when it also fell victim to toxic algae. That process not only has stoked action -- but also collaboration with impacted farmers. Of course, the commission's stall also wouldn't have happened without backing from the legislative leadership of Kasich's own Republican Party and even from at least one (former) member of his own cabinet, the now-fired David T. Daniels of the Department of Agriculture. DeWine's non-pledge offers little confidence that he will have the gumption to stand up to members of his own party on this critical issue, as Kasich has done. But here's the reality: Whoever is elected Ohio governor on Tuesday better quickly find the inner fortitude to act for the benefit of all Ohioans, and not just for members of the governor's own party or for one misguided but powerful Statehouse lobby. About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization. Have something to say about this topic? * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com. * Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the "Follow" option at the top of the comments, & look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. COLUMBUS, Ohio -- There have been plenty of questions with Ohio State this season - the run game, the red zone offense, the defense in general. But after the Buckeyes' 36-31 win Saturday over 2-7 Nebraska, some fans questioned something else - Ohio State's leadership, energy and will. On this postgame Buckeye Talk podcast from the hours after the Buckeyes moved to 8-1, Doug Lesmerises is joined by new cleveland.com Ohio State writer Stephen Means, who covered his first game in his new assignment on Saturday. As usual, your questions drove the discussion. And despite the fact that Ohio State did get a win after losing to Purdue two weeks ago and then getting a week to fix things, there weren't a lot of positives in the discussion. So what do the Buckeyes still need to fix? And will they find their way? It's another episode with a search for answers. Subscribe to Buckeye Talk at any of these places: * Buckeye Talk on iTunes * Buckeye Talk on Google Play * Buckeye Talk on Stitcher * Buckeye Talk on Spotify Thank as always to ShopOhioState.com and MinuteManTickets.com for supporting Buckeye Talk. Google said on Friday that its Washington office chief, who also heads Americas policy, is stepping down as the company faces criticism on issues including how it protects users' privacy and its investment plans in China. Susan Molinari, a former Republican member of Congress who has run Google's Washington policy operations for nearly seven years, will move to a new job at the company as a senior advisor in January, the company said in a statement. Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai in September met with lawmakers and agreed to testify before Congress later this year. Google is recruiting a new head of Americas policy. To hear President Donald Trump tell it, the U.S. economy is experiencing an economic boom unlike any period in its history under his leadership. A closer look at the numbers, though, show that claim is questionable. With just days left before a critical midterm election, Trump has been barnstorming the country in a series of rallies reminiscent of his 2016 presidential campaign. This time around, he is touting his record on the economy, claiming to have created more jobs and expanded economic growth at a pace that not seen by any of his predecessors in the White House. "Nobody has ever been president that has the greatest economy in the history of our country," Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday. "This is the greatest economy in the history of our country." Trump touted the latest sign of economic strength in Friday's employment report, which showed a net gain of 250,000 new jobs in October, and wage gains of 3.1 percent from a year ago. That boost in wages was the best since April 2009, when the U.S. was emerging from the Great Recession. By any measure, those are good numbers. However, they're hardly the "greatest" in U.S. history. A better way to compare Trump's record is to compare the overall gains in the economy since he took office with those of his predecessors, during the same period in their presidencies. When viewed in that light, Trump's record on most of those measures is decidedly average. Below are four data points that suggest Trump's claims just don't add up. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who also is the GOP's gubernatorial candidate, released a statement on Sunday calling for an FBI investigation into what his office called a "failed" attempt to breach voter rolls. In making his claim, Kemp cited unusual activity on the state's "My Voter Page," which provides residents information about their registration status and voting locations, while accusing Democrats of culpability. In a statement, the secretary's office said: "We opened an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia after receiving information from our legal team about failed efforts to breach the online voter registration system and My Voter Page. We are working with our private sector vendors and investigators to review data logs." Kemp is running against Stacey Abrams, who has lobbed accusations of voter suppression in the hotly contested governor's race. On Sunday, Abrams called the investigation "desperate," echoing the state's Democratic Party, which called the allegations "100 percent false." The organization added: "This so-called investigation was unknown to the Democratic Party of Georgia until a campaign operative in Kemp's official office released a statement this morning." Kemp's move was unusual, as it's rare for organizations to speculate on the perpetrator of a cyberattack prior to an investigation, because a common tactic of cybercriminals to use technology to mask their affiliation and location. Attributing cyberattacks to any individual or entity is a process that typically takes weeks or months by trained investigators. In an earlier statement, Kemp's press secretary Candice Broce said, "While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes. We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure." A Department of Homeland Security official told CNBC the office would defer to the Georgia Secretary's office for any further comment, and acknowledged "the State of Georgia has notified us of this issue." The Georgia Secretary of State's office was not immediately available for further comment. President Donald Trump appears to be distancing himself from the fate of House Republican candidates two days before the midterm elections. Trump told reporters as he left the White House en route to a pair of rallies Sunday that he thinks "we're going to do well in the House, but as you know, my primary focus has been on the Senate, and I think we're doing really well in the Senate." Trump is also telling reporters that Republican enthusiasm is off the charts and that the "level of fervor" is very high. And he's crediting the dozens of rallies he's held on behalf of candidates, saying that they "have really been the thing that's caused this big fervor" to start and to continue. Trump will be holding rallies in Georgia and Tennessee on Sunday. WATCH: Here's why the Koch brothers are at odds with President Trump Finley Gibbs at a glance finley@gibbsforjudge.com PERSONAL: Age 54. Married to Becky Gibbs. They have two sons, ages 23 and 25. PARTY AFFILIATION: Democrat ON THE WEB: www.gibbsforjudge.com/; Facebook page; Twitter account; Instagram; LinkedIn OCCUPATION: Attorney at Gibbs Legal Consulting, LLC EDUCATION: Bachelor of arts and law degree from MU BACKGROUND: Ran for associate circuit judge in 2014 but lost in the Democratic primary; worked as an attorney at Rotts & Gibbs, LLC; received Martindale-Hubbell Judicial AV Rating, a rating only 10 percent of attorneys achieve; former board member for the Central Missouri Humane Society and the Columbia Art League; volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri; has given guest lectures at the MU School of Law and judged moot court competitions for high schools and law schools; enjoys sailing, playing guitar, mountain biking and the outdoors. Beto ORourke campaigning in Texas over the weekend. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Late last week, as Donald Trump vowed to unilaterally rewrite the citizenship provisions of the Constitution, dispatched the military to the Mexican border, issued racially loaded warnings about the distant migrant caravan and casually suggested soldiers might fire on it, Beto ORourke, as is so often the case, headed in a diametrically opposed direction. He drove from Corpus Christi all the way down to the Brownsville, the southernmost point on the border. The trip to the Rio Grande Valley a Latino-dominated agricultural region full of potential Democratic votes was long-planned by the campaign. But with Trumps pre-election demagoguery in the air, it felt like a rebuttal to the president. This idea that we can scare each other about each other, based on where we are from, what language we spoke before we came to this country, the color of our skin, the nationality that we claimed before we claimed that we were Americans its preposterous, ORourke said at a speech to voters at an agricultural fairground in Robstown on November 1. Its un-American. Its not who we are. This state is perhaps the most diverse state in the United States of America. That is a point of pride. Immigration and border security are local issues in Texas, and they have been bitter points of argument in the race for Senate between ORourke and the right-wing firebrand Ted Cruz. But by reigniting a national controversy, Trump has made the midterm elections and the race in Texas in particular into a referendum on his raw brand of nativism. He is making little effort to conceal his calculations. (Did they energize our base or what? Trump gloated on Saturday, referring to the caravan and reiterating his baseless accusation that Democrats were somehow responsible for it.) But for ORourke, Trumps move may offer a final opportunity. Immigration is the El Paso congressmans defining issue. He is making his last stand on familiar ground at the border. Over the years, Ive spent some time reporting about the border region, and its a truism that the closer you get to the dividing line, the less stark it appears. Were living in occupied Mexico, Ricardo Bosquez told me after the Robstown speech. A 71-year old retiree who described himself as an activist Mexican-American, Bosquez was wearing a straw hat with a Beto sticker affixed to it, and carrying an enormous black-and-white campaign sign. He said he had been first drawn to Beto by the candidates name. I thought he was half-Hispanic, Bosquez said, a misimpression Ive heard from many people in Texas and elsewhere. (Beto is a nickname that ORourke, who is of Irish descent, picked up a child in El Paso.) But really, Bosquez said he was just looking for a candidate who would offer resistance to Trump, whom he called a divisive dumb ass. Were going to win in Texas, Bosquez said. Its coming the wave. The pundits and the quants say the chances of a true Democratic wave the kind that would flip both the House and Senate are remote, although as I wrote on Friday, theres reason to question whether one would be recognizable in advance. In fact, a wave may be precisely as possible as ORourkes election, because given the trends elsewhere on the Senate map, the Texas race could end up being Democrats best shot at winning a 51st seat. Polls show ORourke like several other Democrats in tight Senate races picking up support in the closing stretch, and his supporters see heavy early voting turnout, and reports of a huge increase in participation by young voters, as a positive sign. But as I wrote back in June, if the Democrats are ever going to win a statewide race in Texas something they havent done in nearly 25 years they will have to turn out massive numbers in minority communities, most importantly Latino areas. For decades, Democrats in Texas have been trying to build this coalition, and its never materialized. ORourke has used social media to build a network of fervent supporters, centered in affluent cities like Dallas and Austin, and to raise $70 million, including an astonishing $38 million in the third quarter of this year alone. But hes needed all that money to overcome the structural disadvantages of running as a Democrat in a state with a weak party organization. His campaign has built a field operation that stretches across the enormous state, hiring about 800 staffers according to a recent Texas Tribune analysis, in contrast to just 18 working for Cruz. (The incumbent can rely on the state Republican Partys formidable turnout machine.) ORourke has also opened 727 pop-up offices, which are mainly overseen by volunteers. He has made his presence felt in areas that previous Democrats have struggled to mobilize, like the Rio Grande Valley. ORourkes campaign swing next took him into the tropical region of Texas, to a small town called Raymondville, where almost all of the population was of Hispanic origin and 40 percent was living in poverty. ORourkes attacks on Trump grew more heated as he traveled south. Speaking to reporters outside a reception hall, he decried the cruelty and torture of the family separation policy and other elements of the Trump administrations draconian approach to immigration. Were being tested right now, he said. Are we going to submit to this kind of fear-mongering, and the president trying to stoke paranoia, the racism that hes employed in describing immigrants as rapists and criminals? Its very clear from whom he wants to take birthright citizenship. And its very clear that a caravan thats still 800 or 700 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, that poses no threat to this country is being used to instill fear and panic in anticipation of an election. He then set out a sobering choice. Either thats who we are, thats who weve become, or we remind ourselves that we are strong, we are confident, we are safe and secure. Inside the sweltering hall, a few hundred people were waiting on a weekday to hear the Democrat speak. As he often does, ORourke presented himself not just as a progressive he favors Bernie Sanderss approach to health care reform and speaks about renewable energy and climate change at every campaign stop but as a sort of temperamental antidote to political madness. In his speech, ORourke referenced the smallness, the meanness, the pettiness, the paranoia, the hatred, the partisanship that defines so much of the national conversation. Turn on cable news if you dare, thats what youre going to see coming right back at you. We can be the answer to that. When I hear ORourke speak like he did in Raymondville, about returning to some former state of political grace, I am sometimes reminded of another eloquent Democrat with funny first name, and I dont entirely mean that entirely as a compliment. During his latter years in office, Barack Obama often expressed similar sentiments, memorably wondering when the Republican fever would break. But the temperature has never cooled. After the speech was finished, the attendees formed a long line, as always, like they were going to communion, and ORourke spent an hour or so posing for selfies. As the ritual was going on, his campaign staff, reporters and local Democratic dignitaries milled around, making conversation and sharing fragmentary intelligence. I struck up a conversation with Filemon Vela, the local congressman, who told me that early voting turnout in this county had been roughly in line with what it was during the 2016 presidential election, and far above what it usually what Texas usually sees in midterms. But turnout has been high in Republican counties, too, as conservatives have rallied around Cruz. But Vela predicted that Beto is going to outperform in such areas. I think theres been an adverse reaction to the president, Vela said. I think he went a bit too far, even for conservatives, in the last few days. Of course, Democrats have been saying that for two years. And still the fever rages on. Later that day, ORourkes reveries about the past and the future were interrupted by the reality of American politics in the present. Project Veritas, the gonzo media outfit run by the conservative activist James OKeefe, published an undercover video that purported to show outlaw behavior inside the Beto campaign operation. Posing as a volunteer, I was later told by the campaign, a Project Veritas operative infiltrated one of the campaigns pop-up offices, and filmed an ORourke field staffer, formerly an immigration activist at the University of Texas-El Paso, talking about furtively redirecting campaign funds to assist a group of asylum seekers who had recently been dropped off by federal authorities at a bus station in El Paso. The amount of money involved was small, less than $300, and went to buy items like baby wipes, diapers and granola bars for the migrants, who were being assisted by well-known local Catholic shelter called Annunciation House. And its not illegal for political campaigns to make charitable donations, so long as they are properly reported. But in the hands of OKeefes group, the compassion was a scandal. Cruz gleefully picked up the video and clubbed ORourke, whom he has been attacking for months as a coddler of illegals, and fanning the speculation, prevalent in the right-wing media, that Democratic financiers were behind the migrant caravan. Cruzs campaign posted on his official Twitter account: Two basic Qs every reporter should ask Beto today: (1) should the caravan be allowed to cross illegally into Texas? (Beto refuses to answer.) And (2) did your campaign dollars illegally fund their doing so? The suggestion was absurd, but the video was an embarrassing distraction for ORourke, if only because it forced him to spend a little of his precious last moments on the defensive. It also demonstrated, in dramatic fashion, the potential for indiscipline inherent in relying on a decentralized, volunteer-driven field operation. A few hours before the video posted, ORourke spoke in the border city of Brownsville, where I noted the mood among his staffers was unusually tense. Speaking to press before the speech, ORourke brushed off a question about an attack ad that demonized immigrants. Im not getting to watch a lot of TV these days, he said, in a tone that suggested otherwise. In his speech, ORourke once again criticized Trumps policies as hostile to the economy and culture of the border region. He wants to send over 5,000 soldiers to this community and other communities of the border, ORourke said. He closed, as always, with a mobilization message, hopefully citing the big early turnout numbers in the city. On a personal note, because this may the last time I get to visit Brownsville before we decide this election, he said, you make me so fiercely proud to be from the border, to be a Texan. The auditorium erupted, drowning out whatever he said next. After Brownsville, ORourke flew north to campaign in the Dallas area, and I stuck around in the south, to get a sense of what was happening when he wasnt around. I talked to organizers in the Democratic turnout operation, both professionals and volunteers. I worked for the Ann Richards campaign, said the veteran field operative Gilberto Ocanas, who was coordinating efforts in the Rio Grande Valley over the weekend. (He was referring to the last major Democratic victory in Texas, all the way back in 1990.) We never had this kind of enthusiasm in the Valley. Everything is surging up. Beto, hes a rock star right now, hes Elvis Presley, said Maximo Anguiano, who was running a phone bank in San Antonio for a progressive nonprofit group called the Texas Organizing Project. The organization, which pays people $15 an hour to canvass, mainly in low-turnout areas, has been knocking on an average of around 6,000 doors a day, asking its targets to prepare a detailed plan for voting, and helping to get them the polls. (A local volunteer group that calls itself the Burro Brigade, organized by a local artist, has been arranging rides.) On Saturday, an army of volunteers wearing Beto T-shirts fanned out across towns and cities around the state, hitting a cumulative 225,000 doors. (The campaigns goal is to reach 1 million by Tuesday.) In Lockhart, a town south of Austin best known for its storied barbecue, I walked the streets with a group of campaign canvassers, who used an app on their phones to find potential Democratic households. I dont know, Im not all that into politics, said a young father who answered the door of one modest clapboard house. Is that his real name, Beto? he asked, laughing when he heard the answer about the nickname. So he ate a taco and now hes Beto? But campaign volunteer Cari Marshall patiently turned the conversation around, stressing pocketbook issues like ORourkes stance on health care. By the end, the voter seemed intrigued. So I take it youre not Trump supporters, he said. We agree on that. On Saturday morning, in the historically minority dominated (and now fashionable) area of East Austin, I met up with some activists at a former industrial complex that now houses artists studios. They were affiliated with a group called Jolt, a youth-oriented political group that focuses on Latinx engagement. They split in bilingual pairs and headed out into the neighborhoods, looking for unlikely voters, which in this case meant mainly Spanish-speakers. Its slow and sensitive work, because such households often contain both citizens and noncitizens, and they are wary about knocks on the door. I went out with a pair of professionals in their early 20s, Mario Solis and Alejandra Valeriano, who had both moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas. Solis told me he was from the Rio Grande Valley, and came from a family that came to the United States a couple generations ago, as migrant farmworkers. My whole life, I never cared much about politics, he said as we drove to the target area. Then came Trump, and a girlfriend, who got him involved in the resistance. Valeriano grew up in Palm Springs, as the child of a landscaper and a domestic worker who immigrated illegally from El Salvador before she was born. (They are now citizens.) After crying through Hillary Clintons 2016 concession speech, she became an active in Jolt. Its really shown me that brown is not just beautiful, but really powerful, Valeriano said. Because we have the numbers. Our destination was a neighborhood of small ranch houses and many mangy dogs, where some houses displayed Mexican flags. At one house, a man was outside taking down a prodigious Halloween display, and he and Mario talked in Spanish. He said he wasnt eligible to vote, but his wife was going to do so at a nearby grocery store on Tuesday. At many other houses, the iPhone app the canvassers were using, which is constantly updated with new data, said the residents had already voted early. At one door, a young woman wearing a nose ring said that she and her sisters, who were listed as voters on the app, had all voted early. I dont know if you have my brother on there, Jose, she added. He voted yesterday, because Im so annoying. Mario gave the voter a high-five. Betos just so energizing, you can feel it, Valeriano said. Nonetheless, she and Solis, having been disappointed before, were tempered in their expectations for Tuesday. Win or lose, Solis said. Turnout is already way up. Their work was almost done. If we get within three points of Ted Cruz, Valeriano said, its a Texas miracle. Lisa Ballenger at a glance PERSONAL: Age 55. Married to Gary Ballenger. They have a blended family of four adult children, ages 22, 25, 28 and 32. They also have two granddaughters. PARTY AFFILIATION: Republican. ON THE WEB: ballengerforrecorder.com; Facebook. OCCUPATION: Deputy recorder of deeds. EDUCATION: Ridgeway High School. BACKGROUND: Has attended Woodcrest Church in Columbia since around 2001, nominated for Boone County Employee of the Quarter in 2015, has attended conferences over the years including the Recorders Association of Missouri, the Missouri Association of Counties and the International Association of Government Officials. AT A GLANCE PERSONAL: Age 36. Married to Sam Jones. PARTY AFFILIATION: Democrat. ON THE WEB: http://docjones44.com/about/. OCCUPATION: Veterinarian. EDUCATION: Bachelors degrees in biological sciences and religious studies from MU, 2004; masters degree in biological science from MU, 2007; doctorate in veterinary medicine from MU, 2011. BACKGROUND: Born in Omaha, Nebraska, but is a fourth-generation Missouri resident. Owner of Right at Home Veterinary Care. Her grandfather was director of the Missouri Bureau of Vital Records. Bio Box Personal: Age 39. Married to Steve Walsh. Party Affiliation: Republican. On the web: sarawalsh50.com. Occupation: State representative. EDUCATION: Bachelors degree in business administration from Columbia College, 2005; masters degree in public affairs at MU, 2009. BACKGROUND: Served with several organizations including Missouri Right to Life, Open Arms Pregnancy Resource Center in Jefferson City, Joplin Tornado Relief, Central Missouri Honor Flight. Currently treasurer of Heritage Baptist Church in Columbia. Republican State Committeewoman for the 19th Senatorial District, past executive committee member for the Missouri Republican Party. People are on their own to broach the subject of STD testing and condom use with potential partners, health educators say. But there are ways to have the conversation that aren't totally awkward. Types of obituaries The Missourian publishes two types of obituaries family obituaries and life stories. A family obituary is the version submitted by a funeral home or family. Please see the submission form for details on cost and deadlines. Family obituaries A life story is a closer look at a person's life and involves a reporter contacting family and friends. Life stories are based on newsworthiness and consent of the family. Life stories. It has been only 24 years since Rwanda underwent one of the most focused and severe genocides of the 20th century. After the deaths of 800,000 Tutsi people under a Hutu-lead government, survivors of the horror are coming forward to tell their story. Through Humans Of New York, Tutsi people who survived the genocide and Hutu people who risked theirs and their family's lives to save the victims are able to share their personal account of what it was like 24 years ago. The genocide took place in the middle of the Rwandan Civil War, which began in 1990 and ended in 1994. It was planned by members of the Hutu political elite and began the day following Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, whose airplane was gunned down on its descent into Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. The Hutu extremists who organized the assassination then turned around and blamed the Tutsi, saying they were un-Christian people who wanted to enslave the Hutu. The police and military executed key Tutsi military and political leaders, and also executed moderate Hutu political leaders. The government also armed civilians with machetes and told them to seek out and rape, maim, and kill Tutsi people at their own discretion. The genocide shockingly only lasted for 100 days in 1994-from April to Mid July. And in 100 days, some estimate as many as 1,000,000 people were killed. There are an estimated 300,000 survivors of the Rwandan genocide, whom are now bravely recalling the horrific time they lived through. We live in a tenuous time in our own country, where violence against certain minorities and dissenters is being encouraged by President Donald Trump and his administration. What is the tipping point of complete and total fascism? Most of the killed in Rwanda were murdered in their own homes, or villages, by neighbors who were told that committing murder was the way to keep themselves and their country safe. Innocent children were massacred. What will happen to us, if the government continue to perpetuate violence? The national mourning period to commemorate the genocide begins with Kwibuka (Remembrance) on April 7th, followed by an official week of mourning, known as Icyunamo (time of mourning) and concludes with Liberation Day on July 4th. Next Independence Day, remind yourself of the 300,000 people who have been to hell and back. H/T: AfroPunk, BoredPanda Mays secret plan is to keep whole of Britain in a customs union. There will be an exit clause. Shes also on course to secure a deal on a Future Economic Partnership with the EU Theresa Mays secret plan to secure a Brexit deal and win the backing of parliament can be revealed today. Senior sources say the prime minister has secured private concessions from Brussels that will allow her to keep the whole of Britain in a customs union, avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland. They expect this to placate remainer Tories and win over some Labour MPs. And in a move that will appeal to Eurosceptics, May is also said to be on course to secure a political deal on a future economic partnership (FEP) with the European Union that will allow Britain to keep open the prospect of a free trade deal resembling that enjoyed by Canada. The Sunday Times >Today: ToryDiary: Mays Brexit deal. The Cabinet must stand ready to take back control. May: We will leave with a good deal. The Conservatives offer a country that truly works for everyone. We are the party of the NHS Over the past decade, our focus was on dealing with the aftermath of the financial crisis. Over the next decade, our challenge must be to seize the opportunities of the future and ensure that everyone benefits. Because the Conservatives are not just a party to fix a mess, we are also a party to steer a course to a better future. Leaving the European Union with a good deal, creating new jobs and getting the most out of new technology through our Modern Industrial Strategy, taking a responsible and balanced approach to our economy that keeps our national debt falling, our public services improving, peoples wages rising and their taxes low. That is the brighter future Conservatives offer the British people: a country that truly works for everyone. Mail on Sunday Labour MPs should vote down deal and let people decide Tony Blair, Observer We must trade more with the Commonwealth Daniel Hannan, Sunday Telegraph Heres why UK will prosper on leaving Liam Fox, The Sun on Sunday >Today: ToryDiary: Our survey. More than four in ten Conservative members want May to step down immediately. Brexiters fear a sellout now it seems May is days away from deal, and will aim for vote by end of month Mays deal could be put to cabinet as early as Tuesday, and then an emergency summit to seal divorce by end of month Brexiteer MPs feared a sell-out amid reports that Theresa May is days away from a deal. Ministers believe the PM plans to bounce them into backing a fudged divorce settlement which will keep Britain in the customs union. A source said: At some stage she is going to have to put a package on the table and say its the best she can get. When that happens, everyone is going to have to decide whether to get behind it or take a walk. MPs expect Mrs May will have enough details tied down to put to her Cabinet in the next week or two and she will aim for a Commons vote by the end of the month. Downing Street insisted that no deal has been reached and negotiations with the EU are ongoing. The Sun on Sunday Theresa May is said to have made a breakthrough on Brexit talks that could see her put forward a deal to her Cabinet as early as Tuesday. The Prime Minister was reported last night to have secured private concessions from Brussels that would keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU. Her plan would avoid the need for a hard Irish during a transition to a final trade deal, the issue which has been the sticking point in negotiations for months. Mrs May also hopes to produce a detailed outline on the final settlement with the EU signalling a Canada-style deal remains a long-term possibility. Downing Street hopes to convince Brussels to convene an emergency summit within days to seal the divorce before the end of the month and then persuade MPs to back it. Mail on Sunday Lowry: Nothing has persuaded me that London wont agree that NI will always be entirely or largely in EU customs space Varadkar says Brexit has undermine GFA Observer Meanwhile France signs deal to fast-track Irish lorries at Calais Sunday Telegraph Raab and DExEU are are telling ministers and MPs that the final deal document will open door to Canada-style relationship But nothing I have read has persuaded me that London is other than, at core, prepared to agree that Northern Ireland will always be entirely or largely in the European Union customs and regulatory space. The only remotely good news from a unionist point of view is that the UK is trying insofar as possible to keep Northern Ireland in the same customs arrangement as the rest of the UK. In other words, there will be no tariff barrier between the Province and Great Britain. This shows a level of determination to prevent an internal UK customs border, but there will be a regulatory one. Belfast News Letter This arrangement will unnerve Brexiteers. But Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, and officials from DExEU his department are telling ministers and MPs that the document outlining the final deal will be much more to their taste, that it will open the door to a long-term relationship which more closely resembles that between the EU and countries such as Canada and South Korea with whom the bloc has signed trade deals. The future partnership will look more like Canada, said a Tory who has discussed the issue with Raab. The word is that parts of it could have been written by Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the hardline Brexiteers. The Sunday Times There will be a 50-page document, which couldve been written by Rees-Mogg The Times May will persuade MPs to back her plan by telling them theyll otherwise be personally responsible for no deal The Times Cox joins war cabinet Heywood lost his battle with cancer this morning The Governments chief legal adviser has been given a permanent seat on Theresa Mays Brexit war cabinet after ministers insisted they would not sign off on a deal without his advice. Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General and a Leave-supporting QC, has been quietly added as a 12th member of the Cabinet sub-committee designed to oversee the UKs negotiations with Brussels. The move comes as Mrs May is believed to be closing in on a deal with the European Union over an insurance plan, or backstop, intended to avoid border infrastructure between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Sunday Telegraph Former Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has died from cancer aged 56. Sir Jeremy, Britains tops Civil Servant, had stood down on a temporary basis over the summer after being diagnosed with the illness. Downing Street announced he lost his battle with cancer this morning. More to follow. The Sun on Sunday Here are some of the first tributes Mail on Sunday More Brexit Fox talks of international trade opportunities, and particularly China Sunday Express Yet more rumours of a new remainer party Sunday Express May has been taking advice from Cameron The Sunday Times More claims against Banks Observer City grandees call for second referendum The Sunday Times Could May replace Hammond with Raab? Grayling admits HS2 could be dramatically scaled back Those who would be in line for the chop include Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling; those tipped for promotion include Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox. Well-placed sources also tip Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab to replace Philip Hammond as Chancellor. The plan will be greeted with dismay by the noose and knife cabal of Brexiteers, who tried to force a leadership contest last month to avert what they fear will be a sell-out on Brexit. Their metaphorical claims that she should bring a noose to a meeting and that she would be stabbed by a knife led to a backlash ensuring another stay of execution for Mrs May. Mail on Sunday HS2 could be dramatically scaled back amid public opposition to the scheme, the Transport Secretary has admitted. Chris Grayling said that the second phase of the line, which would connect Birmingham to Leeds, was not in the bag. His comments, to rail industry figures, represent a major departure from the Governments previous insistence that construction of the scheme would proceed as planned despite mounting questions about its costs and value for money. They reflect growing concerns in Whitehall that industry bodies and trade unions that helped make the original case for the project are failing to effectively counter the arguments made by opponents. Sunday Telegraph This is owing to public opposition The Sun on Sunday Leadsom expect to launch new inquiry into Westminster bullying claims Why the tax gap will give Tories ammunition to fire at the SNP A fresh probe into Westminster bullying will blow the lid off the secret behaviour of MPs and peers, it was claimed last night. Commons leader Andrea Leadsom is expected launch an inquiry this week into complaints from secretaries, researchers and aides employed directly by politicians. It follows a damning report by former judge Dame Laura Cox which examined 200 allegations of groping, intimidation and harassment by Parliamentary officials. But the new probe will go much further and will examine hundreds of allegations against MPs from past and present staff. A source close to the investigation predicted the revelations would be bigger and more explosive than in the Cox report. Dame Laura found an entrenched culture of harassment against apolitical parliamentary staffers. The Sun on Sunday At a glance, the argument seems straightforward. Why does SNP Finance Secretary Derek Mackay not copy the Chancellor and raise the income tax threshold to 50,000? The answer is that doing so is very expensive. According to figures obtained by Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale from the Scottish Parliament, replicating the tax change without indexing other Scottish tax thresholds would cost an estimated 410m. Such a sum is more than three times the value of the Pupil Equity Fund budget, which was introduced to help poorer pupils. Herald Might MPs follow Field and vote down new UC rules? Field says many may have no option but to do this The Sun on Sunday Javid to travel to Silicon Valley and confront tech giants The chair of a powerful House of Commons committee urged MPs last night to consider voting down new rules governing how three million benefit claimants will be switched to universal credit amid fears the regulations will leave people worse off. Frank Field MP, who chairs the all-party work and pensions committee, complained that ministers had refused to show MPs details of the new regulations, which they fear will plunge more claimants into poverty, and leave them struggling to cope under the new system. Field told thehe was furious that his committee had not been given the chance by ministers to scrutinise the latest regulations, given the growing public concerns over universal credit and mounting calls for the system to be scrapped. Observer Sajid Javid is to confront the heads of US web giants over the refusal of some firms to take the online abuse of children seriously. The Home Secretary will travel to Silicon Valley this week to demand greater action from internet companies to remove underage pornography and protect young people. His visit will increase pressure on internet firms days after Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, announced a new digital services tax in the budget that created fury among tech firms and senior US politicians. Sunday Telegraph Clark wants to name and shame companies that flout employment legislation and penalise those that fail to give holiday pay The proposal is part of a package of measures to overhaul the jobs market, based on the recommendations of last years government-commissioned Taylor review into modern employment. Business secretary Greg Clark is understood to be pushing for a naming and shaming scheme as a deterrent to companies that may be tempted to flout employment legislation. More than a third of employees who win a payout at a tribunal never receive the cash, according to government research in 2013. Clark also wants to bring in tough financial penalties for companies that fail to give workers holiday pay, and to close a loophole that lets employers pay agency workers less than full-time staff for the same job. The Sunday Times More government Williamson says no more second chances for troops whove been caught on drugs Observer Hancock wants employers to give free fruit Mail on Sunday Plans for Milton Keynes major expansion were dropped from budget Sunday Telegraph Education select committee to address tuition fees and VC pay The Sunday Times More Conservatives Couch quit following private agony after meeting with mother of teenage gambling addict who killed himself The Sun on Sunday Griffiths claims sexting was response to breakdown The Sunday Times Hayes is calling for capital punishment The Sun on Sunday Johnson is writing book about Shakespeare The Sunday Times Comment: We need to focus on stamp duty Greg Hands, Sunday Telegraph And on spice Ben Bradley, The Sunday Times A Cameron comeback would not be welcome Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times I forgive Fallon Jane Merrick, The Sunday Times >Yesterday: ToryDiary: Sir David Cameron-Hume. In time, why not? News in Brief Less than a month ago, Cabinet members rejected a draft Brexit deal, prepared by Olly Robbins and Sabine Weyand, that would have Hived off Northern Ireland in economic terms from the rest of the UK, because there would be no unilateral exit mechanism from the backstop. Kept the rest of the UK in a separate customs union with the EU, perhaps with no firm end-date, thus preventing us from striking our own meaningful trade deals. Paid the best part of 40 billion for these terms, thus giving up our leverage for future trade talks, and seen that loss written into a legally-binding Withdrawal Agreement. Today, it is clear that Theresa May is close to finalising another deal. Perhaps it will not be ready to be put to Cabinet members this week. But if it is, here are five questions that they should ask about it. Hiving off Northern Ireland ? Will t here be either an an exit date or a unilateral escape mechanism from the backstop? here be either an an exit date or a unilateral escape mechanism from the backstop? Break-up of the Union ? I f there isnt, and Northern Ireland is effectively to be kept in the Single Market, wont that boost the SNPs campaign for Scottish independence and the break-up of the Union? f there isnt, and Northern Ireland is effectively to be kept in the Single Market, wont that boost the SNPs campaign for Scottish independence and the break-up of the Union? Trapped in a customs union ? If Great Britain is to be put into a parallel customs union, will there be either an exit date or a unilateral escape mechanism from it? Great Britain is to be put into a parallel customs union, will there be either an exit date or a unilateral escape mechanism from it? Money for nothing ? Since a future trade deal will be covered by an unenforceable political declaration not the Withdrawal Agreement what safeguards are there against shelling out 40 billion for nothing? ? Since a future trade deal will be covered by an unenforceable political declaration not the Withdrawal Agreement what safeguards are there against shelling out 40 billion for nothing? Chequers or Canada ? Given that the political declaration is likely to be written in vague, Cheqada terms, which future does it really point to Chequers or Canada? And here are three conditions that they should insist on over any new deal. It cannot be put to Parliament without their endorsement (as is constitutionally proper). They will not endorse it before seeing written legal advice on its meaning from the Attorney-General, which will also be published. And they will not endorse it before receiving an assessment from the Chief Whip about whether it could only be carried in the Commons by Labour votes, thus dividing the Conservative Party. It could well be that there are good answers to all our questions, or even that reports of a forthcoming deal are mistaken. But is is also possible that we are on the verge of a proposed deal that wrecks the prospect of meaningful trade deals, hands over 40 billion for no bankable gain and potentially threatens the break-up of the UK. Would a Brexit on these terms be worse than No Deal at all even if No Deal risks the possibility of a Corbyn Government? And what are the chances that Parliament could overturn No Deal and insist on No Brexit? Whatever their own answers to these questions and others may be, this could also be the week in which the Cabinet must, to coin a phrase, Take Back Control. 100% Website seo-delhi-ncr.blogspot.in uses latest and advanced technologies. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of . This CoolSocial report was updated on 2020-12-27, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. 100% Website ssd-datarecoverytoronto.ca uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 24102 bytes (23.54 kb uncompressed) and 7060 bytes (6.89 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-10-25, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's passion towards holistic alternative healthcare is well known. It was Modi who made the unanimously accepted suggestion at the United Nations to declare June 21 as International Day of Yoga some three years ago. His just ended meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has seen a vision statement that talks about increased bilateral cooperation in traditional medicines including ayurveda and yoga. Back home, yoga guru Ramdev will definitely attribute the stupendous growth of his ayurveda product brand Patanjali in the last four years to the general positivity created by the Modi regime. But that is not all. A series of administrative and policy measures being undertaken by the ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) are attempting to mainstream alternative systems of medicine more than ever. Here are the highlights: At least half a dozen ministries including the ministries of railways, labour and defence have agreed to collaborate with AYUSH ministry to set up special wings for AYUSH systems within the allopathic hospitals run by them. For instance, all zonal hospitals of the ministry of railways in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Guwahati will have AYUSH doctors and paramedics serving the patients. Similarly, exclusive AYUSH hospitals and clinics will be set up by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Even as more facilities are coming up in the public sector, efforts are also there to promote private investments and entrepreneurship in this area. "AYUSH is one of the 12 champion services sectors the government wants to promote. The AYUSH hospitals and wellness centres can avail soft loans and interest subsidy under this scheme", says Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, AYUSH secretary. Even single physician run clinic with five beds can become eligible for the scheme. The government has also come up with a draft entry level standard for AYUSH clinics and professionals to screen such loan applications and ensure quality of service in such institutions. While the government has set aside Rs 5000 crore to promote champion services, the AYUSH ministry hopes to utilize the fund to create at least one lakh job opportunities in near future. Its memorandum of understanding with the ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) focuses on organising entrepreneurship programmes across the country to popularise the scheme. Kotecha claims that the government's efforts have resulted in a 15 - 20 % growth in patient inflow to AYUSH sectors. While there is no authentic data on the market size of AYUSH sector, a study commissioned by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) estimates the size of India's ayurveda sector to be close to $ 4 billion. Considering the fact that India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) estimates Indian hosptial industry to be over $ 60 billion, the Ayurveda sector is still in its infancy. The government's resolve to triple the industry size to $ 9 billion by 2022, hence look plausible. I'm not on Facebook and do not post to Medium. Twitter has suspended me. I don't know why. mscriver@3rivers.net COMMENTS WELCOME unless they are anonymous. Stuxnet allegedly has a vicious little brother, or perhaps it is a malicious cousin; the complex malware was likened to being similar to Stuxnet but more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated. Iran, according to the Times of Israel, admitted that its infrastructure and strategic networks were hit by a meaner, leaner version of Stuxnet. A TV news report added that the Iranians are not admitting, of course, how much damage has been caused. The report came after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran needed to step up efforts to fight enemy infiltration. Reuters also reported that Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Irans civil defense agency, said, Recently we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts ... and was trying to enter our systems. Jalali didnt go into more detail. The Tehran Times later claimed that Jalalis comments were taken out of context with regard to the presidents [President Hassan Rouhani] mobile phone being tapped. Instead, Jalali was reportedly warning about the risk of unencrypted calls being intercepted. There were no additional details about the capabilities of this destructive new generation of Stuxnet; unsurprisingly, Israels Mossad intelligence agency refused to discuss if it played any role in the attack. Iran found CIA spies by Googling site that CIA used to route covert communications We already know how botched CIA communications ended up costing the lives of Chinese agents, and now Yahoo News reports that Iranian intelligence officials simply Googled to find the CIAs communication channel. Using Google, Iran reportedly found numerous websites used by the CIA as covert communications channels, which led to Iran rounding up 30 people earmarked as CIA spies. Thirty more people recruited as CIA agents in China were killed after China allegedly did some Googling to find secret CIA websites that acted as transitional communications. Those compromised sites on the web, which had been indexed by Google, may have also endangered all CIA sources that used some version of this internet-based system worldwide. John Reidy, a defense contractor, had warned the CIA about the massive intelligence failure dealing with the communications system. For his trouble, his whistleblowing was rewarded by being booted from his job. Irvin McCullough, a national security analyst with the Government Accountability Project, told Yahoo News, This is one of the most catastrophic intelligence failures since Sept. 11. And the CIA punished the person who brought the problem to light. PortSmash: The newest Intel CPU side-channel vulnerability There is yet another vulnerability in Intel processors, specifically the hyperthreading tech, which an attacker could exploit to leak encrypted data. An advisory about exploiting simultaneous multi-threading was issued, but an official research paper will be released later. For now, theres a proof-of-concept exploit posted on GitHub that should work out of the box on Skylake and Kaby Lake. According to TechSpot, Billy Bob Brumley, a PortSmash researcher, said, PortSmash is highly portable, and its prerequisites for execution are minimal, i.e., does not require knowledge of memory cache-lines, eviction sets, machine learning techniques, nor reverse engineering techniques. PortSmash definitely does not need root privileges, just user space. Intel officials downplayed the threat, claiming, We expect that it is not unique to Intel platforms. Critical Bleeding Bit flaws can compromise enterprise wireless access points Researchers from Armis revealed Bleeding Bit, an undetectable chip level attack that could be used to compromise Wi-Fi access points from Cisco Systems, Cisco Meraki and Aurba Networks those three allegedly account for about 70 percent of the networking market. The two critical chip-level vulnerabilities are related to Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chips made by Texas Instruments. Armis warned that the vulnerabilities endanger enterprises using vulnerable access points in their networks. Beyond access points, the health sector is potentially affected by these vulnerabilities, as the affected BLE chips are used in many medical devices, such as insulin pumps and pacemakers. Even private users might be affected by the vulnerabilities if they use an IoT device that embeds one of the vulnerable chips. Cisco, Aurba, and US-CERT published security advisories. Federal spending records indicate that during Trump's trip to Cairo earlier this month, the U.S. State Department paid $95,050 to the Semiramis Intercontinental Cairo hotel for the first lady's visit - but according to her spokesperson, she didn't even stay the night! Rooms at the luxury hotel range from $119 to $699 per night, according to the Semiramis Intercontinental Cairo's website. In October, the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump, embarked on a solo tour of Africa, visiting Kenya, Ghana, Malawi and Egypt. The first lady's communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told Quartz, which first reported the news, the Mrs. Trump was only in Cairo for six hours. It doesn't clearly state whether the bill covers the costs of her entourage as well. Payment was made to the hotel in Cairo on September 30, about a week prior to the first lady's arrival on Saturday, Oct. 6. SNL Cold Open: Immigrant Caravan Women Are PregnantWith Pregnant Babies The long list included "Mexicans", "Guatemalans", as well as "the Menendez brothers. and several Babadooks". It also has "hella" Middle Eastern Aladdins. El problema de Boca Juniors si llega al Mundial de Clubes El sponsor del Xeneize es acusado de financiar el terrorismo por lo que rompio relaciones en 2071 con los paises mencionados. Entre Emiratos Arabes y Qatar se traen un show bastante interesante en el aspecto politico desde junio de 2017. Pep Guardiola denies claims that Manchester City use tactical fouling It never happened in Barcelona or Bayern Munich and it can never happen at City. It isn't just pure, wonderful football. The US President Donald trump said that his wife Melania "not so easy" to be with him in marriage. Her last major campaign appearance and a speech was almost two years ago, days before the November 2016 presidential election, when she spoke in Pennsylvania. Meaning the First Lady, who supposedly runs "one of the leanest East Wing operations in recent history", dropped almost $100,000 at a hotel she stayed at for six hours. She was also criticised for her Out of Africa fashion choice - she wore a white pith helmet during one visit. Many saw it as a painful symbol of colonialist Africa. While in Egypt, she was pressed by a reporter about her decision to wear a Zara jacket emblazoned with the words 'I really don't care, do u?' to meet young migrant children separated from their families. A financially fortuitous moment in Republican Bob Stefanowskis campaign for governor was the day in May when he thanked filmmaker Reverge C. Anselmo of Greenwich for a $3,500 contribution, the maximum allowed by state law. As they say in the movies, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Six months later, Anselmo has emerged as Stefanowskis most important benefactor, contributing nearly $2 million to independent-expenditure groups that provide an easy path around Connecticuts limits on direct contributions to candidates. Only Stefanowski has contributed more to the cause of electing Stefanowski governor. It started with a direct-mail solicitation. He responded to a direct mailer, and I went to thank him, Stefanowski said. That was the connection. He sent in thirty-five hundred bucks on a direct mail. Never met him before. The singular role of Anselmo in Connecticuts gubernatorial election is evidence of how even a political newcomer like Stefanowski, who launched his campaign last year without a political base of supporters and donors, can compete financially with the help of a small circle of backers willing to write six-figure checks. Anselmo, 56, is the son of the late Rene Anselmo, an eccentric entrepreneur behind the first privately owned network of global satellites. The elder Anselmo was known in Greenwich for his Versailles-inspired home, his philanthropy and his habit of occasionally pulling over his Bentley to personally plant some of the 100,000 tulip and daffodil bulbs he donated to Greenwich for roadside beautification. Reverge Anselmo has owned a vineyard in California, where he lived for a time, and served as a Marine, written a novel, written and directed three movies and was the executive director of a fourth, The Squid and the Whale. He is a longtime Republican donor to federal races, but campaign finance records indicate he has largely shunned elections for state offices in Connecticut until now. Efforts in recent days to reach him through the state Republican Party and Greenwich Republicans were unsuccessful. A month after his $3,500 contribution to Stefanowski, Anselmo became the biggest donor to Protect Freedom Political Action Committee, a super PAC that spent $1.2 million to support Stefanowskis campaign to win the GOP primary on Aug. 14. The committee went inactive after Stefanowski won, and the Republican Governors Association took over the role of supplementing the nominees campaign with its own independent-expenditure group, Change PAC. The RGA can accept unlimited contributions, allowing Connecticut Republicans to send money to the national group knowing it will come back to Connecticut. Anselmo gave the RGA $150,000 on Sept. 17 then sent $1 million three days later. I think its great that Ive got a supporter like that out there. I think its great the RGA views us as its number one flip state, Stefanowski said, a reference to Connecticut being one of the few states where control of the governors office could flip from Democratic to Republican. And I think were happy where the polls are, and they are as well. Super PACs must remain independent of the candidates they support, though snippets of footage shot by Stefanowskis campaign have been used by the Super PACs. Stefanowskis campaign says it did not directly give the PACs the footage; Instead, it posted so-called B-roll footage on its YouTube page, where any supporter could make copies. Private equity manager Thomas McInerney of Westport, a donor to a super PAC that supported Steve Obsitnik over Stefanowski in the GOP primary, gave $175,000 to the RGA in September, bringing his total for the year to $300,000. Ten days after the primary, Dorothy Walker Stapleton of Greenwich, a cousin of President George W. Bush, gave $250,000. The RGA, which already had given $5.78 million to Change PAC, contributed another $1.65 million this week, most for a late television blitz. Combined with Stefanowskis more modest television spending, it helps keep Republicans roughly matched with the Democrats independently wealthy nominee, Ned Lamont. Lamont is outspending Stefanowski by more than a 2 to 1 margin, $12.9 million to $6.1 million. All but $800,000 of Lamonts campaign money came from the candidate. Stefanowski has loaned or contributed about half of his total. The Democrat actually has a bigger advantage in general-election spending: Stefanowski spent half of his money to win a five-way primary, while 80 percent of Lamonts spending has come since his easy win in a two-way primary. With Lamonts financial advantage, the Democratic Governors Association has largely opted out of the race. Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Heywood (pictured with wife Suzanne at Buckingham Palace in 2012) died only days after retiring For a quarter of a century, Sir Jeremy Heywood was one of the two or three most powerful men in Britain. He possessed far more clout than most Cabinet ministers, and had the capacity to make or break careers. He was a close adviser and personal friend to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. He ran their lives, made things happen and just as often stopped them from happening. He was fixer, counsellor, and all too often the crutch of successive prime ministers. But for his untimely death yesterday from cancer at the age of only 56, Sir Jeremy would have performed this role for Theresa May as well. Some thought he was much too powerful. The Daily Mail dubbed him Sir Cover-Up after it emerged that he had blocked the release of letters and phone calls between Blair and US President, George W Bush, in the run up to the Iraq War in 2003. It was a nickname that he hated and although theres no escaping that it was intended as an insult, it was part grudging tribute, too. Sir Jeremy valued secrecy and there are many who share his view that a great deal of government business ought to take place behind closed doors. Occasionally when I criticised him in my columns he would call me into his capacious Whitehall office and we would hammer out our differences. In 2011, at the time of his appointment by Cameron to head the Civil Service, I wrote that he was not the best choice. The Blair years had led to too cosy a relationship between ministers and civil servants, too much dominance from the centre, and a collapse of due process. Sir Heywood (to Theresa May's right) was one of the two or three most powerful men in Britain for a quarter of a century The last time we clashed about something I had written over the Chilcot Report into the Iraq War it led to bad blood. A civil servant called to tell me that Sir Jeremy Heywood wanted me to know that he was shocked and appalled by my criticism. I never got the opportunity to mend relations, and this now fills me with sadness because fundamentally he was a decent man. There is no question that Sir Jeremy, who was ennobled to Lord Heywood after he retired through ill health a few days before his death, was a patriot who embodied the noble ideal of public service and who mastered every detail of every brief he was ever given. Mrs May led the tributes from across the political spectrum yesterday. He worked tirelessly to serve our country in the finest traditions of the Civil Service and he is a huge loss to British public life, she said. From the moment Heywood entered the Civil Service in 1983 after a brilliant academic career (Oxford, LSE, Harvard) he dedicated himself to the public good. He gave every hour to the job as a young man, and his workload continued to be prodigious after he married his wife Suzanne with whom he had three children in 1997. In a statement, she remembered a wonderful father who crammed a huge amount into his 56 years. She said: Jeremy could light up any room or conversation and loved hosting a good party. His first post was as an economist at the Health and Safety Executive, but his talent was quickly spotted and he first came to widespread notice as private secretary to then chancellor Norman Lamont when sterling crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. He proved his indispensability in a crisis when John Majors briefing note for the Maastricht negotiations was lost. As the former PM recalled in his autobiography: Eventually Jeremy Heywood let out a whoop of delight. He had discovered it among Norman Lamonts papers. Colleagues said that during this frenetic time, the boyishly good-looking Heywood lived on coffee and cigarettes, and shared a car to work rather than take public transport so that he could smoke. When New Labour came into power, he was soon promoted to Downing Street as private secretary to Blair a move that engendered some resentment. Some senior civil servants felt that Heywood was much too ready to abandon traditional Civil Service procedures and embrace Blairs notorious culture of sofa government. Blair normally hostile to the Civil Service adored Heywood and wanted to fast track him to Permanent Secretary in defiance of the Civil Service career structure. When this move was blocked by mandarins, a disgruntled Heywood quit the Civil Service in 2003 for a job with investment bank Morgan Stanley in the City. It was Gordon Brown who persuaded him to return in 2007 as head of domestic policy and strategy in the Cabinet Office, bringing order to the new PMs chaotic fledgling administration. Within months, Sir Jeremy was at the centre of the desperate negotiations to sort out the 2008 financial crash. The experience he gained then at a time of national and international crisis and his good standing with David Cameron when he arrived at No 10 in 2010, meant that he was ideally poised to become Cabinet Secretary the most senior figure in the Civil Service and one of only 11 men to have held the post since it was created in 1916 when Gus ODonnell stepped down in 2012. He was knighted in the New Years Honours List that year. I believe Sir Jeremys greatest achievement was the way in which he heroically held together the Cameron/Clegg coalition government till the 2015 general election. He dealt in solutions and because he was trusted by both sides was uniquely placed to resolve differences. It was not long after this that he was diagnosed with the disease that killed him. Some of those closest to Theresa May say that many of the difficulties of her premiership to date have occurred because of Sir Jeremys enforced absence not least the long running face of the Brexit negotiations. We will never know for sure. Sir Ollie Robins, the PMs Europe adviser and lead Brexit negotiator, said in a heartfelt statement last night: I will miss Jeremy very much. So will many, many others. A new wedding trend has taken New Zealand by storm, offering couples the trappings of a lavish venue and luxurious reception without the usual hefty price tag. 'Pop-up weddings' are swiftly growing in popularity, giving brides and grooms the chance to pay for personally tailored packages including celebrants, canapes and photography at a variety of high-end locations across the country from as little as $3,000. So what's the catch? Speaking to FEMAIL, Auckland-based pop-up coordinators Kevin Townsend, 56, and Ruth Carpenter, 51, broke down the associated cost and revealed why they believe demand is so high for the latest wedding phenomenon. 'Pop-up weddings' are growing in popularity, offering personally tailored packages including celebrants, canapes and photography at high-end locations from as little as $3,000 Businesses like Simply Wed host up to four weddings a day across their six partner locations, opening a select venue to couples and up to 30 guests for two hours at a time. Pop-up providers reduce overall costings by booking spaces, photographers and flowers for one day and splitting the cost between four newlyweds, as well as bulk buying from caterers and alcohol retailers. 'Couples only pay for their portion of the day which is how the price point is so incredible. Our first ever clients Leana and Kevin got married last Friday, the event was at our sixth-floor city location overlooking the port in Auckland. 'We had the ceremony with a celebrant who meets with every couple in advance to get to know them for that special personal touch, followed by a champagne reception with canapes for their 30 guests - we call it a mini-reception!'. Simply Wed's first ever clients Leana and Kevin (pictured) got married last Friday in an intimate ceremony at a sixth-floor luxury location overlooking Auckland port 'One of the guests who is involved in event organisation said she thought the wedding cost about $15,000!' 'The function ended with the cutting of the cake, which couples design themselves by choosing the decorations, flavour and icing colour. 'Our photographer was on hand for the entire duration. The entire event was two hours long but we had all the trimmings you'd expect from a traditional wedding, just concentrated into a smaller time frame with close family and friends.' Leana and Kevin's port-view wedding cost $7,995. 'One of the guests who is involved in event organisation said she thought the wedding cost about $15,000!,' Ruth said. Leana and Kevin's two-hour wedding included a two-tier specially designed cake, champagne reception, canapes, celebrant and photographer for $7,995 Couples are involved in the design of their chosen cake for an added personal touch (pictured is Leana and Kevin's cake) Couples usually go to a restaurant or their own house for food after their pop-up occasion to ensure they still get the full experience of a wedding meal (stock image) Companies like Simply Wed also offer helicopter arrivals starting from $1,000, as well as the option to add on an after-party to the event for an additional $3,000. Couples select their own music and choose between two different flower themes for an added personal touch. Kevin explained that couples usually go to a restaurant or their own house for food after their pop-up occasion to ensure they still get the full experience of a wedding meal. Aside from the considerable savings compared with a blockbuster day, the draw card of the intimate pop-up ceremony is the stress-free enjoyment it brings to couples. Aside from the considerable savings compared with a blockbuster day, the draw card of the intimate pop-up ceremony is the stress-free enjoyment it brings to couples (stock image) 'We both feel Simply Wed is a bit different to the rest because while we obviously operate on a budget, we try to give that luxury feel and some special touches as well' - Kevin Townsend and Ruth Carpenter (pictured) are the owners of Simply Wed 'On Friday we had so many comments about how seamless the day ran and Leana and Kevin were thrilled - even some guests who were in the middle of planning their own big budget wedding remarked how easily our event pulled together. 'It's also a great option for people who want to get married but feel they don't have the finance to do it. 'We both feel Simply Wed is a bit different to the rest because while we obviously operate on a budget, we try to give that luxury feel and some special touches as well.' Other New Zealand-based event coordinators like Skinny Love and Perfect Little Weddings also offer pop-up packages for similar price points. With the 'race that stops a nation' just days away, women are preparing their frocks and fascinators for the Spring Carnival season. And Australian stylist Molly King, who has creatively directed some of the country's largest editorial shoots, said 'playing it safe' at the races won't be an option this year. The QueensPlaza ambassador recommended 'matchy-matchy fashion' and a bold look for any trackside debut. Here she shares her top tips for a winning look with FEMAIL, including how to wear pants. Australian stylist Molly King, who has creatively directed some of the country's largest editorial shoots, said 'playing it safe' at the races won't be an option this year The QueensPlaza ambassador (pictured) recommended 'matchy-matchy fashion' and a bold look for any trackside debut Colour coordinate to feel great We have seen this look on runways and at the Royal Wedding recently, and now the head-to-toe colour choice will grace our spring racing fashion events. 'Choose a palette of pink, red, yellow or green and blend down - without being afraid to show some skin! The foolproof formula is to style a structured A-Line skirt with a clean strapless bodice that's a similar tone,' she said. Miss King pointed to the Rebecca Vallance Mondrian Bow Dress available at David Jones as the perfect piece. Miss King pointed to the Rebecca Vallance Mondrian Bow Dress (pictured) available at David Jones as the perfect piece Wear the pants Pant suits will be everywhere this season, as we see women ditch the dress for a tailored blazer and flare trouser. 'This low maintenance and confident look works well with a matchy-matchy colour tone as above and a statement neck piece,' she explained. The Sass and Bide Moonlight Bay pant and matching blazer in Geranium and the Touchstone Ruby necklace from Paspaley would be a good way to dip into the trend. The Sass and Bide Moonlight Bay pant and matching blazer in Geranium (pictured) would be a good way to dip into the trend Headwear is all wrapped up Bows and ribbons shine this season - either tied around a loose, tousled ponytail hairstyle, styled as a head scarf or wrapped around an oversized broad brimmed hat and tied in a bow. The Printed Turban Headscarf from Zimmermann 'And the best part is you can get creative with this one, with raw edges and DIY ribbons adding a nice touch! Simply source the fabric that complements your outfit and cut your own shape and size to match the look you are going for,' she said. The Printed Turban Headscarf from Zimmermann would be a nice touch. Cat eyes and bold lips Pair fresh, dewy skin with a bold lip in coral, red, pink or plum or alternatively, opt for a clean, statement cat eye. 'The trick here is to pick one statement feature to focus on while pairing back your base - simply apply light foundation at the start of the day and only touch up when necessary,' Miss King added. The Nars Audacious Lipstick in a variety of shades from Mecca Cosmetica is a way into this look. Starting your life over in a new city is never easy, especially when you only have $200 to your name. Catherine DeVrye from Manly, New South Wales, decided to take the risk of moving to Australia from Canada because her life was 'at a record low'. Her adoptive parents had both died, her boyfriend had dumped her and her best friend was half way across the world. 'I resigned from my job, as they didn't have compassionate leave in those days, and only came for a three month holiday with a backpack and $200 to get away from Canada but I stayed over 40 years,' she told FEMAIL. Catherine DeVrye, 68, from Manly New South Wales decided to take the risk of moving to Australia because her life was 'at a record low' with only $200 in her pocket Her adoptive parents had both died, her boyfriend had dumped her and her best friend was half way across the world Moving to a foreign country knowing no one wasn't the first difficulty Ms DeVrye has faced as when she was born she was instantly given up for adoption. Over the years she has been given a myriad of possible reasons from her family as to why this was the case. The first reason being her birth mother was poor and wanted to give her a better life. The cause she thinks is most likely because she accidentally left her in a motel room while drinking and gambling and lost track of time, which led to motel staff calling police. This isn't the first difficulty Ms DeVrye has faced as when she was born she was instantly given up for adoption 'Whatever reason, I'm sure she coped as best she could and am grateful I ended up with the Salvation Army,' she said. 'It would have been difficult for single mothers in the 50s with no government support in a small rural community with stigma and shame; especially since my mother was unmarried when she had me and another child before.' Although Ms DeVrye's adoptive parents gave her the life she deserved, she faced heartbreak when they both died when she was 21. Her father died of cancer during her final year of university and her mother died of cancer the following year. Although Ms DeVrye's adoptive parents gave her the life she deserved, she faced heartbreak when they both died when she was 21 Her dad died of cancer during her final year of university and her mum died of cancer the following year Ms DeVrye's tops for overcoming adversity - Don't play the blame game or make excuses. It might not be fair but it is still your responsibility and your choice to be a victim or victor from change. - Never underestimate the benefits of even mild exercise. - Nourish your body with healthy food, eight hours sleep and take time to pause and take a deep breath. And nourish your mind with positive thoughts and positive people. - Talk to a trusted friend or health care professional to help with coping strategies. - Be grateful for what you have and don't waste energy on the past and what can't be changed. - Don't give up. You might not be able to see it but almost every problem has a hidden opportunity. Advertisement 'It all seemed so unreal and a bit of a blur after mum died. I can barely remember the funerals and cried myself to sleep every night but never shed a tear in public because I wanted mum and dad to be proud of me,' she said. 'The only funeral I'd seen was when Jackie Kennedy didn't cry at JFK's so I used that as a guide for what to do. 'I somehow muddled my way through all the paperwork, being angry with the world and feeling like life was unfair.' Ms DeVrye explained that she had always struggled to make something of herself as although her family weren't poor, they didn't have a TV, car or much money. On top of this, a school principal once told her that she would never make anything of herself because of the neighbourhood she lived in. The author said that from an early age she knew these words weren't true and that education was the key to a better future. Ms DeVrye explained that she had always struggled to make something of herself as although her family weren't poor, they didn't have a TV, car or much money 'I started lying about my age when I was 13 to get part time jobs to pay my way to university. I also got a scholarship and a student loan to be the first person in my family to go past high school,' she said. It is this determination that has seen her become a best-selling author and motivational speaker today but before this her strong-will saw her nab a tough teaching job within her first week in Australia. This was followed by a job as a waitress, cleaner and miner in Queensland, to name only a few of the myriad of jobs Ms DeVrye has had. She eventually had a great career with IBM in Australia, Hong Kong and Tokyo where one day a speaker cancelled at one of their conferences and she put her hand up to fill the spot. 'I started lying about my age when I was 13 to get part time jobs to pay my way to university. I also got a scholarship and a student loan to be the first person in my family to go past high school,' she said 'Back then I would never have dreamed I'd become a professional speaker and author,' she said. 'I've now spoken in five continents on resilience, change, customer service and teamwork to organisations such as Rolls-Royce, Microsoft, Microsoft, BBC and have visited over 125 countries. 'Not bad for a kid who was shy and expelled from english in high school and now has nine books translated into over a dozen languages.' Ms DeVyre has released a book to help people learn resilience Until Ms DeVrye had won the Telstra Business Woman of the Year award she had never told close friends that she was adopted or that her parents had died. She had noticed that these conversations had made people feel uncomfortable so she kept it bottled up inside. Now while on stage she tells complete strangers these stories to help them turn their stumbling blocks into stepping stones. 'Being adopted was never a big issue for me but losing both parents within a year was huge. I tell audiences that we're all products of our genetics and the environment we were raised in,' she said. 'But whether adopted or not, we can't change the past. But we are also products of the choices we make and we can make changes to make better choices for the future.' Now Ms DeVrye has made a life for herself in this country and never plans on leaving. 'The biggest problem of my life turned into the biggest opportunity of my life in this amazing country,' she explained. A woman who was sexually abused by her own father from the age of eight has shared the details of her abuse in a harrowing new book. Caryn Walker, who was systematically raped by her own dad over eight years, has waived her right to anonymity to write a book called Tell Me You're Sorry, Daddy. Caryn, 47, from Wallasey, claims that while her story is distressing it will 'give enormous hope to others'. In 2011, a jury learnt the horrendous details of Caryn's ordeal at a trial at Liverpool Crown Court which ended with Norman Yeo, then 63, finally being put behind bars. Yeo was jailed for 16 years after being told by Judge John Phipps that he had ruined his - then unnamed - victim's childhood, while his actions had also affected her entire life. Caryn Walker was sexually abused and raped by her own father from the age of eight and has shared her story in a harrowing book Caryn Walker - formerly Karen Yeo - changed her name to rid herself of its association with her callous abuser, whom she now refers to as 'Norman' rather than 'dad'. She changed the spelling of her first name and took her grandmother's surname. Yeo, who was from Wallasey but living in Leeds at the time of his arrest, had admitted 10 charges of indecently assaulting Caryn. But he denied rape and claimed his abuse began after she turned 11, rather than at a younger age. His denials forced his daughter to relive her ordeal in court. Jurors rejected Yeo's defence and found him guilty of a series of rapes, which reflected a course of conduct from when she was aged nine up to 16. And in addition to the previously admitted charges of indecent assault, they also convicted him of a series of indecent assaults beginning in 1979, when she was just eight. Judge Phipps told Yeo, who showed no emotion, that he had 'secured the child's silence, initially by telling her it was normal behaviour and later by subtle pressure'. In the book she shares the experiences of both she and her sister Jenny who died of a brain aneurysm in 2006, age 36. Pictured: Caryn and Jenny in 1974 In 2011 Norman Yeo, then 63, was jailed for 16 years after he had admitted 10 charges of indecently assaulting Caryn but denied rape Caryn tells the Liverpool Echo: 'It was a hard decision to write the book. Over the whole process I have been afraid of people's reactions. 'But when I decided to do it I knew it was for the right reasons - and the reasons were stronger than my worries.' In parts of the book Caryn directly addresses her older sister, Jenny, who spent most of her childhood in care, starting from the age of just 18 months. She died of a brain aneurysm in 2006, aged 36. Caryn says: 'I wanted to give Jenny the voice she never had, and for her to be acknowledged. He said the thing he would keep saying for years. "All dads do this with their little girls. It's normal. Everyone does it" 'I also want to help others who may have gone through what I have been through - or are still going through it. I want to help them find their voice. 'I want to tell them 'It doesn't matter what anyone else says, you can do it. After 30 years, with just your voice alone, you can get justice'. I proved you can.' In her book, Caryn bravely documents the beginning of her nightmare in an uncomfortable read. She writes: 'And there he was. My father. At my bedroom door. "Look," he whispered, and opened a magazine he had on his lap. 'It was full of pictures. Pictures of naked women. It was very explicit, I know that. "Look," he kept saying, "look." His eyes flitted from the pages to me, back and forth, back and forth. I had no idea what he wanted from me. Caryn was just eight years old when her father entered her room with pornographic magazines and shortly after began touching her Caryn (pictured at the age of two) said that she grew up feeling that she 'wasn't good enough' 'Would I get into trouble for looking, or for not looking? When he didn't get a reaction from me, he started talking about them, the women in the magazines, telling me I would be like that soon. 'I was eight. I was only a little girl. I didn't want to see naked bodies. 'A touching father and daughter moment. My first experience of pornography, my first real exposure to what his twisted mind enjoyed. 'He was back the next night, but this time there was no magazine. He said the thing he would keep saying for years. "All dads do this with their little girls. It's normal. Everyone does it". 'He started by touching me, then he got bolder. "This is what dads do with their little girls. You'll thank me when you're older." 'It impacted on everything. From that moment on, I always felt I wasn't good enough, that I was a bad girl who no one would like. I felt stupid and scared and filthy.' Today, she says: 'I still live it - every day. But I am more clear now about what it was. It was something done to me - it wasn't my responsibility or my fault. Before, I'd always carried a feeling of guilt about it. 'Now I know speaking out really is the first step to recovery. I am a different person today. I have shifted my guilt and shame.' Caryn went to the police in 2010, when she was 39, after a chance encounter with Yeo during a visit to see her grandmother in a Kirkdale nursing home. Tell Me You're Sorry, Daddy published by John Blake at 8.99 She explained: 'It occurred to me I didn't know who he lived with - who he had access to. It wasn't because of what he did to me but because of what he might do to someone else.' She adds: 'I always thought I would never be strong enough (to report him) and it wasn't an easy decision - it was only on my third visit to the police station that I went in. 'I was so damaged at that time that I actually called Norman and apologised - not for going to the police but because other members of the family now knew about it. I wouldn't do that today, but I felt so full of guilt and shame at the time.' In the book, Caryn, who has a son, Karl, 29, and a partner of 18 years, Elroy, writes: 'Through seeing a support worker, I'd started to accept that what happened to me needed to be punished. Someone did need to say 'sorry'.' But Yeo continued to make her suffer, by ensuring she had to take the witness box and relive his abuse. Caryn, though, found the strength to face him and tell the world what he had done for all those years. And she says: 'I was so relieved he got such a long sentence, because it really did matter - while knowing that all of those strangers believed me meant the world.' But although Yeo - who is eligible for parole next summer - was jailed for 16 years, Caryn writes that he gave her a life sentence through his actions. She writes: 'I only had one child because I could barely cope with the anxiety and fear of raising a child in the world that had allowed my father to abuse me. I suffer from depression and get flashbacks and have nightmares. 'I'm unable to be alone with older men and I think of every one of them as a potential paedophile.' Yeo took so much from Caryn, but he didn't take everything - he didn't take her strength and bravery. As she tells her beloved late sister, Jenny: 'I think I'm finally ready to step out into the light and say 'I made it. You didn't break me. I'm still here, I'm still standing' - and I am shouting loud enough for both of us.' Today, Caryn says: 'I do struggle with my mental health and self-esteem - I don't have confidence in myself. 'I always believed there was a blackness inside me that people could see - but I am working on that. I have been seeing a counsellor for the last five months. 'If just one person, after reading my book, confides in someone else it will have all been worth it.' Tell Me You're Sorry, Daddy published by John Blake at 8.99 She was absent from this morning's church service but Camilla was back in time to pick up some Ghanaian souvenirs on Sunday. The Duchess of Cornwall beamed with delight as she was presented with a kente scarf and a bag during her visit to the Manhiya Palace this afternoon. Camilla later tried out a drum and then bought three for her grandchildren on a shopping spree in Ghana. The Duchess of Cornwall also bagged a 40 (250 Ghanain Cedi) large carved wooden giraffe as she toured the National Cultural Centre, in Kumasi. When she saw the Dondo 'talking durm' she couldn't help picking it up and bashing out a rhythm with a special hooked talking drum beater. The traders and guides around her bounced along as she kept the beat going And she said: 'I'd like to buy something for my grandchildren.' Camilla purchased three small drums during a shopping spree in Ghana, and revealed she was buying them 'for her grandchildren' Temperatures were soaring above 30C but she and Charles were shaded by an enormous parasol - and Camilla even carried on individual one When she saw the Dondo 'talking durm' she couldn't help picking it up and bashing out a rhythm with a special hooked talking drum beater She also looked at canvas art, including a tasteful portrait of herself - and said: 'It's a great likeness.' Camilla also watched weavers making the colourful Kente fabric used in traditional dresses and robes. And touring a pottery workshop, she said: 'It's a great art. It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant.' Open their arrival in Kumasi she and Charles were treated to a colourful display by tribal chiefs at an official 'Durbar'. In temperatures in excess of 30C, the leaders of the Ashanti people paid their respects to Charles and Camilla in a ceremony organised by the ruler of Kumasi, the Asantehene. Dozens of chiefs wearing brightly-coloured robes and headdresses, often featuring bird feathers and leopard skin, walked up to the dais on which the Royal visitors sat, amid gun shots, whoops and loud music. Camilla beamed as she was presented with a kente scarf and a bag during her visit to the Manhiya Palace this afternoon She and Charles were treated to a colourful display by tribal chiefs at an official 'Durbar' today The Duchess of Cornwall needed a little help to get into her Kente scarf which went perfectly with her brightly coloured fan Camilla, 71, fanned herself frantically in the heat but smiled warmly at the dignitaries. Charles, meanwhile, had a parasol held over him as he gave a speech. In it he said: 'Your Majesty, it gives my wife and myself the greatest possible pleasure to be here in the Ashante Kingdom, and to join you, Your Majesty, and the Ashante people for the celebrations of the Akwasi Dai, which I know is of such great significance to you all. 'I also have particularly fond memories of being here in 1977, when I was so graciously received by Your Majesty's uncle, His Late Majesty Opuku Ware, and have long anticipated this opportunity to return. 'More recently, I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Your Majesty, and of joining you at Glasgow University in 2001 at the ceremony to mark the university's 550th anniversary, when we were both awarded Honorary Doctorates.' The Duchess of Cornwall didn't take the smile off her face during a visit to the National Cultural Centre in Kumasi She was treated to a traditional dance by brightly dressed locals upon her arrival He continued: 'On this visit to Ghana as we celebrate a partnership between our two countries, as well as many special ties which binds us with our unique Commonwealth family, it was so important to my wife and to myself that we should come to Kumasi, to pay our respects to Your Majesty and to honour the traditions and values of your kingdom, which continues to play such an essential role in Ghana's vibrant democracy. 'We are both tremendously touched by the warmth of the welcome that we have received here today and can only say how much we admire and appreciate its wonderful celebration of your culture. 'Your Majesty, in honour of the traditions and customs of the Ashante, I have brought with me gifts to present to Your Majesty.... 'Medaase Paaa (Thank You)' Charles gifted the king a hand-made table by one of his charities, Turquoise Mountain, and a photograph of the couple. Dressed in brightly coloured traditional robes, the paramount chief, Daasebre Nana Osei Bonsu II, earlier welcomed the couple to the palace and its museum The museum features treasures made from the gold from which the Ashantis derived much of their wealth, and life-size waxwork effigies of previous Ashanti Kings and Queens (seen) Dressed in brightly coloured traditional robes, the paramount chief, Daasebre Nana Osei Bonsu II, earlier welcomed the couple to the palace before they went inside to greet the King and his wife. The two couples held a private meeting where they exchanged gifts and had tea before Charles was given a tour of the palace museum, while the King got ready for the durbar and Camilla and Lady Julia has a woman-to-woman chat. Inside the palace museum Charles, who visited the previous King in 1977, was given a tour around the exhibits. The museum features treasures made from the gold from which the Ashantis derived much of their wealth, and life-size waxwork effigies of previous Ashanti Kings and Queens. The treasures include gold weights, bracelets and pots for gold dust which were removed from the palace by Lord Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts Movement and a member of the British expeditionary force in Kumasi in 1896. The effigies included one of Nana Yaa Asantewaa, Queen of Ejisu, who in 1900 led the uprising and last of the seven Ashanti wars with the British, when the British Governor demanded the Golden Stool. Charles, who has waited longer than any heir apparent in British history to inherit the throne, remained silent and looked to be having a quiet moment of reflection when the curator, Justice Brobbey, told him: 'When the King dies, it is not normally one of his children who becomes the next King.' Prince Charles attended a church service in Accra alone on Sunday after Camilla chose not to accompany him to the harvest festival He explained that the Queen Mother chooses the next monarch and it is often one of the late King's brothers. As he emerged from the museum,Charles was joined by Camilla and they walked to the parade ground for the durbar. The royal later teased farmers about never being happy with the price for their products when he toured a cocoa farm in Ghana today, Aygin Brefo showed him around his 18.7 acre farm outside the city of Kumasi and explained the process of growing cocoa beans before selling them to wholesalers. 'Does the price vary a lot?' the heir to the throne asked, prompting laughter from the farmer and his labourers. 'The price is never good,' Charles said, laughing too. The Prince has his own organic farm at Highgrove in Gloucestershire . Charles tasted cocoa and talked to women farmers. Cocoa was introduced by Dutch missionaries in the coastal areas of Ghana, then the Gold Coast, as early as 1815. Ghana is currently the second largest global cocoa producer, accounting for 20 per cent of global production. The cocoa industry is the second largest source of export earnings for Ghana behind gold, contributing to approximately 17 per cent of overall export earnings. Charles, dressed in a beige linen suit and polished brogues, sat in the front row of the church with Ghana's First Lady There was a heavy downpour just before the visit and Charles and his party found themselves wading through mud and puddles as they toured the farm. Before he left, Charles met the chief of the local Kona tribe, Nana Konadu Yiadom Kumanin IV, and posed for a picture with him. Earlier on Sunday Prince of Wales attended church alone in Accra this morning on day three of his official visit to Ghana. The Duchess of Cornwall, who had been expected to attend, chose not to accompany her husband to a harvest festival service at Accra Ridge Church in the capital city. An aide said her programme would be starting later in the day. Charles, dressed in a beige linen suit and polished brogues, sat in the front row of the church with Ghana's First Lady, the British High Commissioner and senior aides. Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall (pictured on Saturday), had been expected at the ceremony but chose not to attend but will join the Prince of Wales later today The Celebrant Rev Fr Eric Owusu said a prayer of thanks at the start of the Harvest Festival Mass which acknowledged 'the Queen, Prince Charles, Lady Camilla and all the members of the royal household' The Celebrant Rev Fr Eric Owusu said a prayer of thanks at the start of the Harvest Festival Mass which acknowledged 'the Queen, Prince Charles, Lady Camilla and all the members of the royal household'. During a blessing the Prince was twice mistakenly referred to as Head of the Commonwealth. And he smiled when one preacher said: 'As you can see there is royalty in the house.' He was also blessed with Holy Water. After the service Charles is expected to greet members of the congregation and pause for an official photograph. The Accra Ridge Church is a large English language inter-denominational church based in the residential neighbourhood of Ridge in Accra, Ghana. The Prince could be seen taking part in hymn singing during the service on Sunday After the service Charles is expected to greet members of the congregation and pause for an official photograph The Duchess of Cornwall will meet her husband later to fly to the city of Kumasi, where the ruler of the Ashanti Region, the Asantehene, will treat the couple to a Durbar, a colourful traditional Ghanaian welcoming ceremony. On Tuesday, the Prince will make his fourth official visit to Nigeria while Camilla will make her first visit. They they will be welcomed by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. In all three nations, Their Royal Highnesses will take part in commemorative events to acknowledge the sacrifice made by Gambian, Ghanaian and Nigerian soldiers during the First and Second World Wars, and in more recent times during international peacekeeping missions. Despite Camilla not attending Charles appeared to be in high spirits as he chatted with First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo This is Charles' third day in Ghana and he and Camilla will travel to Nigeria on Tuesday The visit celebrates The Gambia's return into the Commonwealth in February this year. While in The Gambia, Charles delivered a speech congratulating the country for turning its back on 'autocratic' rule at home and returning to the Commonwealth fold in February, after the country's exiled authoritarian former leader Yahya Jammeh fled the country last year. Charles said: 'We are friends and partners, and once again we are both members of the Commonwealth family of nations.' The couple will return to London just in time for Prince Charles' landmark 70th birthday on November 14. Princess Mary showed off her royal wave as she joined her husband Crown Prince Frederik and three of their four children on a carriage ride on Sunday. The Crown Princess of Denmark, 46, visited deer park 'Dyrehaven' north from Copenhagen city to watch the annual horse race. Attending the Hubertus Hunt, a race which takes place on the first Sunday of every year to mark the end of hunting season, she was joined by her children Princess Isabella, 11, and twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, seven, though Prince Christian, 13, did not appear to be present. Scroll down for video Princess Mary of Denmark showed off her royal wave as she joined Prince Frederik and three of their four children on a carriage ride on Sunday (seen right: Princess Isabella, 11, and twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, seven) Mary looked stylish in a checked brown coat, a poloneck jumper and coordinating gloves, covering up in a wool blanket as she enjoyed the carriage ride. Coordinating with her was the heir apparent Frederik, 50, who looked dapper in a navy checked coat and wool scarf. Their three children sat behind them, Princess Isabella flanked by her twin siblings, watched by crowds. Pulled by two grand white horses, the royal group certainly made for a magnificent picture on the sunny but autumnal day. Later in the day the family retreated to their private balcony where they watched the race from afar, with young Isabella at one point covering her mouth in anticipation Later in the day the family retreated to their private balcony where they watched the race from afar, with young Isabella at one point covering her mouth in anticipation. The Hubertus Hunt is a cross country horse race which takes place every year on the first Sunday in November, marking the end of the hunting season. The event attracts about 160 riders and up to 40,000 spectators, and was first held in 1900. The Crown Princess, 46, who was born in Tasmania but moved to Denmark in 2001 to be with her now husband, the country's future king Crown Prince Frederik visited the recreation- area 'Dyrehaven' north from Copenhagen city to watch the annual horse race Attending the Hubertus Hunt, a race which takes place on the first Sunday of every year to mark the end of hunting season, she was joined by Princess Isabella, 11, and twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, seven, though Prince Christian, 12, did not appear to be present Beginning at Peter Liep's House, the 13 kilometer race involves a break at the Hermitage Lodge and involves 35 obstacles. The winner of the annual race receives the Hubertus chain to mark his or her victory. The love story between Princess Mary and Prince Frederick has been well documented, with the couple having met in a Sydney bar before Mary, born in Tasmania, moved to the northern hemisphere to be with Frederik. Princess Isabella stuck out her tongue as the family enjoyed their carriage ride through the grand park at the Hubertus Hunt on Sunday The Hubertus Hunt is a cross country horse race which takes place every year on the first Sunday in November, marking the end of the hunting season In December, in a candid interview with Australian Women's Weekly, the Crown Princess revealed that moving to the other side of the world was difficult. She said: 'I did experience a feeling of loneliness - short-term - when I first moved to Denmark,' she told the magazine. 'Moving to Denmark was a huge change in my life - a new culture, new language, new friends, and another way of life.' 'So, I see it as quite natural that at times I felt quite alone or a little bit like I was on the outside looking in.' Princess Mary and her eldest daughter Princess Isabella, 11, were seen looking focused as they watched the race from the balcony Meanwhile Princess Mary bent down to listen to her youngest daughter Princess Josephine as she pointed into the distance at the Hubertus Hunt on Sunday Princess Mary held her youngest son Vincent close on the chily day as they watched the race from afar at the Hubertus Hunt on Sunday Bread, cereal, bananas . . . a new coat? The last place you would expect to find such a key element of your winter wardrobe is a few aisles down from the fish fingers. But this season, the supermarkets have upped their fashion game and there are some surprisingly on-point styles to be picked up with your carrots. Particularly tempting are the heritage-inspired checked coats, which have filtered down from the catwalk, via the High Street, to your shopping trolley. George at Asda has a striking black and acid-yellow take for just 25 (above) thats not dissimilar to one from luxury brand Bottega Veneta. Meanwhile, Nutmeg, at Morrisons, has a wonderfully feminine grey and pink design (30, in stores nationwide). On the tweedier side, there are Prince of Wales checks aplenty. Tu at Sainsburys put the print on a trench (above) and cleverly avoided cheap buttons prone to pinging off in favour of hidden poppers. Hanna Woodside shared a selection of the best winter fashion items from UK supermarkets. Pictured: Coat, 45, check jacket, 39, both F&F at Tesco; dress, 450, lkbennett.com; Boots, 75, marksandspencer.com The Duchess of Sussex set a high bar for the perfect checked coat with the Burberry cashmere-blend number she wore in Edinburgh earlier this year. But in a similar green and navy style, Tescos F&F tribute for 39 (in stores nationwide) has a contrasting charcoal collar perfect for popping up against biting winter winds. Checks arent for everyone, and there are plenty of other statement colours and shapes to try, such as Tus mustard, single-button coat (35, above left), or, to stay snuggly in the snow, Georges fabulous caramel teddy coat (35, george.com). Or perhaps a puffy, pink, satin-finish style reminiscent of a Kate Spade design is more your cup of tea (70, Tu in Sainsburys stores nationwide). All very fashionable, but, you may well ask, should you really buy your coat from supermarket? Isnt that a bargain too far? Well, it depends what youre looking for. If you want a forever purchase, head to John Lewis, Jaeger or Hobbs and choose the best wool coat your credit card allows. But if youre quite happy to roll with the trends and buy from Zara Basics or H&M, then the quality of tailoring and fabrics from supermarkets is likely on a par. Plus, nothing beats the gleeful triumph of finding your new winter coat when you popped out for a pint of milk. Feeling disorientated for a while after coming round from an operation is to be expected. But nothing could have prepared Richard Lindley for the psychosis he endured for months after routine eye surgery. The former BBC Panorama and ITN journalist, 82, had been admitted to the Royal London Hospital in July for a minor procedure to correct a drooping eyelid. But according to his wife, the broadcaster Carole Stone, he came out of the operating theatre a completely different man. Richard Lindley, 82, had been admitted to the Royal London Hospital in July for a minor procedure to correct a drooping eyelid. But according to his wife, the broadcaster Carole Stone, he came out of the operating theatre a completely different man He didnt know who I was, where he was or what was going on, she says. And Richard adds: I didnt recognise my home and I was having vivid hallucinations of water pouring down the stairs and men in spiked hats. It was terrifying and no one seemed to have a clue why this was happening. By September, Richard was showing signs of acute paranoia. Health comment by Dr Mike Holmes Post-operative delirium is unpleasant and scary for everyone involved. But it is important not to panic. The best way to avoid any unnecessary worry is for patients and, more importantly, their families or carers to be made aware of the risks before an operation so, if it does strike, they can recognise it early. Once a patient is discharged from hospital, their long-term management falls to their GP team. So good communication between surgeons, doctors, nurses and other medical staff is vital. Everyone needs to be aware of factors that might impact on both immediate recovery and long-term health and wellbeing. In hospital, steps can be taken to prevent the onset of post-operative geriatric delirium, and patients will be closely monitored. If the condition develops later, when back at home, it is important to support patients by surrounding them with familiar things. The doctor and surgery team should also be made aware, in case follow-up treatment is needed. Dr Holmes is vice-chair of the Royal College of GPs, and works in a local practice in Yorkshire. Advertisement Carole says: Id find him frozen in fear of a savage attack he kept saying there were two Caroles, and argued that we should part as he was married to the other Carole. Richards doctors seemed baffled, but when an MRI scan came back normal, a medical friend suggested it could be a shockingly common but little-known complication called post-operative delirium. The condition is often marked by memory disturbances, confusion and hallucinations. In 2014, the suicide of British jewellery designer Sandra dAuriol, 53, who jumped from the roof of a Beverly Hills clinic after coming round from a facelift, was attributed to the phenomenon. And in rare cases, the psychosis can become permanent. Symptoms tend to appear in the first days following an operation and can become more extreme in the evenings. Post-operative delirium is thought to be triggered by a combination of the anaesthetic drugs given before and during an operation and drugs administered afterwards; pre-existing conditions such as dementia; medications already taken; and also how stressful the operation is to the body. The risk and severity also increases with age. Studies show that although only four per cent of over-80s who have cataract surgery might suffer from delirium, the risk rises to 36 per cent in the same age group after vascular surgery. This increased risk is believed to be related to what extent the body is disturbed by the trauma of the operation. A study at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US found that post-operative delirium affected 39 per cent of older patients whod had deep sedation and 34 per cent of those whod had light sedation. Anna Crossley, professional lead for acute, emergency and critical care at the Royal College of Nursing, says post-surgical infection can increase risk, as can depression and drug and alcohol abuse in younger patients. Stopping or changing a persons medications can also make delirium more likely. Richard had been asked to stop taking his blood-pressure medication for two weeks before his operation, to try to reduce the risk of bleeding during the procedure. Another trigger can be low oxygen levels after a procedure which might be caused by a pre-existing lung or heart conditions. It is also more likely to strike older people who already have some form of cognitive impairment. An increasing number of hospital trusts now screen older patients before operations to identify those who may suffer this complication. Guidelines at Guys and St Thomas Hospital in London state that post-operative delirium is preventable in one third of cases, and can be shortened if medics take simple steps studies show that seeing a partner or close relative quickly after coming round reduces the chances of delirium setting in. At Guys and St Thomas, doctors aim for anyone at risk to be assessed within hours of an operation for changes in behaviour such as disorganised thinking, illusions, paranoia and sleep disturbances. Some patients with severe and prolonged symptoms may be given medication, but Richard has found that advice from his consultant psychiatrist to stick to a regular routine has led to improvements in his condition. His doctors say there is a good chance he will return to his former self in time. Im very hopeful, says Carole, but I just wish we had known about this at the time because it would have saved us a lot of worry. Barclays Bank has apologised for failing to protect a vulnerable 89-year-old customer from rogue builders who drove her to one of its branches and bullied her into making a 7,000 cash withdrawal for work not done. Late last week, the bank agreed to refund the money after the intervention of The Mail on Sunday and accepted it had failed to meet the 'high standards that our customers can expect from us'. It also apologised for the distress caused. Suspicions: Staff noted the van's registration number but failed to act The customer, Marguerite Hamnell, suffers from Alzheimer's disease and has home care assistance, but bank staff allowed her to take out the cash even though they were suspicious and followed her out of the branch, making a note of the registration number of the builder's van. They also did not alert her stepdaughter Jane Gadsby until after the money was withdrawn, even though she is named as attorney on the bank account because of Marguerite's acute memory issues. It was only when Marguerite returned again to the branch to withdraw yet more cash from an account now severely depleted driven there once more by the builders that the bank called the police. By the time they arrived the builders had fled the number plate turning out to have been stolen. The refund brings to an end a two-and-a-half-month gruelling battle by Jane to get the bank to pay up. Despite speaking to the bank manager at Marguerite's branch, Barclays' fraud department and its complaints team, she was stonewalled. Early last month, she got a pro-forma letter from the bank stating her complaint had 'been resolved and closed'. She was both livid and distraught. On Friday, she told The Mail on Sunday: 'The bank acted irresponsibly in letting an elderly, vulnerable woman walk into a branch and come out with 7,000 of cash which left her with less than 450 in her account. 'Not enough care was shown to her. Why was I not contacted before the withdrawal was sanctioned? 'I have spent nearly every day since this crime was committed trying to get Barclays to see sense.' She added: 'The Mail on Sunday has been brilliant in chasing up my stepmother's case and making the bank own up to its incompetence. 'I can now smile again and stop being a bore at parties banging on about Barclays. More importantly, my stepmother can carry on receiving the care she needs.' Barclays said it had 'no higher priority than the protection of customers' funds'. In the past year, it said that it had prevented 836 million of fraud being committed against customers. Elderly people are increasingly being targeted by crooks in the way Marguerite was. It is known as 'financial grooming'. Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. R.K. writes: The contactless chip on my ageing NatWest debit card was not working, so I ordered a replacement. A few days later the card arrived with an expiry date of June 2021 and the bank ordered me to destroy the old card which I did. Soon afterwards though, NatWest sent me another card with an expiry date of July 2021 and again ordered me to destroy the existing card, which I did. I then went to Heathrow to fly to Thailand for five weeks, but when I tried to buy goods at the airport my new card was declined. I rang NatWest and was told the new card had been cancelled, but I could rectify this at one of its branches. My holiday was a disaster and I had to contact people weekly to send me money via Western Union. Crisis: The reader was forced to have money wired out to him in Bangkok It is easy now to look back and see what has happened. Your first card no longer worked properly. The second card replaced the first. But the first card was about to expire, so NatWest was already geared up to issue the third card as its replacement. When NatWest sent you the third card it intended you to destroy the first card, overlooking the fact that you had already cut up the first card and so would destroy the second card instead. Simple when you work it out like this. The consequences for you were less simple, though. When you called the bank from Heathrow, you got through to an adviser with just five minutes to spare before your flight. He could do nothing to help. Luckily, you had paid in advance for your first three nights in Bangkok and you had some cash. But when this ran low you were forced to use your mobile phone to call home and get people to send you money regularly that you could collect in cash from Western Union in Thailand. NatWest has told me that staff did realise you would not need the third debit card as you were already using the second card. They cancelled the third card, but it was still sent to you almost a fortnight later, with instructions to destroy the card you already had. The bank has now offered to compensate you with a payment of 600 which you have accepted. This is made up of 150 for your mobile phone calls, 200 to cover Western Union money transfer charges, and 250 for the inconvenience. In future, I am sure you will try using any replacement cards just to make sure they work before you cut up your existing cards and risk getting stuck in Bangkok without a baht to your name. TSB called in the police when all I wanted was to withdraw my money P.T. writes: I went into the TSB branch in Broad Street, Reading, to draw some cash. I was kept sitting in the assistant manager's office for about an hour after already producing my debit card and my passport. Then four police officers turned up and circled me and my wife. They started questioning why I wanted my money. I did not answer. I simply walked out, telling TSB I was going to transfer my account to a bank across the road. I am 86, served in the RAF, and am an atomic bomb veteran. I asked myself why I risked my own life to give these idiots a secure one. Sign of the times: It cannot be normal to call the police every time an 86-year-old customer wants to withdraw their own money Your experience is a classic example of what can go badly wrong when a bank reckons it is acting for the best but fails to be sufficiently diplomatic and tactful. It cannot be normal to call the police every time an 86-year-old customer wants to withdraw their own money, so I asked TSB what made this occasion suspicious. The bank told me you had already made one large withdrawal about a month earlier. This time you asked for an even larger sum, 8,000 in cash. You made a joke about keeping it 'under the bed', bank staff say. All the big banks have asked their staff to watch out for large cash withdrawals by elderly customers who might be victims of 'financial grooming' by relatives, carers, or the sort of gangs that knock on your door and tell you about a loose slate on your roof but then demand thousands of pounds for fixing it. When staff suspect this, they notify the police. It is unfortunate that on the day you were at the TSB branch, four officers turned up rather than the typical pair. This made it look like official overkill. In fact, two of the officers were trainees, learning on the job. TSB has told me it is really sorry you were unhappy at what took place. A spokesman said: 'Protecting our customers from fraud is our number one priority.' Branch staff followed correct procedures, he added. I do understand why you were upset and angered. But having seen the other side of the coin where senior citizens are cheated, I have to say that I also appreciate why the bank staff did what they did. I have been billed for four years gas...do I have to pay? Ms S.C. writes: In November 2014, I decided to change from Npower to Green Star Energy. I then changed my mind and went back to Npower before the switch was complete. In 2015, I realised I was not receiving gas bills. I checked with Npower which said I was with Green Star. So I checked with Green Star and was told I was with Npower. As a result, I have not paid for my gas since the end of 2014. Surely I cannot be made to pay now? I askedboth companies to look into this, and Npower told me it had a record of your switch to Green Star, but no record of any request to scrap this and keep supplying your home with gas. Worryingly though, while I was in discussions with Green Star, it sent you a bill for 1,248, based on an estimate. Green Star failed to produce calculations I requested to show how it reached this figure, but it appears to have ignored the rule that a customer can only be billed for a maximum of one years arrears. When this rule was applied, the bill plummeted to just 332. Green Star has also offered 100 in compensation, cutting the bill to just 232. It says it will spread the cost of collecting this, if that would help you. Diamond trio with 'Towie' link jailed Three men who ran a boiler room selling vastly overpriced diamonds as an investment have been jailed after cheating customers out of 415,000. The trio were caught after City of London Police officers went to Reco Commodities LLP on King William Street following genuine reports of a burglary. They found notes about victims and scripts showing how to trick investors. Aaron Fay, 32, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for conspiracy to defraud. Also convicted were Martin Ball, 30, and Sudhir Singh Kundi, 39, both jailed for three and a half years. Given a ban: Aaron Fay, right, and Towie's Dan Edgar In addition Fay has been banned from acting as a company director for 15 years. His partners at Reco Commodities Mark Cooney and former reality TV figure Dan Edgar of The Only Way Is Essex were not prosecuted but have been banned from holding directorships for 14 years and 13 years respectively. Police say some victims were on a 'sucker list' held by Kundi who had dealt with them before. In 2013 he was disqualified from running any limited company for five years, following his role as boss of UKLI Limited, a scam land investment company. As long ago as 2003, I warned that all UKLI's investors were likely to get for their money was a patch of expensive grass. The company raked in 69 million from 4,500 victims before it was shut down in 2008. When Kathleen Folbigg was found guilty of killing all four of her infant children, it was a crime that rocked Australia. Never before had there been such a seemingly cold and callous child killer The fact that she was a woman and the children's mother earned her the unenviable moniker 'Australia's most hated woman'. But there have always been doubts cast over Folbigg's conviction. Kathleen Folbigg leaves the Supreme Court of NSW during her murder trial in 2003 Folbigg was found guilty of the manslaughter of her first child Caleb Folbigg, who died at 19 days old in 1989, and the murders of Patrick at eight months in 1991, Sarah at 10 months in 1993 and Laura, 19 months, in 1999. Folbigg's defence team would say that all four died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and that there was no evidence the children were smothered. But doctors who also gave evidence at her trial claimed that for all of the children to die from SIDS was incredibly unlikely and even statistically impossible. Caleb (top left) was just 19 days old when he died in February 1989, Sarah (top right) died aged 10 months in August 1993, Patrick (bottom left), was seven months when he died in February 1991, Laura (bottom right) was 18 months old when she died in February 1999 The final nail in the coffin for Folbigg were her now infamous diary entries in which she appeared to all but admit to the murders. In one chilling passage she wrote: 'With Sarah all I wanted was her to shut up. And one day she did.' The 51-year-old was handed a 25-year-long jail term in 2003 for three counts of murder and one of manslaughter and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm. But last week Folbigg was granted an inquiry into the deaths of her children. Some say evidence against her was seriously flawed and have pointed to other women who were acquitted under similar circumstances. Carol Louise Matthey, Angela Canning and Trupti Patel all had children die as infants. They were arrested for their deaths, though cleared for various reasons. Could their cases prove that Kathleen Folbigg's conviction is untenable? Carol Louise Matthey In remarkably similar circumstances to Kathleen Folbigg's case, Carol Louise Matthey also had four children die at very young ages. In 2005 the Victorian mother was arrested and charged with the murder of two sons and two daughters between December 1998 and April 2003. Jacob was seven months, Chloe, nine weeks, Joshua, three months and Shania three years at the time of their deaths. Carol Louise Matthey (pictured) was acquitted of murdering her children after all the charges were dropped against her in 2007 A coroner had found that Jacob and Chloe had died from SIDS, Joshua from a rare infection and Shania from falling off a table. But despite an inquest ruling that the children died of natural causes, Matthey was charged in February 2005 with murder after police launched a homicide investigation. Experts who gave evidence at Matthey's preliminary hearing were split on whether the children died of natural or sinister causes. Forensic pathologists found no evidence of homicide; but other doctors including a child death expert from America, ruled out SIDS or natural causes. But before Matthey could stand trial a Supreme Court judge ruled that evidence against her was inadequate and the case was dropped. 'A detailed examination of the prosecution case revealed, in my view, evidentiary difficulties both as to its admissibility and as to the quality of the evidence the Crown was seeking to lead,' Justice John Coldrey said at the time. Angela Cannings Angela Cannings, from Plymouth, England, lost three babies to SIDS and was wrongfully convicted of killing two of them. She faced court in 2002 and received life imprisonment. But Mrs Cannings was sensationally freed the following year after evidence given at her original trial was discredited. The Appeal Court decided that babies, Matthew - who died at 18 weeks - and Jason - who died aged seven weeks - had not been smothered but were victims of SIDS. Mrs Cannings first-born, a daughter named Gemma, also died of SIDS in 1989 aged 13 weeks. Angela Cannings faced court in 2002 over the deaths of her two sons. She was promptly convicted and sentenced to life in prison, before her case was reviewed the following year The Appeal Court decided the boys, Matthew (left) and Jason (right), had not been smothered but were victims of cot death, like the couples first-born, Gemma, who died in 1989 aged 13 weeks Three senior judges heard that the prosecution's case rested on evidence presented by controversial paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow. Mrs Cannings' appeal was been fast-tracked because solicitor Sally Clark, also jailed for murdering her two babies on the basis of Sir Roy's evidence, was cleared on appeal. Both women said they lost their children to SIDS. In both cases, the main evidence came from Sir Roy's 'three in one' theory, that one cot death in a family was tragic, two gave grounds for suspicion and three was murder. It was concluded that a genetic inheritance was the most likely explanation for the deaths of Ms Canning's children (pictured with daughter Gemma) But his claims there is a one in 75 million chance that two natural cot deaths would occur in the same family was later said to be 'manifestly wrong' and 'grossly misleading'. It was concluded that a genetic inheritance was the most likely explanation for the deaths of Mrs Canning's children. Mrs Canning's paternal grandmother had endured two sudden infant deaths and her paternal great-grandmother similarly lost a child. Trupti Patel Pharmacist Trupti Patel met husband Jayant when she was still a student and knew almost immediately that she had met her soulmate. The happy couple married seven months after they met and within two years they had begun trying for children. In 1995 their first child, a daughter, was born and when baby Amar came along in 1997 they felt their little family was complete. Trupti Patel (pictured) faced court in 2003 after she was charged with the murders of her newborn children Amar, Jamie and Mia. After a six-week trial, the jury handed down a not-guilty verdict by unanimous decision But their joy was short-lived. Amar died on December 10, 1997. Two years later, a second son, Jamie, also died. The couple couldn't believe it when they found their 22-day old daughter was not breathing on June 5, 2001. Neither, it seems, could the police. Mrs Patel, from Maidenhead, England, was arrested and charged with the murder of all three children and endured a six week trial at Reading Crown Court. In the end, a jury only took 90 minutes to find her not guilty on all three counts by a unanimous decision. Discredited paediatrician Prof Roy Meadow gave evidence at Mrs Patel's trial but her defence were able to contradict his claims. Mrs Patel's grandmother was also flown from a village in Gujarat to give evidence that sudden infant deaths could run in families. Surajben Patel told the court that she had lost five of her 12 children in early infancy. A woman who raped and then bombarded a teenage girl with text messages sat in the prison dock and asked for her phone back moments before being sentenced. Tammy Lee Humphrey, 23, of Blackburn, had used the very same phone to torment her young victim after luring her to a park in Chadstone, in Melbourne's southeast, and raping her. The predator had already been forbidden by a court from contacting the vulnerable 15-year old amid concerns by welfare workers that she had an unhealthy interest in the girl. They were right. Tammy Lee Humphrey, 23, spent four months in jail after failing to leave her victim alone Humphrey was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria to an 18-month Community Corrections Order, with a condition she be supervised while free in the community. She had already spent four months in jail over the disturbing crime. Humphrey pleaded guilty to a charge of sexually penetrating a girl under 16 and multiple charges of stalking and breaching intervention orders against different women. She was free in the community on a good behaviour bond over another stalking incident when she molested her victim. Humphrey's defence had tried to get her off the hook by arguing she was not fit to stand trial because her intelligence was so low that she could not understand what was going on. A jury disagreed and Humphrey agreed to plead guilty and avoid the trial altogether. The court heard that Humphrey's young victim was lured out on October 4 last year on the promise of free booze. Once alone, Humphrey raped the girl, who although showed 'mutual interest', is unable to legally provide consent. Humphrey was arrested and charged days later, but released on bail on the provision she not go anywhere near the victim. She didn't listen and over the next few months bombarded the teenager with bizarre text messages. In one message, Humphrey tried to convince the teen to meet her because she was afraid of a storm. 'The storm's around. I need you ... there's lightening around. We both know we hate thunderstorms,' she wrote. Tammy Lee Humphrey, 23, mercilessly tormented her young victim even after raping her Tammy Lee Humphrey appeared worried about the fate of her phone before her sentence She even met up with the teen again and bought her more booze. The teenager repeatedly asked her stalker to leave her alone, telling her to 'f**k off now please'. Judge Mark Taft said although Humphrey carried on with a 'child-like quality' she was also extremely manipulative. He said Humphrey had harassed another woman while free on bail, tormenting her with texts and calls and meddling with her life. 'I know you hate my guts but I'm very sorry for all your friends I took away from you,' Humphrey wrote in one text. The deranged stalker was eventually taken off the streets in July after repeatedly breaching her bail conditions. Her victims refused to submit impact statements to the court. Judge Taft said Humphrey had led a troubled life from birth due to being born to a heroin addict. She was placed in foster care and suffered from a mild intellectual disability, depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. He took all that into account when sentencing her to an 18-month Community Corrections Order. Humphrey is expected to take up residence with four men, under supervision, and will be restricted to the use of just a landline phone and banned from social media. She will also have to adhere to a strict night-time curfew and only mingle with the community while in the presence of a care worker. She was placed on the sex registry for the next 15 years. Judge Taft ordered her mobile phone be destroyed. One of Australia's leading experts on Islamic extremism has described Sharia law fundamentalists as a 'danger' to society that conservative Muslims needed to challenge. Professor Greg Barton, a global Islamic politics expert from Melbourne's Deakin University, said hateful rhetoric from hardline Islamist groups had the potential to radicalise a small number of disaffected young people. Even if they didn't preach violence, Professor Barton feared they would convince a follower they needed to physically punish or even kill non-Muslims. Scroll down for video One of Australia's leading experts on Muslim extremism has described fundamentalist Islamic groups as a 'danger' to society (pictured is Salafist sheikh Jamil El-Biza) '"We will follow through and do what these beliefs require", that's the danger,' Professor Barton told Daily Mail Australia from Indonesia. Fundamentalists in the suburbs have been telling Muslims to avoid wishing Christians a Merry Christmas and demanding that wives should never refuse a husband's demand for sex. Salafist Muslim groups advocating a fundamentalist, seventh-century version of Islam, operate in parts of Sydney and Melbourne and are funded by Saudi Arabian interests. The Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Association, also known as the ASWJ, is an extreme example. Professor Greg Barton (pictured), from Deakin University, said hateful rhetoric from hardline Islamist groups had the potential to radicalise a small number of disaffected young people Jamil El-Biza, a fundamentalist sheikh from Wollongong south of Sydney, last year told his followers via Facebook they should avoid wishing Christians a Merry Christmas to please Allah Jamil El-Biza, a fundamentalist sheikh from Wollongong south of Sydney, last year told his followers via Facebook they should avoid wishing Christians a Merry Christmas to please Allah. 'I'd rather be resurrected on the day of judgement, with the fact I made a few hundred million unhappy with me because I refuse to say "Merry Christmas", rather than being brought forward before Allah and having to explain to him why I congratulated a Christian who worships Jesus as lord,' he said on Christmas Day, 2017. Professor Barton said fundamentalist groups needed to be called out for pushing anti-social messages. 'So when you've got a group that's putting hatred or intolerance or misogyny, you've got to call it out and say, "That's not acceptable",' he said. Nassim Abdi, a fundamentalist Sunni at an Auburn mosque in Sydney's west, said it was a 'major sin' for a wife to refuse a husband's demand for sex Another ASWJ preacher Nassim Abdi last month told a mosque at Auburn, in Sydney's west, that it was sinful for a wife to refuse sex with her husband. 'If the husband calls the wife to be intimate and there's no legitimate reason for the woman to say no, then she must answer the call of her husband,' he said. 'She must answer the call of her husband and if not she has committed a major sin.' Professor Barton said Australian authorities needed to ask other theologically conservative Muslims to tell extremists they had crossed a socially-acceptable line. 'Perversely, it actually means working with some of the more conservative groups and making it clear where the boundaries are and say, "Look, we fully respect you having your personal beliefs but when it comes to misogyny, child marriage, when it comes to any kind of teaching that incites hatred of others, that's not acceptable",' he said. 'What you want to do is identify where the line is in terms of behaviour. 'You're living in a society where a lot of people celebrate Christmas, you need to educate the next generation to grow up in that multicultural society and not feel threatened. 'When you feel angry, it's not good for you, it's not good for your community.' Another Sunni hardliner, Umm Jamaal ud-Din, a niqab-wearing Muslim convert from Christianity, previously known as Mouna Parkin, earlier this year told Muslims to boycott Valentine's Day because it had originated as a Christian festival. 'Roses are red, violets are blue, celebrating Valentine's Day is from what the immoral people do,' the religious instructor from western Sydney said. Muslim convert Umm Jamaal ud-Din (pictured) earlier this year told Muslims to boycott Valentine's Day because it had originated as a Christian festival Another Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a political group pushing for an Islamic caliphate, is so extreme it last year confirmed it supported the death penalty for ex-Muslims. The Australian government is continuing to resist calls to ban this group, even though it is illegal in a range of Muslim-majority nations including Indonesia, Egypt and Jordan. Sydney Lindt cafe siege gunman Man Monis was photographed attending Hizb ut-Tahrir events before he killed manager Tori Johnson in December 2014 at the end of a 16-hour siege. Less than a year later, 15-year-old schoolboy Farhad Jabar gunned down accountant Curtis Cheng outside the New South Wales police headquarters in Parramatta, after reportedly visiting a Muslim bookshop in western Sydney selling Sharia law books that advocated death for homosexuals and stoning for adultery. Sydney Lindt cafe siege gunman Man Monis (pictured) was photographed attending Hizb ut-Tahrir events before he killed manager Tori Johnson in December 2014 at the end of a 16-hour siege Schoolboy Farhad Jabar, 15, gunned down accountant Curtis Cheng outside the New South Wales police headquarters in Parramatta, after reportedly visiting a Muslim bookshop Professor Barton said Saudi-funded Islamic Salafist groups had been sprouting up in Australia since the late 1970s and were a challenge to contain. 'In most societies, it's going to be a hopeless battle trying to take on all religious fundamentalists of whatever form including the Salafists,' he said. Last year, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson wore a burqa into the Senate to make a point about how fundamentalist Islam was incompatible with Australian society. Professor Barton said stunts like that only helped fundamentalist portray themselves to their followers as being under attack from the West. 'The message of the fundamentalists is that the West hates Islam, that the Australian government, the Australian people are against Muslims so when Pauline Hanson turns up in the Senate in a burqa, it just makes it that much easier for the local preacher who's pushing an intolerant message to turn around and say, "I told you, guys",' he said. A Florida prison workers' union official said sending Whitey Bulger to Hazlelton prison was a 'death sentece' Sending Boston crime boss James 'Whitey' Bulger to a troubled federal penitentiary that housed other New England mobsters was like giving him a 'death sentence,' a prison workers' union official said Friday. Bulger, who ran the largely Irish mob in Boston in the 1970's and '80's and ratted on the New England Mafia, was killed Tuesday just hours after his arrival at USP Hazelton, the third killing in six months at the remote prison in West Virginia, where workers and advocates have long been warning about dangerous conditions. The 89-year-old should never have been transferred to Hazelton, said Jose Rojas, who represents workers at the Florida prison where Bulger was previously held. 'You can't send someone like Whitey Bulger there. Number one, because he's high profile, and number two because he's a snitch,' Rojas said. 'Somebody dropped the ball when they designated him to Hazelton ... It's a death sentence,' he said. A federal law enforcement official has told The Associated Press that disciplinary issues prompted Bulger's transfer from the Coleman prison in Florida, where he was serving a life sentence for participating in 11 killings. Paul J. DeCologero (left), who as a member of a North Shore mob in Massachusetts, has been identified as a second suspect in the murder of James 'Whitey' Bulger. Mafia hit man Fotios 'Freddy' Geas (right) was first named as a suspect on Tuesday The entrance to USP Hazelton in West Virginia is seen in a file photo. Bulger had been transferred to the facility hours before he was killed The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to release details. In February, Bulger threatened an assistant supervisor at Coleman, telling her 'your day of reckoning is coming,' said Rojas, who works at the prison. Bulger received 30 days in disciplinary detention, he said. Bureau of Prisons officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. They previously declined to comment on why Bulger was moved. Two Massachusetts mobsters are under suspicion in Bulger's killing, authorities say, but no charges have been filed. A law enforcement official said Friday that one suspect is 44-year-old Paul J. DeCologero, who was part of an organized crime gang led by his uncle on Massachusetts' North Shore called the 'DeCologero Crew.' The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation. A former federal investigator told the AP that Fotios 'Freddy' Geas, a Mafia hit man who is said to hate 'rats,' is also a suspect. That official likewise refused to be named, citing the ongoing probe into Bulger's death. The FBI has declined to comment. Federal officials have only said they are investigating Bulger's death as a homicide. These 1953 file Boston police booking photos provided by The Boston Globe shows James 'Whitey' Bulger after an arrest. Bulger was an informant and could commit any crime he wanted, save murder DeCologero was convicted in 2006 of racketeering and witness tampering charges for a number of crimes. Authorities say he bought heroin that was used to try to kill 19-year-old Aislin Silva, who his uncle wanted dead because he feared she 'would betray the crew to police.' The heroin didn't kill her, so another man broke her neck, dismembered her and buried her remains in the woods. Jeanne Kempthorne, an attorney who represented DeCologero on his appeal, said she had no reason to believe DeCologero had any animus toward Bulger. DeCologero is supposed to be released in 2026, online records say. 'I have a hard time seeing a motive,' Kempthorne said. The other suspect, Geas, was a close associate of the Mafia and acted as an enforcer, but was not an official, 'made' member because he is Greek, not Italian. Geas and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo 'Big Al' Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss in Springfield, Massachusetts. Another mobster ordered Bruno's killing because he was upset he had talked to the FBI, prosecutors said. A man-eating tiger that claimed more than a dozen victims in two years has been shot dead in India. One of India's most high-profile tiger hunts in decades ended Friday night when the mother of two ten-month old cubs was shot dead in the jungles of Maharashtra state. A team of more than 150 people had spent months searching for her, using a paraglider and dozens of infrared cameras while sharpshooters had ridden on the backs of elephants. The killing has sparking controversy over the legality of the hunt, with some activists saying the kill was illegal. Hunters refereed to the tigress, who had 13 kills to her name, as merely T1 but wildlife lovers and activists named her Avni. The tiger known to hunters as T1 and activists as Avni after being shot in the forests of India's Maharashtra state near Yavatmal But disputes quickly erupted after the killing as media reports said the tiger was shot in Yavatmal forest with no attempt to tranquillise her. India's Supreme Court had issued a hunting order for T1 in September, ruling that she could be killed if tranquillisers failed. Several appeals were made against the death sentence. The tiger was killed at night, when tranquillisers are not allowed to be used, according to the Times of India and other media outlets. T1 is said to have been shot dead by Ashgar Ali Khan, son of India's most famous hunter Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, who was meant to be leading the hunt but was not present Friday night. Forestry officials and the hunter did not answer calls to give details of the hunt. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests A.K. Mishra told The Indian Express newspaper that a forest staffer had managed to dart the tiger with a tranquilizer at around 11.00 pm. He said: 'But she charged at the team, forcing Ashgar to shoot in self-defence. The tigress lay dead in a single shot.' However Mishra's account was contradicted by other reports, while many groups condemned the way the killing was conducted. The Times of India quoted sources involved in the hunt as saying it looked as though a tranquilizer dart had been put into the tiger's corpse after the killing. The sources said the dart had not been fired. Endangered elephants and tigers kill on average one person a day in India, according to government figures (file photo) Forestry officials acknowledged to Indian media that no vet was present during the hunt, as required by the Supreme Court order. Jerryl Banait, a vet and activist in Karnataka state who had launched appeals against the order, described the shooting as 'cold-blooded murder'. A spokesman for the Indian branch of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) group said: 'Avni was killed illegally satisfying a hunter's lust for blood.' It said India's Wildlife Protection Act and National Tiger Conservation Authority rules had been flouted, calling for the matter to be 'investigated and treated as a wildlife crime'. The tiger's body has been taken to a zoo in the city of Nagpur for a post-mortem. Despite the disputed circumstances, villages around the town of Pandharkawda celebrated the death with relief. T1 claimed her first victim, a woman whose body was found in a cotton field, in June 2016. Since then most of the dead were male herders. India has launched a major campaign to boost tiger numbers. At the last tiger census in 2014 the number had risen to more than 2,200 from a low of less than 1,500. But urban spread as the population of 1.25 billion grows has increasingly eaten into the territory of wild animals. Endangered elephants and tigers kill on average one person a day, according to government figures. The mayor of a Utah town who was deployed in Afghanistan as a member of the states National Guard has been killed in an insider attack, the military said. Brent Taylor, the mayor of North Ogden, was killed in an attack perpetrated by a member of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in the capital city of Kabul. The ANSF has been fighting alongside the United States and other Western countries in their effort to assert government control over Afghanistan. Friends of the Taylor family confirmed his death, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. He is survived by his wife, Jennie, and their seven children. Brent Taylor, the mayor of North Ogden, was killed in an attack perpetrated by a member of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in the capital city of Kabul, the Utah National Guard said He was sent to Afghanistan in January as part of President Donald Trump's troop increase. Taylor is seen in Afghanistan in a photo he posted to Facebook on October 17 Family friends confirmed Taylor's death. Officials say another U.S. service member is being treated for wounds sustained in the attack in Kabul on Saturday. Taylor is seen with one of his sons on a fishing trip in August He is survived by his wife, Jennie, and their seven children. This photo was posted on Facebook this past September Taylor wrote on his Facebook page on September 18: 'My rock star wife has been superwoman through birthing and raising seven children, and through four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and over five total years of separation for military service.' Officials say another U.S. service member is being treated for wounds sustained in the attack in Kabul on Saturday. A statement from a spokeswoman for the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support says the attacker was a member of the Afghan security forces and that initial reports indicate the assailant was immediately killed by other Afghan forces. 'My heart breaks for the loss and sacrifice of our Soldier, particularly for the family,' said adjutant general Maj. Gen. Jefferson S. Burton. 'I wish them all the comfort and courage to face the difficult days ahead.' Utah's lieutenant governor, Spencer Cox, wrote on Facebook: 'We lost a genuine hero and one of the best people in our state. We must rally around his sweet family.' Taylor was part of an advisory team tasked with training Afghan commandos. 'My rock star wife has been superwoman through birthing and raising seven children, and through four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and over five total years of separation for military service,' Taylor wrote on his Facebook page on September 18 Utah's lieutenant governor, Spencer Cox, wrote on Facebook: 'We lost a genuine hero and one of the best people in our state. We must rally around his sweet family' 'I am proud of the brave Afghan and US soldiers I serve with,' Taylor wrote on Facebook. The image above was posted last week. It shows Taylor with Lieutenant Kefayatullah, an Afghan serviceman who was killed by the Taliban He was sent to Afghanistan in January as part of President Donald Trump's troop increase. His most recent Facebook post was about the recent elections in Afghanistan. 'The strong turnout, despite the attacks and challenges, was a success for the long-suffering people of Afghanistan and for the cause of human freedom,' he wrote last week. 'I am proud of the brave Afghan and US soldiers I serve with. 'Many American, NATO allies, and Afghan troops have died to make moments like this possible; for example, my dear friend Lieutenant Kefayatullah who was killed fighting the Taliban the day before voting began. 'As the USA gets ready to vote in our own election next week, I hope everyone back home exercises their precious right to vote. The ANSF has been fighting alongside the United States and other Western countries in their effort to assert government control over Afghanistan. The image above shows members of the Afghan National Army marching in Herat province on October 3 'And that whether the Republicans or the Democrats win, that we all remember that we have far more as Americans that unites us than divides us. '"United we stand, divided we fall." God Bless America.' A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help his widow and their children. Defense Secretary James Mattis said in September that training and vetting of Afghan forces was being stepped up to minimize insider attacks and some training and advisory operations have been scaled back while security is assessed. Last month, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Scott Miller, escaped unhurt when the bodyguard of a provincial governor opened fire on a group of U.S. and Afghan officials in the southern province of Kandahar. A robocall from a white supremacist group aimed at Oprah Winfrey and Stacey Abrams is injecting racism directly into the Georgia governor race, which has already been fraught with a race-laden debate over ballot access and voter suppression. The call, sent to an unknown number of Georgians, impersonates Oprah Winfrey, the billionaire media titan who came to Georgia on Thursday to support Abrams. Both Abrams and her Republican opponent Briant Kemp are condemning the automated telephone call filled with racist and anti-Semitic statements just days before the historic vote for Georgia's next governor. Abrams would be the first black female governor in U.S. history. Kemp, who oversees elections as Georgia's secretary of state, vehemently denies charges that he's used his office to make it harder for minorities to vote. The robocall says it was paid for by The Road to Power, a group organized by Scott Rhodes of Idaho. He has been linked to several other racist robocalls, including a recent effort in Florida, where Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum would become the first black governor in his state's history. A robocall was sent to an unknown number of Georgians,with a voice impersonating Oprah Winfrey Abrams is facing Republican Brian Kemp to be the first black female governor in US history 'Years ago, the Jews who own the American media saw something in me.' the call begins in a voice meant to impersonate Oprah Winfrey. 'The ability to trick dumb white women into thinking I was like them and to do, read and think what I told them to. I see that same potential in Stacey Abrams.' 'Where others see a poor man's Aunt Jemima, I see someone white women can be tricked into voting for,' it continues. 'Especially the fat ones.' Kemp issued a statement calling the tactic 'vile' and 'contrary to the highest ideals of our state and country,' and condemning 'any person or organization that peddles this type of unbridled hate and unapologetic bigotry.' The Abrams camp likewise blasted the move but took a shot at Kemp and his highest profile supporter, President Donald Trump, who is coming to Georgia to campaign Sunday. A top Abrams aide said both Kemp and Trump have contributed to a poisonous atmosphere, and that Kemp has been silent on previous racially loaded attacks on Abrams. 'These automated calls are being sent into homes just days before President Trump arrives, reminding voters exactly who is promoting a political climate that celebrates this kind of vile, poisonous thinking,' said Abrams' spokeswoman Abigail Collazo. Abrams sidestepped the issue Saturday in brief public remarks as she greeted voters at an Atlanta shopping complex along with her local congressman, civil rights icon John Lewis. 'Georgia has long been on a path of change and evolution,' Abrams said. But she also said the election is about issues like expanding Medicaid insurance and focusing state spending on public education, job training and small business startups. 'I'm the only candidate with a plan to get that done and to do that without vitriol, without vilifying people,' she added. Both Abrams and Kemp's teams have denounced the robocall, calling it vile The message was spews racist and anti-Semitic comments against black people and jews Kemp issued a statement calling the tactic 'vile' and 'contrary to the highest ideals of our state and country' Lewis, the 78-year-old congressman who as a young man was severely beaten by police as he fought for voting rights in the Jim Crow South, put Georgia's choice in the broadest context: 'This young lady is playing a major role in helping liberate all of us, liberate the state of Georgia, liberate the South, liberate America.' Kemp did not address the robocalls at his only scheduled campaign stop Saturday at a Cuban restaurant in a diverse north-Atlanta suburb. He told the packed crowd of supporters that the race for governor was a simple choice: one between continued economic prosperity under Republican leadership, or a turn to 'socialism' under Democrats. Kemp said the election was about 'this generation and generations to come and the kind of state that we leave them.' He then blasted Abrams' policy pitches on health care and education. The Kemp event was also hit by a number of protesters. Two men protesting Kemp's immigration policy while Kemp was onstage were forcibly removed from the restaurant. President Donald Trump doubled down on the qualifications of Kemp on Sunday amid a controversial voting investigation the Republican nominee is conducting in the state. 'He studied for this job for a longtime. He will be a great executive and he will keep Georgia on the path it is going, which is up,' Trump told reporters as he left the White House in route for a campaign rally with Kemp. 'If she [Abrams] gets in, Georgia goes backwards,' Trump said. 'If he gets in, Georgia goes forward.' Abrams, meanwhile, smacked President Trump on Sunday as 'vapid and shallow' over his claim that she's 'unqualified' for office. Oprah arrived in Georgia Thursday to campaign for Stacey Abrams Oprah when door to door in an effort to get more people to the polls As a TV crew from MSNBC tried to film the hecklers being removed, a Kemp supporter physically blocked their path and the view of their lens. And someone out front was wearing a giant chicken suit holding a sign that reads 'too chicken to debate,' alluding to Kemp withdrawing from a debate scheduled Sunday in favor of appearing in Macon with President Donald Trump. Much of the final stretch of the race was consumed by a bitter battle over race and access to the polls. Tensions grew after an Associated Press report in early October that more than 53,000 voter applications - nearly 70 percent of them from black applicants - were on hold with Kemp's office ahead of the election. Many of the applications were flagged for failing to pass the state's 'exact match' verification process, which requires that identification information on voter registration applications precisely match information already on file. Kemp's office says that eligible voters on the 'pending' list can still vote if they bring a proper ID that substantially matches their registration information. He called the controversy 'manufactured.' But critics say county officials aren't always trained to make the proper determination and the system can be particularly hard to navigate for recently naturalized citizens. In response to a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups, a judge on Friday ruled the state unfairly burdens about 3,100 possible voters whose registration was flagged for citizenship issues. She ruled that Georgia must immediately start allowing poll managers - not just deputy registrars - to clear flagged voters who show proof of citizenship. In a statement, Kemp said the lawsuit forced the state 'to waste time and taxpayer dollars for the judge to tell us to do something that we already do.' An actress from Brooklyn has appealed to other women to trade embryos with her because she was wants a son. Lisa, 37, has struggled with infertility issues for nine years and already has a son, 5. She is desperate to have another son and wants trade her one female embryo - the last embryo she has remaining after multiple rounds of IVF - for the male embryo of a stranger. The New York Post reported that the mother of one from Brooklyn, New York, posted a plea to a number of Facebook support groups for IVF couples. Her name was withheld by the New York Post even though she posted her appeal publicly on Facebook, with the message subsequently taken down. Lisa and husband Ray have tried multiple rounds of IVF, which involves transferring an embryo to the uterus after manually combining an egg and sperm in a laboratory dish Lisa posted this message (pictured) to IVF groups on Facebook but the post was removed But the message provoked complaints and the message was removed by social moderators. She wrote: Hello, we have been trying to give my child a sibling for three years . . . we want to complete our family with a son. We have a great quality female embryo. Would you like to consider a trade? But the mother was contacted by a forty-something California woman interested in a potential swap. The woman who posted the ad told the New York Post: Im doing this for my son.My husband grew up with sisters and wants a boy too. This is the way we want to complete our family.' Lisa has swapped emails with the woman who, like her, is storing a frozen embryo at a fertility center, and they may proceed if the womans husband gives the go-ahead. She already has a toddler, and she has two male embryos left over,' said Lisa. Her husband has six sons from another marriage and then they have a boy together. Her husband said: If we are going to go through this again, its going to be a girl! It depends whether he is hell-bent on [using] his own DNA, said Lisa. The picture shows the cell-division of two fertilized human embryos during the third day of embryonic development following IVF treatment Lisa and Rays infertility issues date back to just after their wedding in 2009. Ray, 48, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in his twenties, then underwent chemotherapy and radiation, and his sperm wasnt performing as it should. In 2012, the couple spent $15,000 on IVF at New Hope fertility clinic in Manhattan and had one of four embryos implanted. The one they implanted became their son, Daniel. Hes our world and a beautiful child, said Lisa. But, as soon as he could talk, he was asking for a sibling. Every time he sees other kids theres a lot in our family and in our neighborhood he is like: "He has a brother. Why dont I have a brother?" And Im like: "Dont make it any harder on me than it already is." He has no idea. In May this year, the couple went through another round of IVF at New Hope and froze a female embryo. IVF involves taking eggs from a woman and placing them in a petri dish with specially washed sperm cells (right). The eggs and embryos are then stored in a liquid nitrogen tank (left) until the optimum time for them to be transferred to the woman's uterus I was surprised and sad [it was a girl]', Lisa recalled. They switched to a clinic upstate and tried again in September at a cost of $12,000, but the egg retrieval yielded no viable candidates. By then, they had shelled out more than $45,000 on fertility services. Lisa and Ray subsequently decided to offer their frozen female embryo, currently in a storage facility for which they pay $1,000 a year, to someone with a male embryo. 'I made up my mind as a reaction to losing the $12,000. Now I have a commodity, something I can leverage,' said Lisa. Lisa said she doesnt listen to criticism that she would give up her biological child purely because her desire for a child with a different gender. She added: It doesnt really matter. I think if I carry the baby, I would have a bond. 'I know so many women who have gone through IVF with donor eggs and thats their child. A friend, who is white and Jewish, adopted a black child. Thats his son. That bond is unbreakable'. IVF is the process of fertilization by extracting eggs, retrieving a sperm sample, and then manually combining an egg and sperm in a laboratory dish. The embryo is then transferred to the uterus. A massive clandestine drug lab has been uncovered in Sydney's western suburbs, leading police to seize $5.2million worth of drugs and ammunition. The giant drug factory reportedly supplied narcotics to music festivals around the state and is suspected to have provided MDMA to revellers at the deadly Defqon. 1 music festival. The equipment will be tested to see if the pills found inside the lab are the same kind that killed two people and hospitalised a number of others on Saturday 18 September in Penrith, according to The Sunday Telegraph. The seized pills are understood to have the same triangle stamp as those seen at Defqon. 1, where Joseph Pham, 23, and a 21-year-old Melbourne woman died after collapsing. A massive clandestine drug lab (pictured) has been uncovered in Sydney's western suburbs, leading police to seize $5.2million worth of drugs and ammunition The giant drug factory (pictured) reportedly supplied narcotics to music festivals around the state and is suspected to have provided MDMA to revellers at the deadly Defqon. 1 music festival Strike force investigators executed a search warrant at a rural property in Calf Farm Road at Mt Hunter, about 7km west of Camden, on Wednesday 24 October Strike force investigators executed a search warrant at a rural property in Calf Farm Road at Mt Hunter, about 7km west of Camden, on Wednesday, October 24. Over a four-day period, officers from the Drugs and Firearms Squad's Chemical Operations Unit seized more than 450 items from the sophisticated and dirty drug factory. This included more than 21kg of MDMA powder and pills, 28L of GHB, 13.5kg of precursors, an amount of substances believed to be cocaine, steroids and methylamphetamine, ammunition, and equipment used to manufacture prohibited drugs. The finding comes after detectives executed a warrant at a home in Menangle, over an alleged drug lab, in May. Officers seized 200 items including 1.4kg of prohibited drugs and manufacturing equipment. The pills seized at the drug factory are understood to have the same triangle stamp as ones found inside Defqon. 1 Over a four-day period, officers from the Drugs and Firearms Squad's Chemical Operations Unit seized more than 450 items from the sophisticated and dirty drug factory The drug seizures have an estimated value of $5.2 million and detectives are investigating the links between the two properties. Bennett Jolly, 39, the alleged powerhouse behind the drug lab, was arrested and taken to Campbelltown Police Station. He was charged with large commercial drug manufacture and supply and possessing prohibited drug and ammunition without a licence. State Crime Commander, Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith, said there had been a 47 per cent increase in the dismantling of clandestine laboratories in the last financial year. 'After dismantling one of the biggest clandestine laboratories in recent times, those involved in the manufacture and supply of prohibited drugs should know that the net is closing in on them,' Acting Assistant Commissioner Smith said. This included more than 21kg of MDMA powder and pills, 28L of GHB, 13.5kg of precursors, an amount of substances believed to be cocaine, steroids and methylamphetamine, ammunition, and equipment used to manufacture prohibited drugs Bennett Jolly, 39, the alleged powerhouse behind the drug lab was arrested and taken to Campbelltown Police Station 'There is no quality control in illicit substances and the community should be aware that there is no way of knowing what you are ingesting and how it will affect you. 'We will continue to dismantle and disrupt these criminal drug enterprises and stop this poison from hitting our streets.' Jolly was denied bail at Campbelltown Local Court on Friday 26 October 2018. He is due to appear before the same court on Wednesday 19 December 2018. In 2016, Strike Force Lovelle was established by the State Crime Command's Criminal Groups Squad to investigate the manufacture of prohibited drugs across NSW. Investigations continue. A 27-year-old jockey is determined to walk again after she was thrown from her horse during a race. Maija Vance, from Cambridge, on the North Island of New Zealand, fell during a race at Rotorua on September 16. The promising young jockey suffered damage to five vertebrae and her spinal cord, two punctured lungs, broken ribs, broken teeth, and a severed tongue. A 27-year-old jockey (pictured) is determined to walk again after she suffered a fall from a horse during a race Maija Vance (pictured) was thrown from her horse during a race at Rotorua on September 16 After over a month of recovery, Ms Vance still has no feeling from her waist down and has to use a wheelchair. However, the 27-year-old said she is determined she will walk again. 'I just refuse to be in a wheelchair but I'm learning that for now I have to just accept that I might need it till my legs start working again,' Ms Vance told Daily Mail Australia. 'My release date from the rehab unit is in three weeks but now they say they want me to stay longer only because they know I'm always pushing it in terms of doing things I'm not capable of yet.' A GoFundMe page has been setup to raise funds for Ms Vance, who has a considerable hospital bill and a long recovery in front of her. 'Many people are saying they would like to help, but are unsure how and we thought the fund would be a simple way for people willing to contribute to help Maija,' the page reads. The day after the accident, Ms Vance had major surgery on her spine and is now staying at Auckland's Spinal Rehab Unit. She undergoes daily physiotherapy sessions and is making slow but steady progress a major achievement has been being able to move herself from her bed to her wheelchair on her own. Her mini long haired dachshund, named Toro, has been a daily visitor and source of support during rehab. The dog moved back from Australia a couple of years ago with Ms Vance - where she raced for three years in Brisbane and two years in South Australia. In a post to Facebook after the incident, Ms Vance revealed the extent of her injuries and thanked her family, friends, and racing colleagues. The promising young jockey suffered damage to five vertebrae and her spinal cord, two punctured lungs, broken ribs, broken teeth, and a severed tongue After over a month of recovery, Ms Vance (pictured with her dog) has no feeling from her waist down and is confined to a wheelchair 'The love and support I've received in the last month has completely overwhelmed me,' she wrote. 'Thank you to all the jockeys that contributed riding fees, the racecourses and organisations that have offered help and to everyone that has been donating to the fund my best friend Grace has made for me. 'I appreciate every single bit and I can't thank you all enough.' Federal security officials at American airports will soon be testing a new device that lets screeners scan multiple passengers at the same time from a distance of up to 25 feet away. The new technology, known as passive terahertz screening, was given the go-ahead by the Transportation Security Administration. Officials hope that the new screening method will speed up lines at security checkpoints and better accommodate the growing number of travelers who go through the nations airports, the Los Angeles Times reported. The machines scan for metallic and non-metallic objects on a person's body, can detect suspicious items from 30 feet away and have the capability of scanning more than 2,000 passengers per hour. Passive terahertz screening was given the go-ahead by the TSA. The machines scan for metallic and non-metallic objects on a person's body, can detect suspicious items from 30 feet away and have the capability of scanning more than 2,000 passengers per hour The portable scanners project waves to do full-body screenings of passengers walking through a station without slowing them down. Currently, departing passengers at airports must go through full-body scanners that use millimeter waves to spot objects hidden under their clothes. The new passive terahertz method reads energy emitted by a person using a technology that is similar to what is found in night-vision goggles. The screening device was purchased from a British company, Thruvision. It will be tested in a TSA facility near Arlington, Virginia. 'Its 100% passive,' said Kevin Gramer, vice president of Thruvision Americas. 'There is no radiation coming out of our device. 'You dont have to stand directly in front of the device.' If the device passes its initial test, a pilot program will be rolled out in several U.S. airports on a trial basis, according to Thruvision. Initially, the plan is to use the new system in tandem with the full-body scanners. If all goes according to plan, the full-body machines will be gradually phased out. Earlier this year, Los Angeles became the first American city to install the Thruvision body scanners in its mass transit system. Initially, the plan is to use the new system in tandem with the full-body scanners (like the one seen above at Los Angeles International Airport last week). If all goes according to plan, the full-body machines will be gradually phased out The TSA tested body scanners in New York's Penn Station in February and has also conducted tests at Union Station in Washington, DC, and at a New Jersey Transit station during the 2014 Super Bowl. Last December, a Bangladeshi immigrant injured himself by setting off a crude pipe bomb strapped to his chest in a subway passageway near Times Square in New York City, which has prompted the urgency for more security. President Donald Trump accused an Democratic Indiana Senator of 'trying to steal the election' from his Republican opponent by paying for Facebook ads supporting the state's Libertarian candidate. Trump blasted Sen Joe Donnelly in a tweet Saturday evening as he was on his way from one rally in Montana to another in Florida. 'Rumor has it that Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana is paying for Facebook ads for his so-called opponent on the libertarian ticket. Donnelly is trying to steal the election? Isn't that what Russia did!?' Trump wrote on Twitter. The tweet was in reference to a Daily Beast report about the Indiana Democratic Party buying ads for Libertarian Party candidate Lucy Brenton. The Senate race between incumbent Donnelly and Republican Mike Braun remains one of the most closely watched in the nation as voters prepare to head to the polls in just three days. President Donald Trump accused Indiana Democratic Sen Joe Donnelly of 'trying to steal the election' from Republicans by paying for Facebook ads promoting his Libertarian opponent The Indiana Democratic party began buying ads on Thursday telling conservatives to vote for Libertarian Party candidate Lucy Brenton (left) instead of GOP candidate Mike Braun (right) Trump's tweet on Saturday afternoon referenced a Daily Beast report about the Facebook ads According to the Daily Beast report, the Democratic Party in Indiana on Thursday began purchasing Facebook ads in a last-ditch effort to split the Republican vote. The set of seven ads bolstering support for long-shot Libertarian candidate Brenton say they are 'authorized by Donnelly for Indiana', the incumbent's campaign. One of the ads says: 'Mike Braun will say anything to get elected, but the fact is that he was an active Democrat for decades, and voted to raise your taxes 159 times.' It ends by declaring: 'Lucy Brenton is the true anti-tax conservative.' Another add says that Braun 'likely vot[ed] for Hillary Clinton,' and calls on conservatives to 'vote your values on November 6'. The ads have been running on two Facebook pages titled Tax Hike Mike Braun and Hoosier Conservatives, which were created on Wednesday and don't have any other posts aside from the ads. The Indiana Democratic Party have defended the ads, saying they are 'perfectly legal, factual, and accurately represent Lucy Brenton's anti-tax record.' Party chairman John Zody said in a statement: 'The ads highlighting how Lucy Brenton is the true conservative in the Indiana Senate race are paid for by the Indiana Democratic Party.' Four of the ads promoting long-shot Libertarian candidate Lucy Brenton, which are running on two Facebook pages titled Tax Hike Mike Braun and Hoosier Conservatives, are pictured above Trump has been keeping a close eye on the Indiana Senate race in the final days before the midterms. He held a rally in the state on Friday and is expected to return again on Monday. While few were surprised by the fact that Trump would criticize Donnelly, his decision to draw a comparison to the Russian election meddling caught many off guard. The president repeatedly pushed back on assessments from top intelligence agencies in the US who determined that Kremlin-linked entities ran a stealth ad campaign intended to support Trump's bid for the Oval Office in 2016. The Governments failure to retrieve relics looted from First World War submarine wrecks has been condemned as shameful by relatives of the dead. An investigation into grave robbing from three Royal Navy vessels on which dozens of sailors died in Dutch waters has revealed where the stolen artefacts are being stored. But British Ministers have decided to take a softly-softly diplomatic approach, simply writing a stern letter to the Dutch diving clubs responsible for the looting. By contrast, Germany has taken strong legal action and recovered items looted from its battlecruiser Mainz after obtaining court orders to search divers homes. A Royal Navy submarine leaving Portsmouth Harbour in 1911 with Winston Churchill on board The three submarines E3, E5 and E26 were lost between 1914 and 1916. Photographs obtained by maritime researcher Remy Luttik show Dutch dive club members posing with stolen booty. Mr Luttik said: These artefacts were illegally salvaged. The submarines are war graves. It seems Lest We Forget has become Let We Forget. Annie Rickard, a relative of E5 commander Harrington Douty Edwards, said: The British Governments position is shameful. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: We take these incidents extremely seriously and have raised this case at ministerial level with the Dutch Government. If you are dreading that six-monthly visit to a dentist, spare a thought for Timothy Schofield. After suffering from toothache in March 1986, the community support worker booked what he hoped would be a routine appointment at his local surgery. But it became the start of three decades of hell involving 294 appointments, more than 120 fillings including 29 in one tooth alone 16 extractions and 13 root canal and bridge treatments. The ordeal cost him an estimated 30,000. Mr Schofield, who has been left with just four upper and six lower teeth, has received an out-of-court settlement of 77,000 from dentist Graham Rushworth who, he claims, botched his treatment after failing to diagnose his underlying gum disease. DOWN IN THE MOUTH: Timothy Schofield has been through dental hell, but now plans to wed fiancee Julie It was only when the 60-year-old went to another dentist, after Dr Rushworth retired in 2015, that the years of painful, expensive and allegedly unnecessary work became apparent. I was a young man when I first started seeing Dr Rushworth. That was when the never-ending problems with my teeth started, Mr Schofield told The Mail on Sunday. I was soon visiting him multiple times a year as there always seemed to be something wrong. In hindsight it was strange, but I suppose I just started to believe I had bad teeth. You put your trust in dentists as professionals. The endless treatment caused enormous strain. I was wasting so much time and money travelling to appointments, missing work and having to make up the hours at the end of the day, he said. I was using my annual leave for dental appointments. It was ruining my life. He added: When Dr Rushworth retired and I eventually found out why things kept going wrong because I had gum disease which hadnt been diagnosed I became very resentful and bitter. Lawyers from The Dental Law Partnership working for Mr Schofield analysed his dental records and compiled a 50-page report detailing allegations of poor treatment at Coal Clough Dental in Burnley, Lancashire. Timothy's 30-year dental ordeal that cost him roughly 30,000 The practice is now under new management and was given an impeccable report following an inspection last year. Dr Rushworth, who agreed the financial settlement in July but denied liability, said: While I do not accept the accuracy of the facts conveyed by The Dental Law Partnership, I am limited in what we can say because of patient confidentiality. The aim of my practice was always to provide the best possible care to all my patients. Mr Schofield will need a further year of treatment, including ten implants, to correct the damage. He plans to marry his fiancee Julie Wright when his ordeal is over. He said: I met Julie just after Dr Rushworth retired, and even though my teeth looked OK, the underlying problems were coming to a head. After he retired and I went to a new dentist, the bridges he had put in my upper and lower teeth just fell out and I was in a shocking state. But Julie stood by me. She has been amazing. When this is all over we are going to get married and go on a cruise. Heather Owen, from The Dental Law Partnership, said: The distress our client experienced was completely unnecessary. If the dentist had provided adequate treatment in the first place his suffering could have been avoided. Asked if Dr Rushworth had been the subject of a so-called fitness to practise investigation before he retired in 2015, a spokesman for the General Dental Council said the regulator was unable to provide further information other than that which is already in the public domain. Businessman Arron Banks flew back into the country yesterday to talk to police probing his donations to pro-Brexit campaigns armed with bank statements which he claims prove his innocence. Mr Banks, who is being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA) over whether he was the 'true source' of 8 million given to the Leave.EU campaign, claims he is the victim of a 'politically motivated' vendetta by the 'anti-Brexit Establishment'. The insurance tycoon has faced allegations that he was a conduit for Russian money during the 2016 referendum as part of a Moscow-backed plot to destabilise the UK by encouraging Brexit. Conifdent: Arron Banks and Nigel Farage. The businessman has flown back into the country yesterday to talk to police probing his donations to pro-Brexit campaigns Mr Banks, who was returning from holiday in Bermuda, showed bank statements to The Mail on Sunday which he said proved that 'no large amounts of cash flowed in during 2015 or 2016 from any source'. The self-proclaimed 'Bad Boy of Brexit' will show the documents to NCA officers tomorrow. The partially redacted statements show modest incomes and outgoings at Rock Holdings, an account at the centre of the probe. 'I have done nothing illegal and I am confident I will be cleared of the ludicrous allegations levelled against us', Mr Banks said. Arron Banks is being investigated by police over Brexit campaign funding - and responded with this tweet of himself relaxing in Bermuda He described as 'absurd' the claim he was 'an agent of the Russian state'. 'I understand that among the millions who voted Remain, many still feel sore that they lost,' he said. 'That does not give them the right to undermine the will of the majority. They simply have to accept that if they want to live in a democracy, Brexit is a reality.' The Electoral Commission also referred Leave.EU, its chief executive, Elizabeth Bilney, and the organisation that ran it, Better For The Country, to the NCA. Bob Posner, the Commission's director of political finance, said: 'We have reasonable grounds to suspect money given to Better For The Country came from impermissible sources and that Mr Banks and Ms Bilney knowingly concealed the true circumstances under which this money was provided. 'This is significant because at least 2.9 million of this money was used to fund referendum spending and donations.' Mr Banks insists that lawyers prepared his 'loan structure within Electoral Commission rules'. Pro-EU campaigners have outraged Leave supporters by issuing a where theres death, theres hope taunt that ageing Brexit voters mortality rates will soon hand Remain victory at a second EU referendum. Arch-Europhile and top Labour Euro MP Richard Corbett goaded Brexiteers by boasting how younger pro-Brussels voters will within weeks be in a majority in the UK simply because older anti-EU voters were dying off. Mr Corbett, Labours leader in the European Parliament, suggested that this would hand victory to Remain if a second referendum was called, saying: As someone joked to me the other day, where theres death, theres hope. The provocative remark came amid forecasts that January 19 will be Brexit crossover day the date when death rates mean pro-Brexit voters will be outnumbered by younger Remainers. MP Richard Corbett goaded Brexiteers by boasting how younger pro-Brussels voters will within weeks be in a majority in the UK simply because older anti-EU voters were dying off It also coincided with a letter signed by more than 50 business leaders calling for a second referendum, warning of the potential economic damage from either a blindfold or destructive Brexit. Arch-Brexiteers reacted with fury to the death and hope remark. Tory MP Peter Bone said: This remark is as tasteless as it is misguided. In their zeal to defy democracy and overturn the verdict of the 2016 referendum, arch-Remainers wrongly assume that the clear majority for Leave is dwindling. But that wilfully ignores the well-known fact that with age comes wisdom, and that many people who voted Remain now see they were wrong to do so in the first place. Up to 700,000 anti-Brexit campaigners marched through London last month to call for a second EU referendum. Earlier this year, polling expert Peter Kellner predicted that the UK would shortly switch from a pro-Brexit to an anti-Brexit country based on the age profile of many Leave voters compared to the increasing number of younger, pro-European people coming on to the electoral register. He wrote: If not a single voter in the referendum two years ago changes their mind, enough mainly Leave voters will have died, and enough mainly Remain voters will have reached voting age, to wipe out the Leave majority achieved in June 2016. Using data from a YouGov survey, he said the 1.26 million Leave majority at the referendum was being eroded by 1,350 a day even taking account of lower turn-out rates among younger voters. And he named January 19 as crossover day when anti-Brexit voters will start to outnumber Leavers just 10 weeks before the UK formally quits the EU. Brexit tensions deepened last night after Irish premier Leo Varadkar claimed it was undermining 20 years of peace in Northern Ireland. However, last week Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney more optimistically claimed a Brexit deal could be struck this month, saying a lot of progress had been made on the vexed issue of the Northern Ireland border. But last night, a cross-party alliance of arch-Brexiteer MPs at Westminster sought to head off a Brexit sell-out by insisting a so-called No Deal exit was now the best option for the country. The coalition of three Tories including Mr Bone two Labour and one DUP urged people to realise that No Deal is No Problem. The BBC has been accused of breaking its commitment to cover religion after axing one of its longest-running series. Anglican bishops are among those expressing their fury at the decision to drop the Radio 4 Sunday morning show Something Understood. Covering religious and ethical topics, the programme, presented by Sir Mark Tully, has been broadcast since 1995. Covering religious and ethical topics, Something Understood, presented by Sir Mark Tully (pictured), has been broadcast since 1995 Critics say the decision to end it means the BBC has reneged on a promise to improve its coverage of religion and ethical affairs. Production will stop next April for cost-cutting reasons. Radio 4 will then broadcast repeats of the series. The Bishop of Leeds, the Right Reverend Nick Baines, said: Id be interested to know how this decision fits into the Religion Review conducted by the BBC, and whether this is a resource-driven decision or a policy matter. Jan McFarlane, the Bishop of Repton, added: We fear the BBC has reneged on its commitment to religious broadcasting less than a year since publication of its review. The BBC said: It is wrong to judge the entirety of the BBCs religious output on a decision to broadcast archive episodes of Something Understood in 2019-20 instead of commissioning a new series. The father of a young woman who was found dead beside a toilet block in Africa two years ago has travelled overseas in a bid to search for answers. Elly Warren, 20, visited Mozambique's coastline for a dream holiday, where she scuba dived with whale sharks and manta rays. The marine conservation volunteer from Mordialloc, south-east of Melbourne, was killed four days before she was scheduled to fly home to Australia in November 2016. Elly Warren (pictured), 20, visited Mozambique's coastline for a dream holiday where she scuba dived with whale sharks and manta rays The marine conservation volunteer (pictured) from Mordialloc, south-east of Melbourne, was killed four days before she was scheduled to fly home to Australia in November 2016 Local police failed to provide answers to the grieving family about Ms Warren's death, but her parents believe she met a violent end. In a preview for Sunday evenings 60 Minutes, Ms Warren's father, Paul, visited the African country to retrace his daughters final moments. Mr Warren remains adamant authorities have not done enough to piece together the mystery surrounding the death of the adventurous 20-year-old. 'As far as I'm concerned, they're not doing anything over there, it's ridiculous,' he told journalist Tom Steinfort. 'It's more frustrating than anything else, that nothing's being done about my daughter's death.' Ms Warren had been in the backpacker hotspot of Tofo for six weeks as part of Underwater Africa, a conservation program that 'helps protect the oceans'. In a preview for Sunday evenings 60 Minutes , Ms Warren's father, Paul (pictured), visited the African country to retrace his daughters final moments Mr Warren remains adamant authorities have not done enough to piece together the mystery surrounding the death of the adventurous 20-year-old She had left program the day before she was found dead. The first formal police report provided six months after her death suggested Ms Warren died of a drug overdose - despite no evidence of drugs in her system. Almost two years after her death, Mr Warren said he believes the death is a police cover up because the investigation remains incomplete and the death has not been classified as a murder. The 60 Minutes preview reveals that after a few days in Mozambique, Mr Warren was able to source evidence that police in charge of Ms Warren's case don't have. Ms Warren (pictured) had been in the backpacker hotspot of Tofo for six weeks as part of Underwater Africa, a conservation program that 'helps protect the oceans' Mr Warren spoke to locals, authorities and those who saw Ms Warren (pictured) in her final moments in a desperate search to find the truth 'Forget about the authorities. If you want to get something done, you've got to do it yourself,' Mr Warren said. He spoke to locals, authorities and those who saw Ms Warren in her final moments in a desperate search to find the truth. 60 Minutes will air on Channel 9 on Sunday night from 8.30pm. The drugs row engulfing Labour frontbencher Kate Osamor deepened last night after it emerged that her son convicted of possessing cocaine shares her Commons office with a researcher suspended for anti-Semitic abuse. Ishmael Osamor, 29, was sentenced two weeks ago after pleading guilty to having cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and cannabis at a music festival last year. He resigned as a councillor in Haringey, North London, but is still a senior communications officer for his mother. Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Ms Osamor, the Shadow International Development Secretary, employs an aide who was immediately suspended in September 2016 for endorsing a series of anti-Semitic social media posts. CONVICTED: Ishmael Osamor, 29, with his mother, Labour frontbencher Kate Osamor Elizabeth Dudley liked posts that supported Zionist conspiracy theories and made comparisons with Nazi Germany. One showed the bodies of dead children alongside the Star of David and a swastika. Despite the furore, Ms Dudley has kept her job in the Commons, along with her security pass, and has continued to share controversial posts. DEATH THREAT: MP Luciana Berger (left) may need a round-the-clock guard. Pictured right: Kate Osamor with Jeremy Corbyn Last month, Ms Dudley shared a video on Facebook of anti-Israel activist Miko Peled justifying the labelling of Israeli forces as Nazis, saying: So they get offended when they are compared to Nazis and other oppressive and genocidal regimes. Well, if youre offended by it, dont do it! You know, theyre offended by the name, well they SHOULD be offended because what theyre doing is offensive. Labours anti-Semitism row deepened last week as police launched an official investigation into anti-Jewish racism by party members. There were also claims that party officials had been aware of a threat to one Jewish MP believed to be Luciana Berger but did not report it to the police. Ishmael Osamor, 29, was sentenced two weeks ago after pleading guilty to having cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and cannabis at a music festival last year. He resigned as a councillor in Haringey, North London, but is still a senior communications officer for his mother Commons security advisers are still considering a round-the-clock police guard for Ms Berger, as revealed by this newspaper in September, after a death threat was made against her. Last night, Ms Osamor declined to comment on her son or her employment of Ms Dudley. Ishmael Osamor admitted at Bournemouth Crown Court three charges of possessing drugs with intent to supply and a fourth charge of possession. He was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work and pay 400 prosecution costs. One week after the worst anti-Semitic attack in US history, the rabbi at Tree of Life synagogue blamed politicians for a rise in hate speech that he believes led to last week's mass shooting. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers delivered a brief but passionate sermon in front of his congregation on Saturday as the community begins to mend following the massacre where a gunman opened fire during Shabbat services, killing 11 people. Myers revealed he spoke to President Donald Trump personally when he and first lady Melania Trump visited Tree of Life in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. 'I said to him: "Mr President, hate speech leads to hateful actions. Hate speech leads to what happened in my sanctuary, where seven of my congregants were slaughtered. I witnessed it with my eyes,"' the rabbi said. During an impassioned sermon one week after last week's mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said he personally told President Donald Trump that he believes the massacre was the result of a rise in hate speech Myers spoke with the president when he and first lady Melania Trump visited the scene of the October 27 shooting on Tuesday (pictured). The rabbi told Trump: "Mr President, hate speech leads to hateful actions. Hate speech leads to what happened in my sanctuary' Members of Pittsburgh's Jewish community gathered at Tree of Life on Saturday morning to remember the 11 people slain when a gunman opened fire on Shabbat services last week Myers said he does not 'foist blame' on the president or 'any one person' for the horrific attack but instead appeared cast responsibility over Washington as a whole. The rabbi also mentioned that he's been harshly criticized by fellow Jews for meeting with Trump, who has been accused of sympathizing with white supremacists. An estimated 4,000 people gathered to protest the president's visit to the scene of the shooting on Tuesday. Myers said some people accused him of 'going to the dark side', while one person went so far as to say he should be 'un-circumcised'. 'I said: "OK, you go first,"' Myers said of the threat. The comment drew laughter from the congregation during what was overall a very somber day. Myers said he has been harshly criticized by fellow Jews for meeting with Trump on Tuesday An estimated 4,000 people gathered to protest Trump's visit to Pittsburgh More than 600 people attended the Shabbat service Saturday at Congregation Beth Shalom, including many members of the Tree of Life synagogue located less than a mile down the road. Earlier in the day members of Pittsburgh's grieving Jewish community held a one minute and 11 second moment of silence to commemorate the 11 people slain during the October 27 shooting. The victims were Joyce Fienberg, 75, Richard Gottfried, 65, Rose Mallinger, 97, Cecil Rosenthal, 59, David Rosenthal, 54, Irving Younger, 69, Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, Melvin Wax, 88, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, 84 and 86, and Daniel Stein, 71. Rabbi Chuck Diamond, center, a former Rabbi at the Tree of Life Synagogue, hugs a woman after leading a Shabbat service outside the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday Two signs condemning hate speech are seen at a memorial site for the victims of the shooting Accused gunman Robert Bowers, 46, pleaded not guilty to all 44 charges in court on Thursday. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and with a bandage around his upper right arm, Bowers answered 'yes' when asked if he understood the charges against him. Prosecutors have been given 45 days to file pre-trial motions. They said the trial could take as long as a month. Bowers is being represented by two public defenders. Accused gunman Robert Bowers, 46, faces the death penalty if convicted of the 11 murders. He pleaded not guilty to all 44 charges brought against him on Thursday After the indictment was returned, Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the case as an 'important' one which required swift justice. 'Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our society. 'Every American has the right to attend their house of worship in safety. The defendant in this case allegedly murdered 11 innocent people during religious services and injured four law enforcement officers. These alleged crimes are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation. Therefore this case is not only important to the victims and their loved ones, but to the city of Pittsburgh and the entire nation. 'I want to express my thanks and admiration for the courage and professionalism of those officers who so quickly responded to this event, and especially to those that suffered wounds in the process. Our thanks is also extended to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, the FBI, and the ATF for their outstanding response to this violent and deadly attack. 'The Department of Justice, working with our state and local partners, will bring the full force of the law against anyone who would violate the civil rights of the American people and we are resolutely determined to achieve justice in this case,' he said. Prosecutors have already stated that they will seek the death penalty. President Trump has also made repeated calls for Bowers to be executed soon and not have his case drag through the courts for years Health Secretary Matt Hancock has ordered an urgent investigation into why youngsters are being locked up like criminals because they have autism or learning difficulties, just days after The Mail on Sunday revealed their appalling plight. Mr Hancock was deeply shocked by this newspapers account last week of children as young as 13 being incarcerated, sometimes for years, in NHS-funded assessment and treatment units, known as ATUs. Our expose, based on numerous detailed interviews with distraught individuals and families, found evidence of routine abuse of children and young people kept in the secretive facilities. Leo Andrade (centre) with sons Stephen (right) and 11-year old Josh (left) My son is so drugged he can hardly move Stephen Andrade has been held in secure units all his adult life, first going into an ATU when he was 17. The 23-year-old was a fit teenager and used to enjoy going on long walks, but his mother Leo, a carer from North London, said he was now so drugged that he drags his feet along the ground and can hardly move. She said: I didnt know someone could be locked up for having autism. She added that she felt Stephen had been badly let down. At one unit, Leo said, Stephen did not go outside for more than a year and was left unwashed for months. She said he had taken to self-harming, smashing his head against walls and punching himself signs of extreme stress. Leos other son, Josh, 11, is also autistic, and she is terrified that the same thing will happen to him. Im so scared hell end up the same way, she said. Leo is now working with Islington Council to try to secure Stephens release. Advertisement The barbaric treatment included patients being kept in isolation in padded cells, fed like animals through hatches, and injected with powerful drugs to make them easier to control. Tales of forcible restraint were also common, with some young people being subdued by up to six adults at a time. Last night, Mr Hancock stepped in and ordered the Care Quality Commission to launch an in-depth review of the use of hugely expensive ATUs, where places cost taxpayers up to 13,000 a week. The units are meant to be for short-term use only but some people have been held for 18 years. Mr Hancock said swift action was needed to stamp out bad practices. In a letter to the CQC, Mr Hancock said he had become increasingly concerned about the use of seclusion settings for those with autism and learning disabilities. He continued: We are requesting that you immediately initiate a Care Quality Commission thematic review into the practice of prolonged seclusion and long-term segregation for children and adults with a mental illness, learning disability or autism in secondary care and social care settings. I request this review be expedited and completed as quickly as is feasible. He added: I look forward to seeing the findings of this work to ensure that we can eliminate inappropriate restrictive practices and ensure that vulnerable people supported by health and social care are accorded the best possible care. Mr Hancocks intervention will be greeted with scepticism by campaigners who argue that similar promises have been made by consecutive Health Secretaries but nothing has changed. Meanwhile, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is actively considering taking action, while a growing chorus of voices, including the Childrens Commissioner and leading MPs, are also calling for investigations. Health Secretary Matt Hancock (pictured) has ordered a probe into autistic youngsters locked in NHS 'hell holes' Amid their concern, a devastating Government-commissioned report is to be published tomorrow that will report that people with learning difficulties die nearly 20 years sooner than the general population. The report, by University College Londons Institute for Health Equity, concludes: As a society, we are not supporting this vulnerable group as well as we should. EHRC chairman David Isaac said: The current in-patient care system for people with learning disabilities has led to some horrific situations at a number of assessment and treatment units where peoples human rights are being disregarded. The Children's Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield (pictured) has also weighed in on the issue He said the EHRC was actively considering which of its formal enforcement powers could be used to fix the current system. These could include a major inquiry into human rights concerns or even an investigation into institutional prejudice and unlawful discrimination, similar to the landmark probe it carried out into victimisation of Metropolitan Police staff, published two years ago. The Childrens Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, who has statutory responsibility for children in care, has also stepped in. She has written to NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens asking him to launch his own review. Ms Longfield said: How children are treated says so much about a society, and by any measure these shocking stories show a system that is failing to look after some of our most vulnerable. Sir David Nicholson (pictured) had raised concerns in 2012 when he was the chief executive of the NHS Yet concerns about ATUs were raised at the highest levels of the NHS six years ago. This newspaper has obtained a letter sent to local authorities in June 2012 by Sir David Nicholson, the then NHS chief executive, and Sir David Behan, director-general of social care, admitting this model of care has no place in the 21st Century. Official figures show more than 2,500 people with autism and learning disabilities were held in ATUs last year, including 230 children. The number of under-18s detained in ATUs has more than doubled in just three years. THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF AUTISM According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with autism have trouble with social, emotional and communication skills that usually develop before the age of three and last throughout a persons life. Specific signs of autism include: Reactions to smell, taste, look, feel or sound are unusual Difficulty adapting to changes in routine Unable to repeat or echo what is said to them Difficulty expressing desires using words or motions Unable to discuss their own feelings or other peoples Difficulty with acts of affection like hugging Prefer to be alone and avoid eye contact Difficulty relating to other people Unable to point at objects or look at objects when others point to them Advertisement The NHS spent 477.4 million on ATUs for people with autism and learning disabilities in 2016, with families saying places cost up to 13,000 a week. While the NHS used to operate most units, private firms now run half the beds available making hundreds of millions from doing so. Barbara Keeley, Labours Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Social Care, said Mr Hancock must explain why companies with a vested interest in keeping vulnerable people in these Bedlam-like conditions are permitted to do so when they could be in community care for a fraction of the cost. The National Autistic Society has urged Mr Hancock to intervene by visiting an ATU without warning. UCLs report found that those with learning difficulties account for a quarter of young people in custody even though they make up just 2.9 per cent of the total population. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: The use of long-term seclusion is unacceptable, and we are clear that restraint should only ever be used as an absolute last resort. We are committed to ensuring adult social care in England is high quality, safe and compassionate. To protect the public and hold providers to account we set up the CQC and invested it with enforcement powers to crack down on poor quality care or abuse. Responding to the UCL report, the spokesman said: Improving the lives of people with learning disabilities will be a key part of the NHS long-term plan and we will be consulting on mandatory awareness training for health and care staff to help end unacceptable differences in life expectancy. I can't even get into my daughter's room Whenever Lee Mead is visited by her mother Gillian, she repeats the same phrase: I want to come home. I want to come home. Lee went into The Priory unit in Pontypridd, South Wales 80 miles from home in Wiltshire last year and in April was sectioned for the first time in her life. Gillian says she is now frequently restrained, and that she is no longer allowed into her daughters room. She said: Theres one medication they havent got and have never, ever had and thats tender loving care. Gillian has launched an internet petition hoping to secure Lees release. A spokesman for The Priory Group said it kept parents informed and consulted. The Brooklyn detective who accused his sergeant of shoving her lace panties into his mouth says he's been shunned by his precinct ever since he reported the incident. Detective Victor Falcon, 35, claims that Sgt. Ann Marie Guerra, 38, rubbed her panties on his face and tried to stuff them into his mouth screaming 'They are f***ing clean!' as the two were in the unisex locker room at the Brooklyn 72 Precinct on October 7. 'Im the pariah of the precinct and the NYPD. My career is over,' he said to the New York Post. 'Nobody will ever take me seriously...I'm known as the panty-eater. To do my job is impossible,' he added. Detective Victor Falcon (middle) filed a complaint against Sgt. Ann Marie Guerra of Brooklyn's 72 Precinct accusing her of shoving underwear into his mouth. Since his complaint he said he's become the 'pariah of the precinct' and is known as 'panty-eater' Following the complaint Guerra was moved to a Manhattan precinct. Falcon claims that's he's been abused by Guerra 'on almost a daily basis' for five years and the panty incident on October 7 was the last straw Falcon filed a complaint with the NYPD's Equal Employment Office on October 24. In that complaint he accuses his department and investigators of initially ignoring his complaints and leaking embarrassing details to the press. 'The Department allowed me to be humiliated and that's what I intend on proving,' he said. Falcon claims that's he's been abused by Guerra for years 'on almost a daily basis'. He has worked with Sgt. Guerra for five years in Sunset Park. The complaint alleges discrimination based on sex/gender, assault and battery, sexual harassment, hostile work environment and ongoing retaliation. He claims that when he complained to a lieutenant and captain about her 'sexually inappropriate comments' and Guerra and Sgt. Johnny Wong in turn targeted him for retaliation. Falcon said he told co-workers in 2017 that he started dating someone and Guerra quipped: 'If she doesn't call you back it's because you've got a little d***!' At a department Halloween party two years ago Falcon and Guerra posed together. In the photo he was holding a prop penis, claiming the costume was in reference to her 'little d***' joke. He believes that the photo was recently leaked in an 'attempt to publicly shame and discredit him'. The NYPD officially opened a probe and transferred Guerra to Midtown's 17th Precinct on October 24 A photo surfaced of Detective Victor Falcon holding a prosthetic penis and posing with Sergeant Ann Marie Guerra at a Halloween bash two years ago. He says the photo was leaked to 'publicly shame and discredit' him The complaint also alleges that Guerra controlled approving overtime and changing detectives' shifts and deliberately denied Falcon's shift-change requests to attend custody hearings for his autistic child and delayed approving his overtime requests. 'In a world where we are looking for gender equality, I was abused for my gender. Picture a male doing that to a female. He wouldn't have a job anymore,' Falcon said. The panty incident on October 7 was the last straw for Falcon. He was in the squadroom with Guerra, Detective Donna Marie Mazza, and Detective Ioannis Kyrkos when he said 'You got panties in the locker room and panties in the shower' as they were discussing hygiene. The comment allegedly threw her into a tailspin and she angrily grabbed a 'dark and lacy' thong and confronted Falcon. 'I was talking and she put it in my face and started rubbing it in my mouth. I was a deer in the headlights. I kept hearing her say, "They're f***ing clean,"' Falcon said. The 72 Precinct in Brooklyn has been hit with a slew of other salacious allegations recently including a cop being involved in a prostitution ring and the Deputy Inspector being accused of shaking down a business for $80,000 in plane tickets The two other detectives were shocked with the outburst. 'We all looked at each other. Mazza said "What the f*** did she just do" and Kyrkos said "That was disgusting,"' he added. Falcon said the precinct has a culture of 'you don't rat'. The NYPD opened an official probe on October 24 and Guerra was transferred to Midtown's 17th precinct. Falcon said she's calling her reassignment a promotion. Guerra and Sgt. Wong are yet to comment on the complaint. The precinct house has had its fair share of scandals recently. Just last month, precinct Detective Manuel Rodriguez was accused of participating in a prostitution and gambling rung run by a former cop. He was subsequently stripped of his gun and badge. Meanwhile, the precinct commander, Deputy Inspector Emmanuel Gonzalez, was sued by a Sunset Park club owner who alleged the cop was shaking down his business to the tune of $80,000 for 11 round-trip tickets to Hurricane Maria-ravaged Puerto Rico. An overjoyed family has been reunited with their beloved pet dog Chewy after he was stolen from their backyard. Footage of the incident was captured on the family's CCTV in Sydney's west on Monday morning and obtained by Nine News. The following Sunday, the family 'breathed a sigh of relief' after police reunited them with their beloved two-and-a-half-year-old Pomeranian/Maltese. Footage has captured the moment a hooded man jumped over a family's fence in St Clair, in Sydney's west (pictured), before snatching their pet dog Chewy is currently in the presence of his owners and has also been taken to the vet where he is being examined 'Chewy is home!!!! Chewy is safe and has passed his vet check!! We have been overwhelmed and humbled with all of the help and support we have received from everyone everywhere,' Kelly Foster, his owner, wrote on Facebook. A special shoutout to all our family and friends, and NSW Police Force for finding him. 'The power of human kindness really is amazing. Chewy also sends his love to all.' Footage of the horrific ordeal shows a hooded man jumping over the family's fence in St Clair before chasing after the petrified animal. The man, who was wearing a purple hooded jumper, baits the dog with cat food and then snatches the family pet. He is seen struggling to hold onto Chewy as he tosses and turns in an attempt to escape the man's grasp. The man is captured throwing the dog over the fence as he jumps to flee the property. Owner Kelly Foster says the dog, which is a Pomeranian/Maltese named Chewy, is desexed, microchipped and weighs about 8kgs (pictured) Kelly Foster, Chewy's owner, begged for help from the community at the time of his disappearance At the time of Chewy's disappearance, Ms Foster begged the community for help. When asked by Daily Mail Australia if the dog was known throughout the neighbourhood, Ms Foster said: 'We don't really take him out of the yard much because he's happy to just run and chase his ball'. 'But the neighbours in my street really love him and this grub jumped the fence,' she said. Theresa May is said to have made a breakthrough on Brexit talks that could see her put forward a deal to her Cabinet as early as Tuesday. The Prime Minister was reported last night to have secured private concessions from Brussels that would keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU. Her plan would avoid the need for a hard Irish during a transition to a final trade deal, the issue which has been the sticking point in negotiations for months. Mrs May also hopes to produce a detailed outline on the final settlement with the EU signalling a Canada-style deal remains a long-term possibility. Downing Street hopes to convince Brussels to convene an emergency summit within days to seal the divorce before the end of the month - and then persuade MPs to back it. Theresa May (pictured leaving for Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday) is said to have secured private concessions from Brussels to keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU According to the claims today: Theresa May has received private agreement the backstop plan in the divorce deal will be a UK-wide customs union and not just for Northern Ireland. This is supposed to avoid a hard border and unlock the negotiations at the 11th hour The divorce deal will include an exit clause so the customs union does not last forever There will be a long and detailed political agreement with the the EU on the final trade deal that leaves open a Canada-style deal instead of May's Chequers plan The PM will warn Brexiteers if they reject this version of the deal the fall out from no deal will be their fault However, even if agreed to by Europe's chief negotiator Michel Barnier, it may not get through the House of Commons, as it would anger hard Brexit-supporting MPs. What is the final issue in the Brexit talks? Theresa May insists the Brexit deal is 95 per cent done - but the final issue of the Irish border backstop may be the hardest part. The backstop sets out what will happen to the Irish border if the Brexit transition ends before a final UK-EU trade deal is in place. Transition is currently due to end in December 2020. The EU is still insisting that in the absence of a full trade deal, Northern Ireland should stay in the EU customs union while the rest of the UK leaves to ensure the Irish border remains open. Mrs May has flatly rejected the idea, saying she would not agree to anything that risked splitting the UK. Instead, the government has mooted a temporary customs union for the whole UK. There would also probably need to be more regulatory checks between mainland UK and Northern Ireland to protect the single market. Some already take place, but they could be dramatically stepped up - potentially creating a huge flashpoint with the DUP. Brussels now appears to be prepared to do a UK-wide backstop in the divorce deal - but insists it must be robust and the UK could not exit it unilaterally. Advertisement They believe it would prevent Britain securing new free trade deals with other countries, and would break the Conservatives' manifesto promise to leave the customs union. Last night prominent Brexiteer MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the European Research Group, told The Mail on Sunday: 'It would be a major breach of faith. 'I am assuming the Government will stick to its manifesto commitment to leaving the customs union when we leave the EU.' Tory backbencher Mark Pritchard wrote on Twitter that the proposed deal would amount to 'not delivering Brexit' and warned: 'Severe punishment at General Election if this goes ahead. Appears any old deal now better than no deal.' It was claimed that the EU had last week agreed a major concession to unlock a Brexit deal, by accepting that checks on goods could take place in factories and shops rather than at the border. An all-UK customs deal could be written into the withdrawal agreement, avoiding the need for a 'backstop' for Northern Ireland, the Sunday Times said today. It is not clear whether Brussels has agreed to drop the Northern Ireland-only backstop, something which Mrs May insists she will never sign up and which would not be agreed by MPs. The Prime Minister (pictured here with Philip Hammond) will still have to get her plan through the House of Commons In a bid to ensure MPs back it, Mrs May's proposal would include an 'exit clause' to avoid suspicion that Britain will forever be tied to EU rules, allowing the Government to forge a future free trade deal like that enjoyed by Canada. A Whitehall source warned the paper this remained the central issue because the EU is likely to insist any exit clause still contains the Northern Ireland-only backstop. They said: 'The PM will be able to say there's no more backstop, we've got rid of that success. 'It is UK-wide success. There's an exit mechanism success. And you've got Canada. The small print is that Ireland is f*****.' The Prime Minister is said to be preparing to sell the plan to Brexiteers in the Cabinet by insisting the customs arrangement will not be permanent, and that the alternative is a potentially disastrous 'no-deal' exit from the bloc in March. EU law expert Professor Steve Peers told this newspaper: 'I think there became an increased chance of a deal once the EU apparently agreed to a UK-wide customs union with the EU in the withdrawal agreement.' He said that an all-UK customs union would not breach the EU's red lines. But he added that there may still be some aspects surrounding Northern Ireland that may be opposed by the Democratic Unionist Party, whose votes in the Commons are vital to Mrs May, as well as angering Brexiteers. Former Brexit Secretary David Davis told a Sunday newspaper that the Prime Minister must publish legal advice on any deal so that Ministers and MPs understand its implications before they are asked to vote on it, in order to avoid the 'mess' that Tony Blair's government got into over the legality of the Iraq war. Last night Downing Street sought to play down expectation that a customs union deal was close to being agreed. A spokesman insisted: 'Nothing has been agreed.' Heart-wrenching images have captured the moment security guards desperately wrestled a teenage girl to the ground in a bid to stop her plunging 65ft to her death in an apparent suicide pact. A security guard hurled himself on top of the 14-year-old when she experienced a 'moment's doubt' after her school friend fell from the roof of the of El Corte Ingles shopping centre. Colleagues are pictured helping him getting the traumatised girl to safety after a struggle on top of the roof in the upmarket resort of Puerto Banus near Marbella. Moments earlier her friend, who has been named locally as 16-year-old Richard Fitzsimons, died after he 'jumped' from the top of the building. A security guard hurled himself on top of the 14-year-old when she experienced a 'moment's doubt' after her school friend fell from the roof of the of El Corte Ingles shopping centre Colleagues are pictured helping him getting the traumatised girl to safety after a struggle on top of the roof in the upmarket resort of Puerto Banus near Marbella The drama happened just before midday on Friday. The pair attended the upmarket Aloha College in Marbella which takes in pupils aged three to 18 and is regarded as one of the most expensive international schools in the area, has so far made no comment. Richard Fitzsimons, 16, is believed to be the British teenage schoolboy who died after 'jumping' from the roof of a department store in a suspected suicide pact They sparked the alarm after the girl posted an Instagram message which said: 'It's a dirty world that I don't want to live in anymore.' She added in her pain-filled Instagram story titled: 'I'm Sorry': 'To anyone who has ever loved/known or supported me, thank you, I love you and I will miss you.' Sales and marketing manager John Henrik, 47, from Bergen, Norway, said: 'I was having a coffee with my wife Larse at our eighth-floor home when I heard a loud bang. 'I went to see what was happening and spotted a young girl fighting with a security guard on the roof opposite. 'Within seconds two or three others arrived. The struggle lasted for several minutes. 'The security men were dragging her down from a small platform on the roof and sitting on her. 'She seemed very angry and she was right on the edge of the building. More people arrived when she calmed down. It was as if she had just run out of energy and given up.' The of El Corte Ingles shopping centre, in the upmarket resort of Puerto Banus near Marbella Police cars outside the shopping centre in Marbella. It is understood that the boy had reached the top of the building via the emergency staircase The couple reportedly told friends and family that they planned to go shopping at the store that day before Richard fell to his death at 11.42am on Friday. It is thought the teenagers shared messages with friends saying they were on their way to the department store in Puerto Banus to 'end their lives.' A friend's mother alerted the store who sent a security guard up onto the roof after a colleague spotted the couple on store cameras. A source said: 'Several calls went into to the department store from people who said they had published social media messages warning what they were going to do. 'One was from the mother of a friend who then started looking for them in the vicinity of the building. 'The brave security guard risked his own safety, reaching them 30 seconds later and grappling the girl to the ground from a raised 20 square foot platform; heroic actions which saved a life.' 'Sadly it was too late to save the boy.' Heartbreaking tributes have been left outside the shopping centre in Spain following Richard's death. Well-wishers left flowers and handwritten notes outside the shopping centre where the boy plunged to his death Candles were also left for the teenager who reportedly attended one of the most exclusive schools in Marbella The 16-year-old died after falling 65 feet from the top of the shopping centre in Puerto Banus (pictured) Candles were also left for the teenager at the scene. One, signed Giulia and Deborah, said: 'You will always be in our hearts, forever love you and we hope you find peace now. Love and kisses.' Another added: 'Rest in paradise. I hope you're not struggling wherever you are now. You will forever be missed.' Police have already said that although the incident is still under investigation, they are treating the British boy's death as a suicide. His girlfriend was taken to a health centre after suffering a panic attack. Her whereabouts are still not known. Friends have described Richard as the son of a British father and Brazilian mother. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have been contacted by MailOnline for comment. Sources at the department store he plunged to his death from confirmed they had received calls from the couple's friends after 'they announced their intention to throw themselves off the roof' For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. See samaritans.org for details. British billionaire Dr Marwan Koukash insists he will celebrate winning the Melbourne Cup in a way no owner has before - by stripping down to his g-string. Surely he's joking? Maybe not. The flamboyant businessman believes his horse Magic Circle will win on Tuesday and is just as adamant his acceptance speech will be like no other. 'When we win - not if we win, when we win - Flemington will see the most colourful presentation than it's ever had before and is unlikely to ever have it again,' he said. British billionaire Dr Marwan Koukash (pictured) insists he will celebrate winning the Melbourne Cup in a way no owner has before - by stripping down to his g-string 'I will - and no one here is going to stop me, even with the threat of a ban for life - I'm going to strip down to my g-string, keep my tie and my shoes, and I will get up and receive the trophy.' Dr Koukash first made his g-string Cup pledge after landing his 500th British winner in August and has happily repeated it to amused journalists since arriving in Melbourne. 'I think my wife will end up divorcing me, but listen, it's easier to find a new wife than win the Melbourne Cup,' he quipped. Joking - or not - aside, Dr Koukash really wants to win a Melbourne Cup. He has tried a few times already, getting his best finish with Mount Athos' third in 2013, and believes the Ian Williams-trained Magic Circle is a better horse. 'Magic Circle is the ideal horse for us to do it this time.' The flamboyant businessman believes his horse Magic Circle (pictured racing in England) will win on Tuesday and is just as adamant his acceptance speech will be like no other Dr Koukash is delighted to have one of the favourites behind the Aidan O'Brien-trained Yucatan, owned by six-time Cup winning owner Lloyd Williams. 'I'm living the dream. 'Any owner in the world would dream of having a runner in the Melbourne Cup. 'Not to only have a runner but to have one of the favourites in the Cup, it's great mate, absolutely wonderful.' Sky Thoroughbred Central commentator Ron Dufficy jokingly asked Dr Koukash last month whether his winning jockey would want a g-string as well - to which the billionaire replied 'just for me mate'. The wealthy horse owner set up corporate training company EuroMaTech in 1992, the base for much of his riches. Hollywood stars have come out in force to oppose Donald Trump in Tuesdays vital US mid-term elections. Celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Oprah Winfrey are appealing to fans to vote against the Republican President in what is seen as the most crucial test of Mr Trumps presidency to date. The election will see all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives up for grabs, along with 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate. It is widely expected that Mr Trump will lose control of the House because of his unpopular stance on controversial issues such as immigration, but Republicans are set to retain their majority vote in the Senate. With some polls predicting a devastating night for Mr Trump, the mid-terms could dictate the future of his presidency and his ability to push his political agenda through Congress. And the opposition of traditionally liberal Hollywood stars could affect the outcome of the poll. On Friday, Titanic actor DiCaprio called the mid-terms the most important vote in history and urged young voters and women to come out in force to oppose the President. Tomorrow night, Charlize Theron is expected to take part in a two-hour live Telethon Across America on YouTube to encourage people, especially first-time voters, to cast their ballot against Mr Trump. Tomorrow night, Charlize Theron (pictured) is expected to take part in a two-hour live Telethon Across America on YouTube to encourage people, especially first-time voters, to cast their ballot against Mr Trump TV talk show billionaire Oprah Winfrey and activist actress Jane Fonda have been going door- to-door in towns across America urging people to vote against Mr Trump, described by Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein as the toxicity in our system TV talk show billionaire Oprah Winfrey and activist actress Jane Fonda have been going door- to-door in towns across America urging people to vote against Mr Trump, described by Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein as the toxicity in our system. Fonda, 80, famous for her anti-Vietnam War activism in the 1970s, said she hoped young people would recognise what was at stake. She said: More than any other that I can remember, this election is going to determine whether we can continue to call ourselves a democracy, whether were going to be able to live in a country of people that are different from each other and truly get along. The mid-terms so-called because they fall halfway through a Presidents four-year stint in office are widely viewed as a referendum on Mr Trumps policies, including his staunch anti-immigration stance. On Friday, he told supporters that he was sending 15,000 US troops to the US-Mexican border to meet a caravan of migrants from Central America, which he compared to an invasion and claimed is full of violent criminals and gang members. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt appeared together in an appeal to voters Mr Trump has came under fire for his inflammatory rhetoric. He claimed last weekends Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in which 11 worshippers were killed by a gunman and the man accused of sending bombs through the mail to prominent political rivals had managed to slow down the momentum of his party ahead of Tuesdays vote. Winfrey called the Presidents remarks despicable. Celebrity backing has already been shown to have a significant effect on the campaign. When pop star Taylor Swift endorsed Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen in her home state of Tennessee, polls showed nearly one million people cast an early ballot almost tripling the number of voters who cast ballots ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections. Mr Trump may yet enjoy a boost in the polls from record employment figures that were released on Friday, but he has also come under fire for imposing new sanctions against Iran. More than 2.2 billion a year is being diverted from frontline NHS services to pay for clinical negligence claims, shocking new figures reveal. Despite repeated Government pledges to tackle the scandal, spending has doubled from 1.1 billion in 2013. The eye-watering figure enough to pay the salaries of 100,000 nurses means 1 in every 50 handed to the NHS is used to compensate harmed patients or settle lawyers legal fees. Despite repeated Government pledges to tackle the scandal, spending has doubled from 1.1 billion in 2013 In some cases, no win no fee law firms pocket more in legal fees than they secure in damages for their clients. Spending on NHS claims in England soared from 1.7 billion in 2016/17 to 2.2 billion in 2017/18. Damages accounted for 1.1 billion and 1.6 billion respectively. Payments to claimants lawyers shot up from 418 million in 2015/16 to 498 million the following year, before dipping slightly to 467 million in 2017/18. Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show medical negligence specialists Irwin Mitchell received 32.4 million in legal costs in 2016/17, while Slater And Gordon were paid 15.9 million and Leigh Day got 10.9 million. Two of the ten highest earning firms got more in legal fees in 2016/17 than they won in damages. Pryers was paid 6.4 million after winning compensation of only 5.2 million and Shoosmiths was paid 7.1 million but secured damages of 6.8 million. Payments to claimants lawyers shot up from 418 million in 2015/16 to 498 million the following year, before dipping slightly to 467 million in 2017/18 Steve Webber, chairman of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers, said the 31 million fall in claimants fees last year showed Government reforms were working. However, there is concern that efforts to cap legal costs in lower value cases have stalled, three years after Ministers announced the plan for fixed costs in cases where damages were under 100,000. A spokesman for NHS Resolution, which deals with health service litigation, said: Despite a plateauing in the numbers of clinical negligence claims, the cost of claims continues to rise. As our research shows, it is important to support NHS staff to do what is right when something goes wrong with healthcare and as soon as possible, which means an honest and upfront explanation and ensuring that families are involved in any investigation. A Health Department spokeswoman said work on fixed costs was ongoing, adding: We intend to set out more detail in due course. The Health Secretary is calling on companies to offer free fruit and bicycle loans to staff in a bid to keep them healthy and reduce the burden on the NHS. Matt Hancock will tomorrow announce a new initiative urging employers to do more to maintain the health and well-being of their staff. He cited a Cornish firm as a prime example of a workplace which helps reduce the burden on the NHS - with its own free fruit, counseling and cycle scheme. Scroll down for video Matt Hancock (pictured outside Downing Street last week) is urging firms to do more to maintain the health and well-being of their employees The former culture secretary was speaking in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, and in it also urged firms to do more to help ill employees return to work. He said: 'The lesson is that employers need to be more engaged when people aren't well, getting them back to work.' Citing the benefits already in place at the Cornish dairy firm Rodda's, he said: 'It employs 178 staff and places a big emphasis on health and well-being. 'Initiatives include free fruit, counselling, bereavement and legal services, cycle to work scheme, and a staff volunteer scheme.' His comments come as Philip Hammond announced the biggest public-spending splurge since 2010 including the 20 billion a year extra for the NHS announced by the Prime Minister earlier this year. Theresa May also today announced that the Conservatives are the 'natural party of the NHS' in an interview with the The Mail on Sunday. This is certainly not the first time Mr Hancock has mentioned improving health in the workplace. Earlier this month he said workers should stand at their desks and hold stand-up meetings to increase their exercise levels. The Health Secretary is calling on firms to offer free fruit (pictured stock image) to reduce the burden of unhealthy workers on the NHS He said he had his own stand-up desk and encouraged standing meetings wherever possible, partly because they did not go on as long. An average employee burns an extra 50 calories an hour standing at their desk as opposed to sitting or 150 calories if they stand for three hours a day. This amounts to 750 extra calories a week or 30,000 calories over the course of the year, equivalent to 8lb (3.5 kg) of fat. Speaking at the International Society for Physical Activity and Health Congress in London, he said: 'Workplaces can make a difference; encouraging breaks, offering standing desks, having standing meetings which in my experience tend to finish quicker too. 'Our message should be that movement is medicine.' His latest initiative, to ask employers to offer a range of healthy benefits - including free fruit - is just the latest in his suggested workplace changes. Amazon is reportedly at advanced stages of opening its second headquarters in Northern Virginia. The online retail giant has held discussions about the possibility of opening its second outpost in Crystal City, a residential and business area strategically positioned south of the nation's capital. The Washington Post reported that Amazon is said to be mulling how quickly it could move employees, its physical plant and how it could make the decision public, people close to the process told the publication. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has given no indication of desired location for the new premises An aerial image of Crystal City (pictured) which is tipped to be the new location for Amazon's second headquarters It is understood that the area's premier developer, JBG Smith, has pulled some of its buildings off the leasing market to make way for Amazon. The internet giant continues to assess 20 locations on its shortlist for its second headquarters ahead of its year-end deadline. However it was also reported that Amazon may also be in similar talks with other cities considered finalists. Two people close to the process said that if Crystal City was selected, Amazon was likely to move an initial group of several hundred employees into 1851 South Bell Street or 1770 Crystal Drive. These are two dated office buildings that have been targeted for redevelopment but could be readied for occupancy by their owner, JBG Smith. At a conference in New York on Thursday, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos told the crowd: Ultimately the decision will be made with intuition after gathering and studying a lot of data for a decision like that, as far as I know, the best way to make it is you collect as much data as you can, you immerse yourself in that data but then you make the decision with your heart.' The two buildings at 1851 South Bell Street and 1770 Crystal Drive, which are located beside each other, are the properties being touted as Amazon's second headquarters Meanwhile, sources told CNBC that Amazon and local officials had a 'very productive' and 'very long' conference call on Friday. It is understood that a potential incentive package may include a 'very generous' transportation incentive to alleviate traffic fears, as well as educational aspects to ensure Amazon has a pipeline to a skilled workforce. Part of Amazon's current headquarters (pictured) in Seattle, Washington Sources told CNBC that a final decision is 'close' and may come down to Northern Virginia or Austin, Texas, or perhaps a split between both cities. Mike Grella, Amazon's director of economic development, posted on Twitter that those leaking information about the selection process were 'not doing Crystal City any favors'. He also hinted that Amazon compelled finalists to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that the leakers may be violating. Crystal City, which has easy transit access, is close to Reagan National Airport and has ready-to-occupy office buildings, has long been considered a strong contender. The District and Montgomery County also are among the 20 finalists. Over the past few months, Amazon executives have reportedly revisited several of the locations on its shortlist, including Newark, New Jersey, New York City and Chicago, CNN reported. Dallas, Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Miami are also among the 20 shortlisted cities, CNN reported. Richard Fitzsimons, 16, has been named as the 16-year-old British student who plunged to his death in a suspected suicide pact The girlfriend of a British teenager who plunged to his death in an apparent suicide pact sparked a desperate race to save the pair by posting a message on social media saying: Its a dirty world that I dont want to live in anymore. The 14-year-old schoolgirl, who is also British, was rescued by a security guard moments after her tragic sweetheart named locally as Richard Fitzsimons, 16 jumped from the 65ft-high roof of the El Corte Ingles department store in Puerto Banus on Spains Costa del Sol. Writing on Instagram earlier, she said: To anyone who has ever loved/known or supported me, thank you, I love you and I will miss you. It is believed the pair had earlier told friends or family that they planned to go shopping at the store that day. Sources close to the investigation said the mother of a child at the exclusive Aloha College private school, where Richard was a pupil, alerted department store staff shortly before he fell to his death at 11.42am on Friday. A security guard spotted the pair on the roof on store cameras before a brave colleague risked his life to wrestle the girl to the ground. Sales manager John Henrik, 47, from Norway, who watched the horror unfold from his eighth-floor flat in a block opposite the store, said: I was having a coffee with my wife when I heard a loud bang. When I went to see what was happening, I spotted a young girl fighting with a security guard on the roof opposite. Within seconds, two or three others arrived. Candles were also left for the teenager who reportedly attended one of the most exclusive schools in Marbella Well-wishers left flowers and handwritten notes outside the shopping centre where the boy plunged to his death The security men were dragging her down from a small platform on the roof and sitting on her. It was very dramatic. Richard is the son of a Brazilian mother and a British father. It is understood his parents split several years ago. Aloha College charges fees of up to 13,000 a year and is regarded as one of the best schools in the area. It was on half-term last week and has made no comment. The El Corte Ingles department store where the 16-year-old died CCTV footage given to the police by the store is understood to show Richard pushing the girl away from the edge of the roof to safety after she experienced a split-second of doubt. A source said: Several calls went into the department store from people who said they had published social media messages warning what they were going to do. One was from the mother of a friend who then started looking for them in the vicinity of the building. A security guard in the camera control room spotted them on the roof and put out an alert. Along with the brave security guard who risked his own safety reaching them 30 seconds later and grappling the girl to the ground from a raised 20sq ft platform, they were heroic actions which saved a life. Sadly it was too late to save the boy. Friends and well-wishers yesterday left flowers and candles at the spot where Richard died. One said: Rest in paradise. I hope youre not struggling wherever you are now. For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or visit samaritans.org. A theatre director chose an African name and scooped taxpayer funding for ethnic minority arts leaders despite admitting his parents and grandparents were all white. Anthony Ekundayo Lennon has worked on all-black productions and last year won a paid traineeship as a 'theatre practitioner of colour'. Born to Irish parents but naturally darker-skinned, Mr Lennon has called himself a 'born-again African' and said in 2012 that he had 'gone through the struggles of a black man'. Starting his career as an actor he embraced his chosen black identity and took a middle name from an African name book as he felt his given name did not 'fulfil' him any more, The Sunday Times reported. Anthony Ekundayo Lennon (pictured) has previously said 'Although I'm white, with white parents, I have gone through the struggles of a black man, a black actor.' Mr Lennon was born in Paddington to white Irish parents but said he was bullied as a child by people who saw him as mixed-race because of his darker skin. He says his school caretaker called him 'n*****' and threatened to attack him with a dog. He has previously argued in a book: 'Everybody on the planet is African. It's your choice as to whether you accept it.' But in 1990 he stated: 'My parents are white and so are their parents, and so are their parents, and so are their parents.' His two brothers developed similar features making clear his appearance was a family trait, he said. Mr Lennon reportedly started out as a trainee with a black-led theatre company in Shoreditch named Talawa, applying as a 'mixed heritage individual'. He has since benefited from taxpayer support to propel his career as a black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) leader in the arts. But some black actors have expressed disquiet that a supposed white man had taken funding meant for a black person. Anthony Lennon (right) poses for a picture with actress Michaela Coel at a Talawa event White or black? Controversies over adopted racial identity Rachel Dolezal: The ex-civil rights leader in the U.S. identified as black and legally changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo. She sparked outrage when her parents revealed three years ago she was born white but posing as a black woman. Outrage: Rachel Dolezal After the story became an international sensation, Dolezal was fired from her job at the NCAAP. Dolezal was also kicked off a police ombudsman commission and lost her job teaching African studies at Eastern Washington University. Vijay Chokal-Ingam: The Indian-American said he had posed as a black person to win a place at a university through affirmative action. He claims he was accepted into St Louis University's medical school in the 1990s by using his middle name Jojo. He also shaved his head and became a member of black student organizations. Despite his lower than average grades, he was accepted because he was posing as a black student, he claims. Advertisement He was one of four people to be awarded a part of a 406,500 grant, as part of a two-year residential traineeship on a Arts Council England-funded programme. One black actor said: 'When I discovered his background I thought it was unfair that a white man had taken a black person's place on a Bame scheme.' The consortium that awarded the funding said they were 'satisfied' Mr Lennon was eligible because he had identified as mixed-heritage 'over a number of years'. The Arts Council England said: 'Talawa raised their wish to support Anthony with us. In responding we took into account the law in relation to race and ethnicity 'This is a very unusual case and we do not think it undermines the support we provide to black and minority ethnic people within the theatre sector.' Mr Lennon was also recently an assistant director on Britain's first all-black production of Guys and Dolls. As he grew older, he struggled to get white parts and later found success with groups such as the Black Theatre Forum. Choosing a new name, Taharka Ekundayo, he said: 'Taharka is the name of an Egyptian pharaoh and Ekundayo means "weeping becomes joy".' 'I was at a stage in my life where to address myself as Anthony Lennon did not fulfil me; it didn't seem to allow me to express myself as I saw fit,' he said. 'Some people call themselves a born-again Christian. Some people call me a born-again African. I prefer to call myself an African born again.' In 2012 he said: 'Although I'm white, with white parents, I have gone through the struggles of a black man, a black actor.' In 1990 the 24-year-old Lennon appeared in a BBC Everyman drama documentary exploring race called Chilling Out. Speaking on his identity he said: 'When I'm alone in my bedroom looking in the mirror, thinking about stuff I've written down, thinking about my past relationship-wise, pictures on the wall, I think I'm a black man. I've not said that to anyone. And I won't say it outside.' As part of the documentary the actor Lennie James, star of The Walking Dead, responds by accusing Lennon of cultural appropriation. 'Sometimes I feel like you are watching me. Watching me to say this equals a black man. Then you're taking it from me, and sticking it on yourself,' he said. MailOnline has contacted Lennon for a comment. Fraser Ayres (left) and Wil Johnson (centre) stand with Lennon (right) after a performance at the Bush Theatre Lennon had also recently been caught up in the evacuation of King's Cross station in London and was pictured with industry friends outside French people are the worst English speakers in Europe, according to a new index released this week. France has the lowest level of English proficiency of any country in the European Union, according to global language training company Education First. The 2018 English Proficiency Index compared levels of English among non-native speakers across 88 countries around the world. The new ranking, which surveyed countries without English as a national language, put France in 35th place behind the Philippines, South Korea and Lebanon. French as the worst English speakers in western Europe while Sweden came out on top. Some of the largest European countries, such as Spain and Italy, also have deficiencies in English. French people are the worst English speakers in Europe, according to a new index by global language training company Education First The index said that 'countries on the fringes of Europe lag significantly behind the European average'. It read: 'Three of the continent's largest economies - Spain, Italy, and France - have persistent English skill deficiencies, while countries in northern Europe occupy six of the top ten positions in the index.' Parisians speak the best English in France, according to the survey, but it places the capital 25th among international cities behind Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Swedes were ranked the world's best non-native English speakers, pushing last year's top-ranked country, the Netherlands, into second place. Denmark, Germany and Belgium were among other EU countries with 'very high proficiency', while ten EU countries, including Greece, Portugal and Hungary, were in the 'high proficiency'. Adeline Prevost of Education First suggested that the French lack exposure to English, pointing out that Hollywood blockbusters tend to be dubbed into French. He told the Telegraph: 'Because French is a widely spoken language, we get translations without a problem. 'In other countries, for example Sweden, where the language is not spoken around the world, translations from English are not available so easily so people have more exposure to English. Swedes were ranked the world's best non-native English speakers, pushing last year's top-ranked country, the Netherlands, into second place 'The preservation of the French language has always been the main priority in the country. Every time English is perceived as a threat to national languages, the level of competency in English suffers.' English expressions are increasingly used in day-to-day French, much as English speakers use of French words. According to a Eurobarometer report in 2012, 39 per cent of France's population speak English and a European Commission reported stated 38 per cent of Britons spoke a foreign language. In terms of EU population, the most widely spoken mother tongue is German with 16 per cent, followed by Italian and English on 13 per cent, French with 12 per cent, then Spanish and Polish on eight per cent. At a national level English is the most widely spoken foreign language in 19 of the 25 member states of the EU, excluding the UK and Ireland. An Australian nun who was deported from the Philippines for criticising President Rodrigo Duterte, including his war on drugs, has touched down in Melbourne. Sister Patricia Fox was met with a hero's welcome as she walked through the arrival hall at Melbourne Airport on Sunday, swamped by a chanting crowd, banners and flashing cameras. The 79-year-old was kicked out of the Philippines for denouncing human rights abuses in the Philippines. 'I'm so happy to be back but I'm sad at the same time,' Sr Fox said on Sunday morning. An Australian nun (pictured) who was deported from the Philippines for criticising President Rodrigo Duterte, including his war on drugs, has touched down in Melbourne Sister Patricia Fox (second from right) was met with a hero's welcome as she walked through the arrival hall at Melbourne airport on Sunday, swamped by a chanting crowd, banners and flashing cameras The 79-year-old (pictured) was kicked out of the Philippines for denouncing human rights abuses in the Philippines The catholic nun had lived in the country for almost three decades but had her missionary visa cancelled for challenging policies of President Rodrigo Duterte. Almost six months ago the president ordered her arrest and deportation after Sr Fox went on a fact-finding mission in the president's home province. With a group of people, the nun found evidence of murders, land confiscations and jailing of protesters. 'There's been a culture of impunity for a long time but it's getting worse,' she said. According to Sr Fox, she would not be able to return to the country until Rodrigo Duterte is no longer president. 'I don't think I can say what I think of him,' she said. The catholic nun had lived in the country for almost three decades but had her missionary visa cancelled for challenging policies of President Rodrigo Duterte (pictured arriving at the Redemptorist Church prior to her departure for Australia) Almost six months ago the president ordered her arrest and deportation after Sr Fox went on a fact-finding mission in the president's home province (pictured with a supporter as she leaves her house in the Philippines on November 3) After her missionary visa was cancelled and she was put on a blacklist, the nun was given a temporary visa that expired on November 3 (pictured hugging supporters during a mass in Manila on November 3) The nun had exhausted all legal measures to fight her expulsion from the Philippines, the New York Times reported. After her missionary visa was cancelled and she was put on a blacklist, the nun was given a temporary visa that expired on November 3. Before leaving for the airport on Saturday, Sr Fox attended St. Joseph's Church in Manila one last time, accompanied by a number of supporters. 'I will continue to seek justice for the victims and do all I can to support the people's struggle for true peace based on justice,' Sr Fox said. In Melbourne on Sunday, Sr Fox called on the responsibility of the Australian government to stand up against the Filipino leader. 'I think they need to (be more forceful), we have to start being responsible for what's happening over there,' she said. Sr Fox spoke to the media after arriving at Melbourne Airport on Sunday (pictured) In Melbourne on Sunday, Sr Fox called on the responsibility of the Australian government to stand up against the Filipino leader 'I think they need to (be more forceful), we have to start being responsible for what's happening over there,' she said She also thanked members of the Australian Filipino community who welcomed her at the airport. 'We didn't expect it and the support has been amazing,' she said. Her older brother Kevin Fox said he was worried about her safety but was proud of his sister and her strong convictions. 'You don't really know what's happening over there,' he said. 'She didn't want to leave but she's accepted the fact that she's got to,' Mr Fox said. Members of the Philippines Australia Solidarity association were also at the airport, where they praised her unwavering fight for justice. 'We look forward to once again stand with her in the struggle for social justice and human rights in the Philippines and Australia,' PASA spokeswoman May Kotsakis said. The ordeal stirred debate in the Philippines about whether expatriates should be allowed to take a stand on human rights. She also thanked members of the Australian Filipino community who welcomed her at the airport (pictured at mass in Manila before departure) Her older brother Kevin Fox said he was worried about her safety but was proud of his sister and her strong convictions A family's dream Disney holiday has been ruined after British Airways left them stranded for three days, forcing them to cancel their daughter's birthday party. Hundreds of British Airways passengers endured a 'flight from hell' when their plane was diverted and they slept on an airport floor before landing two days late. Lee Sullivan, his partner Kimberley Millhouse, 30, their daughter Amelia and Kimberley's father, Bob Parsons, spent the half-term break enjoying Disney World, but became caught up in travel difficulties on the way home. The family endured a 'nightmare' return trip along with hundreds of others, finally landing London Gatwick at 6am today, almost three days after their flight was due to land. Mr Sullivan, from Slough, told The Sun: 'Disney World was amazing but that holiday now feels like years ago - the journey home has completely ruined the holiday,' 'I'm just shattered - the whole thing's been a nightmare.' Kimberley Jane Millhouse enjoying the break at Disney World with her partner and daughter. The return trip to London Gatwick 'ruined the holiday according to Lee Sullivan Lee Sullivan and Kimberley Jane Millhouse endured a return trip to the UK to forget, Mr Sullivan, pictured right, described it as a 'nightmare' Lee Sullivan, his partner Kimberley Millhouse, 30, their daughter Amelia and Kimberley's father, Bob Parsons, spent the half-term break enjoying Disney World The family were forced to leave the flight alongside other passengers due to 'mechanical issues' and made it to a hotel at 2.30am, where the four of them shared a small bed. After further delays they finally made it back into the air, but the plane began dumping fuel and had to be diverted to JFK. The family were lucky enough to be given a hotel room while in New York before finally being able to make the trip home. Mr Sullivan added: 'Worst of all was having to cancel Amelia's birthday.' The family grabbed a cake on the way back through but unfortunately could not celebrate with the 40 or so guests who had been due to come over. The British Airways Flight 2036 from Orlando to Gatwick on Thursday evening was delayed 24 hours on the ground in Florida. It finally took off on Friday evening but diverted to New York when the plane's wheels lowered at high altitude and it dumped fuel in mid-air. Up to 200 passengers spent Friday night and Saturday in JFK airport because the New York marathon meant there was a shortage of hotel rooms. Frustrated travellers shared pictures of themselves sleeping in the airport before BA offered them its first class lounge in terminal seven, much to the disgust of first class passengers on other flights who were asked to leave. At last a relief plane took the passengers to London at 9.30pm last night. It arrived at Gatwick south terminal at 6.45am on Sunday, 48 hours after it was supposed to. Passenger Lee Sullivan, a PE teacher from Slough, said: 'Finally back at LGW after the worst 3 days. I can't think of strong enough words to describe the disgusting BA customer service we received. My daughter also had to spend her 2nd birthday in JFK airport. Exhausted and angry.' He followed up with a picture of a seven-year-old girl sleeping on the floor of Terminal 7 at JFK airport after the flight was diverted to New York on Friday British Airways Flight 2036 was supposed to fly from Orlando to London on Thursday but it ended up dragging out into a over-48-hour journey 'from hell' Passenger John Chapman tweeted the airline asking for guidance saying 'your lack of information is appalling' Twitter user Rosie Slater Watts uploaded pictures of children curled up sleeping on the ground saying: 'Cannot believe our children had to sleep on the floor of an airport terminal for five and a half hours' An arrivals board at Gatwick showing the Iberia/BA flight arriving at 7.30 at the south terminal The flight from hell Flight was due to take off from Orlando at 6.25pm Thursday but was delayed for 24 hours It finally took off on Friday evening but diverted to New York Up to 200 passengers spent Friday night and Saturday in JFK airport At last a relief plane took the passengers to London at 9.30pm last night It arrived at Gatwick south terminal at 6.45am on Sunday, 48 hours after it was supposed to Advertisement Passengers said their frustrations started when they were shuttled to a hotel in Orlando after their flight was delayed for mechanical issues British Airlines sent the customers to a hotel, but once they arrived found no airline representative or guidance of any kind - they said they were simply given a print out letter. Customers said they were confused as the departure time kept changing, and the hotel - Rosen Shingle Creek - failed to update them on the time changes. Many customers took to Twitter to search for answers amid the confusing delays and diversions. Passenger John Chapman tweeted on Friday: 'What's happening with flight BA 2036 , it's nice having extra time in Orlando BA , but you lack of information is appalling, apparently we are not flying till gone midnight, info please, my family and I would like to get home.' On Friday evening the flight finally took off, but experienced complications where it dumped fuel mid-air and lowered the landing gear at a high altitude, then diverted to JFK airport in New York. As workers scrambled to fix the plane, the passengers were left to sleep on the ground at Terminal 7 at the airport overnight. Shocking pictures from the airport display a myriad of strewn about suitcases and tired passengers. Once at JFK, the angry tweets started to pour on Friday night. Passenger Jenny Collom wrote: 'Can you please give us some information regarding the BA2036 flight? We've been diverted to JFK and are currently sitting in a check in zone with no staff in sight. People are laying on the floor, and no staff are here to provide any information whatsoever.' SOS: Angry passengers said they were left clueless and helpless after they were diverted to JFK on Friday Pictures from the scene at JFK reveal the mess of suitcases and passengers sleeping on the floor The more than 200 passengers had no choice but to camp out and sleep on the ground at JFK before British Airways sent another aircraft to take them home on Saturday Nowhere to go: The overnight stay at JFK (above) was just one stop of the long two-day journey from Orlando to London on Flight 2036 Passenger Andrew Palmer said the trouble started in Orlando when they were delayed overnight and put up in hotels - but were given no guidance about departure times Angry: This user shared a copy of the letter they received regarding the changes to Flight 2036 He followed up with a photo hours later of a seven-year-old girl sleeping on the cold floor of JFK airport covered in a thin blanket. '@British_Airways 7-year-old cancer survivor, sleeping on the floor at terminal 7 JFK. Thanks for nothing,' he wrote. Passenger Craig Brown said :'We have just been dumped with no help or advise, shame on you @British_Airways this is beyond a joke now' on Twitter on Friday. 'How about you let us into the lounge while we wait instead of sitting on the floor???' he added. A British Airways spokesperson responded saying: 'I'm afraid we can't offer what you're asking. We're sending a relief aircraft out to JFK to get customers to London as quickly as possible.' Finally on Saturday, the airline sent a new aircraft as promised to JFK and the 200 passengers were taken off to their final destination - London. A British Airways spokesman told MailOnline: 'Our aircraft diverted to New York on Saturday morning as a precaution, following a minor technical issue. We are sorry to our customers for the delay to their travel plans. 'We sent a relief aircraft out to New York on Saturday morning to get customers back to London Gatwick as quickly as possible. 'Our teams on the ground cared for customers, booked hotel rooms, blocked off our first class lounge and offered meal vouchers. The safety of our customers and crew is always our priority.' Saturday Night Live opened with a parody of a Fox News segment that ridiculed Republicans' hysteria surrounding the migrant caravan en route to the US-Mexico border. Playing the role of primetime host Laura Ingraham was Kate McKinnon, who delivered a string of scathing remarks designed to stoke anxieties about the more than 4,000 would-be immigrants. Fox News personality Judge Janine Pirro, played by Cecily Strong, and Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, played by Kenan Thompson, both appeared on the newscast to reiterate how dangerous the caravan is. 'All the women are nine months pregnant, and their babies are pregnant too,' Thompson's Clarke says. The segment ends with a mention of Alec Baldwin, a reference to the SNL star's Friday arrest. 'When we come back an update from disgraced former actor Alec Baldwin, seen here molesting a boy scout,' she says, before launching into 'and live from New York it's Saturday night.' When the molesting a boy scout comment was made, a photo of Baldwin with Adam Sandler in the SNL skit Canteen Boy flashed on screen, in which Baldwin did in fact portray a man who seemed to have an inappropriate relationship with a young scout. Scroll down for video Saturday Night Live slammed Republicans' hysteria surrounding the migrant caravan with a parody of a Fox News segment with Kate McKinnon playing the role of host Laura Ingraham Fox News personality Judge Janine Pirro (Cecily Strong) and Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke (Kenan Thompson) both appeared to reiterate how dangerous the caravan is. 'All the women are nine months pregnant, and their babies are pregnant too,' Thompson's Clarke says The segment ends with a mention of 'disgraced former actor' Alec Baldwin, as Ingraham says: 'And here's a photo of Alec Baldwin molesting a Boy Scout'. Flashing on screen for a split second is a photo from Baldwin's 'Canteen Boy' SNL skit with Adam Sandler Lets find out whats really happening with this caravan. #SNL pic.twitter.com/qNsEBTssA0 Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) November 4, 2018 The episode hosted by Jonah Hill aired one day after SNL mainstay Baldwin was arrested for allegedly assaulting a man during a parking dispute in New York City on Friday. The 17-time host and regular guest star is best known for his Emmy-winning pouty portrayals of President Donald Trump. McKinnon's Ingraham slammed critics of Donald Trump who have accused the president of being racist in his rhetoric about the caravan. 'Except for his words and his actions throughout his life, how is he a racist?' she said before launching into a rant about how the term 'white nationalist' had suddenly become negative. 'All of a sudden, the term nationalist is bad,' the character lamented. 'The word white is bad. The phrase white nationalist is bad.' This week's episode comes one day after SNL mainstay Alec Baldwin was arrested for allegedly punching a man over a parking dispute on Friday. He is pictured after being released Saturday Strong's Pirro then joins Ingraham to comment on the caravan, introducing a clip that she claimed depicted the caravan earlier that day but was actually just news coverage of Black Friday shoppers ransacking a store. When asked who was in the caravan, fake-Pirro said: 'Everyone youve ever seen in your nightmares, Guatemalans, Mexicans, ISIS, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons and several Babadooks.' To illustrate her point, Pirro said: 'Just look at this footage of the caravan crossing into Mexico' as the newscast cuts to a well-known scene from Brad Pitt's World War Z that shows zombies climbing over each other trying to get over a wall. Pirro then says that she believes Pitt is 'dating the caravan', assigning them the couple name 'Bradavan'. Ingraham then welcomes Thompson's Clarke, who warns that the migrants are moving at a pace of '300 miles a day' and could arrive at the US-Mexico border just in time to vote in the midterms. Taking things a step further than Pirro, he offers up 'aerial footage' of the caravan that shows hundreds of crabs swarming a beach. Strong's Pirro then joins Ingraham to comment on the caravan, claiming that the participants are 'everyone youve ever seen in your nightmares' The fake Pirro introduces a clip that she claims shows the caravan earlier in the day but is actually just news coverage of Black Friday shoppers ransacking a store Other footage allegedly showing the caravan was taken from Brad Pitt's movie World War Z Thompson's Clarke warns that the migrants are moving at a pace of '300 miles a day' and could arrive at the US-Mexico border just in time to vote in the midterms He introduces a 'clip of the caravan' that actually just shows hundreds of crabs on a beach It's also the first episode since SNL writer Pete Davidson and pop powerhouse Ariana Grande broke off their engagement in mid-October. On Saturday reports emerged that Davidson's sketch about the breakup had been axed because the comedian 'didn't want to go through with it', according to TMZ. In a promo for this week's show Davidson poked fun at the whirlwind romance by pretending to propose to musical guest Maggie Rogers. The No Tears Left To Cry hitmaker, 25, shot back with a scathing tweet that said: 'For somebody who claims to hate relevancy you sure love clinging to it huh.' When Davidson appeared on Weekend Update he made an early reference to the breakup, saying that he started paying attention to the midterms 'after I had to move back in with my mom'. He then ended his segment on a more serious note, saying: 'I know some of you are curious about the breakup, but the truth is it's really nobody's business, and sometimes things just don't work out. 'She's a wonderful, strong person and I genuinely wish her all the happiness in the world. Now please, go vote on Tuesday.' Pete Davidson made a rare public comment about his high-profile split from Ariana Grande on SNL Saturday night, saying it's 'nobody's business' and calling his ex a 'wonderful person' More from Pete on Update. #SNL pic.twitter.com/jbyMFtzQEh Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) November 4, 2018 It's also the first episode since SNL writer Pete Davidson and pop powerhouse Ariana Grande broke off their engagement in mid-October A violent parolee is on the run after part of the GPS tracking system broke down due to Telstra's network issues on Friday and Saturday. Problems with authenticating certain devices by Australia's largest telecoms provider over the weekend meant customers and business owners were unable to access eftpos terminals and ATMs. But the outage also had serious ramifications on South Australia's electronic tag monitoring network. A violent parolee is on the run after part of the GPS tracking system broke down as a result of Telstra's network issues on Friday and Saturday (stock image) As many as 774 people in South Australia were temporarily untraceable owing to the outage, with extra staff brought in to make sure tabs were being kept on them. The chief executive of the Correctional Services Department David Brown told The Adelaide Advertiser one man in the state's prison system was still unaccounted for and could not be found as of Friday morning. Mr Brown said the man was paroled on Thursday and told by a court to go to his home address the next morning. As many as 774 people in South Australia were temporarily untraceable owing to the outage by Australia's leading network service provider, with extra staff brought in to make sure tabs were being kept on them But when the network problems began on Friday, he could no longer be traced. The chief executive said: 'Until we recover the device we won't be able to establish why the device did not reconnect with the network.' The man was the only person being monitored to remain unaccounted for after authorities carried out 300 home visits and put in 700 phone calls in place of a functional GPS network. Police are now on the hunt for the missing parolee, who was under an severe bail order for aggravated assault and has a previous conviction for a violent crime. Correctional Services Department chief executive David Brown (pictured) said one man in the state's prison system was still unaccounted for and could not be found as of Friday morning Premier Steven Marshall said he was committed to a review of the failure. He said: 'Corrections and SAPOL had already done work to identify that this was a potential scenario and therefore put contingencies in place. 'Clearly this is an unacceptable situation and one we cannot afford to occur in South Australia again.' The slip-up comes after accused criminals on the Gold Coast ordered to wear ankle trackers were said to be roaming the streets 'free' for a week because police cannot get the device to them in time. Trackers are dispatched centrally from Brisbane, meaning police are unable to track alleged criminals for seven days after a magistrate makes a tracking order. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Joaquin Guzman 'El Chapo' Loera will appear in Brooklyn federal court on Monday for jury selection While El Chapo is locked up in solitary confinement, his sons have been running his drug empire in his absence. The Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman 'El Chapo' Loera, who is believed to be 61, is due to appear on trial in Brooklyn federal court on Monday. While he's behind bars his billion dollar drug cartel continues to thrive under the leadership of his two favorite sons Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar. According to a recent letter from the U.S. attorneys preparing to try Guzman, 'the defendant's sons remain in charge of his vast drug trafficking empire'. On October 28 Federal Judge Brian Cogan was delivered a warning concerning the safety of witnesses who will testify against El Chapo. 'There is no doubt that the defendant and his cartel have the capability, the resources and the will to harm cooperating witnesses and their families, even after they have been relocated,' the lawyers said according to the New York Post. While the druglord is behind bars, his sons Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar (left) and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar (right) have been running the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico in his absence 'The brothers have engaged in significant violence. They have ambushed military people and they still have the resources to affect witnesses,' a former Drug Enforcement Administration source said. The brothers are said to have been groomed to take over the business. They are the sons of the El Chapo's first wife Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernandez, who he married in 1977. The couple had three children together. Their son Cesar was killed six years ago. Last month Alfredo Guzman was added to the Drug Enforcement Administration's 10 Most Wanted List. He was indicted in 2009 for drug trafficking in Illinois and information on his capture was set at $5million. The brothers reportedly live in the lap of luxury and show off their riches to the rest of the world with their flashy lifestyle in Mexico. Guzman was escorted to a Brooklyn prison on January 19, 2017 where he's remained in solitary confinement for 22 months The world's most wanted drug trafficker was arrested in Mexico on January 9, 2016 after he escaped from a maximum-security prison six months prior His family seem to be doing just fine during his imprisonment. His current wife Coronel Aispuro, 29, pictured above outside of the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse following a hearing for Guzman on February 3, 2017 'Why havent the sons been whacked yet? It means they are very much in control. But unlike their father, who believed in keeping a low profile, they are not in hiding and they love to show off,' a federal law enforcement source said to The Post. Guzman's current wife Coronel Aispuro, 29, doesn't hold back in flaunting her riches on social media, recently showing off a lavish Barbie themed birthday party she threw for her twin daughters in Sinaloa. Guzman is believed to have at least 15 children. A federal source said 'there may be more'. On Monday Guzman will appear in court as jury selection begins. The trial is expected to last as long as four months, according to the New York Daily News. Some 1,000 jury summonses were mailed out, with 922 prospective jurors replying and filling out the forms. Mike McGowan, a longtime ex-FBI agent who went undercover to cozy up to Guzman in prison, posing as an Italian mob boss, will testify in court. Aispuro doesn't hold back in flaunting her riches on social media, recently showing off a lavish Barbie themed birthday party she threw for her twin daughters in Sinaloa Lap of Luxury: While Guzman is locked up his daughters and wife live on a lavish estate in Sinaloa, Mexico. The twins' birthday party earlier this year pictured above Opening arguments are set for November 13 after Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian M Cogan rejected defense motions to delay the prosecution. In October the government announced 17 new alleged murder conspiracy victims. 'It is almost as if the government believes that due to the breadth of their allegations against Mr. Guzman, he is entitled to diminished due process and only an illusory semblance of effective assistance of counsel,' the defense said in a court filing dated October 27. So far Guzman has pleaded innocent to 17 counts of drug trafficking, murder conspiracy and money laundering. He was extradited to Brooklyn in January 2017 and has spent the last 22 months in solitary confinement. A sculpture by a well-known artist that was on display in an upstate New York mall decades ago can now be found on sale on Craigslist. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports that the Electric Ball Circus by audiokinetic artist George Rhoads is listed on the website with a minimum price of $3,500. The ball machine sculpture, which features colored balls traveling through loops and ringing bells, was a fixture at the Long Ridge Mall in the Rochester suburb of Greece. The ball machine sculpture (pictured) when it was first on display at Greece Towne Mall The sculpture is now being sold by collectibles dealer Dave Nuciola who bought the damaged sculpture in 2009 from a man who had rescued it from a trash heap It disappeared in the 1990s when the mall merged with Greece Towne Mall to form the Mall at Greece Ridge. Former mall owner David Bermant was a wealthy collector who believed strongly in the importance of public art that he installed pieces throughout the nearly two dozen retail shopping properties he owned across the country. Collectibles dealer Dave Nuciola bought the damaged sculpture in 2009 from a man who had rescued it from a trash heap. Nuciola is now selling it on Craigslist with a minimum purchase price of $3,500. I was offered $4,000 for it back in 2012 from a local collector who just had to have it and regrettably declined his generous cash offer, Nuciola wrote in his Craigslist post. 'I remember really wanting it when I was a little boy,' said Nuciola, 33, a Hamlin collectibles dealer. 'It's kind of odd it came into my possession years later'. The artist, George Rhoads, 92, is a contemporary painter, sculptor and origami artist whose whimsical audiokinetic sculptures like the Electric Ball Circus have been installed in public spaces around the world. He has lived much of his life in the Finger Lakes region. Some of his works are at the Art Institute in Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and in the New York/New Jersey Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York. George Rhoads designed the ball machine sculpture and similar pieces have been installed in public spaces around the world The Electric Ball Circus sculpture by George Rhoads, as it sat in Dave Nuciola's garage in Hamlin after he bought the sculpture from a man who rescued it from a trash heap Other works are at the Museum of Science in Boston, Discovery Science Center in California and Los Angeles International Airport, Science Center Singapore. According to his website, Rhoads was inundated with commissions for ball machines after a 1972 appearance on the David Frost show. Those commissions included ones from Bermant. Rhoads' catalog online shows the Electric Ball Circus as his fifth ball machine sculpture. It was installed at the Long Ridge Mall in 1974. A Google search shows a handful of Rhoads' smaller sculptures have been auctioned in the past few years, In 2014, his Odyssey of the Spheres sold for nearly $12,000, the Rochster Democrat and Chronicle reported. Nuciola will hate to see the piece leave his possession. However he explained that it has been sitting in his garage for nearly a decade and he'd like some other collector, history buff or fan of Rhoads' work have a crack at taking it on. My ideal buyer? he said. I would say maybe a local businessman who will have it restored and put on display in a public place'. Property experts are warning that the poor sales figures for this season of The Block could be a sign of the country's falling property market. Both of The Block's penthouses for 2018 sold for well short of their predicted $3 million price tag when they went up for auction last week. Property expert Wendy Chamberlain from Melbourne's Chamberlain Property Advocates told Newscorp that tightening lending practices and a decrease in demand may explain why The Block's sale prices were less than expected. Ms Chamberlain said that the royal commission had resulted in the lenders tightening up their practices which had a flow on effect. Both penthouses on The Block 2018 (pictured) fell short of what a luxury apartment in a prime Melbourne location could have fetched only months ago Norm and Jess' penthouse sold for $2,859,000 - well short of their $3million price projected price tag 'If you haven't got as many buyers you have to bring your price back to a level to meet the buyers who are around,' she said. Bianca and Carla's penthouse fetched $2,991,000 while Norm and Jess' sold for $2,859,000 not small figures but still short of what a luxury apartment in a prime Melbourne location could have fetched months ago. Bianca told Newscorp that market was 'not favourable for properties like this at the moment.' Corelogic, a property market research firm, also released figures on Thursday which backed up the claims, showing that national dwelling values fell 0.5 per cent in October. This brings the total annual decrease to 3.5 per cent which signals some of the worst housing market conditions since 2012. Property experts are warning that the poor sales figures for this season of The Block (pictured are the cast) could be a sign of the country's falling property market The total annual decrease in the national housing market has fallen to 3.5 per cent which signals some of the worst conditions since 2012 The median house prices in Sydney had fallen by $72,041 in the last 12 months while Melbourne fell $45,376 in the same timeframe. 'The market is always going to have cycles and right now is a correction, which they are predicting will be up to 20 per cent against the peak we had 12-odd months ago,' Rob Flux from Property Developer Network said. 'You have to be cognisant of the trends going against you, so the value you add has to be that 20 per cent plus to get a profit,' he warned potential property flippers. An 87-year-old woman was tied up, assaulted and threatened by an armed robber who stormed her home. The woman, who wanted to remain unnamed, was attacked out the front of her home in Preston, Melbourne, in December 2017. The unknown man forced her back into her home, armed with a gun and a knife, where he threatened her and tied her up. Scroll down for video An 87-year-old woman was tied up, assaulted and threatened by an armed robber who stormed her home The offender grabbed what he could from the home, cash and jewellery primarily, before assaulting the woman and fleeing the home. Her daughter, Kerry, told 9News the experience was nothing short of horrific and life-changing. 'She had to change her whole life to accommodate to this man. She thought 'I don't know if I can be in my house again', but she fought and decided she wasn't going to let this man win.' 'She was ordered to lie on her bed, and thought she was going to be raped. She thought she wasn't going to live through that.' The offender grabbed what he could from the home, cash and jewellery primarily, before assaulting the woman and fleeing the home The attacker is still at large, and detectives are searching for a man who appears to be in his 30's, about 175 centimeters tall and quite thin. Police launched the fresh appeal for any information regarding the attack after months of investigation. How could someone so evil do this to an elderly lady. If that happened to your mum, how would you feel," Kerry said. Anyone with information related to the robbery is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. A wild all in nightclub brawl which left a security guard with teeth marks in his face has been caught on camera. The fight kicked off in front of Alumbra Nightclub in Melbourne's Docklands just after midnight on Sunday morning when bar security refused entry to a patron. The angry customer begins arguing with a security guard before the shouting match descends into violence. Usain Bolt was DJing on the night of the brawl while Scott Disick and girlfriend Sofia Richie were hosting A metal bollard was thrown at security in an all-in brawl in Melbourne's inner-city overnight A bystander's footage of the confrontation shows revellers and security coming from every angle to get involved in the fight. The witness told Seven News a guard threw the first punch after a metal pole was thrown at him. The footage appears to show a security guard shoving a man walking towards him, before they begin grappling. The patron latches himself onto the guard with his teeth as other bystanders and security struggle to pull them apart. Bystanders say the guard threw the first punch (left) and was left with bite marks after grappling with the patron (right) Police attended the nightclub (pictured) but those involved had already left After the scuffle, the guard was left with deep teeth marks in his cheek. Victoria Police attended the scene but by the time they arrived the patrons involved had left. Hundreds of revellers were inside the club as Usain Bolt and Scott Disick partied after the Derby Day races. Alumbra has been contacted for comment. Sofia Richie and boyfriend Scott Disick made an appearance at the club on the stage that night Murray is believed to be living in Melbourne's CBD and has 'no fear' for his safety One of Australia's most infamous bikies is back running the Comanchero motorcycle outlaw gang after a stint behind bars. Mick Murray was released from Barwon Prison a fortnight ago and wasted no time rejoining his Melbourne based crew. The move has raised eyebrows in the criminal underworld given that when Murray was jailed there was a $250,000 bounty on his head. Comancheros identity Mick Murray (pictured) is back in charge of the motorcycle gang after a stint behind bars After a short stint behind bars, Mick Murray is back in charge of the Comanchero motorcycle gang (stock image) According to the Herald Sun, Murray had threats to his life resulting from a split within the Comanchero between members. A number of long standing members were frustrated at the perceived direction Murray had taken the club. Murray, formerly the Comancheros' national president, was jailed in March after refusing to co-operate with Victoria's organised crime-busting agency. Supreme Court Justice Peter Riordan jailed Murray for contempt, after reviewing his extensive criminal history. He also noted Murray was a poor candidate for potential rehabilitation. In January, Murray reportedly received an anonymous letter calling him an informer before threats were then directed at his family. Murray, who was living in Eureka Tower before he was jailed, is not been afraid to be seen in public. Daily Mail Australia understands he is residing in a Melbourne CBD high-rise apartment after re-assuming the leadership. Before he was jailed, the security and gym mogul, separated from his wife Debbie Pittman after she became tired of his repeated infidelities. His financial status was also crippled when he was ordered to pay the Australian Tax Office $4million. Serial killer Rose West (pictured) is planning to propose to a lesbian lover 30 years younger than her at an all-female prison, it has been claimed Serial killer Rose West is planning to propose to a lesbian lover 30 years younger than her at an all-female prison, it has been claimed. West, who was jailed for life for killing and torturing young women with her husband Fred, is said to have found love with an inmate called Kat at HMP Low Newton in County Durham. The 64-year-old has had numerous 'flings' with high-profile female prisoners but has 'never been this serious about anyone', according to a source. The two inmates have been seen kissing in West's cell and there has been talk of marriage, the Daily Star Sunday reported. West is claimed to have seduced her new girlfriend, who is reportedly set to serve at least 17 years, by buying her treats and cooking for her. A source told the newspaper: 'West is a master manipulator. She seeks out vulnerable people and then befriends them. 'She watched her for a few weeks before striking up a conversation. They soon became friends and West began introducing her to other cons, buying her little treats like shower gel and teaching her how to cook. 'Then one day they were seen kissing in West's cell and they declared themselves a couple.' Some inmates are said to form lesbian relationships for 'companionship and security' as the prison has a scary reputation because of the high-profile inmates there. West is reported to have promised to protect her new lover. West, who was jailed for life for killing and torturing young women with her husband Fred, is said to have found love with an inmate at HMP Low Newton (pictured) in County Durham Prisoners are allowed to marry while in jail but must first seek permission from the governor. The serial killer's previous partners are reputed to have included Tracey Connelly, the mother of the abused toddler widely known as Baby P. West has supposedly been with murderer Julie Campbell, who set fire to her husband, Sarah Best, who killed her male lover with a knife, and 22-stone Amanda Summers, who torched a chemists shop. The victims at Fred and Rose West's 'House of Horrors' included the couple's eldest daughter Heather, who was killed in June 1987, aged 16. Rose was convicted of 10 murders in 1995 and later told she would spend the rest of her life in prison. Fred West killed himself at Winson Green prison in Birmingham in January 1995, while awaiting trial. Sainsbury's has been accused of 'lazy, casual racism' by furious readers after it advertised a recipe for 'Persian curry'. The supermarket giant featured a recipe for a so-called 'Golden Persian Curry' on the front cover of the October edition of its in-store magazine. But the dish sparked fury among some readers who labelled it a poor attempt at traditional Persian cuisine, and pointed out it featured ingredients that 'no Iranian will ever mix into a stew.' Sainsbury's featured a recipe for a so-called 'Golden Persian Curry' on the front cover of the October edition of its in-store magazine Readers took to social media to share their anger at the 'Golden Persian Curry' recipe Sainsbury's caused offence with the recipe for the traditional Persian dish Fesenjan, 'fused with an Indian-style curry.' Fesenjan, a Persian stew, is made using pomegranate molasses, ground walnuts, cinnamon, chicken and stock, combined with other ingredients to make a savoury curry. Readers took to social media to share their outrage after spotting the recipe. Zoe Margolis said: 'How they thought that the incredible flavours of fesenjan could be 'fused' with 'Indian-style curry' beggars belief.' Twitter user Rezvani added: 'Although generally open minded, I read thru this idiotic recipe in horror! 'Regular curry dish (which is well known to anyone in UK and available all over the country in various forms and iterations) doesn't become a 'Persian khoresh' by throwing in a few pomegranate seeds on top! 'The article assumed similarities between Indian curry cuisine (popular in UK) and Iranian cuisine (little known) where none exists. 'Trying to promote Iranian cuisine using what's already familiar to their readers. If you don't use a Persian recipe, can't call it a Persian dish!' Fesenjan, a Persian stew, is made using pomegranate molasses, ground walnuts, cinnamon, chicken and stock, combined with other ingredients to make a savoury curry British Iranian Banafsheh Hay wrote to Sainsbury's chief executive, Mike Coupe, asking for an apology. She told The Observer: 'To treat Iranian and Indian cuisines as virtually indistinguishable, despite knowing in reality they are very different, in order to save their readers the effort to learn about a new Iranian cuisine which the magazine wants to promote on its front cover smacks of lazy, casual racism and is abhorrent.' A Sainsbury's magazine spokesperson said: 'We love developing exciting recipes for Sainsbury's customers and our inspiration comes from different cuisines around the world. 'We wanted to introduce Persian flavours to readers who may not have enjoyed them before, and so we created a recipe which is inspired by the traditional Persian dish fesenjan, fused with an Indian-style curry. We're sorry for any offence this may have caused, as this was most certainly not our intention.' Twitter user Rezvani said: 'Although generally open minded, I read through this idiotic recipe in horror!'' In August, Jamie Oliver was accused of cultural appropriation by Labour's shadow women and equalities minister and other social media users for launching 'punchy jerk rice'. Dawn Butler, the MP for Brent Central in north west London, suggested Oliver was using the word jerk to increase the sales of his rice and his product was not faithful to the original Caribbean recipe which is usually a marinade for meat. The Labour MP also suggested father-of-five ask Levi Roots, the creator of jerk barbeque sauce Reggae Reggae sauce, to teach him about it. Ms Butler tweeted: '#jamieoliver @jamieoliver #jerk I'm just wondering do you know what #Jamaican #jerk actually is? 'It's not just a word you put before stuff to sell products. @levirootsmusic should do a masterclass. Your jerk Rice is not ok. This appropriation from Jamaica needs to stop.' An artist has created thousands of shrouded figures to honour British soldiers whose bodies were never found after the Battle of the Somme. Rob Heard has crafted 72,396 of the 12-inch plastic figures, all wrapped in a calico shroud to symbolise the soldiers who fell in the 1916 battle. The sombre Shrouds of the Somme installation will be put on display across the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London as Britain marks the centenary of the First World War. Rob Heard has crafted 72,396 of the 12-inch plastic figures, all wrapped in a calico shroud to symbolise soldiers who fell in the 1916 battle The sombre Shrouds of the Somme installation will be put on display across the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London Each figure represents a serviceman listed on the Thiepval Memorial in France - the largest Commonwealth Memorial to the missing in the world. The figures will be sold afterwards, with profits going to the Armed Forces charity SSAFA and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the Sunday Express reported. Mr Heard, 53, worked 18 hours a day for five years to make every shroud by hand - almost bankrupting his family to finish what he described as a 'calling.' He said he would never have completed the project if it hadn't been for the support of his wife Karina and their daughters Lily, 17, Rose, 15, and Daisy, 14. The installation will remain on display at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from Thursday, November 8 until November 18 Each figure represents one of the thousands of servicemen listed on the Thiepval Memorial in France Mr Heard began making the plastic figures five years ago following a car accident which stopped him sculpting 'Bough Houses' 'They have been so supportive and understanding of the things I have not been able tot do with them, let alone the financial hardship,' he said. Mr Heard, from Watchet in Somerset, was inspired to take on the challenge after he suffered arm and wrist injuries in a car accident in 2013. The artist, who formerly worked as a sculptor, was thus unable to continue making wood 'Bough House' sculptures, and decided to take a difference direction. He said: 'I was in a dark place and things were not going well post-surgery. I was watching the guys coming back from Afghanistan with legs and arms missing and I thought, "Come on, get a grip, there are people worse off than me"' He initially made 19,240 of the figures for an installation at Exeter Cathedral commemorating those lost of the first day of the Somme The figures will be sold afterwards, with profits going to the Armed Forces charity SSAFA and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission The figures have been on display before at Exeter Cathedral - but this time only 19,240 were installed to remember those who were killed on the first day of the Somme on July 1, 1916. He said: 'A man said his great uncle had been killed on the first day of the battle and because his body was never found, this was the first time he had been laid to rest on British soil for 100 years.' Mr Heard said this chance conversation convinced him to keep going as knew he couldn't leave anyone on the Thiepval Memorial out. The Shrouds of the Somme installation will remain on display at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from Thursday, November 8 until November 18. A brazen bandit sporting an impressive mullet has managed to make off with six lawnmowers by simply walking them out the front door. Footage shot at six separate Bunnings stores across Brisbane shows the cocky culprit wheeling trolleys past the self-service counter and exiting the shop. The CCTV footage, shared by 7News, shows the man pushing a cart with a large box strategically placed on it's lowest shelf. Authorities say inside the boxes are identical Honda mowers, worth more than $1000 each, that they believe the alleged thief is offloading on buy-well-swap Facebook pages. A brazen thief stole six lawnmowers from Bunnings simply by walking them out the front door The lawnmower, which was visibly perched on a trolley, was wheeled out of the store in Brisbane. Further footage was taken from other stores across the Brisbane region, which shows him using the same tactic to steal another five lawnmowers. In some instances the Bunnings bandit feigns using the pay-wave service on his card at a self serve check out, before again wheeling the lawnmowers through the front doors. The man was nicknamed the Bunnings Bandit when footage of the incidents surfaced online Police believe he may be reselling the products on buy/swap/sell pages or on another similar platform In the past month, police allege the thief has targeted at least six stores in Rothwell, North Lakes, Morayfield and Carseldine. Each time, he stole a Honda mower valued at over $1000. They believe he may be reselling the products on buy/swap/sell pages or on another similar platform. In addition to his mullet, the offender has a number of identifying tattoos. Police urge anyone with information to contact Policelink on 131 444. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East A manhunt for a violent criminal has been launched after a major failure in the home detention monitoring system. Robert Carl Stehr, 43, has been on home detention bail for an aggravated theft charge in Adelaide since Thursday. Less than a day after he was bailed a Telstra network fault took down his home detention monitoring system, along with tracking devices attached to more than 700 other criminals. Police have not seen or heard from Stehr since. Robert Carl Stehr (pictured), 43, has been missing since he was out on home detention bail in Adelaide on Thursday Stehr was the only person being monitored to remain unaccounted for after authorities carried out 300 home visits and put in 700 phone calls in place of a functional GPS network. Police were still searching for him on Sunday night. Correctional Services Department chief executive David Brown told Adelaide Now when the electronic monitoring system fails, the back-up plan staff make phone calls and do home visits. Stehr, who has a 'history with the criminal justice system', remained missing as his monitoring system failed to reconnect with the network. He was on remand for theft charges but also has a history of aggravated assault. Stehr is described as Caucasian, 175cms, with a medium build. He has a broad nose, brown short hair and a brown and grey beard. He may also be wearing a black electronic monitoring device on his left ankle. A violent parolee is on the run after part of the GPS tracking system broke down as a result of Telstra's network issues on Friday and Saturday (stock image) As many as 774 people in South Australia were temporarily untraceable owing to the outage by Australia's leading network service provider, with extra staff brought in to make sure tabs were being kept on them The chief executive of the Correctional Services Department David Brown told The Adelaide Advertiser said: 'Until we recover the device we won't be able to establish why the device did not reconnect with the network.' Premier Steven Marshall said he was committed to a review of the failure. He said: 'Corrections and SAPOL had already done work to identify that this was a potential scenario and therefore put contingencies in place. 'Clearly this is an unacceptable situation and one we cannot afford to occur in South Australia again.' The slip-up comes after accused criminals on the Gold Coast ordered to wear ankle trackers were said to be roaming the streets 'free' for a week because police cannot get the device to them in time. Trackers are dispatched centrally from Brisbane, meaning police are unable to track alleged criminals for seven days after a magistrate makes a tracking order. Billionaire Brexit donor Arron Banks accused Andrew Marr of trying to 'smear' him today as the BBC interviewer demanded he explain where millions for Brexit came from. He repeated his claims a police investigation will find 'no Russian money' in a heated live TV clash days after he was reported to the National Crime Agency on suspicion of making illegal donations in the Brexit battle. Mr Banks insists the 6million he ploughed into Leave.EU campaign was 'generated from cash and businesses in the UK'. Police are looking at the case after investigations by the Electoral Commission. Mr Banks insisted the saga was a 'misunderstanding' about a 'holding company' he owns called Rock Holdings based on the Isle of Man. He said the money he loaned Leave.EU during the referendum came from the UK-based firm Rock Services, which Mr Banks said insures thousands of people in Britain. Marr suggested official records on Rock Services do not prove the source of the money - prompting Mr Banks to the BBC presenter of trying to 'smear' him. Told he was 'changing his story' as Marr pressed for details on where the 6million came from, Mr Banks insisted he was 'expanding it'. Mr Banks even claimed the Government's handling of Brexit had proved so 'corrupt' that 'I think we would have been better to probably remain and not unleash these demons'. Arron Banks (pictured today on the Marr show) insisted today there was 'no Russian money' behind the millions he spent fighting for Brexit In a heated interview on BBC One, the billionaire told the Andrew Marr all the money he ploughed into Leave.EU campaign was 'generated from cash and businesses in the UK'. Mr Banks is pictured today outside the BBC Mr Banks (pictured outside the BBC today) insists the 6million he ploughed into Leave.EU campaign was 'generated from cash and businesses in the UK'. Mr Banks wielded papers he said cleared his name and insisted the Electoral Commission had never asked for bank statements to demonstrate where the cash came from. What is Arron Banks accused of? Arron Banks is accused of financing loans to Leave.EU and the parent company Better for the Company from illegal sources. The Electoral Commission's review said that, as well as having reasonable grounds to suspect he was not the true source of the cash, loans involved a company, Rock Holdings, based on the Isle of Man. This is banned under the rules. While the Electoral Commission does not name Russia or any other possible source of the money, Mr Banks has repeatedly denied a link to the Kremlin. The watchdog said it suspected Mr Banks, Ms Bilney and others involved the campaign to have concealed the true details of the financial transactions. It believes a number of criminal offences may have been committed and passed it to the National Crime Agency. It said its investigation relates to suspected electoral law offences. Advertisement He said: 'I am telling you the Electoral Commission never asked for the bank statements? Why?' Mr Banks claimed: 'This is about undermining Article 50, this is about undermining the Brexit vote.' Told by Mr Marr there was 'no evidence' of the money inside Rock Services, Mr Banks insisted 'you're getting it wrong'. Mr Banks said Rock Services has 'all sorts of revenues' but did not detail them. He said: 'Rock Services has all sorts of revenues - we insure half a million people. 'I know it's complex for journalists to understand but we know what this is about - it's about undermining Article 50 and the Brexit result. 'It's a group of vicious MPs who have grouped together with the Guardian and the FT.' Separately, Mr Banks was also accused today of misleading MPs over the connections between his insurance business and his Brexit campaign. He told MPs his Eldon insurance firm was separate the Leave.EU campaign he bankrolled - but leaked emails today suggest staff were ordered to work on the Brexit battle. Arron Banks (pictured today at the BBC) was accused of misleading MPs over the connections between his insurance business and his Brexit campaign today Today's claims are a fresh blow to Mr Banks who was placed under police investigation over the source of money for millions in donations he made to Leave.EU. Mr Banks responded to the claims and told Marr: 'I can say that was reported to the Electoral Commission and people who did work for Eldon were transferred over on short-term contracts legally and it was reported through the Electoral Commission in the right way. 'You are talking about emails that were stolen from us.' Mr Banks was asked about a report in the Sunday Times that he would back Remain if the 2016 referendum were re-run. He replied: 'What I said was that the corruption I have seen in British politics, the sewer that exists and the disgraceful behaviour of the Government over what they are doing with Brexit and how they are selling out, means that if I had my time again I think we would have been better to probably remain and not unleash these demons.' Mr Banks has not been arrested and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including claims the money came from Russia. He flew back to Britain from Bermuda yesterday and will defend himself in a high profile interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr today. Tory MP and chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Damian Collins interrogated Mr Banks in Parliament earlier this year. He told the Observer: 'If Eldon employees were being paid to work on the campaign during the regulated period, it should have been a declared expense. 'We asked him directly if he'd used his insurance employees to work on the campaigns and he said they didn't.' Emails seen by the paper suggest that Eldon employees worked on some of Leave.EU's most controversial referendum messaging. The work included campaigns similar to Ukip's notorious 'Breaking Point' poster, which appeared in June 2016, days before the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. One ex-employee told the paper: 'I made it absolutely clear that I didn't want to work on the political stuff. I wasn't comfortable with it. 'I didn't want to be complicit in it. There were quite a lot of spats about it. People were frozen out if they refused to work on it.' Arron Banks is being investigated by police over Brexit campaign funding - and responded with this tweet of himself relaxing in Bermuda Mr Banks, who is being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA) over whether he was the 'true source' of 8 million given to the Leave.EU campaign, claims he is the victim of a 'politically motivated' vendetta by the 'anti-Brexit Establishment'. Mr Banks, who was returning from holiday in Bermuda, showed bank statements to The Mail on Sunday which he said proved that 'no large amounts of cash flowed in during 2015 or 2016 from any source'. The self-proclaimed 'Bad Boy of Brexit' will show the documents to NCA officers tomorrow. The partially redacted statements show modest incomes and outgoings at Rock Holdings, an account at the centre of the probe. 'I have done nothing illegal and I am confident I will be cleared of the ludicrous allegations levelled against us', Mr Banks said. Tory MP and chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Damian Collins (file image) interrogated Mr Banks in Parliament earlier this year. He demanded answers about the new claims today He described as 'absurd' the claim he was 'an agent of the Russian state'. 'I understand that among the millions who voted Remain, many still feel sore that they lost,' he said. 'That does not give them the right to undermine the will of the majority. They simply have to accept that if they want to live in a democracy, Brexit is a reality.' The Electoral Commission also referred Leave.EU, its chief executive, Elizabeth Bilney, and the organisation that ran it, Better For The Country, to the NCA. Bob Posner, the Commission's director of political finance, said: 'We have reasonable grounds to suspect money given to Better For The Country came from impermissible sources and that Mr Banks and Ms Bilney knowingly concealed the true circumstances under which this money was provided. 'This is significant because at least 2.9 million of this money was used to fund referendum spending and donations.' Mr Banks insists that lawyers prepared his 'loan structure within Electoral Commission rules'. Question Time panellist Nazir Afzal today backed Fiona Bruce, saying he had 'no criticism' of the host after accusing her during the show of asking him first about the cricket racism row because he is a 'brown person'. The BBC programme has become embroiled in an 'unconscious racism' row after Bruce asked Mr Afzal, the only non-white member of the panel, to be the first person to answer an audience member's query about racism. During the show, Mr Afzal agreed with Bruce that he thought she was 'wrong' to go to him first. But reacting this morning after the incident prompted huge debate online, Mr Afzal tweeted: 'I have no criticism of Fiona Bruce. I made point that racism is something which everyone should have a view on, not just minorities. If the subject was say child or domestic abuse, you wouldn't just ask the victim. It's everybody's business.' The question, which was partly about recent allegations of racist abuse made by cricketer Azeem Rafiq, was asked last night to a panel made up of former crown prosecutor Mr Afzal; white psychologist Jordan Peterson; and three white MPs - Mims Davies from the Conservatives, Stella Creasy of Labour and Stephen Flynn from the SNP. Bruce then immediately turned to Mr Afzal and asked him to answer, prompting him to say: 'The brown person will answer first'. As he made the comment he turned to the audience and laughed, which saw some chuckle with him. The presenter then asked him: 'Nazir, so do you think that was wrong of me to come to you first?' Mr Afzal replied: 'I think so' and attempted to continue answering the question while pointing towards the audience. But Bruce then added: 'Well let's not do it. I'm not being sarcastic at all. I mean if that's how you feel, I respect that.' Mr Afzal then stopped speaking and sat silently, while Bruce went to Mr Peterson to hear from him instead. Jeremy Heywood (file image) has died from cancer aged 56, Downing Street announced today Sir Jeremy Heywood has died from cancer aged 56, Downing Street announced today. The former Cabinet Secretary retired from a 30-year Civil Service career just ten days ago. He was made Lord Heywood of Whitehall after stepping down. He leaves his wife Suzanne and three children. His wife paid tribute to 'My Jeremy', saying: 'Jeremy could light up any room or conversation and loved hosting a good party.' Announcing the death this morning, Prime Minister Theresa May said Lord Heywood had 'worked tirelessly' in the service of the country and thanked him for the support he had given her personally as PM. The new Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill said 'we will miss him more than we can say', praising Lord Heywood's 'extraordinary insight'. The Cabinet Secretary is the post powerful post in the Civil Service and crucial adviser at the right hand of the Prime Minister. Lord Heywood was made Cabinet Secretary in 2012 and made head of the Civil Service in 2014. 'Jeremy could light up any room': Tributes to ex-Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood died today aged 56 just ten days after retiring as Cabinet Secretary. He leaves his wife Suzanne and three teenage children. During an illustrious 30-year career at the heart of power, Lord Heywood played a crucial role in the formation of Britain's first coalition government in decades after the 2010 election, overseeing talks between David Cameron and Nick Clegg. He worked closely with four Prime Ministers and sat at the right hand of both David Cameron and Theresa May as the Cabinet Secretary. Lord Heywood was at times a controversial figure during his tenure and branded 'Sir Cover Up' by critics furious at his handling of Parliamentary inquires. He has been unpopular with Brexiteers suspicious the Civil Service is not committed to delivering on the EU referendum result. Lord Heywood revealed earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with cancer in June 2017, but remained in post during a summer of political upheaval triggered by the shock snap general election result. He took a leave of absence in June and announced on October 24 that he was stepping down, with acting Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill taking over the role on a permanent basis. Advertisement Mr Heywood previously served as principal private secretary to prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, chief of staff to Mr Brown and Downing Street permanent secretary to David Cameron. Earlier in his career he had worked for Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont and helped to ease the impact of Black Wednesday in 1992. Prime Ministers of both major parties found him invaluable and Gordon Brown brought him back to Whitehall after he had temporarily left the civil service to work in the City. He was made a member of the House of Lords on October 26, two days after his retirement, and made Lord Heywood of Whitehall. Mr Heywood played a crucial role in the formation of Britain's first coalition government in decades after the 2010 election, overseeing talks between David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Two years later he succeeded Gus O'Donnell in the top job. In 2017 he discovered he had cancer but continued in his post to steer Whitehall through the turbulence of a snap election and the continuing fall-out from Brexit. He was also one of Britain's highest paid public servants, earning almost 200,000 - more than the Prime Minster herself. As cabinet secretary he attracted controversy over the Iraq war inquiry and was branded 'Sir Cover Up' by critics furious that conversations between Tony Blair and George W. Bush in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion were not published in full. He has also been unpopular with Brexiteers who suspect the Civil Service is not committed to delivering on the EU referendum result. However tributes poured in from across the political divide today. Prime Minister Theresa May said: 'This is extremely sad news and all of my thoughts are with Jeremy's family and friends. 'The many retirement tributes paid to Jeremy from across the political spectrum in recent weeks demonstrated his extraordinary talent supporting and advising Prime Ministers and Ministers, and leading the Civil Service with distinction. 'He worked tirelessly to serve our country in the finest traditions of the Civil Service and he is a huge loss to British public life. 'I will always be grateful for the support which he gave me personally and will remember his achievements across his career as we regret that he did not have the chance to offer his talents for longer in retirement. 'Jeremy will be sorely missed and I send my deepest condolences to Suzanne and the children and to all his family and many friends.' Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a statement alongside his wife Sarah. They said: 'The country has lost a leader of exceptional ability, unquestioned integrity and - as we saw in the way he fought his illness - remarkable courage. 'Our hearts go out to Jeremy Heywood's family.' Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Heywood (left in 2015 and right with wife Suzanne at Buckingham Palace in 2012) retired from a 30-year Civil Service career just ten days ago Cabinet Secretary's are personal advisers to the Prime Minister. He is pictured at Theresa May's right hand during a Cabinet meeting in 2016 Mrs Heywood said: 'He saw it as a huge privilege to work so closely with four prime ministers and two chancellors and was unwavering in his efforts to help each of them reach their goals. 'He was always conscious of the need for civil servants to see the world through ministers' eyes while at the same time respecting the boundaries between politicians and civil servants. 'Away from his work, he inspired admiration, respect and affection in his many and diverse group of friends and returned it to them. 'Jeremy could light up any room or conversation and loved hosting a good party.' Former prime minister Tony Blair said Sir Jeremy had been 'a quite outstanding public servant and someone I came to have enormous respect for both as a professional and as a person'. The former Labour leader said: 'He worked with more prime ministers and at a more senior level than any civil servant in recent memory and served us all with integrity, distinction and infinite commitment. 'He was dedicated, smart and with a rare small 'p' political skill which made him such a formidable Whitehall operator. 'The British Civil Service and all of us who worked with him will miss him deeply. My thoughts and prayers go out to Suzanne and all his family.' Former Treasury minister Yvette Cooper paid a tearful tribute to Sir Jeremy Heywood as the news of his death broke on Sky News' Ridge show (pictured) Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah said Britain had 'lost a leader of exceptional abiility, unquestioned integrity and remarkable courage' Chief whip Julian Smith said Lord Heywood was 'truly inspiring to work with and his contribution to British public life has been huge' Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the announcement was 'such sad news', highlighting Lord Heywood's role in steering the country 'through some of its most turbulent times' Sir Mark said: 'Jeremy made an immense contribution to public life, serving four Prime Ministers with distinction. 'He joined the Civil Service in 1983, advising and supporting governments through some of the most challenging episodes of the last 30 years. Jeremy was the exemplary public servant. 'We will miss him more than we can say, and will be the poorer without his advice, leadership and extraordinary insight. 'He set the highest standards and challenged us to meet them. Jeremy was always looking to move difficult problems forward, restlessly confident to deliver a better way. He was a champion of innovation and embraced change while consolidating and protecting the best of history. He promoted a diverse and inclusive Civil Service, fit to meet the digital, commercial and policy challenges of the future. Prime Minister Theresa May(file image) said Lord Heywood had 'worked tirelessly' in the service of the country and thanked him for the support he had given her personally as PM 'Jeremy also considered it a privilege to lead the hundreds of thousands of civil servants up and down the country, and across the world, who work day after day to make people's lives better. 'We offer our condolences and best wishes to Jeremy's wife Suzanne, his three children, the rest of his family and their friends.' Former Treasury minister Yvette Cooper paid a tearful tribute to Sir Jeremy Heywood as the news of his death broke on Sky News' Ridge show. She said: 'People will not be aware of quite how many remarkable things he did to steady crises, deal with some of the most difficult problems and as a very honourable public servant to hold people together and to make sure the Government frankly did not do stupid things on many occasions. 'His contribution to public life for all governments, whatever your politics, was immense and we owe him a debt of gratitude.' Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable said Lord Heywood was 'a superb public servant' on learning of his death on Sky's Sophy Ridge show. Former business secretary Sir Vince said: 'I worked with him for five years in the Cabinet. 'He was brilliant at getting his head round complicated problems and brokering agreements between ministers who were implacably opposed. 'He worked for Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives and none of us had the faintest idea what his politics were. 'It's just tragic he has died at such a young age.' New Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill said 'we will miss him more than we can say, and will be the poorer without his advice, leadership and extraordinary insight' Lord Heywood took a leave of absence in June and had been due to return to work in September following treatment for an infection linked to his cancer. He continued work through the first phase of his cancer treatment. His illness was first diagnosed last summer. In a retirement statement made on October 24, Lord Heywood said: '35 years ago I joined the Civil Service as an enthusiastic young economist in the Health and Safety Executive, full of ideas and keen to make change happen. 'Today, I still have all that desire to serve my country and to make a positive difference. It is with great sadness therefore that, on medical advice, I must now retire. 'Since joining the Civil Service, I have had the privilege of supporting, at close quarters, four Prime Ministers, two Conservative and two Labour, and the first Coalition government for decades, with its first full-time Deputy Prime Minister.' A jailed university student was being 'terrorised' by inmates who bullied her for her stress-related hair loss before she was brought a banana rather than a bandana to cover up. The 21-year-old was also 'forced to parade naked' in front of prison staff before she took her own life in her jail cell, according to her devastated parents. Katie Allan was serving time in Polmont Prison in Falkirk where she was relentlessly tormented and was just three weeks from being released on tag. Her parents are now compiling a dossier of failures they claim occurred before their daughter's death. Katie Allan, 21, took her own life in prison after being 'forced to parade naked' in front of guards and relentless bullying from inmates Her parents say she was failed by police, her lawyer, the courts, sheriff David Pender, the Crown and Polmont governor Brenda Stewart. They have now turned their attention to Forth Valley NHS, who were responsible for Katie's wellbeing. The Allans are furious that a GP did not raise concerns after seeing Katie in the prison. They say Katie was tormented by other women, made to give away her belongings and bullied. Katie's mother Linda is calling for change in the prison system after he daughter was bullied Her devastated parents say more should have been done to help when it became obvious Katie was suffering from alopecia and being tormented as a result. In a letter to Forth Valley NHS's director of nursing Angela Wallace, Linda wrote: 'Katie's legal representative emailed the governor of Polmont on the 26th of April, at our request, to seek medical intervention for Katie's rapid hair loss. 'Katie had tried and failed on several occasions to access nursing or medical treatment and was being tormented and bullied because of her hair loss by other girls in her hall. 'The Scottish Prison Service highlighted this to the NHS staff as a direct result of our intervention. 'When Katie began to lose her hair I asked if Katie be allowed a head scarf or bandana to cover the apparent areas of baldness. Miss Allan hit a boy while driving but insisted she did not know she had driven into anyone 'This was refused by the reception staff at HMP & YOI Polmont. 'SPS staff contacted the health centre before the 27th of April seeking advice on how to get Katie a head covering. 'Katie reported that a prison officer called the health centre and spoke with a member of the nursing team asking if Katie be allowed a head scarf or bandana. 'The nurse stated that they indeed had such items and would bring some to Katie's hall. A nurse went to Katie's hall with two bananas. 'As amusing as this story was at the time, it is a tragic representation of the blatant incompetence of the nursing staff.' Dad Stuart said: 'It sums up the sheer incompetence that we have encountered every step of the way.' Mum Linda, 51, and Stewart, 54, are campaigning for change in the justice system although state they accept she needed to be punished but were horrified by what happened to her. Linda said: 'Katie had been bullied and berated and was in clear distress. She had lost her hair. 'On my last visit to see her with her brother, we knew something was wrong. She looked exhausted and hadn't slept because she was being terrorised and bullied. 'We flagged this up with two of the prison officers and we now know that, just before she died, they had told her she might be moved to the adult prison. Katie would have been terrified.' Mrs Allan previously told the Daily Record in Scotland her daughter told her she was strip searched after almost every visit her parents made to the prison. Her mother said she believed Katie's compliant nature was making her daughter an easy target for the wardens to 'reach their strip-search quotas'. On one occasion she said six guards searched her during a training exercise and talked about her as if she were not in the room. Katie Allan took her own life five months into her prison sentence after a hit and run while she was drink driving A friend told The Sun: 'She was definitely getting bullied. That and the prison environment directly contributed to her ending her life. She should never have been in there. 'One woman was making her give her tobacco, handing over her stamps, posting her letters for her. She had her scared s**tless.' Katie became so distressed she began losing her hair. Katie took her own life five months into her 16 month sentence. During her post mortem self-harm marks were found on her body. Her parents have questioned why Katie was not prevented from self-harming since she was seen naked regularly during strip searches. Her parents were also furious she was jailed for so long after citing other cases where people were not jailed, for similar crimes. In Miss Allan's case, Sheriff David Pender told the court it was 'impossible' not to jail her. The inmate was sentenced to two years behind bars for a hit and run during which she left a teenager bleeding in the road. Michael Keenan, 15, was injured but survived the incident in Giffnock, East Renfrewshire, on 10 August last year after suffering a broken ankle and a fractured eye socket. Katie, 20 at the time of the accident, always insisted she did not realise she had hit anyone after her tyre blew and she hit an island after drinking four pints. Miss Allan who was studying Geography at Glasgow University was sentenced to sixteen months behind bars despite the boy and his family pleading with the judge not to jail her. Miss Allan was studying at Glasgow University and was described as a 'lovely lassie' who ended up being a 'sheep in a lion's den' Miss Allan, 21, had drunk four pints when she got behind the wheel of her car in August 2016 Drink drive student Katie Allan(pictured with family) took her own life in prison after severe bullying Margaret Keenan, the mother of road accident victim Michael, said: 'Katie was given a sentence we didn't want and we were all devastated when we read that she had died. 'Katie had written to us again from prison to apologise for a second time and reiterated that she didn't know she had hit Michael. 'The whole thing has been a tragedy for her family.' If you are affected by any issues raised in this story, contact The Samaritans for confidential support on 116 123. The man arrested over the bashing death of the son of iconic Australian rock star Angry Anderson has been revealed as his former best friend. Liam Anderson, 26, was killed in a violent assault in a park in Queenscliff in Sydney's northern beaches on Sunday just after 6am. A man, 20, was arrested at the scene after police say they had to use pepper spray to subdue him. Mr Anderson was treated at the scene before being rushed to hospital. He died en route as a result of his injuries. The son of famous Australian rock star Angry Anderson (pictured: Liam Anderson) was killed after a violent assault at a popular Sydney beach on Sunday Police have said the two men knew each other prior to the attack, The Daily Telegraph reports. Liam had recently told his friend he was his 'homie', with friends of the duo saying they were inseperable. But when police arrived to the Queenscliff park, they say they had to pull the friend off Anderson's unconscious body. Residents on Pavilion Street and Bridge Road said they heard sounds of moaning coming from the park, located next to busy Freshwater Beach. Detective Inspector Michael Boutouridis said the 20-year-old man was violent and resisted officers when they tried to arrest him. 'Capsicum spray was used, OC spray, and significant force was used to arrest him,' Inspector Boutouridis said. 'I want to deliver a strong message that this was not a random attack, we have one offender in custody and there are none outstanding.' Liam Anderson was found unconscious by emergency crews after they were called to Queenscliff in Sydney's northern beaches (pictured) Angry Anderson's (pictured) son was an aspiring musician, just like his rock star father The 26-year-old is one of Angry Anderson's three sons (pictured Angry Anderson and his family) Inspector Boutouridis said the man in custody is expected to be charged with murder. 'I am confident at this stage this is not a random attack,' he said. 'In fact I am certain the two fellows knew each other, both young men, I don't know the circumstances that lead to them being at the reserve this morning at Queenscliff, that's why I am appealing to the community to assist us.' Liam Anderson was the youngest son of iconic rock star Angry Anderson, who was touring in Perth at the time of his son's death. Following in his father's footsteps, Liam was a musician. Speaking to Nine News, his mother said Liam was an aspiring hip-hop rapper and wrote lyrics in a way of expressing himself. Liam Anderson (pictured, left with father Gary) was unconscious and suffering from severe head wounds when emergency crews arrived Mr Anderson was treated at the scene before being rushed to hospital but sadly died en route as a result of his injuries Angry Anderson was woken by his eldest son who told him of Liam's death and immediately made plans to return home to be with his family. A written note was taped to a bin outside the rock star's Beacon Hill home, asking for their privacy to be respected during the time. Mr Anderson's manager, Scot Crawford, released a statement on Sunday, explaining the family asked their privacy be respected. 'Following the death of Angry Andersons son Liam in Sydney in the early hours of Sunday morning November 4, 2018, the family has asked that media and the general public respect their privacy,' the statement read. 'With the matter in the hands of NSW Police, the family will not be making any comment at this stage, nor are we as Andersons management in a position to offer any comment on their behalf.' The young man was suffering severe head wounds and was unconscious when emergency crews arrived Mr Anderson's family have attached a note to their bin outside their home asking for their privacy to be respected during this time Residents told 9News they heard moaning sounds coming from Pavilion reserve about 5.30am. 'We started to hear aggressive moaning and it just kept getting louder and louder,' Kim Luker said. 'Then at 6.10am it was really loud and then all of a sudden it just stopped.' A crime scene has been set up in the area and residents have been interviewed by police. Residents along Pavilion Street and Bridge Road heard sounds of moaning coming from a small park Detective Inspector Michael Boutouridis said the man in custody is expected to be charged with murder The funfair organiser who hired a slide which left eight children in hospital denies the inflatable collapsed and says they simply 'fell off the side'. Parents who took their children to a firework display at Woking Park in Surrey on Saturday claim there were 40 children playing on the giant inflatable - when rules state there should only be 12 at one time. Horrified witnesses saw the structure 'buckle' around 8pm before eight injured youngsters were rushed to hospital. But despite parents' claims the slide looked 'flimsy', the man who hired the ride insists it was 'standing until midnight'. John Edwards, of Edwards Amusements, told the Sun it wasn't overcrowded and the children 'fell off' the slide onto grass - not concrete as previously claimed. The deflated slide is seen on the ground in Woking Park after it collapsed injuring eight children last night He said: 'It didn't collapse. Never in a million years. It's still being investigated but it definitely was not overcrowded as they cleared it out in five minutes and there are only three entrances. 'It did not collapse. It was still standing at midnight. 'The children were injured because they fell about 10 to 12ft from the slide, which was about half-way up. They fell onto grass on the bottom, and it was quite soft grass.' Mr Edwards told the newspaper he did not witness the incident, but reports of the slide collapsing are just 'speculation'. Eight youngsters aged six to ten were hospitalised with back and neck injuries. Seven were released overnight but was still being observed by doctors on Sunday morning. The event organiser's claims are contrary to parents' complaints. The funfair that hosted families awaiting fireworks was under police cordon on Sunday, Police investigators with cameras were inspecting other attractions, including the crooked house and the Ferris wheel Andy Datson, 23, said he saw up to 40 children on the slide, which he estimated was about 30-ft high, despite rules saying there should be 12 at most. 'We had been walking past the slide earlier in the night and said it looked unsafe. It looked pretty flimsy to say the least,' he said. 'There were far too many kids on it. It didn't look like it could hold that many people.' Oliver Trimble told the BBC that the evacuation was announced over the event's loudspeakers shortly before 8pm, when the fireworks were due to begin. Horrified witnesses claim they saw children plunge on to concrete when a slide in Woking Park, Surrey suddenly 'buckled'. A deflated inflatable slide sits on the ground in Woking Park, Surrey where the collapse of the slide during a fireworks funfair which resulted in eight children being taken to hospital One parent, named only as Carl, told the BBC he stopped his son from going on the slide because he feared he would get hurt. He said: 'My son asked me 'dad please can I go on the slide?' and I looked and saw about 20 kids on it and said 'there's no way you're going on there.' 'I thought someone's going to come off that injured - they're going to get a kick to the head. It looked so dangerous. My parental instinct kicked in.' The funfair that hosted families awaiting fireworks was under police cordon on Sunday, the collapsed slide completely deflated. Police investigators with cameras were inspecting other attractions, including the crooked house and the Ferris wheel. The slide (pictured) was believed to have collapsed at the fireworks display at the park in Woking The event was shut down and hundreds were evacuated after the accident last night. One man, who was with his wife and nine-month-old son, said: 'We heard kids screaming and then saw them begin to fall off the side.' Another witness, Oliver Trimble, saw victims being treated by medics, adding: 'It was quite a horrendous sight to see.' Others reported that the slide had earlier looked 'flimsy and unsafe'. But despite the severity of the casualties, some disgruntled attendees at the event were quick to take to social media to request refunds. They have since removed the posts following outrage from other Twitter users. Organisers at the local Rotary Club responded on Twitter: 'We are all very shocked and distressed by events in the funfair this evening. 'We are focusing in assisting the emergency services in dealing with the injured children. 'If you'll excuse us, we'll turn our attention to dealing with ticketing issues etc when we can?' Emergency workers said those hurt suffered a range of spinal and neck injuries, and broken arms and legs. Some were taken to hospital by air ambulance. Woking Fireworks had tweeted that they would deal with ticketing issues later, as some people asked for refunds One user had replied to a thread from Woking Fireworks where others had asked for refunds Some people suggested that the refunded ticket price should be donated to the air ambulance service Some Twitter users described those asking for refunds as 'scumbags' Woking Fireworks tweeted to apologise for having to evacuate the park Twitter users responded to the statement from Woking Fireworks regarding the incident Safety guidelines say there should be no more that 12 people on an inflatable of that size at any time, but witnesses suggest that more than three times that number of children were on the slide when it collapsed. Andy Datson, 23, saw up to 40 children on the inflatable. He said: 'We had been walking past earlier in the night and said it looked unsafe. It looked pretty flimsy to say the least. 'There were far too many kids on it. It didn't look like it could hold that many people.' The horrific accident happened at 7.20pm at a funfair held alongside one of Surrey's biggest fireworks displays, which attracts about 12,000 spectators. Surrey Police declared a 'major incident' saying it involved 'a number of people falling from an inflatable slide'. Police officers surrounded the slide, situated in the funfair area of the park where a fireworks display was due to take place The air ambulance reportedly left the park at around 9.15PM to transport the last casulaties The force added: 'A number of children fell from the slide and were injured. Eight children have been taken to hospital with potentially serious injuries. The tragic toll of inflatables JULY 2018: Three-year-old Ava-May Littleboy dies after being thrown 20ft when an inflatable trampoline explodes on Gorleston Beach in Norfolk. AUGUST 2016: Nine children are hurt when an inflatable slide blows over in Swanage, Dorset. MARCH 2016: Summer Grant, seven, dies after a bouncy castle is blown 50ft into the air with her stuck inside in Harlow, Essex. JUNE 2015: Four children and an adult are injured in Fife when an inflatable slide slips its moorings and is blown 150 yards. JULY 2006: Claire Furmedge, 38, and Elizabeth Collings, 68, die and 12 others are seriously hurt when an inflatable sculpture blows 30ft into the air in Co Durham. Advertisement 'We are grateful to the public of Woking for their understanding and assistance in quickly evacuating the scene.' Musician Anna Neale was among hundreds of people evacuated from the park, which had been packed with families with young children awaiting the fireworks display. The 36-year-old said: 'We saw all the blue lights and then the air ambulance arriving. We all evacuated very calmly. Everyone was just shocked.' She had planned to take her daughters, aged ten and six, on the giant slide after the fireworks. 'I am very grateful my children didn't go on it, let's just put it that way.' Others described the aftermath, with one saying: 'The mood is very sombre It's very quiet.' Other witnesses described the horrifying event, saying: 'It is a terrible scene. many of the children have got broken arms and legs and obviously terrified. 'I have seen the air ambulance arrive at the scene and at least one of the children has been flown to St. Georges Hospital in London where doctors have been put on standby.' Ambulances leaving Woking firework display after up to seven children were injured on an inflatable slide The fun fair at the fireworks display was empty following the incident Ambulances from all over Surrey were scrambled to the incident and at least four of the badly hurt children were taken to St Peter's Hospital, in Chertsey, in a serious condition. Surrey Police earlier said in a statement: 'We have declared a major incident following a number of people falling from an inflatable slide at the Woking Park fireworks display at around 7.30pm this evening. 'We are appealing for anyone who witnessed the incident, or has video or photographic footage of what happened, to make contact with Surrey Police via 101, or surrey.police.uk/ReportIt, quoting reference PR/P18262524.' The event was being held at Woking Park, on Kingfield Road. Gates opened for the event at 6PM this evening and the firework display was set to begin at around 8PM. Tickets for the event were priced at 12 for a family which would include two adults and two children, and this price was for attendees who purchased their tickets in advance online. Organised by the Rotary Club of Woking District, the 'Fireworks Extravaganza' is considered to be one of the best firework displays in the South East, and in the past has been one of the most popular events held in Woking. Police and ambulance crews arrived at the scene, following the collapse of the Helter Skelter Pictures from Woking Fireworks show members of the emergency services treating an unknown patient next to an inflatable slide. People at the event have been evacuated following the incident Social media users were keen to show their support and one user 'Roy Cooper' said: 'I sincerely hope the injuries aren't too serious. 'My grandson was on the inflatable next to the incident at the time. Never seen so many ambulances. Thoughts are with all the families concerned. 'Jit Kakad' posted: 'Just seen air ambulance hovering above the park - just hope those injured are being attended to swiftly.' After being evacuated many users took to social media to express their well-wishes for the people injured during the incident. Once user 'Anna' wrote on Twitter: 'Just been evacuated from Woking fireworks due to a fairground ride collapsing thoughts out to everyone involved.' Gates opened for the event at 6PM and the fireworks display was set to begin at around 8PM Attendees at the funfair had to be evacuated and it was reported that around 12,000 people had showed up Ambulance crews at the scene at the park in Woking, Surrey where people were earlier evacuated Other users were disgusted by other attendees who had asked for refunds with one user 'Chris Young', labelling them as scumbags. He said: 'Just do a search for 'Woking Fireworks' on Twitter. You'll see the scumbags asking for refunds.' He also added: 'It's nothing short of appalling that people's minds go straight to money when children have been seriously injured. 'We don't care about getting our money back, we just want all those involved to be OK. Keep up the good work @wokingfireworks.' Tim Noble said that these people were a 'failure to human society'. Police officers were deployed to help the flow of traffic coming out of the park Tickets for the event cost around 6 per head with family tickets also available Responding to a thread he said: 'to the woman that was not impressed for not being given a refund you are a failure to human society we stopped to listen to you saying its not your fault its its not your problem a few children have been seriously hurt if not worse and all you care about is your family ticket.' Tom McLaughlin said that 'anyone asking for their money back, now or at all, should be thoroughly ashamed'. Replying to the thread, 'Helen' said: 'OMG that's shocking that people are asking for their money back at a time like this....' Other users suggested that they could donate the refunded amount to the people who had been affected by the incident, Tyler Anthony Groves said: 'People are inexcusable! I will donate my 12 to the families effected or the air ambulance if you don't mind.' Several police cars were parked around the surrounding area of the park as emergency services dealt with the incident Emergency service vehicles such as ambulances and police cars lined the roads on the outside of the park James 'Whitey' Bulger is said to have stolen masterpieces worth 385million in the biggest art heist of all time but also the largest single theft of private property in America. Despite a $10million (7.7million) reward, none of the works have been seen in public again as a blank frame sits on green silk wallpaper in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The Concert, a masterpiece by Johannes Vermeer is now the world's most valuable missing work of art, with an estimated worth of $200m (154million) went missing. An empty frame hangs on green silk wallpaper in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston after the biggest art heist of all time took place there in 1990 Christ in a Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt's only known seascape also disappeared. Like the Vermeer, it was cut from its frame in 1990 and disappeared, along with two other Rembrandts, five Degas sketches, a Manet painting, a landscape by Govert Flinck and a bronze finial from a Napoleonic battle flag. In all, around half a billion dollars worth of art. The theft, in the early hours of 18 March was executed by two men dressed as police officers who, after handcuffing museum guards, spent an almost leisurely 81 minutes in the galleries - Bulger's name has always been associated with the heist. The former mob boss was killed in prison last week while serving two life sentences for 11 murders. From the early 1970s, Bulger headed the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish-American mob that terrorised Boston for more than a decade. But he lived a double life as an FBI informant, feeding the bureau information about rival criminals. After going on the run in 1995, Bulger spent 16 years on the FBI's most wanted list, topping it briefly after Osama bin Laden's death in 2011. The Concert, a masterpiece by Johannes Vermeer (pictured) is now the world's most valuable missing work of art, with an estimated worth of $200m (154million) went missing Later that year he was arrested while living in a seafront apartment in Santa Monica with his longtime partner Catherine Greig. The elderly couple had been hiding in plain sight and were known to neighbours as 'the Gaskos'. FBI agents found a stash of $800,000 (616,000) and an arsenal of 30 firearms. However, art lovers were left disappointed when a Vermeer wasn't found above the bed or a Rembrandt in the sitting room. After his arrest, Bulger did not volunteer information about the Gardner heist that might have brought a more lenient sentence or a more comfortable cell. Christ in a Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt's only known seascape also disappeared And yet, according to Charles Hill, a former Scotland Yard detective turned private investigator, Bulger was the key to the theft. 'On the new morning of 18 March 1990, even the dogs in the streets of south Boston must have known that Whitey was involved in some way before, during, or after the robbery,' Hill told The Observer. 'Whitey was an IRA sympathiser, he loved to associated himself with 'the cause', and was involved in arms deals and drugs shipments to the Republic.' Bulger, who was an IRA sympathiser, is believed to have given the artwork to the IRA Hill believes the paintings were shipped to Ireland as part of a deal with an IRA-affiliated gang. 'After a shipment of weapons and ammunition was intercepted by the Irish navy off the coast of County Kerry in 1984, Whitey felt he owed one to his friends in the Republic. I believe he offered them the paintings. However, there is no hard evidence for this. Hill has been an undercover detective, he has led the 1996 operation to recover Edvard Munch's The Scream, stolen two years earlier from the National Museum of Norway. In 1993 he led the recovery of a Vermeer and a Goya stolen in 1986 from Russborough House in County Wicklow, a theft was masterminded by Martin Cahill, a Dublin gangster known as the General, a nickname which gave title to the 1998 John Boorman film in which Brendan Gleeson played the crime boss. According to Hill, the latter heist with the Vermeer being the prize asset was the inspiration for the Boston job. The second phase of the HS2 rail link between Birmingham and Leeds may never be built, the Transport Secretary has admitted. Chris Grayling revealed to a rail industry conference in London that the second phase of the line was 'not in the bag.' His comments are far from the Governments previous insistence that the project would proceed as planned despite growing questions about the cost of construction. Chris Grayling revealed to a rail industry conference in London that the second phase of the line between Birmingham and Leeds was 'not in the bag' (file photo) It comes after two Cabinet ministers suggested the 56billion project should be cancelled entirely, the Sunday Telegraph reported. A third minister said the second leg from Birmingham to Leeds, on which construction was due to begin in 2024, should be scrapped. The first phase, between London and Birmingham, is due to open to passengers in 2026. Mr Grayling, speaking at the industry conference, said: 'This industry has got to help make the case for HS2. We have got to continue making that case for it. Phase one, between London and Birmingham, is currently due to open to passengers by 2024 'It will be a fantastic railway, one of the best in Europe but it still needs support if it is to definitely go to Leeds and connect to the Northern Powerhouse Rail.' The project was initially estimated to cost 56billion, but several senior ministers are said to privately fear it could exceed 100billion. Phase one of the project was approved in 2014 despite opposition from 50 MPs. A bill for the Birmingham to Crewe line is currently going through the Commons. Phase one of the project was approved in 2014 despite opposition from 50 MPs (pictured, Chris Grayling) Legislation for the Manchester to Leeds route is due to be tabled in 2020, but Mr Grayling appears to fear opposition in the Commons. Sir Terry Morgan, the chairman of HS2 Ltd, said to the Railway Industry Association's annual conference: 'The truth is that without the northern section of HS2, there isnt a business case for the line at all. 'You wouldnt do HS2 on the basis of Phase 1 [London to Birmingham] on its own. HS2 definitely needs Phase 2, otherwise it does not work.' Both Mr Grayling and Mr Mogan's comments were reported by trade magazine New Civil Engineer. It comes after Nusrat Ghani, a junior transport minister, insisted to MPs in September that both phases of the project would be completed by 2033. One of the last songs Angry Anderson's murdered son ever wrote was about loyalty. A rapper, 26-year-old Liam Anderson had performed for years under the stage name Ranford Bigsby in popular venues across Sydney. But on Sunday morning, Anderson was found unconscious in a park in Sydney's northern beaches after allegedly being bashed by a friend he called his 'homie'. Police officers allegedly required pepper spray and force to subdue the man and drag him off Anderson's unconscious body as he continued to attack him. Scroll down for video Under the stage name Ranford Bigsby, murdered son of musician Angry Anderson rapped at some of the most popular venues across Sydney Anderson was treated at the scene and rushed to hospital, but died from his injuries en route Anderson died from his injuries on his way to hospital, with tributes quickly pouring in. One of which was from his mother, who told Nine News her son always expressed himself through his music. In the only music video posted to the young rapper's personal YouTube channel, titled 4iRome, Anderson sings about loyalty. In the description of the video, he writes that he wrote the song after the near-death experience of a close friend. 'Got nothing but love for the people who have love for me,' he writes. 'Blood makes you related, loyalty makes you family.' Liam Anderson (pictured, left with father Gary) was unconscious and suffering from severe head wounds when emergency crews arrived 'I want to provide for the people in my life who hold me down and help me write,' he sings. But some eerie lyrics can be heard, particularly at the end of the song. Lifting lines from the 1999 film Fight Club, the words 'I want you to hit me as hard as you can' are spoken over video of Anderson rapping at a live show. 'I don't want to die without any scars.' In one of the last songs he wrote before his death, Anderson rapped about loyalty and death He wrote underneath the music video that he penned the song 'after a near-death experience' The man taken into police custody over Anderson's death was a former friend. Police attended the Queenscliff park just after 6am on Sunday and had to use force to get him off of Anderson's body. Detective Inspector Michael Boutouridis said the 20-year-old is expected to be charged with murder. At the scene of his death, messages have been tied to poles and left alongside flowers. 'We will always miss your funny, cheeky ways. You were a loving friend and a great mate,' one reads. Meanwhile, Anderson's father, iconic Australian rock star Angry Anderson, is rushing back to Sydney to be with friends and family. He was in the middle of a tour with his band Rose Tattoo when his eldest son called him with the grim news. Fraudsters are trying to make money from selling fake poppy appeal goods. More than 1,700 counterfeit poppy products including pendants, earrings and badges were seized this week from a wholesale warehouse in Manchester. Some of the products were emblazoned with the words 'Lest We Forget'. Council officials are trying to find the source of the products which were intended to be sold for profit instead of raising money for the Armed Forces. Fraudsters are trying to make money from selling fake poppy appeal goods (pictured) Council officials are trying to find the source of the products which were intended to be sold for profit instead of raising money for the Armed Forces The items were discovered by trading standards officers during a routine inspection on Friday. Yesterday the Royal British Legion said it was a 'sad fact' people would 'actively defraud the public' of money intended for veterans and their families. Director of fundraising Claire Rowcliffe said: 'It is a sad fact that there are people who actively defraud the public in order to take funds intended for the support of our Armed Forces community. 'We want to make sure that it goes to supporting those who have made such a unique contribution to our society. 'For example, you can buy from one of our trusted volunteers, from The Royal British Legion's online Poppy Shop, or from one of our corporate partners. 'We want to make sure that it goes to supporting those who have made such a unique contribution to our society.' Manchester City Council declined to identify the business concerned due to an ongoing investigation to find the source of the goods. The items were discovered by trading standards officers during a routine inspection on Friday Angry Rabnawaz Akbar, the council's executive member for neighbourhoods, said he encouraged residents to be 'vigilant'. He fumed: 'It is absolutely appalling that counterfeiters would sink to the depths of creating fake poppy merchandise, to try to exploit the public's desire to support members of our Armed Forces community. 'Our officers have confiscated a haul of these bogus products and will continue their investigations, to get as many of these illegal copies off the streets as possible and prosecute those responsible. 'I encourage all Manchester residents to be vigilant and ensure that they are buying their poppies from official Royal British Legion vendors, or the charity's official websites, to ensure their generous donations reach the people who deserve them, instead of ending up in the pockets of callous scammers.' More than 1,000 Army dogs have been put down since the start of the Afghanistan War, new figures revealed today. Furious campaigners are appalled by the figures and are petitioning for greater efforts to re-home dogs after service. The British Army uses hundreds of highly trained dogs for tasks such as sniffing out bombs or tracking down insurgents. When their service is over, they are 'de-trained' and re-homed among civilians or handlers - but sometimes they are considered too dangerous and put down. Explosives dog Leanna of the Parachute Regiment in August 2008 in Maywand District in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan A British soldier with his dog in July 2008 in Salavat, Panjawi Province, Afghanistan Between 2002 and 2017, 1,042 dogs were put down, a freedom of information request has revealed. Paul Farthing, a former Royal Marine who runs a dog re-homing charity Nowzad, described the numbers as 'absolutely horrific'. He told the Daily Star Sunday: 'Any dogs that worked for the British military to help save lives in the various conflicts around the world, where they have served alongside a human handler, should be given every opportunity to ensure they are provided a decent retirement. 'They had no choice but to be there and protect our soldiers. The least we can do is be there for them.' One military document seen by The Star described the dogs which are deemed unfit for service. It said: 'Old and worn out dogs are animals who have reached a certain age (over eight-years-old) and are no longer able to carry out their duties to the requisite standard. More than 1,000 Army dogs have been put down since the start of the Afghanistan War, new figures revealed today. Pictured: British soldiers in Afghanistan with their explosives dog Between 2002 and 2017, 1,042 dogs were put down, a freedom of information request has revealed. Pictured: An Army dog and its handler An MoD spokesman said: 'Military working animals provide an invaluable service to our troops, and every effort is made to re-home them at the end of their service life.' Pictured: An Army dog and its handler 'Many reasons exist but they are accepted to be 'of age' and to continue to use them would be detrimental to the animal, service or perhaps both.' It also says there are 'animals who are not old (under eight) and are no longer able to carry out their duties to the requisite standard'. One dog handler told the paper that dogs are not treated compassionately following service and are seen merely as a 'resource.' An MoD spokesman said: 'Military working animals provide an invaluable service to our troops, and every effort is made to re-home them at the end of their service life. 'Decisions are taken following an extensive assessment of the animals and any potential new home. One dog handler said that dogs are not treated compassionately following service and are seen merely as a 'resource.' Pictured: An Army dog and its handler Last year the Defence Secretary intervened to stop two Army dogs that saved thousands of lives in Afghanistan from being put down. Pictured: An Army dog and its handler 'Sadly, there are some occasions where it is not possible to re-home an animal safely.' Last year the Defence Secretary intervened to stop two Army dogs that saved thousands of lives in Afghanistan from being put down. Gavin Williamson held urgent talks with dog handlers at the Ministry of Defence following widespread protest against plans to give them lethal injections. The dogs - Kevin and Dazz - sniffed out explosives on several tours of Helmand province. They were retired from frontline service four years ago and put in the care of trainers at the Defence Animal Centre in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. Army chiefs had hoped the nine-year-old dogs would be rehomed. The US Navy has had numerous 'unsafe or unprofessional interactions' with Chinese military forces since 2016. According to military statistics obtained by CNN, the US Pacific Fleet has had 18 encounters with Chinese fighter jets and destroyers. Spokesman for the US Pacific Fleet, Cmdr Nate Christensen, told the news channel that there has also been one interaction with Russia in the two-year period. One US official told CNN that 2017, the first year Trump took office, was when the highest number of encounters occurred. According to military statistics obtained by CNN, the US Pacific Fleet has had 18 encounters with Chinese fighter jets and destroyers. Pictured: US Navy destroyer USS Decatur operates in the South China Sea in October 2016 US forces conduct air and sea operations in the hundreds every year in the East China Sea, South China Sea, Sea of Japan and Yellow Sea. Christensen said that the US Air Force has also had at least one encounter during the aforementioned time period. The most recent encounter occurred in September and involved the USS Decatur, a Navy destroyer, which was sailing near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. A Chinese destroyer sailed within 45 yards of the US destroyer, which maneuvered to avoid a crash. The US criticized the actions of the Chinese as unsafe, while China said America was threatening its sovereignty. In comparison, officials told CNN that the Navy has had 50 'unsafe or unprofessional interactions' with military forces from Iran since 2016. So far, there have been none in 2018 despite the close contact of the two countries' naval forces. 'Our continued presence in the region highlights our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and demonstrates that the US Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,' Christensen told CNN. US Secretary of Defense James Mattis is expected to hold a meeting in Washington, DC on Friday with General Wei Fenghe, China's Minister of National Defence. At an event on Monday, Mattis gave reporters a preview of the talks, saying: 'We will cooperate where we can' but the US 'will confront them where we must, for example, freedom of navigation in international waters and that sort of thing.' The US has criticized China in recent months for the country's militarization of the South China Sea, claiming that this destabilizes the region. 'What we don't want to do is reward aggressive behavior like you saw with the Decatur incident by modifying our behavior,' Joe Felter, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, told the press in September. Tensions between the two countries have also risen due to a bitter trade war and America's trade deficit with China hitting record highs last month. However, President Donald Trump said on Friday that he had a conversation with China's President, Xi Jinping, about negotiating a trade deal. The world's smallest flightless bird is stranded on Inaccesible Island because it has forgotten how to fly. Its flying ancestors ancestors gave up the winged-travel because there was no threat on the deserted South Atlantic island they live on. Less than 100 years ago, scientists believed that the bird species once wandered there on land extensions now submerged in water, and therefore gave it the Latin name Atlantisia. Atlantisia, the world's smallest flightless bird is stranded on Inaccesible Island in the south Atlantic ocean because it has forgotten how to fly The bird's flying ancestors ancestors gave up the winged-travel because there was no threat on the deserted island near South Africa and Argentina they inhabit The birds, which are listed as vulnerable, have sparked the interest of a research team from Lund University in Sweden. The four biologists have now shown that the ancestors of the Atlantisia flew to Inaccessible Island from South America about 1.5million years ago. The birds inhabit Inaccessible Island part of a group of islands which are an equal distance from Argentina and South Africa. These feature five islands: Tristan, the main island and the only populated one; Nightingale and its two small surrounding islands; and Inaccessible Island. Four biologists from Lund University in Sweden have now shown that the ancestors of the Atlantisia flew to Inaccessible Island from South America about 1.5million years ago The islands make up a cluster of extinct and active volcanoes in the south Atlantic Ocean The islands make up a cluster of extinct and active volcanoes in the south Atlantic Ocean. Left undisturbed in the south Atlantic Ocean for almost 400 years, Inaccessible Island is somewhat of a mystery to most explorers. The extinct volcano is fringed with steep cliffs and only a few scatterings of boulder beaches. Its inhospitable landscape has warned sailors off landing there since 1873, before which, two German brothers made a livelihood there for two years. The birds which are listed as vulnerable are thought to have wandered there on land extensions now submerged in water Three fourths of the research team during field work on Inaccessible Island: from left to right Martim Melo, Peter G. Ryan, and Martin Stervander Advertisement Thousands of Iranians have staged a rally in Tehran marking the anniversary of the 1979 US embassy takeover as Washington restored all sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. The crowd chanted 'Down with the US', and 'Death to Israel' during today's rally in the capital, while similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns. They carried placards that mocked President Donald Trump, wiped their feet on fake dollar bills, and engaged in the usual ritual of burning the US flag. This year's 39th anniversary fell just hours before Washington was set to re-impose sanctions - including an oil embargo - following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal earlier this year. The crowd pictured in Sunday's rally in the capital, while similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns An effigy of U.S. government icon 'Uncle Sam' is held up by demonstrators as they march through the streets Demonstrators stamped on representations of the U.S. and British flags during the annual rally Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, addressed the crowd from the grounds of the former embassy, now known as the 'den of spies'. He said 'economic warfare' was a final bid by Washington to overthrow the Islamic republic after decades of failed attempts THE 1979 US EMBASSY HOSTAGE CRISIS The seizure of the US embassy by radical students was a key stage in the Islamic revolution of 1979, leading to a 444-day hostage crisis that permanently damaged relations between Washington and Tehran. It was site of worst hostage crisis in US history when revolutionary students stormed in and took 52 staff hostage and the US cut off diplomatic relations in response. Thousands of other protesters pressed around the compound, responding to a call by the country's new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to attack US and Israeli interests. The students believed the US would launch a counter-coup to return deposed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power - similar to the CIA-backed coup that overthrew Iran's elected government in 1953 - unaware that the king was already critically ill with cancer. Several of the students later regretted the incident, but for the establishment it has become a powerful symbol of Iran's refusal to be dominated by outside powers, the key driving force of the revolution. Advertisement On Friday, Donald Trump's US administration announced the restoration of sanctions on Iran's shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored after the US president withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear agreement in May. Iranian students stormed the embassy shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Iran's clerically-led government celebrates the embassy takeover every year as a decisive blow against the United States, which had supported the autocratic rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The embassy compound, widely known as the 'den of spies', is now a cultural centre. Anger and distrust over the US is surging again following Mr Trump's decision to withdraw from landmark nuclear deal with world powers despite Tehran's compliance with the agreement, which was negotiated under the Obama administration. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, addressed the crowd from the grounds of the former embassy, now known as the 'den of spies'. He said 'economic warfare' was a final bid by Washington to overthrow the Islamic republic after decades of failed attempts. 'With God's help and the resistance and perseverance of the pious and revolutionary people of Islamic Iran, this last weapon of the enemy - the economic war - which is accompanied by America's widespread media operation against the nation of Iran, will be defeated,' Jafari said. 'Never threaten Iran,' he warned US President Donald Trump, describing him as America's 'strange president'. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said 'economic warfare' was a final bid by Washington to overthrow the Islamic republic after decades of failed attempts Demonstrators pictured at the rally in front of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran Thousands gathered to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy Iranian protesters burned an effigie of the US president placed on huge prints of 100 dollar banknote images They carried placards that mocked President Donald Trump, wiped their feet on fake dollar bills, and engaged in the usual ritual of burning the US flag This year's 39th anniversary fell just hours before Washington was set to reimpose sanctions - including an oil embargo - following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal earlier this year An elderly Iranian man carrying a protest banner reading 'Down USA' Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis, and has seen sporadic protests in recent months as Iranian officials have tried to downplay the sanctions and their effects On Friday, Mr Trump's government announced the restoration of sanctions on Iran's shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored. Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis, and has seen sporadic protests in recent months as Iranian officials have tried to downplay the sanctions and their effects. The US said the sanctions are not aimed at toppling the government, but at persuading it to radically change its policies, including its support for regional militant groups and its development of long-range ballistic missiles. At a gathering on Saturday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, portrayed the sanctions as part of a long tradition of American hostility toward the Islamic Republic, which he said had nevertheless prevailed. Two Oregon parents were hospitalized after they ate gummies from their children's Halloween stash that had been secretly laced with methamphetamine. The couple fell ill on Thursday after they both ate candy that their two children had received while trick-or-treating the night before. They thought the multicolored gummies were Sour Patch Kids and said the package was completely sealed before they opened it. Two Oregon parents were hospitalized after they ate gummy candy (pictured) from their children's Halloween stash that had been secretly laced with methamphetamine The Washington County Sheriff's Office tested the candy and determined it had traces of meth. They thought the gummies had been Sour Patch Kids (file photo) and said the candy was completely sealed before they opened it It remains unclear who provided the meth-laced gummies to the couple's children on Halloween while they went trick-or-treating in their neighborhood in Aloha. The two children did not eat the candy, according to The Oregonian. Their parents are expected to make a full recovery. The Washington County Sheriff's Office said it did not receive any other reports of drug-laced candy from trick-or-treating. It was previously reported that a five-year-old boy in Ohio tested positive for methamphetamine after he went trick-or-treating last Sunday. Braylen Carwell was rushed to the hospital in Gailon after suffering a seizure. Julia Pence and Cambray Carwell blamed the terrifying incident on something they believe their son had picked up while out trick-or-treating. But Carwell, 24, was arrested days later after he tested positive for meth, which was also discovered in his home. None of Braylen's candy tested positive for the drug and it remains unknown how he ingested the meth. The father of a young woman who was found dead beside a toilet block in Africa two years ago has travelled overseas to find a crucial piece of evidence. Elly Warren from Mordialloc, south-east of Melbourne, was died while on a volunteer and diving holiday to Mozambique in 2016. Her body was discovered by a fisherman in a toilet block near a market on Tofo Beach. Elly Warren (pictured), 20, visited Mozambique's coastline for a dream holiday where she scuba dived with whale sharks and manta rays Local police failed to provide answers to the grieving family about Ms Warren's death. But her parents believe she met a violent end. Her father, Paul has gone in search of answers, 60 Minutes reported. Mr Warren travelled to the African country where he found evidence that the local police failed to uncover. Less than 24 hours at the backpacker hotspot he found a man who had a photograph of Elly dead, lying face down in the sand, her legs apart, her underwear around her knees, covered in black sand. The marine conservation volunteer (pictured) from Mordialloc, south-east of Melbourne, was killed four days before she was scheduled to fly home to Australia in November 2016 'Everybody that looks at it knows straight out that Elly was murdered' he said. He purchased a copy of the picture from the man who had the photograph on his phone. Local police did not have this photograph as part of their investigation. Mr Warren spoke to the woman who had identified Elly on the day her body was found. The woman said when she saw Elly, more than an hour after the initial discovery, she was in a different position that she was in the photograph. When the woman saw Elly she was lying in a Muslim prayer position - not face down in the dirt, she said. Mr Warren has alleged a cover-up by local police. Elly Warren's father, Paul (pictured), visited the African country to retrace his daughters final moments Elly had been in the backpacker hotspot of Tofo for six weeks as part of Underwater Africa, a conservation program that 'helps protect the oceans'. The first formal police report provided six months after her death suggested Ms Warren died of a drug overdose. An autopsy showed no evidence of drugs in her system. Her lungs were filled with sand, which suffocated her, the autopsy said. But it was hard dirt where her body was found. Mr Warren remains adamant authorities have not done enough to piece together the mystery surrounding the death of the adventurous 20-year-old Ms Warren (pictured) had been in the backpacker hotspot of Tofo for six weeks as part of Underwater Africa, a conservation program that 'helps protect the oceans' 'It's more frustrating than anything else, that nothing's being done,' Mr Warren said. 'The only conclusion I keep coming back to in all of this is that the local police don't want to acknowledge this death as a murder because it'll damage the region's lucrative tourism industry.' Since heart-wrenching phone call two years ago, her family has been searching for the truth. Mr Warren is pleading for the Australian Government to step in and help the family find out what happened to his daughter and to find her killer. Mr Warren placed flowers at the site where Elly was killed. He also wrote 'Fly high, swim deep' on a sign at the spot that had her pictures attached. Pictured: The victim, named locally as Limbani Mzoma, who also used the name Robert, was found in a pool of his own blood on a leafy estate in Dublin A woman has been charged with murdering a man before hacking off his penis and his eyelids and leaving them on the mantle piece. The victim, named locally as Limbani Mzoma, who also went by the name Robert, was found in a pool of his own blood at a house on a leafy estate in the Irish capital on Thursday. He was found with his penis and eyelids removed inside a house on Dublin's quiet Foxrock housing estate Tudor Lawns. Grace Miano, 50, who lives at the address where he was found, was today charged with his murder. She smiled and waved at reporters outside a special sitting of Dublin District Court this morning, reports The Sun. Ms Miano, who is originally from Kenya, requested medical and psychiatric help and was granted legal aid. She complained of pain in her head and legs during her time in custody. A source at the scene of the crime on Thursday told Dublin Live: 'The scene is in a house where a number of non nationals have been living. 'There has been a lot of trouble at the property and gardai were called there on Thursday afternoon.' Grace Miano, 50 (pictured arriving at court in Dublin today) who lives at the address where he was victim found, was today charged with his murder The house where the body was found is pictured being scoured by forensic investigators A police cordon was in place in the leafy suburb of Dublin where the murder took place 'They dealt with a public order incident and left when they were called back at 11.30pm they discovered the dead man dead. 'The severed penis was found on top of the fireplace and they also chopped off his eye lids.' Police found Mr Mzoma (pictured) who is understood to be from Ghana but may have links to Malawi, dead in a house on Dublin's quiet Foxrock housing estate Tudor Lawns The estate where the horror happened is a leafy estate of expensive mock tudor houses - there is a large, well kept green area, and a private parking attendant. It is near the Leapordstown Racecourse and is a well known affluent area - senior gardai including Assistant Commissioner Pat Leahy attended the scene. Tudor Lawn residents were in deep shock yesterday and were too afraid to give their names when they spoke to Dublin Live. One elderly woman, living a few doors from the scene, said that there had been a lot of trouble at the house. Garda released a statement yesterday and appealed for witnesses. A spokesman said: 'Gardai investigating the circumstances of the discovery of the body of a man in a house at Tudor Lawns, Foxrock have made an arrest. 'A woman (40s) has been arrested in relation to this investigation and is currently detained at Dun Laoghaire under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.' The rail industry must 'make the case' for HS2 or the new line might never get north of Birmingham, Chris Grayling has warned. The Transport Secretary said when built it would be a 'fantastic railway' but only if its second phase to Leeds and beyond was delivered. A first phase from London to Birmingham has been approved and funded following an exhaustive process to tackle hundreds of objections. But plans to extend the line further north are barely off the drawing board and are more than a decade from delivery even if approved. The rail industry must 'make the case' for HS2 or the new line might never get north of Birmingham, Chris Grayling has warned A first phase from London to Birmingham has been approved and funded following an exhaustive process to tackle hundreds of objections but everything further north is barely off the drawing board Speaking at a rail industry conference in London, Mr Grayling said the 56billion project was not secure. In remarks revealed by the Sunday Telegraph, he said: 'This industry has got to help make the case for HS2. 'We have got to continue making that case for it. It will be a fantastic railway, one of the best in Europe. 'But it still needs support if it is to definitely go to Leeds and connect to the Northern Powerhouse Rail.' At the same conference this week, Sir Terry Morgan, the chairman of HS2 Ltd, warned delegates: 'I absolutely do think that we still have a selling case to do for HS2. 'The truth is that without the northern section of HS2, there isn't a business case for the line at all. 'You wouldn't do HS2 on the basis of Phase 1 [London to Birmingham] on its own. HS2 definitely needs Phase 2, otherwise it does not work.' He added: 'The North and the Midlands have got to fight for the case of HS2. We can always get more support from businesses. Theresa May's de facto deputy David Lidington has always been opposed to the project, which runs straight through his Aylesbury constituency on its first leg 'I would like to see more of a voice in support of HS2, like London First was for Crossrail. But then it is part of my job now to get businesses to be more engaged.' The Cabinet remains undecided about the fate of the project amid concerns the cost could spiral to 100billion. The Telegraph believes at least two members of Cabinet believe HS2 should be cancelled altogether. Theresa May's de facto deputy David Lidington has always been opposed to the project, which runs straight through his Aylesbury constituency on its first leg. Thousands of backpackers who travel to Australia will have their working visas extended as the Federal Government looks to permanently end worker shortages on farms. Annual working holiday visa caps will be lifted, the age limit raised to 35 for select countries, and backpackers will also be able to triple the length of their stay in some instances after formally agreeing to more agricultural work. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has endorsed the sweeping changes, with backpackers also no longer required to leave jobs every six months. Scroll down for video Backpackers who visit Australia will now have the chance to extend their stay in the country if they agree to farm work (stock image) Backpackers who are willing to participate in agricultural work will see their visas extended in Australia (stock image) They will now be encouraged to stay with the same employer for up a year. The Government has been under increasing pressure to help struggling farmers after the Nationals failed to deliver on a promised agriculture visa, and Mr Morrison's ambitious plan to force dole recipients to pick fruit never got off the ground. Nationals MP Keith Pitt urged federal government representatives to increase the number of backpackers because farms in his local Bundaberg region were struggling to survive. As part of the newly introduced farm labourer push, overseas visitors with a Pacific Islander background will now be able to work for nine months rather than the current six month limit. Daily Mail Australia understands Mr Morrison has also not ruled out agreeing to another agriculture visa if the changes don't fill the required jobs on farms. The Prime Minister said the primary aim was to deliver immediate help and willing workers to farmers. 'Australians filling Australian jobs is my number one priority but when this isn't possible we need to ensure our farmers aren't left high and dry with rotting crops, especially in the strawberry industry,' Mr Morrison told the Courier Mail. 'We want more money in the back pockets of our farmers.' Court documents have revealed the chilling details of a two-year-old Texas girl that was allegedly sexually assaulted before being beaten to death. Hazana Anderson, from College Station, was reportedly struck with a belt multiple times by her mother, 21-year-old Tiaundra Christon, and her mother's boyfriend, 32-year-old Kenny Hewett on October 19. After realizing that she was unconscious, they tried to put in her in a cold bath to revive her. When they recognized that she was dead, Christon proceeded to drive around with her daughter's body in her car for three days before dumping the body in a bayou and reporting her missing. Hazana Anderson, two (pictured), from College Station, Texas, was reported missing on October 28 by her mother, 21-year-old Tiaundra Christon Christon (left) later told police that her boyfriend, 32-year-old Kenny Hewett, took Hazana out to eat. When they returned, Hazana would not stop crying so Hewett began beating the toddler with a belt, then order Christon to beat her too Christon told the Department of Public Safety in a statement that the three were staying at the Downtowner Inns and Suites hotel in Houston from October 17 to October 20. According to the affidavit, viewed by DailyMail.com, Hewett took the toddler to get food on October 19. When the two returned about 30 minutes later, Hazana was crying, which is when Hewett began beating her with a belt. He allegedly ordered Christon to hit her daughter with the belt. When she wasn't 'hitting her hard enough', Hewett began beating her again, the affidavit says. Christon said Hazana began going in and out of consciousness, so the couple put her in the bathtub in an attempt to revive her. Allegedly, Christon said that she notice signs of sexual assault on the child when she was removing her clothes. When the couple realized the child was dead and cold to the touch, they tried to use a hair dryer to raise her body temperature, but it ended up burning her skin. Christon told police she kept the toddler's body, wrapped in a plastic bag, under the back passenger floorboard of her car for three days. After realizing Hazana (pictured) was unconscious, the couple tried to revive her in a cold water bath. Christon claims it was while removing the toddler's clothes that she saw signs of sexual assault Christon told police she kept the toddler's body, wrapped in a plastic bag, under the back passenger floorboard of her car for three days. Pictured: The Downtowner Inns and Suites hotel in Houston where the death occurred On October 23, she and Hewett tied a heavy rock to the body with rape and tossed it into a body of water. Police recovered the body on Halloween near Moses Bayou and State Highway 146 in Galveston County, according to the affidavit. However, on October 28, Christon had told police she has last seen her daughter at 8am at Gabbard Park in College Station. She claimed she had gone back to her vehicle to get a bottle for Hazana and, when she returned, the girl was missing. After authorities found Hazana's clothes in a dumpster the morning she went missing, Christon was arrested and charged with tampering with a corpse, child endangerment, and giving a false report to police. She is currently in the Brazos County Jail with bail sent at $750,000. On October 31, Hewett was arrested and charged with tampering with a corpse. he is being held in Gavelston County Jail with bail set at $500,000. Supermarket giant Coles claims the Australian Tax Office (ATO) owes them $40 million. The company claims 107 million litres worth of fuel evaporated after they spent millions of dollars paying an upfront tax excise on it. But they argue the lost product was not sold or profited from, and want a fuel tax credit of $40 million. Supermarket giant Coles claims the Australian Tax Office (ATO) owes them $40 million Coles express service stations have been in dispute with the ATO since August 2016 over the recuperation of funds. But the ATO rejected the supermarket's request for a tax adjustment, and in turn Coles decided to take them to court. An excise is the process of paying taxes during the manufacturing stage of goods. But the company believe that by paying the levy up front, they were duped out of a significant portion of their potential earnings, due to some of the product evaporating before they were able to sell it, thus turn a profit. A spokesman told The Age the company was "seeking clarification from the court as to whether it has overpaid fuel excise in the past, in particular in relation to fuel volumes that have been subject to leakage and evaporation". The company claims 107 million litres worth of fuel evaporated after they spent millions of dollars paying an upfront tax excise on it The claim comes after Coles saw a meteoric profit rise for the first time in two years, largely thanks to the Little Shop toy promotion and allowing free plastic bags for longer than competitor Woolworths. The company's growth within that 13 week period was over five per cent. Despite the short-term success, analysts believe momentum will swing back toward Woolworths by the end of the year. Citi analyst Bryan Raymond told the publication he "expects the sales momentum to continue to shift back to Woolworths as market share gains are sustained beyond September." An ATO spokesman refused to discuss the matter due to the ongoing court proceedings. Cameron Collin, of Alberta, Canada, has been found dead in a creek in Montana a month after he was reported missing A Canadian man who has been missing for a month was found dead in a creek in Montana. Cameron Collin, 37, vanished without a trace during a bachelor party for a friend's wedding in Billings on October 4. His family's month-long search finally came to an end after his body was discovered in Pryor Creek on Saturday morning. Authorities found Collin's body after flying a helicopter over a portion of the creek that runs through the property where he was last seen. The Yellowstone County Sheriff's Department said there is no evidence of foul play. An autopsy will be performed on Monday to determine the official cause of death. Collin, a petroleum engineer who lived in Alberta, had flown to Billings on October 4 to celebrate the wedding of a friend from college. Collin's family's month-long search finally came to an end after his body was discovered in Pryor Creek early on Saturday morning (pictured) Collin, 37, vanished without a trace during a bachelor party for a friend's wedding in Billings, Montana on October 4 He joined the wedding party that day and the group eventually returned to a ranch where the wedding would be held about 12 miles outside of town. The bachelor party said Collin became 'pretty intoxicated' that night, so they left him 'alone in the barn' and decided to go back into town around 10.45pm. 'The last they saw him, he was sleeping in a chair,' a private investigator hired by Collin's family told CBC last week. 'When they came back, about an hour and a half later, he was gone. His suitcase and jacket were still laying there, but Cam was nowhere to be found.' 'They thought maybe he called for a ride and went into town, so they didn't really raise any suspicion until Sunday.' The bachelor party said Collin had been 'pretty intoxicated', so they left him 'alone in the barn' and decided to go back into town. When they came back nearly two hours later, he was gone Collin's sister Julia (pictured) visited Billings multiple times to help search for her brother and his family offered a $10,000 reward for any information about his disappearance Collin was not reported missing until he failed to show up for the wedding on October 7, three days after his friends last saw him. Authorities made Pyror Creek the main focus of their search in the last few weeks, utilizing volunteers, K-9 teams, and boats. Collin's sister Julia visited Billings multiple times to help search for her brother and his family offered a $10,000 reward for any information about his disappearance. After these searches proved unsuccessful, the sheriff's department decided to conduct an aerial scan of the creek with a helicopter. On Saturday morning a helicopter scanned along the creek around the area where Collin had last been seen, according to The Billings Gazette. Authorities made Pyror Creek the main focus of their search in the last few weeks, utilizing volunteers, K-9 teams, and boats Collin's body was found in the water around 9.30am 'within a couple hundred yards' from the barn where his friends last saw him. Water levels in the creek significantly dropped in the last few weeks, which is why authorities believe they were finally able to find Collin's body. 'The water has gone done quite a bit, so that helped us spot him,' said Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder. Collin's family have been notified and said they were 'deeply saddened by the news'. The bosses at Myer appear to be Grinches after putting a ban on Christmas parties for all staff this year. A leaked company memo says any end-of-year celebrations will be pushed back until 2019, The Daily Telegraph reported. 'Christmas is going to be our most important yet,' the note said. 'We need to make sure we're putting customers first in every decision we make and every action we take.' Myer bosses have put a blanket ban on Christmas parties this year a push for staff to focus on customers A leaked company memo says any end-of-year celebrations will be pushed back until January, when the festive season is over 'Given our focus on trading, the business has decided to postpone our end-of-year celebrations until next year.' The festive ban will apply for all Myer stores and its head office in Melbourne. A Myer spokesman said they will ensure all team members have the opportunity to celebrate in the New Year. The customer service push comes after it was revealed the retail giant suffered a $486 million annual loss in the 2017-18 financial year. A Myer spokesman said they will ensure all team members have the opportunity to celebrate in the New Year Despite having already slashed costs to remain competitive earlier in the year, sales still plummeted by 3.2 per cent to $3.1 billion. As a result, the department store recorded a whopping loss - its first since publicly listing on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2009. The struggling department store recently appointed veteran British retailer John King as its chief executive. Eurosceptic MPs are being urged to buy microwaves for their offices to stop their phones being bugged. The paranoia emerged today as the end game of the Brexit negotiations gets closer. It was claimed today Theresa May has private concessions from Brussels that could pave the way for the deadlocked talks to finally lurch toward a conclusion. Members of the Brexiteer European Research Group fear monitoring by the security services so the Government could exploit private discussions. Eurosceptic MPs are being urged to buy microwaves for their offices to stop their phones being bugged (pictured are members of the Brexiteer European Research Group, including David Davis, right) A Conservative MP, who has been advised to buy a microwave for her office, told The Sunday Times: 'Those MPs who have served in government know that it's possible for British and foreign spies to eavesdrop on conversations when a mobile phone is turned on. 'So the Brexiteers are now being advised to take the precautionary step of installing a microwave in their offices to stop anyone listening into their calls.' According to the Sunday Times, one ex minister believes he is being bugged. The MP recently heard 'ambient noise changes' as he finished a call with a journalist - prompting him to believe it was electronic surveillance. The Prime Minister was reported last night to have secured private concessions from Brussels that would keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU. The Prime Minister was reported last night to have secured private concessions from Brussels that would keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU Former Brexit Secretary David Davis infamously used a metal briefcase while in Government to act as a 'faraday' cage blocking signals from his phone. Her plan would avoid the need for a hard Irish during a transition to a final trade deal, the issue which has been the sticking point in negotiations for months. Mrs May also hopes to produce a detailed outline on the final settlement with the EU signalling a Canada-style deal remains a long-term possibility. Downing Street hopes to convince Brussels to convene an emergency summit within days to seal the divorce before the end of the month - and then persuade MPs to back it. Nine British tourists were rescued from a burning yacht after it was struck by lightning during a tropical storm. The group were on board a Beneteau vessel near the coast of Phuket,Thailand, when they were caught in storms on Saturday afternoon. Police said the passengers cowered below deck as the sea rocked the vessel and thunder sounded overhead. The group were on board a vessel near the coast of Phuket, Thailand, when they were caught in storms on Saturday afternoon A lightning bolt then ripped down from the sky and shattered the boat. Flames ripped through the upmarket Beneteau vessel, named Emmjay, as a passing fishing boat raced to help the crew and holidaymakers - four married couples and one other British woman. Police received a May Day call at around 5pm and coastguards were dispatched to the scene near the Thalang district. Footage shows the boat burning to a wreckage after the holidaymakers had been hauled to safety. The tourists on board were named as Kelvin and Susan Atkinson, Catherine and Stewart Toy, William and Lilias Tennant, Anne and Martin Anderson and Magret Hamilton (pictured) Police said the passengers cowered below deck as the sea rocked the vessel and thunder sounded overhead The British tourists on board were Kelvin Atkinson, 65, and Susan Atkinson, 64; Catherine Toy, 64, and Stewart Toy, 66; William Tennant, 65, and Lilias Tennant, 68; Anne Anderson, 63, and Martin Anderson, 59; and Magret Hamilton, 64. Marine Chief Wiwat Chitchertwong said all the holidaymakers had been safely rescued. He said: 'Police were notified at 5pm that there was heavy rain and lightning that struck the boat. This caused a fire. Marine Chief Wiwat Chitchertwong said all the holidaymakers were safely returned to land Photographs from the incident show bright flames burning inside the mostly destroyed vessel 'People were already sheltering downstairs in the boat to shelter from the rain when the lightning struck.' Lieutenant Colonel Brapan Chanprakon added: 'There were nine passengers on board and assisted by fishing ships they landed safely. There were no injuries or deaths. 'The police department is investigating and speaking with witnesses and boat owner.' Both parties are begging voters to get to ballot box - sending out their big guns in the form of President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama to rally the faithful - as polls show Democrats leading in House races and the focus turns to the Senate. 'It's tight, it's going to depend on voter turnout on Election Day. Democrat enthusiasm is definitely there, we are seeing that in the early voting,' Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said on ABC's 'This Week.' New polls out on Sunday show Democrats leading on the generic congressional ballot - confirming Republican fears they are could lose control of the House of Representative's in Tuesday's midterm election. Both parties are sending in their big guns - President Trump and President Obama - to urge people to vote 'It's tight, it's going to depend on voter turnout on Election Day,' Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said on ABC's 'This Week' The president was touting his approval numbers Sunday morning, particularly among African Americans - a move that comes a day after he attacked the black Democratic nominee for governor in Florida Several independent political prognosticators also are predicting Democrats win the lower chamber. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats for victory. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has Democrats up by 7 points on the generic congressional ballot while an ABC News/Washington Post poll has Democrats up by 8 percent. Those predictions are turning the focus onto the Senate, where nine incumbent Democrats are running in states Trump won in 2016. 'We have too many close races,' said Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who's in charge of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'This is the toughest political map any one party has faced in 60 years,' Van Hollen said, adding 'we do have a path, it is a very narrow path.' President Trump has gone all in for his party in a midterm election that will be seen as referendum on his presidency. The president was touting his approval numbers Sunday morning, particularly among African Americans - a move that comes a day after he attacked the black Democratic nominee for governor in Florida. 'New Fox Poll shows a '40% Approval Rating by African Americans for President Trump, a record for Republicans.' Thank you, a great honor!,' he tweeted. The president's focus over the last week of the election has been on boosting his parties chances to hold the Senate. The upper chamber can act a firewall against a Democratic-controlled House, which will give Republicans a trifecta of problems: investigations into the Trump administration, subpoenas of officials, and stifling the GOP agenda. The president's final six-day, 11 rally push has focused on states he won with tight Senate contests: Tennessee, Missouri, Montana, Indiana and Ohio. 'The map looks very good to us,' said Republican Sen. Tom Thills on 'Fox News Sunday' of his party's chances of hanging on to control of the upper chamber. The president is also focused on helping some gubernatorial candidates, particularly in Florida and Georgia, where two black candidates top their respective Democratic tickets and are trying to become the first African American's to lead their states. 'We have too many close races,' said Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who's in charge of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'We have seen unprecedented turnout in this race from people who normally do not engage and do not vote,' said Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams on 'Meet the Press.' To counter him, Democrats have brought in Obama to campaign. Trump ripped into Florida's Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum at a rally in Pensacola on Saturday, saying he would ruin the state 'that I live in.' Trump tore into Gillum, who holds a narrow polling lead in the governor's race, as a 'socialist' and said Tallahassee, where Gillum is mayor, was 'one of the worst' cities in the country. The president also called the Democratic mayor 'not equipped' to be governor. Obama was in Miami on Friday with Gillum, where he endorsed his candidacy and gently chided the hecklers. 'Why is it that the folks that won the last election are so mad all the time,' he said. 'When I won the presidency, at least my side felt pretty good.' Georgia's gubernatorial contest - where Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams is vying to become the nation's first black female governor - has been a bastion of star power. Trump will be in Macon on Sunday for Republican candidate Brian Kemp and Pence campaigned for him on Thursday. Abrams, meanwhile, had Oprah campaigning for her on Thursday and Obama on Friday. Pence who was in Georgia the same time as Winfrey mocked the mega star's campaign appearance. 'I'd like to remind Stacey and Oprah and Will Ferrell, I'm kind of a big deal too,' he said. 'This ain't Hollywood. This is Georgia.' But Winfrey, in her endorsement of Abrams, focused much of her plea on the get-out-the-vote message. 'We are all equal in power' at the polls, she said. Star power has poured into the Georgia Governor's race with Oprah Winfrey campaigning for Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams President Donald Trump slammed Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum in Pensacola, Fla., on Saturday Former President Barack Obama hugs Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum with Senator Bill Nelson at right during a campaign rally in Miami, Florida, on Friday 'We have this incredible opportunity to make history. We have our inalienable right to vote because the place where we are all equal is, where is it? At the polls! I'm here today because I know you know that. I came to remind you of the power. I'm here because I want you to remind others of the power,' Winfrey noted as the crowd roared. 'For anybody here who has an ancestor who didn't have the right to vote and you are choosing not to vote wherever you are in this state or this country, you are dishonoring your family,' she said. 'Honor your legacy and honor your right to citizenship in this, which is the greatest country in the world,' she rallied the crowd. Both sides are hitting the get-out-the-vote message hard and either in early voting or on Election Day, people are responding, with early voting numbers at record highs. Thus far, 34.3 million people have participated in early voting this year and, in 2014 midterm 27.2 million people voted early over all, according to the United States Election Project. And the numbers are up in states with competitive contests: Florida, which has competitive Senate and gubernatorial races; Texas, where Democratic rising star Beto O'Rourke is trying to unseat GOP Sen. Ted Cruz; and in Georgia, where the governor's race is neck-and-neck. 'We have seen unprecedented turnout in this race from people who normally do not engage and do not vote,' said Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams on 'Meet the Press.' 'Everything comes down to turnout,' Van Hollen said on 'Meet the Press,' 'and we've got more than seven Senate races that are down to the wire.' Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the Trump administration's reimposition of sanctions against Iran from conservative critics who argue more should be done to isolate the country. In an interview with 'Fox News Sunday,' Pompeo refused to reveal which countries received waivers from U.S. sanctions to continue importing Iranian oil. But he said the eight unidentified nations 'need a little bit more time to get to zero.' He would not rule out the Trump administration extending the waivers beyond six months. Pompeo maintained that despite the waivers, 'these sanctions have already had an enormous impact.' He added that Trump's policy of 'maximum pressure will be fully in place as of tomorrow.' Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the Trump administration's reimposition of sanctions against Iran President Donald Trump, left, is reimposing sanctions on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani President Donald Trump removed the U.S. from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal earlier this year, triggering the sanctions being imposed Monday. Pompeo said they are designed to 'alter the Iranian regime's behavior,' especially its support of terrorist groups like Hezbollah. Speaking to CBS' 'Face the Nation' Pompeo said he was 'confident' that Iran would not restart its nuclear program with the U.S. withdrawing from the deal. Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were expected to provide more details on the sanctions at a briefing Monday. President Trump on Friday announced the reimposition of all U.S. sanctions on Iran that the Obama administration lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal and delivered the message by tweeting a 'Game of Thrones' meme. Trump tweeted: 'Sanctions are coming November 5' imposed on a stylized picture of him, with the words in the same typeface the HBO series uses in its promotional materials and on-screen titles. Pompeo was asked about the poster on CBS Sunday morning. 'He was putting the world on notice that the terror regime which threatens Israel through Iranian funding of Lebanese Hizballah; that the terror regime that attempted to conduct an assassination in Denmark over the past few weeks; that the terror regime that continues to fund the Houthis launching missiles into Riyadh and into Dubai thats going to stop. That behavior must change, and sanctions from the United States will be reimposed at midnight tonight,' he said. HBO hit back before the mullahs did, tweeting a reference to the fictional language Dothraki which features in the show saying: 'How do you say trademark misuse in Dothraki?' The sanctions will take effect Monday and cover Iran's shipping, financial and energy sectors. It's the second batch of penalties that the administration has reimposed since Trump withdrew from the landmark deal in May. With limited exceptions, the sanctions will penalize countries that don't stop importing Iranian oil and foreign companies that do business with blacklisted Iranian entities, including Iran's central bank, a number of private financial institutions and state-run port and shipping companies. Pompeo said the sanctions are 'aimed at fundamentally altering the behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran.' He has released a list of 12 demands that Iran must meet if it wants the sanctions lifted. They include ending support for terrorism, ending military engagement in Syria and completely halting its nuclear and ballistic missile development. 'Maximum pressure means maximum pressure,' he said. Foreign policy by meme: Trump used a 'Game of Thrones'-inspired Tweet to announce his crackdown on Iran Meme time: 'Game of Thrones' promos like this one inspired Trump's tweet Clapback: HBO, which makes Games of Thrones, hit back with a quip about the fictional language spoken in the show by the Dothraki people Pompeo said eight nations, which other officials identified as U.S. allies such as Italy, India, Japan and South Korea, will receive temporary waivers allowing them to continue to import Iranian petroleum products for a limited period as long as they end such imports entirely. WHAT THE IRAN SANCTIONS ARE OIL Sanctions on state run shipping firms and ports to make oil exports impossible Relief in the form of six-month waivers for eight countries which are currently heavy importers on the basis that they cut imports BANKING Iranian central bank and named private institutions which include most of the country's banks are sanctioned Global financial network SWIFT -- which enables secure bank-to-bank communications and transactions -- will also be subject to sanctions if it provides services to financial institutions on the US blacklist PEOPLE 700 named officials are sanctioned meaning anyone doing business with them will be subject to legal action Advertisement He said those countries had made efforts to eliminate their imports but could not complete the task by Monday's deadline. The waivers, expected to be announced Monday, will be valid for six months, during which time the importing country can buy Iranian oil but must deposit Iran's revenue in an escrow account. Iran can spend the money but only on a narrow range of humanitarian items. Pompeo said two of the eight countries would wind down imports to zero within weeks. Mnuchin said 700 more Iranian companies and people would be added to the sanctions lists under the reimposed sanctions. Iran hard-liners in Congress and elsewhere probably will be disappointed in the sanctions because they were pushing for no oil import waivers as well as the complete disconnection of Iran from the main international financial messaging network known as SWIFT. Mnuchin defended the move to allow some Iranian banks to remain connected to SWIFT, saying that the Belgium-based firm had been warned that it will face penalties if sanctioned institutions are permitted to use it. Pompeo and Mnuchin both said the sanctions will have exceptions for humanitarian purchases. But the European Union, backed by France, Germany and Britain, said they 'deeply regret' the reimposition. In a joint statement Friday, they said they aim to protect European firms 'engaged in legitimate business with Iran.' Tony Blair (file) today urged MPs to vote down any deal from Brussels to build pressure for a second referendum to cancel Brexit. Tony Blair today urged MPs to vote down any deal from Brussels to build pressure for a second referendum to cancel Brexit. The ex-PM said the negotiations were 'approaching crunch time' and warned the House of Commons there was no good deal available. Mr Blair insisted the only choices on offer were 'pointless, painful or fudged' meaning MPs should vote with their conscience and say no. He claimed No MP would lose their seat for voting in defence of the nation despite the 17.4million votes in favour of Brexit at the 2016 referendum. Writing in the Observer today, Mr Blair said: 'We are approaching Brexit crunch time Everyone is going to come under intense pressure to agree a 'reasonable deal', Labour MPs especially. They should resist. 'There is no 'reasonable deal'. There is the pointless, the painful or fudge through postponement of the core issues. Each option is bad. MPs should vote it down and give the people the final say.' Amid fears from Remain MPs they will kicked by the voters for blocking Brexit, Mr Blair adds: 'I promise them as someone who used to win elections: no one will lose their seat on this basis. 'But vote through a botched negotiation that you don't believe in and the backlash will last a political lifetime.' Mr Blair insisted the only choices on offer were 'pointless, painful or fudged' meaning MPs should vote with their conscience and say no to whatever Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street this week) brings home Mr Blair said the only way to protect Northern Ireland in the Union was staying in the EU Customs Union and Single Market - something the Government has vowed not to do. Mr Blair said: 'They made a rash commitment last December that the Northern Ireland issue would be resolved as a part of the withdrawal agreement, with the border frictionless and with backstop to guarantee it. 'There is simply no answer to the Irish issue.' Mr Blair's warning came as more than 70 business leaders backed a referendum on the terms of the Brexit deal, warning that the UK faces 'either a blindfold or a destructive hard Brexit' that would be bad for both firms and jobs. Waterstones chief executive James Daunt, ex-Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King, Lastminute.com founder Baroness Lane-Fox and Innocent Drinks co-founder Richard Reed were among signatories of a letter calling for a People's Vote on leaving the European Union. The letter argues that both the Government's current plans for Brexit, and a no-deal Brexit, would leave the country worse off than they were being in the EU if the country left in March. A tiger which terrorised India's forests and is believed to have killed 13 people has been shot after she was lured into the open with a Calvin Klein fragrance. A hunter shot and killed the female tiger with a single bullet, after the animal had charged at a forest ranger who fired a tranquilising dart at her. The big cat, given the nickname T-1, was coaxed out of hiding in forests in Maharashtra, central India, in using a men's cologne known as Obsession For Men. Local villagers celebrated the tiger's death with firecrackers but animal rights groups have called the killing unethical, the New York Times reported. The body of man-eating tiger T-1 is pictured at a rescue centre in Nagpur after the animal was shot and killed by a hunter. She is believed to have killed 13 people Animal rescue workers bring the body of the tiger into a post-mortem room in Nagpur, central India. It was lured out of hiding using a Calvin Klein fragrance known as Obsession For Men Experts said the fragrance contained civetone which would make tigers seek out the source of the smell, rolling around and taking huge sniffs. One said: 'Whatever is in that, cats love it. They just seem to be in absolute heaven.' The big cat was blamed for 13 deaths since June 2016 but animal activists said she was trying to protect her young. A team of more than 150 people had spent months searching for T-1, using a paraglider and dozens of infrared cameras while sharpshooters had ridden on the backs of elephants. India's Supreme Court issued a hunting order for the tiger in September, ruling that she could be killed if tranquilisers failed. But the shooting in the forests of Maharashtra state sparked immediate controversy and allegations the kill was unethical and illegal. The Indian branch of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the tiger slaughter was about 'satisfying a hunter's lust for blood'. The dead body of the tiger known to hunters as T-1 after being shot in the forests of India's Maharashtra state. She had charged at a forest ranger who fired a tranquilising dart The body of T-1 in Nagpur. A team of more than 150 people had spent months searching for her, using a paraglider and dozens of infrared cameras while sharpshooters had ridden elephants Forestry officials acknowledged to Indian media that no vet was present during the hunt, as required by the Supreme Court order. T-1 was shot by Asghar Ali Khan, son of India's most famous hunter Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, who was meant to be leading the hunt but was not present on Friday night. The senior Khan defended his son's actions as 'a reflex action of self-defence' as the tiger turned on the hunting party after being struck by a tranquilizer dart. India has launched a major campaign to boost tiger numbers. At the last tiger census in 2014 the number had risen to more than 2,200 from a low of less than 1,500. But urban spread as the population of 1.25 billion grows has increasingly eaten into the territory of wild animals. Endangered elephants and tigers kill on average one person a day, according to government figures. Crown Prince Mohammad's crackdown on powerful political opponents last year may help him survive the Khashoggi crisis, it was claimed yesterday. Nearly 400 Saudi princes, tycoons and ministers were rounded up and held at the luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel in the capital Rihyad from November 4, 2017. Intelligence sources said they were interrogated and brutally tortured with 17 hospitalised, which the government denied. One detainee, Major General Ali al-Qahtani, died in custody and the government has still not explained how. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman speaking during a session of the Future Investment Initiative Conference, in Riyadh last month Imprisoned in luxury: This picture, obtained by DailyMail.com in the days after last year's round-up, shows how princes and billionaires were being held in the Riyadh Ritz Carlton A year on and most have been released after paying huge sums or signing away assets to the state but some are reportedly still in custody having refused to settle. The government said the move was to combat corruption but critics said it was an attempt by Prince Mohammed to sideline his potential rivals and consolidate power. The crackdown may now help the Crown Prince last out the Khashoggi crisis because it weakened potential opponents, reported NBC News. A former official told the publication the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2 can be seen an extension of Prince Mohammad's crackdown on dissent. 'It should have been a warning to us where this was going,' said the former official. The kingdom faces international outrage over the killing of Khashoggi, widely seen as the worst diplomatic crisis facing the kingdom since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2 Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said the order to murder Khashoggi came from 'the highest levels' of the Saudi government, without directly naming the crown prince. The government now appears keen to shore up internal royal family support to strengthen Prince Mohammad's potentially precarious position as heir to the throne. On Saturday, Saudi authorities released the brother of billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal after nearly a year in detention, family members said. The release of Prince Khalid bin Talal was confirmed by at least three relatives on Twitter, with photos shared of him kissing and embracing his son who has been in a coma for years. 'Thank god for your safety,' his niece Princess Reem bint Al-Waleed tweeted, posting additional pictures of the released prince with other relatives. The government has not offered any public explanation for his arrest or the conditions of his release. The Wall Street Journal reported that he was detained for 11 months for criticising the crackdown on the kingdom's elite last November. Nearly 400 Saudi princes, tycoons and ministers were rounded up and held at the luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel (pictured) in the capital Rihyad from November 4, 2017 Prince Al-Waleed, dubbed the Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia, was among those rounded up and was released in early January after an undisclosed financial agreement with the government. It appeared similar to deals that authorities struck with most other detainees in exchange for their freedom. Authorities could also potentially release other elites still in detention, including former Riyadh governor Prince Turki bin Abdullah and billionaire businessman Mohammed al-Amoudi, The Wall Street Journal reported. 'The killing of Jamal Khashoggi has left the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in its weakest diplomatic position since the horrific terror attacks of September 11,' Ali Shihabi, head of the pro-Saudi Arabia Foundation think tank, wrote in a report published on Friday. 'In the aftermath of the understandable global outrage at the Khashoggi murder, something will clearly have to give.' Shihabi called for the release of 'women activists and other moderate critics of the government' who have been detained in Prince Mohammed's widely condemned crackdown on dissent in recent months. Advertisement A Russian reconnaissance warplane has been spotted flying over NATO's biggest military exercise since the end of the Cold War. Marines on board USS Mount Whitney off the Norwegian coast, had gathered for a group photo on deck when a Tupolev TU-142 soared overhead. The Soviet Union-era jet was seen flying low over Exercise Trident Juncture 2018 - NATOs largest collective defence exercise in more than a decade. Marines on board USS Mount Whitney off the Norwegian coast, had gathered for a group photo on deck when a Tupolev TU-142 soared overhead According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, two Tupolev TU-142 carried out a 'planned flight' of more than 12 hours A British soldier from Anzio Company of the Duke of Lancaster Regiment during a live exercise in Elval, Norway NATO naval and marine staff members gather for a group photo on the USS Mount Whitney of the US Navy during the NATO-led military exercise Trident Juncture EXERCISE TRIDENT JUNCTURE 2018 Exercise Trident Juncture will test NATOs ability to corrdinate a major collective defence operation from training at the tactical level, to command over large multinational forces in tough terrain. With some 150 aircraft, 40,000 participants and 10,000 vehicles, it is the largest collective defence exercise NATO has seen in over a decade. After British troops travel across Europe by ferry, road and rail to Norway, they will train alongside their Danish and Polish counterparts integrating their equipment, drills and personnel to become a multinational, combat ready brigade. Advertisement Exercise Trident Juncture sees NATO and partner nations training and operating together in an Article 5 scenario, 'an attack on one is an attack on all'. A total of 150 aircraft, 40,000 participants and 10,000 vehicles are taking part in the exercise from 25 October7 November. The field exercise spans large air, sea and land areas. Land forces will exercise in the area south of Trondheim and north of Oslo, Maritime forces will operate in the sea along the Norwegian coast, and southwards to northern Scotland. There will be some maritime activity in the Skagerrak and the Baltic Sea and Air forces will operate in the air space over central Norway and parts of Sweden and Finland. Russia has already made clear its displeasure at NATO's Trident Juncture exercises, the largest by the alliance since the end of the Cold War. They warned that the two-week long exercise, which it sees as an anti-Russian show of force, would not go unanswered. According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, two Tupolev TU-142 carried out a 'planned flight' of more than 12 hours. A Polish Army tank crew drive a Leopard II tank through residential streets during the exercise The Soviet Union-era jet was seen flying low over Exercise Trident Juncture 2018 - NATOs largest collective defence exercise in more than a decade North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and leader of the exercise James G. Foggo III take a selfie Major Paul Martin (left) of the British Army Royal Irish Regiment B Company explains his proposed defensive strategy to umpires, as they await the arrival of the approaching Norwegian forces Captain Conor McCracken during Nato Exercise Trident Juncture in Norway, which involves more than 50,000 troops, 65 ships, 10,000 vehicles and 250 aircraft from all 29 member states of the alliance and partners 'All flights by the Russian fleet's maritime planes are carried out strictly in accordance with international airspace regulations,' the ministry said on Saturday, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. Several states, including Sweden, Turkey and Baltic nations, have complained about Russian airspace violations in recent years. The Tupolev TU-142 warplane The Tu-142M Long-Range Anti-Submarine Aircraft was developed to improve naval combat capabilities, to be deployed primarily in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations, maritime reconnaissance and low-range patrol runs. The aircraft has a maximum takeoff weight of 185,000kg and is operated by a crew of 11. Its armament includes defensive weapons such as Kh-35 anti-ship missile, naval mines, self-guided missiles, twin AM-23 automatic cannon, depth charges and torpedoes. The operational speed of the aircraft is 442mph, while the maximum speed is 574.76mph at high altitudes. Source: Naval Technology Advertisement Last week, Moscow also announced plans to test missiles in the region. According to Avinor, the public operator of most civil airports in Norway, Russia sent a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) about the missile tests November 1-3 in the Norwegian Sea. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said: 'Any missile testing 'will not change the plan of our exercise.' Robert Aguilar, captain of the USS Mount Whitney, added: 'We have not seen anything resembling a missile test, or even ships or aircraft in the area that would be relevant to documenting or monitoring missile testing.' The Tupolev's passage appeared to be part of Russia's response. But Colonel Garth Manger, a British Royal Marine in charge of operational duties aboard the US ship, took it in his stride. 'They're watching us and we're watching them,' he said. Like the Tupolev, the USS Mount Whitney is a holdover from the Cold War era. The third oldest vessel in the US Navy and the flagship of the US 6th Fleet, it has seen nearly 50 years' service. British soldiers from B Company of the Royal Irish Regiment patrol the area near Brydalen Church as they wait for an attack from the opposing force US Marines during a briefing ahead of an exercise to capture an airfield as part of the Trident Juncture 2018 A US Marine prepares to take part in an exercise to capture an airfield US Marines prepare the M1 Abrams tanks and the LAV-25, an eight-wheeled amphibious armored reconnaissance vehicle French Tiger attack helicopter together with French NH90 transport helicopter fly during a Joint demonstration Russia has already made clear its displeasure at NATO's Trident Juncture exercises, the largest by the alliance since the end of the Cold War Upgraded with the latest telecommunications equipment, it served as the command vessel for Trident Juncture, which is perhaps what provoked the interest of the Tupolev. But if the flyover sparked shouts from marines on board Mount Whitney, senior officers played down any provocation. British Admiral Guy Robinson, second-in-command of the maritime task force, said: 'We are at sea, everyone's got the right to be here. It's international waters, it's international airspace. 'So clearly we monitor closely. But everything we see in this exercise is that they've been safe and professional.' Jason Bohm, commanding the US marines taking part in the exercise, added: 'The largest issue we have had on this exercise has been the weather.' Republican Brian Kemp has launched an investigation into Georgia's Democrat party, just two days before he faces off against Stacey Abrams in the state's governor race. Kemp, the state's secretary of state, has claimed the Democratic Party of Georgia attempted to hack the state's voter registration system - but provided no evidence. Abrams, who is neck-and-neck against Kemp in the polls, has called the claim a 'desperate ploy' to distract voters before Election Day. It's a race that has been mired in controversy for months due to the fact that Kemp's own office is in charge of Georgia's voting systems. Scroll down for video Republican Brian Kemp, Georgia's Secretary of State, has launched an investigation into the state's Democrat party two days before he faces off against Stacey Abrams for governor Kemp has claimed the Democratic Party of Georgia attempted to hack the state's voter registration system - but provided no evidence Kemp announced on Sunday that he was investigating the state's Democratic party for a 'failed attempt to hack the state's voter registration system'. 'While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes,' Candice Broce, Kemp's press secretary, said in a statement. 'We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure.' Kemp said both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have been alerted to the investigation. He has yet to provide any evidence to prove his claims. Georgia's Democratic Party said it was not even aware of the 'so-called investigation' until an official statement was released by Kemp's office on Sunday morning. 'To be very clear, Brian Kemp's scurrilous claims are 100 percent false,' Rebecca DeHart, executive director of the state's Democratic Party, said in a statement. 'This political stunt from Kemp just days before the election is yet another example of why he cannot be trusted and should not be overseeing an election in which he is also a candidate for governor.' DeHart added that the investigation was 'yet another example of abuse of power by an unethical Secretary of State'. Abrams, who is neck-and-neck against Kemp in the polls, has called the claim a 'desperate ploy' to distract voters before Election Day Abrams, who is running to become the country's first black female governor, said she only heard about the investigation after she was asked about it by Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday morning. 'I've heard nothing about it, and my reaction would be that this is a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people from the fact that two different federal judges found him derelict in his duties and have forced him to accept absentee ballots to be counted and those who are being held captive by the exact match system to be allowed to vote,' Abrams said. 'He is desperate to turn the conversation away from his failures, from his refusal to honor his commitments, and from the fact that he's part of a nationwide system of voter suppression that will not work in this election' she added. 'Because we're going to outwork him, we're going to out vote him, and we're going to win.' Kemp's office has frequently come under fire with charges of voter suppression during his campaign for governor. There was massive outcry when it was revealed that 53,000 voter registrations - 70 percent of which came from black applicants - were being held by his office for failing to be an 'exact match' to their Social Security and state driver records. Georgia's Democratic Party said it was not even aware of the 'so-called investigation' until an official statement was released by Kemp's office on Sunday morning Kemp called the allegations of voter suppression a 'farce', but was later caught complaining about the state's increased voter turnout on leaked audio. Last week a federal court blocked the state from throwing out absentee ballots and applications because of signature mismatches. And on Friday a judge dealt a major blow to Kemp's office's 'exact match' verification process, ordering the state to allow people flagged as noncitizens greater opportunity to prove their citizenship at the polls. The judge ruled that Georgia must immediately start allowing poll managers to clear flagged voters who show proof of citizenship to vote a regular ballot. Previously only deputy registrars were allowed to clear flagged voters. Kemp's investigation also comes after a star-studded week of campaigning for Abrams that saw both Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama rallying voters. Winfrey knocked on doors across the state and hosted two town halls, revealing that she had personally reached out to Abrams and asked if she could join the campaign. Kemp's investigation also comes after a star-studded week of campaigning for Abrams that saw both Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama rallying voters 'Nobody paid for me to come. Nobody even asked for me to come here. I paid for myself and I approved this message,' she told the crowd during one speech. Winfrey recounted the history of suppression of black voters as she urged people to go to the polls on Election Day. 'I'm here today I'm here for the men who were lynched and humiliated and discriminated against and suppressed,' she said. 'For anybody here who has an ancestor who didn't have the right to vote and you are choosing not to vote wherever you are in this state or this country, you are dishonoring your family.' 'Honor your legacy and honor your right to citizenship in this, which is the greatest country in the world.' Obama stumped for Abrams, who trails Kemp in the polls by just two points, with a 45-minute speech at the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta on Friday. 'On Tuesday, you can vote for a politics that is decent, for a politics that is honest, for a politics that is lawful, for a politics that tries to do right by people,' he told the crowd. Obama stumped for Abrams during a 45-minute speech at the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta on Friday 'Make history here in Georgia. Make things better here in Georgia.' Obama isn't the only former president to wade into Georgia's contentious governor race. Just last week Jimmy Carter sent a letter to Kemp, asking him to step down as secretary of state during the election. 'Other secretaries of state have stepped down while running for election within their jurisdiction, to ensure that officials without a direct stake in the process can take charge and eliminate concerns about a conflict of interest,' he wrote. 'In order to foster voter confidence in the upcoming election, which will be especially important if the race ends up very close, I urge you to step aside and hand over to a neutral authority the responsibility of overseeing the governor's election.' 'This would not address every concern, but it would be a sign that you recognize the importance of this key democratic principle and want to ensure the confidence of our citizens in the outcome.' A mother-of-four who was burned and beaten by her boss then sent home to die is just one victim of modern slavery in the Middle East. The story of Mary Kibwana will be revealed in the BBC Two documentary Maid in Hell on Sunday - but she's far from the only victim. Ms Kibwana, 30, travelled to Jordan to find domestic work so she could send money home to her four children in 2015. The story of Mary Kibwana will be revealed on the BBC Two documentary Maid in Hell on Sunday (pictured, a scene from the programme) She was sent to work for a wealthy family - but when she arrived her passport and mobile phone were immediately taken away. The mother often worked 18-hour days, and cooked and cleaned from 6am to late at night. Ms Kibwana was often beaten by the mother and daughter - but things escalated when a gas canister exploded as she made a cup of tea, setting her clothes, chest and lower body on fire. Ms Kibwana travelled to Jordan to find domestic work so she could send money home to her four children in 2015 (pictured, a scene from the programme) Kenyan Senator Emma Mbura pictured holding a photograph of Ms Kibwana's injuries in the documentary She passed out, and when she came around her boss was allegedly kicking her. The maid then spent more than a month in a hospital in Amman, Jordan's capital. Her husband was apparently told by her boss that she had a minor accident, but was otherwise 'in good health.' When it looked like she was unlikely to recover, her employers sent her home to Kenya in May 2016. Ms Kibwana passed away in hospital shortly after from the severe burns that covered 47 per cent of her body. An estimated 2.8million women who have moved to the Middle East from Africa to work as maids The problem is the Kafala system - a set of laws in the Middle East which bind migrant workers to their employers She is one of 2.8million women who have moved to the Middle East from Africa to work as maids, the Sun reported. But the BBC's latest documentary, part of the Why Slavery? season, reveals they often suffer at the hands of their employers. These women are often forced to work years without pay, badly beaten, starved, and even raped. The problem is the Kafala system - a set of laws in the Middle East which bind migrant workers to their employers. The documentary also details the story of Jessica, from Kenya, who said her employer came into her bedroom as she slept. 'I said "No, I'm married" but he told me I had to obey the rules in his house,' she said. Senator Mbura (pictured second from left) has started a grassroots campaign to help the victims of modern slavery in the Middle East She said that without help from her fellow politicians she is limited in what she can do to help The maid eventually escaped by tying three bed sheets together and climbing down from the third floor. Viewers will also see a conversation with Maher Doumit, who has worked as a recruitment agent in Lebanon and Jordan for 12 years. He insists he has done nothing wrong, claiming 'human rights don't exist in this world.' The documentary makers will also tell the story of Paulina and Rita, two women from Ghana who have travelled to Lebanon to work. The pair are forced to hand over their passports and phones when they arrive - and sent to work. The Maid in Hell documentary is part of the BBC Why Slavery? season and will air on Sunday Mr Doumit said: 'Sometimes a girl comes over from her country, if she's pregnant or she's sick, this is a big problem.' The bodies of two domestic workers were sent back to their country every week from Lebanon in 2016. A report revealed 67 per cent of these were due to suicide, while others died due to injuries inflicted upon them by their employers. Ms Kibwana's case was thrown out of a Jordanian court after the judge ruled her death was a result of 'fate and destiny'. Her employer's identity was never released - and her passport was never returned. Maid in Hell: Why Slavery will broadcast on Sunday 4 November, BBC Two at 10pm Chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot (pictured) granted Uber a temporary licence but it was later revealed her husband, a former Conservative MP, has links to Uber Uber has been accused of 'gravely misleading' judges and regulators in its ongoing battle to continue operating in London. A judge's decision in their favour will be reviewed after it was revealed her husband is linked to the firm, placing Uber's future in London in fresh doubt. Chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot granted the taxi-app firm a temporary licence to continue operating in London. But a High Court judge has allowed the capital's black cab drivers to appeal against her decision. Lady Arbuthnot is married to former Conservative MP James Arbuthnot, who works for a strategy firm whose clients invest in Uber, The Sunday Times reports. In the latest hearing Mr Justice Walker said Uber had 'gravely misled the regulator and the court' and granted a judicial review, saying Lady Arbuthnot may have made an error by allowing the temporary licence. Lady Arbuthnot has said she was not aware of the connection with her husband's work. Transport for London denied Uber a new licence last year saying the company was not 'fit and proper' to operate in the capital. TfL rejected the application amid fears over Uber's reporting of serious criminal offences and how it carried out background checks on its drivers. London's transport chiefs also raised concerns about drivers' medical certificates and Uber's use of technology which allegedly helped it evade law enforcement officials. Uber criticised the decision saying not issuing a licence 'would show the world that, far from being open, London is closed to innovative companies' and appealed the decision. A High Court judge has allowed the capital's black cab drivers, pictured blocking Whitehall in a protest against Uber, to appeal against the chief magistrate's decision At the hearing presided over by Arbuthnot the firm conceded it had made 'serious mistakes' but said it had made 'wholesale' reforms. Lady Arbuthnot granted a 15-month 'probationary licence', having found the Silicon Valley giant was now 'fit and proper' to hold the licence in the capital. A lawyer for London's black cab drivers said she had failed to explain her potential conflict of interest. Lady Arbuthnot said she was unaware of the connection, and would not hear any Uber-related cases in future. A spokesman for the judiciary said: 'It is essential that judges not only are, but are seen to be, absolutely impartial.' A Colombian star of the Royal Ballet has revealed he used to lighten his face with make-up to get selected for main parts. Fernando Montano, who was born in poverty in Buenaventura and joined the Royal Ballet in 2006, said he felt his skin colour disadvantaged him when auditioning. He said he never felt he was discriminated against but chose to lighten his face because of his own insecurity. Fernando Montano (pictured in 2008), who was born in poverty near Cali and joined the Royal Ballet in 2006, said he felt his skin colour disadvantaged him when auditioning Fernando Montano at the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them film premiere, London in 2016 The 33-year-old told The Sunday Telegraph: 'I was feeling like there was no one like me, and then of course I was trying to fit in, and so I used to put on light make-up, on my hands and my face, so I could look like the others and blend in.' He added: 'You do not see many black classical ballet dancers, most of them are more contemporary, maybe because ballet can be very elitist they do not even try out for other roles because they don't have many role models.' Montano, currently on sabbatical from the Royal Ballet for a year, learned his trade on a scholarship at the National Ballet School of Cuba and then performed in Italy as a teenager. The Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos and wife Maria watch Colombian dancer Fernando Montano during a state dinner in Bogota, Colombia in 2014 Montano at the Cartier Queen's Cup Polo Day 2013 at Guards Polo Club on June 16, 2013 in Egham He became the first Colombian to join the Royal Ballet and performed privately for Prince Charles during his state visit to Colombia in 2014. Recalling the visit, Montano said: 'I remember I met Prince Charles and I did not know how to address him properly. I had to watch what the other people in the company did and try to copy what they were saying and what they were doing.' A Royal Ballet spokesman said: 'The Royal Ballet is proud to foster an inclusive company and is committed to making ballet accessible to all. 'Our dancers come from many different backgrounds and cultures from around the world. 'The question of colour in ballet is a global issue and is something that the global ballet community is actively addressing.' France's far-Right National Rally is now more popular than Emmanuel Macron's governing party as the country becomes more anti-EU and opposed to immigration, according to a new poll. The shock results come just a year-and-a-half after President Macron roundly defeated his closest rival, Marine Le Pen, to become head of state. Her National Front has now changed its name to the National Rally (NR) in an attempt to soften its image and move away from its racist and anti-Semitic roots. Now, a new Ifop poll examining voting intentions for upcoming European Parliament elections show the NR on 21 per cent, with Mr Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) on 19 per cent. Scroll down for video Marine Le Pen's (pictured) far-Right National Rally is now more popular than Emmanuel Macron's governing party The NR vote is up five per cent from 17 per cent in August, while LREM's is down one per cent over the same period. 'In the European elections, we're in the lead,' a delighted Ms Le Pen said on Sunday. 'People are rejecting globalisation'. Ms Le Pen views Mr Macron, who is a former merchant banker, as being more interested in the EU and the global economy than France itself. Her party has pledged to stick up for French workers and their products, and to cut down on new arrivals taking their jobs. The shock results come just a year-and-a-half after President Macron (pictured) roundly defeated his closest rival, Marine Le Pen, to become head of state Along with a combined nine per cent score by three other 'Frexit' (the French equivalent of Brexit) parties Ms Le Pen could form a coalition with 30 per cent of the vote. This score for the NR working with Stand-up France, the Patriots and the Popular Republicans is up from 25 per cent in August. The conservative Republicans are on just 13 per cent of the vote, while the far-Left France Unbowed is on 11 per cent. The Ifop poll was carried out between October 30 and 31, and asked almost 1000 French citizens representative of the entire population how they would vote if the European elections - which take place next May - were to be held next Sunday. Mr Macron has become increasingly unpopular as he introduces a range of measures aimed at liberalising France's economy. Current polls show his popularity rating down to just 21 per cent. Senior ministers have been deserting him, as he is accused of being a 'President to the rich'. Despite the impressive score for the NR, Ms Le Pen currently has serious legal problems that could technically see her imprisoned. The 50-year-old was in March charged with circulating 'violent messages' on Twitter - namely Islamic State propaganda pictures.. The NR is also being investigated for allegedly using European Parliament funds to illegally pay for staff working in France. Ms Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing, accusing the political establishment of being out to get her and the NR. Two drug dealers have been jailed after police discovered that they had hidden 1 million worth of cocaine in a secret chamber. Shocking footage showed the remote-controlled compartment, containing 9.6kg of the class A substance, being opened after the press of a button. According to the CPS, it was found in the bedroom of Amber May, 30, from Surbiton, south-west London. May was jailed for five years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs while Klisdorin Lumnica, 24, was jailed for 14 years for the same offence at Kingston Crown Court on Friday. The footage, which was shot by investigators, shows a white shelf rising from the after a button is pressed. The revealed cabinet can be seen containing several brown packages wrapped in plastic. May had tried to blame Lumnica for installing the secret compartment and claimed that she had no knowledge of it. Amber May, 30 (left), from Surbiton, south-west London and Klisdorin Lumnica (right), 24, from Surrey have now been jailed for a total of 19 years But the court heard evidence the pair conspired together, exchanging texts about the remote control, with May reminding Lumnica to 'remember to put the blind down'. The offences took place between January 11 last year and May 18 this year. Lumnica, of Epsom, Surrey, who had earlier admitted conspiracy to supply class A drugs, was sentenced to 14 years on Friday, the CPS said. Prosecutor Andrew Hope said: 'Amber May claimed she had no knowledge of this drugs stash but the CPS was able to prove she was trusted by Klisdorin Lumnica to look after a large and valuable quantity of cocaine.' The remote controlled secret compartment can be seen appearing in the footage after the press of a button One person has died after two planes collided mid-air over Canada on Sunday morning. Ottawa police said two small aircraft struck each other in Carp, Ontario around 10.11am. One of the planes crashed into a field near Carp Airport while another was redirected to Ottawa International Airport, where it was able to land safely. One person has died after two planes collided mid-air over Canada on Sunday morning. One plane managed to safely land at Ottawa International Airport (pictured) after the collision Ottawa Paramedics said the pilot of the aircraft that crashed in the field 'was pronounced dead at the scene'. The pilot of the plane that landed at Ottawa International Airport said that the other aircraft hit the bottom of his plane, affecting his right landing gear, CBC reported. It remains unknown how many passengers total were on both planes. One of the planes crashed into a field near Carp Airport while another was redirected to Ottawa International Airport Witnesses said the plane that landed at Ottawa airport, a twin-engine 11-seat Piper Cheyenne, was occupied by a father and son, according to CTV. They were not hurt during the collision. The aircraft sustained minor damage. Police closed off a section of McGee Side Road, near the area where one of the planes crashed. Ottawa paramedics quickly arrived on the scene. The Transportation Safety Board is sending investigators to the crash site. On Sunday morning, the US turned its clocks back one hour in observance of daylight saving time. The shift means the sun will rise earlier in the morning, and set sooner in the evening. And while we feel we now have an 'extra hour' in the morning, many of us will likely be struggling to fall asleep for the next week as we adjust our sleep schedules. We reveal why you feel so groggy when you 'fall back', the other health risks daylight saving could have and some tips you can follow to make the time change easier. Although we may feel like we have an 'extra hour' in the morning due to Daylight Saving Time, many of us will likely be struggling to fall asleep for the next week as we adjust our sleep schedules (file image) DAYLIGHTS SAVINGS AFFECTS OUR CIRCADIAN RHYTHM Our daily (circadian) clocks are linked to the lightdark cycle, or how many hours of day and night there are. They allow us to anticipate and prepare for precise and regular environmental changes such as when to eat and sleep. Found throughout the nervous system and peripheral organs, these 'clock genes' play a role in DNA repair, fertility, the effectiveness of medication, body temperature, brain activity and hormone production. If your body doesn't receive these signals, however, your circadian rhythm can be completely thrown off. You might not think that setting the clock back an hour has much of an effect, but this is not the case. Just like with jet lag, your body takes about a week to adjust to the new sleep-wake cycle, which is why you feel tired and groggy. Disruptions in sleep schedule and not getting the recommended eight hours every night, can increase feelings of anxiety and irritability. WHAT OTHER IMPACTS DOES DAYLIGHT SAVINGS HAVE? It may not be the 'fall back' that affects you so much as the 'spring froward', researchers say. A 2014 study from the University of Colorado found that when we turn the clocks forward, the risk of heart attack the following Monday increases by 25 percent. Dr Amneet Sandhu, a then-cardiology fellow at the University of Colorado in Denver who led the study, says this may be due to the inherent changed in the sleep-wake cycle. However, in the fall, when we turn the clocks back, the risk of heart attacks decreased by 21 percent. A study from the University of Connecticut also found that there was a 45 percent increase between 5pm and 6pm after daylight saving time ends, reported News 12 Connecticut. This is likely due to people adjusting their sleep schedules because of the time change likely due to lack of sleep and from it being darker earlier. HOW CAN YOU ADJUST? You may struggle to fall asleep an hour earlier when we turn our clocks back. One recommendation sleep experts make is to adjust to the time change gradually rather than all at once. 'Slowly shift your bedtime by 15 minutes each night. This will allow your body to naturally adjust when the clocks turn back,' Dr Beth Donaldson, a family physician at Copeman Healthcare Centres in Vancouver, Canada, told Healthline. This means, if you go to bed 15 minutes early tonight, then go to bed 30 minutes early tomorrow a night, and so on until you've adjusted. Then once, you've adjusted to your new schedule, make sure you stick to it - even on your days off. Dr Donaldson told Healthline that if you stay up later and fill your 'extra hour' with activities - this could significantly affect your sleep-wake cycle. A man and a child have died, and nine others were injured, after a horror crash involving a car and a minibus in Cheshire. Emergency services were called to the A34 Melrose Way in Alderley Edge shortly after midnight on Sunday. North West Ambulance Service confirmed that a man and a child died at the scene. Another adult was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary and a child was transported to the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. A man and a child have died, and nine others were injured, after a horror crash involving a car and a minibus in Alderley Edge, Cheshire. Pictured, the scene after the collision Both their conditions are not known. A further seven people were taken to Macclesfield District General Hospital with minor injuries. Cheshire Police have only confirmed that 'a number of people' were taken to hospital after what they described as a 'serious' collision. In a statement, a police spokesman said investigating officers are appealing for witnesses to the collision. Emergency services were called to the A34 Melrose Way in Alderley Edge shortly after midnight on Sunday North West Ambulance Service confirmed that a man and a child died at the scene on Sunday 'At 12.04am November 4, emergency services were called to a serious collision on the A34 Melrose Way in Alderley Edge,' the spokesman added. 'The collision involved a car and a minibus. A number of casualties were treated at the scene and taken to hospital. 'The road was shut between Alderley Park roundabout and the Alderley Edge roundabout while emergency services worked at the scene.' Cheshire firefighters and paramedics also responded to the collision. A fire and rescue service spokesman said: 'Firefighters were called to a serious collision on Melrose Way, the A34, Alderley Edge. 'The collision involved a minibus and a car. Crews assisted emergency services at the scene and extricated casualties.' President Donald Trump said that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams wants to ax the Second Amendment and allow illegal immigrants to vote and hold political office as he continued to assail her on Sunday as too radical to lead Georgia. Trump had previously claimed, without offering examples, that Abrams, the first African-American woman from either major party to be nominated for governor, is not 'qualified' to hold office and will not be elected, despite having the support of Oprah. Abrams called the comments 'vapid and shallow' on a Sunday morning program. Trump told a Macon, Georgia, crowd in the afternoon, 'Stacey Abrams is one of the most extreme far-left politicians in the entire country, you know that.' Trump said Stacey Abrams wants to ax the Second Amendment and allow illegal immigrants to vote and hold political office Trump told a Macon, Georgia, crowd in the afternoon, 'Stacey Abrams is one of the most extreme far-left politicians in the entire country' Macron, Georgia is Trump's latest stop ahead of the upcoming midterm elections on Tuesday Abrams is facing Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in Tuesday's election. Winfrey campaigned for Abrams in Georgia on Thursday. Barack Obama spoke at a rally on her behalf on Saturday. In a riff on the talk show host, Trump said he was on her show during it's final week, and they had always gotten along until he sought the Oval Office, that is. 'I think they're trying to burn the tape,' he jested. 'Oprah was here to endorse Stacey, and I'm here to endorse Brian.' Trump said Sunday before the rally amid a controversial voting investigation the Republican nominee is conducting in the state that Kemp will be a 'great executive' and Georgia would go 'backwards' if Abrams is elected. 'He studied for this job for a longtime. He will be a great executive, and he will keep Georgia on the path it is going, which is up,' Trump told reporters as he left the White House en route to his campaign rally with Kemp. Trump reiterated his belief that Abrams, who would become first black, female governor in the nation's history if she's victorious on Tuesday, is not fit for office. 'If she gets in, Georgia goes backwards,' Trump said. 'If he gets in, Georgia goes forward.' Abrams, meanwhile, smacked President Trump on Sunday as 'vapid and shallow' over his claim that she's 'unqualified' told hold the office she's seeking. The former minority leader of the Georgia House and Yale Law School graduate noted on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that she's a former civic leader and a tax attorney. President Donald Trump doubled down on the qualifications of Georgia's gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp amid a controversial voting investigation and again questioned Democrat Stacey Abrams' qualifications 'I find his assessments to be vapid and shallow. I am the most qualified candidate,' she said on Sunday morning. 'There is no one more qualified standing for this office in Georgia. And I look forward to having the voters of Georgia say the same.' Abrams said that the GOP is attacking her credentials, because they're running 'scared' in the statewide election. But in Macon, the president offered a host of reasons why Abrams' positions are too far to the left for Georgia and she shouldn't be promoted. He said the Second Amendment is 'under siege and Stacey and her friends will get rid of it.' Please give us all guns right now, he said, doing an impression of Democrats. 'She supports a socialist take over of healthcare, which means you will never be able to see your doctor.' He used the healthcare jab to as a segue into a slap at Obama, who has hit the trail hard in the final days of the midterms to campaign for Democrats. 'And just like President Obama Im going to be very nice, did not tell the truth,' he said. 'Keep your doctor, you can keep your plan, he said it 28 times,' Trump said. 'You put Stacey in there, and you're gonna have Georgia turn into Venezuela. And I dont think the people of Georgia like that.' Laying into Abrams, he said, 'I spoke to law enforcement, I spoke to everybody [she] is really weak on crime, really weak on crime. Thats not what you need. She wants to end the death penalty for even the most vicious and ruthless killers.' 'She even, listen to this, voted to allow illegal aliens to hold public office,' he said. Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, poised to become the first black woman in the governor's mansion if she's victorious on Tuesday, smacked President Trump as 'vapid and shallow' over his claim that she's 'unqualified' for office The race was in a dead heat leading into Election Day, with Kemp up by a single point in the Real Clear Politics average. It was a statistical heat in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll this week Trump assessed in front of reporters at the White House on Thursday that she's not 'qualified' for the job but didn't say why believes that. He's seen here on Saturday in Belgrade, Montana Trump posited that illegal immigration is a serious issue, because migrants are likely to vote for Democrats, if they become U.S. citizens. 'They like them coming in, because were winning. And they figure, if enough of them come in, eventually theyll be able to vote, and theyre going to vote for the Democrats,' he said. 'We cant let this happen. For other reasons too, but we can't let that happen.' The president's comments about Abrams and Kemp and their qualifications came as the Georgia secretary of state's office launched an investigation into the state's Democratic Party, just two days before voters decide between him and Abrams. Kemp, the Georgia secretary of state, has claimed the Democratic Party of Georgia attempted to hack the state's voter registration system yet has provided no evidence to support the charge. The secretary of state's office is refusing to supply any details, as well, and the Democratic Party is denying the unverified allegation. 'While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes,' Candice Broce, press secretary, to Kemp, said in a statement. 'We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure.' Abrams on CNN said that the hadn't heard about the alleged hacking attempt. 'And my reaction would be that this is a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people from the fact that two different federal judges found him derelict in his duties and have forced him to accept absentee ballots to be counted and those who are being held captive by the exact match system to be allowed to vote,' she said. 'Because we're going to outwork him, we're going to out vote him, and we're going to win.' She has called on Kemp to resign as secretary of state over alleged voter suppression tactics that have made it more difficult for African-American voters to cast ballots. Georgia's Democratic Party said it was not even aware of the 'so-called investigation' until an official statement was released by Kemp's office on Sunday morning Abrams, who is neck-and-neck against Kemp in the polls, has called the claim a 'desperate ploy' to distract voters before Election Day 'He is desperate to turn the conversation away from his failures, from his refusal to honor his commitments, and from the fact that he's part of a nationwide system of voter suppression that will not work in this election,' she said on Sunday. Georgia is litigating its voter identification rules requiring information to be a precise match to the Social Security Administration's listing for an individual to cast a ballot in the mid-term election. A federal judge in an injunction on Friday said that Georgia must ease up on the rules that bar individuals from casting a ballot if there's even a slight variation, caused sometimes by a data entry problem, such as a missing hyphen or spelling error. Georgians who show proof of citizenship must be allowed to vote on Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Eleanor L. Ross said. Kemp's office says it has already been living up to that standard in early voting. According to the Associated Press, more than 51,100 Georgians will be affected this election by the issue that could prevent them from casting a ballot, if they do not bring the proper documents. The race was in a dead heat leading into Election Day, with Kemp up by a single point in the Real Clear Politics average. An Atlanta Journal Constitution poll had the race tied. Star power has put a national spotlight on the contest, with Will Ferrell, Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama flocking to the state to help Abrams. Vice President Mike Pence campaigned in Georgia this week for Kemp. Winfrey in her appearance on Thursday recounted the history of voter suppression as she urged African-Americans to go to the polls on Election Day. 'I'm here today I'm here for the men who were lynched and humiliated and discriminated against and suppressed,' she said. 'For anybody here who has an ancestor who didn't have the right to vote and you are choosing not to vote wherever you are in this state or this country, you are dishonoring your family.' Obama said in a barn-burning speech at Morehouse, a Historically Black College and University, that that the other side is 'trying to scare you with all sorts of bogeymen, trying to scare you with all kinds of divisive issues.' He accused Republicans of 'repeated, constant, incessant, nonstop attempts to divide us.' The former minority leader of the Georgia House and Yale Law School graduate noted on NBC's Meet the Press (pictured that she's a former civic leader and a tax attorney President Trump is rallying Republicans in the state this afternoon for candidate Brain Kemp. Pictured: Kemp speaks as Abrams look on during a debate in Atlanta, October 2018 The former president went after Kemp's office specifically for 'trying to disenfranchise people and take away the right to vote' and took a dig at the Republican candidate for bailing on Sunday evening's debate to campaign with the president. 'What is he afraid of?' Obama asked. 'He's afraid of Stacey, I guess.' President Trump was rallying Republicans in the state on Sunday afternoon at his first of two back-to-back events less than 48 hours before the polls open nationwide. In Georgia, early voting began in the middle of October and ended on November 2. More than two million people cast ballots in that time frame, according to the Georgia Secretary of State's office. A white nationalist group that had been targeting another African-American gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Gillum, in Florida, started running robocalls in Georgia on Friday impersonating Winfrey and making racist and anti-Semitic claims in an effort to hurt Abrams' candidacy. Abrams' strategic communications coordinator, Abigail Collazo, linked the hateful calls to Trump's visit to Georgia, saying in a statement provided to CNN, 'These automated calls are being sent into homes just days before President Trump arrives, reminding voters exactly who is promoting a political climate that celebrates this kind of vile, poisonous thinking.' 'Over the last few weeks we've seen increasing desperation from many dark corners trying to steal the election, cheat, lie, and prey on people's fears rather than having the respect to listen to voters and speak to their hopes,' she said. Trump said that Gillum is 'not equipped' to be governor during a Saturday night rally in Pensacola. He didn't say why he believes the Tallahassee mayor does not have the qualifications to lead the state, although he has attacked Gillum on Twitter for alleged ethics violations. Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama headlined events for Abrams in Georgia on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. Pictured: Winfrey and Abrams greet the audience at a town hall style event at the Cobb Civic Center on Thursday in Marietta, Georgia Trump assessed in front of reporters at the White House on Thursday that Abrans is not 'qualified' for the job in Georgia but didn't say why he believes that. 'I've always liked Oprah. You know, Oprah is good. But the woman that she's supporting is not qualified to be the governor of Georgia, by any stretch of the imagination,' he asserted. 'And I think Brian is going to be a great governor of Georgia. I think he'll be a fantastic governor. He's totally qualified.' Obama argued on Saturday that Abrams is the 'most experienced, most qualified' candidate in the race. 'As President Obama pointed out, I am the most qualified candidate running, if you look at both my academic background, my work history,' Abrams said Sunday, echoing the former president on CNN. 'I have been deputy city attorney. I was the Democratic leader for seven years. I have been successful as a businesswoman, as a writer, and as a tax attorney.' She added: 'I know what I'm talking about, and I have the plans to prove it.' Trump ignored a question from the pool as he boarded Air Force One for Macon about his diss on Abrams. He told reporters at the White House, however, that Kemp is 'running a great campaign' and he's 'studied for this job for a long time' as he fielded questions before his departure. The president said that he has no knowledge of the hacking incident outlined by Kemp's office, and when asked if he believes there was voter suppression in Georgia, he said he did not. 'A lot of people are voting, and I think a lot of Republicans are voting because they want to see Georgia go forward, not go backward,' he said. 'If she gets in, Georgia is going backward. If he gets in, Georgia goes forward. And that's what people want.' Anti-gay attacks in France are 'just the tip of the iceberg' with many going unreported because victims fear they won't be listened too, claim activists. Figures from the French interior ministry show that at a national level, complaints of homophobic attacks have increased by 15 per cent since the beginning of 2018. However a report from rights group SOS Homophobie shows only four per cent of victims of homophobic insults file a complaint and the amount of physical attacks reported to them equates to 'one assault every three days', reports France 24. Activists wave a rainbow flag at a protest against homophobia in the northwestern French city of Rouen. Figures from the French interior ministry show complaints of homophobic attacks have increased by 15 per cent this year Inter-LGBT spokesperson Clemence Zamora-Cruz said many victims are scared to come forward and that: 'This is just the tip of the iceberg.' She explained how people often have a 'fear of reprisal' which stops them from reporting their attack and that many are 'afraid of speaking to police officers who aren't aware of issues relating to LGBT identity.' Multiple men have been attacked in homophobic incidents during recent months in France. Romain, 30, not his real name, told site Gayviking how he was jumped when leaving a nightclub in the town of Rouen on October 24. He explained that his attackers hit him 'everywhere' on his body and at one point his 'head hit the rear window like a bullet [] I thought I was going to die.' Days after his brutal attack, which caused outrage on social media, French President Macron tweeted: 'Homophobic violence must be a concern for our entire society. 'They are unworthy of France. Concrete measures will be announced but they can not replace the humanity and tolerance that are at the heart of our culture.' Members of the LGBT community protest against discrimination and violence at the Place de la Republique in Paris Rights group Stop Homophobie also said it had seen an increase in physical attacks. They reported receiving '8,000 complaints in 2017' and already receiving '9,400 since the start of 2018.' The French government has launched a task force to try and combat the increasing number of attacks and educate police officers on LBGT issues. Committee member Frederic Potier said: 'Eventually, every police officer will be trained to deal with this type of complaint.' The official also said the task force sees an increase of hate speech around events such as Gay Pride. He also suggested that attacks on LGBT people have increased as LBGT identity has become 'increasingly visible. He said: 'Gay people hold hands in the street, and that has created a backlash.' Frederic Lefevre-Hautemer, a representative of SOS Homophobia said attitudes to gay insults have to change and that many people don't even realise what they are saying could be homophobic. He said: 'The trivialisation of homophobic insults is a step on the path towards physical violence.' Beyond The Deepening Shadow, will be repeated each night until the final showing on Remembrance Sunday Advertisement Head bowed in tribute, a lone Beefeater pays homage to a lost generation in a stunning sea of blazing remembrance. With the world preparing to mark the centenary of the Armistice and the end of the war to end all wars, this was the extraordinary scene at the Tower of London last night (and for every night this week) as Britain lights the flames of commemoration all 10,000 of them. Four years ago, to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, the moat of the Tower was filled with 888,246 ceramic poppies one for every man and woman who died serving King and country. Viewed by millions, it proved to be one of the most popular pieces of contemporary and commemorative art ever seen. With the world preparing to mark the centenary of the Armistice and the end of the war to end all wars, this was the extraordinary scene at the Tower of London last night (pictured) The success of the 2014 display of poppies at the tower meant Historic Royal Palaces, who maintain the landmark, were keen to mark the centenary of Armistice. The ceremony, named Beyond The Deepening Shadow, will be repeated each night until the final showing on Remembrance Sunday Volunteers help to light first thousands of flames in the dry moat of the Tower of London as part of an installation called Beyond the Deepening Shadow: The Tower Remembers, to mark the centenary of the end of First World War To mark 100 years since the day the guns fell silent, the Tower is once again providing a dazzling backdrop to a nations thoughts of remembrance. Except this time, it is not poppies but flames which are filling the moat each night, until the last ones disappear as Remembrance Sunday draws to a close on November 11. At the start of the war, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey famously declared: The lamps are going out all over Europe. This vast commemorative exercise represents the moment they came back on again along with the grief of those who survived to rebuild a shattered world. Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) lighting the first of thousands of flames in a lighting ceremony in the dry moat of the Tower of London as part of an installation called Beyond the Deepening Shadow: The Tower Remembers, to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War A man plays a bugle to signify the start of a minute of silence ahead of the torches being lit for the installation 'Beyond the Deepening Shadow' at The Tower of London Last nights opening display of Beyond The Deepening Shadow: The Tower Remembers with a floodlit bugler on the roof of the Middle Tower playing the Last Post and a minutes silence. A small procession of Yeomen Warders better known as Beefeaters plus the Constable and the Governor of the Tower formed a guard of honour and the first of the 10,000 torches were ignited by a tri-service trio. In order to represent past, present and future, yesterdays ceremony was performed by a retired Lieutenant Colonel, a serving midshipman from the Royal Naval Reserve and an air cadet. Out of the shadows, a small battalion of volunteer torch-lighters emerged in pairs. Each night, about a hundred of them have the task of illuminating half a mile of grass-covered moat. A Beefeater walking amongst the thousands of flames in a lighting ceremony in the dry moat of the Tower of London Some turned out to have been volunteers who helped with that great poppy display four years ago. Some had simply read about this venture in the Mail and wanted to be a part of it. Each pair consists of a leader with a magnetic wand who lifts the metal cover off each torch followed by a lighter who carries a blowtorch on the end of a rod. Despite the scale of the exercise, it took only about 20 minutes before the whole moat was ablaze. Theres the same sort of buzz that there was with the poppies, said Charlotte Howard, a cook from Hampshire. Its a wonderful atmosphere but it does make you remember all those who lost their lives. Yeoman of the Guard lights the first torches in the installation 'Beyond The Deepening Shadow' at Tower of London this evening Several torch-lighting pairs turned out to be husband and wife, such as Dean and Kerry Rockall, from Bedfordshire. All have been issued with a flame-retardant grey boiler suit (to blend in with the Towers stonework) and have undergone several hours of training not just to tick all the health and safety boxes but to ensure they light their designated zone of torches in the correct order. It has all been planned in minute detail by Tom Piper, the designer of the installation. We want the flames to spread in fingers of light until the whole moat is ablaze, explained Mr Piper, a theatre designer who also oversaw the great poppy display of 2014 called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red. He has arranged the torches at different heights to create a more dramatic effect. The moat of the Tower of London are seen filled with thousands of lit torches as part of the installation 'Beyond the Deepening Shadow' There is something particularly moving about the processional feel of it all, he added. Looking down from Tower Hill were large crowds of onlookers, while a lucky few with tickets walked through the moat itself. Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), the charity which runs the Tower, has already sold out of a limited number of 5 tickets to allow people to experience it all at close quarters (including 100 winners of the Mails competition to award tickets to deserving community nominees). The entire project has been funded by HRP and private sponsors. A Yeoman Warder stands amongst the first of thousands of lit flames which form part of an installation called Beyond the Deepening Shadow: The Tower Remembers, in the dry moat of the Tower of London, to mark the centenary of the end of First World War Since the arts establishment and the National Lottery refused any financial support for the poppies proposal in 2014 (the Guardian even attacked it as a Ukip-style memorial), the Tower has not asked for arts funding this time. The whole experience takes place to the sound of a haunting specially-commissioned choral work recorded by sound artist Mira Calix. Called One Lighted Look For Me, it is based on a line from the war poem, Sonnet to a Soldier by Mary Borden, who wrote it while working in a field hospital on the Somme. Smoke wafted over the scene, though this turned out to be dry ice for theatrical effect (the torches use smokeless fuel so do not emit any smoke, fumes or smell). Beefeaters lighting the first of thousands of flames in a lighting ceremony in the dry moat of the Tower of London as part of an installation called Beyond the Deepening Shadow: The Tower Remembers, to mark the centenary of the end of First World War The ceremony was accompanied by a specially commissioned sound installation featuring choral music, as well as words from war poet Mary Borden's Sonnets To A Soldier The ceremony, named Beyond The Deepening Shadow, will be repeated each night until the final showing on Remembrance Sunday Spectators gathered on vantage points around the tower to witness the spectacle and a minute's silence was also observed Even those who have seen plenty of ceremonies found it profoundly stirring. We had remembrance parades every week in Afghanistan in honour of our fallen comrades but I found this very emotional too, said Lt-Col Cathy Braddick-Hughes, 50, formerly of the Adjutant Generals Corps, who was one of last nights special guests. Finally, at about 9pm, the torches ran out of fuel at the allotted time and, on cue, began to flicker and fade. Another team of volunteers will arrive this morning to refill each canister, as they will each day until Sunday. Unlike the poppies which are still on display around the country the torches will then be taken away for recycling. This mesmerising homage to the fallen will not be repeated. Try to see it while you can. A woman photographs lit torches that are part of the installation 'Beyond the Deepening Shadow' at the Tower of London, this evening The fiance of a cancer sufferer stuck on an island in the Indian Ocean said they are both 'speechless' after wellwishers donated more than 14,000 for an air ambulance to fly them home. Jon Paul McAllister, 38, and his partner Craig Park, from Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, went on holiday to South Africa, Madagascar and the Seychelles. They had booked the once-in-a-lifetime holiday to celebrate their engagement and the end of Mr McAllister's chemotherapy treatment for bowel cancer. Jon Paul McAllister (left), 38, and his partner Craig Park (right), from Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, were left 'speechless' after wellwishers donated more than 14,000 for an air ambulance to fly them home Mr Park said a scan showed the treatment was shrinking the deposits left behind following surgery to remove a tumour, and the couple were advised they were fine to go on the long-awaited trip. But shortly after arriving, the social worker's health deteriorated rapidly and he spent two weeks in an 'unsanitised' medical facility in Madagascar, where Mr McAllister experienced 'horrendous' conditions. Mr Mcallister was then transferred on an air ambulance to improved medical facilities on nearby island Reunion 6,000 miles away from home. But now he is too sick to return home on a commercial flight. Friends started a fundraising campaign on Friday to pay for the overseas treatment and an air ambulance flight back to Scotland, which they said the couple's insurance will not pay out for. The money raised on JustGiving is now more than a third of the way towards the 35,000 target The money raised is now more than a third of the way towards the 35,000 target. Mr Park has been made 'speechless' at the donations they've received to 'help get his 'better half home where he belongs'. Mr Park, who works as a support worker, said: 'We are speechless. People's kindness and generosity is amazing. We weren't expecting this at all. 'Jon Paul has spent his working life giving to other people. He constantly looks after all his clients, friends and family and is extremely selfless. Mr Mcallister was transferred on an air ambulance to improved medical facilities on island Reunion, east of Madagascar, 6,000 miles away from home 'He never asks for anything but this is one of those times where he needs help. 'Being 38 he never expected the news we received about his stage four cancer and after chemo he thought everything was ok. 'It's really taken its toll on him, and at this moment in time needs to be home, surrounded by loved ones and receiving the medical attention he deserves and needs. 'He is still constantly vomiting and unable to keep down fluids or food. 'The only thing keeping him alive is the drips he is on as he has no other way to get the proper nutrients and energy he needs. Friends started a fundraising campaign on Friday to pay for the overseas treatment and an air ambulance flight back to Scotland, which they said the couple's insurance will not pay out for Mr Park (pictured right) said translation problems mean they are struggling to understand exactly what is wrong with his Mr McAllister (pictured left), with medics indicating scans suggest it could be another tumour 'He hasn't drank or eaten food in over two weeks.' Mr Park said translation problems mean they are struggling to understand exactly what is wrong with his fiance, with medics indicating scans suggest it could be another tumour. He added that before leaving home, Mr McAllister had not received his final scan results. He said: 'His half way scan showed chemo was working and the 'deposits' left behind after his tumour was removed were shrinking. 'We asked so many times if this holiday was ok and we were told just to go ahead with it, there was no reason we shouldn't go on holiday.' Karen Bell, who set up the fundraising page, urged people to help the couple return home. Mr Park (pictured left) has been made 'speechless' at the donations they've received to 'help get his 'better half home where he belongs' She said: 'We're desperate to get Jon Paul home to receive the best treatment possible.' Mr Park said he had no intention of sharing the news of Jon Pauls condition over social media. But the change in circumstance forced him to appeal for help. He said in a post on Facebook: 'Anyone that knows me, knows that I rarely ask for anything, but this is one of those times, desperate times call for desperate measures. 'We haven't had the best year and just when we thought think we have good news we are dealt another crushing blow. All I ask is that everyone can share this far and wide and help get my better half/best friend home where he belongs.' A disgraced MP who said he had been abused as a child and was suffering a manic episode when he bombarded two barmaids with sex texts faced a backlash last night. Married Andrew Griffiths, 48, referred to himself as Daddy and suggested a variety of depraved acts in 2,000 messages to the women in his constituency. After striking up a friendship on social media, the MP also sent the pair 700 for X-rated pictures and videos and asked them to tie each other up. The explicit messages, sent over 21 days, came just two months after his wife Kate, 47, gave birth to their long-awaited first child Alice. Married Andrew Griffiths, 48, pictured with wife Kate and baby Alice. The disgraced MP referred to himself as Daddy and suggested a variety of depraved acts in 2,000 messages to women in his constituency But his claims yesterday that he was in the midst of a breakdown drew short shrift. Deneice Florence-Jukes, a councillor on East Staffordshire Borough Council, said it was no excuse. Mr Griffiths was investigated by the Tory party after Mrs Florence-Jukes accused him of bullying and inappropriate touching at a fundraising ball. She said: So now me and the many more like me who endured extreme bullying, sexual misconduct and abuse by Andrew Griffiths, in some cases for years and years, are simply victims of the victim. In his first comments since he resigned as minister for small businesses in July, Mr Griffiths revealed he had contemplated suicide and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 31 days after being exposed in a tabloid newspaper. The MP for Burton and Uttoxeter said he had suffered years of mental health problems after being abused as a child. He said he sent the texts as a coping mechanism, comparing it to how some other people self-harm to deal with anxiety. There were calls for him to stand down as MP after details of the messages sent to Imogen Treharne (pictured), 28, and her unnamed friend were published Tory colleagues and friends, including former minister Eric Pickles, came out in support, praising his brave interview. But constituents reacted angrily, saying it did not excuse his behaviour. Jessica Eaton, an author who has organised protests against Mr Griffiths, said his actions were damaging to victims of abuse everywhere. Latest statistics show that around one in five British adults were abused in childhood, but they do not go on to exploit women, dress them up as pigs, call women sluts, cheat on their partners or pay women to beat each other, she added. Mr Griffiths will discover this week if he can continue as a Tory MP following an investigation by the partys internal disciplinary panel. He is due to make his first public appearance at a Remembrance event in the town, where locals have been asked not to protest. Griffiths said he sent the texts as a coping mechanism, comparing it to how some other people self-harm to deal with anxiety (pictured in March 2018) There were calls for him to stand down as MP after details of the messages sent to Imogen Treharne, 28, and her unnamed friend were published. In one, he told how he could be an evil ******* when Im turned on. Another said: I just wish my little girl was sat on my knee. With those big t*** in my face. Mr Griffiths told The Sunday Times that the first his wife knew of the messages was when he warned her 48 hours before the story was published. He said he was working on his marriage and making up for lost time with his daughter. The couple have not been seen at their home in Burton since the scandal broke, neighbours said. It is understood Mrs Griffiths has moved in with her mother. I have re-read the messages I sent and they reduced me to tears, the MP said. I am ashamed of those texts, but more ashamed that my wife had to read them. Many of them I do not even remember sending. President Donald Trump laid the rhetorical groundwork for possible defeat in the House, complaining there are 'so many people' there and it would be impossible for him to campaign for them all. 'I think we're gonna do well with the House,' Trump told reporters at the White House Sunday. Then he allowed: 'My primary focus of course has been in the Senate,' a statement born out by his travel schedule in the final days of the campaign, which took him to a series of states with toss-up Senate races. 'There are so many people in the House. That's a lot of stops. I have done some House stops also,' Trump said. President Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House en route to three rallies Sunday Trump said his 'primary focus' has been on getting Republicans in the Senate, laying the groundwork for possible defeat in the House He predicted: 'I think we're going to do well in the House also. The early returns are very positive.' That could be, but a tranche of final pre-election polls give Democrats and edge, and early voting numbers are up. Trump's approval rating was at 46 per cent in the latest NBC / Wall Street Journal poll, which could make him a drag on Republicans in swing districts. Trump spoke a night after he tore into Florida Democratic candidate for Andrew Gillum. 'So when you have people camping out on your front lawn, remember Gillum,' Trump said of the Florida Democratic candidate for governor The constant attacks in the gubernatorial contest reveal the stakes for Trump, who is desperately trying to avoid a loss of independents and cede a state that holds huge sway in 2020. Trump also is a fan GOP governor candidate Rep. Ron DeSantis, who embraced Trump in a series of Fox News appearances and who on Saturday told him 'We can save you a lot of money' by inviting the Trump Organization to relocate to Palm Beach. Still unknown is what turnout factors will carry the day: a built-in Republican advantage among habitual voters like whites and older Americans, a surge in early voting by young voters, GOP fury at the caravan whipped up by Trump's rhetoric, and Democratic determination to put a check on the president. In fact there is only a universe of about 50 tossups out of 435 seats, based on the Cook Political Report and other analysts. 'With so many people in the house it's very hard to make those stops, but I've made a number,' Trump said. 'I think we're going to do really well in the Senate, but there is something going on out there and I think you know what I mean,' he told the press, after holding a rally in Pensacola where he tore into Democrats and raised alarms about the immigrant caravan. 'There's something that's very interesting that's happening. The level of fervor the level of fever is very strong on the Republican side,' Trump said. Democrats lead in final generic polls and are favored to take over the House. Trump supporters are pictured waiting to enter a rally in Chattanooga Sunday Trump spoke as he headed off for a rally not to buttress a vulnerable House member, but to try to sway the Georgia governor's race, where he talked up Brian Kemp. Trump said Kemp was 'running a great campaign and I think he'll be a fantastic governor of Georgia.' 'He studied for this job for a long time,' Trump added, saying Kemp 'will be a great executive.' His comments came after he drew criticism for the language he used to run down Yale-educated former state House minority leader Stacey Abrams for the governorship. She would be the first black woman elected governor of the state. Trump called Abrams 'not qualified' to be governor of Georgia and mentioned 'her past' without being specific. 'She is not qualified to be the governor of Georgia, not qualified,' Trump said of Abrams. 'Take a look at her past, take a look at her history, take a look at what she wants to do and what she has in mind for the state. That state will be in big, big trouble very quickly and the people of Georgia don't want that,' the president said last week. The remarks drew extra scrutiny during a week when Trump has railed against illegal immigrants, claimed he can end birthright citizenship, and dispatched thousands of active duty troops to the border, even suggesting they should treat rock-throwers as if they were shooting on the troops. Former navy seal and GOP candidate Dan Crenshaw claimed he doesn't want an apology from Pete Davidson who mocked him for having one eye due to an injury he sustained in Afghanistan. But Crenshaw claimed 'it was fine' that the comedian is 'feeling the heat' from people on social media who were outraged by the SNL skit. Davidson drew Twitter's ire on Saturday night after he made fun of Dan Crenshaw, whose eye was destroyed by an IED blast in Helmand province in 2012. The comedian made an appearance on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update to give his 'first impressions' of several candidates running in the midterm elections. Davidson eventually got to Crenshaw, first telling the audience 'this guy's kinda cool'. 'You may be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas, and not a hitman in a porno movie.' Pete Davidson has come under fire after he made fun of Dan Crenshaw, a GOP congressional candidate and former Navy SEAL who lost his eye in Afghanistan, on the most recent SNL Davidson joked that Crenshaw looked like a 'hitman in a porno movie', before adding: 'I'm sorry, I know he lost his eye in war or whatever' 'I'm sorry,' he added. 'I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.' In a video on Sunday, Crenshaw claimed no apology was needed, adding that the real atrocity was that the joke was 'not original, not funny and just mean-spirited'. He said: 'I want us to get away from this culture where we demand apologies every time someone misspeaks. 'I think that would be very helpful for our nation, to go in that direction, we dont need to be outwardly outraged I dont need to demand apologies from them. He also reiterated a point he made on Twitter saying he hoped Davdison and SNL bosses recognize that veterans don't deserve to have their 'wounds used as punchlines for bad jokes'. He added: 'They can do whatever they want, they're feeling the heat form around the country right now and thats fine. 'But I would like him and Saturday night live to recognize something which is veterans across the country probably dont feel as though their wounds they received in battle should be the subject of a bad punchline for a bad joke. 'Here is the real atrocity of them all this: it wasnt even funny, it was not original, it was not funny it was just mean-spirited and thats how I feel about it'. Crenshaw was injured during his third deployment in 2012 when he was hit by an IED blast during a mission in Afghanistan, according to his website Davidson previously received a much harsher response from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which demanded an apology. 'Getting dumped by your pop star girlfriend is no excuse for lashing out at a decorated war hero who lost his eye serving our country,' Jack Pandol, the committee's spokesman, said in a statement. 'Pete Davidson and NBC should immediately apologize to Dan, and to the millions of veterans and military families who tune in every weekend - because they're not laughing.' Meghan McCain, whose father spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, called Davidson's skit 'really awful and incredibly tone-deaf and offensive'. 'Come on SNL, do better,' she added. Donald Trump Jr retweeted criticism against Davidson, writing that his skit 'sounded more like leftist editorial than anything these days'. Crenshaw's right eye was destroyed in the blast and his left eye was badly damaged from it. He is pictured right with his wife Tara Crenshaw Crenshaw was quick to respond to Davidson's skit on Sunday morning, calling out SNL for using veterans 'as punchlines for bad jokes' Trump Jr's own father has come under fire for the way he has spoken about Gold Star families and veterans, especially John McCain. While campaigning in July 2015, Donald Trump said McCain wasn't a 'war hero because he was captured'. 'I like people who weren't captured,' added Trump, who received five deferments during the Vietnam War, including one for 'bone spurs'. Crenshaw was injured during his third deployment in 2012 when he was hit by an IED blast during a mission in Afghanistan, according to his website. His right eye was destroyed in the blast and his left eye was badly damaged. Meghan McCain, whose father spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, called Davidson's skit 'really awful and incredibly tone-deaf and offensive' Donald Trump Jr retweeted criticism against Davidson, writing that his skit 'sounded more like leftist editorial than anything these days'. His father has repeatedly received criticism through the years for claiming John McCain wasn't a war hero because he 'was captured' Crenshaw wasn't the only politician that Davidson made fun of on Saturday night. The comedian joked that he started paying attention to the midterm elections after he 'had to move back in with my mom', a clear reference to his breakup with Grande. 'I realized there are some really gross people running for office this year,' he continued, first joking that Florida Senate candidate Rick Scott looked like 'someone tried to whittle Bruce Willis out of a penis'. He then moved on to New York Rep Peter King, saying he 'looks like a cigar came to life'. King later hit out at Davidson for his joke about Crenshaw, tweeting: 'Disgrace for SNL comedian Pete Davidson to mock GOP Dan Crenshaw for wearing eye patch.' 'What are NBC's standards for firing? PC to insult wounded vets?!? (Davidson also insulted me. Who cares?!)' Davidson also joked that Mike Pence's brother Greg looks like a 'Ken doll that spent a year in the river', while New York Gov Andrew Cuomo 'looks like a guy who's sleeping with your mom, but stays overnight and eats breakfast with you in his boxers'. Crenshaw wasn't the only politician that Davidson made fun of on Saturday night. He said Mike Pence's brother Greg looked like a 'Ken doll that spent a year in the river' He also joked that New York Gov Andrew Cuomo 'looks like a guy who's sleeping with your mom, but stays overnight and eats breakfast with you in his boxers' The comedian then decided to turn the joke on himself, saying he knows he 'shouldn't be making fun of how anyone looks' The comedian then decided to turn the joke on himself, saying he knows he 'shouldn't be making fun of how anyone looks'. 'I look like I make vape juice in a bathtub,' he added. 'I look like a Dr Seuss character went to prison.' Davidson then spent the last part of his skit to praise his ex, calling Grande a 'wonderful strong person'. 'I genuinely wish her all the happiness in the world,' he added. 'Go vote on Tuesday.' Angry Anderson's son spent his final moments moaning in agony after allegedly being brutally bashed by a close friend. Liam Anderson, 26, died in a helicopter on his way to hospital on Sunday morning after police officers subdued his attacker with capsicum spray. The rocker's son was reportedly attacked by one of his close friends, Mathew Flame, in a park in Queenscliff, on Sydney's northern beaches, and police have taken out an urgent order for him to undergo forensic testing. Reports allege Flame, 20, had to be dragged off the unconscious rocker's son by police who battled to save the young man's life. Scroll down for video Liam Anderson (lower right) and his alleged attacker Mathew Flame (top right) were 'obsessed with each other' according to friends Liam Anderson (pictured, left with father Gary) was unconscious and suffering from severe head wounds when emergency crews arrived 'It was quite a bloody scene,' Detective Inspector Michael Boutouridis said. 'The man we have in custody was violent and it took a number of police officers to subdue and arrest him.' Det Ins Boutouridis added that it was possible Flame, a friend Mr Anderson referred to as 'homie', was on drugs at the time. The aspiring rapper's facial injuries were so severe that he was virtually unrecognisable. Residents on Pavilion Street and Bridge Road in Queenscliff, in Sydney's Northern Beaches, said they heard sounds of moaning coming from the park, located next to busy Freshwater Beach, for as long as 30 minutes before cops arrived. Anderson was treated at the scene and rushed to hospital, but died from his injuries en route Only hours after a night out, police allegedly found Flame (left) allegedly beating his friend to death. Flame is the subject of an 'urgent' police order that will see him undergo forensic testing Mr Anderson had been at a party with Flame before his death, police said, and had left together Neighbours said they heard a man groaning but thought it was someone going through an intense personal training session, the Daily Telegraph reported. Mr Anderson and Flame had a close bond, and people close to the duo said they were 'obsessed with each other' on social media while Flame saying they were 'just jealous'. The two attended Defqon. 1 music festival together less than a month ago, with Mr Anderson making an appreciation post on Instagram for his best friend. 'Shout to the homie @mathewflame for being a real one,' he wrote. 'Love ya mate x.' Police believe the two had been partying in an apartment in the city on Saturday night, before moving on to a house party closer to home. They're understood to have attended - and left- the party, which was nearby the park Mr Anderson was bashed in, together. Under the stage name Ranford Bigsby, murdered son of musician Angry Anderson rapped at some of the most popular venues across Sydney Mr Anderson and Flame were 'obsessed' with each other, a friend said on social media It comes as it emerged that one of the last songs Liam Anderson ever wrote was about loyalty. He had performed for years under the stage name Ranford Bigsby in popular venues across Sydney. Tributes quickly poured inm including one from his mother, who told Nine News her son always expressed himself through his music. In the only music video posted to the young rapper's personal YouTube channel, titled 4iRome, Anderson sings about loyalty. In the description of the video, he writes that he wrote the song after the near-death experience of a close friend. 'Got nothing but love for the people who have love for me,' he writes. 'Blood makes you related, loyalty makes you family.' 'I want to provide for the people in my life who hold me down and help me write,' he sings. But some eerie lyrics can be heard, particularly at the end of the song. Lifting lines from the 1999 film Fight Club, the words 'I want you to hit me as hard as you can' are spoken over video of Anderson rapping at a live show. 'I don't want to die without any scars.' In one of the last songs he wrote before his death, Anderson rapped about loyalty and death He wrote underneath the music video that he penned the song 'after a near-death experience' At the scene of his death, messages have been tied to poles and left alongside flowers. 'We will always miss your funny, cheeky ways. You were a loving friend and a great mate,' one reads. Meanwhile, Anderson's father, iconic Australian rock star Angry Anderson, is rushing back to Sydney to be with friends and family. He was in Perth in the middle of a tour with his band Rose Tattoo when his eldest son called him with the grim news. A controversial decision from Virgin Australia to give military veterans special boarding and in-flight privileges has received mixed opinions from passengers. The move, backed by prime minister Scott Morrison, would see Australian ex-servicemen honoured in a similar way to those who fly in America. Thousands of Australians have expressed their disapproval and campaigned to boycott the airline completely if the new system is adapted. A controversial decision from Virgin Australia to give military veterans special boarding and in-flight privileges has received mixed opinions from passengers While some were happy to comply with the US-style concept, others were convinced it was a politically-driven stunt designed purely to boost Mr Morrison's popularity. If the plan goes ahead it would see veterans offered priority boarding and thanked during the airline's in-flight announcements, according to news.com.au. Former military personnel and regular flyers alike have taken issue with the move, saying it failed to offer any meaningful acknowledgement such as discounted fares. Many also believed it excluded emergency workers and who thought they too should be eligible for hero-status recognition. The move, backed by prime minister Scott Morrison, would see Australian ex-servicemen honoured in a similar way to those who fly in America (stock photo) Thousands of Australians have expressed their disapproval and campaigned to boycott the airline completely if the new system is adapted (stock photo) 'With all due respect to the many veterans out there, the government needs to focus on mental health support, don't put veterans through rigorous assessment to get funding/pensions, more older vets support,' someone shared to Twitter. 'Hey Virgin Australia if I have a choice ...I won't fly you. Some of my friends are returned service people and they know this is not about them but a cheap stunt by you and the prime minister,' another said. Qantas has received pressure to follow in Virgin's footsteps and offer similar perks, however announced it would not be following suit. Several people were happy with current orders of business and saw no need for Australian airlines to start behaving like those in America. Many believed it excluded emergency workers and who thought they too should be eligible for hero-status recognition 'I fly Virgin. This puts me off. I live in Oz not USA. This is a mistake,' one flyer said. Another agreed, writing: 'Virgin Australia we are Australians... Not Americans, your American tokenism is not wanted or welcomed. #HelloQantas.' Many fliers argued being publicly acknowledged would actually be highly distressing unwanted attention for veterans, who often preferred to blend in. 'Sorry - no way would I support service men and women boarding first or applaud them. This may even trigger issues for them. Respect and good manners for all passengers,' someone added. Several argued it was a token move from the airline and attention would be better focused on providing better mental health support for veterans and their families. Several argued it was a token move from the airline and attention would be better focused on providing better mental health support for veterans and their families 'I think donating to an org that helped with their mental health on their return would have been better. Getting on quicker just means you wait on board longer. Our soldiers & their families need mental health support first,' a flier wrote. Mr Morrison said it was about 'nurturing the respect for our veterans' which he claimed was 'brought home for me really heavily during the Invictus Games', Brisbane's Sunday Mail reported. 'We acknowledge the important contribution veterans have made to keeping our country safe and the role they play in our community,' Virgin Australia chief executive officer John Borghetti said. 'Once the veterans have their cards and lapel pins, they will simply need to present them during the boarding process to be given priority boarding and be recognised on board.' The first and last British soldiers to die in the First World War, buried opposite each other by extraordinary coincidence, are to be honoured by the Prime Minister in a poignant ceremony. Theresa May will lay a wreath at the graves of teenage Londoner John Parr and Yorkshireman George Ellison, 40, on Friday at the St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons, Belgium, during events to commemorate 100 years since the end of the war. Their stories of tragedy and misfortune, four years apart and at both ends of the conflict, provide fitting snapshots of the 700,000 British soldiers killed. Private John Parr (left) was just 17 when he died on August 21, 1914. Private George Ellison was hit by a German sniper and became the last British soldier to die before the Armistice Private Parr was just 17 when he died on August 21, 1914. Little of certainty is known about the death of the teenager, who lied about his age to enlist aged 14. The young reconnaissance cyclist was described by his superiors as 'clean, sober and intelligent' but 'inclined to be insubordinate'. Two days before the Battle of Mons the first major engagement of the war involving British and Germans Private Parr and another recruit were sent out on bicycles to scout for the enemy. However, the scouts were apparently spotted and, as his colleague fled, Private Parr was shot dead. British troops retreated and his body left behind. The graves of John Parr (far left) and George Ellison (far right) face each other at the St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons, Belgium His death was not even reported for a year and months later his mother was told he was with his battalion. Some historians have questioned this account as the Germans were said to be miles from this location on the day and it is possible he may have been killed by friendly fire or perhaps in the battle itself. His body was buried in the cemetery by the Germans in 1915. Who were the British Expeditionary Force? The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were the home-based forces that went to northern France at the start of both World War I and II to support the left wing of the French armies. The BEF originated in the army reform of 1908 sponsored by Richard Burdon Haldane Until then, it had been customary in the British army to ship off individual units and organise them into brigades or larger units when they had arrived at the theatre of operations. But because of Britain's treaty obligations to help France defend itself against a possible German attack, it was clear that the larger units of the British army had to be organised and trained as units before war even began. The home-based forces of the regular army were organised into an 'expeditionary force' consisting of six infantry divisions and one cavalry division. Four of these infantry divisions and the cavalry division went to France at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, where they sustained heavy losses. The BEF that had been sent to France early in World War II returned when France was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940. The British effort was continued on other battlefields by numbered armies. Source: Britannica.com Advertisement His headstone has the date of his death as August 21, although the soldier's mother Alice Parr was eventually informed by letter from the captain of the regiment that he had been missing since August 23. At that time no one had any idea how long and bloody and terrible the conflict would be. And Private Ellison came within 90 minutes of surviving it. But at 9.30am on November 11, 1918 he was hit by a German sniper and became the last British soldier to die before the Armistice. The former miner had survived the Boer War as well as almost the entirety of the First World War fighting as a regular soldier, including trench warfare at Ypres and the Battle of the Somme. He must have been one of the few members of the original British Expeditionary Force, shipped to Europe in August 1914, to survive until the final day of the war. Private Ellison left a wife Hannah and a four-year-old son James, who had his fifth birthday just a few days after his father's death. Hannah died half a century ago not knowing where her husband was buried nor the significance of his death. Relatives are due to attend the centenary event in Belgium. A plaque will also be unveiled at Leeds railway station where he started his journey to war. Both men were killed a couple of miles away from the St Symphorien cemetery. Their deaths happened in contrasting moments of history but their graves are just a few yards apart. Tributes were held across Britain and France yesterday for the English poet and soldier Wilfred Owen who was killed exactly 100 years ago. Owen was 25 when cut down by German machine guns in France on November 4, 1918. Tony Blair has claimed more than 1 million from public funds since the end of his time as Prime Minister - but has not submitted a single receipt for public viewing. A freedom of information tribunal revealed that Blair had received a total of 1,077,888 from the government since leaving office in 2007. All former prime ministers are entitled to an allowance of up to 115,000 a year from the public duty cost allowance (PDCA), to cover the costs of their ongoing public engagements. John Major, Gordon Brown and David Cameron all submitted evidence of their claims to the Cabinet Office and while Blair's office did also, they did not allow the documents to be retained - which would have allowed them to be made public through a freedom of information request at a later date. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has claimed more than 1 million from public funds since leaving office The allowance is supposed to ensure that they can meet costs associated with the continued public role of a former prime minister. They money covers public speaking and correspondence, among other things. The allowance figures were last published for the year 2016-17. Former deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg, now working for Facebook in California, has also been allowed to claim the allowance. They showed that Blair and Major both claimed the maximum possible of 115,000, while Brown claimed 114,838, Clegg claimed 114,982 and Cameron claimed 50,227. The previously confidential information came out at a hearing last month at the freedom of information tribunal, according to the Sunday Times. Former Prime Ministers are given a 115,000-a-year allowance to ensure that they can meet costs associated with their continued private role The Cabinet Office has long been opposed to publishing details of what former Prime Ministers have claimed money for - though it believes that the total amount claimed should be made available. Sharon Carter, head of the propriety and ethics team at the Cabinet Office, said in a witness statement for the hearing: 'There has been no expectation that the information provided in support of the claims for the PDCA would be made public. 'The total amounts claimed have been published for some years and the expectation of the former prime ministers was that this was an appropriate level of transparency.' A spokesman for Mr Blair added: 'Tony Blair receives what is given to former prime ministers in exactly the same way as his predecessors, including reimbursement for costs associated with his former role.' The then-head of the Cabinet Office's propriety and ethics team recommended that Clegg be given less than the former prime ministers but the suggestion was ignored. If Hollywood is feeling a little empty this weekend, that's because a number of celebrities are out stumping for Democratic candidates across the country. Taking a page from Oprah Winfrey's book, stars including John Legend and Kristen Bell were out in full force to rally voters before Tuesday's midterms. Legend returned to his native Ohio on Tuesday to show his support for Sen Sherrod Brown, who is running for reelection, and Rich Cordray, who is running for governor. 'Great to be back in my home state of Ohio supporting amazing Democrats running for office this year,' Legend tweeted. John Legend returned to his native Ohio on Tuesday to show his support for Sen Sherrod Brown, who is running for reelection, and Rich Cordray, who is running for governor Kristen Bell also got out the vote on Sunday, heading to Simi Valley in California to support congressional candidate Katie Hill and California State Assembly candidate Christy Smith (all pictured together) 'If you live in Ohio, be sure to vote @SherrodBrown for Senate, @RichCordray for Gov, yes on Issue 1 and Dem up and down the ticket!' As always Chrissy Teigen was quick to crack a joke about the tweet, joking that her husband was trying to vote in California - where he lives - and Ohio. 'Wow u are voting in California and Ohio that sounds ILLEGAL much ???? will be reporting this tweet,' she said, taking aim at Trump's frequent - and unsubstantiated - claims of illegal voting done in favor of the Democratic party. Kristen Bell, wearing a 100% Human T-shirt from Everlane, also got out the vote on Sunday, heading to Simi Valley in California to support congressional candidate Katie Hill and California State Assembly candidate Christy Smith. 'Thank you for your incredible support @IMKristenBell and @KatieHill4CA! #AD38 #CA25 #InItToWinIt #GOTVWeekend,' Smith tweeted on Sunday. Bell spoke to Simi Valley residents on Sunday afternoon as she tried to rally voters for Hill Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Adam Scott was out supporting Hill on Saturday, even knocking on doors to help rally voters Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Adam Scott was out supporting Hill on Saturday, even knocking on doors to help rally voters. 'Saying insanely funny s**t while canvassing for @KatieHill4CA,' he tweeted. 'Get out there! Lend a hand! #Vote!!!' Jimmy Kimmel headed to Las Vegas to show his support for Nevada Senate candidate Jacky Rosen, while Alyssa Milano hit the road in Michigan. Milano rode along on a bus carrying many of the state's Democratic candidates, including governor candidate Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State candidate Jocelyn Benson, and Sen Debbie Stabenow. Jimmy Kimmel headed to Las Vegas to show support for Nevada Senate candidate Jacky Rosen Kimmel happily posed for photos with Rosen and the lead singer of The Killers, Brandon Flowers, as he showed his support on Saturday Alyssa Milano rode along on a bus carrying many of the state's Democratic candidates, including governor candidate Gretchen Whitmer, to help get the vote out on Saturday Milano snapped photos with Whitmer and Michigan Secretary of State candidate Jocelyn Benson (all pictured) In another tweet Milano showed her support for congressional candidate Rep Dan Kildee 'Let's do this, Michigan! #TeamWhitmer #Vote,' she tweeted while posing in front of the bus. In another tweet Milano showed her support for congressional candidate Rep Dan Kildee. 'Flint! I see you. And I will carry you with me and support @RepDanKildee until I know you are safe, protected, and healthy. I will not forget you,' she tweeted. Milano addressed the crowd with Whitmer and her running mate Garlin Gilchrist II in Flint and urged them to vote on Election Day. 'I'm so proud to be here, and everyone you have to get out there and vote, because voting is how we protect each other,' she said. Just a few miles from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, it was Jimmy Buffet and Norman Lear to show their support for governor candidate Andrew Gillum. Pictured is Lear with Gillum Buffet even changed the words to some of his most famous tunes as he urged voters to elect Gillum as well as Bill Nelson for the Senate Just a few miles from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, it was Jimmy Buffet and Norman Lear who were trying to inspire voters. Buffet even changed the words to some of his most famous tunes as he urged the crowd to elect Andrew Gillum for governor and Bill Nelson for the Senate. 'Come Tuesday, things will change,' he sang, changing the date in his tune Come Monday. 'Come Tuesday, we're making a change. It's been two insane years and it's time to really switch gears.' President Trump mocked Elizabeth Warren on Sunday night for releasing the results of a DNA test that didn't back up claims she'd made over the years about her Native American ancestry. Trump had avoided mentioning Warren since he pledged to tone down his rhetoric but couldn't help himself in Georgia as he hit on his favorite campaign topic. He noted that some Democrats want to get rid of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 'Elizabeth Warren wants to get rid of I cant call her Pocahontas anymore because she has no Indian blood, he said as someone in the audience whooped as if imitating an Indian war cry. She has no Indian blood,' he repeated. A Georgia crowd chanted 'lock her up' at the president as he ripped a woman on Sunday afternoon for lying about her alleged rape by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Trump is seen above at a rally in Macon, Georgia on Sunday President Trump mocked Elizabeth Warren on Sunday night for releasing the results of a DNA test that didn't back up claims she'd made about her Native American ancestry. Warren is pictured speaking during a campaign event on Thursday 'And I said that a long time ago, before she brilliantly sent out the test results. That was not a good test, Elizabeth. That will be great leadership when dealing with North Korea, China and Russia all of these countries...It was not good. He asked, Is she still running for president? And an audience member replied, Who cares? Trump said, She is pushing a guy up in Ohio who will be a disaster for the state as he shifted briefly to Richard Cordrays campaign for governor. He is a disaster. Hes worse than she is. At the same rally in Macon, the crowd chanted 'lock her up' at the president as he ripped a woman for lying about her alleged rape by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Judy Munro-Leighton admitted on Friday that she took credit for a 'Jane Doe' letter filled with gruesome details of an alleged rape by Kavanaugh that she didn't write. She said she had never met Kavanaugh and was angry about the allegations that he assaulted women when she claimed she authored the letter. 'The act never happened and it was a lie, it was a total lie!' Trump charged in Macon, Georgia, as the crowd told him she should be in jail. 'She made up the story.' He said, 'It was a false accusation. It was a false statement. And she was forced to admit it.' Trump has been claiming that Kavanaugh was treated despicably and worse than anyone ever by Democrats who put him on trial in the U.S. Senate. At nearly every rally he has held in the last month he has claimed that the spectacle would blow back on the opposing party. With Munro-Leighton's admission, the president added a new claim to his campaign rally repertoire that all of the women accusing the judge had lied about Kavanaugh's conduct, including Christine Blasey Ford. 'And did you see what happened on Friday?' he said Sunday as he led into the topic. 'You knew that before. These three women, they knew that before. They knew that a long time ago.' President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Sunday None of the other women has retracted their statements, although Sen. Chuck Grassely, the Judiciary Committee chairman, has referred another woman, Julie Swetnick, to the Justice Department for criminal charges, in addition to Munro-Leighton. Trump suggested that they should as he rallied supporters of Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor of Georgia. 'So a woman, who accused then Judge Kavanaugh of horrible, horrible crimes, admitted that actually she never met Judge Kavanaugh, or Brett Kavanaugh or Kavanaugh period,' Trump proclaimed. 'Think if he didnt get the appointment based on this womans false accusations. Think of it. Just think of it, how horrible that was. I think this was number four,' he said. 'And by the way, what about the other ones? How about the other ones?' He repeated, 'This was number four. But how about the other ones?' The president said Georgians could vindicate Kavanaugh by voting for Republicans at the ballot box on Tuesday. 'He could have lost a judgeship on a story that was made up, and the way the Democrats treated him and us, you gotta get to the polls on Tuesday and you gotta vote,' he said. 'The contrast in this election could not be more clear. Republicans produce jobs, Democrats produce mobs.' At a Montana rally on Saturday, Trump had unloaded on the fake 'Jane Doe' accuser who recanted her rape claim and implied that other accusers weren't telling the truth, as well. 'One of his false accusers just came out, a little while ago, and said it's all a lie... she made up the lie... It was fake,' Trump told the crowd. 'You know what fake means?...She lied about rape.... When are the others going to say what happened?' he added. Judy Munro-Leighton admitted on Friday that she took credit for a 'Jane Doe' letter filled with gruesome details of an alleged rape by Kavanaugh that she didn't write The Jane Doe letter (above) contained allegations of rape by Kavanaugh His comments suggest that other accusers, such as Ford and Deborah Ramirez, weren't telling the truth about Kavanaugh, either. Ford delivered emotional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Munro-Leighton's 'Jane Doe' accusations were not given nearly the same weight. She was not asked to testify and lawmakers didn't treat her claim as credible. Kavanaugh denied her claim in a phone interview with committee staff soon after Sen. Kamala Harris of California turned over her letter. The president in Montana, as he did in Georgia, tried to turn it into a political rallying cry. 'She lied about the story about rape. About rape, she lied. And we're supposed to sit back and take it,' Trump said. 'It's a damn disgrace,' he added. 'Imagine if he dropped out because of a filthy, dirty lie,' Trump said. The president said in Georgia as the crowed chanted 'Trump' that he nevertheless 'overcame the Democrat smear campaign and confirmed' Kavanaugh to the high court. Trump was in Georgia to persuade voters to support Kemp in his race for governor against Democrat Stacey Abrams. 'The act never happened and it was a lie, it was a total lie!' Trump charged in Macon, Georgia, as the crowd told him she should be in jail. Trump supporters cheer above in Macon on Sunday The president said voters should vindicate Kavanaugh by voting for Republicans at the ballot box on Tuesday Trump was in Georgia on Sunday to rally supporters of Brian Kemp, who is running for governor Trump earlier lashed out at Democrats and attacked Munro-Leighton on Twitter after she admitted to federal authorities that she made up the claims about Kavanaugh because she was 'angry' and she wanted to hurt his political career. Trump supporters are seen above in Macon Trump was in Georgia just two days before a historic election Trump acknowledges his supporters in Macon on Sunday. The Georgia gubernatorial race is too close to call, according to polls He said Abrams wants to ax the Second Amendment and allow illegal immigrants to vote and hold political office as he assailed her on Sunday as too radical to lead Georgia. Trump had previously claimed, without offering examples, that Abrams, the first African-American woman from either major party to be nominated for governor, is not 'qualified' to hold office and will not be elected, despite having the support of Oprah. She called the comments 'vapid and shallow' on a Sunday morning program. Trump told a Macon, Georgia, crowd in the afternoon, 'Stacey Abrams is one of the most extreme far-left politicians in the entire country, you know that.' Winfrey campaigned for Abrams in Georgia on Thursday. Barack Obama spoke at a rally on her behalf on Saturday. In a riff on the talk show host in Macon, Trump said he was on her show during its final week, and they had always gotten along until he sought the Oval Office, that is. 'I think they're trying to burn the tape,' he jested. 'Oprah was here to endorse Stacey, and I'm here to endorse Brian.' Trump said Sunday before the rally amid a controversial voting investigation the Republican nominee is conducting in the state that Kemp will be a 'great executive' and Georgia would go 'backwards' if Abrams is elected. 'He studied for this job for a longtime. He will be a great executive and he will keep Georgia on the path it is going, which is up,' Trump told reporters as he left the White House en route to his campaign rally with Kemp. Trump reiterated his belief that Abrams, who would become first black woman governor in the nation's history if she's victorious on Tuesday, is not fit for office. 'If she gets in, Georgia goes backwards,' Trump said. 'If he gets in, Georgia goes forward.' Abrams, meanwhile, smacked President Trump on Sunday as 'vapid and shallow' over his claim that she's 'unqualified' told hold the office she's seeking. The former minority leader of the Georgia House and Yale Law School graduate noted on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that she's a former civic leader and a tax attorney. 'I find his assessments to be vapid and shallow. I am the most qualified candidate,' she said on Sunday morning. 'There is no one more qualified standing for this office in Georgia. And I look forward to having the voters of Georgia say the same.' Trump was in Georgia to persuade voters to support Kemp (pictured at the rally) in his race for governor against Democrat Stacey Abrams Trump said Abrams (pictured with Barack Obama on Friday) wants to ax the Second Amendment and allow illegal immigrants to vote and hold political office as he assailed her on Sunday as too radical to lead Georgia Abrams (pictured with Oprah on Thursday) is the first African-American woman from either major party to be nominated for governor In Macon, the president offered a host of reasons why Abrams' positions are too far to the left for Georgia and she shouldn't be elected. He said the Second Amendment is 'under siege and Stacey and her friends will get rid of it.' Please give us all guns right now, he said imitating Democrats. 'She supports a socialist take over of healthcare, which means you will never be able to see your doctor.' He used the healthcare jab to as a segue into a slap at Obama, who has hit the trail hard in the final days of the midterms to campaign for Democrats. 'And just like President Obama Im going to be very nice, did not tell the truth,' he said. 'Keep your doctor, you can keep your plan, he said it 28 times.' Trump added, 'You put Stacey in there, and you're gonna have Georgia turn into Venezuela. And I dont think the people of Georgia like that.' Laying into Abrams, he said, 'I spoke to law enforcement, I spoke to everybody [she] is really weak on crime, really weak on crime. Thats not what you need. She wants to end the death penalty for even the most vicious and ruthless killers.' 'She even, listen to this, voted to allow illegal aliens to hold public office,' he said. Trump posited that illegal immigration is a serious issue, because migrants are likely to vote for Democrats, if they become U.S. citizens. With Munro-Leighton's admission, the president added a new claim to his campaign rally repertoire - that all of the women accusing the judge had lied about Kavanaugh's conduct, including Christine Blasey Ford (seen above at a Senate hearing in September) 'They like them coming in because were winning. And they figure, if enough of them come in, eventually theyll be able to vote, and theyre going to vote for the Democrats,' he said. 'We cant let this happen. For other reasons too, but we can't let that happen.' Trump again said that Democrats will 'impose socialism and totally erase Americas borders' as he whipped the crowd into a frenzy over the migrant caravan. 'Were not dealing with babies here, folks,' he said. He claimed that there are 'rough people' headed toward America in the caravan. 'They gave you 300 names yesterday. These are rough, rough people in many cases,' he contended. 'We have emboldened these people.' Hinting at prior claims that Democrats planned the caravan, he told the crowd, 'Ask yourself, how do you think that formed?' The president said that he would soon be stopping foreign aid to Central American countries that the caravans are originating from. We pay you hundreds of millions of dollars a year, which is probably just stolen, and we dont want itin the meantime, they do nothing. They do nothing for us,' he claimed. Trump deployed the military to the border last week and told troops to treat rock throwing migrants the same way they'd treat them if they were firing guns. 'We saw that barbed wire going up,' he marveled on Sunday. 'Yes, sir, we have barbed wire going up, because you know what? Were not letting these people invade our country.' His message to the caravan, he said is: 'Turn back now, because youre not coming into the United States, unless you go through the process.' Rock star Jimmy Page has long been a fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. The Led Zeppelin guitarist is reported to have said he 'connected' with them in his early teens, admired them from afar while at art college and has since collected several of their works. Touch of tapestry: A luxurious dining room designed by Henriette von Stockhausen of VSP interiors Among these are two whopping great Arthurian tapestries by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, now on display in Tate Britain's autumn show on the artist. It's a sumptuous exhibition and, with its rich shades, glimmering golds and backdrop of moody wall colours, it will warm you up for the winter months ahead. Burne-Jones (1833-1898) designed stained glass, tapestry, embroidery, mosaic, illustrations and jewellery. He decorated a grand piano, the Graham Piano, with Machiavellian-looking cherubim and captured his friends in humorous pen and ink drawings. He met William Morris at Oxford University and the pair became collaborators. Burne-Jones's work for Morris & Co was his bread and butter. He sketched the two of them - fat Morris reading poetry to thin Burne-Jones and, when Morris died, Burne-Jones described his loss as 'the halving of my life'. Jimmy's tapestries were originally made for the dining room of Stanmore Hall, described as a 'new-fangled place' (now 23 apartments) in Middlesex. The tapestries took four years to weave and Burne-Jones was paid 1,000 as the principal designer. A princely sum for the time. Though Burne-Jones wished, simply, 'to work and work and make a lovely world and to ask for no wages'. Weaving a story: Edward Burne-Jones, The Arming and Departure of the Knights of the Round Table 1890-1894, collection Jimmy Page courtesy Paul Reeves London The opulence of his vision fits the tone this winter. No we might not all be swagging our walls with tapestries - though they make wonderful draught excluders - but you get the idea. Victoriana is the order of the day. Our rooms are no longer shy and retiring. Colours are bold for our winter coats and our walls. In the exhibition they have been painted maroon (Dulux Abacus Bead), aubergine (Fired Earth Carragheen) and dark blue (Farrow & Ball's Hague Blue, matched by Dulux). Yes, the Tate colour matches, too. The founder of online interiors boutique Plum Chutney, Anita Mackenzie, has painted her own home in deep shades of blue and green, plumchutney.com. Midas touch: Anita Mackenzie, founder of the on-line interiors company, Plum Chutney has gone for a moody palette at home with gold details 'It has been a revelation,' she says. 'Art, plants, lighting, honey coloured woods and anything textured stands out beautifully against them'. 'Having grown up in India, I am naturally drawn to intense, saturated colours. Our artwork and accessories in rich aquamarines, oranges and intense pinks make a statement against a dark backdrop.' Gold and metallic flourishes continue to be popular. They add drama, just as Burne-Jones found when he started painting in gold on inky paper. Mackenzie has added a gold art deco pattern using washi tape onto a dark green wall in her bedroom to striking effect. Of course, there are plenty of glinty accessories from which to choose. Graham & Green's concrete and brass table lamp is a subtle nod, 129, while their Midas brass chest of drawers (995) is a decadent flourish, grahamandgreen.co.uk. Scene-stealer: A tapestry by Zardi & Zardi which makes wallpapers and fabrics out of historic tapestries Few of us live in baronial splendour, but tapestry has, 'become more popular', according to interior designer Henriette von Stockhausen of VSP interiors. 'It is often combined with modern elements or used to cleverly upholster a key piece in a special room', she says. 'One company I use is Zardi & Zardi (zardiandzardi.co.uk) which makes wallpapers and fabrics out of historic tapestries. These look amazing lining rooms and can even be printed on linen, silk or canvas for a different effect. They warm up a room and add interest to an otherwise plain wall,' she says. If you are living in grandeur, then Julia Boston sells antique tapestries, though you won't get much change out of 10,000, juliaboston.com. Other designers are using stitching and embroidery in a more modern context. Designer Claire Coles creates bespoke wall coverings using machine stitching, silk and leather. One of her works, Norfolk Woods, on a gold backdrop, was inspired by the Devonshire hunting tapestries at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Stitched up: Claire Coles's bespoke fabric design, 'Norfolk Woods' inspired by the Devonshire Tapestries in the V&A Musuem 'Instead of the canvas being filled with imagery, the woodland creatures stand out and the space between them is intertwined with creeping foliage,' says Coles. 'Having texture on the walls adds warmth and softness to a space. 'I'm regularly asked to add colours and pattern which work in harmony with other soft furnishings.' If you'd like a flick of stitching, then look to Fine Cell Work. Its new collection features bold patterns by British designer Cressida Bell. The cushions with hand-embroidered details are expensive, but you will be supporting the charity which helps prisoners (Cressida Bell's Granadilla needlepoint cushion is 115, finecellwork.co.uk). Edward Burne-Jones is on until February 24, 2019, tate.org.uk Following the success of our Emerald Waterways cruise with Brendan Cole, weve designed another Strictly fabulous voyage this time with Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag. This wonderful eight-day itinerary not only includes some of Europes most romantic cities on the Danube, but also offers Mail on Sunday readers the chance to see a performance by Anton and Erin in Vienna, home of the waltz. The nations favourite ballroom couple will take part in a fascinating Q&A session at the Vienna Arsenal and a dance masterclass on board your luxury river cruise ship. Its a fantastic opportunity to discover the delights of the Danube while meeting the most respected couple in ballroom dancing today. Mighty river: The Danube flows through Austria's Wachau Valley Tribute: A statue of St Stephen, considered to be the founder of Hungary, in the capital Budapest ABOUT ANTON AND ERIN You will be joined by Anton and Erin (above) Anton du Beke and Erin Boag have danced together for 20 years and are two of the nations all-time favourite Strictly Come Dancing stars. The couple will bring their new show, Dance Those Magical Musicals, to theatres across the UK in 2019, and together they bring something exceptional to the dancefloor. Their charisma, chemistry and dazzling choreography have wowed audiences around the world. Anton has also just released his debut novel, One Enchanted Evening. Advertisement REASONS TO BOOK See Anton and Erin perform The beautiful surroundings of the Vienna Arsenal will be the location for a performance by the stars, as well as a Q&A session. Sail in style Emerald Star Ships offer first-class amenities, including spacious cabins, exceptional cuisine, a sun deck, putting green, fitness centre and even a cinema. Dance tips from the pros Anton and Erin will share their tips and passion for dance in a private ballroom masterclass. Explore eight European cities Visit Vienna, the capital of classical music, as well as Budapest, Bratislava, Passau, Nuremberg, Durnstein, Regensburg and Melk. Enjoy a range of included excursions, from a guided bike tour of Vienna to a Hungarian folklore show. ABOUT THE SHIP With their sleek and contemporary design, Emerald Waterways Star Ships provide a luxurious setting for any journey. Most Emerald Waterways Star Ships feature a heated indoor pool with a retractable roof. Enjoy on-board dining in the elegant Reflections Restaurant, or else enjoy a light bite on The Terrace, while complimentary tea and coffee are served. All cabins offer an en suite bathroom, hotel-style beds, wi-fi and a television. A lot of people die on Greys Anatomy, thats no secret, but this weeks episode is all about honoring those weve lost and figuring out how to deal with the ones who are still here. And, while most of the doctors are trying to work out their complicated love lives, two doctors finally kiss after weeks of anticipation. Teddy (Kim Raver) heads over to Owens (Kevin McKidd) place to finally tell him about her pregnancy. But, right as she is about to spill the beans, Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) comes storming in because Betty (Peyton Kennedy) has ditched school. Teddy heads over to Owens place to finally tell him about her pregnancy. But, right as she is about to spill the beans, Amelia comes storming in Richard (James Pickens Jr.) breaks the news to Meredith that her father is dying from cancer though she hasnt seen or talked to her father in years. Amelia, Owen, and Teddy spend the day trying to find Betty, which definitely throws a wrench in this whole pregnancy announcement situation. Teddy tries to finally tell Owen the news at the end of the day, but she realizes hes happy with his current situation. Though its frustrating for viewers to wait for the secret to be spilled, we have a feeling Owens going to find out about his child sooner rather than later. Merediths (Ellen Pompeo) father, Thatcher, is sick. Its no secret Thatcher left Meredith when she was really young and also struggled with alcoholism, but hes currently suffering from leukemia. Richard (James Pickens Jr.) breaks the news to Meredith who, by the way, hasnt seen or talked to her father in years. Not to mention, Meredith has another date scheduled thanks to her matchmaker, Cece. The date doesnt go well shes zero for two right now but its because she has other men on her mind. Link (Chris Carmack) decides to ask Meredith out thanks to a push from Jo (Camilla Luddington), and though Meredith should definitely say yes because hes super hot, she says no. Buzzkill. Meredith has another date scheduled thanks to her matchmaker, Cece. The date doesnt go well shes zero for two right now but its because she has other men on her mind Link does end up giving Meredith his phone number and she runs into him at Alexs apartment at the end of the episode, so theres definitely something brewing between them. However, Link does end up giving Meredith his phone number and she runs into him at Alexs (Justin Chambers) apartment at the end of the episode, so theres definitely something brewing between them. Its also clear DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) still has a crush on Meredith and to be honest, we think she has a crush on him too. Hello, who could forget about those makeout dreams?! The pair share a sweet moment after he decides to not do a surgery because their patient, who just so happens to be a little girl, also has a major crush on him. DeLuca reveals he was looking forward to working with Meredith, but there was more to the moment than just that. We have a feeling there may be a love triangle in our future between Meredith, DeLuca, and Link. DeLuca and Merediths patient is also celebrating Dia de los Muertos, aka Day of the Dead, which is a Mexican holiday and honors those theyve lost. Maggie (Kelly McCreary) becomes emotional while remembering her mother who passed away, but Meredith is still trying to figure out what to do about her father. Though she hasnt decided if she wants to see Thatcher, we are reminded of the people she has has lost throughout the years George, Lexie, and yes, even Derek when their spirits appear in the hospital. We have a feeling there may be a love triangle in our future between Meredith, DeLuca, and Link. Lucky Meredith! We are reminded of the people Meredith has lost throughout the years George, Lexie, and yes, even Derek when their spirits appear in the hospital We are reminded of the people Meredith has lost throughout the years George, Lexie, and yes, even Derek when their spirits appear in the hospital as she walks through However, the best moment of the night goes to Nico (Alex Landi) and Schmitt (Jake Borelli), who finally kiss after weeks of flirting. Nico, who is openly gay and very comfortable with his sexuality, kisses Schmitt on the elevator. Schmitt, on the other hand, tells Nico hes never kissed a guy before and that hes still figuring out his sexuality. Though Schmitt seems excited about learning from Nico, Nico makes it very clear hes not interested in dating someone who is still new in their sexuality journey. Buzzkill part two. While these two may not be together right now, this is probably not the last were seeing of them. While most of the characters are in steady relationships, its fun to see Meredith playing the field with two younger men. Will she end up with DeLuca, Link, or neither? Plus, Teddy needs to tell Owen about her pregnancy ASAP. Lets hope that big secret is shared next week! She may have been left heartbroken when she was booted off The Bachelor earlier this year by Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins. But on Friday, Bachelor reject Cassandra Wood didn't have a care in the world when she posed topless on a yacht in Thailand. The 23-year-old blonde bombshell flaunted her pert derriere in a G-string bikini alongside a bevvy of other beauties. 'Young, wild and free': The Bachelor's Cassandra Wood (pictured far right) goes topless and flaunts her pert derriere in a G-string bikini during Thailand getaway All three girls had their golden locks cascading down their shoulders as they proudly held their bikini tops in the air. 'Young, wild and free,' Cassandra wrote in the caption. Elsewhere in the post, she explained how she has been getting some negative comments underneath some of her recent bikini photos. Having a ball: Cassandra and other social media influencers have been enjoying a sun-soaked holiday this week 'It did get to me a little and I felt like I had to think carefully about what I was posting and almost as if I was being controlled and couldn't post what I wanted to,' she wrote. 'Then I thought... what the hell, this is ridiculous, I've literally been brought over to Thailand on a swimwear shoot and everyone has the right to post as they please anyway without explaining themselves to people.' Showing Nick was he's missing! Cass has been posting several bikini snaps since being booted off The Bachelor She added how important it is for women to support other women. 'When I look at this photo, I see three girls living in the moment having the time of their lives. We are women supporting each other and I feel so strongly about people supporting one another and not bringing each other down,' she added. 'I stand by the motto: "If you don't have anything nice to say, then dont say it at all" and I am proud of who I am. Thank you for the people that continue to support one another. Kindness and positivity will take you far.' Another shot at love: The post comes after Channel Ten confirmed that the buxom blonde will appear on the next season of Bachelor In Paradise She finished with the hashtag 'women supporting women.' The post comes after Channel Ten confirmed that the buxom blonde will appear on the next season of Bachelor In Paradise. Also joining her at another shot at love is The Bachelor's Brooke Blurton. She was known for her girl-next-door looks on Nick Cummins' series of The Bachelor. But on Friday, Tenille Favios showed off her very plump pout, sparking speculation she has had lip fillers. Taking to Instagram Stories, the 25-year-old took to Instagram, drawing attention to her puffy lips by coating them in a shimmering gloss. Pucker up! On Friday, The Bachelor's Tenille Favios sparked rumours she's had lip fillers as she flaunted her VERY plump pout in a sultry new snap shared to Instagram 'Lipgloss, highlight and brows,' Tenille captioned her snap. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Tenille to ask whether her pout is au naturel. The brunette is not the only Bachelor babe to have sparked speculation that she has indulged in cosmetic enhancements. Girl next door! Tenille was known for her natural beauty on The Bachelor Speaking to Daily Mail Australia back in August, leading Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Randal Haworth asserted the fellow competitor Blair Thomas, 27, had altered her natural appearance. 'There is no disputing that Blair had her breasts enhanced, most likely with the help of a plastic surgeon. Her results make quite the statement and leave little to the imagination,' Dr. Haworth observed. Older photos dating back to February 2013 show Blair with a significantly flatter chest when compared to her appearance today. Busty Blair! Back in August, speculation arose that Bachelor star Blair Thomas has had a breast enlargement. Pictured left: Blair in her early twenties, and right: in 2018 'The abrupt edge of her breasts as they transition from her chest wall indicate to me she had breast implants likely placed over her pectoralis major muscle,' Dr. Haworth claimed. 'Implants placed over the muscle are more likely to give this "bolt-on" appearance not normally seen in nature. However, when a patient has little body fat or breast tissue, implants placed under the muscle can occasionally give the same appearance.' Further possible evidence that Blair may have had a breast augmentation can be found in the comments section of one of her throwback photos. A picture taken in 2011 showed her with smaller breasts, which prompted one female friend commenting below: 'Pre boobies?' Daily Mail Australia contacted Blair for comment at the time. Top of the class! Despite her occupation as a teacher, it seems Blair (centre) isn't shy about stripping down for racy social media snaps. Pictured with two friends recently Former Bachelor star Tiffany Scanlon has lashed out after revealing she was dropped from the upcoming season of Bachelor In Paradise. In a very lengthy Instagram post and a long series of comments, the angered blonde claimed she'd been cast in the new season for two months before being dropped. The 31-year-old had extensive work done for her appearance, including undergoing cosmetic injections and brow tattooing. 'What they have done is cruel and unfair': Tiffany Scanlon lashes out after she's DROPPED from the upcoming season of Bachelor in Paradise ...and reveals she had extensive work in preparation including cosmetic injections and brow tattooing Alongside a photo in which she is flipping the bird to the camera, the former reality star wrote: 'Three months ago I was contacted by casting for Bachelor in Paradise.' 'My initial instinct was to steer clear and so I told them I needed time to think about it. My friends all told me it was a bad idea having seen how mentally draining and emotionally distressing my past experiences on the show had been. 'Against my better judgement and tempted by the money and opportunity, and even a little by the unlikely chance of love, I agreed to an expression of interest with a couple of stipulations for me to come on the show.' Upset and angry: Tiffany's Instagram post in full above Weeks later, Tiffany says she was sent a contract and that she believed that she'd been cast. In preparation for her return to TV and the spotlight, she had counselling sessions and underwent cosmetic and beauty work. 'I collaborated with a number of beauty companies here in Perth - @absolutecosmeticmedicine for my skincare and cosmetic injectables, @alisonjadebrows for my feather touch brows, @trystforhair for my hair and had appointments lined up for nails, lashes and waxing. Pain: Two months after the initial call, she was told she had been dropped, the beauty claims. 'What they have done is cruel and unfair' she wrote 'This may seem unnecessary to you but I can assure you I am no different to any other girl preparing to go on the show,' she wrote. Tiffany says she also lost work and had a relationship end to make way for the upcoming commitment. She went on to claim she had 'nine vials of blood' taken in Bali, where she resides, to pass the medical exams for the show. Spruced:In preparation, she had counselling sessions and underwent cosmetic work Two months after the initial call, she was told she had been dropped, the beauty claims. 'What they have done is cruel and unfair and Im sure they thought Id slink away quietly. At the very LEAST they could have offered some kind of counselling to help undo the damage theyve done. 'If I had the money Id sue them for emotional damages, but I dont, so this statement is my small way of seeking justice on a company that is morally corrupt. At a loss: Tiffany says she also lost work and had a relationship end to make way for the upcoming commitment 'And so what now? Well Im after the initially shock, there was anger and now grief. I am mortified over what has happened and Im scrambling to make sense of it all and try to pick up the pieces,' Tiffany concluded. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Channel Ten and Tiffany Scanlon for comment. In May, Tiffany took to Instagram to detail the cosmetic work she'd had done, totaling over $3000. She explained that she has had: '4ml of filler spread over my cheek bones, lips and chin. Then Botox to my forehead, brow, mandible and crows feet.' Expenses: In May, Tiffany took to Instagram to detail the cosmetic work she'd had done, totaling over $3000 The reality star revealed her Botox cost $299 per area while her fillers were $600 or more per one milliletre - which suggests that she has had around $3,000 worth of work done so far. Tiffany also condemned spending money on expensive face creams, insisting they don't work as well as injectables. The blonde first hit the headlines in 2016 when she struck up a romance with Megan Marx - who she met while competing for Richie Strahan's heart on The Bachelor. She has been engaged to manager Vince Deltito since 2015. And DJ Havana Brown told Daily Mail Australia she wants to be 'completely ready' before they start a family together. The 33-year-old, who stepped out for the Nightmare In Kings Cross Halloween party in Sydney on Friday night, said: 'I guess I want to make sure I'm completely ready before well that we're both completely ready.' 'I want to be completely ready!' DJ Havana Brown claims having children with fiance Vince Deltito is a while off as she attends Sydney Halloween party in a sexy latex costume Fiance Vince cheekily chimed in: 'I'm ready! She's not ready, but I'm ready.' The stunner, who dressed in an evil angel costume, spoke about her own desire to have a family, saying: 'One day I'm like, I would love to have kids and the next day I'm like hell no!' With her successful career still keeping her busy, the LA-based musician said she was not afraid to juggle work and family life. Still going strong: The 33-year-old told Daily Mail Australia 'I guess I want to make sure I'm completely ready before well that we're both completely ready'. Fiance Vince cheekily chimed in, 'I'm ready! She's not ready, but I'm ready' Dark angel: The stunner, who dressed in an evil angel costume, spoke about her own desire to have a family, saying 'one day I'm like, I would love to have kids and the next day I'm like hell no!' 'I can still have a baby. I mean Cardi B has proved that one,' she noted with a laugh. Havana's black latex bodysuit costume hugged her slender figure, as he husband-to-be was close by. She teamed the look with wings and a spiky halo and opted for a fierce and vampy makeup. Career woman: With her successful career still keeping her busy, the LA-based musician said she was not afraid to juggle work and family life. 'I can still have a baby. I mean Cardi B has proved that one,' she noted. In 2015, she explained to The Morning Show that she and her beau decided not to make a public announcement because they prefer their fans to focus on the music rather than their personal lives. 'We are pretty private so we don't really talk about it that much,' she said in reference to interviews and social media. 'I just don't want the focus to always be put on my personal life. Sometimes it's a little bit intrusive.' Bake Off star Paul Hollywoods estranged wife has very publicly opened her heart about the couples painful split a year ago. Taking to Instagram yesterday, Alexandra Hollywood, 54, posted this contemplative picture, alone on her sofa, with the message: A year ago today, my marriage ended. There have been stories and speculation about the reasons why and to say its been a rough ride is somewhat of an understatement. But 12 months on Im still here. Bake Off star Paul Hollywoods estranged wife has very publicly opened her heart about the couples painful split a year ago She has filed for a 10 million divorce from Paul, 52, who is reported to have set up home with 23-year-old barmaid Summer Monteys-Fullam. Now Alex is ready to look to the future, writing: I plan to live my new life boldly, grab opportunities with both hands and enjoy being me. PS and Ill be keeping control of the TV remote. Every cloud... Paul Hollywood is reported to have set up home with 23-year-old barmaid Summer Monteys-Fullam Paul Hollywood as a judge on Bake Off Being in the dock is scary enough, but imagine looking out into the jury to see ice queen Anna Wintour passing judgment on you. It happened to one defendant in New York last week, when the long-serving Vogue editor, 68, took her turn doing jury duty before heading out the same evening for the Broadway Opening of new comedy, Torch Song. I just hope the suspect wasnt in court for crimes against fashion. He's crossed Antarctica and conquered Everest, but TV adventurer Ben Fogle admits the BBC finds him too boring to feature on their ancestry show, Who Do You Think You Are. Ben, 44, tells me at the launch of his book, Up: My Lifes Journey To The Top of Everest: They asked me very recently and I love the show so I thought it would be great to be on. They started the preliminary investigation and they then came back to me very politely a few weeks later and said that my familys a bit boring. Charming! Her two kids are now old enough to help their mom with the shopping. So Nicole Richie took daughter Harlow, 10, and son Sparrow, nine, with her when she went to pick up some groceries in Beverly Hills on Friday. The pair were both spotted toting bags for their 37-year-old mom as she carried a large white bag and a healthy looking iced green beverage. Recruiting some help: Nicole Richie took daughter Harlow, 10, and son Sparrow, nine, with her when she went to pick up some groceries in Beverly Hills on Friday The successful designer and reality star showed off her signature casual boho look in a white tank top and loose, light blue pants with a dark-blue geometric print. She slung a dark blue sweater over one shoulder but didn't need to wear it on a day when the temperatures hit the mid-80sF. The celebrity smoothed her blonde tresses up into a top knot she wore high on the top of her head. A helping hand: The 37-year-old celebrity carried a a large white bag and a healthy looking iced green beverage while her daughter Harlow toted a heavy carrier Harlow looked cute in a white graphic T-shirt with grey marl pants and pink flip-flops. Sparrow opted for a black T-shirt, black shorts with a stripe down the side and orange sneakers. Nicole shares her children with her Good Charlotte rocker husband Joel Madden, whom she married in 2010. Showing her fashion creds: The reality star and designer teamed a white vest with loose, light blue pants with a dark-blue geometric print Meanwhile, she recently launched Wylde Honey, a direct-to-consumer line that includes jewelry, accessories and loungewear. The name is an homage to her childhood nickname of HoneyChild and her hobby of beekeeping. She also created her House Of Harlow 1960 brand covering fashion, shoes, jewelry and home decor. Barbra Streisand recently claimed that Donald Trump was making her 'gain weight' as she resorted to comfort eating in order to deal with the current state of politics. And the legendary entertainer has now hit out at the Commander-In-Chief in another interview. Speaking with Australia's Stellar magazine on Sunday, the 76-year-old revealed that the 'lying' President was making her feel 'kind of depressed' as stayed up until the wee hours after eating chocolate and ice-cream. 'I get very little sleep!' Speaking with Stellar on Sunday, Barbra Streisand, 76, has revealed that 'lying' Donald Trump is making her feel 'depressed' as she stays up until the early hours eating chocolate and ice cream 'Trump lied from the beginning, and I just honour the truth - in my work, in my life, I love the truth. I think it's so powerful,' Barbra stated. 'The truth, to me, is the essence of living in a democracy and I guess what offends me so much is Trump seems to care so very little about it, because he continues to lie day after day and make up things, you know?' The Yentl star has previously revealed that she had to eat 'pancakes covered in maple syrup' after watching Trump on the morning news, and, now, she claims she is also eating sweet treats into the evening. The Way We Were! Barbra is pictured receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama at the White House in 2015 Devout Democrat! Barbra is pictured with Hillary and Bill Clinton in 2013. The entertainer publicly endorsed Hillary in 2016 'I tell you, when the news gets really bad, like it did the other night listening to (the President) I had to have two coffee ice-cream cones... I had to have two. I was thinking about three. Sometimes when I do that and eat chocolate before I go to bed, I can't sleep until five, six in the morning. I get very little sleep.' Barbra has just released a new album titled Walls, which ends with a new recording of her hit track Happy Days Are Here Again. She told Stellar that, while she currently feels 'kind of depressed', the upbeat song indicates that she still 'has a bit of hope'. New record: Barbra is back with an acclaimed new album titled Walls Elsewhere, Barbra has also blasted Donald Trump during promotional duties for her new record. Speaking with The Guardian she described the 45th President as a 'conman'. She ranted: 'I can't bear the man! He's a man with no manners! He doesn't see his own flaws; he doesn't know what he doesn't know. You know? He has no humility.' She's famed for her glamorous appearance and incredible curves. But Olivia Buckland, 24, has revealed she has been reduced to tears by trolls commenting on her appearance online. The Love Island newly-wed told the Daily Star Sunday: 'Everyone in the public eye has people who say nasty stuff about them. I've seen articles about me online where 90 percent of the comments are awful. Hitting back: Olivia Buckland, 24, has revealed she has been reduced to tears by trolls commenting on her appearance online 'In the past I've ended up in tears about what some people have said about me online. Sometimes it just affects you if you're having a bad day.' But the brave star added that she's proud to show her insecurities, as it means people can't use them to hurt her. She told the paper: ''I love to posting photos on Instagram when I'm not wearing any make-up. I want to show my insecurities. I'm showing I can accept that they're there'. Natural beauty: The star looked gorgeous in this make-up free snap she shared last year Olivia tied the knot to Alex Bowen, 26, in the first ever Love Island wedding in front of friends, family, celebrities and reality TV co-stars in Essex last month. They held the ceremony at Gosfield Hall, which boasts 10 acres of elegant grounds, in the blonde beauty's native Essex on September 15. The reality TV pair initially jetted off to Sri Lanka just hours after their lavish reception in Essex, before moving onto the second leg of their honeymoon in the Maldives. 'I love to posting photos on Instagram when I'm not wearing any make-up. I want to show my insecurities': Olivia said she loves to post pics online, and is no stranger to showing off her curves Honeymooning: The reality TV pair initially jetted off to Sri Lanka just hours after their lavish reception in Essex, before moving onto the second leg of their honeymoon in the Maldives On their return from their honeymoon, the pair started their family by adopting an adorable puppy. The couple first met on the 2016 series of Love Island, in which they starred alongside the likes of Cara De La Hoyde, Nathan Massey, Zara Holland, Tina Stinnes, Malin Andersson and the late Sophie Gradon. Olivia and Alex came in second place behind Cara and her fiance Nathan Massey, and moved in together in Essex in August 2016. Alex popped the question during a romantic trip to New York that December after just five months of dating. Make-up free: The reality star shows a mix of glamour made up shots and make-up free selfies on her Instagram She announced her whirlwind engagement to Nick Jonas in August and is reportedly set to marry in December. And Prinyanka Chopra was getting in the party mood as she began celebrating her bachelorette bash on Saturday. The 36-year-old beauty posted a snap of herself smiling in a fuzzy white off-the-shoulder sweater with the caption: '#BacheloretteVibes.' Party time: Prinyanka Chopra, 36, was getting in the party mood as she began celebrating her bachelorette bash on Saturday And Nick's mom was keen on the activities of her future daughter-in-law as she commented 'be good'. Although the location of the sure-to-be spectacular soiree is unknown, Priyanka shared a few details from inside the party. A snap shared showed a beautiful bouquet of pink roses with a bucket of champagne chilling underneath pink and gold balloons. Another photograph featured a yellow telephone and a pair of red slippers perhaps hinting towards some pampering sessions. Peek: Although the location of the sure-to-be spectacular soiree is unknown, Priyanka shared a few details from inside the party Pampered:Another photograph featured a yellow telephone and a pair of red slippers perhaps hinting towards some pampering sessions The couple got engaged while in London celebrating her 36th birthday on July 18. Priyanka finally confirmed the rumors as she showed off her stunning diamond engagement ring in an Instagram snap. Nick and Priyanka only started dating in May after first stepping out together at the Met Gala in 2017. He purchased a $6.5m Beverly Hills home three months before proposing to Priyanka, it has been revealed. Her love: Nick asked Priyanka to be his wife on her 36th birthday in London back in August The newly renovated home boasts five bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms and features impressive views over the canyon. On June 22, Nick and Priyanka travelled to India where they met her mother Madhu. He shared a shot writing, 'Future Mrs. Jonas. My heart. My love.' 'The wedding is happening in India in December,' an insider told Us Weekly on Wednesday. The ring: Priyanka finally confirmed the rumors as she showed off her stunning diamond engagement ring in an Instagram snap Speaking at the launch of the Tiffany Blue Book Collection in New York earlier this week, Priyanka said 'love for family and faith' was what first bonded the couple. She explained: 'We've known each other for a couple of years but we dated for just a little while, but I think that's the one thing we really connect on is our love for family and knowing faith is so important to us. 'It's a very different feeling I never realised that having a boyfriend and having a fiance are completely different. 'It just feels different. There's gravitas. You feel like family, which is just so different. She's one of Hollywood's best known faces with a string of awards to her name. And Sandra Bullock, 54, looked every inch the movie star as she sported a pink and red attire to promote her new film Bird Box at the Deadline Contenders at the DGA Theatre in West Hollywood on Saturday. The Ocean's 8 actress commanded attention in a deep maroon dress with a plunging neckline and green an pink panel detail. A-lister: Sandra Bullock, 54, looked every inch the star as she sported a pink and red attire to promote her new movie Bird Box at the Deadline Contenders at the DGA Theatre in Hollywood Emphasising her natural beauty, the Oscar winning actress went for a glamorous make-up look with a dark smokey eye and peach lip. She let her trademark chestnut tresses into a loose curl, that tumbled down past her shoulder. The busy actress is reuniting with her Ocean's 8 co-star Sarah Paulson for the creepy new Netflix movie. Star-studded: The Ocean's 8 actress commanded attention in a deep maroon dress with a plunging neckline and green an pink panel detail as she posed with co-star Trevante Rhodes, ans director Susanne Bier Panel: Pete Hammond speaks to Susanne, Sandra and Trevante about upcoming Netflix movie Bird Box which concerns a mysterious force killing the world's population It concerns a mysterious force that is decimating the world's population, when only one thing is certain: if you see it, you take your life. Facing the unknown, Sandra's Malorie must flee with her two young children down a treacherous river to the one place left that may offer sanctuary. But to survive, they'll have to undertake the perilous two-day journey blindfolded. Pals: Sandra paired her sophisticated dress with pink strappy sandals as she joined her co-stars at the event The Susanne Bier directed Thriller has an all-star cast that includes John Malkovich and Moonlight's Trevante Rhode. Netflix have released a thrilling three-minute trailer to build early anticipation for the movie, which is due out on December 21. Deadline's eighth annual The Contenders began on Saturday morning with a breakfast sponsored by Amazon Studios. It continues all day and features a lunch sponsored by Annapurna Pictures and a post-event reception sponsored by Netflix. Among the stars and filmmakers expected to make an appearance are Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman, Rami Malek, Bradley Cooper, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Rosamund Pike, John Krasinski and Amy Adams. They are both Angels who are set to spread their wings at the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in New York City next week. So it should come as no surprise that models Elsa Hosk and Martha Hunt looked to be in a hurry as they left a fitting for the prestigious event on Saturday. And the fashionistas did not disappoint with their respective outfits as they hit the bustling streets of Manhattan. On the go: Models Elsa Hosk and Martha Hunt were spotted on Saturday leaving a fitting for the upcoming Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in NYC Never ones to be shy when it comes to the camera, Elsa strutted out of the high-rise building oozing edgy flare in black leather pants and a white crop top that revealed her long and chiseled figure. She added a pair of black leather heel boots and wore a brown aviator jacket to help quell the chill in the air. Following right behind, Martha rocked a full-length military green number that tied around the waist, and had opening in the front that allowed her to flaunt a little leg at a moments notice. She matched it with a pair of knee-high burgundy/brown leather boots. Rockin': Elsa showed off her toned midriff in a crop top along with black leather pants Stylish: Fellow Victoria's Secret Angel Martha Hunt opted for a military green number Once the 29-year old high-fashion models hit the street, it was Elsa who played to the cameras. Within seconds, she gave a playful wink and blew a kiss towards the photographers, then grabbed her mate's hand and off they went, likely to another fitting. The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show will be taking place November 8 in New York City, but it won't air until December 2 on ABC. Previous years have seen the runway extravaganza take place in Los Angeles, London, Paris and most recently in Shanghai. Busy times: The ladies have been getting ready for the VS Fashion Show which is being held in NYC November 8; the show will air on ABC December 2 Booted: Martha matched her sage green frock with a pair of knee-high burgundy/brown leather boots Some of the most-followed and in-demand models will be returning, which includes the likes of fellow VS Angels Lais Ribeiro, Adriana Lima, Taylor Hill, Jasmine Tookes, among others. There will also be high profile models: Kendall Jenner, Lais Ribeiro and Bella and Gigi Hadid. And musical guests include Bebe Rexha, The Chainsmokers, Halsey, Rita Ora, The Struts, Kelsea Ballerini and Shawn Mendes. They barely cracked a smile during their brief appearance at Derby Day on Saturday. And hours later, Scott Disick, 35, and girlfriend Sofia Richie, 20, rocked a pair of matching glum expressions while hosting a party at Melbourne's Alumbra nightclub. Clad in a figure-hugging grey number, Sofia showcased her trim pins in the thigh-skimming frock at the event also attended by Olympic athlete, Usain Bolt. Is everything OK? Scott Disick, 35, and girlfriend Sofia Richie, 20, sported glum expressions as they attended a Melbourne nightclub appearance after Derby Day on Saturday night With her dark locks scraped back, the daughter of crooner Lionel Richie emphasized her features with a dewy complexion, dark brows and a light pink lip. Scott meanwhile went for casual luxe in a white hoodie and black jeans. The former party boy appeared to be one his best behaviour while clutching a bottle of water. Comfort over style: Scott went for casual luxe in a white hoodie and black jeans Even while posing with nine-time gold medalist Usain Bolt, Scott maintained a stony-faced expression. The high-profile couple jetted into the country on Monday ahead of Scott's hosting appearance inside the Ultra Marquee at Derby Day. Reportedly paid six figure for the gig, promoters might have been left disappointed after the Keeping Up With The Kardashian star and his girlfriend left the daytime event after just an hour. Not having the time of your life? Even while posing with nine-time gold medalist Usain Bolt, Scott maintained a stony-faced expression Scott and Sofia have been incredibly busy since arriving Down Under earlier this week. The LA-based love birds stepped out for a paid appearance at Windsor Smith at Chadstone Shopping Centre on Thursday. In the days prior, they visited Taronga Zoo, cruised around Sydney Harbour on a luxury yacht, and hosted a Halloween party at The Star's Marquee Nightclub. They're best pals and co-founders of Monday Swimwear. And Natasha Oakley and Devin Brugman enjoyed a day at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Friday. The bloggers flaunted their toned figures in skimpy bikinis and accessorised with oversize hats. Sizzling hot! Bikini bloggers Natasha Oakley [L], 28, and Devin Brugman [R], 27, flaunted their toned figures at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Friday Natasha, 28, sported a white and burgundy striped two-piece, highlighting her cleavage, toned tummy and lean legs. After a dip in the ocean, the blonde swept her wet locks back off her face and concealed her gaze behind tortoise-shell designer sunglasses. For an extra touch of glamour, Natasha, who went makeup free for the occasion, added an oversize beige hat to the look. Cooling off: The beauties were all smiles as they emerged after a dip in the ocean Toned: Devin opted for a burgundy two-piece that revealed her ample cleavage and toned tummy Svelte: Natasha drew the eye to her cleavage, slender waist and trim pins in a white and burgundy-striped design Content: The girls embraced as they made their way back to their belongings on the sand Devin, 27, sizzled in a burgundy triangle bikini top that accentuated her ample cleavage, teamed with coordinating briefs that drew the eye to her toned legs. Accessorising with a delicate gold necklace, hoop earrings and tinted sunglasses, the American also drew attention to her year-round tan. Running her hands through her tresses as she emerged from the water, Devin made her way back to the sand, shielding her makeup free face with a white oversize hat. That's cheeky: Natasha and Devin showed off their pert posteriors in the skimpy swimwear Beach babe: Devin, who hails from Hawaii, accessorised with tinted sunglasses, delicate gold jewels and an oversize hat Quick adjustment: The brunette readjusted her swimwear as she sat on the sand Sun smart: Natasha also protected herself from the sun with an oversize hat and sunglasses In an interview with The Daily Telegraph's Stellar in July last year, Natasha said that she doesn't spend all of her time luxuriating on beaches all over the world. 'The other side of it is I run my own swimwear and activewear label [Monday Swimwear and Monday Active]. I manage all of our companies - even if I am wearing a bikini while I sit there on the laptop doing work,' she explained. Natasha, who grew up in Sydney's Bronte, went on to suggest that the reason her and Devin have struck a chord with the public is that they aren't rail-thin. Sitting pretty: Natasha and Devin engaged in conversation as they made the most of their beach outing Top-up: Natasha reapplied sunscreen to her bronzed skin Three's not a crowd: The red carpet regulars were joined by a brunette friend on the outing 'I am a curvaceous woman. And I think a lot of people have had newfound confidence within themselves from seeing what we do,' the blonde said. Natasha launched blog A Bikini A Day with Devin in 2012. With their newfound success, the girls co-founded retail brand Monday Swimwear in 2014. Natasha has also partnered with brands including Seafolly, Sunglass Hut and Bonds Australia. Cover-up: Devin later covered her toned upper frame in a burgundy dress shirt, left undone sacw.net - 4 November 2018 In what ways are women present in political contexts? Kashmiri women, from different walks of life, have managed against all odds to express their agency during the plethora of political, social, and military transformations in the past nine decades. The perception and manifestation of womenas political struggle during the nationalist awakening in the 1930s became aa wider part of the politics of democratization and empowermenta ((Chenoy and Vanaik 2001: 123). During the growing sense of nationhood in the 1930s, and during the political awakening in the 1940s Kashmiri women forged broad coalitions and informal networks to challenge state-centered, feudal, and elitist notions of identity and security. Kashmiri women perceived and articulated cultural and political resistance, during the invasion by raiders from the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1947, in terms of clear nation-building programs, which involved reviving civil society, resuscitating the shattered economy, and building social and political structures. Subsequent to the accession of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian dominion in 1947, while the Indian subcontinent was reeling from the mayhem of the countryas partition, womenas organizations attempted to contribute peace-building work at the local and regional levels. Have Kashmiri women signified a reconciliatory presence and been harbingers of peace? Does the insurgent movement in Kashmir stress womenas political empowerment and address the protracted crisis for security and legitimacy? While collecting historical records and individual testimonies to trace the historical lineage of Kashmiri womenas sociopolitical activism, my curiosity was piqued by the feisty debates that were aroused by the tribal invasion of 1947. So, I dug into the archival material available to me. In a dog-eared copy of Life Magazine reporter Margaret Bourke-Whiteas book, I found riveting details of her rich conversations with 20th century political stalwarts of the Indian subcontinent. Bourke-White, who was sent to India on assignment in the eventful late 1940s, writes enthusiastically about the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. She writes that the giant leaps taken toward democracy in the former princely state could be a harbinger for progressive movements and positive change in the rest of India. She sardonically tells the reader that the move toward achieving democracy in the state was expedited by the despotic ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, when he fled his principality, leaving his subjects in the lurch. This occurred at the inception of the invasion of Kashmir, in October of 1947 awhen hordes of fanatical Muslim tribesmen were pouring in from Pakistan, killing, looting, and burning villages.a This onslaught convulsed the entire Kashmir Valley, carrying athe raiders to the outskirts of Srinagar, the capital.a In a quick and efficient response to the incursion, athe Peopleas Party, as it is also knowna ---had put a representative government in place, awhich administered food stores, organized a peopleas militia for defense against the invader, and started working on a new constitution.a Jammu and Kashmir was terrorized by the willful infliction of pain and suffering on civilians during the fateful period of the partition of India. The communal violence in the Jammu province of the state was remorseless. The rapacity of the fanatical invaders seemed insatiable. Amidst that pandemonium, Kashmir was the first state in the newly freed Indian subcontinent to have its own written constitutional plan. aMembers of the Peopleas Party had studied constitutions from all over the world, particularly America,a says Bourke-White. The constitution guaranteed enfranchisement of all adult citizens, men and women, and took particular care to protect the dignity and religious freedoms of minorities. The admirable egalitarian and democratic quality of their achievement was partially a result of the political dissidence and collective consciousness that grew in retaliation to oppressive monarchical institutions, which had curbed their freedom for generations and, she added ais in large part a result of clear vision of their State Peopleas leader, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. The Sheikh is a legendary figure and is the first popular prime minister to emerge after the coming of Indian independencea (193-194). A people newly emancipated from the clutches of an oppressive and rigorous monarchy blossomed. In that euphoric atmosphere, no force seemed powerful enough to militate against the dream of a democratic and emancipated society. The partition of India legitimized the forces of masculinist nationalism and enabled virile hatred for the aothera to irreparably mutilate a shared anti-colonial legacy and cultural heritage so systematically that the wounds inflicted by the partition are yet to heal. Shortly before the tribal invasion, while the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was still an independent entity and had not acceded to either dominion, India or Pakistan, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah sent emissaries of the All Jammu and Kashmir State Peopleas Conference to Pakistan to thrash out the terms of accession with those at the helm of affairs. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League and founder of Pakistan was hesitant at the time to get involved in the internal affairs of princely states. Consequently, he did not meet with these representatives, aand many people have since said this was a great mistake. He might have had Kashmir with its three million Muslims if he had been willing to recognize popular rulea (Ibid.: 202-203). The Peopleas Government of Jammu and Kashmir made a last-ditch effort to negotiate with the Government of Pakistan. The negotiations were still in the fetal stage when the truculent tribesmen of the Northwest Frontier Province began infiltrating Kashmir. The ink of their official seals on the ainstruments of accession,a affirming their loyalty to the Pakistani dominion, hadnat yet dried when these tribesmen began surging into Kashmir under the rallying cry of Islam, amaking off with all removable loot---including women---leaving a trail of sacked and burned villages, and fighting their way through the heart of the Valley.a These tribesmen, with their sacks full of booty and whetted appetites, arrived in Rawalpindi, part of Pakistan, only to indulge, yet again, in plunder and pillage to satiate their gluttonous selves. The fractious rioting of the tribal invaders caused the newspapers of Lahore, in the newly created dominion of Pakistan, to scream themselves hoarse in vociferously demanding an immediate withdrawal of the acrusaders,a who had become a law unto themselves and Pakistanas proverbial Frankenstein (Ibid.: 204, Ayaz 207-210). Apologists of the tribal invasion in Pakistan and present-day Jammu and Kashmir emphasize the rationale of the invasion, which, according to them, was to save the Muslim populace from the persecution perpetrated on them by the non-Muslims in Kashmir. If that, indeed, had been the reason, it would have been strategically advantageous and beneficial to their acausea to have entered the state through Sucheet Garh into the Hindu dominated part of the former princely state, Jammu. The Maharaja and his cohort were still licking their wounds and inciting the monarchas Dogra army to inflict atrocities on the Muslim populace of the Jammu province of the state. Such a maneuver would have enabled the unruly lot to damage the Srinagar-Jammu route beyond repair, thereby, ensuring the severance of Kashmir from the rest of India and attenuating the possibility of its accession to the Indian dominion. The Kashmir Valley, with its large Muslim populace and its resolute volunteer corps, did not require the services of the marauding and disgruntled tribals, whose prodigality on the Baramullah-Uri route created terrible misgivings among the people whom the marauders were, purportedly, saving. Even the patrons of the tribesmen couldnat turn a blind eye to the savagery and barbarity evinced by them on that acampaigna (see Sardar Ibrahim Khan, Kashmir Saga, 1965, for details of the ruthlessness exhibited by the tribals during the invasion, which the author characterizes as an inevitability of war, but cannot ignore). Margaret Bourke-Whiteas observations about the rapidly shifting boundaries and changing political permutations of that era are some of the most lucid that I have read. She astutely points out that the Kashmiris who had been denigrated and never been permitted the use of arms when the Dogra monarch was at the helm of affairs were organizing training squads not just for men but for women as well. Once the threat from the tribal raiders had been averted, literacy classes were started for the many illiterate members of the Peopleas militia, who were taught not just the art of self-defense but were also encouraged to gain proficiency in reading and writing. Akbar Jehan, Mehmooda Ali Shah, Sajjida Zameer, and Krishna Misri played a monumental role in the articulation of cultural and political resistance (204). Most of the members of the Womenas Self-Defense Corps were wives and mothers who shared the nationalist hopes, anxieties, ardent desire to be the architects of their future and inscribe their own destinies along with their male counterparts. But their participation in the fervent political awakening and cultural resurgence of that era did not, by any means, endorse the traditionally submissive and self-denying role of the wife and mother. Salma Hayek has been wowing audiences since her breakout roles in Desperado and From Dusk till Dawn in 1995. And 23-years later and the Mexican-American beauty showed she can still shine under the Hollywood spotlight when she hit the red carpet at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday night. The eighth annual event honored artist Catherine Opie and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, while LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio served as the galas co-chairs. Show stopper: Salma Hayek stunned in a gold Gucci gown at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday night The flash bulbs were lighting up when the Frida star strutted in front of the cameras in a full-length gold Gucci gown. The eye-catching number hugged her enviable curves, while the modest neckline gave a hint of her ample assets. Matching perfectly with the ensemble, she added an assortment of amazing bling that included diamond bracelets, rings and a necklace. On this night, she wore her raven tresses long past her shoulders, with some soft waves for extra body and a part to the right. Shining star: The Frida star matched the amazing number with some high-fashion bling Full body: The 52-year old star ore her raven tresses long past her shoulders, with some soft waves for extra body and a part to the right Wow factor: The eye-catching number hugged her enviable curves, while the modest neckline gave a hint of her still ample assets Sanding by her man: Hayek arrived for the event with her husband, Francois Henri-Pinault Going strong: The happy couple have been married since 2009 Hayek arrived with her husband, Francois Henri-Pinault, who looked impeccably dressed in a tradition black tuxedo with a black bow tie and white dress shirt. The couple, who have been married since 2009, posed together on the red carpet before Salma went it alone to showcase her Gucci gown. The Italian luxury brand also served as the presenting sponsor of the gala. Some of the other high-profile celebrities on hand included the likes of Jared Leto, Will Farrell, Dakota Johnson, Courtney Love, Paris Jackson, Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Lana Del Rey, George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, Karrauche Tran, Anne Clark, Miranda Kerr and Zoe Kravtiz. Making her mark: Hayek had breakout roles in Desperado and From Dusk Until Dawn in 1995 Shining moment: The Mexican-America beauty was nominated for an Acamedy Award for Best Actress for the 2002 biopic Frida Grammy award winning artist Beck took the stage at the star-studded event. Proceeds from the event go towards underwriting LACMA's initiative to make film more central to the museum's curatorial programming, while also funding exhibitions, acquisitions, educational programming and screenings that explore the intersection of art and film. Past honorees include artists Mark Bradford, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Barbara Kruger, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha, and John Baldessari, and filmmakers George Lucas, Kathryn Bigelow, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, and Clint Eastwood. When actress Camila Morrone hit the red carpet at the LACMA Art + Film Gala, her boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio was nowhere to be found. The 21-year-old model actress was wearing a full-length mauve dress that was slightly see-through for the annual event. All the while, DiCaprio served as the co-chair of the event for the eighth consecutive year, alongside LACMA trustee Eva Chow. Magnificent in mauve: Camila Morrone stuns in a mauve dress at the LACMA Art + Film Gala The 21-year-old model/actress has been dating DiCaprio since late 2017, but they have known each other for more than a decade, according to W Magazine. Morrone's blushing gown was a sight to behold. She was also wearing diamond earrings and a bracelet over her left wrist, while stepping out on the red carpet alone. The actress and model is a Los Angeles native like her boyfriend DiCaprio, although she is 22 years his junior. Iconic look: Morrone was wearing a full-length mauve dress that was slightly see-through for the annual event Model actress: Modeling runs in the blood for Morrone, whose mother Lucila Sola, was a former model, and is also linked to a famous actor Modeling runs in the blood for Morrone, whose mother Lucila Sola, was a former model, and is also linked to a famous actor. Sola has been in a long-term relationship with actor Al Pacino since 2009, and while they are not married, Morrone refers to the screen legend as her stepfather. Morrone started her career as a model, posing for Vogue Turkey in 2016 and made her runway modeling debut in 2017, but she has started transitioning to acting. Morrone first appeared in the 2012 documentary My Own Private River, director James Franco's tribute to the late great River Phoenix. Actress-model: She has appeared in two films this year, the Death Wish remake where she played Bruce Willis' daughter, and Never Goin' Back with Maia Mitchell and Kyle Mooney She then had a small role in the 2013 film Bukowski and appeared as herself in the 2014 TV series My Flipping Family. She has appeared in two films this year, the Death Wish remake where she played Bruce Willis' daughter, and Never Goin' Back with Maia Mitchell and Kyle Mooney. Morrone's boyfriend DiCaprio is currently filming Quentin Tarantino's latest film Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, alongside Brad Pitt. The story follows DiCaprio's Rick Dalton, the star of a hit Western series whose new next door neighbor is Sharon Tate, who was brutally murdered by members of the Manson Family in 1969. The film is slated for release on July 26, 2019, just a few weeks before the 50th anniversary of Tate's murder on August 9. Charlie Sheen is currently in Australia for his highly-anticipated speaking tour. And the 53-year-old actor sported a stern expression before boarding a super yacht in Sydney. Accompanied by his entourage, the controversial Hollywood star dressed casually in a black T-shirt, coordinating shorts and a bomber jacket. Nice to sea you! Charlie Sheen, 53, sported a stern expression and boarded a yacht with his entourage in Sydney on Sunday, as he continues his Australian speaking tour Charlie teamed the look with grey socks, navy boat shoes and tinted sunglasses. Carrying just a small yellow tote bag, the former Two and a Half Men star sported a stern expression. Charlie was joined by his entourage, including Australian publicist to the stars Max Markson, as he enjoyed a day on Sydney Harbour on board a super yacht. Low-key: The actor dressed casually in a black T-shirt, coordinating shorts and a bomber jacket, which he teamed with grey socks, navy boat shoes and tinted sunglasses On the go: Joined by a female companion, Charlie carried a small yellow tote bag Entourage: The controversial Hollywood star was pictured walking along the boardwalk with Australian publicist to the stars Max Markson [far right] Tour Down Under: The sighting comes just hours prior to Charlie's in conversation with series in Sydney The ex husband of Denise Richards is currently in Australia for his highly-anticipated speaking tour. Charlie sat down with the Today show's Richard Wilkins for an in depth question and answer session in Melbourne on Saturday night. He will then return to the stage on Sunday night at Sydney's Darling Harbour Convention Centre. During Saturday night's convention, Charlie told Richard that he's keen to make a reboot of US sitcom Two and a Half Men. Luxury: Charlie and his entourage enjoyed a day out on Sydney Harbour on board super yacht Seven Star Service: Charlie greeted a waiter on board the yacht Reboot: During his Melbourne question and answer session on Saturday night, Charlie told the Today show's Richard Wilkins that he's keen for a reboot of US sitcom Two and a Half Men Sacked: Back in 2011, the father-of-five was sacked by Warner Bros Television due to his hard-partying lifestyle Charlie was sacked from the show back in 2011 due to his hard-partying lifestyle, with Warner Bros Television, issuing a statement saying they had acted after 'careful consideration'. At the time, the father-of-five was earning $2.1 million per episode. Now sober and keen to get back into acting, Charlie told his Melbourne audience that he's ready to shoot a reboot of the series, should anyone be interested. 'If someone calls to say, "Do you want to reboot a show that people actually cared about and want to see again", then I am ready,' he said. Sober: Now sober and keen to get back into acting, Charlie told his Melbourne audience that he's ready to shoot a reboot of the series, should anyone be interested She's a fitness fanatic. But on Saturday afternoon Nina Dobrev looked to be taking it easy as she lounged for a photo shoot on the streets of New York City. The 29-year-old Vampire Diaries star looked relaxed as the shutters clicked. Not in a hurry! On Saturday afternoon Nina Dobrev looked to be taking it easy as she lounged for a photo shoot on the streets of New York City Up top, she wore a very large knit sweater which boasted a festive pattern of red, blue and white triangles. A pair of tight black leggings with red and yellow piping accents showed off the Bulgarian beauty's toned legs. Distinctive black leather shoes with wide flat toes completed her eclectic ensemble. Keeping warm: Up top, she wore a very large knit sweater which boasted a festive pattern of red, blue and white triangles Perfect perch! Subtle eye make-up, rouge and rich punch-colored lipstick ensured she looked glamorous for the laid-back shoot Windy weather! Her dark raven tresses were technically parted on the right, although the wintry breezes kept wafting her hair about Her dark raven tresses were technically parted on the right, although the wintry breezes kept wafting her hair about. Subtle eye make-up, rouge and rich punch-colored lipstick ensured she looked glamorous for the laid-back shoot. The Degrassi actress tried out several different poses, including simply taking a seat on a thick metal railing at one point. Bored? The Degrassi actress tried out several different poses, including simply taking a seat on a thick metal railing at one point Her somewhat languid postures were in contrast to earlier in the day, when she took part in some vigorous exercise. The actress was spotted outside the Dog Pound gym in New York, doing a series of high kicks and cartwheels, while also exercising with a large rope. She was spotted on the Dog Pound's Instagram story, flexing with trainers Otto Cedeno, Kirk Meyers and Ian Sephton. They barely raised a smile throughout their week Down Under. And as they arrived at Melbourne International Airport on Sunday, Scott Disick, 35, and girlfriend Sofia Richie, 20, looked downcast. Leaving the city after a brief appearance at Derby Day, the couple rocked matching grey sweatshirts and designer shades as they strolled through the departures terminal. Shades of Grey! Scott Disick, 35, and girlfriend Sofia Richie, 20, wear matching sweatshirts as they jet out of Melbourne Airport after Derby Day Sofia was seen shielding her face with her hand as she attempted to go under the radar. While swathing her lithe figure in an oversized sweater, she flaunted her trim pins in bicycle shorts and stepped out in black trainers. Scott meanwhile, kept it equally casual in a comfortable hoodie paired with red Adidas tracksuit pants. Casual chic: Leaving the city after a brief appearance at Derby Day, the couple rocked matching grey activewear to catch a flight Low-key: Sofia was seen shielding her face with her hand as she attempted to go under the radar. Feeling jet-lagged? The socialite failed to crack a smile as she made her way to her gate Trouble in paradise? The couple walked several feet apart while lead through the airport by a member of staff He also clutched a beverage carton to ward off dehydration prior to the flight. Both stars valiantly carried their own hand luggage with Sofia toting a small black handbag and Louis Vuitton backpack. While Scott lugged a large black holdall with a sport napsack on his back. Comfortable: Swathing her lithe figure in an oversized sweater, Sofia flaunted her trim pins in bicycle shorts and black trainers while Scott rugged up in a cosy hoodie Keep those fluids up: The reality star also clutched a beverage carton to ward off dehydration prior to the flight Following their brief appearance at Derby Day on Saturday, the departure seems to contradict reports Scott and Sofia were staying on for the Melbourne Cup in Tuesday. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to representatives for comment. The high-profile couple jetted into the country on Monday ahead of Scott's hosting appearance inside the Ultra Marquee at Derby Day. Handsome: Scott cut a hunky figure as he prepared to board his flight Leaving so soon? Following their brief appearance at Derby Day on Saturday, the departure seems to contradict reports Scott and Sofia were staying on for the Melbourne Cup in Tuesday On Saturday, an insider told Daily Mail Australia that the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star and his girlfriend left Derby Day after just one hour despite reportedly being paid six figures. Scott and Sofia have been incredibly busy since arriving Down Under earlier this week. Whirlwind visit: Scott jetted into Sydney on Monday accompanied by Sofia ahead of hosting appearance inside the Ultra Marquee at Derby Day Stepping out: A member of Scott's entourage stands by as he exits a black vehicle The LA-based love birds stepped out for a paid appearance at Windsor Smith at Chadstone Shopping Centre on Thursday. In the days prior, they visited Taronga Zoo, cruised around Sydney Harbour on a luxury yacht, hosted a Halloween party at The Star's Marquee and made an appearance at Melbourne's Alumbra nightclub. She spoke about her past struggle with an eating disorder earlier in the day. And Zoe Kravitz look healthier than ever when she stepped out for the LACMA Film + Art Gala on Saturday night. The 29-year-old beauty showcased her enviable style in a form-fitting polka dot dress. Scroll down for video Gorgeous: was a vision in polka dots when she stepped out for the LACMA Arts + Film Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday night Zoe's frock was of an off-the-shoulder style which hugged her trim physique. She teamed the look with open-toed heels and accessorised with a royal navy blue satin carry bag and a pair of simple pearl earrings. She styled her brunette locks back loosely into a simple up-do for the evening arts Gala. Stunner: The 29-year-old beauty showcased her enviable style in a form-fitting polka dot dress Simplistic: She styled her brunette locks back loosely into a simple up-do for the evening arts Gala Beauty: Zoe's glam was kept simple with a dewy complexion, healthy blushed cheeks and a nude pout Zoe's glam was kept simple with a dewy complexion, healthy blushed cheeks and a nude pout. During the evening, she found a moment to pose alongside friend Dakota Johnson. The Fifty Shades actress was dressed in a long black gown with an attached train. Chic: She teamed the look with open-toed heels and accessorised with a royal navy blue satin carry bag and a pair of simple pearl earrings Older days: Zoe's appearance comes after she spoke to Australia's Sunday Life earlier in the day about her struggles with anorexia and bulimia whilst in high school, adding that she now has good days and bad days The duo were also greeted by fellow actress Asia Chow and recording artist St. Vincent. Zoe's appearance comes after she spoke to Australia's Sunday Life earlier in the day about her struggles with anorexia and bulimia whilst in high school, adding that she now has good days and bad days. 'It's still a journey for me. My body is something I'm conscious of,' the daughter of Grammy winning Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet said. Truth: 'It's still a journey for me. My body is something I'm conscious of,' the daughter of Grammy winning Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet said Her role: The Big Little Lies star continued to confess that she felt a responsibility to be a voice for others suffering with eating disorders Reunited! During the evening, she found a moment to pose alongside friend Dakota Johnson 'I have to make sure I keep myself in line by having a healthy perspective on life.' The Big Little Lies star continued to confess that she felt a responsibility to be a voice for others suffering. 'I talk about it publicly because I think it's really important for young women and men to know you're not the only one going through this,' Zoe said. Zoe first spoke about her struggles with eating disorders in an interview with Complex magazine in 2015. Friends: Zoe and Dakota were also greeted by fellow actress Asia Chow and recording artist St. Vincent 'I had a really hard time when I was 16, 17, 18. I started with the eating disorder in high school... Just [a hard time] loving myself. I think it was part of being a woman, and being surrounded by [fame].' She then, according to the magazine, backtracked: 'I don't think it was about the fame, but I think it was definitely about being around that world, seeing that world. I felt pressured.' Zoe revealed her illness got to an alarming level after high school when she dropped down to just 90 pounds [40 kilograms] in 2013 to play an anorexic twenty-something in film The Road Within. However the YSL Beaute brand ambassador admitted she wasn't disciplined enough to play the part without her demons getting the best of her. On New Year's Eve of that year, Zoe decided enough was enough and sought help. If you're struggling with body image issues, contact The National Eating Disorders Association on (800)-931-2237. The presence of Australian competitors in the Eurovision Song Contest has been a controversial topic. And that issue could become even more fraught with rumours that Eurovision Asia may be held in Australia. Specifically, the new Asia-pacific based singing contest, which is still in the planning stages, may be held on the Gold Coast. Is Eurovision coming Down Under? The next installment of the singing competition could be held on Australia's Gold Coast. Jessica Mauboy is pictured at Eurovision 2018 According to TV Tonight, a Gold Coast City Council report indicates the event could take place between November 30 to December 7, 2019 at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. The report goes on to suggest that Eurovision Asia could return to Australia every four years for the next 12 years. The event could reach 200 million people worldwide, but at this stage nothing is locked in. Local arrival? According to TV Tonight, a Gold Coast City Council report indicates that new event Eurovision Asia could take place between November 30 to December 7, 2019 at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre An announcement as to whether to goes ahead, and what countries take place, could be may in May next year. For the past few years, Australia has been controversially competing in the European branch of the singing contest. In May, Aussie star Jessica Mauboy placed 20th in the Eurovision song contest in Lisbon, Portugal with the pop track We Got Love. First in: Former Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian was the country's first ever entrant. He performed Tonight Again and placed fifth in the 2015 competition in Vienna (pictured) Almost! Australia's closet brush with Eurovision victory was second place, achieved by former The X Factor Australia winner Dami Im, in Sweden in 2016 (pictured) Jessica followed in the footsteps of Guy Sebastian, Isaiah Firebrace and Dami Im. The land Down Under somewhat controversially joined the largely European singing competition in 2015, and will compete for the fourth time in 2018. Former Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian was the country's first ever entrant. He performed the song Tonight Again and placed fifth in the 2015 competition, which was held in Vienna. Accolades: Last year Isaiah Firebrace, who won the eighth season of The X Factor Australia, took on the competition with his song Don't Come Easy in Kiev, and placed ninth (pictured) Far off: In May, Aussie star Jessica Mauboy placed 20th in the Eurovision song contest in Lisbon, Portugal with the pop track We Got Love Australia's closet brush with Eurovision victory was second place, achieved by former The X Factor Australia winner Dami Im, in Sweden in 2016. She skated close to the prize with her performance of the song, Sound of Silence. Last year, 18-year-old Isaiah Firebrace, who won the eighth season of The X Factor Australia, took on the competition. He performed his song Don't Come Easy in Kiev, and placed ninth. Erin Barnett has hit back after critics online called referred to her stomach tattoo as a 'tramp stamp'. The 23-year-old took to Instagram on Sunday to share some photographs taken at Bondi Beach. In the images, the Love Island star wears a skimpy string bikini with a strapless black crop top. 'I got this tattoo to cover up scars': Love Island Australia's Erin Barnett hits back out after being criticised for the 'tramp stamp' on her stomach Also visible is a large tattoo, in what appears to be the shape of a lotus flower, which begins low down towards her lower bikini line and rises up to her belly button. As the blonde reclines on a towel, the full extent of the ink is evident, and it appears some of the beauty's Instagram fans had comments to make. Shortly after posting the image, Erin took to her Instagram Stories to defend the skin art. Inked: As the blonde reclines on a towel, the full extent of the ink is evident, and it appears some of the beauty's Instagram fans had comments to make Her prerogative: Shortly after posting the image, Erin took to her Instagram Stories to defend the skin art 'Everyone asking about my stomach tattoo. I got this tattoo to cover up scars on my stomach as I've had many ovary operations due to having endometriosis & polycystic ovaries' the reality star explained. The beauty added: 'So to everyone calling it a 'tramp tattoo'' alongside an emoji that is giving the finger. Erin recently revealed that she can't have children naturally. Defending herself: 'Everyone asking about my stomach tattoo. I got this tattoo to cover up scars on my stomach as I've had many ovary operations due to having endometriosis & polycystic ovaries' the reality star explained 'Apparently I've got a small pelvic area and it means I can't give birth naturally. It's really small,' she told NW. 'I've got a really small vagina!' She added that she'd need a Cesarean section, but was reluctant to damage her tattoo. 'I don't want a caesarean I'd be like, "Can you cut [above it]?" We're in a bit of a pickle here.' New man! It comes after Erin revealed she has moved on with a new man after her split from her Love Island Australia beau Eden Dally. She's pictured at the at the Nightmare In Kings Cross Halloween Party this week It comes after Erin revealed she has moved on with a new man after her split from her Love Island Australia beau Eden Dally. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at the Nightmare In Kings Cross Halloween Party, the blonde bombshell said: 'Yes, I have a new partner, but that's secret at the moment.' When asked if he was a known personality she said: 'No you won't know him, but you'll find out soon.' He is now officially divorced from Jennifer Garner - with the pair completing the process themselves via mediation instead of through lawyers. Yet Ben Affleck appeared to put it all behind him as he took his eldest daughter Violet, 12, to a show at the Grove in Los Angeles, on Saturday. The 46-year-old actor cut a casual figure in a denim shirt and green T-shirt, which he teamed with jeans for the outing. Good times: Ben Affleck took his eldest daughter Violet Anne, 12, to a show at the Grove in Los Angeles, on Saturday Walking hand-in-hand with his daughter, the father of three looked low-key but clean and put together with some facial scruff. Completing his easy-going vibe, the Batman star sported a pair of light green trainers. Following in her dad's footsteps, Violet opted for a casual denim skirt and a white T-shirt, teamed with a cream cardigan. Easy-going: The 46-year-old actor cut a casual figure in a denim shirt and green T-shirt, which he teamed with jeans for the outing It's all over! Jennifer Garner has agreed to attend co-parenting therapy together with ex Ben Affleck as the two sign off on divorce; she is seen in Brentwood, California on Saturday The outing comes as Ben and Jennifer, 46, submit their final divorce paperwork to an LA County Superior Court judge, TMZ reports. When the paperwork is approved, their divorce date will be confirmed as October 9. While unusual for such a high-worth couple, the lack of legal representation is typical of the divorced pair's split, with the two consciously working to remain on good terms. Indeed Ben even lived in Jen's guest house until May of last year, two years after they first split. He then purchased a home of his own just a mile away, to enable the couple to properly co-parent their three children, Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six. Moving on: Ben is on set of his new movie Torrance on Thursday The two plan to share joint physical and legal custody of their children and will meet monthly with a therapist who specialises in co-parenting for at least six months. According to TMZ, the legal documents specify that the two will act with good manners towards one another - specificially that: 'Neither party shall make derogatory or insulting remarks about the other... Each party is restrained from arguing, yelling, or using profanity directed at the other party in the presence or within hearing distance of any of the minor children.' The couple, who did not have a prenup, came to their own agreement about how to split their assets. They also agreed upon the terms of their divorce via talks mediated by lawyer Laura Wasser. Fling: Ben most recently dated Playboy model Shauna Sexton, but the two split last month Celebrity link: Shauna's profile exploded after she was linked to Ben, earning her many new Instagram followers Meanwhile, Ben is currently single, following the end of his brief fling with Playboy model Shauna Sexton. However Jennifer is now dating for the first time since their split. Having finalised her divorce the 46-year-old is reported to be romancing CEO John Miller. An insider told People magazine: 'Although the divorce was just finalised, Jen has considered herself single for a long time. Dating is just a natural step. Still friends: The former couple took their children trick or treating together on Halloween As they were: The couple back in 2012; the split three years later 'Jen will always care about Ben and help him be the best dad. She was very ready to move on though. She seems very excited about the future and is in a great place both personally and professionally.' John marks Jennifer's first boyfriend since splitting with Justice League actor Ben. Meanwhile, it was recently reported that Ben, also 46, 'wants the best' for his former spouse, after she supported him during his recent trip to rehab for alcohol addiction. A source said: 'Ben will always want the best for Jen. They continue to have a really strong relationship and both work very hard to make everything easy for the kids. She has always been supportive of him.' Jack Fowler has wished his former flame Laura Crane speedy recovery in the wake of her deadly sepsis infection. The reality stars met on this year's instalment of the Love Island and fell for one another in the latter stages of the series. However, it wasn't meant to be for the pair and they called time on their romance two months later in September, becoming the third couple to bite the dust after leaving the Hidden Hills villa. Well wishes: Jack Fowler has wished his former flame Laura Crane speedy recovery in the wake of her deadly sepsis infection At the time, Laura told Metro.co.uk about the split and shared: 'Sadly Jack and I have both decided to go our separate ways due to such busy schedules right now and not having the time to spend together. 'Feel truly blessed to have got to share my Love Island experience with him and to have made a friend for life, we will carry on supporting each other on this journey and I can't wait to see where it takes us.' Jack added: 'We met in extraordinary circumstances and had an amazing time getting to know each other, both whilst in the villa and outside of it but our lives are currently taking us in different directions, we will remain friends and I will support her in whatever she does.' Despite the relationship not working out, Jack, 22, has taken to his Instagram story to send his well wishes to the pro surfer, 23, after she was rushed to hospital with the life-threatening infection. Feeling better: Love Island's Laura Crane is 'incredibly lucky' to be alive after being rushed to hospital with a deadly sepsis infection Thinking of you: Sharing a photo of them during their romance to his 1.1million followers, the personal trainer captioned the shot: 'Get well soon' with a heart and praising hands emoji Sharing a photo of them during their romance to his 1.1million followers, the personal trainer captioned the shot: 'Get well soon' with a heart and praising hands emoji. The social media post comes as Laura announced is 'incredibly lucky' to be alive after being rushed to hospital with a deadly sepsis infection and has been battling the infection for almost a week. Laura, who is usually very active and physically fit due to her career, reportedly can't wait to get back to normality following the illness. Her representative told MailOnline: 'Laura is still in hospital, they are testing her daily and until she is rid of the infection she is unable to leave. 'Still here': The athlete has been in hospital battling the infection for almost a week and is being tested daily until her body is rid of it 'It's tough on her when she is so physically fit, so is very much looking forward to getting back to normality.' Laura has been updating her fans with pictures from her hospital bed, thanking them for all the 'love' they have been giving her. The reality star's representative told the Sun: 'She's been incredibly lucky, it's very hard for an athlete to be out of training for this amount of time too.' Laura was rushed into hospital on Tuesday where doctors quickly diagnosed her with sepsis, reported the Sun at the time. Presents: Laura had been gifted with balloons, chocolate and flowers from people wishing her well with her recovery On the mend: Laura, who is usually very active and physically fit due to her career, reportedly can't wait to get back to normality following the illness The infection spread rapidly and it took time to control her temperature and attempt to rid her body of the infection. The source said that it had been a scary time for Laura and family but everyone is praying that she makes a full recovery. The shocked star has been sharing posts on social media in the midst of her battle with the infection which can be deadly to some. Sepsis occurs when the body reacts to an infection by attacking its own organs and tissues. In the last two years, NHS watchdog Nice has published new guidelines for doctors telling them to treat the condition with the same urgency as a heart attack. Heartbreaking: Confirming the horrific news to The Sun, a representative for the pro surfer and reality star revealed: 'Laura is sadly quite unwell. She was rushed in on Tuesday and they quickly diagnosed sepsis' She took to Instagram to share shots including a picture of her salad as she was having a 'hospital dinner' with her mum and then sent a note begging to come home. Last month, she spoke to MailOnline about how she uses sport to help her cope with the pressures of overnight fame, after finding fitness to be a positive mental release during her five-year battle with an eating disorder. As she eyes up appearing on other reality shows, the star praised her family for helping her during her mental health struggle, and expressed her gratitude for having found her coping mechanisms before being thrust into the limelight. Shocking: Prior to her health woes, Laura parted ways with her co-star beau Jack Fowler three weeks ago after spending two months together, blaming their busy schedules She said: 'I had an eating disorder from the age of 16 to 21. It was really, really hard. And, I was so lucky to have such a supportive family around me that I could rely on them to help me through all of the tough bits. 'But, sport's also been a massive help in keeping my mind straight, especially going through this whole new life that I've embarked on. It's been really important to keep that going. It's been a mad experience, but really, really good.' Laura revealed that, although she's had a positive reaction from fans since leaving the Love Island villa, there are parts of overnight fame which can be a struggle, and cites exercise as one of her 'little tools' for coping. The African Children's Choir to Perform in Willamette Valley in December They are dedicated to helping Africa's most vulnerable children today... so they can help Africa tomorrow (SALEM, Ore.) - The African Children's Choir melts the hearts of audiences with their charming smiles, beautiful voices and lively African songs and dances. The program features well-loved children's songs, traditional Spirituals and Gospel favorites. Performances support African Children's Choir programs, such as education, care and relief and development. Music for Life (The parent organization for The African Children's Choir) works in the African countries: Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa. MFL has educated over 52,000 children and impacted the lives of over 100,000 people through its relief and development programs during its history. MFL purpose is to help create new leadership for tomorrow's Africa, by focusing on education. The African Children's Choir has had the privilege to perform before presidents, heads of state and most recently the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II, for her diamond jubilee. The Choir has also had the honor of singing alongside artists such as Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Keith Urban, Mariah Carey, Michael W. Smith, and other inspirational performers! Promotional support of this community concert is greatly appreciated. The African Children's Choir is a nonprofit humanitarian and relief organization dedicated to helping Africa's most vulnerable children today so they can help Africa tomorrow. No tickets. Donations appreciated. CONCERT DATES: Sunday, December 2, 2018 @ 10:00 AM The Country Church 16975 S Highway 211 Molalla, OR 97038-7606 t: (503) 829-5575 The Country Church 16975 S Highway 211 Molalla, OR 97038-7606 t: (503) 829-5575 Sunday, December 2, 2018 @ 7:00 PM Silverton High School Hosted by: Silver Creek Fellowship 1456 Pine Street Silverton, OR 97381 t: (503) 873-7353 Silverton High School Hosted by: Silver Creek Fellowship 1456 Pine Street Silverton, OR 97381 t: (503) 873-7353 Wednesday, December 5, 2018 @ 6:30 PM Salem First Church of the Nazarene 1550 Market St NE Salem, OR 97301 t: (503) 581-3680 For more information: www.africanchildrenschoir.com _________________________________________ He's the pop culture icon who is currently in Australia for his highly-anticipated speaking tour. And during his Sydney show on Sunday night, Charlie Sheen offered a set of handy tips to a young man on the brink of his 21st birthday. After being asked 'what to do and what not to do,' the 53-year-old funnyman dished out his best advice. 'No tattoos, no crack and get a vasectomy': Charlie Sheen gives 21st birthday advice to a fan at his Sydney show 'No tattoos...' Charlie trailed off, comically adding: 'Alright, no more tattoos.' 'No crack... and get a vasectomy before you're 40,' he added, as the audience erupted in laughter. Charlie even praised his own tips, exclaiming: 'It's pretty good advice'. Wearing loose-fitting jeans, a navy top and black bomber jacket for the occasion, Charlie was seen sporting a cheeky grin throughout his performance. Don't get inked! After being asked 'what to do and what not to do,' the 53-year-old funnyman dished out his best advice, reiterating the man should refrain from getting more tattoos The Hollywood's star anticipated Sydney show was held at the Sydney's Darling Harbour Convention and Exhibition Centre, just one day after making an appearance in Melbourne. During his time in Victoria, he sat down with the Today show's Richard Wilkins for an in depth question and answer session on Saturday night. The actor told Richard that he's keen to make a reboot of US sitcom Two and a Half Men. 'No crack... and get a vasectomy before you're 40,' he added, as the audience erupted in laughter Charlie was sacked from the show back in 2011 due to his hard-partying lifestyle, with Warner Bros Television, issuing a statement saying they had acted after 'careful consideration'. At the time, the father-of-five was earning $2.1 million per episode. Now sober and keen to get back into acting, Charlie told his Melbourne audience that he's ready to shoot a reboot of the series, should anyone be interested. 'If someone calls to say, 'Do you want to reboot a show that people actually cared about and want to see again', then I am ready,' he said. It's been just over two months since the birth of her second child, a baby boy. And Amy Childs was seen having a girls day with her one-year-old daughter Polly at a dog-friendly screening of Elf Pets: Santa's St. Bernard's Save Christmas in London. The 28-year-old ex-TOWIE star piled on the layers for the winter weather in a luxurious checkered coat. Girl power: Amy Childs was seen having a girls day with her one-year-old daughter Polly at a dog-friendly screening of Elf Pets: Santa's St. Bernard's Save Christmas in London She teamed the statement jacket with a crisp white blouse and a pair of flattering leather-look trousers. Completing her glamorous ensemble, the reality TV star sported some glossy heeled ankle boots. Aiming for an easy-going vibe, Amy opted for a messy bun after previously ditching her trademark red locks and opting for a more natural look. Puppy love: The 28-year-old ex-TOWIE star piled on the layers for the winter weather in a luxurious checkered coat Doting mother: Amy carried her daughter lovingly in her arms as they posed for photos Punk chic: She teamed the statement jacket with a crisp white blouse and a pair of flattering leather-look trousers Family: Michelle Heaton and her husband Hugh Hanley also attended the event with their children Glam: Michelle opted for a mustard coloured cami top and striking red heels for the occasion Michelle completed her casual chic attire with a pair of jeans and a straw-coloured jacket Excited: Michelle put on an animated display as she posed for photos ahead of the event The star stuck to her signature primped and preened beauty look, opting for a glamorous slick of make-up. Displaying her incredible post-baby body, the glamorous reality star looked every inch the doting mother as she cradled her daughter. It's been mere months since Amy gave birth to her baby boy who she shares with boyfriend Ritchie. Amy confirmed the news she was expecting her second child back in April just 11 months after welcoming her daughter Polly with ex-boyfriend Bradley Wright. Puppy love! Olivia Cox beamed as she posed next to three St Bernard dogs Wow! The TV and radio presenter showed off her sensational figure in her revealing ensemble Animated display: Olivia looked ecstatic to be meeting the canines Family day out: Max Rogers and Kimberly Wyatt brought their two children to the event Glam: The American singer looked stunning with her blonde bob and natural make-up look Casual chic: Kimberly opted for comfort as she stepped out in a black dress and boots Stunning: The Only Way Is Essex star Lydia Bright sported a warm winter wardrobe look Cute: Jasmine Harman posed alongside her children and an adorable St Bernard puppy Chic: The A Place in the Sun: Home or Away? presenter donned a patterned shirt and jeans Amy recently gave fans an insight into her relationship with the father of her newborn Ritchie, telling OK! that despite being in love they are in no rush to tie the knot. Speaking of her surprise pregnancy, she said: 'We did speak about it, but we didn't think it would happen so quickly. We're both really excited about it now though.' Amy gushed over welcoming a child so close in age to Polly, saying: 'I absolutely love being a mum! I would never have thought I'd have two so close together I'm crazy... it will only be 16 or 17 months since I gave birth to Polly.' Beaming: Sonali Shah also attended the dog-friendly screening in Picturehouse Central So cute! Sonali looked happy as she pet the St Bernard as it took a nap on the floor All smiles: Strictly Come Dancing professional Nadiya Bychkova looked cosy in a grey jumper Fun times: The dancer couldn't hide her excitement as she cuddled with the St Bernard puppies These boots are made for walking: Nadiya donned a stunning pair of boots with clear heels Karl Stefanovic is set to wed his fiancee Jasmine Yarbrough in Mexico in December. But one person who won't be in the wedding party Karl's his former Today show co-host Lisa Wilkinson. Speaking to Confidential on Sunday, the 58-year-old confirmed: 'I have not been invited.' 'I have not been invited': Lisa Wilkinson reveals that she will not attend the wedding of her former Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic and his fiancee Jasmine Yarbrough Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Karl Stefanovic for comment. There have long been reports that the pair have a purely professional relationship despite sharing a news desk for over a decade. However Lisa tells Confidential: 'There are elements of Today which I do miss but I am so focused on my new life and the new challenges which I have.' Speaking to Confidential on Sunday, the 58-year-old confirmed: 'I have not been invited'. Lisa Wilkinson is pictured on the Today show with former co-host Karl Stefanovic (left) However Lisa tells Confidential: 'There are elements of Today which I do miss.' Lisa Wilkinson is pictured filming for the Today show with former co-host Karl Stefanovic Absent: Karl did not attend the festivities when Lisa renewed her vows to husband Pete FitzSimons last year (pictured) Lisa is believed to have quit Today last year because Karl, 44, as her male co-host, was reportedly earning $2million - double her $1.1million salary. Karl did not attend the festivities when Lisa renewed her vows to husband Pete FitzSimons last year. In attendance were Today stars and Channel Nine personalities including Karl's brother and sister-in-law, Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys, and Richard Wilkins. Soon to wed: Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough (left) are set to wed in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico in December Fancy! The celebrity couple will tie the knot in a picturesque chapel at the One&Only Palmilla Resort, where they'll also be staying Karl and fashion designer Jasmine are set to wed in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico in December. The celebrity couple will tie the knot in a picturesque chapel at the One&Only Palmilla Resort, where they'll also be staying. The wedding will be a three-day affair, with the soon-to-be newlyweds sparing no expense. They've booked two villas, one at US$8500 (approximately AU$11600) per night, and another for US$11000 (approximately $AU15000) per night. She's set to wed Karl Stefanovic in December. And last weekend, Jasmine Yarbrough enjoyed a 'boisterous' hen party with her girlfriends at Crown Towers, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Sunday. Accompanied by chicken heiress Tamie Ingham and a group of female friends, the 33-year-old and her posse stayed at the Crown's $11,500-a-night presidential suite, according to the paper. Scroll down for video Champagne, 24-hour butler service and a private elevator: Inside Jasmine Yarbrough's hens party at the $11,500-a-night Crown Towers presidential suite alongside heiress Tamie Ingham The Crown's website explains that the presidential package includes a 24 hour butler service. It also has its own entrance via private elevator access, and a bottle of complimentary champagne is on offer. Those who book the presidential suite's luxury packages, which start at $998 a night, will be treated to a private check-in service and private concierge facilities. Nice digs! Accompanied by group of female friends, the 33-year-old and her posse reportedly stayed at the Crown's $11,500-a-night presidential suite (pictured) Fancy! The Crown's website explains that the presidential suite (pictured) includes a 24 hour butler service and has its own entrance via private elevator access And a good time was had by all it seems, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports that membersof the group of hens were heard shouting, 'This is Karl Stefanovic's fiancee' at 'random guests' as they 'made their way through the hotel'. It comes at a busy time for Karl and Jasmine, who are expected to get married in Mexico on December 8. They will tie the knot in a picturesque chapel at the One&Only Palmilla Resort, in the seaside town of San Jose del Cabo. All inclusive: Those who book the presidential suite's luxury packages, which start at $998 a night, will be treated to a private check-in service and private concierge facilities Drink up! To top things off a bottle of complimentary champagne is on offer for guests Mates! One of the guests at Jasmine's hen night is said to be her good pal, chicken heiress Tamie Ingham (right). he Sydney Morning Herald reports that members of the group of hens were heard shouting, 'This is Karl Stefanovic's fiancee' at 'random guests' According to a Sydney Morning Herald report, Karl's children from his first marriage to Cassandra Thorburn, Jackson, 19, Ava, 13 and River, 13, will travel to Mexico with Karl and Jasmine. However, the paper goes on to claim that the three siblings will not attend the actual wedding ceremony. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Cassandra Thorburn and Karl Stefanovic for comment. Soon to wed: It comes at a busy time for Karl and Jasmine, who are expected to get married in Mexico on December 8. Karl's children are believed to be accompanying him on the trip Karl and his shoe designer partner will tie the knot in a picturesque chapel at the One&Only Palmilla Resort, where they'll also be staying. The wedding will be a three-day affair, with the soon-to-be newlyweds sparing no expense. They've booked two villas, one at US$8500 (approximately AU$11600) per night, and another for US$11000 (approximately $AU15000) per night. Ritzy: Karl and his shoe designer partner will tie the knot in a picturesque chapel at the One&Only Palmilla Resort (pictured) where they'll also be staying Almost: In March, they exchanged vows at a 'commitment ceremony' in Palm Beach, Sydney. However it was not legally binding In March, they exchanged vows at a 'commitment ceremony' in Palm Beach, Sydney. However it was not legally binding. But one person who won't be in the wedding party Karl's his former Today show co-host Lisa Wilkinson. Speaking to Confidential on Sunday, the 58-year-old confirmed: 'I have not been invited.' She has recently broken her nose after slipping on the side of her hotel pool while on holiday in Cape Town. And Charlotte Crosby, 28, looked still to be recovering from her painful injury when at the South African city's international airport with her boyfriend Joshua Ritchie, 24, in the midst of filming for series 2 of her reality series The Charlotte Show. The former Geordie Shore star dressed for comfort as she donned a coral T-shirt and matching joggers. Recovery: Charlotte Crosby has recently broken her nose after slipping on the side of her hotel pool while on holiday in Cape Town Strolling along in a pair of comfortable flip flops, the reality TV star looked effortlessly youthful as she kept her blonde locks in a straight 'do. Holding a bright blue neck pillow, Charlotte left the heavy duties to her beau as he pushed their heap of luggage through the terminal. On Saturday, the TV personality shared a picture to her 6.4million Instagram followers showing her lying in the back of an ambulance with the caption 'It's all fun and games until you break ya nose'. Injured: A rep for Charlotte told MailOnline: 'Charlotte has now been discharged from hospital she is in good spirits and will see a specialist on her return to the UK' Painful: The 28-year-old looked still to be recovering from her painful injury when at the South African city's international airport with her boyfriend Joshua Ritchie, 24 Casual: The former Geordie Shore star dressed for comfort as she donned a coral T-shirt and matching joggers Next to her was Love Island season one contestant Joshua who didn't look at all sympathetic and let out a huge laugh while sitting by her side. A rep for Charlotte told MailOnline: 'Whilst filming the Charlotte slipped on the side of her hotel pool and banged her nose fracturing it in three places. 'Charlotte has now been discharged from hospital she is in good spirits and will see a specialist on her return to the UK.' The Just Tattoo of Us presenter also posted a video saying 'Oh Jesus Christ' showing herself with a huge bandage across her face and bloodied nose. Beauty: Strolling along in a pair of comfortable flip flops, the reality TV star looked effortlessly youthful as she kept her blonde locks in a straight 'do Ooops! Charlotte Crosby , 28, shared a picture to her 6.4 million Instagram followers lying in the back of an ambulance with the caption 'It's all fun and games until you break ya nose' It comes as she spent the night before partying with her boyfriend of eight months and two pals. The reality TV veteran has been partying in South Africa and filming for her new fly on the wall MTV series 'The Charlotte Show'. Beau Josh also shared a pictured of the pair, while the Love Island personality wore a Nike zip-up and black cap, Charlotte tied her blonde tresses back and had a medical bandage tied around her face. The prankster captioned it 'Just another day in South Africa'. Injury: The reality TV veteran has been partying in South Africa and filming for her new fly on the wall MTV series 'The Charlotte Show Charlotte has been dating Josh since early this year but previously dropped the bombshell that she was texting him long before their romance started, as far back as before her split with Stephen Bear in October last year. Josh had earlier documented the night in South Africa with Charlotte and pals, asking her if they were going 'out out'. The next morning, friend Lauren Causer shared a video of the couple in bed with Josh confessing to being sick in the hotel room corner. Despite being faced with split claims recently, the duo appear to still be going strong and Charlotte has previously declared she would love to start a family with boyfriend Josh. Documenting: Charlotte also posted a video saying 'Oh Jesus Christ' showing herself with a huge bandage across her face Keep calm and carry on: Beau Josh also shared a pictured of the pair, while the Love Island personality wore a Nike zip-up and black cap, Charlotte tied her blonde tresses back and had a medical bandage tied around her face She told Closer magazine: 'Having a family is one thing in life I really want - I've done so much with my life already, and becoming a mum is my dream. 'I want the fairy tale of getting married and having babies - doesn't everyone? I can see myself marrying and having babies with Josh, but he's still quite young, so we'll see. 'I would love to start trying for a baby, next year. I don't want to be an old mum. I want to be a young, cool mum.' Hayden Panettiere answered the door to police last month in an apparent drunk and frantic state, according to a police report obtained by TMZ on Sunday. The incident involved the 29-year-old actress's boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, 34, who reportedly had got into an altercation with his father, according to the report. The Nashville actress features in a report by Greenville City Police Department in South Carolina, after they responded to a call for assault and battery. Incident: Hayden Panettiere answered the door to police last month in an apparent drunk and frantic state, according to a police report obtained by TMZ on Sunday According to the documents obtained by the celebrity website, the responding officer saw what appeared to be Hickerson chasing his father David through the house with a Gatorade bottle in his hand. The officer says Hayden rushed to open the door for him in a panic, and he immediately put Brian in cuffs to calm the situation. TMZ reports that the officer says Brian was uncooperative, refusing to give any personal info because of the potential negative impact the incident could have on Hayden. Couple: The incident involved the 29-year-old actress's boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, 34, who reportedly had got into an altercation with his dad, according to cops (pictured in October) The Heroes star reportedly told the police that she and Brian's father had been drinking before the altercation. David reportedly had visible injuries on his face, severe bruising and bleeding, which he said were because he had just fallen. TMZ's sources say Hayden denies having been drunk. Hayden has been dating Hickerson for a few months, after splitting from former-boxer Wladimir Klitschko, with whom she has one child, Kaya. Prints charming: Hayden was pictured barefoot leaving a bar in Hollywood in August The actress's family are reportedly concerned that about her new man and her hard partying. 'They are deeply concerned,' a source close to Hayden told Radar Online earlier this month. Speaking of her parents and pals, the source continued: 'They do not approve. They are hoping that this is something that she is going to evolve from.' Panettiere revealed in 2017, to GMA, that she checked into rehab after suffering postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter. It was recently reported that she called it quits with her toyboy beau Ryan Mahoney after just four months together. And Kerry Katona appeared to have a post-split makeover as she sported a massive pink wig following her salon trip in Portsmouth on Saturday. The former Atomic Kitten star, 38, opted for comfort as she donned a cosy grey jumper, embellished with intricate floral details throughout. What break-up? Kerry Katona appeared to have a post-split makeover as she sported a pink wig after her salon trip in Portsmouth on Saturday, after calling it quits from Ryan Mahoney TV personality Kerry injected even more colour into her look as she sported bright red joggers, tied in with white platform trainers. The reality star showcased her natural beauty as she went make-up free for the salon trip. Earlier that day, Kerry washed her blonde tresses before cropping it into a chic bob 'do. High spirits: The former Atomic Kitten star, 38, opted for comfort as she donned a cosy grey jumper, embellished with intricate floral details throughout Sporty chic: TV personality Kerry injected even more colour into her look as she sported bright red joggers, tied in with white platform trainers Off she goes: The reality star showcased her natural beauty as she went make-up free for the salon trip She was then spotted wearing a wig cap as she embarked on a phone lively conversation. Hours later, the blonde beauty put on a giddy display as she hugged her friend's pet pooch. Commanding attention, her two-toned wig ensured she stood out from the crowd with its vivacious curls. Split: Meanwhile, Kerry and Ryan, 29, who first started dating in June, have called time on their relationship after a 'make-or-break' trip to Thailand A-list treatment: Earlier that day, Kerry washed her blonde tresses before cropping it into a chic bob 'do Casual: She looked animated as she sported a hair towel during her time in the hairdresser's chair Meanwhile, Kerry and Ryan, 29, who first started dating in June, have called time on their relationship after a 'make-or-break' trip to Thailand. According to The Sun Online, a source said: 'Kerry and Ryan decided to end their relationship after they landed back in the UK from Thailand. 'It was a make or break holiday and they wanted to get away to discuss their future and whether they wanted to be together. They looked happy in the pictures but that wasn't a true reflection of what was really going on between them.' Busy bee: Kerry appeared pensive as she gazed at her mobile phone Mane attraction: The mother-of-five's cropped hair looked sleek following her treatment Warm embrace: The blonde beauty put on a giddy display as she hugged her friend's pet pooch Beaming: She was then spotted wearing a wig cap as she embarked on a phone lively conversation She first confirmed her romance with hunky personal trainer Ryan in the summer. She coyly spoke about her relationship during a candid interview with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning in September. She revealed: 'Yes, I am seeing someone it's really new and I'd like to keep it just for me this time,' she told the presenters, prompting Phil to quip: 'I hope you've picked carefully!' Kerry replied: 'It's still early days. I'm enjoying it for what it is, I'm not getting married and I'm not having no more babies, saying that, it depends how much a magazine offers me first - I'm joking!' During their short romance, Ryan grew close to Kerrys brood; Molly, 17, Lilly-Sue, 15, Heidi, 11, ten-year-old Max and DJ but decided that they wanted different things. A lot on her mind? Meanwhile, Kerry recently split from her beau following a whirlwind four-month romance Moving on: She first confirmed her romance with hunky personal trainer Ryan in the summer during a candid interview on This Morning in September Family first: During their short romance, Ryan grew close to Kerrys brood; Molly, 17, Lilly-Sue, 15, Heidi, 11, ten-year-old Max and DJ but decided that they wanted different things Happier times: Speaking to Closer Magazine last month about her relationship, Kerry, who recently underwent a non-surgical bum lift, revealed: 'I'm very happy, and Ryan's a great guy Candid: Kerry's latest love comes after she revealed she hadn't had sex in a year and was on a strict 'man ban' following the demise of her third marriage with George Kay Insiders said: 'Ultimately Kerry and Ryan decided it was for the best that they split. There is no animosity and there isnt any bad feeling.' Kerry's latest love comes after she revealed she hadn't had sex in a year and was on a strict 'man ban' following the demise of her third marriage with George Kay. Speaking to Closer Magazine last month about her relationship, Kerry, who recently underwent a non-surgical bum lift, revealed: 'I'm very happy, and Ryan's a great guy. 'People I've dated and married in the past have managed to become celebrities off the back of knowing me, using my name - it's ridiculous- so I'm going to keep it to myself this time.' New woman: Kerry recently revealed she's 'excited' over upcoming breast augmentation surgery Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kenya Moore, 47, is officially a mom after welcoming her first child into the world on Sunday. The reality star named her baby girl Brooklyn Doris Daly and she was born at 9:39 am weighing 5lbs 12oz, according to People magazine. Baby Brooklyn was born earlier than expected due to complications with the reality star's pregnancy. It's a girl! Kenya Moore, 47, gave birth to her first child on Sunday and named the baby girl Brooklyn Doris Daly On Saturday, Kenya took to Instagram to share a photo from her hospital bed. 'If you want to make God laugh have a plan... won't be long now,' she wrote in the caption. 'Pray for us.' Luckily, People magazine reports that Kenya is doing well and 'Brooklyn is very alert and active.' Kenya recently revealed that she had been diagnosed with preeclampsia after gaining 17 lbs in one week. Scary! A week before giving birth, Moore shared a photo of her swollen feet and explained that she had been diagnosed with preeclampsia Amazing! Kenya, who conceived via in vitro fertilization, called getting pregnant at 47 a 'miracle' She shared a photo on Instagram of her extremely swollen feet and explained that her sudden weight gain was the result of 'severe swelling and water retention, high blood pressure, and excess protein in urine.' The diagnosis forced the Waiting to Exhale actress to deliver earlier than expected. Brooklyn was originally due near Thanksgiving. The star, who conceived her self-anointed 'miracle baby' through in vitro fertilization 'gave birth via emergency cesarean section,' reported People magazine. Table for three: Brooklyn is the first child for Kenya and her husband Marc Daly This is the Bravo star's first baby with husband Marc Daly. Kenya revealed she was expecting her first child during a reunion episode of her hit Bravo show and documented her pregnancy on social media. Moore chose not to return to Real Housewives of Atlanta, when the shows eleventh season premieres this month. 'Ive waited 47 years for this moment,' Moore told People magazine at the time. 'I didnt really want to announce it too soon because I feel its very early on in our pregnancy. But I have suffered so much in my life when it comes to wanting a family around me. So this is the day Ive been waiting for my entire life. Its a dream come true.' They had a very public disagreement after Leah Remini accused Jada Pinkett Smith of being a Scientologist, leading her to publicly deny the claim. Now the two have sat down together to talk about the controversial religion for the first time, in an upcoming episode of Jada's Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk. While Leah has been in conflict with the Church Of Scientology since breaking from it in 2013, Jada insists that while she once studied the religion, she was never a member. Revelation: Leah Remini admits to Jada Pinkett Smith she tried to 'get you fully indoctrinated into Scientology' as pair finally resolve their differences During their heart to heart, Leah told her that during their long friendship, she was never authentic - because she was tasked with recruiting Jada and other celebrities to join Scientology. 'Regardless of what was being presented to you, from me as a friend, you were seeing a side of me that wasn't 100 percent authentic because my job was to always be a perfect person in front of you, or any celebrity, to solely get you into Scientology, fully indoctrinated, fully on board and deserting any other beliefs or systems of learning,' Leah told Jada. 'You cannot dabble in Scientology.' Jada replied: 'I just never got any of that.' Surprised: During their heart to heart, Leah told her that during their long friendship, she was tasked with recruiting Jada and other celebs to join Scientology Shock: Jada replied: 'I just never got any of that' 'Of course you wouldn't,' Leah said. She later added: 'So there's a certain protocol and there's certain things you would not see, you would not be privy to.' Leah first claimed Girl's Trip actress Jada was a Scientologist last September. Jada admitted she was grateful that the Old School actress was the bigger person and 'reached out' to resolve their differences. She said: 'It was really beautiful and she reached out to me. She was much more bigger than me in that way. It was nice to reconnect and release ourselves from all that nonsense that doesn't matter... Spoke out: Leah first claimed Girl's Trip actress Jada was a Scientologist last September; she said she had seen her at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles 'What was really emotional about it was realising that there was two broken little girls in us that were abandoned by their fathers and turned into fighters who clashed.' And Jada - who has 20-year-old son Jaden and 17-year-old daughter Willow with husband Will Smith - learned a lot from Leah after sitting down with her to learn her story. She said: 'You have to treat people with kindness because you don't know what they're going through. 'When she told me her story, I had so much more compassion and it reiterated the necessity to just be gentle and kind because we're all f***ing devastated.' Friends again? A summary for the sit-down, bore the tag line: 'A misunderstanding divided them, but the truth will reunite them' Sharing the advance clip of the show to Instagram on Saturday, Jada explained: 'This episode revealed something to me about myself that hit me like a ton of bricks. 'Often when I'm in the midst of a conflict with another person, my narcissism will lead me to believe that I'm the only one hurting in the situation...and that's NEVER the case. Anger can be a great liar.' A summary for the sit-down, bore the tag line: 'A misunderstanding divided them, but the truth will reunite them.' Jada and her husband Will Smith have long been rumored to be Scientologists. Indeed they were among the select guests at Tom Cruise's wedding to Katie Holmes in 2005, along with Leah. Leah, 48, was raised in the controversial religion but left and became an outspoken critic in 2013. Kate Beckinsale and Jack Whitehall were pictured enjoying a very passionate kiss at a karaoke bar on Saturday. The Hollywood actress, 45, and the comedian, 30, were seen in a steamy embrace as they partied the night away at the exclusive Blind Dragon nightclub in Los Angeles. During their date night, Kate was seen relaxing into Jack as he wrapped his arm around her lovingly to hold her close to him. Loved-up: Kate Beckinsale, 45, were PICTURED enjoying steamy KISS with comedian Jack Whitehall, 30, at karaoke bar... before heading to a 2,000-a-night hotel together on Saturday As the evening progressed, the pair put on a loved-up display as Jack placed a kiss on Kate's head in a loving way. The Underworld star was later seen lounging in front of him as they chatted to each other, before they gave each other a smooch. Kate and Jake then fell into the throes of romance as they shared a passionate kiss, and the actress could be seen draping one arm across his shoulder as she placed her other hand on his chest. Sweet: During their date night, Kate was seen relaxing into Jack as he wrapped his arm around her lovingly to hold her close to him Passionate: The Underworld star was later seen lounging in front of him as they chatted to each other, before they gave each other a smooch Steamy: Kate and Jake then fell into the throes of romance as they shared a passionate kiss, and the actress could be seen draping one arm across his shoulder Cosy: The pair stuck close together through the night and were seen embracing In each other's arms: The comedian and actress were seen kissing during their date night Earlier that night, the pair dined at celeb hotspot Craig's in West Hollywood but left separately to avoid being photographed together. They then reconvened at the karaoke lounge, where they were seen laughing and joking around with each other before their passionate display. Following their date, the pair were pictured heading back to a 2,000-a-night hotel together. Exited: Kate and Jack seemed to be having a great time at the karaoke bar Protective: Kate draped a hand over Jack's shoulder as they chatted away with friends Cute: As the evening progressed, the pair put on a loved-up display as Jack placed a kiss on Kate's head in a loving way Animated: Kate and Jack were busy talking to each other and sharing stories during their date Checking the time: Jack and Kate could be seen looking at Jack's watch Kate was dressed to impress for her night out with the funnyman, as she slipped her slim frame into pair of denim shorts which she wore with fishnet tights. She teamed up the Gothic look with a pair of killer thigh-high boots, and she offset the dark ensemble with a white button-up shirt and black cardigan. Her brunette locks were styled into dramatic waves, and she accentuated her stunning features with light touches of natural make-up. Jack, meanwhile, opted for a more relaxed look as he paired a pair of grey trousers with a dark blue top and black bomber jacket. Trying to keep a low profile: The two left separately to avoid being photographed together Turning in: Following their date, the pair were pictured heading back to a 2,000-a-night hotel together after their fun night out Stunning: Kate's brunette locks were styled into dramatic waves, and she accentuated her stunning features with light touches of natural make-up Wow! Kate was dressed to impress for her night out with the funnyman, as she slipped her slim frame into pair of denim shorts which she wore with fishnet tights Glam: She teamed up the Gothic look with a pair of killer thigh-high boots, and she offset the dark ensemble with a white button-up shirt and black cardigan Heading inside: Kate and Jack were spotted entering their hotel together An onlooker told The Sun on Saturday: 'They were like a pair of loved-up teenagers and werent trying to hide their feelings, they were practically sitting on top of each other in the booth of the nightclub and were laughing with each other. 'Kate rested her hand on Jacks shoulder and she kept laughing and smiling at his jokes, as the night progressed, he seemed to be growing in confidence and put his arm around her and gave her a hug. 'Then he decided to put his hand around the back of Kates neck and pulled her across him, where they started to passionately kiss.' Fun outing: The pair enjoyed the evening with a number of friends Enthralled: An onlooker told The Sun on Saturday, 'They were like a pair of loved-up teenagers and werent trying to hide their feelings' Going in: The pair could be seen entering the hotel together Smitten: In video footage obtained by The Sun, the Aviator star put on a very cosy display as she headed to The London Hotel with the budding actor After you: The comedian followed closely behind the actress as they walked to the entrance MailOnline has contacted Kate and Jack's representatives for comment. In video footage obtained by The Sun, the Aviator star put on a very cosy display as she headed to The London Hotel with the budding actor. Kate divorced director Len Wiseman in 2016 after 12 years of marriage. She has previously been linked with on-off American toyboy Matt Rife. She has a 19-year-old daughter Lily with her former husband, the actor Michael Sheen, 49, who she split from in 2003. Such a gentleman: Jack was spotted helping Kate get out of the car Sticking together: The pair appeared to be quite close as they walked into the glitzy hotel End of the night: The pair seemed to have enjoyed their evening out Split: Kate divorced director Len Wiseman in 2016 and has a daughter Lily from a previous relationship Jack meanwhile was in a relationship with actress Gemma Chan, 35, but the pair called time on their relationship after six years together in 2017. An insider told The Sun at the time the couple remain friends despite the break-up, and decided to go their separate ways after finding it more and more difficult to spend time together. The source said: 'Jack and Gemma secretly pulled the plug on their relationship but remain good friends. 'For the past couple of years they've both been finding it difficult to make proper time for one another and, with their schedules showing no signs of slowing down, have decided to go their separate ways. 'It's sad but they remain supportive of one another.' Jack and Gemma first began dating after meeting on the set of Jack's comedy-drama series Fresh Meat in 2011, and both have gone on to have hugely successful acting careers. Rumours: Before being pictured with Jack, Kate was previously linked with on-off American toyboy Matt Rife Keeping a low profile: Kate put her hand over her face as she left the karaoke lounge Done for the evening: Kate and Jack seemed to be turning in for the night Too bright: Kate covered her eyes as she left the karaoke bar Great night: Kate put on an animated display as she got into her taxi Glam: The actress showcased her sensational figure in the revealing attire He was also romantically linked to Kirsty Gallacher, 45, back in April. The pair have reportedly been friends for years. The Sun reported the chemistry between Kirsty and Jack reached boiling point at a star-studded event, which reportedly resulted in a 'romp'. While Jack is a hugely successful stand-up comedian, he is forging an acting career in Hollywood, most recently starring in Disney's newly-released film The Nutcracker and The Four Realms. After the party: Jack and Kate could be seen cosying up to each other as they talked with pals End of the night: Kate said goodbye to her pals before leaving with Jack Talkative: They were very chatty with their friends after the fun night out Natural look: Kate opted to wear light touches of make-up and relied on her natural beauty Pamela Anderson spoke about her relationship with Julian Assange on Sunday night's 60 Minutes. And the iconic Baywatch star was left red-faced when asked by interviewer Liam Bartlett to name the Australian Prime Minister. The 51-year-old, who is campaigning for the release of the WikiLeaks founder who is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, repeatedly asked his or her name. 'He's new?' The awkward moment Pamela Anderson [R] is left red-faced when asked to name the Australian Prime Minister, during a segment with 60 Minutes' Liam Bartlett [L] on Sunday 'Do you know who the Prime Minister is?' 60 Minutes reporter Liam Bartlett asked Pamela. 'At the moment I don't,' the blonde bombshell admitted, going on to ask: 'He's new? She's new?' After Liam revealed that the Prime Minister is a man, Pamela asked: 'Who is it?' 'Scott Morrison,' Liam replied. No clue: 'Do you know who the Prime Minister is?' 60 Minutes reporter Liam asked Pamela, to which she responded: 'At the moment I don't,' going on to ask: 'He's new? She's new?' The actress and former Playboy model went on to send a message to Scott, urging him to help release Julian. 'Scott Morrison. Ok, well Scott. Defend your friend and get Julian his passport back and take him back to Australia and be proud of him, and throw him a parade when he gets home,' she said. Julian, 47, has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for six years. The computer programmer took refuge in Ecuador's embassy in 2012, after British courts ordered his extradition to Sweden to face questioning in a sexual molestation case. Revealed: Liam then told Pamela that the Australian Prime Minister is Scott Morrison [pictured] The case was dropped but supporters have said Julian fears he could be extradited to the United States if he leaves the embassy over the publication of US diplomatic and military secrets by WikiLeaks. While Swedish authorities have closed their investigation Julian faces arrest for breach of bail conditions. According to court documents in June, his health is declining and he has serious tooth problems, respiratory infections, depression and a frozen shoulder. Ecuadorian officials have suggested publicly that they want the situation resolved. He has complained several times that the Australian government has not offered him consular assistance. She is lucky enough to live in the endless summer of Southern California. But despite her charmed life, Kylie Jenner still sometimes wishes for a bit of seasonal weather. The reality star lit a roaring fire and snuggled up in her Calabasas mansion on Saturday, enjoying the designer touches in her lavishly decorated sitting room. The perfect spot: Kylie Jenner is 'pretending it's cold outside' as she lights a roaring fire and snuggles up in her lavish sitting room Teasing she was 'pretending it's cold outside', the 20-year-old younger sister of the Kardashian family ignored the blazing heat outside. The room was certainly worth making the most of. Above one of two fireplaces hangs a signed Basquiat print of his artwork Hollywood Africans In front Of The Chinese Theater With Footprints Of Movie Stars. Similar prints from the limited edition 1983 run of 60 are currently on sale for between $50,000 to $75,000. No expense spared: Above one of two fireplaces hangs a signed Basquiat print of his artwork Hollywood Africans In front Of The Chinese Theater With Footprints Of Movie Stars The New Yorker son of Haiitain immigrants, Basquiat's work hangs in the world's top galleries, including Los Angeles' The Broad Musuem, where Kylie's sisters Kim and Kourtney Kardashian have both previously been pictured. To the side of the fire, holding coffee table books and a vase of flowers stands a gold occasional table. This piece is the Melting Brass Hallway Table by Zhipeng Tan, which retails for $25,000. The second fire features an eye-catching marble backdrop, with two leather occasional chairs beside it. Businesswoman: The make-up boss purchased her mansion in October 2016 for $12million After buying her first property at just 17 - a $2.7million starter home in the same gated Calabasas community where Kim and Kourtney live, mom-of-one Kylie conducted extensive renovations. She sold this for $3.15million in July last year after moving to nearby Hidden Hills, to be close to her mother, Kris Jenner. In May 2016 she had bought the first of her Hidden Hills properties, spending $6million on a 7,000-square-foot house, which she later put back on the market. That August, she acquired her second mansion located right next door to the first for $4.5million, which in August last year she later sold for $5.4 million. Following the unbelievable success of her lucrative cosmetic business, her current main residence is a 13,200 square foot property which has eight bedrooms and 11 bathrooms. She purchased the mansion in October 2016 for $12million. This home is a long way from Kylie's first pad - where she allowed BFF Jordyn Woods's aspiring artist brother to graffiti an entire wall, and had rooms for her wigs and shoes. Caitlyn Jenner has made it her mission to fight for the LGBTQ community, and in particular transgender rights, for more than three years now. And over the weekend, the reality star-turned activist hand-delivered grant money from her Caitlyn Jenner Foundation to four recipients in Arizona. 'Seeing how appreciative the organizations are for the extra funding is everything to me,' Jenner said, as reported by AZ Central. Making a difference: Caitlyn Jenner hand delivered grant money from her foundation to four LGBTQ charities in Arizona in recent days In all, her foundation donated about $85,000 to LGBTQ charities in the state in recent days. 'I'm here for the foundation and to support the groups here in the Scottsdale-Phoenix area,' she told reporters. 'I've always liked the Phoenix-Scottsdale area, love the area. I have a lot of friends here.' Much needed: The Caitlyn Jenner Foundation awarded $85K to LGBTQ non-profits in Arizona Personal touch: Jenner and the foundation's executive director, Sophia Hutchins, personally dolled out funds to Mulligan's Manor as reported by KSAZ Fox 10 Walking the talk: Mulligans Manor was awarded $30K, which will help at-risk youth with housing, counseling services and overall life skills training. $20,000 was awarded to the Southwest Center for a new new program called TRANS, which aims to help transgender and gender nonconforming people to navigate the health system, and to better access services such as hormone therapy. Another $20,000 went to GLSEN Phoenix, which works to help ensure safe and affirming schools for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) students. The foundation also donated $15,000 to the Arizona Trans Youth and Parent Organization, who plan to use the funds to support families of transgender children. And most recently, $30,000 was awarded to Mulligan's Manor in Tempe -- a non-profit organization that helps at-risk youth with housing, counseling services and overall life skills training. On a mission: Jenner and Hitchens want to bring to bring funds to organizations and awareness to the plight of the LGBTQ community 'I want to concentrate on this next generation coming up,' Jenner said in an interview with KSAZ Fox 10 in Phoenix. 'The ones that are 5 to 15 to 20 years old, this next generation coming up to make it easier for them. Don't put all of these challenges out in front of them. Make it more normal.' Jenner hopes that using her celebrity and voice will make a difference in the lives of young people. 'We wanted to bring not only funding to these organizations, but we also wanted to bring awareness,' said Sophia Hutchins, the Caitlyn Jenner Foundation's Executive Director. 'I think these gifts are just the beginning of our relationship with these Arizona organizations. The foundation is only 18 months old. We are looking to build a network of donors and organizations we support while focusing on our own programming.' 'Today it's so simple. I wake up in the morning and be myself all day,' said Jenner. And that's exactly the hope she has for all people of the LGBTQ community. She's long been an avid jogger, spotted by eagle-eyed fans pounding the streets near her luxury home. And now Reese Witherspoon has some company on her daily jobs, in the form of son Tennessee, six, and their pet dog. The trio were seen working up a sweet together on Sunday, with Reese clearly enjoying herself. Out and about: Reese Witherspoon has company on her daily run as son Tennessee, six, and their dog join her on Sunday Smiling widely, the mother-of-three was dressed in her casual workout gear as she ran along the quiet road. The Sweet Home Alabama star wore her hair in a low ponytail as she ran around Santa Monica with her son. Witherspoon shares Tennessee with husband Jim Toth, whom she's been married to since 2011. The Wild star shares her eldest children Ava, 19, and Deacon, 15, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe. The former couple were married from 1999 to 2007. Family time: The Sweet Home Alabama star wore her hair in a low ponytail as she ran around Santa Monica with her son and their dog Mom's the word: Witherspoon shares Tennessee with husband Jim Toth, whom she's been married to since 2011 Reese recently published her first bookWhiskey In A Teacup. In an interview with TODAY, she explained the inspiration behind the title. 'My grandmother used to say southern women are like whiskey in a teacupthey're put together and ornamental on the outside but on the inside they're strong and fiery,' the Big Little Lies star said. Reese embraces her background, and has a successful clothing company, Draper James, designed to appeal to Southern tastes. Super stylish: Reese later changed into a denim mini dress with brown suede booties An Irish man allegedly tried to access the cockpit of a plane bound for Sydney from Los Angeles before assaulting a flight attendant. Australian Federal Police arrested the 25-year-old as he got off the flight on October 10. It's alleged he began behaving in a "disruptive manner" mid-flight after refusing to return to his seat when he approached the cockpit door. He was eventually restrained after assaulting a flight attendant, the AFP said in a statement on Thursday. The man, who lives in Australia on a temporary working visa, was charged with three offences and is due to face Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday. "This alleged behaviour has no place in our aviation system and, while there was no significant delay or personal harm caused on this occasion, it should still serve as a warning to others," Detective Acting Superintendent Simone O'Mahony said in a statement. "If you risk the safety of your fellow passengers, you risk facing significant penalties." The mental health of Australian school children will be addressed in a new program launched by former prime minister Julia Gillard. One in seven children aged between four and 17 - or more than half a million kids - have experienced a mental health issue in the past year, according to Beyond Blue. Beyond Blue chair Ms Gillard will launch the federally funded initiative on Thursday, and says giving educators tools to help children's emotional wellbeing can profoundly influence their educational outcomes. State-based renewable energy targets and cheaper technologies are driving investment in the sector despite a lack of policy certainty from the federal government, a clean energy investment agency says. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation invested a record $2.3 billion towards projects over the past financial year, with business "getting on with it" as wind and solar become more affordable. "Even though the federal government has been moving around in the last couple of years in terms of their regulatory environment, we're seeing a whole raft of investment still just happening in any case," CEO Ian Learmonth told ABC Radio on Thursday. The federal government has granted seven new permits for oil and gas exploration off the coast of Australia, which could result in $530 million being invested over six years. The permits allow exploration in Australian waters off the coasts of Western Australia and Victoria, as well as the territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Resources Minister Matt Canavan said on Thursday. Senator Canavan said there had also been 12 applications for the next round of offshore petroleum exploration, with offers expected to be made from March. The mother of murdered Brazilian woman Cecilia Haddad has broken down in tears in a Rio court as she told of a frantic final phone conversation with her daughter in Sydney before she disappeared. Milu Muller, 70, said that during the call she heard ex-boyfriend Mario Marcelo Ferreira dos Santos Santoro, 40, who is accused of Haddad's murder, banging on her daughter's apartment door. "I could tell his voice clearly," she said. "He was shouting 'open the door' and 'I want to talk to you.' Cecilia told him she did not want to talk and twice threatened to call the police." The suspect, who was not present at the pretrial hearing at a court in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, is accused of the murder of the 38-year-old in Sydney in April. He then allegedly returned to Brazil to avoid arrest. The pair had dated but Cecilia had told family she felt frightened because he did not accept the end of their courtship. Muller told the court on Wednesday her daughter told her that Santoro had initially treated her like a princess but after they broke up he became obsessive and "persecuted her." The crucial phone call happened at lunchtime on Saturday, April 28 (Sydney time). Haddad had previously told her mother, who had recently had heart surgery, about her concerns about Santoro, but the older woman believed she was being careful what she said to avoid alarming her. "I told her to go to the window to check that he had left, but she said she was sure he had. I asked her to hire private security, but she said it would be too expensive. She said he had a flight booked on Monday to return to Brazil, so there would not be any need to worry about him after that." "I never heard from her again," she added, breaking down in tears. After her daughter did not check in with her the next day as they had agreed, Muller sent a series of increasingly desperate messages to her daughter on Facebook Messenger. "Then I received a message from her account telling me that she was going to the mountains until Thursday. It was obvious from the tone and content that it was someone pretending to be her." Police in Rio arrested Santoro at a relative's house in July, after he had apparently fled Australia. He is expected to appear in court to testify on December 17. Judge Daniel Werneck Cotta will decide if Santoro will face a full trial. If he does, the result will be decided by a jury of seven. If convicted, he could face a sentence of 30 years. RSL NSW's fundraising suspension will be temporarily lifted to allow the veteran's charity - through its defence care branch - to fundraise for the Poppy Day appeal. The fundraising ban was announced by president James Brown in August 2017 after a public inquiry found ex-president Don Rowe used his RSL credit card between 2009 and 2014 to pay for his mortgage, family phone bills, flights and meals. The organisation has been going through significant reform since the 2017 inquiry and a two-year investigation by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission which found it was plagued by widespread misconduct and governance failures. Mr Brown, who last year quit his job with the United States Studies Centre to take on the volunteer leadership position, has been working with RSL NSW members to rebuild the organisation and restore the public's trust. As a result of these reforms, the charity through its RSL DefenceCare branch, will be selling poppies to raise funds ahead of Remembrance Day on November 11. "RSL DefenceCare brought in a new system and we track every dollar that is donated," Mr Brown told AAP on Friday. "You can be assured the money will be banked, accounted for and tracked to its final destination." The majority of the Poppy Day appeal funds will go towards RSL DefenceCare initiatives including emergency financial relief for veterans, counselling and assistance for homeless ex-servicemen and women. The remaining 40 per cent will go towards RSL NSW sub-branches across the state. Mr Brown said it's a temporary solution while the organisation's members consider a new constitution which will overhaul the structure and governance of RSL NSW. The new constitution, which members will vote on in December, is the charity's best chance to restore its fundraising activities, Mr Brown said. "It's the first big reform to RSL NSW in about 50 years. "It's been challenging, it's a big and complex organisation and some of the issues are very intricate." Mr Brown said the majority of RSL NSW members accept the charity needs to change and modernise. "I'm amazed at how far we have come in 12 months," he said. "There is an enormous amount of goodwill in our membership and in the public to see the RSL get back to being the nation's premier veteran charity." The Poppy Appeal has been an Australian tradition for a century with Remembrance Day 2018 marking the 100th anniversary of the Armistice which ended WWI. Two men are recovering from violent robberies in Melbourne as detectives appeal for help to find the perpetrators. The two attacks happened on the popular St Kilda foreshore overnight with one man punched in the head and his phone stolen about 10pm, and the second suffering the same fate half-an-hour later as well as having a bottle smashed over his head. Detective Sergeant David Schaefer said on Friday police were "desperate" to identify the attackers, who numbered as many as 10 in the second attack and were of African appearance. Australia's outgoing tax watchdog says the tax commissioner has too much power and needs an independent board overseeing the position. Inspector General of Taxation Ali Noroozi gave his final public address at the Institute of Public Accountants national congress in Sydney on Friday and spoke frankly about the challenges in the Australian Tax Office. "Managing the tax system is not just for the ATO or the IGT but every one of you; we are all guardians of the tax system," he told assembled accountants. "However, the ATO should have a board with a chair and directors with varying experiences including IT, communications and governance. "Currently, there is too much power left with one individual and that power should be divested with an independent board." The tax office has been under fire for allegedly targeting small businesses with heavy-handed tactics with little oversight or accountability. Mr Noroozi, who leaves his role next Monday, said his replacement should report directly to parliament, given it handles so many complaints about the ATO. "There is an issue relating to independence," he said. "The IGT should report to Parliament and not be caught in the same mix with the ATO and Treasury reporting to the same minister." Mr Noroozi also said the tax office should be accountable for making sure its digital systems worked correctly if it was going to push accountants and taxpayers to use them. A Victorian man who randomly stabbed a French tourist to death at a central Australian rest stop has been found not guilty of murder because of mental impairment but is being held in a Darwin prison and has been sentenced to 20 years in custodial supervision. Philippe Jegouzo, 33, was sitting with his wife Aurelie Chorier at a folding table at Aileron, north of Alice Springs, when Pande Veleski, 35, pulled up in his car and began stabbing the Frenchman in the neck. Chief Justice Michael Grant said the actions of Veleski, who has schizophrenia, caused "immeasurable anguish" to the victim's family, many of whom had travelled from France to be in the NT Supreme Court on Friday. The close bond forged between two young boys who watched their father murder their mother in a house fire, pushing her back into the blaze he'd started before closing the door, has left a NSW judge on the verge of tears. Justice David Davies choked up as he read the statement of the eldest son, now 11, which says his brother "is pouring all his feelings" onto him "because he has no one else to lean on" after the October 2016 blaze. "It was clear to me from seeing the boys give their evidence ... that they are very close to each other," the Supreme Court judge said with a quavering voice. "That may be the one thing which will help to minimise the damage to them from this terrible crime." The 45-year-old man - who cannot be named - was found guilty by a jury in July and jailed in Sydney on Friday for 36 years with a non-parole period of 27 years. Justice Davies described the murder as "confronting, shocking and gruesome to a marked degree". "It's difficult to imagine the horror the deceased must have experienced in her last minutes alive when she was unable to escape the fire in her room, with the knowledge that it was her husband preventing that," he said. The man stopped his eldest son, then aged nine, from trying to save his mother while the younger boy testified he'd told his father "get mum out and let her go outside". The victim made a triple-zero call from her burning bedroom at 3.34am, lasting four minutes and 13 seconds, while her husband waited until her screams had stopped before making a call at 3.38am. "He must have known by the time he made that call his wife was either dead or incapacitated," the judge said. The offender also "made no effort to rescue the boys" until his wife stopped screaming and attempting escape. Her burnt body was found in rubble between a bed and a window with metal bars. Justice Davies said the married couple's relationship had deteriorated in the preceding years, and she had complained to family and friends that he was "restrictive of her freedom and movements". She met another man through a dating app and had made arrangements the day before she died to move out. The pair argued about her use of the messaging app Viber that night. "It needs to be made quite clear that marriage or a similar relationship gives no right to one party to control another," Justice Davies said, adding that he is "certain the offender knew the deceased was going to leave him". He cited the prevalence of women across Australia being murdered at the hands of their spouse or partner. "Those murders and other acts of violence occur because the woman will not bend her will to the man. This is what happened here," the judge said. The man will be eligible for parole in October 2043. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 With more than 5,000 soldiers already being sent, Trump told reporters "we'll do up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel" President Donald Trump said Wednesday that as many as 15,000 soldiers could be dispatched to the US-Mexican border to stop what he described as dangerous groups of immigrants. With more than 5,000 soldiers already being sent, Trump told reporters "we'll do up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel." "It's a dangerous group of people," Trump said of the latest caravan of mostly impoverished Central Americans trying to walk through Mexico to the US border. "They're not coming into our country." Security on the southern border has rarely involved active duty troops and 15,000 troops would mean a similar size deployment to the US war effort in Afghanistan. Trump has made clamping down on what he regularly describes as an "invasion" of illegal immigrants the centerpiece of his campaigning for Republican candidates in next Tuesday's midterm legislative elections. Opponents say the rhetoric is alarmist and even tinged with racism The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday described "an unprecedented crisis on our Southern Border." However, according to the department's own statistics, 400,000 illegal immigrants were intercepted in 2018, just 25 percent of the figure in 2000. The major change, the department points out, is that in 2000 nearly all the illegal immigrants were single adults and today around half are coming in families or as unaccompanied minors. A jury in the Midwestern state was deadlocked after three days of deliberation over the fate of Mark Bessner who shot Damon Grimes with a non-lethal Taser stun gun during an August 2017 pursuit in Detroit A Michigan judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the criminal case against a white former police officer charged in the death of a 15-year-old African-American boy. A jury in the Midwestern state was deadlocked after three days of deliberation over the fate of Mark Bessner who shot Damon Grimes with a non-lethal Taser stun gun during an August 2017 pursuit in Detroit. Grimes crashed the ATV -- all-terrain vehicle -- he was riding and died. The 44-year-old officer, who resigned from the force, was charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He claimed self-defense, saying he fired from the passenger seat of his moving patrol car because he saw Grimes touch his waistband and feared the teen had a gun. Grimes was unarmed. Bessner had a history of questionable Taser use, but that record was kept out of the trial, according to the Detroit Free Press newspaper. The Michigan State Police said in a statement that they would work with prosecutors on a potential retrial. "The defendant, Mark Bessner, who was immediately suspended and then resigned before criminal charges were announced, undisputedly acted outside of MSP policy and training," the department said in a statement. The incident took place just days after an attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down A synagogue in California was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, police said on Wednesday, in an attack that took place just days after 11 people were gunned down at a Pittsburg synagogue. Allen Berezovsky, president of the board at Beth Jacob synagogue in Irvine, south of Los Angeles, said staff discovered the vandalism in early morning. He told AFP the words "(expletive) Jews" and "Jews" were spray-painted on the white facade of the building. Berezovsky said security footage showed an individual wearing a hoodie, sunglasses and a surgical facemask jumping over the fence of the synagogue around 1:18 am and then leaving on a bicycle stolen at the premises. "The Irvine Police Department and our own security have done a full sweep of the entire facility and nothing was found other than the graffiti," he said in a statement to his congregation. "We are continuing to do everything we can to make our campus more secure, and we will continue to promote the message that we are stronger than hate." Police spokeswoman Kim Mohr said the suspect has not been identified and patrols had been increased at all Jewish facilities throughout the city, located in Orange County. "This is an unusual attack," she told AFP. "It is not a normal thing to have this type of crime in Irvine." According to a report released in September by OC Human Relations, a nonprofit, hate crimes have continued to climb in Orange County, the third-largest of California's 58 counties, for the third straight year. It said 56 hate crimes and 94 hate incidents were reported countywide in 2017. The majority of the attacks -- 13 percent -- targeted Muslims, followed by Jews at nine percent. Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, California, on August 10, 2018. A judge had reduced his award from $289 mn to $78 mn A cancer-stricken groundskeeper has accepted a slashed award in a landmark trial focused on weed-killer Roundup, setting the stage for an appeal by maker Monsanto. Judge Suzanne Bolanos last week denied Monsanto's request for a new trial but cut the $289 million damages award to $78 million to comply with the law regarding how punitive damages awards must be calculated. In her ruling, Bolanos gave Johnson the choice of accepting the lessened damages award or triggering a new trial focused on what Monsanto should pay in the case. An October 26 notice of acceptance of the judge's decision was filed on Johnson's behalf. "We appreciate and acknowledge this jurys verdict sending a strong message to deter Monsanto's conduct that caused Lee Johnsons non-Hodgkin lymphoma," attorneys for Dewayne "Lee" Johnson said Wednesday in an emailed statement. "However, to hopefully achieve a final resolution within his lifetime, Mr. Johnson has accepted the punitive damages reduction suggested by Judge Bolanos." In her ruling, Bolanos denied a request by Monsanto to toss out the jury's overall verdict against the company. Jurors in August unanimously found that Monsanto acted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Johnson's terminal illness. The jury ordered Monsanto to pay $250 million in punitive damages along with compensatory damages and other costs, bringing the total figure to nearly $290 million. Johnson, a California groundskeeper diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- a cancer that affects white blood cells -- says he repeatedly used a professional form of Roundup while working at a school in Benicia, California. Monsanto-parent Bayer has vowed to appeal the case. "The court's decision to reduce the punitive damage award by more than $200 million is a step in the right direction," Bayer said in response to an AFP inquiry at the time of the judge's ruling. "But we continue to believe that the liability verdict and damage awards are not supported by the evidence at trial or the law and plan to file an appeal with the California Court of Appeal." Monsanto attorney George Lombardi argued in court earlier this month that the evidence presented at trial did not sufficiently back the verdict, and that an attorney for Johnson was wrong to urge jurors to teach the company a lesson. - More to come? - Johnson's lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit. Monsanto has defended the weed killer, arguing that it has a history of safe use that dates back more than 40 years. The lawsuit is the first to accuse the product of causing cancer, but observers say a Monsanto defeat likely opens the door to thousands of other claims against the company, which was recently acquired by Germany's Bayer. Roundup is Monsanto's leading product. Despite its denials of any links between its products and ill health effects, Monsanto has already suffered hits to its reputation in light of the controversy. Records unsealed earlier this year by a federal court lent credence to Johnson's claims -- internal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics. Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in June. Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup. Japan is looking to boost the number of workers in the construction industry as well as other sectors including nursing and agriculture Japan's cabinet on Friday approved a draft bill to bring more blue-collar foreign workers into the country, in a controversial move to address chronic labour shortages. The draft legislation, now likely to be submitted to parliament as soon as Friday, has come under attack from both the opposition and members of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's own party, but business leaders say it is desperately needed. The bill would allow foreign nationals with skills in sectors facing particularly severe shortages to obtain five-year visas, which would not allow them to bring their families. Foreign workers in those fields who hold stronger qualifications and pass a more difficult Japanese language test will be able to obtain a visa that can be extended indefinitely, eventually leading to residency, and will be able to bring over family. Abe has insisted the new policy does not represent a wholesale overhaul of the country's strict immigration policy. Japan will only accept foreign workers "who have specific skills and can work immediately to address serious labour shortages, only in sectors that genuinely need them", he told lawmakers Thursday. But the bill has nonetheless faced a raft of criticism, potentially jeopardising government hopes to pass it before the end of the year and launch the visas from April. There have been questions about whether an influx of foreign workers will depress wages, how the workers will be incorporated into Japan's social security system, and worries about exploitation of migrant labour. Among the sectors in most need are agriculture, construction, hospitality/tourism and nursing. Many of Japan's low-skilled foreign workers are in the country under a so-called "technical training" programme, which has repeatedly faced allegations of abuse. There have also been concerns about culture clashes in Japan, a relatively homogeneous society that prizes social harmony and order. Asked how his government plans to integrate migrants, Abe pushed back against the idea. "Please don't misunderstand," he told parliament. "We are not thinking about a so-called immigration policy," he said, repeating that most of those coming in under the plan will stay for term-limited periods. "It is impermissible to force foreigners to accept your country's values," he added. "It's important to prepare an environment for coexistence with mutual respect," The bill has also been criticised as short on detail, with no word yet even on how many workers the government plans to bring in. While Japan has visas for highly skilled foreign workers, it has traditionally been cautious about accepting blue-collar foreign labour, though it opened its doors in the nineties to South Americans of Japanese descent. Businesses have long lobbied for looser immigration rules, saying they struggle to find workers in a country where unemployment hovers around 2.5 percent and there are 165 job vacancies to every 100 job seekers. The chronic labour shortages are only worsening as Japan's ageing and shrinking population means a declining pool of workers. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya (C) has summoned parliament to meet on Wednesday in defiance of the president Sri Lanka's speaker Friday summoned parliament to meet next week in defiance of the president as a constitutional crisis darkened with an MP saying he was offered millions of dollars and a minister's post to defect to a rival camp. With the Indian Ocean nation torn between rival prime ministers Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapakse, speaker Karu Jayasuriya said he could no longer ignore demands for parliament to meet to end the week-old feud. Amid growing international concern over the standoff, Jayasuriya convened parliament to meet next Wednesday. President Maithripala Sirisena suspended parliament until November 16 after sacking Wickremesinghe as premier and replacing him with former authoritarian president Rajapakse. Wickremesinghe has refused to accept the dismissal and remained bunkered at the prime minister's official residence for the past week amid nearly daily twists in the saga. Sri Lanka Sirisena at first lifted the suspension, but with observers saying his candidate Rajapakse did not have enough support to win a parliamentary vote, the president's party said late Thursday that the assembly would remain shut. "The speaker met a majority of MPs at a committee room today and promised he will open parliament on November 7," Jayasuriya's spokesman told AFP. Some 118 of the 225 lawmakers attended the meeting in a new sign that Sirisena would not win a vote on Rajapakse, whose decade as president up to 2015 was marked by the brutal end of the Tamil civil war and corruption claims. Wickremesinghe and his allies are confident they can prove a majority. But intense behind-the-scenes lobbying to tempt defectors surged into the open on Friday. - Millions offered - A senior member of Wickremesinghe's United National Party, Range Bandara, said he was offered $2.8 million and a ministry to switch sides and would go to the anti-graft commission. Some 118 of the 225 MPs met with parliament speaker Karu Jayasuriya in a sign the president would not win a vote on his choice for prime minister "I have a phone recording of a former minister in the Rajapakse camp trying to approach me," Bandara told reporters. "A broker offered me the $2.8 million and the ministry of law and order." Another Wickremesinghe loyalist, deputy minister Ranjan Ramanayake has already accused China of financing the defection of MPs to the Rajapakse-Sirisena camp. China has strongly rejected the claims. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) party, which has seven lawmakers, said its members had also rejected offers to join the Sirisena-Rajapakse camp. "There are dealers and brokers trying to buy over MPs both wholesale and retail," SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem said. "This is a disgrace, an assault on the dignity of honourable members of parliament." Hakeem said only an early parliament meeting could end the horse trading. - Buying time - Jayasuriya said that in a meeting with Sirisena this week he had highlighted that he had not been consulted on the suspension of parliament. "I have been getting numerous appeals from diplomats and civil society groups to intervene and end this crisis," Jayasuriya said. Wickremesinghe's party says that the president wants to shut parliament for as long as possible to give himself more time to secure votes for Rajapakse. "It is clear that Rajapakse does not have the numbers in parliament to justify getting the prime minister post," UNP spokesman Harsha de Silva said. "They are now trying to wriggle out of this crisis." Police Special Task Force troops leave the prime minister's official residence which Ranil Wickremesinghe has refused to leave De Silva said Rajapakse's brother, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, met with Wickremesinghe on Thursday to discuss ending the standoff but no accord was reached. "The PM's position is clear. No compromise," de Silva said quoting Wickremesinghe. There was no immediate reaction from Rajapakse or his party to the speaker's move to call parliament nor the allegations of offers to lawmakers. In the meantime, Rajapakse's administration ordered cuts to prices of essential food and taxes in what was seen as a bid to woo public support. The cuts were applied Friday, but MPs who met with the speaker in parliament vowed any decisions made by Rajapakse would not be honoured. Pollution in Delhi has soared to unhealthy levels a number of times in recent days Rajesh Tyagi stands outside his decades-old fireworks stall in Delhi's old quarter, fuming over a court ruling that allows him to sell only "eco-friendly" fireworks for the Indian capital's largest festival. "There is no such thing as a green firecracker in India," says an exasperated Tyagi, in an empty alleyway usually buzzing with customers buying rockets and bangers ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. The Supreme Court has ruled only environmentally-friendly crackers -- that emit less smoke and soot than normal ones -- can be sold in the Indian capital, in a last-ditch bid to curb smog in the world's most polluted major city. The Supreme Court ruled only eco-friendly crackers can be sold in Delhi, in a bid to curb smog levels Delhi's record-setting pollution is at its worst around this time of year, when tens of millions celebrate Diwali by setting off firecrackers late into the night. Revellers in the city of 20 million wake the next morning to find the fumes have mingled with car exhaust, factory emissions, construction dust and smoke from crop fires to form a thick, soupy haze. Landmarks fade in the smog and visibility plunges to mere metres in parts of the city as cooler air traps poisonous particulates close to the ground. But Tyagi -- who along with other vendors shut his shop and went on strike against the court's decision -- said so-called "green crackers" are a myth. "I have been in this business for 35 years, and I haven't seen or heard of this product," he told AFP. "These authorities issue orders from their air-conditioned rooms and we suffer from their ignorance." Delhi's record-setting pollution is at its worst around this time of year Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan insisted earlier this week that eco-friendly firecrackers do exist, unveiling a product said to emit 30 percent less pollution, the Press Trust of India reported. However he added that they would not be available in time for Diwali, on November 7. Indian researchers have been working on other prototypes of the eco-friendly cracker. The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Mohali, about 250 kilometres (150 miles) north of Delhi, claims to have developed a rocket that releases no soot, particles or smoke. But this model, and others like it, is still only in the test phase. The Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, which regulates the firecracker industry in India, told AFP no licences had been issued for low-emission crackers. - 'Impossible to enforce' - The Supreme Court imposed a total ban on fireworks for Delhi during Diwali last year, angering not just businesses but revellers who felt it unfairly targeted Hindu festivities. visibility plunges to mere metres in parts of the city as cooler air traps poisonous particulates close to the ground Activists, however, were hoping for a repeat of the ban this year, and questioned how authorities would enforce the "green cracker" ruling. The United Residents Joint Action of Delhi group tweeted that it would be "impossible to monitor", and that "the state has no capacity to enforce" the law. Citizens, the group added, would be left to make their own "informed choice" on which fireworks they purchase. Those celebrating outside the capital can fire normal crackers but only between 8 pm and 10 pm in the evening, on the night of Diwali. The concentration of microscopic harmful particles reached 15 times the World Health Organization safe limits on friday Pollution in Delhi has soared to unhealthy levels a number of times in recent days, even before the festival and upcoming wintry weather, which will push them up further. The US embassy website in Delhi showed the concentration of microscopic harmful particles reached the 372-mark Friday -- roughly 15 times the World Health Organization safe limits. Air quality data collected by the Indian government showed even higher readings of PM2.5, the smallest and most harmful airborne pollutants. Thirteen bodies have been pulled out of the river, but two remain missing A scuffle between a driver and a passenger caused their bus to plunge from a bridge into a river in southwest China, killing at least 13 people, police said Friday. Dramatic video footage of Sunday's crash shows a woman striking the driver over the head with an object, prompting him to hit back with one hand. The woman then lashes out once more. The driver then suddenly yanks the wheel hard to the left and the bus veers onto incoming traffic, striking a car before breaking through the rails of the bridge crossing the Yangtze River, in the southwest city of Chongqing. Thirteen bodies have been pulled out of the river, but two remain missing. A total of 15 people were on board the bus. Local police say the female passenger involved in the fight, a 48-year-old local, went up to the driver and asked to be let out after missing her stop. When the driver refused, the two began shouting and using "aggressive language", police said on their Weibo account -- China's equivalent of Twitter. Search and rescue teams dispatched more than 70 boats, as well as a team of scuba divers and underwater robots, to find the wreckage and retrieve bodies from the water. "Fifteen lives were lost in an instant -- the lessons from this are very painful," police said. Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are often flouted or go unenforced. According to authorities 58,000 people were killed in accidents across the country in 2015 alone. Violations of traffic laws were blamed for nearly 90 percent of accidents that caused deaths or injuries that year. Japanese journalist Jumpei Yasuda said reporters need to access warzones A Japanese journalist held hostage in Syria for more than three years said the media must continue to take risks covering warzones to keep the world's attention focused on those caught up in conflicts. Jumpei Yasuda, 44, was kidnapped in Syria the same day he entered the country in June 2015, sparking a lengthy ordeal that he described as "hell". The freelance journalist has faced harsh criticism in some quarters of Japan for venturing into an active warzone. But he defended himself on Friday during his first press conference in Japan since his release last month. "When there are things like a violent conflict happening somewhere on earth, there is absolutely a need for journalists who will go there and see what is happening," he said. "You need information from third parties, not just information from governments." Syria's grinding civil war has cost over 360,000 lives since it broke out in 2011 and quickly became hugely dangerous for reporters with dozens kidnapped, some of them murdered by their captors. Yasuda, who had previously reported from Syria's frontlines, said he was not sure whether he would return to the country or cover future warzones. But he said he hoped his high-profile case would draw attention to Syria's civil war. "I hope people will become interested in what's happening there (in Syria) and what will happen in the future," he said. - Beaten and isolated - Yasuda said he was kidnapped as he crossed into Syria from Turkey along a smuggling route by a group of men who pretended they were there to help him enter the country. "It was my basic mistake. An unimaginable mistake," he said. He said he was transferred multiple times during his ordeal, adding his treatment ranged from tolerable to torturous. He described being beaten, prevented from moving or making any sound for days on end and being kept in complete isolation. He even converted to Islam so his captors would let him pray, giving him a rare chance to move around, he said. But at other stages of his captivity, conditions improved and he was was allowed to watch television, keep a journal and was assured he would not be killed. When he was first kidnapped, there was speculation he was in the hands of the group formerly known as Al-Nusra Front, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate. But he said the interactions he observed between his captors and Al-Nusra members suggested he was not in the hands of the group. Al-Nusra's current iteration, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, denied any involvement in his kidnapping in a statement after Yasuda's release. Yasuda returned home on October 25 after the surprise announcement of his release. There were reports a ransom had been paid for his freedom, in keeping with other hostages freed from Syria. Japan's government has denied that, though Yasuda said his captors told him Tokyo appeared willing to pay to free him. Other Japanese journalists have not been so fortunate. In 2015, militants from the Islamic State group beheaded war correspondent Kenji Goto and his friend Haruna Yukawa in Syria. The Japanese government was criticised for what detractors saw as its flat-footed response to the crisis at the time, including apparently missed opportunities to free both men. Yasuda also struck a contrite note, apologising both to Japan's government and his family for the hardship his ordeal put them through. "My parents are getting older and I worried that they might die while I was in captivity," he said. "My actions have caused troubles to so many including the Japanese government," he added. Thai group Rap Against Dictatorship has caught the public mood with hit "What's my country got?" The hip-hop group whose savage lyrical attack on Thailand's repressive junta has been viewed over 26 million times has received an unlikely rap riposte from authorities armed with a tame ditty urging people to "do your best today and tomorrow". The beef is with the Rap Against Dictatorship collective whose anthem "What's my country got?", denouncing military rule, has caught the public mood like no other Thai political song. Shot in black and white, the video shows members delivering vituperative verses against censorship, corruption, poor education and the lack of elections since the junta seized power in 2014. The takedown also touches on historically sensitive subjects showing a dummy made to look as if it has been lynched - a reference to the massacre of dozens of student protesters by security forces on a Bangkok campus in 1976. Junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha, notoriously sensitive to criticism, initially blasted the video but has backed off as it racked up YouTube views and seized endless admiring headlines. On Thursday the far more positive musical message was broadcast just before Prayut addressed a group of tech entrepreneurs. The song, called "Thailand 4.0 Rap", shows montages of Thais experimenting with robotics and virtual reality, with lyrics encouraging viewers to "make it happen, make it happen". "Think further, Thailand can go far," one verse says. "We have to go anyway, I can do it...do your best today and tomorrow," says another. Critics have accused the junta of stifling free speech and failing to reform the education sector while the government has touted Thailand as a tech hub ready for investment. While not framed as a direct response to the earlier -- and more popular -- song, "Thailand 4.0" came as the front pages of newspapers in the country still featured stories about the viral hit. The sanitised words also stood in stark contrast to the blistering grievances of the RAD, who refer to Thailand as a place that has "everything except common sense" and where you have to "stay quiet or stay in jail". The junta's video has received only a few thousand views so far with verses such as "if you're growing rice, planting vegetables and doing farming, just inject the ideas and price will increase" failing to ignite public imagination. Prayut, who has recorded his own ballads to Thai greatness in the past, told the audience that the song needs only "minor changes, just small rhymes." "Apart from that, the lyrics already sound good," he said. Referring to the RAD's lyrical assault he said he would not use his sweeping powers to ban it. Thailand is set to return to the polls in 2019 after years of delays and the often gruff Prayut is working hard to show a softer face to the public. India has about 500,000 soldiers in the zone of Kashmir it controls, where separatist groups demand independence or a merger with Pakistan Indian authorities imposed a curfew and deployed extra troops Friday in a remote district of disputed Kashmir after gunmen killed a local leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and his brother. The gunmen shot dead Anil Parihar, the BJP state secretary for Kashmir, and his brother from close range on Thursday night as they walked home after closing the family bookshop in Kishtwar, police said. The incident triggered protests in the town in the south of the Muslim-majority state. Kishtwar has a mixed Hindu-Muslim population and activists from the Hindu-dominated party took to the streets to demand action. Authorities imposed a curfew and ordered extra military patrols to prevent violence. "The situation is under control and an investigation into the incident is going on," Dilbag Singh, director general of police, told AFP. Muslim militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, which is also claimed by Pakistan, rarely strike in Kishtwar district. Fearing sectarian tensions, Muslim leaders used mosque speakers on Friday to also demand the attackers be found. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. An armed campaign for independence or a merger with Pakistan has riven the Indian side of the divided territory since 1989. India has about 500,000 soldiers in Kashmir. The fighting has left tens of thousands dead, mainly civilians. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces criminal charges against Chinese and Taiwanese electronics companies accused of stealing the technology of US semiconductor giant Micron China challenged the United States Friday to show evidence to support charges that Beijing backed a scheme by Chinese and Taiwanese companies to steal trade secrets from a US-based semiconductor firm. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions accused the companies on Thursday of stealing an estimated $8.75 billion worth of know-how from semiconductor giant Micron. The Justice Department unveiled criminal charges against Chinese state-owned Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co., and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) of Taiwan, along with three UMC officials. It said they conspired to steal US-based Micron's advanced designs to turn Fujian Jinhua into a major player in the global computer chip market. "If the US side is really concerned, they should provide concrete examples that can withstand the test of evidence and facts," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing. The charges were the latest in a series of cases targeting what Washington calls an ongoing Beijing programme to steal valuable US industrial and commercial secrets in order to advance the Chinese economy. "Taken together, these cases and many others like them paint a grim picture of a country bent on stealing its way up the ladder of economic development and doing so at American expense," Sessions said. "This behaviour is illegal. It is wrong. It is a threat to our national security. And it must stop." US President Donald Trump has cited China's alleged theft of US technological know-how among a litany of grievances in his trade war with the Asian power. Trump and Xi spoke on the phone about trade and other issues hours after the charges were announced, and the US leader tweeted that the pair had a "very good" conversation. Xi said he was "very happy" to talk to Trump again and that he would like to see him at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires later this month, adding that the two countries should "push for a mutually acceptable solution to China-US economic and trade issues", according to state media. - Chip designs - The indictment released in the US district court in San Jose, California alleges that three former Micron employees in Taiwan -- Stephen Chen Zhengkun, He Jianting and Kenny Wang Yungming -- joined UMC in 2015 and 2016 with the express plan to hand over to the company Micron's design and manufacturing processes for specific dynamic random access memory (DRAM) semiconductors. Those would then be transferred to Fujian Jinhua under an contract set by Chen. Prior to the plot, US prosecutors said, neither the Chinese nor the Taiwanese company had any DRAM production capability. But China had set out the goal of acquiring DRAM capability in its current strategic economy plan. Chen was originally a top executive at Micron's Taiwan operation. He moved in 2015 to lead UMC, a contract chip manufacturer listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and subsequently became president of Fujian Jinhua. - Competitive threat to Micron - The theft posed a major threat to Micron, a company valued at around $100 billion and which controls 20-25 percent of the global market for DRAM chips. Chip-making facilities at Tawian's United Microelectronics Corp (UMC), accused of helping Chinese company Fujian Jinhua steal advanced semiconductor technology from US firm Micron The indictment came four months after Fujian Jinhua won a patent dispute with Micron in a Chinese court, gaining an order for the US company to stop sales in China of more than a dozen solid-state drives, memory sticks and chips. In retaliation, the US Commerce Department on Monday placed heavy restrictions on Fujian Jinhua's ability to buy US machinery and materials for its factories that would boost its DRAM production capabilities. In addition to the criminal charges announced Thursday, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit to block imports of any UMC and Fujian Jinhua products using stolen Micron technology. In recent years Washington has stepped up its fight against China's alleged ongoing economic espionage programme to obtain all sorts of advanced technologies, from agriculture to heavy manufacturing. "China is probably, over the long term, the biggest challenge, national security challenge that faces our country," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "Where the semiconductor piece fits in is, it's part of a mosaic of our strategic effort to push back against this continued Chinese effort." Imran Khan is seeking funds for cash-strapped Pakistan on his China - although no deals have yet been announced Pakistan's financial woes have dragged the country down to a "low point", its prime minister told Chinese President Xi Jinping Friday, as he seeks funds from Beijing to stave off a fiscal crisis. Before travelling to China -- one of Pakistan's firmest allies -- Imran Khan said that he was striving to obtain financial aid from two unnamed countries after Pakistan secured $6 billion in funding from Saudi Arabia. His government has also entered talks with the International Monetary Fund over a potential bailout as it grapples with a balance of payment crisis and current account deficit. Greeted by Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Khan said he had come to "learn" from China's experiences in combatting poverty and corruption. "Unfortunately we have inherited a very difficult economic situation," Khan said. "Countries go in cycles. They have their high points, they have their low points. Unfortunately our country is going through a low point at the moment," he said. Xi said he attached "great importance to China-Pakistan relations" and was "willing to work together with the prime minister to strengthen China-Pakistan's all-weather strategic partnership and build a new era of China-Pakistan destiny." But neither leader announced any deals. Khan will meet with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday and will attend a massive import expo hosted by Xi in Shanghai next week. The two countries are building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a multi-billion-dollar project at the heart of Xi's Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious trade infrastructure programme spanning the globe. The corridor aims to increase energy and transport links between the western Chinese region of Xinjiang with the Arabian Sea via Pakistan. However, given Pakistan's deteriorating finances, in recent months there have been concerns that portions of the agreement may have to be scaled down. Analysts said Khan would push for financial assistance from Beijing, an important creditor of Pakistan, during the visit. Since taking power in August, Khan has sought loans from "friendly" countries like Saudi Arabia, vowed to recover funds stolen by corrupt officials, and embarked on a series of populist austerity drives to raise cash. Pakistan has gone to the IMF repeatedly since the late 1980s. The last time was in 2013, when Islamabad got a $6.6 billion loan to tackle a similar crisis. Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman is heir to the most powerful throne in the Middle East Saudi Arabia's crown prince retains an iron grip on power at home, but the growing outcry over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder has diminished his stature -- and leverage -- on the global stage, analysts say. Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 33-year-old heir to the most powerful throne in the Middle East, won international plaudits for his drive to remake the conservative petrostate while he amassed power to a degree unseen by previous rulers. But last month's killing of Khashoggi -- a critic of the crown prince -- inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has tainted his global image, even though the kingdom strongly denies its de facto ruler was involved. "There's an atmosphere right now where Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government and the prince personally are seen as somewhat radioactive," said Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. "It's not clear how long that's going to continue, but right now Saudi Arabia is, if not exactly an international pariah, at least a tainted entity," Ibish told AFP. The global fallout over the murder so far has not threatened to unseat the prince, especially after his domestic crackdown on dissent, effectively neutering his political rivals, and his tightening grip on military and security agencies. A demonstrator holds a poster picturing murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 25, 2018 In the kingdom, an absolute monarchy, only 82-year-old King Salman -- the prince's father -- is in a position to oust him, and he has indicated he wants him to stay. US President Donald Trump, a strong ally, has accused the Saudis of a massive "cover up" but has stopped short of rupturing ties with the prince, who diplomats predict could rule the kingdom for a half-century to come. "He is going nowhere," Ali Shihabi, chief of the Arabia Foundation think tank that is said to be close to the kingdom's leadership, told AFP. - 'Weakened' state - The threat of US sanctions still hangs over the kingdom, but analysts expect little punitive action against the world's top oil exporter that is also a major buyer of American weapons and a key ally against regional rival Iran. "Even if this leads to more severe penalties should Prince Mohammed's responsibility for the crime be proven, he will not only survive, but will also use the backlash to entrench himself further domestically," said Yezid Sayigh, a fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut. "When under pressure, autocratic rulers do not relinquish power, they double down, no matter what the cost, and Mohammed bin Salman is in a better position than most." There were rumblings of intrigue with the return this week to Riyadh of senior Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who recently courted controversy after appearing critical of the king and crown prince. His return after several months in London indicated possible royal family efforts to shore up support for the monarchy amid the crisis. "Something is happening in the ruling Al Saud family circles," said Gregory Gause, Saudi specialist at Texas A&M University. "The return of Prince Ahmed from London signals that. But just what is happening is opaque." As outrage over Khashoggi's murder builds globally, world leaders could try to leverage Saudi Arabia's defensive position to wrangle concessions or seek an upper hand in diplomatic negotiations. "He (the prince) is weakened. And Saudi Arabia is weakened," said Ibish. "There's now an added cost to... cooperating or partnering with Saudi Arabia in general, the government in particular and, especially, the crown prince." The Khashoggi crisis has shone a harsh spotlight on other issues such as Saudi Arabia's intervention in neighbouring Yemen, where its bombing campaign has led to a military stalemate and what aid workers call a humanitarian catastrophe. US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week demanded a ceasefire within a month, including a halt to air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition. - 'Dragging through the mud' - There is also growing speculation of a behind-the-scenes engagement with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who earlier vowed to reveal the "naked truth" about Khashoggi's killing but has so far failed to produce any smoking gun. Stoking such speculation last week was Prince Mohammed's surprisingly conciliatory tone on Qatar -- allied with Turkey -- after Saudi Arabia and its allies spent more than a year enforcing an embargo against the tiny gas-rich emirate. Analysts say that may well be the first step in acceding to Erdogan's wishes that Saudi Arabia end its crippling blockade on Qatar. Back home, Saudi nationalists have sought to rally around the prince with adulatory poems on social media as officials project it is business as usual with public events such as a glitzy wrestling extravaganza in the capital on Friday. To many Saudis Khashoggi's killing seems remote, and their views appear influenced by suggestions in local media that this was all a foreign conspiracy to malign the prince. But many others are shocked by the global backlash. "The killing of a journalist naturally should be met with outrage, but many of the kingdom's critics seem bent on dragging Saudi Arabia through the mud," a Saudi political analyst told AFP. "This murder is an aberration that will inevitably lead to serious introspection." Analysts had expected Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's (C) first budget to make spending cuts after years of mismanagement by the last government Malaysia's new government unveiled the country's biggest ever budget Friday, a surprise move that defied expectations of major belt-tightening to reduce national debts inherited from the corrupt former administration. Analysts had expected a raft of higher taxes and deep cuts to spending after warnings from the new administration about the dire state of the public finances after years of mismanagement by the last government. But the 2019 budget, totalling 314.5 billion ringgit ($75.55 billion), was the biggest on record. Finance minister Lim Guan Eng said the Pact of Hope alliance, which took power after a surprise win in May polls which toppled a long-ruling coalition, was aiming to improve the "well-being of the people". The government wanted to ensure that people "are better off economically in the form of higher wages, better jobs and more money to spend," he said. The figure was higher than the 290.4 billion ringgit 2018 budget presented by then prime minister Najib Razak, which was filled with cash handouts and tax cuts aimed at winning over voters ahead of May's election. To meet the increased government expenditure, the administration will receive a one-off special dividend from state energy giant Petronas next year. There were some new taxes on gambling and the property sector, but they were far more mild than many had expected. The budget could alarm investors who are watching carefully to see what the government will do to reduce a national debt they say is around $250 billion. Najib and his Barisan Nasional coalition were ousted by veteran politician Mahathir Mohamad, who rode to victory on a wave of public anger over corruption and rising living costs. Najib and a number of his allies have since been arrested and slapped with corruption charges linked to allegations they looted state fund 1MDB. The former leader denies any wrongdoing. Mahathir's government has already taken some measures aimed at reducing the national debt. These include cancelling China-backed mega-projects that were widely viewed as dubious deals struck by Najib as he sought money to pay off debts. Abulhawa was detained at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, seen here on March 22, 2018 A Palestinian-American writer has been detained on arrival at Israel's main airport and will be deported, Palestinian and Israeli officials said Friday. Susan Abulhawa was refused entry at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday evening, said a spokesman for the Palestinian Literature Festival, which Abulhawa had been set to attend. She appealed the decision in an Israeli court Friday morning but her appeal was rejected, meaning she was likely to be deported in the coming hours, the spokesman added. Abulhawa, author of the novel Mornings in Jenin, had been due to appear at panel events in both Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah during the festival, which is co-sponsored by the British Council. Immigration authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad told AFP the writer was refused entry because of an incident in 2015 when she refused to answer questions by security personnel when attempting to enter though a land crossing from neighbouring Jordan. "She was refused entry then and told that the next time she arrived she had to coordinate in advance," Haddad said in Hebrew. This time "she landed without arranging entry in advance". Haddad added that Abulhawa's detention was not related to support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In March 2017, Israel's parliament passed a law barring entry to supporters of BDS, a movement inspired by an international campaign against apartheid in South Africa. Last month an American student spent two weeks in Israeli detention appealing an entry ban over past support for a pro-Palestinian boycott campaign. Lara Alqasem was eventually allowed to enter Israel after its supreme court overturned the ban. The two side will cooperate in training, patient treatment project, annual seminar on cancer treatment methods, exchange scientific researches. All activities will be organized in Paris or Hanoi by online. Director of the National Cancer Hospital Dr. Tran Van Thuan said that the cooperation will open new chapter in the relation between two sides as well as in treating and improving cancer treatment. Simultaneously, an exhibition of picture and the life of female scientist Marie Sklodowska-Curie is taking place from November 2 to 9. This is an important activities during the visit of Curie staffs in Vietnams Cancer Hospital and to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Vietnam-France diplomatic ties. According to Globocals figure, there have been around 18.1 million fresh cancer cases and 9.6 million cancer-relating deaths in the world in 2018. Vietnam has had 164,671 fresh cancer cases and 114,871 cancer-relating deaths and more than 300,000 people are living with cancer. Most of Vietnamese cancer patients are diagnosed and receive treatment in late stage. Therefore, cancer prevention is a big challenge for Vietnams health sector. By KHANH NGUYEN Translated by UYEN PHUONG Israeli and Brazilian flags fly outside the Brazilian embassy in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on October 28, 2018 A senior Palestinian official on Friday condemned Brazilian far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro's announcement that he would move his country's Israel embassy to Jerusalem. The move announced Thursday comes six months after the United States controversially transferred its embassy, and aligns the incoming Brazilian leader squarely with US President Donald Trump. The Palestinians consider the Israeli-annexed eastern part of the city the capital of their future state. "These are provocative and illegal steps that will only destabilise security and stability in the region," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee, told AFP. "It is very unfortunate that Brazil has joined this negative alliance against international law," she said, referring to a small number of countries supporting the US decision, which sparked fury among Palestinians. On Thursday Bolsonaro tweeted that "as previously stated during our campaign, we intend to transfer the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem." "Israel is a sovereign state and we shall duly respect that," he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the move as "historic". "I congratulate my friend Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro for his intention to move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem, a historic, correct and exciting step!" he said in a statement. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip and has fought three wars with Israel in a decade, also condemned the announcement. "We consider this a hostile step against the Palestinian people and the Arabic and Islamic world," spokesman Sami Abu Zahri wrote on Twitter Friday. The Palestinians cut off ties with the Trump administration after the decision was first announced in December 2017, saying the government's pro-Israel bias meant it could no longer lead peace negotiations between themselves and Israel. Ashrawi did not mention any potential downgrading of ties with Brazil. Israel occupied Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in moves never recognised by the international community. It sees the entire city as its capital. For decades the international community maintained that the city's status should be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians. Guatemala and Paraguay also moved their embassies to Jerusalem after the US transfer, though the latter announced in September it would return its embassy to Tel Aviv. The embassies of all other countries are located in Tel Aviv. Vietnam has signed a deal with Airbus for 50 new planes Vietnam's fast-growing budget carrier VietJet famed for its bikini-clad air hostesses signed a deal with France's Airbus on Friday for 50 planes worth $6.5 billion, according to a copy of the deal. Airbus signed "a commercial contract with Vietjet Air for the delivery of 50 A321neo" planes, read a document of the deal from the office of French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who attended the signing ceremony in Hanoi during an official visit to the communist country. The pact was part of a raft of agreements signed between Vietnam and France, one of Hanoi's top European trading partners that is eager to boost investments in the former colony. Vietjet also inked a Memorandum of Understanding worth $5 billion with France's Safran group for engines and equipment maintenance, the document said. Vietnamese airlines have been eagerly growing fleets to serve burgeoning passenger numbers, where domestic travel has soared in recent years and international air travel is one the rise. Vietjet stormed into Vietnam's airline sector in 2011 when much of the market was dominated by the national carrier Vietnam Airlines. The country's first budget carrier, owned by Vietnam's only female billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, has raised eyebrows with its racy marketing campaigns featuring nearly-naked models and by staffing inaugural flights with air hostesses wearing bikinis. In just five years Vietjet quickly caught up with Vietnam Airlines to capture 42 percent of the domestic market in 2016, and 27 percent of the total market, according to data from the CAPA Centre for Aviation. Over the past two years it has turned its attention to adding more international routes to its roster, including to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, as it seeks to serve Vietnam's growing middle class with a thirst -- and budget -- for travel. The number of passengers travelling internationally jumped to 30 million in 2017 from 23 million the year before, according to official Vietnam aviation data. - From foes to friends - The French premier is in Vietnam for a three-day visit largely aimed at drumming up business deals with one of Asia's fastest growing economies, which clocked 6.8 percent GDP growth last year. Both sides signed deals worth a total of nearly $12 billion, including in the energy and IT sectors. Trade between the former colonial foes has boomed in recent years, and France is now Vietnam's third leading European trading partner after Germany and Italy, with two-way trade hitting $7.6 billion last year, according to the French Prime Minister's office. Vietnam, an export-driven manufacturing hub with a population of 93 million people, has eagerly courted trading partners in Europe after the United States pulled out of the sprawling Trans-Pacific trade pact that Hanoi stood to gain enormously from. Philippe is set to visit Dien Bien Phu on Saturday, the site of the epic battle between France and Vietnam in 1954 that would spell the end of France's colonial empire in Indochina and pave the way for Vietnamese independence. The French premier's trip also includes a stopover in the bustling economic hub Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday where he will inaugurate a French medical centre and host a business forum with French tech entrepreneurs before heading to New Caledonia. Analysts expect Iran to lose at least half its critical oil exports after the return of a US-enforced oil embargo The United States will allow eight countries to continue importing Iranian oil but only at much lower levels after the reimposition of sanctions on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday. The US Treasury will also demand the SWIFT global financial network stop servicing Iran's banking industry as part of enforcing sanctions over the country's nuclear program and alleged support for terrorism. Another 700 companies, individuals, businesses, aircraft and ships will be added to the US sanctions list, widely expanding the people and entities Washington seeks to block from accessing global business and financial networks. The reimposition of sanctions "is aimed at depriving the regime of the revenues it uses to spread death and destruction around the world," Pompeo said. "Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country." Pompeo said the exemptions on importing Iranian oil were being granted to countries that have pledged to or have already cut back on purchases of petroleum from Iran, which has long depended on crude exports to power its economy. He did not name the eight countries, but they are believed to include India, Japan, South Korea, and possibly China. Pompeo said the countries agreed that the payments for the oil will go into offshore accounts that Iran will only be able to tap for "humanitarian trade, or bilateral trade in non-sanctioned goods and services." "Maximum pressure means maximum pressure," Pompeo said. The move comes six months after President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal struck between world powers and Iran, and began reimposing sanctions that had been suspended or removed by his predecessor Barack Obama. That process will culminate on Monday when Washington reinstates sanctions targeting Iran's oil, shipping, shipbuilding and banking industries. fff/pmh/ec A Palestinian pulls a fellow protester in a wheelchair amid tear gas fired by Israeli forces near the Gaza-Israel border on November 2, 2018 An Egyptian security delegation visited protests along the Gaza-Israel border Friday, organisers said, as it sought to broker a long-term truce between the Jewish state and the Palestinian enclave's Islamist rulers Hamas. In the first such publicly announced visit by Egyptian officials, the delegation briefly attended the Palestinian demonstrations in northern Gaza, a statement from the head of the organising committee said. Eyewitnesses said a car carrying the delegation briefly drove to a protest site a few hundred metres from the border, before departing. Friday's protests come amid talk of a breakthrough in months of Egyptian-led negotiations. A truce deal would see the often-violent protests end in exchange for an easing of Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip. Thousands again gathered at multiple sites near the frontier Friday but largely stayed away from the border fence, AFP correspondents said. Hamas security prevented protesters from approaching the border too closely, the correspondents said. In total seven Palestinians were shot and wounded, the health ministry in the strip said. At least 218 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since protests began on March 30. One Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Ping has continued to describe himself as "the elected president" following his defeat by a few thousand votes in controversial polls two years ago that were marred by bloodshed Gabonese opposition politician Jean Ping on Saturday repeated his claim to have won 2016 elections as President Ali Bongo Ondimba remained in hospital in Saudi Arabia. Ping has continued to describe himself as "the elected president" following his defeat by a few thousand votes in controversial polls two years ago that were marred by bloodshed. Breaking several months' silence on the issue, Ping said he wanted to speak to all Gabonese citizens and called on them to "transcend their divisions and place the nation above our individual ethnic or clan interests". In a "speech to the nation" from his home in Libreville, he called for citizens faced with the "worst turbulence" in Gabon's history to "gather around a common ideal". "This ideal was clearly defined on August 27, 2016, when you mainly elected me at the polls, with the fundamental objective of removing the Gabonese people from fear and need," he said. Bongo, 59, fell ill last ten days ago during a visit to Riyadh to attend an economic forum in the Saudi capital. His spokesman Ike Ngouoni has said that doctors there had diagnosed him with "severe fatigue" and ordered bed rest. Bongo took over as leader of the oil-rich equatorial African nation in 2009 on the death of his father Omar Bongo, who had ruled since 1967. Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (C) is escorted by Mexican police in the border city of Ciudad Juarez as he is extradited to the United States in January 2017 Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman goes on trial in New York on Monday, accused of running the world's biggest drug cartel and spending a quarter of a century smuggling more than 155 tons of cocaine into the United States. The mammoth trial in a Brooklyn federal court, which will cost millions of dollars and is expected to last more than four months, will see one of the world's most notorious criminals face the US justice system. Prosecutors spent years piecing together a sweeping case against Guzman, who was extradited in 2017 after twice escaping prison in Mexico -- first hidden in a laundry cart, then slipping down a tunnel that reached his prison shower. Guzman has been branded the world's biggest drug lord since Colombia's Pablo Escobar, who was dubbed "The King of Cocaine" and was one of the wealthiest men in the world until police shot him dead in 1993. Mexican police participate in an operation to bust a clandestine lab for making synthetic drugs in Carrizalejo, in the state of Sinaloa, in July 2018 Experts say the government has a near water-tight case likely to send Guzman, 61, to a maximum security US prison for the rest of his life. But at what price? "Is it going to stop even one additional pound of cocaine from coming into the United States? Probably not. The machine keeps rolling," says Rob Heroy, a North Carolina lawyer who has defended other Mexican drug barons. The Sinaloa cartel that Guzman founded in 1989 is still hugely powerful. His co-defendant Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada remains at large, and violent drug trafficking continues unabated in Mexico. Last year, there was a record 29,000 murders in Mexico. In the United States, opioid addiction has spiraled into an epidemic. In 2016, an average of 174 Americans died every day from drug overdoses. - 'Most expensive trial in history' - Mexican security forces arrested Damaso Lopez, a top Guzman lieutenant, in May 2017 Jury selection will be conducted in security conditions reserved only for the most dangerous defendants. US District Court Judge Brian Cogan will preside over the process behind closed doors. The 12 jurors, with six alternates, will remain anonymous. US Marshals will escort them to and from court every day. These ordinary men and women will determine whether Guzman -- the diminutive father of two whose nickname means "shorty" -- is guilty or not of 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges. According to the indictment, the Sinaloa cartel, which Guzman is accused of leading from 1989 to 2014, became "the largest drug trafficking organization in the world... with thousands of members." US prosecutors contend that from 1989 to 2014, the cartel smuggled at least 340,892 pounds (154,626 kilograms) of cocaine into the United States, as well as heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana, raking in $14 billion. Guzman pleads not guilty, but the government has presented so much evidence -- more than 300,000 pages and at least 117,000 audio recordings -- that the defense complains they haven't had enough time to review it all. Heroy estimates the trial will cost US taxpayer "more than $50 million," a price tag that includes protection programs for at least some of the several hundred witnesses expected to testify. "It's probably set up to be the most expensive trial in the history of the US," he told AFP. Even Guzman's lawyers are in the dark as to all the former associates, hired hands or rivals who have turned informants. - Informants - Guzman's wife Emma Coronel (R) leaves the US federal courthouse in Brooklyn with her twin daughters after a hearing in her husband's case in June 2018 Some of the informants have already been absorbed into the US witness protection program, given new identities and homes around the country. Others are already in jail, housed in special wings to protect them from reprisals. If cooperating with the government can endanger their lives, and those of their families, it can also help reduce their own sentences. "No one is going to have pictures of him (Guzman) carrying cocaine, taking the suitcase with money," said Heroy. "The case is going to be based on these informants." Guzman has been held in solitary confinement in New York since Mexico extradited him in January 2017, one day before Donald Trump took office. He spends 23 hours a day in his cell. The only visitors he is allowed are his three lawyers and twin, seven-year-old daughters, from whom he is separated by a thick glass screen. The judge has banned his 29-year-old beauty queen wife, Emma Coronel, from visiting. Instead, she has attended almost all his pre-trial hearings, waving and blowing him kisses from the gallery. Coronel has attended almost all of her husband's pre-trial hearings, waving and blowing him kisses from the gallery Arrested for the first time in Guatemala in 1993, El Chapo spent more than seven years in a Mexican prison before his first escape in 2001. Re-arrested by Mexican marines in February 2014, he escaped again 14 months later. Guzman was re-captured in January 2016 after a visit from Hollywood actor Sean Penn and a Mexican actress, who wanted to make a film about his life, allowed Mexican authorities to trace his whereabouts. This time, Mexico decided to wash their hands and put him on a plane. This Mosul building that formerly belonged to a bank was heavily damaged during the occupation of Iraq's second city by the Islamic State group and an extended military campaign by security forces to dislodge the jihadists Since jihadists were ousted from Mosul last year, taxi driver Abu Aref has ferried more than just people into Iraq's second city: he regularly smuggles envelopes stuffed with cash. This is how salaries are paid and bills settled in the northern metropolis, despite the banks reopening since Iraqi forces seized it back last year from the Islamic State group after three years of jihadist rule. Iraqi authorities, fearing that free flows of money could help finance an IS comeback, have not authorised even simple transfers. So Mosul banks, exchange offices, and money transfer companies have watched helplessly as more rudimentary methods fill the gap. Abu Aref said he typically carries anywhere between $10,000 (8,800 euros) to $50,000 at a time in his cab. "I put the money in an envelope that I then tape underneath my seat," he told AFP. The journey can be risky. One of his colleagues was recently the victim of a highway robbery along the 200-kilometre (120-mile) route between Mosul and Baiji, further south. "Despite the risks, businessmen entrust this much money to me because they don't have another choice," the 35 year-old said. IS swept into Mosul in 2014, seizing several hundred million dollars from a branch of Iraq's central bank and other financial institutions. Some 16 months since the city was wrested back from IS by Iraqi security forces, the local flow of money remains largely outside the banking system Mosul came back under Iraqi government control in July 2017 after a months-long assault that left its infrastructure devastated, but IS cells appear to remain active. Security forces last month arrested nearly a dozen members of an IS financial network based in Iraq, according to a US-led coalition against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. The central bank has remained wary of resuming operations in Mosul, saying it wants to know "where this money comes from and where it's going". - To Baghdad and beyond - Around 20 private and state-owned banks have reopened in Mosul, allowing residents to open an account, deposit and withdraw money, and issue cheques. But the central bank has not budged on its ban on transfers to and from the city. That decision appears to have hurt business owners trying to rekindle economic activity in Mosul, a centuries-old trade hub with access to Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian markets. Among them is Abdullah Basman, a Mosul native who sells computer parts brought in from other areas of Iraq and from Dubai. Financial transactions remain largely outside formal channels, due to ongoing restrictions on money transfers To pay suppliers, he hands envelopes of cash to a driver he trusts, who rushes the money to Baghdad and wires it to other Iraqi cities or internationally to pay the shop's bills. "The banks in Mosul are just buildings. Nothing more," said Basman, 27. For company employee Abu Akram, the ban on bank transfers means he often goes months without a salary, which is issued from his firm's headquarters in Baghdad. The 35-year-old relies on friends of relatives who traverse the dusty 400 kilometres (250 miles) south to Baghdad or travel to nearby Iraqi Kurdistan to retrieve his cash. But there are hiccups. "Sometimes, my company refuses to give my salary to someone other than me. With a taxi, there's a risk of an accident or of theft," Abu Akram told AFP. - Banks quiet, markets buzz - The reach of banks in Mosul appear to be par for the course in Iraq, where only one in ten people has an account, according to the World Bank. "The banking system in Iraq is underdeveloped, dominated by inefficient state-owned banks. Some of them are believed to be capital deficient and extend little credit to the private sector," the multilateral lender wrote in a recent report. "Private banks are small and they are mostly active in currency exchanges and wire transfers." The military campaign and IS occupation caused huge damage to buildings, including banks Despite the challenges, Iraqi economist Rafea Ahmed says multiple businesses and investors have already resumed operations in Mosul. "They rapidly brought back their money in their own ways," he said. Secret transfers even continued during IS's rule over the city, with family members living in Baghdad finding ways to smuggle money to relatives stuck inside Mosul. Some of that cash, says Ahmed, has contributed to the revival already visible in Mosul. Even if the banks sit empty, the restaurants, commercial centres, and open markets are now buzzing with activity. While foreign climbers have won plaudits for their feats, Pakistani mountaineer Fazal Ali and his colleagues are largely overlooked He is the only man ever to have scaled K2 three times, but Fazal Ali's achievements have gone largely unrecognised, like those of many of his fellow porters who risk life and limb on Pakistan's highest peaks. As one of the few elite porters in the country specialising in high-altitude expeditions, the 40-year-old has spent nearly two decades on Pakistan's deadliest slopes -- plotting routes, lugging kit and cooking for paying clients. At 8,611 metres (28,251 feet), K2 is not quite as high as Mount Everest, which stands at 8,848 metres. But its technical challenges have earned it the nickname "the Savage Mountain" and dozens have lost their lives on its treacherous, icy flanks. Ali conquered K2 in 2014, 2017 and 2018 -- all without additional oxygen. Remote northern Pakistan is home to three of the highest mountain ranges in the world, the Himalayas, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush "He is the only climber with this achievement," said Eberhard Jurgalski from Guinness World Records. While foreign climbers have won plaudits for their feats, Ali and his colleagues are overlooked, even among the mountaineering community. "I am happy," Ali told AFP. "But I am also heartbroken because my feat will never be truly appreciated." He is one of many high-altitude porters who work on foreign expeditions to northern Pakistan, a remote region that is home to three of the highest mountain ranges in the world, the Himalayas, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush. Chosen for their endurance and knowledge of the extremely difficult terrain, the porters trace the route for climbers and fix ropes for their ascent. They also carry food and supplies on their backs and pitch their clients' tents. Chosen for their endurance and knowledge of the extremely difficult terrain, the porters trace the route for climbers and fix ropes for their ascent However, once the mountaineers return home, the porters -- indispensable during expeditions -- often feel forgotten. "When they arrive, they are full of goodwill, they make many promises," Ali said. "But once they've achieved their goals, they forget everything." One incident in particular left Ali with a bitter taste in his mouth: he arrived at the summit of K2 with a Western mountaineer, but instead of taking a picture together, she posed alone with a flag in her hand. "She ordered us to take a picture and stay at a distance," he said, adding the episode led to a dispute between the climber and a Nepali porter who was also there. - Valley of mountaineers - Ali, like many Pakistani high-altitude porters, was born in the remote Shimshal Valley in the country's north, near the Chinese border. Home to just 140 families, Ali's village has produced many of the country's greatest mountaineers, including Rajab Shah, the first Pakistani to scale all five 8,000-metre peaks in the country. Once the mountaineers return home, the porters -- indispensable during expeditions -- often feel forgotten Rehmatullah Baig, who conquered K2 in 2014 while taking vital geographical measurements and installing a weather station, also hails from Shimshal and shares Ali's resentment. "I should be happy, but I'm not," he said. "If I were recognised, if the mountaineers from... Pakistan were recognised, or if they enjoyed a bit of recognition or financial assistance, they would climb all the 8,000-metre peaks of the world," he said. Baig's father was the first from Shimshal to pursue the deadly pursuit of mountaineering, but he now tells his children not to follow in his footsteps. - Investment and training - A major source of resentment among Ali and his colleagues is their belief that they are treated worse than their Nepali counterparts. In the event of an accident, Pakistani porters are rarely entitled to helicopter rescues by their employers. High-altitude porters in Pakistan are lucky to get life insurance policies worth $1,500, according to the Alpine Club of Pakistan In Nepal, local guides are eligible for approximately $12,700 in life insurance from the government, after mountain workers successfully lobbied for an increase following an avalanche in 2014 that killed 16 sherpas on Mount Everest. High-altitude porters in Pakistan meanwhile are lucky to get life insurance policies worth $1,500, according to the Alpine Club of Pakistan. Mountaineering experts agree there is a disparity and believe the Pakistani workers should be better trained and supported by the government. German mountaineer Christiane Fladt, who wrote a book on Shimshal, says the Pakistani porters "should organise themselves in a union in order to put stress on their financial demands". - 'We hate the mountain' - In 2008, two Shimshal porters were among 11 people who died on the same day in the worst disaster to hit K2. One of them, Fazal Karim, fell alongside the French mountaineer Hugues d'Aubarede as they descended from the summit. Karim's body was never found. His widow, Haji Parveen, said she tried her best to dissuade him from going on an expedition. Fazal Karim, a Shimshal porter, fell alongside French mountaineer Hugues d'Aubarede as they descended from the K2 summit. Karim's body was never found "I told him, 'We have a good life here and we have enough to live', but he did not listen to me," she said softly. Karim was a skilled worker, owner of a sawmill in the village, where he had also opened a shop for his wife. After his disappearance, his widow had to sell the mill to finance the education of their children. According to Parveen, neither the expedition company nor the foreign mountaineers on the trip gave her any assistance. Now her eldest, who is studying in Karachi, wants to become a porter like his father. "He talks about it every time he comes home and says he wants to be like his father. But we scold him because we hate the mountain: it's useless, nothing at all." Members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and US soldiers gather in the Kurdish-held town of Al-Darbasiyah in northeastern Syria bordering Turkey US forces on Sunday patrolled an area in northeastern Syria bordering Turkey after renewed tensions between Ankara and Syrian Kurds, a spokesman and an AFP reporter said. Three armoured vehicles carrying soldiers wearing the US flag on their uniform arrived in the Kurdish-held northeastern border town of Al-Darbasiyah, the correspondent said. Turkey last week raised threats against Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, shelling their positions and flagging a possible new offensive. The Kurds spearhead the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, backed by the US-led coalition, that has been fighting the Islamic State group in Syria. Coalition spokesman Sean Ryan said Sunday's patrol was the second in a week, after a first one by US forces on Friday. "The US forces' assurance patrols enable us to maintain safety and security in the region," he said, but are not carried out "on a regular basis". An SDF spokesman said the US patrols, in coordination with the SDF, were directly linked to recent tensions between the Kurds and Ankara. Members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)and US soldiers patrol the Kurdish-held town of Al-Darbasiyah in northeastern Syria bordering Turkey "They are not routine patrols. They are directly linked to these threats. The objective is to call on Turkey to stop its aggression," Mustefa Bali said. Sunday's patrols were headed towards Ras al-Ain, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) to the west of Al-Darbasiyah along the frontier, he said. The US State Department has said it had been in touch with both the SDF and Turkey to push for de-escalation. Turkey accuses Syria's Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) -- which form the backbone of the SDF -- of being "terrorists". In what appeared to be an attempt by Washington to appease Turkey, US and Turkish troops on Thursday launched joint patrols on the outskirts of the northern city of Manbij. Although the YPG claim to have pulled out of the city after the SDF seized it from IS in 2016, Ankara has recently complained that the group still has a presence there, repeatedly threatening military action. On Wednesday, Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions in the Kobane sector of northern Syria killed four fighters, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency. On Tuesday, two days after another round of shelling of Kurdish posts in northern Syria, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had completed preparations for a new operation to "destroy" Kurdish fighters. Since 2016, Turkey has carried out two operations against Kurdish forces in Syria, the last of which saw Ankara-backed Syrian rebels take the border city of Afrin in March. This handout picture made available by the Syrian Presidency Telegram page on November 4, 2018 shows Syrian President Basah al-Assad (R) receiving Russian special envoy to Syria Alexander Lavrentiev (C) in the Syrian capital Damascus Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and an envoy from ally Russia on Sunday discussed "removing the obstacles" to forming a constitutional committee demanded by international powers to help end the seven-year war, the presidency said. The leaders of Russia, rebel backer Turkey, Germany, and France last week in Istanbul called for the committee to be formed by the end of the year to discuss a post-war constitution, "paving the way for free and fair elections" in Syria. On Sunday, Assad held talks with Russian envoy Alexander Lavrentiev on "forming the committee to discuss the current constitution", the presidency said in a statement. They agreed "to continue joint Syrian-Russian work towards removing the obstacles still in the way of forming this committee", it said. A Turkish-Russian deal for Syria's last major rebel bastion of Idlib has revived a push towards a diplomatic solution to the country's conflict, with international efforts focused on setting up the 150-member committee. Under a UN plan, the regime would choose 50 of the committee members, the Syrian opposition another 50 and the UN would nominate the final 50, composed of representatives of civil society and technical experts. But last week, Damascus rejected a UN list presented by the world body's outgoing envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura. Instead, the Damascus regime is to draw up its own list, along with Russia, Iran and Turkey, according to de Mistura, who is set to step down at the end of the month. Even if the committee is formed, analysts say the task of discussing a post-war constitution will be difficult. The opposition has pushed for an entirely new constitution, but the regime has said it will only discuss altering the current one. Assad's forces have notched up a series of victories against rebels and jihadists since Russia intervened militarily on its side in 2015, and now control almost two-thirds of the country. Syria's war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since the war broke out in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. Chung made the request during a meeting with French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on November 3 during the latters official visit to Vietnam from November 2-4. He informed the French PM on Hanois cooperation with French enterprises and localities. At present, 102 French investors are running projects in Hanoi with total capital of nearly EUR 300 million. The capital city has signed twinning relations agreement with Ile-de-France and Toulouse city, under which the sides have worked together in culture, tourism and medical human resources. Hanoi also engaged in medical cooperation with Paris, and conducted several joint schemes with the French Development Agency in the preservation of cultural heritage and the ancient quarter, waste treatment, and in fighting environmental pollution and adapting to climate change. The Hanoi leader took the occasion to suggest that Hanoi students be allowed to study at the Lycee francais Alexandre Yersin. He also proposed partnership in digitalizing database and building e-government and smart city. The French PM shared his admiration of Hanois efforts to preserve its cultural values He affirmed that Hanoi faces great challenges in development, as it has a big population. France has many firms excelling in urban management so the two sides can cooperate in this field, he said, expressing his belief that Hanoi will be the meeting point of big projects between France and Vietnam. The PM pledged to do his best to support the cooperation between Hanoi and French localities. Following the meeting, the French PM took a walk at the pedestrian street around Hoan Kiem Lake and visited the Temple of Literature. Earlier in the day, PM Edouard Philippe and his entourage made a trip to the northern province of Dien Bien, where he visited the A1 Hill in the historic site of the Dien Bien Phu battlefield, and laid a wreath at the local cemetery for fallen soldiers. In the morning of November 3, the French PM and Chairman of Hanoi Peoples Committee Nguyen Duc Chung cut the ribbon to inaugurate the new facility of the Lycee francais Alexandre Yersin in Hanois Long Bien district. The school is a French international school under the purview of the Agency for French Education Abroad. Vietnamplus JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Nearly two decades ago, Pennsylvania regulators were confronted with evidence that a well-regarded pediatrician had fondled the genitals of two small children during office visits. Instead of holding him accountable, regulators let the doctor keep his medical license. He went on to molest at least a dozen more young patients, victimizing children right up until the time of his arrest in January, prosecutors say. Now, as Dr. Johnnie "Jack" Barto sits in jail awaiting trial on sexual assault charges involving more than 30 children, his 1990s-era patients and their parents say the state Board of Medicine failed to stop him when it had the chance and bears responsibility for what investigators are calling a "pervasive and prolonged pattern of abuse." Police, prosecutors and Barto's own colleagues also deserve blame for looking the other way, they say. "It could've stopped with me," Lee Ann Berkebile, 28, of Johnstown, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Instead they chose to cover for him and stick up for him, and now look what happened. All you did was let a sicko touch other girls." Barto, 71, was arrested in January and charged with groping a 12-year-old girl during an office visit several weeks earlier. Suspecting she might not be alone, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office put out a call for other accusers to come forward - and they did, by the dozen, with claims going back to the late 1980s. Barto has pleaded not guilty. If the charges hold up, the case will represent another black mark against a profession that's long had trouble policing itself over sexual misconduct. There have been more than 1,000 cases across the nation in which doctors were sanctioned for sexual misconduct but held onto their medical licenses, according to a 2016 investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A study by the consumer group Public Citizen that same year found state regulators often failed to punish abusive doctors at all. More than two-thirds of doctors with sexual misconduct reports in the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal government database, faced no discipline from their states' medical boards, the study found. FILE - In this Feb. 28, 2018 file photo, Johnnie Barto arrives for a hearing in the Belmont section of Stonycreek Township, Pa. Pennsylvania regulators are being harshly criticized for clearing Barto, a pediatrician who'd been accused of sexual abuse 20 years ago and who's now charged with molesting many more children since. (Todd Berkey/The Tribune-Democrat via AP, File) "Without consequences, we cannot really solve the problem. You don't have enough deterrence out there," Public Citizen health researcher Azza AbuDagga said. Referring to Barto, she added, "This physician was let loose and was able to hurt other people. The interest of the physician superseded the interest of the public and that's not acceptable." The Pennsylvania Department of State, which provides legal and administrative support to the board and prosecutes administrative cases of doctor misconduct, said in a statement that "the Board of Medicine takes allegations of sexual misconduct by professional licensees very seriously." But the board does not keep statistics on how often it punishes doctors accused of sexual misconduct, so it's difficult to judge how seriously it has treated sexual abuse - either then or now. Current board members were not in office when Barto's case was considered. Lee Ann Berkebile was just 4 years old when her mother took her to see the pediatrician in 1994 for a runny nose and cough. At the end of the appointment, Barto offered to walk Lee Ann down the hall to a medicine closet. It was then, Berkebile said, that Barto shoved his hand down her pants and inserted his finger in her vagina. The little girl immediately told her mother, who went to the county child welfare agency. The case was referred to Johnstown police. A sergeant interviewed Lee Ann and her parents but did not file charges, citing her age, according to documents obtained by the AP from state archives. Lee Ann's father, Sam McAdams, believes it was Barto's prominence, the strong support he had in Johnstown and the family's own poverty that helped him avoid criminal prosecution. "We got treated like we were garbage for even saying something or suggesting something," McAdams said. Four years after Berkebile says she was molested, another patient, 3-year-old Kelsey Bowman, had an appointment with Barto. At the end of it, Barto sat Kelsey - who wore a T-shirt, socks and nothing else - on his lap. Her mother, Kelli Bowman, who was also in the exam room, said Kelsey gave a sudden jerk, and she saw Barto's hand on her daughter's vagina for at least a minute. Bowman grabbed her daughter and left. Afterward, she said, Kelsey cried and said the "mean doctor touched me on my monkey." Johnstown police and the Cambria County district attorney's office investigated. This time, authorities took action. Barto faced administrative charges - not only for touching Kelsey, but for the earlier incident involving Berkebile. Testifying at the equivalent of a trial, young Lee Ann described what she says Barto did to her, and Bowman told a hearing examiner how Barto fondled her daughter. Barto denied the allegations, but hearing examiner Suzanne Rauer found the accusers to be credible and consistent - calling Lee Ann's testimony "heart-stopping." Rauer concluded that Barto "sexually assaulted two of his very young patients" and committed a "grave abuse of his position," according to her March 2000 ruling that stripped him of his medical license. Facing the imminent loss of his career, the pediatrician appealed to the Board of Medicine, an independent body that's comprised primarily of doctors and is in charge of licensing and discipline. The board dismissed the accusers' accounts on a 7-2 vote and said Barto could resume his career. The allegations, it said, were "incongruous to his reputation." Vivian Lowenstein, one of the two votes to strip Barto of his license, blasted the physician members of the board for letting him off the hook. "I'm sick about it," she told the AP recently. Lowenstein, a nurse practitioner, said the case serves as an example of how Pennsylvania's physician-regulators typically looked out for their own. "It was my perception that there was a pattern that physicians were protective of other physicians, and didn't always make the best decisions," she said. Kishor Mehta, who served on the board with Lowenstein, disputed that physician members were biased. "They never favored doctors. They were very objective," said Mehta, who is not a doctor. He said he had no memory of the Barto case but added that accused doctors are entitled to due process like anyone else: "Unless there is good evidence, you don't want to take the livelihood of somebody." The 1990s accusers and their parents, meanwhile, remain bitter that regulators took his word over theirs. "I was livid. I was appalled they gave him back his license," Kelli Bowman said. Of the later accusers, she added. "I feel sorry for those kids. It's all the medical board's fault." The two practices for which Barto worked also might have missed the warning signs - or been willfully ignorant. Parents complained to office staff and other physicians over the years about Barto's sexual misconduct toward their children, and, at one point, Barto promised he would no longer examine teenage girls, according to court documents. But he continued seeing and abusing patients, prosecutors say. Court documents do not indicate whether Barto's medical practices ever took any steps to protect patients, but one doctor tried to explain away his behavior by telling an upset parent that Barto had an "odd bedside manner," according to an affidavit. The doctor also speculated Barto might have Asperger's syndrome, a milder form of autism. Neither practice offered any comment when contacted by the AP. Berkebile said the assault affected her in profound ways. She became self-destructive. She doesn't trust people, especially men, and remains in therapy. "He ruined my life," Berkebile said. She said she feels for the other girls whom prosecutors say Barto assaulted, "because I know what it's going to do their lives and how it's going to affect them." Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan, who referred the ongoing criminal prosecution to the Pennsylvania attorney general's office because staffers in her office had Barto as their children's pediatrician, said the older accusers are right to be angry. "It looks like a missed opportunity here to file charges, get a conviction and stop this happening to the many other victims who have now come forward," said Callihan, who joined the DA's office in 1996 but said she wasn't involved in Barto's case. "The system failed them, whether it was the criminal system or the administrative process they went through." In this Sept. 21, 2018, photo, Lee Ann Berkebile holds a photo of herself as a child, taken in her home in Johnstown, Pa. Berkebile says she was molested by her pediatrician in 1994. Pennsylvania regulators are being harshly criticized for clearing Dr. Johnnie "Jack" Barto, a pediatrician who'd been accused of sexual abuse 20 years ago and who's now charged with molesting many more children since. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam) ISTANBUL (AP) - Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered before it was removed, a top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday. Chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said in a statement that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb over the killing yielded "no concrete result" despite Turkey's "good-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth." The statement was the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and mutilated after he entered the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2. It also pointed to a lack of cooperation from Saudi officials in the investigation of the slaying. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled and killed immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia," the prosecutor's office said. "The victim Jamal Khashoggi's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation, again in line with the advance plans," the two-page statement read. The prosecutor's statement that Khashoggi was killed immediately conflicts with a report by pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak earlier this month, which cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi being tortured before being killed. The newspaper claimed that his fingers were cut off and that he was killed by being beheaded. Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he doesn't feel "betrayed" by Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's death. Trump, who made Saudi Arabia the destination of his first foreign trip as president, said the Saudis didn't betray him but "maybe they've betrayed themselves." Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday: "I just hope it all works out." Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 suspects in the journalist's slaying who were detained in Saudi Arabia. It also is pressing Saudi Arabia for information about who ordered Khashoggi's killing and the location of his remains. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in getting rid of Khashoggi's body. Saudi chief prosecutor al-Mojeb met with Fidan twice and also visited the Turkish intelligence agency's Istanbul headquarters this week before leaving for Riyadh on a private jet Wednesday. Saudi Arabia has not commented directly on the prosecutor's visit and al-Mojeb did not respond to journalists' questions at the airport as he departed. Fidan's office said the Saudi delegation submitted a written statement and invited the Turkish delegation to come to Saudi Arabia bringing "evidence obtained during the course of the investigation." The Saudi representatives said the whereabouts of Khashoggi's remains and whether the killing was premeditated or not would only come to light through a joint interrogation by Turkish and Saudi investigators, according to the statement. The statement said Turkey renewed its request for the 18 suspects to be extradited. It did not say if Turkish officials would travel to Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, a lawmaker and spokesman for Turkey's ruling party again called on Saudi Arabia to reveal where Khashoggi's body is, who gave the orders for the killing and who the alleged Turkish collaborator is. "Instead of trying to find out what (evidence) Turkey has, Saudi authorities should give the answers to these questions," Omer Celik told reporters. "This is not an incident that could have taken place without a high-level order." Celik added: "We are not blaming anyone in advance but we will not allow anything to be covered up." Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi crown prince, Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a hit squad from Saudi Arabia - including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage during a trip to the United States- went to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting Khashoggi died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia only recently acknowledged Turkish evidence showed the slaying was premeditated. Hurriyet newspaper columnist Abdulkadir Selvi, who is known to be close to the Turkish government, said the Saudi prosecutor revealed nothing new to Turkish investigators during his three-day visit and left with several questions unanswered. "Rather than share the information he has, the Saudi prosecutor tried to learn what information and evidence Turkey has in its hands," Selvi wrote Wednesday. He added: "The chief prosecutor is not trying to shed light on the murder, he is trying to save the crown prince." ___ Associated Press writer Mehmet Guzel reported this story in Istanbul and AP writer Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. AP writer eyran Elden in Istanbul contributed to this report. Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. (DHA via AP) Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb reacts to journalists as he boards a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct, 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct, 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct, 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) JUBA, South Sudan (AP) - For the first time since fleeing South Sudan more than two years ago, opposition leader Riek Machar returned on Wednesday to take part in a nationwide peace celebration. "I came only to confirm to people that I am for peace. The past is gone. We have opened a new chapter for peace and unity, " said Machar, speaking in both Arabic and English to several thousand at the event. He assured South Sudan's citizens that peace was in the hearts of all members of the opposition and those attending have seen peace with their own eyes. Machar promised to strengthen government institutions, address corruption and injustice and said that the new government would uphold accountability. South Sudan President Salva Kiir said Machar's return marked the end of the civil war and warned the "prophets of doom" who were waiting for another explosion in Juba that peace was here to stay. Addressing the South Sudanese people directly, Kiir apologized for five years of brutal fighting and said the responsibility falls on his shoulders. "I deeply regret the psychological and emotional wounds inflicted on you by this war," he said. Kiir also announced that the pardons of two opposition members who had been sentenced to death. The two being pardoned are William John Endly, a South African national and former adviser to Riek Machar who will be deported immediately and longtime spokesman for Machar, James Gatdet who will be released as well. South Sudan's opposition leader Riek Machar speaks at peace celebrations in the capital Juba, South Sudan Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. For the first time since fleeing South Sudan more than two years ago, opposition leader Riek Machar returned on Wednesday to take part in a nationwide peace celebration. (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) Also attending the peace celebrations were South Sudan's other opposition groups and the leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia and Egypt. Under the new peace deal signed on September 12, Machar will once again serve as a vice president in President Salva Kiir's government. This will be the third time the two men will try to work together since the country erupted into civil war in 2013. The last attempt failed when fighting broke out in the capital Juba in July 2016 and Machar escaped the country on foot. Five years of fighting in South Sudan has crippled the country, displacing millions and killing almost 400,000 people from violence and disease according to a recent report. The latest peace deal has been met with skepticism by the international community, including the United States, Norway and the UK, the troika which ushered South Sudan into independence in 2011. Since the deal was signed six weeks ago it has been criticized for slow implementation, missed deadlines and continued cease-fire violations. While security concerns remain surrounding Machar's return, he has come back to give confidence to the population and to put more pressure on the government to implement the peace process, opposition spokesman Mabior Garang de Mabior told The Associated Press. At least one South Sudan expert says Machar's return is a positive step toward peace. "This indicates South Sudanese leaders' readiness to implement the agreement. That President Kiir invited Dr. Riek (Machar) ahead of the implementation schedule and Dr. Riek responding positively, in particular, offers reason to be hopeful. I think that this shows a genuine desire by the leaders to end the conflict," said Augustino Ting Mayai, researcher at the Sudd Institute. Some locals in Juba, however, are more wary of his return. "We'll feel peace when we have three meals a day, when we can afford basic needs, when we can put our children and siblings through school, when we are paid our salaries at the end of each month, when we are no longer being attacked by 'unknown gunmen.' That would be peace. Machar's coming home is just that, he's coming home. I'm not sure what else it means," Eva Lopa, South Sudan radio personality told AP. A man waves South Sudanese national flags during peace celebrations in the capital Juba, South Sudan Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. For the first time since fleeing South Sudan more than two years ago, opposition leader Riek Machar returned on Wednesday to take part in a nationwide peace celebration. (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) South Sudan's opposition leader Riek Machar, center-left, is greeted as he arrives at the airport in Juba, South Sudan Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. For the first time since fleeing the war-torn country more than two years ago, Machar returned on Wednesday to take part in a nationwide peace celebration. (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, center, walks with South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, center right, as he arrives at the airport in Juba, South Sudan Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. For the first time since fleeing the war-torn country more than two years ago, South Sudan's opposition leader Riek Machar returned on Wednesday to take part in a nationwide peace celebration. (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, center, stands with South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, center left, during an arrival ceremony at the airport in Juba, South Sudan Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. For the first time since fleeing the war-torn country more than two years ago, South Sudan's opposition leader Riek Machar returned on Wednesday to take part in a nationwide peace celebration. (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) NEW YORK (AP) - Costumed revelers celebrated Halloween in a jittery New York on Wednesday with the city's police department out in force as precaution a year after the holiday was marred by a deadly truck attack. Thousands of uniformed and plainclothes officers were on hand for the city's big Halloween parade in Greenwich Village, a crowded, jubilant affair in which both marchers and spectators come in costume. This year they were joined by counterterrorism and crowd control units, rooftop observers, police dogs and helicopters. "What happened last year was terrible and will hopefully never happen again. There is definitely more security this year, but it's necessary so that nothing like that ever happens again," said a Spider-Man costumed Michael Crozier, 26, of Queens. "People might complain but it's worth it, to save a life." The parade was packed tight with people hoping to get a glimpse of the marchers. Police officers lined every street and congregated on corners, directing traffic and keeping people moving. Laura Mangiano said she comes every year to the parade. The 50-year-old Brooklyn native, who was not in costume as she stood behind barricades with her 23-year-old daughter dressed as a cat, complained that security was "too tight." "All these barricades are confining. The parade used to be more open. I liked it better like that," Mangiano said. Hugh Hales-Tooke, a friend of victim Nicholas Cleves, kneels during a moment of silence during a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Hudson River Park bike path attack, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in New York. A year ago a terrorist drove a truck along the path, killing eight people and injuring eleven.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Police Commissioner James O'Neill said police wanted to ensure that New Yorkers can celebrate "in an atmosphere of community, peace and fun, and certainly not fear." The city was just starting to gear up for its evening Halloween celebrations last year when a man driving a pickup truck mowed down pedestrians and cyclists on a busy bike path along the Hudson River, not far from the parade route, killing eight people and seriously injuring 11 others. Among the dead were five Argentinian friends vacationing in New York, a Belgian tourist, a New Jersey man who worked at the World Trade Center and one New Yorker, a software engineer. The truck's driver, Sayfullo Saipov, was shot by police after crashing into a school bus and is awaiting trial on terrorism charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Earlier on Wednesday, city officials took heat for botching a ceremony meant to honor the victims. Officials closed the ceremony without reading the names of the eight dead. A police officer scrambled to the podium as the small crowd was dispersing, and Mayor Bill de Blasio raced up to apologize and read the names. De Blasio attended the ceremony alongside emergency responders, a small group of family members and friends and the consuls general of Argentina and Belgium. A wreath of white roses was placed at the site of the attack and a minute-long moment of silence was observed. Wednesday's Halloween parade is the city's first large-scale public event since the back-to-back trauma last week of the discovery of a series of package bombs, mailed to prominent Democratic officials and CNN's Manhattan offices, and a gunman's slaughter of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday. In recent days, police have responded to false alarms involving suspicious packages and unattended bags, including scares outside Radio City Music Hall, at The New York Times and at the Time Warner Center, home to CNN's New York offices. Last year's Halloween parade went on as scheduled after the attack, with marchers lining up just a few blocks from the bike path, but with increased security, including sand-filled trucks parked as protective barriers along the route to stop any speeding vehicles. Over the past year, the miles-long Hudson River bike path that was the scene of the attack has been outfitted with temporary concrete barriers and permanent steel posts to block vehicles. ___ Associated Press writer Sabrina Caserta contributed to this report ___ Follow Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and Dobnik at twitter.com/verenachirps Rachel Pharn arrives at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Hudson River Park bike path attack, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in New York. A year ago a terrorist drove a truck along the path, killing eight people and injuring eleven. Pharn, of East New York, N.J., was biking north on the path when she was sideswiped by the truck. "I'm blessed and privileged to be alive," she said. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) A man dressed in a unicorn costume for Halloween walks Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in New York. A jittery New York will celebrate Halloween on Wednesday and the city's police department will be out in force as precaution, a year after the holiday was marred by a deadly truck attack. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) A woman dressed in regal attire for Halloween walks Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in New York. A jittery New York will celebrate Halloween on Wednesday and the city's police department will be out in force as precaution, a year after the holiday was marred by a deadly truck attack. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Friends and family members of victims of the Hudson River Park bike path attack gather at a ceremony marking the anniversary, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in New York. A year ago a terrorist drove a truck along the path, killing eight people and injuring eleven.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Friends and family members of victims of the Hudson River Park bike path attack gather at a ceremony marking the anniversary, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in New York. A year ago a terrorist drove a truck along the path, killing eight people and injuring eleven.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Kelly Allen, right, dressed up as a Gypsy, gets David Fleischmann ready to donate blood on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, for the annual Halloween vein drain blood drive at the Western Kentucky Regional Blood Center in Owensboro, Ky. (Alan Warren/The Messenger-Inquirer via AP) A woman dressed in regal attire for Halloween walks Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in New York. A jittery New York will celebrate Halloween on Wednesday and the city's police department will be out in force as precaution, a year after the holiday was marred by a deadly truck attack. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) - Cameroon's defense minister warned foreigners Wednesday to be take precautions in the country's restive English-speaking regions after an American missionary was mortally wounded amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers. "If you must be there, immediately inform the military so we can assure your safety," Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo said, adding that the northwest and southwest regions where separatists are fighting for an independent state were dangerous for people not from Cameroon. Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from the U.S. state of Indiana, died Tuesday after he was shot in the head while sitting in his car. Wesco had been in the northwest region of Cameroon with his wife, Stephanie, and their eight children for nearly two weeks before he was killed. Dave Halyman, the assistant pastor at a Baptist church in Warsaw, Indiana, where Stephanie Wesco's father is the senior pastor, said Don Williams spoke with his daughter by phone after the shooting. Relaying Williams' account, Halyman said Charles and Stephanie Wesco were in a car being driven by another missionary to the town of Bamnui from the Bamenda suburb of Bambili, where the family was living. Charles Wesco was in the front seat, and two bullets went through the windshield and hit his head, Halyman said. No one else was hurt, he said. The family raised financial support to work in Cameroon for two years and visited the country two years ago on a survey trip. This undated photo provided by Don Williams shows Charles Wesco and his wife Stephanie. Charles Wesco, an American missionary, died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon, the director of the regional hospital said. (Don Williams via AP) U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who previously was governor of Indiana, called Wesco "a believer, loving father, and pillar of his Indiana community." "Charles lost his life while he and his family were sharing the gospel in Cameroon," Pence said in a statement. "Karen and I will be praying for Charles' wife Stephanie, their eight beautiful children, and all those whose lives had been touched by his work and witness. And we will pray that they take comfort in the sure knowledge that Charles heard those words 'Well done good and faithful servant.'" The U.S. Embassy in Cameroon has for some time warned Americans against traveling to the country's restive regions, where violence has escalated and hundreds have been killed in the fighting between separatists and soldiers. Most foreign and local enterprises have left the areas. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said Wednesday that based on information from senior Cameroonian officials, "we believe the victim was caught in crossfire." Palladino noted that Wesco's tragic death "occurred in the midst of the Anglophone crisis," violence that began after the government clamped down on English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they called their marginalization by Cameroon's French-speaking majority. "Both separatist fighters and government security forces have used violence against innocent civilians," Palladino said. "We call on both sides to view the tragic death of this American citizen to put an immediate stop to violence and to allow unhindered access to humanitarian aid workers and health care providers." Regional Gov. Deben Tchoffo said Tuesday that Wesco was wounded as armed groups attempted to stop the reopening of the University of Bamenda and the military fought back. He said Wesco might have been caught in the crossfire. The military killed at least four suspects in Wesco's death and arrested many others, military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He did not specify if the people detained were military personnel or separatists. Wesco was not the first foreigner to be killed in the regions. A Ghanaian pastor was found dead with bullet wounds in July near Buea, in Cameroon's southwest region. A Tunisian and his co-worker were killed in Cameroon's southwest Manyu Division during a March mission that freed four other Tunisian engineers. Foreign road construction engineers were kidnapped in April by armed gangs in the southwest for allegedly neglecting demands to stop building roads. When the military went in to free them, three engineers were rescued and two were killed. Authorities said another 18 people, including 12 European tourists, were freed in April after armed separatists seized their vehicle while they were visiting a lake in the southwest. ___ Kusmer reported from Indianapolis. ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - The Latest on the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul (all times local): 11:35 p.m. U.S. President Donald Trump says he doesn't feel "betrayed" by Saudi Arabia over the death of a Saudi journalist who was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Trump, who made Saudi Arabia the destination of his first foreign trip as president, said the Saudis didn't betray him but "maybe they've betrayed themselves." Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday: "I just hope it all works out." A top Turkish prosecutor said earlier in the day that journalist Jamal Khashoggi (jah-MAHL' khahr-SHOHK'-jee) was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate on Oct. 2 and his body was dismembered before it was removed. Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting that he died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia only recently acknowledged Turkish evidence showed the slaying was premeditated. Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct, 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) ___ 5 p.m. A Turkish prosecutor says Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered and disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said Wednesday that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. ___ 10:15 a.m. Turkish media reports say Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor, who is in Istanbul for discussions on the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, has met with Turkish intelligence officials. Private DHA news agency said Wednesday the prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, paid a midnight visit to the Turkish intelligence agency's Istanbul headquarters. Officials were not immediately available to comment. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate after he entered the building on Oct. 2. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Khashoggi's remains, which still haven't been found, as well as who ordered the journalist's slaying. Saudi officials have said the kingdom will try the 18 and bring them to justice after the investigation is complete. Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. (DHA via AP) Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb reacts to journalists as he boards a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct, 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct, 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb walks to board a plane to leave Turkey, in Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct, 31, 2018. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and that his body was dismembered before being disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth.(DHA via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's stance on immigration issues (all times local): 9:20 p.m. President Donald Trump says the number of military troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexican border could reach 15,000 - roughly double the number the Pentagon said it currently plans for a mission whose dimensions are shifting daily. The Pentagon says "more than 7,000" troops are being sent to the Southwest border to support the Customs and Border Protection agents. Officials say that number could reach a maximum of about 8,000 under present plans. The troop numbers have been changing at a dizzying pace, with Trump drawing a hard line on immigration in the lead-up to the midterm elections. Trump's new troop estimate caught the Pentagon by surprise. Later, he told ABC News, "We have to have a wall of people." President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before leaving the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, to attend a campaign rally in Fort Myers, Fla. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) __ 5:25 p.m. Troops from 10 states are set to be dispatched to the border in response to a caravan of Central American migrants that is largely composed of families with children and is weeks from reaching the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the Defense Department, the troops will come from North and South Carolina, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Georgia, Texas, Washington, Kentucky and Kansas. They'll be stationed at an Air Force base and Army installation in Arizona, at several Marine facilities in the San Diego area, and in five locations in Texas, including naval and Army bases. The document says the Defense Department has identified 7,000 troops who will be participating in the mission at the border. About 2,000 National Guard members are already dispatched at the southern border. ___ 4:20 p.m. President Donald Trump says the number of military troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexican border could go as high as 15,000. Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that "we'll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border." He says the move would be aimed at preventing the entry of a caravan of migrants traveling from Central America. The caravan is still nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the border. Trump says that the U.S. was "going to be prepared" and that the migrants are "not coming into our country." Currently there are 2,100 National Guard helping at the border. The Pentagon says an additional 5,200 active-duty troops could join them. ___ 2:20 p.m. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is pushing back on suggestions that the move to send thousands of active-duty troops to the Southwest border is a political stunt ahead of the midterm elections next week. Mattis told reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon that the deployment of more than 5,200 troops is based on a request from the Department of Homeland Security. He says, "We don't do stunts in this department." An estimated 4,000 Central American migrants in a caravan have been walking across Mexico toward the U.S. border. Mattis authorized the deployment of the active-duty troops, and 2,000 to 3,000 additional forces have been told to prepare to deploy if needed. The forces are largely providing airlift transportation, tents, barriers and other logistical support for the Border Patrol. ___ 1:05 p.m. President Donald Trump is criticizing Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan for dismissing his call to end so-called birthright citizenship for the children of non-U.S. citizens born in the country. Trump tweets that Ryan "should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about!" Ryan, who is retiring from Congress after this term, said Tuesday that Trump "obviously" could not end birthright citizenship through executive action, and legal scholars are divided on whether even Congress can do it by legislation. Trump appears to be backing off his desire to do it by executive action, tweeting, "Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!" ___ 10:05 a.m. President Donald Trump says the right to citizenship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil "will be ended one way or the other." As Trump considers an executive action to curtail what he terms "so-called Birthright Citizenship," he tweets that "It is not covered by the 14th Amendment." He added Wednesday: "Many legal scholars agree" with his interpretation. In fact, House Speaker Paul Ryan and scholars widely pan the idea that Trump could unilaterally change the rules on who is a citizen. And it's highly questionable whether an act of Congress could do it, either. Trump has discussed the issue before and reinjected it into the political conversation just days before the 2018 midterms as he looks to energize his base. ___ 12:30 a.m. President Donald Trump is rushing out hardline immigration declarations, promises and actions as he tries to mobilize supporters to retain Republican control of Congress in the midterm elections. Trump says he's sending thousands of U.S. troops to stop an "invasion" of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border even though the migrants are on foot hundreds of miles away. Trump says tent cities could be set up for asylum seekers even though that would not resolve the massive U.S. backlog of asylum seekers. And Trump says he'd like to end the Constitution's guarantee of birthright citizenship even though most legal scholars say that would require a new constitutional amendment. Trump says this "has nothing to do with elections," but his timing is striking. Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears, and that's his final-week focus in the midterm fight. In this Oct. 27, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Ill. Eager to focus voters on immigration in the lead-up to the midterm elections, Trump on Oct. 29 escalated his threats against a migrant caravan trudging slowly toward the U.S. border as the Pentagon prepared to deploy thousands of U.S. troops to support the border patrol. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, center, walks past members of the South Korean delegation as he co-host the 2018 Security Consultative, with South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo, at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2018, file photo, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks during a campaign event for Jay Webber, Republican candidate for Congress in the 11th District of New Jersey, in Hanover, N.J. U.S. Rep. Andy Barr says House Speaker Paul Ryan will campaign with him in Kentucky. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, to travel to Pittsburgh following last weekends shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) This Oct. 29, 2018 photo provided by the U.S. Air Force shows Airman 1st Class Trevor Pearce helping guide a military vehicle into the cargo compartment of a C-17 Globemaster III at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The aircrews provided strategic airlift to Headquarters Company, 89th Military Police Brigade, Task Force Griffin, which is deploying to the Southwest border region to support law enforcement agencies as they conduct coordinated efforts to secure the border. (Airman 1st Class Zoe M. Wockenfuss/U.S. Air Force via AP) FILE - In this March 23, 2016 photo, the Constitution is held by a member of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump says he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump pauses while speaking at a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Ill. Trump says he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. The president's comments to "Axios on HBO" come amid a renewed push for hardline immigration policies in the lead-up to the midterm elections. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A former county Democratic Party official alleges a large donation from the North Carolina Republican Party to state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey's campaign broke laws so a big donor could bypass individual giving limits. Ex-Wake County Democratic Party leader David Bland filed accusations this week with the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement against Causey, the state GOP and Greg Lindberg. Lindberg founded a Durham investment company that controls several insurance firms. He's given nearly $1.5 million to the state Republican Party in the 18 months ending June 30. A finance report filed Monday showed the party sent $240,000 to Causey's campaign through two contributions in July. Causey, who was first elected commissioner in 2016 and isn't on the ballot this fall, denied any wrongdoing through a spokesman. Bland's complaint alleges donations to Causey are earmarked from Lindberg's party giving, citing comments made by state GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse about Lindberg to a television station. Woodhouse has said the party followed the law. State law limits individual contributions to a candidate committee to $5,200 per election. Routing the contribution to Causey through the GOP was an "end-run around" the contribution cap, Bland wrote. He said the board should force Causey to forfeit the donation and determine violations occurred. A separate federal subpoena issued in September seeks Insurance Department documents about Lindberg and related companies. Federal authorities have declined comment. Causey said his campaign has complied with all campaign finance laws, and he and the department are cooperating with federal investigators, department spokesman Barry Smith said Wednesday. The department and Causey are not the targets of the federal investigation, Smith said. A public relations agency spokesman taking calls for Lindberg didn't respond to a phone call and email Wednesday seeking comment on the complaint. Lindberg also hasn't commented on the federal probe. Woodhouse said in early October he hadn't spoken to Lindberg about how his recent large donations to the GOP but was told Lindberg had an interest in helping "build up the commissioner's campaign, and we took that under advisement." But Woodhouse told The Associated Press it was ultimately the party's decision and the money "was fully under (our) control." The party would never consent to how such a donation would be used before accepting it, he said. Lindberg has given more than $5 million since 2016 to North Carolina candidate and party committees and independent expenditure groups, according to campaign finance reports. Some of his donations also have benefited the state Democratic Party and former Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin, who is now the Democratic Party chair. DETROIT (AP) - A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday after jurors failed to reach a verdict in the murder trial of a former Michigan State Police trooper who used a stun gun on a Detroit teenager who then crashed an all-terrain vehicle. Mark Bessner used a Taser on 15-year-old Damon Grimes from a moving patrol car in August 2017. Bessner, who is white, told jurors he feared the teenager had a gun, but he was wrong. Grimes, who was black, then crashed the ATV he was riding into a pickup truck and died. The 44-year-old Bessner, who resigned from the force after Grimes' death, was charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Jurors saw state police video of the high-speed chase, but they couldn't reach a unanimous decision to convict or acquit. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said Bessner will be retried. The next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 7. The jury's struggles were first disclosed before lunch Tuesday. Judge Margaret Van Houten told them to keep working, but she later stopped deliberations after no progress was reported. "Thank you for all your efforts in this trial, but it looks like we're going to have to try it again sometime in the new year," Van Houten told jurors Wednesday. "It's no fault of your own. Sometimes 12 people just cannot agree after hearing all the evidence." FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2018 file photo, former Michigan State Police trooper Mark Bessner testifies in his murder trial in Detroit. Deliberations continued Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in the case against Bessner, who shot Damon Grimes in Detroit with a Taser from a moving patrol car in August 2017. Jurors have let the judge know they don't believe they can reach a verdict. (John T. Greilick/Detroit News via AP, File) Defense attorney Richard Convertino said Bessner is "temporarily relieved," recognizing that he'll be going through another trial. In his closing argument, Convertino warned jurors against convicting Bessner out of sympathy for the victim. "My greatest fear ... is that you'll believe that because a life was lost you need to make it right somehow, you need to fix it, someone needs to pay," Convertino said. "This is a criminal courtroom. You just can't do that." Bessner said he saw Grimes move his left hand to his waist, a signal to the officer that he likely had a gun. But prosecution witnesses said they didn't see it. Convertino said police must make "split-second judgments" in tense situations. Assistant prosecutor Matthew Penney said nothing justified the use of a Taser, an electronic device that immobilizes the target. He told jurors Grimes was committing a routine traffic offense by riding an ATV on a city street. Police records indicate Bessner had a history of questionable Taser use , but the judge kept that out of the trial. Penney reminded jurors that Bessner didn't seem overwhelmed when he told a dispatcher that he used his Taser and Grimes had crashed. The audio was played during the trial. "'You want burgers for dinner tonight?' That's the tone of voice he's using. Not someone who escaped death," Penney said. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A woman who reported a 4-year-old Missouri boy missing about a week before the child's body was found was charged Wednesday in his death. Quatavia Givens, 26, was charged with neglect or abuse of a child resulting in death. Investigators said Givens was caring for Darnell Gray on Oct. 24 at a Jefferson City housing complex while his father was a work. She reported him missing the next morning, prompting an intense search before his body was found on Tuesday in Jefferson City. A probable cause statement filed Wednesday with the charge said Givens initially told officers that Darnell either was abducted or ran away during the night. Darnell's body was found in a wooded area after Davis told investigators she knew where the body was, according to the statement. She reportedly told police that she hurt the child, saying "I may have hit him wrong," the statement said. This photo provided by the Cole County Sheriff's Office in Missouri shows Quatavia Givens, who has been arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of first-degree child abuse in the death of 4-year-old Darnell Gray, whose body was found almost a week after she reported him missing. Givens reported Darnell missing from the apartment he shared with his father in a public housing complex in Jefferson City, Mo., on October 24. (Cole County Sheriff's Office via AP) An autopsy found several injuries caused by blunt force trauma and sharp force trauma on the boy's body. Police have not specified the relationship between Givens and Darnell's family. No other children lived at the apartment. During the search, authorities went door-to-door, drained a retention pond and used a helicopter to search for Darnell. An $11,000 reward was offered for information on his whereabouts. Darnell's mother went on TV to beg for tips during the search. Williams said police aren't identifying either parent because it is "not something we would do to any victim." Police haven't provided details of the relationship between the parents. The probable cause statement also indicates concern that Givens had told investigators she planned to travel to Florida "to get out of the area." Online court records don't show an attorney for Givens. 18 Sierra Leonean college students awarded 2018 ChineseAmbassador Scholarship 2018/11/02 On October 31,2018, 18 Sierra Leonean college students were awarded with Chinese Ambassador Scholarship by His Excellency Ambassador WU Peng at the Chinese Embassy in Freetown. The Chinese Ambassador Scholarship is awarded every year to those eligible college students who possess good knowledge of China and China-Sierra Leone bilateral relationship. This year, 30 students were nominated by the Universities of Sierra Leone to compete for the Scholarship and 18 of them were marked for their outstanding performances after an interview conducted by the Chinese Embassy. They stood out for their understandings on China and China-Sierra Leone friendship as well as their excellent academic results. Among the scholarship awardees, 2 were awarded with China-Sierra Leone Friendship Awards, 6 with Outstanding Academic Achievement Awards and 10 with Promising Youth Awards. The package of the scholarship will help relieve family burden on paying the college tuition, one of the recipients noted. Sheka Kamara, one of the scholarship winners from IPAM, thanked the Chinese Embassy for the scholarship on behalf of the students. He said that the scholarship was in line with president Bio's Free Quality Education for Sierra Leoneans and as the beneficiaries they would work extremely hard to prove that they deserve the scholarship. Vice Minister of Technical and Higher Education Dr. Turad Senesie, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone Professor Foday Sahr, Deputy Chancellor of IPAM, FBC and Provost of COMAHS joined the embassy to grace the awarding ceremony. NEW YORK (AP) - Before a suspect was even publicly named, President Donald Trump declared that whoever gunned down 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue should "suffer the ultimate price" and that the death penalty should be brought back "into vogue." Trump has largely gotten his wish, at least on the federal level, with death penalty cases ticking back up under his Justice Department after a near-moratorium on such prosecutions in President Barack Obama's last term, when he directed a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection. Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has so far approved at least a dozen death penalty prosecutions over the past two years, according to court filings tracked by the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel, with cases ranging from the high profile to the relatively obscure. They include the man charged with using a rented truck to fatally mow down eight people on a New York City bike path a year ago; three men charged in a fatal armored truck robbery in New Orleans; a gang suspect in Detroit charged with "murder in aid of racketeering"; and a man charged with fatally shooting a tribal police officer in New Mexico on the nation's largest American Indian reservation. The tally could grow higher over the next two months as federal prosecutors await Sessions' decision in several other cases, including against the alleged synagogue shooter, Robert Bowers, who faces federal hate crime charges and 11 counts of murder. By comparison, in Obama's final year in office the Justice Department authorized just one capital prosecution, that of Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who fatally shot nine black people in 2015 during a church service in Charleston, South Carolina. FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump, left, appears with Attorney General Jeff Sessions during the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony in Quantico, Va. Trump, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, recently called for the death penalty for the man accused of killing 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue and Sessions has so far approved at least a dozen death penalty prosecutions over the past two years, according to court filings tracked by the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel, with cases ranging from the high profile to the relatively obscure. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) But while the Justice Department under Trump has increased death penalty prosecutions, the numbers are not entirely out of line with those earlier in the Obama administration under Attorney General Eric Holder, who approved 11 capital prosecutions in 2009 and at least 13 in 2012. And both the Trump and Obama administrations pale in comparison to that of President George W. Bush and his attorney general John Ashcroft, who in 2003 alone signed off on capital prosecutions against more than three dozen defendants, at times overruling his own prosecutors when they recommended against seeking capital punishment. What makes Trump different, death penalty experts say, is that he publicly advocates for the ultimate punishment in specific cases. "I think they should very much bring the death penalty into vogue," Trump told reporters Saturday shortly after news came of the synagogue shooting. "Anybody that does a thing like this to innocent people that are in temple or in church. We had so many incidents with churches. They should really suffer the ultimate price." And he took to Twitter just a day after last year's Manhattan bike path attack to call suspect Sayfullo Saipov a "Degenerate Animal" and argue he "SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!" Trump also said this year that capital punishment should be used to prosecute drug traffickers. Sessions followed a day later with a memo urging prosecutors to seek the death penalty "for certain drug-related crimes," including killings occurring during drug trafficking. "If we're to be a nation of laws, then the legal process has to be allowed to play itself out without being subject to political manipulation," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. "Charging decisions should be made based on the evidence, not based on politics and not based on political pressure." The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump was a vocal proponent of the death penalty for decades before taking office, most notably in 1989 when the real estate magnate took out full-page advertisements in New York City newspapers urging elected officials to "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY" following the rape of a jogger in Central Park. "If the punishment is strong," he wrote at the time, "the attacks on innocent people will stop." Five Harlem teenagers were convicted in the Central Park case but had their convictions vacated years later after another man confessed to the rape. The city agreed to pay the so-called Central Park Five $41 million more than a decade after their exoneration - a settlement Trump blasted as "outrageous." Polls show a majority of Americans still back the death penalty, but support has been declining in recent years. A 2017 Gallup poll showed 55 percent of Americans supported the death penalty for a person convicted or murder, the lowest percentage in 45 years. The death penalty remains legal in 30 states, but only a handful regularly conduct executions. Texas has executed 108 prisoners since 2010, far more than any other state. But such executions on the federal level have been rare. The government has put to death only three defendants since restoring the federal death penalty in 1988, the most recent of which occurred in 2003, when Louis Jones was executed for the 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of a young female soldier. In 2014, following a botched state execution in Oklahoma, Obama directed the Justice Department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs. It remains unclear today what came of that review and whether it will change the way the federal government carries out executions. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for comment. Trump himself railed against this disconnect between prosecutions and actual executions in his comments after the Pittsburgh attack. "They shouldn't have to wait years and years," he said. "Now the lawyers will get involved, and everybody's going to get involved, and we'll be 10 years down the line." FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2018 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks to reporters shortly after news came of the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh that left 11 dead, as he arrives to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., for a trip to Indianapolis. "I think they should very much bring the death penalty into vogue," Trump told reporters shortly after learning of the shooting. "Anybody that does a thing like this to innocent people that are in temple or in church. We had so many incidents with churches. They should really suffer the ultimate price." (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) President Donald Trump waves after arriving in Indianapolis to speak at the 91st Annual Future Farmers of America Convention and Expo, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2018 file photo, Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, left, walks President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump to a memorial outside for those killed the previous Saturday at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Before a suspect was even publicly named, the president declared that whoever gunned down 11 people at the synagogue should "suffer the ultimate price" and that the death penalty should be brought back "into vogue." (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) This courtroom sketch depicts Robert Gregory Bowers, who was wounded in a gun battle with police as he appeared in a wheelchair at federal court on Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Bowers, accused in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, appeared briefly in federal court in a wheelchair and handcuffs Monday to face charges he killed 11 people. (Dave Klug via AP) FILE - In this Jan. 17, 2013 file photo, from right, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, and Yusef Salaamat, three of five men exonerated in the Central Park jogger rape case, attend a rally in New York. President Donald Trump was a vocal proponent of the death penalty for decades before taking office, most notably in 1989 when the real estate magnate took out full-page advertisements in New York City newspapers urging elected officials to "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY" following the rape of a jogger in Central Park. Five Harlem teenagers were convicted in the Central Park case but had their convictions vacated years later after another man confessed to the rape. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File) WASHINGTON (AP) - At an apparent turning point in one of its hardest foreign policy challenges, the Trump administration is demanding a cease-fire and the launch of U.N.-led political talks to end the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called for a halt to hostilities within 30 days. The renewed diplomatic drive reflects a convergence of political pressures: international outrage over the slaying of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist and a Yemeni humanitarian crisis fueled by the dual threats of war and hunger in the Arab world's poorest country. "The time is now for a cessation of hostilities," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a written statement late Tuesday. His plea came shortly after Mattis spoke in unusual detail about diplomacy to end a crisis that has put vast numbers of Yemenis on the brink of starvation. The administration's new push comes amid mounting fears of a fresh Arab coalition assault on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, the entry point for 70 percent of food imports and international aid to Yemen. "Yemen has more problems than any people deserve to carry," Mattis said. The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, and the toppling of the government by the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim minority in the country. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. In this Oct. 23, 2018 photo, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters at a news conference at the State Department in Washington. The Trump administration is calling for a halt to the civil war in Yemen, including airstrikes by the Arab-led coalition supported by the United States. Pompeo is urging all parties to support U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths in what Pompeo says must be "substantive consultations" in November in a third country. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) An estimated 10,000 people have been killed. The war has also left around two-thirds of Yemen's population of 27 million relying on aid, and more than 8 million at risk of starvation. The fact that the Pentagon chief offered detailed thoughts on the urgency of a need for diplomatic progress, even before Pompeo had weighed in, strongly suggests that the administration has reached a turning point in its approach to Yemen, which also confounded the Obama administration. At stake is not only the humanitarian crisis in Yemen but also the future of the American relationship with Saudi Arabia, long the linchpin of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. "It's about time," said one congressional critic, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. "After more than three years of war, thousands of dead, millions on the brink of starvation, and growing pressure from Congress, the Trump administration is finally calling for an end to the Saudi-led war in Yemen," Khanna said in a statement. The Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Turkey has prompted critics of the Saudi ruling family to urge an end to American arms sales to the kingdom and a reappraisal of U.S. military support for the Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been bombing Iranian-supported Houthi rebels, sometimes at the expense of killing civilians. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of the Saudi government for The Washington Post, was killed and dismembered in a premeditated murder at the consulate. As details about the case have emerged, U.S. lawmakers stepped up demands for responses to the murder and to the crisis in Yemen. Pompeo urged a cease-fire, citing both missile and drone strikes into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by Houthis and the airstrikes "in all populated areas" of Yemen by the U.S.-backed Arab coalition. He urged implementation of "confidence-building measures" to address the underlying issues of the conflict. Mattis was more specific than Pompeo in his call for urgent movement toward a political solution to the fighting under peace talks being urged by the U.N. special envoy, Martin Griffiths. Mattis said a cease-fire should take effect within 30 days. "We're calling on all the parties, specifically the Houthis and the Arab coalition, to meet in Sweden in November and to come to a solution," Mattis said. The U.S. proposal was greeted with skepticism in Houthi-controlled Sanaa. Sultan Al-Samaey, a member of the Houthi political council, said that while the war needed to be brought to an end, the group would only support "a peace which will preserve our independence." Ayoub Al-Tamimi, a Sanaa resident and political activist, said: "This is simply a solution that will only plant land mines in the future of this region. There is no solution that can come from Trump or the Democrats, only booby traps." Sweden on Wednesday said it had accepted Griffiths' request that it host such talks but that nothing was definite. Griffiths on Wednesday welcomed the U.S. calls for immediate resumption of the political process and said the United Nations remains committed "to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month." Mattis called for demilitarization of Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia "so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports." He also said measures should be taken to "ensure that all Iranian-supplied missiles to the Houthis" are put under "international watch." "This has got to end. We've got to replace combat with compromise," Mattis said. Mattis put the primary blame on Iran. He said its proxies and surrogate forces are fueling the conflict. "They need to knock it off," he said. Mattis said the political process should "set the conditions for a return to traditional areas inside Yemen and a government that allows for this amount of local autonomy that Houthis or that southerners want." A group of five Republican senators cited the situation in Yemen as well as the Khashoggi killing as reasons for calling on the administration to halt ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear energy agreement. Among them, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has proposed legislation that would stop arms sales to the Saudis. The administration's diplomatic push highlights the severity of the crisis in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida. A protracted siege of Hodeida by the U.S.-supported Arab coalition could imperil the international lifeline to the port. The International Committee for the Red Cross said Wednesday that its team in Hodeida this week found dreadful living conditions for thousands of displaced families "who own only the clothes they wear and survive on a little rice or a thin mix of flour and water, if they find any food to eat at all." BOSTON (AP) - A Mafia hit man who is said to hate "rats" is under suspicion in the slaying of former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger, who was found dead hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison, an ex-investigator briefed on the case said Wednesday. The former official said that Fotios "Freddy" Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulger's killing. The longtime investigator was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death. Among the many unanswered questions after Bulger was found dead on Tuesday: Why was he moved to the prison? And why was a frail 89-year-old like Bulger - a known "snitch" - placed in the general population instead of more protective housing? Attorney Hank Brennan said Bulger had a hip injury and was in a wheelchair when he was attacked. Brennan represented Bulger during his 2013 trial. Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Massachusetts, parking lot. In this April 14, 2009 photo, Fotios "Freddy" Geas appears for a court proceeding in his defense in the Al Bruno murder case, in Springfield, Mass. Geas and at least one other inmate are being investigated as suspects in the slaying of former Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, who was killed behind bars on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, less than 24 hours after being transferred to a federal prison in West Virginia, according to a former investigator briefed on the matter. (Don Treeger /The Republican via AP) Private investigator Ted McDonough, who knew Geas, told The Boston Globe: "Freddy hated rats." "Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple," McDonough told the newspaper, which first reported that Geas was under suspicion. It was not clear whether Geas has an attorney. Several other lawyers who represented him over the years didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. An FBI spokeswoman in Pittsburgh declined to comment on Geas. Federal officials said only that they are investigating the death as a homicide. "What I don't understand is why the Federal Bureau of Prisons would transfer a super high-publicity inmate, who is a known snitch, to general population of a high-security prison," said Cameron Lindsay, a former federal prison warden who now works as a jail security consultant. "You've got to be smarter than that." He added: "If I was the warden of Hazelton, I would have never, ever allowed him to be put within my general population. It is just too risky." Bulger's death was the third killing in the past six months at the prison, where union officials have raised concerns about dozens of vacant jobs. Two inmates were killed in fights with other prisoners in September and April. Five members of Congress wrote to Attorney General Sessions last week about what they saw as chronic understaffing at USP Hazelton and other federal prisons. Bulger led South Boston's Irish mob for decades and became an FBI informant who supplied information on the New England Mafia, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Italian mob was a top national priority for the bureau. Tipped off that he was about to be indicted, Bulger became a fugitive and eluded authorities for 16 years before being captured in 2011. He was convicted in 2013 in 11 underworld slayings and a long list of other crimes and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He had just arrived Monday at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had previously been in a prison in Florida, with a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined to comment on why he was being moved. Bulger's attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., blamed his death on prison officials, saying Bulger "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty." Bureau of Prison officials had no comment on Carney's remarks. The Geas brothers were not made members of the Mafia because they were Greek, not Italian. But they were close associates of the mob and acted as enforcers. ___ Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker and Mike Balsamo in Washington and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report. FILE - This undated file FBI photo found in Boston during an evidence search and released Dec. 30, 1998, shows James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (FBI via AP, File) FILE - In this June 30, 2011 file photo, James "Whitey" Bulger, right, is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Mass., after attending hearings in federal court in Boston. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, File) HOUSTON (AP) - A former Texas prosecutor who alleges he was fired for refusing to withhold evidence from a defendant is getting help in his efforts to revive a wrongful termination lawsuit from an unlikely source: the Innocence Project. The nonprofit legal group is best known for helping exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals. But on Wednesday it joined attorneys for former Nueces County prosecutor Eric Hillman in asking the Texas Supreme Court during a hearing in Austin to reinstate the lawsuit that was thrown out by a lower court. Hillman alleges the Nueces County District's Attorney's Office fired him in 2014 for refusing to follow a superior's order to not turn over evidence he had found that could have benefited someone he was prosecuting in an intoxication assault case. Hillman's attorneys and the Innocence Project have argued his firing goes against a 2014 state law - the Michael Morton Act - designed to prevent wrongful convictions. Hillman's attorneys also argue that a 1985 Texas case prevents employees from being fired for refusing to commit an illegal act. Attorneys for Nueces County and Texas argued the state has immunity from most lawsuits, the 2014 law doesn't offer prosecutors any protections and the 1985 case doesn't cover public employees. Wednesday's hearing was the first time in the Innocence Project's 27-year history it has appeared in court on behalf of a current or former prosecutor. Phil Durst, an attorney representing the Innocence Project, argued that a ruling in favor of Hillman would help enforce the "highest judicial function of making sure that innocent people are not convicted of crimes and sent to prison or worse." Christopher Gale, Hillman's attorney, said the 1985 case was clear that all employees are entitled to protection from being fired if they refuse to commit an illegal act. "My client is not only Mr. Hillman, but defendants, all prosecutors. I think we're arguing for a bigger purpose today," Gale said. The Innocence Project has argued that if Hillman's lawsuit isn't reinstated, it would help create a culture of disregard for the law. As an example, the legal group in court documents highlighted the case of a woman in Nueces County whose 2015 murder conviction was overturned after a judge determined prosecutors had suppressed evidence. Jason LaFond, an assistant solicitor general with the Texas Attorney General's Office, said the state retains immunity from a lawsuit like Hillman's and any intervention that would allow such a case to go forward should be done by the Legislature and not the courts. "There's no evidence there is a systematic problem (with prosecutorial misconduct) here. ... There is no need for this court to act," said LaFond, who added that Hillman should have utilized the Texas Whistleblower Act, which protects public employees. Chief Justice Nathan Hecht seemed skeptical of claims that the state can have such immunity. "It's a little hard to see how a county can come in and argue, 'We can violate the law and there's just nothing you can do about it,'" he said. It's not clear when the court will rule. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the law designed to prevent wrongful convictions took effect on 2014 and not 2013. ___ Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter at www.twitter.com/juanlozano70 FOLKSTON, Ga. (AP) - Evidence shows a 39-year-old woman fatally shot her teenage son and her mother before killing herself at their home in southeast Georgia, authorities said Wednesday. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release that an autopsy and other evidence indicate Kimberly Gayle Butts was responsible for a double homicide-suicide in rural Charlton County. Also slain were the woman's 15-year-old son, Caleb Logan Butts, and her 64-year-old mother, Jan Elizabeth Kirkland. The deaths were discovered Tuesday by Kimberly Butts' father, Michael Wilson, who called 911. Wilson told an operator on the 911 recording that he came to his daughter's home to borrow an onion when he found the kitchen's gas stove burning and saw the bodies, WTLV-TV reported . "I just went around and touched everybody," Wilson says on the recording in a somber and sometimes halting voice. "And I've got three dead people here." The family lived in a small community called St. George near the Georgia-Florida state line. Wilson told the 911 operator Kimberly Butts was his daughter and Kirkland was his ex-wife. He identified his daughter and grandson as two of the dead, but said he didn't recognize the third body. Asked if they had been shot, Wilson said he couldn't tell. The Charlton County Sheriff's Office said in its incident report that both women were shot in the head, while the boy had multiple gunshot wounds to his chest. One woman was found in the kitchen. The other was in a bedroom next to the boy, with a handgun lying on her shoulder. The GBI said ballistic tests and other laboratory exams are still pending in the case. On the 911 call, Wilson asks for police to be sent to the home and says he'll be waiting outside. "The gas stove's burning. I don't know why," he said. "But I'm leaving everything the way it is." LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - The white man accused of opening fire in a Kentucky grocery store and parking lot, killing two black people, was indicted Wednesday on murder charges, but it's too soon to determine if the death penalty will be sought, a prosecutor said. The suspect, Gregory A. Bush, was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of murder, one count of criminal attempted murder and two counts of first-degree wanton endangerment stemming from the attack at a Kroger store in suburban Louisville last week. Jefferson County Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine told reporters Wednesday that he first wants to talk to the victims' families before deciding whether to pursue the death penalty against Bush, 51. "Quite frankly, it is too early to talk to them about that weighty decision," Wine said. The prosecutor said he'll talk to the families "at the appropriate time," after they've had time to grieve. Bush's indictment means his case will proceed to Jefferson County Circuit Court in Louisville. FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2018 file photo, Gregory Bush is arraigned on two counts of murder and 10 counts of wanton endangerment in Louisville, Ky. Bush, accused in the shooting deaths of two grocery store patrons in Kentucky has been indicted on two counts of murder. Prosecutors say Bush was indicted Wednesday, Oct. 31 by a Jefferson County grand jury in the shootings a week ago at a Kroger store in suburban Louisville. Bush also was indicted on one count of criminal attempted murder and two counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. Bush's case will proceed to Jefferson County Circuit Court in Louisville. (Scott Utterback /Courier Journal via AP, Pool) Bush was seen on surveillance video trying to enter a historically black church minutes before the Kroger shootings but was not able to enter the church, police said. The police chief of the town outside Louisville where the shooting happened said he believes the killings were racially motivated. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Monday denounced the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and Kentucky grocery store shooting as hate crimes and said the death penalty should be applied. Meanwhile, prosecutors on Wednesday identified the man they say first confronted Bush during the shooting as Dominic D. Rozier. The attempted murder charge against Bush stemmed from their exchange of gunfire, authorities said. Rozier does not face any charges for firing at Bush, Wine said. "There is no indication that he acted other than in self-protection for himself and for others," Wine said of Rozier. The wanton endangerment charges stemmed from the threats posed against Rozier's wife and the 12-year-old grandson of one of the victims during the shooting, prosecutors said. According to an arrest report, Bush walked into the Kroger, pulled a gun from his waist and shot a man in the back of the head, then kept shooting him multiple times. The report says Bush then reholstered his gun, walked outside and killed a woman in the parking lot. Each victim died of multiple gunshot wounds. The victims were identified as Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vicki Lee Jones, 67. Bush, who is being held in a local jail, did not know either victim, Wine said. Federal investigators are examining if there were any violations of federal law, including potential civil rights violations such as hate crimes, U.S. Attorney Russell M. Coleman in Louisville said. Coleman said in a statement Wednesday that the investigation will be "thorough and prompt, aimed at collecting the evidence necessary to meet the standards required for charging under the federal hate crimes and related laws." Gregory Bush, right, is arraigned on two counts of murder and 10 counts of wanton endangerment Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, in Louisville, Ky. Bush fatally shot two African-American customers at a Kroger grocery store Wednesday and was swiftly arrested as he tried to flee, authorities said Thursday. (Scott Utterback /Courier Journal via AP, Pool) DOVER, Del. (AP) - An attorney filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of scores of inmates at Delaware's maximum-security prison, alleging they were subject to inhumane conditions and physical and verbal abuse both before and after a riot last year in which a guard was killed. The 80-page complaint filed Wednesday names Democratic Gov. John Carney, Department of Correction Commissioner Perry Phelps, and dozens of current and former DOC administrators and employees as defendants. The lawsuit alleges that state officials have known of, but largely ignored, abusive conditions at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center for years. "Inmates and others repeatedly complained about abuse, the increasingly unavailable health care, and the increasing scarcity of education, rehabilitation, and recreation options," said the lawsuit filed by Dover attorney Stephen Hampton. The lawsuit said complaints reached the highest levels of the Department of Correction but "supervisors did not discipline the abusing officers" and "made no attempt to provide rehabilitation or education opportunities to inmates who wanted them." It says health care became so bad that many inmates are receiving no care for serious medical issues. The complaint also alleges that Correction officials, perhaps with the cooperation of the prison's medical contractor, deliberately covered up widespread retaliatory beatings and abuse of inmates after the February 2017 riot ended. Several inmates who were housed in the building seized by prisoners have previously complained of being severely beaten after the riot, then denied medical care for weeks, allowing their cuts and bruises to heal before they were seen by medical workers. "You guys that are coming from C-Building will not see a nurse or doctor until y'all injuries heal up a little bit," a correctional officer told an inmate, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also refers to medical records for one inmate who was seen two weeks after the riot. The diagnosis code reads: "Unspecified occupant of heavy transport vehicle injured in non-collusion (sic) transport accident in traffic accident." A mental health worker's notes from a day earlier indicate that the same inmate had complained that he had been beaten by guards after the riot. Two weeks after the riot, a department spokeswoman described allegations that inmates were subjected to physical abuse as "a fallacy." Officials with the DOC, its medical and mental health contractor, Connections Community Support Programs, and Carney's office declined to comment on the lawsuit. "As a general matter, we don't comment on active litigation," said Carney spokesman Jon Starkey. The lawsuit comes amid an ongoing trial of three of 16 inmates who were charged with murder, kidnapping and other crimes in connection with the riot, in which three prison staffers also were taken hostage. Two other inmates, including one who pleaded guilty to riot and is testifying for prosecutors, avoided murder charges in the death of a guard, Sgt. Steven Floyd. Two of the 16 inmates charged with murder, Lawrence Michaels and Luis Sierra, were also named as plaintiffs in the civil suit, which Hampton described as an oversight. Hampton said that, because of a potential conflict of interest, they would be removed as plaintiffs, at least until their criminal charges are resolved. The lawsuit specifically alleges cruel and unusual punishment, conspiracy, illegal cross-gender strip searches and body-cavity searches, infliction of emotional distress, and failure to properly train, monitor and discipline DOC staffers. It is seeking an injunction to prevent DOC officials from further abusing inmates, the awarding of damages, and the appointment of an independent monitor to ensure that inmates are no longer abused and that their abusers are held accountable. "Nobody in Delaware's going to fix it," Hampton said. "They've had 30 or 40 years." An independent review ordered by Carney after the riot found that the dismissal by DOC officials of warnings about trouble brewing was indicative of an overcrowded, understaffed facility plagued by mismanagement, poor communication, a culture of negativity, and adversarial relationships among prison staff, administrators and inmates. LAS VEGAS (AP) - A rancher's son now campaigning as an independent for Nevada governor filed a lawsuit Wednesday against current and former U.S. government officials, alleging malicious prosecution after a 2014 armed standoff with federal land agents. Ryan Bundy and his father, Cliven Bundy, said outside the U.S. courthouse in Las Vegas that prosecutors tried to wrongfully convict them for peacefully stopping a roundup of Bundy cattle by U.S. authorities from federal land near the family ranch in Bunkerville. "The federal government unlawfully retaliated against my family for defending our rights by stacking criminal charges against us" and others, Ryan Bundy said of the five Bundy family members and 14 supporters who faced charges that could have brought decades in federal prison. Charges were dismissed in January against most defendants by a federal judge in Las Vegas who found intentional and willful prosecutorial misconduct. Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro said the government failed to disclose to defense lawyers evidence that Bureau of Land Management agents and the FBI had provoked the Bundy family into calling supporters to their defense by acts including "insertion and positioning of snipers and cameras surveilling the Bundy home." Ryan Bundy, who represented himself at trial, accused government officials of "failure to prosecute their vengeful and frivolous charges honorably." Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, left, son Ryan Bundy, middle, and conservative activist attorney Larry Klayman talk to reporters in Las Vegas, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, about a lawsuit Ryan Bundy has filed alleging malicious prosecution by U.S. government officials led to a dismissed criminal case stemming from a 2014 armed standoff with federal land agents. (AP Photo/Ken Ritter) Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment on the lawsuit filed by conservative activist attorney Larry Klayman in U.S. District Court in Washington. Ryan Bundy is the named plaintiff seeking unspecified monetary damages greater than $75,000. Klayman said he'll seek millions of dollars. Named defendants are U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his predecessors Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder, former Bureau of Land Management chief Neil Kornze and former FBI Director James Comey. The criminal case against the Bundys stemmed from a standoff in April 2014 involving hundreds of protesters and armed Bundy family supporters facing off against federal land management agents and contract cowboys about 80 miles (129 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas. The Bureau of Land Management had court orders to round up Bundy cattle. Gunfire was averted when outnumbered government agents gave up and allowed the release of several hundred head of corralled cattle back to the Bundys. Cliven Bundy refused for decades to pay government grazing fees for his cows on federal land in what is now Gold Butte National Monument. He maintains the federal government has no authority over state lands. He said Wednesday that his cows are still grazing on the disputed land. Ryan Bundy said he hoped the filing of the lawsuit would draw the attention of voters ahead of Tuesday's election. "People will see that I am going to do something," he said. "I'm going to be active. I'm not just going to stand by as some of my competitors in the campaign have done." Bundy has stumped for votes around the state but has raised and spent just a fraction of the millions of dollars collected by state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, the Republican candidate, and Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, the Democrat. Most of the 19 Bundy case defendants from 11 states spent nearly two years in federal custody awaiting trial on charges that included conspiracy, threatening and assaulting federal officers, firearm offenses, obstruction and extortion. Five pleaded guilty before the trial, several were acquitted of all counts and some were convicted of lesser charges and sentenced to time already spent in custody. Two are in prison are appealing for release. NEW YORK (AP) - The far-right Proud Boys and their founder, Gavin McInnes, have been banned from Facebook and Instagram because of policies against hate groups, the company announced. McInnes criticized the ban in an email Wednesday, saying it was a way to drum up "hysteria" prior to the midterm elections next week. "The left knows they are going to lose this election so they are ramping up the hysteria with fake news and censorship in a last ditch effort to win," he said. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the all-male Proud Boys a hate group, but the Proud Boys reject the label and describe themselves as "Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world." Members of the group brawled with anti-fascist protesters following a speech by McInnes at a Manhattan Republican club on Oct. 12, resulting in arrests of both Proud Boys' members and anti-fascists. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, criticized the statewide Republican Party for inviting McInnes. A spokeswoman for Facebook, which also owns Instagram, said in a statement, "Our team continues to study trends in organized hate and hate speech and works with partners to better understand hate organizations as they evolve." FILE - In this April 27, 2017 file photo, Gavin McInnes, center, founder of the far-right group Proud Boys, is surrounded by supporters after speaking at a rally in Berkeley, Calif. McInnes and his Proud Boys group have been banned from Facebook and Instagram because of policies prohibiting hate groups.(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) The loss of the platforms will likely hurt the Proud Boys' ability to recruit. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported in August that regional Proud Boys chapters were vetting new members through private Facebook chatrooms. When asked Wednesday if the social media platforms have been a major recruiting tool, McInnes said, "I guess." McInnes, 48, was a co-founder of Vice Media but left the company in 2008. He now hosts a podcast called "Get Off My Lawn." ESTERO, Fla. (AP) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday kicked off his final campaign rally blitz before the midterm elections by accusing the media of sowing division and stoking fears about illegal immigration. Trump's rally in Estero, just outside Fort Myers, was the first of 11 events he will hold across eight battlefield states over the next six days as he tries to bolster Republican turnout and counter Democratic enthusiasm heading into Election Day, which will determine whether the GOP retains control of Congress. The president continued the grievance airing that has long been a fixture of his rallies, seizing on news reports about protests during his Tuesday visit to Pittsburgh, where he paid his respects to the 11 people killed at a synagogue in the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. He said any protests there were small and far away from him, and he called reporting to the contrary "fake and make-believe." A small group of protesters was within earshot of Trump outside the synagogue, and hundreds more were kept blocks away by police. Some community leaders had asked Trump not to make the trip. "The left-wing media doesn't want to solve problems. They want to stoke resentment," Trump claimed, adding: "It has to stop." President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) At the rally, Trump also referenced a caravan of Central American migrants that is slowly making its way toward the U.S. border. The president implored rallygoers to vote and painted a dark picture of the stakes, telling the crowd that if Democrats take control of Congress, they will raise taxes and open the country's borders to illegal drugs and immigration, including the Central American migrants traveling through Mexico and seeking asylum in the U.S. Democrats "want to bring caravan after caravan into our country," he claimed, without offering evidence. The president has been stoking fears that the nation is under attack from an onslaught of dangerous immigrants in the country illegally and said earlier Wednesday that the number of military troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border could reach 15,000, which would bring the military commitment on the border to roughly the same level as in war-torn Afghanistan. Trump this week also threatened to end the constitutionally enshrined right of birthright citizenship via executive order and announced plans to erect tent cities to house asylum seekers - even as his administration has been discussing a dramatic executive overhaul of immigration policy that would bar those in the caravan from entering the U.S. completely. "Under this policy, anyone who breaks into our country and has a child, the very next moment that child would be made a citizen for life. Great," Trump told the crowd. "This policy has even created an entire industry of birth tourism - big business." The rally was the first of two this week in Florida, where Republican Gov. Rick Scott is challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate and where Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis are locked in a tight race to replace Scott as governor. Both Scott and DeSantis joined the president at the rally, where Trump offered his enthusiastic endorsement. "Rick Scott always delivers for the people of Florida," Trump said as he introduced the governor. Trump's last-stretch rally lineup will include two rallies each in Indiana and Missouri, plus stops in a Pensacola, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. While Trump is not on the ballot this time around, both Democratic and Republican strategists have reported that Trump's rallies - the centerpiece of his unconventional and underestimated 2016 campaign - have been a boost for local candidates, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in free media and boosting Republicans in post-rally polls. By Election Day, Trump will have held 30 rallies since Labor Day, according to the White House. He's been holding events in competitive House districts and in states with competitive senatorial and gubernatorial races. Indeed, supporters in southwest Florida started to line up for Wednesday's rally before dawn, and by late morning, about 3,000 people were already in line for the event scheduled to start at 7 p.m. on Halloween. Several attendees wore costumes to mark the occasion - one in an Uncle Sam hat, another dressed as a Revolutionary War soldier, a third as Trump himself. Adam Botana, the president of Bay Water Exclusive Boat Club & Rentals, said he told his employees they were free to take the day off if they wanted to go to the rally. He said one took him up on the offer. "It's a piece of history," he said, adding he would feel the same way about former President Barack Obama or former President Richard Nixon. "If they want to do that, we have no problem with it." More than 3.4 million people have already voted in Florida, surpassing the number who voted early or by mail four years ago. And most of those in attendance at the rally claimed to be among them, thrusting their hands into the air when Trump asked who in the crowd had already cast their ballots. History and recent polls suggest Republicans will lose a significant number of seats in the House. Democrats are facing an uphill battle to gain control of the Senate, with several vulnerable incumbents running in Republican-leaning states. "I feel very good about the Senate," Trump told ABC News in an interview before the rally. "And frankly I think we feel pretty good about the House." ___ Associated Press writers Tamara Lush and Chris O'Meara in Estero, Florida, contributed to this report. President Donald Trump reacts as supporters wave signs during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump gestures during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump gestures during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump waves to the audience during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in FEstero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump gestures to a large crowd during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Florida Gov. Rick Scott, right, hugs President Donald Trump during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero Fla. Scott is running for U.S. Senate against Democrat Bill Nelson. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump, left, shakes hands with Florida Gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump waves to the crowd during a rally Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Estero, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) People wait for President Donald Trump to speak at a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) People wait for President Donald Trump to speak at a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Martin Luther by I This Is My Statement Are guilty of possessing "unearned privilege and power" Are inherently, by their very existence, oppressing "people of colour" Are born "racist" and are the only racial group capable of being "racist" Must submit to "people of colour" by "giving up their power" That white people "giving up power" involves reducing the proportion of white people in business organizations and government (mandatory enforced "diversity") [Note: This is ethnic cleansing.] That white people must accept becoming a minority demographic (and thus lose their right to self-determination) in their own countries as penance for "colonialism" The White-phobic Response To The Flyers U of M president David Barnard says this little poster is part of an international "neo-Nazi" take over of the Western World Letter I Sent To Student Writer Malak Abas For The Manitoban, The Official University Of Manitoba Students' Newspaper Dear Mr. Abas, I read your article where you dismissed the email statement I sent you as not being provably sent by the one who put up the flyers. If you wanted evidence that I was the one who put up the flyers, why didn't you reply to my email and ask me for some? I think the reality is that my statement flat out contradicts the entire narrative you (as evidenced by the article above), the university, and the media have attempted to deceptively weave surrounding the flyer campaign, therefore you would rather dismiss it than expose the minds of the students to any information that could potentially contradict the indoctrination they are receiving from their professors and media outlets such as yourself. I will have you know that the CBC, after receiving my written statement, has offered to interview me on camera. I have informed them that I will do so if they agree to publish my statement unedited and in whole. Frankly, I doubt they will agree to the arrangement, regardless of how desperately they wish to unmask me. The reason is because my words would be more damaging to their narrative than it would benefit them to publicly crucify a white individual for saying "It's Okay To Be White". Yours sincerely, Martin Luther am the student who put up the 'It's Okay To Be White' flyers at the University of Manitoba.The flyers were intended to convey one thing and one thing only: IT'S OKAY TO BE WHITE.They were posted in protest of racially discriminatory ideology that is taught at the University of Manitoba that targets white individuals.The absurd over-reaction (including by Harjit Sajjan, the Minister of National Defence , to a statement indicating it is "Okay" (i.e. acceptable) to be genetically European (white) is proof that many people do in fact believe it is not acceptable for an individual to be white. Simply stating that it is acceptable for an individual to have certain DNA has sparked outrage, accusations of "racism", "white supremacy", and "hatred", and has even been condemned as "offensive" and a "scare tactic".The individuals leveling these extremist accusations of hidden meaning and intent have only been able to support their vitriolic claims by attempting to tangentially associate the benign message on the flyers with random ideologies such as "Neo-Nazism" or vaguely defined groups of individuals such as the "Alt-Right", neither of which I have any affiliation with in any capacity whatsoever.I have been a student at the University of Manitoba for several years now, and the horrifying reality is that many professors explicitly teach in their courses that it is in fact NOT okay to be white. Professors at the University of Manitoba teach that white people:Professors at the University of Manitoba also teach:Ironically, people who adhere to the above ideology have asked the president of the University of Manitoba, David Barnard himself, to "give up his power" (because he is white) by stepping down so he can be replaced by an "Indigenous leader" so as to "combat inequality and racism".To top it all off, these same professors teach that white Canadians are guilty of these sins and must therefore repent by "giving up their power" have simultaneously claimed that white people do not in fact exist, that "whiteness is a social construct". So when it's time for "justice" (i.e. punishment) in the form of whites "giving up their power", they have no problem identifying who is white based on their genetic heritage (just ask the university admissions office if they have any difficulty determining who is white and who is a "person of colour" for admissions purposes), but when white people object to this plan for systematic disenfranchisement of their entire race in the name of "social justice", suddenly "whiteness is just a social construct" and therefore white people are not entitled to having a voice.What happens if a white individual decides they want to have a voice anyways, and speaks out in any manner whatsoever, including just to say something as innocuous as "It's Okay To Be White"? That's when these professors and the students they have indoctrinated resort to using racial slurs to dehumanize and silence white individuals. Terms like "racist", "white supremacist", and "nazi" are nothing more than racial slurs directed explicitly at white people.The official statement released by UMSU admitted that the phrase "It's Okay To Be White" is not "explicitly racist" (so it's just implicitly racist, then?), but claims it is intended to "promote a message that is dangerous and triggering". UMSU president Jakob Sanderson claims that "It's Okay To Be White" is "really dog whistling at white supremacy" and that the real message is "universities are going too far to help marginalized students, that were over-policing thought, that were over-policing expression." Ironically, he then explained that he was working with campus police to review security camera footage of the posters being put up, and that security services went around campus removing the flyers; i.e. they literally called campus police to remove the expression "It's Okay To Be White" and made efforts to hunt me down (presumably to exact punishment of some nature).UMSU also made the astonishing claim that the flyers were "targeted" at aboriginal students, implying that a hate crime had therefore been committed. They claim a flyer was faxed "directly to the University of Manitoba Native Studies Department Office". Assuming that fax is even real, I did not send it or any other faxes. Flyers were put up across the entire university and no group or individual was specifically targeted. It's plainly obvious that an attempt is being made to misconstrue the "It's Okay To Be White" flyers as a hate crime so as to set a legal precedent for pursuing criminal conviction of individuals who speak the words "It's Okay To Be White".[Note: UMSU has retracted their statement about the flyer being faxed to the Native Studies Department : It turns out someone actually faxed it to the Gender Studies Department, which completely destroys their "targeted harassment of aboriginals" narrative (though unfortunately the CBC already spread the false story).] U of M president David Barnard claims I am part of an "international effort by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups" , which is patently false. I am a member of no group or organization, and do not adhere to either the ideology of "neo-Nazism" or of "white supremacy". The phrase "It's Okay To Be White" does not in any manner imply relation to either of those ideologies, and these accusations are only being made in an effort to intimidate white individuals on campus so as to prevent them from raising their voices. They want white students to be afraid to even speak the phrase "It's Okay To Be White", for them to be afraid of challenging the orthodoxy of the ideological narrative being woven into their minds by the politically correct priests of the ivory towers.So the question is: Is it okay to be white at the University of Manitoba?The answer: Not according to many of the professors and many of their students, and especially not if you have the nerve to assert that it is in fact okay to be white. If you do so, the president of the university will call your speech "racist", accuse you of being a member of an international "neo-Nazi" syndicate of some kind, and order a police manhunt to track you down.If it was okay to be white at the University of Manitoba, I wouldn't have had to wear the mask. WASHINGTON (AP) - Four months after signing an executive order creating the National Council for the American Worker, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that more than 160 companies and organizations have pledged to provide more than 6 million new career opportunities for Americans. Trump said that since unveiling his "Pledge to America's Workers," businesses and groups have promised to create 6.39 million new opportunities for workers. The pledge includes apprenticeships, continuing education, on-the-job-training and retraining. When the pledge was unveiled in July, Trump announced that more than 20 companies had promised to provide career opportunities to more than 3.8 million people. Since then, an additional 120 companies and associations have joined the effort. "This represents an enormous opportunity for us to think about making sure that every American worker is equipped with the skills they need, whether they're in high school and they're looking to graduate and have a job ready for them upon graduation, or whether they're a mid- to late-career worker who is looking for an opportunity to learn a new skill or learn a new trade," said Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and senior adviser. "No federal funds are involved in this at all," she added. The president's 2016 Republican campaign included a pitch to help the "forgotten men and women" who have suffered amid globalization and a shifting economy. President Donald Trump speaks during the "Our Pledge to America's Workers" event in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow listens as President Donald Trump speaks during the "Our Pledge to America's Workers" event in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) President Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump arrive for the "Our Pledge to America's Workers" event in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Ivanka Trump, right, and White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow, center, listen as President Donald Trump speaks during the "Our Pledge to America's Workers" event in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's national security adviser warned U.S. adversaries on Wednesday that the U.S. is prepared to respond offensively to cyberattacks on the United States. John Bolton said that even before the administration released its cyber strategy last year, Trump had issued a classified executive order effectively reversing the Obama administration's approach to offensive cyber operations. He said Trump has reduced red tape and procedural restrictions to make it less cumbersome for the U.S. to take offensive action in response to cyberattacks. "I think that's critical, because I think that if our adversaries can take steps against us in cyberspace and feel no consequences, feel no pain, bear no costs, they have no incentive to stop attacking us in cyberspace," Bolton said at an event in Washington hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society. "The objective is not to have unrestricted cyber warfare, the object is to create structures of deterrence by making our adversaries understand that when they engage in offensive cyberactivities themselves, they will bear a disproportionate cost - so they think about it a lot harder before they launch a cyber operation to begin with." At the event, Bolton answered questions on a wide-ranging number of issues. On Iran, Bolton said that while Tehran has been able to mitigate the impact of earlier sanctions, it is feeling heavy consequences from the sanctions the U.S. has re-imposed since May when Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal Iran signed with the U.S. and other world powers. Blaming the United States, President Hassan Rouhani warned Iranians on Wednesday they could face more economic difficulties in the months ahead. On Monday, the U.S. is re-imposing more sanctions on Iran's oil, gas and banking industries. The U.S. also is imposing penalties for countries and companies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere that do not halt Iranian oil imports. Bolton said the U.S. knows that some countries can't quickly stop buying oil from Iran altogether, indicating that the U.S. will be willing to give them more time. "We don't want to harm friends and allies either," Bolton said. But he added: "The president has said unmistakably that our goal is maximum pressure and that it would drive Iranian oil exports to zero." Bolton also said the Trump administration expects the Saudi government to fully investigate the death of Saudi critic and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed Oct. 2 at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He did not disclose details of any actions the U.S. might take in response to the killing, which has strained relations with Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the United States. "We expect there to be accountability for what happened, which was criminal without any question, and they have promised to do that," Bolton said. "They have promised to do that. They have gone a long way already and we'll see what the next steps are." UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Wednesday welcoming stepped up efforts seeking to restart negotiations to end more than 40 years of conflict between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front over the mineral-rich Western Sahara. The vote on the U.S.-sponsored resolution was 12-0 in favor, with Russia, Ethiopia and Bolivia abstaining. The resolution also extends the mandate of the U.N. mission in the Western Sahara until April 30, 2019. Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975 and fought the Polisario Front until the U.N. brokered a cease-fire in 1991 and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor it. Morocco has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for Western Sahara, while the Polisario Front insists the local population, which it estimates at 350,000 to 500,000, has the right to a referendum on the territory's future that was called for in the cease-fire but has never taken place. Bolivian Ambassador Sasha Llorentty Soliz welcomed an upcoming round table of key parties but complained that the crucial issue of self-determination for the people of Western Sahara "is not reflected sufficiently" in the resolution. "The Security Council should not neglect the self-determination of Western Sahara," he said. The resolution welcomes the participation of Morocco, the Polisario Front and neighboring Algeria and Mauritania in a meeting in Geneva on Dec. 5-6 organized by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' personal envoy, Horst Kohler, the former German president. The Security Council encouraged the four parties "to work constructively" with Kohler "in the spirit of compromise" to take stock of recent developments, address regional issues, "and discuss the next steps in the political process." Council members called on Morocco and the Polisario Front to resume negotiations without preconditions, taking into account efforts since 2006 "with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara." U.S. deputy ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the council that "there can be no more 'business as usual' on Western Sahara." He stressed that the political process is only beginning and the December round table must start a process of direct negotiations that "proceed swiftly in good faith and without preconditions." Cohen said that as the process moves forward, the U.S. will carefully evaluate the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MINURSO. "Further renewals will not be automatic and will hinge on whether MINURSO is contributing to a political solution," he said. The Polisario Front's U.N. representative, Sidi Omar, said that "we look forward" to the December round table but he stressed that for it to succeed "we need the Security Council to really keep engaged on this issue." "It's one thing to bring the parties to the negotiating table and it's an entirely different thing to maintain the momentum for them to move forward towards engaging" on the question of the people of Western Sahara's "fundamental right to self-determination," he said. Moroccan Ambassador Omar Hilale said, "We are not going to Geneva to help each other." "We want more than that ... because we are committed to peace," he said. "Why we are committed? Because we want to solve this problem." UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (AP) - A man charged with murder in the friendly-fire shooting death of an undercover police detective testified Wednesday that he was trying to get himself killed when he attacked a Maryland police station and never intended to harm anybody. Michael Ford, the only defense witness at his trial, said he never saw Prince George's County detective Jacai Colson before a fellow officer mistakenly shot the plainclothes narcotics detective. But authorities say Ford exchanged gunfire with Colson before Officer Taylor Krauss shot his colleague. Ford fired up to 23 shots outside the police station but didn't hit anybody during the videotaped March 2016 ambush. "I shot low," he said. "I wasn't trying to shoot nobody." Ford is charged with second-degree murder, attempted murder, assault and other offenses. Prosecutors argue he is legally responsible for Colson's death even though he didn't fire the fatal shot because he started the deadly shootout. His attorney, Antoini Jones, asked him why he opened fire on the police station. This photo provided by the state's attorney's office in Prince George's County, Md., shows Michael Ford, charged with attacking a Maryland police station while his two brothers videotaped the shootout, which led to an officer mistakenly killing an undercover detective. Opening statements are expected to begin Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, for Ford's trial in the 2016 shooting death of Prince George's County police detective Jacai Colson. (Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office via AP) "Because I wanted to die," Ford said. "And I knew the police kill black men with no problem." Ford is black, and so was Colson. Krauss, who is white, wasn't charged in Colson's death. Krauss testified earlier this week that he never saw Colson hold up a badge or heard him identify himself as a police officer before shooting him once in the chest. Ford, then 22, said he didn't know his two younger brothers were recording cellphone videos of the ambush after dropping him off at the station in Landover, a suburb of Washington. One of the videos shows Ford screaming obscenities and shouting, "Do something!" in between shots. A judge ruled before trial that Ford couldn't present an insanity defense despite his serious mental-health issues. Ford said he was hearing voices in his head after he woke up on the morning of the shooting. He said he retrieved a gun from a safe in his car and held it to his head. "I couldn't pull the trigger," he said. After meeting his brothers at his mother's home, Ford dictated his last will and testament minutes before they dropped him off at the nearest station. He A police detective testified in 2016 that Ford's brothers agreed to film the shooting so the video could be sent to WorldstarHipHop.com, a website known for posting users' violent videos. "I had nothing to do with that," Ford said during a prosecutor's cross-examination. Ford's brothers, Malik and Elijah, pleaded guilty to related charges and await sentencing hearings. Colson's parents sued Krauss and Prince George's County, accusing Krauss of recklessly firing his rifle that day. Ford shot out the police station's glass door before firing at and "barely" missing officers who responded, according to a police report. Ford also fired his .40-caliber handgun at passing vehicles, including an ambulance that was hit by his gunfire, the report said. Colson was a four-year veteran of the department and 28-year-old native of Boothwyn, Pennsylvania. Ford said he never had any problems with police officers in Prince George's County before the shooting. He said he respected police. "When I was homeless, they would buy me food all the time," he said. Jurors are expected to hear closing arguments and begin deliberating Thursday. WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Rifle Association - long seen as a kingmaker in Republican politics - is taking a lower profile in this year's high-stakes midterm campaign, a sign of the shifting dynamics of the gun debate as the GOP fights to maintain its grip on Congress. The NRA has put $11 million into midterm races this year - less than half what it spent four years ago in a campaign that gave Republicans full control of Congress. This year's totals are also far below the $54 million the group spent in 2016 on both the presidential and congressional races. The shift comes as spending to support tougher gun control measures has surged. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, pledged $30 million for this year's election, and has continued to put new money into competitive races in the final days. A political action committee formed by Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman wounded in a shooting, is spending nearly $5 million. It's the first time under current campaign finance laws that the NRA might be outspent by gun control groups, though the organization often ramps up spending late in the campaign. That money won't show up in federal financial reports until after Election Day. It all underscore a changing political landscape on guns after a series of election year mass shootings, including the February massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 people dead, and Saturday's deadly attack at a Pittsburgh synagogue. "The politics of guns has changed," said Jim Kessler, the senior vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist think tank. "The groups supporting more gun safety restrictions are smarter than in the past and have more resources, both in terms of people and money, than in the past." FILE- In this Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, file photo, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), at National Harbor, Md. The 2018 election marks the first time that groups supporting gun control measures could spend more on a campaign than the National Rifle Association. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) With polls showing that the majority of Americans now support at least some tightening of gun laws, the issue is no longer taboo in swing districts, particularly the suburban areas that could determine which party controls the House next year. Everytown and Giffords' group are on the air in competitive districts in Texas, Virginia, Kansas and elsewhere. After the Pittsburgh shooting, a Bloomberg aide said Everytown bought another $700,000 in advertisements aimed at ousting Rep. Mike Coffman, a vulnerable Republican who represents a suburban Denver district - a significant sum to spend on a single House race in one week. The group has also spent about $4 million in the Atlanta suburbs to back Democrat and gun control advocate Lucy McBath, whose son was shot and killed in 2012. Despite the public polling, there are no guarantees that sending more pro-gun control lawmakers to Washington would result in tougher legislation. Modest measures have repeatedly been blocked in Congress, even as Americans have grown more supportive of steps like banning assault weapons and tightening background checks. Bloomberg, who is weighing a run for president as a Democrat in 2020, promises to keep up the pressure on lawmakers and candidates he's backing if they end up on Capitol Hill. "I've put an awful lot of my money and an awful lot of my time into this," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm not going to forget it. I'm not going to walk away." He continued: "The nice thing about the House, it may be a stupidly designed system but if they don't do what they said they were going to do, you get another crack at deciding to support them or somebody else two years from now." An NRA spokeswoman would not comment on the group's election spending compared to organizations pushing for stricter gun laws. Bloomberg, who is spending $120 million on the midterms, has helped pro-gun control groups level a playing field long dominated by the NRA. The organization was riding high after the 2016 election, with a strong supporter in the White House and Republicans in charge of both the House and Senate. But 2018 has proved to be a tumultuous year for the NRA, which has been faced with boycotts from parts of corporate America in the wake of mass shootings and an investigation into what federal authorities allege were covert Russian agents seeking to influence the 2016 election to benefit Trump by courting NRA officials and funneling money through the group. Publicly, the NRA has portrayed itself as being in financial distress because of deep-pocketed liberal opposition to guns and what it calls the mainstream media "spewing toxic lies" about the group. Over the summer, the organization raised its annual dues fees from $40 to $45 - the second increase in two years. NRA watchers dismiss the notion that the organization is in trouble and say it's more of a ploy to energize its ardent supporters, which in turn could help bring in more donations. "It's in the NRA's interests to exaggerate how much trouble it's in," said Robert J. Spitzer, chairman of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland and an expert on guns and the Second Amendment. Indeed, the group's political fundraising is up this year compared to the last midterm election. According to data provided by an NRA official, the group's Political Victory Fund has raised more than $12 million this year compared to nearly $11 million at this same point in the 2014 midterms. While the NRA is not pumping the same levels of money into this year's elections, it still has much at its disposal to try to sway campaigns: its NRATV media arm, social media and an ability to mobilize its millions of members to get them to the polls. The NRA's membership rolls and finances are not public, but the organization has said it has about 6 million in its ranks. Those who closely watch the group believe its membership is closer to 4 million. Both the NRA and groups such as Everytown can also quietly influence elections with money that doesn't have to be reported in publicly available campaign finance reports. ___ Pane reported from Boise, Idaho. AP writer Brian Slodysko in Indianapolis contributed to this report. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics In this Oct. 2, 2018 photo, former Rep. Gabby Giffords speaks as her husband, retired NASA astronaut and Navy Capt. Mark Kelly looks on as they kick off "The Vote Save Lives" tour at UNLV in Las Vegas. The 2018 election marks the first time that groups supporting gun control measures could spend more on a campaign than the National Rifle Association. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP) MIAMI (AP) - The former finance chief of Venezuela's state oil company pleaded guilty Wednesday to participating in an alleged $1.2 billion embezzlement scheme, a major breakthrough for U.S. prosecutors targeting corruption by people close to President Nicolas Maduro, including his stepsons. Appearing in a Miami federal court, Abraham Ortega promised to fully cooperate with prosecutors, making him the highest-ranking Venezuelan official ever to do so. As part of his plea, Ortega admitted that in his position with PDVSA he accepted $5 million in bribes to give priority loan status to a French company and a Russian bank, which were both minority shareholders in joint ventures with the oil company. He also said he accepted $12 million in bribes for his role in an embezzlement scheme that involved cooking up fake loans to PDVSA and repaying them at a preferential, government-set exchange rate, turning huge profits for alleged co-conspirators among the "boliburgues" elites that amassed fortunes under the Bolivarian revolution started by the late Hugo Chavez. Ortega's guilty plea came just two days after a former Swiss banker also involved in the conspiracy was sentenced to 10 years in prison. A third man, Colombian national Gustavo Hernandez, has been detained in Italy pending extradition. Ortega said Hernandez helped him launder his cut through a sophisticated network of brokerage firms, banks and real estate investment firms in the United States and elsewhere. Ortega, 51, arrived at court looking calm, telling Judge Kathleen Williams that he drank a beer at lunch. "Guilty" he said in Spanish with a strong voice upon entering his plea to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He also agreed to forfeit $12 million held in banks in New Jersey, the Bahamas and Switzerland. Sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 9. Ortega held a number of senior finance roles at PDVSA between 2004 and 2016, including the last two years as the company's chief financial officer. His lawyer, Lilly Ann Sanchez, said he had been living outside Venezuela the past year but decided to come to the U.S. and voluntarily cooperate with authorities once charges against him and others were announced over the summer. "The U.S. government has amassed a tremendous amount of evidence and witnesses wherein Mr. Ortega really had no choice but to come and face those charges," Sanchez said. Two U.S. officials familiar with the probe have said the Swiss banker sentenced earlier this week, Matthias Krull, told prosecutors that the money laundering plot included Maduro's three stepsons - identified in court papers as "The Kids" - and the owner of Venezuela's largest private TV network, businessman Raul Gorrin. The two officials agreed to give those details only if granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. None of them have been charged and they are not named in the complaint. A 10-page factual statement entered as part of the plea also refers to the same men but does not provide additional details about their alleged involvement in the conspiracy. The Justice Department said authorities in Italy, Spain, Britain and Malta assisted in the investigation. ___ Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon reported this story in Miami and AP writer Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia. RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - It was lunchtime on Election Day and Gary McElyea, a councilman in a small town perched in Virginia's sprawling westernmost county, was campaigning under a tent when the heart attack struck. "We were out at the polls, and he just hit the ground," said fellow Pennington Gap councilwoman Jill Carson, who described an agonizing wait for a helicopter to arrive and whisk McElyea to a Tennessee hospital about 40 miles (64 kilometers) away. There was nowhere local to go for care because Lee County's only hospital, about a mile down the road from where McElyea fell ill, abruptly shut its doors in 2013. In the five years since, local community leaders have been fighting to reopen the facility, and after a series of fits and starts, it looked for much of this year like that might happen thanks to a deal with a startup company. But financial challenges the company acknowledges it's been working through have thrown the plan into question at the last minute, officials say. It's a story that illustrates the herculean task of trying to revive a shuttered rural hospital and the harsh realities of disparate access to health care in many parts of America. "Our county desperately needs a hospital," said Dr. J. Scott Litton Jr., a family medicine doctor and a native of mountainous Lee County, which is home to some 24,000 people. One of Virginia's poorest counties, hit hard by the opioid crisis and the decline of the coal industry, Lee County stretches some 70 miles (113 kilometers) across, into the corner where the state meets Kentucky and Tennessee. Litton and other local officials and community leaders say the closure has been devastating, resulting not only in far longer travel times for patients like McElyea but also a strain on emergency services and the local economy. Some are convinced people have died because of a lack of access to care. This Aug. 25, 2018, photo shows the Lee County Medical Center in Pennington Gap, Va. Virginia's westernmost county had appeared to be on track to reopen its only hospital, a rare accomplishment a rural community anywhere in the country. But questions involving the company expected to run the Lee County facility have thrown the plan into question at the last minute. (AP Photo/Earl Neikirk) Litton said it's not unusual to have patients waiting in his parking lot before the office opens, often with issues that would be better treated at an emergency department. "We have patients that walk in with fractures, and patients that walk in with their hand wrapped with a towel with an active, bleeding laceration," Litton said. Lee County's long, triangular shape has made the loss of the hospital "a nightmare for emergency responders," said county administrator Dane Poe. In some areas, it's now at least an hour to get to a hospital of any kind, and the closest trauma center is in Kingsport, Tennessee, Poe said. That can mean a three- to four-hour turnaround on a single call for the county's patchwork of volunteer rescue squads. The closing also cost the county jobs and has made it harder to recruit new industries or even workers to the area, Poe said. Many residents were shocked when the hospital's previous owner announced closure plans in 2013 shortly after renovating the emergency room. But the closure fell in line with a national trend of struggling rural hospitals shutting their doors. According to the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 89 rural hospitals have closed since January 2010. Eight have reopened. Another 673 rural facilities, or about a third nationwide, are vulnerable and could close, according to the National Rural Health Association. In addition to the challenge of hospital closures, rural America generally has fewer physicians to serve residents more likely than their urban counterparts to be older, uninsured and living in poverty. After the hospital closure, Lee County rallied. They held organizing meetings, looked for potential new operators and formed a hospital authority, a move that took special approval from the state legislature. The authority members then obtained a certificate from the state to operate a hospital. They sought advice and help from the state's congressional delegation. They purchased the building, then kept it up by paying for basic maintenance on things like the grounds and the boiler system, according to a hospital authority report. About three years into that effort, Americore Health, a newly formed rural hospital management and acquisition company, approached the group about a reopening. The company has already invested around $5 million into opening the facility and will likely spend around another $2 million, Americore CEO Grant White said. Plans call for a 25-bed acute care hospital with two general purpose operating rooms opening by Dec. 31 - a deadline under the existing certificate of public need from the state. By all accounts, Americore had been working diligently on the reopening until mid-August, when work on the project seemed to come to a halt, said Jeff Mitchell, a Blacksburg-based attorney for the authority. Authority members also started seeing news reports about problems at the company's other hospitals, including unpaid tax bills , payroll snags , layoffs and disputes with lenders . The authority recently gave the company two weeks to provide evidence of the "viability and sustainability of the project," Mitchell said. He said he expects the board to determine at its next meeting Thursday whether it thinks the company can get the hospital reopened and consider next steps. White said he thinks Americore can satisfy the authority and is committed to seeing the project through. "We're pushing full steam ahead to get the place reopened by the end of the year," he said Friday. Meanwhile, the community is hoping and praying for the best, McElyea and others said. "I can't think of anything more important to Lee County right now, or anytime, than a hospital," said longtime sheriff Gary Parsons. This Aug. 25, 2018, photo shows beds and other equipment being assembled in an ICU room in the Lee County Medical Center in Pennington Gap, Va. Virginia's westernmost county had appeared to be on track to reopen its only hospital, a rare accomplishment a rural community anywhere in the country. But questions involving the company expected to run the Lee County facility have thrown the plan into question at the last minute. (AP Photo/Earl Neikirk) SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - The Latest on the arrests of two Massachusetts police officers accused of unreasonable force in the arrests of two Latino teams (all times local): 4:51 p.m. One current and one former Springfield police officer have pleaded not guilty to federal charges that they used excessive force while arresting two Latino teenagers. Gregg Bigda and Steven Vigneault appeared in U.S. District Court on Wednesday following their arrests earlier in the day. According to a federal indictment, Bigda kicked one of the boys in the head, spat on him and said: Welcome to the white man's world." Bigda is also charged with threatening one of the teens during an interrogation and filing a false police report. File-This May 24, 2017, file photo shows Springfield, Mass., police officer Gregg Bigda being sworn-in before testifying in a gun case in Hampden Superior Court. Bigda and former detective Steven Vignault were arrested Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, for using excessive force while arresting two Latino teenagers, and one of the officers said "welcome to the white man's world." The pair were due to make an initial appearance later in the day in federal court, the U.S. attorney's office said. (Don Treeger /The Republican via AP, File) Vigneault is charged with using unreasonable force against the second teen during the February 2016 incident following a pursuit. Vigneault has retired from the force. Masslive.com reports that the two men were released without bail following their court appearances. ___ 11:52 a.m. A federal indictment alleges two Massachusetts police officers used excessive force during the arrest of two Latino teenagers in 2016. Federal prosecutors say Gregg Bigda and Steven Vigneault were arrested Wednesday and are expected to appear later in the day in federal court in Springfield. According to the indictment, Bigda spat on one teen and said: "Welcome to the white man's world." Bigda is also accused of threatening the youths during a subsequent interrogation and falsifying a police report. Vigneault is charged with using unreasonable force against the second teen. Prosecutors say both boys were injured in the confrontation, which occurred in Palmer following a pursuit that began in Springfield. Vigneault retired in 2016. Bigda remains an officer after serving a 60-day suspension. Messages left with attorneys for the men were not returned. ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Call it collusion or a gentlemen's agreement, but three of Minnesota's minor political parties are working together to climb back into relevance. In the two decades since professional wrestler-turned politician Jesse Ventura jolted Minnesota with a third-party upset win to become governor, Minnesota's third parties have been relegated to the political doghouse. But three of those parties have agreed to stay out of each other's way in next week's election, with hopes of improving their chances of securing the 5 percent of the vote necessary to clinch major party status. The plan involves Minnesota's Independence, Green and Libertarian parties. Libertarians fielded candidates for governor and state auditor, while the Independence Party took the secretary of state's race. The Green Party put up a U.S. Senate candidate. As the only two parties with major party status in Minnesota, Democrats and Republicans alone enjoy the benefits of bigger public campaign subsidies and automatic ballot access. Chairs of all three minor parties say if their ploy pays off this year, their paths will be easier in 2020 and 2022, and give Minnesota voters a more visible alternative. "It can work, it should work, and at least for a couple of us, I think it will work," Independence Party Chairman Phil Fuehrer said. "Third parties traditionally offer relief valves in tense times, and we're certainly in those now." In this Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, photo, Minnesota Independence Party chairman Phil Fuehrer discusses the plan for minor parties to cooperate with each other in hopes of achieving major party status in St. Paul, Minn. The Independence Party lost major party status in 2014, losing automatic ballot status and far more generous public campaign subsidies along with it. (AP Photo/Kyle Potter) Fuehrer, who took over as party chair in 2015 but has been involved in Independence Party politics for decades, knows firsthand the pains of being on the outside - and how good the party had it beforehand. Minnesota's Independence Party struggled to maintain power after Ventura's surprise win in 1998, then known as the Reform Party. But it remained a factor in major elections in the years that followed: Tim Penny and Dean Barkley eclipsed 15 percent of the vote in races for governor and U.S. Senate, respectively, and Tom Horner won nearly 13 percent of a 2010 gubernatorial race. By 2014, however, the Independence Party was relegated to minor party status after barely failing to hit the 5 percent threshold for a second election in a row. That loss cost the party automatic ballot access and most of the public campaign financing available to candidates. The Green Party was also briefly considered a major party, from 2000 until 2004. Minor parties must gather 2,000 petition signatures in two weeks to secure a candidate's spot on the ballot. After a misfired bid to capitalize on Republican voters' unease with President Donald Trump in 2016 by hitching their fortunes to third-party candidate Evan McMullin, Fuehrer started crunching the numbers on third-party votes across parties in Minnesota. He found Minnesota voters were ready to cast up to 13 percent of the vote for alternative candidates - but the minor parties were stealing votes from each other, keeping everyone under the necessary 5 percent to clinch major party status for the next two election cycles. "For at least 2018 we need to stop 'stepping' on each other and cooperate," Fuehrer wrote in what he calls his "white paper" broaching the subject with other parties, which he provided to The Associated Press. "It is time to operate outside our comfort zones." Other minor parties like the Legal Marijuana Now party and Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party steered clear of the deal, which could complicate their efforts by pulling away votes from the three cooperating parties. But the Independence, Green and Libertarian parties eventually settled on what both Fuehrer and Libertarian Party Chairman Chris Holbrook call "a gentlemen's agreement." Fuehrer said that over beers, the party chairs hashed out which party would field candidates in each statewide race, yielding to each other based on who already had solid candidates lined up. Minnesota's open race for attorney general could have been a slam dunk for major-party status. Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison is saddled with a physical abuse allegation he denies as he attacks Republican Doug Wardlow's partisan past. But none of the three cooperating parties fielded a candidate. Holbrook said their Libertarian candidate backed out at the last minute, and the only third-party candidate in the race has since thrown his support to Ellison. "That's killing me right now to not have a candidate in that race," Holbrook said with a laugh. "I think it's a flip of a coin, to be honest. I think our chances are better in Minnesota than ever." Hamline University political science professor and election law expert David Schultz said the parties ploy is legal, and clever. While he's all but certain some of the state's minor parties could rise up, he doubted whether they could repeat Ventura's victory in 1998. "The polarization was nowhere near where it is now, to where people are locked in," Schultz said. "It's making it harder, even in Minnesota, for a third party to remain viable." Fuehrer worried that midterm electioneering among Trump, Republicans and Democrats could derail their effort this year. "That's my greatest fear, that tribalism, the hyper-partisanship will move voters to the extremes," he said. "But I've always been an optimist. I wouldn't be in the third-party movement, in third-party politics for almost 25 years ... without being an eternal optimist." WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States weighed in Wednesday on a political crisis that has engulfed the Indian Ocean island nation of Sri Lanka since the president abruptly fired the prime minister and replaced him with an authoritarian former leader who has been accused of serious human rights abuses. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told reporters, "It's up to the parliament to decide who the prime minister is." That follows the Sri Lankan president's sacking last week of Ranil Wickremesinghe and his replacement with former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, which critics say violates the constitution. President Maithripala Sirisena swore in a new Cabinet under Rajapaksa on Monday despite a warning from the parliament speaker of possible violence if lawmakers were not summoned immediately to resolve the crisis. Sirisena suspended Parliament in an apparent move to give Rajapaksa time to muster enough support to survive any no-confidence vote. The political upheaval and challenges to the democratic process could endanger improvements in U.S.-Sri Lanka relations since Rajapaksa lost power in elections in 2015. He had presided over the defeat of ethnic Tamil rebels in the nation's quarter-century civil war that ended in 2009. However his government became alienated from the West over its failure to address allegations of war crimes in the final months of the conflict and his crackdown on dissent. For the past three years, as Sri Lanka has had a fragile unity government, the U.S has expanded relations that were curtailed during the later years of Rajapaksa's rule, including renewed military cooperation. Sri Lanka has a strategic location on sea lanes linking Asia to Africa and Europe, where Washington vies for influence with China. The U.S. has also increased development aid. The government-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation has been preparing a five-year assistance package, or compact, worth hundreds of millions of dollars that was expected to be finalized in the coming weeks. That could now be thrown into doubt. Sri Lankan prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa waves to people after assuming duties as finance minister in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. President Maithripala Sirisena dismissed Ranil Wickremesinghe and his Cabinet on Friday and replaced him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa. On Saturday, Sirisena suspended Parliament in an apparent move to give Rajapaksa time to muster enough support to survive any no-confidence vote. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena) "No actions are being taken either to move the compact forward or to suspend it while we assess the situation in country," MCC said in a statement to The Associated Press. The agency said it expects Sri Lanka "to remain committed to democratic governance, which includes respect for fundamental freedoms and rule of law." The developments in Sri Lanka will also cause concern in Congress, which has conditioned assistance to the island on post-war justice and the restoration of civil and human rights. Vermont's Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top-ranking Democrat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, said that if the appointment of Rajapaksa as prime minister stands, "it will pose a grave challenge to U.S. engagement with that government." He said that when Rajapaksa was in power, he ran "the government as a criminal enterprise, making sweetheart deals with China, persecuting the Tamil minority and wrongly imprisoning political opponents and journalists." In addition allegations of rights abuses, Rajapaksa's government came under fire in Sri Lanka for taking out billions of dollars in loans from China to build a scantly used port. He was also criticized for the lavish lifestyles of his three sons and nepotism that saw his brothers holding sway in many key institutions. But as the current government's popularity has waned, and the Sri Lankan economy has stalled, Rajapaksa's political fortunes have improved. His party swept local elections in February. The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. New evidence about a cancer operation in women finds a higher death rate for the less invasive version, challenging standard practice and the "less is more" approach to treating cervical cancer. The unexpected findings are prompting changes at some hospitals that perform radical hysterectomies for early-stage disease. The more rigorous of the two studies was conducted at more than 30 sites in a dozen countries. It found women who had the less invasive surgery were four times more likely to see their cancer return compared to women who had traditional surgery. Death from cervical cancer occurred in 14 of 319 patients who had minimally invasive surgery and 2 of 312 patients who had open surgery. Results were published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. Radical hysterectomy is standard treatment for women with early-stage cervical cancer. Rates are declining because of widespread screening. The number of operations has fallen, too, to several thousand a year in the United States. Some women with early-stage cervical cancer are choosing fertility-sparing techniques, treatments not included in the new research. In both studies, researchers compared two methods for radical hysterectomy, an operation to remove the uterus, cervix and part of the vagina. The surgery costs around $9,000 to $12,000 with the minimally invasive version at the higher end. This undated microscope image provided by the NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in October 2018 shows squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix, the most common form of cervical cancer. New evidence about a cancer operation in women finds a higher death rate for the less invasive version, challenging standard practice and the "less is more" approach to treating cervical cancer. Results were published online Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018 by the New England Journal of Medicine. (NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center) Traditional surgery involves a cut in the lower abdomen. In a newer method, a surgeon makes small incisions for a camera and instruments. Patients recover faster, so laparoscopic surgery, which has been around for more than a decade, gained popularity despite a lack of rigorous long-term studies. It's not clear why it failed to measure up. Experts suspect there may be something about the tools or technique that spreads the cancer cells from the tumor to the abdominal cavity. Some hospitals went back to traditional hysterectomy after the results were presented at a cancer meeting in March. "We immediately as a department changed our practice and changed completely to the open approach," said Dr. Pedro Ramirez of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Ramirez led the more rigorous study, which randomly assigned 631 patients to one of two surgeries. After 4 years, the rate of those still living without disease was 86 percent with less invasive surgery and 96 percent with traditional surgery. The experiment was halted early last year when the higher death and cancer recurrence rates showed up. The original plan was to enroll 740 patients in the study, which was funded in part by surgical device maker Medtronic. For 33-year-old Alicia Ackley, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in July, the recommendation for traditional surgery came as a surprise, but she followed the advice of her doctor at MD Anderson after hearing about the research. Tests following her September operation show no signs of cancer. "I'm very glad I went that route," Ackley said. "The open hysterectomy got everything." The other study looked at 2,461 women with cervical cancer who had radical hysterectomies from 2010 through 2013. It found a 9.1 percent death rate after four years among women who got minimally invasive surgery compared to 5.3 percent for traditional surgery. "We're rethinking how we approach patients," said study co-author Dr. Jason Wright of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. "There's a lot of surprise around these findings." The research is "a great blow" to the technique and the findings are "alarming," said Dr. Amanda Fader of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She said Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore has stopped doing less invasive hysterectomies for cervical cancer until there is more data. While some patients with small tumors might do as well with minimally invasive surgery, "surgeons should proceed cautiously" and discuss the new information with patients, Fader wrote in an accompanying editorial. ___ AP video journalist Federica Narancio contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. ___ Follow AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson on Twitter: @CarlaKJohnson ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee inmate convicted of killing two men during a drug deal decades ago has asked the courts to halt his scheduled execution Thursday. Edmund Zagorski had requests for stays pending Wednesday afternoon before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. The 63-year-old inmate came within hours of execution three weeks ago before Tennessee's governor stepped in. That gave the state Correction Department time to comply with Zagorski's request that he be executed in the electric chair , rather than by a chemical injection. Zagorski's attorneys say the inmate thinks death in the electric chair will be quicker though he maintains both methods are unconstitutional. Zagorski was sentenced to death in 1984 for the slayings of two men during a drug deal. FILE - This undated file photo released by the Tennessee Department of Corrections shows death row inmate Edmund Zagorski in Tennessee. If Tennessee electrocutes Zagorski, it will be in an electric chair built by a self-taught execution expert who is no longer welcome in the prison system. (Tennessee Department of Corrections via AP, File) JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Out-of-state political consultants that went on to help run Republican Josh Hawley's U.S. Senate campaign began advising his staff in the Missouri Attorney General's Office soon after his inauguration to the seat, prompting Democrats to renew criticism of him as a ladder-climber. Records obtained by The Kansas City Star show campaign consultants gave direct guidance and tasks to Hawley's state staff days after he took office in January 2017. Consultant Timmy Teepell led the meetings and calls with senior attorney general staff. Teepell is a partner with OnMessage Inc., a Washington-area consulting firm that worked on Hawley's campaign for attorney general. Teepell is now a consultant for Hawley's Senate campaign in the marquee race for Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill's seat. The election is Tuesday. "It seems to me that going forward we should start compiling a punch list of what we need to do to roll out each of our agenda items this year, and we should put together a weekly conference call for all of us to set aside time each week to focus attention on these projects," Teepell wrote in a January 2017 email to campaign and official staff. Gail Gitcho, who worked on presidential campaigns for Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain, led a national communications strategy for Hawley and went on to work for his Senate campaign. In a January 2017 email responding to Teepell, she said she planned to pitch Hawley as "power player of the week" to Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. Topics included in later correspondence included a lawsuit Hawley announced in June 2017 against opioid manufacturers, and a state effort to target human traffickers that Hawley announced in April 2017. McCaskill had launched Senate investigations into the opioid industry and online sex trafficking earlier that year. Hawley's campaign and the Attorney General's Office did not immediately respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment Wednesday. The liberal group American Bridge, which has slammed Hawley throughout his Senate candidacy, on Wednesday highlighted the consultants' early work with attorney general staff as an example of Hawley's political ambition. Hawley announced an official committee to consider running for U.S. Senate in August 2017, months after assuming office as attorney general. He ran an ad during his attorney general's campaign that criticized "career politicians just trying to climb the ladder, using one office to get another." "Missourians already knew Hawley had abdicated his Attorney General responsibilities to climb the political ladder," American Bridge spokesperson Amelia Penniman said in a Wednesday statement. "Now it appears he outsourced the work of 'Missouri's chief law enforcement officer' to a bunch of DC political consultants just TEN days after taking office. That's disgraceful and irresponsible." McCaskill's campaign did not immediately comment. Records show Hawley's attorney general campaign paid the consultants, and The Kansas City Star reported that there are no records of consultants being paid or reimbursed with state funds. The use of state resources for personal or political purposes is prohibited, but the newspaper reported that the consultants' work with state staff doesn't necessarily violate Missouri law unless it was explicitly campaign related. The issue comes as Hawley and McCaskill are making their final pitches to voters. McCaskill is considered one of the most vulnerable candidates as one of 10 Senate Democratic incumbents up for re-election in states won by Trump, who achieved victory in Missouri by nearly 19 percentage points in 2016. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics ___ Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com BANJUL, Gambia (AP) - Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, arrived in Gambia on Wednesday to begin a three-day visit. President Adama Barrow and first lady Fatoumata Barrow greeted the royal couple along with Gambians who came out in throngs for their arrival. In February, Gambia was accepted back into the Commonwealth of Nations, which is made up mostly of countries that were once British colonies. Former leader Yahya Jammeh withdrew in 2003, accusing the organization of being a "neo-colonial institution." The British High Commission in Gambia said the visit would celebrate the U.K.'s "dynamic, forward-looking partnership with the Commonwealth nations on a range of shared priorities." Charles and Camilla are scheduled to meet with Barrow on Thursday. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The oldest son of Alaska's former Gov. Sarah Palin has won a postponement on serving a year in custody in an assault case after his lawyer said a bed at a treatment hospital for veterans became available. Track Palin was supposed to turn himself in to an Anchorage halfway house Wednesday after a judge recently decided new assault allegations disqualified him from a court program intended to rehabilitate veterans and said he would have to serve time instead. Anchorage District Judge David Wallace approved a motion by Palin's attorney Friday seeking to allow the 29-year-old to begin serving his sentence Dec. 5. Wallace was appointed to the bench by Palin's mother when she was the governor. Palin, an Army veteran who served a year in Iraq, has been accused of three attacks on people close to him over the past few years. In the most recent allegations, Palin was arrested in September after a female acquaintance said he hit her in the head. That came less than a year after he was arrested in an attack on his father. In court documents, attorney Patrick Bergt said he recently heard from the Chris Kyle Patriots Hospital that a bed was available for Palin, beginning Monday. The treatment would last no more than 30 days and would "benefit Mr. Palin significantly," Bergt wrote in his motion. The hospital is located in Anchorage. FILE - In this Oct 3, 2018, file photo, Track Palin, center, and his father Todd Palin, right, talk with an unidentified man before his change of plea hearing in Veterans Court at the Boney Courthouse in Anchorage, Alaska. The oldest son of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has won a postponement on starting a year in custody in an assault case after his lawyer said a bed at a treatment hospital for veterans became available. Track Palin was supposed to turn himself in to an Anchorage halfway house Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, after a judge decided new assault allegations disqualified him from a veterans therapeutic court program. (Bob Hallinen/Anchorage Daily News via AP, File) Bergt did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Anchorage District Attorney Richard Allen said Wednesday he opposed the delay, saying Palin had been through treatment at the same facility once before "and it obviously didn't take then." The court has given Palin numerous chances to better himself and yet he chose to "once again engage in violent criminality," Allen said in a motion filed last week. "It is time for this Defendant to face an actual sanction and to adhere to the terms of the agreement he made," Allen wrote. Palin was arrested Sept. 28 after a female acquaintance said he told her that she could not leave his house in Wasilla, took her phone and then hit her in the head, according to court documents. The woman said they wrestled over the phone and that Palin let her leave after she screamed for help, according to an affidavit by Alaska State Troopers. They said Palin told them that the two were arguing over how they said goodbye and that any injuries the woman had she did to herself. Authorities say he also kicked over a table and threw his head back at a trooper as he was arrested. Palin is facing misdemeanor charges including assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct in that case. Last December, Palin was accused of breaking into his parents' home and leaving his father, Todd Palin, bleeding from cuts on his head, authorities have said. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in veterans court. Track Palin's arrangement called for him to serve 10 days in jail if he completed the therapeutic program and a year behind bars if he didn't. Once Palin checks in to the halfway house, it's up to the Department of Corrections to determine if he will serve the time at the halfway house, in house arrest or in jail, Allen said. Palin also was accused of punching his then-girlfriend in 2016, court documents said. He pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm while intoxicated, and the other charges were dismissed. Sarah Palin, who was Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate in 2008, indicated that post-traumatic stress disorder might have been a factor in that case. ___ Follow Rachel D'Oro at https://twitter.com/rdoro BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - The Latest on a Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate in Montana saying he supports Republican Matt Rosendale (all times local): 3:55 p.m. The chairman of the Montana Libertarians is disavowing comments from the party's U.S. Senate candidate that support Republican Matt Rosendale. Francis Wendt says the Libertarian Party doesn't support Rosendale because he's from another party and lacks a strong enough stance on privacy issues. Libertarian Senate candidate Rick Breckenridge announced his support for Rosendale earlier Wednesday. Breckenridge says it's in response to a mailer sent by an unknown group that appeared aimed at undermining Rosendale's support among conservatives. In this Oct. 5, 2016, photo, Libertarian Party candidate Rick Breckenridge, left, looks on during a debate with Democratic U.S. House candidate Denise Juneau in Great Falls, Montana. Breckenridge, who is running for U.S. Senate this year, endorsed Republican candidate Matt Rosendale in his race in response to an anonymous mailer that seeks to undermine conservative support of Rosendale. Rosendale is in a tight race against two-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. The mailer is reminiscent of tactics used by Democratic-friendly groups in Tester's 2012 race to promote the Libertarian candidate and peel away Republican voters. (AP Photo/Matt Volz) Rosendale is in a tight race against two-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. The mailer is reminiscent of tactics used by Democratic-friendly groups in Tester's 2012 race to promote the Libertarian candidate and peel away Republican voters. Wendt says that if Libertarians lose votes because of Breckenridge's support of Rosendale it could make it harder for the party to qualify for future ballots. ___ This item has been corrected to show Francis Wendt's first name was misspelled. ___ 12 p.m. The Libertarian candidate in Montana's U.S. Senate race has thrown his support behind Republican Matt Rosendale in response to an election mailer from an unknown group that appears aimed at undermining Rosendale's support among conservatives. Rick Breckenridge said Wednesday that he doesn't know the source of the mailer promoting him as a "true conservative" and claiming Rosendale supports using drones to spy on private citizens. Breckenridge says it's an attempt by so-called dark money groups to influence Montana's election and he's decided that Rosendale is the best candidate to stop such efforts. Rosendale is in a tight race against two-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. The mailer is reminiscent of tactics used by Democratic-friendly groups in Tester's 2012 race to promote the Libertarian candidate and peel away Republican voters. __ This version of the story corrects the spelling of Francis Wendt's first name. In this Oct. 23, 2018 photo Senate candidate Matt Rosendale of Montana makes a speech during a rally in Helena, Mont. Rosendale is in a tight race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.(AP Photo/Matt Volz) THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) - Police in northern Greece have set off tear gas and flash grenades during a rally to protest the fatal police shooting of a man in Albania. Albanian police shot Greek-Albanian dual citizen Constantinos Katsifas over the weekend, saying he opened fire on officers at an ethnic Greek village. The Greek government has urged Albania to provide more information. Katsifas' death has prompted several protests, mostly by supporters of Greek far-right political groups. Several hundred people attended the rally Wednesday in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. The clashes started when police blocked access to the Albanian Consulate, halting the protest. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - The Latest on the death of a 4-year-old Missouri boy who was missing for nearly a week (all times local): 5 p.m. A 26-year-old woman who reported a 4-year-old Missouri boy missing about a week before his body was found is now charged in his death. Quatavia Givens was charged Wednesday with neglect or abuse of a child resulting in death. Police say Givens was caring for Darnell Gray on Oct. 24 at a Jefferson City housing complex while his father was at work. She reported him missing the next morning, prompting an intense search before his body was found. A probable cause statement says Givens admitted to investigators that she hit the boy. This photo provided by the Cole County Sheriff's Office in Missouri shows Quatavia Givens, who has been arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of first-degree child abuse in the death of 4-year-old Darnell Gray, whose body was found almost a week after she reported him missing. Givens reported Darnell missing from the apartment he shared with his father in a public housing complex in Jefferson City, Mo., on October 24. (Cole County Sheriff's Office via AP) An autopsy found multiple injuries on the boy's body. Givens is being held in the Cole County Jail without bond. Online court records don't list an attorney for her. _____ 10:30 a.m. A caregiver has been arrested in the death of a 4-year-old Missouri boy whose body was found almost a week after she reported him missing. Jefferson City police said in a news release Wednesday that 26-year-old Quatavia Givens has been booked into jail on suspicion of first-degree child abuse resulting in the death of Darnell Gray. No charges have been filed. Asked whether Givens had an attorney, a police spokesman said he couldn't comment on her legal status. Police say Givens had been caring for Darnell while his father worked. She reported him missing on Oct. 24. Darnell's body was found Tuesday in Jefferson City after authorities went door-to-door and drained a retention pond looking for him. Police haven't released the cause of death or specifically where he was found. CHICAGO (AP) - A judge says a Chicago computer-science specialist accused of running online propaganda campaigns for Islamic State poses a threat and so must stay jailed until trial. At a Wednesday hearing in Chicago, the federal judge cited photos arresting agents allegedly found on Ashraf Al Safoo's phone this month showing bomb-making components. The 34-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Iraq is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. A conviction carries a maximum 20-year prison term. The propaganda allegedly included video showing a Christmas gift containing a ticking time-bomb. The complaint also describes the propagandists' annoyance at becoming the butt of jokes after a text meant to warn about "beheading (President Donald) Trump" actually warned about "kissing and hugging" Trump. An app used to translate the Arabic apparently led to the error. NEW YORK (AP) - Police investigating the mysterious deaths of two Saudi Arabian sisters whose bound bodies washed up on New York City's waterfront on Oct. 24 say it appears they were alive when they went into the water. New York City police said Wednesday that 16-year-old Tala Farea and 22-year-old Rotana Farea were last seen Sept. 24 in Virginia, where they lived, and appear to have traveled together to New York. Investigators haven't determined how the sisters died. They say there were no obvious signs of trauma. The sisters' mother told detectives that a Saudi official called her the day before the bodies were discovered and said the family had to leave the U.S. because her daughters had applied for political asylum. The NYPD says there's no known nexus between the sisters' death and the Saudi government. Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza. Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres. PHOENIX (AP) - An Arizona man has been arrested on a charge that he showed an undercover federal agent how to make explosive devices in 2017 sting operation in which a confidential law-enforcement source claimed he wanted to use explosives against a target in Mexico. Ahmad Suhad Ahmad of Tucson is charged with texting the confidential source bomb-making instructions that were written in Arabic, providing some materials needed to make the devices and instructing an undercover FBI agent on how to assemble bombs. Authorities say Ahmad, who was arrested Friday, told the confidential source in late 2016 that he had learned how to detonate explosives using cellphones during the war in Iraq. It's unclear whether Ahmad's presence in Iraq during the war was a result of being an Iraqi citizen at the time or serving in the U.S or Iraqi militaries. Ahmad is, nonetheless, listed on court records as a U.S. citizen. Ahmad is charged with distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction. He hasn't yet entered a plea. "We look forward to our day in court," Ahmad's attorney, Walter Goncalves Jr., said in an email to The Associated Press. "Mr. Ahmad is presumed innocent and we look forward to defending him." Three months after Ahmad claimed he knew how to detonate bombs, the confidential source asked him how to make a car bomb for a target in Mexico, and Ahmad agreed to assist, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Tucson. Ahmad later emailed the confidential source homemade bomb instructions that were written in Arabic and listed some of the materials that were needed to build an explosive device, authorities said. Finally, investigators say Ahmad, the confidential source and two undercover FBI agents traveled from Tucson in late April 2017 to a condominium in Las Vegas where Ahmad, over several hours, made two bombs and showed one of the agents how to connect blasting caps and where to place C-4 plastic explosives. Ahmad brought a circuit tester, electrical tape and epoxy to the meeting, while the undercover agents provided other materials for making a bomb, investigators said in court documents. Court records don't explain Ahmad's presence in Iraq during the war, don't provide any elaboration on the confidential source's statement on making a bomb for a target in Mexico or explain why the alleged bomb-making demonstration occurred in Las Vegas, when much of the dealings in this case occurred in Arizona. The U.S. Attorney's office, which is prosecuting Ahmad, and the FBI declined to answer questions on the case. ___ News researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report. ___ Follow Jacques Billeaud at www.twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. NEW YORK (AP) - Federal prosecutors beefed up charges against a former CIA employee Wednesday, saying he has leaked classified national defense materials while incarcerated. The new charges against Joshua Adam Schulte were contained in a rewritten indictment filed in Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors said Schulte, 30, of New York City, was charged with the unlawful transmission and attempted unlawful transmission of national defense secrets from prison, along with a contempt violation. An earlier indictment had charged him with transmitting classified national defense information that he stole from a CIA computer system in 2016 when he worked in the Eastern District of Virginia. Some of the information emerged publicly in March 2017 when WikiLeaks began releasing some of the CIA's hacking tools. The previous indictment also alleged child pornography crimes. He has pleaded not guilty. A lawyer for Schulte declined comment. Schulte has told a judge that evidence against him is "nearly non-existent." Prosecutors requested a new arraignment on the rewritten indictment which they said outlined "his continued, brazen disclosure of classified information while incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center." The center is next to Manhattan federal court. In a letter to Judge Paul A. Crotty, prosecutors said they learned in May that Schulte had distributed search warrant materials that were supposed to remain secret to family members so that they could be distributed to others, including members of the media. They said they also learned that Schulte provided materials containing classified information to his family members as well. Prosecutors wrote that the government learned earlier this month that Schulte has been using one or more smuggled cellphones to communicate clandestinely with individuals outside the federal lockup. An FBI search found multiple contraband cellphones including at least one with significant encryption, about 13 email and social media accounts and other electronic devices, prosecutors said. The investigation revealed that he had sent classified information to third parties, including through an encrypted email account, they said. Prosecutors said Schulte was placed in more restrictive detention conditions on Oct. 1 during the latest probe. In a handwritten submission to Crotty on Tuesday that has since been removed from the public record, Schulte complained that he was moved on Oct. 1 to an isolated part of the correctional center. "This entire case is a lie," he wrote. "As you peel back lie after lie, nothing remains but a bare search warrant affidavit without probable cause." MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's Supreme Court issued two more rulings Wednesday ordering that complainants in individual cases be allowed to use marijuana for recreational purposes, establishing a precedent that a blanket prohibition on pot is unconstitutional. The court found that adults have a fundamental right to personal development which lets them decide their recreational activities without interference from the state. "That right is not absolute, and the consumption of certain substances may be regulated, but the effects provoked by marijuana do not justify an absolute prohibition of its consumption," the ruling said. The high court ordered the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk to authorize the complainants to consume marijuana, though not to commercialize it or use other drugs. The two decisions followed three similar ones between 2015 and 2017, and under Mexican law five decisions on a related issue set a standard that applies more broadly. "With the existence of five precedents in the same vein on the subject, the judgment will be mandatory for all courts in the country," the high tribunal concluded. FILE - In this April 20, 2018 file photo, a young man smokes marijuana to celebrate the International Day for Cannabis in Mexico City. Mexico's Supreme Court issued two more rulings Wednesday, Oct. 31, ordering that complainants in individual cases be allowed to use marijuana for recreational purposes, establishing a precedent which will apply for others that a blanket prohibition is unconstitutional. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File) The rulings technically do not legalize recreational use, however. They establish that courts must allow it, but it is still up to each individual to press his or her case in the judicial system. Mexico saw something similar happen in recent years with five Supreme Court rulings establishing a broader precedent allowing same-sex couples to wed, though same-sex marriage has yet to become the law of the land nationwide. Mexico United Against Crime, a group that opposes prohibitionist drug policies, said Wednesday's rulings "open the door to regulation of cannabis" and confirm that "Mexico must move toward the regulation of drugs to improve conditions of justice and peace in the country." Formal legalization would be up to Congress, and the group urged lawmakers to act. "The Supreme Court has done its job. ... The responsibility for issuing the corresponding regulation falls on congress," the group's director general, Lisa Sanchez, said in a statement. Mexico has long been the source of marijuana smuggled into the United States. The rulings from Mexico's Supreme Court come after many U.S. states have legalized pot in recent years for medicinal purposes, recreational use or both. ___ A previous version of this story was corrected to show that the earlier rulings came between 2015 and 2017. ST. LOUIS (AP) - Authorities are investigating the death of a Ferguson protester's son as a suicide, although a message on social media posted by his mother has sparked assertions that it was a lynching. Melissa McKinnies, who was active in the St. Louis suburb after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, posted the Facebook message, saying "They lynched my baby." The message, which Facebook later removed, began trending on social media sites such as Twitter and Reddit, causing people online and in the community to press officials for more answers about the death of 24-year-old Danye Jones. His body was found Oct. 17 near the north St. Louis County home he and his mother shared. St. Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire said Wednesday that Jones' body was found in a wooded area behind the home. A police report lists "suicide" as the nature of the investigation. The medical examiner's determination of the cause of death could take several weeks. Administrator Suzanne McCune said the office doesn't issue preliminary findings. McKinnies does not have a listed phone number. But the Rev. Darryl Gray, a leading St. Louis activist who has met with McKinnies several times since her son's death, confirmed McKinnies' Facebook posting. Gray said it was Facebook, not McKinnies, who took it down. The posting showed pictures of McKinnies' son hanging from what appeared to be a bedsheet. It read, "They lynched my baby." A rally in support of Jones is scheduled for Thursday outside the St. Louis County Justice Center in Clayton, Missouri. McKinnies was among thousands who took to the streets in Ferguson, Missouri, after Brown's death on Aug. 9, 2014. Brown, a black and unarmed 18-year-old, was fatally shot by white officer Darren Wilson during a street confrontation. Wilson was not charged and later resigned, but the shooting led to months of protests and helped give rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Gray said he was unaware of any evidence indicating foul play. But he said McKinnies and other activists from Ferguson are often harassed and threatened via text and social media. "She believes (Jones' death) was meant as a message to her," Gray said. Police continue to investigate the deaths of two prominent Ferguson protesters, both of whom were found killed inside of torched vehicles - DeAndre Joshua in November 2014 and Darren Seals in September 2016. LIMA, Peru (AP) - Former Peruvian first daughter Keiko Fujimori was ordered back to jail Wednesday in a case that has captured attention in the South American nation reeling from a series of corruption scandals reaching into the highest echelons of power. Judge Richard Concepcion ruled the 43-year-old opposition leader should be detained as a preventative measure as prosecutors investigate allegations that she led a criminal network within her party that received about $1 million in illegal payments from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Fujimori has denied taking any money from the company during her 2011 presidential run and has called the investigation a political witchhunt. In a hearing that lasted over eight hours, Concepcion said he believed there was considerable proof to strongly suspect that Fujimori not only knew about the payments but had an active role in hiding the origin of the funds. As Fujimori looked on, her arms crossed and her lips pursed into a frown for much of the afternoon, the judge recounted information presented by prosecutors describing her as the leader of a powerful organization who plotted so that others could commit crimes on her behalf. "Undoubtedly, preventative prison is the only measure that applies," he concluded. In this photo provided by Peru's Supreme Court communications office, former Peruvian first daughter Keiko Fujimori is lead to jail in handcuffs after Judge Richard Concepcion ruled that she should be detained as a preventative measure while prosecutors investigate allegations she led a criminal network within her party that received about $1 million in payments from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Keiko Fujimori denies she accepted money from Odebrecht during her 2011 presidential run and has called the investigation a political witch hunt. (Peru's Supreme Court communication office via AP) Concepcion ordered her jailed for 36 months, a ruling her lawyer immediately vowed to appeal. The attorney, Giulliana Loza, argued that the chief prosecutor's case relies overwhelmingly on a witness whose account cannot be corroborated and accused Concepcion of utilizing outside information not presented by authorities. "In this case we've never had an impartial judge," she said. After the judge's ruling, Fujimori, who is still considered one of the most powerful people in Peru, was surrounded by a half dozen uniformed officers. Dressed in jeans in a long-sleeved black shirt, she showed no emotion as she exited the room. Many Peruvians thought the daughter of former strongman Alberto Fujimori would never see time behind bars in a country where corruption has long often gone unpunished. But some of the nation's most prominent politicians, including four ex-presidents, are now under investigation or charged in connection with corruption probes, and thousands of angry citizens have taken to the streets to protest official graft. A referendum on toughening anti-corruption laws is scheduled for early December. Keiko Fujimori, who came within 50,000 votes of winning the 2016 presidential election, leads the opposition political party with a majority in congress but her influence has waned in recent months after Martin Vizcarra became president. Fujimori has been a champion for her ailing 80-year-old father, who was pardoned by Vizcarra's predecessor last year from a 25-year jail sentence for human rights abuses during his decade-long rule. Peru's Supreme Court recently overturned the pardon and ordered him back behind bars. Keiko Fujimori had been detained in early October as a preventative measure while the money laundering investigation but was ordered released a week later. Odebrecht has admitted to paying $788 million in bribes to politicians throughout the region in exchange for lucrative public works contracts. In this photo provided by Peru's Supreme Court communications office, former Peruvian first daughter Keiko Fujimori sits in court where Judge Richard Concepcion ruled that she should be detained as a preventative measure while prosecutors investigate allegations she led a criminal network within her party that received about $1 million in payments from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Keiko Fujimori denies she accepted money from Odebrecht during her 2011 presidential run and has called the investigation a political witch hunt. (Peru's Supreme Court communication office via AP) In this photo provided by Peru's Supreme Court communications office, former Peruvian first daughter Keiko Fujimori, top center with her arms folded, sits in court where Judge Richard Concepcion ruled that she should be detained as a preventative measure while prosecutors investigate allegations she led a criminal network within her party that received about $1 million in payments from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Keiko Fujimori denies she accepted money from Odebrecht during her 2011 presidential run and has called the investigation a political witch hunt. (Peru's Supreme Court communication office via AP) In this photo provided by Peru's Supreme Court communications office, former Peruvian first daughter Keiko Fujimori stands in court where Judge Richard Concepcion ruled that she should be detained as a preventative measure while prosecutors investigate allegations she led a criminal network within her party that received about $1 million in payments from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Keiko Fujimori denies she accepted money from Odebrecht during her 2011 presidential run and has called the investigation a political witch hunt. (Peru's Supreme Court communication office via AP) SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Top California corrections officials are misleading a federal judge and attorneys representing inmates about the quality of mental health care behind bars, according to a report released Wednesday that cites a case where a woman received care so poor she plucked out her eye and ate it. The whistleblower report by chief corrections psychiatrist Dr. Michael Golding that was made public by U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller says prison officials overruled psychiatrists and misrepresented how often inmates were receiving proper care. Golding says Mueller, who oversees prison mental health care under a lawsuit involving treatment, and others likely underestimated the adequacy of staffing in prisons as a result. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Vicky Waters said the agency strongly disagrees with the allegations. "We worked closely with lawyers representing prisoners, as well as the court appointment monitors, for many years to improve the mental health of inmates," Waters said in an email. "Our dedicated and well-trained staff will continue to provide appropriate care and treatment." Mueller has set a Monday court hearing to delve into Golding's claim and its potential impact on the lawsuit, and to consider appointing an independent investigator to look into the claim. FILE- In this Jan. 14, 2009 file photo, an inmate, on suicide watch, is escorted by correctional officers at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran, Calif. The chief psychiatrist for California's prison system is alleging that state officials provided inaccurate or misleading information to a federal judge and inmates' attorneys, giving the false impression that the system is properly caring for mentally ill inmates. U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018 said she plans to hear public testimony from the whistleblower. A lawyer for Gov. Jerry Brown says other corrections employees may have a different point of view. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) The 161-page report and dozens of exhibits containing emails, records and other documents says corrections officials "reset the clock" every time a mentally ill prisoner is transferred to a new prison. As a result, an inmate might not be seen by a psychiatrist for nine months - three times as long as required by the court. Yet that appointment is recorded as being on time, the report said. Officials recorded other visits as meeting court-ordered requirements, even if they were two months late, it said. Officials counted as proper mental appointments "brief encounters with patients in the prison yard surrounded by other inmates, three-minute, non-confidential cell side visits," and wellness checks in which a worker holds a laptop in front of a cell door for a teleconference, forcing the inmate and psychiatrist to shout back and forth. The department reported that an average 95 percent of patients were seen on schedule. But the true percentage is lower than 46 percent because the department excluded patients who refused an appointment, missed one because of a scheduling error, or simply did not show up, Golding wrote. "In failing to mention that fewer than 50 percent of patients are being seen when psychiatrists schedule them to be seen, the CDCR staffing reports significantly understate how many psychiatrists are needed, given how grossly inefficient the system is," he wrote. "It might not be surprising to find high rates of hospitalization and suicide in such a poorly designed and run system," Golding wrote. California's longtime suicide rate of 20.4 per 100,000 inmates exceeds the national state prison rate of 16 per 100,000 inmates. Mental health leaders have "created a biased and inaccurately positive picture of what is actually a troubled system of care," Golding wrote. He said psychiatrists, who are medical doctors, routinely report to non-medically trained psychologists who make the bulk of system-wide decisions. That was part of the problem with the woman who ate her own eye, he said, because she was treated at times by a psychologist who couldn't order that she be given proper medication. The woman, who was on suicide watch, was screaming every 15 minutes for most of a four-hour period in which she received no medication, he said, noting the psychiatrist on duty was never called. Michael Bien, an attorney representing inmates, said he was particularly concerned by allegations in the report that psychologists were making life-and-death decisions without consulting psychiatrists, and that officials at one prison are accused of changing their procedures whenever the court's special master visited to give the impression that inmates were receiving confidential care. "If that is in fact the case, that means the whole monitoring procedure has to be revised. We would advocate for some kind of unannounced visits," Bien said. "When there's intentional misrepresentations being made ... we have to be extra diligent." RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A woman working for a conservative group that creates undercover "sting" videos infiltrated the campaign of a Democratic former CIA agent who is running for Congress in Virginia, campaign officials said. A campaign manager for Abigail Spanberger confronted the woman Wednesday and asked her to leave, a video released by the campaign shows. Spanberger is in a competitive race against Republican Rep. Dave Brat in Virginia's 7th Congressional District. Spanberger spokesman Justin Jones told the Richmond Times-Dispatch the woman showed up at campaign headquarters a few weeks ago, said she was pregnant and wanted to volunteer. Staffers became suspicious after the woman began asking questions of junior-level staffers to try to get them to say things that weren't true, Jones said. A web search on a site which exposes people who work for Project Veritas helped campaign staff identify the woman who gave her name as "Monica Nelson" as Marisa Jorge of New York. Jorge did not respond to a message from The Washington Post seeking comment. FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2018, file photo, Abigail Spanberger gestures during a debate with Virginia Congressman Dave Brat, R-Va., at Germanna Community College in Culpeper, Va. A woman working for a conservative group that creates undercover "sting" videos tried to infiltrate the campaign of Spanberger, a Democratic former CIA agent who is running for Congress in Virginia, campaign officials said. A campaign manager for Spanberger confronted the woman Wednesday, Oct. 31, and asked her to leave, a video released by the campaign shows. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) The Richmond Times-Dispatch said the woman covertly recorded video inside the office, which regularly has hundreds of volunteers coming and going. "Dirty tricks like these are the worst part of politics, and this is exactly what Abigail is running to change," campaign manager Dana Bye said in a statement. Asked why Spanberger was targeted, a spokesman for Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe said the group likes to tell voters about what politicians are saying and doing behind closed doors. Brat campaign manager Katey Price said Brat's campaign was neither involved nor aware of any alleged work by Project Veritas. ___ Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.richmond.com SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A Northern California groundskeeper said Wednesday that he will accept a judge's reduced verdict of $78 million against Monsanto after a jury found the company's weed killer caused his cancer. DeWayne Johnson's attorney formally informed the San Francisco Superior Court that he would not contest the judge's decision to reduce a jury's original $289 million award. Johnson could have demanded a new trial. A jury unanimously decided in August that Monsanto's Roundup weed killer caused Johnson's cancer. His doctor testified that the 46-year-old has less than three years to live. Johnson's spokeswoman Robin McCall says his attorney disagrees with the judge's settlement reduction, but will accept the lower amount in hopes of achieving "a final resolution within his lifetime." Monsanto spokesman Daniel Childs did not immediately return a phone call. He previously said the company planned to appeal every adverse verdict. The company is facing 8,000 similar lawsuits across the country. FILE - In this Aug. 10, 2018 file photo, Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict in his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco. A Northern California groundskeeper says he will accept a judge's reduced verdict of $78 million against Monsanto after a jury found the company's weed killer caused his cancer. DeWayne Johnson's attorney informed the San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (Josh Edelson/Pool Photo via AP, File) The jury awarded $250 million in punitive damages to Johnson after it found that the St. Louis-based agribusiness had purposely ignored warnings and evidence that its popular Roundup product causes cancer, including Johnson's lymphoma. But Judge Suzanna Bolanos ruled earlier this month that was too high and reduced the punitive damage to $39 million to match the other damages the jury awarded Johnson. Punitive damages are designed to punish companies that juries determine have purposely misbehaved and to deter others from operating similarly. ESTERO, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's final rally blitz before the midterm elections (all times local): 9:25 p.m. President Donald Trump has kicked off his final campaign rally blitz before the midterm elections by accusing the media of sowing division and stoking fears about illegal immigration. Trump's rally in Estero, Florida, on Wednesday was the first of 11 events he will hold across eight battlefield states over the next six days as he tries to bolster Republican turnout and counter Democratic enthusiasm heading into Election Day. The president continued the grievance airing that has long been a fixture of his rallies, seizing on news reports about protests during his Tuesday visit to Pittsburgh, where he paid his respects to the 11 people killed at a synagogue. The president implored rallygoers to vote and painted a dark picture of the stakes. He also railed against birthright citizenship, which he has threatened to end via executive order. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) ___ 8:30 p.m. Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis says perhaps his Democratic opponent should be impeached as Tallahassee mayor over ethics questions. DeSantis criticized his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum, at length Wednesday at a Florida rally featuring President Donald Trump. He brought up an ongoing ethics investigation involving Gillum. Gillum has asserted he paid his way on trips to Costa Rica and New York City, but newly released documents appear to contradict the Tallahassee mayor. Gillum has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing in the ethics probe, which is separate but related to an ongoing FBI investigation into city government. DeSantis said maybe Gillum should be impeached. That prompted the crowd to chant, "Lock him up. Lock him up." ___ 8:10 p.m. President Donald Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. At a rally Wednesday, Trump called Scott "a talent." He says Scott takes a problem and "turns it into an asset." Scott told the crowd that as governor, he's worked to create jobs in Florida, and he accused Nelson of caring only about one job - "his." Scott said that if elected, he would work to cut taxes and regulations and reduce government debt. He implored voters to cast their ballots. Trump is campaigning Wednesday night in Estero, just outside Fort Myers, in Florida. Trump also is stumping for Republican Ron DeSantis, who is in a tight race against Democrat Andrew Gillum for governor. ___ 7:50 p.m. President Donald Trump is criticizing news reports of his trip to Pittsburgh to mourn the lives of 11 people gunned down in a synagogue. Trump claimed Wednesday at a rally in Florida that any protests in Pennsylvania were small and far away from where he was. A small group of protesters was in earshot of Trump as he visited a memorial outside of the Tree of Life synagogue, and hundreds more were kept blocks away by police. The demonstrators chanted "Words matter" and "Trump, go home!" amid accusations from some that the president has at times been slow to condemn extremists. Some community leaders had asked Trump not to make the trip. The president said Wednesday that the Trump movement is about love for fellow Americans but that the "fake" media is doing everything it can to "push people apart." ___ 2:45 p.m. President Donald Trump is kicking off a final rally blitz with just days to go before midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress. He's attending 11 rallies across eight states over the next six days. The final push begins Wednesday night in Estero, just outside Fort Myers, in Florida, where Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is being challenged by Republican Gov. Rick Scott. In addition, Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis are locked in a tight race to replace Scott as governor. Trump will also be visiting Pensacola in Florida as part of the sprint. He has scheduled two rallies each in Indiana and Missouri, plus stops in Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. It's all aimed at countering Democratic enthusiasm heading into Tuesday's vote. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Elaine Lancaster of Miami, right, waits for President Donald Trump to speak at a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) People wait for President Donald Trump to speak at a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is campaigning for Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for a seat in the Senate. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) President Donald Trump talks with Republican Gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, left, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, right, after arriving on Air Force One at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Trump is in Florida to speak at a rally. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) People wait for President Donald Trump to speak at a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) People respond when President Donald Trump speaks about the media during a rally in Estero, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) LOS ANGELES (AP) - A jury has awarded more than $3.5 million to a former Catholic school teacher who said the Archdiocese of Los Angeles fired her for being pregnant and unwed. City News Service reports Wednesday that jurors deliberated for less than a day before finding in favor of Kourtney Liggins, an ex-science teacher at LA's Transfiguration School. Her lawsuit alleged wrongful termination and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The panel found the archdiocese and the Rev. Michael Tang, the former pastor of Church of the Transfiguration, liable. A lawyer for the defendants didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Liggins, now 48, says she was seven months pregnant in 2012 when Tang told her that her pregnancy would "morally corrupt" her students. Her contract was not renewed in 2013. PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona transportation worker Zach Moralez knew something wasn't right when he saw a damaged fence along a highway. Tracks went off the edge of the road and through the fence on the edge of the hill. Moralez, a highway operations technician, knew there had to be a car at the bottom. "We got down there as quick as we could, hollering out if anyone could hear us," Moralez told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "No response." He, his co-worker and his rancher brother didn't find anyone in a mangled vehicle that had dropped 50 feet (15 meters) and landed on a mesquite tree. But they didn't give up. With help from an Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper they called, the group found a 53-year-old woman curled up in a dry riverbed, seriously injured from the crash and severely dehydrated after spending six days in the desert. "She was in the fetal position, and there was no movement," Moralez said. "We started asking her a bunch of questions: 'How long have you been here? Do you have any pain?'" In this Oct. 18, 2018, photo provided by the Arizona Department of Public Safety is the scene where authorities say they rescued a seriously injured woman who spent six days in the desert after crashing her car near Wickenburg, Ariz. The Department of Public Safety said Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, that rescuers found the severely dehydrated 53-year-old woman on Oct. 18 after following the vehicle's tracks. A maintenance crew and a rancher spotted the car while working along a highway several miles from the historic Western town of Wickenburg. (Arizona Department of Public Safety via AP) Despite being somewhat lethargic and in pain, she was alert enough to open her eyes and answer questions. Moralez said she was dirty from sleeping on the ground and had facial trauma - likely from the crash. She was airlifted to a hospital about 15 minutes later, ending her six-day ordeal in a rural area. It's not clear how she survived, but temperatures were relatively mild - dropping to the mid-50s at night and reaching the low 80s during that time period. The woman recounted how she was driving on U.S. 60 on Oct. 12 when she lost control of her car, according to the trooper. She stayed inside the car for several days before trying to walk toward some railroad tracks to find help, but she was too weak to make it, authorities said. Her footprints led Moralez and the others to her on Oct. 18. DPS spokesman Quentin Mehr said the woman is declining all media requests and did not give any details about her current condition. DPS Director Col. Frank Milstead commended the transportation workers and the rancher. "Due to their outstanding efforts, this woman's life was saved," he said in a statement. Moralez said it's a good feeling to know that he helped make the difference between life and death for someone. "I believe people are put in the right place in the right time," he said. HAMPTON, Iowa (AP) - Rep. Steve King is keeping a low profile. Engulfed in controversy for his past support of white supremacist groups and leaders in light of Saturday's massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the Iowa Republican is riding out the closing days of a re-election campaign whose success is suddenly in question. King has no campaign events scheduled and his staff has stopped responding to inquiries. His public appearances have been limited to friendly territory, such as the Crawford County Republican Party fundraiser Sunday. Democrats are already hoping to flip two of Iowa's four congressional seats, and the turmoil surrounding King has them thinking they could take his seat as well. It's a tough task in a district that President Donald Trump won by 27 percentage points. But even some Republicans acknowledge King is in for a tough challenge from Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten. "This is the strongest competition he's ever faced," said Gwen Ecklund, a former GOP chairwoman in Crawford County, one of 39 counties in the vastly agricultural district that stretches from most of the Minnesota border west to the Missouri River. "But I think the stronghold of his support remains intact." That premise has been challenged in recent days, as King has come under fire from House GOP leadership for tweets he's posted endorsing a white nationalist candidate for Toronto mayor, and praising a nationalist party in Austria with Nazi ties. FILE - In this June 8, 2018, file photo, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, at a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. King is coming under fire ahead of the midterm election as top Republican officials and campaign donors balk at standing with a Republican congressman who regularly espouses extreme views on race and immigration. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) The comments were the latest in a long line from the 69-year-old congressman lamenting the rise of minorities as a threat to white Americans, along with anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic comments over the years. Not until Tuesday, in the days after the Pittsburgh shooting, did National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers decry King's comments. That day, longtime King financial backers Land O'Lakes, a Minnesota-based food company, and its subsidiary Purina Pet Care, both with plants in King's district, withdrew their support from King, as did the microprocessor company Intel. In Iowa, however, Republicans have been silent. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who named King her campaign chairman a year ago, said nothing amid calls from Democrats for her to disassociate herself from the congressman. King's son, Jeff, who is managing the congressman's campaign, could not be reached for comment, despite several attempts. Instead, King has spent the past few days stopping in at county GOP events and tweeting. He unapologetically blamed the media Tuesday for the turmoil. "These attacks are orchestrated by the nasty, desperate and dishonest fake news," he wrote, borrowing from Trump's script. As King has hunkered down, the 38-year-old Scholten has only charged ahead. The former minor-league pitcher and paralegal from Sioux City was rumbling across northern Iowa Wednesday in a Winnebago RV emblazoned with his name. He has put more than 25,000 miles on the vehicle since last summer. He was stopping in at coffee shops along Highway 3, making his fourth and fifth visits to the district's counties. "With this bump, for lack of a better term, I'm getting more confident every day. We've been able to capitalize on this momentum," Scholten said of the King controversy as he walked through tiny Hampton en route to Rustic Brew Cafe. "But this has been 15 to 16 months in the making." As of this month, King had raised roughly $737,000, less than half of Scholten's haul, which has received renewed backing from rising national Democratic figures such as California Sen. Kamala Harris, who is weighing a 2020 bid for president. Scholten has spent $1.3 million, more than twice that of King, and has been running radio and television ads for months boosting his name in a district where King is well known. Although King's favorability in the district has dipped since his 2016 re-election, Republicans still outnumber Democrats in the district by more than 20,000 registered voters. Scholten has netted former Republicans, including former state Sen. David Johnson, who left the GOP in 2016 after Trump won the party's presidential nomination. However, early voting tallies so far show Republicans have outpaced Democrats in returning ballot requests by more than 10,000. Music teacher Randi Heisler, a Democrat, said after meeting Scholten in the cafe that she'd converted her Republican husband to support Scholten. But she fears that may not be enough. "Are enough people fed up and ready to vote with their hearts and minds, above the party?" she said. "I don't know." NEW YORK (AP) - When Google employees staged a global walkout Thursday to protest the company's treatment of women, they made themselves the most visible example of a surprising trend: high-paid engineers emerging from their comfortable bubbles to speak out. For much of the past two years, elite technology employees have been stirring and in some cases organizing -first in internal workplace meetings and messaging boards, then in signed protest letters and ultimately in company walkouts such as Thursday's street demonstrations. Among the issues they've championed: Better handling of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination, opposition to the Trump administration's travel ban, and avoiding harmful uses of the products they're helping to build and sell. "For tech workers, I think the dreams about what it means to work in Silicon Valley - to disrupt, to innovate, to connect people and make the world a better place - have crashed up against a much bleaker reality," said Kade Crockford, who tracks how new technology affects civil rights for the ACLU of Massachusetts. Worker unrest helped scuttle Google's Maven project to help the U.S. military scan battlefields using drones and artificial intelligence. Workers have also protested Google's plans to launch a censored search engine in China, and work by Amazon and Microsoft to assist police agencies and federal immigration agents with facial recognition and other tools. It is, in many ways, a Revolt of the Haves. One that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago at cheery corporate campuses best known for flexible work schedules, free meals and snacks, and Wi-Fi equipped shuttle buses, where software engineers can earn $125,000 or more right out of school. Alice Lemieux addresses fellow Google employees as they take part in a protest against what they said is the tech company's mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives Thursday, Nov 1, 2018, in Seattle. (Alan Berner/The Seattle Times via AP) "These people are not easily replaceable and as a result they have a significant amount of power," Crockford said. Much of their "political awakening," she said, stems from President Donald Trump's election, including concerns that his administration will misuse tools built by the tech industry. Microsoft executives, who have sought to position their company as a moral leader, have defended the company's immigration contract despite a protest letter that circulated through the company over the summer and tough questions for CEO Satya Nadella at an employee meeting. "We don't see unplugging government agencies in America from email as a step that's likely to make the country better," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview with the Associated Press earlier this fall. Hundreds of Google workers marched on a mild Thursday in New York to a nearby park to hear speeches, hold signs and show solidarity, joining similar office walkouts from Tokyo to Europe to the San Francisco Bay Area. Signs reading "90 million reasons for change" expressed discontent about a New York Times report that executive Andy Rubin received a $90 million severance package in 2014 after Google concluded that sexual misconduct allegations against him were credible. Organizers noted that while many of the protesters are privileged, they walked out in solidarity with contract employees and others with less influence. Walkout co-organizer Meredith Whittaker, who researches artificial intelligence for Google, said in an interview that workers' demands for better treatment at the company are intertwined with their larger concerns about a "general abuse of power" that includes how Google's business ventures affect society. "This is part of a pattern of unethical decision-making," she said. Tom Kochan, professor of management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the protests were a "sign of the times," pointing out that the walkout was globally coordinated. "Workers are saying they want a voice over this broad range of issues, not just wages and compensation, but protections against harassment and discrimination and getting rid of sham arbitration agreements they're forced to sign," he said. Because of the size of the protests, there is no way that Google management could have been anything but understanding, he said. While workers at companies from Amazon to Walmart protest all the time, usually over wages, the Google walkout was the "biggest, broadest and most encompassing of multiple issues that I've ever seen," Kochan said. Which is not to say that it will necessarily lead to lasting change such as unionization or an advisory body of Google employees. One reason the protest was so big and well-coordinated, he said, is that Google largely employs white-collar technical and support workers. That's a more homogenous workforce than, say, Amazon, which employs both high-paid engineers and warehouse and grocery workers who earn much, much less. "But I think American management in particular is being sent a message that workers are ready to stand up for their rights and each other in a way we haven't seen in a long time in this country," he said. __ O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. A worker carries a sign during a protest against Google's handling of sexual misconduct allegations at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Google workers take part in a protest against what they said is the tech company's mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives Thursday, Nov 1, 2018, in Seattle. (Alan Berner/The Seattle Times via AP) Workers protest against Google's handling of sexual misconduct allegations at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Workers protest against Google's handling of sexual misconduct allegations at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) A worker protests against Google's handling of sexual misconduct claims at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Hundreds of employees gathered in the campus' main quad to rally against sexual harassment. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Google employee Kiwoba Allaire protests against Google's handling of sexual misconduct claims on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, in Mountain View, Calif. Allaire joined hundreds of workers who walked out of Google headquarters. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Workers leave Google's Mountain View, Calif., main quad on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, after some Google employees walked off the job Thursday in a protest against what they said is the tech company's mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) PHOENIX (AP) - Two congresswomen running for U.S Senate in Arizona are crisscrossing the state, raising millions of dollars and trying to exploit every possible advantage to eke out a win in what both sides expect to be a photo-finish race. The wild card: Angela Green, a Green Party candidate who could win votes that might have gone to Democrat Krysten Sinema, clearing a path to victory for Republican Martha McSally. But on Thursday, Green suddenly announced she would drop out of the race and endorsed Sinema. "After watching the debates and seeing everything, Sinema's stance on a lot of things are very close to mine," Green said in an interview with Channel 12 news in Phoenix. The about face demonstrates the significance third party candidates are playing as Election Day nears and key races tighten across the country. There's a fear that these candidates could become "spoilers" by peeling off just enough support to let the other major party win. Democrats are especially sensitive to the issue after Green Party and Libertarian presidential candidates drew about 5 percent of the popular vote in 2016, the year that Hillary Clinton narrowly lost the presidency to Donald Trump. "When a race is close everything matters -- every demographic group, the number of candidates on the ballot," said Nathan Gonzales, a nonpartisan analyst for Inside Elections. But, he added, that doesn't mean third party candidates will inevitably tip a close race. "We have to be a bit more nuanced." Democratic Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema talks to volunteers at a get-out-the-vote phone bank in Phoenix, Ariz., alongside members of the "Veterans for Sinema" group in this Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018 photo. Both major parties are worrying about so-called "spoilers" as election day nears. In tight races, third party candidates can make the difference by drawing away voters who'd otherwise support the Democrat or Republican. (AP Photo/Bob Christie) Third party candidates tend to poll better than they actually perform on Election Day, when voters tend to revert to the two major parties. And some who cast ballots for third party candidates may not otherwise show up to the polls, so it's misleading to presume that every vote for an outside candidate is a vote stolen from a major party. Regardless, it's a fear present on both sides of the aisle. The biggest impact this cycle may be in Kansas, where Democrats fear businessman and independent gubernatorial candidate Greg Orman, who has notched up to 10 percent support in polls. Kansas Democrats worry Orman will help Republican Kris Kobach, the chair of Trump's disbanded voter fraud commission, win the governor's race. On Monday, Orman's treasurer, Republican Tim Owens, quit the campaign because he feared Orman was putting at risk the campaign of Democrat Laura Kelly. "I wish Tim well, but have told him that my campaign is about the people of Kansas, not about establishment figures in Topeka," Orman said, referring to the state capitol. In Georgia, a Libertarian candidate could force one of the nation's most closely watched governor's races into a December runoff. And in Montana, Sen. Jon Tester has repeatedly won campaigns with less than 50 percent of the vote with a Libertarian candidate on the ballot. This week, an anonymous mailer circulated attacking Tester's Republican challenger, Matt Rosendale, and urging a vote for Libertarian Rick Breckenridge. In response, on Wednesday, Breckenridge said he was endorsing Rosendale. "Matt has the character to combat this, not Jon Tester," Breckenridge said in an interview. The Montana mailer and endorsement come after an anonymous donor earlier this year bankrolled a drive by a firm that normally works for Republicans to collect 5,000 signatures to place a Green Party candidate on the Senate ballot. Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, a Republican, put the candidate on the ballot but Montana Democrats successfully sued to overturn it. In Indiana, similar mailers have circulated attacking Republican Mike Braun and promoting the candidacy of Libertarian Lucy Brenton, who openly says she wants to play the role of spoiler. She garnered 5 percent of the vote in a 2016 race and has been onstage in debates that also include Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly and Braun. It's unclear which of the two major party candidates is threatened more by her pro-gay rights, pro-marijuana legalization, anti-tax platform. "Do I intend to spoil the election for them? Absolutely. And here's why: something doesn't spoil unless it's rotten," Brenton said Tuesday after a debate in Indianapolis. "And the two-party system that has had a stranglehold on our country is absolutely rotten." Nevada has another option - voters can select "none of these candidates." That helped Sen. Dean Heller win re-election in 2012. Even as then-President Barack Obama handily won the state, Heller was re-elected by an 11,000-vote margin - a total of 46 percent of the vote. That's because 44,000 voters chose "none of these candidates" rather than Heller or his Democratic opponent Rep. Shelley Berkley, who faced a congressional ethics investigation during the race. Heller is trying to replicate that strategy as he faces another tough race this year against Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen. Some Republicans think the none of the above option gives Heller a better chance than the Republican running for governor, Adam Laxalt. That's because there's an independent candidate in the race who could spoil it for Laxalt -- Ryan Bundy, the elder son of a rancher who became notorious for his armed standoff with federal agents in 2014. Political maneuverings also helped shape Arizona's ballot. In 2012, Republican Jeff Flake won a U.S. Senate election there by 3.5 percentage points while a Libertarian candidate garnered 4 percentage points. The Republican state legislature complained Libertarians were siphoning GOP votes and increased the number of signatures the party needed to qualify a candidate for the ballot. There was no similar requirement for the Green Party. Green's announcement Thursday that she was suspending her campaign may have relatively little impact. More than 60 percent of expected voters have already cast their ballots early, as is traditional in the heavily vote-by-mail state, according to the Secretary of State's office. And Green's name will remain on the ballot for those who haven't made a decision. McSally's campaign unsuccessfully pushed to have Green included in the Senate race debate, and some Republicans hold out hope she can chisel off enough supporters from Sinema to put their candidate over the edge. A recent poll from Marist-NBC News, for example, had Sinema leading McSally by 6 percentage points when Green was omitted but only by 3 points when the third party option was included. Still, others are skeptical Green will affect the race one way or the other. She raised less than $1500 and had little campaign presence while running a business selling organic goods and hemp clothing. "At the end of the day I think the real narrative here is who's able to appeal to independent, unaffiliated and Republican women," said Paul Bentz, a GOP strategist in Phoenix. "They'll make the difference here." As recently as last week, Green said she while didn't support McSally or Trump, she didn't think she should be held responsible if her candidacy lost the election for Sinema. "I will not be responsible for who wins this race," Green said in an interview then. "So I need to let people to know that is not why I came into this race. I came into it for the people, not the politics." ___ Associated Press writers Brian Slodysko in Indianapolis and Matt Volz in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., speaks at a campaign rally, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, in Sun City, Ariz. McSally is running against Democrat Krysten Sinema for the U.S. Senate. Both major parties are worrying about so-called "spoilers" as election day nears. In tight races, third party candidates can make the difference by drawing away voters who'd otherwise support the Democrat or Republican. (AP Photo/Matt York) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Residents of the Afghan capital grappled on Friday with the aftermath of a massive fire that destroyed hundreds of stores overnight at a market in central Kabul, incinerating businesses and leaving an apocalyptic scene of disaster in its wake. No casualties were reported but the loss was estimated in the millions of dollars. Firefighters were still struggling, pouring water over smoldering flames in daylight Friday, more than 13 hours after the blaze started at the city's largest market for electronic goods and home appliances. One of the merchants, Hejratullah Khan, sifted through the charred ruins of one of his three mobile phone stores that the fire had destroyed. "There's nothing left .... in one night, everything is gone, everything," Khan as he recounted how it took him 10 years to build up his business. His Dunya Mobile stores were a fixture in Kabul. "We were the largest mobile phone shops," he said as he rummaged through the stacks of mobile phones melted into black twisted blobs of metal A firefighter inspects the site of a fire at an electronic appliances market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Residents of the Afghan capital are grappling with the aftermath of a massive blaze that destroyed hundreds of stores at a market in Kabul.(AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) Khan's life savings and those of his two brothers were gone. The three had invested $500,000 into their stores, slowly growing their business even as Afghanistan's violent conflict of 17 years brought increased security concerns. What started as an apparent electrical fire began shortly after 6 p.m. on Thursday, after stores had closed for the night. The blaze roared through shop after shop before firefighters were able to contain it. They struggled with an erratic supply of water, drawn from water lines with very little pressure, as convoys of water trucks were brought in. Firefighters were "keeping a close watch and still pouring water on some of the stores," said Zakrullah Zahid, communications officer at the Kabul fire department. Investigators were trying to determine where the fire began as well as what had caused it, he said. Khan said he watched for hours as his stores burned - stores that had fed 30 members of his family, he said. Hundreds of other store owners scrambled to save what they could, some carrying large television sets on their backs, others stacking what they found onto wheelbarrows. Dozens of the storeowners gathered Friday at the scene said they would demand compensation from the government and threatened to block nearby roads on Saturday to press their demands. "Every day in our country people are dying from war and suicide bombers, violence and now this," Khan said, staring at the ruins. Mujibul Rahman said he borrowed tens of thousands of dollars to open his electronics store. The fire consumed $200,000 in inventory. "Now what can I do?" he asked. Men walk among the ruins after a fire devastated an electronic appliances market, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Residents of the Afghan capital are grappling with the aftermath of a massive blaze that destroyed hundreds of stores at a market in Kabul.(AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) Men take photos of the ruin after a fire devastated an electronic appliances market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Residents of the Afghan capital are grappling with the aftermath of a massive blaze that destroyed hundreds of stores at a market in Kabul.(AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) Men watch a fire at an appliance market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Residents of the Afghan capital are grappling with the aftermath of a massive blaze that destroyed hundreds of stores at a market in Kabul. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) Shopkeepers save their goods at the site of a fire at an electronic appliances market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Residents of the Afghan capital are grappling with the aftermath of a massive blaze that destroyed hundreds of stores at a market in Kabul.(AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) Firefighters rest at the site of a fire at an electronic appliances market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Residents of the Afghan capital are grappling with the aftermath of a massive blaze that destroyed hundreds of stores at a market in Kabul.(AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) ABS, Yemen (AP) - Yahia Hussein has already lost a 5-month-old son who wasted away and died as they fled their village in northern Yemen. Now living in a camp for the displaced, he is running out of ways to feed his other four children. Jobless, he has no way to afford food, and he says he hasn't received international aid for several months. His wife gives their children moldy bread crumbs mixed with water and salt. Some days she feeds them a paste made of boiled leaves from a vine called "halas." "We left everything behind. We walked for hours on foot, carrying nothing, not even one rial, no food or water," he told The Associated Press at the camp in the northern province of Hajjah. They are among millions of Yemenis who lost everything - homes, jobs, loved ones - in nearly four years of civil war. The conflict has pushed the country of 29 million people to the brink of famine. At least 8 million have no food other than what aid agencies provide. The figure is likely to rise to 11.5 million as more people become unable to afford food because the worsening economic crisis caused by the war, U.N. agencies warn. The currency is crumbling in value, sending prices soaring. The humanitarian disaster has come as the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition since 2015 has waged a relentless campaign of airstrikes and imposed a blockade, aiming to uproot Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who took over northern and central Yemen. In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a severely malnourished boy rests on a hospital bed at the Aslam Health Center, Hajjah, Yemen. Malnutrition, cholera, and other epidemic diseases like diphtheria ravaged through the displaced and the impoverished communities. The fighting in Hodeida, the Red Sea port seen as the lifeline of northern Yemen where 70 percent of the population lives, threaten to worsen the world's largest humanitarian crisis. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) Besides airstrikes, northern Yemen has also seen heavy barrages back and forth across the border with Saudi Arabia as Saudi forces battle rebels. Hussein and his family had to flee their border village of al-Shada because of non-stop strikes and shelling. As they fled, the 5-month-old died in his mother's arms. Hussein is not sure if it was from dehydration or malnutrition. For the past four months, they have lived in a shack made of sticks, blankets and plastic sheets in a camp in Aslam district near the city of Abs. The 46-year-old Hussein once grew grapes and pomegranates and thrived off trade in markets across the border in Saudi Arabia. He lost his livelihood, sold all his goats but one and cut down on meals to one a day. The numbers of displaced are only growing. In August-September, 20,000 people fleeing the border town of Bani Hassan flowed into Abs, Doctors Without Borders reported. The aid organization, which operates in the main hospital in Abs, said it treated more than 300 people wounded the fighting. A number of women and children in late stages of malnutrition or cholera or with complications from giving birth have died, the group said, without giving figures. Doctors Without Borders said it is ready to deploy mobile medical teams around the area every day but has only received permission from Houthi authorities for seven days the past month. Here is a series of photographs from AP photographer Hani Mohammed of the desperation faced by so many in Yemen. ___ Follow Associated Press photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo . In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, Yahia Hussein feeds his children moldy bread in their shelter, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. In a plastic washtub, Hussein's wife collects hard bread crumbs even those covered with mold, then mix with water, add salt, and give to her four children. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a man holds Halas before cooking for his children, a climbing vine of green leaves, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. The leaves are made into green paste and used to be a traditional side dish, but at times of extreme poverty, it becomes the main meal. The UN agencies are warning that at least 3.5 million others might slip into the pre-famine stage. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, children sit in front of moldy bread in their shelter, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. In a plastic washtub, the children's mother collects hard bread crumbs even those covered with mold, then mix with water, add salt, and give to her four children. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, men cook Halas for their children, a climbing vine of green leaves, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. The leaves are made into green paste and used to be a traditional side dish, but at times of extreme poverty, it becomes the main meal. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a man cooks Halas for his children, a climbing vine of green leaves, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. Nearly four years of conflict has pushed the 29 million Yemenis to the brink of famine. The United Nations aid agencies say that the strong majority depend on humanitarian aid for survival while eight million are one step from famine. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a man feeds children Halas, a climbing vine of green leaves, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. The leaves are made into green paste and used to be a traditional side dish, but at times of extreme poverty, it becomes the main meal. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018 photo, a man feeds his children Halas, a climbing vine of green leaves, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. The leaves are made into green paste and used to be a traditional side dish, but at times of extreme poverty, it becomes the main meal. The United Nations aid agencies say that that the strong majority depend on humanitarian aid for survival while eight million are one step from famine. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a man prepares Halas for his children, a climbing vine of green leaves, in Aslam, Hajjah, Yemen. The leaves are made into green paste and used to be a traditional side dish, but at times of extreme poverty, it becomes the main meal. The UN agencies are warning that at least 3.5 million others might slip into the pre-famine stage. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a woman holds a malnourished boy at the Aslam Health Center, in Hajjah, Yemen. The UN agencies are warning that at least 3.5 million others might slip into the pre-famine stage. Malnutrition, cholera, and other epidemic diseases like diphtheria ravaged through the displaced and the impoverished communities. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a malnourished boy sits on a hospital bed at the Aslam Health Center, Hajjah, Yemen. The UN agencies are warning that at least 3.5 million others might slip into the pre-famine stage. Malnutrition, cholera, and other epidemic diseases like diphtheria ravaged through the displaced and the impoverished communities. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) In this Oct. 1, 2018, photo, a doctor measures the arm of malnourished girl at the Aslam Health Center, Hajjah, Yemen. The UN agencies are warning that at least 3.5 million others might slip into the pre-famine stage. Malnutrition, cholera, and other epidemic diseases like diphtheria ravaged through the displaced and the impoverished communities. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has left no doubt that his top priority as leader of the military is making it more "lethal" - better at war and more prepared for it - and yet nothing about the military's new mission at the U.S.-Mexico border advances that goal. Some argue it detracts from it. The troops going to the border areas of Texas, Arizona and California are a small fraction of the military's roughly 1.3 million active-duty members, and the mission is set to last only 45 days. But many question the wisdom of drawing even several thousand away from training for their key purpose: to win wars. James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and former head of the U.S. Southern Command, said the troops should be preparing for combat and other missions, "not monitoring a peaceful border" for the arrival of a migrant caravan of several thousand people on foot, still about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) away. "It sends a terrible signal to Latin America and the Caribbean as we unnecessarily militarize our border," Stavridis, who also served as the top NATO commander, said Thursday. "It places U.S. troops who are fundamentally untrained for the mission of border security and border enforcement into an area of operations, which could cause incidents of a negative character. If we need more border patrol agents, hire them." The first 100 or so active duty troops arrived at the border on Thursday, making initial assessment at the McAllen, Texas, crossing. Overall, there are about 2,600 troops at staging bases in the region. David Lapan, a retired Marine colonel who is a former spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Department of Homeland Security, said that taking troops away from training and from their families to play a supporting role in border security is unwise. In this photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, soldiers from the the 89th Military Police Brigade, and 41st Engineering Company, 19th Engineering Battalion, Fort Riley, Kan., arrive at Valley International Airport, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, in Harlingen, Texas, to conduct the first missions along the southern border in support of Operation Faithful Patriot. The soldiers will provide a range of support including planning assistance, engineering support, equipment and resources to assist the Department of Homeland Security along the Southwest border. (Alexandra Minor/U.S. Air Force via AP) "It just doesn't make any sense," said Lapan, now a vice president of communications at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "This caravan, this group of poor people, including a lot of women and children, doesn't pose a threat - not a national security threat." In line with the Pentagon's national security strategy, Mattis has been focused on improving the combat readiness of a military worn down by the recent years of congressionally imposed budget cuts and the grind of 17 years of war in Afghanistan. This includes reorienting training from that required for the smaller wars the U.S. has fought since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to a "great power" struggle with Russia and China. That context may explain why the Pentagon itself seemed caught off-guard by President Donald Trump's abrupt order to dispatch active-duty troops; the Customs and Border Protection, which requested Pentagon help, has struggled to define details of the mission and explain its scope. "That this is a security threat is preposterous and not supported by the evidence," said Derek Chollet, former senior policy adviser at the Pentagon. "If you're sitting in the Pentagon and worried about implementation of the national defense strategy and worried about the threats from China and Russia, this is not at the top of your list." "This is another version of the parade," Chollet said, referring to Trump's demand earlier this year - eventually withdrawn - that the military spend millions to stage a parade in Washington D.C. "This is not a good use of U.S. military resources at this moment. Trump was frustrated in his effort to build a physical wall on the border, now he's trying to build a human wall by using the U.S. military." Mattis has rejected assertions that the military is being leveraged by the White House as a political stunt in advance of the midterm elections. "We don't do stunts," he said Wednesday, but neither has he argued that sending thousands of active-duty soldiers to help secure the border is his preference. Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who as head of U.S. Northern Command is commanding the military operation, dubbed "Operation Faithful Patriot," has argued that the caravan is a potential threat, although he has not fully defined that. "I think what we have seen is we've seen clearly an organization at a higher level than we've seen before," O'Shaughnessy said. "We've seen violence coming out of the caravan and we've seen as they've passed other international borders, we've seen them behave in a nature that has not been what we've seen in the past." One concern raised by other defense officials is that the caravans are largely male-dominated, and that one of them used violence when crossing the border into Mexico. But Associated Press journalists traveling with the largest group say it includes many families, including hundreds of children, and it has been orderly and peaceful, with no sign of any danger. The military says it is deploying 7,000 troops to Texas, Arizona and California, and while it has left open the possibility that the number could grow by another thousand under current plans, the scope of the mission has grown in recent days. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he would send as many as 15,000 troops. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a letter to Trump on Thursday that his administration has given the committee no evidence that migrant caravans pose a direct security threat to the U.S. "This is not a military problem; it does not warrant a military solution," Reed wrote. He said the administration should disclose the cost of the military's border mission "and what impacts it will have on military readiness and the overall budget." With his eyes squarely on Tuesday's election contests, Trump has rushed a series of immigration declarations, promises and actions as he tries to mobilize supporters to retain Republican control of Congress. His own campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears, and that's his focus in the final days of the midterm fight. Trump has railed against illegal immigration, focusing on the migrant caravans that have been going on for several years but received little attention until now. The largest at the moment consists of about 4,000, down from a high of about 7,000, and is still in southern Mexico. Several smaller groups, estimated at a combined 1,200 people, are farther away. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the agency name in 9th paragraph is Customs and Border Protection, not Border Patrol. In this Oct. 31, 2018, photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, Master Sgt. Matt Conn, a loadmaster with the 21st Airlift Squadron, Travis Air Force Base, Calif., directs an Army HMMWV into a C-17 Globemaster III at Ft. Knox, Ky., to assist Department of Homeland Security along the southwest border. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has left no doubt his top priority as leader of the military is making it more "lethal" _ better at war and more prepared for it. And yet, nothing about the military's new mission at the U.S.-Mexico border advances that goal. (Airman First Class Daniel A. Hernandez/U.S. Air Force via AP) Migrants hitch rides in the back of trucks as the thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans hoping to reach the U.S. border moves onward from Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Thousands of migrants resumed their slow trek through southern Mexico on Thursday, after attempts to obtain bus transport to Mexico City failed. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Thousands of conservative Muslims protested in the Indonesian capital on Friday about the burning of an Islamic flag, sparking criticism from the government's top security minister that the country was in mourning after a plane crash and back-to-back natural disasters. Waving black flags bearing the Islamic declaration of faith, several thousand demonstrators, many wearing white Islamic robes, filled a major thoroughfare in Jakarta after Friday prayers. It was the biggest of scattered protests since last month after a flag linked to a banned Islamic group was burned by members of the country's largest mainstream religious organization. Video of members of Nahdlatul Ulama's youth-wing militia burning the Hizbut Tahrir flag has led to allegations of blasphemy because it was emblazoned with the Islamic declaration of faith. Hizbut Tahrir, which seeks a global caliphate, has been banned by the Indonesian government as a threat to national unity. Shortly before meeting with protest leaders, Indonesia's top security minister, Wiranto, said police had been "neutral and professional" in their response to the flag burning incident. Blasphemy against any of the officially recognized faiths in Muslim-majority Indonesia is a criminal offense though prosecutions overwhelmingly target religious minorities. A Muslim woman holds a flag with Arabic writings that read: "There's no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger" popularly known as "'tauhid flag" which is often linked with banned Islamic group Hizbut Tahir Indonesia, during a protest in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Thousands of conservative Muslims staged the protest in the capital against the burning of the flag by members of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest mainstream religious organization. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) Wiranto, who uses a single name, emphasized that Indonesia is dealing with the aftermath of a plane crash earlier this week that killed 189 people and earthquakes and a tsunami that claimed thousands of lives. "The government will not ban the protest," he said. "But they must not force their will, make people afraid or disturb public order," he said. "Moreover, our nation is currently in mourning after a series of disasters and a plane crash. They should help create peace, even the international community gives a lot of sympathy, empathy and assistance." Religious and ethnic tensions are likely to rise in Indonesia as April's presidential election nears. President Joko Widodo has chosen a conservative cleric as his running mate to head off criticism he's insufficiently Islamic. A protest was also staged Friday in Garut, West Java province, where the flag was torched after hard-liners allegedly infiltrated an event organized by Nahdlatul Ulama's youth wing. Indonesia's moderate reputation was undermined last year when Jakarta's minority Christian governor was imprisoned for blasphemy following street protests against him that drew hundreds of thousands. A Muslim man holds a flag with Arabic writings that read: "There's no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger" popularly known as "tauhid flag" which is often linked with banned Islamic group Hizbut Tahir Indonesia, during a protest in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Thousands of conservative Muslims staged the protest in the capital against the burning of the flag by members of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest mainstream religious organization. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) PARIS (AP) - New Caledonia, a French archipelago in the South Pacific, is preparing for an independence referendum - the last step in a three-decades-long decolonization effort. Sunday's vote is key to settling tensions between the native Kanaks, who once suffered from strict segregation policies, and descendants of European colonizers. It is also a test of the depth of the links between France and the territory, which lies east of Australia and has about 270,000 inhabitants. Voters have to answer the question "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent?" Observers say that, based on past electoral results and polls, voters are likely to back remaining in France. The territory enjoys a large degree of autonomy, but relies on the French state for its defense, police, foreign affairs, justice and education. The referendum is the result of a process that started 30 years ago after years of violence that pitched pro-independence Kanak activists against those willing to remain in France. In 1988, 19 Kanak tribesmen died after they took French police hostage in a cave on the New Caledonian island of Ouvea. Four soldiers were also killed. FILE - This Monday, May 9, 2018 file photo shows a general view of the bay of Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia with the yachting port in the background. New Caledonia, a French archipelago in the South Pacific, is preparing for an independence referendum upcoming Sunday Nov. 4, 2018, the last step in a three-decades-long decolonization effort. (AP Photo/Theo Rouby, File) The violence represented a "tremendous shock" and a "key moment" for France, French historian Isabelle Merle said. "This is the first time a carefully thought-through peaceful decolonization process has been considered," she said. The Ouvea events prompted a peace deal that year between rival loyalist and pro-independence factions that laid the ground for the referendum. Visiting the territory in May, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the "pain of colonization" and paid tribute to the courage of those involved in the peace process. He also handed the Caledonian government a document that stated the archipelago became a French possession in 1853 - a gesture intended to symbolize the final chapter in the period of colonization. "We are no longer in a time of possession, but a time of choice", he said. Under French colonial rule, the Kanaks were forced to live on reserves in remote areas, pay specific taxes and do mandatory work for very low wages. They had to respect curfews and were not allowed into some places reserved for European settlers. Merle, whose researches focus on France's decolonization process, said this led to "a big gap between the local communities." "In the whole French colonial emprise, the Kanaks have probably been those who have been despised the most, in the sense that they were seen as savages," she said. Today the Kanaks represent about 40 percent of New Caledonia's population, while people of European descent make up about 27 percent. Others include those who emigrated from Asia and other Pacific islands. Long used as a prison colony, New Caledonia remains an important part of France's overseas holdings that stretch from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean and the northeast coast of Canada. Together, they enable France to lay claim to the world's second largest maritime domain - the area within 200 nautical miles from the coast in which each country is sovereign and can exploit natural resources - almost equivalent to that of the United States. New Caledonia's turquoise lagoons are a tourism magnet, and its mines contain a quarter of the world's known nickel supplies, a metal used in electronics manufacturing and many other industries. But like other French overseas territories, the territory suffers from much higher unemployment and poverty than in the mainland, and many residents share a feeling of being neglected by Paris. French overseas economies are largely dependent on the French state. France's global budget for overseas amounts to 17 billion euros ($19,3 billion) this year, including 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) for New Caledonia, according to a Senate report. Once the second largest colonial empire in the world after Britain, French power had extended to west and north Africa, southeast Asia and islands in the Caribbean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, reaching its height between the World Wars. In 1939, five percent of the world's population was living under French rule. Most of France's African and Asian colonies broke free in the 1950s and 1960s. The vote in New Caledonia is the first time a self-determination referendum is being held on a French territory since Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, voted for independence in 1977. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will travel to New Caledonia the day after the vote to discuss the archipelago's future with local politicians. Whatever the referendum's result, Merle said pro-independence Kanaks will keep pushing for New Caledonia to be its own country. FILE - This Monday May 9, 2018 file photo, shows a general view of the bay of Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia with the Saint Joseph cathedral in foreground and the yachting port in the background. New Caledonia, a French archipelago in the South Pacific, is preparing for an independence referendum upcoming Sunday Nov. 4, 2018, the last step in a three-decades-long decolonization effort. (AP Photo/Theo Rouby, File) FILE - In this Saturday, May 5, 2018 file photo French President Emmanuel Macron is welcomed at Ouvea Island airport, off New Caledonia, before a remembrance ceremony, The French archipelago of New Caledonia in the South Pacific, is preparing for an independence referendum upcoming Sunday Nov. 4, 2018, the last step in a three-decades-long decolonization effort. (AP Photo/Theo Rouby, File) CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - A self-styled preacher who wanted to claim his wife's life insurance was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison for persuading her to kill herself in what a judge described as an Australian-first conviction. Graham Morant, 69, was convicted by a Queensland state Supreme Court Jury in October on charges of counselling and aiding his wife Jennifer Morant to suicide at their Gold Coast city home in 2014. While people have been convicted before of helping someone to suicide, usually in mercy killings, Justice Peter Davis said no one had been convicted in Australia before of persuading someone who would not otherwise have taken his or her own life to suicide. Each conviction carried a potential life prison sentence. The judge sentenced Morant to a total of 10 years in prison on both convictions and ordered him to serve five years before he is eligible for parole. Jennifer Morant was suffering from chronic back pain and depression when she took her life. In this Sept. 27, 2018, photo Graham Morant leaves the Supreme Court in Brisbane. Morant, a self-styled preacher who wanted to claim his wife's life insurance was sentenced on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, to 10 years in prison for persuading her to kill herself in what a judge described as an Australian-first conviction. (Darren England/AAP Image via AP) Davis rejected the husband's claim that he had acted through compassion for his 56-year-old wife, finding the motivation was to collect 1.4 million Australian dollars ($1 million) from three life insurance policies. Prosecutors told the court the husband wanted to spend the insurance on building a religious commune. "Mrs. Morant was a vulnerable person with difficulties with her physical health," Davis said. "You took advantage of those vulnerabilities in order to persuade her to kill herself and then assisted her to do so once she had made that decision." Davis said Morant had shown no remorse for his actions and his wife had died in a lonely place. LONDON (AP) - British police have launched a criminal investigation into allegations of anti-Semitic hate crimes within the opposition Labour Party. The Metropolitan Police said Friday that it is acting on a dossier of information given to London police chief Cressida Dick. A police spokesman says it was handed to her on Sept. 4 following an interview on LBC radio. LBC had in its possession an internal Labour Party dossier that detailed 45 cases that involved social media postings by party members, including one posting that read: "We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all." Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has over the past couple of years struggled to rebut persistent charges of anti-Semitism in his party ranks, including complaints raised by some party legislators who are Jewish. He has said the party deplores all racism, but the issue has lingered. Amanda Bowman, vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the group was not surprised by the criminal investigation. "There is a deeply embedded culture of anti-Semitism in parts of the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn has done close to nothing to address it, to the extent that some cases may now even meet a criminal threshold," she said. FILE - In this Monday, April 23, 2018 file photo, Britain's opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn arrives to attend a Memorial Service to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence at St Martin-in-the-Fields church in London. British police have launched a criminal investigation into allegations of anti-Semitic hate crimes within the opposition Labour Party. The Metropolitan Police said Friday, Nov. 2 that it is acting on a dossier of information given to London police chief Cressida Dick. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, file) The police statement says the person making the complaint "alleged that the documentation included evidence of anti-Semitic hate crimes. The contents have been examined by specialist officers. A criminal investigation has commenced into some of the allegations within the documentation." Police say the force is seeking "early investigative advice" from the Crown Prosecution Service. Dick told BBC radio there is evidence a crime may have been committed based on the material given to her. "If somebody passes us material which they say amounts to a crime we have a duty to look at that and not just dismiss it," she said. "We have been assessing some material that was passed to me, in a radio studio of all things, about two months ago and we are now investigating some of that material because it appears there may have been crime committed." She said police prefer it if political parties "regulate themselves." Dick added that she hopes the matter can be dealt with quickly. Police did not provide details about the possible hate crimes detailed in the dossier. Labour Party officials say the party has not been contacted by police but is ready to cooperate. A party spokesman said the party has a "robust system for investigating complaints of alleged breaches of Labour Party rules by its members." THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Dutch prosecutors said Friday they have closed their investigation without unravelling the mystery of how a Croatian ex-general managed to smuggle poison into a United Nations courtroom and take his own life, seconds after an appeals judge confirmed his 20-year sentence for war crimes. Slobodan Praljak committed suicide Nov. 29 last year, proclaiming his innocence and then drinking from a small bottle containing potassium cyanide. He collapsed in court and died in a Dutch hospital about two hours later. The dramatic scene of the 72-year-old former commander of Bosnian Croat military forces lifting his trembling right hand to his mouth and drinking the liquid was streamed live on the court's website. In a written statement, The Hague Public Prosecution Service said that a months-long investigation failed to establish "in what way and at what point in time Mr. Praljak had obtained the potassium cyanide he used." Police and prosecutors studied surveillance camera footage from the court, interviewed witnesses and searched Praljak's U.N. cell. The prosecutors concluded that no criminal offenses were committed in Praljak's suicide. FILE - In this ICTY file photo dated Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, Slobodan Praljak drinks from a bottle after proclaiming his innocence shortly after hearing an appeals judge confirmed his 20-year sentence for crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The Hague Public Prosecution Service says in a written statement issued Friday Nov. 2, 2018, they have failed to unravel the mystery of how Croatian ex-general Praljak managed to smuggle a bottle of poison into a United Nations courtroom to take his own life. (The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) via AP) Prosecutors said that a handwritten "farewell letter" to his family was found in his cell at the United Nations Detention Unit where he had been held for years as his trial and appeal for crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian war progressed at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In the letter, he wrote "that he had already decided to put an end to his life a long time ago, should he be found guilty," the prosecutors said. The probe said that potassium cyanide can be stored as a dry powder and only a tiny amount is fatal. "In this context, it isn't strange that the importation or storage of the substance wasn't noticed," prosecutors said. An internal inquiry by the U.N. war crimes tribunal found that staff at its detention unit and headquarters followed all relevant procedures. PARIS (AP) - Voters in New Caledonia, an archipelago in the south Pacific, are preparing to go to the polls on Sunday to decide on whether to break free from French rule. A look at what's at stake in the independence referendum. ARCHIPELAGO IN SOUTH PACIFIC New Caledonia is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) east of Australia and 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles) from France's mainland. Home to 269,000 people, the native Kanaks make up about 40 percent of the population, while people from European descent account for 27 percent. The others hail from Asian countries and surrounding Pacific islands. While part of the French overseas, it has a large degree of autonomy, with its own Congress and government. While New Caledonia can set legislation on such issues such as labor rules and taxes, the French state handles defense, police, justice, higher education and foreign affairs. FILE - This Monday May 9, 2018 file photo, shows a general view of the bay of Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia with the Saint Joseph cathedral in foreground and the yachting port in the background. New Caledonia, a French archipelago in the South Pacific, is preparing for an independence referendum upcoming Sunday Nov. 4, 2018, the last step in a three-decades-long decolonization effort. (AP Photo/Theo Rouby, File) FRENCH COLONY The archipelago became French in 1853 under Emperor Napoleon III - Napoleon's nephew and heir - and was used for decades as a prison colony. The Kanaks suffered from tough segregation policies. It became an overseas territory after World War II, with French citizenship granted to all Kanaks in 1957. Old colonial tensions fueled a conflict between the French authorities and the Kanak pro-independence movement that led to some violence in 1988. Successive peace accords were signed in that year and a decade later, paving the way for this year's referendum - the last step in a three-decade decolonization process. INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM Over 170,000 voters are qualified to answer the question: "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent?" Only those with long-standing links to the territory are entitled to vote. The French government is taking a neutral stance. Past electoral results and polls suggest voters will choose to remain in France. To ensure security during the vote, 350 additional police officers have been sent to the archipelago and authorities have issued a ban on the carrying of firearms as well as the sale of alcohol over the weekend. FILE - This Monday, May 9, 2018 file photo shows a general view of the bay of Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia with the yachting port in the background. New Caledonia, a French archipelago in the South Pacific, is preparing for an independence referendum upcoming Sunday Nov. 4, 2018, the last step in a three-decades-long decolonization effort. (AP Photo/Theo Rouby, File) FILE - In this Saturday, May 5, 2018 file photo French President Emmanuel Macron is welcomed at Ouvea Island airport, off New Caledonia, before a remembrance ceremony, The French archipelago of New Caledonia in the South Pacific, is preparing for an independence referendum upcoming Sunday Nov. 4, 2018, the last step in a three-decades-long decolonization effort. (AP Photo/Theo Rouby, File) BEIJING (AP) - A fight between a bus driver and a passenger who missed her stop caused the bus to plunge off a high bridge into China's Yangtze River, police said Friday. All 15 people onboard are presumed dead. An eight-second surveillance video released by Chongqing city police on its Weibo social media account shows the two arguing and grappling with each other in the moments before the bus suddenly veered across oncoming traffic and off the bridge Sunday morning. Buses in China often have surveillance cameras. A statement from Wanzhou district police said the 48-year-old female passenger asked the driver to pull over after she missed her stop, but he didn't. She walked up to the driver's seat and scolded him. The driver turned his head back several times arguing. As the quarrel escalated, the statement said, the woman hit the driver on the head with her cellphone. The driver took his right arm off the steering wheel and fought back. He grabbed her arm when she attacked him again, then hastily steered to the left, sending the bus out of control. The Chongqing police also posted dashcam video from a nearby car showing the bus colliding with an oncoming vehicle before smashing through a guardrail and falling into the Yangtze, a major river in southwestern China. In this image taken from Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018 surveillance video footage run by China's CCTV via AP Video, a bus driver strikes a passenger moments before the bus plunged off a bridge into the Yangtze River in Wanzhou in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality. Police say a brawl between a passenger and a bus driver was the cause of the bus plunging off a bridge and killing more than a dozen people in southwestern China on Sunday. (CCTV via AP Video) The Wanzhou police statement said the behavior of the driver and the passenger seriously endangered public safety and violated the law. Rescuers lifted the wreck of the bus from the river Wednesday night. Thirteen bodies have been found and two remain missing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. In this image taken from Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018 surveillance video footage run by China's CCTV via AP Video, a passenger strikes a bus driver with an object moments before the bus plunged off a bridge into the Yangtze River in Wanzhou in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality. Police say a brawl between a passenger and a bus driver was the cause of the bus plunging off a bridge and killing more than a dozen people in southwestern China on Sunday. (CCTV via AP Video) BEIJING (AP) - China rolled out the red carpet Friday for the second time this week for a Latin American leader whose country recently switched its allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. President Danilo Medina of the Dominican Republic met with Chinese President Xi Jinping after a formal welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. The summit came one day after a similar ceremony and meeting for Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren. Both El Salvador and the Dominican Republic broke their diplomatic ties with Taiwan earlier this year. They are among a number of countries that have established or resumed relations with China in recent years. Beijing has been stepping up diplomatic and economic pressure on those that recognize Taiwan since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016. Beijing's aggressiveness is largely driven by Tsai's refusal to endorse the "One-China" principle, which maintains that Taiwan is part of China and that the Communist Party-ruled administration in Beijing is China's sole legitimate government. The Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. China is rolling out the red carpet for the second time this week for a Latin American leader whose country recently switched its allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) "When Tsai Ing-wen took office, she adopted unfriendly policies toward the mainland," said Cui Shoujun, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Renmin University in Beijing. "Therefore, to some extent, the mainland believes that the time to set up ties with these countries is ripe. It is a kind of warning to Taiwan." Only 17 mainly small, developing countries still recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan split from mainland China during a civil war in 1949. China considers the self-governing island to be part of its territory. Cui said that establishing ties with China can bring economic benefits, noting that Xi has said Latin America is a natural extension of the maritime half of China's Belt and Road Initiative. ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Greek authorities say they have broken a criminal organization that smuggled migrants from Greece to Italy by yacht, and have arrested eight suspected members. A coast guard statement says the ring had been about to smuggle 119 people to Italy on the yacht when they were arrested early Thursday in the southern Peloponnese region. Friday's statement said the suspects had provided two buses to take the migrants to the western beach of Kourouta. The vehicles were confiscated, together with the yacht and a shotgun. The migrants' nationalities were not made public. The smuggling suspects were described as four Greeks and four foreign nationals. Tens of thousands of migrants live in Greece, prevented by a series of closed borders from continuing their journey to more affluent European countries. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - Police in Alabama say an armed McDonald's customer was justified in fatally shooting a masked gunman. Al.com reports a Tuesday statement by Birmingham police says charges will not be filed against the man who fatally shot 24-year-old Antonio Demond Sanders. Sgt. Johnny Williams says in the statement that officers presented the case to the district attorney and it was determined the shooting was a justifiable homicide. Police say an armed man wearing a mask barged into the restaurant Saturday night and opened fire as a manager was closing shop. Police say a man leaving the restaurant with his two sons drew his own gun and shot the masked man, who later died at a hospital. The armed customer and one of his sons were wounded. Their identities haven't been released. ___ Information from: The Birmingham News, http://www.al.com/birminghamnews CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - White, working-class voters fueled President Donald Trump's rise to the White House. If his party loses the House majority on Tuesday, it will be, at least in part, because those same voters abandoned the GOP. While Democrats' suburban offensive is well-known, an often-overlooked battle is underway across rural and working-class districts in states including Maine, Iowa and Minnesota. Trump's coalition of blue-collar voters here may offer Democrats an alternate route to the House majority. Specifically, Democrats are targeting 21 House districts carried by former President Barack Obama in 2012 that shifted to Trump in 2016 - districts now testing the strength of a Trump-era political realignment shaped by education, race and gender. With the election days away , Democrats have cause for optimism. Public and private polling suggest Democrats are poised to capture at least two-thirds of the Obama-Trump districts, according to operatives in both parties who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely before Election Day. While Republicans privately blame an underwhelming slate of GOP incumbents, the Democrats' prospective success is a reflection of a strong class of first-time candidates, extraordinary fundraising and a message focused on health care and the economy - not Trump. In northeastern Iowa's 1st Congressional District, where the cornfields outnumber the Whole Foods supermarkets, 29-year-old Democratic upstart Abby Finkenauer reflected on her blue-collar roots at a rally this week alongside the Democratic Party's strongest liaison to working-class voters, former Vice President Joe Biden. FILE - In this June 5, 2018, file photo Iowa Rep. Abby Finkenauer walks into The Smokestack after winning the Democratic primary in Dubuque, Iowa. An often-overlooked battle is under way across rural and working-class America where President Donald Trump's coalition of blue-collar voters offers Democrats an alternate route to the House majority. Finkenauer reflected on her blue-collar roots at a rally this week alongside the Democratic Party's strongest liaison to working-class voters, former Vice President Joe Biden. "He shares the belief that every kid who grows up in a working-class family like mine has a right to a bright future," Finkenauer said as she introduced Biden. (Eileen Meslar/Telegraph Herald via AP, File) "He shares the belief that every kid who grows up in a working-class family like mine has a right to a bright future," Finkenauer said as she introduced Biden. Obama won the district by nearly 14 points in 2012. Trump scored a 3-point victory here four years later. The 29-year-old state representative, whose father and grandfather were union workers, has made her working-class roots central to the campaign in a district once dominated by union manufacturing and meatpacking jobs. She made a name for herself last year blasting a Republican-backed bill that dismantled public-employee unions, shouting against it near tears on the Iowa House floor in Des Moines. "This is personal," she said at the time. She is facing off against two-term Republican incumbent Rep. Rod Blum, a wealthy businessman. In working-class southern New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District, Democrat Andy Kim is laser-focused on health care and the Republican tax cuts in his bid to defeat two-term incumbent Rep. Tom MacArthur. Obama twice won the district, which Trump carried by 6 points in 2016. Kim, a national security official in the Obama administration, told The AP that he doesn't want to impeach Trump. He condemned the increasingly divisive tone in politics, which he said was a problem long before Trump's election. The first-time Democratic candidate is eager to bring up MacArthur's votes for the Trump tax cuts and a GOP health care plan that would have replaced the nation's system with one that wouldn't guarantee coverage of pre-existing conditions. "It isn't politics. It's personal," said Kim, the father of two young sons, noting that his father survived polio and his mother has other pre-existing conditions. The Republican MacArthur said he was simply working to improve both bills for his constituents. He also recognizes his political challenge in a district that has swung from one party to the other in recent presidential elections. "A member, to represent this district, can't just be a Trump opposition person," MacArthur said in an interview. "He'll offend half of his constituents. You have to work with the president when you can. You have to have the backbone to push back when you need to." College-educated voters, particularly women, turned against the GOP long ago. But polling indicates that Democrats' comeback in the Obama-Trump districts, if there is one, will be born of a more subtle shift among non-college-educated white women, according to Jesse Ferguson, who previously led the House Democrats campaign arm. "If we take the majority, it won't only be built on suburban, Clinton-voting districts alone," he said. "Democrats are winning congressional districts that voted for Donald Trump as people who work for a living see that the Republican majority sold them out." It's not all good news for Democrats. In the fight for the Senate majority, Trump's standing remains strong among rural voters in states like North Dakota, Indiana and Missouri where the GOP is on offense. Republicans have far fewer pickup opportunities in their quest to preserve the House majority. The GOP is on offense, however, in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, a 27,000 square mile-swath of northern Minnesota where Republican Pete Stauber, a retired policeman, is poised to win a seat left open by a Democratic retirement. No current district swung more from Obama to Trump. Stauber said the 20-point shift between 2012 and 2016 reflected a political realignment a decade in the making. "This congressional district is blue-collar common-sense conservative," he said in an interview, noting the presence of a strong mining industry, forestry jobs and the military. Stauber said he opposed Republican efforts to repeal Obama's health care law and vowed to protect coverage for pre-existing conditions. He also railed against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's recent suggestion that Republicans would cut Medicare and Social Security to help balance the budget. "Those are benefits that our seniors were promised and paid into their entire lives," the Republican congressional candidate said. "That's a promise our government made. That's a promise our government will keep." Polling suggests that Democrats are winning the fight over health care and the economy in other Obama-Trump districts. They include Maine's 2nd, where Democratic-aligned outside groups have poured money into an advertising campaign railing against incumbent Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin's health care positions since October 2017. Trump won the rural Maine district by 10 points in 2016, while Obama carried it by more than 8 points four years earlier. Democratic candidate Jared Golden, an Iraq war veteran, seized on health care in his closing message. "When I came home from Iraq, I was diagnosed with a pre-existing condition," the 36-year-old Democrat said in a recent ad. He charged that Poliquin voted with special interests "to allow insurance companies to deny health coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition." A Poliquin spokesman declined to respond. Democrats' strong position has been built, in part, by a fundraising disparity that allowed them to set the terms of the debate. In just eight Obama-Trump districts across Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey and Illinois, Democratic candidates have spent roughly $24 million on TV ads compared to $12 million from their Republican opponents, according to media buyers tracking ad spending. The super PAC aligned with House Democrats has poured at least another $7 million into the same races. Though Trump capitalized on the frustration in these districts in 2016, Biden this week welcomed working-class voters back to the Democrats' column with a populist tone. In Cedar Rapids, Biden said: "I know what built this country: ordinary Americans given half a chance." ___ Peoples reported from New York. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A spokesperson for Facebook says the company accidentally removed an anti-abortion group's ad supporting Tennessee U.S. Senate nominee Marsha Blackburn. The nonprofit Susan B. Anthony List claimed Thursday that Facebook was censoring its ad. The 30-second ad raises questions about Blackburn's opponent, Democrat Phil Bredesen, and his views on abortion while calling Blackburn a "pro-life champion." The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit has endorsed Blackburn's campaign. Facebook's representative told the Tennessean "we're sorry for this mistake - the ad has been restored and is now running on Facebook." This is the second time an ad for Blackburn has been temporarily blocked on social media. Twitter blocked a Blackburn campaign video last year that said she would stop the "sale of baby body parts." It later reversed the decision. ____ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics ___ Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com CHICAGO (AP) - A Chicago man has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for stabbing a 12-year-old girl to death. Authorities have said Alexis Stubbs could be heard on voicemail screaming "daddy don't" in June 2017 while she was stabbed by John Singleton, her mother's boyfriend. The 32-year-old man was sentenced this week after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Other charges were dropped, including aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery involving a police officer. Prosecutors said Singleton and the girl's mother had been arguing over the phone before the girl's cries were recorded. Police say Singleton has already served jail time for attacking Alexis' mother. A lawyer for Singleton has said his client has a history of mental health problems and suicidal thoughts. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(DALLAS) -- With a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue still fresh in Americas memory, some of the nations leading gun control advocates took their campaigns this weekend to Texas, a deep-red state with the more registered guns than any U.S. state. Student activists from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and Santa Fe High School in Galveston County, Texas shared a stage with Gabby Giffords --the former Arizona congresswoman who survived a gunshot to the head during a mass shooting in 2011 -- and her husband Mark Kelly, a former astronaut. "We must do something we must stop gun violence," Giffords said during back-to-back campaign events on Saturday for Democratic candidate Lizzie Pannill Fletcher in Texas' 7th congressional district. "Do you have the courage to fight? Stand with me. Vote, vote, vote!" she said. Giffords, who suffers from aphasia -- a condition which impedes her communication skills due to damage from the shooting to the language passage on the left side of her brain let her husband do much of the talking on the campaign trail. "The answer is not more guns and this is coming from a gun owner," Kelly said during a Texas town hall forum which concluded the couples nationwide get-out-the-vote tour. "Logically, that doesn't make sense," Kelly said. "If the answer was more guns, we would already live in the safest country on the planet, because of the number of firearms that are here and the number of people that already carry them." "It does not pass the logic test," Kelly added. Kelly touched on the aftermath of the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting that claimed the lives of 11 victims, one including a 97-year-old woman and the president's response to the massacre. "Arming the security guard wouldn't have stopped anything," Kelly said. Giffords and Kelly were joined by high school student activists. "November 6 is not the deadline, said David Hoggs, a survivor of the mass shooting in Parkland in February that killed 17 students and staffers. It's the start of a revolution. I'm ready to see this country be what it says it is on paper." Megan Mcguire, a 17-year-old high school senior who survived a mass shooting at Sante Fe High School in May that left 10 dead, assailed Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, but praised his Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke. "Ted Cruz, we have tried to contact him through email, through phone call we have tried to set meetings and he refused to meet with us," she said. Mcguire told the crowd she was too young to vote, but encouraged them to vote on her behalf. "Beto sat down with a note pad and pen and paper and asked how we felt," Mcguire said of ORourke. "He promised us he would change how things are happening. That was really important to me." According to a 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Texas had the most registered guns in the country. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's new government unveiled a record budget for 2019 on Friday despite battling a huge national debt, with new tax measures and increased dividends from national oil company Petronas intended to plug the country's fiscal deficit. The budget, the first under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad since his alliance won May's general election, forecasts that the fiscal deficit will widen to 3.7 percent of gross domestic product this year, up from 2.8 percent targeted by the previous administration. Economic growth is expected to slow to 4.8 percent from 5.9 percent in 2017. Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, presenting the budget in Parliament, said it will be a record 314.6 billion ringgit ($75.6 billion), up 8 percent from this year, to juggle the need for economic development while ensuring the wellbeing of the people, including cash assistance and subsidies for the poor. "While we remove the fat, we must not cut our muscles," he said. Lim said the previous fiscal deficit target of 2.8 percent was unrealistic because a number of expenses were not reflected in the balance sheet. The government also faces a revenue shortfall after scrapping an unpopular consumption tax introduced by the previous government. The country's debt and liabilities stand at nearly 1.1 billion ringgit (264 billion), nearly 40 percent more than previously disclosed by the former government, in part due to a massive graft scandal at the 1MDB state investment fund, he said. The 1MDB scandal has led to the ouster of former leader Najib Razak in the May 9 elections, ushering in the country's first change of power since independence from Britain in 1957. Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, have since been charged separately with multiple counts of corruption over the 1MDB saga and their trials are to start next year. Lim said the government may have to pay up to 44 billion ringgit ($10.5 billion) more for 1MDB debts, not including 7 billion ringgit ($1.7 billion) in interest that was secretly paid by Najib's administration using taxpayers' money. Lim said the government hopes to fix the fiscal woes in three years. He said the deficit is expected to narrow to 3.4 percent of GDP next year and 3 percent in 2020. The government is also obtaining a soft loan of 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) from Japan by March next year, he said. The measures to bolster revenue in 2019 include a new excise duty on sugary drinks that will also curb obesity, an increasing levy on gains from property sales, an airfare levy and a real-estate investment trust for airports, and then selling part of the government's stake in the trust to earn about 4 billion ringgit ($960 million). Lim said Petronas will contribute 54 billion ringgit ($13 billion) to the government in 2019, including a 30 billion ringgit ($7.2 billion) one-off special dividend, but stressed that this won't affect the state oil firm's operation expenditures. Part of the money will be used to repay 35.4 billion ringgit ($8.5 billion) in tax refunds that were not paid by Najib's government, he said. "We were very careful about how the money is spent. Although the budget is more than the previous year, we are also carrying the burden, the debts we had to pay incurred by the previous government," Mahathir told reporters later. ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Up to $10 million in local hotel tax revenue can be used to help build a museum to the 49 victims of a massacre at a gay nightclub in Florida. Orange County commissioners on Tuesday approved payments over three years to a foundation dedicated to building a museum commemorating the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The money will be used to buy land and create designs for the museum. Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs says the museum will be "sacred space" that teaches visitors about the dangers of intolerance and discrimination. Officials with the onePulse Foundation say they will start developing a design for the museum and memorial in the coming months. PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) - A grand jury has indicted a white police officer seen on body camera video shooting a black suspect in the back as he tried to run away. The Virginian-Pilot reports Portsmouth Officer Jeremy Durocher was indicted on two felonies on Thursday: aggravated malicious wounding and a related firearms charge. Video shows the rookie officer wounding 18-year-old Deontrace Ward as police responded to a robbery call in October 2017. Commonwealth's Attorney Stephanie Morales announced the grand jurors chose the most serious charges from among those prosecutors offered. Durocher's attorney, Nicholas Renninger, says these charges would have a "chilling effect" on police. Police Chief Tonya Chapman announced the department "will allow the criminal justice system to run its course." Police won't reveal Durocher's employment status. ___ Information from: The Virginian-Pilot, http://pilotonline.com PARIS (AP) - A Catholic priest said Friday that he has been punished by church leaders in France after he gathered more than 100,000 signatures for a petition calling for a cardinal to resign over his handling of child sexual abuse cases. The Rev. Pierre Vignon said he learned in an email Thursday that he would no longer be considered for the church court where he has served as a judge since 2002. In a phone interview, Vignon said the decision showed church leaders are of two minds about how to deal with sex predators within the Catholic clergy. "They say, 'We want to do everything,' but to whistleblowers, 'We want to shut you up,'" Vignon said. The email stated Vignon was no longer a church judge but did not explain the reason for the decision made by 12 bishops who oversee the area of southeast France where he ministers, the priest said. Vignon's online petition in August called for the resignation of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who has been the archbishop of Lyon since 2002. Vignon faulted the cardinal's handling of a notorious alleged pedophile priest suspected of abusing Boy Scouts in Lyon during the 1980s. FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 30, 2018 file photo, Father Pierre Vignon holds a letter in Saint-Martin-en-Vercors, France. A Roman Catholic priest says he's been punished by church leaders in France after he gathered more than 100,000 signatures for an online petition that called for a cardinal to resign because of his handling of child sex-abuse cases. (AP Photo/John Leicester, File) Barbarin and other church officials are due in court in January to answer victims' charges they were aware of the Lyon priest's alleged history of abuse and didn't alert authorities. Barbarin has denied any attempt to cover up for the alleged abuser and supported as "brave" by Pope Francis. Vignon said Friday he accepts the bishops' decision and has no regrets about petitioning for the resignation of an influential church leader. "It changes nothing, not an iota," he said. YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) - Separatist militants attacked workers on a state-run rubber plantation in restive southwestern Cameroon, chopping off their fingers because the men had defied an order to stay away from the farms, authorities said Friday. The attack is the second of its kind in less than a week by the militants, who have responded violently to a government crackdown on separatist activities in the English-speaking parts of the country. David Epie, a 43-year-old worker at a rubber plantation, says armed men attacked him and three of his co-workers on Thursday evening. "I do not know the fate of one of our workers who tried to escape and was shot on the leg," said Epie, who lost several fingers. He bled as we fled when the attackers were leaving." South West governor Bernard Okalia Bilai said he has ordered the military to chase and arrest the separatists blamed for the two recent attacks on rubber plantation workers. On Monday, seven workers lost fingers when militants hacked them off at a plantation in the town of Tiko. "We cannot allow groups of terrorists to continue to disturb the peace we badly need in this region," he said. "They are going from farm to farm, terrorizing farmers and workers ... they must pay for the crimes they are committing." Cameroon was once divided between British and French colonial powers. English speakers make up 20 percent of the population and have long complained of being marginalized by the French majority. Those grievances erupted into conflict in 2016 when militant separatists took up arms following a series of protests by teachers and lawyers who cited discrimination in their fields of employment. The militants have vowed to destabilize the English-speaking regions of Cameroon to win independence for the areas. Earlier this week an American missionary died in another restive part of the country after he was shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon. The separatists consider the state-run banana, palm oil and rubber plantations in southwestern Cameroon to be legitimate targets. Vehicles, tractors, buildings and warehouses owned by the state's Cameroon Development Corporation have been torched and some staff members have been kidnapped. Meanwhile, 10 separatist leaders appeared in court Thursday in the capital of Yaounde, the first time they have been seen in public in Cameroon since their arrests 10 months ago in neighboring Nigeria. The suspects include Ayuk Tabe Julius, the man who proclaimed himself president of what he called the English-speaking republic of Ambazonia. The Cameroonian government has called them terrorists and said they would answer for their crimes under a 2014 anti-terrorism law which says that anyone who uses weapons against the government will face a military tribunal. If convicted on such charges, they could face the death sentence. Defense counsel John Nsoh says the suspects have been deprived of their right to communicate with their lawyers. "They were abducted - they were not even arrested - taken from a foreign country and brought into Cameroon and detained incommunicado for more than 10 months," he said. The turmoil in Cameroon comes as President Paul Biya, who has led since 1982, easily won a seventh term last month in an election that the United States says was marked by irregularities. The government did away with presidential term limits several years ago, part of a trend in Africa that has dismayed many. HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - The prime ministers of France and Vietnam on Friday witnessed the signing of two business deals worth over $10 billion and dozens of other cooperation agreements covering energy, education, health, technology and the environment. The agreements overseen by Edouard Philippe and Nguyen Xuan Phuc came as the two countries seek ways to further boost trade and investment. They include the purchase by Vietjet Air, Vietnam's leading private airline, of 50 Airbus A321neo planes worth $6.5 billion and CFM Leap engines worth $5.3 billion. Speaking at a joint news conference with Phuc, Philippe urged closer trade ties. "Vietnam needs a reliable partner and a stable economic environment, but we are in a time when only a few partners are reliable and some others abandon multilateralism as an organizer of our political and economic life," he said. "So we have a common interest in strengthening the reliability of our partnership and promoting economic stability for our countries." Phuc said France, Vietnam's former colonial ruler, is now one of its top partners, and the two leaders discussed ways to boost strategic ties, particularly in trade and investment. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, center left, and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc, center right, feed fish at the Government Office in Hanoi, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Philippe is on a three-day official visit to Vietnam. (Minh Hoang/Pool Photo via AP) Earlier Friday, Philippe met with Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who was elected president last week, and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. On Saturday, he is to visit the former battlefield of Dien Bien Phu, where the French army was defeated in 1954. Philippe said he and his delegation, which includes some French veterans, will "pay respects to fallen French and Vietnamese soldiers who fought for their countries." "Instead of bringing us back to the past, allow us, I think, to build a serene common future," he said. A federal judge in Boston is scheduled to hear closing arguments Friday in a highly publicized lawsuit alleging that elite Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans. Much of the spotlight has been on affluent Chinese-Americans with stellar academic scores who say the college rejects Asians in favor of lesser-qualified applicants. They say factoring in race hurts Asian-Americans. But others in the Asian community say that a race-blind process relying solely on academic scores would also hurt Asian-Americans. Southeast Asians, for example, who largely came over as refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, are under-represented in higher education. "The narrative right now is very focused on a very specific segment within the Asian-American community that does not represent the larger Asian-American community," said Quyen Dinh, executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center . The center signed on to a "friend of the court" brief by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund , siding with Harvard's use of what the university calls a "holistic" review of an applicant. The case brought by Students for Fair Admissions could wind up before a newly re-constituted and more conservative U.S. Supreme Court, which only narrowly re-affirmed the use of race in college admissions two years ago. FILE - In this March 7, 2017 file photo, rowers paddle down the Charles River past the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. A federal judge in Boston is scheduled to hear closing arguments Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, in a highly publicized lawsuit alleging that elite Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans. Much of the spotlight has been on affluent Chinese-Americans with stellar academic scores who say the college rejects Asians in favor of lesser-qualified applicants. They say factoring in race hurts Asian-Americans. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File) Here are some of the issues surrounding Asian-Americans and affirmative action: WHO ARE ASIAN-AMERICANS? There are at least 18 million people in the U.S. who are of Asian descent from about 20 countries. Asian-Americans are about 6 percent of the U.S. population, but make up nearly 23 percent of this year's freshman class at Harvard , 22 percent of the same class at Princeton , and are the fastest growing minority in the country. Chinese-Americans are the largest sub-group with at least 4.3 million people, followed by Indian-Americans at 4 million and Filipino-Americans at 3 million. Chinese started migrating to the country in the 19th century as labor for the growing West. More recent waves include refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as highly skilled workers from China and India. The term "Asian-American" was coined by young civil rights activists marching alongside Latinos and African Americans for social justice in the 1960s. Ellen D. Wu, a history professor and director of the Asian American Studies Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, says that political identity has now evolved largely into a demographic designation for "a very diverse group." WHAT IS THE ASIAN AMERICAN COALITION FOR EDUCATION? Students for Fair Admissions filed the lawsuit against Harvard in 2014. Actively supporting it is the Asian American Coalition for Education , which filed federal complaints in 2015 alleging discrimination. The coalition's president is Yukong Zhao, a corporate strategist who immigrated to the U.S. from China in 1992 to pursue a master's degree in business. Zhao is part of a new generation of wealthier Chinese immigrants who are active on social media and opposed to affirmative action. Conservative strategist Edward Blum, who is president of Students for Fair Admissions, was behind the last affirmative action admissions case, which accused the University of Texas of discriminating against white students. Blum lost that case at the U.S. Supreme Court. DOES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION HELP OR HURT ASIAN-AMERICANS? Depends on who you ask. Julie J. Park, author of "Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data" and past consultant to Harvard in the lawsuit, says under-represented Asians such as Cambodians and Hmong can get a boost from a review that goes beyond test scores. The same goes for lower-income Asian-Americans whose grades may not reflect their potential. Park also says colleges want students with different backgrounds so Asian-Americans may be more coveted in fields or colleges with few Asians. It depends on the situation. Students for Fair Admissions, on the other hand, argues the system in place at Harvard puts unfair weight on race, primarily at the expense of academically talented Asian Americans. It also alleges that Harvard intentionally uses a vague "personal rating" to reject Asian-American applicants in favor of students from other racial backgrounds. Supporters of affirmative action say it's possible that Harvard is biased against Asian-Americans, but that doesn't mean race-conscious policies should be scrapped. WHY ARE ASIANS CALLED THE "MODEL MINORITY"? The stereotype of Asian-Americans as hard-working, educated and free of societal problems started in the 1960s. Wu, the history professor, says it was a way for whites to establish a racial order that was defined, most importantly, by not being black. Asian-Americans were also responsible for perpetuating the myth, she said, adding that the "consequences of that have long functioned to justify anti-black racism and anti-black policies." IS THERE ANY TRUTH TO THE MODEL MINORITY MYTH? Overall, the numbers look good for Asian-Americans. Their household median income is $83,000, compared with $60,000 for the U.S. More than 50 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with 32 percent for the country, according to the 2017 American Community Survey put out by the U.S. Census Bureau. But there are large disparities within the group. For example, while 75 percent of Indians held a bachelor's degree or higher, only 16 percent of Laotians and 20 percent of Cambodians had done so. Among Chinese, the figure is 55 percent. Indian households have the highest median income at $114,000 while at the other end are Burmese households, at $40,000. About 6 percent of Filipino individuals live in poverty, compared with 21 percent of Nepalese and 31 percent of Burmese. --- AP Data Journalist Angeliki Kastanis contributed from Los Angeles. CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) - St. Louis County election officials now say 253 voters, not the 600 originally announced, were mistakenly advised that they are ineligible to vote in Tuesday's election. Republican elections director Rick Stream said Thursday that letters were mistakenly sent to 600 voters telling them they missed the registration deadline. But Democratic director Eric Fey later told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that was only an estimate, and that the real number was 253. About 150 of the voters caught the error and were restored to the rolls. Election officials are trying to reach the others. The error was caused by confusion over voter registrations that arrived after Missouri's Oct. 10 deadline. Election workers were unaware that registration forms postmarked or signed by Oct. 10 should have counted, regardless of when they arrived. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump says he plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum - two legally dubious proposals that mark his latest election season barrage against illegal immigration. Trump also said he had told the U.S. military mobilizing at the southwest border that if U.S. troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were "rifles." "This is an invasion," Trump declared, as he has previously on a subject that has been shown to resonate strongly with his base of Republican supporters. He made his comments Thursday at the White House in a rambling, campaign-style speech that was billed as a response to caravans of migrants traveling slowly by foot toward the U.S. border. But Trump offered few details on how exactly he planned to overhaul an asylum system he claimed was plagued by "endemic abuse" that he said "makes a mockery of our immigration system." U.S. immigration laws make clear that migrants seeking asylum may do so either at or between border crossings. But Trump said he would limit that to official crossing points. The U.S. also doesn't have space at the border to manage the large-scale detention of migrants, with most facilities at capacity. Trump said the government would erect "massive tents" instead. His announcement marked Trump's latest attempt to keep the issue of immigration front-and-center in the final stretch before next Tuesday's elections . Trump has spent the waning days of the campaign hammering the issue at every occasion as he tries to energize Republican voters using the same playbook that helped him win in 2016. In addition to deploying the military to the southern border to stave off the caravan, Trump announced plans to try to end the constitutionally-protected right of birthright citizenship for all children born in the U.S. He brought up immigration issues several times during a political rally Thursday night in Columbia, Missouri. He railed against "birth tourism," where mothers from abroad travel to America to have babies so they will automatically be U.S. citizens. And he denounced "chain migration," where these new citizens then bring in their extended families into the country. In this photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, soldiers from the the 89th Military Police Brigade, and 41st Engineering Company, 19th Engineering Battalion, Fort Riley, Kan., arrive at Valley International Airport, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, in Harlingen, Texas, to conduct the first missions along the southern border in support of Operation Faithful Patriot. The soldiers will provide a range of support including planning assistance, engineering support, equipment and resources to assist the Department of Homeland Security along the Southwest border. (Alexandra Minor/U.S. Air Force via AP) "You come into the country - you're like two months old ... and you're gonna bring 'em all - your aunts and uncles and grandfathers and lots of people," he said. The president announced Wednesday that he was considering deploying up to 15,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexican border in response to the caravans - roughly double the number the Pentagon said it currently plans for a mission that has been criticized as unnecessary, considering the caravans remain hundreds of miles away. Trump said Thursday he was "not going to put up with" any sort of violence directed at those U.S. forces, warning the military would fight back. "When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico military and police, I say consider it a rifle," he said. The exact rules for the use of force by military police and other soldiers who will be operating near the border have not been disclosed, but in all cases troops have the right of self-defense. Still, Mark Hertling, a retired Army general, wrote on Twitter after Trump's speech that no military officer would allow a soldier to shoot an individual throwing a rock. "It would be an unlawful order," he wrote, citing the Law of Land Warfare. Trump said Thursday that, under his order, any migrants who do enter the country would be housed in "massive tent cities" he plans to build while their cases are processed. "We're going to catch, we're not going to release," he said. Under current protocol, many asylum seekers are released while their cases make their way through backlogged courts - a process that can take years. Critics said the speech seemed mostly designed to scare, with no specifics on what mechanisms Trump intended to use to push through his desired changes. Administration officials have told The Associated Press that Trump intends to invoke the same authority he used to push through his travel ban, but it's not clear if that's what he was doing with Thursday's speech. "He's really trying to scare the American public into thinking these are thousands of dangerous thugs," said Greg Chen, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's a classic strategy that goes back to 19th century nativist thinking." Trump and other administration officials have long said those seeking asylum should come through legal ports of entry. But many migrants are unaware of that guidance, and official border crossings have grown increasingly clogged. Immigration officials have turned away asylum-seekers at border crossings because of overcrowding, telling them to return at a later date. Backlogs have become especially bad in recent months at crossings in California, Arizona and Texas, with people generally waiting five weeks to try to claim asylum at San Diego's main crossing and sleeping out in the open for days at a time. Migrants who cross illegally are generally arrested and often seek asylum or some other form of protection. Claims have spiked in recent years, and there is currently a backlog of more than 800,000 cases pending in immigration court. Administration officials have railed against what they say are loopholes designed to encourage people, especially from Central America, to come to the U.S. and claim asylum. Generally, only about 20 percent of applicants are approved. The U.S. fielded more than 330,000 asylum claims in 2017, nearly double the number two years earlier and surpassing Germany as highest in the world. But it remains unclear how many people currently en route to the U.S. will even make it to the border. There are currently four caravans. The main group of about 4,000 migrants - down from its estimated peak of more than 7,000 - remains in southern Mexico, hundreds of miles from the border. A second, smaller group of 1,000 or so is more than 200 miles behind the first. A third band of about 500 from El Salvador has made it to Guatemala, and a fourth group of about 700 set out from the Salvadoran capital Wednesday. Similar caravans have gathered regularly over the years and have generally dwindled by the time they reach the southern border. And most have passed largely unnoticed. Trump has nonetheless mounted an enormous show of force in response to their movement - coinciding with elections that will determine which party controls Congress. The first 100 active duty troops arrived at the border in McAllen, Texas, on Thursday - part of the "more than 7,000" troops the Pentagon said were being sent to support Customs and Border Protection agents. "These illegal caravans will not be allowed into the United States and they should turn back now because they're wasting their time," Trump said Thursday. Notably, he said his executive order would come next week, which means it could be after Election Day. Trump has rejected the idea he has been "fearmongering" and using the issue for political purposes, but on Thursday he blamed Democrats for the "incompetent, very, very stupid laws that we have." He noted at one point, "Women want security." Trump also tweeted a video Wednesday alleging, without evidence, that Democrats were responsible for allowing a homicidal immigrant into the U.S. The video was reminiscent of the infamous "Willie Horton" ad used against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988 and condemned as racist. ___ Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, and Zeke Miller and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report. __ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics Erlin Troches, a 43-year-old Honduran migrant from the city of Santa Barbara, carries an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe that was given to him by a priest in southern Mexico, as he walks along with a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans hoping to reach the U.S. border moves, outside Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Troches plans to carry the religious icon with him on the entire journey, saying she symbolizes "trust, faith, and hope" that he will make it to the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) Joel Eduardo Espinar reaches for his son, Eduardo, 2, from his wife, Yamilet, while arriving in Arriaga, Mexico, after a ride on a truck. His plan is to request asylum rather than cross the border illegally. "I'm kind of fearful of what will happen once we get to the U.S. border," he said. Regardless, he says, they will not go back to Honduras. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Joel Eduardo Espinar stands on the bumper of a pick-up truck as his family and others arrive in Arriaga, Mexico. Four of Espinar's friends in Honduras died from stabbings, and his wife was robbed twice at knifepoint on her way home from the stand where she sold rosquillas, a traditional snack made of cornmeal and cheese. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) A woman pushes her daughter in a stroller as a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans hoping to reach the U.S. border moves onward from Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Thousands of migrants resumed their slow trek through southern Mexico on Thursday, after attempts to obtain bus transport to Mexico City failed. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) President Donald Trump boards Air Force One for a campaign rally in Columbia, Mo., Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) President Donald Trump talks to reporters about wanting to change the Fourteenth Amendment, before walking to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House for a short flight to Andrews Air Force Base then on to Fort Myers, Fla., for a campaign rally ahead of the midterm elections, in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) CHICAGO (AP) - A Wisconsin man who illegally sold the handgun used to kill a Chicago police commander this year has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison. The Chicago Tribune reports that 68-year-old Thomas Caldwell was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Madison, Wisconsin. He had previously pleaded guilty to selling firearms without a license. Caldwell, of Madison, last year sold the gun that was used in the February 2018 slaying of Cmdr. Paul Bauer in downtown Chicago. It's unclear how the weapon ended up in the hands of Shomari Legghette, who is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting. The man whom Caldwell admitted selling the gun to has pleaded not guilty to similar gun charges. VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - The Lithuanian capital has unveiled pedestrian crossing signals featuring women to mark the 100th anniversary of female suffrage. Vilnius mayor Remigjjus Simasius switched on the first 14 lights Friday - the centenary of the day when Lithuania's Constitution was changed in 1918, allowing women the right to vote. Lithuania became one of the first European countries to do so. The Baltic country's foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, tweeted that "modern society does not exist without fully empowered women, yet globally all of us are still halfway on this journey." Pedestrians cross the street by traffic lights featuring a female figure on the green light, in Vilnius, Lithuania, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. The Lithuanian capital has unveiled pedestrian crossing signals featuring women to mark the 100th anniversary of female suffrage. Vilnius mayor Remigjjus Simasius switched on the first 14 lights Friday - the centenary of the day when Lithuania's Constitution was changed in 1918, allowing women the right to vote. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Pedestrians cross the street by traffic lights featuring a female figure on the green light, in Vilnius, Lithuania, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. The Lithuanian capital has unveiled pedestrian crossing signals featuring women to mark the 100th anniversary of female suffrage. Vilnius mayor Remigjjus Simasius switched on the first 14 lights Friday - the centenary of the day when Lithuania's Constitution was changed in 1918, allowing women the right to vote. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Authorities in China say 15 people have been killed and 44 injured in a highway pile-up. The accident happened Saturday night after a heavy truck lost control and crashed into a line of vehicles waiting at a toll station in the northwestern province of Gansu. 31 vehicles were involved in the horror crash, and 10 of the 44 injured were in a serious condition as a result, China Daily reported. The driver of the truck, who sustained minor injuries, told police the vehicle had a brake failure as he was travelling downhill. Pictured: The aftermath of a highway accident in Lanzhou, in northwestern China's Gansu province. At least 15 people were killed in the 31-car pile up The horror crash has left another 44 people injured and 10 of them are in a serious condition He is being investigated and are under police watch as officers try to confirm the claim. Police confirmed the man lost control of the truck in the 17km downhill stretch, and hit the long line of cars about 7.21pm, China.org reported. In the meantime, Gansu provincial authorities have ordered dangerous sections of expressways to be inspected. Images show twisted metal and debris littering the road, while the toll station, which leads to Lanzhou, has been closed. The truck is reported to be the property of a logistics company in the Liaoning province. Last week, 15 people were killed after a bus to plunged off a high bridge into China's Yangtze River in the western city of Chongqing. In that previous crash, an eight-second surveillance video released by police showed the driver and a passenger arguing and grappling with each other in the moments before the bus suddenly veered across oncoming traffic and off the bridge. SYLHET, Bangladesh (AP) - Fast bowler Tendai Chatara and off-spinner Sikandar Raza claimed three wickets each as Zimbabwe took control of the first test against Bangladesh by taking a sizeable 140-run lead on the second day Sunday. Pace bowler Kyle Jarvis complemented Chatara (3-19) and Raza (3-35) with 2-28. "Early on I was just trying to hit a good area, because there's so much talk about Bangladesh being flat," Chatara said. "So hitting a good area early on, and making the batsman play as much as possible." While the combination of Chatara and Jarvis rocked Bangladesh's top order, leaving them 19-4, Raza took care of the lower order to help the side wrap up the hosts for 143. Zimbabwe was bowled out for 282 in its first innings. With a commanding 139-run lead, Zimbabwe reached 1-0 in its second innings before bad light brought an end to the day. "Our batsmen couldn't play to their potential," said Bangladesh left-arm spinner Taijul Islam. "But all is not ended. We have still the chance and we are not keen to give up the hopes. Hopefully we'll put in a good performance in the second innings." Chatara started out by dismissing Imrul Kayes for 5 while his fellow opener Liton Das perished to a loose shot against Jarvis to fall for 9. Chatara then put Bangladesh in trouble, dealing a double strike to remove Nazmul Hossain (5) and captain Mahmudullah (0) with near-flawless fast bowling. Mushfiqur Rahim and Mominul Haque (11) offered brief resistance before Raza got the better of the latter with an off-break. Jarvis got extra bounce with a full length delivery to end Rahim's vigil, to effectively terminate Bangladesh's hopes of a fight back. Rahim scored 31. However the hosts found hope in debutant Ariful Haque but Raza continued to baffle the lower order batsmen with his sly off-break, leaving Haque stranded on 41. Earlier, left-arm spinner Taijul Islam took 6-108 to contain the tourists below 300, after Zimbabwe had started the day at 236-5. ___ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sport and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - U.N. officials and volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent offered children vaccinations and distributed desperately needed aid on Sunday, the first such assistance since January to reach thousands in a remote camp for the displaced on Syria's border with Jordan. Residents said that teams from international organizations entered their desolate camp for the first time since it was set up over three years ago, where nearly 50,000 have been stranded in limbo. Fadwa Baroud of the United Nations Office of the Resident Coordinator said it was the first time a U.N. aid convoy had accessed Rukban camp from inside Syria. She said aid workers were in the Rukban area. Before January, aid only reached the camp from Jordan and aid workers were barred from accessing the camp because of security concerns. The Arab Syrian Red Crescent and the United Nations posted pictures of staff unloading trucks of life-saving assistance and administering vaccines to children. Residents posed with the aid trucks driving through the desolate camp, where 10,000 children are expected to be vaccinated. This photo released by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, shows a convoy of vehicles of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent driving in the Syrian desert heading to Rukban camp between the Jordan and Syria borders, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018. U.N. officials and volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent offered vaccinations for children Sunday and distributed much needed aid, the first such assistance since January to reach thousands of people in a remote camp for the displaced on Syria's border with Jordan. Residents say it is the first time they see international humanitarians roaming their desolate camp, where nearly 50,000 have been stranded in a political void. (Syrian Arab Red Crescent via AP) The U.S.-led coalition fighting against Islamic State militants said its local allies, a Syrian armed group known as Maghawir al-Thawra, provided security for the aid convoys. Resident Abdul-Fatah al-Khaled, who also runs a camp school, said aid workers, including U.N. staff, were on the ground at the camp for the first time. "Before (January) the aid used to be distributed from the Jordanian side over the sand berms" or by rebel groups who resided in the camp, al-Khaled said. Al-Khaled said distribution of food and winter clothes began late Saturday. People started gathering in Rukban three years ago, fleeing IS militants and airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, Russia and Syria. Jordan sealed its border and stopped regular aid deliveries in 2016 after a cross-border IS attack that killed seven Jordanian soldiers. The attack, and other violence, fueled accusations that militants were hiding among camp residents and raised concern that deteriorating humanitarian conditions amounted to collective punishment. The last aid delivery from Jordan was in January, leaving the camp's residents dependent on goods largely smuggled from government-held areas. The situation sharply deteriorated after the Syrian government blocked supply routes last month following a botched reconciliation deal with rebel groups in the area. Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, has blamed the U.S. for the deterioration of the situation in Rukban, which is within a 55-square kilometer (20 sq. mile) "deconfliction zone" set up by U.S. forces stationed in the nearby Tanf military base. The U.S.-led coalition has denied such allegations and blamed Russia and the Syrian government instead. "We continue to stand ready to enable future delivery of U.N. humanitarian relief to the people of Rukban until they are able to return home as we pursue our mission of an enduring defeat of (IS)," said Maj. Gen. (UK) Christopher Ghika, a deputy commander for the U.S.-led Coalition. The U.N. said aid deliveries would continue for up to four days, describing the condition in the camp as "critical" with reported shortages of basic commodities, protection concerns and increasing violence. At least four people have died in the past month due to malnutrition and lack of medical care as regional powers traded blame. Also on Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition conducted joint patrols with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces along the borders with Turkey, the second this week following increased tension after Turkish artillery shelled Kurdish positions in northeast Syria. "Sunday's joint patrol with the SDF is the second of the week, after the first one was conducted by US forces on Friday," Col. Sean Ryan, the coalition spokesman, told The Associated Press in an email. "The US forces' assurance patrols enables us to maintain safety and security in the region, but are not carried out on a routine basis." Senior Kurdish official Ilham Ahmed said the patrols were conducted along the borders with Turkey in Ras al-Ayn, Tal Abiyad and Manbij. In recent tension, Turkey said its military shelled Kurdish positions across the border in Syria, east of the Euphrates River, at least twice last week, in an area where U.S.-led coalition are based. Turkey considers the Kurdish militia that forms the backbone of SDF a terror threat and an extension of Kurdish rebels waging an insurgency within Turkey. U.S. support for the Kurdish-led forces has resulted in increased tension between Washington and Ankara. Separately on Sunday, the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the pro-government daily Al-Watan that Syria would cooperate with the new U.N. envoy Geir Pederson if he avoids the "methods" of his predecessor, commits to the country's territorial integrity and stops supporting "terrorists, as his predecessor did." Pedersen succeeds Staffan de Mistura, who steps down this month after four years of unsuccessful peace efforts. ___ El Deeb reported from Beirut. This photo released by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, shows a convoy of vehicles of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent driving in the Syrian desert heading to Rukban camp between the Jordan and Syria borders, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018. U.N. officials and volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent offered vaccinations for children Sunday and distributed much needed aid, the first such assistance since January to reach thousands of people in a remote camp for the displaced on Syria's border with Jordan. Residents say it is the first time they see international humanitarians roaming their desolate camp, where nearly 50,000 have been stranded in a political void. (Syrian Arab Red Crescent via AP) This photo released by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, shows a convoy of vehicles of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent driving in the Syrian desert heading to Rukban camp between the Jordan and Syria borders, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018. U.N. officials and volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent offered vaccinations for children Sunday and distributed much needed aid, the first such assistance since January to reach thousands of people in a remote camp for the displaced on Syria's border with Jordan. Residents say it is the first time they see international humanitarians roaming their desolate camp, where nearly 50,000 have been stranded in a political void. (Syrian Arab Red Crescent via AP) A group of paedophile hunters has said that the problem is getting worse despite four years of their efforts to entrap would-be abusers. Dark Justice, a Tyneside-based duo who started at the end of October 2014, said agencies were overwhelmed, sentences passed down to the men they caught out were softer and the deterrent of being named and shamed did not appear to stop on-line groomers. But having survived a serious legal challenge to their methods, the group insisted they will carry on their undercover actions which have seen 163 people arrested, 82 convicted and 44 jailed. Dark Justice uses fake profiles on social media sites and waits for would-be predators to make contact with what they believe to be an underage child. Often within minutes the civilian investigators are pestered for sex and are asked for intimate photos or a real-life meeting. The paedophiles face a shock when, instead of a child, they are met by two men armed with a video camera and some direct questions about what they are up to. The pair pass on their evidence to police and allow the legal process to be completed before they name and shame the men they catch. Despite high-profile success, Dark Justice fears the situation has got worse since 2014. One of them, who calls himself Callum, said: It all started because all we wanted is change and four years later we are still fighting for the same thing. The law is getting weaker and weaker as the years go on. At the start, everyone we caught was going to jail, now theyre getting suspended sentences and community orders. More police costs are getting cut and organisations are overwhelmed. The pair said, despite the publicity they have generated, paedophiles still take the risk of being caught to meet what they think will be an underage child. Callum said: Thats the scary thing about it, you would think it would be a deterrent. It might deter a few but the numbers still keep coming and they are getting worse and worse, destroying their home lives. Dark Justice members Scott (left) and Callum (Owen Humphreys/PA) Only this Monday morning we had a man in a brand new Mercedes drive all the way from the Midlands to Newcastle, to meet a child for sexual activity, He has got a really good life, a child, a partner, nice job and he has thrown it all away. It blows my brain away, why these people throw away what they have. Their methods came under scrutiny when there was a legal challenge in the courts from defendants who tried, unsuccessfully, to get their cases thrown out. Callum said: It was really scary because it was not just us, if we lost then any other group in the country would have been gone, and it would have been like a domino effect. Hundreds could have walked free. It was difficult but we won in the end. According to reports, the judge in the legal challenge accepted that the paedophile hunters were not bound by the same rules of evidence as police officers or informants. Callum said police forces now accept that groups like theirs exist, even if they do not officially condone their investigations. We have an understanding, I dont think they will be able to be on our side but they realise these groups exist and they cannot keep saying dont do this, he said. They know it doesnt work. They have realised we are here and they have to deal with the fact we are here. The pair are self-employed and have spent thousands of pounds on their inquiries over the years. Callum said: It has all been for a good cause and we would do it again in a heartbeat. Over four years we have proved ourselves, we are not here for fame or glory, we have said the same thing from day one, until we get change we can never stop doing what we do. Within a minute of setting up a fake profile of an under-age girl on a teen chat site, the paedophile hunters say they are pestered for sex by would-be predators. The desperate sex offenders start pestering for intimate photos, send indecent images of themselves and over time cajole their victim into a real-life meeting. Picture posed by a model of someone dialling emergency services (Steve Parsons/PA) But the men, 10 of whom have fallen for it already, face a shock when instead of a girl, they are met by two men in their 20s armed with a video camera and some direct questions about what they are up to. The Newcastle-based group insists it works within the law, and pass on all their information to the police, letting the legal system play out once an arrest has been made. It is only when a conviction has been secured that Dark Justice publishes details of its latest sting on its website. Driven by a desire to do something about the scale of the problem, and the perceived lack of Government action, the unemployed pair spend up to 10 hours a day maintaining online conversations with men they hope to snare. The law enforcement agencies, whom Dark Justice says it respects, cannot employ their tactics which would be classed as entrapment, but the duo are sure their methods are right. One of the Dark Justice team, calling himself Scott, said: I could take you to a website right now and within seconds or minutes I could have a person actively wanting to have sex with an eight-year-old child. We could say we were eight and they would actively be wanting to send images and wanting the child to send images as well. We are talking about teen chat websites, specifically for teens, and you have got people (predators) from 20 all the way to 80 years old going on there. People need to remember if kids are going to be there, paedophiles will try to be there, its the whole point of why they are there. They are there to prey on children. His Dark Justice partner, Callum, said they follow strict rules, never instigating conversations after setting up a fake profile, and never turning conversations towards sex. He said: We try to knock them off the subject but nine times out of 10 they stick to that subject. It knocks you sick. Would you really let your kids online if youd seen that sort of thing? When a meeting is arranged, Dark Justice picks a public spot well covered by CCTV cameras and then waits to record the moment of truth when the paedophile realises they have been tricked. They fire questions at their target, asking why they think their behaviour is acceptable. But they say they do not get violent, swear or try to provoke them. Dark Justice says it warns the police 10 minutes before a meeting takes place, and once it has happened they go straight to the police station and make a statement. Scott has sympathy for families if a member has been exposed by their operations, but has no regrets for the men themselves. He said: If you are going to destroy a life, prepare to have yours named and shamed online. They have spoken to the police about their sting operations. Scott said: We have had a talk about safety but they understand that it doesnt matter what they say, were not going to stop. The group have around 50 potential targets ongoing at the moment. Scott said: We have phones with so many contacts in them and three of them are people you know and the other 40 odd are paedophiles or potential paedophiles. People think its crazy, youre walking around with two phones and you have one thats ringing all the time and (getting) text messages. People look at you like youre a drug dealer or something. Its what you call a nonce phone, I guess. Callum said the motivation was to highlight the issue and fight for tougher laws. Thats why theres a lot of hours going in to what we do, he said. Making a change, constantly pushing, getting a hold of people, seeing MPs who want to change things. His friend added: Were not in this for money, for fame, were not heroes, were not vigilantes, we are just concerned citizens who want to see stronger laws and more money going into the right groups. A Home Office spokesman said: This Government has done more than any other to tackle child sexual exploitation and is committed to doing more. That is why the Home Secretary has announced an extra 21 million over the next 18 months to improve how our law enforcement agencies reduce the volume of offending and pursue the most dangerous and prolific offenders. The issue of child protection understandably matters greatly to people, but they should allow the police and law enforcement agencies to do their vital work by not taking the law into their own hands. The Scottish Fishermens Federation (SFF) has called for a joined-up approach from the Westminster and Holyrood governments as the industry prepares to leave the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Chief executive Bertie Armstrong said the potential gains are too great for political games, claiming the UK could become a larger fishing nation than Iceland. The controversial CFP is a set of rules for managing European fishing fleets and conserving stocks, which has been criticised for being unfair to the industry in Scotland. Mr Armstrong said: We are unequivocally looking for practical support from all the governments in charge of the fishing fortunes of this northern land. The prize is far too large I speak of the UK overtaking Iceland by volume and value in the globalised world of seafood for any half-hearted approaches such as making the best of an inevitability or allowing challenges to become defeatism. No, instead we want commitment to executing the sea of opportunity for a new independent coastal state with a place on the world stage. The SFF has been lobbying to ensure the UK is allowed to choose which vessels can fish within its exclusive economic zone, for what and when. This would replace the current system under the CFP, which allocates two-thirds of fish catches in UK waters to boats from other EU countries. Fisheries Minister Fergus Ewing has called for `constructive engagement between the two governments (Scottish Parliament/PA) Fisheries Secretary Fergus Ewing said: The Scottish Government has taken a consistently responsible and pragmatic approach to engagement with the UK Government, with a focus on constructive engagement to protect and advance Scotlands fishing interests. That includes, for example, successfully persuading the UK Government to refrain from seeking new powers over quota for the secretary of state that would have clearly undermined the powers of the Scottish Parliament. This demonstrates that when the UK Government works with, rather than against the devolved administrations, positive results can be delivered. I hope that such constructive engagement can be replicated in relation to other UK Government legislation. David Duguid, Scottish Conservative MP for Banff and Buchan, said: It would be hugely frustrating for fishermen in my constituency if the two governments were at loggerheads on this issue. Even if they do not agree with Brexit, SNP ministers surely can accept there is a fantastic opportunity here to grow our fishing industry. A Defra spokeswoman said: The Fisheries Bill is a major milestone in delivering our promise to take back control of our waters and we worked closely with the Scottish Government on the development of this bill to make sure it works for the whole of the UK including Scotland. The bill creates new powers for Scotland and weve been clear fisheries remains devolved but the UK Government will work in close partnership with all devolved administrations where a common approach is needed. Alessio Romagnoli scored an added-time winner to move AC Milan into the top four in Serie A with a 2-1 victory over Genoa. Milan got off to the best possible start as Suso fired them ahead after just four minutes, cutting inside onto his left foot before unleashing a fierce shot from 20 yards which whistled into the top corner. But Genoa were the better side for much of the first half, in a game rearranged after being postponed on the opening weekend following the Genoa bridge tragedy. Christian Kouame was denied by Gianluigi Donnarumma before Serie As top scorer Krzysztof Piateks shot deflected inches wide of the post. The visitors got their deserved equaliser after 56 minutes but needed a slice of fortune as Kouames shot looped off Romagnoli, over Donnarumma and into the far corner. The Rossoneri responded but found Genoa keeper Andrei Radu in inspired form. AC Milans Suso, left, opened the scoring at the San Siro (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) But in stoppage time Radu dashed out of his goal to punch clear, only finding Romagnoli 20 yards out, who superbly hooked the ball into the vacant goal. Arsenal and Tottenham will go head-to-head in a festive north London derby in the Carabao Cup quarter-final. The Gunners and Spurs have been paired together after their respective fourth-round wins over Blackpool and West Ham. They will meet at the Emirates in the week commencing December 17, just over two weeks after their Premier League battle at the same venue. It will be a tie that both sides might have been keen to avoid as they both aim to get their hands on silverware. Unai Emery is looking to get his Gunners tenure off to the best possible start while Mauricio Pochettino is still waiting for his first trophy at Spurs. The two rivals last met in this competition in 2015, when Arsenal ran out 2-1 winners. Tottenham made it through to the Carabao Cup quarter-final by beating West Ham (John Walton/PA) Chelseas reward for seeing off Derby, managed by one of their most decorated players Frank Lampard, is a home tie with Bournemouth. Middlesbrough beat Crystal Palace on Wednesday and were handed a home game with League One Burton and a significant chance of progressing to the semi-final. Reigning champions Manchester City play Fulham on Thursday and the winner will face either Leicester or Southampton. That game was due to be played on Tuesday, but was postponed following the tragic death of Foxes owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha on Saturday. Babies whose fathers are 45 years old and over are more likely to be less healthy at birth, a study of more than 40 million deliveries has suggested. The research, published in the British Medical Journal, found the children of older fathers were born 20.2g lighter, and had a 14% greater risk of low birth weight (2.5kg) than infants born to fathers aged 25 to 34. Babies with fathers aged 45 or older had a 14% higher chance of being admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit. They were also born on average 0.12 weeks earlier and were 14% more likely to be premature than those born to younger fathers, the study found. Researchers at Stanford University in California assessed data on 40,529,905 live births that took place in the US between 2007 and 2016. The researchers said the study was important because it offered rare insight into the impact a fathers age can have on a child, where women have for years been encouraged not to put off having babies due to concerns over health and medical complications. Embargoed to 1900 Monday August 15 File photo dated 23/01/16 of a mother holding the feet of a new baby. A mother or fathers lifespan has a direct bearing on the chances of their children reaching a ripe old age, research has shown. They added that while the absolute risks of being an older father remain low, the findings emphasise the importance of including data on men when investigating the public health implications of rising parental age. The report said: A significant number of these negative birth outcomes were estimated to be prevented if older fathers had elected to have children before the age of 45 years. The risks associated with advancing paternal age should be included in discussions regarding family planning and reproductive counselling. Cannabis-based medicinal products will be available in Northern Ireland from today. The products can only be obtained if they have been prescribed by a specialist hospital doctor. The Department of Health (DoH) says patients must have an unmet clinical needs. The move follows a high profile campaign for the relaxation of regulations around cannabis-based products for medicinal use. Billy Caldwell, 13, of Castlederg, Co Tyrone, hit the headlines during the campaign. Billy Caldwell, who has a rare form of epilepsy, with his mother Charlotte. (PA/Brian Lawless) Earlier this year, he received national attention when his medicinal cannabis was confiscated by the Home Office after a trip to Canada to access the medication. Billy suffers from a severe form of epilepsy and his mother Charlotte says medicinal cannabis products help to ease his symptoms. She spent years campaigning for the law change. The Home Office then gave him a short-term licence and the DoH issued an emergency licence to allow him access to cannabis oil medication. Belfast Health Trust secured a licence to administer the medication to Billy at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He was then given permission to receive the medication at his Castlederg home. In early October, Home Secretary Sajid Javid announced a decision to reschedule the products, relaxing the rules around the circumstances in which they can be given to patients, after considering expert advice from a specially commissioned review. Charlotte said she wept happy tears at the move. What started out as a journey for me as Billys mummy to help my little boy has become something much bigger, she said. From November 1, cannabis-based products for medicinal use can be prescribed by specialist hospital doctors for their patients with an unmet clinical need. In a statement, the DoH said: It is important that prescribing decisions are taken by expert clinicians informed by evidence on quality, safety and effectiveness. Therefore, prescribing of cannabis-based products for medicinal use is restricted to clinicians listed on the Specialist Register of the General Medical Council. Cannabis-based products for medicinal use will not be available from General Practitioners. The department added: It is important to note that the rescheduling of cannabis-based products for medicinal use does not pave the way towards legalising cannabis for recreational use. The penalties for unauthorised supply and possession will remain unchanged. Epilepsy Action deputy chief executive Simon Wigglesworth welcomed the move but said the current guidance seems extremely restrictive. Todays change in the law should open the door for some children and adults with severe epilepsy to access potentially life-changing treatment, he said. While this change is an important step forward, the guidance we have seen so far on how it will work in practice seems extremely restrictive. It suggests that cannabis-based medicines will only be an option for a very limited number of people with epilepsy children with Dravet or Lennox Gastaut syndrome. Though this is welcome, there are children and adults with other complex and treatment-resistant epilepsy syndromes who could potentially also benefit. A major inquiry led by former prime minister Gordon Brown has called for international law changes to better protect children trapped in war zones. Mr Brown says its unconscionable that the global community stands by while children are being killed and slammed the culture of impunity relating to conflicts in war-torn counties like Yemen, Syria and South Sudan. In a report to be launched in London on Friday, the inquiry, chaired by Mr Brown, urges global governments to address schools attacks and to stop children being denied humanitarian aid. It is unconscionable that the world stands by when children are being attacked in their schools and denied access to vital humanitarian aid, Mr Brown commented. This report sets out an agenda, which every government and every organisation working on children affected by conflict, should act on to end the culture of impunity. Former prime minister Gordon Brown wants law changes to protect children in war zones (Danny Lawson/PA) The legal report proposes several reforms, such as developing humanitarian law to prohibit targeting schools and give them the same special protection as hospitals. It also suggests outlawing the denial of humanitarian assistance in certain circumstances, including where it may lead to the starvation of civilians. A number of lawyers, activists and academics have thrown their support behind the report, including Save the Children chief executive and former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. In war zones around the world, grave violations of childrens rights continue to be carried out with impunity, Ms Thorning-Schmidt said. This is an important and timely contribution to the debate on how to hold perpetrators to account, and uphold the rules that are designed to keep children safe. Former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has thrown her support behind the report (Dave Thompson/PA) The inquiry studied recent war events that have impacted children, including the bombing of a school bus in Yemen and a suicide bombing at an Afghanistan school, both in August. It also looked at recourse to starvation as a weapon of war in Yemen, where millions of children are on the brink of famine. The report, written by a legal panel led by Shaheed Fatima QC, was published by Hart. The Pacific nation of Palau will soon ban many types of sunscreen in an attempt to protect coral reefs. President Tommy Remengesau Jr last week signed legislation that bans reef-toxic sunscreen from 2020. Banned sunscreens will be confiscated from tourists who carry them into the country, and merchants selling the banned products will be fined up 1,000 dollars (760). Mr Remengesau said in a statement that the penalties find the right balance between educating tourists and scaring them away. The law defines reef-toxic sunscreen as containing any one of 10 chemicals, including oxybenzone, and states that other chemicals may also be banned. Children play at a resort beach in Ngerkebesang, Palau (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye, File) The legislation also requires tour operators to start providing customers with reusable cups, straws and food containers. Mr Remengesau said a big impetus for the ban was a 2017 report which found that sunscreen products were widespread in Palaus famed Jellyfish Lake, which was closed for more than a year due to declining jellyfish numbers before being recently reopened. The president noted legislative findings that plastic waste, chemical pollution, resource overconsumption, and climate change all continue to threaten the health of our pristine paradise. Palaus ban comes after Hawaii in July banned the sale of sunscreen containing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate from 2021 in an attempt to protect its reefs. In Hawaii, however, tourists will still be able to bring the banned sunscreen with them into the state or buy it there if they have a doctors prescription. Scientists have found that some chemicals in sunscreen can be toxic to coral reefs, which are a vital part of the ocean ecosystem as well as a popular draw for tourists. But some critics say there are not enough independent scientific studies on the issue while others worry that people will suffer from too much sun exposure if they stop using the products. Some manufacturers, meanwhile, have already started selling reef-friendly sunscreen. Palau, located east of the Philippines and north of Indonesia, is home to 21,000 people and has an economy that relies on tourism and fishing. It has a compact of free association with the US. New details about the crashed Lion Air jets previous flight have cast more doubt on the Indonesian airlines claim to have fixed technical problems. The brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane plunged into the Java Sea early on Monday, just minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Herson, head of Bali-Nusa Tenggara Airport Authority, said the pilot on the planes previous flight on Sunday from Bali requested to return to the airport not long after take-off but then reported the problem had been resolved. Several passengers have described the problem as a terrifying loss of altitude. Lion Air has said the unspecified problem was fixed after Sundays flight, but the fatal flights pilots also made a return to base (RTB) request not long after take-off. Shortly after requesting RTB, the pilot then contacted the control tower again to inform that the plane had run normally and would not return to Balis Ngurah Rai airport, said Herson, who uses a single name. The captain said the problem was resolved and he decided to continue the trip to Jakarta. Data from flight-tracking websites shows both flights had highly erratic speed and altitude after take-off, though confirmation is required from data recorded by the aircrafts black box flight recorders. Investigators displayed one of the jets two flight recorders at a news conference on Thursday evening, later confirmed to be the flight data recorder, and said they would immediately attempt to upload information and begin analysis. Shoes and debris retrieved from the waters near where a Lion Air jet is believed to have crashed (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara) In principle, all data we have obtained, including flight data and air navigation, and also from other sources we find that there have indeed been problems with the plane, said Haryo Satmiko, deputy chairman of the National Transport Safety Committee. We will prove more technical problems with data recorded in the black box. The steel-encased memory unit of the recovered flight recorder had separated from its base plate, showing the plane hit the sea at tremendous speed, he said. Investigators say that is also indicated by the search and rescue effort finding many body parts rather than intact victims. Mr Satmiko said investigators had already contacted the pilot of the planes Sunday flight. The problems with it were just as it circulates on media and social media, he said, referring to accounts of passengers. One of them, Diah Mardani, told a current affairs television programme earlier this week that after take-off the plane suddenly fell, then rose, then fell again harder and shook. All the passengers started shouting God is Great, she said. The atmosphere was very tense. Chinas foreign ministry says a phone conversation between President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart, Donald Trump, about trade and other issues was extremely positive. The ministry said the two leaders agreed to strengthen economic exchanges but gave no indication whether they made any progress on settling an escalating tariff war over Beijings technology policy. Mr Trump said earlier on Twitter that he and Mr Xi had a very good conversation. A foreign ministry spokesman, Lu Kang, said: I agree, this phone conversation was an extremely positive phone conversation. Mr Trump has imposed penalty tariffs of up to 25% on 250 billion US dollars (191 billion) of Chinese goods in a dispute over Beijings plans for state-led development of technology industries. Washington, Europe and other trading partners say those violate Chinas market-opening obligations and some American officials worry they might erode US industrial leadership. US President Donald Trump, right, chats with Chinese President Xi Jinping (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File) Mr Trump said he and Mr Xi plan to meet during a gathering of the Group of 20 major economies this month in Argentina. Both leaders attach great importance to China-US ties and economic ties, Mr Lu said. President Xi Jinping also stressed that China-US trade has long been serving as ballast and a stabiliser for China-US relations. The two leaders agreed the trade dispute should be handled properly through substantial consultation, Mr Lu said. A criminal investigation has been launched into allegations of anti-Semitic hate crimes within the Labour Party. The Metropolitan Police are acting on a dossier of information handed to Commissioner Cressida Dick. A spokesman said: On Tuesday September 4, the Met Commissioner was handed a folder of paperwork following a radio interview with LBC Radio in Leicester Square. The complainant alleged that the documentation included evidence of anti-Semitic hate crimes. The contents have been examined by specialist officers. A criminal investigation has commenced into some of the allegations within the documentation. Early investigative advice is being sought from the Crown Prosecution Service. Labour has been dogged by rows over anti-Semitism in recent months (Dominic Lipinski/PA) LBC received an internal Labour dossier detailing 45 cases involving messages posted by party members on social media, including one which read: We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all. The broadcaster passed the leaked material to former senior police officer Mak Chishty, who said that 17 instances should have been reported to the police for investigation, and another four were potential race hate crimes. These were the message detailed above; the sharing of a link to an allegedly anti-Semitic blog, and an entry referring to a Zionist Extremist MP who hates civilised people, about to get a good kicking. The fourth related to a party member being accused of putting a child through 10 years of hell, using racial slurs against him and referring to him as Jew boy. It was also alleged that the member had chased a girl, aged six or seven, around with air freshener, saying she smelled of curry and calling her a chocolate monkey. The Brazilian judge at the centre of one of the largest corruption investigations in history has said he would become justice minister in the government of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro. Sergio Moro is wildly popular among conservatives and loathed by many on the left, so his decision to join the incoming administration will feed the suspicion of many Brazilians that the judge was politically biased in jailing ex-President Luiz Inacio da Silva, a conviction that forced the poll-leading leftist out of the presidential race. Mr Moro met with Mr Bolsonaro at the president-elects home in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday. Upon emerging, Mr Moro did not speak to reporters but soon put out a statement confirming he had accepted an offer to lead both the justice and public security ministries, which will be combined in Mr Bolsonaros government. Jair Bolsonaro is Brazils president-elect (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo) Mr Moro said it would be hard to give up being a federal judge after 22 years, but he saw an opportunity to implement a strong agenda of anti-corruption and anti-organised crime in his new role. In practice, this will mean consolidating the advancements against crime and corruption the last years and remove any risks of going backward, he wrote. He added that the sprawling Car Wash investigation would continue in the hands of local judges in the southern city of Curitiba, where Mr Moro lives and many of the cases have been tried. He also said he would provide more details on his new role next week. Launched in 2014, the Car Wash probe uncovered elaborate schemes in which construction companies received bloated contracts and then kicked back billions of dollars in bribes to politicians and other government officials over more than a decade. The scandal has reverberated across several Latin American countries where Odebrecht, one of the companies at the centre of the scandal, did business. The investigation has led to the jailing of many of the countrys biggest names. That list includes da Silva, convicted by Mr Moro of corruption for trading favours with construction company Grupo OAS for the promise of a beachfront apartment. Da Silva began serving a 12-year sentence in April. The cases made Mr Moro a wildly popular figure with Brazilians exhausted by numerous stories of politicians plundering government coffers. However, many of his tactics have been highly controversial, such as the use of extended pre-trial detentions and plea bargains, both aimed at getting high-profile suspects to talk. A criminal investigation has been launched into allegations of anti-Semitic hate crimes within the Labour Party. Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said it appears there may have been crime committed after being passed a dossier. Labour has not been contacted by the police but is ready to co-operate with the investigation. Deputy leader Tom Watson said the Scotland Yard announcement was thoroughly depressing but sadly Im not surprised. LBC received an internal Labour dossier detailing 45 cases involving messages posted by party members on social media, including one which read: We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all. It passed the documents to Ms Dick after she gave an interview to the station on September 4. The Met chief said the Labour Party itself was not under investigation. She told BBC Radio 4s Today: We have been assessing some material that was passed to me, in a radio studio of all things, about two months ago and we are now investigating some of that material because it appears there may have been crime committed. We are liaising immediately with the Crown Prosecution Service and I hope we will be able to clear that up very quickly. Before LBC passed the dossier to Scotland Yard, it showed the contents to former senior police officer Mak Chishty, who said that 17 instances should have been reported to the police for investigation, and another four were potential race hate crimes. The Labour Party has faced protests over its handling of claims of anti-Semitism (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Labour has been engulfed by bitter divisions over its handling of anti-Semitism. Jeremy Corbyn has faced intense criticism over his response to claims about prejudice against Jews in the party. But some of his supporters have claimed the issue has been used as a way to attack the Labour leader. Asked about the investigation, Mr Watson told Today: Thoroughly depressing although sadly Im not surprised. If people have committed hate crimes then they need to be dealt with by the full force of the law. Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick says her force has been assessing antisemitism allegations passed to her in a radio studio and "it appears there may have been a crime committed". But she says: "We are not going to investigate the Labour Party." BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) November 2, 2018 Theres no role for them in the Labour Party. If this does one thing it will be able to silence a very small number of people who still believe that anti-Semitism doesnt exist in my party or in other parties. In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: A criminal investigation has commenced into some of the allegations within the documentation. Early investigative advice is being sought from the Crown Prosecution Service. A Labour Party spokesman said: The Labour Party has a robust system for investigating complaints of alleged breaches of Labour Party rules by its members. Where someone feels they have been a victim of crime, they should report it to the police in the usual way. Britains top police officer has backed a drive to focus on violent offenders rather than recording incidents of misogyny that are not crimes. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said stretched forces must prioritise violent crimes, including drug gangs fighting turf wars on the streets of towns and cities across the country. She indicated that other offences, including online fraud, were lower priorities for her officers. .@metpoliceuk Commissioner Cressida Dick supports the senior officer who says police forces are too stretched to deal with issues such as logging hate incidents against women and crimes committed by people who are now dead. #R4today pic.twitter.com/9L56IxKLIG BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) November 2, 2018 She backed National Police Chiefs Council chairwoman Sara Thornton, who warned that forces could not take on all desirable and deserving issues, such as logging misogyny reports even when no offence has been committed. There have been calls for misogyny to be treated as a hate crime and the Government has commissioned a review to examine whether laws should be extended to cover offences motivated by hostility towards a victims sex or age. Ms Dick said: My officers are very busy, they are very stretched. We have young people in London subject to stabbings and other serious violence, getting involved in drug gangs and things, lots of priorities. We cant go on increasing the scale of the mission through enforcing new laws unless we are given more resources or the public are prepared for us to just do some things not as well. (PA Graphics) She gave the example of a group of 16-year-old girls being subjected to wolf-whistles and calls while walking past a building site. Calling for a common sense approach, she said: I would not expect my officers to record that. However, if one of the girls complained to a neighbourhood officer, I would expect the neighbourhood officer to go across to the site manager and say You know, those girls arent enjoying this. Explaining her priorities, she said: We undoubtedly have a huge impact of drug-related crime. We are not in a good position here. We have supply up, clear signs the production of cocaine is up, the purity is up, the price has come down, addictions are up, deaths are up. This is not a good place to be and it is being played out in violence between drugs gangs on the streets of our cities and towns across the country, not just in the big cities. She added that middle-class users who take cocaine form a considerable part of the market and they need to think about the misery at every single stage of the chain that gets them their drugs. The police have to concentrate on serious offenders, she said, such as those responsible for making child abuse images. As professionals, we have to work out what is the best way to deal with the most serious things. Another area that has grown hugely is viewing indecent images of children. People find that utterly appalling, it is awful, but Im afraid that we probably all know somebody who does that. We must do more about the people who are making the images, who are making that happen, who are live streaming and that kind of thing. We cannot attack all problems from all angles. A 15-year-old boy has been fatally stabbed in south-east London, police said. Officers were called at around 5.20pm on Thursday to Randlesdown Road, Bellingham, to reports of a stabbing. The scene at Randlesdown Road (Emma Bowden/PA) The victim was taken to a south London hospital with stab wounds and was pronounced dead at 8.15pm, the Metropolitan Police said. No arrests have been made and officers are working to establish the circumstances of the death. The victims next of kin have been informed, and anyone with information is asked to call police on 101. Britains construction sector rebounded in October, but business optimism hit its weakest level in almost six years as Brexit delayed final decisions on projects. The closely-watched Markit/CIPS UK Construction purchasing managers index (PMI) showed a stronger-than-expected reading of 53.2 in October, up from 52.1 in September, with the fastest growth in civil engineering. A reading above 50 indicates growth. Economists had expected the reading to decline to 52, according to consensus figures from Pantheon Macroeconomics. But uncertainty hovered over the industry as firms reported the lowest level of optimism on growth prospects for nearly six years. Although total UK construction activity rose at a stronger pace in October, the underlying survey data paint a less rosy picture for the sector towards the end of the year, said Trevor Balchin, economics director at IHS Markit. New contracts increased at only a modest pace, and firms were the least optimistic regarding the 12-month outlook for nearly six years. Civil engineering was the best-performing segment (Jane Barlow/PA) Construction companies again linked uncertainty to Brexit negotiations, which influenced delays to final decisions at clients. All three of the categories monitored showed growth, with civil engineering activity rising at its fastest since July 2017. This made it the best-performing segment for the first time since January, as house-building and commercial construction notched up slower growth. The slower rise in activity in the housing sector came amid poor performance in UK property sales. Nationwide Building Society revealed on Thursday that annual house price growth has slowed to its lowest levels since May 2013. The latest construction data also showed a slower rise in new business volumes, with firms citing tough competition and delays to decisions. Despite the dip in confidence, construction firms continued to take on more employees, which Mr Balchin said suggests they are not expecting an imminent contraction in demand. But growth in the overall volume of inputs purchased was at its slowest rate for seven months in October as construction companies took a more cautious approach. Duncan Brock, group director at the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, said: These results point to the sector getting stuck in the mud as we approach March 2019, and, with ongoing supplier delays and stock shortages, the sector may not be able to respond quickly enough anyway should there by a sudden upturn in fortunes. It was a case of too close to call in the Kindergarten Classic for filly pacers on a card that featured four Kindergarten finals for two-year-olds at the Meadowlands Saturday, Nov. 3. Odds On St Lucie and Michelons Filly finished in a dead heat in the $148,700 event in a mile that went in 1:52. Alkippe was a head back in third. Brett Miller sent 6-1 shot Odds On St Lucie to the top in search of her third-straight win and she never relinquished the top. Even-money favourite Michelons Filly started to inch her way toward the leader after popping out of the four hole at the half. Reaching three-quarters in 1:24.2, Michelons Filly and Marcus Miller continued to march closer while racing uncovered. Through the stretch, Michelons Filly bravely continued on and, at the wire, the photo finish cameras could not separate the pair. Odds On St Lucie, a daughter of Sweet Lou-Shes Some Treasure, paid $5.20 to win for trainer Tony Alagna and owner Odds On Racing. Shes now five-for-10 lifetime and has earnings of over $100,000. The Erv Miller-trained Michelons Filly returned $2.60 and races for owners Ronald Michelon and Michael Anderson. She now has six wins in 13 starts and also a bankroll that just breaks the six-figure barrier. I thought I was out there way too long, said Marcus Miller of Michelons Filly. She paid me back for taking care of her in her last few starts. She was as game as possible. They were both digging right to the wire. Escapetothebeach went a perfect trip on his way to taking the $173,800 colts and geldings pace in 1:51.3. Macs Power finished second three-quarter lengths back while Waterway was third and 8-5 favourite Southwind Ozzi finished last in the field of 10. Waterway and Brett Miller fired to the top and cut out all of the fractions as Andy McCarthy sat right behind with Escapetothebeach. In deep stretch, Waterway bore out while weakening on the lead, allowing Escapetothebeach a pathway to victory. He raced really good tonight, said McCarthy. I got him to hustle out of there pretty good and I got the trip I wanted. He had a lot of pace. I was quite confident if I got out, I was the winner. I kept edging to the outside (in deep stretch) hoping Id get room, but it wasnt coming, so I looked and it looked like it was starting to open up to the inside, so I switched him back there and he went right through. A son of Somebeachsomewhere-Shelliscape, Escapetothebeach returned $16.00 to his backers for trainer Alagna and owners Alagna & Inthegym, Joe Sbrocco, Robert Leblanc and William Donovan, and now has three wins in 12 lifetime starts and earnings of $124,728. Corey Callahan was a major player in the two Kindergarten Classic trotting events. "The Captain" drove 1-9 favourite Seven Hills in the $221,540 colt and gelding trot, but after beginning his career with four powerful wins, the son of Muscle Hill-Southwind Maywood went off stride in the first turn, losing all chance. Hes still really immature, said Callahan. Vinny (Ginsburg, driving Lucky Weekend) kind of crossed over on me and I had to grab hold of him a little bit and he made a break. That opened the door for 7-1 second-choice Reign Of Honor to break his maiden at a most opportune time. David Miller kept the gelded son of Father Patrick-Margarita Momma in a live cover flow and came alongside leader Divine Spirit at the top of the stretch before powering past that foe to go on to a five-and-one-quarter-length score in 1:55.3. Memo was second with Reve Toujours third. It definitely opened the race up, said Miller of the early break by the favourite. And around the first turn I wasnt real happy with my spot. But I got cover past the half. Reign Of Honor, trained by Nifty Norman, returned $17.60 to his backers for owners Deo Valente Farms, Jennifer Dalton Stable and Tom Pontone. Callahan guided an upset winner in the $236,060 filly trot, steering 17-1 shot Stella Jane to victory lane in 1:54.4. Tim Tetrick blasted Sisters Promise away from the gate from post 10 and Callahan went with him from the eight hole. After making the lead at the quarter, Stella Jane yielded to Sisters Promise and the duo raced 1-2 around the track. Stella Jane vacated the pocket in mid-stretch and rolled to two-and-three-quarter-length score in 1:54.4. Princess Deo rallied for second with Sisters Promise holding third. Global Pageant, the 9-5 favourite, went a tough first-over trip, wilted and finished eighth. Stella Jane, trained by John Butenschoen, returned $36.20 for owner Crawford Farms Racing. She really has been good all year, said Callahan. Shes been handy, so we just shot out of there and everything worked out well. I had a lot of trot in the last turn. A LITTLE MORE: One lucky player became the second in as many nights to walk away with a $10,000 score in the 20-Cent Survivor Pick-10. Friday night, the winner had to go 10-for-10 but on Saturday, all it took was five out of 10 to hit big. Yannick Gingras drove three winners on the card while Corey Callahan, Brett Miller and David Miller had two apiece. All-source wagering on the 11-race program reached a meet-best $2,539,969. Racing resumes Friday, Nov. 9 at 7:15 p.m. (The Meadowlands) Almost 1,000 children have been transferred from St Johns Hospital (SJH) in Livingston to Edinburgh for treatment due to closures at the childrens ward. The paediatric ward at the West Lothian hospital has been closed to out-of-hours inpatients since July 2017 due to staff shortages. The ward was hit by similar shutdowns in the summers of 2012 and 2015 because of a lack of medical staff. In a letter to local Labour MSP Neil Findlay, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman confirmed that, by the last week of September, 954 children had been treated at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children (RHSC) in Edinburgh after being transferred from the SJH. The Health Secretary revealed the figures in a letter (Jane Barlow/PA) She said reinstating the inpatient service has the highest level of priority. Mr Findlay described the situation which he said can involve a round-trip of up to 60 miles for patients families as being unacceptable. The Lothian MSP said: By today it is likely that 1,000 children will have had to be sent to Edinburgh for treatment because of the SNPs failure on NHS staffing. Thats 1,000 families who have had to endure up to 60 miles of travel, stress, delays and expense just get their children treatment. That is utterly unacceptable and still happening despite a commitment from the SNP Health Secretary Jeane Freeman that fully reopening the ward was her highest priority. Neil Findlay said the situation was not acceptable (Andrew Milligan/PA) Opposition parties last month voiced fears that families could face a wait of up to three years for the childrens ward to fully reopen. Mr Findlay continued: Far too many families have had to travel past their local hospital to Edinburgh for treatment when they should have been treated in St Johns. SNP Health Secretary Jeane Freeman must apologise to those families her government has failed and work to reinstate a 24/7 service at the hospital as soon as possible. In the letter, Ms Freeman wrote: Since the first three week closure in July 2012, up to Monday 24 September 2018, a total of 954 children have been transferred from SJH to RHSC, of whom 790 have required admission to an inpatient bed. 164 children have been transferred but not admitted. As I made clear in my statement to Parliament, NHS Lothian fully share my commitment to reinstating the inpatient service at St Johns as soon as possible and this will continue to receive the highest level of priority. A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: The interim changes were made in the best interests of local children, to preserve patient safety. The health board has given assurances that all efforts are being made to recruit medical staff and advanced nurse practitioners to reinstate the full operation of the inpatient unit at St Johns. We will continue to support NHS Lothian to ensure the quickest possible reinstatement of services and the Health Secretary will continue to keep Parliament updated on progress. Funding has been made available to help encourage Scottish businesses aiming to cut food waste. Up to 1 million in support has been offered as part of a bid to cut waste in Scotland. Zero Waste Scotland called for expressions of interest from small and medium-sized businesses at the close of a circular economy hotspot event in Glasgow this week. The organisation is working to help the Scottish Government achieve its target of reducing food waste by 33% by 2025. The funding is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Scottish Government. Estimates suggest the amount of food which could have been eaten but instead is thrown away by food service outlets is equivalent to one in six meals. Funding of up to 1 million has been made available to help companies looking to reduce waste (Magdalena Mayom/PA) Grants of up to 1 million are available for projects that will drive forward innovative, transformational, cost-effective and collaborative approaches to keeping food-based products in high value use, or to reducing waste in the food supply chain. Iain Gulland, Zero Waste Scotland chief executive, said: Cutting down on food waste isnt just good for the planet, its good for business, too. The Circular Economy Hotspot has showcased some of Scotlands best circular economy businesses to a global audience and we know there is huge economic potential for businesses with ideas to reduce food waste. We hope that by highlighting this funding we will encourage more SMEs to come forward with innovative ideas to cut waste and create new business opportunities. When it comes to food waste, there is no trade-off between doing the right thing for the climate and doing the right thing for your business. Irelands deputy premier has said strong UK-Irish friendship is more important than ever ahead of talks between senior Irish and UK Government ministers in Dublin. Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and the countrys Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan are set to welcome UK Minister for the Cabinet Office David Lidington and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley at a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC) in Dublins Iveagh House. In a tweet Mr Coveney said: Looking forward to welcoming @DLidington [and] Karen Bradley to Dublin for British Irish Intergovernmental conference with me [and] @CharlieFlanagan. He added: Strong UK/Irish friendship, trust [and] cooperation more NB than ever. Legacy, security coop, East-West relations [and] NI political stability all on agenda. Looking forward to welcoming @DLidington + Karen Bradley to Dublin for British Irish Intergovernmental Conf. with me + @CharlieFlanagan. Strong UK/Irish friendship, trust+cooperation more NB than ever. Legacy, Security Coop, East-West relations + NI Pol stability all on Agenda pic.twitter.com/H5fHCpqWCP Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) November 2, 2018 The conference comes as Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab arrived in Northern Ireland on Friday morning for a one-day visit to the region. He was due to visit Stormont to meet with local political parties. Powersharing government at Stormont has been collapsed since January 2017 following a breakdown in relations between the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein. Simon Coveney says a strong friendship between the UK and Ireland is now more important than ever (Niall Carson/PA) A meeting between Ms Bradley and Northern Irelands main political parties in Belfast on Thursday to discuss the re-establishment of formal powersharing was branded a waste of time by SDLP leader Colum Eastwood. Four of the five parties expressed frustration after the meeting and they pressed Ms Bradley to convene multi-party talks. Established under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the BIIGC focuses on bilateral agreement between the two countries. Brexit negotiations and the absence of power-sharing in Northern Ireland are set to be top of the agenda of this conference. North/South Security Co-operation and bilateral co-operation between the British and Irish Governments will also be discussed. The last meeting of the BIIGC took place in July. In a statement ahead of the meeting, Mr Coveney said it showed the shared determination of both governments to get all of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement operating effectively again as soon as possible. It also demonstrates that, despite the current challenges, both the Irish and UK governments are committed to developing the relationship between our countries and looking at ways to maintain and deepen our engagement, Mr Coveney continued. Mr Flanagan said the meeting represented an important opportunity for the two governments to discuss their shared security concerns. We have common cause in combating the threat from paramilitaries who continue to reject the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Flanagan said. While considerable progress has been made on the security front, the need for continued action against paramilitaries and ongoing vigilance remains. Minister @CharlieFlanagan will, with the Tanaiste Simon Coveney, be representing the Irish Government at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in Iveagh House tomorrow. The conference will include discussions on North/South Security Co-operation https://t.co/Cop9NvrC2D Department of Justice (@DeptJusticeIRL) November 1, 2018 Earlier this week Ms Bradley told the House of Commons that she was actively considering how and when an external mediator could play a constructive role in attempts to re-establish talks. She told MPs she would raise the idea with the Irish Government during Fridays conference. A service to help low income families and older people access personalised financial advice has been launched. The new Financial Health Check service will be backed by 3.3 million in Scottish Government funding over the next two years. It is estimated to provide over 15,000 households each year with advice on matters including reducing household energy costs and accessing grants. It aims to help people avoid the poverty premium of paying more for essential goods and services and will be available through a freephone teleophone number or can be accessed in person at Citizens Advice bureauxs across the country. Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell said: I am delighted that from today our new Financial Health Check service is now open for business. This is a key part of our work to tackle child poverty and we want to make sure that families on low incomes have the support they need to make the most of their financial situation to avoid paying the higher costs for basic goods and services that low income families can often face. The new service aims to help low income families and older people (Dominic Lipinski/PA) The health check will cover issues such as access to free school meals, benefit uptake, council tax reduction and cheaper deals on energy and other utilities to reduce household costs. I am delighted that those families and older people will be able to get the personalised advice they need to save money and to receive all the support that is available. Citizens Advice Scotland chief executive Derek Mitchell added: Research has shown that around half a million Scots are not claiming all the support they are entitled to. That means families are struggling to heat their homes or put food on the table while missing out on financial assistance that could make a crucial difference. This service is all about identifying those people and linking them up with the grants, benefits or support that they need. John Dickie, the director of Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said: We know from our work that too many hard up families miss out the financial support they are entitled to, undermining wider action to end child poverty. The new Financial Health Check is an important and very welcome step toward ensuring all parents get the advice they need to maximise their incomes and reduce the costs they face. A man who admitted sending a hoax anthrax letter to the Prime Minister is due to be sentenced. Vincent Potter, 60, claimed potentially lethal powder was in correspondence posted to Theresa May, but the mail never reached its intended target after specialist postal workers intercepted it. No anthrax was found in the letter but Potter, from the village of Mayfield in East Sussex, was arrested in a counter-terror probe, although he was never charged with a terror offence. He pleaded guilty last month to making a noxious substance hoax on or before August 23 last year, under section 114(2) of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Prosecution documents drawn up at the start of the case said: It is alleged that Potter sent a letter that said that anthrax was contained within it, addressed to the Prime Minister. Specialist postal workers intercepted it. Anthrax was not, in fact, found within the letter. Vincent Potter pleaded guilty last month to making a noxious substance hoax on or before August 23 last year (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Potter, who is on conditional bail, is due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey. Britains competition watchdog has found that comparethemarket.com is in breach of antitrust law over its arrangements with insurers, which could be resulting in higher costs for consumers. Following an investigation, the Competition and Markets Authority provisionally found many of the price comparison websites contracts include so-called most favoured nation clauses. They were found to prevent home insurers from quoting lower prices on rival sites and other channels, meaning customers are presented with fewer options. Weve provisionally found that clauses in some of ComparetheMarkets contracts with home insurers break competition law, which could lead to higher prices for customers. Find out more: https://t.co/4E2LcqZj5w pic.twitter.com/wIAAyUDRRJ Competition & Markets Authority (@CMAgovUK) November 2, 2018 It also meant home insurance companies are more likely to pay higher commission rates to comparison sites with the extra costs potentially being passed on to customer, the CMA said. CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli said: Over 20 million UK households have home insurance and more than 60% of new policies are found on price comparison sites. Therefore its crucial that these companies are able to offer customers their best possible deals. Our investigation has provisionally found that ComparetheMarket has broken the law by preventing home insurers from offering lower prices elsewhere. This could result in people paying higher premiums than they need to. Comparethemarket.coms meerkats Aleksandr and Sergei (comparethemarket.com/PA) The comparison website, famous for its use of meerkats Aleksandr and Sergei in its TV adverts, could be fined up to 10% of its revenue as a result of the breach. A spokesman for comparethemarket.com said: We are disappointed by the CMAs provisional findings. We will carefully review the evidence once we have access to it, and look forward to working with the CMA over the coming months to ensure a satisfactory outcome. Residents have been paying tribute to a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed to death in south-east London. The victim, named in tributes as Jay, was taken to hospital with stab wounds following an incident in Randlesdown Road in Bellingham on Thursday evening. He was pronounced dead at 8.15pm, the Metropolitan Police said. Police are investigating after a 15-year-old boy was fatally stabbed in #Lewisham on Thursday evening. Anyone with information that may assist the investigation is asked to call police on 101 quoting CAD 5890/1 Nov.https://t.co/e6bq3yLq5y Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) November 2, 2018 A cordon has been placed around the Morleys chicken shop and other businesses in the road. Five children in school uniforms placed flowers and cards on railings at the scene. A woman who lives in the same area as the victim, but asked not to be named, said: I dont know if he was involved in a gang but I live here and I never thought Bellingham was coming to this. Its getting rougher around here. Im just upset because the first thing I thought was that it was my son. I was on my way to the Morleys to get food for my kids, I thought it was my son but it wasnt. The scene in Randlesdown Road in Bellingham (Emma Bowden/PA) Deanne Wright, 36, who also lives in the area, said she used to see the victim on the bus every day. She went to Morleys after a friend told her about the incident. She said: I saw him, he was on the floor, I saw him lying there. Ms Wright said that the victim and his friends used to congregate around Morleys every day, but something like this hasnt happened before. She added: I just know he was a sweet little boy. Yelsan Aksan, 45, from Catford, works in a cafeteria on Randlesdown Road. He said: Its getting rough, it wasnt like this when I used to live here, it was alright, there wasnt stuff like this. Now, this is something people should take seriously, before any more kids, young children or anyone dies in this way. England completed preparations for next weeks first Test against Sri Lanka but questions remain over the likely composition of their side ahead of the trip to Galle. After Thursdays play was washed out without a ball bowled England will have been relieved to get a full 50-over-a-side workout against a Board XI in Colombo, putting on 210 for six with the bat against the hosts 200 for seven. Opener Keaton Jennings probably did most to advance his cause, retiring on 45 after occupying the crease for 95 balls. It was not an innings of great style of dominance but there was determination and resilience, qualities England will need plenty of in the absence of the retired Alastair Cook. Rory Burns is set to make his England debut against Sri Lanka (Steven Paston/PA) Rory Burns is a certainty to debut in the latters place, dismissed here for 19 but already in credit after a confident 47 earlier in the week. Less certain is Joe Denlys status. The Kent man had a great opportunity to nail down the number three slot but was dismissed lbw by Lahiru Kumara for a second-ball duck, his second disappointing outing in a row following a scratchy 25. Given the chance to push his credentials with as an additonal bowling option he also faltered, turning in five overs of innocuous leg-spin at a cost of 43 runs. After also dropping a catch in the first warm-up match, the 32-year-olds case has weakened by the day. Ben Foakes could play as wicketkeeper when England face Sri Lanka (Paul Harding/PA) Should the selection team decide to overlook Denly and Ollie Pope, also out for nought, the possibility of drafting Ben Foakes as a specialist wicketkeeper may become tempting. Initially called up as cover for the injured Jonny Bairstow, Foakes is considered the deftest gloveman on the circuit. In an interesting development he replaced Jos Buttler behind the stumps after 25 overs of the home sides innings and whether that was an act of preservation or a late audition remains to be seen. Ben Stokes tuned up nicely, retiring after a fluent 53 and working his way through six sharp overs. Fellow all-rounder Sam Curran was equally smooth with the bat, striking an unbeaten 48 from number seven, but proved expensive after one breakthrough with the new ball. Jack Leach was on form during Englands warm-up game (Mike Egerton/PA) The 20-year-old left-armer was the costliest of the four pacemen on show and struggled in the absence of swing. If England are presented with the anticipated spinning pitch on Tuesday morning they will surely play all three of their slow bowlers Adil Rashid, Moeen Ali and Jack Leach meaning room for only one more seamer after James Anderson. Curran is theoretically vying with the established Stuart Broad, newcomer Ollie Stone and Chris Woakes for that job and the pecking order is now possibly harder to read than it was at the start of the week. Leach was Englands busiest bowler after surprisingly sitting out the previous fixture, exercising great control with 13 overs for 29 and cleaning up Kamindu Mendis with a beauty. The deaths of a man and a woman in the Forth Valley area are being treated as unexplained by police. One line of inquiry is the pair may have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, it is understood. Emergency services were called to an address at Main Street in Cambusbarron, Stirling, on Tuesday afternoon, where they found the body of a 58-year-old woman. A 65-year-old man was found seriously ill and later died in hospital. They have been named locally as Sheena and Alex Jackson. A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said: Police in Forth Valley attended at a property in Main Street, Cambusbarron at around midday on Tuesday October 30 following a report of concern for the occupants. One line of inquiry is the pair may have died from carbon monoxide poisoning (David Cheskin/PA) A 58-year-old woman was found dead within, while a 65-year-old man was also found in a seriously ill condition. He was taken to the Forth Valley Royal Hospital where he subsequently passed away. Inquiries into these deaths, which are both being treated as unexplained at this time, are ongoing. A Sinn Fein MP has accused Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab of running away from people living in a border town during his visit to Northern Ireland. The Tory minister arrived in Northern Ireland on Friday for a one-day visit to the region. During his first stop to Warrenpoint Port, Mr Raab was criticised for not meeting with public representatives and local people. The port, on Carlingford Lough which forms part of the Irish border, ranks second in Northern Ireland behind Belfast in terms of tonnes handled in 2017. In a private engagement closed to media, Mr Raab met workers in the port. South Down MP Chris Hazzard said he was not given the opportunity to engage with Mr Raab. Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab visited Northern Ireland (Peter Nicholls/PA) The Sinn Fein man accused him of coming in like a thief in the night. I think this is the perfect illustration of the cynicism and the disrespect that the Tory government is showing towards the electorate here in South Down and Ireland in general when it comes to Brexit, he said. We have some serious concerns around Brexit, the local community here are very anxious, the local business community are very anxious about what the next number of months and years is going to hold for them. The fact we have yet again another Tory minister not providing an opportunity to meet and engage and listen to those concerns is absolutely unacceptable. Dominic Raab is like a thief in the night coming in and out, not providing opportunity, not just me personally but the people I represent, and the media should have the opportunity to be able to ask the hard questions. The fact the Tories run away from this every time is telling in itself. Mr Raab is also believed to have met with senior officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland at Newry Station just a few miles from the Irish border. SDLP MLA Sinead Bradley said she got just a few hours notification that Mr Raab was visiting Warrenpoint in her constituency. She described the lack of engagement with local politicians as disgraceful and said it needs to be called out. pic.twitter.com/XJWhR9VcUN Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) November 2, 2018 SDLP South Down MLA Sinead Bradley criticised Mr Raabs lack of engagement with local elected representatives as disgraceful. She said she received only a few hours notice that Mr Raab would be visiting Warrenpoint in her constituency. Ms Bradley told Press Association: Brexit will affect rural communities and especially border communities the most. For the Brexit Secretary to visit and essentially adopt the attitude of we will talk about you but not to you really just amplified the attitude that has been used by this Executive and the Tory government. Its absolutely disgraceful and must be called out. Later, Mr Raab will visit Stormont to meet with local political parties. Downing Street says a return to frontline politics by David Cameron would be a matter for him. The comments came after reports of Mr Cameron wanting to make a political comeback drew mockery from Labour MPs. The 52-year-old ex-prime minister has told friends he wanted to return to the front benches two years after leaving Downing Street in the wake of the Brexit vote, according to The Sun. Mr Cameron would not be against the idea of Cabinet recall in the government of whoever succeeds Theresa May as Prime Minister, the newspaper said. A spokeswoman for Mrs May said: Whether he chooses to seek to return to frontline politics or not is entirely a matter for him. The spokeswoman added the PM and Mr Cameron often speak. Former PM David Cameron is reported to be weighing up a return to frontline politics (Lewis Whyld/PA) Shadow education minister Angela Rayner labelled the rumoured return of Mr Cameron as bizarre. Ms Rayner, MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, was among a series of Labour MPs who reacted to reports of the former Prime Minister fancying the job of Foreign Secretary. Just when you thought politics couldn't get anymore bizarre. No David please stay in retirement you caused enough damage last time https://t.co/DHhXwWTadO Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) November 1, 2018 Ms Rayner tweeted: Just when you thought politics couldnt get anymore bizarre. No David please stay in retirement you caused enough damage last time. Shadow communities and local government secretary Andrew Gwynne wrote: God. No. Didnt he do enough damage first time round?? Please spare us all. Emily Thornberry (@EmilyThornberry) November 1, 2018 Emily Thornberry posted a facepalm emoji in response an image used to display frustration or embarrassment at a certain situation. Redcar MP Anna Turley said: The sense of entitlement is unreal. Please go away and think about what youve done Yvette Cooper tweeted: What, because it worked out so well last time? Man, you ripped up our closest international partnership. By accident. That makes you even worse than Boris Johnson. Scotland Yard is investigating allegations of anti-Semitic hate crimes within the Labour Party. Here we look at the background to the probe: Why have police become involved in the Labour anti-Semitism row? A leaked internal Labour dossier obtained by LBC that detailed 45 cases of alleged anti-Semitism was passed to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick in September. Among the cases were messages posted by party members on social media, including one which read: We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all. Another involved a reference to a Zionist Extremist MP who hates civilised people, about to get a good kicking. Former senior police officer Mak Chishty saw the documents before they were handed over and said that 17 instances should have been reported to the police for investigation, and another four were potential race hate crimes. Is anti-Semitism a big problem in the Labour Party? That depends on who you ask. The issue has plunged the party into turmoil, with critics of Jeremy Corbyn claiming he has allowed hatred towards Jews to escalate under his leadership while supporters insist the matter has been exaggerated and is being used by opponents as a way to damage him. A report by Baroness Chakrabarti in 2016 found the Labour Party is not overrun by anti-Semitism but it was condemned as a whitewash by critics. Why has the issue flared up since Mr Corbyn took over? The Labour leader, like many on the left of the party, has a long history of supporting the Palestinian cause and criticising the government of Israel for alleged human rights abuses. Labour Party supporting Jews demonstrate outside a meeting of the Labour National Executive Committee in London in September (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Some of those who share Mr Corbyns political sympathies have crossed the line from attacking the Israeli government to smears aimed at Jews including Holocaust denial. In March, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council used an open letter to claim that Mr Corbyn is repeatedly found alongside people with blatantly anti-Semitic views, but claims never to hear or read them and rightly or wrongly, those who push this offensive material regard Jeremy Corbyn as their figurehead. Has Mr Corbyn tried to calm tensions? At Labours autumn conference, the party leader said he would fight anti-Semitism with every breath that I possess. But he has also faced intense scrutiny over some of his past comments and associations, and in August apologised for appearing at a 2010 event at which a Holocaust survivor compared Israel to Nazism. What action has been taken by the Labour leadership to tackle anti-Semitism? A convoy of three billboard advertising vans with an anti-Semitism message for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party in Westminster in April (John Stillwell/PA) In September it agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and its accompanying examples. But the decision came only after tensions flared up with the partys backbenchers because the ruling National Executive Committee had initially excluded four of the illustrations of prejudice towards Jews. Has anyone quit over the row? Veteran Labour MP Frank Field cited the partys handling of anti-Semitism when he resigned the party whip. Two people were stabbed after an argument broke out between kitchen staff at Sony Musics London headquarters. Firearms officers descended on the building in Kensington, central London, at about 11am on Friday. Two men with stab injuries were arrested at the scene on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and taken to hospital in non-life threatening conditions, Scotland Yard said. Officers confirmed the incident is not being treated as terror related and said no other suspects are being sought at this time. Sony Music said in a statement that the building was evacuated after two members of the catering team were involved in a violent altercation at the Derry Street office. Staff at the record company described the chaos that ensued. We just heard screaming and running and people slamming doors, said one employee who did not want to be named. The kitchen workers were running around chasing each other and slashing each other up, he added. Armed police officers run to the scene (PA) Footage filmed from an office opposite showed a number of armed police entering the building through the front door. Trish Ellis, a personal assistant at the Mail on Sunday who witnessed the incident, said: It started opposite our building in Derry Street, usual sirens and racket but then we heard shouting, and more and more sirens. A few people came out, then armed police were going in six-plus at a time, and more and more of them, but they seemed to be keeping people in the building. Gradually they started to release people in tens, twenties, and a stretcher turned up with all the medical kit on it, but just stayed outside. Security and police officers at the scene (Stefan Rousseau/PA) A London Ambulance Service spokeswoman said one patient was taken to hospital, the other to a major trauma centre. Scotland Yard said: Two men were found suffering from stab injuries. They were both arrested at the scene on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. A rare work by sculptor Antonio Canova could be sold overseas unless a buyer can find more than 5 million to keep it in the UK. Arts Minister Michael Ellis has put a temporary export bar on the white marble Bust Of Peace in an effort to find a new British home for it. The bust, one of a handful of original works by the Italian neoclassical artist that remain outside museum collections, was sold to a private buyer at Sothebys in July 2018 for 5.3 million, a record price for a Canova. #AuctionUpdate: New auction record established for Antonio Canova with 'Bust of Peace', sold for 5.3 million pic.twitter.com/wwlLtb3dBs Sotheby's (@Sothebys) July 4, 2018 The work was created between 1814-15 and has been seen to symbolise the peace in Europe after the fall of Napoleon. Mr Ellis said: Canova is widely recognised as one of the greatest sculptors of his, or any, era. The Bust Of Peace combines a crucial moment in our history with beauty and elegance, pointing to a more peaceful future ahead. Antonio Canovas Bust of Peace (DCMS handout/PA) Therefore it is essential that we do our best to save this superb item for the benefit of the nation. The bust may have been given to John Campbell, Lord Cawdor, in part to thank him for his help in repatriating art looted from Italy by the French armies during the Napoleonic Wars and was on show at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1817. It remained in Lord Cawdors family for five generations at Stackpole Court in Pembrokeshire but was sold in 1962, apparently without anyone being aware of its significance as it was listed without attribution to Canova, and then reappeared at auction in 2012. The decision to issue a temporary export bar on the piece follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee On The Export Of Works Of Art And Objects Of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), administered by The Arts Council. Committee member Aidan Weston-Lewis said: This outstanding bust was probably given by Canova as a token of friendship and gratitude to his most loyal British patron and champion, Lord Cawdor. Over nearly three decades, Cawdor commissioned several of Canovas most celebrated works, including the reclining and standing versions of Cupid and Psyche, both now in the Louvre. He added: As a testament to the special relationship between a brilliant and innovative British patron and statesman and the greatest artist of his day, every effort should be made to retain the Bust Of Peace in the UK. A decision on the export licence application for the sculpture will be deferred until February 1 2019 and could be extended until July 1 2019 if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase it is made at 5,303,500 (plus 160,700 VAT). It is inevitable when there are back-to-back summits involving three key nations, that there will be comparisons. And so it is with the Modi-Abe summit of October 27-29 following the Xi-Abe meet of October 25-27. Japan is developing infrastructure in North-East India. (Photo: Reuters) Given the already good relations between India and Japan, the China-Japan summit was the more consequential one. It was long in coming the last time a Chinese leader met his Japanese counterpart officially was in 2011. Their meet at a multilateral forum in 2014 is noted for the photograph of the two grim leaders shaking hands briefly. After the most recent meeting with Xi, Abe declared that the relations between the two countries were moving from competition to co-existence. Xi, in turn, spoke about the importance of working together at a time of growing global instability and uncertainties. There is little doubt that the policies of Donald Trump form the subtext of the meeting. From competition to co-existence... (Photo: Reuters) Chinese partnership Besides the usual declarations and photo-ops, the two sides also took some practical steps such as a $30 billion credit swap agreement and Japans de facto participation in the Belt and Road Initiative through 50 joint infrastructure projects. Given the strong headwinds that China is facing in rolling out the BRI, Japanese participation could be a welcome means of finding the right balance. Japan is a de facto participant in the Belt and Road Initiative. (Photo: Reuters) Japan has considerable experience in this area and remains a major player in what it calls the construction of quality infrastructure. Participating in joint ventures with China is a good way for Japan to get more business for its own companies, even while providing a certain measure of stability in the tumult created by the trade stand-off between China and the US. The process represents a workman-like approach to their ties, emphasising realism and self interest. Japan and other major exporting economies are not happy with the way China has done business, squeezing foreign companies for technology and closing off entire sectors of their economy. But Japan and China also do business worth $350 billion in goods and services, and American policies, which could result in disrupting Chinese supply chains, could have a deeply negative impact on Japan. Japan is adjusting to the realities of the US policies. (Photo: Reuters) All this does not mean that the Japanese are loosening their ties with the US. What they are doing is to adjust to the realities of the US policies, especially in the trade front, where Washington simply wants to go it alone. Tokyo underscored this by its tough posture in the South China Sea where in September Japan carried out drills involving not only its helicopter carrier, but also a submarine. The submarine later made a port call to Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. Tokyo still maintains its tough posture in the South China Sea. (Photo of a Vietnam-controlled island in the South China Sea: Reuters) Backing India Another facet of the Japanese posture was visible in the Modi-Abe summit that immediately followed. Abes approach to New Delhi is without doubt shaped by his belief that India represents the best possible regional counter-weight to a rising China. He has gone that extra mile to befriend Modi, as evidenced by his invitation to the Indian Prime Minister to visit his vacation home. This was Modis third trip to Japan and his 12th summit with Abe. India and Japan agreed to join forces in promoting technologies such as 5G phones, robotics and AI, areas where Beijings quest for them have been generating global concern. The approach would be to harness Japans hardware skills with Indias software prowess. Japans agreement to cooperate with India on infrastructure projects in third countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh is useful for New Delhi to counter China. By itself it lacks the resources and the expertise, so the partnership with Japan makes a critical difference. Japan is already involved in developing infrastructure in the North-East in India. Japan has provided nearly $53 billion in total yen-denominated low interest loans to India. Aligning motives The current visit saw an agreement for deeper cooperation between Japan and India in the naval sphere. They are currently negotiating a bilateral acquisition and cross-servicing agreement to share supplies and services. In November, the two sides will have their first army counter-terrorism joint exercise. This remains a problem area for the two countries. Notwithstanding a great deal of activity through high-level visits and joint exercises, their defence cooperation is limited. In part, this is because of the reticence of both players. But it is also an indication of their inability to work out a strategic framework for their ties. While China may be the context of their security ties, it's not clear under what circumstances and contingencies they will cooperate. Japan remains comfortable in operating through its American alliance system, while India is chary of any alliance at all. (Courtesy of Mail Today) Also Read: The Great Asian Game-Changer: Why PM Modi's Tokyo visit could cement a Japan-India strategic alliance Industrialist Mukesh Ambani is keen on the e-governance space and has set up a subsidiary company in Estonia to get a grip on the solutions, government officials of the Northwestern European nation have said. Ambani has formed a subsidiary with the Estonian government's former chief information officer Taavi Kotka. The joint venture will be looking for solutions in the e-governance space, Viljar Lubi, vice-minister for economic affairs and communications of Estonia, which is a European Union member, told a group of visiting journalists recently. He, however, did not elaborate on the exact scope of the partnership, saying government only plays the role of a facilitator. A Reliance Industries spokesperson refused to share details of the project or plan. Multiple officials in Estonia, which is among the most digitised countries in the world, maintained that the role of private companies has been crucial in developing the digital infrastructure used by all most all of its citizens. The country claims of 99 per cent of digital penetration. Ambani, the richest Indian who runs the most profitable domestic company Reliance Industries, took an e-residency of the European nation in May this year, the officials said. An e-residency helps a foreigner access the EU opportunity by helping him/her form a company, among other benefits. Weve one of the founders of e-residency programmes, Kotka, who is currently working together with Reliance and Mukesh Ambani to digitalise India in terms of accessing digital identity. That is why Ambani became an e-resident recently, a spokesperson for Estonia's e-residency programme said. An email sent to Reliance Industries spokesperson on this aspect was also not answered. Asked if Ambani has visited Estonia, Lubi declined to comment, but named other Indian industrialists like Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy as among those who have visited their country to have a closer look at the work on digitisation. Lubi said while digitisation has helped Estonia to get connected its scattered and very low population basethe country with a large land mass is home to only 1.4 million citizens -- it can help India as well because it has a large population to be reached out to. There are just about 2,000 Indians who have opted to become e-residents of Estonia so far, primarily to access the business opportunity presented by the European Union. Over half of them are freelancers, who unlike big companies, cannot afford to set up subsidiaries in any EU country, the official said. An e-residency enables a person to work for EU clientele and is lapped by startups looking for a footing in the EU. Lubi said Estonian journey to digitalisation started right after regaining independence in 1991 from the erstwhile USSR due to a resource crunch and later it discovered the efficacy of the same as the world went digital. At present, nearly all- - 99 per cent to be precise -- government services are digital in this country and an Estonian gets to know who all have accessed his/her records. If a citizen observes any activity on her information being accessed by an unauthorised entity, including any government department, then she can initiate legal action. The e-residency initiative was started in 2014 as a digital identity for foreigners. Apart from forming a company, an e-resident can access banking services, payment processing and also gets a digital signature. India ranks ninth among the list of countries from where e-residents are coming in, but the pace of growth is very fast, e-residency programme's managing director Kaspar Korjus said. The country is aiming to increase the number of e-residents from India to 1 million by 2025, he said, pointing out that India has over 50 million freelancers who will be keen on such an initiative. The RSS realises that the next few months are crucial for a Ram temple at Ayodhya The last time the Sangh Parivaar attempted a mass mobilisation on the Ram temple issue, it failed to get appreciable traction. That was in 2002. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister at the head of a multi-party coalition at the Centre and not exactly simpatico, Uttar Pradesh was in between Chief Ministers Rajnath Singh and Mayawati with a few months of Presidents Rule to separate their tenures but the administrations were committed to preserving the status quo at Ayodhya, and Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, one of the few States where the call for kar sevaks had resulted in decent numbers being mobilised. Oh, and the acerbic, doctrinaire KS Sudershan, who did not have anywhere near the influence his predecessors and successor had and have on the BJP, was the RSS Sarsanghachalak. A lot of water has flowed down the Saryu since. Now, the Sangh, in the aftermath of the Supreme Courts recent refusal to accord the kind of urgency the RSS felt was required in hearing and disposing of the appeal against the Allahabad High Court by Muslim parties to the Ram Janmabhoomi Ayodhya title suit, has decided to ratchet up the pressure. With the Bench to hear the appeal not yet constituted and the hearing of the matter listed for January 2019, the court verdict path to the Ram temple is effectively closed. And with negotiations between community representatives over the past decades having come to naught, the Sangh knows that the intervention of the Executive is now the last chance, at least for the foreseeable future, of ensuring what has been an article of faith for it. But the RSS also knows it is dealing with a BJP leadership which while in tune with its agenda does prioritise electoral power politics over all else and will be weighing the pros and cons of bringing in a law/ordinance, especially in terms of timing. RSS thinkers are also acutely aware of the fact that while its senior leaders, including general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi, are speaking of looking at the option of launching a 1992-like agitation to demand the construction of Ram Mandir if required, the moot question remains who its cadres will agitate against to concede their demand for a law enabling the construction of a grand Ram Temple at Ayodhya? Prime Minister Narendra Modi? BJP president Amit Shah? Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath? Sangh cadres, who have played a significant role in ensuring these personalities have achieved political success and the BJP is the dominant political force across large swathes of the country today, clearly feel it is time for payback. Indeed, the taunt mandir wahin banayenge lekin tithi (date) nahi bataenge is hitting the Swayamsevak where it hurts most; his credibility and claim to tyaag ki bhaavna (spirit of sacrifice) in the nation-building effort. The RSS has made it clear to the BJP Amit Shah was closeted with senior leaders for hours at the end of the RSS executive meet last week that the cavalier fashion with which it believes the apex court has ignored the sensitivities of the Hindu community in not expediting its verdict on the Ayodhya land dispute leaves the Government with no choice but to bring in an appropriate law. The timing, apparently, has been left to the BJP to work out and insiders say post-Assembly elections and after seeing how the court hearing in January goes is the rough timeline. Because for all the talk of Opposition unity and anti-incumbency which is part of the ebb and flow of politics, the Sangh is pressing the point that it is on Ayodhya that there can be no backtracking by the BJP. The suggestion that the higher judiciary is unresponsive to public sentiment has often been heard. A study of the Parliamentary debates in 1951 on the First Amendment to the Constitution that, among other things, insulated the zamindari abolition legislations from judicial scrutiny, would indicate that this sentiment is also very Nehruvian. It was also heard during the high noon of Indira Gandhis socialist phase when there was a demand for a committed judiciary to complement a committed bureaucracy and progressive politics. The belief that the judiciary in India has transformed itself into a self-perpetuating, unelected oligarchy may have a contextual basis. However, like most political formulations that arise from the heat of the moment, it is often overstated. There may well be a handful of conservative judges who sincerely believe that the separation of powers is sacrosanct and that it is the business of the judiciary to interpret the law, probe and adjudicate the unforeseen grey areas between different laws and leave law-making to the legislature. They would hold that Article 21 of the Constitution guaranteeing citizens the right to life and personal liberty cannot be extended by judges to include the rights to healthcare, clean air, privacy and, in line with the American Declaration of Independence, the pursuit of happiness, at least not without the endorsement of the legislature. Alas, in this age of hyper-activism, such a judicial philosophy is likely to be dismissed as being fuddy-duddy. The larger question of the relationship between the judiciary and public opinion has no clear-cut answers. There have been moments when judges have been accused of playing to the galleries and pandering to the anti-corruption lynch mob. Moreover, many of the Courts interventionist guidelines came at a time when a politically unsure executive found itself vacating its governance responsibilities. There was a definite political context to Indias history of judicial activism. It will be interesting to track the judiciarys approach if, say, India has a prolonged period of stable, majority governments capable of passing laws through both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The first four years of the Modi Government has been a grey area. The National Democratic Alliance Government enjoys a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha but has struggled with Bills in the Rajya Sabha. It is on the issue of social policy that the relationship between the judiciary and public opinion is more complicated. In the recent past, the courts have made important interventions to decriminalise homosexuality, remove adultery as a criminal offence, ban unilateral triple talaq divorces among Muslims and permit womens access to shrines such as Haji Ali in Mumbai and Sabarimala in Kerala. Apart from Sabarimala, these judgments have not been greeted with significant opposition in the court of public opinion, although there have been murmurings that changes to the Indian Penal Code should have been left to Parliament to work out. The Sabarimala judgment belongs in a different league altogether. Apart from the 1986 Shah Bano judgment recognising the principle of alimony to divorced Muslim women that provoked a fierce reaction in Muslim society and compelled the Rajiv Gandhi Government to pass remedial legislation, there has been no other judgment that has triggered such a backlash. The unhindered right of all women of all ages to worship at the Sabarimala temple thereby removing a ban on all women of child-bearing age has led to mass protests all over Kerala and unease among Hindus all over the country. The protests, that included a very large number of women devotees, were significant enough to force the Communist-led State Government of Kerala to call off attempts to allow some women who turned out to be activists, rather than devotees to enter the temple under police protection. Whether the unique traditions of the Sabarimala temple other Ayyappa temples allow women access should be protected or subsumed by the larger principle of gender equality is worthy of serious debate. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has suggested that whereas institutions such as marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance must be governed in line with Article 14, the rites of worship and certain customs deserve protection under Article 25. He suggested that it is for the courts to evolve a harmonious relationship that gets rid of harmful and obnoxious customs without affecting the body of faith. In the Sabarimala case two factors are consequential. First, women devotees of Lord Ayyappa seem to feel that faith demand they wait until they have crossed the age of 50 before entering the temple. Belief in Lord Ayyappa also involves a belief in his sacred celibacy. In the Sabarimala controversy, gender justice through Article 14 has been contested by women themselves. Secondly, the Hindu way of life involves a chaotic blend of the great and little traditions that are not prone to codification. There are unique beliefs and customs that may strike modernists as bizarre but are nevertheless real and, more important, a part of local societies. Some of these have undergone modifications keeping in mind both convenience and evolving sensibilities but others have remained unchanged over the centuries. By applying a uniform constitutional criterion on all religious customs, the judges may have viewed the Hindu way of life through a Semitic prism with troubling consequences. The Ayyappa cult may not be a separate religious denomination but it has to be given autonomous space. It is the fight for that space that has propelled a mass upsurge of Hindus in southern India. It is ironic is that the modernists and non-believers were in the forefront of charging the Ayodhya movement of attempting to create a Semitic Hinduism and riding roughshod over little traditions. Today, the boot is on the other foot. China on Sunday said it supported Pakistan's "quest for peace through dialogue" to settle the outstanding disputes with India and backed Islamabad's engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers group (NSG). According to a joint statement issued here after Prime Minister Imran Khan's talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, China backed Pakistan's efforts to improve ties with India to settle "outstanding disputes", without directly mentioning the Kashmir issue. "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," the joint statement said. In recent years, China has refrained from taking a public stance on the India-Pakistan ties, expressing hope for resolution of the disputes through dialogue. On the Kashmir issue, China's oft repeated stand was that it should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. India too supports dialogue as the way to resolve the issue with Pakistan but maintains that the talks and terrorism cannot go together. Also significantly, China tacitly expressed its backing for Pakistan's efforts to secure the NSG membership. China has been blocking India's entry into the NSG on the ground that New Delhi is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even though majority of the 48-member group supported India's entry into the elite nuclear club. Pakistan too has applied for the NSG membership. "The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to multilateral, non-discriminatory arms control and non-proliferation endeavours," the joint statement said. "They noted with concern the continued pursuit of double standards in the application of non-proliferation norms and procedures and called for policies upholding rule of law and long-standing rules," it added. China appreciates and supports steps taken by Pakistan for strengthening the global non-proliferation regime, it said. In this context, China supports Pakistan's engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers Group and welcomes its adherence of NSG Guidelines, the statement added. The much-hyped three-day Deepotsava, a prelude to Diwali festival, started with presentation of Ramlila by a cultural troupe from Laos in the Vivekananda auditorium of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Awadh University in Ayodhya on Sunday. Senior officials from the State capital accompanied by district officers reviewed the arrangement for the lighting of over three lakh diyas (earthen lamps) on November 6. The function on that day will be attended by Governor Ram Naik, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and other dignitaries. But the main attraction of this Diwali celebrations will be the first lady of South Korea, Kim Jung-sook, the wife of South Korean President Moon Jae-in. She will attend the programme on November 6, when three lakh diyas will be lit to create a new world record. In 2017 over 1.71 lakh diyas were lighted and it was a Guinness Book record. In-charge of the programme, SN Shukla, said that of the three lakh diyas, over 10,000 diyas each would be lighted at Ram ki Pauri and at the banks of river Saryu. Besides, 5,100 diyas would be lighted at Guptarghat and 11,000 at Bharat Kund, he added. When Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will perform aarti, over 10,000 diyas will be released from a steamer and will cross the Saryu ghat, Dr Shukla said. The celebrations will include laying of the foundation of a Rs 50-crore memorial of Queen Hur Hwang-ok, also known as Suriratna, a princess of Ayodhya who went to South Korea and married the king. Last year, the Diwali celebrations in the temple town were limited to one day while this time it will be a three-day affair which started from Sunday. The UP Tourism department is organising a series of events to celebrate Diwali in Ayodhya. All prominent buildings, temples and ghats in the city are being decorated while many cultural programmes are being organised for the grand event. Legendary Vice Admiral (Retd) Manohar Pralhad Awati, who had displayed gallantry, leadership and devotion to duty of a high order during the operations against Pakistan in December 1971 and inspired generations of sea-goers through cirmumnavigation missions, died in his native village of Vinchurni in Palthan taluka of Satara district in western Maharashtra on Sunday. When the then President Rajendra Prasad presented colours to the Indian Navy on May 27, 1951, the young Lieutenant who had been chosen to receive the colours was none other than Admiral Awati. Vice Admiral Awati (retd) was 91. A giant of a man, one of our tallest heroes and greatest icons. Its truly the end of an era. May his soul RIP, Admiral Sunil Lanba, the Chief of Naval Staff, tweeted. Awati was the commanding officer of an Indian naval unit of the Eastern Fleet during the operations against Pakistan in December 1971. Throughout the period, he was called upon to operate within enemy waters where there was constant danger to his ship from enemy mines and submarines. Undeterred, he carried out continuous probes into the enemy defended harbours in Bangladesh and inflicted heavy damage on the enemy. During the blockade, Awati attacked and captured three enemy ships carrying contraband goods. He also gained a submarine contact and pressed home an attack with great vigour, which possibly resulted in destruction of and damage to the submarine. Throughout, Captain Awati displayed gallantry, leadership and devotion to duty of a high order. Mourning the death of Vice Admiral Awati (Retd), Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted: Vice Admiral MP Awati (Retd) #PVSM, #VirChakra passed away; was the commanding officer of a naval unit of the Eastern Fleet, Dec71. Captured three enemy ships carrying contraband goods. His actions led to destruction of an enemy submarine. An icon in naval history. My homage. Born on September 7, 1927, Awati had his schooling in King Georges School, Mumbai and The Maharashtra Education Society School, Pune. Having attended TS Dufferin, he was selected for the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) in November, 1945. After his training at the Royal Naval Colleges at Dartsmouth and Greenwich, Admiral Awati also had training stints with the British Mediterranean Fleet and the Naval Specialist School at Portsmouth. In March, 1950, Admiral Awati returned to India for active service in the Indian Navy. A specialist in signals communication, Admiral Awati served on Indian Navy ships INS Ranjit, INS Venduruthy, INS Delhi and INS Kistna, and later commanded INS Betwa, INS Tir and INS Mysore. As the Commanding Officer of INS Kamorta during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation, he was awarded the Vir Chakra for leadership and gallantry. His sailing career reached its height with the command of the sword arm of the Indian Navy, the Western Fleet. An alumnus of the Defense Services Staff College Wellington, and the Royal College of Defense Studies, London, Admiral Awati subsequently held crucial shore appointments such as Commandant of the National Defense Academy (NDA), Chief of Personnel at the Naval Headquarters and Flag officer Commanding- in-Chief of the Western Naval Command from where he retired in March 1983. A recipient of Param Vishishta Seva Medal (PVSM), Admiral Awati was the chairman of the Asian Games (1982) Yachting Organizing Committee. Admiral. Awatis love for ecology and its conservation emerged after retirement from active service in association with the legendary Dr Salim Ali. Sagarparikrama (from August 2009 to May 2010) which took the first Indian Solo circumnavigator around the world in an Indian built boat MHADEI was the single-most ambitious sea-farers project in the history of modern India. The project was Admiral Awatis brain-child, and a tribute to his perseverance of nearly two decades. Admiral Awati was the inspiration behind the circumnavigation missions of Captain (Retd) Dilip Donde, Commander Abhilash Tomy. It was also his dream to see a circumnavigation mission by ladies. Lt Cdr Vartika Joshi and composed of Lt Cdr Vartika Joshi, Lt Cdr Pratibha Jamwal, Lt Cdr Swati P, Lt Aishwarya Boddapati, Lt S Vijaya Devi and Lt Payal Gupta made it possible. An avid nature lover, Admiral Awati was associated with Dr Salim Ali, the Birdman of India. His particular love for the conservation of the Lion and the Tiger was reflected in the books he edited -- Homo Sapiens and Panthera Leo and The Vanishing Indian Tiger. Nature Clubs of India was yet another contribution of Admiral Awati. Maharashtras Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Sunday found himself in the dock over the controversial killing of tigress Avni in Yavatmal district on Friday night, as a miffed Union Women & Child Development Minister and Animal Rights activist Maneka Gandhi dubbed the tigress elimination as straight case of crime and virtually rooted for Mungantiwars dismissal from the Devendra Fadnavis Cabinet. Terming sharpshooter Shafat Ali Khan whose son killed Avni as a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad, Gandhi said, I am deeply saddened by the way the tigress Avni has been murdered by a professional anti-national killer at the behest of the Minister in Yavatmal, Maharashtra. This is the third tiger being killed on directions of the Environment and Forest Minister. Earlier, a dozen leopards and 300 wild boars have been killed on his directions. I am shocked that such a person is continuing to hold a ministerial position, Gandhi said in a strongly worded statement. After weeks of elaborate and meticulously planned hunt, the elusive tigress T1, better known as Avni of Pandharkawada hills that had mauled as many as 13 persons to death during the past two years in Yavatmal district in Vidarbha region in Maharashtra had been shot dead late on Friday night. Avni, 6, was eliminated by sharpshooter Asgar Ali, son of famous sharpshooter Nawab Shafath Ali Khan from Hyderabad, at compartment number 149 of Borati forest under the jurisdiction of the Ralegaon police station. Gandhi, who put out a series of tweets on the incident, said in her statement: It (the killing) is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite requests from his own forest department and People all over India, Sh Sudhir Mugantiwar, Minister for Environment and Forests, Maharashtra gave orders for the killing. Terming Avnis killing as illegal, Gandhi said: Every time he has used the Hyderabad shooter, Shafat Ali Khan and this time his son has also appeared on the scene illegally to kill the tigress. His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. In one of her tweets put out earlier, Gandhi alluded to Asgar Alis controversial sharp-shooter father Shafat Ali Khan. Shafat Ali Khan has killed 3 tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Chandrapur, #Maharashtra. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in #Hyderabad, the minister tweeted. I fail to understand why a State Government should even bother about such a man let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts, Gandhi tweeted. Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilise, capture and quarantine the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under direct orders of Sh Mungantiwar. The tigress was a mother. Now her two cubs will also die, she said in her statement We cannot allow this kind of insensitive and merciless attitude towards animals to prevail, the Minister said. Gandhi said she will take up the issue with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and demand strong action in the matter. I am going to take up this issue legally, criminally as well as politically. I will be writing to CM Maharashtra to take a strong action in this matter, she said. On his part, Mungantiwar defended himself, by saying that nobody in the Forest Department wanted to kill the tigress and, thus, hundreds of personnel from the department were trying to capture her alive since the last three months. He said that there was unrest among local farmers and Adivasis after she had reportedly killed 13 people in the past two years. Ministers and secretaries do not sit in Mumbai and protect forest and animal species. It is done by farmers and Adivasis. In this case, there was a lot of unrest among them. We didnt want them to eventually become enemies of wildlife, Mungantiwar told PTI, adding that all possible means were tried to capture the animal, but it had to be shot down to save the lives of forest staff trying to tranquillise her. Mungantiwar pointed out that the right to kill wild species did not lie with his department and that the Centre and the Supreme Court had laid down stringent guidelines for the purpose. It may be recalled Avni was spotted and killed around 11 pm on Friday, after an intensive search that had been going on for the past two months. The forest officials had spilled urine of another tigress and American perfume in parts of Borati forests compartment number 149 to draw out Avni from its habitat. Avni is survived by her 10-month-old two cubs, both of which have gone missing ever since their mother was eliminated. Avanis elimination came nearly two months after the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the hunt by the Maharashtra Forest Department to capture or kill the wild cat. The apex courts order refusing to intervene in the matter came on September 11, 2018 after the Bombay High Court rejected a petition filed by a group of activists and NGO challenging the state forest departments shoot-at-sight order and given a go-ahead for the elimination of the tigress. Spotted for the time in the forests of Yavatmal district in 2012, Avni had killed at least 13 persons. The forest authorities used trap cameras, drones with thermal imaging capabilities, a few of trained sniffer dogs and a para-glider in and around the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary which is in the hills of Pandarkawada in Yavatmal district. As part of the Eliminate Avni mission, the state forest department had hired sharpshooter Shafat Ali Khan who in turn deputed his son Agsar Ali to eliminate Avni. In separate statement issued on Saturday, PETA India, Shiv Senas youth wing president Aditya Thackeray had slammed the Maharashtra government for killing Avni. Dark day for the nation. Tigress #Avni murdered, likely in front of her cubs. Heres what you can do to call for her killing to be treated as a wildlife crime, PETA India tweeted. Disapproving Avnis elimination, Aditya Thackeray posed a series of questions to Maharashtra Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and demanded to know as to why the forest department had not focussed on capturing the tigress and re-locating it, instead of killing it. Maintaining that the Government officials and the forest ministry are supposed to protect animals and forests from these poachers, not get inspired by them, Aditya demanded to know: Why couldnt this expert blood thirsty hunter dart the tigress and tranquilise her?, he wanted to know from the State Government. As a family of wildlife lovers and conservationists, we had been coordinating internally to stop this hunt. The tigress couldve been easily tranquilised and relocated. We didnt speak publicly so as to not make it political or personal.., the Sena leader said. Delhis iconic Signature Bridge was inaugurated by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday. The eight-lane carriageway would reduce the travel time between North and North-East Delhi by 35 minutes. However, the grand ceremony to open the much-awaited bridge was marred by the presence of Manoj Tiwari, the Member of Parliament (MP) from North-East Delhi and Delhi BJPs president. Tiwari arrived at the venue along with his supporters who later clashed with the supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The unsavoury situation was salvaged by the Delhi Police personnel who ensured that nothing untoward happened. Congratulating Delhiites on the occasion, Kejriwal said that this wonderful achievement will attract the people, specially the tourists. Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia cut the ribbon and unveiled the plaque at the entry. Four days ago, the 182-metre tallest statue of the world was unveiled and today this 154-metre high bridge is being inaugurated. The country has to decide if it needs statues and temples or bridges, schools and hospitals, Kejriwal said while inaugurating the bridge. He said the thought of the Signature Bridge reminded him of the first Prime Minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru. If Nehru had chosen to build temples and statues instead of institutions like BHEL and SAIL, then the country would not have progressed. The country would languish in 15th century if temples and mosques are given preferences over science, technology and research, Kejriwal added. He alleged that in order to stop his Government from completing the bridge, the officials and engineers were issued threats of CBI raids against them. The Signature Bridge has been completed only because there is an honest Government in Delhi, Kejriwal asserted. Sisodia also alleged that obstacles were raised by the Modi Government so that the Signature Bridge was not completed during the rule of AAP Government in Delhi. Had Modi Government contributed one inch to this bridge, I would myself have chanted Modi-Modi like those who are showing black flags, he said, referring to the BJP supporters who were camped nearby along with Manoj Tiwari. In a direct attack on Tiwari, Sisodia said if he was so fond of going to inaugurals then he should work constructively. Sisodia spoke of the hurdles faced by the Government time and again in completing the construction of the bridge. The Signature Bridge as the new landmark of New Delhi will connect Wazirabad across the river Yamuna to the inner city. The western and eastern approaches to the bridge will connect the nearby areas like Timarpur, Nehru Vihar, Wazirabad, Aruna Nagar, Mukherjee Nagar on Ring Road to Bhajanpura on Mangal Pandey Marg. The distance between the two ends of the bridge will be reduced from 45 minutes to just 10 minutes, reducing pollution, travel time and fuel consumption, a Delhi Government spokesperson said. The approaches on eastern side (1.8 km long) and western side (1.5 km long flyover on Outer Ring Road) of the bridge as well as a dedicated cycle track had been completed long back and have already been opened to traffic in phases, the spokesperson said. He further said that the components of overall project that are independent of bridge are already in use by the public. The main bridge (cable-stayed) over river Yamuna is also completed now to take the traffic, he added. The official said that it is the first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge in India and will offer a panoramic view of the city. Four elevators will take a total of 50 people to the top of the bridge. It will have designated spots for selfie-crazy Delhiites. The elevators area likely to be operational in two months, he said. The boomerang-shaped pylon consists of two inclined columns which are rigidly connected to the driving lanes and bend mid-way. The upper portion of the pylon anchors the backstay cables as well as the main-span cables, arranged in a harp like manner. The top of the pylon is created by a 22 m high steel-glass structure, which will provide a panoramic view of Delhi. The proposal was first mooted in 2004 and received approval of the Delhi Cabinet in 2007. It was initially expected to be completed at a modified estimate of Rs 1,131 crore for the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi in October 2010. Delhi Vidhan Sabha Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, Satyendar Jain, Gopal Rai, Imran Hussain, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Member of Parliament SK Gupta, ND Gupta and other senior officers were also present on this occasion. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders and workers staged a protest near the BJP headquarters on Sunday demanding action against South Delhi legislator Ramesh Bidhuri for allegedly assaulting and misbehaving with people from the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh during a Run for Unity event. The protestors tried to march from the AAP office on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg towards the BJP headquarters on the same lane, but were stopped by the police. Bidhuri, a Bharatiya Janata Party MP, and his supporters have been accused of assaulting and misbehaving with party worker Chandan Chaudhary and others during the event held in Sangam Vihar to commemorate the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on October 31. The AAP workers raised slogans against Bidhuri demanding that the BJP take action against him. Bidhuri has insulted Purvanchalis. BJP will be taught a lesson by them in 2019 election, said Dilip Pandey, a senior leader and Purvanchali face of the AAP. Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari Friday issued a show-cause notice to Bidhuri in connection with the alleged incident. The MP has been given 10 days time to reply. Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Sunday said that a major IPH scheme worth Rs 27 crores has been posed for BRICS funding to cover 20 villages in Haroli assembly constituency of Una district and Una-Rampur-Haroli-Jialo road would also be sent for CRF funding for this constituency. The Chief Minister was addressing a public meeting at Palkwah in Haroli Assembly segment. He said that the Himachal Pradesh is fortunate to have benevolence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the state has succeeded in getting developmental projects worth Rs 9,000 crores sanctioned during a short tenure of about ten months. Not only this, the Centre provided helicopters to rescue 800 students from Holi in Chamba and people stranded in Lahaul valley due to untimely snowfall in the month of September, Thakur said. He said that the Opposition in the state is disintegrated and its leaders are busy in fighting the battle of supremacy within the party. On the other hand, the Central Government under the dynamic leadership of Narendra Modi is committed to make India a world power. Today, all the super powers of the world are acknowledging Narendra Modi as the world leader and India as a world power, Thakur said. The Union Government has also started Ayushman Bharat scheme under which free Insurance cover up to Rs 5 lakh is being provided to about 10 crore families of the country, he said. The Chief Minister further said that the Jan Manch programme of the State Government has proved a boon to the people for redressal of their grievances nearer to their homes. The State Government has provided around 30,000 free gas connections to poor families under Grihini Suvidha Yojana. He said that in order to provide self employment opportunities to the youth of the state, subsidy up to 30 per cent was being provided under Mukhiya Mantri Swablamban Yojna. Thakur also said that drug abuse is emerging as a biggest social problem which needed to the curbed immediately. He urged the parents and teachers to keep watch on abnormal behaviour of the children. A de-addiction centre would be opened in Haroli Vidhan Sabha area, he announced. The Chief Minister said that today, developmental projects worth over Rs. 83 crore were dedicated in Haroli assembly segment y. He announced Rs 8.67 crore for construction of Pranav-Balibal-Pubowal road, Rs 3.15 crore for Lalri-Kangrath road, Rs 6.87 crore for Tahliwal-Beetan-Singha road, Rs one crore for construction of bridge over Chandipur Khad and Rs one crore as additional amount for construction of Senior Secondary School Palkwah building. He also announced opening of PHC at Saloh. The Chief Minister said that four drinking water schemes worth Rs.10 crore would also be posed for funding to ADB to solve water problem of the area. Earlier, Thakur laid foundation stone of upgradation work of Gurplah-Gondpur road up to Food Park to be completed at a cost of Rs 1.88 crore and 41.50 meter long box cell bridge over Bathri Khud on Tahliwal-Bathri road to be constructed at a cost of Rs 1.53 crore. . The Chief Minister inaugurated the newly constructed 773.30 meter high level bridge over Swan river on Rampur-Haroli road constructed at a cost of Rs 33 crore. Speaking on the occasion, state BJP chief Satpal Satti said that the ten months tenure of the State Government has witnessed unprecedented development in all the spheres without any discrimination. The government has also ensured that works on all the developmental projects sanctioned by the Centre get started. All the households were being provided free gas connection and as many as one lakh free gas connections would be provided to make Himachal Pradesh as the first state with smoke-free kitchens, he added. While delivering the valedictory address at the Gyan Kumbh at which ended here on Sunday, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath invoked the Ram Mandir issue and said that the people would soon receive some good news about the long-awaited construction of the temple in Ayodhya. He urged every Indian to light an earthen lamp on Diwali, praying for the construction of the temple. He said he would visit Ayodhya on November 6 for the Deepotsav. Kumbh means congregation for a spiritual purpose. This is a gift of India to the world. Gyan Kumbh means sifting the true from the false education and take it to the people, he said. Stressing on the Indian traditions, the UP CM said that education as envisaged by ancient India helps the students free themselves. But the present education system is leaving them slaves, he said. Without naming JNU, he said that there is a university where Ravana is glorified whereas every Indian celebrates the victory of truth over evil. Dwelling on the greatness of the Indian culture, he said, We should be proud of the knowledge our great ancestors bequeathed to us. We should not get away from our culture and tradition. India had given the world the knowledge of the laws of motion, the value of zero, decimal centuries ago. We must link our culture and knowledge to our curriculum in some form, he said. He said that it was the Indian mathematicians and scientists who enlightened the world on science and mathematics in the past. But others were later credited with them, he said. He asserted that the world must look to India for the ultimate knowledge. We must prepare ourselves for the consummation and to make it possible, the education system here must be revamped. However, it is wrong to look to the Government alone only for the change, he said. Eminent principal consultant, Gynae Oncology, Dr Kanika Gupta, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Delhi, today expressed the hope that the day is not far off when Jharkhand could soon become the first cervical cancer free State in the country. Winding up her two-day visit to Koderma and Ranchi on November 3 and 4, respectively, where she trained gynaecologists of eight districts of Jharkhand over two mega Women's Health Camps cum Free Cervical Cancer Detection camps, Dr Gupta said, I am overwhelmed at the inroads made by Dr. Bharti Kashyap, Chairperson, Women Doctors' Wing, Indian Medical Association, Jharkhand Chapter and the massive support extended by the state government and other agencies in ensuring high tech health care delivery at the doorsteps of the people particularly in the far flung and rural areas to ensure better health of women. Treatment of Cervical Cancer at Delhi costs around Rs 3.5 lakhs to Rs 5 Lakhs, by rough estimates. Equipping all state run health care centres with Colposcope and Cryo Machines would go a long way in ensuring better and health lives for the women in Jharkhand, particularly rural women, Dr. Gupta suggested. Achieving the goal of a Cervical Cancer Free State will take some time, Health Minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi conceded. However, he said that a big beginning has already been made in Jharkhand, under the aegis of Women Doctors' Wing with the State government equipping Sadar Hospitals at Santhal Pargana and Palamau districts with Colposcope and Cryo Machines. Further impetus was granted by the donation of a Colposcope and Cryo Machine to the Koderma Sadar Hospital by Dr. Ravindra Rai on November 3 and another donation of a digital Colposcope and Cryo Machine being made today, by Dr. Bharti Kashyap, eminent ophthalmologist and chairperson, Women's Doctors Wing, IMA, Jharkhand, to the Sadar Hospital at Ranchi, he added. Talking to newsmen after donating a digital Colposcope and Cryo Machine to Ranchi Sadar Hospital, today, Dr. Bharti Kashyap, said, In Jharkhand, we are pursuing an important dream of making women's lives, more healthy lives. Early marriages, lack of information of basic health practices, hygiene, unsafe sex, unequal social standing increases health risks for women, particularly rural women. Through these many Mega Women's Health Camps, Free Cervical Cancer Detection and Anemia Detection Camps, we are educating women on how a female body works, the need to maintain good health and personal hygiene, so that women can take better control of their own lives". Dr. Kashyap said that they were in the process of creating a pool of trained manpower to enable the State health department to attain its goal of a cervical cancer free state, within a fixed time frame. At all Mega Women's Health Camps including the twin camps at Koderma and Ranchi on November 3 and 4, 2018 respectively, experts from Chittaranjan Cancer Institute, Kolkata and Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre and Max Hospital New Delhi are continuously imparting training to all women doctors employed with the state health services on use of Cryo Machines and Colposcope for early detection and cure of cervical cancer since 2015 Dr Kashyap said. Impact of the cervical cancer eradication campaign in Jharkhand by women doctors wing is such path breaking that six Sadar Hospitals of remote area of Santhal Pargana and Sadar Hospitals of Koderma and Ranchi have been equipped and two more Sadar Hospitals in Giridih and Hazaribagh are in process of getting equipped with cervical pre cancer detection and treatment equipments. At the Mega Women Health Camp at Koderma, on November 3, 554 women were screened of which 12 women were diagnosed and treated at camp site with cervical pre cancer.At Ranchi, of the 300 women screened, 4 women were diagnosed and treated for pre cervical cancer whilst in both the camps 60 percent, were found to be diagnosed with infection of their reproductive organs, who were given Dr.Kashyap revealed. Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Sunday again warned the potential of revival of insurgency in Punjab while asking the people to remain alert on this front. He even mentioned Mission-2020 started by the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a Khalistan-supporter organisation. General Rawat, who was presiding over the annual founders day function at PPS Nabha, said that the possibility of the terrorist attacks are everywhere in India, but Punjab is more venerable keeping in view the past history and continuously busting of the terror modules by Punjab Police in the recent past. He said that the Army and its intelligence wing were keeping in touch with the state police and central security agencies to tackle terrorism. A day before while speaking at a seminar, General Rawat had specially had cautioned the security agencies to take preventive steps to check revival of militancy in Punjab, while maintaining that otherwise, itll be too late. Police busted an illegal firecracker manufacturing unit and seized as many as 11 crackers-laden tractors during a raid in the Jagatpur area here on Saturday night ahead of Diwali celebrations. However, tension sparked after several villages, including Trilochanpur and adjoining it under the Jagatpur police limits were sealed by the police for allegedly running unlicensed firecrackers units. The local administration deployed sevenplatoons of police forces to bring the situation under control. Notably, police started busting the illegal firecrackers units after several cracker explosion incidents were reported from across the State. Recently, a woman died while preparing firecrackers in the Balipatna area on outskirts of Bhubaneswar. Similarly, a woman teacher was seriously wounded after firecrackers exploded at her residence in Rayagada. The lawyers of undivided Koraput district convened a meeting here on Sunday demanding a permanent Bench of the Orissa High Court. The executive members of all Bar Associations of undivided Koraput district participating in the meeting expressed their desire to intensify their strike to build a pressure on the Central as well as the State Government to achieve their goal. Justifying the demand for the HC bench in undivided Koraput district, Jeypore Bar Association president and steering committee president Biresh Patnaik said: Koraput district fulfils all the criteria laid by the Jaswant Singh Commission for establishment of a permanent Bench of the Orissa High Court. The district is located more than 550km away from the High Court in Cuttack, besides being a tribal-dominated district. We have been demanding for the HC bench for long. But, both the Central and the State Governments have been deliberately ignoring our demand, he added. Umarkote Bar Association president Prasant Kumar Sahu said that majority of people in undivided Koraput district live below the poverty line, and are unable to bear the cost to go far way Cuttack to pursue legal matters. Senior lawyer of Umarkote Bar Jaydeb Parida exhorted to invite all associations of the undivided Koraput district and general public to extend their support. We will resort to economic blockade if our demand is not fulfilled, said Prasant Tripathy of the Jeypore Bar. In order to make the city roads safe and secure for the women of the national Capital during the night hours, the Public Works Department (PWD) along with all the civic agencies has undertaken a project on a war footing to illuminate the dark spots across the city. Around 3,225 electricity poles have been installed, 6,065 street light fittings have been augmented and 5,477 number of lights have started functioning under the jurisdiction of the North Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) through PWD. The PWD along with three municipal corporations, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) conducted a survey in the past months to identify the number of dark spots in their respected jurisdictions. These dark spots were a cause of concern and we have been bringing it to the notice of the civic agencies to ensure proper lighting after evening hours. These stretches were also crime prone and despite beat patrol many incidents had happened. With better lighting, the job of law enforcing agencies becomes easier, a senior official of Delhi Police said. The project is part of the Delhi Lieutenant Governors (LG), Anil Baijals ambitious and major Women safety program. Under which the PWD and the urban development department of Delhi were given tasks and asked to take action points to ensure good lighting and eradicate all the dark spots across the city to create a safer environment for the women. PWD fixed the dark spots on roads within their jurisdictions as well as in the North and East Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), NDMC and DDA took up the work within their areas at their own level. Further, PWD have also done street lights fitting for illumination of dark spots, said a PWD official. However, as of now the illumination of dark spots has been done only by the North DMC. Further, the North MCD has also identified three stretches such as Lok Nayak Puram to Hira Kudna Road, Tikri extension behind 220 KV grid pole location MDKZC/ 86-87 near the main road temple and Baba Hari das colony on Tikri Border which belongs to the SDMC. The places also need illumination of dark spots and street lights, added the official. Further, witnessing a number of complaints from the commuters and the people about the non-functioning of street lights, the Engineer-in-chief (E and C) of PWD, Puneet Kumar Vats directed its officials to conduct a daily spot inspection of street lights during the night hours between 9 pm to 10 pm. The maintenance vans attached to with various field units should inspect the roads at night between 9 pm to 10 pm on the spot inspection. A check list should also be prepared signed by the concerned person indicating the proper functioning of street lights, said the PWD chief engineer in a recent meeting. The PWD chief further asked the chief engineers of the maintenance zones to ensure that necessary actions are passed to field units and target is achieved. RThis Diwali, the earthen diyas would light houses of the artisans who are now engaged in presenting them in a modern form. Nicely coloured, decorated, packed in attractive boxes, these diyas made by the artisans from Imlikheda village near Roorkee have started getting orders from the corporate houses under the State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation Uttarakhand Limited Haridwar. Inspired by Uttarakhand art Aipan, the general manager of the District Industries Centre has empowered some poor women artisans by teaching them the art of designing, packaging and marketing. Under the aegis of Uttarakhand Handloom and Handicraft Development Council, this initiative has been taken. Chandrakiran, a young girl from Imlikheda village, had never been out of her house to explore the commercial markets of Delhi. From a nondescript village, Imlikheda-nearly 25 kms away from Haridwar city-she had spent her life on the potters wheel. For the first time ahead of this Diwali, she reached Chandni Chowk in Delhi to learn and also to do festival shopping. Attractively packaged earthen lamps made by Chandrakiran and others of the village have started fetching orders from the corporate houses. Chandrakiran said, "We have been taught the art of presenting the traditional diyas in new forms in tune with the present industry trends. We were skilled in the craft, but now we have adopted the latest designs popular in the market. These earthen lamps are eco-friendly and eye catchy too." Sadhna, Lucy and many others from 40 families of Kumhars received training held under the guidance of the District Industries Centre Haridwar. Sadhna, 24, who runs a self-help group in Imlikheda had taken some girls to the two-day training where they learnt the art of new-making the traditional earthen diyas and came back, beaming with confidence. Now they are confident enough to take on the demands of the corporate world. Anjani Rawat Negi, general manager, District Industries Centre, said, Earlier, the artisans used the traditional system of producing diyas from the wooden wheels which fetched them no value addition. To promote Mati Kala (art of pottery), electric potters wheels were given them a few years ago. Besides, we trained them on potting a novel type of diyas with two layers. This has helped them to transform the traditional into the modern, she said. It took us nearly three months to get the final output of finely packaged diyas with a message printed on the box. A visit to Delhi markets was arranged and the young girls learnt about the modern techniques of decor. Over 10,000 diyas are ready for this Diwali and by selling them, the artisans would receive good returns of their labour. We would also try to get advanced technology equipments for drying in future, Rawat added. Another artisan Lucy from Imlikheda village said, For the first time, we would get true reward for our labour when these earthen lamps reach the industrialists homes in SIIDCUL. We all are waiting to celebrate this Diwali with the gaiety which eluded us because of our poverty. The District Magistrate Haridwar Deepak Rawat who supported the project was elated over the diya boxes stockpiled, ready for dispatch while he visited the village. He urged the young girls to march on with confidence. "This is in line with Make in India concept of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Besides, such diyas are eco-friendly," he added. What is the most heartening is the fact that the venture has revived the vanishing traditional Aipan art. It is once again taking the fancy of the people. Aipan or Alpana as it is commonly called is a popular art form of Kumaon and is used to paint walls, clothes with geometrical designs and some pictures of gods and goddesses. It has an exalted place in the Kumaoni homes, tradition and culture, Anjani Rawat Negi said while talking to The Pioneer and added that Aipan is derived from the Hindi word Arpan and the raw material is simple Geru (ochre) colour and rice paste. Taking serious note of the alleged stripping of girls after the discovery of a sanitary pad in a toilet, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday ordered the transfer of two teachers of a Fazilka government school pending inquiry. The Chief Minister has also directed Secretary Education Krishan Kumar to complete the investigation into the incident by Monday and take further action as necessary. The incident was brought to the notice of Capt Amarinder Singh after a video showed girl students of Government Girls School, Village Kundal, Fazilka district, crying and complaining that they had been stripped by the teachers in the school premises. The teachers were reportedly trying to find out which of the girls was wearing a sanitary pad, after one was found in the school toilet. Instead of educating the girls about proper disposal of the pads, the teachers decided to strip them, the Chief Minister was informed, prompting him to issue prompt and stringent orders for immediate action. The District Education Officer was asked to visit the school and, on questioning the students and their parents, found prima facie evidence of the involvement of the two teachers. Based on this, the Chief Minister asked the Education Secretary to immediately issue orders transferring the teachers out of the school on administrative grounds. Further disciplinary action, as per conduct rules, will be taken once the formal report is received after recording the statement of the students. said an official spokesperson, adding that the Chief Minister had asked the Education Secretary to personally monitor the investigation and update him with the final inquiry report on Monday. Crackers are an inseparable part of Diwali celebrations. But several city-based organisations seemed to be aware about its negative effects are promoting eco-friendly Diwali this time. Taking the lead organisations like Punjabi Samaj and educational cradles like Xavier School of Management ( XLRI), and National Institute of Technology-Adityapur have given a call for safe Diwali. Punjabi Samaj, an apex body of Punjabi community in the city, has decided to celebrate cracker less Diwali. Led by its president Gian Taneja, the organisation has not only called for cracker less Diwali but also promoting the use of earthen Diyas and not imported Chinese lights. There is also an increasing concern over environmental pollution and the safety issues involved in making and bursting fire crackers. On the day of Diwali and the following days, the particulate matter in the atmosphere is at its pinnacle that can attribute to serious health issues. So under the banner of Punjabi Samaj we have decided to celebrate eco-friendly Diwali, said Gian Taneja, a prominent businessman of Jamshedpur. "Crackers cause pollution. Not only it harms the environment but also patients who have asthma. So, we will not burst crackers, noted the president.Meanwhile, schools like Greenfield at Sonari are also educating children to shun use of crackers. "Children cannot be away from crackers. So, we have decided to organise Diyotsav to at least tell them to use sound less crackers. On that day, students, parents and teachers will participate to tie Diwali Suraksha bandhan (like a friendship band) to their fellow students, teachers and guests," said Ekta Agarwal, Principal, Greenfield School. City-based philanthropist Divya Taneja is also organising a Diwali Mela at Kalimati banquet hall, Supercentre in Sakchi. The three-day mela that kicked-off on Friday (November 2) is also using the platform to promote the concept of noiseless Diwali. We have various stalls on Diwali related products but we are also using the platform to spread awareness in the society. Much also depends on peoples mindset and attitude. Instead of lamps made of non-recyclable plastic and cost heavy on power consumption, people can choose to light the earthen lamps. These can be recycled, are cost-effective and add a dash of natural beauty to the decorations. The option of switching on lights may seem appealing and hassle free. We want people to gather at a common place and celebrate Diwali with lamps and not with crackers, which make a loud noise. Our other objective is to promote the message of being social responsible, said Divya Taneja. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has asked the Zimbabwean companies to take advantage of the current high growth trajectory of the Indian economy, saying the business environment in the country is changing for the better. Addressing the India-Zimbabwe Business Forum meeting Saturday, Naidu said India and Zimbabwe have shared very cordial and warm relationship that dates back to the 17th century when they were trading in metals, minerals and textiles. However, the economic ties between the two nations have not fully reflected their immense potential. The bilateral trade between the two nations stands at just over USD 230 million and investment at USD 500 million, which is "far below the potential". "There are natural synergies and complementarities between the two economies and we need to tap them for our mutual benefit. Zimbabwean companies can take advantage of the current high growth trajectory of the Indian economy," Naidu said. He said India, one of the fastest growing major economies in the world, is on course to become a 5 trillion economy by 2025. The country has recently become the 6th largest economy in the world with a GDP of USD 2.6 trillion, he added. "Indian companies could form partnerships in Zimbabwe both for the domestic economy and for the wider Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa(COMESA)," Naidu said. The Vice President said the key areas with potential for two-way trade and investment engagement include mining, equipment manufacture, information and communication technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food processing, auto components, medical devices, defence production, infrastructure and tourism sectors. Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector is key to India's economy. As Zimbabwe's economy is also largely based on SME sector, it can benefit from India's experience, he said. Inviting Zimbabwe companies to set up their business in India, Naidu quoted the World Bank's 'Doing Business 2019' report which said that India, which advanced to 77th place in the global ranking, is now the region's top-ranked economy. "Starting a business was made easier through consolidation of multiple application forms and introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (GST)," the report stated. "India is changing rapidly. The business environment is changing for the better. The archaic regulations are being dismantled. Seamless processes are being introduced," Naidu said. "I hope today's Business Forum will be a major step forward to expand our economic ties and establish new ventures that will build on our strengths and answer our needs," he added. Later in the evening, Naidu laid a wreath at the National Heroes Acre, a memorial housing the remains of those people who sacrificed their lives in Zimbabwe's struggle for independence. Naidu is in Zimbabwe here as part of his six-day three-nation tour to Africa, aimed at deepening India's strategic cooperation with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Tourism hotspots like Peru, UK and New Zealand are facing the brunt of climate change and are beginning to take cognizance of its effect on the natural habitat and temperatures in their surroundings In an attempt to protect the coral reefs that divers so admire they have dubbed them the underwater Serengeti, the Pacific nation of Palau will soon ban many types of sunscreen. President Tommy Remengesau Jr. last week signed legislation that bans reef-toxic sunscreen from 2020. Banned sunscreens will be confiscated from tourists who carry them into the country, and merchants selling the banned products will be fined up to $1,000. Remengesau said in a statement that the penalties find the right balance between educating tourists and scaring them away. The law defines reef-toxic sunscreen as containing any one of 10 chemicals, including oxybenzone, and states that other chemicals may also be banned. The legislation also requires tour operators to start providing customers with reusable cups, straws and food containers. Remengesau said a big impetus for the ban was a 2017 report which found that sunscreen products were widespread in Palaus famed Jellyfish Lake, which was closed for more than a year due to declining jellyfish numbers before being recently reopened. The president noted legislative findings that plastic waste, chemical pollution, resource overconsumption, and climate change all continue to threaten the health of our pristine paradise. Palaus ban comes after Hawaii in July banned the sale of sunscreen containing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate from 2021 in an attempt to protect its reefs. In Hawaii, however, tourists will still be able to bring the banned sunscreen with them into the state or buy it there if they have a doctor's prescription. Scientists have found that some chemicals in sunscreen can be toxic to coral reefs, which are a vital part of the ocean ecosystem as well as a popular draw for tourists. But some critics say there arent enough independent scientific studies on the issue while others worry that people will suffer from too much sun exposure if they stop using the products. Some manufacturers, meanwhile, have already started selling reef-friendly sunscreen. Palau, located east of the Philippines and north of Indonesia, is home to 21,000 people and has an economy that relies on tourism and fishing. It has a compact of free association with the US. The following companies are subsidiares of Banco Santander: 2 & 3 Triton Limited, A & L CF (Guernsey) Limited (f), A & L CF June (2) Limited, A & L CF June (3) Limited, A & L CF March (5) Limited, A & L CF September (4) Limited, AFB SAM Holdings S.L., ALIL Services Limited (b), AN (123) Limited, ANITCO Limited, Abbey Business Services (India) Private Limited, Abbey Covered Bonds (LM) Limited, Abbey National, Abbey National Beta Investments Limited, Abbey National Business Office Equipment Leasing Limited, Abbey National International Limited, Abbey National Nominees Limited, Abbey National PLP (UK) Limited, Abbey National Property Investments, Abbey National Treasury Services Investments Limited, Abbey National Treasury Services Overseas Holdings, Abbey National UK Investments, Abbey Stockbrokers (Nominees) Limited, Abbey Stockbrokers Limited, Ablasa Participaciones S.L., Administracion de Bancos Latinoamericanos Santander S.L., Aduro S.A., Aevis Europa S.L., Afisa S.A., Albert., Aljardi SGPS Lda., Alliance & Leicester, Alliance & Leicester Cash Solutions Limited, Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank Limited, Alliance & Leicester Investments (Derivatives) Limited, Alliance & Leicester Investments (No.2) Limited, Alliance & Leicester Investments Limited, Alliance & Leicester Limited, Alliance & Leicester Personal Finance Limited, Altamira Santander Real Estate S.A., Alternative Leasing FIL, Amazonia Trade Limited, Amherst Pierpont, Andaluza de Inversiones S.A., Aquanima Brasil Ltda., Aquanima Chile S.A., Aquanima Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Aquanima S.A., Arcaz - Sociedade Imobiliaria Portuguesa Lda., Argenline S.A. (b), Asto Digital Limited, Athena Corporation Limited, Atual - Fundo de Invest Multimercado Credito Privado Investimento no Exterior, Atual Servicos de Recuperacao de Creditos e Meios Digitais S.A., Autodescuento S.L., Autohaus24 GmbH, Auttar HUT Processamento de Dados Ltda., Aviacion Antares A.I.E., Aviacion Britanica A.I.E., Aviacion Centaurus A.I.E., Aviacion Comillas S.L. Unipersonal, Aviacion Intercontinental A.I.E., Aviacion Laredo S.L., Aviacion Oyambre S.L. Unipersonal, Aviacion Real A.I.E., Aviacion Santillana S.L., Aviacion Suances S.L., Aviacion Triton A.I.E., Aymore Credito Financiamento e Investimento S.A., BEN Beneficios e Servicos S.A., BRS Investments S.A., BZW Bank, Banca PSA Italia S.p.A., Banco Bandepe S.A., Banco Madesant - Sociedade Unipessoal S.A., Banco PSA Finance Brasil S.A., Banco Popular, Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A., Banco Santander (Mexico) S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico como Fiduciaria del Fideicomiso 100740, Banco Santander (Mexico) S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico como Fiduciaria del Fideicomiso 2002114, Banco Santander (Mexico) S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico como Fiduciaria del Fideicomiso GFSSLPT, Banco Santander - Chile, Banco Santander Consumer Portugal S.A., Banco Santander International, Banco Santander International SA, Banco Santander Mexico S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Banco Santander Peru S.A., Banco Santander Rio S.A., Banco Santander S.A., Banco Santander Totta S.A., Banco Santander de Negocios Colombia S.A., Banco de Albacete S.A., Bansa Santander S.A., CCAP Auto Lease Ltd., Canyon Multifamily Impact Fund IV LLC, Capital Street Delaware LP, Capital Street Holdings LLC, Capital Street REIT Holdings LLC, Capital Street S.A., Carfax (Guernsey) Limited (f), Carfinco Financial Group, Carfinco Financial Group Inc., Carfinco Inc., Casa de Bolsa Santander S.A. de C.V. Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Cater Allen Holdings Limited, Cater Allen International Limited, Cater Allen Limited, Cater Allen Lloyd's Holdings Limited, Cater Allen Syndicate Management Limited, Centro de Capacitacion Santander A.C., Certidesa S.L., Chrysler Capital Auto Funding I LLC, Chrysler Capital Auto Funding II LLC, Chrysler Capital Auto Receivables LLC, Chrysler Capital Master Auto Receivables Funding 2 LLC, Chrysler Capital Master Auto Receivables Funding 4 LLC, Chrysler Capital Master Auto Receivables Funding LLC, Cobranza Amigable S.A.P.I. de C.V., Community Development and Affordable Housing Fund LLC (g), Compagnie Generale de Credit Aux Particuliers - Credipar S.A., Compagnie Pour la Location de Vehicules - CLV, Comunidad Laboral Trabajando Argentina S.A., Comunidad Laboral Trabajando Iberica S.L. Unipersonal en liquidacion (b), Consulteam Consultores de Gestao Lda., Consumer Lending Receivables LLC, Crawfall S.A. (b), Cantabra de Inversiones S.A., Cantabro Catalana de Inversiones S.A., Darep Designated Activity Company, Decarome S.A.P.I. de C.V., Deva Capital Advisory Company S.L., Deva Capital Holding Company S.L., Deva Capital Investment Company S.L., Deva Capital Management Company S.L., Deva Capital Servicer Company S.L., Digital Procurement Holdings N.V., Diners Club Spain S.A., Direccion Estratega S.C., Dirgenfin S.L. en liquidacion (b), Ebury, El Corte Ingles, Elavon Mexico, Electrolyser S.A. de C.V., Entidad de Desarrollo a la Pequena y Micro Empresa Santander Consumo Peru S.A., Erestone S.A.S., Esfera Fidelidade S.A., Evidence Previdencia S.A., Financeira El Corte Ingles Portugal S.F.C. S.A., Financiera El Corte Ingles E.F.C. S.A., Finsantusa S.L. Unipersonal, First National Motor Business Limited, First National Motor Contracts Limited, First National Motor Facilities Limited, First National Motor Finance Limited, First National Motor Leasing Limited, First National Motor plc, First National Tricity Finance Limited, Fondos Santander S.A. Administradora de Fondos de Inversion (en liquidacion) (b), Fortensky Trading Ltd., Fosse Funding (No.1) Limited, Fosse Master Issuer plc, Fosse Trustee (UK) Limited, GTS El Centro Equity Holdings LLC, GTS El Centro Project Holdings LLC, Gamma Sociedade Financeira de Titularizacao de Creditos S.A., Gesban Mexico Servicios Administrativos Globales S.A. de C.V., Gesban Santander Servicios Profesionales Contables Limitada, Gesban Servicios Administrativos Globales S.L., Gesban UK Limited, Gestion de Instalaciones Fotovoltaicas S.L. Unipersonal, Gestion de Inversiones JILT S.A., Gestora de Procesos S.A. en liquidacion (b), Getnet Adquirencia e Servicos para Meios de Pagamento S.A., Global Vosgos S.L. Unipersonal, Grupo Empresarial Santander S.L., Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico S.A. de C.V., Grupo Financiero Santander SAB de CV, Guaranty Car S.A. Unipersonal, HQ Mobile Limited, Hispamer Renting S.A. Unipersonal, Holbah II Limited, Holbah Santander S.L. Unipersonal, Holmes Funding Limited, Holmes Master Issuer plc, Holmes Trustees Limited, Hyundai Capital Bank Europe GmbH, Iberica de Compras Corporativas S.L., Independence Community Bank Corp., Insurance Funding Solutions Limited, Interfinance Holanda B.V., Inversiones Capital Global S.A. Unipersonal, Inversiones Maritimas del Mediterraneo S.A., Isla de los Buques S.A., Klare Corredora de Seguros S.A., Landcompany 2020 S.L., Langton Funding (No.1) Limited, Langton Mortgages Trustee (UK) Limited, Langton Securities (2008-1) plc, Langton Securities (2010-1) PLC, Langton Securities (2010-2) PLC, Laparanza S.A., Liquidity Limited, Luri 1 S.A. en liquidacion (b) (e), Luri 6 S.A. Unipersonal, Master Red Europa S.L., Mata Alta S.L., Merciver S.L., Mercury TFS, Mercury Trade Finance Solutions S.A. de C.V., Mercury Trade Finance Solutions S.L., Mercury Trade Finance Solutions S.p.A., Moneybit S.L., Mortgage Engine Limited, Motor 2016-1 PLC, Motor 2017-1 PLC, Mouro Capital I LP, Multiplica SpA, NW Services CO., Naviera Mirambel S.L., Naviera Trans Gas A.I.E., Naviera Trans Iron S.L., Naviera Trans Ore A.I.E., Naviera Trans Wind S.L. (b), Naviera Transcantabrica S.L., Naviera Transchem S.L. Unipersonal, NeoAuto S.A.C., Norbest AS, Novimovest Fundo de Investimento Imobiliario, Open Bank Argentina S.A., Open Bank S.A., Open Digital Market S.L., Open Digital Services S.L., Operadora de Carteras Gamma S.A.P.I. de C.V., Optimal Investment Services SA, Optimal Multiadvisors Ireland Plc / Optimal Strategic US Equity Ireland Euro Fund, Optimal Multiadvisors Ireland Plc / Optimal Strategic US Equity Ireland US Dollar Fund, PBE Companies LLC, PECOH Limited, PI Distribuidora de Titulos e Valores Mobiliarios S.A., PSA Bank Deutschland GmbH, PSA Banque France, PSA Finance UK Limited, PSA Financial Services Nederland B.V., PSA Financial Services Spain E.F.C. S.A., PSA Renting Italia S.p.A., PagoFX Europe S.A., PagoFX HoldCo S.L., PagoFX UK Ltd, PagoNxt Merchant Solutions S.L., PagoNxt S.L., Parasant SA, Patagon.com, Pereda Gestion S.A., Pingham International S.A., Popular Spain Holding de Inversiones S.L.U., Portal Universia Argentina S.A., Portal Universia Portugal Prestacao de Servicos de Informatica S.A., Prime 16 Fundo de Investimentos Imobiliario, Punta Lima LLC, Punta Lima Wind Farm LLC, Retop S.A., Return Capital Servicos de Recuperacao de Creditos S.A., Return Gestao de Recursos S.A., Riobank International (Uruguay) SAIFE (b), Rojo Entretenimento S.A., SAM Asset Management S.A. de C.V. Sociedad Operadora de Fondos de Inversion, SAM Investment Holdings S.L., SAM UK Investment Holdings Limited (b), SANB Promotora de Vendas e Cobranca Ltda., SCF Eastside Locks GP Limited, SDMX Superdigital S.A. de C.V., SMPS Merchant Platform Solutions Mexico S.A de C.V, Sancap Investimentos e Participacoes S.A., Santander (CF Trustee Property Nominee) Limited, Santander (UK) Group Pension Schemes Trustees Limited, Santander Ahorro Inmobiliario 1 S.A., Santander Ahorro Inmobiliario 2 S.A., Santander Alternatives SICAV RAIF, Santander Asesorias Financieras Limitada, Santander Asset Finance (December) Limited, Santander Asset Finance plc, Santander Asset Management - S.G.O.I.C. S.A., Santander Asset Management Chile S.A., Santander Asset Management LLC, Santander Asset Management Luxembourg S.A., Santander Asset Management S.A. Administradora General de Fondos, Santander Asset Management S.A. S.G.I.I.C., Santander Asset Management UK Holdings Limited, Santander Asset Management UK Limited, Santander Back-Offices Globales Mayoristas S.A., Santander Banca de Inversion Colombia S.A.S., Santander Bank & Trust Ltd., Santander Bank National Association, Santander Bank Polska S.A., Santander Brasil Administradora de Consorcio Ltda., Santander Brasil Gestao de Recursos Ltda., Santander Brasil Tecnologia S.A., Santander Capital Desarrollo SGEIC S.A. Unipersonal, Santander Capital Structuring S.A. de C.V., Santander Capitalizacao S.A., Santander Cards Ireland Limited, Santander Cards Limited, Santander Cards UK Limited, Santander Chile Holding S.A., Santander Consulting (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Santander Consumer (UK) plc, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2013-B2 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2013-B3 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L3 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L4 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L5 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2019-B1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2019-L2 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2019-L3 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2020-B1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2020-L1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2020-L2 LLC, Santander Consumer Bank, Santander Consumer Bank AG, Santander Consumer Bank GmbH, Santander Consumer Bank S.A., Santander Consumer Bank S.p.A., Santander Consumer Banque S.A., Santander Consumer Credit Services Limited, Santander Consumer Finance Benelux B.V., Santander Consumer Finance Global Services S.L., Santander Consumer Finance Oy, Santander Consumer Finance S.A., Santander Consumer Finance Schweiz AG, Santander Consumer Financial Solutions Sp. z o.o., Santander Consumer Finanse Sp. z o.o. (b), Santander Consumer Holding Austria GmbH, Santander Consumer Holding GmbH, Santander Consumer International Puerto Rico LLC, Santander Consumer Leasing GmbH, Santander Consumer Mediacion Operador de Banca-Seguros Vinculado S.L., Santander Consumer Multirent Sp. z o.o., Santander Consumer Operations Services GmbH, Santander Consumer Receivables 10 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables 11 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables 3 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables 7 LLC, Santander Consumer Receivables Funding LLC, Santander Consumer Renting S.L., Santander Consumer S.A., Santander Consumer S.A.S., Santander Consumer Services GmbH, Santander Consumer Services S.A., Santander Consumer Technology Services GmbH, Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc., Santander Consumer USA Inc., Santander Consumo S.A. de C.V. S.O.F.O.M. E.R. Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Santander Corredora de Seguros Limitada, Santander Corredores de Bolsa Limitada, Santander Corretora de Cambio e Valores Mobiliarios S.A., Santander Corretora de Seguros Investimentos e Servicos S.A., Santander Customer Voice S.A., Santander Digital Assets S.L., Santander Drive Auto Receivables LLC, Santander Equity Investments Limited, Santander Espana Merchant Services Entidad de Pago S.L. Unipersonal, Santander Espana Servicios Legales y de Cumplimiento S.L., Santander Estates Limited, Santander F24 S.A., Santander Facility Management Espana S.L., Santander Factoring S.A., Santander Factoring Sp. z o.o., Santander Factoring y Confirming S.A. E.F.C., Santander Finance 2012-1 LLC, Santander Financial Exchanges Limited, Santander Financial Services Inc., Santander Financial Services plc, Santander Finanse Sp. z o.o., Santander Fintech Holdings S.L., Santander Fintech Limited, Santander Fundo de Investimento SBAC Referenciado di Credito Privado, Santander Gestion de Recaudacion y Cobranzas Ltda., Santander Global Consumer Finance Limited, Santander Global Facilities S.A. de C.V., Santander Global Facilities S.L., Santander Global Operations S.A., Santander Global Services S.A. (b), Santander Global Sport S.A., Santander Global Technology Brasil Ltda., Santander Global Technology Chile Limitada, Santander Global Technology S.L., Santander Global Trade Platform Solutions S.L., Santander Guarantee Company, Santander Holding Imobiliaria S.A., Santander Holding Internacional S.A., Santander Holdings USA Inc., Santander ISA Managers Limited, Santander Inclusion Financiera S.A. de C.V. S.O.F.O.M. E.R. Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Santander Insurance Agency U.S. LLC, Santander Insurance Services UK Limited, Santander Intermediacion Correduria de Seguros S.A., Santander International Products Plc. (d), Santander Inversiones S.A., Santander Investment Bank Limited, Santander Investment Chile Limitada, Santander Investment I S.A., Santander Investment S.A., Santander Investment Securities Inc., Santander Investments GP 1 S.a.r.l., Santander Inwestycje Sp. z o.o., Santander Lease S.A. E.F.C., Santander Leasing LLC, Santander Leasing S.A., Santander Leasing S.A. Arrendamento Mercantil, Santander Lending Limited, Santander Mediacion Operador de Banca-Seguros Vinculado S.A., Santander Merchant Platform Operations S.A. de C.V., Santander Merchant Platform Services S.A. de C.V., Santander Merchant Platform Solutions Mexico S.A. de C.V., Santander Merchant Platform Solutions S.A., Santander Merchant Platform Solutions Uruguay S.A., Santander Merchant Platform SolucoesTecnologicas Brasil Ltda., Santander Merchant S.A., Santander Mortgage Holdings Limited, Santander Paraty Qif PLC, Santander Pensiones S.A. E.G.F.P., Santander Pensoes - Sociedade Gestora de Fundos de Pensoes S.A., Santander Private Banking Gestion S.A. S.G.I.I.C., Santander Private Banking UK Limited, Santander Private Banking s.p.a. in Liquidazione (b), Santander Private Real Estate Advisory & Management S.A., Santander Private Real Estate Advisory S.A., Santander Real Estate S.A., Santander Retail Auto Lease Funding LLC, Santander Rio Asset Management Gerente de Fondos Comunes de Inversion S.A., Santander Rio Trust S.A., Santander Rio Valores S.A., Santander S.A. Sociedad Securitizadora, Santander Secretariat Services Limited, Santander Securities LLC, Santander Seguros y Reaseguros Compania Aseguradora S.A., Santander Servicios Corporativos S.A. de C.V., Santander Servicios Especializados S.A. de C.V., Santander Technology USA LLC, Santander Tecnologia e Inovacao Ltda., Santander Tecnologia Argentina S.A., Santander Tecnologia Espana S.L.U., Santander Tecnologia Mexico S.A. de C.V., Santander Totta SGPS S.A., Santander Totta Seguros Companhia de Seguros de Vida S.A., Santander Towarzystwo Funduszy Inwestycyjnych S.A., Santander Trade Services Limited, Santander UK Group Holdings plc, Santander UK Investments, Santander UK Operations Limited, Santander UK Plc, Santander UK Technology Limited, Santander Wealth Management International SA, Santander de Titulizacion S.G.F.T. S.A., Santusa Holding S.L., Services and Promotions Delaware Corp., Services and Promotions Miami LLC, Servicio de Alarmas Controladas por Ordenador S.A., Servicios de Cobranza Recuperacion y Seguimiento S.A. De C.V., Sheppards Moneybrokers Limited, Shiloh III Wind Project LLC, Sociedad Integral de Valoraciones Automatizadas S.A., Sociedad Operadora de Tarjetas de Pago Santander Getnet Chile S.A., Socur S.A., Sol Orchard Imperial 1 LLC, Solarlaser Limited, Sovereign Community Development Company, Sovereign Delaware Investment Corporation, Sovereign Lease Holdings LLC, Sovereign REIT Holdings Inc., Sovereign Spirit Limited (f), Sterrebeeck B.V., Suleyado 2003 S.L. Unipersonal, Summer Empreendimentos Ltda., Super Pagamentos e Administracao de Meios Eletronicos S.A., Superdigital Argentina S.A.U., Superdigital Colombia S.A.S., Superdigital Holding Company S.L., Superdigital Peru S.A.C., Suzuki Servicios Financieros S.L., Swesant SA, TIMFin S.p.A., TOPSAM S.A de C.V., Taxagest Sociedade Gestora de Participacoes Sociais S.A., Teatinos Siglo XXI Inversiones S.A., The Alliance & Leicester Corporation Limited, The Best Specialty Coffee S.L. Unipersonal, Time Retail Finance Limited (b), Tonopah Solar I LLC, Toque Fale Servicos de Telemarketing Ltda., Tornquist Asesores de Seguros S.A. (b), Totta (Ireland) PLC, Totta Urbe - Empresa de Administracao e Construcoes S.A., Trabajando.com Mexico S.A. de C.V. en liquidacion (b), Trabajando.com Peru S.A.C., Trans Rotor Limited (b), Transolver Finance EFC S.A., Tresmares Growth Fund Santander SCR S.A., Tresmares Santander Direct Lending SICC S.A., Tuttle and Son Limited, Universia Brasil S.A., Universia Chile S.A., Universia Colombia S.A.S., Universia Espana Red de Universidades S.A., Universia Holding S.L., Universia Mexico S.A. de C.V., Universia Peru S.A., Universia Uruguay S.A., Uro Property Holdings SOCIMI S.A., WIM Servicios Corporativos S.A. de C.V., WTW Shipping Designated Activity Company, Wallcesa S.A., Wave Holdco S.L., Waypoint Insurance Group Inc., and Wirecard (Technological Assets). 14 hours ago The Top 3 Large-Cap Stocks to Buy Under $100 Owning Quality Large-Cap Stocks Doesn't Have to Break The Bank There are certainly a lot of advantages associated with investing in large-cap stocks. These are companies with a market capitalization of over $10 billion and play a huge role in determining the overall direction and trend of the indexes. Read Article Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. engages in the operation of senior living communities. The firm manages independent living, assisted living and dementia-care communities and continuing care retirement centers. It operates through the following segments: Independent Living Assisted Living & Memory Care, CCRCs, Health Care Services and Management Services. The Independent Living segment is primarily designed for middle to upper income seniors who desire an upscale residential environment providing the highest quality of service. The Assisted Living & Memory Care segment offer housing and 24-hour assistance with ADLs to mid-acuity frail and elderly residents. The CCRCs segment offers a variety of living arrangements and services to accommodate all levels of physical ability and health. The Healthcare Services segment provides home health, hospice and outpatient therapy services, as well as education and wellness programs, to residents of many communities and to seniors living outside communities. The Management Services segment composes of communities operated by the company pursuant to management agreements. The company was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in Brentwood, TN. Read More Aurubis AG provides non-ferrous metals worldwide. It processes complex metal concentrates, scrap metals, and organic and inorganic metal-bearing recycling materials, and industrial residues to produce metals. The company produces continuous cast, directly cast, and oxygen-free copper rods, as well as various drawn products; a range of materials in round and square cross-sections, and various dimensions under the AURUBIS SHAPES brand; and copper-based architectural products and services for the building and construction industry, such as flat copper sheets, as well as prefabricated systems for facades, roofs, and rainwater systems. It also provides industrial rolled products, including connector strips, radiator strips, sheets, plates and circles, and pre-rolled strips; cathodes; bars and profiles comprising flat bars, round bars, segments, profiles, and hollow profiles; copper bars and profiles; precious metals consisting of gold and silver; and sulfuric acid, iron silicate, selenium, and lead. In addition, the company engages in the recycling of copper, precious metals, and other non-ferrous metals; and material recycling activity for copper. Further, it offers metals comprising tellurium metal, tellurium dioxide, selenium, lead-bismuth, and lead-antimony alloys. The company serves cable and wire, construction, machinery and plant engineering, transport, chemistry, and other industries. The company was formerly known as Norddeutsche Affinerie AG and changed its name to Aurubis AG in April 2009. Aurubis AG was founded in 1866 and is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. Read More American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. Fielmann Aktiengesellschaft engages in the investment in and operation of optical and hearing aid businesses. The company manufactures and sells visual aids and other optical products, including glasses, frames, lenses, sunglasses, contact lenses and accessories, and various merchandise, as well as hearing aids and accessories. As of December 31, 2020, it operated 870 stores, including 605 in Germany, 43 in Switzerland, 38 Austria, 3 in Luxembourg, 33 in Italy, 25 in Poland, 80 in Spain, 28 in Slovenia, and 15 in the rest of Europe. The company also 79 smaller locations in Eastern Europe. Fielmann Aktiengesellschaft also offers its products through online stores. The company was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. Fielmann Aktiengesellschaft is a subsidiary of Korva SE. Read More Just Group plc provides various financial services in the retirement income market in the United Kingdom. It offers de-risking solutions, guaranteed income for life, secure lifetime income, care plans, lifetime mortgages, and protection products. The company also provides professional services, including regulated financial advice and guidance services; and a range of business services, such as consultancy and software development, and outsourced customer service delivery and marketing services. In addition, it engages in writing of insurance products for distribution to the at- or in-retirement market, which is undertaken through the activities of the life company; and provision of licensed software to financial advisers, banks, building societies, life assurance companies, and pension trustees. Further, the company arranges guaranteed income for life contracts; and provides lifetime mortgages through advice and intermediary services. It offers its products and services to trustees and scheme sponsors, individuals, homeowners, and other corporate clients. The company was formerly known as JRP Group plc and changed its name to Just Group plc in May 2017. Just Group plc was founded in 2004 and is based in Reigate, the United Kingdom. Read More Nabors Industries Ltd. engages in the provision of platform work over and drilling rigs. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Drilling, Canada Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. The U.S. Drilling segment includes land drilling activities in the lower 48 states and Alaska, as well as offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The Canada segment consists of land-based drilling rigs in Canada. The International segment focuses in maintaining a footprint in the oil and gas market, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. The Drilling Solutions segment offers drilling technologies, such as patented steering systems and rig instrumentation software systems that enhance drilling performance and wellbore placement. The Rig Technologies segment comprises Canrig, which manufactures and sells top drives, catwalks, wrenches, drawworks, and drilling related equipment, such as robotic systems and downhole tools. The company was founded by Clair Nabors in 1952 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Read More Whitbread has been the subject of 7 research reports in the past 90 days, demonstrating strong analyst interest in this stock. According to analysts' consensus price target of GBX 3,715.56, Whitbread has a forecasted upside of 23.3% from its current price of GBX 3,013. Whitbread has received a consensus rating of Buy. The company's average rating score is 2.90, and is based on 9 buy ratings, 1 hold rating, and no sell ratings. 4.7 Community Rank Outperform Votes Whitbread has received 821 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Whitbread has received 346 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Whitbread has received 70.35% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Whitbread and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe WTB will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe WTB will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next Oshkosh Corp. engages in the design, manufacture, and market of specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies. It operates through the following segments: Access Equipment, Defense, Fire & Emergency, and Commercial. The Access Equipment segment consists of JerrDan and JLG, which manufactures aerial work platforms; and telehandlers that are used in construction, industrial, institutional, and general maintenance applications to position workers and materials at elevated heights. The Defense segment produces tactical wheeled vehicles; and supply parts and services for the United States military and other militaries around the world. The Fire and Emergency segment sells commercial and custom fire vehicles; simulators and emergency vehicles primarily for fire departments, airports and other governmental units; and broadcast vehicles for broadcasters and television stations. The Commercial segment includes McNeilus, CON-E-CO, London, Iowa Mold Tooling Co., Inc (IMT), and Oshkosh Commercial. The company was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Oshkosh, WI. Read More TelefAnica Deutschland Holding AG provides integrated telecommunication services to private and business customers in Germany. It offers voice, data, and value-added services in mobile and fixed line networks; access to infrastructure and services for its wholesale partners; and digital products and services in the fields of Internet of Things. The company provides its products and services through a network of independently operated franchise and premium partner shops, and online and telesales channels, as well as indirect selling channels, such as partnerships and co-operations with retailers. It markets its products and services under the O2, Blau, AY YILDIZ, Ortel Mobile, FONIC, netzclub, and TArkeiSIM brand names. As of December 31, 2020, TelefAnica Deutschland Holding AG had approximately 47 million customers. The company was formerly known as TelefAnica Germany Verwaltungs GmbH and changed its name to TelefAnica Deutschland Holding AG in September 2012. The company is based in Munich, Germany. TelefAnica Deutschland Holding AG is a subsidiary of Telefonica Germany Holdings Limited. Read More American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at contact@marketbeat.com | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. The following companies are subsidiares of SAP: Abakus, Abakus Europe Limited, Abakus Ukraine Limited Liability Company, Adatfeldolgozasban Informatikai Kft., Altiscale, Ambin Properties Proprietary Limited, AppGyver, Ariba, Ariba Czech s.r.o., Ariba Inc. Palo Alto, Ariba India Private Limited, Ariba International, Ariba International Holdings, Ariba International Singapore Pte Ltd, Ariba Slovak Republic s.r.o., Ariba Software Technology Services (Shanghai) Co., Ariba Technologies India Private Limited, Ariba Technologies Netherlands B.V., Beijing Zhang Zhong Hu Dong Information Technology, Business Objects, Business Objects Holding B.V., Business Objects Option LLC, Business Objects Software Limited, CNQR Operations Mexico S. de. R.L. de. C.V., Callidus Software, CallidusCloud, Christie Partners Holding C.V., Clear Standards, ClearTrip Inc., ClearTrip Inc. (Mauritius), Cleartrip MEA FZ LLC, Cleartrip Private Limited, Coghead, ConTgo Consulting Limited, ConTgo Pty. Ltd., Concur (Austria) GmbH, Concur (Canada), Concur (France) SAS, Concur (Germany) GmbH, Concur (Japan) Ltd., Concur (New Zealand) Limited, Concur (Philippines) Inc., Concur (Switzerland) GmbH, Concur Czech (s.r.o.), Concur Holdings (France) SAS, Concur Holdings (Netherlands) B.V., Concur Technologies (Australia) Pty. Limited, Concur Technologies (Hong Kong) Limited, Concur Technologies (India) Private Limited, Concur Technologies (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Concur Technologies (UK) Limited, Concur Technologies Inc. Bellevue, Contextor, Coresystems, Crystal Decisions (Ireland) Limited, Crystal Decisions Holdings Limited, Crystal Decisions UK Limited, Emarsys, EssCubed Procurement Pty. Ltd., Extended Systems, Factory Logic, Fedem Technology AS, Fieldglass Europe Limited, Financial Fusion, FreeMarkets Ltda., Frictionless Commerce, Gigya, Gigya Australia Pty Ltd, Gigya Ltd., Gigya UK Ltd, GlobalExpense Limited, Highdeal, Hipmunk, Hybris (US) Corp., Hybris GmbH, Inxight Federal Systems Group, KXEN, Khimetrics, LLC "SAP Labs", LLC "SAP Ukraine", LLC SAP CIS, MaXware, Merlin Systems Oy, Multiposting Sp.z o.o., Nihon Ariba K.K., OpTier, OutlookSoft, OutlookSoft Deutschland GmbH, PLAT.ONE, PT SAP Indonesia, PT Sybase 365 Indonesia, Pilot Software Inc., Plat.One Inc., Plat.One Lab Srl, Plateau Systems LLC, Quadrem Africa Pty. Ltd., Quadrem Brazil Ltda., Quadrem Chile Ltda., Quadrem Colombia SAS, Quadrem International Ltd., Quadrem Netherlands B.V., Quadrem Overseas Cooperatief U.A., Quadrem Peru S.A.C., Qualtrics, Recast.AI, Right Hemisphere, Roambi, Ruan Lian Technologies (Beijing) Co., SAF, SAP (Beijing) Software System Co., SAP (Schweiz) AG, SAP (Schweiz) AG Biel, SAP (UK) Limited, SAP (UK) Limited Feltham, SAP AZ LLC, SAP America, SAP America Inc. Newtown Square, SAP Andina y del Caribe, SAP Argentina S.A., SAP Asia (Vietnam) Co., SAP Asia Pte Ltd, SAP Australia Pty Ltd, SAP Australia Pty Ltd. Sydney, SAP Belgium NV/SA, SAP Beteiligungs GmbH, SAP Brasil Ltda, SAP Brasil Ltda Sao Paulo, SAP Bulgaria EOOD, SAP Business Compliance Services GmbH, SAP Business Services Center Nederland B.V., SAP CR, SAP Canada, SAP Chile Limitada, SAP China Co., SAP China Co. Ltd. Shanghai, SAP China Holding Co., SAP Colombia S.A.S., SAP Commercial Services Ltd., SAP Concur, SAP Costa Rica, SAP Customer Experience, SAP Cyprus Limited, SAP Danmark A/S, SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG, SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG Walldorf, SAP Dritte Beteiligungs- und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, SAP EMEA Inside Sales S.L., SAP East Africa Limited, SAP Egypt LLC, SAP Erste Beteiligungs- und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, SAP Espana - Sistemas Informatica, SAP Estonia OU, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Financial, SAP Finland Oy, SAP Foreign Holdings GmbH, SAP France, SAP France Holding, SAP France Levallois Perret, SAP Global Marketing, SAP Hellas S.A., SAP Holdings (UK) Limited, SAP Hong Kong Co., SAP Hosting Beteiligungs GmbH, SAP Hungary Rendszerek, SAP India (Holding) Pte Ltd, SAP India Private Limited, SAP India Private Limited Bangalore, SAP Industries, SAP Industries Inc. Newtown Square, SAP International, SAP International Panama, SAP Investments, SAP Ireland Limited, SAP Ireland US - Financial Services Designated Activity Company, SAP Israel Ltd., SAP Italia Sistemi Applicazioni Prodotti in Data Processing S.p.A., SAP Italia Sistemi Applicazioni Prodotti in Data Processing S.p.A. Vimercate, SAP Japan Co., SAP Japan Co. Ltd. Tokyo, SAP Kazakhstan LLP, SAP Korea Ltd., SAP Labs, SAP Labs Bulgaria EOOD, SAP Labs Finland Oy, SAP Labs France SAS, SAP Labs India Private Limited, SAP Labs Israel Ltd., SAP Labs Korea, SAP Latvia SIA, SAP MENA FZ L.L.C., SAP Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., SAP Malta Investments Ltd., SAP Mxico S.A. de C.V., SAP National Security Services PA, SAP Nederland B.V., SAP Nederland B.V. s-Hertogenbosch, SAP Service and Support Centre (Ireland) Limited, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP d.o.o., SeeWhy, Signavio, SuccessFactors, SuccessFactors Inc. South San Francisco, Sybase, Syclo, TopTier Software, Triversity, Vimercate, Virsa Systems, Visiprise, Wicom Communications, and conTgo limited. GlaxoSmithKline Plc is a healthcare company, which engages in the research, development, and manufacture of pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products. It operates through the following segments: Pharmaceuticals; Pharmaceuticals R&D; Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare. The Pharmaceuticals segment focuses on developing medicines in respiratory and infectious diseases, oncology, and immuno-inflammation. The Pharmaceuticals R&D segment focuses on science related to the immune system, the use of human genetics and advanced technologies, and is driven by the multiplier effect of Science x Technology x Culture. The Vaccines segment produces pediatric and adult vaccines to prevent a range of infectious diseases including, hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella, polio, typhoid, influenza, and bacterial meningitis. The Consumer Healthcare segment develops and markets brands in the oral health, pain relief, respiratory, nutrition and gastro intestinal, and skin health categories. The company was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Middlesex, the United Kingdom. Read More Baker Hughes, a GE company provides integrated oilfield products, services, and digital solutions worldwide. Its Oilfield Services segment offers drilling, wireline, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention services; and drilling and completions fluids, completions tools and systems, wellbore intervention tools and services, artificial lift systems, pressure pumping systems, and oilfield and industrial chemicals for integrated oil and natural gas, and oilfield service companies. The company's Oilfield Equipment segment designs and manufactures products and services, including pressure control equipment and services, subsea production systems and services, drilling equipment, and flexible pipeline systems; and onshore and offshore drilling and production systems, and equipment for floating production platforms, as well as provides a range of services related to onshore and offshore drilling activities. Its Turbomachinery & Process Solutions segment provides equipment and related services for mechanical-drive, compression, and power-generation applications across the oil and gas industry, as well as products and services to serve the downstream segments of industry. Its product portfolio includes drivers, compressors, and turnkey solutions; and pumps, valves, and compressed natural gas and small-scale liquefied natural gas solutions. This segment serves upstream, midstream, onshore and offshore, industrial, engineering, procurement, and construction companies. The company's Digital Solutions segment provides sensor-based measurement, non-destructive testing and inspection, turbine, generator and plant controls, and condition monitoring, as well as pipeline integrity solutions for a range of industries, including oil and gas, power generation, aerospace, metals, and transportation. It serves through direct and indirect channels. The company is based in Houston, Texas. Baker Hughes, a GE company is a subsidiary of General Electric Company. Read More Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 1,400 bank branches and 4,800 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Read More SendGrid, Inc. operates as a digital communication platform in the United States and internationally. Its cloud-based platform provides various tools to the businesses, including developers and marketers to reach their customers using an email. The company offers services, such as email application programming interface (API), which allow developers to use its API in their preferred development framework and to use its platform to add email functionality to their applications; marketing campaigns that allow marketers to upload and manage customer contact lists, create and test email templates, and execute and analyze email campaigns to engage customers; and expert services to help businesses optimize their email delivery. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in Denver, Colorado. Read More Chelverton Growth Trust PLC is a close-ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by Chelverton Asset Management Limited. It invests in the public equity markets of the United Kingdom. The fund seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors. It primarily invests in small-cap stocks of companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) with a market capitalization at the time of investment of up to $ 99 million. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the FTSE All Share Index. Chelverton Growth Trust PLC was formed on August 9, 2001 and is domiciled in the United Kingdom. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc.. Medtronic Plc is a medical technology company, which engages in the development, manufacture, distribution, and sale of device-based medical therapies and services. It operates through the following segments: Cardiac and Vascular Group; Minimally Invasive Technologies Group; Restorative Therapies Group; and Diabetes Group. The Cardiac and Vascular Group segment consists of products for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of cardiac rhythm disorders and cardiovascular disease. The Minimally Invasive Technologies Group segment focuses on respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, renal system, lungs, pelvic region, kidneys, and obesity diseases. The Restorative Therapies Group segment comprises of neurostimulation therapies and drug delivery systems for the treatment of chronic pain, as well as areas of the spine and brain, along with pelvic health and conditions of the ear, nose, and throat. The Diabetes Group segment offers insulin pumps, coninuous glucose monitoring systems, and insulin pump consumables. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Read More Royal Dutch Shell plc operates as an energy and petrochemical company worldwide. The company operates through Integrated Gas, Upstream, Oil Products, Chemicals segments. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids; markets and transports oil and gas; produces gas-to-liquids fuels and other products; and operates upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver gas to market. The company also markets and trades natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), crude oil, electricity, carbon-emission rights; and markets and sells LNG as a fuel for heavy-duty vehicles and marine vessels. In addition, it trades in and refines crude oil and other feed stocks, such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, marine fuel, biofuel, lubricants, bitumen, and sulphur; produces and sells petrochemicals for industrial use; and manages oil sands activities. Further, the company produces base chemicals comprising ethylene, propylene, and aromatics, as well as intermediate chemicals, such as styrene monomer, propylene oxide, solvents, detergent alcohols, ethylene oxide, and ethylene glycol. Royal Dutch Shell plc was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of CVS Health: @Credentials Inc., ACS ACQCO CORP., ADMINCO Inc., AE Fourteen Incorporated, AHP Holdings Inc., AMC - Tennessee LLC, APS Acquisition LLC, ASCO HealthCare LLC, ASI Wings LLC, AUSHC Holdings Inc., Accendo Insurance Company, Accordant Health Services L.L.C., Active Health Management Inc., Administrative Enterprises Inc., AdvancePCS SpecialtyRx LLC, AdvanceRx.com L.L.C., Advanced Care Scripts Inc., Aetna, Aetna (Beijing) Enterprise Management Services Co. Ltd., Aetna (Shanghai) Enterprise Services Co. Ltd., Aetna ACO Holdings Inc., Aetna Asset Advisors LLC, Aetna Behavioral Health LLC, Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health of California Inc., Aetna Better Health of Florida Inc., Aetna Better Health of Kansas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Better Health of Missouri LLC, Aetna Better Health of Nevada Inc., Aetna Better Health of North Carolina Inc., Aetna Better Health of Oklahoma Inc., Aetna Better Health of Texas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Washington Inc., Aetna Capital Management LLC, Aetna Card Solutions LLC, Aetna Corporate Services LLC, Aetna Dental Inc., Aetna Dental of California Inc., Aetna Financial Holdings LLC, Aetna Florida Inc., Aetna Global Benefits (Asia Pacific) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bahamas) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bermuda) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Europe) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Middle East) LLC, Aetna Global Benefits (Singapore) PTE. LTD., Aetna Global Benefits (UK) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits Limited (DIFC UAE), Aetna Global Holdings Limited, Aetna Health Holdings LLC, Aetna Health Inc., Aetna Health Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Aetna Health Insurance Company, Aetna Health Insurance Company of Europe DAC, Aetna Health Management LLC, Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company, Aetna Health of California Inc., Aetna Health of Iowa Inc., Aetna Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Health of Ohio Inc., Aetna Health of Utah Inc., Aetna HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Aetna Holdco (UK) Limited, Aetna Holdings (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Inc., Aetna Insurance (Hong Kong) Limite, Aetna Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Aetna Insurance Company Limited, Aetna Integrated Informatics Inc., Aetna International Inc., Aetna Ireland Inc., Aetna Korea Ltd., Aetna Life & Casualty (Bermuda) Ltd., Aetna Life Assignment Company, Aetna Life Insurance Company, Aetna Medicaid Administrators LLC, Aetna Multi-Strategy 1099 Fund LLC, Aetna Network Services LLC, Aetna Partners Diversified Fund LLC, Aetna Pharmacy Management Services LLC, Aetna Resources LLC, Aetna Risk Assurance Company of Connecticut Inc., Aetna Rx Home Delivery LLC, Aetna Services (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Aetna Student Health Agency Inc., Aetna Ventures LLC, Aetna Workers Comp Access LLC, Alabama CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Alaska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, American Continental Insurance Company, American Drug Stores Delaware L.L.C., American Health Holding Inc., Arbor Drugs, Arizona CVS Stores L.L.C., Arkansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Badger Acquisition LLC, Badger Acquisition of Kentucky LLC, Badger Acquisition of Minnesota LLC, Badger Acquisition of Ohio LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Company, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Beauty Holdings L.L.C., Best Care LTC Acquisition Company LLC, Busse CVS L.L.C., CCI Foreign S.a R.L. (R.C.S. Luxembourg), CCRx Holdings LLC, CCRx of North Carolina LLC, CHP Acquisition LLC, CP Acquisition LLC, CVS 2948 Henderson L.L.C., CVS 3268 Gilbert L.L.C., CVS 3745 Peoria L.L.C., CVS AL Distribution L.L.C., CVS AOC Corporation, CVS AOC Services L.L.C., CVS Albany L.L.C., CVS Bellmore Avenue L.L.C., CVS Care Concierge LLC, CVS Caremark Advanced Technology Pharmacy L.L.C., CVS Caremark Indemnity Ltd., CVS Caremark Part D Services L.L.C., CVS Caremark TN SUTA LLC, CVS Foreign Inc., CVS Gilbert 3272 L.L.C., CVS Health Solutions LLC, CVS Indiana L.L.C., CVS International L.L.C., CVS Kidney Care Advanced Technologies LLC, CVS Kidney Care Health Services LLC, CVS Kidney Care Home Dialysis LLC, CVS Kidney Care LLC, CVS Manchester NH L.L.C., CVS Media Exchange LLC, CVS Michigan L.L.C., CVS Orlando FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS PA Distribution L.L.C., CVS PR Center Inc., CVS Pharmacy Inc., CVS RS Arizona L.L.C., CVS Rx Services Inc., CVS SC Distribution L.L.C., CVS State Capital L.L.C., CVS TN Distribution L.L.C., CVS Transportation L.L.C., CVS Vero FL Distribution L.L.C., Campos Medical Pharmacy LLC, Canal Place LLC, Care Pharmaceutical Services LP, CareCenter Pharmacy L.L.C., Carefree Insurance Services Inc., Caremark Arizona Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Arizona Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark California Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Florida Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Florida Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Hawaii Mail Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Hawaii Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark IPA L.L.C., Caremark Illinois Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Illinois Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Irving Resource Center LLC, Caremark Kansas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark L.L.C., Caremark Logistics LLC, Caremark Louisiana Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Maryland Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Massachusetts Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Michigan Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Minnesota Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark New Jersey Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark North Carolina Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ohio Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Pennsylvania Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark PhC L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Redlands Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Repack LLC, Caremark Rx L.L.C., Caremark Tennessee Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ulysses Holding Corp., Caremark Washington Specialty Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Alabama Mail Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Health L.L.C., CaremarkPCS L.L.C., Central Rx Services LLC, Claims Administration Corp., Cofinity Inc., Compscript LLC, Connecticut CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Continental Life Insurance Company of Brentwood Tennessee, Continuing Care Rx LLC, Coram Alternate Site Services Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Alabama, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater D.C., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater New York, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Indiana, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Massachusetts, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Mississippi, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Nevada, Coram Healthcare Corporation of North Texas, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Northern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Utah, Coram LLC, Coram Rx LLC, Coram Specialty Infusion, Coram Specialty Infusion Services L.L.C., Coventry Consumer Advantage Inc., Coventry Health Care National Accounts Inc., Coventry Health Care National Network Inc., Coventry Health Care Workers Compensation Inc., Coventry Health Care of Illinois Inc., Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc., Coventry Health Care of Missouri Inc., Coventry Health Care of Nebraska Inc., Coventry Health Care of Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Care of West Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Plan of Florida Inc., Coventry Health and Life Insurance Company, Coventry HealthCare Management Corporation, Coventry Prescription Management Services Inc., Coventry Rehabilitation Services Inc., Coventry Transplant Network Inc., D & R Pharmaceutical Services LLC, D.A.W. LLC, Delaware CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Delaware Physicians Care Incorporated, Digital eHealth LLC, District of Columbia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., E.T.B. INC., Echo Merger Sub Inc., Eckerd Corporation of Florida Inc., Employee Assistance Services LLC, Enloe Drugs LLC, Enterprise Patient Safety Organization LLC, EntrustRX, Evergreen Pharmaceutical LLC, Evergreen Pharmaceutical of California Inc., Express Pharmacy Services of PA L.L.C., FOCUS HealthCare Management Inc., First Health Group Corp., First Health Life & Health Insurance Company, First Script Network Services Inc., Florida Health Plan Administrators LLC, Garfield Beach CVS L.L.C., Generation Health L.L.C., Geneva Woods Health Services LLC, Geneva Woods LTC Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Management LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Alaska LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Washington LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Wyoming LLC, Geneva Woods Retail Pharmacy LLC, Georgia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., German Dobson CVS L.L.C., Goodhealth Worldwide (Asia) Limited, Goodhealth Worldwide (Global) Limited, Goodyear CVS L.L.C., Grand St. Paul CVS L.L.C., Grandview Pharmacy LLC, Group Dental Service Inc., Group Dental Service of Maryland Inc., Health Care Management Co. Ltd., Health Data & Management Solutions Inc., Health Re Inc., Health and Human Resource Center Inc., HealthAssuance Pennsylvania Inc., Healthagen LLC, Highland Park CVS L.L.C., Holiday CVS L.L.C., Home Care Pharmacy LLC, Home Pharmacy Services LLC, Hook-SupeRx L.L.C., Horizon Behavioral Services LLC, Idaho CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., IlliniCare Health, Indian Health Organisation Private Limited, Innovation Health Holdings LLC, Innovation Health Insurance Company, Innovation Health Plan Inc., Interlock Pharmacy Systems LLC, Iowa CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., JHC Acquisition LLC, Kansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Kentucky CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., LCPS Acquisition LLC, Langsam Health Services LLC, Lo-Med Prescription Services LLC, Lobos Acquisition LLC, Longs Drug Stores, Longs Drug Stores California L.L.C., Louisiana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., MHHP Acquisition Company LLC, MHNet Life and Health Insurance Company, MHNet Specialty Services LLC, MHNet of Florida Inc., Managed Care Coordinators Inc., Managed Healthcare LLC, Martin Health Services LLC, Maryland CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Med World Acquisition Corp., Medical Arts Health Care LLC, Medical Examinations of New York P.C., Melville Realty Company Inc., MemberHealth LLC, Mental Health Associates Inc., Mental Health Network of New York IPA Inc., Meritain Health Inc., Merwin Long Term Care LLC, MetraComp Inc., Minor Health Enterprise Co Ltd., MinuteClinic, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Alabama L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arizona LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Florida LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Georgia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Hawaii L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Illinois LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Kentucky L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Louisiana L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maine L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maryland LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Massachusetts LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Nebraska L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Hampshire L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Mexico L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Ohio LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oklahoma LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oregon LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Pennsylvania LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Rhode Island LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of South Carolina L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Texas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Utah L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Virginia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Washington LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Wisconsin L.L.C., MinuteClinic L.L.C., MinuteClinic Online Diagnostic Services LLC, MinuteClinic Physician Practice of Texas, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services LLC, Mississippi CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Missouri CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Montana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NCS Healthcare LLC, NCS Healthcare of Illinois LLC, NCS Healthcare of Iowa LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kansas LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kentucky Inc. (Oh, NCS Healthcare of Montana LLC, NCS Healthcare of New Mexico LLC, NCS Healthcare of Ohio LLC, NCS Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, NCS Healthcare of Tennessee LLC, NCS Healthcare of Wisconsin LLC, NIV Acquisition LLC, Navarro Discount Pharmacy, Nebraska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NeighborCare Holdings Inc., NeighborCare Inc., NeighborCare Pharmacy Services Inc., NeighborCare Services Corporation, NeighborCare of Indiana LLC, NeighborCare of Virginia LLC, New Jersey CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Niagara Re Inc., North Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., North Shore Pharmacy Services LLC, NovoLogix LLC, OCR Services LLC, Ocean Acquisition Sub L.L.C., Ohio CVS Stores L.L.C., Oklahoma CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Omnicare, Omnicare Holding Company, Omnicare Inc., Omnicare Indiana Partnership Holding Company LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania East LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania West LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of the Great Plains Holding LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy and Supply Services LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of Tennessee LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of the Midwest LLC, Omnicare Property Management LLC, Omnicare of Nebraska LLC, Omnicare of Nevada LLC, Omnicare of New York LLC, Oregon CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., PE Holdings LLC, PHPSNE Parent Corporation, PP Acquisition Company LLC, PRN Pharmaceutical Services LP, PT Aetna Management Consulting, Pamplona Saude e Beleza LTDA, Part D Holding Company L.L.C., PayFlex Holdings Inc., PayFlex Systems USA Inc., Pennsylvania CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Performax Inc., Pharmacy Associates of Glenn Falls LLC, Pharmacy Consultants LLC, Phoenix Data Solutions LLC, Precision Benefit Services Inc., Prime Net Inc., ProCare Pharmacy Direct L.L.C., ProCare Pharmacy L.L.C., Prodigy Health Group Inc., Professional Risk Management Inc., Pt. Aetna Global Benefits Indonesia, Puerto Rico CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Red Oak Sourcing LLC, Resources for Living LLC, Rhode Island CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Roeschens Healthcare LLC, RxAmerica, Schaller Anderson Medical Administrators Incorporated, Scrip World LLC, Sheffield Avenue CVS L.L.C., Shore Pharmaceutical Providers LLC, Silverscript Insurance Company, Soma Intimates, South Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., South Wabash CVS L.L.C., Specialized Pharmacy Services LLC, Spinnaker Bidco Limited, Spinnaker Topco Limited, Stadtlander Drug Company, Stadtlander Pharmacy, Sterling Healthcare Services LLC, Superior Care Pharmacy LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Administrative Services LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, T2 Medical Inc., TCPI Acquisition LLC, TargetPharmacy, Tennessee CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Company, Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Texas Health + Aetna Health Plan Inc., The Vasquez Group Inc., Thomas Phoenix CVS L.L.C., Three Forks Apothecary LLC, U.S Healthcare Holdings LLC, U.S. Healthcare Properties Inc., UAC Holding Inc., UC Acquisition LLC, UNI-Care Health Services of Maine LLC, Universal American - Medicare Part D Business, Utah CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., VAPS Acquisition Company LLC, Value Health Care Services LLC, Vermont CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virtual Home Healthcare L.L.C., Warm Springs Road CVS L.L.C., Washington CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Washington Lamb CVS L.L.C., Weber Medical Systems LLC, Wellpartner LLC, West Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Westhaven Services Co LLC, Williamson Drug Company LLC, Wisconsin CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Woodward Detroit CVS L.L.C., Work and Family Benefits Inc., ZS Acquisition Company LLC, Zinc Health Services LLC, Zinc Health Ventures LLC, bSwift LLC, and iTriage LLC. Emerge Energy Services LP (NYSE:EMES) announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August, 8th. The oil and gas company reported ($0.95) EPS for the quarter, missing the Thomson Reuters' consensus estimate of ($0.92) by $0.03. The oil and gas company had revenue of $24.83 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $25.04 million. Emerge Energy Services had a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 21.49% and a net margin of 3.39%. The business's revenue was down 63.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.12 earnings per share. View Emerge Energy Services' earnings history. EVRAZ Plc is a holding company, which engages in the production and distribution of steel, vanadium, and coal products. It operates through the following segments: Steel, Steel North America, Coal, and Other Operations. The Steel segment offers steel and related products; vanadium products; extraction of vanadium ore; and iron ore mining. The Steel North America segment produces steel and related products in the US and Canada. The Coal segment covers coal mining and enrichment. The Other Operations segment consists of energy-generating, shipping, and railway transportation firms. The company was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. Ltd., InterOil Corporation, Jurong Aromatics Corporation Pte Ltd, MPM Lubricants, Marine Well Containment Company LLC, Mobil Australia Resources Company Pty Limited, Mobil California Exploration & Producing Asset Company, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company, Mobil Chemical Products International Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc., Mobil Erdgas Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Mobil Exploration & Producing Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil International Petroleum Corporation, Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast Inc., Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Mobil Producing Texas & New Mexico Inc., Mobil SerLimited, Mobil Venezolana De Petroleos Inc., Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc., Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc., Mountain Gathering LLC, Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A., Palmetto Transoceanic LLC, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Global Company LDC, Permian Express Partners LLC, Phillips Exploration LLC, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II), SPI Limited, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd., Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., SeaRiver Maritime Inc., South Hook LNG Terminal Company Limited, Tengizchevroil LLP, Terminale GNL Adriatico S.r.l, Trend Gathering & Treating LLC, Wolverine Pipe Line Company, XH LLC, XTO Delaware Basin LLC, XTO ENERGY, XTO Energy Canada, and XTO Holdings LLC. Greene King plc operates as a pub retailer and brewer in the United Kingdom. The company operates through three segments: Pub Company, Pub Partners, and Brewing & Brands. Its brands include Greene King Local Pubs, Hungry Horse, Flaming Grill, Farmhouse Inns, and Chef & Brewer. The company is also involved in brewing, marketing, and selling beer under the Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale, and Belhaven Best brands. In addition, Greene King plc engages in the employment, financing, pension trustee, and property businesses. As of April 30, 2018, it operated 2,855 managed, tenanted, leased, and franchised pubs, restaurants, and hotels. Greene King plc was founded in 1799 and is headquartered in Bury St Edmunds, the United Kingdom. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Daimler: AEG Olympia Office GmbH, Achtzehnte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft DVB mbH, Anota Fahrzeug Service- und Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH, Athlon Beheer International B.V., Athlon Beheer Nederland B.V, Athlon Car Lease Belgium N.V, Athlon Car Lease International B.V., Athlon Car Lease Italy S.R.L., Athlon Car Lease Nederland B.V., Athlon Car Lease Polska Sp. z o.o., Athlon Car Lease Portugal lda, Athlon Car Lease Rental Services B.V, Athlon Car Lease Rental Services Belgium N.V., Athlon Car Lease S.A.S., Athlon Car Lease Spain S.A., Athlon Dealerlease B.V., Athlon France S.A.S., Athlon Germany GmbH, Athlon Mobility Consultancy B.V., Athlon Mobility Consultancy N.V., Athlon Rental Germany GmbH, Athlon Sweden AB, Athlon Switzerland AG, AutoGravity Corporation, Banco Mercedes-Benz do Brasil S.A, Beat Chile SpA, Beat Ride App Colombia Ltda., Beat Ride App S.A., Belerofonte Empreendimentos Imobiliarios Ltda., Brooklands Estates Management Limited, CARS Technik & Logistik GmbH, CINTEO, CLIDET NO 1048 (Proprietary) Limited, Campo Largo Comercio de Veiculos e Pecas Ltda., Circulo Cerrado S.A. de Ahorro para Fines Determinados, Clever Taxi, Clever Tech S.R.L., Clever Tech Sud S.R.L., Conemaugh Hydroelectric Projects Inc., Cuspide GmbH, DA Investments Co. LLC, DAF Investments Ltd., DAIMLER FINANCIAL SERVICES AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, DAIMLER SERVICIOS CORPORATIVOS MEXICO S. DE R.L. DE C.V., DAIMLER TRUCK AND BUS HOLDING AUSTRALIA PACIFIC PTY LTD, DTB Tech & Data Hub Unipessoal Lda, Daimler AG & Co. Anlagenverwaltung OHG, Daimler Australia/Pacific Pty. Ltd., Daimler Automotive de Venezuela C.A., Daimler Brand & IP Management GmbH & Co. KG, Daimler Brand & IP Management Verwaltung GmbH, Daimler Buses North America Inc., Daimler Canada Finance Inc., Daimler Canada Investments Company, Daimler Capital Services LLC, Daimler Ceska republika Holding s.r.o., Daimler Colombia S. A., Daimler Commercial Vehicles (Thailand) Ltd., Daimler Commercial Vehicles Africa Ltd., Daimler Commercial Vehicles MENA FZE, Daimler Commercial Vehicles South East Asia Pte. Ltd., Daimler Compra y Manufactura Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Export and Trade Finance GmbH, Daimler Finance North America LLC, Daimler Financial Services AG, Daimler Financial Services Africa & Asia Pacific Ltd., Daimler Financial Services India Private Limited, Daimler Financial Services Investment Company LLC, Daimler Financial Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Financial Services S.A. de C.V. S.O.F.O.M. E.N.R., Daimler Financial Services UK Trustees Ltd., Daimler Fleet Management GmbH, Daimler Fleet Management Singapore Pte. Ltd., Daimler Fleet Management South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Daimler Fleet Management UK Limited, Daimler Fleet Services A.S., Daimler FleetBoard GmbH, Daimler Gastronomie GmbH, Daimler Greater China Ltd., Daimler Group Services Berlin GmbH, Daimler Group Services Madrid S.A.U., Daimler Grund Services GmbH, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Private Limited, Daimler Innovation Technology (China) Co. Ltd., Daimler Insurance Agency LLC, Daimler Insurance Services GmbH, Daimler Insurance Services Japan Co. Ltd., Daimler Insurance Services UK Limited, Daimler International Assignment Services USA LLC, Daimler International Finance B.V., Daimler International Nederland B.V., Daimler Investments US Corporation, Daimler Ladungstrager GmbH, Daimler Manufactura S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Mexico S.A. de C.V., Daimler Mitarbeiter Wohnfinanz GmbH, Daimler Mobility Services GmbH, Daimler Motors Investments LLC, Daimler Nederland B.V., Daimler Nederland Holding B.V., Daimler North America Corporation, Daimler North America Finance Corporation, Daimler Northeast Asia Parts Trading and Services Co. Ltd., Daimler Parts Brand GmbH, Daimler Parts Logistics Australia Pty. Ltd., Daimler Pensionsfonds AG, Daimler Protics GmbH, Daimler Purchasing Coordination Corp., Daimler Re Brokers GmbH, Daimler Re Insurance S.A. Luxembourg, Daimler Real Estate GmbH, Daimler Retail Receivables LLC, Daimler South East Asia Pte. Ltd., Daimler TSS GmbH, Daimler Truck AG, Daimler Truck and Bus Australia Pacific Pty. Ltd., Daimler Trucks & Buses US Holding Inc., Daimler Trucks Asia Taiwan Ltd., Daimler Trucks Canada Ltd., Daimler Trucks Korea Ltd., Daimler Trucks North America LLC, Daimler Trucks Remarketing Corporation, Daimler Trucks Retail Trust 2018-1, Daimler Trucks and Buses (China) Ltd., Daimler Trucks and Buses Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd, Daimler Trust Holdings LLC, Daimler Trust Leasing Conduit LLC, Daimler Trust Leasing LLC, Daimler UK Limited, Daimler UK Share Trustee Ltd., Daimler UK Trustees Limited, Daimler Unterstutzungskasse GmbH, Daimler Vans Hong Kong Limited, Daimler Vans USA LLC, Daimler Vehiculos Comerciales Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Verwaltungsgesellschaft fur Grundbesitz mbH, Daimler Vorsorge und Versicherungsdienst GmbH, Daiprodco Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Detroit Diesel Corporation, Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing LLC, Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Detroit Diesel-Allison de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Deutsche ACCUmotive, Deutsche Accumotive GmbH & Co. KG, Deutsche Accumotive Verwaltungs-GmbH, Dreizehnte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft DVB mbH, EHG Elektroholding GmbH, EvoBus (Schweiz) AG, EvoBus (U.K.) Ltd., EvoBus Austria GmbH, EvoBus Belgium N.V., EvoBus Ceska republika s.r.o., EvoBus Danmark A/S, EvoBus France S.A.S.U., EvoBus GmbH, EvoBus Iberica S.A.U., EvoBus Italia S.p.A., EvoBus Nederland B.V., EvoBus Polska Sp. z o.o., EvoBus Portugal S.A., EvoBus Reunion S. A., EvoBus Russland OOO, EvoBus Sverige AB, FLINC GmbH, Familonet GmbH, Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, Friesland Lease B.V., Funfte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft Zeus mbH, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 2 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 3 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 4 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 5 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 6 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 7 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 1 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Beta OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Delta OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Epsilon OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 2 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 3 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 4 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 1 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft EvoBus GmbH & Co. OHG, Hailo Network IP Limited, Hailo Network Iberia S.L., Intelligent Apps GmbH, Interleasing Luxembourg S.A., Invema Assessoria Empresarial Eireli, Koppieview Property (Pty) Ltd, LAB1886 GmbH, LBBW AM Daimler Re Insurance, LBBW AM MBVEXW, LEONIE CORP DVB GmbH, LEONIE DMS DVB GmbH, LEONIE FS DVB GmbH, LEONIE FSM DVB GmbH, LEONIE PV DVB GmbH, LEONIE TB DVB GmbH, Lab1886 USA LLC, Lapland Car Test Aktiebolag, Legend Investments Ltd., Li-Tec Battery, Li-Tec Battery GmbH, MB GTC GmbH Mercedes-Benz Gebrauchtteile Center, MBarc Credit Canada Inc., MBition GmbH, MDC Power GmbH, MDC Technology GmbH, MERCEDES-BENZ TRUCKS POLSKA SPOKA Z OGRANICZONA ODPOWIEDZIALNOSCIA, MFTA Canada Inc., MITSUBISHI FUSO TRUCK EUROPE Sociedade Europeia de Automoveis S.A., MYTAXI ITALIA S.R.L., MYTAXI POLSKA SPOLKA Z OGRANICZONA ODPOWIEDZIALNOSCIA, Mascot Truck Parts Canada Ltd (2017), Mascot Truck Parts USA LLC, Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains Ltd, Mercedes pay AG, Mercedes pay S.A., Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Benz (China) Ltd., Mercedes-Benz (Thailand) Limited, Mercedes-Benz (Yangzhou) Parts Distribution Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz AG, Mercedes-Benz Accessories GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Adm. Consorcios Ltda., Mercedes-Benz Antwerpen N.V., Mercedes-Benz Argentina S.A., Mercedes-Benz Asia GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Assuradeuren B.V., Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific Pty Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Auto Finance Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2016-2, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2016-B, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2017-A, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2018-A, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2018-B, Mercedes-Benz Auto Receivables Trust 2015-1, Mercedes-Benz Auto Receivables Trust 2016-1, Mercedes-Benz Auto Retail Trust 2018-1, Mercedes-Benz Bank AG, Mercedes-Benz Bank GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Bank Polska S.A., Mercedes-Benz Bank Rus OOO, Mercedes-Benz Bank Service Center GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Banking Service GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Belgium Luxembourg S.A., Mercedes-Benz Bordeaux S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz Broker Biztositasi Alkusz Hungary Kft., Mercedes-Benz Brooklands Limited, Mercedes-Benz CPH A/S, Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc., Mercedes-Benz Capital Rus OOO, Mercedes-Benz CarMesh GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans Brasil Industria e Comercio De Veiculos Ltda., Mercedes-Benz Cars Ceska republika s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Cars Middle East FZE, Mercedes-Benz Cars Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Cars UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz CharterWay S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz CharterWay S.r.l., Mercedes-Benz Compania Financiera Argentina S.A., Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Consulting GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Corretora de Seguros Ltda, Mercedes-Benz Credit Penzugyi Szolgaltato Hungary Zrt., Mercedes-Benz Customer Assistance Center Maastricht N.V., Mercedes-Benz Danmark A/S, Mercedes-Benz Dealer Bedrijven B.V., Mercedes-Benz Drogenbos N.V., Mercedes-Benz Egypt S.A.E., Mercedes-Benz Energy Americas LLC, Mercedes-Benz Energy GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Espana S.A.U., Mercedes-Benz Europa NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz ExTra LLC, Mercedes-Benz Finance Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia Pty. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Austria GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services BeLux NV, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Canada Corporation, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Ceska republika s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Espana E.F.C. S.A., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services France S.A., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Hong Kong Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Italia SpA, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Korea Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services New Zealand Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Portugal Sociedade Financeira de Credito S.A., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Rus OOO, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Schweiz AG, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Slovakia s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA LLC, Mercedes-Benz Finans Danmark A/S, Mercedes-Benz Finans Sverige AB, Mercedes-Benz Finansal Kiralama Turk A.S., Mercedes-Benz Finansman Turk A.S., Mercedes-Benz Formula E Limited, Mercedes-Benz France S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Forsaljnings AB, Mercedes-Benz G GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Group Services Phils. Inc., Mercedes-Benz Hellas S.A., Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Limited, Mercedes-Benz Hungaria Kft., Mercedes-Benz IDC Europe S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz India Private Limited, Mercedes-Benz Insurance Broker S.R.L., Mercedes-Benz Insurance Services Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Insurance Services Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Investment Company LLC, Mercedes-Benz Italia S.p.A., Mercedes-Benz Japan Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Korea Limited, Mercedes-Benz Leasing (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Leasing GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Leasing Hrvatska d.o.o., Mercedes-Benz Leasing IFN S.A., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Kft., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Polska Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Treuhand GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Leasing do Brasil Arrendamento Mercantil S.A., Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Mercedes-Benz Manhattan Inc., Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Hungary Kft., Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Poland Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Rus Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Master Owner Trust, Mercedes-Benz Mechelen N.V., Mercedes-Benz Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Mercedes-Benz Minibus GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Mitarbeiter-Fahrzeuge Leasing GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Museum GmbH, Mercedes-Benz New Zealand Ltd, Mercedes-Benz PRAHA s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Paris SAS, Mercedes-Benz Parts Logistics Eastern Europe s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Parts Logistics Iberica S.L.U., Mercedes-Benz Parts Logistics UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Parts Manufacturing & Services Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Polska Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Portugal S.A., Mercedes-Benz Project Consult GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Renting S.A., Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America Inc., Mercedes-Benz Research & Development Tel Aviv Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India Private Limited, Mercedes-Benz Retail Belgium NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz Retail Group UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Retail S.A., Mercedes-Benz Retail Unipessoal Lda., Mercedes-Benz Risk Solutions South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Roma S.p.A., Mercedes-Benz Romania S.R.L., Mercedes-Benz Russia AO, Mercedes-Benz Schweiz AG, Mercedes-Benz Service Leasing S.R.L., Mercedes-Benz Services Correduria de Seguros S.A., Mercedes-Benz Services Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Mercedes-Benz Sigorta Aracilik Hizmetleri A.S., Mercedes-Benz Slovakia s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Solihull Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Sosnowiec Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz South Africa Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Srbija i Crna Gora d.o.o.u likvidaciji, Mercedes-Benz Subscription Services USA LLC, Mercedes-Benz Sverige AB, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Trucks Belgium Luxembourg NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Center Sint-Pieters-Leeuw NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Ceska republika s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Trucks Espana S.L.U., Mercedes-Benz Trucks France S.A.S.U, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Italia S.r.l., Mercedes-Benz Trucks MENA Holding GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Molsheim, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Trucks Schweiz AG, Mercedes-Benz Trucks UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Turk A.S., Mercedes-Benz U.S. International Inc., Mercedes-Benz USA LLC, Mercedes-Benz Ubezpieczenia Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz V.I. Lyon SAS, Mercedes-Benz V.I. Paris Ile de France SAS, Mercedes-Benz Vans Australia Pacific Pty. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Vans Ceska republika s.r.o, Mercedes-Benz Vans Espana S.L.U., Mercedes-Benz Vans LLC, Mercedes-Benz Vans Mobility GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Vans Mobility S.L., Mercedes-Benz Vans Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Vans UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Vehiculos Comerciales Argentina SAU, Mercedes-Benz Venezuela S.A., Mercedes-Benz Versicherung AG, Mercedes-Benz Vertrieb NFZ GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Vertrieb PKW GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Vietnam Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Warszawa Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Waterloo S.A., Mercedes-Benz Wavre S.A., Mercedes-Benz Wemmel N.V., Mercedes-Benz Wholesale Receivables LLC, Mercedes-Benz do Brasil Assessoria Comercial Ltda., Mercedes-Benz do Brasil Ltda., Mercedes-Benz Osterreich GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Aluguer de Veiculos Unipessoal Lda., Mercedes-Benz.io GmbH, Mercedes-Benz.io Portugal Unipessoal Lda., MercedesService Card Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Mitsubishi Fuso Bus Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, Mitsubishi Fuso Truck of America Inc., Monarch Cars (Tamworth) Ltd., Montajes y Estampaciones Metalicas S.L., Multifleet G.I.E, NAG Nationale Automobil-Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft, P.T. Mercedes-Benz Indonesia, PABCO Co. Ltd., PT Daimler Commercial Vehicles Indonesia, PT Mercedes-Benz Distribution Indonesia, Porcher & Meffert Grundstucksgesellschaft mbH & Co. Stuttgart OHG, R.T.C. Management Company Limited, Renting del Pacifico S.A.C., RepairSmith Inc., Reva SAS, Ring Garage AG Chur, SILVER ARROW CHINA 2017-2 RETAIL AUTO LOAN ASSET BACKED NOTES TRUST c/o CITIC TRUST CO. LTD., SILVER ARROW CHINA 2018-1 RETAIL AUTO LOAN ASSET BACKED NOTES TRUST c/o FOTIC: China Foreign Economy and Trade Trust Co. LTD., SILVER ARROW CHINA 2018-2 RETAIL AUTO LOAN ASSET BACKED NOTES TRUST c/o FOTIC: China Foreign Economy and Trade Trust Co. LTD., STARKOM d.o.o., Sandown Motor Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Sechste Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft Zeus mbH, SelecTrucks Comercio de Veiculos Ltda, SelecTrucks of America LLC, SelecTrucks of Toronto Inc., Setra of North America Inc., Silver Arrow Australia Trust 2017-1, Silver Arrow Canada GP Inc., Silver Arrow Canada LP, Silver Arrow Lease Facility Trust, Silver Arrow S.A., Special Lease Systems (SLS) B.V, SportChassis LLC, Star Assembly SRL, Star Egypt For Import LLC, Star Transmission srl, Starexport Trading S.A., Sterling Truck Corporation, Sumperska sprava majetku k.s., T.O.C (Schweiz) AG, Taxibeat, Taxibeat Ltd. UK, Taxibeat Peru S.A., Taxibeat Teknoloji Hizmetleri A.S., Thomas Built Buses Inc., Thomas Built Buses of Canada Limited, Transcovo SAS, Transopco France SAS, Transopco GmbH, Transopco Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Transopco UK Ltd., Trona Cogeneration Corporation, Ucafleet S.A.S, Vierzehnte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft DVB mbH, Western Star Trucks Sales Inc, Zuidlease B.V., Zweite Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft Zeus mbH, car2go, car2go Belgium SPRL, car2go Canada Ltd., car2go China Co. Ltd., car2go Danmark A/S, car2go Deutschland GmbH, car2go Europe GmbH, car2go Group GmbH, car2go Iberia S.L.U., car2go Italia S.R.L., car2go N.A. Holding Inc, car2go N.A. LLC, car2go Nederland B.V, car2go Sverige AB, car2go Osterreich GmbH, moovel Group GmbH, moovel North America Inc., moovel North America LLC, myTaxi Iberia SL, myTaxi UG, myTaxi UK Ltd., myTaxi USA Inc., mytaxi Austria GmbH, mytaxi Network Ireland Ltd., mytaxi Network Ltd., mytaxi Portugal Unipessoal LDA, mytaxi Sweden AB, ogotrac S.A.S., smart France S.A.S., smart Vertriebs gmbh, and trapoFit GmbH. The following companies are subsidiares of IDEX: ADS Corp., ADS Environmental Services Pty Limited, ADS Environmental Technologies Inc., ADS LLC, AEGIS Flow Technologies, AEGIS Flow Technologies L.L.C., AWG, AWG Fittings GmbH, Abel Pumps, Advanced Thin Films, Advanced Thin Films Inc., Airtech Group, Akron Brass, Akron Brass Company, Alfa Valvole, Alfa Valvole S.r.l., Band-It Clamps (Asia) Pte. Ltd., Band-It Company Limited, Band-It-IDEX Inc., Banjo Corporation, Banjo Europe S.r.l., BarbIDEX International SRL, CIDRA Precision Services, CVI Laser, CVI Laser LLC, CVI Laser Limited, CVI Melles Griot, Corken Inc., ERC, Eastern Plastics, FAST & Fluid Management S.r.l., FM Delaware Inc., FM Investment Inc., FMD Distribution and Service LLC, FMD Fabrication Services LLC, FTL Seals Technology Limited, Fast & Fluid Management B.V., Fast & Fluid Management Eastern Europe Sp. Z O.O., Fast and Fluid Management Australia Pty. Ltd., Flow Management Devices, Flow Management Devices LLC, Fluid Management Canada Inc., Fluid Management Inc., Fluid Management Operations LLC, Gast Group Ltd, Gast Manufacturing Inc., Godiva Limited, Godiva Products Limited, Hale Products Europe Limited, Hale Products Inc., Hurst Jaws of Life Inc., IDEX Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., IDEX Dinglee Technology (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., IDEX Europe GmbH, IDEX Health & Science KK, IDEX Health & Science LLC, IDEX Holdings GmbH, IDEX Holdings Inc., IDEX India Private Limited, IDEX Italy S.r.l., IDEX Japan GK, IDEX Korea Ltd, IDEX Leasing GmbH, IDEX MPT Inc., IDEX Mexico S.A. de C.V., IDEX Middle East FZE, IDEX Pump Technologies (Ireland) Limited, IDEX SAS, IDEX Service Corp., IDEX Sourcing Corporation, IDEX Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., IDEX Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, IDEX UK Investment Ltd, IDEX UK Ltd., IDEX do Brasil Servicos e Vendas Ltda., IETG, Isolation Technologies, KNIGHT LLC, KVT-Koenig Holding Limited, Knight (Canada) Limited, Knight Inc., Knight UK Ltd, LUKAS Hydraulik GmbH, Liquid Controls, Liquid Controls LLC, Matcon, Matcon (R&D) Limited, Matcon Group Limited, Matcon Limited, Melles Griot B.V., Melles Griot GmbH, Microfluidics, Microfluidics International Corporation, Micropump Inc., Nova Technologies, Nova Technologies Corporation, Novotema, Novotema S.p.A, OBL, OBL Srl, Oil & Gas Process Solutions LLC, PP AWG GmbH, PPE International LLC, PPE LLC, Precision Photonics, Precision Polymer Engineering Limited, Project Gold Acquisition Corp., Pulsafeeder Inc., Quadro Engineering Corp., RV Acquisition Corp., Richter Chemie-Technik, Richter Chemie-Technik GmbH, Richter EP (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., Richter Pumps & Valves Inc., Roplan AB, Roplan GmbH, Roplan Holding AB, Roplan Ltd, Roplan Machinery (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., Roplan Machining AB, Roplan Sales (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., Roplan Sales AB, Roplan Sales Inc., Roplan Trading AB, S.A.M.P.I. S.p.A., SFC KOENIG, SFC KOENIG Flow Control (Suzhou) Co. Limited, SFC Koenig AG, SFC Koenig Beteilgungs GmbH, SFC Koenig GmbH, SFC Koenig LLC, Scivex, Seals Limited, Semrock, Steridose Sales AB, The Fitzpatrick Company, Toptech Systems, Toptech Systems Inc., Toptech Systems NV, Trebor International Inc., Velcora, Velcora Holding AB, Vetter GmbH, Viking Pump Inc., Viking Pump of Canada Inc., Warren Rupp Inc., Wright Flow Technologies Limited, XAM Swiss Holding I GmbH, iPEK, iPEK International GmbH, iPEK Spezial TV GmbH, thinXXS Microtechnology, and thinXXS Microtechnology AG. iShares Russell 3000 ETF's stock was trading at $158.74 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IWV stock has increased by 74.5% and is now trading at $277.05. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares Russell Mid-Cap Growth ETF shares split before market open on Monday, December 7th 2020. The 2-1 split was announced on Friday, November 6th 2020. The newly created shares were issued to shareholders after the closing bell on Friday, December 4th 2020. An investor that had 100 shares of iShares Russell Mid-Cap Growth ETF stock prior to the split would have 200 shares after the split. William Lyon Homes (NYSE:WLH) released its earnings results on Wednesday, November, 6th. The construction company reported $0.37 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.30 by $0.07. The construction company earned $466.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $487.15 million. William Lyon Homes had a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 6.98% and a net margin of 3.04%. The company's revenue was down 12.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.68 EPS. View William Lyon Homes' earnings history. The Undead Archives I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world. Kibo Energy PLC, together with its subsidiaries, explores for and develops energy projects in Sub Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom. The company holds a 100% interest in the Mbeya Coal to Power project located in Songwe Regio, Tanzania. It also holds an 85% interest in the Mabesekwa Coal Independent Power Project located in Botswana; and 65% interest in the Benga Power Plant Project located in the Tete province of Mozambique. In addition, the company owns a 100% interest in the Bordersley power plant located near Birmingham. Further, it engages in power generation and treasury businesses. Kibo Energy PLC has a collaboration agreement with ESS Tech Inc. to develop energy storage solutions. The company was formerly known as Kibo Mining Plc and changed its name to Kibo Energy PLC in July 2018. Kibo Energy PLC was founded in 2008 and is based in Galway, Ireland. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Lloyds Banking Group: A G Finance Ltd, A.C.L. Ltd, ACL Autolease Holdings Ltd, ADF No.1 Pty Ltd, Addison Social Housing Holdings Ltd, Alex Lawrie Factors Ltd, Alex. Lawrie Receivables Financing Ltd, Amberdate Ltd, Anglo Scottish Utilities Partnership 1, Aquilus Ltd, Automobile Association Personal Finance Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services 2 Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 2) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 3) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland)) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 1 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 2 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 3 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 4 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 5 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 6 plc, BOS (USA) Fund Investments Inc., BOS (USA) Inc., BOS Edinburgh No 1 Ltd, BOS Mistral Ltd, BOS Personal Lending Ltd, BOSSAF Rail Ltd, Bank of Scotland (B G S) Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland (Stanlife) London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Branch Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Central Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Edinburgh Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Equipment Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Foundation, Bank of Scotland LNG Leasing (No 1) Ltd, Bank of Scotland London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Nominees (Unit Trusts) Ltd, Bank of Scotland P.E.P. Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Structured Asset Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Transport Finance 1 Ltd, Bank of Scotland plc, Bank of Wales Ltd, Barents Leasing Ltd, Barnwood Mortgages Ltd, Birchcrown Finance Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Financial Services Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Land Development Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Mortgage Services Ltd, Black Horse (TRF) Ltd, Black Horse Executive Mortgages Ltd, Black Horse Finance Holdings Ltd, Black Horse Finance Management Ltd, Black Horse Group Ltd, Black Horse Ltd, Black Horse Offshore Ltd, Black Horse Property Services Ltd, Boltro Nominees Ltd, British Linen Leasing (London) Ltd, British Linen Leasing Ltd, British Linen Shipping Ltd, C.T.S.B. Leasing Ltd, CBRail S.A.R.L., CF Asset Finance Ltd, CF1 Ltd, CM Venture Investments Ltd, Cancara Asset Securitisation Ltd, Capital 1945 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 12 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 3 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 5 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 9 Ltd, Capital Bank Property Investments (3) Ltd, Capital Personal Finance Ltd, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2018-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2019-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Cardnet Merchant Services Ltd, Cashfriday Ltd, Cashpoint Ltd, Caveminster Ltd, Cedar Holdings Ltd, Celsius European Lux 2 S.A.R.L., Central Mortgage Finance Ltd, Chariot Finance Ltd, Cheltenham & Gloucester plc, Cheltenham II Securities 2020 DAC, Cheltenham Securities 2017 Ltd, Chepstow Blue Holdings Ltd, Chepstow Blue plc, Chester Asset Options No.2 Ltd, Chester Asset Options No.3 Ltd, Chester Asset Receivables Dealings Issuer Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings No.2 Ltd, Chiswell Stockbrokers Ltd, Clerical Medical Finance plc, Clerical Medical Financial Services Ltd, Clerical Medical International Holdings B.V., Clerical Medical Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Clerical Medical Managed Funds Ltd, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Spanish Prop Co SL, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Prop Co SA, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Property Company S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Funding S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Investments S.A.R.L., Conquest Securities Ltd, Corbiere Asset Investments Ltd, Create Services Ltd, Credit Card Securitisation Europe Ltd, Dalkeith Corporation, Deva Financing Holdings Ltd, Deva Financing plc, Deva One Ltd, Deva Three Ltd, Deva Two Ltd, Dunstan Investments (UK) Ltd, Edgbaston RMBS 2010-1 plc, Edgbaston RMBS Holdings Ltd, Elland RMBS 2018 plc, Elland RMBS Holdings Ltd, Eurolead Services Holdings Ltd, First Retail Finance (Chester) Ltd, Fontwell Securities 2016 Ltd, Forthright Finance Ltd, France Industrial Premises Holding Company, General Leasing (No. 12) Ltd, General Reversionary and Investment Company, Gresham Nominee 1 Ltd, Gresham Nominee 2 Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 1) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 10) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 11) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 12) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 13) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 14) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 15) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 16) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 19) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 20) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 21) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 22) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 23) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 24) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 25) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 26) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 27) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 28) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 29) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 3) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 30) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 31) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 32) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 33) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 34) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 35) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 36) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 37) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 38) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 39) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 40) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 41) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 44) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 45) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 46) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 47) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 48) UK Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No 3) Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No.11) UK Ltd, HBOS Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS Final Salary Trust Ltd, HBOS Financial Services Ltd, HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Ltd, HBOS International Financial Services Holdings Ltd, HBOS Investment Fund Managers Ltd, HBOS Social Housing Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS UK Ltd, HBOS plc, HSDL Nominees Ltd, HVF Ltd, Halifax Credit Card Ltd, Halifax Financial Brokers Ltd, Halifax Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Halifax Financial Services Ltd, Halifax General Insurance Services Ltd, Halifax Group Ltd, Halifax Investment Services Ltd, Halifax Leasing (June) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (March No.2) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (September) Ltd, Halifax Life Ltd, Halifax Loans Ltd, Halifax Ltd, Halifax Mortgage Services Ltd, Halifax Nominees Ltd, Halifax Pension Nominees Ltd, Halifax Premises Ltd, Halifax Share Dealing Ltd, Halifax Vehicle Leasing (1998) Ltd, Heidi Finance Holdings (UK) Ltd, Hill Samuel Bank Ltd, Hill Samuel Finance Ltd, Hill Samuel Leasing Co. Ltd, Home Shopping Personal Finance Ltd, Horizon Capital 2000 Ltd, Housing Association Risk Transfer 2019 DAC, Housing Growth Partnership GP LLP, Housing Growth Partnership LP, Housing Growth Partnership Ltd, Housing Growth Partnership Manager Ltd, Hyundai Car Finance Ltd, IBOS Finance Ltd, ICC Enterprise Partners Ltd, ICC Equity Partners Ltd, ICC Holdings Unlimited Company, Inchcape Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Software Ltd, International Motors Finance Ltd, Kanaalstraat Funding C.V., Katrine Leasing Ltd, LB Healthcare Trustee Ltd, LB Motorent Ltd, LB Quest Ltd, LB Share Schemes Trustees Ltd, LBCF Ltd, LBG Brasil Administracao LTDA, LBG Capital Holdings Ltd, LBG Equity Investments Ltd, LBI Leasing Ltd, LDC (General Partner) Ltd, LDC (Managers) Ltd, LDC (Nominees) Ltd, LDC GP LLP, LDC I LP, LDC II LP, LDC III LP, LDC IV LP, LDC Parallel (Nominees) Ltd, LDC V LP, LDC VI LP, LDC VII LP, LDC VIII LP, LTGP Limited Partnership Incorporated, Legacy Renewal Company Ltd, Leicester Securities 2014 Ltd, Lex Autolease (CH) Ltd, Lex Autolease (VC) Ltd, Lex Autolease Carselect Ltd, Lex Autolease Ltd, Lex Vehicle Finance 2 Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing (Holdings) Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing Ltd, Lime Street (Funding) Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I Holdings Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I plc, Lloyds (Gresham) Ltd, Lloyds (Gresham) No. 1 Ltd, Lloyds (Nimrod) Specialist Finance Ltd, Lloyds America Securities Corporation1, Lloyds Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Branches) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Colonial & Foreign) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (I.D.) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (International Services) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Stock Exchange Branch) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Asset Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Scotland Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (HP) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.4) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (LM) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds LLP, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 7) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 9) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales, Lloyds Bank Foundation for the Channel Islands, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Holdings Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 11) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 20) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 5) Ltd, Lloyds Bank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Hill Samuel Holding Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank Insurance Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank International Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 6) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 8) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank MTCH Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 10) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 13) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No.16) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Offshore Pension Trust Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 1) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 2) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pensions Property (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Properties Ltd, Lloyds Bank Property Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank S.F. Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Subsidiaries Ltd, Lloyds Bank Trustee Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank plc, Lloyds Banking Group Pensions Trustees Ltd, Lloyds Capital GP Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Properties Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Property Investments Ltd, Lloyds Corporate Services (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Engine Capital (No.1) U.S LLC, Lloyds Far East S.A.R.L., Lloyds General Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Group Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Hypotheken B.V., Lloyds Industrial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds International Pty Ltd, Lloyds Investment Bonds Ltd, Lloyds Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Lloyds Investment Securities No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Leasing (North Sea Transport) Ltd1, Lloyds Leasing Developments Ltd, Lloyds Nominees (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Offshore Global Services Private Ltd, Lloyds Plant Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Portfolio Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Premises Investments Ltd, Lloyds Project Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 3 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 4 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Secretaries Ltd, Lloyds Securities Inc., Lloyds TSB Pacific Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Rentals Ltd, Lloyds UDT Hiring Ltd, Lloyds UDT Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Ltd, Lloyds Your Tomorrow Trustee Ltd, Loans.co.uk Ltd, London Taxi Finance Ltd, London Uberior (L.A.S. Group) Nominees Ltd, Lotus Finance Ltd, MBNA, MBNA Direct Ltd, MBNA Europe Finance Ltd, MBNA Europe Holdings Ltd, MBNA General Foundation, MBNA Global Services Ltd, MBNA Indian Services Private Ltd, MBNA Ltd, MBNA R & L S.A.R.L., MBNA Receivables Ltd, Mainsearch Company Ltd, Maritime Leasing (No. 19) Ltd, Membership Services Finance Ltd, Mitre Street Funding S.A.R.L., Molineux RMBS 2016-1 plc, Molineux RMBS Holdings Ltd, Moor Lane Holdings Ltd, NFU Mutual Finance Ltd, NWS Trust Ltd, Nominees (Jersey) Ltd, Nordic Leasing Ltd, Ocean Leasing (July) Ltd, Oystercatcher Nominees Ltd, Oystercatcher Residential Ltd, PIPS Asset Investments Ltd, Pacific Leasing Ltd, Penarth Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Penarth Funding 1 Ltd, Penarth Funding 2 Ltd, Penarth Master Issuer plc, Penarth Receivables Trustee Ltd, Pensions Management (S.W.F.) Ltd, Peony Eastern Leasing Ltd, Peony Leasing Ltd, Peony Western Leasing Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 1) Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 2) Ltd, Permanent Holdings Ltd, Permanent Master Issuer plc, Permanent Mortgages Trustee Ltd, Permanent PECOH Holdings Ltd, Permanent PECOH Ltd, Perry Nominees Ltd, Prestonfield Investments Ltd, Proton Finance Ltd, R.F. Spencer And Company Ltd, Ranelagh Nominees Ltd, Retail Revival (Burgess Hill) Investments Ltd, SARL Coliseum, SARL Hiram, SAS Compagnie Fonciere De France, SCI Astoria Invest, SCI De LHorloge, SCI Equinoxe, SCI Rambuteau CFF, SW Funding plc, SW No.1 Ltd, SWAMF (GP) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (1) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (2) Ltd, Saint Michel Holding Company No1, Saint Michel Investment Property, Saint Witz 2 Holding Company No1, Saint Witz 2 Investment Property, Salisbury II Securities 2016 Ltd, Salisbury II-A Securities 2017 Ltd, Salisbury III Securities 2019 DAC, Salisbury Securities 2015 Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 Holdings Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 plc, Sandown Gold 2012-1 Holdings Ltd, Sandown Gold 2012-1 plc, Savban Leasing Ltd, Scotland International Finance B.V., Scottish Widows Administration Services (Nominees) Ltd, Scottish Widows Administration Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Annuities Ltd, Scottish Widows Auto Enrolment Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Europe, Scottish Widows Financial Services Holdings, Scottish Widows Group Ltd, Scottish Widows Industrial Properties Europe B.V., Scottish Widows Ltd, Scottish Widows Pension Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Property Management Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth (ACD) Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Wealth Holdings Ltd, Scottish Widows Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Funds Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Trust Managers Ltd, Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society, Seabreeze Leasing Ltd, Seaspirit Leasing Ltd, Share Dealing Nominees Ltd, Shogun Finance Ltd, Silentdale Ltd, St Andrews Group Ltd, St Andrews Insurance plc, St Andrews Life Assurance plc, St. Marys Court Investments, Standard Property Investment (1987) Ltd, Standard Property Investment Ltd, Sussex County Homes Ltd, Suzuki Financial Services Ltd, Swan Funding 2 Ltd, Syon Securities 2019 DAC, The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Plc, The British Linen Company Ltd, The Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland, The Mortgage Business plc, Thistle Financing Holdings Ltd, Thistle Investments (AMC) Ltd, Thistle Investments (ERM) Ltd, Thistle Leasing, Three Copthall Avenue Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (10) Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (7) Ltd, Tranquility Leasing Ltd, Trinity Financing plc, UDT Budget Leasing Ltd, UDT Sales Finance Ltd, Uberior (Moorfield) Ltd, Uberior Co-Investments Ltd, Uberior ENA Ltd, Uberior Equity Ltd, Uberior Europe Ltd, Uberior Fund Investments Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments (No.2) Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments Ltd, Uberior Investments Ltd, Uberior Nominees Ltd, Uberior Trading Ltd, Uberior Trustees Ltd, Uberior Ventures Australia Pty Ltd, Uberior Ventures Ltd, United Dominions Leasing Ltd, United Dominions Trust Ltd, Universe The CMI Global Network Fund, Upsaala Ltd, Vine Street IX LP, WCS Ltd, Ward Nominees (Abingdon) Ltd, Ward Nominees (Birmingham) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees (Bristol) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees Ltd 1, Waverley Fund II Investor LLC, Waverley Fund III Investor LLC, Waymark Asset Investments Ltd, West Craigs Ltd, Wetherby II Securities 2018 DAC, Wetherby III Securities 2019 DAC, Wetherby Securities 2017 Ltd, Wood Street Leasing Ltd, and Zurich Insurance Group - UK Workplace Pensions and Savings Business. iShares National Muni Bond ETF's stock was trading at $114.45 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, MUB stock has increased by 1.6% and is now trading at $116.25. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Northview is one of Canada's largest publicly traded multi-family REITs with a portfolio of approximately 27,000 residential units and 1.2 million square feet of commercial space in over 60 markets across eight provinces and two territories. Northview's well-diversified portfolio includes markets characterized by expanding populations and growing economies, which provides Northview the means to deliver stable and growing profitability and distributions to Unitholders of Northview over time. Northview currently trades on the TSX under the ticker symbol: NVU.UN. Read More Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. engages in the mining of copper, gold and molybdenum. It operates through the following segments: North America Copper Mines, South America Mining; Indonesia Mining, Molybdenum Mines, Rod and Refining, Atlantic Copper Smelting and Refining and Corporate, Other and Eliminations. The North America Copper Mines segment operates open-pit copper mines in Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita and Miami in Arizona and Chino and Tyrone in New Mexico. The South America Mining segment includes Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile. The Indonesia Mining segment handles the operations of Grasberg minerals district that produces copper concentrate that contains significant quantities of gold and silver. The Molybdenum Mines segment includes the Henderson underground mine and Climax open-pit mine, both in Colorado. The Rod and Refining segment consists of copper conversion facilities located in North America and includes a refinery, rod mills, and a specialty copper products facility. The Atlantic Copper Smelting and Refining segment smelts and refines copper concentrate and markets refined copper and precious metals in slimes. The Corporate, Other and Eliminations segment Read More Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF's stock was trading at $46.36 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, VGK shares have increased by 47.6% and is now trading at $68.42. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit Bank of America Corp. is a bank and financial holding company, which engages in the provision of banking and nonbank financial services. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth and Investment Management, Global Banking, Global Markets, and All Other. The Consumer Banking segment offers credit, banking, and investment products and services to consumers and small businesses. The Global Wealth and Investment Management provides client experience through a network of financial advisors focused on to meet their needs through a full set of investment management, brokerage, banking, and retirement products. The Global Banking segment deals with lending-related products and services, integrated working capital management and treasury solutions to clients, and underwriting and advisory services. The Global Markets segment includes sales and trading services, as well as research, to institutional clients across fixed-income, credit, currency, commodity, and equity businesses. The All Other segment consists of asset and liability management activities, equity investments, non-core mortgage loans and servicing activities, the net impact of periodic revisions Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP II Pte. Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III (Scots) L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., Assurance IQ LLC, Assurance Intelligence LLC, BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Brazilian Capital Fund GP Limited, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Campus Drive LLC, Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DHFL PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, DICKENS AVENUE HOLDINGS VI LLC, DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (Ireland) L.P., DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (US) L.P., Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EVP II GP S.a r.l., EVP II Sweden Resi I GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright PGIM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA BV LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA Mission LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Insurance Services Company Inc., Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Gold GP Limited, Gold II L.P., Gold L.P., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inter-Atlantic G Fund L.P., Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd., LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Marble Canyon LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Morenci LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, National Family Assurance Group LLC, New Savanna, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bay Farm LLC, PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Belvidere Farms LLC, PAI Big Cypress Farm LLC, PAI Corcoran 640 Ranch LLC, PAI DeKalb Farm LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Flicker Orchard LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Hawk Creek Ranch LLC, PAI Hills Valley Ranches LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Jackson Bayou Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PAI Wallula Gap Vineyard LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PEREF II PV S.r.l, PFI EM-Tech Fund I LLC, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGI Co. Ltd, PGIM (Australia) Pty Ltd, PGIM (Hong Kong) Ltd., PGIM (Scots) Limited, PGIM (Shanghai) Company Ltd., PGIM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Advisory (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Agricultural Investors LP, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management (Feeder) VI LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Fund VI L.P., PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund II L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives GP LLC, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives II GP LLC, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM INDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM INDIA TRUSTEES PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF Berlin GP S.a r.l., PGIM LTIF Berlin MLP S.ar.l., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM Loan Originator Manager Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Company Ltd, PGIM Private Capital (Ireland) Limited, PGIM Private Capital Limited, PGIM Private Placement Investors Inc., PGIM Private Placement Investors L.P., PGIM REF EUROPE SCSp, PGIM REF Europe GP S.a r.l., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate (Japan) Ltd., PGIM Real Estate (UK) Limited, PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Capital VII GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate Debt GmbH, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Italy S.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Loan Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management (Feeder) I LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management Fund I L.P., PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIIC Limited, PIISC Holdings (UK) Limited, PIM KF Blocker Holdings LLC, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Mexico Residential Manager I LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Limited Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Red LP, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PLAI Limited, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP (SCOTS FEEDER) LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRECO ACCOUNT III LLC, PRECO ACCOUNT PARTNERSHIP III LP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Pooled Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT PFI Mega Life Insurance, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Platinum GP Limited, Platinum II L.P., Platinum L.P., Pramerica (Hong Kong) Holdings Limited, Pramerica (Luxembourg) CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica (Scots) CP GP LLP, Pramerica Business Consulting (Shanghai) Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica General Partner LLP, Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Insurance Agency (China) Company Ltd., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate (Scots) LP, Pramerica Property Partners Fund (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Netherlands) GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica SGR S.p.A, Pramerica Systems Ireland Limited, Preco III (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, PruVen Capital Partners Fund I L.P., Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Customer Solutions LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd., Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Industrial Properties LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan Inc., Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Securities Structured Assets Inc., Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., QMA JP EM All Cap Equity Partners LLC, QMA LLC, QMA Wadhwani LLP, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock UK Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service), Senior Housing Partners IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TF Proveedora S.C., TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Keynes Dynamic Beta Strategy (US) Fund GP LLC, The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, Times Square Center Associates, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Wadhwani Capital Limited, Waveland Avenue Holdings I LLC, Waveland Avenue Partners I (Ireland) L.P., Waveland Avenue Partners I (US) L.P., Wellness Services Ecossistema De Bem Estar Ltda., Wellness Services SRL, Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC. The following companies are subsidiares of Sonic Automotive: AM GA LLC, AM Realty GA LLC, AnTrev LLC, Arngar Inc., Autobahn Inc., Avalon Ford Inc., Car Cash of North Carolina Inc., Cornerstone Acceptance Corporation, ECHOPARK: AM GA LLC, ECHOPARK: AM Realty GA LLC, ECHOPARK: EP Realty NC LLC, ECHOPARK: EP Realty SC LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark AZ LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark CA LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark Driver Education LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark FL LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark NC LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark Realty TX LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark SC LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark TX LLC, ECHOPARK: Echopark Automotive Inc., ECHOPARK: SAI DS LLC, ECHOPARK: SAI DS Realty TX LLC, ECHOPARK: SAI Vehicle Subscription Inc., ECHOPARK: TT Denver LLC, ECHOPARK: TTRE CO 1 LLC, FAA Beverly Hills Inc., FAA Capitol N Inc., FAA Concord H Inc., FAA Concord T Inc., FAA Dublin N Inc., FAA Dublin VWD Inc., FAA Holding Corp., FAA Las Vegas H Inc., FAA Poway H Inc., FAA Poway T Inc., FAA San Bruno Inc., FAA Santa Monica V Inc., FAA Serramonte H Inc., FAA Serramonte Inc., FAA Serramonte L Inc., FAA Stevens Creek Inc., FAA Torrance CPJ Inc., FirstAmerica Automotive Inc., Fort Mill Ford Inc., Franciscan Motors Inc., Frontier Oldsmobile-Cadillac Inc., Kramer Motors Incorporated, L Dealership Group Inc., Marcus David Corporation, Massey Cadillac Inc. (TN-MI), Mountain States Motors Co. Inc., North Point Imports LLC, Ontario L LLC, Philpott Motors Ltd., SAI AL HC1 Inc., SAI AL HC2 Inc., SAI Ann Arbor Imports LLC, SAI Atlanta B LLC, SAI Broken Arrow C LLC, SAI Calabasas A LLC, SAI Chamblee V LLC, SAI Charlotte M LLC, SAI Chattanooga N LLC, SAI Clearwater T LLC, SAI Cleveland N LLC, SAI Columbus Motors LLC, SAI Columbus T LLC, SAI Columbus VWK LLC, SAI Conroe N LLC, SAI Denver B Inc., SAI Denver C Inc., SAI Denver M Inc., SAI FL HC1 Inc., SAI FL HC2 Inc., SAI FL HC3 Inc., SAI FL HC4 Inc., SAI FL HC7 Inc., SAI Fairfax B LLC, SAI Fort Myers B LLC, SAI Fort Myers H LLC, SAI Fort Myers M LLC, SAI Fort Myers VW LLC, SAI GA HC1 LLC, SAI Irondale Imports LLC, SAI Irondale L LLC, SAI Long Beach B Inc., SAI MD HC1 Inc., SAI McKinney M LLC, SAI Monrovia B Inc., SAI Montgomery B LLC, SAI Montgomery BCH LLC, SAI Montgomery CH LLC, SAI Nashville CSH LLC, SAI Nashville H LLC, SAI Nashville M LLC, SAI Nashville Motors LLC, SAI OK HC1 Inc., SAI Oklahoma City C LLC, SAI Oklahoma City H LLC, SAI Oklahoma City T LLC, SAI Orlando CS LLC, SAI Peachtree LLC, SAI Pensacola A LLC, SAI Philpott T LLC, SAI Riverside C LLC, SAI Roaring Fork LR Inc., SAI Rockville Imports LLC, SAI Rockville L LLC, SAI S. Atlanta JLR LLC, SAI SIC Inc., SAI Santa Clara K Inc., SAI Stone Mountain T LLC, SAI TN HC1 LLC, SAI TN HC2 LLC, SAI TN HC3 LLC, SAI Tulsa N LLC, SAI Tulsa T LLC, SAI Tysons Corner H LLC, SAI Tysons Corner I LLC, SAI VA HC1 Inc., SAI VS GA LLC, SAI VS TX LLC, SAI Vehicle Subscription Inc., SAI West Houston B LLC, SRE Alabama 2 LLC, SRE Alabama 5 LLC, SRE Alabama 6 LLC, SRE California 10 LBB LLC, SRE California 11 PH LLC, SRE California 1 LLC, SRE California 2 LLC, SRE California 3 LLC, SRE California 4 LLC, SRE California 5 LLC, SRE California 6 LLC, SRE California 7 SCB LLC, SRE California 8 SCH LLC, SRE California 9 BHB LLC, SRE Colorado 1 LLC, SRE Colorado 2 LLC, SRE Colorado 3 LLC, SRE Colorado 4 RF LLC, SRE Colorado 5 CC LLC, SRE Florida 1 LLC, SRE Florida 2 LLC, SRE Georgia 4 LLC, SRE Georgia 5 LLC, SRE Georgia 6 LLC, SRE Holding LLC, SRE Maryland 1 LLC, SRE Nevada 2 LLC, SRE North Carolina 2 LLC, SRE North Carolina 3 LLC, SRE Ohio 1 LLC, SRE Ohio 2 LLC, SRE Oklahoma 1 LLC, SRE Oklahoma 2 LLC, SRE Oklahoma 5 LLC, SRE South Carolina 2 LLC, SRE South Carolina 3 LLC, SRE South Carolina 4 LLC, SRE Tennessee 6 LLC, SRE Tennessee 7 LLC, SRE Tennessee 1 LLC, SRE Tennessee 2 LLC, SRE Tennessee 3 LLC, SRE Tennessee 4 LLC, SRE Tennessee 5 LLC, SRE Texas 10 LLC, SRE Texas 11 LLC, SRE Texas 12 LLC, SRE Texas 13 LLC, SRE Texas 14 LLC, SRE Texas 15 LLC, SRE Texas 16 LLC, SRE Texas 9 LLC, SRE Texas 1 LP, SRE Texas 2 LP, SRE Texas 3 LP, SRE Texas 4 LP, SRE Texas 5 LP, SRE Texas 6 LP, SRE Texas 7 LP, SRE Texas 8 LP, SRE Virginia - 1 LLC, SRE Virginia 2 LLC, SRM Assurance Ltd., Santa Clara Imported Cars Inc., Sonic 2185 Chapman Rd. Chattanooga LLC, Sonic Advantage PA LP, Sonic Automotive - 1720 Mason Ave. DB LLC, Sonic Automotive 2424 Laurens Rd. Greenville Inc., Sonic Automotive 2752 Laurens Rd. Greenville Inc., Sonic Automotive Aviation LLC, Sonic Automotive F&I LLC, Sonic Automotive Support LLC, Sonic Automotive West LLC, Sonic Automotive of Chattanooga LLC, Sonic Automotive of Nashville LLC, Sonic Automotive of Nevada Inc., Sonic Automotive of Texas LP, Sonic Automotive 1495 Automall Drive Columbus Inc., Sonic Automotive 1720 Mason Ave. DB Inc., Sonic Automotive 2490 South Lee Highway LLC, Sonic Automotive 3401 N. Main TX LP, Sonic Automotive 4701 I-10 East TX LP, Sonic Automotive 6008 N. Dale Mabry FL Inc., Sonic Automotive 9103 E. Independence NC LLC, Sonic Calabasas M Inc., Sonic Development LLC, Sonic Divisional Operations LLC, Sonic FFC 1 Inc., Sonic FFC 2 Inc., Sonic FFC 3 Inc., Sonic Fremont Inc., Sonic Houston JLR LP, Sonic Houston LR LP, Sonic Momentum B LP, Sonic Momentum JVP LP, Sonic Momentum VWA LP, Sonic Resources Inc., Sonic Santa Monica M Inc., Sonic Santa Monica S Inc., Sonic Walnut Creek M Inc., Sonic Wilshire Cadillac Inc., Sonic eStore Inc., Sonic of Texas Inc., Sonic Buena Park H Inc., Sonic Cadillac D LP, Sonic Calabasas A Inc., Sonic Calabasas V Inc., Sonic Camp Ford LP, Sonic Capitol Cadillac Inc., Sonic Capitol Imports Inc., Sonic Carrollton V LP, Sonic Carson F Inc., Sonic Carson LM Inc., Sonic Clear Lake N LP, Sonic Clear Lake Volkswagen LP, Sonic Denver T Inc., Sonic Downey Cadillac Inc., Sonic Fort Mill Chrysler Jeep Inc., Sonic Fort Mill Dodge Inc., Sonic Fort Worth T LP, Sonic Frank Parra Autoplex LP, Sonic Harbor City H Inc., Sonic Houston V LP, Sonic Integrity Dodge LV LLC, Sonic Jersey Village Volkswagen LP, Sonic LS Chevrolet LP, Sonic LS LLC, Sonic Lake Norman Chrysler Jeep LLC, Sonic Las Vegas C West LLC, Sonic Lloyd Nissan Inc., Sonic Lloyd Pontiac Cadillac Inc., Sonic Lone Tree Cadillac Inc., Sonic Lute Riley LP, Sonic Massey Cadillac LP, Sonic Massey Chevrolet Inc., Sonic Mesquite Hyundai LP, Sonic Newsome Chevrolet World Inc., Sonic Newsome of Florence Inc., Sonic North Charleston Dodge Inc., Sonic North Charleston Inc., Sonic Plymouth Cadillac Inc., Sonic Richardson F LP, Sonic Sanford Cadillac Inc., Sonic Shottenkirk Inc., Sonic Stevens Creek B Inc., Sonic Volvo LV LLC, Sonic West Covina T Inc., Sonic Williams Cadillac Inc., Stevens Creek Cadillac Inc., The Sonic Automotive Family Emergency Fund (SAFE), Town and Country Ford Incorporated, and Windward Inc.. The following companies are subsidiares of Valero Energy: AIR BP-PBF DEL PERU SAC, BELFAST STORAGE LTD, CANADIAN ULTRAMAR COMPANY, COLONNADE TEXAS INSURANCE COMPANY LLC, COLONNADE VERMONT INSURANCE COMPANY, DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY LLC, DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY OF CANADA INC., DIAMOND GREEN DIESEL HOLDINGS LLC, DIAMOND GREEN DIESEL LLC, DIAMOND K RANCH LLC, DIAMOND OMEGA COMPANY L.L.C., DIAMOND SHAMROCK REFINING COMPANY L.P., DIAMOND UNIT INVESTMENTS L.L.C., DSRM NATIONAL BANK, ENTERPRISE CLAIMS MANAGEMENT INC., GCP LOGISTICS COMPANY LLC, GOLDEN EAGLE ASSURANCE LIMITED, HAMMOND MAINLINE PIPELINE LLC, HUNTWAY REFINING COMPANY, MAINLINE PIPELINES LIMITED, MAPLE ETHANOL LTD., MICHIGAN REDEVELOPMENT GP LLC, MICHIGAN REDEVELOPMENT L.P., MRP PROPERTIES COMPANY LLC, NECHES RIVER HOLDING CORP., NORCO METHANOL LLC, OCEANIC TANKERS AGENCY LIMITED, PARKWAY PIPELINE LLC, PENTA TANKS TERMINALS S.A., PI DOCK FACILITIES LLC, PICKARD PLACE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, PORT ARTHUR COKER COMPANY L.P., PREMCOR USA INC., PROPERTY RESTORATION L.P., PURE BIOFUELS DEL PERU S.A.C., PURE BIOFUELS HOLDINGS L.P., Parkway Pipeline, Premcor, Pure Biofuels Del Peru, SABINE RIVER HOLDING CORP., SABINE RIVER LLC, SAINT BERNARD PROPERTIES COMPANY LLC, SUNBELT REFINING COMPANY L.P., THE PREMCOR PIPELINE CO., THE PREMCOR REFINING GROUP INC., THE SHAMROCK PIPE LINE CORPORATION, TRANSPORT MARITIME ST. LAURENT INC., ULTRAMAR ACCEPTANCE INC., ULTRAMAR ENERGY INC., ULTRAMAR INC., Ultramar Diamond Shamrock, V-TEX LOGISTICS LLC, VALERO (BARBADOS) SRL, VALERO (PERU) HOLDINGS GP LLC, VALERO (PERU) HOLDINGS LIMITED, VALERO ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO ARUBA ACQUISITION COMPANY I LTD., VALERO ARUBA FINANCE INTERNATIONAL LTD., VALERO ARUBA HOLDING COMPANY N.V., VALERO ARUBA HOLDINGS INTERNATIONAL LTD., VALERO ARUBA MAINTENANCE/OPERATIONS COMPANY N.V., VALERO BROWNSVILLE TERMINAL LLC, VALERO CANADA FINANCE INC., VALERO CANADA L.P., VALERO CAPITAL CORPORATION, VALERO CARIBBEAN SERVICES COMPANY, VALERO COKER CORPORATION ARUBA N.V., VALERO CUSTOMS & TRADE SERVICES INC., VALERO EAST BAY LLC, VALERO ENERGY (IRELAND) LIMITED, VALERO ENERGY ARUBA II COMPANY, VALERO ENERGY INC., VALERO ENERGY LTD, VALERO ENERGY PARTNERS GP LLC, VALERO ENERGY PARTNERS LP, VALERO ENERGY UK LTD, VALERO ENTERPRISES INC., VALERO EQUITY SERVICES LTD, VALERO FINANCE L.P. I, VALERO FINANCE L.P. II, VALERO FINANCE L.P. III, VALERO FOREST CONTRIBUTION LLC, VALERO GRAIN MARKETING LLC, VALERO H2 PIPELINE COMPANY LLC, VALERO HOLDCO UK LTD, VALERO HOLDINGS INC., VALERO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC., VALERO LIVE OAK LLC, VALERO LOGISTICS UK LTD, VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY (PANAMA) LLC, VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY COMPANY, VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPY INTERNATIONAL LTD., VALERO MARKETING IRELAND LIMITED, VALERO MKS LOGISTICS L.L.C., VALERO NEDERLAND COOPERATIEF U.A., VALERO NEDERLAND COOPERATIEF U.A., VALERO NEW AMSTERDAM B.V., VALERO OMEGA COMPANY L.L.C., VALERO OPERATIONAL SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO OPERATIONAL SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO OPERATIONS SUPPORT LTD, VALERO PARTNERS CCTS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS CORPUS EAST LLC, VALERO PARTNERS CORPUS WEST LLC, VALERO PARTNERS EP LLC, VALERO PARTNERS HOUSTON LLC, VALERO PARTNERS LOUISIANA LLC, VALERO PARTNERS LUCAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS MCKEE LLC, VALERO PARTNERS MEMPHIS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS MERAUX LLC, VALERO PARTNERS NORTH TEXAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS OPERATING CO. LLC, VALERO PARTNERS PAPS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS PORT ARTHUR LLC, VALERO PARTNERS SOUTH TEXAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS TEXAS CITY LLC, VALERO PARTNERS THREE RIVERS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS WEST MEMPHIS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS WEST TEXAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS WYNNEWOOD LLC, VALERO PAYMENT SERVICES COMPANY, VALERO PEMBROKESHIRE LLC, VALERO PEMBROKESHIRE OIL TERMINAL LTD, VALERO PLAINS COMPANY LLC, VALERO POWER MARKETING LLC, VALERO RAIL OPERATIONS DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO RAIL OPERATIONS DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO RAIL PARTNERS LLC, VALERO REFINING AND MARKETING COMPANY, VALERO REFINING COMPANY-ARUBA N.V., VALERO REFINING COMPANY-CALIFORNIA, VALERO REFINING COMPANY-OKLAHOMA, VALERO REFINING COMPANY-TENNESSEE L.L.C., VALERO REFINING-MERAUX LLC, VALERO REFINING-NEW ORLEANS L.L.C., VALERO REFINING-TEXAS L.P., VALERO RENEWABLE FUELS COMPANY LLC, VALERO SECURITY SYSTEMS INC., VALERO SERVICES INC., VALERO SKELLYTOWN PIPELINE LLC, VALERO TEJAS COMPANY LLC, VALERO TERMINAL HOLDCO LTD, VALERO TERMINALING AND DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, VALERO TERMINALING AND DISTRIBUTION DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO TEXAS POWER MARKETING INC., VALERO ULTRAMAR HOLDINGS INC., VALERO UNIT INVESTMENTS L.L.C., VALERO WEST WALES LLC, VRG PROPERTIES COMPANY, VTD PROPERTIES COMPANY, WARSHALL COMPANY LLC, and ZELIG COMMERCIAL INC.. The Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various personal and commercial banking products and services in Canada and the United States. It operates through three segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The company offers personal deposits, such as chequing, savings, and investment products; financing, investment, cash management, international trade, and day-to-day banking services to businesses; and financing options to customers at point of sale for automotive and recreational vehicle purchases through auto dealer network. It also provides credit cards; real estate secured lending; auto finance; consumer lending; point-of-sale payment solutions for large and small businesses; wealth and asset management products, private banking, investment advisory, and trust services to retail and institutional clients; and property and casualty insurance, as well as life and health insurance products. The company also provides capital markets, and corporate and investment banking services, including underwriting and distribution of new debt and equity issues; advice on strategic acquisitions and divestitures; and trading, funding, and investment services to companies, governments, and institutions. It offers its products and services under the TD Bank and America's Most Convenient Bank brand names. The company operates through a network of 1,085 branches, 3,440 automated teller machines, and 1,223 stores, as well as offers telephone, digital, and mobile banking services. The Toronto-Dominion Bank was founded in 1855 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More SunTrust Banks, Inc. operates as the holding company for SunTrust Bank that provides various financial services for consumers, businesses, corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit entities in the United States. It operates in two segments, Consumer and Wholesale. The Consumer segment provides deposits and payments; home equity and personal credit lines; auto, student, and other lending products; credit cards; discount/online and full-service brokerage products; professional investment advisory products and services; and trust services, as well as family office solutions. This segment also offers residential mortgage products in the secondary market. The Wholesale segment provides capital markets solutions, including advisory, capital raising, and financial risk management; asset-based financing solutions, such as securitizations, asset-based lending, equipment financing, and structured real estate arrangements; cash management services and auto dealer financing solutions; investment banking solutions; and credit and deposit, fee-based product offering, multi-family agency lending, advisory, commercial mortgage brokerage, and tailored financing and equity investment solutions. This segment also offers treasury and payment solutions, such as operating various electronic and paper payment types, which comprise card, wire transfer, automated clearing house, check, and cash; and provides services clients to manage their accounts online. The company offers its products and services through a network of traditional and in-store branches, automated teller machines, Internet, mobile, and telephone banking channels. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 1,218 full-service banking offices located in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. SunTrust Banks, Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Read More Bank Hapoalim BM engages in the provision of private and corporate banking services. It operates through the following segments: Retail, Corporate, and International Activities. The Retail Activity segment operates in Private Banking, Small Businesses, and Housing Loans. Private Banking provides a range of banking services and financial products, including investment advisory services. Small Businesses provides a variety of banking services to business customers. Housing Loans is providing credit services for housing to customers of retail activity. The Corporate Activity segment operates in Commercial and Business sectors. Business sector provides financial services to large corporations in Israel and abroad. The International Activity segment operates in Financial Management and Adjustments. Financial Management is responsible for the management of the bank's sources and uses, for the bank's nostro activity, for the activity of the transaction rooms (foreign currency and securities), for provident fund management companies services and for the provision of operating services to financial asset managers, and securities management services for all bank customers. Adjustments includ Read More Vanguard Financials ETF's stock was trading at $56.00 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, VFH shares have increased by 74.0% and is now trading at $97.44. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares MSCI Canada ETF's stock was trading at $23.42 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EWC shares have increased by 67.6% and is now trading at $39.25. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. TCF Financial Corporation operates as the financial holding company for TCF National Bank that provides various financial products and services in the United States and Canada. It operates through Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, and Enterprise Services segments. The company offers checking, savings, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; individual retirement accounts; debit and credit cards; and check cashing and remittance services. It also provides investment management and custodial services, trust services, financial and estate planning, and retirement planning and employee benefit programs; residential, consumer, and small business lending products; and consumer real estate secured lending, consumer loans, loans secured by personal property, and unsecured personal loans. In addition, the company offers loans and lines of credit, deposits, cash management, capital market products, international trade finance, letters of credit, foreign exchange management services, and loan syndication services. Further, it provides commercial and industrial, commercial real estate banking, and lease financing; and treasury services comprising investment and borrowing portfolios, as well as manages capital, debt, and market risks. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 478 branches, including 373 traditional branches, 102 supermarket branches, and three campus branches located in Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, and South Dakota; and 1,062 ATMs. TCF Financial Corporation was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. Read More JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a financial holding company. It provides financial and investment banking services. The firm offers a range of investment banking products and services in all capital markets, including advising on corporate strategy and structure, capital raising in equity and debt markets, risk management, market making in cash securities and derivative instruments, and brokerage and research. It operates through the following segments: Consumer and Community Banking, Corporate and Investment Bank, Commercial Banking, and Asset and Wealth Management. The Consumer and Community Banking segment serves consumers and businesses through personal service at bank branches and through automated teller machine, online, mobile, and telephone banking. The Corporate and Investment Bank segment offers a suite of investment banking, market-making, prime brokerage, and treasury and securities products and services to a global client base of corporations, investors, financial institutions, government and municipal entities. The Commercial Banking segment delivers services to U.S. and its multinational clients, including corporations, municipalities, financial institutions, and non profit Read More Mumbai: With the smashing trailer, the craze around Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumars Sci-Fi thriller '2.0' has officially taken over the country. The trailer was unveiled at the grand event in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, the home territory of Rajinikanth and director Shankar. Superstar Rajinikanth was all praise for Akki at the trailer launch event. Also Read | Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar's lethal battle is visually stunning in '2.0' trailer Akshay Kumar is one of the finest actors. He had to put heavy makeup and lenses throughout but Akshay pulled it off without any complaints. His confidence never fails to entertain the audience. Hats off to him, said the 67-year-old star said. Thalaiva also mentioned how it took four hours for 'Khiladi' Kumar to get into the costumes. See Photos | 2.0 trailer launch: Rajinikanth, Akshay Kumar grace much-awaited event Talking about the film, the megastar added, It is a thriller, entertaining and has an important message for all the living creatures about how the modern quality is spoiling the whole universe. While talking about the film, director Shankar said, Akshay Kumar is one of the biggest pillars of 2.0. He had to put heavy makeup and lenses throughout but Akshay pulled it off without any complaints. Akshay Kumar plays the antagonist in the movie and Rajinikanth will be seen saving the world from his wrath as Chitti, the robot 2.0. This is the first time that Akshay Kumar and Rajinikanth will be seen sharing the screen space together. Written and directed by S. Shankar and '2.0' is being produced in both Hindi and Tamil. The film also has Amy Jackson in the female lead. The magnum opus is set to hit the cinemas on November 29, 2018. Rumours of an impending wedding of the two stars are doing the rounds. Mumbai: Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt - Bollywood's rumoured love birds have been painting the town red off late. Apart from spending time together, the couple has been bonding with each other's friends and family as well. Also Read | Alia Bhatt turns Ranbir's first girlfriend to get nod from Neetu, to break monotony While Ranbir openly spoke about his "new" relationship in an interview with GQ magazine, Alia also got candid about RK during a recent episode of Karan Johar's chat show. Interestingly, Alia had also visited New York last month and went on a double date with Ranbir, Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor. In a candid chat with Hindustan Times, when Ranbir's sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahni was asked about her brother's blossoming relationship with Alia, she said, "Hota hi hai (speculation), ask him! What can I say? I am happy if my brother is happy, and I am a very happy sister." Rumours of an impending wedding of the two stars are doing the rounds, and if a report in Bollywoodlife.com is anything to go by, the two moms discussed, over dessert, dates for a wedding, which is most likely to be in 2020. On the professional front, the actors are currently shooting together for Ayan Mukerji directorial 'Brahmastra' in Bulgaria, which is scheduled to release on August 15, 2019. The cast list also includes Amitabh Bachchan, Mouni Roy, and Tollywood star Nagarjuna. Pawan Kalyan is busy travelling all over Andhra Pradesh, as part of his political campaign. The actor-turned-politician travelled by train from Hyderabad to Tuni and also interacted with several people during the trip. Pawan seemingly enjoyed his train journey, and was seen sitting at the entrance of the compartment drinking coconut water. Pawan Kalyan The actor remembered his old days when he travelled by train and how he enjoyed it. So, he did the same thing on Friday when he took a train, says a source. This picture of Pawan sitting at the entrance of the compartment has gone viral on the on social media. HT07 Rating: Savyasachi Cast: Naga Chaitanya, Nidhhi Aggerwal, Madhavan, Bhumika, Rao Ramesh, Vennela Kishore, Satya, Bharath Reddy Director: Chandoo Mondeti This small film starring Naga Chaitanya comes on the back of a string of successes for its makers Srimanthudu, Janatha Garage and Rangasthalam for Mythri Movie Makes and Chandoo Mondetis first two films. Vikram Aditya (Naga Chaitanya) is an ad filmmaker and has a rare condition he is the surviving sibling of a vanishing twin syndrome. His left hand appears to have a life of its own. When he is returning from the US with girlfriend Chitra (Nidhhi Aggerwal), he sees an explosion rip the house of his sister (Bhumika), his brother-in-law killed and his niece abducted. Vikram is not certain of the fate of his niece when he gets a call from a unknown person (Madhavan) about her. That sets the stage for the rest of the film. Director Chandoo Mondeti tries to peg his film to the vanishing twin syndrome which he gets a doctor to explain one of the twin foetuses vanishes into the other one or the uterus. To this he gives a twist that the surviving sibling gets some special power. In Savyasachi, Aditya gets a unique power in his left hand where the vanishing twin has merged. Therefore Naga Chaitanyas character has two shades as Vikram and the special power of his left hand called Aditya his vanished twin. While this can be the basis of an interesting story, Chandoo Mondeti loses track. His narration goes awry, and at the end, Savyasachi is neither an entertainer nor a thriller. Somewhere along the way, he largerly forgets about the left hand. The first half is devoted to some college scenes and the lead on-again-off-again love story. The film picks up in the second half once Madhavan enters. But his talents are not used well. Madhavan is confined to a room mostly, and his character falls in the category of Aravind Swamy in Dhruva and Arjun in Lie, where they talk more on the phone and guide the protagonist. Also, Mondeti inserts an unrelated Jabardust skit like Subhadra Parinayam. In the Mahabharata, Arjun can shoot arrows from his hands and is called Savyasachi. The film takes its title from this tale as the protagonist can use his both hands equally. Naga Chaitanya is good, but he looks the same as a college student as an ad filmmaker and at home with the family. Madhavan steals the show but his character is not designed well. Vennela Kishore provides a few laughs, Shakalaka Shankar not quite. Nidhhi Aggerwal as the female lead is just okay. Bhumikas talents are wasted. Music by Keeravani is nothing special, the dialogues are average. The action scenes are well choreographed by Ram Lakshman. The duo was identified as Pandi alias Pal Pandi, 20, from Thanjavur Mariamman Kovil street and Muthiah, 33, from Chinniyamaplayam. (Representional Image) Coimbatore: Police have arrested two persons for stocking and selling ganja near Chinniyampalayam in suburbs of Coimbatore on Friday night. Police said, recently a gang of seven including a woman was arrested for allegedly peddling ganja from Andhra Pradesh and around Rs 20 lakh worth of ganja consignment was seized from the gang. Meanwhile, based on another tipoff, a team led by Peelamedu police inspector Selvaraj launched a raid at Chinniyampalayam area on Friday night. Under suspicion, they took a duo into custody and investigated. During preliminary investigation they reportedly admitted to the crime of stocking ganja and supplying to college students through brokers, police said. The duo was identified as Pandi alias Pal Pandi, 20, from Thanjavur Mariamman Kovil street and Muthiah, 33, from Chinniyamaplayam. Around 12-kg of ganja, a motorcycle, mobile phone and `3,000 was seized from the duo. They were made to appear before the court and lodged in Coimbatore Central prison. Bengaluru: The West division police have arrested nine people in three separate incidents and solved 21 cases in the city. The police recovered valuables worth Rs 2.4 crore from them. In the first incident , Jnanabharathi police arrested a 25-year-old man went absconding after renting out 23 cars and a tempo traveller. The accused, identified as Chetan Kumar from Mandya, has been arrested by the police. According to the police, on October 23, the victim, Sunil Kumar M had filed a complaint stating that Chetan had approached him and his friends asking them to rent their cars to him. After gaining their trust, he took their cars on rent for Rs 30,000 per month and went absconding. The police said that the accused was working as a manager in a travel company happened to meet Sunil. The accused first took four cars for rent from Sunil and for the first two months he paid a monthly rent of Rs 30,000 for each car. But after gaining his trust, he asked him to introduce him to his friends and rented out 19 cars and a tempo. The police said that he had sold some of the cars and mortgaged the rest. The police have recovered 23 cars and tempo traveler, totally worth Rs 1.5 crore. In the second incident, K.P. Agrahara police arrested three people who had rented out luxurious cars and sold them in an online e-commerce site. The accused have been identified as Nazir Ahmed, 30, a resident of K.G. Halli, Imtiyaz, 38, a resident of Davanagere and Emad Khan, a resident of RT Nagar. According to police, the accused were running a travel agency and rented out luxurious cars, but failed to pay the rent. They posted an advertisement on OLX and sold those rented cars to the prospective buyers and went into hiding. A case was registered in K.P. Agrahara police station. The police arrested the trio recovered six cars worth Rs 50 lakh from the accused. The police said that the accused had sold the cars to Adil Ahmed in Shivamogga and Sudhakar in Chennai. The police are on lookout for Adil and Sudhakar, who are currently absconding. In the third incident, the Chandra Layout police arrested five people for their involvement in robberies, thefts and house thefts. The police recovered 801 grams of gold jewelries, two cars, three two wheelers and two LED TVs, totally worth around Rs 40 lakh. The accused have been identified as Subramani alias Subbu, 32, hailing from Kolar, Raja alias Catraja, 31 and Srikanth, 26, both from Mandya, Ajay Kumar alias Manu, 32, a resident of Lagere and Girish, 34, a resident of Anekal. The police said they initially arrested Subramani, Raja and Srikanth and based on the information shared by them they the other two accused were arrested on Friday. With their arrest the police have solved 20 cases in the city. The TD in-charge has been identified as M. Radha Krishna Yadav, 60, who was the second accused arrested after the prime accused Chinna Yadav. (Representional Image) Hyderabad: The Malkajgiri TD in-charge was arrested by the Malkajgiri police on Saturday morning at his residence for obstructing public servants from carrying out their duties during the Bonalu festival a few months ago. The TD in-charge has been identified as M. Radha Krishna Yadav, 60, who was the second accused arrested after the prime accused Chinna Yadav. Malkajgiri sub-inspector K. Sanjeev Reddy said, During Bonalu, he obstructed public servants from carrying out their duties. We booked a case under Section, 353 IPC, assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty, 188 IPC, disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant and 34 IPC, acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention. Yadav was sent to judicial custody, the official added. Statues, inscriptions and other ancient structures are important sources to study and interpret history. These findings help unravel the heritage and traditions of a bygone era and help reinforce the profound respect and awe we have for our ancient generations and the heritage they have left behind for us. But the discovery of some Jinabimba statues in the recent past by a monk in Bhadragiri Betta(hill) in Halingali village of Bagalkot district and his claim that these date back thousands of years, has led to an unseemly controversy between historians and the monk's devotees. Vittal Shastri explores the roots of the controversy which has cast a shadow on the remarkable history of the place and its fascinating facets and has become more of an ego tussle between the monk and historians. Not many people had heard of Bhadragiri Betta comprising hillocks spread across fifty-eight acres of land in the tiny hamlet of Halingali six years ago. Part of the newly carved out taluk of Rabakavi-Banahatti in Bagalkot district and a well known centre of Chalukyan architecture, the hillocks had turned into a green paradise over the years with several rare Ayurvedic plants grown here. Considered a holy place by the Jain community, shrines have sprung up in the hillocks which attract thousands of pilgrims from across the state, neighbouring Maharashtra and other parts of the country. This is no doubt the Jain communitys venerated land-they live on the right and left banks of the Krishna which flows through the region.The head of the pilgrimage centre, Muni Sri Kularatnabhushan has built an attractive water temple on a lake here that resembles the Jal Mandir in Pawapuri of Bihar, dedicated to Lord Mahavira, the founder of Jainism. Tha Paaduke (sacred footwear) of the 24 Teerthankaras, the water temple and a statue of Mahaveer along with a fountain have come up in the hillock which has become a revered place for the community It is here where the controversy starts with many of the Jain community themselves condemning the monks attempts to mislead people with archaeologists too rushing to join the never ending debate. What triggered this ugly tussle between historians and adherents of a faith which is known for its espousal of renunciation, peace and brotherhood, was the discovery of Jinabimba statues in the hills while digging the earth using JCBs. As many as 16 statues were unearthed by the temple committee during five excavations in the last 5-6 years on the basis on the monks dream about the locations of these statues. The monk cites this unique discovery to justify his claim about the rich Jain history of the place asserting that the hillock was visited by the founder of the Maurya Empire, Chandragupta Maurya and Jain sage Acharya Bhadrabahu nearly 2,300 years ago. He also believes that the hillocks had many mini-gompa (monasteries) as more than seven hundred monks accompanied the Jain sage Bhadrabahu, who had undertaken religious sermons when severe drought struck the region. He was then traveling to the famed Jain pilgrimage centre of Shravanabelagola in Hassan district. A sculpture with Devanagari inscriptions too has been found in the hill which the monk and his followers, aver, reinforces their claim about the unique Jain connection of the hillocks. They believe that Chandragupta Mauryas grandson, the great King Ashoka too visited the place to preserve the gompas, which were destroyed by miscreants over the years while searching for treasure. Jains were once a thriving community in nearby Jamkhandi and engaged in agriculture on the banks of river Krishna. The traditions of the two major sects- Digambara and Swethambara- started during 300-200 BC, more than 2000 years ago. Therefore, we named the hillock after the monk Bhadrabahu six years ago and tried to develop it into a tourist destination by taking up afforestation. We also want to preserve its history and protect its natural resource as illegal stone quarrying is rampant in the hillock, reasons the monk, Sri Kularatnabhushan. This has evoked criticism from some in the community who contend that no monk has supernatural powers and the discovery of the statues are an attempt to mislead people and gain popularity. These developments have made many a historian and archeologist visit the hillock to study how genuine the claims are. We did research and found megalithic tombs as old as 2,500 years in Halingali village when we visited the site three years ago. But these discoveries are in no way connected with any religious community or the Jains. The Jinabimba statues which the monk claims to have discovered, belong to the 16th century and are not 2,000 or more years old. Fresh soil brought from outside has been deposited beneath these very ancient megalithic sites. I suspect that the statues were deliberately buried in the hills and removed later to divert the attention of the villagers, contends Dr R.M. Shadaksharaih, retired professor of history and archeology at Kannada Research Institute of Karnataka University. Meanwhile, the Arsh Marg Seva Sangh,an organisation of the Jain community, which is keen to resolve the row over the discovery of the statues, has written to the government, urging it to investigate the antique statues found by the monk in the hillock. Expressing fear that the discovery of the Jinabimba statues could be a hoax to dupe unsuspecting villagers for personal gain, the president of the organisation, Ajit Patil has demanded elaborate digging operations in the hillocks in the presence of Archeological Survey of India(ASI) officials. Competent officials or experts should be present at the excavation site to thwart any attempt by mischevious officials to misappropriate priceless historic artefacts. If such artefacts are found, they will have to go to the Digambar Jain Samaj and will help reinforce the antiquity of Jainism. There is also a possibility that these idols were obtained from thieves and smuggled in clandestinely to be buried deep in the earth so that they could be dug out at an appropriate time, Ajit Patil says. The situation is no doubt sensitive for any attempt to falsify history could lead to unexpected consequences and even a flare-up between devotees and historians. Archaeologists have enough tools to distinguish between truth and falsehood and all it needs is a careful and well researched effort to establish if the Jinabimba statues are as old as they are being made out to be. There are religious beliefs and age-old traditions at stake and the government would do well to tread cautiously so that the serene hillocks in Halingali do not become breeding spots of discontent. Tug of war over land, religion The Bagalkot district administration stoked the controversy demolishing a Jain temple and other religious structures at Bhadragiri hillock in Halingali claiming they were illegal constructions on government land. This led to protests by the Bhadragiri Committee under the leadership of monk Kularatnabhushan Maharaj. The monk had also undertaken a fast unto death urging the government to restore the demolished structures. Former CM Siddaramaiah had to intervene and interact with the monk to resolve the issue.The officials had even confiscated and examined the 16 idols found by the monk in the hillock with the help of archeology experts and returned them to the Bhadragiri committee saying that they are not 2000 years old as claimed by the monk and hence do not not fall under the purview of the Antiques and Art Treasures Act. The committee has also given an undertaking to the government stating that they will not enter government land till they get the nod. The administration has allotted 2 acres to the committee to undertake preaching and other religious activities in the hillock. Barricades have been erected at many places en route to Nilakkal and police personnel are allowing vehicles only after checking. (Photo: File) Thiruvananthapuram: With the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala set to open for monthly poojas tomorrow, the police are on high alert and tight security arrangements are in place in the backdrop of violent protests over the entry of women of menstrual age last month. According to a Kerala police release, 1,500 personnel, 100 of them women, are keeping vigil at Sabarimala and nearby areas. A 20-member commando team has been deployed at Sannidhanam, Nilakkal and Pamba, the release said. Meanwhile, the BJP's state unit said its president P S Sreedharan Pillai has received a death threat. Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and chief priest Unnikrishnan Namboodiri will open the temple doors and light the lamp at the 'Sreekovil' (sanctum sanctorum) on November 5 at 5 pm. Besides the usual pujas, "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special puja, will be held on November 6 and the shrine will be shut at 10 pm. A prohibitory order under section 144 CrPc banning assembly of four or more people will come into force at Pamba, Nilakkal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam from midnight Saturday till November 6 midnight. Barricades have been erected at many places en route to Nilakkal and police personnel are allowing vehicles only after checking. The temple complex and nearby areas had witnessed violent protests by Ayyappa devotees against the entry of young women when it was opened for last month's pujas from October 17-22. Around 1500 police personnel have been deployed from Pamba to Sannidhanam: IG Ashok Yadav to ANI on #SabarimalaTemple to open for a day tomorrow #Kerala pic.twitter.com/3bKEV8Tfm1 ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 At least 12 women had made a vain attempt to trek the hills soon after the Supreme Court verdict permitting women in the 10-50 age group to offer prayers at the shrine. They had to retreat following the protests and demonstrations by devotees. Comprehensive traffic arrangements have been made by police in Pathanamthitta district where the shrine is located. Private vehicles carrying pilgrims would be allowed to proceed only up to Nilakkal, a base camp, police said. The Kerala police has introduced online booking for pilgrims, which would enable them to conveniently choose the day and time of darshan. According to officials, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation tickets are compulsory for all pilgrims, who reach Nilakkal, except those who go by foot. The devotees can avail the ticket booking facility and choose the darshan time also. The KSRTC has also made arrangements for the pilgrims who reach for darshan on foot, to avail online tickets from Pamba at the foothills. Meanwhile, the state government said it was prepared to hold talks with the Nair Service Society (NSS), an outfit of the influential Nair community, which is against the entry of young women into the hill shrine. "The government is prepared to remove misunderstandings with NSS and has an open mind for talks with the outfit," Devaswom (temple administration) minister Kadakkampally Surendran told reporters. The attack against the NSS office here Friday was "well-planned," he said. BJP leader K Surendran alleged that government had some "hidden agenda" on Sabarimala temple. He said the party's state president, P S Sreedharan Pillai, has received a "death threat" Saturday through speed post and the DGP has been informed. BJP and various Hindu outfits are on the warpath against the left government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court verdict allowing women of menstrual age to enter the shrine. Sankar went to the girls house on Saturday to discuss his proposal and take her parents consent. Kurnool: A 30-year-old drunken school teacher in Kurnool attacked a minor girl student on Saturday with a sharp blade for rejecting his love. The attack left the girl with a slit throat and bleeding profusely. Passersby caught the teacher, tied him to a pole and beat him with chappals. The girl is out of danger, police said. According to the police, the girl is a student of Class IX at the Rock Wood Government Aided School in the city and a resident of Bangarupeta. The attacker, M.S. Sankar Naik, was a Hindi teacher in the same school. He had been harassing the girl for the last one year, police said. Sankar went to the girls house on Saturday to discuss his proposal and take her parents consent. On the way, he met her and attacked her with a blade, trying to slit her throat. Later, he tried to kill himself by slitting his throat with the same blade, DSP Yugandhar Babu said. The police shifted both to the government general hospital and booked a case under the Pocso ACT as the victim is a minor. HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao directed the DEO to dismiss Sankar from service. This handout photo released by the Maharashtra Forest Department shows the dead body of the tiger known to hunters as T1 after being shot in the forests. A man-eating tiger that claimed more than a dozen victims in two years has been shot dead sparking controversy over the legality of its killing. (Photo: AFP) Hyderabad/Mumbai: On spotting Tigress T-1, I fired a dart from the tranquillising gun. The moment it pierced her hind leg, she turned around and roared loudly. In a fraction of a second, she encountered us; Avni was 5 metres away from the open-top Gypsy. She was furious and was in an absolutely attacking mode, I pulled out a 458 Magnum rifle and shot her.. This was the account of Mr Asghar Ali, a Hyderabad-based sharpshooter, of the final moments of Avni, who was listed as a man-eater. Avni, who is believed to have two cubs, was shot dead at 11.45 pm on Friday near the Borati-Warud road in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. She was believed to have killed 13 humans, and her killing was cleared by the court. Avni was spotted at about 6.30 pm by locals when she moved to the main road of Ralegaon taluka, where a weekly bazaar was on. They informed the regional forest conservator, who pressed the team of Asghar Ali, three forest officers and a driver. The villagers were made to vacate the place. The team went around the area in an open-top jeep equipped with a high-beam torch. After four and a half hours, Avni was spotted reportedly without her cubs. Mr Asghar Ali, the son of Mr Shafat Ali Khan who was invited by the Maharashtra government to kill the man-eater, shot the tigress with a tranquilliser. Generally the drug takes 10-17 minutes to act. She charged towards the vehicle, there was no option but to kill her, he said. The carcass was taken to Nagpur for postmortem, he said. On September 12, the Maharashtra government launched a search for Avni and invited Mr Shafat Ali Khan. He was in Patna and his son was given charge. Earlier too Avni was spotted but from a large range. It made three dangerous approaches, we couldnt act in time. She continued to hunt human flesh, but on Friday she was put to rest in the same location where she had eaten three villagers, Mr Shafat Ali Khan said. It took 100 cameras, 200 field staff, 5 IFS officers and two sharpshooters to put Avni to rest. A.K. Misra, principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), had issued orders to tranquillise the tigress first, and shoot it as the last resort. Urine of another tigress and American perfume were spread in some areas following which Avni came by sniffing it, an official from the forest department said. Tirupati: A Muslim family based in Mumbai has donated a 16th century Panchaloha idol of Goddess Padmavathi Ammavaru which was in its possession to the famous TTD run S.V. Museum. According to TTD Chief Museum Officer Col. Chandra Sekhar, the donor, Mr L. Rehman Sheikh, hailed from Greater Mumbai. According to the certificate issued by the Archaeology Survey of India, the idol is 460 years old and is made of pure Panchaloha. The devotees approached senior officials to donate the idol. After verifying the certifications and facts, we took it into our museum on November 1. It will be displayed at the S.V. Museum in Tirumala and daily rituals will be performed, he said. According to sources, the Mumbai family had the idol in its procession for about 100 years. The couple, who were performing daily rituals, were ageing and wanted to donate it to a responsible authority which would take good care of the idol. After that, they approached a Mumbai-based Hindu organisation, which contacted TTD officials and processed the donation. The idol was donated to the S.V. Museum by L. Rehman Sheikh. 'Who is a bigger anaconda than (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi. He himself is the anaconda, who swallowed all the institutions like CBI, RBI etc,' Yanamala Ramakrishnudu claimed. (Photo: ANI) Amaravati: Launching a scathing attack at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said the Prime Minister is an 'anaconda' who is swallowing up institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), among others. "Who is a bigger anaconda than (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi. He himself is the anaconda, who swallowed all the institutions. He is swallowing up institutions like CBI, RBI etc. Andhra Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders should know this," he claimed. Ramakrishnudu further asserted that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will fight dictatorship, hegemony, and pride- three qualities, he claimed, the BJP possesses. "Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is speaking of past politics. Past cannot be present or future. But present and future will become past. The critics of TDP should understand this truth. TDP was not established against any single party. It was found against the system. Late NTR had founded TDP to fight dictatorship and hegemony. TDP was found for the security of marginal and downtrodden and for empowering minorities," he added. Reiterating TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu's stance, Ramakrishnudu said the party's primary responsibility is to save the nation, democracy, and constitutional values. "BJP leaders, Narendra Modi, and Amit Shah are violating the constitution and democracy. In such a situation is it not the responsibility of all of us as the citizens of India to face BJP and counter PM Modi's dictatorial policies? Instead of that why YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Jai Samaikyandhra Party (JSP) are criticising TDP in the same tune? Is it not irresponsibility and anti-constitutional?" he asked. The Andhra Pradesh minister further claimed that the TDP has been playing a key role in national politics whenever needed from day one of its formation. "We did the same in National Front and United Front. TDP has a greater responsibility towards the nation. That's why it cannot sit idle as a mute spectator when the safety of the nation is in trouble, democracy is in problems and constitution is in crises. YSRCP and JSP want to grab power but have no responsibilities towards the nation. For the same, they are supporting Narendra Modi, who is demolishing the systems and killing democracy," he said. "TDP was formed for the interests of the state of Andhra Pradesh. It was founded for creating a new political era by encouraging youth, educated and truthful people into politics. TDP has been working in the same direction since last 36 years. Our call for self-respect brought worldwide identity for us. People stopped calling us 'Madrasis' and started identifying as Telugu people," added Ramakrishnudu. In response to the state finance minister's comments, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi asserted that PM Modi's critics do not have the courage to review the work done by him. "There is a competition going on in abusing popular and hardworking Prime Minister like Narendra Modi. People are not feeling ashamed of using bad words. However, if we see the history, PM Modi has always stood strong whenever somebody attacked him. These people, who are abusing him, also know this. They don't have the courage to review the works done by the Prime Minister," he told news agency ANI. Ties between the TDP and BJP have been strained ever since the Chandrababu Naidu-led party pulled out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) alleging that the BJP-led central government had betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh by not granting special category status to the state. The heavy snowfall has caused massive damage to the power supply infrastructure in the alley, leading to power outage since Saturday. (Photo: PTI) Srinagar: Surface links between Kashmir and the rest of the country remained cut off for the second day on Sunday due to heavy snowfall in the valley which has caused a massive power outage, officials said. The Srinagar-Jammu National Highway is closed for vehicular traffic due to heavy snowfall on Saturday which has rendered the road unsafe, an official of the Traffic Control department told news agency PTI. A police spokesperson said more than 300 passengers, including tourists, who were stranded on the 294-km road due to snowfall, were evacuated to safety in a night-long operation. The heavy snowfall has caused massive damage to the power supply infrastructure in the alley, leading to power outage since Saturday. "We are facing near full power outage but efforts are on to restore the electricity supply at the earliest. Against a normal transmission of nearly 1,200 MW, the system is able to transmit only 80 MW due to the damage to transmission lines caused by the snowfall," an official of the divisional administration said. He said breaking of trees has resulted in supply wires getting snapped at dozens of places while massive foliage hanging over the transmission lines had made it unsafe for the restoration of electricity. "More than 7,000 employees of PDD are being assisted by other departments to clear the obstructions and repair the lines so that electricity is restored on war footing," the official said. Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Abid Rasheed Shah said electricity has been restored in several parts of the city while the work was in progress to restore normal supply in the remaining parts. "Electricity in parts of downtown Srinagar has been restored. We have restored electricity in some parts of the civil lines areas as well," he added. Hyderabad: The Telangana State Wakf Board has adjourned its scheduled meeting on Saturday as Chief Executive Officer, Shahnawaz Qasim IPS was indisposed and could not attend. Board chairman Mohd Saleem, said it was being held despite the election code of conduct being in place as the board had not met for two months which was mandatory. He said that the CEO as convener had to present the agenda of the meeting. It would be unfair to hold the meeting in his absence, Mr Saleem said. He said the board would meet again after the elections. New Delhi: With Telugu Desam Party joining hands with Congress, the party founder N T Rama Rao's widow Lakshmi Parvathi has "requested" her deceased husband to "take rebirth to save the self-respect of Telugu people." In a unique protest, Parvathi has placed a four-page letter at the NTRs samadhi in Hyderabad asking him to come back. She pleaded NTR to take a rebirth to cleanse the politics and restore the self-respect of Telugus. The legendary actor-turned-politician had formed TDP in 1982 on the plank of Telugu self-respect. Raos widow is upset over the fact that TDP president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidus decided to befriend the Congress. "I am waiting for the day when people of Andhra Pradesh will get back their self-respect, said Parvathi, who sat in silence for a few minutes at the NTR memorial. On Thursday, Naidu met Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi and agreed to bury the past and work together to defeat Modi government in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Parvathi wrote that this action of Naidu for personal gains caused pain to crores of followers and admirers of NTR. Parvathi was second wife of NTR. He married her in 1993, a few months before he returned to power with a landslide victory. However, NTR's son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu led a revolt and became chief minister in August 1995, citing Parvathi's growing interference in administration and party affairs. NTR died in January 1996 and since then Parvathi has been living in political oblivion. Sanjay Kumar had been holding the post in BJP's Uttarakhand unit for the last seven years. (Photo: Facebook) Dehradun: The BJP on Sunday sacked its Uttarakhand general secretary Sanjay Kumar after a woman party worker accused him of sexual harassment. Kumar had been a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) campaigner before he took charge of the BJP's post in the hill state. He had been holding the post for the last seven years before he was sacked by the ruling party over sex harassment allegations. The woman alleged Kumar assaulted her at the party's headquarters, sent derogatory messages and cheated her promising he would give her a job. Several women across all fields have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment, especially in the workplace, after the #MeToo movement started gaining traction in India. Last month, the chief of Congress-affiliated NSUI, Fairoz Khan, stepped down from his post following charges of sexual harassment. Congress president Rahul Gandhi had accepted his resignation, news agency Press Trust of India reported. UP government has already taken steps to decide on the architect and the design consultant for the worlds tallest statue of Lord Ram. (Photo: File) Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government is likely to begin planning the installation of a statue of Lord Ram on the banks of the Saryu river in Ayodhya. Plans are afoot to install the world's tallest statue of Lord Ram , according to BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh. Rishikesh Upadhyay, the mayor of Ayodhya Municipal Corporation, told PTI, "There is a proposal to install a 151-metre-tall statue of Lord Ram on the banks of the Saryu river in Ayodhya...Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath may make an announcement on this on the occasion of Dev Deepawali." "The place where the statue will be installed will be finalised after the soil is tested. The statue is likely to come up in the vicinity of Sant Tulsidas Ghat. Officials are looking at two-three sites, after which they will pick the best one," Upadhyay, a BJP leader, added. According to a Hindustan Times report, UP government has already taken steps to decide on the architect and the design consultant for the worlds tallest statue of Lord Ram. Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan told ANI, "Why did this thought not occur at the time of building the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel? Why would anybody oppose (the building of Lord Ram's statue)? I would want an even taller statue of Lord Ram in Rampur." Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently inaugurated an imposing 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the country's first home minister, in Gujarat. The Uttar Pradesh unit chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mahendra Nath Pandey, said, "Yogi Adityanath, in addition to being the chief minister, is the 'peethadheeswar' (head) of a prominent 'peeth' and sant. He must have made some plans pertaining to Ayodhya, which is a place of religious interest, pilgrimage and also the birthplace of Lord Ram." "Let Diwali come and you will get good news," Pandey told reporters. (With inputs from agencies) Hyderabad: Former chief minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan called caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao a naya Nawab, while criticising him for unleashing family rule. The earlier Nawabs used to do something for the people, unlike KCR is doing everything for his family alone, Mr Chavan told mediapersons at Gandhi Bhavan. He said Mr Rao had failed to fulfil the promises made during the 2014 elections. The state is being ruled by the family which is concentrating on the commission business, he alleged. The TRS has taken up several irrigation projects just to collect commission from the contractors, he claimed. Chavan said the people were cheated by Mr Rao. It is a shame that the TRS is coming up with new promises by forgetting those made in past. The debts of `2 lakh crore made KCR to go for early elections. His family is involved in sand mafia. Woman have not been given Cabinet berths, which shows KCRs respect towards them, he said. Mr Chavan said the TRS government had failed to provide 2BHK houses to the poor. Only MLAs got new houses, he said, addig that the farmers were in trouble as the minimum support price was not being implemented. Cops in Nilakkal carried tight checking on every vehicle including KSRTC buses. Only cops and construction workers were let to go to Pampa from Nilakkal. Nilakkal: Ahead of the opening of Sabarimala temple for Chithira Attavishesham ritual on Monday evening, the police has beefed up security in an unprecedented manner at Sannidhanam and its base camps. Nobody including media was allowed by the police to go beyond Nilakkal on Sunday. As many as 2,300 police personnel led by two inspectors general M.R. Ajithkumar and Ashok Yadav have been deployed from Nilakkal to Sannidhanam. Cops in Nilakkal carried tight checking on every vehicle including KSRTC buses. Only cops and construction workers were let to go to Pampa from Nilakkal. With the prohibitory orders in force in Pampa and Nilakkal, the protestors split into small groups and stood purported to be Ayyappa devotees along the mountainous pathways. No protest was seen either at Nilakkal or Pampa. Protesters have vowed to defy the police and stop young women from trekking and the cops to rein in these fringe groups. No devotee can stay more than 24 hours in Sannidhanam while the temple will remain open for 29 hours. Rahul Easwar, president of Ayyappa Dharma Sena, said they would deploy devotees to stop young women at any cost. "At least 34 petitions are now before the Supreme Court considering on November 13. We hope the apex court will refer the case to a larger bench (seven-member bench). So we are 100 per cent sure to defend Sabarimala for at least 30 hours," he told Deccan Chronicle. Prajeesh Viswanathan of Antharashtra Hindu Parishes (AHP) also called upon his followers to protest against young women trying to enter. Speaking to reporters at Nilakkal, he went on to say that they had readied some 2000 protesters, including women above 50, to obstruct them. However, police managed to execute its meticulously chalked out plan to implement Supreme Court order. High-quality CCTV cameras have been installed every nook and corner of Nilakkal and Pampa. Face detecting devices with pictures of people held last time will make identification of miscreants easier. Police also got information about the presence of protesters from other states. The sanctum sanctorum of the temple will open at 5 pm Monday, and close at 10 pm Tuesday. President Maithripala Sirisena in a dramatic move on October 26 installed former president Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, in place of his coalition partner Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the United National Party (UNP). Evidently, political expediency prompted the president to ignore the inconvenient fact that it was the support of Wickremesinghe and the UNP that enabled him to come to power, defeating Rajapaksa in the presidential election. The Presidents surprise action was well orchestrated with his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)-led United Peoples Front Alliance (UPFA) and the pro-Rajapaksa Joint Opposition (JO) group withdrawing support to the Wickremesinghe government. After sacking the incumbent PM Wickremesinghe, the President prorogued the parliament till November 16, preventing Wickremesinghe from seeking a vote of confidence in parliament. By November 16, the Sirisena-Rajapaksa government probably hopes to secure majority support in the 225-member parliament. Karu Jayasuriya, the speaker of parliament objected to presidents action as it was unconstitutional, and requested him to convene the parliament early for a vote of confidence. The Western world was stunned by the developments in Sri Lanka as it had been supporting Maithripala-Ranil duo to keep Rajapaksa out of power. They had felt Rajapaksa, already in their black books for his questionable standards of governance, was getting too cosy with China for their comfort. They supported the speakers request for convening the parliament immediately to seek a vote of confidence. The President after meeting the speaker has now agreed to convene the parliament on November 5. Probably he is confident that by then Rajapaksa would be able get majority support. According to the media, as on October 30, both Sirisena-Rajapaksa combine and Wickremesinghes UNP front enjoyed the support of 100 members each. So the support of Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which has 16 members in parliament, has become crucial for Rajapaksa. He is said to have met TNA leader R. Sampanthan and asked for his support. The Tamil leader sought a "specific plan, a time frame and the manner of implementation" on the Tamil question from Rajapaksa before TNA MPs and Allinace partners could consider the request. So the jury is still out on whether Rajapaksa would be able to muster majority support when the parliament votes on November 5. The brand Yahapalana (good governance) was coined to promote the rise of Maithripala-Ranil to keep the corrupt Rajapaksa family out of power and people voted to elect them. Now Yahapalana has become mockery; more than that, it is a betrayal of the people, who believed in Maithripalas election promises. The presidential action was not unexpected as he had met Rajapaksa more than once. They had reportedly discussed the future course of the Sirisena-led SLFP as trust deficit and friction with Wickremesinghe and the UNP had reached the point of no return. However, the timing of his action surprised everyone including the ousted PM. The Sirisena-Rajapaksa duo probably decided to act after their earlier effort to unseat PM Wickremesinghe through a no confidence motion failed in April 2018. As the much delayed provincial council elections are to be held shortly, they probably decided to bury the hatchet to regain SLFPs credibility, particularly after the drubbing received by both UNP and SLFP in the local elections. A suspected plot to assassinate President Sirisena and former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, hinting at Indian intelligence agency RAWs involvement hand surfaced, seems to have further aggravated the Preidents suspicion about a conspiracy hatched by the UNP. According to a media report, President Sirisena had talked about the plot at a cabinet meeting. Later he spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clarify that he never alleged India was behind the assassination plot. However, President Sirisena seems to have been upset by the lack of quick response to the report from Wickremesinghe, particularly after there were loud hints of involvement of a minister behind the plot. Legalities apart, President Sirisenas action of not extending even the normal courtesy of informing PM Wickremesinghe before he sacked him, indicated the degree of bitterness in their personal equation. This was dramatically illustrated when Ranil was served with an ultimatum to vacate his official residence, followed by reduction of his 1008-strong security detail to ten and the sacking of his secretary at the PMs office. In any case, it is now evident that the so-called National Unity Front of SLFP-UNP combine was a marriage of inconvenience formed only to cash upon popular sentiments against Rajapaksa familys insensitive and corrupt rule. While SLFP is left-of-centre, UNP may be called right-of-centre; so their perceptions on free economy, private sector etc differ. This has always made it difficult for them to act cohesively in cohabitation government. So the coalitions actions lacked sincerity on key issues like cleaning up the corrupt system, investigation of corruption cases including the Bond scam, ending the executive presidency and drafting a new constitution that would satisfy minority aspirations. Presidents action seems to have vertically divided the nation. Civil society leaders and legal pundits for and against President Sirisenas action are battling it out in media columns quoting the same Constitutional article 45(4). The Colombo daily Daily Mirror online poll has reported that 72 percent of voters considered the Presidents action incorrect. However, this probably reflects urban middle class view, rather than the rural masses on the political change. But it certainly reflected that influential sections of society is not reconciled to the idea of Rajapaksa as PM. Apart from the unfulfilled political expectations, Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition had come in for sharp criticism over mismanaging the debt-ridden national economy. The rise in global oil prices and the fall in the value of Sri Lankan rupee resulted in sharp rise in fuel and food prices affecting the common man. PM designate Rajapaksa in his first media interaction on October 31 has focused on this aspect, perhaps because it affects the people most. Usually, India is the fall guy responsible for any crisis in Sri Lanka politics because it looms large in Sri Lankan politics. This time also was no exception. There was some bad mouthing of India because all the three stake holders in current political muddle - Rajapaksa, Sirisena and Wickremesinghe - had visited New Delhi before the crisis unfolded. All the three of them had called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When Rajapaksa met the Indian PM, he sought to assure that he had nothing against New Delhi, in a bid to reduce the trust deficit. The allegations against India were gingered up when an Indian hand was suspected behind the plot to kill the President and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, though it was officially denied. So it was not surprising that India stayed "disengaged" as the controversial situation unfolded. During his latest visit to New Delhi, Rajapaksa had reminded in an interview had hinted that India and Western powers had helped formation of the coalition to defeat him in the 2015 presidential election. Indian media has now reported that Rajapaksa was trying to contact New Delhi for its support as he was still short of 15 MPs for a majority. However, New Delhi had shown no interest; after all between Rajapaksa and Ranil, the latter had a better new equation in the Indian capital. On the other hand, China was happy to see Rajapaksa, its favourie Sri Lankan leader, staging a comeback in power. Chinas ambassador in Colombo Chen Xueyuan was one of the first diplomats to meet Rajapaksa soon after he was sworn in; he presented a congratulatory message from PM Li Keqiang. So it was not surprising to see social media flogging China for supporting Rajapaksa. China clarified that it did not intend to interfere in Sri Lankas internal affairs. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that China was closely following the changes in the situation in Sri Lanka. "We have maintained communication with the relevant political parties in Sri Lanka. The Chinese ambassador met Wickremesinghe and the new PM Rajapaksa" he added. In simple terms, Indias strategies in Sri Lanka have become a little more complicated with Rajapaksa back in power supported by President Sirisena. China already established in Sri Lanka, can be expected to be even more assertive now. (Col R Hariharan, a retired MI officer, served as the head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies, South Asia Analysis Group and the International Law and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info) (The article appeared in South Asia Security Trends, November 2018 | www.security-risks.com) According to sources, this will require major upgrading of systems across medical colleges in India, as methods of teaching will have to be modified. (Representional Image) Hyderabad: The MBBS curriculum will now have a course called attitude, ethics and communication (AETCOM) to enhance doctors responsiveness to the needs of patients and their families. The new curriculum will have elective subjects students can pick subjects of their choice and dedicate their time accordingly. Anatomy, which comprises most of the syllabus of the first year, will now require medical mannequins and also models for clinical learning. Hence apart from human cadavers, stress is also going to be laid on virtual models for the learning process. According to sources, this will require major upgrading of systems across medical colleges in India, as methods of teaching will have to be modified. This will pose a major challenge and the transition is not going to be easy, said a source. Training programmes for professors will be required as they need to inculcate sensitivity to convey the same to their students. The present system of learning is based on the fact that it is a human body which is diseased and has to be cured. Emotions and sensitivity are not part of the teaching, the source said. Hospitals deal with sickness and death and a sensitive response to these is imperative on the part of doctors, or indeed all hospital personnel. Trauma cases in case of road traffic accidents, victims of disasters, of domestic violence and rape need sensitive handling. Communication between doctors and patients relatives needs to be particularly good in case of organ donations too. In high-risk operations, the assessment of fatality has to be communicated to relatives and the required consent for the operation must be communicated to the patient and family members in a way that they understand the risk factors. This requires dealing with them sensitively and not scaring them away. These competencies and skills are now going to be part of the bedside training practice in hospitals and a part of the MBBS curriculum which will roll out nationally from August 2019. The Board of Governors of the Medical Council of India have revised the syllabus after 21 years. Among other changes, clinical exposure is to begin from the first year instead of the second year, and a month-long foundation course is going to be introduced. Whenever a user enters details of the RuPay card, they are told: Sorry, your RuPay debit/credit card is not enabled for online transactions, Please contact your bank. Hyderabad: While MasterCard has lodged a protest with the US government over Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly promoting the RuPay card, it remains unacceptable at various places including Hyderabad Metro, Delhi Metro and Flipkart among others in India. The backing to Indias domestic payments network is said to have taken a toll on the supremacy of US payment giants such as MasterCard and Visa. Following demonetisation, Mr Modi started promoting the use of digital payments which gave a major boost to RuPay leading to more than 1 billion debit and credit cards of the homegrown network being issued. However, this payment network has integration issues with various players. Several citizens have been raising issues with RuPay integration. Only one of the two big e-commerce giant Amazon accepts the card while Flipkart does not. Whenever a user enters details of the RuPay card, they are told: Sorry, your RuPay debit/credit card is not enabled for online transactions, Please contact your bank. A netizen, Mr Pratik Pede, said on the social messaging platform Twitter: Flipkart does not accept RuPay card on their site and displays a wrong message that card is not enabled for transaction when the card is very much accepted and enabled on sites like Amazon. Despite being indigenous, Flipkart said that it would take up integration of RuPay but that it currently accepted payments made using Visa, MasterCard and Maestro cards. Even the public transportation services like Delhi Metro and Hyderabad Metro do not accept the indigenously developed card. A user, Mr R. Raghunath who tried to booked flight tickets on Oman Air said the airline doesnt accept RuPay or BHIM UPI. In a tweet, he said, I booked flight tickets for my journey from Hyderabad to Muscat by Oman Air. I had to use Visa card though the payment is in Rupees. This is the state of affairs with rupay card (sic). Another user, Mr Sundeep A., said, Hyderabad metro ticket counters accept only visa or MasterCard. The person at counter said rupay cards dont work (sic). Several users have been raising concerns of failing to make online transactions with RuPay card. It is evident that it will take time before RuPay gains acceptance and lot of services need to be integrated. A RuPay spokesperson noted, We are working towards integrating more merchants. Hyderabad: Apprehensive that aspirants who were not given tickets would stage protests at Gandhi Bhavan, and that ruling party workers may attack them, the TS Congress headquarters here has enhanced its security by recruiting about 20 members from a private security firm. Congress leaders are most worried about the security of the seniors as they go out campaigning. Party treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy had approached Director Gen-eral of Police M. Mahen-dar Reddy last week, reque-sting enhancement of the security cover given to important leaders. The private security personnel are on duty from the last four days. Major activities are taking place in the party headquarters as many aspirants and leaders are visiting Gandhi Bhavan regularly. Keeping this in mind, we have enhanced security with private guards. The police is also deploying their men in front of Gandhi Bhavan, said an office bearer from the Congress. The Congress leaders are demanding additional security in view of the elections. Security was enhanced to Revanth Reddy with 4+4 personnel from Telangana State Special Police (TSSP) after he complained that he was facing a threat to his life. Congress leaders are expecting the enhancement of security for the other important leaders of the party. The state party headquarters seen prote-sts by spurned aspirants during previous elections, which made the leadership opt for private security. Party workers and BC leaders from Peddapalle parliamentary constituency staged a protest along with around 200 party activists, demanding tickets to BC community leaders in the constituency. Hyderabad: The Congress is already feeling the heat from rebels in the party, and its leaders are worried that this may ramp up after the announcement of the candidates list. Former MLA from Serilingampally, Bikshapathi Yadav, protested in front of Gandhi Bhavan, the Congress headquarters in the city, on Sunday, demanding that the party withdraw its decision of giving this constituency to the Telugu Desam (TD) as part of the seat adjustment between the parties. More than 100 members staged the protest. A follower of Mr Yadav even made an attempt to commit suicide. The police managed to stop him from igniting the match after he poured kerosene over himself. Another follower dramatically cut his hand with a blade. The Congress is strong in the constituency and is sacrificing the ticket for the TD. We will make sure that any other party candidate from the Mahakutami will be defeated, said Mr Yadav. Later, the party workers and BC leaders from Peddapalle parliamentary constituency staged a protest along with around 200 activists, demanding tickets to BC community leaders in the constituency. The protest was lead by Chethi Dharmaiah and Eerla Komaraiah who alleged that not even single BC candidate got the assembly ticket from last 25 years. Earlier on Saturday, Congress senior leader Mr K. Jana Reddy also faced the heat as senior workers from Miryalaguda staged a protest and stalled his programme, demanding not to issue tickets to new comers, other parties or the non-locals. The party workers refused to listen to Mr Jana Reddy who later left the meeting. The Congress leaders are now worried about more protests after the final list of candidates and seats sharing are announced. Congress leader Madhu Yashki Goud said, Though allies have asked for the Serilingampally seat, we have not taken any decision yet. I assure you (party workers) that the seat will remain with the Congress. The BC leaders should also withdraw the protest as the Congress is always with them and will continue the same in future. Mr Rahul Gandhi himself told that, the Congress party had assumed power with the support of BCs along with Reddy Community. We are clear that the party will provide more seats to the backward comunities. Kakinada: Chief Minister and TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidus strategy to go for an alliance with his strong opposition Congress in Andhra Pradesh may split the vote bank of YSR Congress. The TD leaders are discussing the alliance in inner circles. According to sources, the Telugu Desam-Congress alliance has triggered widespread speculation and debate in Andhra Pradesh as the two parties have been opposing each other ever since the formation of TD in 1982. However, it is said that under the prevailing political circumstances, both the parties need to go for an alliance both at the state-level and national- level. The TD is on the back foot as YSR Congress chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has been aggressively going round the state and attracting people to his padayatra. He also raised the issue of Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh and he is having a strong hold in the Schedule Caste community. In fact, the Congress used to get the Dalits vote bank. But after the bifurcation, the Dalits left the Congress and have been supporting the YSR Congress. At present, the Congress has no strong vote bank. However, the Schedule Caste people are also rethinking and observing the political changes in the state. The TD-Congress alliance would benefit the two parties and the TDs victory will be cakewalk in the coming elections. At the same time, the Congress may gain to some extent with the alliance, SC/ST Commissioner Karem Sivaji said. He said that at present, the Dalits are in a dilemma about whether they should render support to Jagan Mohan Reddy or not since it is clear that Jagan cant assume power. The new alliance may give a new breath for the Dalits and also the Congress and TD as the Dalit votes may be split for the Congress and YSRC. However, former Union minister M.M. Palllam Raju said that he had not thought about the alliance related to Andhra Pradesh. The present alliance is only for national issues and Telangana state elections, but not for Andhra Pradesh, he said. However, he said that Dalits should rethink their decision to go for YSR Congress as Jagan has eyes on Bharatiya Janata Party. Meanwhile, some of the Congress leaders could not digest the alliance with the Telugu Desam. JS expects to gain with TD- Cong tie-up Jana Sena leaders are expecting that the alliance between the Telugu Desam and Congress may give a boost to Jana Sena in the coming elections. Already, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan has lashed out at Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu that the alliance with the Congress has deeply hurt the Telugu people and it kills the self-respect of Telugu people. According to sources, the party leaders want to take up the Telugus self-respect slogan which had once given a boost to former chief minister N.T. Rama Rao. Some of the MLAs of TD in East and West Godavari districts have begun discussions with Jana Sena leaders, in the aftermath of the alliance between Congress and TD, due to their political future. But the party would take a decision on it in a proper manner, a Jana Sena leader said. He said that youth and women from all sections of the society are rendering their own support to Pawan Kalyan. Mr Kalyan made success through his speeches and keeps up trust and confidence of the people, for a political change in the state. Hyderabad: MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said one of the major problems of the poor was the lack of housing. He was speaking after hearing women women from the Charminar constituency state their problems at a meeting in Gauhar Gulshan Function Hall, Moghalpura. Mr Owaisi said, I can understand in the problem of the poor who have to pay exorbitant rents. On the representation of the MIM, work of the 2BHK scheme was started at seven-eight places in the Old City. After they are completed, all eligible poor families will get houses. He said another major problem of the poor was healthcare. On our representation, the government has established mohalla clinics at few places in the Old City. We will ensure more such clinics are set up so that people can avail free consultations with doctors and free medicines. On complaints from some women that they were not getting widow pensions, the MIM supremo said that after the elections he would call a meeting with the MRO for the purpose. Petitions for sewing machines would be cleared after the elections. He said sewing machines could not be disbursed as the elections were announced. He said that along with Muslims, members of other communities were also eligible for scholarships and anyone facing problems could call the MIM for help. Our party works for all communities, he said and appealed to Hindu women to approach the party headquarters. Darussalam has no doors, it is open for all. All MLAs and corporators sit there six days a week. You can even calll us by phone. We are ready to work for all without discrimination, he said. Most women complained about not getting ration cards. Mysuru: A 52.63 per cent turnout was reported in Saturday's parliamentary bypoll from Mandya on Saturday. While the Kurubas and people of a few villages, who had threatened to boycott it, voted in the byelection, some villagers and sugarcane growers stayed away, according to Mandya Deputy Commissioner, N Manjushree and Mandya SP, Shiva Prakash Devaraju. People of Kaalammana Koppalu village in KR Nagar taluk boycotted the polling despite the efforts of the tahsildar, executive officer and police, the villagers refused to vote, according to Ms Manjushree. As many as 50 members of the Sugarcane Growers Federation too boycotted the voting and protested before the NSL Sugarcane Factory in Mandya, as it had not paid the farmers. Although over 50,000 people from the Kuruba community of K R Nagar taluk had threatened to stay away from the polling, they reportedly relented following the intervention of former chief minister Siddaramaiah and voted in the bypoll on Saturday. Actor-turned-politician Ambarish, who voted in his native village of Doddarasinakere along with transport minister D.C. Thammanna, was optimistic that Mr Shivaramegowda of JD(S) would win from Mandya with over five lakh votes. All five candidates of the Congress -JD (S) coalition will win the bypolls, he declared. Actress- turned- politician, Ramya, however, did not vote. She has reportedly not voted for the third consecutive time, having stayed away from the assembly and the Mandya urban local body elections earlier. Meanwhile, Congress leader G L Raghavendra, returned without voting in Gejjalagere village as Congress workers in the district are reportedly upset over the party not fielding a candidate of its own in the bypoll. CHENNAI: DMK chief MK Stalin did not meet AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran in Madurai, as has been alleged and this meeting is a figment of imagination, DMK treasurer Duraimurugn claimed. Tamil Nadu politics has come to this state of affairs. Can the political leaders or opposition party leaders not travel in the same flight or stay in the same hotel? Should this be construed as plotting? This is merely a figment of imagination, Duraimurugan said responding to state revenue minister R.B. Udayakumars charge that following the meeting between the two leaders at a hotel in Madurai, Dhinakaran had announced that his MLAs would contest the by-election. Asked if the DMK will re-nominate the candidates who had contested (and lost) in the 2016 Assembly elections, for the 18 Assembly constituencies which fell vacant following the disqualification of the AIADMK rebel MLAs, Duraimurugan shot back first lets see if the by-elections will be held. Speaking to reporters here on Sunday he said the issue could be discussed once the election schedule is announced. Party chief Thalapathi (Stalin) will take a call. When asked if the by-election would be held, Duraimurugan who had been former state minister asked, How can I predict? When the scientific prediction by the MET department of heavy rainfall has not turned true, will political prediction become a reality? Turning to the health department, he said all types of viral fevers make periodic appearance during the AIADMK rule. The government should have taken preventive measures. In fact, the DMK members are involved in distributing Nilavembu kashayam to prevent the spread of dengue or swine flu, he said. The war of words is getting hotter as the nation approaches the 2019 general election, and Assembly elections in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana before 2018 is out. A criminal defamation suit against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor by a BJP member is an index of the poll temperature. His reproduction or repeating of a 2012 remark attributed by a magazine to an unknown unidentified RSS leader may, as a metaphor, be apt in the literal sense about any scorpion sitting on a sacred idol. While its use by a litterateur may be disappointing, it doesnt change the fact that criminal defamation is an archaic provision, a hangover from colonial times, which has no place in a modern nation. Criminalising malice, specially in the political sphere, doesnt speak well of a democracy that swears by free speech (Article 19), even if with reasonable restrictions. Its another matter vulgar abuse is fast becoming the language of political discourse; its almost standard now. Such abuse isnt always defamatory, although one expects some restraint among the political class at least when it comes to the Prime Minister, who holds a constitutional office, and the president of the main Opposition party. While Rahul Gandhi has directly called Narendra Modi a liar, there have been enough hints in the PMs speeches on who hes targeting. The exchanges leave us wondering about the country itself, if those at the top in public life believe the other isnt truthful. Its not by defamation suits that truth can be established. Politicians tend to be vituperative at the hustings; but we would recommend some restraint. There is no use making the tenure of the election commissioner a fixed and secure tenure if there is no provision in the Constitution to prevent either a fool or a knave or a person who is likely to be under the thumb of the executive. My provision I must admit does not contain anything to provide against nomination of an unfit person to the post of chief election commissioner or the other election commissioners. I do want to confess that this is a very important question and it has given me a great deal of headache, said Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the prime architect of Indias Constitution, in the Constituent Assembly on June 15, 1949. It is a pity that he did not tackle his headache and left a loophole. Some knaves and fools did become chief election commissioners. On October 23, 2018, the Supreme Court did what it has been doing in the last two decades or more fill by judicial orders the gaps which the legislature ought to have filled. It took up a petition, filed in the public interest in 2015, to devise a foolproof and better system of appointment of members of the election commission. We are of the view that the matter requires a close look and interpretation of the provisions of Article 324 of the Constitution. Article 324 of Indias Constitution says: The election commission shall consist of the chief election commissioner and such number of other election commissioners, if any, as the President may from time to time fix and the appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners shall, subject to the provisions of any law made in that behalf by Parliament, be made by the President. Ambedkar had two solutions. One was an instrument of instructions to control the Presidents discretion. He dropped it four months later. Another was to empower Parliament to legislate on the subject. But which government would sponsor a law to fetter its own power of appointment? If the Supreme Court passes any order on the petition, it will be creating with the best intention a stop-gap arrangement, only to create a royal mess in the long run. It did that on October 6, 1993. It set up a collegium of its senior judges to appoint judges to the Supreme Court and the high courts. This was a response to Indira Gandhis decision in 1973 to pack the courts with committed judges. After her defeat in the polls in 1977, the Supreme Court embarked on judicial activism which saw in 1993 that odious and unique spectacle of judges appointing judges. Attempts to set up a judicial commission by law failed once the Supreme Court struck down the law which set it up. There is a serious problem. But that is not the way to solve it. Successive chief election commissioners have been criticised for partisanship. At least in one case the partisanship was so patent as to emerge clearly in the report of the chief commissioner himself. Shri S.P. Sen Vermas report, The Fifth General Elections in India, 1971-72, contains blatantly political remarks reflective of a clear bias in favour of the party led by Indira Gandhi. The CPI-M held him responsible for rigging the elections to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. S.L. Shakdher was rightly criticised for delaying by-elections arbitrarily. R.K. Trivedi was criticised for adopting double standards in holding elections in Assam despite the clear certainty that a free and fair poll was simply not possible in the state. This was as late as in 1983, 53 years after this Constitution had come into force. A non-official committee on electoral reforms set up by Jayaprakash Narayan said: The tendency of the government is not to look for the qualities of independence and impartiality which would satisfy the public regarding the fairness of the electoral process. Moreover, it is necessary to ensure that the person appointed has no sense of obligation. We, therefore, suggest that the members of the election commission should be appointed by the President on the advice of a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition (or a member of parliament selected by the Opposition) in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. India began well. The first chief election commissioner was Sukumar Sen, a tower of integrity and independence. the appointment of T.N. Seshan as chief election commissioner in 1990 marked a turning point. This abrasive character changed the work culture and set an example of independence which his successors followed. By arrangement with Dawn Pakistan is the sixth-largest military in the world and the only nuclear power with the most powerful military among Muslim-majority nations giving Islamabad a certain leverageable asset. At one time in the 1980s, Pakistan had military missions in 22 countries and had become the largest military troop-deployer among Third World countries. Even under the UNs blue berets, it remains one of the longest serving and largest contributors to the UNs peacekeeping missions. However, it is the strategic politico-religious alignment of Pakistan with the West Asian nations that has seen Islamabad provide invaluable military support to the Gulf regimes in the form of combat troops or under the guise of trainers and advisers to countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, etc. The Pakistani military contingent in these countries has proved its professional mettle in various combat actions like during the seizure of the Grand Mosque at Mecca in 1979, the heroics of Air Commodore Sattar Alvi in shooting down an Israeli fighter plane in Syria and in the role of then-brigadier Zia-ul Haq (later Chief of Army Staff and President of Pakistan) in the operation Black September in Jordan establishing a perception of reliability, convenience and affordability of the Pakistani military as a protective cover for these cash-rich regimes. Saudi Arabia in particular has had a special relationship with Pakistan, with Islamabad getting described as Saudi Arabias closest Muslim ally. This had led to nearly 20,000 Pakistani troops protecting the wary and nervous House of Saud before the start of the first Gulf War. The ostensible mandate of joint military exercises, training, advisory roles and information-sharing barely concealed the obvious fact that while the Saudi armed forces were equipped with the latest technology, weaponry and equipment they lacked the battle hardiness and rigour that a more bloodied, deployed and active force like the Pakistani military offered. At one time it was even murmured that the Saudis had funded the first Islamic bomb by Pakistan. Maj. Gen. Feroz Hassan Khan, in his book Eating the Grass, had acknowledged that, Saudi Arabia provided generous financial support to Pakistan that enabled the nuclear programme to continue. Whether the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is on-call for the Saudis is a matter of speculation, even though both regimes vehemently deny it. However, Pakistan has historically provided a military umbrella to the Saudis in exchange for generous financial and material aid. The recent performance of Saudi troops against the ragtag Houthi militia in Yemen or against the Iran-propped forces in the Syrian swathes, leaves a lot to be desired, and therefore retains the relevance of the professional Pakistani military. Importantly, the recently-cobbled alliance of 41 nations under the Saudi aegis of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition, has also been entrusted to the former Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif. The Saudi influence and leverage over the Pakistani government was visible in the safe exit provided to the Nawaz Sharif family following Gen. Pervez Musharrafs coup in 1999. Today, both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are cornered and isolated for mismanagement of their affairs Riyadh is paying the price for Prince Mohammad Bin Salmans misadventures and the Jamal Khashoggi-like recklessness, while Islamabad is yet again facing the very real threats of an embarrassing sovereign default on its bloated debt-servicing requirements. In both countries, the traditional ally, the United States, has been forced into taking a tough stance of forestalling either a diplomatic bail-out in the case of Saudi Arabia or a financial bailout in the case of Pakistan, which is virtually on the doors of an economic meltdown. While there are considerable strategic interests both ways, a potential freeze or non-cooperation from the US can make both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan extremely vulnerable, in their own ways. US troops are deployed in various places like the Eskan Air Base, King Abdul Aziz Air Base, King Fahd Air Base, Khamis Mushayt, Riyadh Air base, etc, ensuring the sovereignty of Saudi Arabia and the survival of the Saud regime, which was echoed by Donald Trumps rant against the Saudi King that he might not be there for two weeks without US military support! This nightmarish spectre for both Riyadh and Islamabad could lead to the further convergence of the Saudi-Pak framework of bartering military support for financial aid, to tide over their respective crises. Till earlier this year, there were approximately 1,650 Pakistani troops on Saudi soil, and following a trip by the Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Qamar Bajwa, speculation was rife about the additional deployment of a full-fledged Pakistani brigade on the sensitive Saudi-Yemen border. Given its own sectarian issues, Pakistan had resisted earlier pressures from the Saudis to intervene militarily in Yemens sectarian civil war. Therefore, this brigade could possibly be on a defensive position only. Now, Imran Khans desperate pitch to raise money from the Saudis had led him to attend the Future Investment Initiative Conference, even when many others preferred avoiding the conference, given the infamous unravelling of the Saudi handiwork in the Khashoggi case. While Mr Khan did manage a sizeable $6 billion package ($3 billion for the immediate balance-of-payments crisis and $3 billion for a one-year deferment in oil bills), the reciprocal terms of the package on behalf of the Pakistanis, remains mired in secrecy. The current dispensation in Saudi Arabia, effectively led by Prince Mohammad Bin Salman is known for its hard stance on security, decisiveness (even if misplaced) and on extreme paranoia, on matters concerned with his formal ascension to the throne there is only one thing that the Pakistanis can offer the Saudis in these desperate times enhanced military cover and security commitments! Additional Pakistani presence on account of the supposed training and advice mission could give away the latest quid pro quo, as neither are the Saudis in the mood to bluff and pontificate on security nor are they wont to throw away good money behind bad commercial deals in the given scenario. Security-for-cash is the only plausible and logical quid pro quo. Thousands of wealthy Moscow residents who subscribed to a regional internet provider have had personal data including names, home addresses and mobile numbers posted online. People affected by the high-profile data leak are all clients of Moscow-based internet provider Akado Telecom, a large telecommunications network owned by billionaire businessman Viktor Vekselberg, which said it had opened an inquiry into the incident. Russian authorities have been paying close attention to such incidents following leaks that led to the publication of information about military intelligence agents accused of links to an attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain. Reuters saw several hundred records on an international database and identified data including the mobile phone numbers and addresses of a high-ranking Russian government official, a well-known film director and a leading businessmans relative. The data was uploaded to the database of RIPE NCC, a not-for-profit regional internet registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, said IT specialist Vladislav Zdolnikov, founder of the TgVPN service, which offers VPNs for users of the Telegram messaging application. RIPE NCC operates a public database listing which IP addresses have been allocated to different internet service providers. It should not, however, identify individual customers by name or other personal information. Companies that are members of the registry, which include Akado Telecom, are responsible for loading data into the database, said Aleksei Semenyaka, a RIPE NCC communications director. He said Akado Telecom must have uploaded the customer details, which he confirmed could be accessed freely. Akado Telecom said it had launched an internal investigation, but did not say whether it knew the private data of its clients had been published or whether the company had provided the information. We always respond to criticism with attention and gratitude and conduct thorough analyses to uncover vulnerabilities in our information systems in order to prevent possible data leaks, it said in a statement. Akado Telecom operates three subnetworks with 24,500 IP addresses in total, Zdolnikov said. All of those individual users, most of whom live in the capitals wealthiest districts, could have been affected. The database also listed information about banks and government agencies that use Akado Telecom, as well as their staffs contact details. In Russia, it has been illegal to make personal data publicly available since 2006 and companies breaking the law face fines of up to 50,000 roubles ($756). Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. In recent years, China has refrained from taking a public stance on the India-Pakistan ties, expressing hope for resolution of the disputes through dialogue. (Photo: AP) Beijing: China on Sunday said it supported Pakistan's "quest for peace through dialogue" to settle the outstanding disputes with India and backed Islamabad's engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). A joint statement, issued here after Prime Minister Imran Khan's talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, said that China backed Pakistan's efforts to improve ties with India to settle "outstanding disputes", without directly mentioning the Kashmir issue. "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," the joint statement said. The ties between India and Pakistan had strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016 and India's surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In recent years, China has refrained from taking a public stance on the India-Pakistan ties, expressing hope for resolution of the disputes through dialogue. On the Kashmir issue, China's oft repeated stand was that it should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. India too supports dialogue as the way to resolve the issue with Pakistan but maintains that the talks and terrorism cannot go together. For its part, Pakistan supported active participation of China at the platform of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Also significantly, China tacitly expressed its backing for Pakistan's efforts to secure the NSG membership. China has been blocking India's entry into the NSG on the ground that New Delhi is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even though majority of the 48-member group supported India's entry into the elite nuclear club. Pakistan too has applied for the NSG membership. "The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to multilateral, non-discriminatory arms control and non-proliferation endeavours," the joint statement said. "They noted with concern the continued pursuit of double standards in the application of non-proliferation norms and procedures and called for policies upholding rule of law and long-standing rules," it added. China appreciates and supports steps taken by Pakistan for strengthening the global non-proliferation regime, it said. In this context, China supports Pakistan's engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers Group and welcomes its adherence of NSG Guidelines, the statement added. China also heaped praise on Pakistan for its efforts to counter terrorism and said it recognised Islamabad's efforts in actively strengthening financial regulations to combat terrorism financing, and called on all relevant parties to view Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts in an objective and fair manner, according to the joint statement. But at the same time China is pressing Pakistan to crackdown on Uygur Islamic militants crossing in and out of the volatile Muslim-majority Xinjiang province bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. "The Pakistani side reaffirmed its support to the Chinese side in safeguarding its sovereignty and security, and combating separatism, terrorism and extremism including East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)," the statement said. China blames the separatist ETIM, an al-Qaeda linked group, for the violent attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the country. Both China and Pakistan agreed to further enhance cooperation against "Three Evils' of extremism, terrorism and separatism", the statement said. All weather friends, China and Pakistan also agreed to enhance their defence cooperation. China is the main supplier of defence equipment for Pakistan. They agreed to further enhance defence cooperation, maintain high-level visits and exchanges at various levels between relevant departments of the two armed forces, the joint statement said. Both sides have agreed to make full use of the China-Pakistan Defence and Security Consultation mechanism, deepen cooperation in areas such as military exercises, training cooperation, personnel exchanges, and equipment and technology cooperation, it said. During his visit, Prime Minister Khan has held talks with President Xi and Premier Li mainly focussing on seeking China's loans to tide over serious financial crisis faced by Pakistan. China while stating that it would extend necessary support to Pakistan reportedly committed USD six billion funding but did not so far officially confirmed it. "Fourteen civilians, including five children under the age of 18, were killed in the coalition air raids on the villages of Hajin, Sousa and Al-Shaafa" in eastern Deir Ezzor province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. (Representational image | AP) Beirut: At least 14 civilians were killed Saturday in US-led coalition air strikes on the Islamic State group's last holdout in eastern Syria, a monitor said. "Fourteen civilians, including five children under the age of 18, were killed in the coalition air raids on the villages of Hajin, Sousa and Al-Shaafa" in eastern Deir Ezzor province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "The death toll is likely to rise due to the number of seriously wounded," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. At least nine IS jihadists were killed in the raids, he added. The coalition was not immediately available for comment. Strikes on the area intensified following an attempted jihadist attack on a coalition base in the nearby village of Al-Bahra, the Britain-based monitor said. IS overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" in land it controlled. But the jihadist group has since lost most of its territory to various offensives in both countries. In Syria, the group has seen its presence reduced to parts of the vast Badia desert and a pocket in Deir Ezzor that contains Hajin, Sousa and Al-Shaafa. A Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by the coalition launched an offensive in September to wrest the Deir Ezzor pocket from IS. But on Wednesday the alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, suspended its fight against the jihadists after Turkish forces fired on the group's positions. The coalition estimates that 2,000 IS fighters remain in the Hajin pocket. A total of more than 360,000 people have been killed since Syria's war erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. Islamabad: The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman who was released in a blasphemy case last week by the Supreme Court on Sunday sought refuge from US President Donald Trump. Aasia Bibis husband Ashiq Masih appealed to Trump for refuge, citing danger to family members lives. The Supreme Court on October 31 had ordered Bibis immediate release stating that blasphemy charges could not be proven against her. The judgment triggered countrywide protests by religious parties, bringing the country to a standstill for three days before the government reached a deal with demonstrators. I am requesting the President of the United States to help us exit from Pakistan, Ashiq Masih, said. I also request the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to help us, I also request the Prime Minister of Canada, he said, while also asking for help on behalf of his brother Jospeh Nadeem who has assisted with Bibis case. The US, British and Canadian High Commissions in Islamabad are yet to respond to a comment on the video. The Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan called off protests. late on Friday after government reached a deal to initiate legal proceedings to put Bibi on Exit Control List and said it would not object to a review appeal against the verdict which was filed earlier in the SC. On Saturday, Bibis lawyer Saiful Mulook, left the country owing to threats to his life. Its about time. Unexpected defaults by the financier, owner, and operator of Indian infrastructure assets have caused a liquidity squeeze, which has brought strained relations between the government and the central bank to the breaking point. The good news is that the new government-appointed board, which can resolve the insolvency without creditors swooping in on assets held across 347 IL&FS firms, has drawn up three sensible approaches. These may be mixed and matched to extract the most value. The first of those three strategies finding a group-level investor wont work immediately. Nobody quite knows where the equity value of this unwieldy empire lies. The discount for that uncertainty would be large. Consider the recent rights issue, the previous managements last-ditch attempt to infuse liquidity before it was booted out by the government last month. Just three years ago Indias Life Insurance Corporation, the largest shareholder, didnt want to sell its stake at Rs 750 a share; now it doesnt want to buy more at even Rs 150 a share. But why pick on just LIC? Japans Orix Corp., the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and other institutional shareholders didnt contribute a single rupee to the rights issue, which bombed. If IL&FS is sold in its present form, its toxic culture, which has for three decades involved inflating project values, shortchanging partners, self-dealing by senior management, and building cozy relationships with civil servants, will eventually revive. The time to bring in a new investor would be when operating verticals have been mostly sold: for instance, roads to the National Highway Authority, and the electricity business to the National Thermal Power Corp. Thats what Ive recommended, and thats the second approach the new board wants to consider. The third strategy, of finding a buyer for each road or power plant separately, would be time-consuming. Besides, projects that are stuck awaiting land allotment, environmental clearance or financial closure would deliver better value if bundled together with others yielding stable cash flows. The stump that would remain would be a pure financier. Its equity interest in the offloaded businesses may have to be substantially written off. But once the operating assets start performing well under new owners, the $4.2 billion in credit the group has extended against them may have a greater chance of being repaid. That may attract a better-quality investor to take over the ruins. New Chairman Uday Kotak wants to complete the resolution in six to nine months, subject to economic and market conditions. One can understand the impatience. As much as 38% of the external credit for the privately owned infrastructure group has come from taxpayer-funded banks. Its important to stanch the defaults. Still, liquidity considerations shouldnt dominate. Banker Kotak has to stamp out the last imprint of founder Ravi Parthasarathy and his team from IL&FS. Finishing well is more important here than concluding quickly. (Disclaimer: This article first appeared on bloomberg.com/asia, and is published by special arrangement.) As celebrities and journalists spoke out against their predators in the #MeToo campaign, working women cutting across all sections in Bengaluru have now come out in the open. At a gathering on Saturday, they poured their hearts out on the sexual harassment they suffered. Women representatives from the Garment and Textile Workers Union, Stree Jagruti Samiti, BBMP Guttige Pourakarmikara Sangha, workers federation of KSRTC, BMTC, NEKRTC, NWKRTC and representatives from transgender communities spoke about how they are harassed by superior officers, managers and members of the public. Sana, transsexual and programme manager at Ondede, said members of her community do not have any protection against sexual harassment. "When transsexuals complain about sexual harassment to the police, they treat us like we deserve it and are born to get sexually harassed," Sana said. "I have been sexually harassed by the public and even my bosses when I was working in the media industry. I had filed complaints before the Vishakha committees of the media organisations that I worked at, but no action was taken," she added. Domestic workers, too, have fallen victims to sexual harassment, especially at apartment complexes in the city. "My house owner's son molested me once when I was sweeping the floor at their apartment. I was removed from work when I complained," said Tahira, who used to work as a domestic help. Supported by the All India Progressive Women's Association, the domestic workers demanded that there should be an inquiry and monitoring committee at apartment complexes. They have it the worst... Women bus conductors are among those most victimised. "I have been a BMTC conductor for a few years now. There have been many instances when men have touched me inappropriately. I have raised my voice several times, but nothing changes and it continues to happen. I also have to deal with drunkards in the bus," said a woman conductor, who did not wish to be named. "Local authorities like the BBMP and BMTC have Internal Complaints Committees, but most workers are unaware of this. The Local Complaints Committee, as mandated to be set up under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, remains only on paper only," said advocate Mytreyi Krishnan. The All India Progressive Women's Association will prepare a report with the details of the discussion on Saturday and submit it to the Department of Women and Child Development, the Internal Complaints Committees of the BBMP and BMTC, and the Karnataka State Commission for Women in a few days, and will seek necessary action. Kashta Sadhya is the term officials at the states controlling and monitoring agencies used when asked about the possibilities of implementing the Supreme Court (SC) orders this Diwali. Officials at the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the police department welcome the two-hour window given by the SC to burst crackers, but feel that implementing the same on the ground is a challenge. S Suresh, in charge, CPCB, southern region, said the orders are difficult to implement, but since they are issued by the apex court they will have to be executed. The idea is to ensure less noise and air pollution. The pollution levels will be monitored as directed and a report will be submitted to the ministry and the court as scheduled on November 23, he said. We can only issue directions. It is for the police and local administration to implement it on the ground. We will create awareness among people, educate communities and rope in as many organisations as possible to spread the message, KSPCB Chairman Lakshman said. For effective implementation, KSPCB and CPCB have been holding a series of meetings with police and local administrations. KSPCB has also issued a list of Dos and Donts. They have also started the exercise of mapping vulnerable areas like busy market places where regulation can be difficult. KSPCB, CPCB and the police have also formed a committee to conduct random checks and inspections. They will collect samples of all brands from cracker stores, burst them at designated places and assess the pollution levels. They have also prepared a list of 30 chemicals to be checked. The chemicals will be checked depending on the light emitted after the cracker is burst. This will help them in analysing the pollution levels in advance and banning the product if required. For instance, the brilliant white colour that appears after the crackers are burst indicates that the product contains aluminium which leads to bioaccumulation and causes contact dermatitis. KSPCB has also issued a circular to regional offices and private laboratories working with KSPCB to conduct air and noise pollution tests before, during and after Diwali. They will be checking for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ammonia, PM10 and PM2.5. Environmentalists welcome the SC orders but feel that implementation is difficult. Harini Nagendra, professor of sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, said that just like the plastic ban, these orders are good, but implementation will be difficult. Enforcement will not happen realistically. Bursting of crackers will not be controlled immediately, it is a programme which will start now and sustain gradually. The government agencies will have to rope in communities, corporates, educational institutions and many others to make it a success, she said. Sharachchandra Lele, senior fellow and convenor, Centre for Environment and Development, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), said, People tend to burst crackers four days in advance. Police will have to be alert during this period. There are emotional, cultural, religious and sentimental issues involved. It is likely that the orders will have a nudging effect. Those who are inclined will stop bursting crackers and those who are not, will continue. Since the court has issued orders, violating them will be a civil offence, but booking cases will be a challenge. Firecracker dealers are already feeling the heat. Normally, people start placing bulk orders 15 days before the festival. In recent times, the sales drop by 20% every year. This time, there are no advance bookings also. Worst hit are the markets of Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hassan and Belagavi, said Krishnamurthy a cracker dealer. He added that it will be difficult for the government agencies to monitor areas bordering Tamil Nadu. There is also a lot of confusion in the market about green crackers. Consumers are asking us for less polluting crackers, but we do not know what they are exactly. We are selling what has been supplied to us and what runs in the market. If things go this way, then sustaining in the business will be difficult. The government should stop bursting crackers at political events also as they too cause a lot of air and noise pollution, said Shanthappa, another crackers dealer. A Hindi teacher from Kurnool town in Andhra Pradesh attacked a student with a knife at her house for reportedly turning down a marriage proposal. Later, he slit his own throat with the blade. Locals then tied the teacher to a tree and thrashed him. Both attacker and victim are now out of danger. Sankar, 30, a Vidya Volunteer (working as a teacher for consolidated pay) was later arrested by the police. The Education Department immediately removed him from the job. He was teaching Hindi for classes VIII, IX and X at Rockwood High School. According to Yugandhar Babu, Kurnool Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sankar went to the Class IX girls home in a drunken condition. He had been persuading the 14-year-old girl and her parents to agree to marriage for the last few weeks. However, the family, who belong to a washerman community, warned him against harboring such hopes. Sankar then learned that the girls parents were away on work and barged into her house in Bangarupet around 9 a.m. He had a knife with him. The girl and her younger brother were at home. Sankar then asked the boy to go out. He reportedly had an altercation with the minor girl following which he pulled out the knife and slashed her throat. Neighbours rushed to the home, responding to screams from the victim. Sankar then slit his own throat. While some neighbours rushed the girl to the hospital, other villagers pulled Sankar out of the house and tied him to a tree. They thrashed him before the police arrived and took him to the station. State Human Resources Minister G Srinivasa Rao said he has taken serious note of the incident and has directed district officials to ensure that Sankar gets the most stringent punishment possible. Two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in an overnight encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said on Sunday. The security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Khudpora area on Saturday evening following information about the presence of the militants there, a police official said. He said the search operation turned into an encounter after the militants opened fire towards the security forces, who retaliated. Two militants were killed in the encounter while two others managed to escape, he said. "A couple of terrorists managed to escape from the site as blood trails have been seen there," he added. The slain militants have been identified as Mohammad Irfan Bhat and Shahid Mir. While Bhat had joined militant ranks last year, Mir was part of an arms case from 2004, a police spokesperson said. "Incriminating material, including arms and ammunition, have been recovered from the encounter site. Police have registered a case and started investigations," he said. More than a week has passed since BJP president Amit Shah assured all-out support of his party to those who are resisting, some violently, the implementation of the September 28 Supreme Court judgement that allowed entry for women of all ages to the Sabarimala temple. The BJP presidents remarks while addressing party workers in Kannur have since set off a series of flippant statements, some of a personal nature, from the ruling CPM and the BJP camps. This familiar line of political posturing, however, has not taken attention away from what Shahs call to arms essentially means in a state where the BJP is still struggling to break into the political mainstream. Over the past week, the party has announced plans to have thousands of mothers elderly women block entry of women of menstruating age when the Ayyappa temple opens for the mandalam-makaravilakku pilgrimage season in mid-November. Fasting protests are being held, some of them doubling as platforms for leaders to go ballistic senior police officials are now being targeted based on their religious beliefs. The party has also firmed up plans for a rath yatra between November 8 and 13 from Kasaragod to Pathanamthitta, the district where the temple is located. The yatra, led by the partys state president P S Sreedharan Pillai, is being projected as a call to protect Sabarimala. The BJP state leadership is pitching Hindu consolidation as a key takeaway from the agitation. Sabarimala has set off calls urging the Hindu to wake up and assert his identity. But the party has its work cut out in a society shaped by renaissance movements. Anathalavattom Anandan, veteran CPM leader, says the bigger agenda of the Sangh Parivar is to promote the idea of a religious faith that supersedes the Constitution. He points out that since the Kerala High Court ordered restrictions on entry of women aged between 10 and 50 years in 1991, three Left governments were in office and all complied with the order. By implementing the September 28 judgment of the Constitution Bench, the present government is only fulfilling a Constitutional responsibility. The question is whether you adhere to the law of the land or not. This is a society built on movements of renaissance; here, any form of divisive politics will be discarded. They can get a few thousand people on the streets to protest but they dont represent the society, he says. The Sangh Parivar narrative around the Sabarimala issue has drawn obvious parallels. Writing in CPM mouthpiece Deshabhimani, the partys state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan calls Pillais rath yatra an attempt to whip up communal passions on the lines of unrest around Ayodhya. This is a ploy to garner votes for the Lok Sabha election and Kerala will see through this communal strategy, Balakrishnan says. Keralas main opposition party, the Congress, has extended support to the agitation by devotees. The party is also tipped by many to gain from the polarisation. But with Congress president Rahul Gandhi stating his personal view favouring entry for women of all ages, it will have some explaining to do. As the BJP prepares for a tough general election in 2019, Sabarimala is likely to be pitched as a key issue, against questions on development and the economy. Even as the CPM maintains that the government is not exhorting women in the 10-50 age group to visit Sabarimala, the elaborate security it provided for two women Hyderabad-based journalist Kavitha Jakkala and activist from Kochi Rehana Fathima on their aborted trek to the hill shrine is being questioned. Sobha Surendran, BJP state general secretary, says Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans position on the issue led to the riot-like situation in Sabarimala. At the core of this issue is a question why is this custom, which does not allow women of a certain age group entry, followed in Sabarimala? No serious discussion has been held on this question. Those who set out to implement the order are denying justice to the devotees. The bottom-line is that this is not about discrimination, this is a custom, she says, conveniently forgetting that these questions have been considered by the Supreme Court since 2006. The question Surendran raises is pegged to the idea of the deity as a naishtika brahmachari (eternal celibate), an assertion that has been contested by groups that back the SC judgement. The BJP and the Sangh claim success in the agitation protesters defied prohibitory orders and thwarted attempts by about 15 women to enter the temple when it opened for monthly pujas in October but their big challenge will be in debunking the analysis that its a fight between upper-class orthodoxy and liberal forces. The Thazhamon Madhom, family of the temples hereditary high priests, and the erstwhile royal family of Pandalam, former custodians of the temple, have backed the agitation. The Nair Service Society, an organisation of upper-caste Nairs, has led protests and slammed the police crackdown on protesters. The Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, an influential outfit representing the OBC Ezhavas, has turned down Amit Shahs call to join the agitation. Its an important decision, also seen by political analysts as strategic, considering that the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, SNDPs political arm, is part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Ezhavas form a strong support base for the CPM. As per the 2011 census, Ezhavas and Nairs constitute about 22% and 12%, respectively, of Keralas population. The row has revived demands for restoration of rights of indigenous tribal communities including the Malayarayans on the temple and the surrounding forests. Interestingly, amid debates on the Brahminic appropriation of the deity, the BJP has backed reinstatement of their rights. The party alleges that policies of the two political coalitions under the CPM and Congress are responsible for taking the rights away from the tribespeople, original custodians of the temple. Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha (KPMS), a prominent Scheduled Caste outfit, has distanced itself from what it called an unconstitutional agitation. Punnala Sreekumar, KPMS general secretary, questioned devotees who look away from atrocities committed on SCs and still expect them to join the protests. On October 20, S P Manju (38), a Kerala Dalit Mahila Federation leader, was forced to drop plans for a trek to the shrine. Sreekumar, during a public speech, made a reference to the incident that could bring some context to the political churn in Kerala This is not about sending SC women to Sabarimala, this is about sending women to Sabarimala. We are not talking about the community, we are talking about the society. But, for the BJP, as it faces reverses over governance, economy and even the Modi governments claimed record on corruption, the Sabarimala issue has come as a god-send, the next Ayodhya, milking the issue to polarise and gain votes. A major disaster was averted as officials succeeded in containing an oil spill released by container ship MV X-press Brahmaputra, which collided with a bollard while sailing out of Jetty No 2 at the New Mangalore Port on Saturday. Sources in the New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) said that due to the collision, the port side hull was damaged. As it is highly risky to sail with the starboard side tank damaged, the container ship was re-berthed at berth number 2, sources told DH. The accident took place around 7 am and soon, the damaged container ship began releasing oil (diesel). Within four hours, using buoyant booms (which are inflatable tubes) and skimmers, the oil leak was checked. As diesel is a non-persistent oil (which evaporates quickly), it was easy to contain the spread of the oil spill, district disaster professional Vijay Kumar Pujar told DH when contacted. The container ship (built in 1998) sailing under a Singapore flag had arrived from Colombo. Officials, however, had failed to follow the standard operating procedure for the oil spill response. In violation of the protocol, the district disaster professional got to know about the oil spill from mediapersons. Incidentally, a mock drill using saw dust as an oil spill was conducted at the port a month ago. Later in the evening, NMPT officials held a meeting to take necessary precautions to prevent such accidents. MEDIA Delaware County Council joined members of the Delaware County Veterans Memorial Association on Oct. 31 to announce the 5th annual Freedom Medal Awards Dinner. The Veterans Memorial Association hosts the annual Freedom Medal Dinner to pay tribute to the brave men and women of the armed services and to also raise funds to support its educational programs that ensure future generations know about our nations military history and sacrifice. Delaware County Council will partner with the Veterans Memorial Association to host the Freedom Medial dinner on Nov.14 at Springfield County Club. There are currently 35,000 veterans of all military branches living in Delaware County. The Delaware County Veterans Memorial in Newtown Square was built in 2013 as a tribute to the men and women across Delaware County who have served in the United States military. The Memorial serves as a place to learn about war and conflict in U.S. history, a place to reflect upon the bravery and sacrifice local Veterans and a place to honor those who have served to defend our rights and protect our freedom. The 2018 Freedom Medal Award winners are: Lou Camilli, U.S. Marine Corps Veteran, Joe Hinderhofer, U.S. Marine Corps Veteran, Alan Macauley, U.S. Marine Corps Veteran, Marsha Four, U.S. Army Nurse Corps Veteran, Rudy Shaffhauser, U.S. Navy Veteran and Jeffery White, U.S. Navy Veteran. The Education Award, in honor of Linda M. Houldin will be presented to Scenic Hills Elementary School. The Dedication to Our Community Award will be presented to SAP. The Presidents Award will be presented to Carolyn Hilton-Finney with Independence Blue Cross. Details on the 5th annual Freedom Medal Awards Dinner and the Delaware County Veterans Memorial can be found at www.delcoveteransmemorial.org/gala/. Middletown Presbyterian Church members to pack over 10,000 meals to feed hungry Over 10,000 meals will be packaged when Middletown Presbyterian Church participates in Rise Against Hunger 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon Sunday Nov. 11. The humanitarian project serves the hungry throughout the world with highly nutritious dehydrated meals comprised of rice, soy, vegetables and 23 essential vitamins and minerals. Church fundraisers were held during the year to purchase the ingredients and supplies, and Rise against Hunger provides the enthusiastic leader to coordinate the assembly-line: measuring, sealing, packing and labeling, as church members join to prepare life-changing assistance to combat hunger and make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable in developing countries. Younger children will pack gift boxes for children around the world as part of Samaritans Purse. Nursery care will be provided for the little ones. A short worship service will take place following the completion of the project and a light lunch will be served. For more information, call the office at 610-565-4080 or visit www.middletownpres.org. Willy Wonka Jr. on stage at OHara Catholic Community Choir will present Willy Wonka, Jr. 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8 and Friday, Nov. 9 and 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10 and Sunday, Nov. 11 at Cardinal OHara High School. The cast of 160 children from all over the Delaware Valley has been working hard to bring the magic of Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory to the audience. Tickets are available at the door. Blood drive at Grace Evangelic Lutheran Church Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2191 West Chester Pike, Broomall, will be having an American Red Cross Blood Drive from 1- 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 21. To donate blood, call the church office at 610-356-1824 and leave a message with name, phone number and the time available for appointment and call will be returned, or call the Red Cross directly at 1-800-733-2767 and ask to be put on the list for Grace Lutheran Church. Learn about essential oils at library Tina Mulholland RN, BSN of Doterra Essential Oils will visit the Aston Public Library 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov.15 to explain what an essential oil is and why they work well. She will explain how to safely and effectively use essential oil, and ways to use them for common issues such as sleep, seasonal threats, and immune boosting. Attendees can make a blend to take home. All materials will be supplied. To register , visit www.astonlibrary.org . For more information about the Aston Public Library, go to www.astonlibrary.org . The Library is at 3270 Concord Rd., Aston. Vendors needed for Chester Senior Centers bazaar Senior Community Services Chester Senior Center will hold a week- long Christmas Bazaar Extravaganza beginning Monday, December 10 through Friday, December 14, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at 721 Hayes Street, Chester. The day will include vendors selling a variety of new and unique items including jewelry, crafts, candles, ladies accessories, baked goods, clothing, hats, and much more. Vendor space is available and vendor tables are $30 per day or $100 for the entire week. For information, call 610-497-3550. St. Kevin Womens Club to host Ladies Night Out St. Kevin Womens Club will host a Ladies Night Out, a night of shopping and socializing, 5-9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8 in the St. Kevin Parish Life Center, 200 W. Sproul Rd., Springfield. Cost is $10 which includes one raffle ticket. Snacks and Beverages will be available. Tickets for raffle baskets provided by more than 30 vendors and a 50/50 drawing will be sold. I.G.C. Concierge Jewelers and Precious Gem & Metal Buyers will also be on hand to purchase unwanted gold, silver and platinum jewelry brought to the event. Attendees are also asked to bring non-perishable food items like healthy snacks, breakfast bars and juice boxes/pouches to be donated to Mother of Mercy House in Kensington For more information, contact Wendy McKenna at wendy.mckenna2@verizon.net or 610-543-2184. To stay informed about all the clubs events, visit the St. Kevin Womens Club Facebook page. Photographer opens exhibit on Mariner East 2 protesters The public is invited to the free grand opening of Lives on the Line, a photographic and multimedia documentary, by photographer Chris Baker Evens, on local residents resisting the Mariner East 2 pipeline, 7-9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8 at the United Church of Christ, East Goshen, 1201 N Chester Rd., West Chester. Guests can view the exhibit and hear the photographers narration of the stories and emotions it portrays. To RSVP, e-mail office@ucceastgoshen.org or call 610- 909- 2665 with number of people attending. Volunteers needed for community income tax assistance The Community Action Agency of Delaware County, Inc. (CAADC) is seeking volunteers for its free Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites. CAADC is looking for dedicated, enthusiastic individuals who would like to serve their community by helping low- and moderate income families in Delaware County complete their taxes. Positions include volunteer schedulers, screeners, greeters, tax preparers and quality reviewers. No experience is necessary as training, IRS-certification and resources will be provided. The Agency will be operating sites in Boothwyn, Upper Darby, Sharon Hill and Chester. Last year CAADC helped nearly 900 families. Volunteers should be able to commit to at least one 4-hour shift a week during the tax season of late January to April 15. For more information, contact Patty Haynes at phaynes@caadc.org or 610- 833-4455. In two days, this nation will conduct a momentous election. All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are on the ballot, as are 33 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate. Pennsylvania voters will be selecting a governor, U.S. Senator, members of Congress, every member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and half of the state Senate. The decisions can affect health care, taxes, jobs, immigration policy, education funding, energy initiatives, the makeup of our courts, and yes, the tone of future discourse. The election is without precedent in Pennsylvania after the state Supreme Court earlier this year drew a new map of congressional districts, striking down the former map as an illegal partisan gerrymander. Voters in Berks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties will be voting in the newly drawn 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th districts. There are no incumbents on the ballot in the 4th, 5th and 6th districts. Congressman Ryan Costello and former Congressman Patrick Meehan are among the 56 representatives who did not seek re-election, either retiring or seeking higher office. Meehan stepped down earlier this year. At stake Tuesday in this wave of change is the majority rule of the House, and potentially the future of President Trumps tenure. Democrats are trying to gain 23 Republican seats to win the House, and some are predicting that history is on their side. According to a 100-year analysis of House elections conducted by Ballotpedia and political scientist Jacob Smith, the presidents party has historically lost an average of 29 seats in midterm elections. But as recent elections have shown, political predictions and trends are made to be broken. House races are being closely watched in this region as the Philadelphia suburbs typically involve hotly contested races. U.S. House candidates from the two major parties are: in the 1st District, which includes Bucks County and Lansdale in Montgomery County, incumbent Republican Brian Fitzpatrick and Democrat Scott Wallace; in the 4th District of Montgomery County and the Boyertown area of Berks, Democrat Madeleine Dean and Republican Dan David; in the 5th District of Delaware County, Democrat Mary Kay Scanlon and Republican Pearl Kim, In the 6th District of Chester County and a large portion of Berks, Democrat Chrissy Houlahan and Republican Greg McCauley. Senator Bob Casey, a Scranton Democrat, is seeking his third term. He is opposed by Republican Lou Barletta, Green Party candidate Neal Gale and Libertarian Dale Kerns Jr. While the federal elections are getting the most attention, state elections in Pennsylvania may determine the future of issues critical to our region, including taxation and school funding. Gov. Tom Wolf has been at odds with the Republican-controlled General Assembly, and a reversal of that control, or the election of Wolfs opponent Republican Scott Wagner, could change that. Kenneth Krawchuk is the Libertarian candidate. Democrats need to gain one seat to break the Republican two-thirds majority in the state Senate that allows them to override the governors veto. In the House, where all 203 seats are up for re-election, Republicans have a 119-81 edge. But this election is about more than numbers-crunching and potential power shifts. Also at stake is the leadership and ability of individuals to reach consensus that will define our government for the future. And that stake begins with voters. Vote for candidates that share your ideas, not just your affiliations. Consider the qualifications of a candidate to listen to constituents, to lead by example, and to explore creative solutions to the challenges of governing. Avoid the hysteria that paints national figures, including President Trump and leaders of Congress, as the reasons to vote for or against a candidate. As citizens of the greatest democracy on earth, we cannot allow the voting process to become a blanket referendum on one party or another. We must approach this election purposefully making wise choices based on qualifications and vision, not prejudice and association. There is one more opportunity on Tuesday: We can respect those voting around us, even if we disagree. Go to the polls with pride in sharing with all Americans this common experience and great privilege. Let the exercise of voting define our democracy. Paris, TX (75460) Today Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low around 60F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low around 60F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. North Ogden Mayor and U.S. Army Maj. Brent Taylor talked about his desire to join the military with his wife, Jennie, on their first date. Three days after their engagement, Brent said, he walked into the recruiting office and signed up to serve in the United States Army National Guard. He was a boy who started the Constitution Club at Brigham Young University and was passionate about serving the country. She was a girl who called herself a patriot and soon became a history and government teacher. They both loved America. But neither of them expected to end up where they are today: Brents fourth deployment with seven kids at home ranging from age 12 to newborn. I hope my kids grow up and look back at this, not as a time they missed Dad or that Dad wasnt here or Mom needed extra help," Jennie said. "But as a time they can say, We tried our best. We wanted to help. We answered the call because my dad was needed. My country needed me. My God needed me.'" Later this month, Brent will be deploying to Afghanistan for an anticipated 12 months the first known time in Utah history a mayor has been deployed for wartime service. Brent and his family continue to rely on their faith amidst the challenges that come with serving in the military. 'God, country and family' Brent said he was in class at BYU on Sept. 11, 2001, when his professor sent the students home following the attacks. He had previously thought about joining the military, but after that day, his decision was solidified. However, Brent knew it was something he had to clear with a future wife whom he hadnt met yet. Then he met Jennie. During her LDS mission to Santiago, Chile, Jennie said she saw the lack of priesthood leadership and the importance of good men in the community. In that moment, as a 21-year-old, I promised myself and my God that I would never get in the way of what my God needs my husband to do in life, she said. At the time, she thought her future husband would get called as bishop. She admits she sometimes wishes that was the case. I remember my heart just sinking, Jennie said about the conversation to join the military on their first date. It was like a pit in my stomach. Then I thought, why do I care if this kid wants to join the army? What does that have to do with me? I didnt even know him; I had known him for five minutes. But from that moment on, I think it was a sign or an indicator that this is what were doing," she added. "I never in a million years... pictured myself a military wife." She never thought she would be married to the mayor either. Its been a comfort to us that those things go together: God, country and family, Brent said. After 15 years in the military, seven in active duty, Jennie said the family is used to it and its just what we do. I joke with Brent that hes either visionary or crazy, she said. Im banking on the fact that hes visionary. A leave of absence Though Brent has been deployed three times before, Jennie said she felt the same pit in her stomach when she found out about this upcoming deployment. Brent was at a meeting at the National Guard headquarters in Draper when she received a text that said, We need to talk when I get home. I texted him back, Where are you going? Jennie said. I just knew, here we go again. The first time Brent deployed, Jennie said she had two kids under the age of 2. The second time, her kids were 3, 5 and 7. But now, with an 11- and 12-year-old, she said the older kids are an extra set of hands to help with the younger ones. And the couple's 11-year-old son knows he is going to have to step up to be the man of the house. Jennie said the kids are used to Brent coming and going because hes traveled quite a bit on other assignments for the military. Theyve never known any different, Jennie said. Its not that they dont care. They just know dad is gone and thats what it is. Communication with their dad, Jennie said, is the most important thing, especially as the kids are getting older. But thanks to technology like FaceTime and Skype, that relationship is possible to maintain. He said the most difficult part about being away is missing moments with his kids. Youre not there to see how theyre growing or talk to them about little things, Brent said. We stay in contact, but you miss a lot of the little things going on in their lives, and thats hard. During the few weeks leading up to his deployment, Brent said the family tries to spend as much time together as possible. The family traditionally does a big trip when he gets back. Answering the call Brent, too, never imagined he would stay in the military for his career. I really just joined to volunteer for the wars, he said. Its taken a lot of twists and turns over the years, and now Im sure Ill stay in the Army National Guard until retirement, which isnt something we intended. Above all, it is Brent's faith and church attendance that has helped him combat homesickness and stay focused. When I first went to basic training right after joining (the military), it was one of those moments where no one is looking over your shoulder, no one is checking on you, so what do you do your first Sunday? For me, of course I was going to church. I made that a pattern. No matter where in the world I am, I will be at church, Brent said. After the anticipated yearlong stay in Afghanistan, Brent will return home to resume his responsibilities as mayor and finish the last three years of his second term in office. I dont consider us unique or fabulous or special in any way," Jennie said. "Were on a path weve chosen in life and were trying to do our best on that path and give what we can." Jennie said her family has been overwhelmed with love and support from family, friends and the community, and she feels humbled to publicly represent something that happens so quietly every day. There are men and women who go off to a deployment everyday with no fanfare, with no attention, with no news articles on one individual. Its what they do. The call to serve comes up, and you just answer it, she said. I hope my kids grow up to learn to answer the call to serve wherever it comes, not necessarily in the military but whatever profession, whatever community need, whatever religious need. I hope they know that in our family, we help. In our family, we do what we can. If its something we can do, and the call comes to serve, we say yes. If you think todays anti-immigrant feelings are fierce, you should travel back to 1866 and read the Senate debate surrounding the wording of the proposed 14th Amendment, which clearly makes anyone born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, a citizen. In fact, you ought to do that no matter what you think about immigration, legal or otherwise, especially now that the 14th Amendment is, once again, under attack; this time from the White House. That amendment, spearheaded by Republicans, was written primarily to make U.S. citizens of all former slaves, freed recently both by the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment. But it didnt take long for the debate to swing to other so-called undesirables, especially Chinese, Gypsies and wild Indians, to use vernacular of the day that sounds out of place and offensive to modern ears. Sen. Edgar Cowan, himself a Republican from Pennsylvania, demanded to know, Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? Is the child of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen? In the context of 1866 America, these were ideas that, to many, sounded outrageous and preposterous. The answer came from Sen. John Conness, a Republican from California who wasnt afraid to express radical ideas out loud. If his friend from Pennsylvania knew the Chinese, he wouldnt be so concerned, he said. Conness then said that yes, he intended to make their children born in this country citizens, as well as that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States. He felt this way despite his belief that most of Californias Chinese residents intended to return to their native land at some point. In recent years, the 14th Amendment has come up again and again, parsed and worried over by people who lament undocumented aliens reportedly streaming over the border to deliver anchor babies, or by what the Washington Post confirmed three years ago is an annual influx of about 36,000 birth tourists, people who come here from East Asia, Eastern Europe or Nigeria with legal visas, intending to give birth to a citizen child and return home. Now a Republican president, Donald Trump, has said he intends to end the concept of birthright citizenship through executive order, something many legal experts say cannot be done. Eight years ago, when the 14th Amendment came up, Jeff Sessions, currently the attorney general but then a senator from Alabama, said he wasnt sure what the drafters of the amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen. However, its quite easy to learn what the drafters had in mind. A transcript of debates in the Congressional Globe is available on memory.loc.gov. The answer is that many of them had an expansive view on the subject, during a time of intense racism and nationalism. Their view was so expansive that it cost them politically. Conness, for example, lost a re-election bid because of his friendly view toward the Chinese. But in 1866, there was no such thing as an undocumented alien, and that, for many, is what matters now. By 1882, Congress had made it illegal for any Chinese, except students and diplomats, to immigrate to the United States. That inadvertently gave rise to United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, an 1898 case involving a Chinese man, born on U.S. soil to parents living here legally, who was denied re-entry to the country after a trip to China. The Supreme Court ruled that Ark was a U.S. citizen. It referred to English common law and said when the 14th Amendment refers to people subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, it refers to anyone residing here except foreign diplomats or rulers, or people born to hostile enemies of the nation. Since then, the United States has passed extremely restrictive immigration laws, then modified them. It has traveled a never-ending cycle of concern over aliens taking jobs and changing the culture. No longer are people of Chinese origin excluded. Native Americans finally obtained citizenship in 1924. And then in 1965, Congress began restricting immigration from Mexico for the first time. The history isnt always pretty. And no, courts have not yet ruled definitively on the status of children specifically born to undocumented immigrants. But the record of intent regarding the 14th Amendment seems clear. If the president persists in trying to end birthright citizenship, the courts may get their chance to weigh in. But if that amendment is altered, it could change something fundamental about the United States. SALT LAKE CITY Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001? Those alive and old enough to understand can usually answer that question in detail. Stephane Lessard,consul general of Canada based in Denver, is no exception. While working in one of his first government positions in Canada, he was part of a group touring an aerospace company when someone rushed in with a printout from CNNs website showing the Twin Towers engulfed in flames and smoke. The room full of Canadians immediately fell numb and silent. I remember how I and my colleagues and my friends felt, and the truth is we felt angry and hurt because you guys (the United States) were hurt and angry. You had been attacked, and it hurt us too because we're family, Lessard said in an interview with the Deseret News. According to Lessard, the relationship between Canada and the United States forged over more than two centuries goes much deeper than simply a common border and shared economic and governmental interests. To Lessard, its personal, and its that personal relationship that he believes is at the heart of the Tony Award-winning musical Come From Away, which makes a stop at the Eccles Theater Nov. 6-11 and tells the story of how one Canadian town reacted with immense kindness on 9/11. Our past is tied together, our present linked together and our future is bound together, and it's those realities that I think this play gives us an opportunity to focus on, said Lessard, adding this is why he has invited Gov. Gary Herbert, Rep. Rob Bishop and other government officials to see Come From Away and attend a reception on Nov. 8 while hes in town for the Utah Global Forum. The story Kevin Tuerff likewise will never forget where he heard the news about the terrorist attacks on 9/11: He was in a plane flying over the North Atlantic Ocean from Paris to New York City. All of a sudden our plane just dropped elevation and banked sharply to the right, and I looked up at the screen on the GPS map and it looked like we were flying to the North Pole, Tuerff said in an interview. Shortly thereafter the pilot announced that because of a major terrorist attack on the United States, the plane would be redirected to Gander, Newfoundland, a town with approximately 10,000 residents at the time. Tuerffs plane was one of 38 that landed in Gander carrying approximately 6,600 passengers and crew members. They stayed on the runway inside the planes for several hours before being allowed to disembark. When they finally let us get off and to go through security was when we witnessed the amazing amount of compassion that this small town had, Tuerff said. They had been working all day to prepare to invite these strangers from 90 countries into their town, into their schools and churches and their homes. The citizens of Gander had banded together to provide food and shelter for the thousands of stranded people, which Tuerff emphasized was quite the feat considering the ratio of local population to passengers it would be the equivalent to 6 million people showing up suddenly joining New York Citys population of 8 million. They were providing for me something that I'd only read about in the Bible: I was a stranger and ye welcomed me, Tuerff said. The stranded passengers stayed in Gander for several days after 9/11 before planes were cleared to depart, and from those days came countless instances of kindness shown by the citizens of the small Canadian island town. Those stories including Tuerffs served as the inspiration for the musical Come From Away. Tuerff later wrote about his experience in his book Channel of Peace: Stranded in Gander on 9/11." To the stage Canadian husband-and-wife writing team David Hein and Irene Sankoff conducted interviews with passengers and residents of Gander, gathering thousands of stories that they distilled into a 100-minute musical using 12 actors. Its a showNew York Times theater critic Ben Brantley said even the most stalwart cynics may have trouble staying dry-eyed during this portrait of heroic hospitality under extraordinary pressure. As an actor, I've been in many shows some of them are good and some are not so good and I'll just say that this one, it's unique in its power to bring people together and spread hope about a subject matter that brings up such ideas of tragedy, said Andrew Samonsky, who plays Kevin T. the character based on Tuerff in the musicals touring cast. The shows power to bring people together is one of the reasons Lessard appreciates the musicals story and looks forward to seeing it himself. He said as the United States and Canadas relationship has been tested in the last years political climate, the show is a reminder of the longstanding ties between the two nations. Its possible that people will read a tweet here or news headline there and get the impression that this relationship is perhaps transient and only built on economics and, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth, he said. We built this continent together and I would say that this (musical) really shows that our peoples are family. And in Samonskys eyes, a story of unity is exactly what the world needs. (After seeing the show on Broadway for the first time), I was laughing, I was crying and the show ended and I thought, 'My goodness, that is why we do theater' to affect people in this way, and spread love and kindness and acceptance and send a message like that out into the world, he said. I honestly can't think of a better story to tell than this one right now." If you go What: The national tour of Come From Away When: Nov. 6-11, times vary Where: Eccles Theater, 131 S. Main, Salt Lake City How much: $35-$150 Phone: 801-355-2787 Web: artsaltlake.org SALT LAKE CITY Anyone questioning the existence of a "blue wave" of Democratic voters surging toward control of the U.S. House in Tuesday's midterm elections just needs to look at Utah's 4th Congressional District race, national experts say. "There's no question there's a Democratic wave. If there wasn't, we wouldn't be talking about this seat," David Wasserman, who analyzes House races around the country for the Cook Political Report, told the Deseret News. But he and others, including NBC News, said it remains to be seen whether the wave is strong enough in Utah to carry Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams to victory over Republican Rep. Mia Love in her bid for a third term. "The district is traditionally so Republican, we would not go so far as to say McAdams is the favorite," Wasserman said, noting nonpartisan Washington-D.C. -based election analysts continue to rate the race as a toss-up. The traditional midterm backlash against the party that holds the White House, already magnified this year because of strong feelings on both sides toward President Donald Trump, is especially powerful in the 4th District, Wasserman said. "Utah is its own political world at the moment because it's so fundamentally Republican, but it's also fundamentally anti-Trump. That's creating big problems for Love," he said, referring to the GOP president's lukewarm support in the state. NBC senior political editor Mark Murray told the Deseret News that the Love-McAdams race is one of 50 or so throughout the United States that are just too close to call, but is a potential "wave builder" for the Democrats. "It really could go either way on election night," Murray said. "From a national perspective, if Democrats end up winning Utah 4, it is really hard to see how they don't end up getting the majority of the House of Representatives." He said the Utah district, which includes portions of Salt Lake and Utah counties, would likely have to be part of a larger win for Democrats than the party just picking up the 23 seats needed to take control. Should McAdams upset the two-term incumbent on Tuesday, Murray said that "just tells me that was a big, strong Democratic night," with a shift of at least 30 seats from red to blue. He said he was not that surprised the Utah race was competitive, but added that even with national Democratic momentum and a candidate he sees as the best recruit Utah Democrats could hope for, it's still a 50-50 race. Only one major national ratings entity, FiveThirtyEight, has moved the race to leaning Democratic. Another, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball from the University of Virginia, continues to see it as leaning Republican. Most polls throughout the race have been close, with a New York Times poll last week showing a 45-45 tie between the candidates, although a Dixie Strategies poll for KUTV put McAdams up by 7 points. Several million dollars is pouring in from national partisan groups to pay for negative TV commercials against both Love and McAdams in a race with a price tag expected to climb well above $10 million. Utahns' views The race is seen as such a squeaker that Utah Elections Director Justin Lee warned it probably won't be decided Tuesday. Because the election is being conducted largely by mail, the candidates are likely to want to wait for all ballots to come in. "I would not count on calling that race on election night," Lee said. Utah political observers point to the money being spent on polling and advertising from outside for one of the nation's most reliably Republican states as evidence it's playing a key role in the election. Jason Perry, head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, said Utah attracts attention because the state has "a perspective that is respected in Washington" on issues such as immigration. "For a red state, our approach is not like what you would see in other states that historically vote for Republicans. We have a Utah way," Perry said, that attempts to emphasize efforts to bring people together on contentious issues. "Politics is not getting any nicer here than it is in other places, but at the heart of the discussions is a Utah model," he said. "It is that environment that gives the possibility for a moderate Democrat to rise." It's also an environment that can put Utah voters at odds with the president. Chris Karpowitz, co-director of BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, said Trump looms large over the 4th District race. "Utah is unique. It's a Republican place that is not necessarily highly supportive of Donald Trump. That hurts Republican candidates, especially in places where there's a high-quality challenger," Karpowitz said, while energizing Democrats. Utah GOP Chairman Rob Anderson said Love's race is 29th on the Republican National Committee's priority list, high for a Utah seat but outside the margin seen as seriously threatening the party's control of the House. "It's somewhat unfortunate this is such a tight race," Anderson said. "It speaks to the more moderate and maybe a little more voter apathy. They're not so worried about the R or D being back in Congress." But for Utah Democratic Party Chairwoman Daisy Thomas, the closeness of the race is a reflection of her party's efforts to turn the country from red to blue after losing the 2016 presidential election. "I hope a lot of us saw this coming. We're working hard constantly," Thomas said. "Honestly, I think people realize that the nation's soul is on the line right now, who we are as a nation." Romney impact What the national media seems to be most interested in about the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch is not whether Mitt Romney will win, but how he'll get along with Trump. Romney, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee who is one of Utah's most popular political figures after leading the 2002 Winter Olympics, has polled far ahead of Democrat Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson and has spent time campaigning for fellow Republicans out of state. "The expectation is that in a lot of ways, Mitt Romney would end up being what we've seen from (retiring Republican Arizona Sen.) Jeff Flake," said Murray, the NBC senior political editor. "It's someone who is supporting the Republican agenda 95 percent of the time but, from time to time, trying to be a moral voice in a very interesting political environment in Washington, D.C.," he said. Murray said a run by Romney, who lost his White House bid to President Barack Obama in 2012, was always going to attract national attention as a candidate in Utah. But even that kind of star power might not be enough to help Love, Wasserman said. Romney has backed Love in this and other campaigns, including her first unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2012. Then, she was running against the last Democrat to serve in Congress from Utah, former Rep. Jim Matheson. Matheson's retirement in 2014 opened the door for Love to win in the 4th District then and again in 2016. Romney's coattails, Wasserman said, are not that strong. "Most voters in this district pay very close attention to candidates," he said. "They personally like Mitt Romney but even when Romney was on the ballot as the Republican nominee in 2012, Mia Love lost." BRIGHAM CITY Family and community members paid their respects as Brigham City Assistant Police Chief Dennis Vincent was laid to rest on Saturday. "It's tough. It's really hard. His humor was unmatched and his love for the community was unmatched as well," said Tyler Vincent, who is Dennis's brother. Thousands of people came to the church building or lined the streets during Vincent's procession to say goodbye, as family members recalled his lifelong dream to serve in law enforcement. "He got a Dick Tracy uniform one year for Christmas when he was young," said his brother, Tyler Vincent. "It had a little notebook and a badge and a gun. He would get on his bike and he would run up and down the street and if somebody crossed across the street and there was a car coming, he would go over and actually write them a little ticket and hand it to them." It was the beginning of a career where Vincent always tried to do the right thing and be fair to people, as well as tell jokes with his colleagues to make a tough job a little better. "He was a brother to me. He was my very best friend," said Brigham City police Chief Mike Nelson. Nelson became chief four years and promoted Vincent to assistant chief right away. He also served as Brigham City's emergency manager. "He always gets things done. You ask him to do it and it always gets done. And he did it with a smile on his face. He always had a smile I'm sure he must have got down in the dump sometimes, but I never saw it," Nelson said. Vincent was only 53 years old when he died last week from an aneurysm during his physical fitness test. Ever since, Nelson says the community has been contacting the police department to offer their condolences. "We have had people call us and letters and cards and the support has been tremendous," said Nelson. Though many people knew Vincent as a dedicated and friendly police officer, for those closest to him, he will always be the guy who loved being with his family. "My brother meant the world to me. He and I grew up together. We played together throughout our youth. He and I have always been very close," said Tyler Vincent. "We did a lot together. We hunted together, we fished together, we spent a lot of time together. It's been really tough on the family. It's been a real struggle." Vincent leaves behind a wife, four children and three grandchildren. The United States has a big agenda. We need big ideas and broad-based action to address the critical issues facing us. The federal deficit. Immigration reform. Unbalanced federal entitlement spending. Global warming. The brewing trade war. Massive deferred maintenance for our freeways, bridges, harbors and dams. Affordable health care. Weve always been a fractious lot. We fought a vicious and deadly civil war. Yet, the erstwhile enemies, North and South, healed the countrys wounds and patched the nation back together. We settled and politically and culturally absorbed the massive lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican Cession, the acquisition of the Oregon Territory, Sewards purchase of Alaska and by independent Texas joining the Union. We radically remodeled our whole country to embrace and accommodate revolutionary technology like the automobile, airplane, telephone and electricity. It took only a single generation for this country to conceive and build a remarkable network of freeways serving every major city. In less than a decade, we accepted the presidential challenge to go to the moon and then accomplished it. We created our federal park system to preserve for everyone our nations natural wonders such as Yellowstone and Yosemite. When we saw the compounded effects of decades of disposing of our toxic waste into rivers, lakes, fields, landfills and leaving hazardous material at old factory sites, we passed landmark legislation to clean up our water, air and land. We dealt with the no less toxic Watergate crisis. It was ugly and divisive, but a bipartisan Congress, a gutty federal judge and determined special counsel punished the guilty and forced a sitting president, who had been re-elected by one of the greatest landslides ever, to resign in dishonor. We abolished government-enforced racial segregation in every element of our society. We have stepped up wonderfully, even miraculously, to the challenges of war to gain independence from the British, abolish slavery, stop German aggression and imperialism in World War I, destroy the Nazi Germany and Japanese juggernauts seeking world domination and expose and punish the murder of millions of innocents in the Holocaust. We fought and won the Cold War over the Soviet colossus also bent on world domination. Our responses to our crises havent always been pretty or timely or organized. Neither have our solutions always been ideal. But with vision and leadership, through finding common ground and shared sacrifice, Americans did the big things, the things the country needed to flourish. We face such a time. Our national problems require this great nation to grasp and address these pressing issues. They are of such a scale and importance that they will determine our national success or failure. The federal deficit alone could swamp the future of this great country and deprive millions of the chance to flourish in a strong and free society. Russia, Brazil, Greece, Spain and Turkey provide cautionary examples for countries who refuse to pay the mortgages they took out on their future. Who knows what dire consequences await us if we fail to address global warming. We need leaders who will put aside tribal identities and re-election ambitions long enough to talk with their constituents and with each other. We need practical, politically palatable solutions and leaders willing to sponsor them. We need our president to convene and consult with our best and brightest thinkers and leaders on both sides of the aisle and to hammer out bipartisan compromises and put forward sound legislative proposals to address our looming problems. We need a media more interested in facilitating a national conversation on policy ideas than obsessing over Twitter spats. We need far less name-calling, demonizing, cultural warmongering and tribalism. Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison came on the scene just when America needed them. Lincoln appeared almost out of nowhere. Churchill and FDR were brought forward literally to save Western democracy from fascist monsters. Somewhere among our elected leaders and in our citizenry at large breathe those intrepid souls, high-minded and intelligent leaders with good and workable ideas who articulate the problems before us and move us to adopt solutions for solving them. May God give us these women and men and the wisdom to recognize and support them. WASHINGTON Perhaps it was naivete, ignorance or stupidity or all three but when I was growing up in the 1950s in a suburb of New York City, I had no sense of anti-Semitism. By that, I do not mean that I looked around and found little evidence of anti-Jewish feeling. I mean that I had no concept of anti-Semitism. To me, it didn't exist. I had as much knowledge of it as I did of, say, quantum physics. Nothing at all. There were very few other Jews in my public elementary school, and I did not feel different from the students, with Christmas as a minor exception. The singing of those Christmas carols made me uncomfortable. But there was no wrenching identity crisis. I mouthed some of the songs that seemed religious and sung those that didn't. My family straddled the divide between the secular holiday and the religious. We had a Christmas tree and presents; but we also celebrated Hanukkah. More presents! I saw myself then and see myself now as an American, whose fundamental religion is Americanism. By this, I believe that being an American is just about the greatest identity anyone can have. That's my faith, and one of the fabulous things about being an American is that you can practice whatever your personal religion is without anyone including the government interfering, as long as you don't threaten others. I am not a very good Jew; I don't know most of the Hebrew prayers and go to synagogue mostly around the Jewish new year. To boot: I am an agnostic. Still, I wouldn't surrender my Judaism for anything. Of course, I know a lot more about America now than I did as a third-grader, and much of what I have learned in more than 60 years does not reflect well on us as a society. Conflict was a large part of our heritage. I learned that the Civil War failed to solve all the injustices of race, many of which linger to this day. I learned that many of the great advances of the U.S. economy were often accompanied by hardships and suffering that, in some cases, were inexcusable and, in others, were simply cruel. And, naturally, I also learned that the relationship between Jews and America was a lot more complicated than I had imagined. In the real world, anti-Semitism was widespread. Covenants prevented Jews from living in certain neighborhoods; many companies wouldn't hire Jews; clubs wouldn't accept them as members. But I also thought that, after World War II, many of these abhorrent practices had been outlawed or had receded before new norms of public opinion. Most Jews had assimilated into the mainstream of American life. I had assumed that my three children, now in their late 20s and early 30s, would grow up in a world where their Jewishness, depending on how much they felt it, would remain mostly a private matter. For all that I had learned, I still accepted my basic childhood perception that, in this country, Jews were Americans like anyone else, and they lived in a society that would treat them as equals, as everyone should be treated. This was one of the glorious gifts of being an American. This was my faith, and it was shared, I think, by many Jews. We were wrong; I was wrong. Anti-Semitism had not disappeared. It had simply hibernated. The tendency to turn normal disappointments and setbacks into obsessive hatred and deranged anger has proven indestructible. It's made worse by being promoted by national leaders who exploit it for political advantage. This creates a permissive climate for overheated rhetoric and (ultimately) violence that, in varying forms, afflicts much of our political culture. What's missing is bipartisan self-restraint that is a sign of maturity. The slaughter of 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue is a great tragedy; but so were the killings of dozens of others in many different settings schools, concerts, churches. Our descent into this societal inferno is obviously a condition that affects more than Jews. The promise of America is that we all consider ourselves Americans first and then whatever else we are as individuals. This defines how people engage with the larger society. But we are losing this essential cohesion and are being fragmented ("sliced and diced") into a society of different and clashing loyalties. If Jews as well as African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims and even whites are singled out as groups that need special protections or privileges, they will paradoxically become second-class citizens, deprived of the full freedoms that are central to our character and dependent on the goodwill of the larger majority. That is what's at stake. If information circulating the internet is to be believed, then the Samsung Galaxy S10 could ditch its iris scan for Qualcomms under-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. The information comes from leakster Ice universe via twitter. Ice tweets, Yes, the S10 cancels the iris sensor and the ultrasonic fingerprint is enough to replace it. In another tweet Ice Universe says, Compared to optical fingerprint sensors, the S10 ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is faster and has a larger recognition area, and 30% of the screens may be recognized. The final tweet reads, In 2019, at least half a year, S10's ultrasound and new screen technology are Samsung's exclusive. According to the leakster, the new fingerprint sensor on the S10 will be faster than currently available under-display fingerprint sensors. It will also cover a larger area about 30% of the screen. This means that users will be able to unlock the phone from a larger surface area of the display. Ditching the iris sensor hints that the S10 may look to shave off some bezel from the top giving the device a higher screen to body ration. It also means that we may see more screen on the front of the smartphone. As far as exclusivity of the fingerprint sensor on the Samsung device is concerned, this isnt the first time the South Korean giant is looking to keep a feature to itself for some time. When Fortnite was launched for Android, it was a Samsung sxclusive. You can read more about the Fortnite exclusivity on Samsung devices here. Samsung unveils its S series of smartphones at the beginning of the year around MWC. So, it is expected that the company will unveil the S10 family of devices at the beginning of 2019. Samsung usually kicks of the flagship trend for the year and we are looking forward to seeing what the company has in stored for us. The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now. Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market. In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender. India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex. Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted. But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted? Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner. If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems. I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now. I want more variation in masturbation I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own. If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end. What is sex toys for Indian? Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation. It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms. They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable. Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner. The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner. It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past. In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping. Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order. In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing. Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome. Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own. But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance. More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around. Sextoy situation in India Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years. In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India. Mumbai Kolkata Bangalore Delhi Chennai Hyderabad These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India. In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well. If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too. If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it. What are Sextoys for beginner? Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms. Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy. I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion. I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy. If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma. Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it. Advantages of using sextoy for Indians There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways. Can have stimulating sex Can develop new sexual zones If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern. However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways. You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation. Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever. There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure. This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it. When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems. It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms). For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles [Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou... Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India. Sextoy for beginner men in India So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners. For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men! The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men Masturbator Cock rings Love Doll Sex Lubricants Toys for the prostate Lets check each one in detail. Masturbator The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products. It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands. Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands. They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.) Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much. Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! ! Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018 Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood. If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ... [For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien... Cock Ring A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis. It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow. It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber. In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection. Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it. Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time. Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function. Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy. You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect. [Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat... Love Doll Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex. There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women. Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price. The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true. You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste. There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice. You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls. If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to... Sex lubricants Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules. It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution. Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse. There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent. Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent. If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here. What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many... Toys for the Prostate Another sextoy for men is prostate toys. The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line. Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men. Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men. What is the prostate? The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm. You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus. By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms. Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.) The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation. Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure. sextoy for beinner women in India The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy. The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy. Vibrator. Dildo Electric Masserger Lets check out what each one is in detail. If you want to check out womens toys, click here. [BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm... Vibrators A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator. Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy. It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy. Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women. For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators. Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex. Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself. This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual. Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men. When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons. Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most... Dildo A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis. It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass. A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it. They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well. It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device. A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo. Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands. For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis. This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one. To learn more about dildo, please click here. What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th... Electric Masserger A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores. It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low. Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels. Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation. It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure. For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm. It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out. If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager? To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here. What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th... How to choose a sextoy for Indian Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one. Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)? Does the size fit you (your partner)? Is the environment able to produce sound without problems? Price range First of all, the choice of size is quite important. Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women. For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage. Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems. Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise. If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level. Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it. Finally, there is the price range. The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest. Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy. Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy? I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance. For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics. If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out. How to buy sextoys in India The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping. For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below. Sextoy is one of them. Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping. SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India. They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry. Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card. To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy. ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal. Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on. Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture. Cautions for Indians using sextoy When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind Keep sex toys clean Watch out for electrical leakage Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone. Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there. It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case. In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness. Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful. If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it. You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly. Summary What did you think? In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India. The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future. As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values. However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health. If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try? Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women. I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it. High growth start-up technology businesses in Ireland and in the greater Philadelphia area of the USA, are being urged to get involved in a remarkable new programme that could see them establish international links in Ireland for the Eurozone and the rest of the world. The exciting new Delta Accelerator Programme - will be brought to Philadelphia this month under the banner of The North West Innovation Fund in partnership with the Donegal County Enterprise Fund and Local Enterprise Office, Donegal, who are driving the trans-Atlantic project. According to Michael Tunney, secretary of the Donegal County Enterprise Fund and Head of Enterprise in the county, they are seeking globally ambitious businesses who have already secured some seed investment, to join a cohort of international participants on the programme geared towards helping them navigate the journey to success and growth in the fastest time. He hopes the programme will draw candidates from University of Delaware, Temple University, Drexel University and Villanova University in the Philadelphia area as well as applicants from Universities all across Ireland. We are going to Philadelphia in November and are really keen to find young high-growth companies hungry to make a mark on a worldwide scale. Wed love them to grow their high-growth tech businesses in Donegal where they can build from a lower cost base, access a highly educated workforce and exeprience an amazing quality of life, Mr Tunney added. One of the really unique aspects of this tailor-made programme is the fact that the Accelerator phase will involve a series of workshops that will end with a pitch event to investment angels. In order to attract globally ambitious businesses we wanted to make sure that there are real investment opportunities for them by being part of the programme. By giving the participants access to Venture Capital investors with international reach, powerful networks and hands-on experienced involvement, we are certain that participants will benefit immensely from the support, guidance and investment opportunities the Delta programme will provide. According to Gerry Moan, who has been working with Michael Tunney to lay the groundwork for the initiative, the robust programme will help new technology businesses get off to a great start. Companies interested in taking part will be first asked to take part in a one-day selection process called Lifes a Pitch, where the expert panel will be on the look out for people with passion and a positive attitude towards developing a business idea. Those selected for the Delta Programme will then take part in an innovative 9-day series of workshops, delivered over three months (January, February and March 2019) on location in County Donegal. Lifes a Pitch and The Delta Accelerator works with entrepreneurial teams that have a minimum of 500k in seed already, have some strong early customers and who see Europe as a market for growth. This programme will ready those businesses for that growth and investment, Gerry Moan commented. Each facet of the process has a unique and a specific set of supports that, he says, also are ahead of the curve in terms of assisting the needs of the stakeholders at each stage of the entrepreneurial journey. The programme will be led from the front by an internationally accomplished team and Moan added that the strong network, access to capital and the knowledge base of the local talent pool, significantly adds to the opportunities for selected participants. For any tech business already up and running and truly passionate about making an impact on a global scale, this is an opportunity too good to miss, he stated. Companies wishing to find out more about the programme and how they can be part of it, are urged to apply immediately on the website - https://smartinvestventures. com/smartbase-startup/ The first phase of the selection is the one-day selection process called Lifes a Pitch, the next of which will be delivered with the support of Ciright on Tuesday, November 13 and Wednesday 14 at 7 Union Hill, Conshohocken. Irish pitches have been pencilled in for December 12. The high-power international programme will start in Donegal in January 2019 after interested businesses pitch for a coveted place, with further three-day training sessions planned in Donegal in February and March 2019. I've said before in this column, rather than despairing when Donegal goes against the grain in elections and referendums, I exalt in our ability not to follow like sheep in the national trend. So it was with Peter Casey...a very commendable showing in the Presidential Election and most especially up here. As I know only too well myself in this column, to dare even allude to any problem with the Travelling Community can stir the NIMBY brigade no end, and with their illiberal 'liberalism' to the fore, they are prepared to go to any lengths to silence rational debate. As Kevin Doyle, Irish Independent Editor said: Peter Casey is no Donald Trump - the real reason for his support surge is deeper. Yes, his surge from little-known Dragon to household name was driven by his views on Travellers but the real reason runs much deeper. He has won votes in every part of the country, among every age demographic and among different social classes. By suggesting his rise is only about Travellers is to argue that one in five people are racist. They are not. This is not a stark and sudden reversal of our new-found liberalism on social issues." Indeed....ignore 23% of concerned voters at your peril...let the twitterati trend away with their lattes frothing...Casey is much more than just a momentary Espresso! NO STORM DAMAGE IN DONEGAL? Here are Shane Rosss Special Maintenance Grants for storm damage. They speak for themselves. I see where Pat the Cope has said that Not for the first time has this Government forgotten about Donegal when it comes to allocating state funding . Failing to allocate one single cent in funding to Donegal is unprecedented and smacks of an anti Donegal approach in allocating funding by Minister Ross Now it appears that the funding is specifically for areas damaged by Storm Emma and that Donegal County Council received 10m earlier this year for major repair works, and as of end of last month, 3m of that still has to be drawn down. Yes, it appears that we had storm damage but Emma didn't do it! Now, correct me if i'm wrong but didn't we all suffer last February/March when Emma met Cylone Hartmut (The Beast from the East)? Or am I just snowed under with all these figures? The allocation: Carlow Co.Council: 500,000 Cavan County Council: 500,000 Clare County Council: 550,000 Cork County Council: 1,100,000 Galway Co.Council: 1,100,000 Kerry County Council: 800,000 Kildare Co.Council: 600,000 Kilkenny Co. Council: 600,000 Laois County Council: 956,000 Leitrim Co. Council: 500,000 Limerick City & Co.Council: 650,000 Longford Co.Council: 500,000 Louth County Council: 500,000 Mayo County Council: 375,000 Meath County Council: 550,000 Monaghan CoCouncil: 550,000 Offaly County Council: 500,000 Roscommon County Council: 501,000 Sligo County Council: 600,000 Tipperary Co.Council: 814,000 Waterford City & County Council: 500,000 Westmeath Co.Council: 334,000 Wexford Co. Council: 750,000 Wicklow Co.Council: 550,000 Cork City Council: 150,000 Total: 15,030,000. PATSY DAN REMEMBERED Over twenty years ago, Patsy Dan Rodgers took a number of Derek Hills Tory island painters to Derry for a major exhibition. He was a special guest on my morning programme on BBC Radio Foyle and after I introduced him (with added Donegal enthusiasm!) I said: It is a great honour to have the King of Tory on my programme to which Patsy Dan responded: Thank you very much, Frank, it must be a great honour indeed for you to have me on your programme. Brilliant! Dignity and real majesty...that is how I will remember him. GLORIFYING BLOOD AND GUTS On a number of occasions over the past few years, Ive had occasion to write about Conor McGregor and the bloody excuse for sport called mixed martial arts. A few weeks ago, James Woods - in a letter to this newspaper - wrote: In my opinion McGregor has disrespected the Tricolour each time he wrapped it around himself...his reputation has been built on gutter language, bling and showmanship. Hear, hear James! You do realise that McGregor has many supporters, who, judging by their savage response to Joe Brollys criticisms, are more than familiar with the gutter too. Some weeks ago, Joe reminded his readers that: MMA is not a sport. It is sold and marketed like the violent video game market. No boundaries. No rules, violence is good...McGregor is a superstar because being violent and out of control is great, lawful business. It is the ultimate pornography...People thrill to this extreme violence. Putting people in a cage, dehumanising them, and watching them attack each other with everything they have, brings us to somewhere primitive inside us. It is why the spectators in the Coliseum cheered as the sword was thrust home. It is why kids all around the globe know who Conor McGregor is. It is why, not long ago, the Dublin city fathers were going to offer him the freedom of the city. I cant repeat the vicious responses to Joes articles but after publishing some of the more violently pornographic examples, he concluded: Now that Conor is unretired, everyone else may be able to breathe again, but spare a thought for me. Living in fear, never knowing the day nor the hour when a keyboard warrior will drive to Belfast in an armour-plated Mercedes S-Class, meet me on the street, deliver a few kicks to the head, then punch me in the head eight or nine times when I'm defenceless on the ground. Then feed my remaining kidney to his pet tiger. Ouch! Ill give Joe a TKO for that timely riposte! To mark the beginning of Movember, prostate cancer awareness month, the Irish Cancer Society has urged all men over 50 to take a half an hour to have a conversation with their doctor about prostate cancer. Each year over 3,300 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in Ireland which means that approximately 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime. However, with improvements in treatments the 5 year survival rate for prostate cancer is now over 90%. Kevin OHagan, Cancer Prevention Manager with the Irish Cancer Society, said, Historically, there was a tendency to do a PSA test on anyone who was concerned about prostate cancer or displaying some symptoms. However, new guidelines from the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) has recommended that PSA tests are not used as a general screening for prostate cancer, but to confirm a diagnosis or to dictate treatment. Rather than insisting on a test, we would strongly urge all men over 50 to simply take some time to have a conversation with their GP. Men over 50 are more at risk of getting the disease and even if they are asymptomatic, it is worth having that chat, as early prostate cancer often does not have any symptoms at all. We know that sometimes men are slow to go to their doctor if they are worried. But prostate cancer is very treatable and the earlier it is detected, the better. This is why men need to be having yearly check-ups, particularly if they have a family history of prostate cancer. Tom Hope from Dunboyne Co. Meath was on an annual visit to his doctor (at the age of 62) to get his blood pressure checked and the doctor took a blood sample. About a week later his doctor reported an increase in the PSA reading and he referred him to an urologist to review the readings. After a biopsy, the urologist confirmed that he had low grade prostate cancer and Tom, after a discussion with his urologist and his family, decided not to have surgery but opted to follow Active Surveillance. This involves regular consultant visits and blood tests, and a biopsy every 3 years to check on the status on the cancer. Tom, who is also a member of the Prostate Cancer support group Men Against Cancer (MAC), added, I would encourage all men to visit and chat to their GP annually about their health worries or concerns. That is the first step in taking control of your health. And if its a case that there is a diagnosis, it is really important to use the patient support groups in the community. I found great comfort and support in meeting and talking to other men who had been diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer and were living normal lives 15+ years after the diagnoses. There are a lot of people out there who had cancer and who have had a positive outcome, particularly in prostate cancer. But it is so important to open up and talk about the treatment and the side effects its makes you realise then you're not the only one going through this, he concluded. Now, 9 years later and after two further biopsies, both of which came back clear, Tom is happy to report that the prostate cancer is under control. Since 2008, over 100,000 people have got involved and contributed to the Movember cause. Movember Ireland has funded over 30 prostate cancer initiatives, in partnership with the Irish Cancer Society, ranging from financial grants for patients and their families to ground-breaking research that has united the prostate cancer research community to improve outcomes and quality of life for the 1 in 7 Irish men who will get prostate cancer in their lifetime. Sign up now to support mens health, visit Movember.com To speak to a cancer nurse on any aspect of cancer contact the Cancer Nurseline on Freephone 1800 200 700, email cancernurseline@irishcancer.ie or drop into one of 13 Daffodil Centres in hospitals nationwide. For information on Daffodil Centre locations and opening times email daffodilcentreinfo@ irishcancer.ie. For more information log onto www.cancer.ie By Trend India and other leading oil buyers will benefit from the waiver the United States has granted them from Iran sanctions, the South Asian nations oil minister said Nov. 3, Reuters reported. The United States said on Friday it will temporarily allow eight importers to keep buying Iranian oil when it re-imposes sanctions on Monday to try to force Iran to curb its nuclear, missile and regional activities. It did not name the countries which would benefit. Indias Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said it won the waiver largely due to a forceful campaign by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India had been vocal at international forums about rising oil prices and its impact on the economy. In the current geopolitically challenging scenario, India has managed to convince international leaders, Pradhan told reporters in New Delhi. Having abandoned the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, US President Donald Trump is trying to cripple Irans oil-dependent economy and force Tehran to quash not only its nuclear ambitions and its ballistic missile programme but its support for militant proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East. China, India, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, the United Arab Emirates and Japan have been top importers of Irans oil, while Taiwan occasionally buys cargoes of Iranian crude but is not a major buyer. Further details of the United States decision on Iran sanctions will be released on Monday. By Trend In 2019, a new project on youth employment will be launched in Azerbaijan at the initiative of the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan (AEC) and with the support of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the AEC Vice President Vugar Zeynalov told Trend. He noted that currently the project is at the stage of formation and development. "We are planning to launch this project early next year. It is still difficult to name the final cost of the project, but we believe the volume of investments in this project will be known in January. At the moment, negotiations are underway, all issues related directly to the project are being discussed," Zeynalov said. The vice president of the Confederation noted that the project, implemented with the support of the ILO, aims to assist young people in employment issues in small and medium-sized businesses. The Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan was established on March 5, 1999 in Baku and passed the official state registration. The AEC unites over 1,000 business entities, including 35 associations and unions of socio-economic profile. Glasgow, UK: A chemical that highlights tumour cells has been used by surgeons to help spot and safely remove brain cancer in a trial presented at the 2018 NCRI Cancer Conference. The research was carried out with patients who had suspected glioma, the disease that killed Dame Tessa Jowell, and the most common form of brain cancer. Treatment usually involves surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible, but it can be challenging for surgeons to identify all of the cancer cells while avoiding healthy brain tissue. Researchers say that using the fluorescent marker helps surgeons to distinguish the most aggressive cancer cells from other brain tissue and they hope this will ultimately improve patient survival. The research was presented by Dr Kathreena Kurian, a Reader/Associate Professor in brain tumour research at the University of Bristol and consultant neuropathologist at North Bristol NHS Trust, UK. The study was led by Colin Watts, Professor of Neurosurgery and chair of the Birmingham brain cancer programme at the University of Birmingham, UK. Dr Kurian explained: "Gliomas are difficult to treat with survival times often measured in months rather than years. Many patients are treated with surgery and the aim is to safely remove as much of the cancer as possible. Once a tumour is removed, it is passed on to a pathologist who examines the cells under a microscope to see if they are 'high-grade', fast growing cells, or 'low-grade' slower growing cells. And we can plan further treatment, such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy, based on that diagnosis. "We wanted to see if using a fluorescent marker could help surgeons objectively identify high-grade tumour cells during surgery, allowing them to remove as much cancer as possible while leaving normal brain tissue intact." The researchers used a compound called 5-aminolevulinic acid or 5-ALA, which glows pink when a light is shone on it. Previous research shows that, when consumed, 5-ALA accumulates in fast growing cancer cells and this means it can act as a fluorescent marker of high-grade cells. The study involved patients with suspected high-grade gliomas treated at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Kings College Hospital in London or Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, UK. They were aged between 23 and 77 years, with an average (median) age of 59 years. Before surgery to remove their brain tumours, each patient was given a drink containing 5-ALA. Surgeons then used operating microscopes to help them look for fluorescent tissue while removing tumours from the patients' brains. The tissue they removed was sent to the pathology lab where scientists could confirm the accuracy of the surgeons' work. A total of 99 patients received the 5-ALA marker and could be assessed for signs of fluorescence. During their operations, surgeons reported seeing fluorescence in 85 patients and 81 of these were subsequently confirmed by pathologists to have high-grade disease, one was found to have low-grade disease and three could not be assessed. In the 14 patients where surgeons did not see any fluorescence, only seven tumours could be subsequently evaluated by pathology but in all these cases, low-grade disease was confirmed. Professor Watts said: "Neurosurgeons need to be able to distinguish tumour tissue from other brain tissue, especially when the tumour contains fast-growing, high-grade cancer cells. This is the first prospective trial to show the benefits of using 5-ALA to improve the accuracy of diagnosing high-grade glioma during surgery. These results show that the marker is very good at indicating the presence and location of high-grade cancer cells. "The advantage of this technique is that it may highlight more quickly high-grade disease within a tumour during neurosurgery. What this means is that more of the tumour can be removed more safely and with fewer complications, and that's better for the patient." The researchers caution that the study looked at patients who were already suspected to have high-grade tumours, and a larger study in which more patients have low-grade disease would provide more information on the use of this technique. They say that other types of markers may need to be tested for detecting low-grade glioma cells. Next steps could include testing the 5-ALA in children with brain tumours, or to help surgeons distinguish between tumour tissue and scar tissue in adult patients whose brain cancers have recurred following treatment. Professor Anthony Chalmers is Chair of NCRI's Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Working Group and Chair of Clinical Oncology at the University of Glasgow, UK, and was not involved in the research. He said: "There is a desperate need for better treatments for brain tumours and to achieve that we need more high quality research in this area. "The benefit of using a fluorescent marker is that it helps neurosurgeons see more accurately where the high-grade cancer is within the brain, in real time. In treating cancer, we are trying to improve survival by tailoring treatments to each individual patient. This technique provides on-the-spot information to help surgeons tailor the operation according to the location, size and grade of the tumour. We know that patients who have near total removal of their tumour have better outcomes, so we are optimistic that, in the long term, these new data will help to increase survival times for glioma patients." ### By Trend The Russian Ministry of Defense has repeatedly urged the Pentagon to stop flights near Russia's borders; however, the US has ignored the requests, Sputnik reported. A NATO RC-135V aircraft has carried out a reconnaissance flight near the border of Russia's Kaliningrad region, PlaneRadar reported Saturday. According to site's data, the US plane with tail number 64-14846 left Royal Air Force Mildenhall station and reached the Russian border, flying near the Russian enclave in the Polish airspace. The incident followed a flight of an RQ-4B Global Hawk UAV near Russia's borders in October. The drone was conducting a reconnaissance mission near the borders of the Kaliningrad, Leningrad and Pskov regions. The number of air incidents involving Russian and NATO planes has considerably increased since 2014 due to the growing presence of the US-led military bloc's forces near Russia's western borders in wake of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. I am an American who has Spanish residency as family member of an EU citizen (Irish). My 5-year residency is up for renewal next summer. I work as an autonomo, pay taxes and am on the public health system (in addition to having private insurance). Can I renew my residency independent of my husband's EU status (now that I have been here for almost 5 years)? If my husband one day decides that he wants to return to Canada, does it mean that I will lose my Spanish residency because he will no longer be physically here in Spain? If you know the answer and could refer me to a legal/governmental source, that would be extremely helpful. Thank you in advance! Privacy Settings This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. Which cookies and scripts are used and how they impact your visit is specified on the left. You may change your settings at any time. Your choices will not impact your visit. NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using. Welcome to the News Release Wire Selection Control Panel. Instant News Wire As an ongoing guest on the syndicated James Lowe Radio Show, Larry Tracy, author Bring Home the Bacon: How to Deliver Persuasive Presentations that Get "Buy-in" from ANY Audience, gave listeners a terrific synopsis and analysis of how Judge Brett Kavanaugh was prepped for the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, how he must conduct himself and why keeping his emotions in check was paramount. Now, looking back after the fact, that is exactly what Judge Kavanaugh did, that is until he was pushed too far by false charges and then he gave his famous opening statement that was anything but non-emotional. Larry Tracy, who gave hundreds of briefings and presentations during his career in the Army, many to hostile audiences, was sympathetic with the plight of the Judge and understood why his emotions took hold in that instant. In one of the podcasts below, just as the hearings were getting underway, Tracy explained how he was required to keep his emotions in check because "they are the enemy of efficiency and clear thinking." When attacked during a presentation, he would "pretend he was an air conditioner" in order to keep a clear head and respond in a manner that disarmed both the attacker and audience hostility. In final podcast, Larry Tracy tells a little known story about watching President Reagan giving a speech in 1984 and stories about his primary mentor, John Hughes, who developed a famous presentation about the developments with the Soviet Union around the world when the Cold War was reaching the final and tense stages in the 1980s. Tracy ended up giving that same presentation about 90 times and it was a grueling two-hour ordeal with over 150 visual aids. He counts Hughes as a great mentor in the development of his speaking and presentation skills. Here are the podcasts from that interview of Larry Tracy with radio talk show host James Lowe. Larry Tracy on Similar Upbringings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh & Associate Supreme Court Justice Judge Neil Gorsuch Preping Kavanaugh For Supreme Court Hearings With Murder Board Sessions With Intense Questioning Larry Tracy On Why Kavanaugh & Anyone Under Fire Must Keep Emotions In Check & Ignore Insults Great Speakers Who Inspired Larry Tracy; President Reagan, His Mentor John Hughes, JFK & Lincoln Bring Home the Bacon: How to Deliver Persuasive Presentations that Get "Buy-in" from ANY Audience is available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book for $ 3.99. About Larry Tracy: President Ronald Reagan praised Larry Tracy as "an extraordinarily effective speaker" for his speeches on controversial policy issues addressing some of the U.S. toughest audiences. A former army colonel, Larry originally managed and trained the Pentagon's top briefing team, the Defense Intelligence Agency's Presentation Division. He was responsible for daily strategic intelligence briefings to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congressional staffs and other Washington decision-makers. His skills took him to the State Department, where he delivered hundreds of presentations on contentious foreign policy issues, many of them debates occurring before demanding, often hostile, audiences. Described by his superior as "the State Department's most sought after and articulate spokesman," he was invariably assigned the most difficult speaking assignments. Larry helps train speakers and presenters to convert audiences that have already made up their minds. His specific training and consulting specialties include presentation skills for executives, public speaking for professionals, persuasion skills training, managing audience emotions, and preparation for media appearances. By Trend Iranian Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said in a statement that US' decline is a definite and inevitable fact consistent with the divine tradition that the human community will eventually understand', IRNA reported. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the statement issued by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, which was released on Saturday on November 4, said, November 4 in the culture and history of the Islamic Revolution and the continuous and relentless struggle of the Iranian nation with the United States and the system of domination and arrogance contains meaningful and inspiring messages which its repetition and reminding in each year, especially for the new and younger generations of the country, which is very promising and can guarantee the fluidity of national intelligence and vigilance towards the Great Devil's plots and tricks in the community and makes it permanent. The statement adds that 'On November 4th, beyond to the important three historical events that followed the exile of Imam Khomeini to Turkey in 1964, the brutal killing of students by the Shah's torturers in 1978 and the capture of the American Spy Den by Muslim students following the path of late Imam Khomeini in 1979, symbolizes combating arrogance and invincibility of the Iranian people in the face of America and the arrogance venture in contemporary history. Cannon fire echoed from a West Side park Saturday in honor of military veterans and the citys tricentennial. Members of the San Antonio Living History Association fired a cannon on the hour, during a re-creation of the 1813 Battle of Alazan Creek, between the Spanish Royalists and the Republican Army of the North. The associations chairman, Robert Benavides, watched with pride as visitors stopped by Smith Park to watch volleys of musket fire. Were Military City USA, he said. Its a good way to talk about San Antonios military heritage for 300 years, all the way through Vietnam and Iraq. The association partnered with the volunteer organization, You Are Not Forgotten and several veteran organizations to sponsor for the third celebration. The SA300 Tricentennial event took place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 1500 W. Commerce St., near an iconic West Side mural with the same name as the nonprofit. The schedule called for a moment of silence in honor of veterans killed in action, and a panoramic photo taken of Vietnam veterans in front of the mural painted by artist Michael Roman. And each year, a bell is rung when the name of each deceased Vietnam veteran from local high schools is announced. Before speaking to the crowd, keynote speaker, retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Angelina Salinas viewed a memorabilia exhibit, featuring a wooden altar, etched with soldiers carrying fallen comrades. I think its so indicative of our culture to give back to the community, she said. And to the nation. Salinas said the reason that Gulf War and Afghanistan War veterans came home as heroes was because of Vietnam veterans who refused to let them be treated the way they were treated. At the events pavilion, a Welcome Veterans sign greeted men and women who had served during conflicts from the present to World War II. Speakers and dignitaries addressed the crowd of more than 350 people sitting at tables covered with red, white and blue tablecloths. Well wishers stopped to chat with Fernando Herrera, a quiet-spoken man, recognized as the citys most decorated Vietnam veteran. In 1986, the city named a park, located on the East Side, in his honor. While serving with the Armys 25th Infantry Division, he received several medals for bravery under fire, including a Distinguished Service Cross, four Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart. He said it was great getting to see men he considered brothers-in-arms. You were just doing your job, Herrera, 71, said beside his wife, Lilian. When youre over there youre scared as hell, but its about survival. As Mark Jauregui, 37, walked through the crowd, he stopped at tables to salute and thank veterans for their service. He said as a Navy veteran, who served in Iraq, he understands what it means to serve. Theyve seen more than me, he said, they deserve thanks. District 5 Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales said the event honored area veterans who died, including the 55 from Edgewood Independent School District. Were encouraging people to come back to the neighborhood, she said, and celebrate our culture and history. Jaime Macias, founder of the event, said the Vietnam mural has become a beacon for the West Side. They say that 78207 is the poorest ZIP code in the city, he said. but its probably the most patriotic. Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis 2 1 of 2 Texas State University Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 2 File Photo Show More Show Less The body of a 21-year-old woman was recovered from the Blanco River Friday night, San Marcos officials said Saturday. The woman has been preliminarily identified as Kate Rose Silva Xavier, a student at Texas State University, according to a news release. Xavier had been missing since Oct. 25. GREENWICH The deadline to register to vote in Tuesdays elections in Connecticut has passed, but residents who arent signed up still have one more chance to make their votes count. On Election Day, unregistered voters and voters who are registered in another town but now live in Greenwich can go to the second floor of Town Hall between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. The voter must bring both proof of identity and residence, which can include a drivers license, learners permit or non-drivers license, to cast a ballot. Other valid proofs of identity include a birth certificate, college ID with photo or a Social Security card. For proof of residence, a voter can show a current paycheck or bank statement, a lease, naturalization documents, a passport with a current address, a property tax bill or an electronic copy of a recent utility bill. The voter must not be registered in any other municipality. If they are registered elsewhere, the election official must telephone that municipalitys registrar to confirm the voter has not cast a ballot there, which can be a lengthy process. Election Day registration can be completed only at Town Hall not at neighborhood polling locations. The number of people who use the same-day registration varies depending on turnout, Greenwich Republican Registrar of Voters Fred DeCaro III said. It could be about 60 in a municipal election and up to 350 in a presidential year, he said. According to the towns Registrars of Voters office, unaffiliated voters are the biggest block in Greenwich. They surpassed the Republican Party in town last year. Greenwich now has a total of 37,960 registered voters, with 14,070 unaffiliated. There are 12,857 registered Republicans and 10,390 registered Democrats, according to the final numbers after the Oct. 30 deadline to register for the Nov. 6 elections. At the time of the last midterm election in 2014, Greenwich Republicans had the most registered voters at 12,421, followed by 11,851 unaffiliated voters and 7,894 Democratic voters. There are also 643 registered voters in Greenwich who are listed for other parties, including the Green Party, Libertarian, Independent and Working Families. It is unclear what the registration numbers will mean for Tuesdays election, which includes three of Greenwichs seats in the state legislature along with the race for governor, U.S. senator and congressman. But one thing the registrars are hoping to see is high voter turnout. In 2016, Greenwich won the Democracy Cup, which is a state honor for the municipalities that have the highest voter turnout. DeCaro wants the town to defend that title. Typically, turnout is in the 60 percent range for midterm elections, but DeCaro said the town has enough ballots to handle a turnout of more than 80 percent. DeCaro did not try to predict the turnout, but he said it was clear there was excitement in town for the election. Both sides have been doing a good job exciting their base, he said Friday. And you especially have that kind of excitement in a year when you have local candidates who are on the ballot. I think were going to do pretty well in terms of turnout, and we are ready to handle what we might see in a presidential election year. Three Greenwich residents are part of the major races on Tuesdays ballot. Town resident Ned Lamont, a former member of Greenwichs Board of Selectmen and Board of Estimate and Taxation, is the Democratic candidate for governor. U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, and his Republican opponent Harry Arora are from town as well. Outgoing town Democratic Registrar of Voters Michael Aurelia could not be reached for comment, but he recently said there could be an upswing in voter turnout this year. Both DeCaro, who is seeking his sixth two-year term, and soon-to-be-new Democratic Registrar Mary Hegarty are on the ballot on Tuesday as well. The registrars are the only municipal offices that are part of this years election, but they are not competitive races. There are two positions, one from each major party, and DeCaro and Hegarty are running unopposed. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com STAMFORD Michael Hernandez cant vote, but you can and thats why he was sitting recently in an uncomfortable folding chair in the stained-blue-carpeted offices of city Democratic headquarters. He had just finished a math midterm at the University of Connecticut-Stamford, and the freshmans eyelids were heavy to prove it. Surrounded by barking phone bankers, he admitted to running on fewer than five hours sleep; about average this semester. The 19-year-old wishes he could be part of what prognosticators call a blue wave that will hit Tuesday, but circumstances wont allow him to be a drop in the predicted crest. Hernandez is a few months away from getting his green card, again, if all goes well. He wont be allowed in the voting booth until the 2024 presidential contest. And thats the best-case scenario, he said, no immigration crisis, no government shutdown. Hernandez freely admits he is all in for the Democrats, but that wasnt always the case, and his parents are staunch conservatives. It can get awkward. His stepfather is good friends with GOP candidate Anzelmo Graziosi, vying for the 147th state House seat. Hernandez barnstorms for Democratic challenger Matt Blumenthal. It is one of many ways he is working to have an impact on Election Day. Forced to sit the race out, he knows perhaps more than most the true value of the ballot. Hernandez is making sure others do as well. I cant vote, so wouldnt it be nice if can I get 50 people to vote? he asked. To do so, this fall he launched a web series of sorts on his Facebook page called 20 reasons to vote, which has starred politicians he sees at the countless events he has attended. Westover Magnet Elementary School remains open for voting Although Westover Magnet Elementary School has been closed due to mold, the gymnasium will remain open Tuesday for voting. Some 6,000 city residents vote at the school. Source: City Registrar's office See More Collapse The city will likely have 70,000 registered voters this year, the most in history. Nearly 2,450 of them are new, just registered as campaigns have heated up since Sept. 1, according to the city registrars office. In October alone, 1,721 new voters joined the city rolls, compared with 891 taken off. This is more than weve ever had, Democratic Registrar Ron Malloy said. Im amazed by how many voters there are. Hernandez is confident he wrangled 30 of the new enlistees from the field and friends, but he struggles to come up with other figures. Maybe he has spent more than 100 hours on campaigns, he said, sometimes for pay and sometimes for free. Probably more than 1,000 calls. Perhaps 500 doors knocked. Then there are the estimated 2,800 calls his brother, Wildin, 13, and 11-year-old cousin Kevin have made to help him out. Hernandez has lost count between school, stumping and working for his stepfather doing construction, he said. A polarized populous, and a seemingly omnipresent get-out-the-vote message, including Hernandezs push, appear to be changing the political landscape in the city and nationwide. As of Thursday, the city stood at 69,781 registered voters. More will still be counted, including about 700 registrations or address changes the registrars office was sorting through late last week. Voters can register on Election Day some 230 people did in 2014. To do so, visit City Hall on Tuesday, 888 Washington Blvd. It is clear that Stamford is growing and people care, Malloy said. Late last week, Malloy said the office had already encountered far more absentee ballots than in 2014, the last gubernatorial election. A real record for this type of race, he said. More than 2,200 absentee ballots have been returned, another 864 are outstanding. Town and City Clerk Lyda Ruijter warned that several may go uncounted, however, because they were filled out incorrectly. Stamford is not the only place amid a registration boom. The state also is seeing numbers like never before. Connecticut has had record voter registration since 2016, particularly among 18- to 24-year-olds, said Gabe Rosenberg, spokesman for Secretary of the State Denise Merrill. Whatever the outcome of the elections, Hernandez will have something to celebrate. He turns 20 on Tuesday, but has no plans for a birthday party. Instead, Hernandez will be with the Democrats at the downtown Sheraton, one of many at the end of a consuming campaign season, all watching the big board, numbers pouring in. barry.lytton@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2263; @bglytton By Trend Turkey will continue to strengthen relations with Ukraine, said Turkish president Receb Tayyip Erdogan Nov.3, following a meeting with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. Turkish President said that the work on maintaining relations with Ukraine, which since 2011 has reached the level of strategic partnership, continues regularly. Year by year we are increasingly strengthening our relations and will continue to strengthen them. Turkey supports reforms underway in Ukraine. The entire region will benefit from successful implementation of the reforms, Turkish leader said. Erdogan also recalled the visa-free regime between the countries. Our citizens are free to visit countries with internal documents. The number of Ukrainian tourists visiting Turkey in 2018 exceeded one million, he added. Turkish president said that the parties intend to complete work on the preparation of the Free Trade Agreement between the countries by the end of the year. "I believe that with this document the volume of bilateral trade will reach 10 billion dollars," said Erdogan. The following companies are subsidiares of Arrow Electronics: A.E. Petsche Belgium BVBA, A.E. Petsche Canada Inc., A.E. Petsche Company, A.E. Petsche Company Inc., A.E. Petsche Company S De RL, A.E. Petsche SAS, A.E. Petsche UK Limited, ACI Technology, AKS Group Nordic AB, ARROWECS Portugal Sociedade Unipessoal, ARROWECS Sociedade Unipessoal LDA, ARW Electronics Ltd., ARW Enterprise Computing Solutions S.A., ARW Portugal Unipessoal LDA, ASI Dedicated Services LLC, ASI Electrical Services LLC, ASI Managed Services LLC, ATM Electronic, ATM Electronic Corp., ATM Electronic Corporation (HK) Limited, ATM Electronics Hong Kong Limited, ATM Electronics Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd, Addex Distribution AS, Adilam Pty. Ltd, Aiqi Xinxing (Beijing) Information Technology Co. Ltd., Altimate Belgium BVBA, Altimate Group, Altimate ND Belgium BVBA, Altimate Netherlands B.V., Annuity Systems Pty Ltd, Arrow (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Arrow Altech Distribution (Pty) Ltd., Arrow Altech Holdings (Pty) Ltd., Arrow Argentina S.A., Arrow Asia Distribution Limited, Arrow Asia Pac Ltd., Arrow Brasil S.A., Arrow Capital Solution BVBA, Arrow Capital Solutions Inc., Arrow Capital Solutions Nederlands BV, Arrow Capital Solutions SAS, Arrow Capital Solutions UK Ltd, Arrow Central Europe GmbH, Arrow Central Europe Holding Munich GmbH, Arrow Chip One Stop Holdings GK, Arrow Componentes ACCR S.R.L., Arrow Components (M) Sdn Bhd, Arrow Components (NZ), Arrow Components Mexico S.A. de C.V., Arrow Components Sweden AB, Arrow Denmark ApS, Arrow Denmark ApS, Arrow ECS (Ireland) Limited, Arrow ECS (NI) Limited, Arrow ECS AG, Arrow ECS ANZ Limited, Arrow ECS ANZ Pty Ltd, Arrow ECS Asia PTE. Ltd, Arrow ECS Australia, Arrow ECS B.V., Arrow ECS Baltic OU, Arrow ECS Brasil Distribuidora Ltda., Arrow ECS Canada Ltd., Arrow ECS Central GmbH, Arrow ECS Denmark A/S, Arrow ECS FZCO, Arrow ECS Finland OY, Arrow ECS GmbH, Arrow ECS Internet Security AG, Arrow ECS Internet Security S.L., Arrow ECS Kft., Arrow ECS Ltd., Arrow ECS New Zealand Limited, Arrow ECS Nordic A/S, Arrow ECS Norway AS, Arrow ECS Pty Ltd., Arrow ECS SA/NV, Arrow ECS SAS, Arrow ECS SPA, Arrow ECS Sarl, Arrow ECS Services Sp.z.o.o., Arrow ECS Singapore Pte. Limited, Arrow ECS Sp.z.o.o., Arrow ECS Support Center Ltd., Arrow ECS Support Center Morocco S.A.R.L.A.U, Arrow ECS Sweden AB, Arrow ECS a.s., Arrow ECS d.o.o., Arrow Eastern Europe GmbH, Arrow Electronice S.R.L., Arrow Electronics (CI) Ltd., Arrow Electronics (China) Trading Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics (Jersey) Limited, Arrow Electronics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics (Sweden) KB, Arrow Electronics (Thailand) Limited, Arrow Electronics (U.K.) Inc., Arrow Electronics (UK) Ltd., Arrow Electronics ANZ Holdings Pty Ltd., Arrow Electronics Asia (S) Pte Ltd., Arrow Electronics Asia Limited, Arrow Electronics Australia Pty Ltd., Arrow Electronics B.V., Arrow Electronics Canada Ltd., Arrow Electronics China Ltd., Arrow Electronics Components (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics Czech Republic s.r.o., Arrow Electronics D.O.O., Arrow Electronics Danish Holdings ApS, Arrow Electronics EMEA Group GmbH, Arrow Electronics EMEASA S.r.l., Arrow Electronics Estonia OU, Arrow Electronics FC B.V., Arrow Electronics Funding Corporation, Arrow Electronics GmbH & Co. KG, Arrow Electronics Hellas S.A., Arrow Electronics Holdings Vagyonkezelo Kft, Arrow Electronics Hungary Kereskedelmi Bt, Arrow Electronics India Ltd., Arrow Electronics India Private Limited, Arrow Electronics International Holdings LLC, Arrow Electronics International Inc., Arrow Electronics Italia S.r.l, Arrow Electronics Japan GK, Arrow Electronics Korea Limited, Arrow Electronics Labuan Pte Ltd., Arrow Electronics Ltd., Arrow Electronics Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Arrow Electronics Norwegian Holdings AS, Arrow Electronics Poland Sp.z.o.o., Arrow Electronics Russ OOO, Arrow Electronics Services S.r.l., Arrow Electronics Slovakia s.r.o., Arrow Electronics South Africa LLP, Arrow Electronics Taiwan Ltd., Arrow Electronics UK Holding Ltd., Arrow Electronics Ukraine LLC, Arrow Elektronik Ticaret A.S., Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions Inc., Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions India Private Limited, Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions Ltd., Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions S.A., Arrow Finland OY, Arrow France S.A., Arrow Global Asset Disposition Inc., Arrow Global Supply Chain Services Inc., Arrow Holdings (Delaware) LLC, Arrow Iberia Electronica Lda., Arrow Iberia Electronica S.L.U., Arrow International Holdings L.P., Arrow International Holdings Limited, Arrow Nordic Components AB, Arrow Norway A/S, Arrow S-Tech Norway AS, Arrow SEED (Hong Kong) Limited, Arrow Systems Integration Inc., Arrow UEC Japan KK, Arrow United Holdings LLC, Arrow United International Holdings LP, Arrow Value Recovery ApS (fka Greentech Denmark ApS), Arrow Value Recovery Belgium BVBA, Arrow Value Recovery Czech Republic sro, Arrow Value Recovery Denmark ApS, Arrow Value Recovery EMEA BV, Arrow Value Recovery Finland Oy (fka Greentech Finland OY), Arrow Value Recovery France SAS, Arrow Value Recovery Germany GmbH, Arrow Value Recovery Netherlands BV, Arrow Value Recovery Norway AS (fka Greentech AS), Arrow Value Recovery Sweden AB (fka Greentech Sweden AB), Arrow Value Recovery UK LTD, Arrow eCommerce B.V., Arrow/Artlink Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, Arrow/Components (Agent) Ltd., Arrow/Rapac Ltd., Artlink Technology Co. Ltd., Aspen Labs LLC, Aspencore China Investment LLC, Aspencore LLC, Aspencore Media GmbH, Aspencore/IDG China Investment LLC, Asplenium SA, Asset Recovery Corporation, B.V. Arrow Electronics DLC, Beijing AIQI Technology, Beijing Arrow SEED Technology Co. Ltd, Beijing Canon Advertising Co. Ltd., Broomco (4184) Limited, COMPUTERLINKS, COMPUTERLINKS (UK) Ltd., COMPUTERLINKS Belgium BVBA, COMPUTERLINKS Denmark A/S, COMPUTERLINKS Nederland B.V., COMPUTERLINKS S.A., CSS Computer Security Solutions Erwerbs GmbH, CSS Computer Security Solutions Holding GmbH, CSS Computer Security Solutions Ltd., CT3 Europe Limited, Centia Group Ltd, Centia Ltd., Channel Support Pty Ltd, ChiWan Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Chip One Stop, Chip One Stop (Hong Kong) Ltd., Chip One Stop (Shenzhen) Ltd., Chip One Stop Inc., Commtech Solutions (UK) Limited, Components Agent (Cayman) Limited, Components Agent Asia Holdings Ltd., Components Distribution Business - Achieva, Conrac Asia Display Products Pte. Ltd., Conrac MENA FZE, Converge, Converge (Shanghai) International Trading Co. Ltd., Converge Asia Pte Ltd., Converge Electronics Trading (India) Private Ltd., Converge France SAS, Converge Netherlands BV, Converge Scandinavia AB, Cross Telecom, Data Modul, Data Modul AG, Data Modul Electronics Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Data Modul FZE, Data Modul France S.a r.l, Data Modul Hong Kong Ltd., Data Modul Iberia S.L., Data Modul Inc., Data Modul Italia S.r.l., Data Modul Ltd., Data Modul Shanghai Ltd., Data Modul Suisse GmbH, Data Modul Weikersheim GmbH, Diasa Informatica, Dicopel Inc., Distribution Business - Seed International, Distribution Central (MY) Sdn. Bhd., Distribution Central HK Pty Limited, Distribution Central Limited (NZ), Distribution Central Pte Limited (SG), Distribution Central Pty Limited, E-InfoChips KK, EC America, EDN Asia Advertising Pte Ltd., ETEQ Components Pte Ltd., Electronics Products Technology Co. Ltd., Embedded Developer LLC, Erf 211 Hughes (Pty) Limited, Eshel Technology Group Inc., Eurocomponentes S.A., Excel Tech, Excel Tech Inc., Firewall Systems Pty Limited, Fusion Distribution FZCO, Gates - Arrow Distributing, Gates - FA Distributing, Global Link Technology, Greentech Holding AS, Gross Telecom, ICC Global Media GmbH, IP Vista A/S, IPVista A/S, ITM USA Enterprises Inc., Intechra Holdings, Intex-semi Ltd., KeyLink Systems Group, LED Franchise LLC, LED Source Holdco LLC, LED Source LLC, LOGIX S.A., License Central Pty Ltd, Lite-On Korea Ltd., Marubun Arrow (HK) Limited, Marubun Arrow (S) Pte Ltd., Marubun Arrow (Thailand) Co Limited, Marubun Arrow Asia Ltd., Marubun Arrow Europe Kft., Marubun Corporation, Marubun USA Corporation, Marubun-Arrow Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Marubun/Arrow (HK) Limited, Marubun/Arrow (M) Sdn. Bhd (Malaysia), Marubun/Arrow (Philippines) Inc., Marubun/Arrow (S) Pte Ltd., Marubun/Arrow (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Marubun/Arrow (Shenzhen) Electronic Product Consulting Company Limited, Marubun/Arrow (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Marubun/Arrow Asia Ltd., Marubun/Arrow USA II LLC, Marubun/Arrow USA LLC, NIC Components Asia PTE Ltd., NIC Components Corp., NIC Components Europe Limited, NIC Eurotech Limited, NUH Electronics India Private Limted, Networld Systems Pty Ltd, Nextworth Solutions Inc., Nu Horizons Electronics, Nu Horizons Electronics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Nu Horizons Electronics Asia PTE Ltd., Nu Horizons Electronics Hong Kong Ltd., Nu Horizons Electronics Malaysia SDN BHD, NuHo Singapore Holdings LLC, Observatory Crest, Openway Group SA, Openway SAS, PCG Parent Corp., PCG Trading LLC, PT Marubun Arrow Indonesia, Pansystem S.r.l., Pax8 Inc., Power and Signal Group GmbH, R.D. Trading Limited, RDC, RF Wireless & Power - Richardson Electronics, Rack Systems Pty Ltd, Red Education Pty Ltd, Redemtech, Renewal Systems Pty Ltd, Richardson RFPD (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Richardson RFPD (Thailand) Limited, Richardson RFPD Australia Pty. Ltd., Richardson RFPD Canada Inc., Richardson RFPD Electronics Trading (China) Co. Ltd., Richardson RFPD France SAS, Richardson RFPD Germany GmbH, Richardson RFPD Hong Kong, Richardson RFPD Inc., Richardson RFPD Israel Ltd., Richardson RFPD Italy Srl, Richardson RFPD Japan KK, Richardson RFPD Korea Ltd., Richardson RFPD Netherlands BV, Richardson RFPD Singapore, Richardson RFPD Spain SL, Richardson RFPD Sweden AB, Richardson RFPD Taiwan, Richardson RFPD UK Ltd., Richey Electronics, San Systems Pty Ltd, Schuylkill Metals of Plant City Inc., Seneca Data, Seneca Data Distributors Inc., Shared Technologies, Silicon Frameworks LLC, SiliconEgypt Technologies LLC, SiliconExpert Holdings LLC, SiliconExpert Technologies, SiliconExpert Technologies Inc., Sphinx CST Limited, Sphinx CST Networks Limited, Sphinx Group, Sphinx Group Limited, Sphinx Professional Services Limited, Spoerle Hungary Kereskedelmi Kft, Sun Chain Technology Corp., TLW Electronics Ltd., TechTurn, Titan Supply Chain Services Limited, Titan Supply Chain Services Pte Ltd., Trafomo AB, Trafomo ApS, Transim Technology, Transim Technology Corporation, U.S. Micro Operating Company LLC, UBM Tech Electronics Network, Ultra Source Electronics (SZ) Co LTD, Ultra Source Technology Corp., Ultra Source Trading Hong Kong Limited, United Technical Publishing Division - Hearst Business Media, Universe Electron Corporation, Verical, Verwaltungsgesellschaft Arrow Electronics GmbH, Wireless and Infrastructure Business Unit - Waching Company, Yongming Xincheng (Beijing) Technology Co., e-InfoChips, e-Infochips Private Limited, eInfochips, eMedia Asia Limited, immixGovernment Inc., immixGroup, immixGroup Inc., immixSolutions Inc., and immixTechnology. Clearway Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NYLD) announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November, 2nd. The utilities provider reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, missing the Thomson Reuters' consensus estimate of $0.58 by $0.31. The utilities provider had revenue of $265 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $311.81 million. The firm's revenue was down 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.30 EPS. View Clearway Energy's earnings history. By Trend US President Donald Trump slammed US Democrat Senator from Indiana Joe Donnelly for allegedly doing "what Russia did" in his election campaign, saying that Donnelly was trying to "steal the election", according to Sputnik. According to a recent poll by US TV channel NBC News and Marist Institute for Public Opinion, Donnelly, who has been serving as US Senator from Indiana since 2012, currently has support of 48 percent of voters, while his major Republican opponent Mike Braun is only two percent behind. "Rumor has it that Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana is paying for Facebook ads for his so-called opponent on the libertarian ticket. Donnelly is trying to steal the election? Isnt that what Russia did!?" Trump posted on Twitter. On November 6, US voters will cast ballots to fill 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, one-third of the 100-member Senate and other local and state positions. The outcome of the 2018 midterms will determine if the Republican Party can maintain control of both chambers of Congress. Washington has repeatedly accused Moscow of meddling in the 2016 presidential election in the United States, imposing several rounds of sanctions against Russia in reliance to this alleged meddling, among other issues. Russia has strongly refuted all allegations as unfounded. The following companies are subsidiares of Marsh & McLennan Companies: 8WORKS INC., 8WORKS LTD, A. Constantinidi & CIA. S.C., A.C.N. 000 951 146 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 001 572 961 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 076 935 683 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 102 322 574 Pty Limited, ACE Insurance Agents Limited, ACE Insurance Consultants Limited, ACE Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Limited, AD Corretora de Seguros, AFCO Premium Acceptance Inc., AFCO Premium Credit LLC, Access Equity Enhanced Fund GP LLC, Admiral Holdings Limited, Agnew Higgins Pickering & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd, Aldgate Investments Limited, Aldgate Trustees Ltd, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited, Alpha Consultants Limited, Alta SA, Altius Real Assets (GP) LLC, Amal Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Anda Insurance Agencies Pte Ltd, AssetVal Pty Ltd, Assur Conseils Marsh S.A., Assurance Capital Corporation, Assurance Services Corporation, Australian Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Australian World Underwriters Pty Ltd., BBPS Limited, Barney & Barney Orange County LLC, Beaumonts (Leeds) Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Services Limited, Beneficios Integrales Oportunos SA, Benefitfocus Inc., Blue Marble Micro Limited, Blue Marble Microinsurance Inc., Bluefin, Bluefin Insurance Group Limited, Bluefin Insurance Services Limited, Boulder Claims LLC, Bowring (Bermuda) Investments Ltd., Bowring Marine Limited, Bowring Marsh (Bermuda) Ltd., Bowring Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Bowring Marsh Asia Pte. Ltd., Bowring Marsh Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Bowring Marsh Limited, Broderick Piller Pty Ltd, Broker 2 Broker Limited, BuildPay LLC, Burke Ford Trustees (Leicester) Limited, C.T. Bowring Limited, CMC-Belgibo NV, CPRM Limited, CPSG Partners LLC, Carpenter Marsh Fac Chile Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Carpenter Marsh Fac Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Carpenter Marsh Fac Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.C., Carpenter Marsh Fac Re LLC, Carpenter Turner Cyprus Ltd, Carpenter Turner S.A., Cascade International Holdings C.V., Cascade Regional Holdings Limited, Central Insurance Services Limited, Charter Risk Management Services LLC, Chartwell Healthcare Limited, Chronos Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Claims and Recovery Management (Australia) Pty Limited, Clark Thomson Insurance Brokers Limited, Client Provide Limited, Colombian Insurance Broking Wholesale Limited, Consultores 2020 C.A., Cronin & Co Insurance Services Limited, DVA - Deutsche Verkehrs-Assekuranz-Vermittlungs GmbH, Dawson Insurance, DeLima Marsh S.A. - Los Corredores de Seguros S.A., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Managing General Agency Corporation, Dovetail Technology Service India Private Limited, Draw Connect Limited, Draw Create Limited, Draw Group London Limited, Eagle & Crown Limited, Echelon Australia Pty Limited, Echelon Claims Consultants Sdn Bhd, Echelon New Zealand Limited, EnBW Versicherungs Vermittlung GmbH, Encompass Insurance Agency Pty Ltd., English Pension Trustees Limited, Epsilon (US) Insurance Company, Epsilon Insurance Company Ltd., Eustis Insurance & Benefits, Evolution Management Ltd, Exchange Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Exmoor Management Company Limited, Faulkner & Flynn LLC, Freedom Trust Services Limited, GC Genesis LLC, GCube Insurance Services Inc, GCube Underwriting Limited, Gama Consultores Associados Ltda., Gem Insurance Company Limited, Global Premium Finance Company, GrECo International Holding AG, Gracechurch Trustees Limited, Gresham Pension Trustees Limited, Group Promoters Pty Limited, Guy Carpenter & Cia (Mexico) S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter & Cia. S.A., Guy Carpenter & Co. Labuan Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company AB, Guy Carpenter & Company Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Guy Carpenter & Company Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company GmbH, Guy Carpenter & Company LLC, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Ltd./Guy Carpenter & Compagnie Ltee, Guy Carpenter & Company Participacoes Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company Private Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Proprietary Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Pty. Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A. (Uruguay), Guy Carpenter & Company S.A.S., Guy Carpenter & Company S.r.l., Guy Carpenter (Middle East) Limited, Guy Carpenter Bermuda Ltd., Guy Carpenter Broking Inc., Guy Carpenter Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter Insurance Brokers (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Guy Carpenter Japan Inc., Guy Carpenter Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, HAPIP GP 2009 LLC, HAPIP GP LLC, HSBC Insurance Brokers International (Abu Dhabi) LLC (in liquidation), Hamilton Bond Limited, Hansen International Limited, Hayward Aviation Limited, INSIA Europe SE, INSIA SK s.r.o., INSIA a.s., INSURANCE BROKERS OF NIGERIA LIMITED, IRC Asia Insurance Brokers Limited, InSolutions Limited, Industrial Risks Protection Consultants, Ingeseg S. A., Ingeseg S.A., Insbrokers Ltda., InsurTech Alliance LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC [BAHRAIN BRANCH], Insure Direct - Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, International Catastrophe Insurance Managers LLC, International Loss Control Services Limited, International Risk Consultants (Asia) Limited, Invercol Limited, Irish Pensions Trust Limited, Isosceles Insurance (Barbados) Limited, Isosceles Insurance Company Limited, Isosceles Insurance Ltd, Isosceles PCC Limited, J&H Marsh & McLennan Limited, J.W. Terrill Benefit Administrators Inc., JI Holdings Limited, JIB Group Holdings Limited, JIB Group Limited, JIB Holdings (Pacific) Limited, JIB Overseas Holdings Limited, JIB UK Holdings Limited, JL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co. KG, JLM Verwaltungs GmbH, JLT (Insurance Brokers) Limited, JLT Actuaries and Consultants Limited, JLT Advisory Limited, JLT Affinity Colombia Solutions SAS, JLT Agencies Limited, JLT Asesorias Ltda, JLT Asia Holdings BV, JLT Asia Shared Services Sdn Bhd, JLT Belgibo, JLT Benefit Consultants Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Bermuda Ltd, JLT Brasil Holdings Participacoes Ltd, JLT Chile Holdings SpA, JLT Colombia Retail Limited, JLT Colombia Wholesale Limited, JLT Consultants & Actuaries Limited, JLT EB Holdings Limited, JLT EB Services Limited, JLT Employee Benefits Holding Company (PTY) LTD, JLT Employee Benefits SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Financial Planning Limited, JLT France Holdings, JLT Group Services Pty Limited, JLT Holdings (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Holdings (NZ) Limited, JLT Independent Insurance Brokers Private Limited, JLT Insurance Agencies Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited ( Shanghai Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Beijing Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Guangzhou Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Ireland Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers SA, JLT Insurance Group Holdings Ltd, JLT Insurance Management Malta Limited, JLT Intellectual Property Limited, JLT Intellectual Property [UK Branch], JLT Interactive Pte. Ltd., JLT Investment Management Limited, JLT LATAM (Southern Cone) Wholesale Limited, JLT Latin American Holdings Limited, JLT Life Assurance Brokers Limited, JLT Management Services Limited, JLT Marine (Pty) Ltd, JLT Mexico Holdings Limited, JLT Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., JLT Netherlands BV, JLT Norway AS, JLT PLA, JLT Pension Trustees Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Holdings Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Limited, JLT Peru Reinsurance Solutions Limited, JLT Peru Retail Limited, JLT Peru Wholesale Limited, JLT QFM Services Limited, JLT RE Brasil Administracao e Corretagem de Resseguros Ltda, JLT Re (French Branch), JLT Re (Northern Europe) AB, JLT Re Argentina Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.U., JLT Re Labuan Limited, JLT Re Limited, JLT Re Pty Ltd, JLT Reinsurance Brokers GmbH, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited [French Branch], JLT Risk Management Limited, JLT Risk Solutions AB, JLT Risk Solutions AB Branch - Germany, JLT SA IB Holdings Company (Pty) Limited, JLT SCK Affinity Administracao e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., JLT SCK Corretora e Administradora de Seguros, JLT Secretaries Limited, JLT Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerlii A.., JLT Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., JLT Specialty France, JLT Specialty Insurance Broker A/S, JLT Specialty Limited, JLT Specialty Limited [DUBAI BRANCH], JLT Specialty Pte. Ltd., JLT Towner Insurance Management (Anguilla) Limited, JLT Trust Services (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Trustees (Southern) Limited, JLT Trustees Limited, JLT UK Investment Holdings Limited, JLT Vantage Risk and Benefit Consulting Private Limited, JLT Wealth Management Limited, JLT do Brasil Corretagem de Seguros Ltda, JLTPCS Holdings Pte. Ltd., JMIB Holdings BV, JSL Securities Inc., Japan Affinity Marketing Inc., Jardine IBR Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (Proprietary) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Asia Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Australia Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Canada Inc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited (UK Branch Office), Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Consultants Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Inc., Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Holdings Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Unlimited Company, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Korea Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited [Macao Branch], Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS (Dubai) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS SA, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Sdn Bhd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Valencia y Iragorri Corredores de Seguros SA, Jardine Pension Trustees Ireland Limited, Jardine Risk Consulting Co. Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited [Macao Branch], Jardines PF- Consultoria Em Gestao De Risco Limitada, Jelf, Jelf Commercial Finance Limited, Jelf Financial Planning Limited, Jelf Insurance Brokers Limited, Jelf Limited, Jelf Risk Management Limited, Jelf Wellbeing Limited, John Lampier & Son Ltd, Johnson & Higgins (Bermuda) Limited, Johnson & Higgins Limited, KESSLER & CO AG, Kepler Associates Limited, Kessler & Co Inc., Kessler Consulting Inc., Kessler Prevoyance Inc., Key Underwriting Pty Limited, Kroll, Lambert Brothers Holdings Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Employee Benefits) Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Hong Kong) Ltd, Laterlife.com Limited (in liquidation), Lavaretus Underwriting AB, Lavaretus Underwriting AB (BRANCH - Denmark), Libra Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Lloyd & Partners Limited, Local Government Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Lomond Macdonald Limited, Lynch Insurance Brokers Limited, M&M Vehicle L.P., M.P. Bolshaw and Company Limited, MAG JLT SpA, MERCER ALTERNATIVES LIMITED, MM Risk Services Pty Ltd (for dissolution), MMA Mid-Atlantic Employee LLC, MMA Securities LLC, MMB Consultores S.A., MMC (Singapore) Holdings Pte. Ltd., MMC 28 State Street Holdings Inc., MMC Borrower LLC, MMC Brazilian Holdings B.V., MMC Capital Inc., MMC Cascade Regional Holdings LLC, MMC FINANCE (EUROPE) LIMITED, MMC FINANCE HOLDINGS LTD, MMC Finance (Australia) Limited, MMC Finance (Singapore) Limited, MMC France Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., MMC GP III Inc., MMC Group Services sp. z o.o., MMC Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, MMC Holdings (New Zealand) ULC, MMC Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC International Finance (Barbados) SRL, MMC International Holdings LLC, MMC International Limited, MMC International Treasury Centre Limited, MMC Middle East Holdings Limited, MMC Poland Holdings B.V., MMC Realty Inc., MMC Regional Asia Holdings B.V., MMC Regional Caribbean Holdings Ltd., MMC Regional Europe Holdings B.V., MMC Regional LATAM Holdings B.V., MMC Securities (Europe) Limited, MMC Securities LLC, MMC Treasury Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC UK Group Limited, MMC UK Pension Fund Trustee Limited, MMOW Limited, MMRC LLC, MOW Holding LLC, MPIP III GP LLC, MPIP IV GP LLC, MPIP V GP LLC, MPIP VI GP LLC, Mangrove Insurance Europe PCC Limited, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC Limited, Manoel Management Services Ltd, Marchant McKechnie Insurance Brokers Limited, Marine Aviation & General (London) Limited, Marsh & McLennan (PNG) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agencies AS, Marsh & McLennan Agencies Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency A/S, Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, Marsh & McLennan Agency Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency Pty Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Argentina SA Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh & McLennan Colombia S.A., Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Funding Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Asia Pacific Treasury Center Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies BVBA/SPRL, Marsh & McLennan Companies Finance Center (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies France S.A.S., Marsh & McLennan Companies Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., Marsh & McLennan Companies Regional Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Services B.V., Marsh & McLennan Companies UK Limited, Marsh & McLennan Europe S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan GP I Inc., Marsh & McLennan Global Broking (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Holding GmbH, Marsh & McLennan Holdings (Canada) ULC, Marsh & McLennan Holdings Inc., Marsh & McLennan Incorporated (for dissolution), Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings II, Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Limited, Marsh & McLennan Insurance Services Limited, Marsh & McLennan Ireland Limited, Marsh & McLennan Management Services (Bermuda) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Risk Capital Holdings Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Servicios S.A. De C.V., Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Canada Limited, Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Corporation, Marsh (Bahrain) Company SPC, Marsh (Beijing) Risk Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Marsh (China) Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh (Insurance Brokers) LLP, Marsh (Insurance Services) Limited, Marsh (Malawi) Limited, Marsh (Middle East) Limited, Marsh (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh (Pty) Ltd, Marsh (Risk Consulting) LLP, Marsh (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Marsh A/S, Marsh AB, Marsh AG, Marsh AS, Marsh Advantage Insurance Holdings Pty Ltd, Marsh Advantage Insurance Pty Ltd., Marsh Africa (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Argentina S.R.L., Marsh Associates (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Austria G.m.b.H., Marsh Aviation Insurance Broking Pty Ltd (for dissolution), Marsh B.V., Marsh Botswana (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh Brockman y Schuh Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Marsh Broker Japan Inc., Marsh Broker de Asigurare-Reasigurare S.R.L., Marsh Brokers (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh Brokers Limited, Marsh Canada Limited/Marsh Canada Limitee, Marsh Company Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Compensation Technologies Administration (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Isle of Man Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Malta Limited, Marsh Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Marsh EOOD, Marsh Egypt LLC, Marsh Emirates Consultancy LLC, Marsh Emirates Insurance Brokerage LLC, Marsh Employee Benefits Limited, Marsh Employee Benefits Zimbabwe (Private) Ltd, Marsh Eurofinance B.V., Marsh Europe S.A., Marsh FJC International Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh For Insurance Services S.A.E., Marsh Franco Acra S.A., Marsh GSC Servicos e Administracao de Seguros Ltda., Marsh GmbH, Marsh Holding AB, Marsh Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Marsh India Insurance Brokers Private Limited, Marsh Insurance & Investments LLC, Marsh Insurance Brokers, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Macao) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Private) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers AO, Marsh Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh Insurance Consulting Saudi Arabia (in liquidation), Marsh Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers LLC, Marsh Intermediaries Inc., Marsh International Broking Holdings Limited, Marsh International Holdings II Inc., Marsh International Holdings Inc., Marsh Investment B.V., Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited, Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited (UK Branch), Marsh Ireland Holdings Limited, Marsh Israel (1999) Ltd., Marsh Israel (Holdings) Ltd., Marsh Israel Consultants Ltd., Marsh Israel Insurance Agency Ltd., Marsh Israel International Brokers Ltd. (in liquidation), Marsh JCS Inc., Marsh Japan Inc., Marsh Kft., Marsh Kindlustusmaakler AS, Marsh Korea Inc., Marsh LLC, Marsh LLC Insurance Brokers, Marsh LLC [Ukraine], Marsh Lda., Marsh Limited, Marsh Limited [Fiji], Marsh Limited [New Zealand], Marsh Limited [PNG], Marsh Ltd. [Wisconsin], Marsh Management Services (Bahamas) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Dublin) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Labuan) Limited, Marsh Management Services (MENA) Limited, Marsh Management Services (USVI) Ltd., Marsh Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Management Services Guernsey Limited, Marsh Management Services Inc., Marsh Management Services Isle of Man Limited, Marsh Management Services Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Marsh Management Services Malta Limited, Marsh Management Services Singapore Pte. Ltd., Marsh Management Services Sweden AB, Marsh Marine & Energy AB, Marsh Marine Nederland B.V., Marsh Medical Consulting GmbH, Marsh Mercer Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Marsh Nest Inc., Marsh Oman LLC, Marsh Oy, Marsh PB Co. Ltd., Marsh Philippines Inc., Marsh Privat A.I.E., Marsh Private Client Life Insurance Services, Marsh Pty. Ltd., Marsh Qatar LLC, Marsh RE S.A.C. Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh Rehder Consultoria S.A. (MRC), Marsh Rehder S.A. Corredores de Seguros, Marsh Resolutions Pty Limited, Marsh Risk Consulting B.V., Marsh Risk Consulting Limitada, Marsh Risk Consulting Ltda., Marsh Risk Consulting S.L., Marsh Risk Consulting Services S.r.L., Marsh Risk and Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd, Marsh S.A. Corredores De Seguros, Marsh S.A. Mediadores de Seguros, Marsh S.A.S., Marsh S.p.A., Marsh SA [Argentina], Marsh SA [Belgium], Marsh SA [Luxembourg], Marsh SA [Uruguay], Marsh SIA, Marsh Saldana Inc., Marsh Saudi Arabia Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Marsh Secretarial Services Limited, Marsh Semusa S.A., Marsh Services Limited, Marsh Services Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Marsh Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Szolgaltato Kft., Marsh Takaful Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Treasury Services (Dublin) Limited (in liquidation), Marsh Treasury Services Limited, Marsh Tunisia S.a.r.l., Marsh UK Limited, Marsh USA (India) Inc., Marsh USA Borrower LLC, Marsh USA Inc., Marsh Uganda Limited, Marsh Venezuela C.A. Sociedad de Corretaje de Seguros, Marsh Vietnam Insurance Broking Company Ltd, Marsh Zambia Limited, Marsh Zimbabwe Holdings (Private) Limited, Marsh d.o.o. Beograd, Marsh d.o.o. za posredovanje u osiguranju, Marsh for Insurance Services - Jordan, Marsh i-Connect (Pty) Ltd, Marsh s.r.o., Matthiessen Assurans AB, Mercer (Argentina) S.A., Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer (Austria) GmbH, Mercer (Belgium) SA-NV, Mercer (Canada) Limited/Mercer (Canada) Limitee, Mercer (China) Limited, Mercer (Colombia) Ltda., Mercer (Danmark) A/S, Mercer (Finland) OY, Mercer (France) SAS, Mercer (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer (Ireland) Limited, Mercer (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Mercer (N.Z.) Limited, Mercer (Nederland) B.V., Mercer (Norge) AS, Mercer (Polska) Sp.z o.o., Mercer (Portugal) Lda, Mercer (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer (Sweden) AB, Mercer (Taiwan) Ltd., Mercer (Thailand) Ltd., Mercer (US) Inc., Mercer Administration Services (Australia) Pty Limited, Mercer Africa Limited, Mercer Agente de Seguros S.A. de C.V., Mercer Asesores de Seguros S.A., Mercer Asesores es Inversion Independientes S.A. de C.V., Mercer Broking Ltd., Mercer Career Unipessoal Lda, Mercer Consultation (Quebec) Ltee., Mercer Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Consulting (Chile) Limitada, Mercer Consulting (France) SAS, Mercer Consulting (India) Private Limited, Mercer Consulting B.V., Mercer Consulting Group Inc., Mercer Consulting Holdings Sdn. Bhd., Mercer Consulting Limited, Mercer Consulting Middle East Limited, Mercer Consulting S.L.U., Mercer Consulting Venezuela C.A., Mercer Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Mercer Corretora de Seguros Ltda, Mercer Danismanlik Anonim Sirketi, Mercer Deutschland GmbH, Mercer Employee Benefits - Medicacao de Seguros Unipessoal Lda., Mercer Employee Benefits Limited, Mercer Financial Advice (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Financial Services Limited, Mercer Financial Services Limited liability company, Mercer Financial Services Middle East Limited, Mercer Global Investments Europe Limited, Mercer Global Investments Management Limited, Mercer HR Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer HR Services LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Health & Benefits Administration LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, Mercer Holdings Inc., Mercer Holdings Inc. [Philippines], Mercer Human Resource Consulting Ltda, Mercer Human Resource Consulting S.A. de C.V., Mercer ICC Limited, Mercer Investment Consulting Limited, Mercer Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Mercer Investment Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Investments (Australia) Limited, Mercer Investments (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer Investments (Japan) Ltd, Mercer Investments (New Zealand) Limited, Mercer Investments LLC, Mercer Ireland Holdings Limited, Mercer Italia Srl Socio Unico, Mercer Japan Ltd., Mercer Korea Co. Ltd., Mercer LLC, Mercer Limited, Mercer MC Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer Master Trustees Limited, Mercer Mauritius Ltd., Mercer Oliver Wyman Holding B.V., Mercer Outsourcing (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Outsourcing S.L.U., Mercer Pensionsfonds AG, Mercer Pensionsraadgivning A/S, Mercer Philippines Inc., Mercer Private Investment Partners IV General Partner S.a.r.l., Mercer Private Markets AG, Mercer Private Markets Advisers (US) AG, Mercer Services Poland Sp. z.o.o., Mercer Sigorta Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Mercer South Africa (Pty) Limited, Mercer Superannuation (Australia) Limited, Mercer Switzerland Inc., Mercer System Services LLC, Mercer Technology Acquisitions Limited, Mercer Treuhand GmbH, Mercer Trust Company LLC, Mercer Trustees Limited, Mercer WorkforcePro LLC, Mercury Insurance Services Pty Ltd, Moola Systems Limited, Mountlodge Limited, Muir Beddal (Zimbabwe) Limited, NERA Australia Pty. Ltd., NERA Economic Consulting GmbH, NERA Economic Consulting Limited, NERA S.R.L., NERA SAS, NERA UK Limited, NERA do Brasil Ltda. (for dissolution), National Economic Research Associates Inc., NetComp Insurance Corp., Neuburger Noble Lowndes GmbH, Normandy Reinsurance Company Limited, Northern Alliance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), OWL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co.KG, OWL Marine Verwaltungs GmbH, Oliver Wyman (Bermuda) Limited, Oliver Wyman (Hong Kong) Limited, Oliver Wyman AB, Oliver Wyman AG, Oliver Wyman Actuarial Consulting Inc., Oliver Wyman B.V., Oliver Wyman Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd, Oliver Wyman Consultoria em Estrategia de Negocios Ltda., Oliver Wyman Energy Consulting Limited, Oliver Wyman FZ-LLC, Oliver Wyman Group KK, Oliver Wyman Inc., Oliver Wyman LLC, Oliver Wyman Limited, Oliver Wyman Limited Liability Company, Oliver Wyman Limited/Oliver Wyman limitee, Oliver Wyman Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pte. Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pty. Ltd., Oliver Wyman S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman S.A.S., Oliver Wyman S.L., Oliver Wyman S.r.l., Oliver Wyman SNC, Oliver Wyman SPRL/BVBA, Oliver Wyman Sdn. Bhd., Oliver Wyman Services Limited, Oliver Wyman Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman sp. z o.o., Omega Indemnity (Bermuda) Limited, Organizacion Brockman y Schuh S.A. de C.V., Osbornes Insurances Oxford Limited (in liquidation), PFT Limited, PI Indemnity Company Designated Activity Company, PT JLT Reinsurance Brokers, PT Jardine Lloyd Thompson, PT Marsh Indonesia, PT Marsh Reinsurance Brokers Indonesia, PT Mercer Indonesia, PT Nexus Asia Pacific, PT Oliver Wyman Indonesia, PT Quantum Computing Services, PT Quantum Investments, PT Quantum Support Services, Pallas Marsh Servicos Ltda., Pavilion Alternatives Group (Singapore) PTE. Ltd, Pavilion Financial Corporation Holdings UK Limited, Pavilion U.S. Investments Holdco LLC, Pension Trustees Limited, Pensionsservice Benefit Network Sverige AB, Perils AG, Personal Pension Trustees Limited, Pet Animal Welfare Scheme Limited, Portsoken Trustees (No. 2) Limited, Portsoken Trustees Limited, Potomac Insurance Managers Inc., Premier Pension Trustees Limited, Premium Services Australia Pty Limited, Professional Claims Handling Limited (in liquidation), Profund Solutions Limited, Promerit AG, Promerit Hungary Kft, Promerit Schweiz AG, Pymetrics Inc., R G Ford Brokers Limited, R R B Beratungsgesellschaft fuer Altersversorgung mbh, R. Mees & Zoonen Holdings B.V., Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters LLC, Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters Limited, Resource Benefit Associates, Rightpath Reinsurance SPC Ltd., Risk Management Australia Pty Limited, Rivers Group Limited, Rockefeller Risk Advisors Inc., Rutherfoord International Inc., SAFCAR-Marsh, SBJ Holdings Limited, SCIB (Bermuda) Limited, SCM Global Real Estate Select GP LLC, SCM Infrastructure General Partner S.a r.l., SCM International Private Equity Select III GP LLC, SCM LT General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE II GP Ltd., SCM PE II Scotland GP Ltd, SCM Strategic Capital Management (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., SICAR Marsh S.a.r.l., SME Insurance Services Limited, Sail Insurance Company Limited, Scalene Re Ltd, Seabury & Smith Borrower LLC, Seabury & Smith LLC, Secure Limited, Sedgwick (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Consulting Group Limited, Sedgwick Dineen Group Limited, Sedgwick Financial Services Limited, Sedgwick Forbes Middle East Limited, Sedgwick Group, Sedgwick Group (Australia) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Group (Bermuda) Limited, Sedgwick Group (Zimbabwe) Limited, Sedgwick Group Limited, Sedgwick Internationaal B.V., Sedgwick Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Singapore) Pte Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes (UK) Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Group Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Limited, Sedgwick Overseas Investments Limited, Sedgwick Private Limited, Sedgwick Re Asia Pacific (Consultants) Pte Ltd (for dissolution), Sedgwick Trustees Limited, Sedgwick UK Risk Services Limited, Sedgwick Ulster Pension Trustees Limited, Settlement Trustees Limited, Shanghai Mercer Insurance Brokers Company Ltd., Shorewest Insurance Associates LLC, Sirota Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Sirota Consulting UK Limited, Smith Long Term Disability Management Group Inc., Societe d'Assurances et de Participation Guian SA, Software Underwriting Systems Limited (in liquidation), Southern Marine & Aviation Inc., Southern Marine & Aviation Underwriters Inc., Sudzucker Versicherungs-Vermittlungs GmbH, Sumitomo Life Insurance Agency America Inc., Sylvite Financial Services, TBX Solutions Limited, Talent Tech Labs LLC, The Benefit Express Holdings Limited, The Benefit Express Limited, The Carpenter Management Corporation, The Insurance Partnership Holdings Limited, The Insurance Partnership Services Limited, The Positive Ageing Company Limited, The Purple Partnership Limited, The Recovre Group Pty Ltd, Thomsons Online Benefits (HK) Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits Inc., Thomsons Online Benefits Limited, Thomsons Online Benefits Pte Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits S.R.L, Torrent Government Contracting Services LLC, Torrent Insurance Services LLC, Torrent Technologies, Torrent Technologies Inc., Tower Hill Limited, Tower Place Developments (West) Limited, Tower Place Developments Limited, U.T.E. AMG, U.T.E. Marsh - Caja Castilla La Mancha Junta de Comunidades, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus (in liquidation), U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus 2012, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Vila-Seca 2010, UAD BB Marsh Lietuva, Vezina & Associes Inc., Vezina Assurances Inc., Victor Insurance Europe B.V., Victor Insurance Holdings Inc., Victor Insurance Italia S.r.l., Victor Insurance Managers Inc., Victor Insurance Managers Inc./Gestionnaires d'assurance Victor inc., Victor O. Schinnerer & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd., Victor O. Schinnerer & Company Limited, Victoria Hall Company Limited, Wellnz Limited, William M. Mercer (Canada) Limited/William M. Mercer (Canada) Limitee, William M. Mercer AB, William M. Mercer Comercio Consultoria e Servicos Ltda., Wortham Insurance & Risk Management, everBe SAS, and realright GmbH. Tahoe Resources Inc., together with its subsidiaries, acquires, explores for, develops, and operates mineral properties in the Americas. It explores for silver, gold, lead, zinc, and copper deposits, as well as precious metals assets. The company holds interest in the La Arena gold mine located in the Huamachuco district of northern Peru; Shahuindo mine located in the province of Cajabamba in northern Peru; and La Arena II, a copper-gold porphyry deposit located in Peru. It also holds interest in the Timmins mines, including the Bell Creek and Timmins West mines, the Fenn-Gib project, the Juby project, the Vogel project, and the Gold River project located in Timmins, Ontario. The company was formerly known as CKM Resources Inc. and changed its name to Tahoe Resources Inc. in January 2010. Tahoe Resources Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Reno, Nevada. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Dorbyl U.K. (Holdings) Limited, Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO (Holding) AG, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elga Skandinavian AS, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, FEG Investments L.L.C., Fasver, Filtertek, Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech (Taicang) Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart (Japan) K.K., Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart Foster Belgium, Hobart International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW (China) Investment Company Limited, ITW (Deutschland) GmbH, ITW (EU) Holdings Ltd., ITW (European) Finance Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW (Ningbo) Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Alpha Sarl, ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components (Langfang) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium, ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS (UK) Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Contamination Control (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Delta Sarl, ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.A., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Finance Designated Activity Company, ITW Finance Europe S.A., ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW France Finance Alpha S.A.S., ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments II Inc., ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics (Thailand) Ltd., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Italy S.R.L. in liquidazione, ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France (Luxembourg) S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings UK, ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW Hungary Finance Beta Kft, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Finance Srl, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lombard Holdings Inc., ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW M FILMS II LLC, ITW MH LLC, ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MOA Enterprises Inc, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V.. CNA Financial Corp. operates as an insurance holding company. Its products primarily include commercial property and casualty coverages, including surety. The company's services include risk management, information services and warranty and claims administration. The firm operates through Property & Casualty Operations and Outside Property & Casualty Operations. The Property & Casualty Operations comprises of three segments: Specialty, commercial and international. The Specialty segment provides professional, financial and specialty property and casualty products and services. The Commercial segment includes property and casualty coverages sold to small businesses and middle market entities and organizations primarily through an independent agency distribution system. The International segment underwrites property and casualty coverages. The Outside Property & Casualty Operations consists of two segments: Life & Group and Corporate & Other. The Life & Group segment includes the results of the individual and group long term care businesses that are in run-off. The Corporate & Other segment involves in the corporate expenses, including interest on corporate debt, and the results of Read More The meteorite will be on display at the Herakleidon Museum in Thiseio, Athens, between November 7-11, 2018 The first meteorite confirmed to have fallen in Greece has been returned after 164 years. The meteorite fell in 1818 in the northern Greek city of Serres, during a period when the country was still under Ottoman rule. The locals who found it, handed it over to the pasha of the region and in turn the pasha gave it to his German doctor. From the doctor, the meteorite ended up in the hands of an Austrian professor, who in turn donated it to the Natural History Museum of Vienna. The rock from space has been at the Austrian museum since 1854 among thousands of other meteorites. It is calculated to be 4.56 billion years old. On the occasion of the 200 years since its fall, efforts were made for the meteorite to return to Greece since it is the first known to fall to the country. With the assistance of the Municipality of Fyli and the Hellenic Space Agency, the meteorite will be on display at the Herakleidon Museum in Thiseio, Athens, between November 7-11, 2018. At the same time, from November 7 through November 30, the museum will feature a photo exhibition of Greek scientist Ioannis Baziotis, who is in Antarctica working as part of a NASA mission for meteorites. Read more at greekreporter.com RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Brocken Inaglory License: CC-BY-SA iShares MSCI Singapore ETF's stock was trading at $19.75 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EWS shares have increased by 20.1% and is now trading at $23.71. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares MSCI Switzerland ETF's stock was trading at $35.66 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EWL shares have increased by 42.0% and is now trading at $50.64. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. KAZ Minerals PLC, together with its subsidiaries, engages in mining and processing copper and other metals primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. It operates through Bozshakol, Aktogay, East Region and Bozymchak, and Mining Projects segments. The company operates the Aktogay and Bozshakol open pit copper mines in the east region and Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan; three underground mines in the east region of Kazakhstan; and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. It also develops greenfield metal deposits; operates Koksay deposit in Kazakhstan, and the Baimskaya licence area in the Chukotka region of Russia; and produces and sells various by-products, such as gold, silver, molybdenum, and zinc. In addition, the company supplies and distributes heat, water, and electricity; and offers construction, project management, financing, management, sales and logistics, and repairs and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as Kazakhmys PLC and changed its name to KAZ Minerals PLC in October 2014. KAZ Minerals PLC was founded in 1930 and is based in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Noor Bank, a leading Sharia-compliant bank in the UAE, has partnered with Microsoft aiming to drive digital transformation within the banks operations. In response to an increasing demand from millennial consumers for personalized service coupled with the flexibility of omni-channel digital experiences, Noor shaped its IT strategy to implement an enterprise-wide CRM system that would transform customer engagement. The banks leadership team focused on rolling out sales, marketing and services CRM modules across its centres of operations. The solution was to deliver a single 360-degree point of information on customers, including prospects across corporate, retail, wealth and investments. It was also envisaged to be the core front-end enterprise application for the management of the customer lifecycle from on-boarding to servicing, sales, marketing and off-boarding. Noor Bank chose the Microsoft Dynamics 365s CRM platform for its ability to deliver 360-degree views of customers, through its Common Data Model. Views will cover portfolios, interactions, experiences and automated services. Microsoft will work with Noors IT and line-of-business executives to ensure the platform will support the banks digital agenda and operational requirements for years to come. During the selection process, the banks decision-makers also took note of Dynamics 365s capacity for operational optimization, especially the Social Selling dashboard, which collates open leads, top prospects and task schedules in a single, visual interface. Another reason Noor Bank was attracted to Dynamics 365s customer-engagement suite was LinkedIn Sales Navigator, an advanced tool that allows sales teams to manage the entire pipeline through the popular professional-networking platform. LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps sales teams leverage LinkedIns rich network to source new customers, nurture and grow existing relationships and maximize sales productivity and results, all through one platform. John Iossifidis, chief executive officer of Noor Bank, said: Noor Bank is committed to be at the forefront of innovation by creating safe and seamless experiences for employees and customers. With Microsofts Dynamics 365 platform, we aim to empower our people to collaborate and deliver a differentiated level of service. The real time data and analytics gathered through this tool will allow us to stay ahead of the curve and deliver outstanding customer experiences. Digital transformation yields boons that bridge business functions, said Sayed Hashish, regional, general manager, Microsoft Gulf. The ability to engage, empower, optimize, and transform is the promise that platforms like Dynamics 365 deliver. It merges ERP and CRM, offers flexibility, cost benefits with a rich menu of AI-based business intelligence, and is built around a warehousing architecture called the Common Data Model, so it can pull together and standardize data to deliver rich, actionable value. This is why Noor has joined many other customers worldwide that rely on the Dynamics suite to deliver best-in-class service to their customers. We look forward to support their journey as they continue to explore new ways to achieve more, he added. - TradeArabia News Service iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF's stock was trading at $36.70 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EWT stock has increased by 80.4% and is now trading at $66.20. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Rayonier Advanced Materials, Inc. engages in the production and sale of cellulose products, which is a natural polymer commonly used in the production of cell phone and computer screens, filters, and pharmaceuticals. It operates through the following segments: High Purity Cellulose, Forest Products, Paperboard, Pulp and Newsprint, and Corporate. The High Purity Cellulose segment manufacture and market high purity cellulose, which is sold as either cellulose specialties or commodity products in U.S., Canda, and France. The Forest Products segment manufacture and market construction-grade lumber in North America through seven sawmills located in Canada. The Paperboard segment comprises paperboard products. The Pulp and Newsprint segment involves in the production of pulp and newsprint in Canada. The Corporate segment consists senior management, accounting, information systems, human resources, treasury, tax, and legal administrative functions that provide support services to the operating business units. The company was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in Jacksonville, FL. Read More The Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited, together with its subsidiaries, produces, distributes, and markets gas in Hong Kong and Mainland China. It is involved in the provision of liquefied natural gas, methanol, and coal and other chemicals; conversion and utilization of biomass, and industrial and agricultural waste; and operation of natural gas refilling stations, piped city-gas projects, upstream and midstream developments, water and wastewater treatment projects, energy exploration and utilization ventures, and aviation fuel facilities. The company supplies town gas to approximately 1.9 million customers. It also provides network connectivity, and data center and cloud computing services; and engages in the software development, solution implementation, and systems integration activities. In addition, the company offers consultancy and engineering contractor services, including utilities installation, infrastructure construction, and civil and building services engineering for public and private projects; and designs and manufactures gas meters and metering systems. Further, it is involved in water supply and wastewater treatment serving 2.4 million customers. Additionally, the company manufactures polyethylene piping and fittings; and engages in the customers center, cafA, restaurant, retail sale, automatic meter reading system development, laboratory testing, payment gateway and related, project management, landfill gas project, financing, logistics, oil, research and development, property development, and securities investment activities. The Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited was founded in 1862 and is headquartered in North Point, Hong Kong. Read More Imperial Oil Limited explores for, produces, and sells crude oil and natural gas in Canada. It operates through three segments: Upstream, Downstream, and Chemical. The Upstream segment explores for and produces crude oil, natural gas, synthetic oil, and bitumen. As of December 31, 2020, this segment had 138 million oil-equivalent barrels of proved undeveloped reserves. The Downstream segment is involved in the transportation and refining of crude oil, as well as blending, distribution, and marketing of refined products. It also transports crude oil to refineries by contracted pipelines, common carrier pipelines, and rail; maintains a distribution system to move petroleum products to market by pipeline, tanker, rail, and road transport; and owns and operates fuel terminals, natural gas liquids, and products pipelines in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. In addition, this segment markets and supplies petroleum products to motoring public through approximately 2,400 Esso and Mobil-branded sites. Further, it sells petroleum products, including fuel, asphalt, and lubricants for industrial and transportation customers, independent marketers, and resellers, as well as other refiners serving the agriculture, residential heating, and commercial markets through branded fuel and lubricant resellers. The Chemical segment manufactures and markets various petrochemicals and polyethylene, such as benzene, aromatic, and aliphatic solvents; plasticizer intermediates; and polyethylene resins. The company was incorporation in 1880 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Imperial Oil Limited is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation. Read More Stanmore Resources Limited explores for, produces, and sells metallurgical and thermal coal in Australia. The company holds interests in the Isaac Plains, Isaac Downs, Belview, The Range, Lilyvale, Mackenzie, and Clifford projects in the Bowen and Surat basins of Queensland, as well as the Millennium and Mavis Downs mine located near Moranbah, Queensland. It also exports its products. The company was formerly known as Stanmore Coal Limited and changed its name to Stanmore Resources Limited in May 2021. Stanmore Resources Limited was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia. Stanmore Resources Limited is a subsidiary of Golden Investments (Australia) Pte. Ltd. Read More Abu Dhabi-based Insurance House (IH) registered a net profit of Dh8.39 million ($2,28 million) during the first nine months of the year, which is more than double its net profit of Dh3.86 million registered in the corresponding period 2017. Mohammed Abdulla Alqubaisi, chairman of Insurance House said: This is a very encouraging sign for the Company, as the remarkable turnaround in the core business operations of Insurance House gathers momentum. Despite intense competition, softer market conditions and elevated pressures on input costs, the Company was able to more than double its net profit in the nine months of 2018 compared to the same period of 2017, through well thought out strategies and their effective implementation across all business lines. We will strive to sustain our significantly improved performance throughout 2018 and beyond, added Alqubaisi. Gross Premiums Written during the first nine months of 2018 weighed in at Dh165.13 million, compared to Dh180.62 million logged during the same period of the previous year. On the other hand, Net Claims Incurred during this period registered a dramatic, but healthy, drop of 22.4 per cent to Dh63 million compared to Dh81.17 million during the same period in the previous year. The ratio of net claims Incurred as a percentage of net premiums earned, registered a remarkable improvement down to 55.8 per cent in the first nine months of 2018 from 68.3 per cent in the same period of 2017. As a result of the above, the net underwriting income for the first nine months of 2018 jumped by 42.4 per cent to Dh41.14 million compared to Dh28.89 million registered during the same period of last year. Mohammed Othman, chief executive officer of Insurance House, commented: This comes as a direct result of a series of strategic and tactical measures implemented by Insurance House Management to lower the cost of Claims Incurred across all business lines and carefully assess risks. With the addition of a stable rent yielding investment property in Q1 2018, the Investment Income earned during the first nine months of 2018 rose to Dh4.99 million compared to Dh2.26 million in the same period of last year. During the first nine months of 2018, Insurance House further expanded customer reach within the UAE through the addition of two new branches, the first in Deira, Dubai and the other inside Muroor, Abu Dhabi. This brings the total branch network in the UAE up to 8 branches, in addition to the Abu Dhabi head office. General and Administrative Expenses rose in the first half of 2018 but remain within the expenditure budget and Insurance House continues to maintain a close vigil to ensure that expenses are on a tight leash in order to ensure its continued success. We remain optimistic of our profitable growth potential in the near future. Our strategy is to compete on the basis of innovative product offering, improved digital capabilities and superior service quality. Going forward, profits from core insurance activities will be driven by continuous fine-tuning of our risk underwriting capabilities, increased use of digital channels to extend customer reach and enhanced claims management processes, concluded Othman. TradeArabia News Service Universal Coal Plc, a coal mining company, engages in acquisition, exploration, development, and commercialization of coal projects in the Republic of South Africa. The company holds interests in thermal coal projects, including 70.5% interest in the Kangala project located in the Witbank coalfield in Mpumalanga province; 49% interest in the New Clydesdale Colliery coal project situated in the Kriel district; and 50.29% interest in the Brakfontein coal project located in the Delmas district. It also holds 50% interest in coking coal projects, such as the Berenice/Cygnus projects situated in the Soutpansberg coalfield southwest of Musina. Universal Coal Plc is based in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Vivint Solar, Inc. provides distributed solar energy primarily to residential customers in the United States. It owns and installs solar energy systems through long-term customer contracts. The company also sells photovoltaic installation products, as well as solar renewable energy certificates. As of December 31, 2019, it had an aggregate capacity of 1,294.0 megawatts covering approximately 188,300 homes. The company was formerly known as V Solar Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Vivint Solar, Inc. in April 2014. Vivint Solar, Inc. was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Read More by Jon Keebler | Warriors Correspondent | Sat, Nov 3rd 3:38pm EDT Andre Iguodala went 1-for-6 from the field Friday night against Minnesota, scoring just 2 points. He wen't scoreless from 2 attempts at the line and 2 from distance. by Brendan Tuma | Colts Correspondent | Sat, Nov 3rd 2:41pm EDT Keke Coutee (hamstring) has been ruled out for Housotn's Week 9 game versus the Denver Broncos. (Sarah Barshop on Twitter) Fantasy Impact: It means more targets for DeAndre Hopkins and newly acquired Demaryius Thomas. Even when healthy Coutee will only be the third option in this passing attack, which makes him merely a bench stash moving forward. A two-year sponsorship deal between Strutt & Parker and LEAF Education has been announced to help develop its FaceTime a Farmer initiative. The project was piloted in 2017 and involves farmers being paired with schools to deliver regular FaceTime/Skype sessions with schoolchildren, to bring about a better understanding of the role that farming and food production play in all our lives. Adopting such technology is seen as critical as farmers look to the younger generation to ignite passion for agriculture. Carl Edwards, director of education and public engagement at LEAF, said: FaceTime a Farmer is an opportunity to utilise something that most of us use on a daily basis to engage a future generation and to bring the world of farming, food and the environment directly in to the classroom. The sponsorship hopes to ensure that the initiative can amplify its reach significantly across the UK. James Farrell, head of rural at Strutt & Parker, said the land and property agency is "delighted" to be supporting a project which helps to engage schoolchildren with the farming industry. Strutt & Parker is part of BNP Paribas Real Estate, one of the BNP Paribas Group's ten UK business divisions. LEAF is an expanding charity that promotes sustainable food and farming. A core part of LEAFs work is focused on inspiring and educating future generations about farming, food and the countryside. The founders of Errington Cheese have won a further legal dispute with South Lanarkshire Council in relation to four batches of cheese confiscated by the Local Authority in 2016. The council was taken to court by the cheesemaker after it accused the company of breaching health regulations and sought to have stocks of cheese destroyed. South Lanarkshire Council wanted to dispose of the small cheese producers entire stock after a suspected E.coli link. On Thursday (November 1) the Court of Session ruled that Sheriff Robert Weir, QC, who condemned the cheese as being unsafe to eat, had "misdirected" himself, acting "unreasonably and irrationally at common law, contrary to the approach required as matter of EU Law." Sheriff Weir had accepted the argument from South Lanarkshire that a draft policy document produced by Food Standards Scotland allowed him to condemn the cheese. In doing so, Sheriff Weir assumed a policy document can override the requirements of EU regulations - which state if an uncertain organism is suspected in food, a comprehensive risk assessment must be undertaken, before the food can be condemned. South Lanarkshire Council must now release the three batches of Corra Linn cheese and one of Lanark Blue, although the latter produce is now unsaleable. Compensation The company continues to pursue a compensation case against the local authority for both its legal costs in fighting the case and for the business impact of the incorrectly condemned product. Speaking about Lord Bannatynes judgement, founder of Errington Cheese, Humphrey Errington said: This is a significant legal ruling which will have lasting implications for food producers as well as the overall remit of Food Standards Scotland. Food Standards Scotland can no longer issue enforcement policy if it goes above and beyond what is required in EU regulations." The turbulent period has been detrimental to the business, with sales falling to as low as 25% of pre-2016 levels, forced to lay off staff and funnel almost all its cash reserves into a costly legal battle. Mr Errington added: Were delighted the Court of Session has ruled in our favour with the companys efforts now focussed on getting the business back on track by increasing production and sales, while also coming to a settlement with the local authority over our legal fees and compensation for spoiled produce. "Once an agreement is reached, well hopefully be in a position to reemploy some of our loyal workforce," he said. Last month, the South Lanarkshire based cheese producer opened up its production facilities to mark the Great British Cheese Day (Sunday, October 21), inviting members of the public onto the farm to taste some cheese and gain an insight into the processes behind it. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced plans to start the construction of three footbridges in different parts of the emirate. The move comes following the directives of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to enhance the traffic safety and provide safe crossings for pedestrians, said the statement from RTA. Of these footbridges, one of them will be unique with four escalators linking the four sides of a key junction at the King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud Street. It boasts an iconic design inspired by the nature of buildings in the area and the coastal surroundings, it stated. The project covers designing and constructing three pedestrian bridges to ensure safe pedestrian crossing. The bridges spread in three Dubai hotspots namely King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud Street at the Marina, Khaled bin Al Waleed Street near Rifaa Street intersection, and the Arabian Ranches Street near Al Asayel junction," remarked Mattar Al Tayer, the director-general and chairman of the board of executive directors of RTA. The pedestrian bridge on King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud Street features an iconic design, the first-of-its-kind in the region. It links four sides of a vital junction of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud Street with the western street near the JBR and the entrance of the Marina. The area has a great appeal to visitors and sea-goers and provides a unique residential experience for residents and visitors of Dubai. The design of the Bridge front is inspired by the urban nature of the area with a shape and colour that fit well with the surrounding buildings. The curved shape of the bridge emulates the coastal location as well as the great harmony with the neighborhood. The bridge enables pedestrians to move freely between the four sides of the junction without stopping at the traffic signals. Expected to be completed in December next year, it extends 65m and can accommodate 4,000 people per hour. Constructing a footbridge of this magnitude at the Marina has been prompted by a host of considerations. The junction is used by about 2,300 persons and 2,000 vehicles during peak hours, stated the RTA chief. More than 1,000 people cross the junction to head to the JBR during the weekends. Moreover, the Dubai Tram crosses the intersection every six minutes. The area accommodates two Tram stations and one bus stop, and there are no pedestrian crossings nearby, he added. Al Tayer pointed out that the pedestrians safety was a top priority in RTA since inception and had been working towards that goal. "RTA has set several parameters for selecting the locations of these bridges such as the number of run-over accidents (black points), the intensity of traffic movement, the movement of people between the two sides of the street, and the distance to the nearest pedestrian crossing," explained Al Tayer. "Factors dictating the construction of pedestrian bridges also include the locations of public transport stops, markets and shopping centres, public and private entities in addition to observations received from the Dubai Police and the public," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release SubCategory Select Sub-Category The first criminal charges announced by the US Department of Justice DOJ in the scandal surrounding a defunct Malaysian state fund is a cautionary tale for banks operating in Asia. The frequent allusions to Goldman Sachs in the latest DOJ documents on this fund - 1MDB - should be seen as a warning to banks not to put profits ahead of corporate governance. In an indictment posted on the website of the DOJ on November 1, the DOJ said The business culture at US Financial Institution 1, particularly in Southeast Asia, was highly focused on consummating deals, at times prioritizing this goal ahead of the proper operation of its... DALIAN, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / November 2, 2018 / This week, CCID, the research arm of the Ministry of Industry and Information of China, released its sixth issue of the Global Public Blockchain Technology Assessment Index (GPBTAI) in a live-streamed edition of 'Chain Reaction VI.' For the very first time, the research institute also invited a newly debuted public blockchain, EKT, to discuss how promising new projects like EKT could become a component for the well-recognized index. The latest issue is consistent with previous results. EOS, ETH, and BitShares kept their top spots, earning total scores of 150.5, 136.3 and 110.6, respectively. BitCoin ranked 19th, down 3. The most notable improvement is NULS. Its ranking has jumped 11 places to the ninth, and become a Top-10-ranked project for the very first time. With no major technical updates occurred during the previous month for most of the blockchains, the underlining-technology sub-ranking remains unchanged. The current issue of the index had significant improvements in its evaluation methodology for development tools. The assessment now takes into considerations of Application Programming Interface (API), Software Development Kit (SDK), Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Smart Contract and other development offerings. With regard to innovation, Bitcoin, has won this sub-category six times in a row, while ETH, EOS, NULS, and Cardano claimed spots 2-5 respectively. It is worth noting that NULS, which had just joined the index a couple of issues ago, had become the public blockchain with the most improvement in a single category. Overall, blockchain projects with higher performance and stronger support for application development achieved better results in this round of technology assessment. The result also reflects the current trend of global public blockchain technology innovations. At present, EOS and ETH are considered leaders of the global blockchain industry. Open discussion with the CCID team lead. Left: Mr. Xun Zhou, CEO of EKT Right: Dr. Songtao Pu, Head of CCID assessment team. Image Source: Unifive As a new addition to this release, CCID opened up its communication channel and allowed innovative newcomers to establish dialogues with the research institute. Dr. Songtao Pu, the head of CCID's assessment team, invited Xun Zhou, CEO of the EKT project to join the release ceremony. EKT is a high-performance public blockchain with a unique 'Multi-chain, Multi-consensus' approach. It is also an open Dapp development platform that has overcome a couple of major design flaws that plagued some popular Dapp platforms. Ingeniously separating the transactional token chain from the DApp runtime application chain, EKT solved Ethereum's embarrassing performance problems exacerbated by the viral DApp game Crypto-Kitty. The separation of two purpose-oriented blockchains dramatically improves the performance of on-chain DApps. Moreover, the transactional token chain can also achieve a parallel cross-chain architecture with its own multi-chain, multi-consensus structure. The issuer of a specific token can set up the consensus mechanism for the token chain according to its individual needs, resulting in a much more flexible setup. At present, the main network of EKT has been launched, and more features will be gradually introduced. As a leading expert of technology-focused public blockchains, Dr. Pu is most concerned about how the next generation public blockchains like EKT can be assessed equitably in the technical ranking. The CCID team contemplated whether there should be a separate list for emerging public blockchains, and how the assessment can be carried out so that different types of blockchain projects can compete fairly. Dr. Pu emphasized that the selection criteria of CCID's GPBTAI are well established and transparent. Any qualified, highly visible public chain with a good impact will become evaluation objects for the index. Contact: media@unifiveusa.com The full ranking of the sixth edition of Global Public Blockchain Technology Assessment Index: ??? Names in English Tech Application Creativity Index Total Overall Ranking EOS EOS 101.4 20.1 29 150.5 1 ??? Ethereum 77.8 28.9 29.6 136.3 2 ??? BitShares 87.9 13.3 9.5 110.6 3 ??? Nebulas 72.4 24.2 13.8 110.4 4 NEO NEO 74.2 26.7 8 108.9 5 ???? Steem 85.1 9.8 11.3 106.1 6 ??? Ripple 72 13.1 18.3 103.4 7 ??? GXChain 75.2 20.2 7.6 103 8 NULS NULS 65.3 14.3 22.4 102.1 9 ??? Komodo 69.9 14.6 15.4 99.9 10 ??? Lisk 66.7 15.6 17 99.4 11 ??? Stellar 71.2 19.8 7.1 98.1 12 Ark Ark 65.5 17 15.5 98 13 ??? IOTA 66.4 14.3 15.1 95.8 14 Waves Waves 60.1 19.2 16.3 95.6 15 Stratis Stratis 63.8 16.1 14.5 94.4 16 ??? Qtum 62.4 22.3 8.9 93.7 17 ???? Cardano 58.6 12.8 21.7 93 18 ??? Bitcoin 43 15 34.6 92.5 19 Verge Verge 68 14.1 6.7 88.7 20 ?? Monero 55.3 12.3 19.6 87.2 21 ???? Ethereum Classic 66 13.8 6.1 86 22 ?? NANO 59.8 14.7 11.2 85.8 23 Tezos Tezos 56 12.5 16.3 84.8 24 ??? Zcash 52.1 15.4 15 82.5 25 ??? Dash 50 20.6 10.1 80.7 26 ???? Hcash 65.1 12.1 2.3 79.5 27 ???? Bitcoin Cash 44.9 19.5 12.6 77.1 28 ??? Sia 55.2 11.4 10 76.6 29 ??? Bytecoin 61.3 11.1 2.6 75 30 ??? Litecoin 45.7 10.4 14 70 31 Decred Decred 47.1 10.6 8.6 66.3 32 ??? NEM 45.9 16.2 1.8 63.9 33 SOURCE: CCID Group View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/527024/In-Its-Sixth-Issue-China-Made-Little-Changes-to-Its-Official-Crypto-Ranking-but-Give-Hopes-to-New-Projects-Like-EKT-to-Join-the-Ranks Dedicating the bridge to the people of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal said people should ask political parties about the works done by them before voting. New Delhi: After missing many deadlines, the iconic and much-awaited Signature Bridge on the Yamuna river was inaugurated on Sunday by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and will open for the public from Monday. The opening came after a clash between BJP and AAP workers at the site, with BJP Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari, also an MP, punching a policeman during the fracas before order was restored. Claimed by the government to be the country's first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge, with the gesture namaste, the bridge will help people enjoy a panoramic view of the city from 154-meter high observation deck - to be open in around two months. "Some final work is left in the high observation deck and it will be opened earlier in 2019, while the roads will open from Monday," an official told IANS. The 575-metre-long suspension bridge, proposed in 2004 and approved by the Delhi cabinet in 2007, will reduce the travel time between North and North-East Delhi. The bridge, connecting Wazirabad across the Yamuna river, will take vehicular pressure off the existing Wazirabad bridge. It will also connect the Outer Ring Road on the western bank of the river with Wazirabad road on the eastern side. Dedicating the bridge to the people of Delhi, Kejriwal said people should ask political parties about the works done by them before voting. "Don't get into the politics of those building temples, else your son will become a priest and not an engineer. Before voting ask the parties how many schools, hospitals or bridges they built. If they fail to count, tell them they can't get your vote. "For the development of the country, the governments should build schools, hospitals and bridges and not temples or statues," Kejriwal said. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader added that "it is the time for the people to think if they want bridges or statues." The bridge was inaugurated in the presence of Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Cabinet Ministers Imran Hussain, Satyendar Jain and Gopal Rai among others. Sisodia, in his address, said the bridge will be a landmark and a tourist destination. "Delhi was famous for India Gate and Qutub Minar but will now be known for this bridge. The bridge got its first pylon after we came to power. The work done before that was only 10-15 percent," he said. The inauguration was followed by a laser show. The Twitter page of the bridge was also started. Ahead of the inauguration, BJP and AAP activists clashed, with BJP leader Manoj Tiwari attacking AAP workers and punching a policeman who intervened. Tiwari got into a scuffle with AAP workers before the function started at the site, leading to the violence. The BJP leader later blamed the AAP for the trouble. As per the project plan, the bridge, which will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi, will have designated selfie spots. New Delhi: The much-awaited 'Signature Bridge' on the Yamuna river is set to open for public on 5 November, with deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia inspecting the infrastructure project on Friday. As per the project plan, the bridge, which will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi, will have designated selfie spots. Delhiites will be able to enjoy a panoramic view of the city from the top of the bridge, where they will be taken in four elevators with a total capacity of carrying 50 people. The elevators area likely to be operational in two months, an official said. He said the bridge will serve as a tourist destination with the 154-metre-high glass box giving a bird's-eye view of the city to visitors. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is scheduled to inaugurate the bridge on 4 November 4 and it will be thrown open for public on 5 November. Talking to reporters during the inspection, Sisodia said the bridge will become a tourist spot. Announced in 2004, the bridge has missed several deadlines since 2011. The proposal for the bridge, mooted in 2004, received approval of the Delhi Cabinet in 2007. It was initially expected to be completed at a modified estimate of Rs 1,131 crore for the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi in October 2010. In 2015, the cost of the project rose to Rs 1,594 crore. Reportedly, the bridge was proposed for the first time as early as in 1997 at an initial cost of Rs 464 crore. The bridge will share the burden of vehicular traffic currently borne by the Wazirabad bridge. With Avni's killing, the preservation of endangered species, the impact of their killing on the ecology, the loss of these beautiful creatures and even human encroachment on their territory are all major front-burner issues. The hypocrisy in our approach to wildlife is rampant at all levels. When we kill an animal, we call it sport. When they kill us, we call them "man-eaters". That said, human life supersedes all else. While it is all very well to sit safely in our urban drawing rooms and make mewling sounds of anguish over the shooting of Avni, the tigress, in a forest in Maharashtra's Yavatmal, let's be honest if I was one of the thousands of villagers living in the periphery of the jungle and worried about being the tiger's next lunch these past three years, I would not bat an eyelid over someone getting rid of it. So when PETA calls the killing a wildlife crime, I say, just a minute, you want to live in fear for yourself and your family? Think about it. Your child is late from school. Your wife is not back from the watering hole. Every few weeks, a body is found. You really want to buddy up with this tigress because it is all about preservation? The sad part is that this has come to pass. That we have reach such a state of affairs is something people don't want to talk about. What have we done these past 70 years to protect man and tiger, one from the other? With Avni believed to be responsible for 13 deaths, the regret is that she had to be shot because we have no system of adequate sanctuary to avoid a situation where a gun has to be fired and the animal's life taken. As much as 97 percent of the tiger population in India has been endangered since 1920, and only about 2,226 are left in the country 70 percent of the global population. By now, we should have developed the required "no escape" kind of sanctuaries, where we should have been able to track and monitor every tiger electronically. By now, the divide between the tiger's natural habitat, albeit falsely created, and the surrounding villages should have been cast-iron. Just heat signature equipment borrowed from the army should have been able to track a mother and her two cubs in the wild. While a drone may have been used, what is suspicious is how much trained manpower is available for such technical exercises? In the three months it took to track and kill Avni, we could have called on the World Wildlife Fund for support. For renegade situations, by now we should have had the technology to save these animals and also save ourselves. Of course, they should not be killed. The preservation of endangered species, the negative impact of their killing on the ecology, the loss of these beautiful creatures to future generations and even human encroachment on their territory are all major front-burner issues. We have a forest conservation cadre in the civil services, but it seems to be hamstrung and short on modern implementation techniques. This is how Edward Jim Corbett would have approached the Avni subject in 1910 when he turned into a legend by killing the Panar leopard that had taken 400 human lives. Corbett killed 13 recorded man-eaters, probably more, including the Muktesar man-eater after it was wounded by porcupine quills. Surely, we should have progressed in these 100 years. In the aftermath of Avni's killing, there should be a realisation that we need a law that is distinctly in favour of separating man and beast, without which this circle will continue man enters tiger territory; tiger responds as it will to any risk or threat to its cubs and turns into a man-eater; tiger is labelled and chased in a near-primitive fashion; tiger is shot for being itself. The system is outdated, but it is the tiger and villagers who have to pay the price for that with their lives. Avni, the tigress, was killed in an operation on Friday night in the forests of Maharashtra's Yavatmal district . Shooter Asgar Ali pulled the trigger. Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday took strong note of the killing of Avni, a tigress, in the forests of Maharashtra's Yavatmal, saying she was "deeply saddened by the way" the animal was "brutally murdered". "I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case. Legally, criminally as well as politically," she asserted, sharing a series of tweets with the hashtag, #Justice4TigressAvni. "It is nothing but a straight case of crime." Maneka said she will "take up the matter very strongly" with Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. It is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, Sh @SMungantiwar, Minister for Forests, #Maharashtra, gave orders for the killing. #Justice4TigressAvni Maneka Gandhi (@Manekagandhibjp) November 4, 2018 Tigress Avni, believed to have been responsible for 13 deaths in Maharashtra in the past two years, was shot dead in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district on Friday night as part of an operation in the forests of Borati. The Maharashtra forest department had been searching for the 'man-eater' tigress for nearly three months, which involved sniffer dogs, trap cameras, drones and a hang-glider, expert trackers, sharp-shooters and around 200 ground personnel. A numbers of online petitions came up in September after the Maharashtra Forest Department issued a shoot-at-sight order for Avni after an inquiry declared that she as a "man-eater" tigress. The decision to kill Avni, however, generated a flurry of online petitions, seeking mercy for the tigress. The forest department order was first challenged in the Bombay High Court (Nagpur bench) and then in the Supreme Court, but both courts refused to stay the order to kill Avni at sight. PETA on Saturday demanded that Avni's killing, which the animal rights group said was a "wildlife crime", be investigated. Maneka also accused Maharashtra forests minister Sudhir Mungantiwar of overlooking "several requests from many stakeholders" and giving the orders to kill Avni. "He has been doing this regularly, and this is the third tiger being murdered, besides several leopards and wild boars," she added. Maneka claimed that each time, Mungantiwar hired Hyderabad-based shooter Shafat Ali Khan for the job, and "this time, his son (Asghar Ali) also appeared in the scene illegally to murder the tigress". "His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. Despite forest officials being committed to tranquilise, capture and quarantine the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter killed her on his own on the orders of Mungantiwar," Maneka said. "This ghastly murder has put two cubs at the edge of a sad death in the absence of their mother." On shooter Shafat Ali Khan, she pointed out that he has killed three tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Maharashtra's Chandrapur. "He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad," she tweeted. "I fail to understand why a state government should even bother about such a man, let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts," she added. According to police, Two mobile-phones and seven SIM cards were seized from the BSF jawan, Sheikh Riazuddin. Ferozepur: A Bordrer Security Force (BSF) jawan was arrested for allegedly sharing secret information such as photographs of border fencing and roads with a Pakistani agent, police said Sunday. "The accused, Sheikh Riazuddin, was under the scanner of the BSF intelligence wing for his suspicious activities for the last few months," they said. He is a resident of Renpura village in Maharashtra's Latur district and was posted with the BSF's 29th Battalion in the Ferozepur Sector in Punjab. "Two mobile-phones and seven SIM cards were seized from him," police said. "Riazuddin allegedly shared photographs of fencing and border roads, contact numbers of senior BSF officials and some other secret information with Mirja Faisal, an agent of Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)," they said. "The accused shared the information from his mobile-phone," police said. "A case under relevant sections of the Official Secrets Act and National Security Act was registered against him at the Mamdot police station following a complaint by the deputy commandant of the 29th Battalion," they said. Ranjit Singh, the investigation officer, on Sunday said the jawan will be produced in a court for police remand. Today's top stories: Florida police identify the Florida yoga studio shooter as Scott Paul Beierle; Asia Bibi's husband calls for her protection in jail; Shashi Tharoor says Narendra Modi a 'hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand'; and more Modi 'hero on a white stallion', says Shashi Tharoor Congress MP Shashi Tharoor Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand". Tharoor had waded into a controversy at the Bangalore Literature Festival on 28 October by claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling" and "you cannot remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a chappal either". A criminal defamation complaint had been filed against him in a Delhi court earlier in the day for his "scorpion" remark. Tharoor again took a swipe at the prime minister, calling him "a hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand saying I know all the answers". "Modi is a one-man government and everybody dancing to what he says," he said at an event organised by an industry body, adding India now has the "most centralised PMO" in history. "Every decision is taken by the PMO (prime minister's office). Every file has to be sent to the PMO for approval," he claimed. Florida yoga studio shooter posted racist, misogynistic videos A military veteran and former teacher who railed at women and blacks in a series of poorly lit videos, on Friday shot two women to death and wounded five other people at a Florida yoga studio before killing himself. Details about 40-year-old Scott Paul Beierle began to emerge in the hours after, including that he had once been banned from FSU's campus and had been arrested twice for grabbing women even though the charges were ultimately dropped. Beierle, who had moved to the central Florida town of Deltona after getting a graduate degree from FSU, also appear to have posted a series of videos on YouTube in 2014 where he called women "whores" if they dated black men, said many black women were "disgusting" and described himself as a misogynist. He said that promiscuous women deserved to be crucified and he suggested putting up landmines to keep people from crossing into the US from Mexico. The existence of the videos was first reported by BuzzFeed. China, Pakistan sign 16 agreements; Beijing to give Islamabad $6 billion During Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's maiden visit to China, officials of both the sides signed 16 agreements mainly relating to poverty alleviation in Pakistan, strengthening cooperation in agriculture and industrial sectors and technical training. Khan, who is in Beijing as the two countries grapple to iron out differences over the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Islamabad approaching 'friendly nations' to avoid a tough IMF bailout package. Khan wants to minimise IMF loans fearing stringent conditions and scrutiny of the CPEC projects. China has not confirmed reports that it would provide $6 billion to Pakistan. Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou, who briefed the media after Li-Khan talks, said China will provide "necessary support" to Pakistan to tide over the present financial crisis but declined to reveal the amount. Madhya Pradesh polls: Congress releases first list of candidates The Congress on Saturday released its first list of candidates, 155 in total, for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, and the nominees included Ajay Singh, the Leader of Opposition in the state, and former Union minister Suresh Pachouri. The party has also fielded former chief minister Digvijaya Singhs son Jaivardhan Singh and brother Lakshman Singh from Raghogarh and Chachoura seats, respectively. Ajay Singh, son of former chief minister late Arjun Singh, will contest from Chruhat. Polls for the 230-member assembly are scheduled for 28 November. The BJP, which is in power in the state since 2003, had released its first list of 177 candidates on Friday. Security increased at Sabarimala ahead of opening day tomorrow Kerala's Sabarimala town, where the famed Lord Ayyappa shrine is located came under complete police control on Saturday and will remain until midnight on 6 November, ahead of its day-long opening on 5 November, a senior official said. According to Pathanamthitta district Superintendent of Police T Narayanan, 1,500 police officials have been deployed in the temple town. According to the police, no one is allowed to remain in the pathway that leads to the temple, right from the Pamba base camp and also in the areas closer to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. Punjab CM orders transfers of teachers accused of stripping female students to check for sanitary pads Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday directed to transfer the teachers of a government school in state's Fazilka district, who were accused of allegedly stripping girl students after the discovery of a sanitary pad in the school's toilet. The Punjab chief minister has ordered the state Education Department Secretary, Krishan Kumar to initiate an inquiry into the incident. The chief minister directed Kumar to complete the investigation by Monday and take necessary action. NID senior faculty Krishnesh Mehta sacked over #MeToo allegations Premier design institute National Institute of Design (NID) has also been hit by #MeToo wave. On Saturday, the institute's senior faculty member Krishnesh Mehta was asked to leave after an enquiry committee found substance in allegations of sexual misconduct. A group of students had alleged undesirable and out of syllabus references to sexuality and sexual relations and behaviour by him. Mehta had been a faculty member of interdisciplinary studies and industrial design for the last 25 years. He has also been barred from entering any of the NID campuses. Ex-SC judge says government can bring in law for Ram Temple construction The government could bring a law for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya even when the dispute is before the Supreme Court, as there have been instances of the court's decisions being scuttled by the legislative process, former Supreme Court judge Jasti Chelameswar said on Friday. His comments came when the clamour for the enactment of a law to pave the way for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was growing within the Sangh Parivar. Justice (retired) Chelameswar was speaking at an interactive session hosted by the All India Professionals Congress, an organisation affiliated to the Congress party. Nearly Rs 600 crore spent on 2.0: Rajinikanth The trailer of superstar Rajinikanth's forthcoming multilingual science-fiction action drama 2.0 was unveiled on Saturday. A sequel to Shankar's 2010 blockbuster Enthiran, 2.0 has been produced by Lyca Productions and is gearing for release on 29 November. Speaking at the trailer launch, Rajinikanth said the film has been made on a lavish budget of nearly Rs. 600 crore. "Mark my words, the film will be a super hit. Advance wishes to Shankar and Lyca Productions. Nearly Rs. 600 crore has been spent on the film. The film wouldn't have been possible without the support of Lyca," Rajinikanth said. India vs West Indies, 1st T20I: Rohit Sharma to lead India In the absence of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma will lead India against the West Indies in the first of the three T20 Internationals at the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata on Sunday. India won the ODI series 3-1 against the visitors and would look to continue the dominance in the T20Is. Also, the Indian side will turn up at Eden Gardens without MS Dhoni in the playing XI as he was left out of India's squad for this series and more significantly, India's tour of Australia. The American University of Ras Al Khaimah (Aurak) has signed an agreement with Al Mizan, a certified provider of solar solutions and trading solar equipment in the UAE. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Aurak president Professor Hassan Hamdan Al Alkim and managing director of Al Mizan International Kaival Doshi. The two institutions agreed to collaborate in information exchange, solar PV installation projects, research, and student internships. They have agreed to exchange information concerning their research, events, products, projects, and training programs; invite the other party to participate in scientific meetings, conferences, workshops, and seminars; and assist one another in organizing scientific conferences, workshops, and specialized seminars. Aurak and Al Mizan will undertake PV installation with Aurak introducing clients to Al Mizan for the installation, commission, and handing over of Photo-Voltaic projects while Al Mizan will comply with keeping its contracts through Aurak. Aurak and Al Mizan will coordinate in joint research proposals and contribute in soliciting internal and external funding for joint research projects. Research results will be published under both institutions, while any inventions, improvements, or discoveries made by one party will remain the property of that party with permission to use the inventions, improvements, or discoveries being granted to the second party. Prof Al Alkim stated: I look forward to future enterprises with Al Mizan as we now have access to an industry expert in solar PV installation, allowing students yet another opportunity to advance professionally. It is also incredible that through this venture we will be discovering solutions in energy conservation to ensure a brighter tomorrow. Aurak is a public non-profit, independent, coeducation institution accredited by the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, delivering an integrated American-style, undergraduate and graduate education strongly focused on the indigenous culture. TradeArabia News Service Citing other instances of the court's decisions being scuttled by the legislative process, former Supreme Court judge Jasti Chelameswar said the Parliament can pass a law for Ram temple while the matter is in the Supreme Court Mumbai: The government could bring a law for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya even when the dispute is before the Supreme Court, as there have been instances of the court's decisions being scuttled by the legislative process, former Supreme Court judge Jasti Chelameswar said on Friday. His comments came when the clamour for the enactment of a law to pave the way for construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was growing within the Sangh Parivar. Justice (retired) Chelameswar was speaking at an interactive session hosted by the All India Professionals Congress, an organisation affiliated to the Congress party. Earlier this year, Justice Chelameswar was among the four senior judges of the Supreme Court who went public with their objections about the then Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra's style of functioning. When asked at Friday's programme whether Parliament can pass a law for Ram temple while the matter is in the Supreme Court, Chelameswar said it could happen. "Legally if it can happen (or not) is one aspect. Whether it will happen (or not) is another. I'm aware of instances that happened in the past where decisions of the Supreme Court were scuttled by the legislative process," he said. He cited the example where the Karnataka Assembly passed a law to overturn the Supreme Court order on the Cauvery water dispute, and another similar instance related to inter-state water dispute between Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. "The nation should have opened up to these things much earlier... This (a law on Ram temple) is possible as we did not stop it then," he said. Incidentally, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) said earlier Friday that Hindus were feeling "insulted" by the Supreme Court's declaration that the Ayodhya issue is not a priority and insisted that an ordinance would be needed if all options run out. After a three-day RSS conclave in Maharashtra, its general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi said the organisation "will not hesitate to launch an agitation for Ram temple, if needed, but since the matter is in the Supreme Court, there are restrictions." Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu further asserted that the TDP will fight dictatorship, hegemony, and pride three qualities, he claimed, the BJP possesses. Amaravati: Launching a scathing attack at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an "anaconda'" who is swallowing up institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), among others. "Who is a bigger anaconda than Narendra Modi. He himself is the anaconda, who swallowed all the institutions. He is swallowing up institutions like CBI, RBI etc. Andhra Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders should know this," he claimed. Ramakrishnudu further asserted that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will fight dictatorship, hegemony, and pride three qualities, he claimed, the BJP possesses. "Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is speaking of past politics. Past cannot be present or future. But present and future will become past. The critics of TDP should understand this truth. TDP was not established against any single party. It was found against the system. Late NTR had founded TDP to fight dictatorship and hegemony. TDP was found for the security of marginal and downtrodden and for empowering minorities," he added. Reiterating TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu's stance, Ramakrishnudu said the party's primary responsibility is to save the nation, democracy, and constitutional values. "BJP leaders, Narendra Modi, and Amit Shah are violating the constitution and democracy. In such a situation is it not the responsibility of all of us as the citizens of India to face BJP and counter Modi's dictatorial policies? Instead of that why YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Jai Samaikyandhra Party (JSP) are criticising TDP in the same tune? Is it not irresponsibility and anti-constitutional?" he asked. The Andhra Pradesh minister further claimed that the TDP has been playing a key role in national politics whenever needed from day one of its formation. "We did the same in National Front and United Front. TDP has a greater responsibility towards the nation. That's why it cannot sit idle as a mute spectator when the safety of the nation is in trouble, democracy is in problems and constitution is in crises. YSRCP and JSP want to grab power but have no responsibilities towards the nation. For the same, they are supporting Narendra Modi, who is demolishing the systems and killing democracy," he said. "TDP was formed for the interests of the state of Andhra Pradesh. It was founded for creating a new political era by encouraging youth, educated and truthful people into politics. TDP has been working in the same direction since last 36 years. Our call for self-respect brought worldwide identity for us. People stopped calling us 'Madrasis' and started identifying as Telugu people," added Ramakrishnudu. In response to the state finance minister's comments, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi asserted that Prime Minister Modi's critics do not have the courage to review the work done by him. "There is a competition going on in abusing popular and hardworking Prime Minister like Narendra Modi. People are not feeling ashamed of using bad words. However, if we see the history, Modi has always stood strong whenever somebody attacked him. These people, who are abusing him, also know this. They don't have the courage to review the works done by Modi," he told ANI. Ties between the TDP and BJP have been strained ever since the Chandrababu Naidu-led party pulled out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) alleging that the BJP-led central government had betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh by not granting special category status to the state. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a 'hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand'. Kolkata: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand". Tharoor had waded into a controversy at the Bangalore Literature Festival Sunday last by claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling" and "you cannot remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a chappal either". A criminal defamation complaint had been filed against him in a Delhi court earlier on Saturday for his "scorpion" remark. Tharoor again took a swipe at the prime minister, calling him "a hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand saying I know all the answers". "Modi is a one-man government and everybody dancing to what he says," he said at an event organised by an industry body, adding India now has the "most centralised PMO" in history. "Every decision is taken by the PMO (prime minister's office). Every file has to be sent to the PMO for approval," he claimed. On the next parliamentary election, Tharoor said that there will be both pre-poll and post-poll alliances between the Congress and other opposition parties, but Congress president Rahul Gandhi "may not be" the prime ministerial face. The coming Lok Sabha election is important in that it will deny the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term in power, the Congress MP said. He said the decision on the prime ministerial face of the Congress alliance would be a collective one and "it may not be him (Gandhi). The Congress has a broader notion of a leader, unlike the BJP. We had people like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and others having a tremendous track record". Gandhi is the unquestionable choice of Congress workers as their leader. "If free and fair elections are held among the Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi wins hands down," the Congress MP said. Continuing his criticism of the Modi government, Tharoor said, "We are having a top-down, over-centralised and inefficient government running the country and there is nothing positive in the Indian economy." "Demonetisation was a bad idea implemented badly and GST was a good idea implemented badly," Tharoor said. He said that the Indian stock is down across the globe. "The rupee was heading towards the 'Margdarshak Mandal' (a reference to a BJP panel comprising its elderly leaders)," he quipped and later clarified that the BJP panel had leaders above the age of 75. He said that communalism, cow vigilantism and mob lynching have been so extreme that India had never seen such "bizarre politics in the past". "There are damning statistics to prove that," he added. Tharoor, who was the minister of state for external affairs in the UPA government and is currently chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, said there was "total collapse of relations between India with other countries". "Nobody knows what is the coherent foreign relations policy with Pakistan, similarly with Nepal and Sri Lanka," he said. Tharoor regretted that Gandhi is being dubbed a 'Pappu' by some in the social media. "This is not fair and it is unjustified. Congress workers are really stitched to the Gandhi family and want their leader to be from there," he said. Regarding the Sabarimala temple controversy, Tharoor said, "These issues are being whipped up to distract attention from the real problems like oil price rise, Rafale deal, etc." Speaking at another programme, he alleged that the trend of erecting statues and raising the issue of Ram temple in Ayodhya were attempts to distract the masses from "failures" of the BJP government at the Centre. He said the trend of erecting statues reminded him of the Roman empire when people were distracted from the oppression they faced through 'bread and circuses' (distribution of free food and staging of huge spectacles). "The issues of Statue of Unity, Ram temple, Ram statue at Ayodhya are distractions. I would urge the public of India to move away from these distractions and focus on the realities and lives of the Indians," the Congress MP said. "The reality is the Indian Aam Aadmi (common man) has been suffering for the last four and half years... This suits the agenda of the government that has failed to perform," he said. Tharoor's comment comes in the backdrop of plans to install a statue of Lord Ram on the banks of the Sarayu river in Ayodhya. Joining the chorus for the construction of Ram temple in the Uttar Pradesh pilgrim town of Ayodhya, Union minister Vijay Goel had Friday said it should be done at the earliest through any means constitutional, legislative, judicial or community dialogue. The VHP and the RSS have demanded an ordinance to acquire land for constructing the temple in Ayodhya. Based on data collated by a Guwahati-based independent researcher, 16 suicides linked to NRC took place in 2018, of whom 12 were Hindus and four Muslims. Most of the suicide victims were economically underprivileged. The updating of the National Register of Citizenship for Assam has ostensibly triggered a rash of suicides, suggesting that it has become a source of tremendous stress and anxiety for segments of the states population. These emotions do not necessarily arise from paranoia after all, exclusion from the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) implies revocation or denial of Indian citizenship and, perhaps, even deportation from the country. There is no precise count of the number of people who have chosen to die than to endure the uncertainties inherent in the process of determining who is an Indian citizen. Zamser Ali, the state coordinator of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), an NGO, has counted 30 NRC-linked suicides since the Modi government swept to power in May 2014. In the statistical detailing of the scholar Prasenjit Biswas, who is the chairperson of the Barak Human Rights Protection Committee (BHRPC), as many as 32 people killed themselves over the NRC since 1 January, 2018, the day after the first draft of NRC was made public. The discrepancy between suicide figures is perhaps linked to the network that organisations have to gather information on such deaths, which are not always reported in the media. By contrast, NRC-linked suicides reported in the media since 2015 constitute the data that the Guwahati-based independent researcher Abdul Kalam Azad has collated. From Azads tabulation, this writer segregated those suicides that occurred in 2018, to prepare two tables listing suicides among Hindus and Muslims, providing in each case, wherever possible, their job profile and the cause behind their precipitous decision. Apart from NRC, the tables mention two other causes for suicide "D-Voter" or doubtful voter and "reference case". The term D-voter categorises those whose names have been struck off the electoral rolls as their citizenship is under scrutiny. Reference case refers to inquiries initiated by the Assam Border Police into the citizenship of people. Both these have a bearing on the exclusion and inclusion of names from the NRC. The two tables show that 16 suicides linked to the citizenship verification process took place in 2018. Of these, four victims were Muslims, and 12 were Hindus, of whom only three were non-Bengalis. Most of the suicide victims were economically underprivileged. It can be argued that 16 self-inflicted deaths isnt a high number for a state having a population of 3.29 crore. Sociologist Chandan Kumar Sharma, of Tezpur University, cautioned against linking all of them to NRC. He said, Unless a proper study of these suicides is undertaken, we cant categorise NRC to be their sole cause. For instance, because suicide carries stigma, it is possible that families ascribe it to NRC. In Assams context, the suicide-NRC linkage garners sympathy, and provides the local community, whether Hindu or Muslim, an opportunity to portray the updating of the national register as a callous bureaucratic process inflicting misery on the people. Sharma said, Around 40 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC draft. Why is it that only 16 committed suicide, a number which, come to think of it, isnt high, even though every self-inflicted death is tragic? Psychologists tend to gauge a persons propensity to commit suicide through what is called the biological-sociological-psychological evaluation. Very simply, biological refers to the persons genetic predisposition to self-harm; sociological to whether he or she is socially integrated or alienated; and psychological to the attitudes he or she has. There is not a one-to-one relationship between suicide and (its purported) cause, said Mythili Hazarika, associate professor, clinical psychology, Gauhati Medical College Hospital. In addition to the stress of everyday living, if a persons existence is plunged into a crisis or their identity is threatened, then something like the NRC can become the precipitating factor for committing suicide, she ads. This is because exclusion from the final NRC would be an authoritative verdict against a persons claim to citizenship. Although such a verdict can be overturned through the judicial process, the person will have to incur expenses and endure the travails typical of the Indian judicial system. With most of the 16 poor, their exclusion from the two drafts of NRC might have represented to them the doom awaiting them in the future. Their relative illiteracy could also have severely impeded them from negotiating with the complexities of NRC. Driven to desperation, they chose to die. Did learned helplessness drive them to suicide? Education could have played a reverse role in driving the three Hindu Bengali school teachers (see table) to commit suicide. Sharma explained, The lower middle class people, because of their education, are acutely aware of the consequences of exclusion from NRC. It must have unsettled them. They could have also felt a sense of shame at their exclusion. After all, exclusion from the NRC signifies exclusion from the society as well. Yet, what is seemingly bewildering is that the 12 Hindus who committed suicide in 2018 is three times more than the four Muslims who killed themselves. This is because it has been Assams common sense that Muslims constitute the bulk of alleged illegal immigrants. It is they who should have found the NRC process most menacing, and therefore, ought to have accounted for the highest proportion of suicides. The NRC bureaucracy hasnt provided the religious composition of the 40 lakh who have been excluded from the final NRC draft. But there is a growing realisation that Hindu Bengalis constitute the largest proportion of those excluded, said Abdul Mannan, a retired professor of statistics, Gauhati University. He pointed to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee saying that 25 lakh Hindu Bengalis dont figure in the final NRC draft. It is possible Banerjee is trying to stoke the anxiety of Bengalis for electoral purposes. But then, Union Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain has said that 30 lakh Hindus (including Hindu Bengalis) have been excluded from the final draft, Mannan said. Since Gohain is an Assamese BJP leader, it is presumed, understandably so, that he has access to the NRC data. On this presumption rests Mannans thesis fewer Muslims than Hindu Bengalis have committed suicide because the former does not constitute the largest group in the 40 lakh who have been excluded in the NRC final draft. The incidence of suicide being high among Hindu Bengalis could also be because of their high expectations from the BJP, which they consider as representing their interests. With the party in power both at the Centre and in Assam, Hindu Bengalis were hoping for succour from it. Bengalis are suffering from the syndrome of learned helplessness, said BHRPCs Prasenjit Biswas. To explain the syndrome, Biswas drew a parallel when a monkey is kept in a cage for two-three years, it refuses to step out even when the gates are opened. Likewise, Hindu Bengalis reposed faith in the Modi government, and were convinced it will ensure their citizenship status is not imperilled. It was to address the anxieties of the Hindu Bengalis over their citizenship status that the Narendra Modi government brought in the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which seeks to proscribe deportation of religious minorities of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan found in India without valid documents. But the Bill has been put on the backburner because of the hostility of Hindu Assamese to it. The learned helplessness (of Hindu Bengalis) is now manifesting in suicide, Biswas said. Learned helplessness was also spawned because of the worldview of Hindu Bengalis who fled East Pakistan at the time of Partition and, in later years, from Bangladesh because of religious persecution. Their assumption has been that India will never expel them under any circumstance. They were careless in maintaining their documents, such as migration and refugee certificates issued to them. Many of them were lackadaisical in registering themselves with the authorities. CJPs Zamser Ali explained, Officials at the Foreigners Tribunals ask them why they hadnt submitted migration certificates earlier. Those who took shelter in refugee camps were issued refugee certificates by agencies manning them. Most of them are illiterate and they are discriminated against. It is an unwritten law not to accept refugee certificates as valid documents." Muslims understand the value of documents By contrast, Muslims have a veritable culture of maintaining documents. Historian Arupjyoti Saikia pointed out, This culture has been spawned because of their experiences. They have encountered political exclusion for a long time. Suspicion of their citizenship is an aspect of their daily life. Muslims who shift from village to city are particularly vulnerable. Consequently, it has, underscored in them the importance of preserving documents, and carrying them around wherever they go, to prove their citizenship and obviate harassment. Decades of political exclusion of Muslims also prompted community leaders to evolve a strategy for tackling the contentious citizenship issue. Accustomed to handling adversity for years, they believe their leaders will manage the NRC situation and create space for them, Saikia said. They feel there is hope for them in the future. They are consequently less likely to be driven to desperation and suicide. Muslims also have stronger roots in villages, which offer a better network of support than what you find in cities. This too has perhaps helped them cope better with the uncertainties of NRC, Saikia said. The 19th Century French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, thought the rate of suicide in a society is a commentary on its integrative capacity. He identified four types of self-inflicted death, one of which is fatalistic suicide. It is triggered because of over-regulation of the society, which has individuals feel they live in oppressive conditions, without agency, and consequently denuding life of any meaning. They would rather die than live a meaningless existence. The suicides in Assam conform to Durkheims fatalistic type, Chandan Kumar Sharma said. "Over-regulation is represented by the state demanding a chain of documents to prove citizenship. Those who dont have the requisite documents or whose names are missing from the final NRC draft find their identity is in question now. Linked to their identity crisis are issues of livelihood. (They face detention and expulsion if they dont figure in the final NRC). Fatalistic suicide represents an over-regulated society into which individuals are not integrated, says Sharma. If the suicides in Assam havent yet dominated the national discourse, it is because mostly those who died were poor, unlike the middle class students who immolated themselves in 1990 against the governments decision to provide 27 percent reservation to the Other Backward Classes in government jobs. For those committing suicide in Assam, it would seem their lives, deprived of meaning by the NRC, ended in meaningless deaths as well. The decision to seek Khan's services to shoot Avni dead had angered animal rights activists before the death of the tigress and led to an even stronger condemnation after she was killed. "'Man-eater" tigress Avni was killed in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district on Friday night by sharp-shooter Asghar Ali, son of a controversial private hunter Nawab Shafat Ali Khan. The Maharashtra government had requested Khan to take down the tigress after the Supreme Court upheld the state Forest Department's shoot-at-sight order. The decision to seek Khan's services had angered animal rights activists before Avni's death and led to an even stronger condemnation after she was killed. Possibly the most significant of these responses was that of Maneka Gandhi, Union minister and chairperson of NGO People for Animals. "Shafat Ali Khan has killed three tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Chandrapur, Maharashtra," she said on Twitter. "He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals... I fail to understand why a state government should even bother about such a man let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts." Maneka also said Khan's son was not authorised to carry out Avni's killing. Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray also said the person who killed Avni was a "bloodthirsty hunter". In a strongly-worded tweet, he said: Lets rename the Ministry of Forests as Ministry of Poaching. Its anyway a sham! #Avni pic.twitter.com/NPFg9KLLz4 Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) November 3, 2018 In a similar vein, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India released a statement, saying Avni was killed "illegally to satisfy a hunter's lust for blood", in contempt of court and in apparent violation of the Wildlife Protection Act. Khan, however, defended his son's actions and was quoted as saying in The Times of India: "Ashgar Ali is a renowned shooter, conservationist and crackshot. We made a lot of efforts for 38 days to capture the animal in hostile terrain. Asghar Ali represented Telangana in several national competitions and he is an excellent horseman." 'Trigger-happy' hunter or 'social worker'? Over the years, Khan has faced criticism from animal rights activists on several occasions. A 2016 report by Sanjay Singh in Firstpost quoted him as saying that he has killed over 250 nilgai in Bihar as part of "free social service". A few villagers had complained that the animals were damaging standing crops. At that time too, Maneka had criticised Prakash Javadekar, the Union environment minister at the time, and the Bihar government over the issue. In 2005, the Karnataka CID (Forests) caught Khan for his shooting expeditions, which are punishable under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The case against him, however, was later dropped. KSN Chikkerur, who earlier held the charge of the Inspector General of the CID (Forest) was quoted as saying that Khan is a "very trigger-happy man". Khan had claimed that the charges against him were baseless, and that he was caught in the crossfire between two ministers, referring to Javadekar and Gandhi. However, past controversies surrounding Khan are not limited to allegations of poaching. In 1991-92, the Karnataka Police had arrested him for allegedly supplying weapons to Maoists operating along the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border. He was arrested along with Patel Sudhakar Reddy, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Khan has also been accused of running illegal resorts. Grandfather was 'honorary hunter' Khan has reason to be at ease with being in the wild. His grandfather, Nawab Sultan Ali Khan Bahadur, was an honorary elephant hunter during the British rule, and his father, Nawab Arshad Ali Khan, too, was a target shooter. According to a report in The Hindu, during Khan's childhood, there were about 50 weapons at his house as the nobility was exempt from the Arms Act. Shafat Ali Khan has been using firearms from an early age. Way back in 1962, when he was just 5 years old, he had won a trophy from the Governor of Madras for rifle shooting. Animal rights body PETA India said the killing of tigress Avni as part of an operation in Maharashtra should be investigated and treated as a wildlife crime and termed it a 'dark day' for the nation. New Delhi: Animal rights body PETA India on Saturday said the killing of a tiger as part of an operation in Maharashtra should be investigated and treated as a wildlife crime and termed it a "dark day" for the nation. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India said the tiger Avni was killed "illegally to satisfy a hunter's lust for blood", in contempt of court and in apparent violation of the Wildlife Protection Act. Tigress Avni, believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 13 people in Maharashtra in the past two years, was shot dead in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra on Friday night as part of an operation, police said Saturday. "Avni was killed illegally satisfying a hunter's lust for blood, plain and simple, in possible contempt of court and in apparent violation of the Wildlife Protection Act and the guidelines of National Tiger Conservation Authority. "She may not have died instantly but slowly, through pain and blood loss, and likely in front of her now orphaned and vulnerable cubs," said Meet Ashar, Lead Emergency Response Coordinator, PETA India. Ashar said, "this matter must be investigated and treated as a wildlife crime". "Whether sanctioned by the state or not, nobody can be above the law. This is a dark day for our nation and we must hang out heads in shame now, and again if this killing goes unpunished," Ashar added. In September this year, the Supreme Court had said Avni could be shot at sight, which prompted a flurry of online petitions seeking pardon for the tigress. For more than three months, Forest Department officials were planning to catch her with the help of latest technology. Trained sniffer dogs, trap cameras, drones and a hang-glider, expert trackers, sharp-shooters and around 200 ground personnel were roped in for the task, officials said. The Forest Department Friday carried out the operation in Borati with the help of sharp-shooter Asgar Ali, they said. "Urine of another tigress and American perfume was spread in some part of the compartment, following which Avni came by sniffing it," one of the officials said. For farmers in Marathwada region of Maharashtra, Diwali is a low-key affair with lack of jobs at farms and elsewhere, and drought adding to their despair after a low yield Kharif season Pune: While the rest of the country is busy preparing for Diwali, for farmers in Marathwada region of Maharashtra, the festival of lights is alrady a low-key affair with lack of jobs at farms and construction sites, and drought adding to their despair after a low-yield Kharif season. Some say, just being able to afford two meals a day and water to drink would be Diwali for them. Generally we celebrate Diwali for 15 days though the festival is of five days. Shopping for grocery to make sweets, new clothes, firecrackers is done 10-15 days in advance. But this year, the thought of shopping for the biggest Hindu festival hasn't even crossed minds of people," said Bhagwat Burgae, 30 year-old farmer from Mahmdapur Patoda village in Ambejogai taluka of Beed district. "The yield of crops during the Kharif season has been lesser than the investment and Rabi is out of question due to lack of water," he adds. Earlier this week, the Maharashtra government declared 151 tehsils in the state of Maharashtra as drought hit. Marathwada, north Maharashtra and parts of Vidarbha and west Maharashtra are some of the regions facing a drought-like situation this year. Beed is one of the eight districts of Marathwada region that received only 63 percent rainfall and water level in dams have reached below 20 percent. Bhagwat has ten acres farm in which he cultivated soybean, a cash crop, along with a few pulses. He said, I had spent over Rs 7,500 per acre for sowing, tilling, fertiliser and pesticides, and labour charges. I would have produced at least Rs 25,000 per acre if rain was good. But this year I could get hardly Rs 6,000 per acre thus I am in loss." Bhagwat informs that he sowed as rain started on time. The crops also grew well till July second week, but the rain disappeared when soon after crops bloomed, causing flowers to fall prematurely. "Both quality and quantity of crops went down and we couldn't earn, he says. This is the story of all farmers in this area. As there is no water in the wells, borewells or in the dams, people couldn't even think of opting for Rabi season, thus there is no option of any labour work till next monsoon either. A group of women from Malvati village were sitting at a temple discussing the problems they have been facing due to lack of labour work in farms. If the drought hadn't hit the region, they would have been working at a farm since November and December are peak months for Rabi crops. "What Diwali are you talking about? We are not able to earn as there is no work in farms. Construction sites are also closed due to unavailability of water. If I manage to just get food and water to drink every day, that will be Diwali for me," says Kashubai Bhande, a farm labourer from Malvati. Currently, Bhande carries water on her head from a tank in the village. The situation is equally bleak in Sakharpangavi village, which is hardly five kilometres away from Latur city. Some men were sitting outside a temple while others were gathered in front of a public distribution shop. Women from the village were seen arguing and waiting near a water tank of the village in the afternoon. Satyabhama Sunate, an elderly lady from Sakharpangavi village said that by this time that is four days before Diwali, all houses would be lit up with lanterns. "You would find colourful Rangolis in front of the houses. Women would be preparing traditional delicacies like chiwda, laddus and so on. And the kids would be playing in new clothes and bursting firecrackers. But this year, everybody is sitting idly with questions, including, how they are going to live in the coming months," she says. "It is okay if we don't celebrate Diwali but after December life would be horrible. We are afraid to imagine that, she adds. Kavita Shinde, another elderly lady from Vadval, Latur, said that there is no work at farms or at construction sites in Latur. "How can we celebrate Diwali without money? she asks. Shivaji Mamdage, a farmer, complains how farmers have lost the fervour for festivals. Festivals are only meant for government servants, traders and politicians. Nobody thinks of us as part of the society. You can see celebration have begun in Latur. Sweet shops are full of customers. All houses are lit up with lanterns. But we and our kids have to worry about how to survive this drought. And we don't have any expectations that anybody will come for us, he says. The condition of farm labourers is worst as they neither do they have any stock of grains stored last year nor from this year. Their lives run on daily wages. Appa Pisal, a 70-year-old farm labourer from Mamdapur said complains about lack of work for labourers like him. But that's not the only challenge he is facing. "I went to the ration shop to buy my monthly grain yesterday. "The shopkeeper told me that since my Aadhaar is not linked with the ration card, I will not get grains during Diwali. Earlier, the government would sell sugar and oil for the poor to celebrate festivals. Now, I will not get food till my problem of Aadhaar and ration card is sorted out. Burgae said that by now some of the youth would have setup small stalls selling Diyas, rangoli, flowers and decor items for houses. Firecracker shop would have also been set up. And one could see the kids playing around these shops. But this year, Diwali is turning into a nightmare for farmers in the region. "We cannot see that the kids are unable to celebrate Diwali, eat sweets for fortnight and burst firecrackers. They are the one for whom we earn," he said. Two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in an overnight encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said Sunday. Srinagar: Two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in an overnight encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said Sunday. The security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Khudpora area on Saturday evening following information about the presence of the militants there, a police official said. He said the search operation turned into an encounter after the militants opened fire towards the security forces, who retaliated. Two militants were killed in the encounter while two others managed to escape, he said. "A couple of terrorists managed to escape from the site as blood trails have been seen there," he added. The slain militants have been identified as Mohammad Irfan Bhat and Shahid Mir. While Bhat had joined militant ranks in 2017, Mir was part of an arms case from 2004, a police spokesperson said. "Incriminating material, including arms and ammunition, have been recovered from the encounter site. Police have registered a case and started investigations," he said. Bilal, a student at Sharda University, private university in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida, disappeared on 28 October, after he left the varsity with official permission to leave for Delhi. Family members of a Kashmiri youth Ehtisham Bilal, who has purportedly joined the Islamic State of Jammu and Kashmir, appealed to their son to renounce terrorism and return home after a picture of him with the terrorist organisation's flag and an AK-47 was circulated online on Friday. In a video message, Bilal Ahmad Sofi, father of Ehtisham Bilal (23), urged him to return home. "Islam does not allow anybody to disobey his parents. I appeal and order you to return home. Seeing you on the social media wherein you have claimed allegiance to the Islamic State of Jammu Kashmir has disturbed me. Your ailing mother cannot live without you," he said. According to Free Press Kashmir, Sofi also pleaded to the militants, and Zakir Musa in particular, to send his son back and said, "My son is young and naive. For Gods sake send him home. Have mercy on us, Allah will bless you. This is an appeal from a helpless father." Bilal, a student at Sharda University, a private university in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida, disappeared on 28 October, after he left the varsity with official permission to leave for Delhi, days after he was mistakenly beaten up during a scuffle between Indian and Afghan students in the college campus. Before he went missing, one of his family members said that Bilal had called his cousin brother, another student at Sharda University, that he was boarding a metro and would reach the hostel by 8.30 pm. When he did not return till next morning, "a missing complaint was registered in the case at the Knowledge Park police station in Greater Noida as well as at Khanyar police station in Srinagar," officials said. On Friday, a video purportedly showing pictures of Bilal with ISI flag and also talking about how he was mercilessly beaten inside the universitys campus was circulated on social media. "This is a message to all who consider Jihad is a way of fighting," Bilal said. "Our blood is not white, we will give you tears of blood. I was looking into the eyes of those kufaar (non-Muslims) when they attacked me in groups like dogs, I felt I had delayed to be part of Jihad for long. But not anymore." The pictures showed Bilal dressed in a black outfit and claimed he had joined militant group Islamic State of Jammu and Kashmir, an outfit influenced by Islamic State's ideology. According to News18, on the morning he went missing, Bilal called his father asking him for some money. "He called me at around 9.30 am. He asked me for Rs 1,000, saying he had to submit Rs 400 at the university for some trip they had to go on. I immediately called a friend and deposited Rs 5,000 to his account," Sofi recalled. The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) said it has been tracking the case since 28 October and has taken cognisance of the photos. "We are in touch with Jammu and Kashmir Police. We are tracking the footprints of the boy from Greater Noida to Kashmir," Inspector General, ATS, Asim Arun told PTI. The officials said they were "ascertaining" Bilal's presence in the Valley. The Gautam Buddh Nagar police, who traced Bilal's mobile phone last location in militancy-hit Pulwama district in south Kashmir, is also probing the matter. On Saturday, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah expressed his concern over Bilal reportedly taking up militancy. If this is genuine its hugely worrying. Sometimes seemingly small actions have huge consequences. If what happened to him at #ShardaUniversity has lead him to choose such a destructive path its even more tragic. One more life on the path to ruin and one more family in turmoil. https://t.co/9xMZ7pDbat Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) November 3, 2018 With inputs from agencies BJP workers claimed that Manoj Tiwari had started the construction of the Signature Bridge in Delhi, but AAP was trying to take credit for the project by not inviting him to the inauguration. A scuffle broke out between the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari, his supporters and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers at the inauguration ceremony of the Signature Bridge in Delhi. BJP workers alleged that AAP had not invited Tiwari to the ceremony even though it was Tiwari who had started the efforts to push for the construction for the structure in his North East Delhi constituency. Tiwari, however, claimed that he was invited to the event but was stopped from attending it. "I was invited to the inauguration event. I am an MP from here. So what's the problem? Am I a criminal? Why has the police surrounded me? I'm here to welcome him (Arvind Kejriwal). AAP and the police have misbehaved with me," the BJP leader said. "In my constituency (North East Delhi.), I restarted the construction of the Signature Bridge after it was stalled for many years. Now, Arvind Kejriwal is organising an inauguration ceremony," he said, claiming that he was stopped by police supporters of AAP. #WATCH BJP Delhi Chief Manoj Tiwari, his supporters and AAP supporters enter into a scuffle at the inauguration of the Signature Bridge in Delhi; Police present at the spot pic.twitter.com/NhvqxudDTT ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 #WATCH Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan seen pushing Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari during the inauguration of Delhi's Signature Bridge (Source: BJP Delhi Chief Manoj Tiwari's office) pic.twitter.com/Vl2CtDqeBX ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 After sharing a video in which AAP leader Amanatullah Khan can be seen shoving him, Tiwari claimed the whole incident took place in the presence of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. "I am going to file an FIR over the incident," he told ANI. On Twitter, he remarked that this was Kejriwal's form of governance. AAP, in turn, accused the BJP of creating a ruckus and trying to disrupt the inauguration of the Signature Bridge, which took 14 years to construct. BJP workers were heard shouting "Modi" and protesting at the site. One of them told CNN-News18 that Tiwari had organised Rs 33 crore for the bridge. He claimed that the BJP had begun the project, and AAP was trying to take the entire credit for the project. Amid the commotion, Kejriwal arrived at the bridge to inaugurate it. He also tweeted: Unprecedented. Chaos by BJP at Signature Bridge inauguration site. Its a Del govt prog. Police mute spectator. Can LG, being head of Del police, ensure peace and order at Signature bridge inauguration site? Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 4, 2018 However, the Delhi Police said the staff on duty "performed their task with restraint and diligence". "There was slogan shouting, but police segregated the groups and didn't allow any clash or violence to take place," said the Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police (Eastern Range). Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted, "Some elements had taken a resolve to ensure that the Signature Bridge would not be completed in the tenure of the Kejriwal government." Meanwhile, AAP leader Sanjay Singh told CNN-News18 that the BJP speaking of "political decency" is a joke, referring to Tiwari accusing AAP of misbehaving with him. Singh also cited examples of the Delhi Metro being inaugurated in Noida and Haryana and Kejriwal not being invited to the events. "The Signature Bridge is a gift to the people. Even here, the BJP is resorting to this," he added. "This is not a question of political decency. It is the Delhi government's job to inaugurate the bridge." AAP leader Dilip Pandey, who was at Signature Bridge for the inauguration, said thousands of people were at the site for the event with an invitation card, but it was only Tiwari resorting to hooliganism as he considers himself a VIP. "BJP workers thrashed AAP volunteers and local people. They have been admitted to hospital," Pandey was quoted as saying by ANI. After the ruckus at the inauguration of Delhi's Signature Bridge, Tiwari said he had identified the Delhi Police officers involved in the altercation. "In four days, I will show them what the police really is," he was quoted as saying by ANI. The iconic Signature Bridge took 14 years to complete. The structure, to be open to the public on Monday, is India's first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge and will offer a panoramic view of Delhi over River Yamuna. The Signature Bridge was built to reduce the travel time between north and north east Delhi and also share the traffic of the Wazirabad Bridge. The National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) recently hosted an Expert Roundtable dedicated to the Special Economic Zone Authority of Duqm (Sezad), a 2,000-sq km port along the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean in Oman. The standing-room-only event attracted more than 30 US companies in such sectors as logistics, oil and gas, tourism, construction and engineering, architecture and design, transportation, and security, said a statement. A high-level delegation from Oman, led by Yahya Said Al Jabri, chairman of Sezad, made presentations about big ticket opportunities in Duqm, it said. The Embassy of Oman was represented by Hunaina Al Mughairy, Omans Ambassador to the US, with welcoming remarks offered by the Honorable David Short, deputy assistant secretary of Transportation for Aviation & International Affairs. Moderators included Dr John Brennan, a worldwide public sector senior manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS), as well as Rabih Mogharbel, NUSACCs vice president for business development. The Lead Sponsor for the Roundtable was Virginia Beach DigiPorts, the exclusive North American developer for NxtVn, a Platinum Plus member of NUSACC. Omans strategic location at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East provides access to over three billion potential consumers in some of the fastest growing markets in the world. This strategic positioning is enhanced by Omans Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, signed in 2006, one of only four such FTAs in the Arab world. Under the leadership of HM Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said, Oman has made numerous strategic investments that distinguish the sultanate as an important regional player. With the advent of Duqm and plans for a GCC Rail system, which will serve the Gulf and beyond, Oman is now taking that strategic vision to the next level to become a truly global. Deputy assistant secretary David Short, in his welcoming remarks, recognised Omans move to the world stage. The quality infrastructure projects at Duqm, he noted, represent a long term investment by the Oman Government to serve as major global maritime trade players far into the future. He highlighted the excellent relationship that the US enjoys with the sultanate, built on ties that stretch back to 1833 with the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, one of Americas first commercial treaties with any nation. Short went on to say that Duqm supports economic development and diversification, and a successful Oman increases the likelihood of regional stability. He then introduced Yahya Al Jabri, chairman of Sezad. In his opening remarks, Al Jabri thanked NUSACC for its longstanding efforts to help introduce the Duqm project to the US business community. He noted: We are grateful to NUSACC for its continuous efforts in promoting, supporting, and strengthening US - Arab business and economic cooperation. Todays gathering is a real opportunity for me and my team to showcase the exceptional business environment at Duqm. This Roundtable provides a valuable venue for longstanding business relationships, mutual friendships, and numerous platforms around economy and trade, Al Jabri added. In a nutshell, Al Jabri said, Duqm offers state-of-the-art infrastructure services, a business friendly environment, and a commercial entry point to Oman and beyond. The Special Economic Zone at Duqm is considered the largest of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa and one of the biggest in the world. Al Jabri highlighted Omans efforts to expand and diversify its economic base in recent decades through successive Development Plans revolving around infrastructure projects in roads, water, electricity, ports, and airports. The countrys political and economic stability, he said, offers vital incentives and motivation for global investors, representing the cornerstone of Omans vision to attract global businesses. These include but are not limited to the Special Economic Zone at Duqm, as well as Omans Free Zones in Salalah and Sohar and the countrys Industrial Estates (manufacturing bases) in close proximity to the Sultanates seaports and airports, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Keshav Prasad Maurya said, the Bharatiya Janata Party 'was, is and will always' favour construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Lakhimpur Kheri (Uttar Pradesh): Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said on Sunday that no power can stop construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya. He said, the Bharatiya Janata Party "was, is and will always" favour construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. "The issue is pending with the Supreme Court, hence, I cannot comment," he said. Maurya, however, hastened to add,"We can tell for certain in one line that a grand Ram temple would be constructed whenever time comes." He was responding to queries about congregation of religious seers in Delhi to press for Ram temple construction through an ordinance by the Union government. Maurya said he respected the sentiments of honourable seers regarding the temple. He along with party organisation secretary Sunil Bansal were here to attend an event. The deputy chief minister reiterated his party's stand on the issue and said, "No power can stop construction of grand Ram temple at the birthplace of Ram Lalla." "As on date, the matter is pending with the Supreme Court and its verdict is awaited," he said, adding. "What we can firmly assure (people) is that not even a brick in the name of Babar would be laid or allowed to be laid at the birthplace of Ram Lalla". Taking a jibe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi without naming him, Maurya said "The people are realising the asaliyat and nakaliyat (what is genuine and what is fake) of those who are attempting to cheat the Hindu community by putting on janev (religious thread)." "The Congress must explain as to why it intended hearing (of Ayodhya issue) in 2019," he added. Likening the RSS and the BJP to Manthara and Kaikeyi respectively the characters from epic Ramayana the Congress on Friday accused the two organisations of consigning Lord Ram to 'exile' for the last three decades. Bhopal: Likening the RSS and the BJP to Manthara and Kaikeyi respectively the characters from epic Ramayana the Congress on Friday accused the two organisations of consigning Lord Ram to "exile" for the last three decades. At a press conference, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said the two organisations "think of Ram only before elections". The RSS, earlier on Friday, said that an ordinance would be needed if all other options for constructing Ram temple in Ayodhya were exhausted. "RSS is the Manthara and BJP the Kaikeyi who have exiled Lord Ram for the past three decades," Surjewala said here, invoking the characters from Ramayana who scheme to send Ram, the hero of the epic, into an exile in the forest. "They remember Ram only before elections," he said when asked about Congress' views on BJP MP Rakesh Sinha's announcement that he will introduce a private member's bill for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. "Why Congress should react to an assistant lecturer's (Sinha) announcement? He is not the prime minister or BJP chief or home minister or law minister," Surjewala said. Sinha, a BJP nominated member to the Rajya Sabha, is also an assistant professor at the Motilal Nehu College of the Delhi University. To another question, Surjewala termed the Congress as "Pandavas", the virtuous five brothers of the Mahabharata. After a three-day RSS conclave in Maharashtra's Thane district, its general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi said the organisation "will not hesitate to launch an agitation for Ram temple, if needed, but since the matter is in the Supreme Court, there are restrictions." Joshi also said that Hindus were feeling "insulted" by the Supreme Court's declaration that the Ayodhya issue is not a priority. Reacting to Surjewala's statement, Madhya Pradesh BJP spokesperson Rajnish Agrawal said the Congress is using "foul language" because it has "lost ground" all over the country. "The Congress is at a loss for words after being thrown out of power at the Centre and most of the states. It has no issues to talk about and is dragging BJP in every conversation," he said. A criminal defamation complaint has been filed against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor before a court here for his alleged 'scorpion' remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A criminal defamation complaint has been filed against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor before a court in New Delhi for his alleged "scorpion" remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his complaint, Delhi BJP leader Rajeev Babbar alleged that Tharoor with "mala fide intention made the statement which is not only abuse of the Hindu deity but also defamatory". He also said that being a vice president of the Delhi state BJP, he was "identified as a worker/ supporter of Narendra Modi and BJP" and that Tharoor's statement hurt his religious sentiment. The complaint termed the statement as "intolerable abuse" and "absolute vilification" of the faith of the people. "The speech of the accused had lowered down the credit and image of the complainant. The complainant was hurt and anguished as the intentional, defamatory and mischievous statement of the accused has lowered the reputation of the complainant in the eyes of others present there," the complaint said. "The said unknown remarks which were allegedly made in 2012 were of no consequence at that time but today with growing worldwide popularity of Modi and BJP, the accused has deliberately dug out that buried statement to quote and make it relevant in the present context," the complaint said. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal Saturday listed the matter for consideration on 16 November. "Accused's statement is not only false, rather an insult to all workers, supporters, the leaders.... The accused had deliberately made the statement intending to harm, knowing and having reason to believe that such false statement will harm the reputation of the workers/supporters of Narendra Modi and BJP," the complaint said. Babbar also said that Tharoor "deliberately did this malicious act, intending to outrage religious feeling of Lord Shiva devotees by insulting their religious beliefs". The complaint has been filed under sections 499 and 500 of IPC relating to defamation. If convicted, Tharoor may face a maximum punishment of two years in jail. Meanwhile, a Hyderabad-based advocate has also filed a complaint against Tharoor on Saturday, saying he has hurt Hindu sentiments with his alleged "scorpion" remark against Modi, the police said. A legal opinion would be sought as Tharoor's speech was made in Bengaluru, they said. According to the complainant, Tharoor's "comments hurt Hindu sentiments," the police said. However, Tharoor on Saturday termed the complaint as "frivolous"and alleged that it was an attempt to "throttle the freedom of expression". Tharoor told reporters, "The charges are frivolous.... If we start to stifle the right of the people to quote published material then where would our democracy head? Where is the freedom of expression?" Asked whether he felt the criminal defamation suit against him "is an attempt to throttle his voice", the Congress MP said, "Apparently it seems so." Tharoor said that he had quoted an article published in a magazine in 2012 in which a comment of an unnamed RSS leader had been mentioned. "So, why has this defamation suit been filed against me now? In my book, I as a writer had quoted 5,000 other examples and stories," he said. "The fact is that environment of free expression, the liberty to quote what has been said at one time or another about prominent political personalities in a respectable publication (has been compromised). As far as I am concerned, if we start stifling the right of people to quote published material then where does our democracy head?" he asked. Tharoor said he did not believe that he had done anything wrong or out of the ordinary and any author would have felt free to quote such published material in writing. "I have also quoted Modi's (sic) authorised biography by Andy Marino quite extensively. So it's not as if the 500-page book can be reduced to one line which this particular complainant doesn't like," Tharoor, also a writer and former diplomat, said. "I am surprised to hear about the defamation suit. I hope the judge will throw it out on the grounds that this is the actual fact. But if not then certainly we have to defend it," he asserted. Tharoor alleged that courts "are now being used as an instrument of political persecution. If someone tries that, we (Congress) will respond." Tharoor stoked a controversy Sunday while speaking at the Bangalore Literature Festival, claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Narendra Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling" and terming it as an extraordinarily striking metaphor. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who condemned the remark, has alleged that Tharoor had disrespected Lord Shiva and sought an apology from Congress president Rahul Gandhi. With inputs from PTI Prithviraj Chavan claimed that the present mood in Telangana was that the TRS government would go (lose) and the Congress would come to power. Hyderabad: Charging caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao with running a dictatorial and one-family rule in Telangana, senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan Sunday exuded confidence that the Congress-led alliance would win the 7 December Assembly polls and form the next government. Speaking to reporters, he alleged that the promises made to the people in the run up to the 2014 elections were just to garner votes and added that the coming polls would be fought over the 'misrule' of KCR (as Rao is popularly known) government. "The last four-and-half-years of KCR government was nothing but a tragedy for the people of Telangana...it has been a complete dictatorial and one-family rule, where all the promises made before 2014 elections were not fulfilled," Chavan, who was also a former Union Minister, said. Chavan claimed that the present mood in Telangana was that the TRS government would go (lose), Congress would come to power and with that misery of people will end. "This hidden alliance between TRS-MIM and also BJP will be exposed by the people," the former Maharashtra Chief Minister said. "We will expose the BJP at the national level and the hidden alliance of KCR and BJP in Telangana, Chavan said. He claimed that the previous Congress government had taken up several developmental, infrastructure works and created jobs in united Andhra Pradesh (before creation of Telangana). Chavan alleged that none of the promises made by KCR, like making a Dalit the chief minister, grant of three acre agriculture land to Dalit families, 12 percent reservation to minorities, tribals and resolving the unemployment issue were not fulfilled. "Similarly, health and education system is in a shambles and there is a shortage of medicines, doctors and nurses..free education from KG to PG as promised by KCR remains unfulfilled," he alleged and added that there was also no transparency in governance. "Promises were made to get votes, but when it came to delivery, it has been a complete failure. The coming election is going to be based on the promises made by TRS and KCR to the people of Telangana," Chavan added. tech2 News Staff Elon Musk back in May expressed in a Tweet that he would love to roll out Tesla cars in India but the tough government regulations have forced him to apply the brakes on his plans till date. The Tesla CEO has now revealed the company's plans of expanding its overall market beyond North America, Europe and China and India does happen to be one of the places he wants to bring Tesla to. Musk revealed on Twitter that he recently asked his service team to expand to all population regions and not just major metros in North America, Eastern Europe, China, and Japan by the end of next year. He followed the tweet up with another one where he suggests that Tesla will have "partial presence in India" among the likes of parts in Africa and South America. Musk did not go into details on what he really meant by "partial presence" but did mention that it would be followed up with broader expansion in 2020. Hopefully, partial presence in India, Africa & South America end of next year, with broader expansion in 2020 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2018 Following his visit to China in July earlier this year Musk showed keenness in visiting India early 2019. In 2017, Musk had said Tesla's cars could come to India in the summer but there was no further news. Musk later blamed the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms for the delay in Tesla's entry into the Indian market. "Maybe I'm misinformed, but I was told that 30 percent of parts must be locally sourced and the supply does not yet exist in India to support that," he had tweeted. We're not quite sure what Musk has in mind but given the promises he's made this year, we should see something materialise come 2019. tech2 News Staff Alongside the launch of the OnePlus 6 smartphone in May, OnePlus also launched the OnePlus Bullets Wireless earphones. However, the earphones have been available only in a single black colour option so far. This is now set to change because according to the official OnePlus website, the OnePlus Bullets are "coming soon" in a red colour option. Read our review of the OnePlus Bullets Wireless here. The price of the earphones remains the same. The red variant will also retail at Rs 3,999. The OnePlus Bullets Wireless, as we know do not have a wired interface; it's designed like a neckband. The cables are short and connect the neckband to the earbuds. According to OnePlus, they also come with 5 hours of listening time when charged for 10 minutes and when charged completely, it will provide 8 hours of listening time. It also supports Dash Charging. The headphones connect via Bluetooth to your smartphone and it's easy to switch from music to calls or to even access the Google Assistant. The earbuds when not in use, magnetically connect to each other from the rear side. It is an easy mechanism allowing the user to simply play and pause the music when detached and attached respectively. The headphones are also splash resistant, but they apparently don't feature an IP rating. tech2 News Staff Oppo offshoot Realme, a company which has quickly grown in popularity in India, mostly due to its aggressive pricing and wafer-thin profit margins, will likely raise the price of its smartphones after Diwali. The news was made clear by the CEO of Realme, Madhav Seth in a tweet where he blames the falling Rupee, forcing the company to rework the pricing of their phones. Seth does not explicitly say that the prices of all Realme phones will definitely see a hike but does mention that the company will have to "upgrade the pricing" in order to continue to be in business. A company which began business in India as recently as May with the launch of the Realme 1, has already launched four smartphones at different price points and has gained a lot of popularity among the masses. However, with the Rupee touching an all-time low of 74.22 per US dollar in early October, things do not appear to be ideal for the company. The rupee rates are falling and as a brand we actually work on low margins. It indicates that we might have to upgrade the pricing, just to make sure that we continue to give you the best technology in our upcoming offerings. We are trying to figure out a solution post Diwali. Madhav Sheth (@MadhavSheth1) November 2, 2018 As per a report by Canalys, Realme's sales number are quite healthy. Being an online-only brand as of now, the company shipped as many as 80,000 units in the last quarter. Having launched the Realme 2 Pro, the company's flagship offering which starts at Rs 13,990, sales are expected to rise further. Alongside the launch of the Realme 2 Pro, we also saw the launch of its latest entry-level offering, the Realme C1 which starts at Rs 6,999. If you are planning to buy a Realme smartphone before Diwali, however, you are assured that the increase in prices will happen after that. As for the hike in prices, we will keep you updated as and when it happens. Press Trust of India Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio in September added over 1.3 crore subscribers to its network, while its rivals Bharti Airtel, Idea and Vodafone together lost over 1 crore customers, as per industry reports. Jio's subscriber base was 23.9 crore in August this year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) data for August showed. In its financial earnings report for the quarter ended September 2018, the company had claimed its subscribers' number at 25.2 crore showing a rise of 1.3 crore from August. The industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), however, does not release data on Reliance Jio's subscriber base. Also, it does not include numbers of BSNL, MTNL and other firms that are not the members of the COAI. But, in the case of other operators, COAI data showed that the subscriber base of Bharti Airtel declined to 34.35 crore in September from 34.58 crore in August losing 23.58 lakh customers. Idea Cellular's user base fell to 21.31 crore in September from 21.71 crore in August, showing 40.61 lakh subscribers left the network. Vodafone had 22.18 crore users in September as against 22.44 crore in August, losing 37.67 lakh subscribers, COAI data showed. Vodafone and Idea, though they merged in the end of August, have submitted their subscriber's data separately to the industry body. "All the operators have expanded their services across the country, and have begun heavily diversifying their services beyond voice and data for the consumer," COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said. COAI report said that India's private telecom service providers (COAI member telecom operators) have a total of 101.77 crore mobile subscribers including subscriber figures of Reliance Jio Infocomm as of August 2018. Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. The request by Asia Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih came a day after he criticised a government deal with hardline Islamists that left her in legal limbo. Islamabad: The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman at the centre of a divisive blasphemy case has pleaded for international help to leave the country, saying he feared for his family's safety. The request by Asia Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih came a day after he criticised a government deal with hardline Islamists that left her in legal limbo, and called on authorities to protect her. Bibi - who had been on death row since 2010 on blasphemy charges - was acquitted by the Supreme Court Wednesday, triggering large street protests by ultra-conservative Islamists who paralysed Pakistan for three days, blocking roads and disrupting traffic. The government reached a deal Friday to end the protests by agreeing to a travel ban preventing Bibi from leaving the country, and saying it would not object to hardline movements appealing the verdict. An appeal has now been filed with the court against Bibi's release. Masih criticised the government deal, saying it was "wrong". "I request President Donald Trump to help us to leave (the country), and I request the prime minister of the United Kingdom to do their level best to help us, to grant us freedom," said Masih, in a video message, seen by AFP, also requesting help from the Canadian prime minister. Wilson Chowdhry, of the British Pakistani Christian Association, told AFP that the family was resting its hopes on the US, Britain or Canada to grant them asylum and help them reach a place of safety. "These nations have the largest Pakistani Christian communities," Chowdhry said, added that Masih also wants asylum for some members of the extended family and those who have helped with his wife's case, one of whom could speak English. "If Asia Bibi leaves the country, every family member, every person associated to her, will be killed," he said. Chowdhry said the family's initial relief at Bibi's acquittal has turned into anguish. "The daughters are weeping. They still haven't seen their mother. The family is totally shattered," he said. "They absolutely don't know when they will see their mother. Since (the court decision), with the violence and the protests, it is too dangerous for them to see their mother in jail." Blasphemy is a hugely inflammatory charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam can spark attacks and killings at the hands of vigilante mobs. Masih Saturday told German Deutsche Welle radio the court had been "very courageous" to acquit his wife, an illiterate mother in her 50s who was accused of blasphemy a decade ago. "The current situation is very dangerous for us. We have no security and are hiding here and there, frequently changing our location," he told the German radio station, saying he was worried his wife would be attacked in prison. The case began in June 2009 when Bibi was asked to fetch water while out working in the fields. Muslim women labourers objected, saying that as a non-Muslim, she should not touch the water bowl, and reportedly a fight erupted. A local imam then claimed Bibi insulted the Prophet Mohammed - a charge she has consistently denied. Bibi's lawyer fled Pakistan on Saturday, fearing for his life. "In the current scenario, it's not possible for me to live in Pakistan," Saif-ul-Mulook, 62, told AFP before boarding a plane to Europe. Masih demanded the government reinforce Bibi's protection in prison, worrying that she may be attacked. He cited the case of two Christian men who were shot dead after a court acquitted them in another blasphemy case. Abu Dhabi-based Zakher Marine International (ZMI) recently concluded a first-of-its-kind financing in the shipping industry worth $125 million of two high specification lift boats from Wuhan Marine Machinery Plant based in Wuhan, China. It is the first China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, aka, Sinosure supported transaction in the region for a private company in the offshore oil and gas support services sector. The two lift boats, QMS Sentinel and QMS Gladiator, are the latest additions to ZMIs fleet. Evidently last year, ZMI already undertook the delivery of a sister vessel named QMS Achiever, now amongst many other vessels, successfully operating in the region. The transaction further enhances ZMIs ability to serve the offshore oil and gas sector in the UAE and the Arabian Gulf region. Ramzi Al-Sewaidi, head of Strategic Projects at ZMI, commented: This transaction is a first of its kind in the region, paving the way for a long relationship with our financing partners locally and internationally. This acquisition highlights ZMIs strength and ability to achieve sustained growth and continued diversification. The financing is backed by Sinosure, the official export credit agency of the Republic of China. HSBC acted as sole ECA Coordinator, and the transaction also included Mashreq Bank, acting as the bookrunner for the coveted deal, and Bank of Communications Ltd based in China. Manav Futnani, head of Export and Specialised Finance MENAT, HSBC said: We were delighted to support ZMI on this exciting transaction and congratulate the company on the growth of their fleet. As financial markets in the GCC continue to develop, we see ECA-supported asset financing becoming an increasingly attractive solution for corporates across the region that are looking to grow their business. Badar Chaudhry, sector head of Energy, Mashreq Bank PSC, said: The successful close of this landmark financing, which was well oversubscribed, reinforces ZMIs credentials in the offshore oil and gas sector. The transaction also demonstrates the strong appetite in the GCC financial markets for well-structured asset financing opportunities to support key corporates in the region. TradeArabia News Service Khan is in Beijing on his maiden visit to China as the two countries grapple to iron out differences over the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Islamabad approaching 'friendly nations' to avoid a tough IMF bailout package. Beijing: China said it will provide the "necessary support" to Pakistan to tide over the present financial crisis, expand CPEC projects as the two countries signed 16 agreements on Saturday after talks between Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang to boost their "all-weather" strategic ties. Khan is in Beijing on his maiden visit to China as the two countries grapple to iron out differences over the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Islamabad approaching 'friendly nations' to avoid a tough IMF bailout package. In his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping on Friday, Khan in a candid admission said: "Unfortunately, our country is going through a low point at the moment with two very big deficits, a fiscal deficit and a current account deficit". Li, who held a ceremonial welcome for Khan, said "we have a high-level of political trust and close cooperation in all fields. Pakistan has always been regarded as a foreign policy priority by China". Thanking Li, Khan said: "the relationship between the two countries has deepened since then because the CPEC in 2013 was just an idea. Now it is on the ground. And it has caught the imagination of the people of Pakistan". Pakistan sees China as a great opportunity to progress, attract investment, he said. Once a CPEC critic during the previous Nawaz Sharif government, Khan said: the CPEC "gives us an opportunity to raise our standard of living, growth rate. You will see the difference because a lot has happened since 2013". After he became Prime Minister, China had agreed to address his concerns to build more projects with focus on the western region of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The CPEC has also become a major irritant in India-China relations with New Delhi voicing its opposition to the infrastructure project as it traverses through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. After talks between Khan and Li, officials of both the sides signed 16 agreements mainly relating to poverty alleviation in Pakistan, strengthening cooperation in agriculture and industrial sectors and technical training. China has not confirmed reports that it would provide $6 billion to Pakistan. Pakistan has already approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package. But Khan wants to minimise IMF loans fearing stringent conditions and scrutiny of the CPEC projects. Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou, who briefed the media after Li-Khan talks, said China will provide "necessary support" to Pakistan to tide over the present financial crisis but declined to reveal the amount. Pakistan media reports said Friday that Beijing will provide $6 billion in aid to Islamabad which included a loan of $1.5 billion along with an additional package of $3 billion for the CPEC. Asked about the $6 billion packages, Kong said: "during the visit, the two sides made it clear in principle that the Chinese government will provide necessary support for Pakistan to tide over the current difficulties within its capacity". "As for the specific measures to be taken, the competent authorities will have detailed discussion", he said, hinting that more talks will follow. He also said there will be no changes in the $60 billion CPEC projects which came under criticism including by some of the Khan's Cabinet ministers over the increasing debt. Pakistan is currently battling serious economic crisis including balance of payments. China also wants to promote more special economic zones, he said. "There has been no change in the number of CPEC projects. If there is going to be any, it will be increased going forward," Kong said replying to a question. He also said more projects relating to "industrial cooperation" will come up in more areas of Pakistan. "The dimension of the industrial cooperation will be introduced into the CPEC going forward. The CPEC will be introduced to more areas of Pakistan and we are also in favour of areas relating to people's lives and hence going forward both the areas and the contents of the CPEC will be enriched," Kong said. The two sides firmly move forward the CPEC, while ensuring the smooth operations of the completed projects and advancing the ongoing projects, he said. Both the countries will gradually bring the industrial cooperation for the CPEC, extend it to other parts of Pakistan and make it appropriate for people's lives, Kong said. "Both sides have agreed to establish a foreign-ministerial dialogue mechanism to make overall planning and coordinate in various fields," Kong said besides establishing a working group on social and livelihood affairs under the CPEC joint cooperation. Asked about the cooperation on counter-terrorism, Kong said: "all areas of cooperation have been covered and we also expressed positive wish for strengthening cooperation". China has been pressing Pakistan to crack down on Uygur militants of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Xinjiang region from crossing in and out of the province. By Parisa Hafezi DUBAI (Reuters) - Thousands of Iranians chanting 'Death to America' rallied on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent reimposition of U.S. By Parisa Hafezi DUBAI (Reuters) - Thousands of Iranians chanting "Death to America" rallied on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran's oil sector. Students attending the government-organised rally in the capital Tehran, broadcast live by state television, burned the Stars and Stripes, an effigy of Uncle Sam and pictures of President Donald Trump outside the former embassy compound. Hardline students stormed the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, soon after the fall of the U.S.-backed shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days. The two countries have been enemies ever since. State media said millions turned out for rallies in towns and cities, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The figure could not be independently confirmed by Reuters. Rallies are staged on the embassy takeover anniversary every year. But rancour is especially strong this time following Trump's decision in May to withdraw from world powers' 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. The deal brought about the lifting of most international financial and economic sanctions in return for Tehran curbing its disputed nuclear activity under U.N. surveillance. Trump said the deal was weak and favoured Iran. The other signatories - Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - remain committed to the accord. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the penalties set to return on Monday "are the toughest sanctions ever put in place on the Islamic Republic of Iran." Interviewed on "Fox News Sunday," Pompeo said, "There's a handful of places where countries already have made significant reductions in their crude oil exports and need a little more time to get to zero. And we're going to provide that to them." He did not elaborate. Pompeo noted that oil sanctions would be coupled with financial sanctions involving "over 600 designations of individuals and companies in Iran." The Iranian military said it would launch two days of air defence drills on Monday and assured Iranians that it could neutralise any threats, the state news agency IRNA reported. "We can assure our people that the enemy will not be able to carry out its threats against our country," IRNA quoted Habibollah Sayyari, the coordinating officer, as saying. "DONALD SALMAN" Among the anniversary events was an exhibition of cartoons in Tehran called "Donald Salman" - a reference to the close ties between the U.S. president and King Salman, ruler of Iran's regional rival, Saudi Arabia. "It's black humour, but the audience can also be brought to reflect on the contradictions in the behaviour of Trump and (the royal house of) Al Saud," artist Masoud Shojaei Tabatabai told state television in Tehran. The restoration of U.S. sanctions on Monday targeting Iran's oil sales and banking sector is part of an effort by Trump to force Iran to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes outright, as well as its support for proxy forces in conflicts across the Middle East. In a speech on Saturday, Khamenei said Trump's policies faced opposition around the world. "America's goal has been to re-establish the domination it had, but it has failed. America has been defeated by the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years," he said. (Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom and Richard Cowan in Washington; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Daniel Wallis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. At a historic summit in Singapore in June, US President Donald Trump and Kim signed a vaguely-worded statement on denuclearisation. Seoul: North Korea has warned the United States it will "seriously" consider returning to a state policy aimed at building nuclear weapons if Washington does not end tough economic sanctions against the impoverished regime. For years, the North had pursued a "byungjin" policy of simultaneously developing its nuclear capabilities alongside the economy. In April, citing a "fresh climate of detente and peace" on the peninsula, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared the nuclear quest complete and said his country would focus on "socialist economic construction". But a statement issued by the North's foreign ministry said Pyongyang could revert to its former policy if the US did not change its stance over sanctions. "The word 'byungjin' may appear again and the change of the line could be seriously reconsidered," said the statement carried by the official KCNA news agency late Friday. At a historic summit in Singapore in June, US President Donald Trump and Kim signed a vaguely-worded statement on denuclearisation. But little progress has been made since then, with Washington pushing to maintain sanctions against the North until its "final, fully verified denuclearisation" and Pyongyang condemning US demands as "gangster-like". "The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible," said the statement, released under the name of the director of the foreign ministry's Institute for American Studies. "What remains to be done is the US corresponding reply," it added. The statement is the latest sign of Pyongyang's increasing frustration with Washington. In October, the North's state media carried a near 1,700 words long commentary accusing the US of playing a "double game", implicitly criticising Trump for his comments aimed at barring Seoul from lifting sanctions against Pyongyang. Despite a flurry of diplomacy on and around the peninsula differences are emerging between Seoul and Washington, which stations 28,500 troops in the South to protect it from its nuclear-armed neighbour. The South's doveish president Moon Jae-in has long favoured engagement with the North, which is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. He has dangled large investment and joint cross-border projects as incentives for steps towards denuclearisation, while the US has been adamant pressure should be maintained on Pyongyang until it fully dismantles its weapons programmes. In an interview with Fox News on Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated that sanctions will remain until Pyongyang carries out it denuclearisation commitments made in Singapore, adding he will meet with his North Korean counterpart next week. The visit comes amid stalled talks between North Korea and the United States and only days after Washington imposed fresh economic restrictions on Cuba. Seoul: Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel was due in Pyongyang on Sunday, North Korea's state media reported, describing the visit as a "historic event" highlighting the "invincible friendship" of the two allies. The visit comes amid stalled talks between North Korea and the United States and only days after Washington imposed fresh economic restrictions on Cuba. Washington's ties with Havana were fully restored in 2015 after more than half a century of enmity, but have deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office. Communist Cuba is one of North Korea's few remaining allies. "The Korean people warmly welcome the visit to Pyongyang by Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez," said an editorial carried by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper. "His current visit... is a historic event which powerfully demonstrates invincible friendship and unity and comradely friendship," it added. The paper featured a separate profile and photo of Diaz-Canel, who took office in April in a historic transition of power on the Caribbean island, succeeding Raul Castro, who took over from his elder brother Fidel, father of the 1959 revolution. No further details were given on the itinerary of his visit. Fidel Castro visited North Korea in 1986 to meet founder-leader Kim Il-Sung, and Pyongyang held three days of official mourning when Castro died in November 2016. North Korea sent a delegation led by Choe Ryong-Hae, a senior aide to its leader Kim Jong Un, to Havana for Castro's funeral. Cuba in the past has flouted international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme. In 2013 Panama seized a North Korean ship carrying an undeclared Cuban arms shipment of Soviet-era weapons and fighter jets hidden under sacks of sugar. North Korea insisted the weapons were being shipped for repair, prior to their return. By Scott Malone WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional candidates hammered into the campaign homestretch on Saturday, with Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden urging voters to reject division as President Donald Trump touted economic growth after sounding dire warnings on immigration By Scott Malone WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional candidates hammered into the campaign homestretch on Saturday, with Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden urging voters to reject division as President Donald Trump touted economic growth after sounding dire warnings on immigration. Control of both houses of the U.S. Congress, currently dominated by Republicans, and 36 governors' offices will be at stake when Americans vote in Tuesday's elections. Interest has been unusually high for a non-presidential election year, with early voting running well ahead of past cycles. Opinion polls and nonpartisan forecasters generally show Democrats with a strong chance of taking the 23 additional seats they would need for a majority in the House of Representatives, which they could use to launch investigations into Trump's administration and block his legislative agenda. Republicans are favored to retain control of the Senate, whose powers include confirming Trump's nominations to lifetime seats on the Supreme Court. Trump was due to campaign with Senate candidates in Montana and Florida, on the fourth day of an 11-rally tour largely focused on states he carried in 2016, where Republican challengers are trying to unseat Democratic incumbents. "Heading to Montana and Florida today! Everyone is excited about the Jobs Numbers - 250,000 new jobs in October. Also, wages rising. Wow!" Trump said on Twitter early Saturday. The Labor Department on Friday reported sharply better-than-expected job creation in October, with the unemployment rate steady at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent and wages notching their best annual gain in almost a decade. Republicans in many competitive suburban districts have tried to focus their campaign messages on the robust economic growth, though in his campaign appearances Trump has also focused on his hard-line immigration stance as he looks to stem the illegal and legal flow of people into the United States. Biden campaigned in Ohio on Saturday in support of Democrats U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray. "We're in a battle for America's soul," Biden, his voice faint and scratchy, told a crowd at a high school south of Cleveland. "We Democrats have to make it clear who we are. We choose hope over fear, we chose unity over division, we choose our allies over our enemies and we choose truth over lies." Congressional candidates campaigned in a whirlwind close across the country: in Virginia, Democrat Jennifer Wexton greeted voters in the Manassas Veterans Day parade; in New Jersey Republican Jay Webber met them in a diner, and in Minnesota Republican Pete Stauber went door to door urging people to vote. EARLY VOTING UP SHARPLY As of Friday night, almost 32.4 million people had cast ballots early, according to The Election Project at the University of Florida, which tracks turnout. That is up more than 50 percent from the 20.5 million early votes cast in all of 2014, the last federal election when the White House was not at stake. Trump on Friday appeared in West Virginia with Patrick Morrisey, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. That marked his third campaign appearance in that state. His Saturday visit to Belgrade, Montana, to pump up the campaign of Matt Rosendale, the Republican state auditor challenging Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Tester, will be his fourth to Montana. Some analysts said the president's repeated visits to states that he won in 2016 were a signal Republicans were worried about keeping control of Congress. "It's not a good sign for Republicans if they have to spend all these resources for a seat they shouldn't have to be fighting for," said Simon Haeder, a professor of political science at West Virginia University, in a phone interview. "That should be a solid Republican seat." In Florida, Trump is due to campaign for Governor Rick Scott, who is trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, and U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis, who is running for governor against Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. For all Reuters election coverage, click: https://www.reuters.com/politics/election2018 (Reporting by Scott Malone, additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by James Dalgleish) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Oil is a volatile commodity, prone to swift and material price swings. This is a fact of life for every company that operates in the oil patch. The best that a company like ExxonMobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) can do is prepare for the worst. In fact, this integrated oil giant's conservative approach is one of the key reasons it is an attractive way to invest in the energy industry. Here's a big, $20 billion reason to buy Exxon. Throwing caution to the wind In 2012, ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) went all in on oil and natural gas production, jettisoning its refining assets in a spinoff of Phillips 66. The refining business tends to benefit from falling oil prices because oil is a key input. At that point, long-term debt made up around 30% of ConocoPhillips' capital structure. When oil prices started to crater in mid-2014, the company (which was now focused on drilling) saw its revenue plummet, and it started to bleed red ink. It pulled back on spending and added debt to support its remaining capital spending plans and dividend. In the end, however, it was forced to trim its dividend by 66% in 2016. Long-term debt peaked at $26.2 billion in 2016 (roughly 43% of the capital structure). A lack of diversification that left ConocoPhillips entirely reliant on oil and natural gas was the big driver of the company's dividend cut. But even companies that remain diversified, like Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE:RDS.B), can have trouble dealing with volatile oil prices. Shell, with upstream and downstream operations, has chosen to make heavy use of long-term debt, a move that limits the flexibility it has to add additional debt to its balance sheet. At the end of 2014, Shell had $38 billion in long-term debt, roughly 18% of its capital structure. As it worked through the downturn, which included making a large opportunistic acquisition, long-term debt ballooned to $83 billion by the end of 2017, or roughly 30% of the capital structure. To be fair, Shell tends to keep a great deal of cash around to help soften the blow of oil downturns, and it quickly announced plans to sell assets to pay down debt. But that didn't stop the international oil giant from putting dividend increases on hold, keeping the dividend static since the first quarter of 2014. During the worst of the downturn, investors were worried that the dividend would end up being cut. That, by the way, is exactly what Italian energy giant Eni S.p.A (NYSE:E) did in 2015, trimming its payout by roughly 29%. Part of the issue was that long-term debt was roughly 24% of the capital structure heading into the oil downturn. That number peaked in the 40% range in 2016, as the oil major, like most peers, used leverage to support its business while oil prices and financial results were weak. The keys to long-term success The two themes above are diversification and debt. Too little of the first and/or too much of the second, and oil downturns are very worrisome affairs. To be fair, none of the above companies were at risk of going bankrupt because of falling oil prices. But it clearly affected their businesses and has resulted in investors getting hit with dividend cuts or long periods of static payments (the latter is clearly more preferable, but often precedes a dividend cut and leaves investors understandably on edge). Which is exactly why investors should take a long look at Exxon's rock-solid balance sheet. Heading into the oil downturn, Exxon's diversified business was carrying roughly $6.5 billion worth of debt. That was a tiny 4% of the capital structure. By the end of 2016, debt had ballooned to $27.7 billion, a massive increase but still only about 15% of the capital structure. That's less leverage than Shell, Eni, and ConocoPhillips had as they entered the downturn. Like its peers, Exxon used the debt to fund capital expenditures and support its dividend. That dividend, meanwhile, was increased each year through the downturn, despite the hit to revenue and earnings from low oil prices. The company's annual dividend-increase streak is up to an incredible 36 consecutive years. XOM dividend per share (annual) data by YCharts. Despite the relatively lower use of debt, Exxon has been using the current oil rebound to reduce leverage. Long-term debt is down to around $20.7 billion, or roughly 10% of the capital structure. Put another way, it still has a huge amount of financial flexibility to add debt to its balance sheet to deal with commodity volatility while continuing to reward investors with annual dividend increases. You can argue that Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) is similarly conservative, noting the oil giant's impressive record of annual dividend hikes (31 years and counting). Only the dividend was held at $1.07 a share for 10 consecutive quarters during the oil downturn -- that's two and a half years, and a long time for investors to worry about a potential dividend cut. The annual streak is only alive because of timing, since Chevron increases its dividend in the middle of the year. Debt was about 10% of the capital structure heading into 2014 and peaked at nearly 20% in 2016. The big difference is that Chevron's business, while diversified, is more heavily weighted toward the upstream side. Debt is down to around 16% of the capital structure at this point, but dividend investors should still think about the bigger picture before jumping aboard here. Through the cycle Oil and natural gas are highly cyclical commodities, which energy companies like Exxon, Shell, Eni, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips can't do anything about. What they can do is prepare for the ups and downs they know will arrive. The last downturn was a trying affair that highlighted the benefit of taking a conservative approach to the energy space. Exxon stood out on this front and still does. While the $20 billion in long-term debt it has on the balance sheet today is high compared with its pre-downturn levels, it remains modest versus its peers. And it suggests that Exxon will be able to keep paying its dividend and investing in its business when the next downturn arrives. It has ensured that it has ample room for additional leverage on its balance sheet to handle the cyclical ups and downs of the oil industry. Leading global players in the field of civil and military helicopter technology and operations will participate at the Dubai HeliShow, the biennial International helicopter technology and operations exhibition, to be held later this week in Dubai, UAE. The exhibition will take place from November 6 to 8, at the E2 Royal Pavilion, Al Maktoum International Airport, Dubai South. Set to be held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the event will provide an ideal platform to analyse the emerging trends; to learn about the latest technological innovations related to commercial helicopters and various other areas of civil defence and military; and to explore prospective partnerships, said a statement. Leading industry players who have confirmed participation in the event include Dubai Police, Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Dubai South, Dart Aerospace, Transmex Systems Int, Southern Cross Aviation, Flir Systems, Hartmann Specialized Vehicles Trading LLC, DeVore Aviation / FEC Worldwide, Motor Sich Middle East FZE, Vertex Aerospace (L3), Thuraya, and Fujairah Aviation Academy to name a few, it said. By bringing together exhibitors, decision makers, government and defence officials, besides commercial customers, owners, users and manufacturers in the industry for meaningful discussions and fruitful partnerships, Dubai HeliShow 2018 highlights the significance of joint efforts in promoting the growth and prosperity of the helicopter and homeland security industry regionally and globally. Ahmad Abulhoul, managing director, Domus Group, organisers of Dubai HeliShow 2018, said: Helicopters are increasingly being utilised in industrial, hospitality and crisis management scenarios including military, transport and cargo, firefighting, rescue and offshore oil support. The high levels of interest expressed by leading international players in the helicopter industry in the event reaffirm the rising global confidence in the regions potential to become an influential force in defining the future roadmap for the sector, he said. All these factors make the event a strategic platform to showcase and discuss the latest technologies in the field of helicopter technology, he added. Dr Paul Adams, chief executive officer of Australian Aeromedical Innovation, said: I am excited to share with the audience our continued progress on Project Thunderbird, which strives to pioneer and implement powered lift aeromedicine for public service in the remotest corners of outback Australia as soon as is sensible. Fixed wing aircraft like those operated traditionally need runways or roads to take off and therefore are not able to land directly at the scene of many rural emergencies, he said. Tiltrotor technology is predominantly used by the US military however soon there will be a civilian option. We are promoting the undelayed deployment of tiltrotors for aeromedical retrievals in Australia with our vast landscapes and low-density inland populations, he added. I am very keen to participate at the event, as this will open doors as a fantastic business networking opportunity not just for the Middle East region but globally, Adams concluded. Additionally, two exclusive three-day conferences will be held alongside the event: 'Helicopter Technology and Operations' and 'Military and Homeland Security', which will feature a vast range of topics, including how to empower police forces with Internet of Things (IoT) tools; the role of women in homeland security; application of robotics in policing and helicopter; tackling new patterns in narco-terrorism by integrating intelligence, forensics and response operations; best practices to boost joint inter-agency cooperation between armed forces and homeland security agencies among many others, it stated. TradeArabia News Service RAK Ports, the government body that oversees the seaports of Ras Al Khaimah, has announced the opening the first of two new deepwater berths constructed at Saqr Port, during the recent SeaTrade Maritime Middle East 2018, held in Dubai, UAE. The deep-water berth project at Saqr Port has been ongoing since mid-2017 and is one of the largest engineering initiatives to have taken place in the northern emirates in recent years, said a statement. The first berth was completed earlier in October this year and is now fully operational, a fact which was both widely publicised and discussed by the attendees of SeaTrade Maritime Middle East 2018. Captain Cliff Brand, chief executive officer of RAK Ports, said: The opening of our first new berth at Saqr Port significantly increases the capacity of Saqr Port, which already handles in excess of 55 million tonnes of cargo per year, and with the second new berth scheduled to complete in March 2019 we envision significant growth in the number of vessel and cargo movements through Saqr Port in future years, consolidating Saqr Ports status as one of the regions leading bulk-handling ports. The event is the ideal environment in which to publicise the new berth opening and the opportunities we can now offer to our colleagues in the maritime industry, and the timing of the event is ideal given that it very closely coincides with the operational completion and launch of phase one of the project, he added. The opening of the new berth is just the latest in a series of maritime innovations within RAK Ports. Earlier this year, Ras Al Khaimah Port opened its brand new, state-of-the-art cruise terminal, specially designed to accept boutique cruise vessels and adding to Ras al Khaimahs impressive array of tourism assets. Additionally, the RAK Ports Training Institute, which was first launched in 2017, has expanded its programme to over 20 courses, offering accredited classroom-based and practical training in maritime, industrial and related subjects, it stated. TradeArabia News Service A delegation from GE Power, a global energy leader, today (November 4) met with Iraqs Minister of Electricity Luay Al Khateeb at his office, to discuss next steps to drive the principles of cooperation (POC) signed by the ministry with GE to develop the countrys power sector. The GE delegation was led by Joseph Anis, president and chief executive officer of GEs Power Services business in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, said a statement. Luay Al Khateeb said: The ministrys top priority is to strengthen the electricity infrastructure of the country on an urgent basis, and we are looking at all possible initiatives to help boost power generation in the country as well as to strengthen our transmission and distribution network. The POC signed with GE serve as a strong action plan to help meet our requirements and we look forward to begin the execution of activities noted under this proposal, he added. Joseph Anis added: We congratulate Al Khatteb on his new position and look forward to working with the ministry to support the governments vision of developing the countrys electricity infrastructure. We are committed to delivering the action plan under the recently signed principles of cooperation and our top priority is to deploy GEs proven fast power technologies and upgrades for existing assets to help bring up to an additional 1.5 gigawatts online by 2019 - the equivalent electricity needed to supply up to 1.5 million Iraqi homes, he said. Power is foundational to growth and we are honoured and excited to support faster progress for the people of Iraq, he added. Under the POC signed with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, GE intends to add new power generation capacity; provide repairs, rehabilitation, upgrades and maintenance services for existing power plants; develop substations and overhead lines across the country; set up a centralised energy management system; and undertake comprehensive decongestion network studies, as well as advisory services to reduce collection recoverable losses. As part of the proposals in the POC, GE also plans to establish a local technology centre comprising of a repairs centre, monitoring and diagnostics centre and a training centre; provide three trailer-mounted mobile water treatment units; and supply neonatal intensive care equipment and advanced medical care training for nursing staff at a neonatal intensive care centre. The plan is expected to generate up to 14 gigawatts (GW) of power, create up to 65,000 direct and indirect jobs, support the government to realise savings and recoverable losses of up to $3 billion per year and support access to water and healthcare for local communities. GE will also assist the Government of Iraq to unlock financing for these projects through its extensive relationships with global export credit agencies and financial institutions. Currently, GE employs up to 300 people in Iraq and has three offices in the country in Baghdad, Basra and Erbil. Today, GE and its partner CFMI power more than 90 per cent of the aircrafts operated by Iraqi Airways, the companys technologies contribute up to 55 per cent of the current electricity production in Iraq and nearly 4,000 GE Healthcare products are deployed in hospitals and clinics across the country, it stated. TradeArabia News Service You can bet on who will win the 2018 Arizona Senate race at Bookmaker where it's Kristen Sinema (D) vs. Martha McSally. *Bets Need to be Placed Early Sinema vs. McSally Most of the polls have Sinema, the Democrat, up but the fine folks at Bookmaker have McSally winning. She's actually a pretty big favorite at -175. That's a David Price starting for the Red Sox type line. McSally and Sinema, the Democrat, are tied at 46 percent support among Arizonas likely voters as of Saturday , according the latest Fox News Poll released Wednesday. - Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com Officine Panerai, the Florentine luxury watchmaking company, has appointed Gaby Bitarian, an industry veteran, as the new brand director for its Middle East and India operations. Bitarian has a strong 17-year footprint in the watch industry, and has proven instrumental in Panerais growth and development in the region since he joined six years ago, said a statement from the company. In his new role, Bitarian said he will be leading the brands aggressive growth plans in the region, in partnership and collaboration with media partners. A leading brand renowned for its unique blend of Italian design and Swiss technology, Officine Panerai had recently announced the opening of its boutique in New Delhi, India at DLF Chanakya, the new luxury mall in the capital city. The Panerai outlet features an area of 36 -sq-m, displaying the collections of the Florentine company to enthusiasts and collectors.-TradeArabia News Service Birthday wishes Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun. Happy Birthday Wishes SriLankan Airlines was named the worlds most punctual airline in the month of September in the key categories of Global Airlines and Major Airlines by flight data analysis company Flightstats.com. An extraordinary 91.37 per cent of SriLankan Airlines flights in September were on time, according to an analysis by Flightstats. Flightstats analysed the data of 41 carriers in the category of Global Airlines across every continent - Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East, and South America including most of the worlds largest and most prestigious airlines. Airlines are categorised among four categories the others being Regional Airlines and Low Cost Carriers with some airlines appearing in more than one category. In the Global Airlines category, SriLankans punctuality was far ahead of the giant US-based carrier Delta Airlines that was in second place with 86.74 per cent flights on time, while third place went to the Japanese airline ANA with 86.61 per cent on time. In the Major Airlines category, SriLankan was easily ahead of Indias IndiGo that was in second place with 86.92 per cent of flights being on time, and ANA which was third. SriLankans exceptional performance came on the heels of the airline having launched its dynamic new Ready to Fly! programme at the beginning of September to enhance its world-renowned customer service by providing increased punctuality levels of its flights around the world. SriLankans consistently high level of on-time performance is the result of a structured process that monitors and coordinates the performance of all departments and individual staff members responsible for various aspects of its operations. The degree of attention given for punctuality monitoring is infallibly high with zero tolerance for slips in the process. This precision process of coordination involves many internal and external entities and it is noteworthy that this is carried out in a highly regulated industry where 100 per cent compliance is expected for all statutory obligations. A strict daily monitoring process examines every aspect of each flight and identifies shortcomings, with a measured process for immediate corrective measures and strict attribution of accountability. Root causes are examined, and delays attributed under concerned departments with remedial action, followed by weekly punctuality improvement meetings, and monitoring of follow up action and progress. Maintaining a high level of on-time performance is all the more creditable due to the fact that a far greater proportion of delays are beyond the control of the airline. These are unforeseen events that are classified as non-airline responsible such as air traffic control-related issues at congested airports, adverse weather, constraints of insufficient infrastructure at airports in many parts of the world, industrial unrest at some airports, flight diversions due to medical emergencies, bird strikes on aircraft, and delays in offloading baggage a few minutes prior to scheduled departure times when passengers do not turn up at airport boarding gates after having checked in. SriLankan Airlines places its highest priority on the complete safety of all its passengers, which means that all safety related matters are comprehensively attended to, no matter their impact on flight punctuality. For example, technical issues related to an aircraft are immediately attended to, ensuring 100 per cent airworthiness of aircraft in keeping with the highest standards of safety. Sri Lankas national carrier, which holds a prestigious Four-Star Rating from the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX), is a member of the Oneworld global airline alliance and operates a route network of 114 cities in 48 countries from its hub in Colombo. - TradeArabia News Service Apple to source new Intel chips for its 5G iPhone News oi-Vishal Kawadkar Apple joins the bandwagon of 5G smartphones. If the new report is to be believed, Apple will be releasing its 5G iPhone in 2020. The company is said to leverage Intel's 8161 5G modem chip for its 2020 flagship. Intel will be the only provider for iPhone modems. Intel is tipped to be working on 8060 modems which will be used for testing of the 5G iPhone. The new chipset will be made using Intel's 10-nanometer process, which amplifies the transistor density for more speed and efficiency. The report also suggests that Apple isn't happy with heat dissipation issues caused by the modem 8060 chips. Verizon and AT&T in the U.S. will depend on the millimeter-wave spectrum to connect an initial lot of 5G phones. Rumor has it that Apple is in talks with MediaTek about potentially supplying the chips. This could be an alternative if Intel fails to deliver. The first batch of 5G handsets will debut at the Mobile World Congress show next February. Major OEMs such as Huawei, Oppo, and Xiaomi will be among the firms to Qualcomm chips with 5G support. Speaking at the 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong, Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon said the company is expecting "at least two major flagships" with the 5G radio next year. Qualcomm is also said to be working with OnePlus to incorporate its 5G technology. The new connectivity feature could arrive with OnePlus 7. Huawei CEO Richard Yu has also confirmed that the company has a 5G foldable smartphone in works. Yu said: "We are working on foldable phones. Foldable phones with 5G." Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications By Imran Inamdar, TwoCircles.net On July 1, 2018, the family of Bharat Bhonsle were left stunned, broken and distraught after they were informed that Bharat along with four other men had been mob lynched on suspicion of being child traffickers. Three months later, their hope in humanity was partially restored thanks to the efforts of the Solapur district unit of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind, which bore all the expenses of Bharats daughter Pujas wedding. Support TwoCircles In July, Bharat, who belonged to the Nath Panti Davari Gosavi Samaj, a nomadic tribe, went to Dhulia with four other men to attend some religious function. While Bharat Bhonsle (50) Bharat Malve (50), Dadar Rao Bhonsle (35) and Raju Bhonsle (45) were from Mangalweda in Solapur, another person Agnu Ingole (22) was from Bijapur (22). The incident occurred in the tribal area of Raeen Pada of Dhulia district on July 1, 2018. He was survived by four children and a wife. As soon the news became viral, the Maharashtra president of JUH Nadim Siddiqui and head of legal cell, Advocate Tahvar Pathan and local office bearers visited the victims families and handed over the cheque of fifty thousand as interim relief. Moulana Ibrahim, Solapur district President, told TwoCircles.net that despite being a religious organisation, JUH is undertaking various project all over India without considering cast and creed. The mob lynching of these marginalised people were really unfortunateit is our social responsibility to help these downtrodden families. I must thank our office bearers Yunus Dongaonkar, Qayyum Bhai Jamadar, Hafiz A.Hamid Chanda, Salim Bagban, Hafiz Riyaz, Taslim Ankuje and social activist Hasib Nadaf for active participation in this noble cause. According to Taluka president Salim Bagban, all the five lynching victims have left 14 children behind, some of whom are school students. We are going to support them to complete their education so that they can lead a comfortable life, he added. Brides brother Sunil Bhosle thanked JUH for extending a helping hand in shouldering the weddings responsibility. He said that managing the expenses would have been extremely difficult had it not been for JUH. Prabhakar More, the Police inspector of Mangalweda Police station, who was present at the wedding, lauded JUH and for their support to the marginalised family. While speaking with TwoCircles.net, he expressed his deep gratitude on behalf of the District superintendent and the entire police force. Meanwhile, Maratha Seva Sangh, Solapur unit took notice of the JUH humanitarian deed and felicitated all the member of the organisation on October 31 at their office. Latest Headlines Researchers: Re-think PIE regime Government should level the tax playing field for all savings and savings-related investment vehicles, not allow the PIE regime to provide unnecessary incentives for high-earners, two researchers say. Monday, November 5th 2018, 6:00AM The Tax Working Group is developing a final report on its recommendations for the future of tax policy. It has recommended removing tax on employer KiwiSaver contributions for people earning up to $48,000 and a five percentage point reduction in the lower PIE rates for savings in KiwiSaver accounts. Pension researcher and founder of SuperLife Michael Chamberlain has since analysed recent data on all KiwiSaver schemes published by the Financial Markets Authority. He said returns for the 12 months to June 30 illustrated the TWGs recommendation on investment returns would have made little difference for the lowest-paid savers. Of all the balanced funds at June 30, the average return before tax but after fees was 9.15% for the 12 months. "After tax at the top PIE rate of 28%, the average net return was 8.48%. In other words, the highest-paid KiwiSavers paid a tax rate of just 7.36% on their investment returns, compared with 33% on their other taxable income. That was a huge tax advantage for the highest paid. Cutting the middle PIE rate from 17.5% to 12.5% for a 17.5% taxpayer, as the TWG recommends, would have meant an increased after-tax return of 8.85% instead of the 8.73% return they actually received; practically no difference at all. Chamberlain said the issue should be removing the current tax favours for the highest paid, in the light of the international evidence that they did not work. Tax breaks for retirement are very expensive, distortionary, inequitable, regressive and demand high, growing regulatory walls around affected assets, to ensure the incentives are not misused. But worst of all, tax incentives seem not to raise overall savings. Thats also likely to be the case for KiwiSaver but we need to find out. The TWG hasnt bothered to do that. Chamberlain and colleague Michael Littlewoods submission suggested that instead, the TWG should level the tax playing field for all savings and savings-related collective investment vehicles, so that everyone paid their appropriate amount of tax and tax did not distort an individuals behaviour. Chamberlain said there should be no tax advantages for any vehicle over another vehicle. "People should have to pay tax at their correct marginal rate. Any tax system that encourages people to change behaviour for tax reasons is wrong. The PIE regime that confers a 5% advantage on the top taxpayers is wrong. The PIE regime is also wrong as if you qualify one year for a 10.5% tax rate you keep it for two years irrespective of your income in the second year. Likewise if you have a 28% tax rate and you retire and go down to minimal taxable income you have to keep the 28% rate for at least a year. "If I buy NZ/Aussie shares directly and hold them long-term - ie not trade - I pay 33% tax on the dividends. If I trade them I pay 33% tax on the gains as well. If I do the same through a PIE vehicle I only pay 28% tax and do not have to pay tax on the capital gain. There is no logic to this from a fairness text." Littlewood said there was an underlying assumption that needed to be challenged. "What is it about retirement saving that deserves this special treatment? Thats what should be addressed before we start analysing the different tax treatments of different saving instruments. "What is it that the government knows about retirement saving in particular that deserves special treatment? Where is the evidence that New Zealanders need help to understand whatever it is that the government seems to know and that we savers do not know?" Special Offers Comments from our readers Sign In to add your comment Orion Engineered Carbons S.A., a worldwide supplier of specialty and high-performance carbon black reached an agreement to acquire acetylene carbon black manufacturer Societe du Noir dAcetylene de lAubette, SAS [SN2A] from LyondellBasell Industries Holdings B.V. and its French affiliate. SN2A was founded in 1987 and is headquartered at Berre l'Etang, near Marseille, France. Acetylene black is an ultra-pure premium specialty carbon black distinguished by its high electrical and thermal conductivity. Lithium-ion batteries and high-end electrical cables are key applications for this material. The agreement with LyondellBasell includes provisions for a secured long-term feedstock supply. Orion plans to strengthen production capabilities at the Berre lEtang facility. The transaction closed on 31 October 2018. The showdown for the governors office has grabbed most of the attention in recent weeks, but the ballot will also include competition for is the U.S. House and Senate; state House and Senate; secretary of the state; state attorney general, treasurer and comptroller; and local probate judge and registrar of voters (see sample ballot at http://bit.ly/2P7fmVO). We are not endorsing in every race, instead focusing on the most heated contests. Along with sorting through the names, voters will get to weigh in on two questions at the side of the ballot. The first question proposes to ensure all money in the Special Transportation Fund is used exclusively for public transit matters. We support the measure. We long have supported a lockbox for the STF. Though the question is dryly worded, the consequences are essential (Oct. 26, http://bit.ly/2F30O58 ). Voters will also decide whether to amend the constitution to require a public hearing before state land is sold, traded or donated. We support this as well, as an important buttress against any future proposal to sell off or swap land in which we all have an interest (Nov. 1, http://bit.ly/2JCzTvF ). Weve bolded our choices in the premier races on the rest of the ballot: Governor: We believe Ned Lamont has the qualities temperament and stature in the business community among them to move Connecticut toward a more certain future. (Oct. 28 , http://bit.ly/2RwzE7M ). Attorney General: (William) Tong is well-versed on a myriad of matters, seasoned by eight years in the House, where he is chair of the Judiciary Committee. He can navigate the General Assembly as well as anyone, an asset for any attorney general. (Nov. 1, http://bit.ly/2zrqbr5). U.S. Senator: Connecticut needs a strong antidote to the Trump administration, someone who can accomplish meaningful bipartisan legislation in an otherwise divisive time. Chris Murphy is exactly right for Connecticut. (Nov. 1, http://bit.ly/2AK17h5). U.S. Representative: They disagree on health care, voting rights, immigration, guns and climate change. That makes this an easy choice for most voters. And for us. We endorse Jim Himes. (Nov. 2, http://bit.ly/2ztN0uu). State Senate: The most closely watched race in town on Tuesday may be between veteran Republican incumbent Scott Frantz and Democratic newcomer Alexandra Bergstein, who has mounted a smart and aggressive campaign. The constituency work Frantz has reliably performed within the district counts for a lot, as do his efforts on behalf of our coastline and organic business growth. We are intrigued by the energy and intellect Bergstein would bring to the Senate, but we endorse Scott Frantz. (Oct. 30, http://bit.ly/2P96f71 ). State House: Republican state Rep. Livvy Floren (District 149) is unopposed this year, but we continue to support her as as welcome voice of reason in the General Assembly. Her Republican colleagues, Fred Camillo (District 151) and Mike Bocchino (District 150), have drawn strong competition from newcomers Laura Kostin and Stephen Meskers, respectively. Either opponent would make history, as the Democrats have not sent a representative to Hartford in a century. All four candidates have advantages, and shortcomings, and we would feel comfortable sending any of them to Hartford. At this moment in time, though, we feel the best lineup of Greenwich representatives would be Floren, Bocchino and Kostin. (Oct. 31, http://bit.ly/2zp238D ). Greenwichs electorate has tilted in recent years, with a reported 10,072 Democrats in town compared with 12,714 Republicans and 13,740 unaffiliated voters. Of course, the only number that really counts is how many voters turn up at the polls on Tuesday. We hope youre among them. Haiti - FLASH : More than 20 people intoxicated by fish in Petit-Goave Between Friday and Saturday, November 3, more than twenty people were hospitalized in Petit-Goave after consuming contaminated fish. "A dozen people were admitted in the evening of Friday in the emergency room of the Notre Dame Hospital in Petit-Goave... They writhed with abdominal pain. They vomited and had diarrhea. They were poisoned by a contaminated fish bought at the communal market of the city," reported our colleague Wilson Saint-Juste. On Saturday, other people have consumed fish with the same symptoms and have been treated at Notre Dame Hospital. It is URGENT that the Ministry of Public Health and the Town Hall of Petit-Goave open an investigation into the cause of this intoxication while temporarily prohibiting the population of Petit-Goave from consuming fish. HL/ HaitiLibre / Guyto Mathieu (Correspondant Petit-Goave) Haiti - Politic : Gang war, denial of the Primature Following the armed clash between two gangs, several wounded were taken to Bernard Mevs Hospital https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26015-haiti-security-against-background-of-gang-war-the-pnh-tries-to-control-the-situation-in-pap.html , the Secretariat General of the Primature, in a note dated November 3, wishes to express, on behalf of the Government of Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant, its strongest indignation at a false note circulating on social networks, attributed to the "Private Cabinet" of the Prime Minister. The General Secretariat "categorically denies that an agreement would have been reached between the Secretary General of the Primature and Bernard Mevs Hospital for any reason whatsoever, even less to allow the police to track down wounded people receiving care at the hospital itself." "[...] The General Secretariat expresses its deepest regret to the Bitar family and to all the staff at Hopital Bernard Mevs whose reputation, prestige and dedication to the service of the Community have been defiled by this infamous note [...] " "The General Secretariat of the Primature takes the opportunity to call the population to vigilance against these manipulators of all kinds who use social networks for destabilization, believing to achieve their unacknowledged goals by sowing disorder and chaos [...]" It finally warns the perpetrators of such acts that will be identified and prosecuted according to the law. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26015-haiti-security-against-background-of-gang-war-the-pnh-tries-to-control-the-situation-in-pap.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Politic : The Core Group calls for an inclusive dialogue The "Core Group" created in 2004 to promote dialogue with the Haitian authorities and to contribute to the effective action of the international community in Haiti, composed of Mrs. Helen Meagher La Lime, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in Haiti, Ambassadors Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, the United States of America, the European Union and the Special Representative of the Organization of American States (OAS), "welcomes the commitment of the population, in particular the Haitian youth and civil society, to the democratic values, which was notably expressed by the mobilization of October 17, to demand that light be shed on the management of the public funds and takes note of the will expressed by the Haitian authorities to act in this direction." "The Group commends the professionalism demonstrated by the National Police of Haiti (PNH) as a whole on this occasion to guarantee freedom of expression while preserving public order [...] and expresses its firm rejection of all acts of violence perpetrated on the sidelines of demonstrations, recalling the democratic legitimacy of the Government of Haiti and that in a democracy, change must be through the ballot box and not through violence. " As friends of Haiti, the members of the "Core Group" call on "the three branches of power as well as all other actors of the national life to an inclusive dialogue in order, inter alia, to strengthen the national institutions in charge of the accountability and the fight against corruption, including the judicial system; to adopt a budget for the 2018-2019 fiscal year based on realistic forecasts and taking into account the demands expressed by the population for better access to basic social services and to develop an electoral calendar that allows the holding of credible, free and transparent elections in October 2019, guaranteeing the stability of institutions." HL/ HaitiLibre For Subscribers Seven days of horror end with two ex-cops and two little girls dead Sadguru (Dr.) Charudatta Pingale meets Shri. Nishnanand Maharaj, Chief of Vindyavasini temple Pokhra (Nepal) : On 25th October 2018, Sadguru (Dr.) Charudatta Pingale paid a goodwill visit to Shri. Nishnanand Maharaj, the Chief of Vindyavasini temple. Sadguru (Dr.) Pingle gave Swamiji detailed information on the research conducted in spiritual science and about Maharshi Adhyatma Vishwavidyalaya. Maharaj then expressed his wish to visit Sanatans ashram. Shri. Nishnanand Maharaj was also explained various activities undertaken by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) when he offered his ashram located in western Nepal for Dharmakarya undertaken by HJS; while bestowing his blessings. He also offered to arrange program in case Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale was to visit Pokhra again. Shri. Nishnanand Maharaj took initiative in arranging a meeting of Sadguru Dr. Pingale by discussing the matter with Swami Bodhanand. Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale discuss issues related to attacks on Hindus and establishing Hindu Rashtra with devout Hindus from Butaval ! Butaval (Nepal) : Shri. Jeevan Khanal regularly visits website of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) and he learnt about Nepal visit of Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale, national Guide of HJS. He, along with his friends, met Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale. Shri. Khanal expressed deep concern over conversion of Hindus taking place in Nepal on large scale and quite rapidly. He wanted to know how such conversion can be stopped in lawful manner. Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale said in his guidance, Corruption is never approved by any Government but it is found in governments activities. Similarly, there is nothing like touchable and untouchable in Hindu Dharma; neither it is mentioned in Dharma-shaastra. Hindus need to educate themselves on Dharma matters and abide by Dharma. Ramayana was written before Rama was born. Slaying of Kansa was announced even before birth of Krushna. Hindu Dharma tells us what is going to happen in future and then history is written but the one who wins, gets history written, the way he wants. Meeting with activists of Manav Dharma Seva Samiti at Butaval Shri. Kavindra Shreshtha of Manav Dharma Seva Samiti took activists of his organization to meet Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale. Shri. Shreshtha asked for guidance on efforts required for making Nepal as a Hindu Rashtra once again. Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale said, Knowing Dharma is essential to work effectively for protection of Hindutva. Meaning of Hindu Rashtra would be understood only with knowledge of Dharma. Dharmashikshan and abiding by Dharma is necessary for the same. It is essential to constantly spread ideology of our Dharma; unite Hindus and working towards ideal goal. The Government is also responsible for conversions happening by luring people with baits because it is the duty of government to provide all facilities to people. The Government doesnt provide any facilities to Hindus; therefore, they fall prey to such luring. Shri. Kavindra told Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale he would bring youth members together next time during his visit and requested Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale to give guidance to youth for one full day. It is the collective duty of Brahmins to help in progress of nation ! Sadguru (Dr.) Charudatta Pingale. Fifth Rashtriya Pundit Conference held by Rashtriya Dharmasabha, Nepal Kathmandu If we were not able to pass on the fruits of own act as a Brahmin to the host or to self, it shows that there is something lacking in our performance as a Brahmin or in our knowledge and one has to introspect; because a Brahmin has duty of performing rituals for hosts as individuals so also has duty of helping in national progress at collective level, stated Sadguru (Dr.) Charudatta Pingale, national Guide of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) while addressing the fifth Rashtriya Pundit conference organized by Rashtriya Dharmasabha, Nepal. He was the Chief Guest of this function. Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale said further, 1. Brahman as Varna represents all 4 Varnas. This Varna has capability of doing the work of all Varnas. How can one be called a Brahman if he was unable to blend with all 4 Varnas and if failed to create a constituent of gigantic society ? It should be pondered over. 2. Words like Dharma and secularism have created storm in society; therefore, definition of Dharma needs to be understood. If we do not give right direction to people in this context, it will amount to sin. 3. Adya Shankaracharya has finally defined Dharma which says one that helps in worldly and spiritual progress of a person and maintains good social system is Dharma. Dharma shows how every person should behave with each other; e.g. a man behaves differently with his mother, sister and wife. He cannot behave with them in the same manner. Similarly, if all religions become same; there will be anarchy in society. Thus, a person, society and nation can never be secular. Meaning of secularism is spread as independent of religion but it is wrong. It is our duty to tell people the meaning of secularism which is independent of Sects. Today, there is need of rule under control of Dharma, righteousness. We cannot separate Dharma from individual person, society and nation. Only in Hindu Rashtra, condition of pilgrimage places will improve ! Sadguru (Dr.) Charudatta Pingale Guidance by Sadguru (Dr.) Charudatta Pingale during Damodar Maas festival organized by Kali Gandaki Dnyan Vidnyan Pratishthan at Palpa Palpa (Nepal) : Shri. Chaitanya Krushna, the President of Kali Gandaki Dnyan Vidnyan Pratishthan had decided to visit different village every day for collective celebration of Damodar Maas festival in Damodar month this year. It began on 24th October at the holy bank of Kali Gandaki River which flows in North direction. Sadguru (Dr.) Charudatta Pingale, national Guide of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) gave guidance on the occasion. Sadguru (Dr.) Pingale said in his guidance that 1. During prevailing time, working for establishing Dharma i.e. Hindu Rashtra is the command of Gandaki Mata, Bhagavan Himalaya and God; therefore, everyone should take active part in this mission. Condition of places of pilgrimage will improve only in Hindu Rashtra. 2. Mahotsav means huge festival. While practising spirituality, we become expansive and merge with that principle of expansiveness. River Gandaki flows in north direction here. Mata Gandaki is one of the five basic principles that is a medium of going towards God through worship of manifest form of God. 3. Money, wealth is of two types. One is worldly and the other is in the form of Gurus grace. Similarly, awakening is also of two kinds; one is through Gross and the other is through Subtle. Awakening means awakening of God principle in self. Only wealth of Gurus grace is useful in such awakening. Pray to Goddess Mahalakshmi, by keeping oneself awake in the night of Kojagiri Pournima, for acquiring the wealth of Gurus grace and grace of God. Date: 26 October, 2018. Place: New Jersey, United States. Just a few days ago, on 26 October, a very unusual incident was reported in the city of New Jersey, United States. According to an anonymous report published on Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) online database, a local resident claimed to have seen a UFO piloted by a group of extraterrestrial beings when he was at home with his family. I was on the second floor of my home at night with three family members. We saw something in the window and looked outside. We all saw a flat, black, disc-shaped object with a slightly domed top within 20' to 30' of our window and at the same elevation of our window, he described. The object had one long, clear window located within a 3' to 4' high band that connected the domed top and the flat bottom of the craft, he added. According to the unnamed witness, inside the object there was a group of humanoid creatures wearing white uniforms. The interior of the craft was well lighted and we could see four people all dressed in uniform. Their shirts were white with black epaulets, with a gold band on the epaulets. Because of the uniforms we guessed that they were possible our military personnel, he explained. Three people in the craft stood at the window looking at their controls while one more person was behind the three and appeared to be overseeing what the three people were doing. All people inside the craft seemed as though they were in a predicament and trying to find a way out, the New Jersey resident asserted. During this time one person from the craft looked directly at me, smiled and then turned his attention back to the controls, he commented. Finally, the object hovered for a few minutes and then mysteriously disappeared. As it moved away and up from our house, it stalled for a few seconds and the shot up and out of sight in a matter of a few more seconds, the witness claimed. Draw your own conclusions For more information: https://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=95904&rnd= The festive season is here and it is time to enjoy some Diwali goodies and get together with loved ones. However, there is more to Diwali than card parties, sharing sweets and lighting lamps. In fact, there are many traditions associated with Diwali and the festival is celebrated in different ways across India. Here are 5 unique traditions you need to know about: * In Kolkata, Kali Puja is celebrated during Diwali, and is held at night. Priests chant mantras and devotees offer hibiscus flowers, special dishes and water to the goddess. * The Sindhi community celebrates Diyari. On this occasion, they wash gold and silver coins in milk before worshipping the goddess. Afterwards, they tap the coin against their teeth while chanting Lakshmi aayi, danat vaai (When Lakshmi arrives, poverty flees). * In Jaipur, its not just homes that are illuminated. The festival lights decorate the prominent markets as well, as each year there is a competition held to decide on the best decorated markets. * In Goa, Diwali celebrations honour Lord Krishna and his vanquishing of the demon Narkasur. People also smear coconut oil to wash off their sins. * In Tamil Nadu, Diwali is about lighting a lamp and offering naivedya to the gods. They perform a puja to appease their ancestors, and consume a special medicine called Deepavali Lehiyam. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Days after the teaser of Kedarnath, an upcoming film starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Sara Ali Khan was released, the film has evoked a sharp reaction from teerth purohits (priests) of the shrine town of Kedarnath in Uttarakhands Chardham. They have demanded that a blanket ban be imposed on the movie stating that it hurts the Hindu religious sentiments. We will launch an agitation if the movie is not banned as we have been told that it hurts the Hindu religious sentiments by promoting love jihad, said Vinod Shukla, chairman, Kedar Sabha, an organisaiton of the priests based in Kedarnath. The term love jihad denotes alleged campaigns under which Muslim men target the non-Muslim women for conversion to Islam. Kedarnath, the soon-to-be released movie in which Saif Ali Khans daughter Sara is making her film debut, was extensively shot in the shrine town two years ago. The calamitous floods that struck the town in 2013, forms the films background. Sushant plays the male lead in it, which has been directed by Abhishek Kapoor. Shukla said the priests had strongly protested against the film when its vulgar dance sequences were being shot around Kedarnath shrine. Incidentally, locals have already started protesting against its release. On Thursday, a group of people at the district headquarters town of Rudraprayag organised a protest against the film. A similar demonstration was also held at Kotdwar, said Ajendra Ajay, a state BJP leader who has held a minister-level post. Protests followed after the teaser and poster of the controversial film was released. He also demanded a blanket ban on the film alleging that it hurts the Hindu religious sentiments by openly promoting love jihad. In a tweet, Ajay has also urged the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, Prasoon Joshi for the film to be banned. Referring to the teaser, Ajay said it shows the bold scenes of the lead pair in the background of floods in which thousands were killed. Ajay also raised objections to the films poster that shows the hero, a Muslim carrying the heroine, a Hindu, in a palanquin with the Kedarnath shrine in the background. That is factually incorrect because you will see no Muslim ferrying pilgrims on the trekking route to the Kedarnath shrine, he said, adding equally offensive is the tagline Love is Pilgrimage printed on the poster. Ajay said Sara went a step further while posting the films poster on Instagram and captioning it, No Tragedy, No Wrath of Nature, No Act of God Can Defeat the Power of Love. Most filmmakers refused to comment on the objections raised by the BJP and the priests to the film, saying they have yet to watch it. Sudarshan Shah, a film director and producer based in Nainital, however, said films, the storylines of which are even remotely influenced by religion, tend to attract controversy. Having said that I am also of the view that every filmmaker is entitled to some cinematic liberty, without which it becomes difficult to tell stories, especially those which are based on fiction, he said. Delhi breathed the cleanest November air in at least three years on Sunday and an official of the central pollution control agency said the citys air quality could be relatively better this Diwali due to weather conditions and last months Supreme Court order allowing the sale and use of only green and low emission firecrackers in the National Capital Region (NCR). In the past 24 hours, Delhi Police seized over 800kg of firecrackers from seven shops in north and west Delhi, continuing with their drive after the top courts October 23 order. Petitioners, officials and experts say the ruling effectively bans all fireworks in NCR since crackers classified as green or even low emission are yet to be manufactured and sold. The weatherman said easterly and southerly winds, coupled with a western disturbance, made for a pleasant, breezy Sunday. The air quality index was at 171, which is in the moderate category. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said this was the first time since 2015 when the AQI system was developed that a moderate day was recorded in November, when the air quality usually hovers in the very poor or severe zones. But the respite might be temporary. From Monday, northwesterly winds are likely to bring pollutants back in Delhis air from Punjab and Haryana, where farm fires are continuing though the numbers of such cases are seeing a gradual decline. The burning of crop stubble in these states is considered as one of the reasons behind Delhis toxic air quality at this time of the year. Still,CPCB member-secretary Prashant Gargava said cracker sales appear to have fallen after the ruling by the apex court, which has announced curbs on the use of fireworks across the country. We have been informed that there have been a crackdown on cracker godowns, and cracker markets are closed in Delhi. Plus, even though winds will be northwesterly before and during Diwali, IMD (India Meteorological Department) has informed us that wind speed will not fall to zero which means there will be some movement, Gargava said, explaining why weather conditions would not be completely hostile for the dispersal of pollutants on November 6 and 7. Diwali is on November 7. The police, which have seized over 2,500kg of crackers since the court order, have not issued temporary licences to small traders. Those with licenses, too, appear to be in a fix since they dont have the court-mandated green fireworks in their stocks. Mandeep Singh Randhawa, deputy commissioner of police [central], said, We are not denying licences, but they [sellers] will have to prove that they will sell green crackers. If they get us a clearance from PESO [the government body authorised to monitor explosives], well give them the permits, he said. According to a 2017 affidavit to the top court and explanations offered by the countrys explosives regulator [Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation or Peso] , green firecrackers refer to products that do not contain metals such as barium, aluminium and iron which release toxic gases, but such products have not yet been manufactured for sale. The minimum temperature in Delhi on Sunday was 18 degrees Celsius and the maximum was 29.7 degrees. On Diwali, the minimum temperature is likely to fall to 13 degrees, said the weather department. Snowfall in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh is likely to bring down Delhis temperatures by 3-4 degrees Celsius over the next few days, said IMD deputy director general BP Yadav. Pune-based System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting Research (SAFAR) predicted that AQI on November 5 will be 309, which is in very poor category, and the next day it will be 315, also in very poor category. Farm fires will continue in Punjab till November 15, said Harinder Singh Lakhowal, the general secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU). Crop fires have reduced considerably because of government crackdown, he said. Delhis iconic Signature Bridge was inaugurated this evening by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. The 675-metre Signature Bridge, which will be opened to public tomorrow, is an eight-lane carriageway that will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi and share the burden of the Wazirabad Bridge. It will also connect the Outer Ring Road on the western bank of the Yamuna river with Wazirabad Road on the eastern side. The grand launch, which was marred by the clashes between the BJP and the Aam Aadmi party workers, was followed by a laser show. High drama prevailed just before the inauguration of the bridge after Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and his supporters staged a protest for allegedly not being invited to inaugural event of the newly-built city landmark. The bridge, boasts of 127 strands of back-stay cables, spherical bearings of 17,300 tonne vertical capacity, pendulum bearing to resist uplift of 6,300 tonnes, and transportation and handling of 460 tonne pylon base segment and is being projected as Indias first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge, with the gesture namaste. The bridge will have a 154-metre-high glass viewing box, which is at double the height of Qutub Minar. According to deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who described it as a civil engineering spectacle, people can enjoy a panoramic view of the city from there, as in the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Four elevators will take a total of 50 people to the top of the bridge. It will have designated spots for selfie-lovers. The elevators area likely to be operational in two months, an official said. Announced in 2004, the bridge was initially estimated to cost around Rs 494 crore. Later, it was projected to be completed at a modified estimate of Rs 1,131 crore ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Delhi. It is a hazy November evening. The sun is hanging low on the horizon, casting an orange-red glow on Signature Bridge, Delhis new landmark that looms majestically over the river Yamuna. Standing at the barricades that divide the bridge which links north and northeast Delhi and the approach road, Asha Pant is having an animated conversation with helmeted construction workers who are giving the final touches to the giant structure. So, is it finally going to open on Sunday? she eagerly asks, looking at the head of the pylon of the bridge that rises high into the sky. I think on Monday, says a short, swarthy man. Pant, a resident of Khajuri Khas in northeast Delhi, is happy with the answer after all, a new bridge over the Yamuna is what she has been waiting for almost over a decade. The Signature Bridge means a lot to herit will cover what she calls the growing gulf between her and her husband. For the past many years, my husband has been leaving home at 7 in the morning and reaches at 10 pm, tired and grumpy, all because of traffic logjam on the nearby Wazirabad Bridge. He has been telling me when this new bridge opens, he can be home by 8 pm, says Pant, whose hopes have risen and fallen in tandem with the pace of the work on the bridge, which will be inaugurated on Sunday and will open for the public on Monday. There are thousands like her in north-east and east Delhi areas such as Khajuri Khas, Bhajanpura and Usmanpur, who have waited for the opening of the bridge as if their life depended on it. They say the growing traffic on the Wazirabad Bridge crippled their lives in ways the government and the rest of the city never understood. Hundreds of families, including many of my neighbours, left Khajuri Khas because of the never-ending jams on the Wazirabad Bridge; many school children walked to school because their buses got caught in jams for hours almost every day, says Deepa Nainwal, also a resident of Khajuri Khas, who on the day we met her extended her evening walk to the bridge just to confirm if it is really ready to be inaugurated as she has been reading about it in the newspapers in the past few days. My children never reach home from school before 4 pm. This bridge means a lot to me, Nainwal says. In fact, every evening, hundreds of people men and women , young and old can be seen walking all the way to the bridge, talking about how they can see the bridge from their roofs, and how it will give the benighted neighbourhood, known for crime and grime, a whole new branding. A lot of us have to go to the dispensary and hospitals in Timarpur across the river, 6 km away, but it takes us two hours. I know of many instances of seriously sick people getting stuck in jams for hours on the Wazirabad Bridge, says Inderpal, 62. Crossing the river has been a herculean task for over 10 years because of the jams; the bridge will better integrate our colonies with the people on the other side, he says.I wish we did not have to wait and suffer so much, says Omveer, a retired policeman, in Khajuri Khas. The wait has indeed been long. The plan for an alternative bridge next to the narrow, congested Wazirabad Bridge has been afoot since October 1991 when The National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) submitted a draft interim report recommending a six-lane, dual carriageway bridge. But nothing came of it. In November 1997, a speeding school bus lost control on the Wazirabad Bridge and plunged into the river, killing 28 children. The accident led to a huge outcry and the plan for an alternative bridge once again gained momentum in 1998. There were field surveys, technical reports but the bridge remained a distant dream. Finally, in 2004, The Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation (DTTDC) was awarded the contract to execute the bridge. The tenders and approvals took another four years and work began in 2010. What makes the asymmetric Signature Bridge which is uncannily similar to cable-stayed Erasmusbrug bridge in Rotterdam in the Netherlands unique is its 154-metre-high single pylon (twice the height of Qutab Minar), boasting a glass head with an observation platform; its single deck with eight lanes. Not many know that the bridge has been the subject of study in many cases part of college project for about 2,000 engineering students from all over the country. The walls of the DTTDC site office in front of Tibetan Colony, a few hundred metres away, have framed photographs of the bridge at various stages of construction, and a documentation room with over 15,000 structural drawings of the bridge. On Wednesday, as we travelled to the top of the pylon on a construction lift, what we saw was a Delhi engulfed in a haze. All we could see was Pusta Road, Outer Ring Road, Timarpur, Tibetan Colony, Gurdwara Majnu-ka-Tilla, the vast expense of the protected forest, and the undulating path of the Yamuna. On a clear day, the view can extend all the way to central Delhi, assured a DTTDC official, who accompanied us to the pylon head. But it offers a depressing sight too of the Najafgarh drain discharging its sewage waters into Yamuna, spreading like a thick, black sheet of poison, darkening the river waters, relatively clean upstream of the Wazirabad Bridge. Bridges are not just a facility to cross the river; they can make or break cityscapes. This is indeed a beautiful bridge, which, as you enter Delhi, reminds you that Delhi is a city of river, says Aditya Sharma, a writer, who drives daily to Delhi from Sonepat.Now that we have such a magnificent bridge, we should clean the river. Ratan J. Baltiboi, the Mumbai-based architect of the bridge, says it will be to Delhi what Golden Gate is to San Francisco and Brooklyn Bridge is to New York City. This bridge is an engineering marvel, created as a destination where people can come and enjoy, with the bridge enhancing the beauty of the surrounding area, which is to be developed as a tourist spot, he says. Manish Sisodia, deputy chief minister, while inviting the people of Delhi to the inauguration ceremony, which will have a laser show, said, When you take the lift to the top of the Signature Bridge, you will get the same feeling when going to the top of Eiffel Tower. Reacting to the deputy CMs invitation, Krishnan Pal Singh Yadav, 60, a resident of Bhajanpura, says he has never been to Paris nor can he afford to visit the French capital to compare the experience. But he does wish to attend the opening ceremony. For us, this is a bridge of hope, a bridge that will pave way for a better life, a safe and scenic passage across the river, says Yadav. Minutes before the official inauguration of the much-delayed Signature Bridge on Sunday, a spat over credit for the project played out in open as Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari got into a scuffle with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers and Delhi Police. Accompanied by supporters, Tiwari, who had not been invited for the inauguration ceremony, reached the venue at 3.30pm and tried to enter the bridge from the Bhajanpura side. Tiwari, the MP from North East Delhi constituency where the bridge is located, alleged he was stopped by the police. Tiwari and his supporters, however, managed to make their way to the venue where they were again stopped by Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel as the MP tried to get close to the main stage. As a result, scuffles broke out between BJP workers, police personnel posted there and groups of AAP supporters. BJP alleged that AAP workers and police misbehaved with Tiwari. AAP workers were there already as I walked towards the stage. A group of (AAP) workers came and started pushing me in the presence of police, Tiwari said. For the past few days, the Delhi BJP chief had been criticising the Kejriwal government for not inviting him to the inauguration ceremony. I am the MP of the area. In fact, the work for the bridge was stuck for a decade and I intervened so that it would speed up. This is how you treat me for showing you in a good light? I expected nothing in return, just some respect that you would give to an MP and a fellow human being, Tiwari said. Watch: Delhi BJP chief, AAP workers clash during Signature Bridges inauguration Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal slammed the BJP for chaos at the inauguration ceremony and sought Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijals intervention in the issue. Unprecedented. Chaos by BJP at Signature Bridge inauguration site. Its a Del govt prog. Police mute spectator. Can LG, being head of Del police, ensure peace and order at Signature bridge inauguration site [sic]? the CM tweeted minutes after reports of the scuffles emerged. The CM later said on Twitter that the Delhi Police virtually handed over the security for the entire programme in the hands of hooligans. He added that the government would explore legal options. BJP workers waved black flags near the stage as the CM spoke at the inauguration. In his speech addressing the 2,500 people at the event, Sisodia admitted that the Delhi government deliberately decided not to invite Tiwari. He said the BJP had started politics of inauguration in the city. It is your party (BJP) that started politics of inauguration. We deliberately skipped (inviting) you because your government did not invite an elected chief minister for inauguration of skywalk (at ITO last month) which was constructed by the state government, Sisodia said. Sisodia was referring to a controversy that was kicked off last month when the Union housing and urban affairs ministry did not invite Kejriwal, or other Delhi cabinet ministers, for the inauguration of the citys first skywalk at ITO in central Delhi. The AAP had then accused the Centre of trying to hijack the work of an elected government. Blame game BJP alleged that AAP workers and the police misbehaved with Tiwari who was also allegedly pushed off from stairs near the stage by AAP MLA from Okhla, Amanatullah Khan. He (Khan) has a history of hooliganism. He has beaten up the chief secretary of Delhi. The AAP is a party of goons. They do not care for development or for people of Delhi, Tiwari said. Watch: Identified goons who heckled me, says Manoj Tiwari Countering the BJP leaders claims, the AAP blamed Tiwari of indulging in hooliganism by thrashing party workers. The party said Tiwari had come to the event with the intention of disrupting the launch of the landmark bridge. Thousands of people had come to celebrate without an invitation card. But the MP (Tiwari) considers himself VIP. That is why he indulged in hooliganism. They (BJP workers) had come to disrupt the event, said Dilip Pandey, senior AAP leader and party in-charge for North East Delhi constituency. In one of several videos circulating on social media, Tiwari is seen scuffling with the police and people the BJP MP alleged were AAP workers. In another video, Tiwari is seen being pushed by a man that he claimed was Amanatullah Khan. The authenticity of the videos, however, could not be independently verified by HT. Later, a video shared online by a news agency showed Tiwari threatening that he would deal with policemen who had stopped him. Joint commissioner Ravindra Yadav said the Delhi Police did not allow the situation to turn ugly. Though there were slogan shouting but police segregated the groups and prevented any clashes, he said. Yadav said basic cause of dispute was that the BJP leader wanted to get on the stage, whereas the organisers did not want him to do that. Rumours that a police official was slapped at the event are false. It was jostling and pushing which happens during crowd control situations, added Yadav. India is reportedly among eight countries provided a waiver by the US from sanctions to be reimposed on Iran from November 5 to pressure the West Asian country to discuss a new deal to block it from acquiring nuclear weapons. The sanctions, meant to choke off revenues, are a consequence of President Donald Trumps decision in May to pull the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear deal, concluded in 2015 by his predecessor Barack Obama. India has very sound arguments in seeking a waiver. For decades, Iran has been a reliable and cost-effective supplier of energy to India. During negotiations with the US, India made it clear that completely cutting off oil imports from Iran would impact its energy security and economy. India also argued that since the money owed to Iran for oil purchases would be deposited into an escrow account, there was no chance of it being accessed by Iranian entities that have been accused of terror links by the US. In any case, Indias leadership has publicly contended that in matters such as Iranian oil imports or the purchase of military equipment from Russia, the country will go by sanctions imposed by the United Nations and not any unilateral actions. Unlike Japan and South Korea, which temporarily stopped buying Iranian oil ahead of the sanctions, India placed an order for Iranian crude for November that was marginally lower than its procurement in earlier months. India and Iran, too, worked quietly to fashion a response to the impending sanctions though some concerns remain about the exact form of payments. The Iranian side has never been truly happy with payments in rupees but has had no other viable option. However, with the US announcing that the waivers to be unveiled on November 5 are temporary in nature and that it expects all buyers of Iranian crude to still go to zero in a matter of weeks, there will have to be more complex negotiations on this issue between New Delhi and Washington. Mr Trumps mercurial nature notwithstanding, the US will have to show greater understanding for the concerns and interests of India, which it describes as a strategic ally. For India, its own national security and energy security interests should be paramount, especially when all other parties to JCPOA have shown an interest in salvaging the deal in some way. The last hasnt been heard on this front and India should gear up for some more complex negotiations to ensure that its interests arent affected. . A six-year-old tigress suspected of having killed 13 people over the past two years in the hills of central India was shot dead by hunters under controversial circumstances last week. While the killing of the mother of two nine-month-old cubs triggered celebrations by villagers in the area stalked by the big cat, wildlife activists were furious and with good reason. The latest incident in the man-animal conflict, which comes just days after another tigress (Sundari in Odisha) was blamed for killing a woman whose post-mortem report was inconclusive, shows that we need to get better at dealing with such cases. The hunter who fired the bullet that killed tigress Avni said he did so in self-defence after a tranquiliser dart failed to stop her from charging at him. A question being asked is: Should the wildlife officials not have foreseen such a circumstance? Experts feel a well-planned operation would have taken the possibility into account, ensuring safety structures to guard against this. While there is little doubt in Avnis case that the tigress was responsible for human killings, we need to consider the larger debate surrounding the intensifying conflict between humans and wild animals. Animal rights activists argue such big cats should not be called man-eaters because they dont trespass into human habitats to kill people its the other way around. The World Wildlife Fund says tigers are mostly solitary and have large territories. The wild animal, however, is facing dogged pressures from retaliatory killings and poaching amid habitat loss to humans. Killing is the easy option. The world has lost 95% of its wild tigers since the 20th century began. With only about 3,900 tigers remaining in the wild, they need us now more than ever. Assam will burn if the Centre continues to push the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, Anup Chetia, the general secretary of ULFA faction which is currently in talks with the government, said on the Tinsukia killings. He said attempts by vested interests to blame the pro-talk faction of the insurgent outfit for the incident, would derail the ongoing peace process which are now in their final stage. Assam will burn if they continue to push the bill, Chetia said. If the bill is passed in Parliament, the situation will worsen and the recruitment for ULFA(I), the ant-talk faction, will increase, Chetia said. The bill which is pending with the Joint Parliamentary Committee would pave way for granting citizenship to persecuted minority communities, such as Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Christians and Buddhists, from neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. It is being opposed by indigenous groups in Assam as they said it was against the 1985 Assam Accord, which empowered authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Also read: TMC delegation led by Derek O Brien in Assam to meet Tinsukia victims kin Chetia, who has been engaged in talks after he was extradited from Bangladesh and released on bail, said killings of five people of Bengali community in Tinsukia on Thursday night, was unfortunate. Poor people have been targeted, he said. The police had blamed the United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) faction for the attack even as the banned outfit denied its role in the killings. Chetia put the blame on provocative statements by vested interests and political leaders, including BJP MLA Shiladitya Deb, for vitiating the atmosphere of the state. Pro-talk ULFA leaders like Mrinal Hazarika and Jiten Dutta, who have been making provocative statements and were arrested on Friday, have also been accused of disturbing peace in the state. They may have made provocative statements but they are not involved in the incident. We have laid down arms, Chetia said. A 42-year-old man was allegedly murdered in broad daylight in Rajasthans Pratapgarh district on Saturday, police said. The victim has been identified as Samrath Kumawat, who the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said was a worker of the party at Kadiyawad village in Pratapgarh district on Saturday, police said. According to locals, three bike-borne youngsters attacked Kumawat with a sword on his neck and then fired three bullets at him in Kadiyawad village, and then fled the spot, said Shaitan Singh, circle officer, Pratapgrah, adding that more details would be revealed later. Former state chief minister and Congress leader, Ashok Gehlot condemned the incident. In a tweet, he said, I condemn the brutal killing of BJPs Samrath Kumawat in Pratapgarh, Rajasthan. Perpetrators of such heinous crime must be severely punished. Pathetic condition of Law and order in state is a matter of grave concern. Date: 03 October, 2018. Place: Jefferson, Oregon State, United States. Early last month, more specifically on 03 October, a very strange incident was reported in the small town of Jefferson, Oregon. According to an anonymous testimony published on Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) online database, a local resident claimed to have been contacted several times by what he described as telepathic aliens. They [aliens] are friendly. Morally superior beings. They are playful and timid, like little children with whom they relate easiest. My 7-year-old daughter says they like to play dress up with her, the witness said. My mind couldn't sort out the mystery until she finally said something about her alien friends. I never talked to her about the bizarre things going on around the house, he added. The Oregon resident explained that these entities have provided him with knowledge and an awakening of mind. Slowly, they have guided me begrudgingly and painfully through an awakening of my mind. The vast amount of knowledge they possess would scramble my brain if they told me too much. Mostly we communicate via hand signals/numbers, he claimed. They feed on light waves. I gave them a HPS grow light at their request. They need it every 2 hours or they begin to fade/die. They can cloak, shrink and grow, he commented. They have been here for hundreds of thousands of years. They still seek more truth and justice for the oppressed. Universal love of one another is what they preach, the American mentioned. They are very reverent of their dead and their human protectors; they fear only confrontation and war. They are, however, targeted, he continued. Finally, the author of the report stated: They imprinted in my head memories of their past and the history of this [his] house. I need help protecting them. Draw your own conclusions For more information: https://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=95301&rnd= Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand. Tharoor had waded into a controversy at the Bangalore Literature Festival on Sunday last by claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to a scorpion sitting on a Shivling. A criminal defamation complaint had been filed against him in a Delhi court earlier in the day for his scorpion remark. Tharoor again took a swipe at the prime minister, calling him a hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand saying I know all the answers. Modi is a one-man government and everybody dancing to what he says, he said at an event organised by an industry body, adding India now has the most centralised PMO in history. Every decision is taken by the PMO (prime ministers office). Every file has to be sent to the PMO for approval, he claimed. On the next parliamentary election, Tharoor said that there will be both pre-poll and post-poll alliances between the Congress and other opposition parties, but Congress president Rahul Gandhi may not be the prime ministerial face. The coming Lok Sabha election is important in that it will deny the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term in power, the Congress MP said. He said the decision on the prime ministerial face of the Congress alliance would be a collective one and it may not be him (Gandhi). The Congress has a broader notion of a leader unlike the BJP. We had people like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and others having tremendous track record. Gandhi is the unquestionable choice of Congress workers as their leader. If free and fair elections are held among the Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi wins hands down, the Congress MP said. Continuing his criticism of the Modi government, Tharoor said, We are having a top-down, over-centralised and inefficient government running the country and there is nothing positive in the Indian economy. Demonetisation was a bad idea implemented badly and GST was a good idea implemented badly, Tharoor said. He said that the Indian stock is down across the globe. The rupee was heading towards the Margdarshak Mandal (a reference to a BJP panel comprising its elderly leaders), he quipped and later clarified that the BJP panel had leaders above the age of 75. He said that communalism, cow vigilantism and mob lynching have been so extreme that India had never seen such bizarre politics in the past. There are damning statistics to prove that, he added. Tharoor, who was the minister of state for external affairs in the UPA government and is currently chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, said there was total collapse of relations between India with other countries. Nobody knows what is the coherent foreign relations policy with Pakistan, similarly with Nepal and Sri Lanka, he said. Tharoor regretted that Gandhi is being dubbed a Pappu by some in the social media. This is not fair and it is unjustified. Congress workers are really stitched to the Gandhi family and want their leader to be from there, he said. Regarding the Sabarimala temple controversy, Tharoor said, These issues are being whipped up to distract attention from the real problems like oil price rise, Rafale deal, etc. Speaking at another programme, he alleged that the trend of erecting statues and raising the issue of Ram temple in Ayodhya were attempts to distract the masses from failures of the BJP government at the Centre. He said the trend of erecting statues reminded him of the Roman empire when people where distracted from the oppression they faced through bread and circuses (distribution of free food and staging of huge spectacles). The issues of Statue of Unity, Ram temple, Ram statue at Ayodhya are distractions. I would urge the public of India to move away from these distractions and focus on the realities and lives of the Indians, the Congress MP said. The reality is the Indian Aam Aadmi (common man) has been suffering for the last four and half years... This suits the agenda of the government that has failed to perform, he said. Tharoors comment comes in the backdrop of plans to install a statue of Lord Ram on the banks of the Sarayu river in Ayodhya. Joining the chorus for the construction of Ram temple in the Uttar Pradesh pilgrim town of Ayodhya, Union minister Vijay Goel had Friday said it should be done at the earliest through any means -- constitutional, legislative, judicial or community dialogue. The VHP and the RSS have demanded an ordinance to acquire land for constructing the temple in Ayodhya. A 42-year-old Congress worker was killed and two others were critically injured when ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers allegedly fired on them in West Bengals North Dinajpur district on Sunday. The TMC rubbished the allegation. Mohammad Samiruddin, along with other Congress supporters, was going to Lakhipur market in Chopra when they were attacked. Trinamool supporters opened fire on our men, Congress block president Asok Roy alleged. Samiruddin, a father of four, died on his way to hospital while another Congress worker was admitted to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital with a critical injury. Both of them were shot in the chest. Another man was admitted to an Islampur hospital with a bullet injury. Hamidul Rahaman, TMC MLA from Chopra, denied the allegation against his partys workers. The Congress, BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) have joined forces to unleash a reign of terror in Lakhipur, he alleged. Though we won all the 16 seats in Lakhipur gram panchayat, our elected members have not been allowed to enter the panchayat office although the board was formed around 45 days ago. Rahaman accused the Congress, BJP and CPM supporters of roaming around with firearms. They are not even letting police enter the village. At least two dozen people were killed as violence had marred the panchayat polls in West Bengal in May. The violence has continued over the formation of panchayat boards at separate places across Bengal five months after the TMC swept the polls. Trinamool units across Bengal were accused of using violence to win seats during the three-phase polls. They used the same methods at Lakhipur and did not allow counting of votes, alleged Roy. They forcibly took control of all the seats and local people who voted against Trinamool got angry. They are not allowing Trinamools elected members to enter the panchayat office, said Roy. Chopra is one of the few blocks in Bengal, where Congress still has the strength to retaliate against Trinamool, said a local Congress leader who did not want to be named. Unconfirmed reports said villagers did not allow a police team to enter Lakhipur and additional forces had to be sent after the violence on Sunday. Uttar Dinajpur police superintendent Sumit Kumar said, There was a clash between two groups. One person died and two were injured. Seven men have been detained, he said. Situation in Lakhipur is under control and sufficient policemen have been deployed to maintain law and order. DMK chief M K Stalin has urged all regional parties and secular forces to come together under one umbrella to defeat the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, days after Congress president Rahul Gandhi met Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, boosting opposition unity. Welcoming the meeting between Gandhi and Naidu, Stalin had on Friday put out a tweet endorsing the Congress chiefs call to opposition parties to work together. The Congress presidents call to opposition parties is the most important message, the DMK leader noted and expressed total support for Naidus view that unseating the BJP from the Centre was necessary to defend democracy. Corrupt, autocratic and divisive forces are destroying the democratic fabric of our country. It is the need of the hour for all non-BJP parties to come together on a common platform. I congratulate @rahulgandhi and @ncbn for initiating steps towards this. They have my support. M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) November 2, 2018 The present dispensation at the Centre has been dismantling the federal structure and state autonomy by stripping the rights of the states, MK Stalin said, adding that this demands that all the opposition parties should come together under one umbrella to take on the BJP in the poll battle. However, Tamil Nadu BJP has a different take on this and party state general secretary Karu Nagarajan claimed that Stalin is rattled at the prospect of Congress dumping the DMK and exploring the option of forging an alternative alliance. Actor-turned politician Kamal Hassan and rebel AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, who has founded Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), have expressed interest in a partnership with Congress. As Congress is having multiple options in the state, Stalin continues to issue such statements to keep the Congress in good humour, he told HT. However, Congress leaders debunk such criticism and swear that the alliance with the DMK is strong and steady. The DMK and Congress want to save the democracy by uniting all the secular forces. Our state leader Su Thirunavukkarasar, senior leader P Chidambaram and TN state in-charge Sanjay Dutt have confirmed that we are travelling with DMK. We dont have to think of any other option, said a former Congress MP, who did not wish to be named. According to political analyst Tharaasu Shyam, Stalins first priority remains uniting all the players in the state. Stalin does not want a third front. Therefore, he tries to woo all the parties under the Congress-DMK alliance, he told HT. I was made a scapegoat for political benefits of several people in my family and party, Tej Pratap Yadav, elder son of Rashtriya Janta Dal chief Lalu Prasad, said in Gaya on Saturday, a day after he stunned his family and friends by filing for divorce from his wife of six months, Aishwarya Rai. There is no match between us. We both come from extremely different backgrounds. Our culture and grooming are poles apart. I was never ready for the wedding. I kept pleading my parents and also discussed my feelings with brother Tejashwi and sisters but nobody took me seriously. .., Tej Pratap said before leaving for Ranchi to meet his ailing father, who is serving a jail term there. Tej Pratap, a sitting Rashtriya Janta Dal MLA and a former Bihar minister, added that he was made a scapegoat for political benefits of several people in his family and party. There is no going back on my decision. Arrow has been shot. I wont budge even if the Prime Minister intervenes, said a visibly upset Tej Pratap Yadav. In what was considered one of the most high-profile weddings in the country in 2018, Tej Pratap had married Aishwarya, daughter of former minister, Chandrika Rai and granddaughter of former Bihar chief minister, Daroga Rai on May 12 this year. Immediately after their engagement, there were murmurs of mismatch in the alliance, with Aishwarya having completed her post graduation from Delhis Lady Sri Ram College while Tej Pratap had dropped studies after class 11. All seemed well initially with mother-in-law Rabri Devi calling Aishwarya the Laxmi of the house. However, six months down, things seemed to unravel. A devout Hindu, who spends most of the time visiting temples and on pilgrimages, Tej Pratap Yadav had recently been to Vrindavan and had returned last weekend. Aishwarya never complied and adjusted with my thinking and approach towards life. I never thought I would be inviting a mess in my life by tying the knot. There would be no looking back, he said. He held a few party leaders responsible for convincing his parents to agree to the wedding. After the marriage, as expected, we had spats and bitter conflicts on several occasions, Tej Pratap said and added he tried his best to save the marriage but could not. His friends, however, feel that Lalu may be able to broker peace between the couple. Differences crop up between couples. This is one such case, a friend accompanying him to Ranchi said. With just around six months of its term remaining, the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government is trying to make some progress in its ambitious labour reforms agenda which has meandered through several starts and stops. Senior government functionaries said the approach now will be to arrive at a consensus with other parties to push the legislative agenda and, simultaneously, sweeten the deal for worker unions, including Bharatiya Janata Party affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. On October 31, Nripendra Mishra, principal secretary to Modi held a high-level meeting with secretaries of some ministries and Niti Ayog officials to prepare a road map for the pending bills on labour reforms. The governments original plan was to translate 44 complex labour laws into four codeson Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security and Welfare, and Occupation Safety, Health and Working Conditions. Labour secretary Heeralal Samariya said: I am not in a position to disclose anything about the meeting. The government functionaries cited in the first instance said the discussions emphasized taking all stakeholders into confidence and holding discussions with states and trade unions to build a consensus around the need for labour reforms. Some states and trade unions perceive the codes as anti-labour and pro-industry, whereas the bills provide flexibility, social security and more bargaining power for workers, said an official present in the meeting. One of the functionaries added that the government may also look into expanding social security benefits and especially target workers with these. The meeting also discussed a proposal on free social security to certain sections of the workforce with the government paying the premiums on these. The Atal pension scheme, and the PMs life and accident insurance scheme could be tweaked as social security offerings for workers, this person added. At the same time, the officials also agreed on the need to push these reforms faster. India now ranks at 77 in the World Banks ease of doing business on Wednesday, improving by 23 places over its 2017 rank on the back of six major reforms. Labour reforms and amendments in land laws are the two crucial reforms that are stuck due to lack of political consensus. Niti Ayog and the labour ministry have been entrusted the task of talking to states and bringing them on board. Meetings with trade unions are also on the cards even as almost all of them are opposed to these codes. Out of the four codes, only the Wage Code bill has come in Parliament and is being reviewed by a Parliamentary panel. We have rejected some of the provisions of the bill. In principle, we are totally opposed to the proposed Industrial Relations code as it makes almost impossible to have a trade union, said CITU general secretary Tapan Sen. Ahead of chief minister Yogi Adityanaths visit to Ayodhya on November 6, the state government has initiated steps to select the architect and the design consultant for the worlds tallest statue of Lord Ram, which will be installed on the bank of the River Saryu in the temple town, an official said. The tender for selecting the architect and design consultant was floated and the shortlisted firms gave a presentation before the chief minister. Some changes were suggested and a fresh presentation will be made for the final selection, said a senior official of the Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam (UPRNN), who did not wish to be named. He said once the architect was finalised, the construction agency will be selected in the next step. The official said the statue will be 151-metre-tall and the pedestal below it will be 50 metre high, making the entire structure 201 metre in height. This statue will be the tallest among idols of deities in India, said Prof Pandeya Rajivanayan of the department of fine arts at the Dr Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University, Lucknow. He said idols of deities were usually not more than 50 metres in height. The Paritala Anjaneya Temple, 30 km from Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh, has a 41-metre tall statue of Lord Hanuman and the one coming up in Madapam is 176 feet tall (little over 53 metres). The Saryu river front, where the statue is planned, too will be developed to boost tourism. The announcement is likely to be made during the Deepotsav festivities to be organised in the coming week when the chief minister is likely to visit Ayodhya. South Korean first lady Kim Jung-sook will be the chief guest at the Deepotsav event in Ayodhya on November 6. The Ayodhya visit will be part of her India tour from November 4-7. For its part, the UP Rajkiya Nirman Nigam had floated the tender on September 25, inviting expression of interests from the firms for making a detailed project report on Saryu River front development and construction of Shri Ram Statue at Ayodhya UP. The estimated cost of the project is ?775 crore approximately. In all, five firms have been shortlisted for the design work. These firms are from Kochi, Greater Noida and Lucknow. The UP chief minister visited Gujarat on Friday and saw the Statue of Unity, which is the worlds tallest statue at present. A few officials of the UPRNN also went there with him. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), Indias flagship crop-insurance scheme which is counted as the worlds largest, is a big improvement over older schemes, but its improved features havent made it any easier to implement or motivated all states equally. These are some of the key findings of two first-time reviews of the scheme that tracked its performance since its launch in 2016. If the scheme is to achieve its most critical goal timely payouts to farmers it cant fly without a raft of high-end technological fixes, from drones to an entirely new constellation of satellites for accurate crop assessments, experts say. PMFBY has achieved a better design by merging multiple insurance schemes into one, simplifying norms and cutting down premiums, the evaluation shows. Its performance has varied widely between states. A more dramatic finding is that its success rates have varied even among districts within a state, pointing to local hurdles. Insurance is critical to protecting farm incomes in a country where 54% of the sown area lacks irrigation and 12 million hectares, on average, suffer annual weather shocks. It is also a literal life-saver at a time when parts of the country are in the grip of an agrarian crisis which has resulted in widespread protests and which could be one of the most significant issues in the coming state and general elections. The Narendra Modi-led goverment will likely tout the benefits of PMFBY as well as its efforts to double farm incomes by offering a support price for crops that is at least 50% over the state-calculated cost of production. The first study, Governance Analysis of the PMFBY by the Centre for Management in Agriculture of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) tracked the scheme till May 2018. The second by economists Ashok Gulati, Prerna Terway and Siraj Hussain of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) analysed it until 2016-17. India will need more cloud-penetrating satellites for faster crop-loss estimates. Setting up such a constellation of satellites would likely cost Rs 2,000 crore, assuming an average cost Rs 400 crore per satellite, according to Gulatis calculations. First off, the NDA governments crop insurance scheme scores for correcting a key flaw capping of sum insured in an earlier scheme, resulting in very low payouts but high premium, Gulati and his colleagues show in their work Supporting Indian Farms the Smart Way. Sum insured is the maximum amount an insurance firm is liable to pay. Removal of this cap has significantly increased sum insured in certain districts. For instance, in UPs Gorakhpur, the actuarial (premium) rate for maize in 2015 (before PMFBY) was 57%, while sum insured was Rs 8,415 per hectare. When PMFBY was implemented, the actuarial rate dropped to 4.22% and sum insured went up to Rs 12,096 per hectare. Still, the IIM-A review found little improvement in time-bound payments. Both ICRIER and IIM-A studies throw up state and district level disparities. Farmers in states that adhered to cut-off dates in rolling out the scheme each season experienced timely payments. But, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, which delayed the process till July, ended up paying higher premium rates of 20%. Bihar made a glaring error. It floated tenders when the state was already experiencing flooding in July 2016. As a result, the companies quoted very high actuarial rate of 17%, the section on crop insurance in Gulatis Supporting Indian Farms the Smart Way revealed. A nine-year-old girl was killed and three members of a nomadic family were injured in a landslide in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir while over 700 stranded commuters were rescued overnight from the snow-hit Jawahar tunnel area, officials familiar with the matter said. Heavy snowfall and rain has thrown life out of gear in the state with Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik ordering immediate restoration of essential services in the affected areas A Bakarwal family had set up a dera (tent accommodation) at Chatyar village near a shrine which came under a landslide triggered by incessant rains at around 11.30 pm Saturday, the police official said. Shabina Kousar died on the spot, while three members of her family were critically injured and were taken to a hospital. The Jammu-Srinagar national highway was opened for one-way traffic Sunday, a day after being closed due to heavy snowfall and landslides. The only all-weather road linking the Kashmir Valley with the rest of the country, was opened for traffic coming from Srinagar to Jammu after nine hours of clearance operations, officials familiar with the matter said. In a major overnight rescue operation, over 700 stranded passengers were evacuated from both sides of the Jawahar tunnel, a police spokesman said. According to , senior superintendent of police (SSP), Ramban, Anita Sharma the operation along the Jawahar tunnel, and Qazigund and Banihal-Ramban stretches was launched around 5 am on Sunday. The SSP said they were Jammu-bound commuters and were rescued from the Kashmir-side of the tunnel and the Verinag Zing area, where more than one-feet of snow had accumulated. In the night-long operation, police evacuated 700 stranded passengers from the Jawahar tunnel area. Passengers stranded at either side (of the tunnel) were evacuated, the spokesman said. The evacuated people, including tourists, were accommodated in shelter sheds, religious places and sarais in Banihals Nowgam and Gund areas, and in Qazigund, he said. In addition, 1,000 civilians, who were stuck in other parts of the highway, were also provided food and shelter in Banihal by police and the civil administration, the spokesman said. The SSP said stranded passengers who were evacuated from the Jawahar tunnel area and brought to Banihal late Saturday night, were allowed to move towards Jammu on Sunday. Snow clearance operation are still underway at some areas of the highway, Sharma said. Power supply was restored on Sunday to 90% of Srinagar city and most rural areas of the Kashmir after overnight heavy snowfall damaged transmission towers and snapped surface and air links with the rest of India. After an unprecedented Valley-wide breakdown, electricity supply was restored in 90 % areas of Srinagar and in nearly 70% rural areas, officials said. Due to transmission failures, our supply was on Saturday cut down to just 80MW. On Sunday we are supplying around 1,000MW. We are facing problems in south Kashmir areas where some of our transmission towers have been damaged. This will take a day or two for complete restoration, Hashmat Qazi, the Chief Engineer (Electric Maintenance) of Kashmir. Two suspected ultras carrying arms died after they were attacked by a mob in Cachar district of Barak Valley in Assam, police said. The incident happened in the Hari Nagar market around 15 kilometres from Assams border with Manipur on Saturday and comes days after five people were killed by suspected ULFA (I) insurgents in Tinsukia district, triggering tension in the state. State forces are on high alert after a shutdown call by local Bengali organisations protesting the killings in Tinsukia. The two men, who are yet to be identified, had stopped at the market and asked for directions to some place. But locals got suspicious on finding them carrying weapons. Cachar superintendent of police, Rakesh Roushan said the two attacked the villagers when they were asked about the weapons they were carrying in a bamboo basket. At around 11.15 am, we received a call that villagers have gheraoed two people, said Rakesh Reddy, additional superintendent of police, Cachar. By the time police arrived, the duo was badly injured. They were taken to Silchar Medical College and Hospital where they were declared dead on arrival. We have recovered two AK56 rifles, two Insas rifles, a Chinese light machine gun, a Chinese hand grenade, a 12 bore gun, and huge quantity of ammunition, Reddy said. The cache of weapons found on them has made us suspect that they were extremists, Reddy said. Two groups, NSCN(K) and Zeliangrong United Front are active in this area. The two may have been part of either of them, Roushan said. A new sculpture in honour of Indian soldiers who fought during World War I was unveiled on Sunday in the town of Smethwick in the West Midlands region of England on Sunday. Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick had commissioned the Lions of the Great War monument, which depicts a turbaned Sikh soldier, to honour the sacrifices made by millions of South Asian service personnel of all faiths who fought for Britain in the world wars and other conflicts as part of the British Indian Army. We are very proud to be bringing this memorial to Smethwick High Street to honour the sacrifice of all those brave men who travelled thousands of miles to fight for a country that wasnt their own, said Jatinder Singh, President of Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick. The 10-foot bronze statue was unveiled in Smethwick High Street to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I in November 1918, also referred as the Great War. The new Lions of the Great War monument has been placed between the High Street and Tollhouse Way in the town of Smethwick as part of a community project and collaboration between the gurdwara and the local Sandwell Council. The gurdwara donated around 20,000 pounds for the sculpture, with the council investing in creating the public space with seating and lighting to house the new monument. Its so important we remember the sacrifices made by people for our country, said Councillor Steve Eling, Leader of Sandwell Council. Designed by local West Midlands artist Luke Perry, the statue stands on a granite plinth with inscriptions naming the regiments in which South Asian soldiers served during the Great War. When I realised more than 1.5 million Indian soldiers had been sent to World War I, I just could not understand why their contribution had been ignored for so long in this country, said Perry. Indians of all religions fought in the war and we are such a diverse multicultural country in part because of the sacrifices they made, so this is a wonderful statement which will be perfect for the Commonwealth Games and everything they represent, he said, in reference to the 2020 Commonwealth Games to be held in Birmingham, just west of Smethwick. The unveiling of the statue this Sunday comes just a week before Armistice Day on November 11, marked annually in an elaborate wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in central London led by Queen Elizabeth II, as well as other smaller events around the country. Less than 24 hours after six-year-old tigress T1 said to have killed 13 people since June 2016 in the forest of was shot and killed by the forest department in Yavatmal, the Maharashtra forest department said killing the tigress was only half the job done. We cannot say the mission is complete because we have to take care of T1s cubs, said Virendra Tiwari, chief conservator of forest (Mantralaya), state forest department. They cannot be left in the wild. But they are not to be shot, only tranquillised and this needs to be done at the earliest to ensure their good health. Officials will try to tranquillise the cubs and keep them in captivity, he said. The move has left wildlife enthusiasts furious as they are mulling moving the Supreme Court to stop any more killings of wild animals in the region. Dr Jerryl A Banait, who had approached the Supreme Court and the Bombay high court in this matter, said, The frightened cubs are waiting for their mother to return. They are young, fragile and are currently starving. If tranquillised, they will not be able to withstand the sedative effect and succumb to it. The forest departments intention was never to tranquillise her. We will take the government head on and expose the real reason why Avni was killed, said Anand Siva, activist. Both Banait and Siva alleged forest department officials were giving forest land for industrial purposes. Locals claimed it was compensation for the land that led to killing of T1. These claims are baseless as those protesting this have lost every legal battle and even met the chief minister for it. However, nothing has happened,said a senior forest department officer. Amid the stand-off between the state government and devotees over the Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all ages to worship the hill temple Sabarimala in Pathanamthitta district will be opened for a one-day puja on Monday. The state government has reiterated its commitment to implement the SC verdict while several Hindu outfits have made it clear that they will prevent women aged between 10-50 years from entering the temple. Sensing trouble, police have clamped prohibitory orders at two base camps, Pamba and Nilakkal, and other areas near the shrine from Saturday night and deployed a posse of policemen. About 2,000 police personnel under an additional director general of police and two inspector generals have been lined up for security. Pathanamthitta collector PB Nooh said the district administration hasnt got any request from women to trek to the hilltop and if they come forward, police will give them protection. There were reports that five women lawyers who approached the high court two weeks ago for protection to enter the temple, may make it this time, but there is no confirmation. The shrine was opened for five days from October 17 for monthly pujas but it witnessed violent protests and at least a dozen young women made vain attempts to offer prayers amid police protection. At least, 543 cases have been registered in connection with violent protests and 3,701 people were arrested till Friday, according to police. Some journalists were also injured in violence. Opposition Congress and BJP have criticised prohibitory orders, saying instead of dousing passions, the government was provoking devotees with such measures. It is not proper to enforce prohibitory orders at a place of worship. The government has no business to interfere with the pilgrimage, said president of BJP state unit PS Sreedharan Pillai. The lone survivor of Thursdays suspected militant attack in Assams Tinsukia district said on Sunday that they were attacked because of their Bengali ethnicity. Five Bengali-speaking Hindus were gunned down by suspected ULFA(I) ultras in Bisonimukh village, Tinsukia, on Thursday. Why would they let off the two Nepalis who passed by on motorbike while we were lined up if their intention was not to target Bengalis?, asked Shodeb Namashudra, pointing to a small bridge at the entrance of the village where the killings took place. The deceased were cremated at the same spot on Friday. Namashudra claimed he survived because he dropped unconscious in a stream after a bullet grazed past his ear. A father and son, both Nepali speakers said they passed by the bridge on a motorbike on Thursday and the attackers let them off after a brief conversation in Hindi as to where they were coming from and where they were headed to. Minutes later the duo, who were headed to Dhola a few kilometres away, heard gunshots and ran into the Bisonimukh village out of fear. The police questioned one of them on Saturday. The attack has sprouted fear in the minds of the Bisonimukh villagers, majority of whom are Bengali-speaking Hindus. The vulnerability of their jati (or community) is now a frequent topic in conversations. Sunil Das, a marginal farmer who grows paddy and vegetables and whose brother Subal Das was one of the five victims said he now fears for his life. I am scared, he said. His brother, a father of six daughters, was still alive when Sunil rushed to the attack spot. All he said was take me to the hospital. There were two bullets in his legs and two more in his abdomen, Das said. They (pro-talk ULFA groups) have been saying they will kill Bengalis, for many days, said Subel Namashudra, one of the two brothers of Dhananjay Namashudra (not related to Shodeb), one of the five victims. We were not scared... Our names were there in the NRC too. Now suddenly the fear is back, he said. Everything seems to be about jati now, he said. Meanwhile, Dhananjay Kachari, a member of the dominant Kachari tribe in the region, said, What happened was bad, but they were not our people. They were Bengalis. This is a result of the provocations that have been going on since the NRC draft came out, said Lurin Jyoti Gogoi, general secretary All Assam Students Union, who visited Bisonimukh Saturday. The attack is a handiwork of people trying to foment trouble. Assam is struggling with a communal atmosphere. There is an attempt to widen the Assamese-Bengali, Hindu-Muslim faultlines. We need to stop these provocations, he said. Villagers crushed a tigress to death with a tractor in the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve on Sunday, hours after they said the animal mauled a 50-year-old man in Uttar Pradeshs Pilibhit district, according to officials. The incident, which took place in the Kishanpur sanctuary of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, came two days after hunters shot dead a tigress suspected of killing 13 people in Maharashtra. Animal rights activists are protesting over the recent killings of tigers, saying humans are trespassing into the habitat of the big cats, leading to increasing cases of man-animal conflict. Mahavir Kaujlagi, deputy director of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, said the villagers killed the tigress in a retaliatory attack. While we were busy in rushing the injured man to hospital, the villagers surrounded the big cat and crushed it to death under a tractor, he said. Fifty-year-old Devanand, who the villagers said was attacked by the tigress on Sunday morning, later succumbed to his injuries. Field director of the tiger reserve, Ramesh Kumar Pandey said action will be taken against those involved in the attack on the tigress. An FIR will be lodged under the Wildlife Protection Act and appropriate action taken. The killing of a tiger inside the protected area is a serious offence, he said, adding that the spot where the incident took place was located in the core zone of the reserve. Kaujlagi, who was monitoring the situation at the place of the incident, said: The carcass of the tigress has been recovered and the autopsy will be carried out under the NTCA (National Tiger Conservation Authority) guidelines on Monday. The tiger is Indias national animal and is categorised as a Schedule One species of endangered animals under the Wildlife Protection Act. While retaliatory attacks on tigers by villagers are common in areas where incidents of man-animal conflict are on the rise, the World Wildlife Fund says large-scale habitat destruction is a major long-term threat to the dwindling tiger population in India. As tigers continue to lose their habitat and prey species, they are increasingly coming into conflict with humans as they attack domestic animals and sometimes people. In retaliation, tigers are often killed by angry villagers, according to WWF. Experts say there is a need to respect the habitat of tigers, with only about 3,900 of them remaining across the world. A Trinamool Congress delegation led by Derek O Brien on Sunday met the families of the five people who were killed in Tinsukia district by suspected ULFA(I) militants two day ago. The leaders arrived in Dibrugarh district of Assam and went to Dhola village in Tinsukia where they met the bereaved families. They consoled the mourning family members and assured them of all support, according to tweets put out by the party. Trinamool leaders Derek OBrien and others console the relatives of a man who was killed in the attack on Thursday night. (Twitter/Trinamool Congress) Soon after the killing on Thursday night, Trinamool supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had wondered if the brutal attack was an outcome of recent NRC development. She had called for protest rallies in different parts of north and south Bengal including Siliguri and Kolkata against the brutal killings. The party had said on Friday that it would send a delegation to meet the families in Tinsukia. Several Bengali organisations have called for a 24-hour bandh in protest against the killing. A teenage girl undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Uttar Pradeshs Bareilly town was allegedly gang-raped at the facilitys intensive care unit (ICU) by a staffer and three unidentified men, the police said on Sunday. The 17-year-old girl was raped on Wednesday night, a day after she was admitted to the ICU after being bitten by a venomous insect, according to the complaint filed by her father. The girl was not in a condition to speak or call for help at the time of the incident. But she informed her relatives about it when she was transferred to the general ward on Friday. According to the complaint, the accused raped the girl in her bed inside the ICU. The bed has long curtains around it, and that apparently blocked the view of other staff, said Bareilly superintendent of police Abhinandan Singh. The police have registered a first information report (FIR) and launched an investigation. Singh said two police teams are looking for Sunil Sharma, a helper at the hospital, and the other three, who are on the run. The accused have been charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act. The hospital management denied the rape. There were other patients and at least three staff members inside the ICU on Wednesday. None of them have corroborated the claims of the minor girl, read an official response from the hospital. It added that hospital authorities will cooperate with the police investigation. The teenager was taken for a medical examination on Saturday. Investigators have sent the clothes she was wearing at the time of the incident for forensic tests. Our teams are speaking to other patients and staff regarding the incident for our investigation, Singh said. This was the second such incident in Uttar Pradesh in less than a month. On October 15, a ward boy and a trainee pharmacist allegedly raped a teenager at the district hospital in Bagpat. The accused have been arrested and they are undergoing trial. Following the Supreme Court order restricting the sale of firecrackers in residential areas during Diwali, the state government has issued a circular with guidelines for both, selling and bursting crackers in the city and state. As per the directive, police have been instructed to take immediate action against those found violating the regulations. The state government issues circulars before every major festival, listing the guidelines that are to be implemented, said a senior police officer. In 2016, the time frame for bursting firecrackers was from 6pm to 10pm. This year, it is from 8pm to 10pm. The officer added that based on a 2017 Bombay high court order, which imposed a ban on the sale of firecrackers in residential areas across the state, the government has also cancelled licences previously given to shopkeepers selling crackers in residential areas. Typically, when youngsters light firecrackers in the open space between two residential buildings they disturb the residents. By the time the police are informed and reach the spot, the perpetrators manage to escape, the officer noted. Police keep patrolling residential areas and also monitor CCTV footage to track those violating the rules. We are focused on police presence and visibility in crowded places to prevent street crime as well as to make sure that people follow the governments guidelines about lighting crackers, said a senior Indian Police Service officer. Amitabh Gupta, principal secretary (home), said, We have issued orders to the district authorities and commissionerates for the implementation of the SC order. Aside from the time restrictions, we have also directed the police to act against illegal sale and violation of rules related to trade of fireworks. However, environment minister Ramdas Kadam hinted to HT that there is still some ambiguity regarding the mode of implementing the SC order. I had spoken to chief minister (CM) Devendra Fadnavis to take a call regarding the timings with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray as it is a sensitive issue, he said, adding later that he was yet to receive any response from the CM in this regard. Diwali is traditionally a festival of lights Diwali is traditionally a festival of lights and not of colours as painted in the later period. Earlier, people celebrated the festival by lighting lamps (diyas) and later artificial lights were adopted in various forms. So, lighting a lamp for some time is an optimal way of celebrating Diwali. I am living away from my family to pursue studies, but I will be lighting a diya and celebrate an eco-friendly Diwali with my friends. People should not use the Supreme Court order which allows two-hour window for firecrackers to pollute the already polluted air, instead think of it as means to stop adding to the pollution. - Vikrant Patil Make Diwali a festival of lights, music, sweets and worship, sans crackers As a family, we have avoided burning crackers since the past many years. Even our children are sensitised on the ill-effects of burning firecrackers and encouraged to make the Diwali festival pollution-free by not bursting rockets and bombs. We focus instead on sweets like ladu bomb, anarsa chakra, shankar ladi and Karanji anar; lighting; music; colours and eco-friendly celebrations. Though the sound and sight of a burning anar (flowerpot cracker) or a dazzling rocket bring a sense of joy and takes us to our childhood days, the present reality is that these can only be used rarely because of environmental concerns. Obsessive use of crackers as an icon of joy is spoiling the air quality and is harmful to us. Yet, we need celebrations too, as the festival is a source of joy. So even if personal use of crackers is completely banned, it would be nice on the part of authorities to provide some space for a public fireworks display for the citizens to take part and watch at a given day and time. We can have the celebrations sans the widespread nuisance. Till such time that this happens, lets all personally refrain from burning crackers. Lets give first priority to the air we breathe...to our very life lets make this Diwali a festival of lights, music, sweets and worship.- Nitin Pradhan Doing my bit to make festival green Diwali is a festival of lights and one of the most popular festivals of Hindus. The festival symbolises the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. It is all about lighting lamps, home decorations, family gatherings, cultural events, shopping, prayers, gifts, feast and sweets and last but not least fireworks. In the past three decades, India prospered in global economy and demography. We also moved away from traditional joint family to nuclear set up and the change reflects on the way we celebrate festivals. As far as celebration goes, we must follow our tradition. Im going to decorate my bungalow with flower garlands, lanterns, diyas, rangoli, good food-feast-sweets and of course evening celebration with a few fireworks like anar (flowerpot cracker), chakra and fulzadi (sparklers). Im concerned about the environment, hence have reduced my budget for fireworks to one-fourth. Im doing my bit to make every Diwali green, in my own way. I wish all my dear citizens, a very happy and prosperous Diwali! Joy to you all. - Mandar Raravikar It is a peaceful family time for us I have never been a person keen on bursting firecrackers and, surprisingly, my children have also developed a distaste for the pollution it causes. For us, its a simple and peaceful family time, when we either plan a small road trip or involve ourselves in a collective activity. Diwali being a prominent festival, this aspect of collectively working as a family begins a week or two early, when we start to thoroughly clean the house. Every year, it was usually me and my husband, but this year surprisingly the children also volunteered. At the end of the day, it is this time which means more than any loud and sparkling ways of celebrations. Post the cleaning, we also got together to make our own eco-friendly paper lanterns and decorations. On Diwali, my 16-year-old son has planned a trip to the nearby orphanage where we will be spending the entire day with kids and have a grand feast. Green being the colour of nature and nourishment involves all these aspects in my opinion. - Preeti Sinha Burst safe and eco-friendly firecrackers The Supreme Courts stricture to limit the pollution is praiseworthy and I will be complying to it and would also encourage my friends and loved ones to do so. While lighting candles and lamps (diyas) along with the elaborate decorations have been a prominent feature of the festival, firecrackers have taken the majority of the prominence over the years. And I somehow do not seem to understand the latter. I have always felt that burning firecrackers was similar to burning money for that matter, and never really participated in it. But, you can never completely ban something which is so enjoyable to the majority. So, finding a midway is the key. I recently read reports of safe and eco-friendly firecrackers which seem to be a rather great invention to make this midway possible. But, such inventions if not marketed properly usually end up reaching to the elite minority and not the masses. If such a thing is available, the government should make sure that they are sold at reasonable rates to the masses, so that it can have a positive impact. - Rahul Joshi Burning firecrackers scare animals This year, like every year, I am not going to burn crackers. I stopped doing it for the past three years. This was after I noticed how all the animals in my society would be scared. I have also requested my friends and neighbours to not burn crackers. It is very unfortunate that we succumb to the pressures of celebration with such unnecessary means. Diwali should be about spending time with family and eating good food. I have also asked my mom not to use plastic or any environment-harming substances in our decorations. - Pravya Shetty Crackers are harmful to the environment and cause pollution I have decided not to burn crackers or buy any plastic or non-eco-friendly items during the festival this year. Instead, I have requested my parents to use the money allocated for these things on something else. I plan to buy clothes and sweets for my house helps kids. Crackers are harmful to the environment and cause pollution, so I am not going to promote the use of it. My friends and I will just gather, exchange sweets and have a nice time instead. - Shaurya Mohite Four retired and an on-duty IPS officer are knocking at the Congress doors for the party ticket to contest the assembly elections, to be held on December 7. Among them are retired IPS officer IG Hari Prasad Sharma, who in the past has hold important positions in different police ranges and districts. Sharma, who took voluntarily retirement four days back, has submitted his candidature from the Phulera assembly constituency falling under Jaipur rural. Born in Renwal village of Phulera town, Sharma claims that he has been serving the people for the past 20 years. There are fewer chances that I will get offer from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP); thats why I am demanding ticket from the Congress, he said, adding that for him serving the people of the town is more important. Another IPS officer Madan Meghwal, currently posted as superintendent of police at the crime branch of Rajasthan police, is also keen to fight on a Congress ticket from Khajulwala constituency. Meghwal said: A government servant has to serve between the lines, while a public servant frames those lines. If my name is announced, I am ready to take voluntary retirement from the services. IPS officer Sawai Singh Choudhary, who retired from the post of DIG , training, is also preparing to contest the polls from Nagaur. Son of ex-MLA from Nagaur, Maharam Choudhray, Singh said the history will be repeated. My father in past defeated Hazi Mohammad, the father of current MLA Habibur Khan and I will defeat Habibur Khan in the coming elections, he said. Liaquat Ali Khan, a retired IPS officer and former chairman of the state waqf board, is also preparing to contest the elections from Mandawa. He expressed confidence of winning the elections. After retiring from the post of IGP in 2006, I joined Congress in 2007 and from then I have dedicated my life for the people , Khan said. Retired IPS officer Ramdev Singh Khairwa said he is also fighting on the Congress ticket for Khandela seat. It has always been my motive to infuse the political consciousness among people of Khandela along with encouraging the tradition of joint family, Khairwa said. Opposing Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidus move to ally Telugu Desam Party with the Congress, the widow of party founder N T Rama Rao has, in an unusual gesture, asked the late leader to take reincarnation to restore the self-respect of Telugu people, which had been mortgaged with the Congress bosses in Delhi. Nandamuri Lakshmi Parvathi placed her letter at Raos Samadhi on the banks of Hussainsagar lake in Hyderabad, before staging a silent sit-in in protest against Naidu joining hands with Congress president Rahul Gandhi a couple of days ago. In the letter, Lakshmi Parvathi regretted that the TDP founded by NTR with the lofty ideal of upholding the self-respect of Telugu people was surrendered to the same Congress which he had strongly opposed till his last breath. I still remember your words explaining the reasons which compelled you to give up your 35 years of career in films and take up the responsibility of rescuing Andhra Pradesh from the clutches of corrupt Congress, she said. NTR, a popular Telugu actor, is still revered as a god by the Telugu people because of the mythological roles of Lord Krishna, Rama and Vishnu, he had played in the films. Mentioning about his revolutionary welfare schemes like providing rice at Rs 2 per kg to the poor, total prohibition in the state, 33% reservation to women in local bodies, etc., she noted that even when he had lost power in 1989, he had not compromised on your principles and had not joined hands with any other party for the sake of power. And you bounced back to power in 1994 with a thumping majority. It was unfortunate that his son-in-law Naidu, who had usurped power (of the party) from him through deceit in August 1994, had completely destroyed the fabric of the party and given a go-by to its fundamental principle of opposing the Congress. I just could not control my tears on coming to know how Naidu had knelt down before the Congress president for an opportunistic alliance, she said, appealing him to take reincarnation and rescue Telugu people. I dont know in which form you take re-birth. Or infuse your spirit into a sincere leader to restore the ideals which you had fought for. I strongly wish the Telugu people would be able to live with their heads held high with self-respect and prestige again, she wrote. After the death of her husband, Lakshmi Parvathi had floated a separate political party NTR Telugu Desam Party in 1996 and got elected to the state assembly from Srikakulam district. She, however, could not sustain the party and finally merged it with YSR Congress party in 2012. Senior TDP leader and one of the founder-members of the party Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, however, said NTR had established the TDP not against any particular party but against the system prevailing at that time. In the present circumstances, Naidu has decided to join hands with the Congress to restore the democracy and Constitutional values in the country, he explained. Dozens of Yemeni rebels have been killed in battles and air strikes in Hodeida, medics said on Sunday, as pro-government forces advanced in the insurgent-held Red Sea port city. Fifty-three Huthi rebels were killed and dozens were injured over the past 24 hours, medical sources in the area told AFP. According to a pro-government military source, clashes intensified in Hodeida city and centred around its university on Saturday and Sunday morning. Saudi-led coalition warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes to support pro-government forces in the fighting which began on Thursday evening, according to military officials. Thirteen pro-government troops were killed, medical sources in Aden and Mokha where the fighters were transported told AFP. The clashes erupted just hours after the government said on Thursday it was ready to restart peace talks with the Iran-backed Huthis. The offer followed a surprise call by the United States for an end to the Yemen war, including air strikes by the coalition. Hodeida port is the entry point for more than 70 percent of imports into the impoverished country, which is teetering on the edge of famine. After UN-backed peace talks collapsed in September, the coalition announced it was relaunching an assault on Hodeida. Yemeni government officials said Tuesday that the coalition had sent more than 10,000 new troops towards the battleground city. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the war in 2015 to bolster Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the rebels took over the capital Sanaa. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 2015. Some rights groups estimate the toll could be five times higher. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for a halt to violence to pull Yemen back from the precipice. The Islamic State group killed 12 US-backed fighters in a surprise attack Sunday from the jihadists holdout in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border, a Britain-based monitor said. Twelve fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide car bombing and subsequent clashes in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. An SDF spokesman, however, denied any members of his Kurdish-led alliance had been killed. There are counter-attacks every day and the clashes are ongoing, but the talk of martyrs among our ranks is not true, Mustefa Bali said. According to Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman, Sundays attack started with a car bomb driven by a suicide attacker against an SDF position between Hajin and Al-Bahra. The attack allowed IS to advance towards Al-Bahra from its holdout around Hajin, and push back the first lines of defence of the SDF, which is backed by the US-led coalition, the Observatory said. The SDF, with the support of coalition air strikes, in September launched an offensive to wrest the Deir Ezzor pocket including Hajin from IS, making slow advances. But the alliance suffered a major setback as they retreated last week from the entire pocket after IS suicide bombings and low visibility due to sand storms. Last Wednesday, the SDF suspended its fight against the jihadists after Turkish forces fired on the groups positions in northern Syria. The coalition estimates that 2,000 IS fighters remain in the Hajin pocket. A total of more than 360,000 people have been killed since Syrias multi-front war erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. Sri Lankas main Tamil party on Sunday urged the president to reconvene parliament and end a worsening political crisis, as the minority ethnic community emerged as kingmakers in the power struggle. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) could tip the balance should parliament be recalled this week to decide between two rivals both claiming the lawful right to head Sri Lankas government. Sri Lanka has been gripped by constitutional turmoil since president Maithripala Sirisena sacked his former ally, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and his cabinet on October 26. Also Read: Sacked Sri Lankan PM Ranil Wickremesinghes residence becomes symbol of power struggle Wickremesinghe says his dismissal was illegal as he commands a greater majority in parliament than Mahinda Rajapakse, the former strongman president controversially installed in his place. The TNA has already said it would vote against Rajapakse in a no-confidence motion when parliament reconvenes. Both rivals have been marshalling numbers behind the scenes, worrying civil society groups who protested Sunday in the capital Colombo against the horse-trading. Also Read: Ousted Sri Lankan PM Ranil Wickremesinghe says time running out to avert bloodbath TNA legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan said the president had called the Tamil legislators to a meeting on Wednesday -- the same day parliament was expected to reconvene. We have asked the president to immediately call parliament and end this crisis, TNA legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan told AFP. Wickremesinghes party risks losing legislators to Rajapakses camp as the days drag by. Some members of his party have already alleged they were offered portfolios and huge amounts of money to switch allegiances. Six MPs have already switched sides and been granted portfolios under Rajapakses new administration. The Sunday Times of Colombo newspaper described the sacking of the prime minister as sheer political expediency and outside the law. The state-run Sunday Observer, now controlled by Rajapakse-loyalists, defended the change of government but acknowledged the crisis should be resolved. According to latest counts, Wickremesinghe has 103 MPs from the 225-seat assembly while Rajapakse and Sirisena have 101. Most of the remaining 21 MPs -- including the TNA -- are set to oppose Rajapakse, observers said. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) party, which has seven lawmakers, said its members had also rejected offers to join the Sirisena-Rajapakse camp. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) China appreciates Pakistans quest for peace and its efforts to improve ties with India through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, Beijing said on Sunday in a Sino-Pakistan joint statement that once again underscored the strategic partnership between the two countries. The joint statement, released during the ongoing visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, did not specifically mention the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir, but spoke about outstanding disputes between the two countries and the importance of a stable South Asia. It also touched upon Chinas backing for Pakistan to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a group of countries that control trade in nuclear technology. Beijing has repeatedly prevented India from joining NSG. Khan and President Xi Jinping agreed to expand the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects under which are ongoing inside Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). New Delhi opposes the projects on the grounds that it violates Indias territorial sovereignty. India has never endorsed the Xi Jinping-led Belt and Road Initiative the multi-billion dollar connectivity project under which CPEC is a flagship venture. Beijing has maintained the CPEC projects are economic ventures and not targeted against any third country. Both sides (China and Pakistan) believe that a peaceful, stable, cooperative and prosperous South Asia is in the common interest of all parties. Both sides emphasised the importance of pursuit of dialogue and resolution of all outstanding disputes to promote regional cooperation and advance the goals of lasting peace, stability and shared prosperity, the statement said. China appreciates Pakistans quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation, and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistans efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries, it added. Diplomats and leaders of both countries have previously described them as iron brothers. Praising Pakistans anti-nuclear proliferation record, Beijing said it supports Islamabads engagement with the NSG and the joint statement indirectly criticised those countries supporting India in its quest to get NSG membership . They [China and Pakistan] noted with concern the continued pursuit of double standards in the application of non-proliferation norms and procedures and called for policies upholding rule of law and long-standing rules, the statement said. China appreciates and supports steps taken by Pakistan for strengthening the global non-proliferation regime. In this context, China supports Pakistans engagement with the NSG and welcomes its adherence of NSG Guidelines, it added. On the terror front, Beijing conveyed its support to Pakistans commitment and efforts to counter terrorism, assured Pakistan of its support in implementing its counterterrorism strategy, and commended the tremendous sacrifices made by the Pakistani nation in fight against terrorism and for Pakistans immense contribution to regional and international peace and security through its achievements and successes. In another indirect reference to India, the joint statement said both sides underscored the need for all States to avoid politicisation of the UN Sanctions regime and the work of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body set up to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. In June, India welcomed the FATFs move to place Pakistan on the grey list for failing to curb anti-terror financing despite Islamabads diplomatic effort to avoid being put on the list. China has also blocked Indias efforts to list Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist under the UN sanctions regime. The joint statement elaborated on the overall agreements reached between the two countries about expanding CPEC, setting up a foreign ministers strategic dialogue mechanism and strengthening cooperation between China and Pakistan in several sectors including social sectors. During the visit, Khan delivered a speech at the Party School of the Communist Party of Chinas Central Committee and was the chief guest at the First China International Import Expo in Shanghai. https://www.aish.com/ci/s/Joachim-Ronnenberg-Stopping-Hitlers-Nuclear-Ambitions.html The daring raid on the Nazis secret nuclear facility in Norway. It was one of them most daring raids of World War II. As Hitler raced to build the ultimate weapon, an atomic bomb, Allied efforts to thwart his plans were unsuccessful. A raid on the Nazis nuclear factory failed spectacularly in 1942 with the loss of 35 men. Terrified that Hitler would succeed in building a bomb, Churchill ordered one final, daring attack. The odds were impossibly long. The Nazis secret nuclear facility was hidden on a remote mountain in Telemark, a region in southeastern Norway. The former fertilizer plant was producing heavy water, or deuterium oxide, a critical component of nuclear weapons. The only current map of the facility was an aerial photo taken at a height of 4,000 meters. It showed an impassable gorge and river blocking access to the plant. The access road was a single suspension bridge that was heavily guarded. Snow and ice blanketed the area and the raid was scheduled to take place in the depths of winter. Lt. Joachim Ronnenberg Lt. Joachim Ronnenberg, 23, was chosen as the team leader. Just a few years earlier, hed been living with his parents in his hometown of Alesund, working as a fisherman. While many of his fellow Norwegians collaborated with their Nazi rulers, Joachim and a group of friends decided to take a stand, slipping out of Norway one night on a fishing boat headed to Scotland. Joachim later described leaving Norway to report for duty as the most important decision he made during the war. Once in Britain, he contacted the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret organization Churchill had established to coordinate sabotage missions behind enemy lines. In 1942, Joachim was asked to choose a team of men to plan and carry out an assault on the plant. They would be completely alone. No air strikes would back them up, as the heavy water was being made in a basement workshop that was fortified against bombs. No Allied forces would be available to aid the commandos overland either; the nearest troops were hundreds of miles away. Joachim and his team of 11 men spent months planning and training. On a rare day off, Joachim decided to go to the movies and for a drink in Cambridge. As he wandered around town, Joachim went into a hardware store and impulsively bought a pair of heavy duty metal cutters. It was those cutters which allowed Joachim to open the heavy lock on the plants side gate, once the group realized that the saw given to them by their British trainers would have been too slow and too loud to use without alerting Nazi guards. The Hardanger Fjord In October 1942, the first half of the group parachuted into Nazi-occupied Norway, landing on the remote Hardangervidda Mountain Plateau, about 40 miles from Telemark and the heavy water enrichment facility. They survived for months, eating Arctic moss and the meat and stomach contents of reindeer. In February 1943, a second group, including Joachim, landed. They parachuted into the the worst blizzard theyd ever seen, an indication of how difficult it would be to cross Norways rugged countryside and reach the remote nuclear plant. The heavy water plant (the front building) in 1935 The teams met up, full of determination despite the nearly impossible conditions. They each carried a cyanide pill to swallow in case they were captured. The team skied to Telemark, avoiding the roads, and traveled only at night. They finally reached the plant on the night of February 27, 1943, and realized anew how difficult their mission would be. The Special Operations Executive team. Joachim Ronneberg is bottom right Steep mountainsides rose starkly up 1,000 feet from the Mana River. The plant was located on a shallow plateau midway up the far slope. The only way into the front of the plant was along a narrow suspension bridge that was heavily guarded. The back entrance was blocked by a wire fence with railroad tracks and German barracks nearby. Nazi guards patrolled the area. Joachim later recalled that many of his team often thought that this was a one way trip and they would never be able to destroy the nuclear facility, let alone escape afterwards. The small group of commandos watched the guards movements. There was no plan for how to enter Joachim later explained. We were just hoping for the best. After observing the troop movements, they settled on trying to enter the plant via the rear. They waited until after midnight, then travelled 75 yards up the Mana River and, as quietly as they could, climbed down the steep snow-covered banks, clinging to wild bushes and shrubs to prevent themselves plunging into the icy water below. When they reached the bottom, the men crossed the river on an ice bridge and began the slow ascent through waist-deep snow up the other side. There, the men walked to the base of the plant and split into groups. Joachim and three other commandos waited until the guards turned a corner on their rounds, then ran to the gate and cut the heavy padlock with the metal cutters hed brought from Cambridge. Joachim and a second commando, Fredrik Kayser, split off from the others and entered a small ventilation duct in the wall. They squeezed into the tiny space, dragging backpacks filled with equipment behind them. Once inside the building, Joachim and Fredrik followed the passageway into the very heart of the heavy water laboratory. They recognized the 18 steel cylinders in the factory as heavy water containers from their training back in England. The room was guarded by only one soldier. Pointing his gun, Joachim asked that the lone guard not make any noise, and succeeded in gaining his cooperation without firing a shot. Working quickly, Joachim and Fredrik, then two other team members whod broken a window to gain access to the plant, started attaching explosives to the heavy metal containers and other machinery. When the time came to set the fuses, Joachim made a split second decision. Hed been given long fuses by his handlers back in Britain. These would take two minutes to burn and were designed to give the team ample time to flee. Joachim cut the fuses so theyd detonate in just 30 seconds; he wanted to be close enough to hear the bang and know wed done our job. With only moments to spare, the commandos retraced their steps out of the plant and regrouped outside. They heard the explosions and ran away in time to evade the Nazi guards. As the commandos regrouped, they donned skis and began a desperate escape over Norways rugged mountains in the height of winter. 2,800 Nazi soldiers fanned out over the countryside looking for the saboteurs. They were never found. Joachim and his team skied 280 miles through mountains and forests to the Swedish border and safety. Hitler tried to restart his nuclear program, but never succeeded. The Telemark plant was rebuilt but bombed by the Allies in an aerial raid in November 1943. Hitler ordered the nuclear program moved to Germany but resistance fighters sank the ferry carrying the equipment and the remains of heavy water supply. Germany never succeeded in creating a bomb. Joachim learned the importance of the plant hed destroyed only after the war. Hed been told it was producing heavy water, but didnt realize the significance of the term. The first time I heard about atomic bombs and heavy water was after Americans dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he later explained. At once, he realized that if his mission hadnt succeeded, London might have been bombed by Germany and ended up looking like Hiroshima. SOE official historian Michael Foot explained the raid changed the course of the war and that the commandos who pulled it off deserved the gratitude of humanity. After the war, Joachim returned to Alesund and pursued a career as a journalist and administrator with Norways public broadcasting company. For decades, he refused to talk about his daring 1943 raid, but that changed in the 1970s as he became worried that younger generations were forgetting the lessons of World War II. A statue of Joachim Ronnenberg, in Alesand, Norway There is a lot of talk about never again, Joachim explained, but this is impossible if we dont remember what happened back then. Joachim was horrified that many of the Norwegian scientists who worked on the Nazis nuclear project never faced charges for their actions and went on careers in Norsk Hydro, the prestigious company that had owned the plant and had cooperated openly with Hitler. Despite his speaking out, the scientists who collaborated on the project were never held accountable. It ought to be obvious to people that peace and freedom have to be fought for, Joachim warned. Politicians seem to have forgotten this. Joachim Ronnenberg was the last surviving member of the raid. He recently died at the age of 99 in Alesand, Norway. Ariana Grande is a force to be reckoned with. Despite the fact her successful album Sweetener was released in August, the songstress is already in the studio working on her next. In a twitter exchange with fans, Grande discussed the inspiration behind the forthcoming project which she declared will be named, Thank U, Next. Responding to a fan who inquired whether Thank U, Next would be the name of an album or track, she tweeted "Issa song and an album... youll get the song first." It did not take long for Ariana's legion of supporters to draw a connection between the name of the album and previous videos of Ariana uttering the phrase "thank you, next." A fan addressed Grande writing, "wow [Ariana], youve been teasing Thank U, Next for years," linking to a video of Ariana using the phrase in an interview dating years back. Grande went on the share that she was influenced by her friend Victoria Monet. "This [is] what happens when u write an album w your best friends lol," she wrote. "They dig up all your old sayings and it ends up becoming the album title lmao." Earlier this week, Ariana criticized her ex-boyfriend Pete Davidson and commented "thank you, next" under a video of Davidson referencing their relationship in a Saturday Night Live clip. Could the comment have been a subtle allusion to Ariana's up and coming project? What would you like to see on Thank U, Next? Teachers at an elementary school in Idaho were recently photographed dressed as the controversial border wall often referenced by President Donald Trump for Halloween. The phrase Make America Great Again was emblazoned across the Middleton Heights Elementary School teachers' politically-charged ensemble. In other images, the teachers were depicted clad in stereotypical Mexican garb complete with maracas, sombreros, and black mustaches. The aforementioned photographs have been widely circulated online and become the subject of immense of backlash. Sarah Mervosh of the New York Times writes that the costume served to "[exacerbate] a racial divide in a state that is predominantly white but where Hispanic people are the largest minority group." According to the New York Times, Josh J. Middleton, superintendent of Middleton School District, has announced that the school district is investigating the incident. In a Facebook video posted on Friday, Middleton revealed, Do I think there was a malicious intent in this poor decision? No, I dont. Was there a poor judgment involved? Absolutely. He went on to express feeling, deeply troubled by the decision by our staff members to wear those costumes that are clearly insensitive and inappropriate. More than 350 guests donned their black-tie best for the recent Crime Stoppers of Houston gala at the Hyatt Regency Hotel downtown, but it was the dynamic duos chairs Bashar and Brigitte Kalai and Ajay and Sippi Khurana who helped the event raise a record-breaking $473,000 for the organization. Veteran newsman Dave Ward welcomed guests, followed by KPRC (Channel 2) anchor Dominique Sachse, who emceed the night. The evening honored Joanne King Herring for her passion and commitment to humanitarian causes, including partnering with Crime Stoppers to help fight human trafficking. Joanna Coles, the former chief content officer of Hearst Magazines who sits on the national board of Snapchat, delivered a keynote about the impact of technology on youth, including her own children. NBC's "Saturday Night Live" mocked the appearance of Dan Crenshaw, a Republican running for Texas' 2nd Congressional District, on Saturday by suggesting he looked like "a hit man in a porno movie" and downplaying his injury sustained in war. Crenshaw, who wears an eyepatch over the right eye he lost from an IED blast in Afghanistan, came up during the show's "Weekend Update" segment. Cast member Pete Davidson, ticking through a list of midterm candidates, arrived at Crenshaw, whose head shot appeared on-screen. History books dont have entries about Chee Bo Eng CTol. Born in Honolulu at the tail end of the 19th century, she was one of the first Chinese American residents to settle Houston, where she set up a shop in the Fifth Ward and made a difference in ways small and large. She gets no parades or statues. Just a humble headstone at Forest Park Lawndale, a cemetery on the citys east side, where her neighbors include other influential if under-celebrated female civic leaders, like Maria Ninfa Rodriguez Laurenzo (Mama Ninfa), who opened the original Ninfas restaurant on Navigation, and Dominiqu De Menil, who founded the Rothko Chapel and Menil Collection. Womens stories have often been lost, because they have not been recorded, Betty Trapp Chapman said on Saturday afternoon, as she sat in the front seat of a luxury bus, shuttling a few dozen Houstonians around to the citys historic graveyards for cemetery tours to deepen their understanding of how many of Houstons long-lost female residents helped shape the citys culture. Women in the 19th and early 20th century were much less likely to have jobs outside the domestic sphere than their husbands, and they couldnt own property. Because of this, womens stories arent often found in public records. And because they were less likely to be literate than men, it can be hard to find their domestic lives chronicled in diaries as well. So much has been lost to time. But Chapman has spent decades writing women back into Houstons history. Weve realized that we need to know these stories, she said. So this year, when it came time for Archaeology Now and the Houston History Alliance to plan their sixth-annual cemetery tour on the weekend of Halloween, organizers decided to focus on stories of women that might otherwise be overlooked by the typical history buff. On Saturday, the group visited both Forest Park Lawndale and College Memorial Park Cemetery, one of the citys oldest burying grounds for black residents, founded in 1896. It sounded like the perfect afternoon to Christopher Lo, who drove up from League City for the tour. We came last year, and I realized that Ive lived here for 24 years, and though I knew some of the names, I didnt know the history of the people, he said. And Ive always been interested in this kind of history. He and others visited the graves of eight women over the course of the day, hearing stories from both historians and descendants. At CTols grave, her daughter Mae Jean Chan spoke about what it was like when her mother first came to Houston. The Chinese in 1932 did well in three places: Restaurants, laundry and grocery. My family chose grocery, and they heard of a town called Houston that was great for new starters, Chan said. She told of how her mother moved first to the Third Ward, then to the Fifth Ward, where they primarily served black and Jewish families, taking great efforts to learn everyones names. She wanted the store to be a part of the fabric of the community. We were a neighbor, a friend, and then a shopkeeper, she said. When CTols Jewish neighbors needed someone to record donations at their temple on the high holy days, they called upon CTol. My mom was a visionary. She said that she and my father would be shopkeepers, then me and my sisters would be teachers. Our children would be professionals. And their children would go into public service, Chan said. Three generations into this vision, Chan reported its going just as planned. That sentiment - women building a strong foundation for the next generation - was repeated throughout the day. Across town, at the grave of Pinkie Yates, Yates great niece Martha Whiting-Goddard shared this same conviction. Pinkie Yates is buried alongside her father John Yates, who was born in slavery and became a highly respected pastor in Houston. Born in 1879, Pinkie Yates attended Spelman Seminary in Atlanta and became an educator, carrying her fathers torch in the quest to build up Houstons black community through education. She became a second-grade teacher, working for more than two decades before she went blind. The Yates family has a saying, according to Whiting-Goddard: When you teach a child, you touch the future. Pinkie Yates subscribed to that ideal wholeheartedly, but as one of several children who became educators, she wasnt alone in that quest. She and her sisters teamed up with neighbors to help plant seeds of prosperity in their community. Women in Houston have always worked together to get what they needed, said Whiting-Goddard. Because thats the kind of place Houston is. Just a few feet away from the Yates plot, where 12 family members are buried, Annie Pruett Butler Hagan is laid to rest. Born in 1863, she arrived to Houston with only 50 cents in her purse in 1889. But she was a skilled nurse and founded the first nurses training club for black women. Theres no record of how many nurses she trained, or how many hundreds of lives the network she created saved. But the folks that run the cemetery are sure it was substantial. Think of all the women who stand on her shoulders, Archaeology Now Executive Director Becky Lao said as she stood next to Hagans grave. maggie.gordon@chron.com; twitter.com/MagEGordon The small, single engine Piper Lance was somewhere over Lake Conroe when Joseph Pantoja placed his hands on the control stick. He checked the bewildering array of gauges while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the horizon. You did such a good job going around the lake. Youre the best co-pilot Ive ever flown with, airplane owner Wyn Croston said from the left seat. Not bad for a 9-year-old. SERVING MORE: Woodlands school for children with autism looks to expand On Saturday, Joseph and his mother, Susana Pantoja of Cypress, had about 30 minutes of flight time as part of Challenge Air, a Dallas-based program started in 1993 to change the perception of children with special needs through the gift of flight. Joseph, who is diagnosed with autism, and other children with special needs crowded into the hanger that day at Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport. He seemed a bit wary at first, but his mother said that was just his manner. Im a little nervous but hes thrilled, she said. When he grows up, he wants to be a pilot. This is right up his alley. The organization was founded by Rick Amber, a combat Naval aviator who became a paraplegic after a crash off the coast of Vietnam. Amber died in May 1997. Today, the organization he founded has a network of 3,500 volunteers nationwide who volunteer their time, effort and airplanes for events called Fly Days. We give special-needs kids and their families discovery flights around Lake Conroe. Were hoping to bolster their self esteem through flight, said Kevin Griffin, chairman of the Challenge Air program in Conroe. We reach out to the special needs communities, we reach out to airports, we reach out to the pilots. Its all staff work. We have people from all over the Houston area come up for this. The program gives kids the opportunity to look past their own particular challenges - whether physical or emotional - through the experience of flight, Griffin said. They will realize that if they can fly in an airplane, there are a lot of things they can do, he said. Theyre not limited by their own particular special needs. Before and after their flights, the kids walked down a red carpet and cheered on by a crowd of supporters. Ella Redinger, 11, has had some aviation experience but only in large passenger jets. Nothing like this, Ella said, staring out at the small private planes arrayed before her. Christine Redinger said kids like her daughter often miss out on fun events and tend to be the type picked last for games. Shes very happy today - which is not always the case, Redinger said. I have four kids and this is chance for her to do something by herself. At 16, Richie Costa was one of the older kids at the event on Saturday. Sometimes Richie can get overly excited and his parents were worried the experience might be a bit overwhelming. That wasnt the case, said his father, Richard Costa. He even opted against wearing headphones to dampen the noise. I was worried he would be touching things but he was very calm, Costa said. He doesnt say much but he definitely wants to come back again. Michael Rahn, a pilot volunteering for the first time on Saturday, has a nephew with special needs. Weve seen the impact of aviation on his life. The community is pretty outstanding, Rahn said. To me, this is a blessing to be able to share. Rahn, who lives in Montgomery, said his special-needs passengers seem to be mesmerized while soaring through the air. You just recognize that anything is possible, he said. Croston has been volunteering with the program for about a decade. He still gets a little emotional when he talks about the joy on the faces of the children following one of the flights. You just cant imagine what it does for them, he said. Susan Pantoja sat behind her son and watched him clamber into the co-pilots seat. She could tell he was excited. Im very grateful for this. Theres just not a lot of stuff out there for these kids, Pantoja said. After getting the thumbs up from the tower, Croston gunned the engine and the airplane rolled down the runway. The Piper Lance quickly picked up speed and jerked into the sky a bit more jarring than your average Southwest Airlines take off from Hobby Airport. Its like driving down a dirt road a little bumpy but itll be fine, Croston said over the intercom. His youthful co-pilot replied with a confident, OK. After about 20 minutes in the air, Croston asked if everyone was ready to head back to the airport. No, Joseph said. Can I fly again? mike.glenn@chron.com Lost amid a bitter campaign over whether to grant Houston firefighters the same pay as police of corresponding rank Proposition B on Tuesdays ballot is Proposition A, a do-over on the citys street and drainage repair program. ReBuild Houston only narrowly passed eight years ago, but the two-decade program appears before voters this fall without its most controversial component and without a clear sense of whether the measures passage will produce a much different result than its failure. The item is on the ballot again because conservative foes who opposed a new drainage fee that was part of the program convinced the Texas Supreme Court that the citys 2010 ballot language did not make clear the initiative would include this new rain tax, as they call it. The court voided the election and ordered the vote to be held again. Both sides agree, however, that the roughly $5 monthly drainage fee citizens began paying in July 2011 is not at issue this fall that fee was implemented in an ordinance approved by the city council, not by the 2010 charter change itself. And Mayor Sylvester Turner says he will implement the program as it is being run today even if voters repeal the legal language that would force him to do so. Voters, the mayor says, are simply being asked to reaffirm what already is. And so Proposition A is chiefly about financing. The charter change barred the issuance of new debt for street and drainage repairs, switching instead to a pay-as-you-go model to be paid for in part by the new fee. It committed a portion of the citys annual property tax revenue to streets and drainage so that, as old road bonds were paid off, more cash would become available for projects. Grant funds from other governments also were added to the pot. And it capped maintenance and operations spending from the new fund at 25 percent. Since its launch, about $1.9 billion has flowed into the ReBuild program for reconstruction or repair work including an estimated $780 million in drainage fees and more than $620 million in principal has been paid down on city debt. Yet Houston Public Works now projects that far fewer dollars will flow through the program than was envisioned in 2010, despite repeated storms having made concerns about drainage and flooding even more pronounced. The city data show the program beat its original revenue projections by an average of about $30 million each year from 2011 to 2015, then missed its original targets by roughly that amount in each of the last two years. Over the next seven years, ReBuild is projected to generate a cumulative $900 million less than originally envisioned about $125 million per year. There are two key reasons for that. First, a math error proponents said the fee would average $5 per house but that turned out to be an understatement, so former Mayor Annise Parker granted all property owners a discount. That change has limited the citys repair funds by a total of about $100 million over the last seven years. Second, there is Houstons voter-approved property tax revenue cap. Since 2014, the city typically has had to cut its tax rate each year to avoid taking in more revenue than the cap allowed, since property values have been rising. So where does ReBuild come in? The program was designed to capture 11.8 cents of the citys tax rate, generating more money for projects as debts were paid off. Over time, this will be the funds largest source of revenue. As the citys tax rate has shrunk, however, the city has interpreted the 2010 charter language in a way that has let mayors reduce the share of the rate devoted to ReBuild, instead leaving that cash in the general fund. These adjustments reduced ReBuilds funding by $10 million under Parker in 2016 and by almost $50 million in each of the last two years under Turner, Public Works data show, as compared to the full 11.8 cents worth of property taxes being transferred to the fund. In the citys current budget, this figure is about $40 million. These changes have contributed to an uncomfortable statistic for City Hall: Residents are paying a new fee, but city spending on street and drainage projects has barely risen. Houston averaged $176 million a year on capital street and drainage projects from 2007 to 2011, and $180 million from 2012 through 2018. These figures include some projects that were only street paving, without accompanying underground drainage pipes, and the numbers for the 2018 fiscal year are preliminary. Turner acknowledged the program, as designed, would generate more cash than it is today, but said the ReBuild model is still the right approach. The citys strategy, he said, should be to avoid new debt and leverage its funds with Harris Countys $2.5 billion flood control bond and coming federal recovery funds tied to Hurricane Harvey. Bob Jones, the owner of Jones Engineering Solutions and a key ReBuild proponent in 2010, said his figures show the program is close to its organizers original models. If spending appears not to have risen under ReBuild, he added, its in part because large projects the city did in partnership with the state in the years before 2010 skew the figures. Jones said his view is that the city should not have been able to budge from devoting the full 11.8 cents of its property tax rate to the program. Im hoping that, going forward, well get to the full 11.8 cents and well juice the program up and well exceed the projections, Jones said. Councilman Mike Knox said he has been telling voters inquiring about Proposition A to flip a coin, as neither outcome will change what taxes or fees citizens pay. As for whether the vote will put a lockbox around the funding for streets and drainage a word Turner uses often Knox said muddy accounting empowers the programs skeptics and leaves him unsure of what to tell constituents. ReBuild is comprised of drainage fees, property taxes, grants and a tiny fee on developers, but when the city spends money from the ReBuild fund it rarely specifies which funding source is being used. This has long let critics incorrectly accuse the city of, for instance, using the drainage fee to pay hundreds of Public Works employees salaries. I cant in good conscience say we even have a lockbox because the four funding sources are commingled theres nothing where I can go to see that the money from the drainage fee went into this account and the money is going to this activity, Knox said. When I call and ask the question, they say, No, its being used for appropriate purposes, and I have no recourse. The Nov. 6 election could have a tangible impact on the citys finances, but it will depend in part on the outcome of several pending lawsuits that rely on court action voiding the 2010 election. It also will depend on the accompanying charter language exempting the drainage fees from the citys revenue cap and adding streets and curbs to the definition of drainage infrastructure words that are not in the state law that lets cities charge drainage fees. In one case, plaintiffs argue the drainage fees should be repaid to taxpayers, or that the portion spent on street surfaces should be refunded. In another, they argue the fees have exceeded the revenue cap. mike.morris@chron.com Suicide crept into 17-year-old Nicholas mind a few months ago. The Spring Branch ISD junior said his life had been unraveling since his parents divorced eight years ago. His father drank every night and his mother began abusing prescription pain pills, leaving him with few outlets or trusted adults in whom he could confide. He finally snapped when a classmate called him ugly. But instead of getting into a fist fight or turning to drugs, Nicholas walked down the hall to an office of mental health counselors that a nonprofit partnership embedded in Memorial High School. They helped me out and gave me the biggest hug, he remembered. For the first time, I felt like I was worth it. Schools across Texas are taking a more serious look at students mental health needs to prevent potential tragedies and improve academic outcomes. What they are finding is a stunning spike in students struggling with mental health challenges, prompting them to try to beef up their support networks. Calls for students in crisis in the Houston area have almost doubled in the past three years from about 2,500 students annually to nearly 5,000, according to Communities in Schools, a nonprofit that works with 142 school districts from El Paso to East Texas. The group expanded its Southeast Texas reach by opening in an additional school district Nederland ISD and by increasing the number of site coordinators in Port Arthur ISD from eight to 13, mostly in response to the devastation brought by Hurricane Harvey. Lisa Descant, chief operating officer of Communities in Schools of Houston, said she feared funding shortages would force Houston-area schools to cut their mental health services. Instead, the group expanded to at least 10 additional campuses in the region this year. At one Houston high school, Descant said 15 students exhibited warning signs of potential suicide in just a month. Memorial High in West Houston has seen similar numbers: 17 students there have been screened for suicidal ideation since August, another 29 came to counselors amid mental health crises and 222 students overall have sought out the schools wellness center in just two and a half months. Folks who have been at our campuses for 20 to 30 years, those folks are seeing an increase in acute needs, Descant said. I would say the stressors in our communities are affecting our students. I would say its something were seeing more and more. The root of students issues are as complex as the individuals, Descant said, but her group saw a surge in need in areas swamped by Hurricane Harvey. And, after a 17-year-old gunman killed 10 and wounded 13 at Santa Fe High School in May, schools have increasingly been searching for ways to prevent more loss - whether it be suicide or campus violence by addressing students mental health needs. The increase has been so pervasive that the Texas Education Agency developed a suicide prevention resource page on its website and launched a mental health task force to help districts in areas most affected by Hurricane Harvey. Still, school-based counselors statewide have been struggling to keep up with the growing demands, said Sharon Bey, a retired school counselor who sits on the Texas School Counselor Associations board. She said her colleagues in every corner of the state have noticed an uptick in students struggling with mental health issues, especially among elementary schoolers. Students as young as 6 have increasingly shown signs of anxiety, depression and hopelessness. We think its a gradual incline. Were seeing more and more each year as the years go by, Bey said. But this year seems worse than any other. Despite the growing needs, Bey said schools across the Lone Star state employ too few counselors. On average, there is about one counselor for every 1,100 students in Houston ISD and about 1 for every 430 across Texas. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of one counselor per 250 students. The averages are even more stark for social workers and psychologists, who tend to serve thousands of students each. Eliseo Elizondo, executive director of Communities in Schools Permian Basin chapter, said those shortages have led more school districts to reach out for help, and those that already use their services have been dealing with more major crises on a more frequent basis, including suicide interventions, abuse, family mental illnesses and homelessness. One district administrator told me she was a huge champion because she truly believed we saved lives and prevented situations like Santa Fe, Elizondo said. Since the Santa Fe massacre, lawmakers and education officials have suggested increasing funding for counselors and mental-health services for students. Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has asked the state Legislature to approve $54 million to hire more counseling employees. Safety committees established in the state House of Representatives and Senate have also proposed finding more funds for such initiatives. On Wednesday, House Appropriations Chairman John Zerwas, R-Katy, toured Memorial High School to see how the Communities in Schools program worked. As students bustled outside to get to their next class, Zerwas and some school administrators walked into a low-lit reception room and found plush seating, hot tea and soothing nature sounds. Two other rooms used white noise machines to blur the chatter outside and give students more privacy to discuss whats stressing them. They can sink into soft leather sofas, fiddle with textured pillows or complete classwork away from the fluorescent lights outside. Principal Lisa Weir said before the center opened, students with panic attacks or severe anxiety would be sent to the nurses office. Now, not only can students escape if they need a break, but teachers can report troubling behaviors or struggling to professionals who can provide them with resources to help. So much of what we see today in the news around safety and school shootings is really a mental health issue, and now we have an avenue for our students and were taking the stigma off they have a safe place to go have a place to report, Weir said. Its just been a wellspring, its been such a blessing to us. Alexandra, a senior at Lamar High School, told Zerwas she silently struggled with grief, anxiety and depression after her father died of cancer during her sophomore year. Her despair was harder to spot because she remainedinvolved in school, leading several school organizations while participating in sports. But her grief came to a head during a precalculus test, when she found herself unable to complete the task. Instead of solving equations, she wrote her teacher a letter about her pain. That led her to meet with CIS counselors, who showed her coping techniques and resources she said helped her rebound. For Diona, a 16-year-old junior at Memorial, feelings of guilt plagued her conscious after a friend committed suicide when she was in seventh grade. Why wasnt I able to save him, she thought. What could I have done to keep him here? She suffered alone until ninth grade, when a friend told her about Memorial Highs wellness center. Counselors there taught her breathing techniques to help her get through panic attacks and bought her journals to log her feelings. Shes already filled two notebooks with musings and deeper thoughts, a practice she said helps her process her stresses and move on with her day. One of the biggest helps for Nicholas was attending group sessions with other young men. Watching them open up helped crack a wall of tough appearances and misplaced jokes that previously prevented him from talking about his problems. Without the help of therapists and the courage of his fellow students, he said his life would have likely been in peril. I think either I would have dropped out, committed suicide or been in a gang, drugs or whatever, because there were a lot of external things and outside forces that were really pulling me, Nicholas said. I think I wouldnt have been able to hold on for much longer if they werent here. Zerwas said legislators have begun to recognize that addressing students mental health issues cant be left to schools to handle on their own and that lawmakers will need to find ways to fund changes in order to prevent more serious issues in the future. If there is something good that comes out of a Santa Fe shooting or a Sutherland Springs shooting, its just to heighten our awareness that mental health is - when you get right down to it - an issue we have to deal with, Zerwas said. I have no doubt we could make it better, and sometimes that just means putting a little more money into it. Bey said more money and counselors would help but also encouraged lawmakers to spell out counselors duties in law so school-based leaders will be less likely to assign them more menial administrative tasks, such as scheduling standardized tests. The more time counselors can spend with students, she said, the more they can help. People dont realize the severity of the problems our kids are dealing with. People blow it off as high-school-age drama, Bey said. Its not - its severe mental health issues students are dealing with. shelby.webb@chron.com twitter.com/shelbywebb Residents paint a complicated picture of President Donald Trumps influence in the 7th Congressional District race between Republican incumbent Rep. John Culberson and Democratic challenger Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, who are running neck and neck for a district once considered a Republican stronghold. While many conservatives in the district indicated it would take more than disdain for the president to flip their congressional vote, moderate Republicans and independents supporting Fletcher largely said they were catalyzed by Trumps victory. I feel like the Republican Party needs a punch in the nose to wake up, said Michael Sternesky, 66, a self-identified Republican who lives in Spring Branch and is volunteering for Fletcher. It was really the election in 2016. Trump was so outrageous, and I thought, This is not the right way to go. Barring a massive blue wave, Fletcher will need the support of Republicans like Sternesky, who quibbles with some of Culbersons stances on health care but primarily switched teams over Trump. He identifies as fiscally conservative and socially progressive. I dont see those kinds of people in the Republican Party anymore, Sternesky said, adding that he likely would not have supported activist Laura Moser, Fletchers more liberal primary opponent, had she won instead. In this closely watched race, Culberson and Fletcher both are convinced the districts high levels of education and political engagement boost their chances in the age of Trump. Culberson says thoughtful Republicans will make this election a referendum on his record, not the president. He outperformed Trump by 13 percentage points and 22,000 votes in 2016, when Hillary Clinton narrowly won the district. Fletcher, noticing the suburban districts abundance of white, college-educated women and Trumps vulnerability among that bloc, has sought to tie Culberson to the president. She anticipates a coalition of disillusioned Republicans and Democrats who typically skip midterm elections will send her to Washington. Yet many Republicans had difficulty getting behind Fletcher, considering her a liberal Democrat despite positions that distance her from her partys hardline progressive elements on health care and immigration. Charles Volek, a retired Shell engineer who lives just outside Bellaire, called Trump despicable and said he cant stand the guy. But as a Cruz supporter, the idea of voting for Fletcher is a nonstarter. First thing is, Im pro-life. And Lizzie is pro-death, said Volek, 84. (Fletcher co-founded a Planned Parenthood group in Houston and is pro-choice.) Its voters like Volek that make 21-year-old Culberson supporter Christopher Combs skeptical that Clintons narrow win in the district foreshadows a Fletcher victory. I think that Republican voters that rejected Trump, thats not going to translate to a rejection of Culberson in this election, said Combs, a University of Houston sophomore. There are material, consequential matters that are above the presidency and that are important for conservative Houstonians. And I think theyre going to commit to Culberson. With days to go, the race is set for a tight finish, with public polls showing a virtual tie. Culberson and Fletcher are stumping with allies from Washington, including Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Steve Scalise, R-La., and running furious grassroots operations. Since July 1, the two candidates and outside groups who have inundated the district with ads have spent more than $18 million on the race, Federal Election Commission records show. This election is the hardest race John has ever run, Belinda Culberson, Johns wife, said at a women-focused rally last month. I know who votes Culberson rarely faces serious opposition in the district he began representing in 2001 after 14 years in the Texas House.His toughest challenge came in 2008, when then-President George W. Bush had an approval rating below 30 percent on Election Day and Culbersons Democratic opponent raised $3 million. Culberson won by more than 13 percentage points. But that was a decade ago. Since then, the district has become far more diverse and experienced rapid suburban growth, trends that make it a prime target for Democrats. No congressional district outside Utah saw a bigger shift in the presidential vote from 2012 to 2016, with Clinton winning by 1.4 points, almost 23 points ahead of Mitt Romneys margin. What people are seeing now is that Congress isnt working, and Washington really isnt working, Fletcher said in a recent interview. And Congress isnt providing the check on the Trump administration that a lot of people had hoped. So I think you see a lot of the same people looking for new candidates. This year, Culberson again faces the headwinds of an unpopular president and an opponent who has far outraised him. Fletcher had raised $5.3 million through Oct. 17 and maintained about $733,000 cash on hand, compared to Culbersons $3 million haul and $460,000 in cash. Yet Culberson, who grew up in West University and has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of each precinct, has kept a close eye on the districts changes. He contends that his deep connections to the district will help him survive the toughest re-election challenge of his congressional career and sees a possible edge in his campaign experience over Fletcher, who is seeking office for the first time. The district is well-educated, well-informed. They pay close attention, Culberson said at his Memorial City campaign headquarters. They know me. They know they can trust me. Texas 7th Congressional District looks like a jagged Tetris piece, bordering Cypress at its northern point. It runs south through suburbswest of Addicks Reservoir, dipping down to cover Barker, then runs east through the Energy Corridor between Katy Freeway and Westheimer Road. From there, it takes in the diverse Gulfton neighborhood and upscale Galleria and River Oaks areas. Culberson outperformed Trump by the widest margins in Bellaire, West University Place and Southside Place, areas made up overwhelmingly of wealthy, college-educated white people. InRiver Oaks, Afton Oaks and Meyerland, he also far outpaced Trump, in some precincts by 17 percentage points. Culberson prefers to avoid talking about external factors in the race, including Trump, though he is fond of linking Fletcher to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. On Oct. 22, he skipped the presidents Houston rally to attend a long-planned Memorial Super Neighborhood monthly council meeting. As Trump told the rally crowd that people with little boats wanted to go into Hurricane Harveys path to show their wife how great they are a baseless claim that Fletcher has criticized Culberson for not denouncing Culberson discussed hurricane relief with residents. The elections always about the candidate, Culberson said. There may be other atmospherics and things blowing around, but the fundamental question that the voter is answering is, What do I think of that candidate? Though Trumps name will not appear on the ballot, this election may hinge partly on whether people vote like it is. Democrats in the 7th District showed enthusiasm during the primary, when turnout spiked five times compared to 2014. Yet they still fell about 5,000 ballots short of the Republicans in a race that was largely uncompetitive. For her part, Fletcher has seen many people other than herself making their first foray into politics this cycle. There are new precinct chairs, there are new first-time volunteers, there are new group organizers, she said. And I think that that speaks to something much larger happening in our community. The Pentagon has been landing transport planes in Texas for almost a week, part of a deployment of as many as 15,000 active-duty troops to the border on a mission that critics say has less to do with national security than its impact on midterm elections. Operation Faithful Patriot erupted as a partisan flashpoint after President Donald Trump announced his intention to send soldiers and equipment to the border to prevent several thousand impoverished Central Americans from entering the country. In tweets and at rallies, Trump has said without evidence that a caravan of men, women and children making their way on foot through Mexico contained some very bad thugs and gang members, unidentified Middle Easterners and some very tough fighters and has suggested they would try to storm the border by force. Several former military and intelligence leaders scoffed at the purported threat. The troops being deployed have no military objective, said Michael Hayden, a retired Air Force general who was the CIA director under President George W. Bush. This represents security theater and is not based upon any concrete request made by anyone, said Hayden, who also led the National Security Agency and once commanded the Air Intelligence Agency here. The caravan is 900 miles away and frankly not an unprecedented event (It) has never required this kind of response in the past. The caravan started in Honduras. It and two other convoys loosely organized behind it are weeks away if they arrive at all. Previous such efforts have disintegrated before reaching the border, with some of the travelers joining an ongoing drama of individuals and family groups seeking asylum at U.S. ports of entry or surrendering to border agents after crossing without papers. The Central Americans typically cite threats to their lives from gangs, other criminals and their own governments. So far, they have not been dissuaded by a week of promises by Trump to prevent their entry to the U.S. by force if necessary. Rules of engagement As with the multistate National Guard border operation that Trump ordered last spring, the deployment is designed to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations. The troops are not allowed to act in a law enforcement capacity and cant detain or arrest immigrants. They work under rules of engagement designed to minimize the chance of incidents like the 1997 fatal shooting of Esequiel Hernandez, 18, by a four-man Marine unit outside the West Texas town of Redford. Hernandez was herding his familys goats; his death abruptly ended training exercises of armed military personnel on the border. A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. William Speaks, declined to discuss hypothetical situations or specific measures within our rules on the use of force, but our forces are trained professionals who always have the inherent right of defense. The militarys use of force rules allow unit commanders and their troops to exercise self-defense to a hostile act or demonstrated hostile intent. Trump suggested Thursday that the troops were allowed to shoot at anyone who throws rocks at them, saying, I will tell you this, anybody throwing stones, rocks like they did to Mexico we will consider that a firearm. That is not how the armed forces have long interpreted rules of engagement in Iraq or Afghanistan. The president invoked a national emergency at the southern border to justify blocking immigrants from requesting asylum, based on a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act under which the president can suspend or restrict entry of certain migrants he deems detrimental to the interests of the United States. The announcement was the presidents most controversial in a week in which he sought to make immigration the defining issue for voters in Tuesdays elections. Before Trump walked back his comments Friday, saying rock throwers would be subject to arrest, the reaction on Twitter from retired military brass was biting. A wasteful deployment of over-stretched Soldiers and Marines would be made much worse if they use force disproportional to the threat they face. They wont, wrote retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, a former Joint Chiefs chairman. The border deployments of Guard and active-duty troops could cost $200 million by the end of 2018, according to analyst and Pentagon figures compiled by the Washington Post. Retired Army Gen. Mark Hertling, who commanded U.S. Army Europe, said there is no leader in the military Officer or NCO who would allow a soldier to shoot at an individual throwing a rock. Two military justice scholars, Geoffrey Corn of South Texas College of Law and St. Marys University School of Law professor Jeff Addicott, said the rules dont change even when a president declares a national emergency or airs his opinion on what the rules should be. Troops can fire their weapons only when confronting a threat of death or great bodily harm to themselves, others in their unit, or a federal agent, Corn said. Addicott, who calls himself a constitutional conservative agreed, saying, A rock thrower does not represent deadly force. All for show Criticism of the border operation has come from lawmakers, former soldiers and defense scholars who questioned the rationale or the appropriateness of the policy. Sending troops to the border is a Band-Aid that does not address systemic CBP personnel shortages or stop the flow of migration from Central America, said U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio. Its highly unlikely that active-duty troops are needed to provide capabilities the National Guard doesnt have, said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, a former commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, who is known for being a mentor to James Mattis, the secretary of defense. Its purely political, its all for show, Van Riper said. Jacqueline Hazelton, who teaches counterinsurgency and counterterrorism at the U.S. Naval War College, agreed that the National Guard would be more effective at supporting border security based on its traditional role helping state and local authorities in times of crisis. In addition to there being no need for the skills of active-duty forces they are specialists in the uses of violence there are legal complications to trying to use them, Hazelton said. Theres no indication that unarmed people who have the right to ask for entry would be able to bum rush a Border Patrol checkpoint even if they wanted to, she added. The National Guard operation Trump ordered last spring was still at 50 percent of its planned strength when he directed the Defense Department to dramatically enlarge the border military footprint with soldiers and airmen from around the country. Some wondered why he didnt ask governors from the four states that border Mexico for more part-time troops. Democrats and cynics had an answer Election Day. Asked how long the mission might last, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said, Probably until the day after the election. The presidents border rhetoric came amid a political landscape that could result with Democrats retaking the U.S. House and Republicans holding, and perhaps expanding, their Senate majority. Trump appears to be trying to pull undecided voters toward Republican candidates and, more importantly, mobilize voters to go to the polls, Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said. Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson called the strategy a full-court press designed to bring immigration, border security, law and order and the nature of American citizenship into play. By threatening Tuesday to use an executive order to end birthright citizenship, Trump is questioning the legitimacy of ethnic groups, he said. There are certain people who are not welcome in America. This is a very old American story. We just havent seen it this explicitly in recent times. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, initially said the military partnership with Customs and Border Protection would enhance the capabilities of federal agents, but he also has called the deployment neither sensible nor responsible. Cuellar noted that Trump had attacked Mexicans early in his presidential campaign. Thats his basic M.O. (modus operandi), Cuellar said. If hes going to go after somebody, hes delegitimizes that person or that group and thats what hes doing, saying immigrants shouldnt even be here because theyre not U.S. citizens, and they shouldnt count. Politicizing the military Some worry that Trumps repeated invoking of the need for troops will have an unintended consequence tainting public perception of the military by leaving a partisan smell on a deliberately apolitical institution. I feel bad for everyone from Sec. Mattis and Gen. Dunford down to the fine young men and women whove volunteered to serve our country that theyre being used for this political stunt, conservative commentator Bill Kristol tweeted. But Im sure theyll handle this with their usual competence and professionalism. Mattis rejected the notion that troops were being used to improve Republican election chances, telling reporters, We don't do stunts in this department, thank you. Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey said he did not fear a loss of support for the armed forces. We dont want to hear one word of the Joint Chiefs pushing back in public on the president of the United States unless they receive an illegal order, he said. The Congress, the media, the court system, the voters can push back. Hayden, who served 41 years in the Air Force, said he understands Mattis and other leaders must follow lawful orders, noting that he and other retired military officers are speaking up because people in government cant. What Im concerned about is the whole dilemma now being placed on senior officers to faithfully carry out the orders of the president in a highly political context that the president has created, Hayden said. This is usually about senior officials, not battalion commanders or anything like that, but I often (ask) at what point do you cease being a guardrail and you become an enabler or a legitimizer for actions we should not be taking, he said. This may not be sufficient for many people, and I have no right to judge, but I do understand that there may come such a moment. sigc@express-news.net Its understandable that President Donald Trump would have a hard time relating to the pitiful gaggle of Central American asylum-seekers inching ever so desperately toward the United States. The so-called caravan of men, women and children, numbered at a few thousand, is still hundreds of miles from our southern border. Yet, Trump is mulling over sending 15,000 troops to form a human wall to ward off the invasion. Hes also boasting of a plan to end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined by the U.S. Constitution. This fear-mongering may shock the conscience of Americans who still believe in a moral or religious duty to help refugees, but its what weve come to expect from a man raised in a cocoon of luxury. We would expect a little more from a man whose immigrant father fled a brutal dictatorship and arrived in America with $100 sewn into his underwear. Yet, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has jumped on the caravan bandwagon with a zeal so great we fear he may have fallen off and injured his head. On the campaign trail, Cruz has strained to connect his Democratic opponent to the caravan, bizarrely claiming U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke is welcoming the migrants with welcome baskets and foot massages. On Friday, Cruz falsely accused ORourke of allowing aides to use campaign donations to help the caravan. His proof? A heavily edited undercover video from Project Veritas, a right-wing group that has been caught several times trying to smear left-leaning organizations and candidates with misleading videos. For the record, ORourke says his aides took it upon themselves to use less than $300 for donations such as diapers that went to an El Paso charity helping women and children. ORourkes spokesman said the donations would be reported appropriately in federal campaign filings. You can just hear Trumps voice: There goes lyin Ted. Just recently, Cruz was playing up his Hispanic credentials in the Rio Grande Valley, even pointing out the diversity he brings to a Senate chamber of mostly white men. Its true, but how rich is Cruzs perspective if he cant cobble together some compassion for immigrants fleeting a dangerous country as his father did? Cruz would point out that Rafael Cruz came legally during the Batista regime on a student via and then applied for amnesty. The migrants at the border are trying to come here legally, too. The law allows them to request asylum. Of course, theyll never benefit from the special rules extended to Cubans fleeing the Castro regime, including medical care, food and an expedited path to legal residency. For 20 years, the wet foot, dry foot policy allowed most Cuban migrants who reached U.S. soil to stay and become legal permanent residents after a year. Nor is the migrant caravan anywhere near the crisis of 1980s Mariel Boatlift, which brought an influx of more than 125,000 Cubans to Florida over six months. In that case, security concerns were more than justified because Castro had allowed prisoners and mentally ill people to board boats alongside families. Some Americans then, as now, rejected the whole lot of them. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida recalled in a 2016 candidate forum how he endured bullying as a 7-year-old: Some of the kids, the older kids, were taunting my family: Why don't you go back on your boat? said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. With government, community and family support, many Cubans who came clinging to boats assimilated and became doctors, entrepreneurs, pillars of the community: The vast majority of these people were honest, decent, hard-working, industrious people, then-Miami Mayor told El Nuevo Herald in 2016. Cruz surely understands the value of immigration. He is the product of it.As a constitutional lawyer who famously memorized the U.S. Constitution at age 13, he should be the loudest opponent to Trumps plan to end birthright citizenship. In 2011, Cruz said the party was wrong to attack a right enshrined in the Constitution. In 2015, he flip-flopped. In 2018, Cruz says he needs to study the issue. We know that Cruz if he wanted could be a leader in calming fears about a rag-tag group of asylum seekers that poses no security threat to the most powerful nation on earth. Instead, in the final days of a heated campaign, the only thing Cruz has to offer voters is a cynical pandering to our worst instincts. At least Trump has the excuse of a coddled childhood. Our senators only excuse is his desperation for political power. After six years, weve come to expect that from Cruz true to form. Im sitting in my Advanced Placement U.S. History class, my knee bouncing up and down, and Im not paying attention. To be fair, I am thinking about the United States; its just hard to focus on the past when so much is happening in the present. The past six months, Ive been thrown into the activist and political world after co-organizing the Houston March For Our Lives event this past March. Since then, Ive marched against family separation, met with Texas superintendents about getting voter registration in high schools and educated myself on issues affecting our nation. But it will be another two years until I can vote, and if Ive learned anything in the past six months, its that politicians dont care about marches or protests or public outrage; to them, if that outrage isnt reflected in the voting booth in November, it doesnt matter. The sad truth is that Sen. Ted Cruz, one of Texas two Republican senators, didnt care about me and the 15,000 other people rallying outside his Houston office on March 24, because past data predicts that not that many of us, Americas youth, will cast a midterm ballot. Theres little reason for any politician to listen to the 18-to-24-year-olds of Texas when less than half are even registered to vote. In a world where thoughts of re-election dictate politicians every action, the opinion of a 16-year-old girl like me doesnt carry much weight in Washington. But I do know that there are other ways I can make my voice heard. If I cant vote, I can at least make sure that other people do. Thats why I signed on as one of the founding organizers of The Proxy Project, a campaign to use the energy and enthusiasm of us young activists to drive others to the polls. The idea is simple those of us under 18 cant vote, but we can inspire others to. The project calls for activators who cant vote to partner up with proxies who can. The activator will remind their proxy to vote in a much more personal way than the mass texts sent out by organizations and candidates. The key here is the one-to-one relationship, the personal touch that will drive the proxy to the polls. Activators should choose someone who might not otherwise vote to be their activator whether it be a parent, an older sibling, a friend or a mentor. The the activator and proxy can sign up as a team . Its a way to empower youth, while at the same time increasing voter turnout. The Proxy Project website makes it easy to get involved. You can become a high school captain to recruit activators and hold competitions among friends to see who can sign up the most activator/proxy teams. The votes we secure by these personal connections could make the difference in a close race at any level, from the local city council to the White House. My proxy, Ava M., is a close friend who runs cross country with me on our schools team. Shell be a new voter come this Election Day, and casting a ballot for the first time can be pretty daunting. As her proxy, Im here to help! Ive made sure shes registered, and Ill help her research candidates and find her nearest polling location. Even more important, as her friend, Ill talk to her about why voting matters so much to me. Together, we can become more engaged citizens, learning about the issues facing the world around us and the steps needed for change. Even if you cant vote, take action. Dont let your age or your citizenship status stop you from making a difference. And if youre of voting age, Im counting on you, just like Im counting on my proxy, Ava. Im counting on you to cast a ballot this November because there are millions of Americans who cant. Im counting on you to bring a friend to vote with you because I bet you have many friends whove never voted before. Im counting on you to represent me and the other kids who politicians dont care about, because if you dont stand up for us then Im not sure who will. On Nov. 6, Ill be in my history class, cheering you on and counting down the days until I can join you at the polls and cast a vote myself. Cromely is a student at the John Cooper School. This week, I will cast my vote in the U.S. midterm election from Jiangsu Province in the Peoples Republic of China. I am a lifelong Houstonian recently diverted to North Carolina for graduate school. This semester, however, I am studying environmental policy from just outside of Shanghai, 12 time zones away from home. My Chinese classmates often seem bemused when the topic of elections comes up, particularly given rising tensions over U.S.-China trade and the spectacle of White House tweet storms. What do you say to those who have never had the right to vote when they ask you about the absentee registration form you are printing out? Did you choose this? they ask me in various delicate ways. They are often stunned when I tell them that less than half of U.S. voters cast a ballot for President Trump. I try to explain demographics, the electoral college, the history of the federal system but I am myself uncertain what will come of the growing systemic distortions of electoral power rooted in population and technological shifts that the Founding Fathers could never have imagined. A tendency toward political cynicism may be my generations natural inheritance. I am one of the roughly 115 million Americans of voting age who have never known a time before Watergate. I came of political age as the art of toxic partisan rhetoric was metastasizing into a multi-billion dollar industry, somewhere amid the fallout of 9/11 and the rise of weaponizable precision in mass digital marketing. For a younger me, cynicism was a defensive response to the contradictions I saw between what American politics claimed to be and what it actually seemed to be. Its easy to forget, in that mindset, what progress can and has been made in our system, step by slow, difficult step. And the march toward a more perfect union, winding through many chapters, will not likely be completed in our lifetimes any more than it was during that of earlier generations. But our system, for all its flaws, gives us tools to navigate with a structure for civil society and the mechanisms to improve upon it as we discover new needs. Underpinning every part of this system is the power to vote and the critical necessity of doing so. Here in China, for the first time in my life, Ive had to articulate the most fundamental purposes of voting. I referred the other day to the United States political messiness as perhaps being a trade-off for democracy, and was laughed at by a Chinese colleague, who matter-of-factly informed me that China is a democracy as well. After all, the ruling Communist Party works on behalf of The People. What could be more democratic? I struggled for a moment to name the essential, critical difference: Agency, I finally told him. Voting is an expression of individual agency. A protected, direct chance for engagement with the shape and future of my government, without fear of repercussions for the choices I make. That is what our messiness buys us, and its what we stand to lose if we do not guard it, fight to expand practical access to it, treasure and use it. Because with it, and from it, comes every other power within the system every means for engaging with government and demanding that it be held accountable. It isnt perfect, and it isnt enough on its own, but through the act of voting, real democratic leverage is possible. My grandfather passed away on Nov. 8, 2016, hours before the polls closed. One of the last things he did, in the quiet, bedridden weeks before he died, was give his candidate choices to my grandmother, who marked them on his absentee ballot. He voted to improve the world that he was about to leave. He voted to make things better for his children and for his grandchildren, for me and for those who will come after. I am writing to ask you to do the same. Voting is not the only way to effect change and voting alone cannot do the job of forming that more perfect union. But it is foundational in that it gives other political action its weight. And when those who do care deeply about the health of this country refuse to vote for the best option available, they make a choice to amplify the power of those who did show up. Abstaining is not a neutral act. The cynical part of me fell away altogether on the day early voting began in Harris County. Suddenly, my Facebook feed was flooded with photos: of voting lines, sticker selfies, smiling and determined and angry and excited friends and family a world away, all going to the polls. I couldnt help but grin. Amid all the partisan rancor, chaos and disenchantment, voting is a ritual that binds us as a nation, our physical expression of our hope for a better future if not for ourselves, then for those to follow. So go cast your ballot. Mine is on its way. Cesar Sayoc, Robert Bowers and Stan Stanart have very little in common. Sayoc is the mentally unwell former male stripper who made a habit of sending poorly-made pipe bombs to prominent Democrats. Bowers is a Nazi who murdered 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Stanart, meanwhile, is the Harris County clerk whose only known crimes are his Q-tip white bouffant and his tardiness in reporting election results. But the three men share one very unusual attribute: a tremendous fear of a Hungarian-American financier named George Soros, whose name has become a byword for the things that go bump in the night for a wide variety of American conservatives. Sayocs first bomb was found in Soros mailbox. Bowers believed that Soros is the puppet-master of a plot to import immigrants and displace the white race. Stanart believes that Soros is an evil force who is plotting to control Harris County Elections in order to infect Houston with his wicked world views, starting with the defeat of the re-election campaign of Stan Stanart. You could be forgiven if youve never heard of Soros. Hes a billionaire with an extraordinary personal story who has given money to a lot of political causes. But the sum of the money that Soros has injected into American politics in the last few years is a tiny fraction of what other rich men have given. Conservatives fear Soros like some liberals fear the Koch brothers, but the fear of Soros is qualitatively different, darker and weirder. He is regularly accused of rigging elections and infecting entire nations with the germ of socialism and moral decay. Soros hatred has long been loudest on the far-right, but his name is appearing on the lips of elected officials in Texas with greater regularity than ever before. When protesters started showing up at congressional town halls last summer, the Harris County Republican Party charged that they were paid by Soros. His name pops up again and again in the fundraising emails that Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, among others, send to their most passionate supporters. Abbott even wrote an op-ed last year in the Washington Examiner outlining the danger posed by the Soros network to the integrity of elections in Texas. The recent wave of Soros panic started to grow in Texas when Barack Obama left office. For years, Obama provided what Texas Republicans havent had in this state an opposition. Obama was the evil-doer and Republicans were the good guys forever thwarting his menacing plots. The base responded warmly, bolstering the partys electoral performance. But then he was gone. Republicans couldnt blame D.C. anymore for what ails the state. They needed new threats. Soross name substituted nicely because he was already a deeply hated figure the fear of him inspires donors to open their wallets and tea party folk to drive to the polls. But why is he so hated? Soros most significant intervention in Texas politics has been to dump money into a few county district attorney races including in Bexar County, where he successfully opposed an incumbent Democrat for re-election. Yet when the late Houston lawyer Steve Mostyn was funding much of the state Democratic Party on his own, many conservatives in the state hardly knew Mostyns name. Its impossible to explain why Soros is as hated as he is without acknowledging the fact that hes Jewish. Soros fits neatly into almost every traditional anti-Semitic trope there is, and the rhetoric employed him around the world is testament to it. Soros is a Holocaust survivor who has spent many millions of dollars bolstering higher education and democracy in Hungary, where he was born. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, which lionizes the fascist leader that persecuted Soros family, has made him public enemy No. 1. Orbans vile retro rhetoric has been migrating here. A pundit on Fox Business Network recently claimed a migrant caravan in Mexico was funded by the Soros-occupied State Department, echoing language commonly used by neo-Nazis to characterize supposed Jewish domination of government. American conservatives, Stanart included, express outrage at insinuations that their fixation on Soros is related to anti-Semitism. I have many Jewish friends, Stanart told Texas Monthly. The outrage may be sincere. But theres a fundamental misunderstanding here: You dont have to be bigoted to spread bigotry. The anti-Semitic tropes that Soros is seen to embody of the worlds puppet-master, the rootless cosmopolitan spreading decadence, the banker who pulls the strings are older than anyone alive, and will be here long after were gone. They only die if people the malevolent and oblivious alike stop repeating them. Sayoc, Bowers and Stanart represent three distinct flavors of Soros mania. Theres the fringe like Alex Jones, who said during a deposition last year that Soros had engineered stronger strains of marijuana for the purpose of mind control. Then theres overt hatred, the neo-Nazis who make memes of Soros in a gas chamber, or Soros as an octopus, his tentacles wrapped around the world. And then theres the class of people for whom the fear of Soros is politically useful, which unfortunately includes a growing list of Texas Republicans. The last group is more dangerous than they may know. They give poison an official gloss. Their rhetoric serves to give approval and encouragement to the ravings of idiots. Its deeply disturbing to see so many elected officials shrug and join in, when they could simply choose not to take part in it and lose nothing. (After some pressure, Stanart replaced the Soros language on his website with generic copy about socialist Democrats.) Anti-Semitism is a dangerous force and its tempting for politicians in need of a few bucks and a few votes to tap into it, even just a little. But theyre playing with fire. You dont have to be an arsonist to mishandle a match. The actions of Sayoc and Bowers show us how hate can spread out of control. It needs to stop. Now. Hooks is an Austin-based writer. Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the election of President Richard Nixon. It is a chance for some perspective. While many seem convinced that the United States will never recover from the Donald Trump presidency, the truth is conservatism, the Republican Party and our nation survived Nixon and we will survive Trump. Many conservatives are dismayed with Trumps failure to condemn the racist alt-right. But lets not forget that Nixon came to power based on the Southern Strategy, winning over disaffected white voters who left the Democrats because of civil rights and the dismantling of Jim Crow. Many were appalled by Trumps Helsinki news conference and embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But it was Nixon who gave us detente with Moscow, invited Leonid Brezhnev to the White House, and signed the disastrous Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which restricted U.S. missile defense for decades. Many are concerned with Trumps outreach to North Korea and his willingness to hold a summit with its brutal dictator, Kim Jong Un. But it was Nixon who led the opening to Communist China, and sat down with its murderous founder, Mao Zedong a man responsible for the death of an estimated 65 million people. Many are disheartened by Trumps tariffs and trade wars. Well, Nixon gave us anti-free market economic policies such as wage and price controls. Many are worried about Trumps attacks on the media as the enemy of the American people. But it was Nixon who sent Vice President Spiro Agnew out to attack the media as a tiny, enclosed fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and actually attempted to stop the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Many are disturbed about a possible criminal conspiracy with Russia to steal and publish Democratic Party emails. But, of course, it was Nixon who gave us the coverup of the break-in to the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. And, if you think Trumps Twitter feed is bad, listen to the Nixon tapes and imagine what he would have been like on Twitter. So, in many ways the Trump presidency is like deja vu all over again. Except that Trump is, at least for conservatives, arguably a much better president than was Nixon. While Nixon had a mixed record in Supreme Court appointments, Trump has, so far, given us two of the strongest conservative justices in modern history. While the chairman of Nixons Council of Economic Advisers, Herb Stein, bragged that, under Nixon, probably more new regulation was imposed on the economy than in any other presidency since the New Deal, Trump has given us a historic regulatory rollback. While Nixon boasted over dramatic cuts in defense spending, Trump has enacted historic increases. While Nixons 1969 tax reform increased taxes, Trumps reforms have cut them. While Nixon withdrew U.S. troops from Vietnam, Trump has unleashed our forces against the Islamic State and has halted the withdrawal from Afghanistan begun during the Obama administration. Nixon also showed us that our constitutional system of checks and balances works, and that if the president crosses a constitutional line, the rule of law will prevail. And while Nixon resigned over Watergate, we still dont know how the Russia inquiry will turn out. It may well be that there was no criminal conspiracy with Russia. Even knowing what we know about Watergate, the United States would not have been better off with George McGovern as president, just as we would not be better off today with Hillary Clinton in the White House. As bad as things got for Republicans, six years after Nixons resignation we elected Ronald Reagan and, just like that, it was Morning in America. Those of us fortunate enough to have lived through the Reagan Revolution have great expectations for the presidency. We want to not just support the policies, but admire the person who occupies the Oval Office. So our disappointment in Trumps moral failures is profound. But the truth is, if you look back at U.S. history, there have been few Reagans. Most presidents are mediocre, and some are downright awful. But the idea that Trump has ushered in an end to the hopeful, optimistic vision for conservatism is absurd. All conservatism needs to recover is for one great, hopeful, optimistic leader to emerge. Until then to paraphrase the man who implemented Nixons wage and price controls, Donald Rumsfeld we go to war with the president we have. Follow Thiessen on Twitter, @marcthiessen. ADVERTISE Hypebot & MusicThinkTank With the internet and digital technologies driving rapid change within the music industry, articles about new releases and who has been hired and fired are no longer enough. Our up to the minute industry news alongside insightful commentary helps our readers sift through the rumors and developments to find the information they need to keep their businesses moving forward. 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The goods were seized in a lawful search in a residence in the city of Jimani, whose owner managed to escape. An arrest warrant has been issued against the owner for alleged involvement in illicit activities related to smuggling in violation of the General Customs Law No. 34-89. The owner and several suspects are currently actively sought SL/ HaitiLibre Imperial Valley News Center Texas Businessman Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering Charges in Connection with Venezuela Bribery Scheme Houston, Texas - A former procurement officer of Venezuelas state-owned and state-controlled energy company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), pleaded guilty Tuesday for his role in an international money laundering scheme involving bribes paid by the owners of U.S.-based companies to Venezeulan government officials in exchange for securing additional business with PDVSA and payment priority on outstanding invoices. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick of the Southern District of Texas and Special Agent in Charge Mark Dawson of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Houston Field Office made the announcement. Ivan Alexis Guedez (Guedez), 47, of Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Christina A. Bryan of the Southern District of Texas in Houston to one count of conspiracy to launder money. Guedez is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 20, 2019 by U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller of the Southern District of Texas. According to admissions made in connection with Guedezs plea, Guedez agreed with other PDVSA officials and businessmen who were employed by a Miami-based PDVSA supplier that, in exchange for bribe payments, Guedez and the other PDVSA officials would direct PDVSA business toward the supplier. The co-conspirators who were employed by the PDVSA supplier also received kickbacks. Guedez and his co-conspirators concealed the corrupt payments by, among other things, communicating using fictitious email addresses, creating false invoices to justify the payments, and directing the bribe payments to a Swiss account in the name of a shell company before being disbursed to the co-conspirators. As part of his plea agreement, Guedez has agreed to forfeit the proceeds of his criminal activity. Guedez becomes the latest individual to plead guilty as part of a larger, ongoing investigation by the U.S. government into bribery at PDVSA. Including Guedez, the Justice Department has announced the guilty pleas of a total of 15 individuals in connection with the investigation. HSI Houston is conducting the ongoing investigation with assistance from HSI Boston and Madrid, as well as from IRS Criminal Investigation. Trial Attorneys Jeremy R. Sanders, Sarah E. Edwards and Sonali Patel of the Criminal Divisions Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Pearson and Robert S. Johnson of the Southern District of Texas are prosecuting the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristine Rollinson of the Southern District of Texas is handling the forfeiture aspects of the case. The Criminal Divisions Office of International Affairs and the Cayman Islands Mutual Legal Assistance Authority and Office of the Director of Public Prosecution also provided assistance. Imperial Valley News Center Pennsylvania Man Charged with Federal Hate Crimes for Tree Of Life Synagogue Shooting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - A federal grand jury sitting in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania charged a Pennsylvania man with federal hate crimes, including the murder of 11 people, for his actions during the October 27, 2018 shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburghs Squirrel Hill neighborhood. United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore for the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Scott W. Brady, and FBI-Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Robert Jones made the announcement. Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pa., was charged in a 44-count indictment returned today. According to the indictment, on Oct. 27, 2018, Bowers drove to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where members of the Tree of Life, Dor Hadash, and New Light Jewish congregations gathered to engage in religious worship. Bowers entered the building armed with multiple firearms, including Glock .357 handguns a Colt AR-15 rifle. The indictment alleges that while inside the Tree of Life Synagogue, Bowers opened fire, killing and injuring members of the three congregations, as well as injuring multiple responding public safety officers. While inside the Tree of Life Synagogue, Bowers made statements indicating his desire to kill Jews. Specifically, the indictment charges: Eleven counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death; Eleven counts of use and discharge of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence; Two counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon and resulting in bodily injury; Eleven counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence; Eight counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon, and resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer; and One count of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving use of a dangerous weapon and resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer. Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our society, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. Every American has the right to attend their house of worship in safety. The defendant in this case allegedly murdered 11 innocent people during religious services and injured four law enforcement officers. These alleged crimes are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation. Therefore this case is not only important to the victims and their loved ones, but to the city of Pittsburgh and the entire nation. I want to express my thanks and admiration for the courage and professionalism of those officers who so quickly responded to this event, and especially to those that suffered wounds in the process. Our thanks is also extended to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, the FBI, and the ATF for their outstanding response to this violent and deadly attack. The Department of Justice, working with our state and local partners, will bring the full force of the law against anyone who would violate the civil rights of the American people and we are resolutely determined to achieve justice in this case. A federal grand jury in western Pennsylvania returned a 44-count indictment against Robert Bowers for the killing of 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday, October 27, 2018, stated U.S. Attorney Brady. Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims families, the Jewish community, and our city. Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims. This is what the public expects from the US Department of Justice. And truly we, as Pittsburghers, can do no other. It is time to go to work. I want to assure everyone that the FBI has teams of professionals working toward a single goal: to piece together the facts, answer the questions and ensure justice is served, said FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Robert Jones. We, as a community, are all united. I also want to thank local law enforcement and first responders for their heroic work. They showed professionalism and extraordinary bravery and their quick actions no doubt saved the lives of many other people that day. We are very lucky that such good people choose lives of service in law enforcement. The victims include 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue who were killed, 2 members of the congregation who were critically injured by Bowers and 9 other members of the congregation who escaped unharmed. Additionally, four law enforcement officers were injured trying to stop Bowers rampage. Assistant United States Attorneys Troy Rivetti and Soo C. Song, along with Trial Attorney Julia Gegenheimer of the Civil Rights Divisions Criminal Section, are prosecuting this case on behalf of the government. The FBI conducted the investigation leading to the Indictment in this case. The defendant faces a maximum possible penalty of death, or life without parole, followed by a consecutive sentence of 535 years imprisonment. An indictment is a formal accusation of conduct, not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Imperial Valley News Center Former Executive Director at Venezuelan State-Owned Oil Company, Petroleos De Venezuela, S.A., Pleads Guilty to Role in Billion-Dollar Money Laundering Conspiracy Miami, Florida - A former executive director at the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), pleaded guilty Wednesday for his role in a billion-dollar international scheme to launder funds embezzled from PDVSA. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Southern District of Florida and Special Agent in Charge Mark Selby of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami Field Office made the announcement. Abraham Edgardo Ortega, 51, a Venezuelan national, who was PDVSAs executive director of financial planning, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 9, 2019 by U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Southern District of Florida, who accepted his plea today. As part of his plea, Ortega admitted that in his position with PDVSA, he accepted $5 million in bribes to give priority loan status to a French company and a Russian bank, which were both minority shareholders in joint ventures with PDVSA. Ortega was paid for this bribery scheme with the proceeds of a currency exchange scheme, through which $1.2 billion was embezzled, through bribery and fraud from PDVSA. Ortega also admitted that in his position with PDVSA, he accepted $12 million in bribes for his participation in a PDVSA embezzlement scheme involving a loan and foreign-exchange contract. Ortega admitted that he worked with a co-defendant to launder $12 million that he received as bribe payments. Ortega admitted that he and his co-defendant laundered $12 million through a sophisticated false-investment scheme that received money from a payment made to look like an investment into a fund, but, in fact, the payment was actually laundered out of the fund. Surrounding and supporting this false-investment laundering scheme were complicit money managers, brokerage firms, banks and real estate investment firms in the United States and elsewhere, operating as a network of professional money launderers, Ortega admitted. Ortegas co-conspirators indicted on Aug. 16 include former PDVSA officials, professional third-party money launderers and members of the Venezuelan elite, sometimes known as boliburgues. An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. This case is the result of ongoing efforts by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Operation Money Flight, a partnership among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The OCDETF mission is to identify, investigate and prosecute high-level members of drug trafficking enterprises, bringing together the combined expertise and unique abilities of federal, state and local law enforcement. HSI Miami, HSI London, HSI Rome and HSI Madrid investigated this case. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant Chief David Johnson and Trial Attorney Gwendolyn A. Stamper of the Criminal Divisions Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael B. Nadler of the Southern District of Floridas Economic and Environmental Crimes Section. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nalina Sombuntham of the Southern District of Florida is handling the asset forfeiture aspects of the case. The Criminal Divisions Office of International Affairs provided substantial assistance in this matter. The National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom and Italian, Spanish and Maltese law enforcement authorities also provided assistance. Imperial Valley News Center Man Sentenced to 46 Months in Prison for Dog Fighting Conspiracy Grand Rapids, Michigan - Damiane Buehrer, 40, of North Adams, Michigan, was sentenced to 46 months in prison for his role in a dog fighting conspiracy based in the surrounding counties of Grand Rapids, Michigan, by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Maloney Wednesday. His prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release. Buehrer pleaded guilty in June 2018 to one felony count of conspiracy to sponsor and exhibit a dog in a dog fight and unlawful possession of dogs intended to be used for the purpose of dog fighting. The Justice Departments Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney Andrew Byerly Birge of the Western District of Michigan made the announcement. Damiane Buehrer and his codefendants participated in a sick and brutal underground activity that, because of its interstate and international nature, is subject to Federal criminal jurisdiction stated U.S. Attorney Birge. Because of the uniquely barbarous and cruel nature of this activity, my Office, along with the rest of the West Michigan law-enforcement community, is committed to investigating, punishing and deterring criminals like Buehrer and his coconspirators. Buehrer and four co-defendants were indicted in a superseding indictment on April 18, 2018, for one conspiracy count and multiple counts of unlawful possession of animals intended to be used for the purpose of dog fighting. The remaining co-defendants, including Charles Joseph Miller, Kian Maliak Miller, Charles Deon Davis Jr., and Jarvis Jason-Roy Askew, have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Between November 14, 2016, and December 7, 2017, as part of the conspiracy, Buehrer acquired and kept four dogs for the purposes of breeding, training, conditioning, and developing dogs for participation in dog fighting. The dogs, together with those owned by his co-conspirators, for a total of 37 dogs, were seized by law enforcement as part of the investigation. Buehrer was also found to possess medication for the purpose of treating dogs for wounds received during dog fighting, as well as equipment for training the dogs, including treadmills, weighted chains, break sticks, spring cables, flirt poles, and a jenny mill. The co-defendants frequently exchanged electronic communications for the purpose of sharing information about training and conditioning dogs for fighting, breeding fighting dogs, contracting for and sponsoring dog fights, collecting forfeited funds when a contracted dog fight resulted in a forfeit, and sharing results of dog fights. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kate Zell and Hagen Frank, and Senior Trial Attorney Jennifer Blackwell of the Justice Departments Environmental Crimes Section. The case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Ingham County Animal Control Office. The ASPCA assisted with the care of the dogs seized by federal law enforcement. Imperial Valley News Center Attorney General Jeff Sessions Announces New Initiative to Combat Chinese Economic Espionage Washington, DC - Attorney General Jeff Sessions Announces New Initiative to Combat Chinese Economic Espionage: Thank you all for being here. For decades, the United States has led the world in science, technology, research, and development. Without a doubt, we are the worlds top innovator. Billions have been invested to achieve that status. This has given this country advantages both economically and militarily that have directly benefitted the daily lives of the American people. It is no surprise that geopolitical rival states around the world have taken notice. That is why they often try to steal our inventions and defraud us of their proceeds. Too often, they are successful. Discoveries that took years of work and millions of dollars in investment here in the United States can be stolen by computer hackers or carried out the door by an employee in a matter of minutes. This theft is not just wrong; it poses a grave threat to our national security. And it is unlawful. But under President Donald Trump, the United States is standing up to the deliberate, systematic, and calculated threats posed, in particular, by the communist regime in China, which is notorious around the world for intellectual property theft. Earlier this year, a report from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer found that Chinese sponsorship of hacking into American businesses and commercial networks has been taking place for more than a decade and is a serious problem that burdens American commerce. The problem has been growing rapidly, and along with Chinas other unfair trade practices, it poses a real and illegal threat to our nations economic prosperity and competitiveness. Perhaps this threat has been overshadowed in the press by threats from Russia or radical Islamic terrorism. But while it has been in the shadows, the threat has only grown more dangerous. From 2013 to 2016, the Department of Justice did not charge anyone with spying for China. But since the beginning of 2017, we have charged three people with spying for China or attempting or conspiring to do so. And when it comes to trade secret theft, we are currently prosecuting five other cases where the theft or attempted theft was for the benefit of the Chinese government. In 2015, China committed publicly that it would not target American companies for economic gain. Obviously, that commitment has not been kept. Just ask GE Aviation, or Trimble, of Sunnyvale, California. Today I am announcing another economic espionage case against Chinese interests. And before I do that I want to remind everyone that the defendants in this caseas in every caseare innocent until proven guilty. I am announcing that a grand jury in San Francisco has returned an indictment alleging economic espionage on the part of a Chinese state-owned, government owned, company, a Taiwan company, and three Taiwan individuals for an alleged scheme to steal trade secrets from Micron, an Idaho-based semi-conductor company. Micron is worth an estimated $100 billion and controls about 20 to 25 percent of the dynamic random access memory industrya technology not possessed by the Chinese until very recently. One of the defendants served as president of a company acquired by Micron in 2013. He left the company in 2015 and went to work for the Taiwan defendant companyfrom where he is alleged to have orchestrated the theft of trade secrets from Micron worth up to $8.75 billion. The Taiwan defendant company then partnered with a Chinese state-owned companyso that ultimately China could steal this technology from the United States and then use it to compete against us in the market. This is a brazen scheme. If convicted, the defendants face up to 15 years in prison and $5 million in fines. The companies could face forfeiture and fines worth more than $20 billion. This week the Commerce Department added the Chinese company to the Entity List to prevent it from buying goods and services in the United States, to keep it from profiting from the technology it stole. And today the Department of Justice is filing a civil action to seek an injunction that would prevent the Chinese and Taiwan companies from transferring the stolen technology, or exporting products based on it to the United States. We are not just reacting to crimeswe are acting to block the defendants from doing any more harm to our U.S. based company, Micron. United States Attorney Alex Tse of the Northern District of California will provide more information on this case in a moment. And once again I want to remind everyone that the defendants in this caseas in every caseare innocent until proven guilty. As the cases Ive discussed have shown, Chinese economic espionage against the United States has been increasingand it has been increasing rapidly. We are here today to say: enough is enough. Were not going to take it anymore. It is unacceptable. It is time for China to join the community of lawful nations. International trade has been good for China, but the cheating must stop. And we must have more law enforcement cooperation; China cannot be a safe haven for criminals who run to China when they are in trouble, never to be extradited. China must accept the repatriation of Chinese citizens who break U.S. immigration law and are awaiting return. We will continue to charge wrongdoers based on carefully conducted investigations done with integrity and professionalism, not politics, and we will seek extradition of criminals. To be prosperous trading partners, integrity and cooperation are essential. And today I am focusing more Department of Justice resources to counter these threats. I am announcing that I have ordered the creation of a China Initiative led by Assistant Attorney General John Demers, who heads our National Security Division, and composed of a senior FBI Executive, five United States Attorneys including Alex, and several other Department of Justice leaders and officials, including Assistant Attorney General for our Criminal Division, Brian Benczkowski. This Initiative will identify priority Chinese trade theft cases, ensure that we have enough resources dedicated to them, and make sure that we bring them to an appropriate conclusion quickly and effectively. This administrations new initiative will also address two major responsibilities of our National Security Division: the Foreign Investment Review Staffs review of investments and licenses in U.S. infrastructure and telecommunications, and the Foreign Agent Registration Act Units work to counter covert efforts to influence our leaders and the general public. This will help us meet the new and evolving threats to our economy. Today, we see Chinese espionage not just taking place against traditional targets like our defense and intelligence agencies, but against targets like research labs and universities, and we see Chinese propaganda disseminated on our campuses. And so I have directed this initiative to focus on these problems as well and to recommend legislation to Congress if necessary. Chinalike any advanced nationmust decide whether it wants to be a trusted partner on the world stageor whether it wants to be known around the world as a dishonest regime running a corrupt economy founded on fraud, theft, and strong-arm tactics. Our wish is to have a trusted partner. The President has made clear that this country remains open to friendship and productive relationships with China. Nothing is more important for the world. We want our relationships to improve, not get worse. But these problems must be solved. These threats must be ended. This Department of Justiceand the Trump administrationhave already made our decision: we will not allow our sovereignty to be disrespected, our intellectual property to be stolen, or our people to be robbed of their hard-earned prosperity. We want fair trade and good relationships based on honest dealing. We will enforce our lawsand we will protect Americas national interests. Imperial Valley News Center Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Denial of Sunocos One Billion Dollar Tax Expense Washington, DC - The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued a precedential opinion Thursday affirming the Court of Federal Claims decision that federal corporate taxpayers may not deduct as a cost of goods sold expense an excise tax expense that was never actually incurred or paid, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Travis A. Greaves of the Justice Departments Tax Division. In Sunoco, Inc. v. United States, No. 2017-1402, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the Court of Federal Claims and the position of the United States. Sunoco, Inc., a petroleum and petrochemical company, claimed approximately $1 billion in alcohol fuel mixture credits on its federal excise tax returns thereby reducing its federal fuel excise tax liability by the same amount. By including the $1 billion in excise tax expenses in its cost of goods sold, Sunoco, Inc. sought to reduce its federal corporate income taxes with an excise tax expense that was never paid. The Federal Circuit held that the plain language of the Internal Revenue Code precluded Sunoco, Inc.s attempt to obtain a $300 million dollar windfall reduction in tax. The court also stated, We have already established that Congress does not generally allow taxpayers to receive a tax benefit twice. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman thanked Tax Division attorneys Judith Hagley, Gilbert Rothenberg, and Richard Farber, who handled the case on appeal for the government. California Realtor Sentenced to Prison for Filing a False Tax Return via marijuana distribution business Santa Rosa, California - A Santa Rosa, California, real estate salesperson was sentenced to 24 months in prison Thursday for filing a false income tax return that did not report income earned from the sale of marijuana, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Departments Tax Division and United States Attorney Alex G. Tse of the Northern District of California. According to court documents, Charles T. Woods, from 2012 to 2014, deposited more than $1 million dollars in cash earned from his marijuana distribution business into over 25 bank accounts he controlled. Woods hid this income from his tax return preparers by providing them with incomplete financial information, which in turn caused the filing of false tax returns for tax years 2012, 2013, and 2014. The total tax loss caused by Woods conduct was over $450,000. In addition to the term of imprisonment imposed, Woods was ordered to serve one year of supervised release and pay $466,707 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman and U.S. Attorney Tse commended special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who investigated the case, as well as Tax Division Trial Attorney Christopher Magnani and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose A. Olivera, who prosecuted the case. President Donald J. Trump Is Reimposing All Sanctions Lifted Under the Unacceptable Iran Deal Washington, DC - "The United States has launched a campaign of economic pressure to deny the regime the funds it needs to advance its bloody agenda." ~ President Donald J. Trump REIMPOSING ALL SANCTIONS: President Donald J. Trump is re-imposing the toughest sanctions ever on Iran, targeting many of the corrupt regimes critical sectors. On November 5, 2018, all United States sanctions that were lifted under the disastrous Iran nuclear deal will be fully re-imposed. Together with the unprecedented sanctions actions taken by the Trump Administration, this will be the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed on Iran. Sanctions will target critical sectors of Irans economy, such as its energy, shipping, shipbuilding, and financial sectors. Over 700 individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft are going back onto our sanctions list, including major Iranian banks, oil exporters, and shipping companies. The sanctions also target transactions with the Central Bank of Iran and designated Iranian financial institutions. Sales of food, agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices to Iran have long beenand remainexempt from our sanctions. Reimposing sanctions will cut off revenues the regime uses to bankroll terrorist groups, foment global instability, fund nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and enrich its leaders. FOLLOWING THROUGH WITH FULL ENFORCEMENT: President Trump will continue to stand up to the Iranian regimes aggression and will fully enforce the re-imposed sanctions. The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce all United States sanctions on Iran, and will target those who attempt to violate or circumvent them. Those who have failed to wind down sanctionable activities with Iran risk severe consequences. The Administration has already issued 19 rounds of sanctions, designating 168 Iran-related persons. These individuals were targeted for their ties to Irans support of terrorism, ballistic missile program, human rights abuses, criminal activities, and more. Irans oil exports have fallen by approximately one million barrels per day since peaking in June, and over twenty countries have reduced their imports of Iranian oil to zero. The Administration is pressing other importers to reduce to zero as quickly as possible. We are providing fewer exceptions to sanctions than the last administration. ENSURING STABILITY IN OIL MARKETS: The United States is confident that energy markets will remain well supplied despite Iranian oil export reductions. Court Appoints Receivers to Inventory and Distribute Client Files of Lawyer Involved in Largest Social Security Fraud Scheme in History Lexington, Kentucky - Former fugitive and social security disability lawyer Eric Christopher Conn, 58, of Pikeville, Kentucky, was sentenced in September to a total of 27 years in prison for his role in retaliating against an informant, fleeing from the United States, and defrauding the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) of more than $550 million. When he went to prison, however, approximately 6,000 to 7,000 client files relating to claims for social security benefits remained in his former Kentucky law office. The building and land was forfeited to the United States and will be sold. Before the building can be sold, the client files had to be removed and ultimately distributed to his former clients a daunting task made even more difficult by the fact that they are attorney-client privileged materials. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division and Assistant Director Timothy Virtue of the U.S. Marshals Services Asset Forfeiture Division announced Thursday that two Receivers were selected by Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky on October 12, and that the Receivers have now successfully removed the files from the law office property to begin their inventory and distribution. The files were located in the property that formerly housed Conns law practice at 9420 US Highway 23 South, Stanville, Kentucky. Judge Reeves appointed veteran attorneys Cary B. Howard and Barry Stilz, of the law firm Kinkead & Stilz, in Lexington, Kentucky, as the Courts Receivers after the Kentucky State Bar refused to take on the project. The Court directed the Receivers to collect, inventory, and to the extent possible, distribute the files to Conns former clients. Former clients of Eric Conn, or their counsel, should contact the Receivers if they wish to obtain their files. The Receivers can be contacted at (859) 226-7580, or by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . The case was investigated by the SSA Office of Inspector General, FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. Deputy Chief Darrin L. McCullough and Trial Attorney Rebecca Caruso of the Criminal Divisions Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section are handling the forfeiture portion of the case, with previous forfeiture co-counsel including Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ann Marie Blaylock of the Western District of Kentucky, Elizabeth G. Wright of the District of Maryland, and Trey Alford of the Western District of Missouri, as well as Investigative Counsel Kristen M. Warden of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. Lead counsel on the criminal case was Trial Attorney Dustin M. Davis of the Department of Justices Fraud Section. Current and Former Springfield Police Officers Indicted for Unreasonable Force Against Two Juveniles Springfield, Massachusetts - Two Springfield Police Officers, one current and one former officer, were arrested Wednesday and charged in federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts, on allegations that they used unreasonable force against two Latino juveniles during an arrest. One of the officers is also charged with threatening the juveniles during an interrogation and falsifying subsequent reports regarding the incident. Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division; United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; and Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, Boston Field Division, made the announcement. Gregg A. Bigda, 48, of Wilbraham, was charged in an indictment unsealed today with three counts of violating the civil rights of arrestees and one count of obstructing justice by writing a false report. Steven M. Vigneault, 48, of East Longmeadow, was charged in the same indictment with one count of violating the civil rights of an arrestee. The indictment charges that, on Feb. 27, 2016, Bigda used unreasonable force against a juvenile, and that afterward, Bigda spat on him and said, Welcome to the white mans world. The indictment further charges that Vigneault used unreasonable force against a different juvenile. According to the indictment, both uses of force involved the use of dangerous weapon and resulted in bodily injury. "Even in the face of adversity, law enforcement officers are expected to conduct themselves professionally, respectfully, and with integrity, said U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling. They are ambassadors for the rule of law, and when they themselves break those laws, they violate not just the rights of their victims, but compromise the public's trust in law enforcement. My Office is committed to holding our public servants accountable under the law and prosecuting those who abuse their positions of power." "Most law enforcement officers are dedicated, honest, and fully committed to building trust within their communities, but those who break the law stain the reputation of the law enforcement profession, said Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, Boston Field Division. Badges and guns do not come with the authority to ignore the Constitution or the rights of others, and those who violate it will be held accountable." The indictment further alleges that after the arrests, Bigda interrogated the juveniles without their parents present and without reading them their Miranda rights, and that, during the course of the interrogations, Bigda threatened the juveniles in a number of different ways. For example, Bigda made the following threats against the first juvenile: to crush [the juveniles] skull and [expletive] get away with it, bring the dog back [and] let him [expletive] go after the juvenile; [expletive] kill [the juvenile] in the parking lot; charge [the juvenile] with killing Kennedy and [expletive] make it stick, stick a [expletive] kilo of coke in [the juveniles] pocket and put [the juvenile] away for [expletive] 15 years, and kick [the juvenile] right in the [expletive] face as soon as [they] cross the Springfield line. Bigda made the following threats against the second juvenile: to beat the [expletive] out of [the juvenile], tune [the juvenile] the [expletive] up, and bloody [the juveniles] body. Bigda subsequently attempted to obstruct the investigation into the assaults on the juveniles by falsifying his reports to the Springfield Police Department Internal Investigations Unit, allegedly writing that he did not kick anyone or see any officer kick anyone during the course of the arrests of the juveniles. Bigda filed a second report in which he denied spitting on anyone or yelling welcome to the white mans world during the arrest of the juveniles. The charges of depriving arrestees of their civil rights carry a maximum possible sentence of 10 years for counts alleging that a dangerous weapon was used or that bodily injury resulted, and a maximum sentence of one year for the charges that allege no weapon or injury. The charges of falsifying a police report provide for a maximum possible sentence of 20 years. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. The details contained in the indictment are allegations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Deepika Bains Shukla and Katharine Wagner of Lellings Springfield Branch Office and Trial Attorney Christopher J. Perras of the Department of Justices Civil Rights Division are prosecuting the case. National Security Advisor Ambassador John R. Bolton on the Administrations Policies in Latin America Miami, Florida - AMB. BOLTON: Thank you very much. Its a great pleasure, a great honor, to be here today in Miami, and to be with all of you. I cant thank Ileana Ros-Lehtinen enough. As she said, weve known each other many years. Weve fought a lot of battles together against common opponents. Shes somebody who I think has been a model representative in Congress, and were going to miss her in the halls of the House of Representatives, but were not going to miss her in Washington because I know shes not going to leave these issues she cares about so much aloneI just know shell be up there constantly. But, what a wonderful representation of the American Dream she has been. And I also want to thank Dr. Lenore Rodicio for her invitation and for all of the hospitality here at Miami Dade. Its really been wonderful to go through Freedom Tower and feel the history here, which I know all of you feel as well. Im here on behalf of the President because weve got some important policy concerns to address with respect to Latin America, and I couldnt think of a better place really to try and discuss them and try to answer a few of your questions. When Im finished, Im looking forward to that. This really is a subject of utmost importance to the President, to me, and to the entire administration, and thats U.S. policy toward Latin America. Across our administration, we are working hard to strengthen bonds and deepen ties with several responsible governments throughout the region. The United States is thrilled to be partnering with nations such as Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and many others to advance the rule of law and increase security and prosperity for our people. The recent elections of likeminded leaders in key countries, including Ivan Duque in Colombia, and last weekend Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, are positive signs for the future of the region, and demonstrate a growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable governance. Yet today, in this Hemisphere, we are also confronted once again with the destructive forces of oppression, socialism, and totalitarianism. In Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, we see the perils of poisonous ideologies left unchecked, and the dangers of domination and suppression. This afternoon, I am here to deliver a clear message from the President of the United States on our policy toward these three regimes. Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores. We will not reward firing squads, torturers, and murderers. We will champion the independence and liberty of our neighbors. And this President, and his entire administration, will stand with the freedom fighters. The Troika of Tyranny in this HemisphereCuba, Venezuela, and Nicaraguahas finally met its match. And as I say, there is no better place to deliver this message than right here in Miami, at the Freedom Tower. Miami is home to countless Americans, who fled the prisons and death squads of the Castro regime in Cuba, the murderous dictatorships of Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, and the horrific violence of the 1980s and today under the brutal reign of the Ortegas in Nicaragua. In every corner of Miami, you will find someone who has endured years in Castros infamous Combinado del Este political prison, or has been tortured in Maduros Helicoide prison, or has a loved one still languishing in Ortegas El Chipote prison. Others who call Miami home have escaped anti-Semitism and prejudice that has unfortunately existed in the region. Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States, or anywhere in the world. We all have a responsibility to confront this heinous hatred, whether it occurs in Pittsburgh, Caracas, or in any other city. And you know on that score, nobody has done more than Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, including her leadership and the bill she has introduced to allow Holocaust survivors the opportunity to bring their cases to court. Thank you, Ile. Many of you in the audience today have personally suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of the regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, only to survive, fight back, conquer, and overcome. You breathe the free air of this beautiful city. Your children have experienced the possibilities of liberty. And your grandchildren will never know the firsthand heartache of repression. Your descendants can be anything, and achieve anything. They can attend this great institution, Miami Dade College, or even run for the presidency of the United States. And as they grow and flourish in America, they will carry with them your history, your sacrifice, and the memories of your incredible triumph. Their success will be your enduring legacy. In the United States, we frequently hear the stories of Americans who came to our country for a better life, and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, through hard work and sacrifice. Today, I would ask that when you think of the American Dream, and this iconic imagery, you also envision something else. Generations of Americans have been inspired to thrive in liberty and freedom not only because of the rewards of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice, but also because of the inalienable rights bestowed on every American and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. These fundamental liberties are represented forever by the red, white, and blue of our Old Glory, and defended from harm by the greatest military on the face of the earth. The American Dream depends on hard work and self-sufficiency, yes, but even more so on the knowledge of what freedom makes possible: the awareness that you can chart your own destiny, the cognizance that you are free to speak, to think, to write, to pray, to live. Everyone here today understands this fundamental truth. There is no glamor in gulags and labor camps, in death squads and propaganda machines, in mass executions and the sound of terrorizing screams from the depths of the worlds most notorious prisons. These are the true consequences of socialism and communism. This is the price of freedoms extinguished flame. As the President has said, the problems we see in Latin America today have not emerged because socialism has been implemented poorly. On the contrary, the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan people suffer in misery because socialism has been implemented effectively. In Cuba, a brutal dictatorship under the facade of a new figurehead continues to frustrate democratic aspirations, and jail and torture opponents. In Venezuela and Nicaragua, desperate autocratic leaders, hell-bent on maintaining their grip on power, have joined their Cuban counterparts in the same oppressive behavior of unjust imprisonment, torture, and murder. This Troika of Tyranny, this triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua, is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere. Under President Trump, the United States is taking direct action against all three regimes to defend the rule of law, liberty, and basic human decency in our region. As the President has repeatedly made clear, Americas security and prosperity benefits when freedom thrives near our shores. In Cuba, we continue to stand firmly with the Cuban people, and we share their aspirations for real, democratic change. Members of this administration will never take a picture in front of an image of Che Guevara, as Barack Obama did. An image of Che Guevara that was plastered over the Cuban ministry that runs the National Revolutionary Police force: the agent of oppression of the Cuban people. This oppression of dissidents and suppressing every kind of freedom known to man is what typifies the regime in Havana. We will not glamorize Marxist guerillas to promote a delusion of our own glory. Our concern is with sanctions, not selfies. Under this administration, there will no longer be secret channels of communication between Cuba and the United States. Our policy is transparent for the American people and the world to see. It is encapsulated in National Security Presidential Memorandum-5, entitled Strengthening the Policy of the United States Toward Cuba. And, in June of last year, President Trump came right here to Miami to outline this administrations new policy and to announce the cancellation of the last administrations one-sided and misguided deal with the Cuban regime. As the President said then, the United States will not prop up a military monopoly that abuses the citizens of Cuba. Under our approach, the United States is enforcing U.S. law to maintain sanctions until, among other things, all political prisoners are freed, freedoms of assembly and expression are respected, all political parties are legalized, and free and internationally supervised elections are scheduled. Importantly, our policy includes concrete actions to prevent American dollars from reaching the Cuban military, security, and intelligence services. Today, I want to emphasize that that national security directive was just the beginning of our effort to pressure the Cuban regime. Since its release, we have been tightening sanctions against the Cuban military and intelligence services, including their holding companies, and closing loopholes in our sanctions resolutions. In this respect, I believe that within days the administration will add over two dozen additional entities owned or controlled by the Cuban military and intelligence services to the restricted list of entities with which financial transactions by U.S. persons are prohibited. And I believe even more will come as well. The Cuban military and intelligence agencies must not profit from the United States, its people, its travelers, or its businesses. Moreover, I pledge to you further that the National Security Council will intensively review progress on President Trumps commitments regarding Cuba made last year to ensure that all of them are fully implemented. In response to the vicious attacks on Embassy Havana, we have also scaled back our embassy personnel in Cuba. This President will not allow our diplomats to be targeted with impunity. And we will not excuse those who harm our highest representatives abroad by falsely invoking videos, or concocting some other absurd pretext for their suffering. The United States will stand up for our citizens, our allies, and our friends, whether they frequent our new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, chant for reform in Tehran, or fight for freedom in the streets of Havana. We will only engage with a Cuban government that is willing to undertake necessary and tangible reformsa government that respects the interests of the Cuban people. In Venezuela, the United States is acting against the dictator Maduro, who uses the same oppressive tactics that have been employed in Cuba for decades. He has installed an illegitimate Constituent Assembly, debased the currency for political gain, and forced his people to sign up for a corrupt food distribution service or face certain starvation. These actions have created damaging ripple effects throughout the region. The crisis in Venezuela has led to a massive humanitarian disaster and the largest mass migration in the Hemisphere. More than 2 million desperate Venezuelans have fled Maduros oppressive rule since 2015. Sadly, this human tragedy was entirely preventable. Maduro and his cronies are the sole cause of all of this suffering. The Venezuelan regimes repression is of course enabled by the Cuban dictatorship. The United States calls on all nations in the region to face this obvious truth, and let the Cuban regime know that it will be held responsible for the continued oppression in Venezuela. From the U.S. perspective, our demands are simple and straightforward. We call for the immediate release of all Venezuelan political prisoners; acceptance of international humanitarian assistance; free, fair, and credible elections; and legitimate steps to restore democratic institutions and the rule of law in Venezuela. Since taking office, President Trump has signed four Executive Orders targeting corruption and the looting of the Venezuelan economy. The administration has sanctioned over 70 Venezuelan individuals and entities, including the President and his wife, along with senior members of his regime. And, we have levied a Kingpin drug-trafficking designation on a member of Maduros inner circle. We have also condemned the regimes involvement in the death earlier this month of a Venezuelan opposition councilman in the custody of the intelligence services, and we have likewise spoken out against the apparent-August torture of yet another opposition councilman. Today, I am proud to share that President Trump has signed an Executive Order to impose tough, new sanctions against Venezuela. The new sanctions will target networks operating within corrupt Venezuelan economic sectors and deny them access to stolen wealth. Most immediately, the new sanctions will prevent U.S. persons from engaging with actors and networks complicit in corrupt or deceptive transactions in the Venezuelan gold sector. The Maduro regime has used this sector as a bastion to finance illicit activities, to fill its coffers, and to support criminal groups. The United States will not tolerate Maduros undermining of democratic institutions and ruthless violence against innocent civilians. Finally, in Nicaragua, the United States continues to condemn the Ortega regimes violence and repression against its citizens and opposition members. Ortega and his allies have completely eroded democratic institutions, stifled free speech, and imposed a policy of jail, exile, or death for political opponents. The government continues to illegally detain protestors and manipulate laws to target innocent civilians. Earlier this month, a student protestor was detained unlawfully, and to this day, his whereabouts remain unknown to his family. This behavior is unacceptable anywhere, and especially in the Western Hemisphere. Free, fair, and early elections must be held in Nicaragua, and democracy must be restored to the Nicaraguan people. Until then, the Nicaraguan regime, like Venezuela and Cuba, will feel the full weight of Americas robust sanctions regime. The Troika of Tyranny in this Hemisphere will not endure forever. Like all oppressive regimes and ideologies, they too will meet their demise. The people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are fearsome opponents, and if I were Diaz-Canel, Maduro, or Ortega, I would fear their virtuous power. These tyrants fancy themselves strongmen and revolutionaries, icons and luminaries. In reality, they are clownish, pitiful figures more akin to Larry, Curly, and Moe. The three stooges of socialism are true believers, but they worship a false God. We know their day of reckoning awaits. We see its origins in the brave Ladies in White, who courageously take to the streets to defend their families and all of Cuba. We feel its shiver in the crowd around the flag-draped coffin of fifteen-year-old Orlando Cordoba, killed in a peaceful protest in Nicaragua. We hear its echo in the piercing chants outside of a Venezuelan military base: Libertad! Libertad! Libertad! The United States now looks forward to watching each corner of the triangle fall: in Havana, in Caracas, in Managua. While we await that fateful day, the people of the region can be assured that the United States stands with them against the forces of oppression, totalitarianism, and domination. Look to the North; look to our flag; look to your own. The Troika will crumble. The people will triumph. And, the righteous flame of freedom will burn brightly again in this Hemisphere. Thank you very much. Why are there no chairs in the Bible, or in all 30,000 lines of Homer? Neither are there any in Shakespeares Hamlet written in 1599. But by the middle of the 19th century, it is a completely different story. Charles Dickenss Bleak House suddenly has 187 of them. What changed? With sitting being called the new smoking, we all know that spending too much time in chairs is bad for us. Not only are they unhealthy, but like air pollution, they are becoming almost impossible for modern humans to avoid. When I started researching my book about how the world we have made is changing our bodies, I was surprised to discover just how rare chairs used to be. Now theyre everywhere: offices, trains, cafes, restaurants, pubs, cars, trains, concert halls, cinemas, doctors surgeries, hospitals, theatres, schools, university lecture halls and all over our houses (I guarantee you have more than you think). If I was asked to make even a conservative estimate of the number of chairs in the world, Id find it hard to go lower than eight to 10 per person. Applying that logic, there could be more than 60 billion of them on the planet. Surely chairs should be one of the universal signals of the arrival of the Anthropocene? Just like the data required to justify the change in the name of our geological epoch, they are to be found on every continent. As to why there are suddenly so many chairs, there is no single clear reason. It is a confluence of fashion, politics, changing work habits, and the lust for comfort. The last of these requires no explanation in a culture in which ease and comfort are among the strongest drivers of consumer decision-making. A history of chairs While chairs began to appear with a little more frequency in the early modern period, it seems that they became much more widely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries during the Industrial Revolution. Before the 18th century, a chair was relatively easily come by, but the majority of the population had little use for them. Even today, it is not easy to sit in a hard wooden chair for sustained periods and upholstered chairs were prohibitively expensive. But the fashion for a new reclining culture (imported from the French court of the 18th century) helped to popularise their early use. For centuries before, chairs had persistently been associated with power, wealth and high status. They were about as widely used by the peasantry as a crown. There is an instructive stage direction in the First Folio of King Lear in which the monarch enters while being carried by servants in a chair. The idea of chairs as a symbol of status still persists today. The highest attainment in my own profession, academia, is called a chair. The individual that runs a meeting is called a chair. The head of a company is also a chairman or woman. And it is a truth, universally acknowledged, that the best chair in any office building always belongs to the boss. The worst jobs for your health Show all 10 1 /10 The worst jobs for your health The worst jobs for your health 10. Surgical and medical assistants, technologists, and technicians Overall unhealthiness score: 57.3 What they do: Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons, registered nurses, or other surgical personnel and perform medical laboratory tests. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 88 2. Exposure to contaminants: 80 3. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 69 The worst jobs for your health 9. Stationary engineers and boiler operators Overall unhealthiness score: 57.7 What they do: Operate or maintain stationary engines, boilers, or other mechanical equipment to provide utilities for buildings or industrial processes. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 99 2. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 89 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 84 The worst jobs for your health 8. Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators Overall unhealthiness score: 58.2 What they do: Operate or control an entire process or system of machines, often through the use of control boards, to transfer or treat water or wastewater. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 97 2. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 80 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 74 The worst jobs for your health 7. Histotechnologists and histologic technicians Overall unhealthiness score: 59.0 What they do: Prepare histologic slides from tissue sections for microscopic examination and diagnosis by pathologists. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 88 2. Exposure to contaminants: 76 3. Exposure to disease and infections: 75 The worst jobs for your health 6. Immigration and customs inspectors Overall unhealthiness score: 59.3 What they do: Investigate and inspect people, common carriers, goods, and merchandise, arriving in or departing from the US or between states to detect violations of immigration and customs laws and regulations. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 78 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 63 3. Exposure to radiation: 62 The worst jobs for your health 5. Podiatrists Overall unhealthiness score: 60.2 What they do: Diagnose and treat diseases and deformities of the human foot. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 87 2. Exposure to radiation: 69 3. Exposure to contaminants: 67 The worst jobs for your health 4. Veterinarians, veterinary assistants, and laboratory animal caretakers and veterinary technologists and technicians What they do: Diagnose, treat, or research diseases and injuries of animals and perform medical tests in a laboratory environment for use in the treatment and diagnosis of diseases in animals. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 81 2. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 75 3. Exposure to contaminants: 74 The worst jobs for your health 3. Anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and anesthesiologist assistants Overall unhealthiness score: 62.3 What they do: Administer anesthetics or sedatives during medical procedures, and help patients in recovering from anesthesia. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 94 2. Exposure to contaminants: 80 3. Exposure to radiation: 74 The worst jobs for your health 2. Flight attendants What they do: Provide personal services to ensure the safety, security, and comfort of airline passengers during flight. Greet passengers, verify tickets, explain use of safety equipment, and serve food or beverages. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 88 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 77 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 69 The worst jobs for your health 1. Dentists, dental surgeons, and dental assistants Overall unhealthiness score: 65.4 What they do: Examine, diagnose, and treat diseases, injuries, and malformations of teeth and gums. May treat diseases of nerve, pulp, and other dental tissues affecting oral hygiene and retention of teeth. May fit dental appliances or provide preventive care. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 84 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 75 3. Time spent sitting: 67 Once the use of chairs was democratised (particularly after the French Revolution in France and the 1832 Great Reform Acts in the UK), this coincided with a slow change in our working patterns. The majority of work done in the Victorian period would have been understood as manual labour or factory work. But towards the end of the 19th century, as the second wave of a technological revolution gathered pace with inventions such as the typewriter, telegraphy and the expanding uses and applications of electricity, the labour market also began to change. The new category of office clerks were the fastest-growing occupational group in the latter half of the period. In 1851, the census suggests less than 44,000 people were performing administrative work. But in just two decades, sedentary workers had more than doubled to 91,000. A sedentary planet Today, sedentary workers are in the majority. And, throughout the 20th century, a forest of other sedentary activities have grown up around us to match our new working lives. Novel reading increased hugely in popularity throughout the 19th century and further sedentary leisure activities followed in its wake: cinema, radio and TV. More recently, gaming, streaming and screen-time generally are all activities that are hungry for us to sit still in contemplation. The Anthropocene human needs chairs to fulfil all of these (I suppose we could call them) activities. If modern life presents us with a bouquet of sedentary behaviours, then chairs are the stalks. They are so necessary to leading a modern life that most of what we do seems unimaginable without them. Research conducted by the British Heart Foundation suggests that we enjoy about 9.5 hours per day of sedentary time. This means that modern humans are inactive for about 75 per cent of their time. There are a few problems with this. Our bodies do their best to be the kinds of body that we need. Wolffs Law and Daviss Law can be boiled down to the adage use it or lose it for the bodys hard and soft tissues respectively. In both cases they tell us that muscle or bone will respond either to increased load or the cessation of use. Bones become thinner or denser. Muscles, stronger or weaker. Seated so much, with most of the musculature in our backs disengaged as they recline in a chair, it is little wonder that with our weakened spines, back pain is now the number one cause of disability, globally. Just as we have an Anthropocene environment, we might equally class ourselves as Anthropocene humans. Palaeolithic humans died most frequently in infancy. Violence and injury were also common causes of mortality in later life. Modern humans, though, overwhelmingly die as a result of metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers all strongly linked with inactivity: namely, chair use. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events A 2012 study investigating the effects of inactivity collated behavioural data from 7,813 women and found that those that sat for 10 hours a day had shorter telomeres (an indicator of cellular ageing). Their sedentary habits had aged them biologically by about eight years. Some studies even suggest that the effects of sitting for sustained periods cannot be offset by a little exercise. These studies and many others attest to the fact that we should be thinking carefully about investing any further in our relatively new-found and passionate love affair with the chair. Vybarr Cregan-Reid is a reader in environmental humanities at the University of Kent. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com) Kim Kardashian-West has responded to critics who accused her of animal cruelty after she was pictured riding an elephant in Sumatra, Indonesia. The 38-year-old was visiting an elephant sanctuary with her two young children, North and Saint, and has insisted that she did full research before arriving. But photographs of the reality TV star sat astride one of the animals prompted a diatribe on social media, with wildlife campaigners calling her actions disgusting and irresponsible. You should be ashamed of yourself riding those elephants, wrote one person on Twitter. Those elephants should be free and shouldnt have to drive you and your family around! Another added: Why am I not surprised that in 2018 Kim Kardashian is riding elephants and further promoting animal exploitation tourism. Disgusting and irresponsibly cruel. If you knew what pain and torture theyve been through. Downton Abbey actor Peter Egan, who played Hugh MacClare, tweeted the images and accused the mother-of-two of ignorance and such a lack of care. He continued: Doesnt she understand the cruelty inflicted on these poor elephants in order for her inane photo shoot? Several hours later, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star responded to Egan, writing: We visited an elephant sanctuary that has rescued these elephants from Sumatra where they would have otherwise gone extinct. It is an organisation that is working to save these beautiful animals. We did full research before going. A representative from the animal rights organisation PETA has explained how riding elephants can have adverse effects. All over the world, tourist traps offer the chance to climb up on an elephant's back without divulging what these animals endure, said Rachel Matthews, deputy director at PETA in the US. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Baby elephants have their spirits broken through an egregiously cruel process in which still-nursing elephants are dragged from their mothers, immobilised, and gouged with bull hooks and nails. Recommended Kim Kardashian most dangerous celebrity to search for online in UK These horrific, ritualized training sessions often leave elephants severely injured and traumatized, and some do not survive. Riding elephants or visiting camps that force elephants to come into contact with humans directly supports these abuses. Written and presented by Dr Ed Kessler MBE, founder and director of the Cambridge-based Woolf Institute, this compelling guide to religious belief and scepticism is a must-read for believers and nonbelievers alike. Founded in 1998 to explore the relationship between religion and society, the Woolf Institute uses research and education to foster understanding between people of all beliefs with the aim of reducing prejudice and intolerance. Says Dr Kessler: Latest surveys suggest that 85 per cent of the worlds population identify themselves as belonging to a specific religion, and in many parts of the world the most powerful actors in civil society are religious. Understanding religion and belief, the role they play and their impact on behaviour and decision-making is, therefore, vital. When The Village Voice, the first alternative weekly in the US, closed in late August, social justice movements lost one of their biggest cheerleaders. Founded in 1955, the Voice aggressively covered civil rights, race relations, police brutality, gentrification, homelessness and reproductive rights. While a gay rights march may have received a short mention in The New York Times, that same demonstration would get front page treatment in the Voice. The Voice played a particularly important role in promoting and publishing social documentary photography. Just as the photographs of Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis communicated the horrors of child labour and tenement overcrowding in the early 20th century, Voice photojournalists such as Donna Binder, Ricky Flores, Lisa Kahane, TL Litt, Thomas McGovern, Brian Palmer, Joseph Rodriguez, and Linda Rosier conveyed the fears, rage and struggles of the citys marginalised communities. In issue after issue, these photographers captured the despair and anger of the HIV/Aids epidemic; the anguish of black and Latino New Yorkers whose friends and family members had died at the hands of white mobs or the police; and battles over access to affordable housing. Their work is included in Whose Streets? Our Streets! a travelling exhibition that we co-curated with Meg Handler and Michael Kamber that features photojournalists who covered struggles for social justice on the streets of New York City from 1980 to 2000. We spoke with Handler, a former photo editor for the Voice, and three photographers whose work regularly appeared in the publication to discuss the significance of the Voices approach to photography. An unabashedly activist approach The Village Voice quickly became a popular outlet for progressive photojournalists after its formation in 1955. To Handler, a former photo editor of the Voice in the early 1990s, there were three key points of attraction: One, there was never any ambiguity about the politics of the paper. It was, from its infancy, what longtime Voice photo editor and photographer Fred W McDarrah famously called a commie, hippie, pinko rag. Two, the paper hired a fair amount of freelancers and so there was the opportunity to work with a diverse group of people to cover subjects that they were personally committed to. And three, it was a photographers paper, meaning images would retain their integrity, they wouldnt be cropped, their subjects wouldnt be misrepresented. Photographer Tom McGovern worked at the Voice from 1988 to 1995, and credited the publication with giving him the freedom to make the photographs he wanted to make in order to educate others about the Aids epidemic. McGovern, whose photographs of the Aids crisis would eventually be published in his 1999 book, Bearing Witness (To Aids), told us that he was motivated by a simple impulse: to challenge the negative stereotypes about who has Aids and what is this disease. It was not traditional journalism, he says. I never saw myself as being completely objective. I was certainly a supporter of the cause. In his photographs, McGovern highlighted the work of the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power, or Act Up New York, which used direct action and spectacular street theatre to call attention to the ineffective government response to the HIV/Aids epidemic. The 1993 funeral of a prominent Aids activist became a march through the streets (Thomas McGovern) [Act Up] knew how to stage events, McGovern says. He explained that the organisations members would plan demonstrations for late afternoon, when the lighting is best for snapping photographs. They also created these beautiful posters that were made to be photographed great. In this way, Aids activists collaborated with photojournalists to promote support for Aids research and to challenge the stigma of the disease. The eyes of the neighbourhood Social documentary photographers are committed to showcasing perspectives of marginalised groups. Dorothea Lange famously told the story of the Great Depression through the faces of destitute farming families, not wealthy bankers. Sometimes, those best suited to tell the stories of marginalised groups came from those groups themselves. The Village Voice, more than mainstream news outlets, valued publishing work by photographers from diverse backgrounds. After the Howard Beach killing, activists disrupt the New York subway service by marching on the tracks (Ricky Flores) Ricky Flores, whose photographs document race relations and police brutality, was raised in the South Bronx. According to Flores, his own background and community ties were essential to the pictures he made for the Voice and other progressive outlets. Other photographers arent going to see it the way I see it, Flores says. Theyre not a South Bronx Puerto Rican who actually is living under the very weight of the oppression that was being focused on our community. In addition to photographing the South Bronx and Puerto Rican activism, Flores is known for his coverage of race relations and police brutality. He photographed the civil rights marches led by Reverend Al Sharpton in the late 1980s and early 1990s after white youth killed a young African-American man in Howard Beach. He also covered the unrest in Washington Heights in July 1992 following the police killing of Jose Kiko Garcia in a drug sweep. In an interview, Flores said that through his work, he hoped to show why people are demonstrating ,by documenting the injustices that were taking place. To this day, theres a lot of mistrust of the police in minority communities, Flores continued. They feel that cops can get away with murdering citizens with impunity. Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Show all 15 1 /15 Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Kandy Freeman participates in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Hawk Newsome, a Black Lives Matter activist, leads a protest outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Hawk Newsome (C) leads a chant during a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, US. January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower An NYPD officer speaks with a Black Lives Matter leaders during a protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Kandy Freeman participates in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower An NYPD officer speaks with a Black Lives Matter leaders during a protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Carol Garza, a Black Lives Matter supporter, protests outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower A Black Lives Matter supporter protests in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter activists march in front of Trump Tower on January 14, 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter activists march in front of Trump Tower on January 14, 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter supporters protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter Kandy Freeman marches in front of Trump Tower on January 14, 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty A mandate to capture and make sense of it all With its focus on local issues and its tradition of muckraking journalism, the Voice gave social justice movements more coverage and more sympathetic coverage than mainstream papers like The New York Times. As a student activist at New York University in the 1980s, Victoria Wolcott recalled how, after a protest, you would go and get The Village Voice the next day. We wanted to know what the Village Voice was reporting, because they were progressive and they had really great photographs. The Voices coverage of the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riots in which police charged a crowd of homeless people, activists and journalists protesting the citys implementation of a curfew in the park helped participants make sense of what they were seeing unfolding on the streets. Wolcott, now a professor of history at the University of Buffalo, explained how there would be a photograph of somebody getting beat up [by the police] with blood [gushing] from their head, so that was another way that photographs help to legitimise your experience. A car is set alight in the aftermath of the 1992 police killing of Jose Kiko Garcia (Ricky Flores) Voice photographer Linda Rosier told us that in those years, before the rise of smart phones, social media and so-called citizen journalism, she had a mandate to photograph, since we were the ones out there seeing it and being the eyes of the city really. Today, McGovern adds: Newspapers and magazines dont have the power they used to have. Its not like youre waiting for The Village Voice to come out on Wednesday or The New York Times the next morning to be able to see these pictures; now its on social media. The problem now is not a dearth of images, but rather a lack of context. Part of a photographs power can come from the way experienced journalists and editors position it in the text, or use it to complement a reported article. Social documentary photographers also spent years immersing themselves in the community they were covering and cultivating ties to activists. They possessed a deep knowledge of their subject. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The tactics and spirit of the Voice might live on in the amateur photographers covering modern social movements like Black Lives Matter and the Keystone XL Pipeline. But something will be lost with the folding of a periodical that featured images by the neighbourhood, about the neighbourhood and for the neighbourhood. Tamar Carroll is an associate professor of history and Joshua Meltzer is an assistant professor of photojournalism and visual storytelling at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This article first appeared in The Conversation (theconversation.com) When she was a child, Cheyenne Vachons grandfather asked her to fetch water. She continued to play, bouncing a ball up and down on a paddle. By the time she got around to doing the chore, her grandfather had already got the water himself. He said, Sit down, Im going to tell you a story. And I said, Oh god, not again. The story was about a family of Naskapis, the indigenous Canadian First Nation that Ms Vachons mother belonged to, in the bush in the days when they were still nomadic. A hunter was about to return with his catch and there was excitement in the air at the prospect of days of hunger coming to an end. The boys set about chopping wood and the women got ready to prepare the caribou. But the young girl of the family did not fetch water for cooking the meat and making broth for the babies and sick elders, as she was supposed to. By the time the rest of the family realised, it was too late. As a result, the young girls seriously ill grandmother died. It was always the way with Ms Vachons grandfather, when she was growing up in the close-knit native reservations that border Schefferville, a small, remote mining town in northeastern Quebec. Instead of punishing her, he would tell stories. But she never understood why. Not until her late thirties, when she was studying Naskapi language as part of a teacher training course run by the prestigious McGill University. A white theatre director who was given a job intended for artists of colour has found himself at the centre of a debate around racial identity. Anthony Ekundayo Lennon, who has worked on all-black productions, is among four people who won a paid traineeship as a theatre practitioner of colour last year. The opportunity was funded by a 406,500 grant from Arts Council England to "deliver a comprehensive programme of talent development for future Bame leaders". The actor reportedly applied on the basis of his mixed heritage, having previously claimed he had gone through the struggles of a black man despite being born to white Irish parents. Growing up, Mr Lennons high cheekbones and curly hair led people to see him as mixed race, making him the target of racist slurs, according to an ebook he wrote 10 years ago, unearthed by the The Sunday Times. He talked about his racial identity when he appeared on a 1990s episode of BBC series Everyman, the synopsis for which says: Anthony Lennon was born in Kilburn, west London. His parents both come from Ireland and are both indisputably white. Anthony now earns his living as a black actor, because ever since he was a child he has looked black. When his friends, who are mostly black, find out about his background, fierce debates invariably follow; about whether Anthony really can call himself black, and about what black skin means to those who are born black. Critics have described the decision to award Mr Lennon with crucial funding dedicated to artists of colour as a kick in the teeth for black aspiring actors and artists. Writing for The Independent, Paula Akpan, an advocate for black women, said his claim of being African born again was not how race works at all, while black actor Luke Elliot said he was fuming that Mr Lennon was taking up the little resources awarded to black artists. The case has revived discussion prompted by Rachel Dolezal, a white American woman and former civil rights activist who for 10 years pretended she was black before being publicly outed. But although Mr Lennon has adopted a black identity changing his middle name from David to Ekundayo he has remained honest about his white ancestry. The then actor told an audience in 2012: Although Im white, with white parents, I have gone through the struggles of a black man, a black actor. In an account of his heritage he gave in 1990, he stated: My parents are white and so are their parents, and so are their parents, and so are their parents. Mr Lennon reportedly found his love of acting when he was sent by his mother to the Cockpit theatre in west London. But as he grew older, he struggled to get white parts, and found success with groups such as the Black Theatre Forum. In 1990, when Mr Lennon, aged 24, appeared in a BBC Everyman documentary about race called Chilling Out, he said: All of us in this programme are actors, but this is not a fiction. All of us are speaking as ourselves, and from our own experience. Pressed on his identity by black actors in the documentary, he said: When Im alone in my bedroom looking in the mirror, thinking about stuff Ive written down, thinking about my past relationship-wise, pictures on the wall, I think Im a black man. Ive not said that to anyone. And I wont say it outside. Actor Lennie James said in the documentary: Sometimes I feel like you are watching me. Watching me to say this equals a black man. Then youre taking it from me and sticking it on yourself. Talawa, the black-led theatre Mr Lennon works for, said: As an artist of mixed heritage he is not only eligible for the position, but his experience, work and achievements make him an exceptional person for the role. The Artistic Director Leadership Programme (ADLP), the consortium that awarded the traineeship funding, said: We received 113 applications ... and 29 were appointed to the ADLP. Talawa were satisfied Anthony was eligible for the opportunity as a result of a relationship with him over a number years, in which he has identified as a mixed-heritage individual. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Arts Council, which provided the grant, said: Talawa raised their wish to support Anthony with us. In responding we took into account the law in relation to race and ethnicity. This is a very unusual case and we do not think it undermines the support we provide to black and minority ethnic people within the theatre sector. Mr Lennon has not responded to a request for comment. A man and a child have been killed and several other people injured following a crash involving a car and a minibus in Cheshire. North West Ambulance Service said it had responded to what it described as a "very large incident" on the A34 road in Alderley Edge at around 12.15am on Sunday morning. Two people, an adult man and a child, had been killed during the collision, the ambulance service said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In total, nine other passengers were injured, seven of which were taken to Macclesfield General Hospital. One man involved in the incident is being treated at Manchester Royal Infirmary, while another child is being treated at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. Cheshire Fire and Rescue service said its crews had attended the scene to help remove casualties from vehicles involved in the crash. Many of the famous red poppies sold during this years charity appeal for ex-servicemen have been made by British prisoners earning on average 10 a week, The Independent can reveal. The Royal British Legion, the armed forces charity that runs each years poppy appeal, confirmed inmates at HMP Ford in West Sussex had for several years been producing the black centre buttons and green stems. But anti-poverty campaigners have now accused the well-respected charity of exploiting prisoners and undermining their fundraising efforts. One3One Solutions, the commercial arm of the Ministry of Justices prison industries, has been working with the Royal British Legion and another charity in Scotland, Lady Haigs Poppy Factory, since at least 2015. A document which dates from 2016 showed the two firms spent almost 100,000 paying the prison for the services of its inmates in manufacturing the poppies. While neither the Legion nor the Ministry of Justice were able to say how much work had been done this year, both confirmed prisoners at HMP Ford were still hard at work making the plastic parts. The Legion said: We have a commercial arrangement with HMP Ford who produce the black centre button and green stems of our poppies through injection moulding machines operated by prison staff. The prisoners take the stencils apart when they come out of the machines and package the individual pieces. The Legion also said it had an arrangement with HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire, where prisoners refurbish its collecting tins and buckets, and fill poppy trays and boxes. The average prisoner in Britain who is engaged in some kind of employment behind bars earns just 10 a week, a prisons inspectorate report from 2016 found. Pimp my poppy: a charity symbol reinvented Show all 3 1 /3 Pimp my poppy: a charity symbol reinvented Pimp my poppy: a charity symbol reinvented 486508.bin REX Pimp my poppy: a charity symbol reinvented 486509.bin REX Pimp my poppy: a charity symbol reinvented 486510.bin About one in three inmates take up the offer of work while they serve their sentence. The minimum wage 7.80 an hour for anyone over 25 is just 4 a week in jail. The executive director of War on Want, an anti-poverty charity which has campaigned against sweatshops and for workers rights, said people would be shocked to find out their poppies are assembled by prisoners. Charities have to live by the values they espouse [and] make sure people arent being exploited and are paid a living wage for their products, Asad Rehman said. My grandfather fought in the First World War. Many veterans would say that they fought for a society that wasnt based on that kind of exploitation. The end doesnt justify the means. Exploitation of cheap labour, whether it is in prisons or out of prisons is deeply problematic. James McClean issues attack on 'uneducated cavemen' fans then quotes IRA martyr after being abused on pitch for not wearing poppy The growth of prison work has become a contentious issue worldwide, particularly in the United States where many prisons have made large sums of money by selling their inmates labour to large multinationals. But the prison service has argued that encouraging those behind bars to work, even for wages as low as 4 a week, is a good thing. Simon Boddis, the senior civil servant responsible for commissioning in the prison service, said in a leaflet advertising One3One Solutions to outside firms there was a strong case for expanding prison industries. The leaflet reads: It makes sense in terms of payback to society, helping support the UK economy, playing a part in reducing further costly offending and providing increased value to the taxpayer. Prison activists, however, say most prisoners choose to work because they need the money to pay for TVs and other perks inside jail. Many have criticised the work available, which is mostly unskilled and repetitive manual labour, as offering no long-term benefits to inmates beyond countering boredom. A spokesperson for the Howard League for Penal Reform charity said they had always campaigned for real, properly paid and trained work in prisons. Prisoners at HMP Ford in West Sussex have been manufacturing parts for years (PA) A lot of prison labour in the sense that it is quite menial and not particularly well-paid doesnt prepare prisoners for release, he said. But the League did not have any problem with prisoners being asked to make poppies in particular, he stressed. The practice is not confined to the UK either prisoners in New Zealand and Canada have also been involved in making their own versions of Remembrance Day poppies. Many of the poppies and wreaths sold by the Royal British Legion are made by the Poppy Factory, an organisation which employs disabled veterans who have struggled to otherwise find work since leaving the forces. A spokesperson for the organisation said they were unaware the Legion was also having poppies made by prisoners, but did not comment further. Mr Rehman said the revelation underlined why society needed to change its attitude towards prisons. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events I dont think this is the right signal to be sending seeing people in the most vulnerable position as a source of cheap labour, he said. Prisoners are working for wages which wouldnt be acceptable outside in everyday life. Prisons are seen first and foremost as a source of cheap labour rather than a place where we are rehabilitating people. Ultimately prisoners are still human beings, inside or outside prison they still have the same human rights. A Royal British Legion spokesperson said: We work with the prison service at the request of the Ministry of Justice to provide work opportunities for prisoners. We believe this is a good opportunity to support the prisoners in their rehabilitation and it is not a route to cut labour costs. Theresa May has reportedly secured concessions from Brussels to keep the whole of the UK in a customs union in the wake of Britains withdrawal from the European Union. Reaching an agreement would prevent the need for Northern Ireland to be treated differently from the rest of the UK, a main stumbling block during Brexit negotiations. The secret deal would avoid the need for an Irish backstop and would be written into the legally binding deal, according to The Sunday Times. However, Downing Street has poured cold water on the report, calling it speculation. The EU has reportedly suggested a backstop post-Brexit customs arrangement covering all of the UK could give mainland Britain some scope to set trade rules. Preparations for a final deal were far more advanced than previously disclosed, the report said, and would lead to a document of 50 pages or more being published. The agreement would include an exit clause designed to convince Brexit-supporting MPs that remaining in the customs union was only temporary, The Sunday Times said. Ms Mays cabinet will meet on Tuesday to discuss her plan, and she hopes there will be enough progress by Friday for the EU to announce a special summit, the newspaper reported. The prime ministers office described the report as speculation but claimed most of a deal on Britains exit from the bloc in March 2019 had been agreed. This is all speculation, a spokesman for Ms May said. The prime minister has been clear that we are making good progress on the future relationship, and 95 per cent of the withdrawal agreement is now settled and negotiations are ongoing. What does a no-deal Brexit mean? Meanwhile, more than 70 business figures are calling for a public vote on the final terms of Britains exit from the European Union, warning that the country faces either a blindfold or a destructive hard Brexit, the newspaper also reported. Companies are increasingly concerned about the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU without an agreement, or fear that politicians will sign up to a deal that limits companies access to the continents markets. A new group called Business for a Peoples Vote, which includes Justin King, former boss Sainsburys, and John Neill, head of the car parts supplier Unipart, is to be launched as campaigners raise the pressure on politicians. We are now facing either a blindfold or a destructive hard Brexit. Both these options will further depress investment, the group said in a letter. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events They will be bad for business and bad for working people. Given that neither was on the ballot in 2016, we believe the ultimate choice should be handed back to the public with a Peoples Vote. The governments Brexit department said it was confident of securing a deal that works for businesses, and reiterated its opposition to a second referendum. The people of the United Kingdom have already had their say in one of the biggest democratic exercises this country has ever seen, and the prime minister has made it clear that there is not going to be a second referendum, a spokesman said. Additional reporting by Reuters The US government has decided to press ahead with controversial experiments on dogs, despite critics in congress and elsewhere attacking them as cruel and unnecessary. The department for veterans affairs (VA) has approved the continuation of the testing, which it says will help doctors find new ways to treat wounded soldiers, according to USA Today. Researchers running the experiments will remove sections of the dogs brains that control breathing, sever spinal cords to test cough reflexes and implant pacemakers before triggering abnormal heart rhythms. All the dogs involved will ultimately be euthanised. Recommended Thousands more scientific experiments being carried out on horses But a row is brewing over how exactly the vivisections were approved. When the testing was first exposed by an anti-animal testing group last year White Coat Waste Project congress passed a law prohibiting the VA department from conducting them without its secretarys direct approval. A spokesman for the department told USA Today that the former VA secretary David Shulkin signed off on continuing the experiments on the day he was fired by Donald Trump in March. But Mr Shulkin, who lost his job amid allegations he had misspent taxpayer funds on a trip to Europe his wife took in 2017, told the newspaper he had never been asked to restart the dog tests. Documents seen by the paper show the VA is currently carrying out nine experiments on dogs, at four different facilities. One of the lawmakers who is trying to pass a bill which would ban the testing, Democrat Dina Titus, said: Its not economically sound, they could be looking at new technologies, and morally people just dont support testing on puppies. President Trump says a lot of reporters 'are creating violence by not writing the truth' But a review launched by Mr Shulkin before he was fired - on the medical necessity for using canines - has found that dogs are the only viable model for the specific experiments, the VA spokesman said. Nevertheless, the department has also commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to spend $1.3m to run another study investigating if dogs are really needed for this research. The VA hopes the dog experiments will help its doctors better treat soldiers' severe injuries (AFP) Justin Goodman, the vice president of advocacy and public policy for the White Coat Waste Project, said: I think it calls into question the integrity of the VAs intentions if it is going to continue funding and conducting dog experiments that it has just paid an organisation over a million dollars to scrutinise. Veterans groups are divided on whether the experiments should continue. The founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organisation said that as long as the research was done ethically it could lead to medical breakthroughs. But Paralysed Veterans of America, which was initially in favour of the VA dog testing, has now changed its mind and told USA Today it did not oppose efforts to stop the dogs being experimented on and killed. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The VA, which said that more than 99 per cent of its animal testing involved rats or mice, insisted that dogs remained a necessary part of its research. But when asked what medical progress had come about because of dog testing, the agencys spokesman could only point to breakthroughs which date back to the 1960s. Despite court rulings striking down efforts to throw out ballots of thousands of US citizens in Georgia, the home of the civil rights movement, Emory University professor Dr Carol Anderson said there is still a blatant push for minority voter suppression in the state ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. What looks really simple, really isn't and that is how voter [identification] has basically snaked its tentacles into the American psyche and become voter suppression, the author of One Person, No Vote, told The Independent. Democrat Stacey Abrams faces off with Republican Brian Kemp in a bid to become the first African-American female governor in the US and that is what has shed light on a problem allowed to fester because it has been operating in virtual darkness, Ms Anderson said. She noted we wouldnt notice it as much if another white man or even a white woman had been running against Mr Kemp. In recent days, federal judges have ruled against efforts like the exact match policy for voter registrations in the state which had originally resulted in 50,000 rejected absentee ballots in Gwinnett County just north of Atlanta and around 3,600 new US citizens being barred from voting because exact match relied on outdated records from the motor vehicles registration department of the state. However, Ms Anderson said it is still a troubling trend since these efforts disproportionately target the poor and people of colour and the court rulings have largely been shrugged off by Mr Kemp, his official government office, and his campaign. Candice Broce, press secretary and staff attorney at the Georgia secretary of states office, called it "a minor change to the current system." Ms Anderson noted the main issue is Republicans veiling these efforts as being reasonable - Mr Kemp has repeatedly said on the campaign trail he is simply enforcing state law. Fallon McClure, the Georgia state director for advocacy group Spread the Vote, said technically Mr Kemp is not incorrect in his assessment. Stacey Abrams campaigns in Atlanta to become first African American female governor Spread the Vote works not just register voters in the state but also help them obtain proper IDs, targeting populations who frequent shelters and food banks. She noted that as of 2006, the last time a comprehensive study was done in the state, at least 675,000 people lacked proper government-issued identification. The [US] Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and...Georgia was ahead of the curve on requiring identification at the voting booth, Ms Clure explained to The Independent. But there's this idea that just because something is law doesn't necessarily make it right, she said, adding the exact match policy targets those populations who do not follow traditional white naming conventions. In fact, Ms Anderson said 80 per cent of those affected were African-Americans, Latinx, or Asian while 10 per cent are white. It does not take into account apostrophes, hyphens, outdated records on marriage and divorce, or even just human error for names with non-traditional spellings - what Ms Clure said is an obvious aim at African-American and Asian populations. Beyond the exact match policy, even the process of obtaining a voter registration or any kind of state-issued identification has built-in racial disparity according to Ms Anderson, also a professor at Atlantas Emory University. Among the three forms of documentation needed in order to obtain even the states specific free voter identification card, a Georgia resident must present a birth certificate or your passport. If you're working class or your poor a passport is...probably not in your wheelhouse, Ms Anderson explained. If you are poor and born in a rural area you probably don't have a birth certificate because you weren't born in a hospital, she added. Ms McClure said this is especially true for the elderly African-American population in the mostly-rural state. The state does allow for a substitute document from the US Social Security office, however, Spread the Vote has found the process of obtaining the documents to be several weeks long and only applies to those born before 1940. Oprah: 'I'm here today because of Stacey Abrams' Rural Georgia was still incredibly segregated in terms of hospital access through the 1960s Civil Rights movement and even now, Ms McClure said. The second document required is a Social Security card or a tax form called the W-2, which employers issue employees. However, having a W-2 requires steady employment, on a non-contract basis and Ms Anderson pointed out the state still has a great disparity in employment rates between certain minority and White populations. Ms McClure also argued the requirement effectively erases the voices of the homeless and those in transition from incarceration back into society. In Georgia, former felons are allowed to register a vote but it is not a widely publicised fact. Ms McClure explained often what happens with Spread The Votes clients are that they are in jail for quality of life offences like loitering or trespassing, requiring them to store possessions in unsecured locations. Often when they return to society all of their possessions are gone, including any identification or papers. The third document required is proof of a bank account with an address or a utility bill in the individuals name. Again, Ms Anderson argued it is a racist policy. Only 25 per cent of the African-American population has a bank account, she explained. According to the Washington, DC-based Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than 135,000 households in the state receive some sort of federal aid to live in public housing, the overwhelming majority of whom are people of colour. People living in public housing will not have separate utility bills in their names for basics like water, electricity, or gas, and likely would not be able to afford utilities like cable or internet. She noted though, the issue also applies to multi-generational homes which African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians are more likely to live in than whites. US midterm elections: the campaign trail Show all 20 1 /20 US midterm elections: the campaign trail US midterm elections: the campaign trail President Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Missoula, Montana AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders endorses Democrat Congressional candidate Randy Bryce at a campaign rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin EPA US midterm elections: the campaign trail Oprah Winfrey interviews gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in Marietta, Georgia Reuters US midterm elections: the campaign trail Democrat US Senator Bob Menendez stands with representatives from local police and fire departments during a campaign event in Jersey City, New Jersey EPA US midterm elections: the campaign trail Democrat candidate for Senate Beto O'Rourke addresses supporters in Carrollton, Texas Reuters US midterm elections: the campaign trail Democratic congressional candidate Angie Craig and US Representative Tim Walz at a campaign event in Mendota Heights, Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Protesters of President Trump outside a campaign rally in Rochester Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Supporters of President Trump outside a campaign rally in Rochester Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, left, shakes hands with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum after a debate on CNN AP US midterm elections: the campaign trail President Trump takes the stage at a rally in Elko, Nevada Reuters US midterm elections: the campaign trail President Trump addresses a rally in Elko, Nevada AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Donald Trump T-shirts for sale at a rally in Rochester, Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail John Lombardo talks with voters on the doorstep in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Democrat Senator Joe Manchin hugs supporters as he marches in a homecoming parade in West Virginia AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail A supporter holds up a sign at a Trump rally in Chattanooga, Tennessee EPA US midterm elections: the campaign trail Supporters of Republican congressional candidate Pete Stauber attend a campaign event in Crosby, Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Former President Barack Obama joins Democrat Congresswoman Jacky Rosen on stage in Las Vegas at a rally for her Senate candidacy EPA US midterm elections: the campaign trail Members of the Culinary Union prepare packets for canvassing for the Democrats in Las Vegas AP US midterm elections: the campaign trail Republican volunteer Jess Morgan, 69, campaigns for her party in Shavertown, Pennsylvania AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the campaign trail Native American candidate Deb Haaland who is running for Congress in New Mexico AFP/Getty Those types of households often only have one family members name on bills. However, voter suppression is not just limited to identification issues. Phi Nguyen, the Litigation Director for the Atlanta-based Asian American Advancing Justice said poll worker training was a sticking point in the case of the 3,600 newly-minted US citizens having their voter registrations blocked. Though a judge required the state to issue a press release announcing the decision voters can cast ballots by showing proof of their new citizenship, we don't think that poll workers have been sufficiently trained on the policies that the Secretary of State has put in place that allows individuals improperly flagged for non-citizenship to "cure" the issue, Ms Nguyen told The Independent. The worry now extends to the exact match court decision. Poll workers may not realise exact match only applies to identity not residency, Ms McClure said, noting there is a danger of some voters already turned away or possibly being denied a ballot if the address listed on their ID card does not match what is listed on voter rolls for that particular district. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events There is also the matter of the location of polling places, rooted in the systemic and historic racism of the American South according to Ms Anderson. Mr Kemp, as secretary of state, has shut down 214 polling stations, or 8 per cent of polling places in the state. What we know from the data...for every 1/10th of a mile that a polling place is moved, black voter turnout goes down by .5%, Ms Anderson explained, adding civil society groups like the ACLU and NAACP have remained vigilant on such matters. For instance in Sparta, Georgia, county authorities attempted to move a black neighbourhoods polling place 17 miles away which would have wiped out that entire demographic of voters in the city, Ms Anderson said. In Macon, Georgia, the board of elections attempted to move a polling place into the sheriffs department, what could have been a major deterrent for minority populations already worried about their lives at the hands of police Ms Anderson noted. Lucky for those voters, the efforts were stopped and on 6 November the state will head to the ballot box. However, one issue still persists: Mr Kemps position in the office tasked with monitoring state elections while he is running in one. Many Democrats including former Georgia governor and US president Jimmy Carter have asked him to resign because, as Ms Anderson put it, we really do realize democracy is at stake. Per state rules, if neither Mr Kemp or Ms Abrams get 50 per cent of the vote there will be a runoff election which is monitored by the secretary of states office. In a letter to Mr Kemp, the 94-year-old cited his vast experience watching elections around the world through the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based human rights organisation: One of the key requirements for a fair and trusted process is that there be a nonbiased supervision of the electoral process. He added he was writing less as a partisan who has endorsed [Ms] Abrams and more as the former president who's spent the decades since he left the Oval Office monitoring elections around the world. With just two days until the midterm elections that could decide the fate of the last two years of President Donald Trumps first term in office, Democrats have retained a sizeable but shrinking advantage in their quest to retake at least one chamber of the US congress a result that would impact important debates on healthcare, taxes, and immigration policies in Washington. The rosier outlook for Republicans comes as a result of an increasingly optimistic outlook on the economy, and Mr Trumps harsh focus on immigration and border security issues that have historically energised GOP voters. With that tightening as a backdrop, the president released a flurry of retweets of himself on Sunday morning, amplifying once again the candidates and issues he has tweeted support for in the past including Senate candidate Martha McSally in Arizona, gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis in Florida, and the misleading story of an undocumented immigrant cop killer who the president has identified as a false signal of Democrats weakness on immigration. Even though several races are considered to be in dead heats across the country, Democrats have retained an 8-point advantage in the general congressional ballot, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll. The poll shows American voters preferring Democrats over Republicans 50 per cent to 43 per cent a slight decline from last month when they were preferred by 11 points, and in August when they led by 14 points. While those numbers are reason for optimism for Democrats hoping to retake control of the House of Representatives come January a majority that would allow them to effectively kneecap the presidents agenda during the second half of his first term it is not possible to determine how that general voter preference will translate in individual districts where contentious battles are being waged throughout the country. Democrats need 23 seats to take control of the House, and both parties have been spending at record levels to try and ensure their control of the peoples chamber. US midterm elections: the voters Show all 10 1 /10 US midterm elections: the voters US midterm elections: the voters Ross Kershey of Exton, Pennsylvania objects to President Trump's recent threat to unilaterally suspend the constitutional protection of birthright citizenship as a way to control undocumented immigrants AP US midterm elections: the voters Thomas Jakel of Eveleth Minnesota is a former miner. The economy is the most important thing to voters in his town AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Jerry Mcneff of Exton, Pennsylvania intends to split his ballot between the parties for Pennsylvania's House, Senate and governor elections AP US midterm elections: the voters Jean Hoffman of Exton, Pennsylvania has concerns about the cost of her daughters' college education. She thinks that voting Republican might help extend the economy's rise AP US midterm elections: the voters Supporters attend a rally of President Trump in Rochester, Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Supporters attend a rally of President Trump in Rochester, Minnesota Reuters US midterm elections: the voters Supporter Jenny Haley and son wait in line to see a Trump Rally in Rochester, Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Dick Calef of Exton, Pennsylvania is a life-long Republican. He credits the economic gains in suburban Philadelphia to longer-term factors beyond Trump's policies, such as the growth of internet and health care companies. He's not yet sure how he will vote AP US midterm elections: the voters Markus Fasel of Mendota Heights, Minnesota attends a campaign event for Democrat Angie Craig, his favoured congressional candidate AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Supporters attend a rally of President Trump in Rochester, Minnesota Reuters Campaigns, parties and outside groups have spent a record-setting $4.7bn on congressional races and that figure may jump to $5.2bn by the time the election is over. That record sum has been buoyed by Democratic spending as they seek to secure those 23 districts while defending the few races where Democratic incumbents are threatened. The Cook Political Report a leading handicapper for American political races has identified 73 of the 435 House seats as as competitive this year. Thats good news for Democrats, as 69 of those seats are currently in Republican hands. Republicans have a considerable advantage in the Senate, where the majority of seats up for grabs this year have Democrats on the defensive. The current Senate makeup gives Republicans a 51-49 advantage, and, of the seats up for grabs, Democrats are defending 10 seats in states where Mr Trump won in 2016. If Democrats manage to wrestle control of the House or Senate or both then that could have a dramatic impact on Mr Trumps legislative agenda over the next two years. The president has already found it difficult to push through some of his legislative priorities with Republican control of both chambers. His first two years in office have seen a high profile failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and those efforts have become a major campaign talking point for Democrats who note that Republican votes on that effort would have removed protections for people with pre-existing conditions that is in spite of Republican assurances that they do not want to repeal those protections. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Other legislative priorities including immigration reform, a topic that has been a cornerstone of the presidents rhetoric since the first day of his 2016 election campaign. Mr Trump has sought to frame the midterms as a referendum on himself, and on what to do about immigrants coming to the US seeking refuge or new lives. But, he has also been unable to move any significant legislation on immigration through congress with Republican control there. One area in which he has had notable success is on the issue of taxes, where he pushed through cuts that have impacted primarily the richest Americans. The president had promised another set of tax cuts in the final stretch before the midterms but that promise was not anything more than a political stunt, as congress had already gone to recess for the remainder of time before the midterms. Hencer Naun Manchame Garcia and his eight-year-old son arrive at the Greyhound bus station in San Antonio holding a sign: Please help me. I do not speak English. What bus do I take? Thank you for your help. They are refugees from Honduras. Their boots are worn and tattered. The little boy, who appears emaciated, is sick with a cough. It was a very difficult trip, Mr Garcia tells The Independent of his month-long journey to the US-Mexico border, where he and his son legally applied for asylum before being bussed to San Antonio with more than 20 other migrant families. We spent many days without any food, starving. It was hard to keep my son calm during some of the hard times. But we had to keep walking. Within minutes of their arrival, the two are escorted to a corner of the crowded bus station, where dozens of migrant families are waiting in limbo. Fortunately, theyre not alone. If it werent for humanitarian volunteers like Mariela Jasso, who awaits arrivals like these on a daily basis, migrant families would be left at the station without a clue of how to get to their next destination, or what steps they need to take in order to receive asylum. The young volunteers eyes dart across the station as we speak. Shes scoping out possible migrants who are lost and confused. Migrants like Hencer and his son. These are the people coming here legally, but people dont see them like that, she says. We want to make sure we provide them a pathway to success, rather than leaving them stranded at a bus stop with no direction. Ms Jasso is the post release specialist for RAICES, a Texas-based immigrants rights group that has found itself at the heart of a battle against Donald Trumps hardline immigration policies. Along with the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, RAICES has a constant presence at the San Antonio bus station, providing migrant families backpacks that contain food and water, as well as legal resources and an itinerary for their travels. A nun provides Mr Garcias son with cough syrup while the father tells Ms Jasso hes headed to Kansas to be with family. As she explains what buses he needs to take in order to complete the final leg of his trek, Mr Garcia notices another father opening up a backpack for his own son. The two men smile at each other. Its a scene that occurs on a daily basis: migrant families arriving at the station after embarking on trips that average three days and in some cases extend for months. RAICES says its committed to helping these asylum seekers because, despite the presidents claims about criminals in a migrant caravan heading towards the border, the vast majority of people they see arriving to the United States each day are not gang members or rapists. Instead, they are folks who have made the most difficult decision of their lives, typically with a common reason in mind: providing a better life for their children. But the next generation isnt just one of the main causes for family migration to the United States. In order for the US to overhaul its immigration laws and provide a safe alternative for Latin American refugees, RAICES believes the movement must also be led and shaped by the youth. The group has existed for decades, and yet it only became known nationally under Mr Trump. Dave and Charlotte Willner, a California couple, launched a public fundraising campaign on Facebook titled Reunite an immigrant parent with their child, shortly after the White House administration implemented a zero tolerance policy in May, which began the systematic separation of families legally seeking asylum at ports of entry along the border. The campaign went viral, raising $4,000 a minute and surpassing its goal of $20m in under a month. All of that money has since gone directly to RAICES, which has used the donations entirely for family separations, paying bonds for migrants and ensuring family members can be swiftly reunited once released. It also raised awareness about the work being done by activists along the border, causing a surge in volunteers offering their time and assistance. Before the zero tolerance policy was announced earlier this year, RAICES had nearly a thousand volunteers mainly based in Texas. By November, the group has swelled to over 9,000 volunteers nationwide. Donald Trump: family separation policy was effective for deterring illegal immigrants Armed with national recognition, bankrolled by the anti-Trump resistance and flooded with an ever-increasing team of volunteers, RAICES is now beginning its next phase: influencing US immigration policy with the help of young immigrants and activists across the country. The RAICES headquarters are located just a few minutes away from the bus station, in an old, Victorian-styled house that served as a former orphanage. The interior decor includes old couches, plastic chairs and vintage artwork, along with stickers on the wall reading: Families belong together. The majority of folks coming in and out of the building are in their early 20s, along with Geovanie Ordonez, the manager of volunteers for RAICES. She tells The Independent that the groups leadership has convened on several occasions in recent weeks to focus on youth engagement surrounding the issue of immigration reform. It cant just be the older generation that fixes this issue, she says. It has to be a collective of the youth; of people who are just registering to vote for the first time and being more politically active. Their plan is multi-faceted and targets a range of younger demographics, including children. The day we spoke, Ms Ordonez was preparing to head out for a RAICES-sponsored donation drive with 90 local sixth graders (11-12-year-olds). The organisation hopes to teach local youth in the rather conservative region about the importance of activism and immigrants rights. We want them not to just collect items, but to understand why theyre collecting these items and why it is they need to be aware of immigration, Ms Ordonez says. RAICES is also expanding its presence on college campuses nationwide, working with local student groups to throw fundraisers and awareness events that ultimately benefit immigrants attending university. We thought that instead of having them come in and reorganise our donation room or print papers, lets have them do something on their own campuses and have all that money go back to their campus community, Ms Ordonez continues. For example, we have a student group right now that is working on doing a fundraiser for [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival] recipients. That money they come up with will go directly to DACA recipients at that university who may need assistance paying the application fee, which is over $400. She adds, Its about doing the most we can to have an immediate impact on young immigrants, while providing a new, long-term perspective to other students about what it means to be a DACA recipient or immigrant in this country. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events RAICES is also considering ways to engage with and speak to young conservatives, attempting to reach across the aisle for folks who may be willing to have their opinions changed on immigration. One of those ideas includes hosting community conversations on campuses throughout the US to bring liberal and conservative perspectives together, while RAICES facilitates the conversation. Its a method youth activism groups have found success with in recent years, including student survivors of the Parkland massacre, who launched the March For Our Lives group to combat gun violence and have since embarked on a nationwide college campus tour. Were beginning to see a spectrum of youth; not just youth who have been impacted by immigration, but youth who are second generation, youth whose parents may have been immigrants; youth who wants to bring about change, Ms Ordonez says. The current administration has really fired up a lot of young people who are starting to become more aware of whats going on. Transfer balls: Manchester United must sell Sanchez to keep De Gea and Martial Manchester United are desperate to keep David de Gea, 27, and Anthony Martial, 22. But plans to offer the pair improved contracts are being hampered by the massive sums paid to Alexis Sanchez, who commands around 500,000-a-week in wages. So Sanchez has to go. But only PSG would ever pay such an absurd amount for the Barcelona reject turned Arsenal star. And why would they want a man who it turned out only pretended to play the piano. Theres more Aaron Ramsey news, of course. Linked in print to deep beneath to Real Madrid, Juventus, PSG, AC Milan, Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton and Chelsea the Arsenal player who stalled on signing a new deal for so long that even Arsene Wenger got tired of waiting and left the club is now on his way to Bayern Munich. Well, so say the Express, so it might not be entirely true. Chelsea and Manchester City are chasing Sunderlands 17-year-old Bali Mumba. Spurs fancy Colombia midfielder Wilmar Barrios from Boca Juniors. And Everton like Crystal Palace right-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka. The Toffees could include the terrific Ademola Lookman in any deal. If that transfer takes place, Everton should check the name gag in Wan-Bissakas shirt. Buyer beware, mistakes after purchase cannot be rectified. Anorak Posted: 4th, November 2018 | In: Back pages, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink More than 150 fighters have been killed in fighting around the port city of Hodeidah in Yemen over the weekend, officials have said. Government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition pounded rebel-held positions with air strikes and naval artillery, while thousands of coalition troops launched a major ground offensive. The coastal city on the Red Sea is a crucial entry point for imports, providing a lifeline for Yemeni civilians who are teetering on the brink of a famine. The 150 fighters who died came from both the rebel and government-backed forces, according to officials on both sides. Fearing reprisals, they spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Fighting was focused around the airport, at the eastern entrance to the city, and near a university 4km south of the port. This is the first time clashes have reached this point (the university), one pro-coalition Yemeni military source said. Residents said they could hear exchanges of fire in the area. Yemen has been at war since March 2015 when Houthi rebels seized northern regions and forced the government into exile. Since then, a Saudi-led coalition supporting the government has blockaded the rebel-held north and launched air strikes that have killed thousands. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The conflict has let to three quarters of the population requiring some form of life-saving assistance and protection, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The children wounded in Yemen's war Show all 15 1 /15 The children wounded in Yemen's war The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Ali Ashwal / Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Save the Children The children wounded in Yemen's war Save the Children An estimated 10,000 people have been killed and more than 8 million are at risk of starvation. The United Nations Childrens Fund regional director said at the weekend that both pro-government and rebel authorities were making it impossible to deliver and distribute much-needed humanitarian aid to the country.dditional reporting by Associated Press and Reuters Q I am part of a group of former schoolfriends now fortysomething women who are planning an April weekend away. We are torn between Lisbon and Madrid. Which would you recommend? We live in Hampshire and would prefer to fly from Gatwick. Name withheld A Both Iberian capitals are rich in culture, though Madrid has the edge because of the dazzling trilogy of art museums: the Prado, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and the modern art of the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, which includes Picassos vast and powerful Guernica. The Spanish capital also presents the enticing option of a tapas crawl. After the National Crime Agency (NCA) opened an investigation into allegations about Arron Banks 8m donation to the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign he cofounded, he promised to clear up the matter by appearing on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. In the event, his interview generated more heat than light. The independent Electoral Commission said last week that a number of criminal offences may have been committed, adding there were reasonable grounds to suspect Mr Banks, a close ally of Nigel Farage, was not the true source of the donation. Mr Banks told the programme that the biggest donation in British political history came from Rock Services, his UK-based insurance business, and not from Rock Holdings which, as it is based offshore in the Isle of Man, would not have been permissible under electoral law. This appeared to contradict his own evidence to MPs that Rock Services was just a service company. Arron Banks reveals he handed the Russian ambassador a telephone number for Donald Trumps team He dismissed speculation about foreign funding, saying there was no Russian money, and no interference of any type. Characteristically, Mr Banks complained of a politically motivated smear campaign by Remainers to discredit and stop Brexit, blaming the commission, media organisations and MPs. He is fond of such conspiracy theories. He is also happy to smear his critics; he used his wealth to write to every constituent of Damian Collins, Tory chairman of the Commons culture select committee, calling him a snake in the grass. Like the commission and the media, Mr Collins is doing his job without fear or favour, even if that means putting Mr Banks under the scrutiny he deserves. Mr Banks, who strongly denies any wrongdoing, has welcomed the NCA investigation. Hopefully, bluster, diversionary tactics and obfuscation will cut no ice with the agency, and (unlike the commission) it will have the tools to get to the bottom of the allegations. This inquiry matters. Leave.EU was not the official Brexit campaign, which fell to Vote Leave, led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. But Leave.EUs financial clout allowed it to play an important part in the referendum. While keeping its distance from Mr Farage, Vote Leave was happy to reap the benefits of its nasty campaign on immigration, which included its infamous breaking point poster showing a queue of Syrian refugees. The Banks investigation is about much more than Brexit. After evidence of Russian interference in elections, including the 2016 US presidential race, it is vital the UK authorities ensure that our democracy is not tarnished. If this has happened in the past, it must not happen in the future. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The government should take the culture committees warning that democracy is at risk much more seriously than it has done to date. It must urgently make a regulatory system designed for the analogue era fit for the digital age; bodies such as the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner need more powers and resources. Unfortunately, the NCA inquiry is unlikely to be completed before the UKs scheduled departure from the EU in March. In themselves, the allegations against Mr Banks do not warrant a rerun of the referendum or the Brexit process being paused, as some MPs argue. But they do add to the wealth of information that has come to light since 2016, and therefore strengthen the case for the voters to be given a Final Say on the Brexit deal Theresa May is expected to discuss with her cabinet on Tuesday. (In a bizarre twist, Mr Banks admits he would now vote Remain in protest at corruption in British politics and the governments sell-out on Brexit). The Independents Final Say campaign has also been bolstered by a call for a referendum by more than 70 business figures, who warn that the prospective agreement is not nearly as good as EU membership. This is a significant intervention, since businessmen and women often feel under pressure not to rock the governments boat. Their views should be taken very seriously by MPs when they consider Ms Mays deal. A sculpture created from scrap metal depicting a weary soldier is set to be unveiled in Dublin to commemorate the centenary of the ending of World War I. Culture Minister Josepha Madigan will launch the art installation at a special ceremony in St Stephens Green on Sunday afternoon. Created by Dorset-based artist and blacksmith Martin Galbavy and constructed by Chris Hannam of Dorset Forge and Fabrication, The Haunting Soldier is a six-metre high sculpture designed to evoke the fragility and suffering of those who survived World War I and returned home to an uncertain and difficult future. It was made from scraps of metal including horse shoes, spanners, car jacks and brake discs. Expand Close Detailed view of some of the parts of scrap metal used by blacksmith Martin Galbavy (Andrew Matthews/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Detailed view of some of the parts of scrap metal used by blacksmith Martin Galbavy (Andrew Matthews/PA) The ghostly figure was brought to Ireland by Dublin-based solicitor Sabina Purcell, who discovered she had a family connection to those who served in the war. It led her to explore how she could remember and commemorate the soldiers from the island of Ireland who fought in the war, both those who died and those who survived. When she came across photographs of the sculpture, it resonated with her and she decided to bring it to Dublin. Ms Madigan said: I congratulate Sabina Purcell for her vision and commitment in bringing this beautiful and thought-provoking sculpture to Dublin. It is a great achievement. She said the centenary commemorations were shining a light, in some instances for the first time, on the stories of the many men and women from across the island of Ireland who sacrificed their lives in WWI. We have explored, with respect and compassion, the differing motivations of those who fought many driven by complex ideals and aspirations and others driven by economic necessity, she said. The horrors of the battlefield left deep and lasting scars on those who survived, traumas which were often compounded by their difficult experiences on returning home. Ms Madigan said she was delighted to support creative endeavours that provide opportunities for people of all ages to consider the sensitive legacies of our past with understanding, empathy and a spirit of mutual respect and kindness. The sculpture will be on show nearby the pond in St Stephens Green until November 26. The accused has been remanded in custody (Niall Carson/PA) A woman has been charged with the murder of a man at a house in south Co Dublin. Grace Miano, aged 50, of Tudor Lawns in Foxrock, was brought before a special sitting of Dublin District court on Sunday morning. She was charged with the murder of 27-year-old Limbani Mzoma at the same address on Thursday night. Miano, who was originally from Kenya, was arrested on Friday after the body of Malawian national Mr Mzoma was found with multiple stab wounds at the house at around 11.30pm on Thursday. Sergeant Colm OGiollain from Cabinteely Garda Station told the court Miano made no reply after she was charged and cautioned at 9.35pm on Saturday night at the station. Expand Close The man is said to have had body parts removed (Julien Behal/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The man is said to have had body parts removed (Julien Behal/PA) The court heard Miano had complained of pains in her head and legs since being taken into custody and that she had been seen by a doctor at the station on several occasions. She requested a medical and psychiatric assessment. Judge Grainne Malone directed that the accused should receive medical attention and that her solicitor, Jonathan Dunphy should liaise with authorities to have a psychiatric assessment carried out if required. Miano, who is receiving social welfare, was granted legal aid. She was remanded in custody to appear before Dun Laoghaire District Court on Friday morning. A post-mortem examination on the body has been completed. It is thought that Mr Mzoma sustained a violent attack and that some of his body parts were removed. British Prime Minister Theresa May's office has dismissed as "speculation" a newspaper report that suggests an all-UK customs deal will be written into the legally binding agreement governing Britain's withdrawal from the EU. The Sunday Times said the plan would resolve the vexed issue of the Irish border, which is the main stumbling block in the Brexit talks, by avoiding the need to treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK. With just five months to go until it exits the EU, Britain's divorce talks are at an impasse, fuelling huge uncertainty among businesses and causing the value of sterling to see-saw on any news about a possible breakthrough in the talks. Reuters reported on Friday that the EU has suggested a backstop post-Brexit customs arrangement that would cover all of the UK. This could give mainland Britain some scope to set trade rules while keeping the province of Northern Ireland aligned with the EU. British housing minister James Brokenshire said on Sunday there was still an issue around Northern Ireland in the Brexit talks, referring to a yet-to-be finalised 'backstop' arrangement which would prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland if no better solution can be found. "That very much remains our focus and attention in getting that deal," he told the BBC. Asked about the Sunday Times report, a spokesman at May's office said: "This is all speculation. The prime minister has been clear that we are making good progress on the future relationship and 95 percent of the withdrawal agreement is now settled and negotiations are ongoing." SPECIAL EU SUMMIT? The Sunday Times said May's cabinet would meet on Tuesday to discuss her plan and that she hoped there would be enough progress by Friday for the EU to announce a special summit. EU diplomats told Reuters on Friday they doubted a deal could be completed in time for a tentatively scheduled summit on Nov. 17-18, but that it could perhaps come a week later. Cabinet support for any exit agreement is crucial for May, whose ruling Conservative Party is deeply divided over Brexit. Some of her lawmakers want to oust May. May also runs a minority government which relies on the support of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to get legislation through parliament. The DUP has vowed to scupper any deal that treats Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. If she fails to win cabinet and parliamentary support for any deal, Britain faces the prospect of an unstructured Brexit - leaving the EU without any formal arrangements for trade, immigration and many other issues. More than 70 business figures are calling for a public vote on the final terms of Britain's exit from the EU, warning that the country faces "either a blindfold or a destructive hard Brexit", The Sunday Times also reported. EU support remains "unwavering" and no private concessions have been made on the Irish border, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has said. Mr Coveney was speaking after a story in the 'Sunday Times' newspaper reported on British Prime Theresa May's "secret plan" to secure a Brexit deal, which would get support from Remain and Brexit MPs. The article claimed Mrs May had "secured private concessions from Brussels that will allow her to keep the whole of Britain in a customs union, avoiding a hard border in Ireland". The article also quoted a "senior Whitehall source" as saying "Ireland is f*****" in a new deal which the newspaper claims Mrs May will be unveiling soon, and is confident can attract support from parliament. Mr Coveney said the article was written with a British audience in mind and such "running commentary" isn't helpful. "The EU27 has been united through the Brexit process. The UK has given written commitments last December and March that the Withdrawal Agreement will give a legal guarantee of no return to a hard border in Ireland in any circumstance - this is the backstop," Mr Coveney said. "In March the UK agreed this backstop will apply 'unless and until' a close future relationship eliminates any need for border infrastructure or related checks and controls. We want the EU and UK to get to negotiating that close future deal but the UK must first deliver on the commitments of leaving. "The EU support to Ireland has been and remains unwavering. "The negotiators are working hard and a running commentary isnt helpful. Todays Sunday Times piece is obviously aimed at a UK audience. "However Donald Tusk, Michel Barnier, Jean Claude Juncker and indeed Theresa May herself, have all said there will not be a deal without a legal guarantee of no hard border in Ireland. "We hope a deal can be done but were not there yet. The article states that the EU will write an all-UK customs deal into the legally binding withdrawal agreement from the EU. If this happens, the 'backstop' - designed by the EU and which treats Northern Ireland as different from the rest of the UK - will no longer be required. The report states sources in Whitehall are confident this strand will placate Remainers. As for the Eurosceptics, Mrs May was reported to be on course to secure a "future economic partnership" with the EU that will allow Britain to keep open the prospect of entering into a future trade deal that would resemble the agreement struck between the EU and Canada. The article quotes a senior Whitehall source as saying: "The PM will be able to say there's no more backstop, we've got rid of that - success. There's an exit mechanism - success. And you've got Canada - success. The small print is that Ireland is f*****". UK chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond holding his red ministerial box outside 11 Downing Street, London last Monday, before delivering his budget speech. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, introduced a new digital services tax, AKA the 'Google tax' in last week's UK budget. The new tax is scheduled to come into force in April 2020 and is projected to raise 400m (455m) a year. "The digital services tax will only be paid by companies which are profitable and which generate at least 500m a year in global revenues," said Hammond. In other words, this is aimed exclusively at the Googles and Facebooks of this world rather than at indigenous UK startups. Details on the proposed digital services tax are still sketchy. The first 25m of UK revenue will be exempt from the tax. Online search engines and social media companies will pay 2pc on advertising revenue, but it is unclear if online retailers such as Amazon will be affected. The UK Office of Budget Responsibility reckons that about 30 firms will actually end up paying the new tax. There will be a consultation period before the new tax comes into force, which may help to clear up some of the confusion. So what does the new UK digital services tax mean for us here in Ireland? Most of the large US digital firms, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, have major Irish operations. Of the more than 9.5bn Paschal Donohoe expects to collect in corporation tax this year, well over 80pc will come from foreign-owned, mainly US, companies with just 10 companies contributing 40pc of total revenues. While Revenue isn't giving any names one can take it as read that several of the digital companies are included in the corporation tax top 10. The issue of the taxation of digital companies has been brewing since at least May 2013, when the US Senate Investigations Sub-Committee revealed that Apple had paid an effective tax rate of less than 2pc tax on $37bn of profits routed through Ireland the previous year. This led to the farcical situation of the EU Commission suing Ireland, alleging illegal state aid to Apple, until it collected 14.3bn in tax and interest from the company - money which our Government is adamant it doesn't want. Of course it hasn't been just in Ireland that the digital companies have allegedly been playing ducks and drakes with national taxation systems. In 2016 Google agreed to pay the UK 130m in back taxes following the revelation that in 2013 it had paid just 20m tax on British sales of 3.8bn. Amazon paid a mere 16.5m tax on sales of 21.6bn routed through Luxembourg in the same year. In February of this year the online retailer settled a 200m French tax demand for an undisclosed amount. Taxing digital companies poses enormous challenges for traditional taxation systems. "For the last 100 years companies have paid taxes where their activities were located," said Feargal O'Rourke, managing partner of accountants PwC. Digital upends this model. "Do we need a new set of rules to reflect new business patterns," said O'Rourke? What is clear is that all of our old notions about where value is created and taxes should be paid have been rendered obsolete by the digital revolution. "Where is value created with digital? Is it the consumer who creates the value or the research and development? That is the big question," said Ibec director of policy Fergal O'Brien. To take an example: Should online retailer Amazon pay tax where its distribution warehouse is located or in the country where the purchaser resides? It gets even more complicated if, as is often the case, no physical goods actually change hands between seller and buyer. How does one tax the profits earned on American-owned software or digital advertising sold out of Ireland to a European buyer where the intellectual property rights are located in yet another country? What is clear is that, with the digital economy powering ahead, doing nothing is not an option. While the CSO has yet to get a fix on Irish online sales, figures from the UK's Office of National Statistics show that online sales were 16.3pc of total British retail sales in 2017, up from just 9.3pc in 2012. With online gobbling up 17.1pc of UK retail sales in September, it will be even higher this year, probably at least 18pc. And that's just retail sales. Whole swathes of business-to-business sales including software, advertising, financial services, etc have also migrated online. In 2012, the G20 group of major world economies gave the OECD the job of drawing up a set of measures to combat tax avoidance by multinational companies, which is estimated to cost national exchequers $100bn-$240bn annually in lost tax revenues. The resulting BEPS (base erosion and profit shifting) project consisted of 15 work streams, with agreement being secured on all but one - the taxation of digital profits. While the OECD issued an interim report on the tax challenges of digitalisation last March, full agreement on a global system of taxing digital profits is still some way off. With the OECD unable to secure agreement the EU and several individual countries are threatening to jump the gun. In addition to the UK, other countries including France, Spain and Australia are all planning to introduce their own national digital taxes, while the EU has also pitched in with its plans for a 3pc levy on the sales of the large digital companies. The EU digital tax plans have been strongly opposed by several countries including Ireland, Germany, Sweden and Malta. It has also, perhaps predictably, been opposed by the US tech giants. What was perhaps not so widely anticipated was the opposition of many European digital companies with a group of 16 European companies including Booking.com and Spotify writing to EU finance ministers last week warning that while the tax was "designed with large and highly profitable [ie US-owned] companies in mind" it was likely "to have a disproportionate impact on European companies" instead. Despite such opposition some sort of digital tax is now probably inevitable, the only question is what form it will take? For this country the key objective will be minimising the impact of any new digital tax. "We are very much of the view that the only way it can be done is at a global level," said Ibec's O'Brien. Individual country digital taxes will, if implemented, be "ineffective and potentially counter-productive", he said. Further complicating the digital taxation debate is the fact that most of the major companies are US-owned. With the US administration having already shown itself to be trigger-happy on trade issues, the unilateral imposition of digital taxes could well exacerbate an already tense situation. "This tax has the potential to be absorbed into a tit-for-tat transatlantic trade war," said Kevin McLoughlin, head of the tax practice at accountants EY. McLoughlin is almost certainly right to be concerned. "[The US] Treasury is working very closely with the OECD and our counterparts there to address issues of base erosion and fair taxation," said US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin last week. "We believe the issues are not unique to technology companies but also relate to other companies, particularly those with valuable intangibles... I highlight again our strong concern with [other] countries' consideration of a unilateral and unfair gross sales tax that targets our technology and internet companies. "A tax should be based on income, not sales, and should not single out a specific industry for taxation under a different standard. We urge our partners to finish the OECD process with us rather than taking unilateral action in this area." So what can and should we in Ireland do? O'Rourke said: "The last thing we want is individual countries bringing in a patchwork quilt of national digital taxes. The OECD is really under pressure to produce something over the next two years. Having hitched our wagon to the OECD we will have to support whatever it comes up with." If or when international agreement can be secured on digital taxation, McLoughlin stressed the importance of giving companies time to change and adapt to the new regime. "Ireland is seen as quite stable. Other countries have been more aggressive and unpredictable," he said. The difficulty in securing agreement at either OECD or EU level means that the most likely outcome, at least in the short term, will be a plethora of national digital taxes. When announcing the digital services tax last week, Hammond specifically referred to these delays. The chancellor said: "A new global agreement is the best long-term solution. But progress is painfully slow. We cannot simply talk forever." While on their own none of these national digital taxes is likely to have a significant impact on Ireland - even if the full burden of the UK tax fell on this country it would still represent only just over 5pc of our total corporation tax revenues - the cumulative impact would almost certainly be much more severe. O'Rourke said that "400m could be the thin end of the wedge". O'Brien added that: "The large consumer countries are grabbing more of the [digital] tax revenues. That could lead to other consequences for Ireland. There needs to be an OECD solution. They have a track record. Although they did not succeed on digital the last time, there is much more momentum behind it this time." Aer Lingus captains had turned down 5,000 in extra pay as well as 10 days extra holidays to captain flights to the US on their day off. Stock picture Aer Lingus last week offered top pilots 5,000 in extra pay - as well as 10 days' extra holidays - to captain flights to the US on their day off in a bid to avoid chaos in its transatlantic schedule, the Sunday Independent has learned. The airline's Airbus A330 captains - who pilot the airline's most lucrative transatlantic routes - turned down the offer and a Dublin-Boston flight had to be flown by a hired-in charter airline, according to a number of separate aviation sources. Flights from Chicago were also delayed by as much as seven hours both this weekend and last weekend. However, when contacted for comment, an Aer Lingus spokeswoman insisted: "There is no shortage of pilots in Aer Lingus." Well-placed sources have claimed that transatlantic pilots are in an increasingly high-stakes standoff over what they claim is Aer Lingus' failure to live up to a promise to hire in new pilots quickly enough. The pilots claim that the airline must bring in new recruits to ease the strain they believe they are under due to rapid transatlantic expansion since Aer Lingus was taken over by Willie Walsh's IAG. That growth is set to accelerate, with CEO Stephen Kavanagh announcing on Friday that Aer Lingus would increase its transatlantic fleet from 17 aircraft to 30 by 2023, growing seat capacity from 2.8 million to 4.7 million per year. Pilots have refused to fly extra duties - even when offered large sums of money - and they argue that the busy summer schedule is pushing them close to their annual limit of 900 flying hours, according to sources. The issue came to a head last weekend when Aer Lingus was forced to spend at least 80,000 to hire in a Boeing 767 aircraft and crew from Portuguese airline Privilege Style after it could not convince any of its own captains to come to work on their days off and pilot a scheduled Airbus A330 flight to and from Boston. The airline has also hired in aircraft and crew from Portuguese charter airline Hi Fly in recent weeks, it is understood. A spokeswoman for Aer Lingus said that hire-in aircraft were used on just four sectors out of 70,000 flown so far this year, "which is less than any other long-haul airline in the world". "Aer Lingus' A330 captain hours will be circa 695 this year versus an industry averages of 850. "This makes Aer Lingus one of the less-tasked pilot bodies in Europe," she said. David Cameron and Hilary Clinton reprise The Aristocrats a joke in many parts Memoirs written, shed built, David Cameron is now so bored shitless theres nothing left to do but to return to his old job. The Sun quotes a mate of Daves telling us that the former prime minister who quit when his campaign for Britain to remain in the EU failed thinks the role of foreign secretary will fill his days. Good job Dave has private means because one former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, told friends his ministers salary of 141,405 a year was not enough to live on. He now muddles along on less, having selflessly resigned his post. If Johnson does become leader lets hope his fellow toff Cameron isnt insulted by the derisory sums on offer. Over the water, another upper-class politico, Hillary Clinton, was asked about her return to the fore. Well, Id like to be president, she told the Recode podcast. Many would. But why you, Hillary? I think, hopefully, when we have a Democrat in the Oval Office in January of 2021, theres going to be so much work to be done The work would be work that I feel very well prepared for, having been at the Senate for eight years, having been a diplomat in the State Department, and its just going to be a lot of heavy lifting. With the CV filed, Tom Slater reminds us, She is still, believe it or not, less popular than Donald Trump. If she stands, theyll be no Democrat in the Oval office in 2021. Another Clinton. Cameron redux. They never leave. Incidentally, Toms post is entitled The New Aristocrats, which made me think of this. Its NSFW. Anorak Posted: 4th, November 2018 | In: Key Posts, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink Credit unions have work to do to assess the lending risks involved, said Paschal Donohoe The Credit Union Development Agency (CUDA) has stopped short of establishing a fund to back social and affordable housing due to a lack of suitable projects. It is understood there are two significant developments that CUDA could support but it needs to invest at least 40m to cover the cost of setting up a special purpose vehicle and pay the management fees associated with maintaining it. Credit unions began asking the Central Bank to allow them to lend to help ease the housing crisis more than six years ago. In February, the financial regulator granted the unions permission to invest in 'tier 3' approved housing bodies (AHBs), but stated that they must set up a special purpose vehicle to do so. Tier 3 refers to housing charities that have more than 300 units on their books, such as the Peter McVerry Trust and Tuath. However, a month after the regulatory changes were made, Eurostat deemed that approved housing bodies should be considered "on-balance sheet", seriously hindering their ability to lend for housing projects. Kevin Johnson, the chief executive of CUDA, said that he believed there was a "natural fit" between the credit union ethos for servicing the financial needs of local communities and the provision of social housing. "Initially we sought to enable credit unions lend on a collaborative basis," he told the Sunday Independent. "However, the current credit union act does not facilitate this and following considerable work by various stakeholders, the Central Bank introduced regulations that could see credit unions become involved in effectively lending to housing bodies through a specialist investment fund to fast-track the provision of social and affordable housing in Ireland. "These new regulations permit credit unions to invest up to 700m. Unfortunately this has not materialised, as soon after the investment regulations were introduced, the status of the AHBs changed and our hope that our funds would encourage AHBs commence more projects has not happened." Johnson said that it was time to "enhance" the Credit Union Act to allow unions to lend rather than invest. He said that such a change would reduce the overall cost and expand the range of projects that it can support financially. During a Dail debate on the matter last week, Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton accused the Department of Finance of "sitting on its hands" and that it was not helping credit unions lend for such projects. "The minister and the Department of Finance are not prepared to assist the credit unions in getting the initiative under way," Burton said. "He said that he wants the credit unions to do all of the work when, in fact, much of the expertise in the structure of the project should be provided by the Department of Finance. The minister is standing back from that; perhaps he is cold on the idea." In response, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said that he and the Central Bank had put in place a framework that would allow the unions to lend for social housing. "The deputy is correct that it now requires the credit unions themselves to determine what projects they want to be involved in, what level of risk they are willing to bear and what level of return they want," he told the Dail. "That is work that they need to do themselves for the simple reason that, as the deputy well knows, it is the money of their members at stake." In a separate debate, the minister also confirmed that a commitment to establish an off-balance sheet fund, controlled by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), had been scrapped. The promise, which was included in Rebuilding Ireland, the Government's catch-all plan to address the housing crisis, has been replaced by a new long-term leasing scheme, which involves private operators taking long State-backed leases on new buildings. Donohoe said the fund had run into hurdles that were "not possible to overcome". HAD the wind been blowing in a different direction after arsonists set Dara O'Reilly's car alight, you could have been reading about the murders of an entire family instead of yet another near-miss attack on a business executive working for Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH). O'Reilly, the chief financial officer of QIH, was upstairs in his home with his wife and two children when arsonists attacked his property in Butlersbridge, Co Cavan. His life and that of his family were saved by favourable winds and the quick actions of the emergency services. O'Reilly, a former senior lieutenant in the once powerful Quinn Group founded by the ex-billionaire Sean Quinn, is not alone. There have been more than 70 attacks on the Fermanagh-Cavan border since 2011, when the Quinn Group was placed into share receivership by the now defunct Anglo Irish Bank. And there have been more than 20 attacks in the last three years targeting the senior management running companies formerly owned by Sean Quinn Snr. For his part, Sean Quinn Snr, who was jailed for nine weeks for contempt of court in 2012 - he and his son Sean Jr, were jailed for their part in continuing to put assets beyond the reach of the IBRC - has wept vociferous tears and cried foul that he hasn't been able to regain control of his once private empire. He has done so while publicly condemning attacks, allegedly perpetrated by a 'lunatic fringe' of Quinn supporters who want to see him returned to his purported rightful place. The mounting spate of arson incidents is truly terrifying and unprecedented in Irish corporate life. In one incident, the tyre factory of a QIH senior manager was gutted after being set alight. The attack on the factory came hours after an update to QIH staff in which QIH condemned intimidation of its managers and staff. And last Tuesday night, the life and property of Tony Lunney, another senior manager at QIH, was jeopardised when a car belonging to Lunney's daughter was set alight. The 'lesser' intimidatory attacks on QIH's owners, officers, staff and their families, bear all the hallmarks of paramilitarism that blighted the border - and beyond - during the worst years of the Troubles. They are too numerous to mention, but they include the display of signs criticising senior management and their salaries - one sign refers to a 'Stolen Empire' - as well as egregious abuses and false allegations spread on social media. The onslaught includes a pig's head dumped at the home of a director, packages with rifle bullets and a funeral wreath warning the workers of Vestas - the energy company the Quinn Group once owned - with a note to stay away from the Slieve Rushen wind farm or face being shot. When a group of Irish investors backed by three US hedge funds bought Quinn group operations in Cavan and Fermanagh in 2014, it was widely believed that this would herald the pathway to the former billionaire's eventual ownership of QIH. The instalment of former Quinn Group directors such as O'Reilly and McCaffrey augured well that this might be the outcome. But Quinn Snr, hired as a 500,000 a year consultant with QIH - which insisted that Quinn Snr could not have a management role or ownership stake - parted ways two years ago. Last August Quinn Snr complained bitterly again at a public meeting that he had been treated deplorably, insisting he was the best man to 'sort out' QIH, lamenting that efforts to secure his business back had been thwarted at every turn. Quinn Snr moved on, but the attacks against QIH directors not only continued but intensified, culminating in the recent spate of arson attacks directed against some of his former closest colleagues. As with many activities on the border, gardai and PSNI have been met with a stunning omerta and an inconceivable impunity on the part of the perpetrators. In the wake of the latest attack, QIH chief executive Liam McCaffrey - one of the most senior players in the former Quinn Group - lamented the threats to the lives and well-being of staff on both sides of the Border. "It is also enormously frustrating that following years of intimidation and threats and a substantial escalation of violence over recent months that not a single arrest has been made," said McCaffrey, raising direct concerns for more than 830 staff, their families and the wider Border communities. "Unless politicians and the authorities on both sides of the Border properly prioritise and resource this issue, as they have with gangland and paramilitary crime in other areas, lives will be lost." It is tempting to dismiss the latest iteration of 'The Quinn Saga,' replete with movie grade tales of stolen assets, missing rent rolls and multi-billion bets on the property and banking sectors, as another Bandit Country style tale of lawlessness and thwarted loyalties. But can you imagine any other Irish or Irish-based company with international investors - and employing almost 1,000 workers - that could be subjected to such hostilities and a seeming collapse in the rule of law? McCaffrey's chilling but not entirely improbable prediction that lives will be lost, cannot be allowed to pass. We have been warned. International payments company PIP IT will triple its headcount over the next 18 months after securing over 1m in funding. The Galway-headquartered business, which allows migrants to pay bills and transfer money overseas at much cheaper rates, intends to add 17 employees over the next 18 months. PIP was originally launched last year after it began partnering with Ghana's Zeepay. It has also teamed up with Zympay in Zimbabwe and ImpalaPay in Kenya and claims that migrants can send money home at much cheaper rates than more established players such as Western Union and MoneyGram. CEO and co-founder Ollie Walsh said the company was "digitalising cash". "We are trying to remove the two main obstacles migrants face when transferring money - risk and cost," he said."We want to play a big part in combating financial exclusion across the world, by helping the un-banked and under-banked to fully participate in the digital world." Walsh said PIP charges 1.5pc on transactions, which he said was a "significant saving". "To put it into some context for example, in a developing nation such as Ghana, one year's health insurance costs $5," he said. "So, paying a single bill with PIP IT, as opposed to remitting cash, could pay for health insurance for a family member for a whole year." Around 250 million migrants sent around $600bn home across the world last year, according to Walsh. PIP has 12 payment partners dotted across the world, including the UK, the Middle East, Canada, and India. The company will also expand its offering over the next two years with the launch of PIP V2. Every day we see examples of how technology is changing our world. We see it in our smartphones, with medical advancements, how we communicate and shop, and how we get from A to B. If what we see and experience is all 'front end', remember that there is a whole industry at the 'back end' that enables and supports this technological revolution. We're already familiar with names such as IBM, Dell, Microsoft, SAP and other giants who have their own niches and proprietary systems. Every one of these iconic brands has gone through significant change in recent years as the capabilities and the sophistication of technology grows exponentially. And to enable all of these systems to come together and work effectively for an end-user organisation, there is a whole other professional and managed services industry that specialises in supporting their integration. Triangle Computer Services Kieran McCabe and his team led a buyout of UK-based Triangle Computer Services in 2006. Now, Irish-owned Triangle is a formidable force in the ever-changing ICT sector. The original business model was as a re-seller of IBM Enterprise Systems, such as equipment for processing and for storage. Selling 'boxes' was originally the main focus and that's where the margin was. Early on, however, Triangle realised that hardware alone would not be a solution for customers and it introduced VMWare virtualisation to the large corporates in Ireland. Triangle then went on to become the largest VMWare business in Ireland. In a nutshell, Triangle's expertise is in helping its customers to create the right environment for their software needs. It services lots of sectors, the prime ones being retail, financial services and utilities. VMWare is the global leader in virtualisation and software innovation that securely connects, manages and automates some of the world's most complex digital infrastructures. In simple terms, customers may want to have different operating systems to work on the same computer, putting some applications on the 'cloud' and others 'on-premise'. But cloud is more complex than at first envisaged and Triangle supports its customers to migrate between 'cloud' and 'on premise' with the most economical solutions. Professional Services Over the years, a number of changes occurred in the industry. The processing power of computers increased at the same time that prices were reducing. Buyers could get more bang for their buck. Buyers were then challenged with handling this extra complexity and needed systems architects and engineers with very specific skills to ensure systems worked together. Triangle adapted to that need with a professional services solution. Professional services in ICT is prompted by enterprise customers selecting particular brands of hardware to cater for other brands of software to run their business. For example, a customer might procure IBM hardware to run an Oracle software system. The environment required to house and support these proprietary systems needs to be integrated. Triangle is unique in how it balances its specialist technological expertise with a culture of being truly customer-centric. It has a dynamic team that between them has more than a thousand years of experience and expertise, which is very re-assuring for its customers. Over time, Triangle's business model shifted and margin was achieved through people rather than boxes (equipment). Managed Services A further development in the sector has evolved more recently. After completing successful integration projects, customers were then challenged with ensuring no interruption to their systems. That means 24/7 cover and engineers need to be available to support that. But their payroll budgets might not allow for having their own team on site. After all, they might only be needed for a few hours per week. Triangle developed a 'managed services' proposition which is to take over the management of the system for its customers. This is a classic efficient outsource model that guarantees flexibility, 24/7 cover and cost saving. It's a service where the 'managed services' team are based on Triangle premises, with secure remote access to its customer's systems. This model is now advancing to the next level where, on behalf of some customers, Triangle will provide a complete solution. That will involve Triangle purchasing the customer's chosen hardware and software systems, installing them and maintaining them over time. In such a model, the capex exposure switches to Triangle and the customer effectively pays for an ongoing service. The Future Just last week, Triangle moved into its new larger premises on Pembroke Road in Dublin, which was officially opened by Pat Breen, the Minister of State for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection. Breen announced that Triangle will recruit an extra 20 people within the next nine months. At the same event, he announced a joint agreement that Triangle will acquire Kerna, one of Ireland's leading providers of innovative security and network solutions. This is an exciting development that will further enhance the Triangle proposition, adding a further 15 people, enabling Triangle to add even more value to its customers. Sean Gallagher is on leave. ICT sector Business: Triangle Computer Services Set up: 2006 after a buyout from UK firm Founder: Kieran McCabe Turnover: 25m No of Employees: 64 Location: Pembroke Road, Dublin If Ireland increased exports per head of population to equal those to the UK, our eurozone exports would reach 38bn.. Stock photo More than four out of five companies backed by Enterprise Ireland (EI) plan to diversify exports into new markets. That insight emerged from a survey of 650 companies at EI's International Markets Week (IMW) in October. When Ireland joined the euro in 2002, it created an unprecedented opportunity to extend our domestic market into the single market with zero currency risk. Yet it also represents a largely untapped potential export market for Irish companies. While its population of 340 million is five times the UK's, Irish exports to the eurozone are 40pc lower than those to the UK. If Ireland increased exports per head of population to equal those to the UK, our eurozone exports would reach 38bn. The stability offered by a shared currency, mutually recognised standards and minimal customs bureaucracy are some of the advantages that should encourage Irish companies to build scale and expand reach in the eurozone. Economic indicators also look bright. Over the next two years, unemployment is forecast to decrease, as growth rates are expected to stand at 2pc in the eurozone. Brexit has raised Ireland's profile internationally, which, when combined with our recognised commitment to the EU and growing reputation for flexibility and innovation, means that our companies encounter strong positive sentiment across Europe. Germany and Austria are a good example of what the market offers. They has a combined population of 92 million, and EI-backed companies export 1.1bn there, compared to 7.6bn to the UK's market of 66 million people. Combilift, the long-load material-handling solution, cracked the German market, crediting its analytical mindset and openness to innovative products, in addition to R&D supports and introductions to distributors provided by EI. There are signs that other Irish exporters will follow, with almost half of the companies surveyed at IMW identifying the eurozone as a region they aim to expand into. EI is committed to helping companies break into the market. Our sectorally-led #IrishAdvantage digital platform promotes exporters to international buyers in five European languages. This year, IMW hosted a dedicated eurozone area for the first time, where advisers consulted on how best to enter and build exports in the core markets of Germany, France, Benelux, Italy and Spain. Throughout the year, EI's six offices in the eurozone deliver a one-to-one service, assisting companies with advice and support on developing business in their markets, while our Market Research Centre provides detailed market intelligence. Financial supports include our Be Prepared Grant, which can be used for research, consultancy support and language training. Our GradStart programme offers 70pc support for graduates with a foreign language, while our Market Discovery Grant offers funding of up to 150,000 to enter new markets. Irish companies are making excellent use of these supports. Grant Engineering employs 320, with operations accounting for more than half of the UK oil boiler market. In the wake of the Brexit vote, Grant focused on developing export markets. After attending a French trade show, it availed of our Business Accelerator initiative, which helps companies to retain the services of an in-country expert. The connection helped Grant to source two French specialists with a combined 40 years of industry experience, while a Market Access Grant enabled their product to be localised for France. Once you gain a foothold in a eurozone market, it is easier to expand to neighbouring ones. Companies interested in exporting to the eurozone can attend EI's Ambition Benelux event on November 9 and Ambition Germany on December 7. For 16 years we've been sitting on the sidelines. Now is the time to take action and seize the opportunity that the eurozone presents. Developer Pat Crean's Marlet Property Group has hit out at Labour Party senator Aodhan O'Riordain over his involvement in local opposition to its plan to deliver 164 new homes on a site overlooking Howth harbour in Dublin. While the Baily Court scheme secured planning permission from An Bord Pleanala in September, O'Riordain and the other members of the newly-formed Howth Village Action Group are actively considering seeking leave for a judicial review of the decision. Should the group decide to pursue that course of action, it would be the second time O'Riordain has been involved challenging a bid by Marlet to build new homes in his constituency. Earlier this year, Marlet subsidiary, Crekav Trading, saw its plans for 104 houses and 432 apartments on former playing fields of St Paul's College beside St Anne's Park in Raheny overturned following a judicial review of An Bord Pleanala's decision to approve the scheme. A spokesman for the company said: "There is a housing crisis in Dublin. This Senator's party publicly sheds crocodile tears about it. "This weekend his party conference heard fine speeches demanding action to ensure homes are built. Yet locally, Senator O'Riordain has become a serial opponent of attempts to actually build much-needed homes. "He won't talk to us about whatever concerns he says he has, but is intent on whipping up opposition to housing among the residents of Howth, as he did in Raheny recently in relation to the St Paul's development." Senator O'Riordain rejected Marlet's claims and said: "When a planning application goes in, people who live around the site are entitled to be part of the conversation. "I don't think we need to go back to the time when developers decided exactly what was built, when it was built, and how it was built. We've lived through a lot of difficulties because of that type of mindset." He also rejected the suggestion that he was opposed to housing being built in his constituency, pointing out that he had supported new developments in his area, often against the wishes of the local people. He added: "Nobody has an issue with a development on the Baily Court site. I would welcome it. It's a derelict site. It's quite unsightly. A development there of some description would benefit the whole village area." O'Riordain added, however, that he and the members of the Howth Village Action Group had concerns that the development approved by An Bord Pleanala could exacerbate the problem of subsidence which the area had experienced in the past. "We don't feel that An Bord Pleanala has properly taken that into account. We are going through the process of challenging that decision," he said. Responding to Marlet's statement that he had refused to engage with them, he said: "In my experience, there's nothing binding about those conversations. "There's nothing that will necessarily be adhered to by either side. If the developer is happy that everything is okay with the development, then he should be happy to see the planning process reach its natural conclusion." Three Irish companies are to open offices in China following a trade visit there last week. Business minister Heather Humphries led an Enterprise Ireland mission with 45 Irish businesses participating in the six-day trip. Wexford-based Taoglas, which provides external antennae for cellular networks, opened its first office in Shenzen to accelerate the company's growth in the Chinese market. The company has more than 350 employees based across eight facilities in Ireland, Germany, Taiwan, and the USA. The new Chinese bases will be made up of sales, technical, and service teams. Financial services firm Global Shares also announced plans for further expansion in Asia with the opening of an office in Beijing. It follows the opening of a separate outlet in Hong Kong earlier in the year. Global Shares has also agreed a strategic partnership with Huanying International, one of Hong Kong's top online brokerages. Similarly Galway-based medtech firm Aerogen also declared its intention to open an office in Beijing to further its ambitions in the Chinese market. Enterprise Ireland's director of Asia Pacific, Tom Cusack, said that China represented a "huge opportunity" for Irish exporters. "China is currently the sixth-largest export market for Enterprise Ireland clients who achieved exports of 1.07bn in 2017. Reflecting the market potential, we have our sights set on increasing this by 40pc to 1.44bn in exports by 2020," he said. "Over 300 Enterprise Ireland clients are currently exporting to China, with approximately 150 clients with a direct sales presence in the market, which is critical to scaling in the market. The Taoglas, Global Shares and Aerogen new office openings are significant milestones for these companies who have ambitious export growth targets for China." China accounts for 52pc of Enterprise Ireland clients' exports to the Asia Pacific region, increasing by 9.7pc last year to 1.03bn. Exports to the entire region are expected to grow by more than 50pc to 3bn by 2020. "Expanding the reach of Irish enterprise in diversified export markets is a key strategic priority for Enterprise Ireland and international trade missions and trade fair participation is a key pillar to delivering on this," Cusack said. The EI visit to China followed a mission to Scotland in September, which was the body's largest to the United Kingdom since the Brexit vote. Economics has a serious gender problem - but it's not for the reason you might think. While universities are seeing a rise in female graduates in the areas of law, medicine, science, the humanities and maths, fewer women are studying economics. The reason - Ireland's leading economist David McWilliams believes - is that women are simply not buying into the traditional economic models proposed by men. Speaking ahead of the annual Kilkenomics Festival in Kilkenny this week, Mr McWilliams said: "Women are too clever for economics and by that I mean they realise the economic models that most [male] economists work off do not reflect their day-to-day life." He describes how economics is dominated by a male-centred way of problem-solving and this has a negative impact on their body of work: "Traditional economics was devised by men who were mathematicians. They wanted the models to work because their obsession was the perfection of the maths. But in order to make models work, you have to apply assumptions and the assumptions they applied to the economy were so outrageously unrepresentative of how people behave in real life. While the mathematical models are elegant, they do not reflect reality and this is why economists failed to predict the bust; they didn't understand that economics is all about people." He says: "I think more women are likely to understand that people are not rational, people are irrational; people behave not as individuals but as a herd. Boom to bust cycles are based on irrationality. "My sense is that women look at economics and say 'you know what, that is not reflective of the world around me so I am going to spend my time studying something else'." He says the gender-imbalance will be rectified in the future, given that "psychology and human behaviour are now increasingly being put at the centre of economics". Mr McWilliams points to the likes of Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, and Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the World Bank, to show how woman are smashing the glass ceiling at the highest level - but the ''gender problem'' remains on the ground. Meanwhile, this year's Kilkenomics Festival has four times as many male contributors as there are female (53 men to 13 women) and Mr McWilliams says this is due to the fact that "the gap is there". "In fairness to Kilkenomics, its ratio of women to men is higher than the number of women who graduate in economics, which is stuck at 24pc. What we have done at Kilkenomics is try to get the best people in the field." He says: "It is frustrating; we cannot on our own fix the gender imbalance in economics but we really try. When you compare Kilkenomics to economic conferences, we have far, far more women - both on panels and being interviewed one-on-one and also doing the interviewing and doing the comedy - so we really make a huge effort." Mr McWilliams launched his new book, Renaissance Nation, which explores the transformation of Irish society in the four decades between two papal visits. CCTV saves bouncer: Kierah Lagrave did not strike a blow for feminism Who says chivalry is dead? Surely not 22-year-old Kierah Lagrave, of Plattsburgh, N.Y., who is accused of choking a nightclub bouncer into unconsciousness. Lagrave thought hed slapped her backside. He hadnt. Her friend had the friend who when the attack was taking place appeared to do nothing to stop it. The odd bit is in the reporting by NBC News: Newly released video shows a 5-foot-1 New York woman choking a much taller nightclub bouncer unconscious That makes it sound like Lagrave is some kind of hero. She isnt. The bouncer says he didnt defend himself because at the Five1Eight Nightclub because he thought it was a friend playing a joke on him. Others also present the story as a blow for womenkind: Woman Knocks Out Bouncer After She Thought He Groped Her, says iHeart.com. How about Woman Accused of Attacking Innocent Man? The Independent makes her a 5-ft woman, reducing her height for extra power. The bounces height is not given. Lagrave has been arrested and charged with strangling. The bouncer can be thankful for CCTV. As the NY Post notes: LaGrave, of Plattsburgh, later admitted to police that she choked the bouncer, telling investigators she did so because he had grabbed her. Surveillance footage, however, proved otherwise. Anorak Posted: 4th, November 2018 | In: Key Posts, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink Tens of thousands of pensioners should see a boost to their payments in the New Year, but not everyone will be better off. About 67,000 pensioners should now know - or will soon learn - if they will get a boost to their State pension next year. The Department of Social Protection started to send letters to 67,000 pensioners in late October to advise them if they will be better off getting their State pension under a new system - rather than the one currently in place. Many of these pensioners will see their State pension increase by between 20 and 40 a week - or up to 2,000 a year - if they move to the new system. Many will also be entitled to a back payment. The new State pension system, known as the Total Contribution Approach (TCA), is expected to be rolled out in full in 2020. However, the 67,000 pensioners being written to will have the option to move to the new system early next year. Not everyone will be better off under the TCA than the current State pension system (which is known as the 'averaging' system). The 67,000 pensioners being written to can, however, choose between getting a pension under the current system or under the TCA - and opt for the one which gives them the better pension. The Department of Social Protection has examined the social insurance records of the pensioners concerned to establish which system they'll be better off under. "No one will be worse off as a result of this review," said a spokesman for the Department of Social Protection. "If a pensioner does not qualify for an increased rate [of State pension] under the TCA, they will continue to receive their existing rate of [State pension] entitlement." Who can move to the new pension in 2019? It is only those who hit the State retirement age of 66 on - or after - September 1, 2012 who will get the option to move to the TCA next year. This is because many of these people saw their contributory State pension cut by as much as 35 a week as a result of changes introduced to the State pension in September 2012. Anyone who became eligible for a contributory State pension before September 2012 wasn't impacted by those changes. Who will get backpayments? Any of the 67,000 pensioners concerned who are entitled to a higher pension under the TCA should also qualify for a back payment - assuming they move to the TCA. Any back payment due will be paid in one lump sum. You won't get a back payment if you are no better off under the TCA than you are under the current State pension system. How will other pensioners be affected? The TCA is expected to be rolled out in full in 2020 and once this happens, it will no longer be possible to choose between the two State pension systems. So those who reach State retirement age when, or after, the TCA system is fully in place will only be able to get their State pension under the TCA - regardless of whether or not they're better off under the TCA or the existing State pension system. Pensioners who retired on the State pension prior to September 1, 2012 won't be affected by the roll out of the TCA - as they will continue to get their pension under the current 'averaging' State pension system and so their weekly State pension payments won't be affected. Who will be better off under the TCA? Parents who took time out of the workforce to rear children could be better off under the TCA - particularly if they looked after children prior to April 1994. The Homemaker's scheme is the one currently in place to give parents credit (for the purpose of qualifying for the State pension) for time spent outside the workforce to rear children. The main drawback of that scheme is that it does not cover any years spent looking after children before April 6, 1994. This has led to many parents losing out on the full State pension. The Government is seeking to address this problem by introducing the HomeCaring credit in conjunction with the TCA. The HomeCaring credit has no cut-off date so anyone who took time out of the workforce to look after children can get credit (up to a maximum of 20 years) for that time for the purposes of the State pension - even if they looked after children prior to April 1994. Furthermore, "people who have gaps in their social insurance record and who suffer under the current averaging system may do better under the TCA," said Paul Kenny, the former Pensions Ombudsman and a course leader with the Retirement Planning Council of Ireland. Such people could include those who started work when very young and who then took time out of the workforce to study or travel. Who will be worse off? Many people could get a much lower State pension under the TCA than under the current 'averaging' system. For example, some individuals who would have qualified for a weekly pension of 238.30 under the current system could be entitled to a weekly pension of only 95.30 under the TCA . Those who have worked abroad for most of their lives, and who then return to Ireland, could be worse off under the TCA - particularly if they worked in a country where social insurance contributions cannot be carried over to Ireland. Some self-employed people could also lose out. Will there be more changes by 2020? The shape of the TCA pension set to be rolled out in 2020 has not yet been fully decided on. The TCA pension currently available to 67,000 pensioners is an interim system. Under that interim system, 40 years of social insurance contributions are required to qualify for the full State pension. This is much higher than the number of years' social insurance contributions required to qualify for the full State pension under the current 'averaging' system. There is concern that this 40-year rule will also apply to the final TCA - though no decision has yet been made on this. Under the interim TCA, parents can avail of the HomeCaring credit to get up to 20 years of social insurance credits. As the design for the TCA due to come into force in 2020 has not yet been finalised, there is no guarantee that the HomeCaring credit would work the same way under the TCA of 2020. If you're due to retire in 2020, or later, find out how you may stand under the new TCA system - as you should be able to take some action now which could offset the impact of any cut to the State pension. "If you are due to retire in a few years' time and are worried that you'll be entitled to a lower State pension under the TCA than you would be if you were retiring today, it's worth asking your financial adviser what your pension will be when you retire," said Peter Kavanagh, head of communications and public affairs with Active Retirement Ireland. "If you find that you will get a smaller pension under the TCA than you'd get if you retired today, talk to your employer and see if you can continue to work into retirement - if you are fit and able to do so. Know what your rights and entitlements will be in retirement." There are many unanswered questions about the final TCA set to be rolled out in 2020 and this is bound to be of concern to those due to retire in, or after, that year. However, doing what you can now to prepare for any possible cut to the State pension would be wise and should ease any blow this pension revamp could do to your pocket. PENSION BACKPAY WILL THE BACK PAYMENT BE TAXED? Pensioners who get a back payment of the State pension early next year shouldnt get hit for tax if the back payment pushes the total amount of income they received in 2019 above the income tax exemption limits for those aged 65 and over. This is because of a change brought in under the Finance Act 2017 which means that since January 2018, certain income (including social welfare ) is taxable in the year that it is earned, rather than in the year it is received. This measure was brought in to ensure that payment of arrears of social welfare payments does not result in unintended tax consequences, said a spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners. Where arrears of such payments arise, the accumulation of arrears could, if moved to a receipts basis [where income is taxable in the year the income is paid], result in payments which would normally be taxed at the lower rate of tax coming into charge at the marginal [higher] rate. That scenario has been avoided by leaving social welfare payments on an earnings basis [where income is taxable in the year it was earned]. Under the income tax exemption limits, a single person aged 65 or more is exempt from income tax where their annual income is no more than 18,000; or 36,000 in the case of a couple. The State pension is not liable to the Universal Social Charge (USC). There is no need to inform the Revenue Commissioners of any back payment of the State pension received in early 2019. The Department of Social Protection will notify Revenue of the back payments paid to pensioners as part of its normal payment information exchange process. Payments referring to 2018 will be allocated to the 2018 tax year on the recipients Revenue records, said a spokeswoman for Revenue. This, in turn, will ensure that the earnings basis is applied to these payments. WHEN WILL BACK PAYMENT BE PAID? Those entitled to a back payment are expected to get their back money in the first three months of 2019. Payments will take a number of months to process due to the numbers of customers involved, said a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Protection. WHY ARE BACK PAYMENTS DUE? Back payments are due because the Government has decided that the date at which the new TCA will come into effect for these 67,000 pensioners is March 30, 2018. As it will be early 2019 before these people get any higher State pension due to them under the TCA (assuming they move to the TCA), the higher payments will be backdated to the end of March 2018 or later where a person reached their 66th birthday after that date. The back payments wont go back as far as September 2012 which is when many of the 67,000 pensioners saw their State pension cut. HOW MUCH WILL BACK PAYMENTS BE? Where back payments are due, they will vary significantly, depending upon the individuals social insurance record, according to the Department. By this papers calculations, were a pensioner due a 40 weekly increase to their State pension, their back payment could be worth about 1,500 based on the pensioner being entitled to 40 extra a week between March 30, 2018 and the end of 2018. When it comes to bakery giant Aryzta, there has been 'trouble at mill' for some time. After getting a controversial 800m rights issue over the line at this week's AGM, chairman Gary McGann may feel it is a case of job done. However, the nature of the victory, especially over its largest shareholder Cobas Asset Management, which opposed the plan, suggests there is still a way to go. McGann and the management team got the go-ahead from shareholders but by the slimmest of margins. The plan was backed by 52.88pc of the voted shares with a staggering 46.98pc against. Still a win is a win and the rights issue will go ahead. But real questions remain about its future direction. Having secured permission, Aryzta has to go out now and sell the 900 million new shares to investors. Given the scale of opposition to the plan, and the massive shareholder dilution resulting from it, it is unclear how many existing investors will take up their rights. That may mean finding a range of new shareholders. Existing stock holders are looking at a significant dilution of their shares. The new registered shares will be offered to existing shareholders at a price of CHF1 (0.88) per share and they will be offered the right to buy 10 new shares for every share they hold. This is a huge rights issue and a huge dilution. It would technically dilute shareholdings by 90pc if investors decide not to go ahead and exercise their rights. Shareholders are offered shares at a discounted price. The discount, at around 40pc, was bigger than expected, reflecting the uncertainty that surrounds this whole process and whether it will work. Two clues point to the likelihood of a low take up of rights from existing shareholders - the very modest support for the board and the share price falls after the AGM. Firstly, many of the shareholders weren't just unhappy with the rights issue plan, but gave a thumbs down to the board too. When it came to re-electing board directors, the highest vote went to new appointee and former McDonald's US executive Michael Andres, who received backing from 61.5pc of the votes cast. From McGann (60.66pc) right through non-executive directors, the support levels were relatively low. Even chief executive Kevin Toland secured backing from just 57.8pc of the votes cast. Shares in Aryzta tumbled 20pc to CHF 20.51 last Thursday after the AGM. It means the value of the rights, attaching to each share under this new issue, has also fallen. For the board and management the AGM was a victory in so far as the controversial plan will now go ahead. Some existing shareholders are likely to be replaced by new investors as management spearhead an investor roadshow. It is a tough choice. Do nothing and get diluted by 90pc. Sell your shares at a loss in the market or invest more money in the turnaround to try and get your money back. The rights issue is underwritten by bankers so the money will be raised. The next big challenge will be to deliver the three-year cost cutting and growth plan. The rights issue is priced to go at CHF1 per share. After the meeting, the company's largest shareholder Cobas Asset Management which opposed the plan, said it would consider "additional measures" but did not elaborate further. Cobas believed a smaller rights issue would have sufficed combined with asset disposals. Aryzta chairman Gary McGann told the meeting "the consequences of not raising the type of share capital we're talking about is that this business will limp along and be a wounded animal for quite a length of time". He has got his hands on the medicine, but it's too early to say whether it will work. Ireland isolated on digital tax Forget Brexit for a moment. The British have inadvertently caused further problems for the Irish government and its love affair with large global tech companies. In his Budget during the week, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond, introduced a digital sales tax of 2pc on tech company revenues in the British market. This is similar to the 3pc digital levy proposed by the EU on certain revenues such as online advertising. The EU plan is strongly backed by France and the number of countries supporting it is growing. Up to now our Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has resisted the introduction of the EU measure. Ireland's quibble has been that it would be better to resolve issues around how much tax tech companies pay, through a wider global or OECD initiative. A 3pc EU levy would simply drive these companies to somewhere like, well the UK, after Brexit. Hammond has now sunk a hole in that argument and it is becoming more difficult for the Irish government to put up resistance. Our allies in opposing the measure are getting fewer with reports suggesting our position is now only shared by Sweden, Denmark and Estonia. Throw in the unwavering support from our EU colleagues on Brexit (so far at least) and Donohoe may appear isolated and even ungrateful in saying no to the tax when he sits down next week with his EU counterparts in Brussels. The measure would hit Irish corporate tax take by a modest enough 160m a year. But the Government is concerned this could be just the start and it could raise doubts in the minds of decision-makers in these tech giants about what else might be coming. If Donohoe is under pressure from other EU finance ministers on the issue, just imagine the pressure from tech companies themselves, who will want Ireland to oppose it and ensure it is not an EU-wide initiative. In truth, other countries could just go ahead themselves and arrange something similar, so we don't have a full veto. The French are leading the charge on this and it would be a big win for them, further cementing the influence of French president Emmanuel Macron at the EU table. Donohoe could point to global competition for tech investment and how it could go outside the EU. This won't be convincing. He could also point to how countries like France are playing the tax card themselves to win post-Brexit jobs from London. France and Italy are offering the best deals on personal taxation for London bankers to move there. France is offering income tax breaks of up to 50pc of salary for British bankers who move. They will also exclude foreign assets and properties from their wealth tax. A London banker on 1m salary could increase his take-home pay from 542,000 in London to 732,000 in Paris if he moved. The figure for Dublin is 672,000. When it comes to tech giants and tax, the jig is up on this one. This isn't about how much tax these companies pay in Ireland. It is about how Ireland has facilitated them in making sure they pay relatively little tax anywhere. It isn't just about different countries competing to win FDI. It is about allowing those companies to pay less somewhere else and less than their fair share. The best we can hope for is that Donohoe at least secures something else in return. Maybe an extra couple of billion for the national rural broadband plan? After all, that is how the EU works. Can a semi-state body such as the ESB, Bord na Mona or Irish Water (Ervia) become a viable substitute for the current National Broadband Plan? Now that it has been floated publicly by Fianna Fail, it will become part of the debate as we wait to see what the Government intends to do on what once looked like an urgent rural rollout process. But is it realistic? How far will Fianna Fail push it? Could distrust in the current process really threaten a new Confidence And Supply agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail? Last week, Fianna Fail's communications spokesperson, Timmy Dooley, raised the prospect of Irish Water (Ervia) or other semi-states taking on the project to deliver high speed broadband to 540,000 rural homes and businesses. He is clearly not impressed with the current prospect, which has seen Granahan McCourt left as the sole bidder to the state tender. Dooley went so far as to say that the State may have "low-balled" the biggest prospective bidders, Eir and Siro, by making it commercially unattractive for them to stay in the race. Therefore, he and Fianna Fail are effectively calling for the scrapping of the current process and its replacement with a direct provision model. But in doing so, they are indirectly saying that rural homes cannot have broadband for at least another three years. Because it is almost impossible to see such a plan delivering broadband to rural areas in any expedited time frame. I spoke to some of the semi-state companies named about this proposal last week. Their responses generally indicated that it would be a matter of starting from scratch. (Some of them indicated hostility to the idea.) In other words, it would likely take years from now. That's not an easy prospect to stomach for rural businesses, including thousands of farmers. A lot of discussion around the National Broadband Plan in recent weeks has focused on technicalities. Increasingly, the people that this process is supposed to rescue - 1.1 million rural residents and businesses - are being considered as an afterthought. Elsewhere in this paper today, Communications Minister Richard Bruton answers some questions around the Government's general approach to broadband. He indicates that the administration is still behind the general principle of delivering high-speed connectivity to rural areas. But he's non-committal on how. And there is still no firm comment on timelines. It's worth noting that 2019 was previously a firm promise on delivery. (And that itself was a delayed target.) Now, we're back to softer language over "decisions" to be taken in future. (At least we now know that there is no 'Plan B', something that the Department of Communications previously suggested it had up its sleeve in case the current process failed.) So what happens next? The moment of truth comes when the National Broadband Plan's auditor, Peter Smyth, reports on the process later this month. If he gives it the go-ahead after searching for potential improper meetings between the last Communications Minister Denis Naughten, and the head of the bid consortium, David McCourt, will Bruton and Varadkar sign off on it? In theory, that's an easy answer: yes. The Department's officials have been working for years to get the technical t's crossed and the commercial i's dotted. Only one thing has really changed - the political climate. That incorporates both increasing hostility from Fianna Fail and criticism of the makeup (and alternating components) of the Granahan McCourt-led consortium. Is that an instructive element in how Bruton and Varadkar now treat this process? Is it more important than timely delivery of the basic infrastructure promised? If so, there are some big winners. Eir is one. Not only does it get a longer window to keep people on its sub-par telephone line internet in rural areas, but it may hold even more power in a reconstituted roll-out plan. In its desperation to deliver an alternative, the Government won't be in any position to string out negotiations with the company holding large swathes of critical infrastructure. City landlords will also continue to win big. There is no prospect of college-leavers staying in rural areas - or even in the broadband-enabled towns close by - if high-speed connectivity is reserved exclusively for urban areas. (There are still towns in the midlands with derelict ghost estates, even as there's an accommodation crisis in cities.) The country will become even more entrenched as a two-tier economy. Many commentators continue to say that Eir effectively undermined the National Broadband Plan by siphoning off the most attractive 300,000 premises into their own private network footprint. To be fair to the Government and to Eir, there was little the State could do to stop that happening: under EU state-aid rules, if Eir says it will provide high-speed broadband to a rural area, the Government can't stop it from doing so on the basis that it wants to roll out a State network. Moreover, Eir has every right to point out that over 250,000 of the 300,000 premises promised are now within connection capability (they're 'passed'). That compares to not a single premises in the remaining 540,000 bundle of homes and businesses that can get proper broadband. Right now, that looks to be at least 18 months off. "The Government is committed to providing high-speed broadband to every home, farm and business across Ireland as quickly as possible," a spokesman for the Communications Department said in response to questions put by this column last week. "The Government remain committed to concluding the procurement process for the National Broadband Plan State-led intervention to a conclusion in a fair and impartial manner as quickly as possible." Rebel Wilson is rightfully proud of what looks to be a career-changing role as the lead in Isn't it Romantic. The Australian actress has been not-so-quietly making waves for herself as a comedic force to be reckoned with, with supporting and scene-stealing roles in the Pitch Perfect franchise, How to be Single and Bridesmaids, so her latest foray as a lead is part of a natural career trajectory. Rebel (37) was rightfully proud at her achievement, in particular, because she is changing what has been the cliched expectation of what a leading lady in Hollywood should look like. In an interview on the Ellen show, she said: "I am proud to be the first-ever plus size girl to be the star of a romantic comedy," Wilson told DeGeneres, also mentioning that the film is her debut as a producer." However, many were quick to point out the inaccuracy in her claim, which was downright false, pointing out that Queen Latifah has starred in a number of romantic comedies. When someone tweeted her pointing out that both Latifah and Mo'Nique had starring rom-com parts, she responded: "Hey girl! Yeah I of course know of these movies but it was questionable as to whether: 1. Technically those actresses were plus size when filming those movies or 2. Technically those films are catorgorized/billed as a studio rom-com with a sole lead. So theres a slight grey area." Her explanation didn't do many favours in the eyes of critics though - either way, it's still pretty cool that someone who isn't a size six is playing Liam Hemsworth's love interest, former Miss World Priyanka Chopra is a supporting part, and she isn't making fun of herself, her size - in fact, her size isn't even acknowledged, which is a pretty good place to be. The Edge and Bono are co-owners of the Clarence. Photo: Getty The Edge and Bono on stage at the O2 in London. U2 believed it might be the end of the band when Bono lost his voice at the beginning of a gig in Berlin in September. Bonos voice specialist Steven Zeitels, whom the band rang from under the stage on the night, said at the time there was a 70pc chance that Bono had suffered a serious vocal haemorrhage, which would mean it could be years, if ever, before he was able to sing again. The gig was halted and the band convened underneath the stage. It was The Edge who spoke on the phone to Zeitels, who is Professor of Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Centre for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation and whose clients include everyone from Adele to Julie Andrews. Zeitels was adamant that the gig could not go ahead. The band speak in detail about the incident for the first time in an exclusive interview in todays LIFE magazine in the Sunday Independent. Bono speaks of feeling embarrassed and emasculated, likening himself to Samson with his hair cut off: The strong man with no strength. Expand Close U2 - Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jnr and Adam Clayton. Portrait by Anton Corbijn / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp U2 - Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jnr and Adam Clayton. Portrait by Anton Corbijn Bono says he has performed with a sore throat before but this was different. It moved so quickly from singing well to not being able to sing at all that was the shock, he says. Bono says he could tell that the people around him were contemplating that it was all over for U2. But he says he knew he hadnt broken anything, he knew he hadnt felt a pop, and his voice was working. But Zeitels insisted that Bonos throat needed to be checked. It is still not known what caused the sudden voice loss. Bono speculates that it might have been a vocal spasm brought on by an allergic reaction to something. It might have been smoke; it might have been a blockage in the ventilation system. Fans attending U2s run of sold-out Dublin gigs next week will be glad to know that Bono says he is singing like a bird now. Video of the Day Read Brendan OConnors full interview with U2 in LIFE magazine in todays Sunday Independent Had it survived, Smash Hits would be hitting the Big 4-0 this month, which puts most of its early readers in their mid-50s. Either age would have seemed barely imaginable, and scarcely permissible, to a mag that gently mocked The Bangles for being "ancient" in their late 20s. It arrived in November 1978 with Debbie Harry radiating from a glossy cover that pledged teenage kicks and a fun alternative to the inkies of the day ('inkies' because of their finger-staining newsprint). The NME was for album-buying older brothers and sisters. Smash Hits chased their younger single-buying siblings. Staffer Sylvia Patterson remarked: "Everyone, no matter their cultural importance, was treated identically, whether Bruce Springsteen or Big Fun. We'd do things to make each other laugh. We'd ask Jason Donovan questions in German." Early on, though, as pop re-emerged from punk, the Ramsay Street boy-next-door wouldn't have cut it. The top pin-ups included Bob Geldof, Sting, Donna Summer and Poly Styrene. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John had the matinee idol franchise covered. Songwords filled the early issues. With The Jam on the front, Issue 2 published the lyrics for 'Teenage Kicks' by Derry's Undertones. Strong sales speeded the newcomer towards full-colour with perfect timing. After the monotone austerity of punk, everything suddenly went day-glo. Smash Hits found itself in the right place at the right time for a post-punk Cambrian explosion of wild new technical possibilities in and out of the recording studio including picture discs, colour vinyl and the dressing up games that arrived with video. With its house policy that looks really do matter, Smash Hits was key to making stars of Adam Ant, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Wham!, Spandau Ballet, The Human League and the rest of that photogenic broad church labelled New Romantic. Expand Close The final edition of Smash Hits in 1997. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The final edition of Smash Hits in 1997. The magazine hit its peak in 1989 with sales topping one million per issue, having been steered through the mid-80s by TCD graduate Barry McIlheney who moved on to launch the movie bible Empire. By then its Jam fans and even its Wham! fans had grown up and moved on, to be replaced by their younger brothers and sisters who now swooned to Kylie, Jason, Bros, Then Jerico and Brother Beyond. The mag had quadrupled in size, the songwords had virtually disappeared, and instead of adverts for ELO belt-buckles and Stranglers wristbands, there were phone numbers for everything - and they cost an arm and a leg. Long columns of adverts invited young readers to phone hotlines that charged a big chunk of pocket money per minute for a range of services. Callers could answer quiz questions to "Win A Dress Like Kylie's", or seek expert advice on "How To Get Rid Of That Creep", or you could "Leave Your Message For The Stars" which promised, for a hefty levy, to "pass messages on to the star of your choice". One "horror line" even advertised "terrifying telephone tales", the most terrifying of which undoubtedly would have been your parents' phone bill. No youngster and almost no adult had a brick mobile phone. The smart technology of the day was the Sony Walkman, and sales of music cassettes were neck-and-neck with vinyl, while CDs were coming up fast. No longer cover-star material, Bob Geldof gave his blessing to a new version of 'Do They Know It's Christmas' from the hit factory of Stock, Aiken & Waterman (SAW), or "Lock, Stock & Barrel" as he called them. The cast of Band Aid II included Sonia, Cathy Denis, Lisa Stansfield and most of SAW's usual suspects, and just about every act on that remake owed Smash Hits big for putting them there. An Irish version, Fresh, appeared in 1987 but the market here was too small and all the happening Irish bands were rock, not pop. A few years later, with Boyzone, Westlife, B*Witched and The Corrs charting, it might have worked, but the timing was all wrong. Such was SAW's dominance that they did a Pygmalion job on a pair of unknowns, turning them into the most unlikely pop stars just to show they could. They plucked two sisters, Dublin-born, Liverpool-bred Aisling and Linda Reynolds, and fired them into the Top 10 with 'I'd Rather Jack (Than Fleetwood Mac)'. Having made their point, SAW left the Reynolds Girls to their own devices. In case anyone cares, jacking was a dance form resembling the funky chicken, just as daft but more introverted. A million seller at the close of the 1980s, Smash Hits spent the 1990s on the downslope before closing in 2006. TV gossip mags stole its soap coverage, while, encouraged by the antics of their royals, the British tabloids became celebrity comics. The final nail was the internet, which made disposable pop culture far more instantaneous than the mag that had been both the byword and bible for disposable pop. Video of the Day When Berlin and Cannes were in their infancy, before Robert Redford had even dreamed of launching an annual movie festival in Utah, and more than 20 years before Dublin got an equivalent event, the Cork Film Festival was established by a small group of visionaries, led by Dermot Breen. Founded in 1956, it quickly became a much-loved institution, bringing national and international films to a city that proved to have an inexhaustible thirst for quality cinema. In its early years, the festival spent much of its energies warring with the overarching prurience of the Catholic Church: there were censorship rows over screenings of films like A Town Like Alice, Midnight Express and The Last Temptation of Christ. But in recent times, the most pressing issues have been finance and ensuring the event's continuing relevance. Current CEO and festival producer Fiona Clark took over two years ago, just weeks before the launch of the 61st festival. Originally from London, she'd run the Bush Theatre and a young people's helpline charity before coming to Dublin in 2014 to work as head of development and funding at the IFI. Fiona's husband is Irish and she and her family are based in East Cork, so when the festival job was mooted, it seemed to make sense in lots of ways. "I was really motivated about the prospect of taking on Cork Film Festival," she tells me, "because I'd been a punter at it for some years beforehand. This is my adopted home, I love Cork City, it's a special place, it really has that special quality of being small enough that it feels like a village, but being a port city it's got that sense of connectivity, it's outward-looking. Expand Close Fiona Clark, CEO of Cork Film Festival / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fiona Clark, CEO of Cork Film Festival "One of the things I've learned about the festival is that while its local roots are really important to it, it's also an international festival, and the challenge is to couple those two things, showing the best of what's available from the international festival circuit alongside homegrown talent, and finding the balance between those two things. "When I started, about six or seven weeks before the 2016 festival, on the back of some reorganisation in terms of funding, because it's no secret that the festival has had its ups and downs, my job was to come in and deliver that festival and then take pause, and look, and review, who we are, who we're for, and really come up with a plan from 2017 onwards. "One of the most striking things for me about Cork was that there's such a tangible appetite for good cultural cinema from our audience, they're hungry for it. So this concentration of 250 films over 10 days, is a real opportunity, it's in people's diaries, some people take the week off work. It's very much an audience festival, we do our industry days and they're getting significant, but it's an audience festival first and foremost, and you have to protect that. "If you look back at what the founders of the festival were trying to do, it was really innovative. From the very start there was a desire to support emerging, homegrown talent, and at the same time having this very striking, international, outward view," Fiona adds. "With festivals, because you have this feast of films happening in one place at the same time, you can play with that content. For instance it's the centenary of Ingmar Bergman's birth this year, and we have this documentary, Bergman: A Year in a Life, which gives us the perfect excuse to show Wild Strawberries, and The Magic Flute. So there's all these wonderful opportunities to connect themes, artists, ideas within a festival context." The festival should also be fun, and worthy foreign films and documentaries are carefully balanced with more mainstream, lighthearted fare. "This year we have Nine to Five, which I'm hugely looking forward to, and which we'll be screening in Midleton and Mallow as well. Expand Close Emma Stone in The Favourite / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Emma Stone in The Favourite Video of the Day "There are also the distributor titles that will be on release shortly after the festival screening or early next year, like The Favourite and The Old Man and the Gun. There's a big strong Irish programme, always." This year's opening night film might have been custom built for the festival. Carmel Winters' drama Float Like a Butterfly is set in the 1960s and stars Hazel Doupe as Frances, a young Traveller girl who develops a fierce self-reliance, and moulds herself in the image of her hero, Muhammad Ali. "Carmel is from Cork, it was filmed in West Cork, most of the crew are from Cork: it absolutely feels like the right film at the right place at the right time." The festival is also well known as a destination for documentaries with 30pc plus of the features in this genre. And Irish shorts and particularly Cork shorts has always had a particularly strong place on the itinerary. The principal funder is the Arts Council, with City Hall and RTE Supporting the Arts among its partners. "We have a three-year sponsorship plan, and we'll aggressively pursue that," says Fiona. "but I'll be really mindful of who we jump into bed with. You've got to be clear about who you are first, and it's all about film, so if the art isn't there, there's nothing to coalesce any support around." The Cork Film Festival runs from Nov 9-18 Five films not to miss The Favourite Yorgos Lanthimos's period drama is set at the court of the early 18th century English monarch Queen Anne, and stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz as scheming courtiers vying for her attention. "I think Yorgos's work is really interesting," says Fiona, "and I love his twisted mind." Nov 10, Everyman, 9pm The Overcoat Expand Close The Overcoat / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Overcoat "This is my pick of the family films, it's a gorgeous half-hour animated short based on the Gogol story, and Giant Animation are going to do a talk and workshop afterwards. It's an Irish co-production of a Russian story, beautifully made!" Nov 17, Gate, 11.30am Ordinary People "Illuminate is our mental health strand, and this year we've invited the filmmaker Frank Berry to pick and present a movie of his choice. He's chosen Ordinary People, Robert Redford's 1980 film about the disintegration of a wealthy suburban family." Nov 17, Triskel, 12noon Nosferatu Expand Close Nosferatu will be played at Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nosferatu will be played at Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork "We're doing a cine concert of the 1922 silent classic in Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, with a new score by Cork composers Linda and Irene Buckley. The music is exquisite and I love the idea of a horror film being shown in a gothic cathedral." Nov 13, 6.30pm, 9pm Jibril Expand Close Jibril / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jibril Henrika Kull's debut feature movingly explores the issues of race, class and love in contemporary Germany. "I met Henrika in Berlin, and Jibril is a really good example of a first-time filmmaker who's caught the zeitgeist. She's a fresh voice." Nov 18, Triskel, 1.30pm Kathleen Watkins and daughters are keeping a close eye on Gay Byrne to make sure he doesn't over do it. Picture: David Conachy Gay Byrne has revealed RTE want him back on air to present his Sunday show on Lyric FM but his family has imposed a well-meaning veto. Irelands 84-year-old king of the airwaves has been battling cancer in recent times. He said that he regrets not being able to get back behind the microphone. RTE want me back on the air in January for my little Sunday afternoon programme and I wont be let go, he said. He said his wife Kathleen Watkins and daughters Suzy and Crona ganged up to tell him he must not do it. Expand Close Gay Byrne / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gay Byrne They just say Im not up to it at the moment, and I suspect they may be partly right, but nonetheless I greatly regret that I cant do it, he said. It was my little outlet, thats all. It was unimportant. It was only a Mickey Mouse radio programme but it was an appreciative listenership. In fairness, it affects Kathleen as well, because it was her Sunday too, he explained. The Sunday With Gay Byrne afternoon show featured the best of traditional jazz, big band and swing music mixed with chat. Kathleen Watkins new book Happy Christmas Pigin! will be published this month. It is a follow-up to her 2016 bestseller, Pigin of Howth. Read Barry Egans full interview with Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins in Living magazine in todays Sunday Independent Directors and executives of Quinn Industrial Holdings have been advised by gardai not to park their cars in front of their homes, after the third arson attack in two months at the homes of key figures in the company. John McCartin, a Fine Gael councillor and QIH board member, was told by gardai last week not to park his car in his driveway or in front of the porch in case it might be torched by the mystery arsonist behind the latest spate of attacks. The advice was issued following the latest attack which occurred last Tuesday night outside the home of Tony Lunney, a senior manager at Quinn Industrial Holdings. However, management are understood to be increasingly frustrated at the progress of the Garda investigations into what is believed to be a sustained and escalating campaign of violence and intimidation against the business and its senior managers. CEO Liam McCaffrey said last week that it was "enormously frustrating that, following years of intimidation and threats and a substantial escalation of violence over recent months, not a single arrest has been made". The Sunday Independent has learned that gardai were on patrol in Ballyconnell at the time of the arson attack, monitoring the Quinn Industrial Holdings plant and other local sites linked to the company. While they were patrolling the area, a man was captured on CCTV setting fire to a car parked in the drive of the house in Ballyconnell. The intensity of the blaze caused some of the windows to blow out and heat damage to the property. Gardai arrived at Tony Lunney's home three minutes after the alarm was raised and just minutes after the arsonist made his escape. The arson attack was the third in recent months. On October 2, the home of Dara O'Reilly, the chief financial officer of QIH, was targeted. His BMW parked outside his home in Butlersbridge was firebombed shortly after 11pm, again generating so much heat that some windows in the house shattered. Mr O'Reilly was at home with his wife and children at the time. On August 31, a tyre factory in Belturbet, owned by Mr Lunney, was set alight in a suspected arson attack, causing extensive damage inside the building. The criticism of the Garda investigation has raised concerns among senior gardai. Sources said that although there is local speculation, detectives have been unable to get enough evidence to link anyone to the arson attacks. Although suspects have been identified, gardai have been unable to advance the case. Gardai have sent investigation files on several suspects to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who in each case directed no prosecution. "When gardai go to talk to people, they are getting soft intelligence. The CCTV is not good enough quality and does not reach the evidential threshold," said an informed source. He said the Border with Northern Ireland was also an "issue" in the investigation, because suspects had been identified on either side. A campaign of physical intimidation, online harassment and vilification, and criminal damage began when businessman Sean Quinn, who founded the global cement and glass business in Cavan, lost it all over debts of 2bn to the former Anglo Irish Bank. There have been more than 90 attacks on the Quinn businesses and related companies since the group was placed in the hands of receivers in 2011. There was a lull in the attacks after a group of local businessmen and some of Sean Quinn's executive team secured US investment to buy back the business from receivers in 2014 and hired Sean Quinn as a consultant. Mr Quinn and the QIH parted company last year. Mr Quinn has publicly and repeatedly condemned the attacks, and said they are not carried out in his name. However, the attacks have escalated in recent months. Quinn Industrial Holdings has warned that the attacks will result in injuries or death and called on anyone with influence or knowledge of the criminal actions to speak out. In a circular to staff last month, the group's chairman warned of a "resumption of false allegations and intimidation against QIH, its owners, officers and staff". The company said it was also preparing legal action against people who had criticised the company and the executives online. (ANSA) - Belluno, November 2 - A number of towns and villages were cut off Friday after torrential rain caused a landslide near Belluno in the far north of Italy. The mass of earth and mud completely blocked the regional road 203 linking Cencenighe and Agordo. The municipalities to the north of the slide were completely cut off, as rain continued to fall incessantly in the area. The wider Veneto region was counting storm damage of over one billion euros, as the extreme weather returned with a vengeance. "We are on our knees, we have already scheduled the closure of all the schools," said Veneto Governor Luca Zaia. Zaia has proposed suspending taxes and mortgage payments for the storm-hit, as has Liguria Governor Giovanni Toti. Economy Undersecretary Laura Castelli responded Friday that taxes and other levies would be stopped in the two northern Italian regions. Deputy Transport Minister Eduardo Rixi said there had been 20 million euros' worth of damage to Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure. A wave of unrelenting bad weather has caused at least 15 deaths since Sunday, and now snow has reached some parts. Trees have been felled, rivers have broken their banks, and winds have sent debris flying around all over the country, from north to south. The death toll of the wave of extreme weather that is lashing Italy climbed to 15 on Friday, sources said - after St Mark's basilica in Venice had been damaged by the highest acqua alta in years on Monday. Schools in many cities are closed again on Friday. Falling trees have been the cause of many of the deaths and of major disruption. There were four further deaths on Thursday. In the northern Trentino Alto Adige region, a man fell to his death while repairing a wind-damaged roof and another died in hospital from injuries sustained on Monday when his car crashed into fallen trees, ANSA sources reported. As well, an elderly couple was crushed to death in their car by a falling tree in the northern Val D'Aosta region. As well as Veneto, Liguria has been brought to its knees by the storms and a third of its olive crop has been lost. Also in Liguria, violent waves and winds broke very many large luxury yachts away from their berths and slammed them into the coastline at the private Carlo Riva Marina at Rapallo, near Genoa. Of the 390 yachts in the marina, half were destroyed, marina director Marina Scarpino said. In Venice, St Mark's Basilica was damaged by Monday's exceptionally high acqua alta in the lagoon city, the First Procurator of St Mark's, Carlo Alberto Tesserin, said. The high water submerged some tens of square metres of the thousand-year-old marble mosaic floor opposite the altar of the Madonna Nicopeia and completely inundated the Baptistery and the Zen Chapel, he said. The water reached a depth of 90 centimetres above the mosaic flooring of the Nartece, washing up against the monumental Byzantine doors, the columns and the marbles, he said. Clare Smyth was named best female chef in the world, and spoke about "Fair Trade In The Food Trade" at Galway's Food On The Edge recently. Clare Smyth, voted the best female chef in the world, has dealt with her fair share of kitchen bullies. The 40-year-old, who was awarded two Michelin stars this year for her restaurant Core, tells Independent.ie that kitchens were places of "fear" when she trained to be a chef. Smyth was the first female chef from the island of Ireland to hold and retain three Michelin stars when she worked as Gordon Ramsays Chef Patron. Smyth, who describes Ramsay as a mentor, says the TV chef is very different to how hes portrayed on TV. Its really important that theres a good environment [in professional kitchens now]. I like it to be calm and peaceful so theres good concentration. I like people to be happy, its very important that everyone comes in to work happy. The chefs dont have to be creative, were the creative people, but they need to come in to work happy and not fearing it. There was a lot of fear in kitchens those days, and it wasnt pleasant in those days. It was very much a part of when we grew up in kitchens, it was the normal culture. It wasnt necessarily the head chef, it could have been the sous chef, it could have been the chef de partie, and that was happening everywhere - in France, in Britain. But she added: I would never have left, I would never have let anyone else ruin what I wanted or ruin my opportunities. One of the things Gordon told me, she adds, was dont worry about me, dont worry about other people, focus on yourself. Why would I lose my opportunities for them? But it never took long before they were gone and you had beaten them. All those people just fall by the wayside. I detest bullying, I hate it. Ive been cooking for over 20 years and Ive never seen people like that succeed. She added: [Now] I just feel like everyone is a bit more focused now on the love of food and what we do. But it wasnt just the hospitality industries, it was all industries at the top level. Ramsay, Smyth insists, is very easy to work with and is a brilliant businessman. There is a TV thing. Theres always going to be shouting in kitchens, but its never bullying, its always about the food, its always for a reason. It was never picking on someone for no reason. I always found Gordon very easy to work with, you know where you stand with Gordon. Hes taught me a lot in my career at various stages. Ive known Gordon for 16 years, hes been a great mentor for me and all the way through. Theres a TV persona and thats for making TV. The businessman behind that is very different. He keeps changing all the time. Last time I counted he had 34 restaurants globally. Hes done so much. Hes got so much knowledge. Smyth left Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 2016 to open Core in London's Notting Hill in July of last year. Within a year, it had claimed two Michelin stars. Core was about being a modern British fine dining restaurant. British food isnt necessarily fine dining, its more rustic, and its not necessarily an art form I really wanted to make British food, fine dining. Core is all about the story of the producers and the growers and what we do. I got Gordon to come and look at the site, I was sharing the business plan, various elements of the design with him. For the food, I had him come in and do tastings. At all stages, he gave me good feedback. It was difficult [telling him that I was leaving his restaurant]. He was obviously disappointed but happy at the same time. He always thought I was going to stay, hed given me partnership. Smyth, who was in Ireland recently to discuss "Fair Trade In The Food Trade" at Food On The Edge, says her upbringing on a farm in county Antrim meant she had the resilience and work ethic that was suited to hospitality. I grew up on a dairy farm, we also had sheep. My family were potato farmers as well. I grew up with something that was quite typical of Ireland. We cooked three meals a day at home. For me it was just normal, I didnt know any different. When I started to cook and move away from home, I realised how valuable growing up in that background was for me. A chore every day was to wash and boil the potatoes, every day. We would cook stews and soups and potatoes and champ and chips; wed have whole animals butchered and then use all the parts of the animal. Wed use all the offal and different braising cuts. A lot of our food was things that were slow cooked. Mum would slow cook over night, she was cooking for a family and the people working on the farm. So there had to be a good quantity of it, and it needed to be hearty. It gave me a good work ethic, being a farmer. You work all the time, you dont stop. When you were lambing sheep you worked all night, and you worked 365 days of the year. That work ethic, I grew up with. Hospitality, for many people, is difficult for some people but for me it wasnt; I was already used to it. Ive always worked all the time, I never really dont work to be honest I really love what I do, and its something thats just very much a part of who I am. Smyth, who lives in London with her husband and west highland terrier, says she has no plans to open a restaurant on this side of the Irish Sea, but she loves to support events like Food On The Edge, which is a gathering of top international chefs for a two-day Food Symposium in Galway city every year in October. still cooks the hearty stews and soups at home that her mother cooked. In my home life, definitely, I often cook big pots of soups and stews and slow cook. A) its delicious, and B) its good for you, and its practical. I wish people would have a few basic cooking techniques at home. To be able to buy a load of root vegetable and put those together in a soup with pearl barley, is delicious, but it costs absolutely nothing. Smyth worked in her first kitchen at 14, left school at 15, and finished her professional culinary training by the time she was 17. She still remembers how she became inspired to be a chef. I was working on my school holidays in a local restaurant and they always had chefs come over from England, because they couldnt find enough talent locally. Those chefs had worked in Michelin star restaurants and I started to read about chefs and restaurants which were normally based in London at that time. Thats what made me want to leave and also, I love food, Im quite greedy. I left as soon as I could. I absolutely hated school, and I went to catering college as soon as I could. I knew it was what I wanted to do. I was very head strong. I did apprenticeship for two years in Grayshott Hall in Surrey, a five-star exclusive health farm. I just couldnt wait to finish college either. I was in college but really wanted to get in full-time to a restaurant. As soon as I finished college, I was still only 17, I went to London to start working in Bibendum in south Kensington, which at the time wasnt Michelin star but has two Michelin stars now. It was one of the best restaurants in London at the time as well. Michelin star cooking is something that is learned over the course of a decade, she insists. You cant even compare what you learn at college to doing that or even working in Michelin star kitchen. Its a good ten years work to training under the best chefs in the world. Youve got to learn it from the best chefs in the world. Its ten years worth of work before you can have training and head up your first kitchen. I didnt just take over any kitchen, I took over the only three Michelin star kitchen in London, so youve got to take all the time first to learn everything. Picture shows, the arrival of H.R.H. The Duke of Sussex and H.R.H. The Duchess of Sussex to Aras an Uachtarain greeted by President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina Higgins. Just back from the park with your dog? Planning a snooze later since the Boss - your cat - left you clinging to the edge of the bed all night? Wondering how you or your children would manage without that whiskered powderpuff or muscular 15kg of unconditional love? If you're saying yes to any of these questions, spare a thought for the pet owners who are having to surrender their dog or cat so they can rent somewhere to live. Expand Close UNCERTAIN FUTURE: Sausages owner faces No Pet dilemma / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp UNCERTAIN FUTURE: Sausages owner faces No Pet dilemma The international online campaigners change.org are now petitioning the Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy in the matter, since animal sanctuaries are reporting experiencing a "surge" in pet surrenders, as would-be renters face landlord intransigence in the application of the 'No Pet' clause in rental contracts. Last Hope Animal Sanctuary in Navan is one of those reporting increases. Founder Hilary Bartley says the housing crisis is causing trauma to numerous individuals, couples and families forced to find new accommodation and who consequently surrender their pets. "They ring us and they are devastated. These are responsible pet owners, the good people who should have animals. They have had their cat or dog for years but now to have a place to live, they have to give them up. Mothers are distraught, the children crying in the background. Animal lovers will know it's like saying to a couple 'you can come and rent this house, but you have to leave your children behind'." She believes the 'No Pet' clauses and their effects on animals and humans reflect what she calls "the changing Ireland". She says; "We're here since 2005 and we see that animals now are down the list of priorities, but so are people themselves and their needs as human beings. We see now that a small group of people are deciding how a big number of people can live". She continues; "What we are seeing is heartbreak. The pain is enormous for the animal and the human. Because animals are no different to us. They feel the pain of separation from their families, their owners. And for what?" All animals taken by Last Hope are in what is called 'soft care', fostered out to families until they can be adopted. The refuge requires a letter signed by a landlord for every animal it adopts out. Gillian Bird, director of communications at the DSPCA, told me; "We have a list of people wanting to adopt from us but always say to them what about your next move? Your current landlord might allow a pet, but if you move, what then?" Gillian is pragmatic about the 'No Pet' rule, advising prospective tenants to open up dialogue with landlords, offering perhaps, either a 'Pet Deposit' or a written undertaking that an animal would access only specific areas of the property. Like Hilary Bartley and Last Hope, for Gillian and the DSPCA responsible pet ownership is critical. Her number one rule for tenants? "Don't lie. If you do, it's the animal that will suffer." Last week, I spoke to somebody who I will call Grim, a long-term tenant facing eviction due to the sale of their apartment. Grim would like to stay in the local area that has become home, but with rents having risen dramatically, there is nothing they can afford. However, to compound Grim's financial difficulties, there is now the social, emotional and psychological jeopardy of the 'No Pet' clause. "I adopted my dog when he was a puppy, one of 12, who would have been put down if I hadn't," says Grim. "He's known to half the town as Sausage. Now I couldn't even consider giving him up. "My dog changed my life in a period where all I wanted to do was to lock myself away. He has given me a new lease of life, forcing me to get up and exercise, go out into the fresh air and mingle. When you think about it, people having their pet is saving the government a fortune on services." Grim has a point. The link between pet-keeping and mental and emotional well-being has long been established. Equally, it is widely known that pet owning can reduce blood pressure and make people more resilient in the face of stress, grief or loss. Officially, the benefits are recognised, globally, in the rise of the registration of Emotional Support Animals. Last year, Time magazine published scientific research on the benefits of dog owning from the university of Uppsala in Sweden. Even adjusted for factors such as BMI and socio-economics, the study showed that people living alone with a dog showed a 33pc decrease in risk of death and an 11pc decrease in risk of cardiovascular disease. Not since the Famine have homelessness and eviction impacted so strongly on the Irish consciousness. Today, hired balaclaved heavies, protected by balaclaved gardai - think about that - might have replaced the battering ram in enforced removals and clearances of properties. But that a dog or cat could be a barrier to finding a home in the first place, when the animal might be a person's sole companion, seems unnecessarily cruel, particularly in a world where we have never been so interconnected and isolated simultaneously. In these circumstances, people's love for their pets strengthens them but it also makes them vulnerable. Brian McLoughlin, head of communications for Dublin Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH) points to how having a pet can deter people homeless on the streets from using a hostel. Dealing with people who are homeless day in day out, he says he can understand why. "OK, you might get a long-term place for a few months, or an overnight stay, but your dog is your best friend, there with you every day and people won't give that up," he says. He points out that the ICHH teams which go out at night, also pack dog food in their supplies. "Put money in someone's cup and they'll feed their dog first, then themselves. They love their dogs, their dogs love them, that's how it is." For Grim and his family, loving their dog is cold comfort in their search for a new place. The 'No Pet' clause reduces them to an income source benefiting an investor in a property, with no regard for the quality of life they as the tenant will have in it. "From a previous medical condition, I suffered years of depression and though medication and therapy were useful, nothing brought me out of myself like my dog," says Grim. For people in Grim's situation, the idea of a Pet Deposit might sound like yet another barrier to those struggling to find accommodation in the first place and then paying exorbitant rent. But I suspect there are many animal lovers, heart-scalded by the homeless and housing crisis, and who value the centrality of pets to a human life, who would be willing to pay into a fund for tenants with animals. If you are one of them, let me know. Clearly, landlords have the right to protect their assets, just as tenants with pets have the responsibility to protect the property they are renting. But with the State now giving 30m a month - yes 30m - to private landlords for private tenants, this has to give the Government some sway and say in the application of the 'No Pet' rule. Considering the positive impacts of pets on our physical, emotional and mental health it cannot be the case that owning a pet means first owning a home. In the presidential elections, the Higgins's dogs Brod and Sioda had a big impact. Luckily, at Aras An Uachtarain the 'No Pet' clause doesn't apply. But the magic of the Aras dogs is in what they signify - comfort, family, joy, loyalty, happiness and above all, love. The very things that make us human. The very things we must abandon now, to find a home? Just how good would it be to have possibly saved hundreds of lives? And that is not to mention the thousands of injuries avoided, the wrecked lives, lost jobs and broken families that may have been caused. In a Dublin hotel room last Wednesday, I met Hunter Abbott who believes he may have done just that through the development of his AlcoSense Excel breathalyser which enables people to test themselves to check they aren't over the drink-drive limit or have any alcohol in their system which would impair their driving. In a survey carried out by the company, more than 50pc of respondents said the breathalyser had stopped them going out on a journey which otherwise they would have done under the influence. And though Hunter is coy about how many of his breathalyser he has sold, he indicates that the survey could translate to "tens of thousands" - I think it is about 60,000 - people who have played it safe and not driven with the classic "drink in them". But the AlcoSense project was not started for altruistic reasons. Hunter explains his wake-up call from a wedding in 2005 when he was the joint best man with his friend James: "We had been drinking together at the reception, we were definitely merry but I wouldn't say we were drunk; however, we were drinking to three in the morning. We got up and left the hotel at about noon, James went his way and I went mine. I got home safe and sound but later that evening James called. He'd been stopped by the police for speeding, got breathalysed and failed. Expand Close Hunter Abbott / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Hunter Abbott "All of a sudden I realised that James and I had been matching our drinks, I too was probably over the limit when I was driving home from the wedding, completely unaware that I was. James lost his licence for 12 months, and then shortly after he lost his job as a result. The problem was that there was no way of telling when the alcohol had cleared your system, and because everyone's different you can't even calculate it." Hunter knew he had been give an incredible free pass, especially as he is a successful professional racing driver and a conviction would have meant him losing his livelihood as well. After two years of research and development, AlcoSense was launched in September 2007. And in the past 11 years, many, many accidents have been prevented. Now Hunter and his company are making a bit of an assault on this country which for many reasons - including little enforcement, low Garda visibility and a perverse sense of denial - is still pretty poor about drink-driving. However, as the controversial automatic driving ban for relatively low doses of alcohol in the system came into effect last weekend that attitude might start to change. As Hunter's experience shows, many drivers get behind the wheel the 'morning after', unwittingly over the legal blood-alcohol limit, with Road Safety Authority figures showing that one in eight drink-driving arrests occurs between 8am and 2pm. If you drink four pints of medium-strong beer or four large glasses of wine, it could take as long as 14 hours for the alcohol to clear your system. If you drink between 9pm and 11pm, you may not be sober until 11am the following morning. Expand Close The new breathalyser tells you if you are safe to drive / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The new breathalyser tells you if you are safe to drive Alcohol is a factor in 38pc of fatal crashes in Ireland. Studies show that if you drive while at the Irish limit, you are five times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than when sober. Even with just one-fifth of the limit in your blood, you are still 37pc more likely. Hunter hopes that people will use his company's AlcoSense Excel breathalyser which shows your exact reading, so you know when you're clear. The Excel is a personal breathalyser that enables drivers to make an informed decision about when alcohol has cleared from their system, avoiding potentially fatal guesswork. In 2017, an average of 180 drivers were arrested each week in Ireland on suspicion of driving under the influence, while enforcement statistics for the first nine months of 2018 show more than 6,500 Irish motorists were arrested due to suspected intoxication. Hunter says: "Even one alcoholic drink can slow your reaction time, inhibit judgment, reduce concentration and affect motor skills such as eye, foot and hand co-ordination - increasing the likelihood of an accident. "Following the law change in Ireland last week, using a personal breathalyser could save your licence and, more importantly, could also save a life." The award-winning AlcoSense Excel uses a smaller version of the identical fuel cell sensor found in several European and US police breathalysers, and can be set to any worldwide limit when driving abroad. In addition, just like police breathalysers, the AlcoSense Excel senses the volume of breath exhaled during the test and takes a reading after 1.2 litres of air - ensuring only the most accurate deep lung air is sampled, with easy-to-read on-screen prompts. To improve accuracy even further, readings are fine-tuned according to temperature so even if there is the biggest snowfall for 30 years or the hottest summer on record, the Excel will compensate to ensure the correct reading. AlcoSense Excel is manufactured under ISO 13485 conditions, the quality benchmark for medical devices. The AlcoSense Excel costs 119.99. The range also includes the AlcoSense Lite, Elite, Pro and Ultra, and is available in Ireland from Halfords or via the company's website www.alcosense.ie. After 12 months the devices need to be re-calibrated, and drivers will be reminded of this after 11 months of use. The unit will be returned within five working days, having had a check using a police spec breath alcohol simulator. This can be arranged through the AlcoSense website. I make no apologies for giving the space over to this topic this week, especially as we are approaching peak party and drinking season. I liked Hunter. He is man with a mission and even if just one life is saved by somebody using his product over here it will be worth it. Be responsible, for your sake and everybody else's. AlcoSense Irish freephone number: 1800719310 Nestling near tranquil Dromahair, Ard Nahoo Eco Retreat is our destination for a pre-wedding getaway. We want to unwind before the big day, and Noeleen Tyrrell, a certified Anusara yoga teacher, greets us with a warm welcome. First stop is an Uisce Hour package (see intel), followed by a 30-minute relax in the hot tub with nothing to distract us but the sound of the birds, bubbles and fine views over the rolling hills of Leitrim. Expand Close Two of the eco-cabins at Ard Nahoo, Dromahair, Co Leitrim / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Two of the eco-cabins at Ard Nahoo, Dromahair, Co Leitrim Guilty pleasures Adrienne Diamond of Adventure Gently (adventuregentlyireland.com) is our guide for a canoe trip on the River Bonet. Clambering into the 'divorce boat' - so-called as front and back paddlers can get out of sync - myself and fiancee Viv clamber in and are given a quick lesson in Canadian canoeing before wending our way towards Lough Gill. We pass heron and mating dragonfly before the mountain formation of the 'Sleeping Warrior' emerges on the skyline. Then we paddled hard into the reeds to enjoy a coffee and ginger tea, lapping up the beauty of surroundings which inspired WB Yeats' 'Isle of Innisfree'. Retracing our ripples, we thankfully get out of the 'divorce boat' with wedding plans intact. Top Tip Look out for vegan supper clubs run by former London restaurateurs Mike Harris and Jo Lewis of The Edergole Kitchen. Ten or so themed supper clubs are held each year at communal tables. edergolekitchen.ie Insider intel Expand Close Yoga / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Yoga Ard Nahoo's Uisce Hour package (from 30pp) starts with an infared detox sauna, building temperatures up to 52C over half an hour. Infared rays target damaged tissue and soothe muscles, clarifing the skin - but the real bonus is burning 900 to 2,400 calories per session... so perhaps those size 32 wedding trousers will fit after all. The retreat also doubles as a yoga school with a year-round programme of retreats, classes, personalised sessions, teacher training and workshops. Cheap kicks Expand Close Riverside Restaurant / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Riverside Restaurant We get change from 8 for two pints at The Stanford Village Inn, a charming traditional pub run by the same family for six generations. An evening meal at the Riverside Restaurant in Dromahair costs 61 for a starter, two mains, desserts and a pair of drinks (try the fish cakes, chicken stir-fry and Baileys creme brulee). Excellent value for money... Glitches We couldn't get a taxi for love nor money on a Saturday evening. So book ahead! Get there Ard Nahoo (ardnahoo.com) is about 2.5 hours from Dublin by car. Eco cabins start at 300 for a chillout weekend. A half-day canoe tour starts at 125 for two (or less per head for groups). See slowadventure.ie for more immersive experiences in Leitrim. Read more: Not for nothing was Barbara Bush known as 'The Enforcer' Barbara Bush, tougher than her husband and known to her family as 'The Enforcer', is probably the most popular of all ex-US first ladies of recent times. Jackie Kennedy is remembered across the globe for elegance and tragedy, but she was not loved. Rosalynn Carter worked hard and was a noted campaigner on issues of mental health, but she has suffered in retrospect because of her bitterness at his defeat by Ronald Reagan, who is widely perceived to have been as great a success as Carter was a failure. The brittle Nancy Reagan was an essential support to her husband, but was thought to care little for anyone else. Hillary Clinton was loathed by those who thought her a careerist. The likeable Laura Bush did a lot of useful work but lacked her mother-in-law's commanding personality. And although Michelle Obama had rock-star status, that has diminished as she and her husband embrace luxury and celebrity. Betty Ford is probably the closest rival, having been far more effective and formidable than her husband Gerald, the 38th president, and still having a posthumous reputation for her prowess as a campaigner on addiction, not least because so many of the famous troop to the Betty Ford Clinic. The statement last week by Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist who invented the world wide web in 1989, that technology companies have grown so dominant that they may need to be broken up, unless challengers or changes in taste reduce their clout, is the latest in a growing body of opinion that believes the manner in which some companies operate internationally will eventually be brought to an end. "I am disappointed with the current state of the web," Berners-Lee said. "We have lost the feeling of individual empowerment and to a certain extent, I also think the optimism has cracked." The digital revolution has spawned a handful of US-based technology companies since the 1990s that now have a combined financial and cultural power greater than most sovereign states. For example, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook have a combined market capitalisation of $3.7tn, equal to Germany's GDP last year. Ireland is heavily dependent on such companies, directly and indirectly. At times of plenty, many of these and others provide a bountiful supply of corporation tax which is a boon to Government coffers. There was further evidence recently, when an unexpected surge in corporation tax receipts helped fill a financial black hole in the Department of Health. As has already been said, the State can not rely on such an unpredictable income stream into an indefinite future, nor allow such black holes to develop in the first place. On another front, a much touted EU-wide digital tax is being proposed. Indeed, the European Commission is preparing to roll out a 3pc digital tax proposal at the forthcoming meeting of finance ministers. It has been said that such a tax would represent a dangerous precedent and would lead to tax harmonisation by the back door. The digital tax plan will target revenue earned rather than profit and will reward larger countries at the expense of smaller ones. Meanwhile, a process is under way at OECD level that offers another pathway to dealing with digital companies. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has said Ireland is awaiting the outcome of this process. He has also said that Ireland is committed to ensuring our tax regime is stable, legitimate and transparent, to support continuing investment and job creation in the State. This is as it should be. However, from recent developments, it is clear that steps are being taken to curb the financial and cultural clout of tech companies. On the one hand, it is difficult to disagree that such steps need to be taken, and we do not wish to disagree. The manner in which the consultancy, Cambridge Analytica, obtained the personal data of 87m Facebook users perhaps represented a tipping point in this regard. There have been many such points before and, no doubt, will be more such in the future. It is, perhaps, pointless to await or even to expect high-tech self-regulation in this area. The reach of government into such companies is to be cautiously welcomed, but with safeguards required to ensure that government does not reach so far to curb free speech. The Government here must keep across all of these developments and stay on the right side of whatever balance is struck by the international authorities. In that regard, we agree that the outcome of the OECD's deliberations is the correct path to follow. It would also be remiss of Government here not to closely monitor the speed of innovation in technology and tastes, which could ultimately reduce some of the biggest firms down to size in any event. It is also important that Ireland's dependency on corporation tax receipts is reduced. The end is not nigh for high tech; indeed, it is only beginning. But the end is nigh for the manner in which these companies have been allowed to operate. That is no harm. Paul Hollywood's former wife has opened up about their marriage split. Exactly one year after the 52-year-old 'Great British Bake Off' judge and his wife of almost 20 years, Alexandra, ended their marriage, she has taken to Instagram to assure her friends and fans that she is happier than ever. On Saturday, she posted a picture of herself and wrote: "A year ago today, my marriage ended. There have been stories and speculation about the reasons why and to say its been a rough ride is somewhat of an understatement. But 12 months on Im still here, Im still standing and even though this has to have been the toughest time of my life so far, I still have much to be thankful for. "So I just want to say to anyone else setting out on this daunting journey - it takes courage to face the unknown, stay strong, you can do this and youre not alone. Youll find new friends and value your old ones all the more, you will realise how very loved and important you are to your Tribe and how, no matter how hard it gets, youll always have choices.. so make sure you make the best choice for YOU. Expand Close Paul Hollywood and ex-wife Alexandra / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paul Hollywood and ex-wife Alexandra "I plan to live my new life boldly, be creative, cook like mad, hug the ones I love, grab opportunities with both hands and enjoy being me. PS and Ill be keeping control of the TV remote from now on too." Read More Paul and Alexandra announced their break-up in a joint split last year and insisted their "focus" would be on their teenage son Josh. "It is with sadness that we have decided toseparate. Our focus continues to be the happiness of our son, and we would ask the press and public to allow us privacy as a family during this very difficult time," they said in a statement. Paul and Alex had previously split back in 2013 when he admitted to having an affair with Marcela Valladolid, his co-star on the US version of 'The Great British Bake Off'. Describing the affair at the time, he said it was the "biggest mistake of his life" but the pair did reconcile. Speaking in 2015, Paul said: "We went through a very difficult time but we're on top right now ... There was no let-up but now I feel we're in a very good place. I think this is the happiest we've ever been. Our love of food is the key to it all. Video of the Day "We love going out and have done that a lot this year. We're away for Valentine's Day. That was my idea. I can be a romantic. The way to every woman's heart is through her stomach. Food is at the core of everything." Whilst Alexandra added: "You've just got to get on with life, haven't you? I'm an eternal optimist, he's an optimist. We're having a good time. The most romantic thing he did was bake chocolate croissants on a Sunday morning. That was a lovely thing to do." Designers Karen Craig (L) and Georgina Chapman (R) appear on the runway at the Marchesa show during London Fashion Week Spring Summer 2015 on September 13, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images) Film Producer Harvey Weinstein (L) and Georgina Chapman attend the "China: Through The Looking Glass" Costume Institute Benefit Gala After Party on May 4, 2015 at The Standard Hotel in New York City. (Photo by Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images) Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman attend the "Little Prince" ("Le Petit Prince") Premiere during the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2015 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) Co-Founder of fashion label Marchesa, Georgina Chapman attends as Wedding Paper Divas with Marchesa unveil their new bridal stationery collection at The London Hotel on April 10, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Wedding Paper Divas) (L-R) Keren Craig, Katie Holmes, and Georgina Chapman attend the "Charles James: Beyond Fashion" Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images) Designer Georgina Chapman of Marchesa attend the 12th annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards at Spring Studios on November 2, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images) Co-Founder and designer of Marchesa Georgina Chapman attends the M.A.C Cosmetics Zac Posen luncheon at the Ennis House hosted by Karen Buglisi Weiler, Demi Moore & Jacqui Getty on February 25, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for MAC Cosmetics) (L-R) Chrissy Teigen, Georgina Chapman and Rita Ora attend the "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between" Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images) Georgina Chapman attends the "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between" Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images For Entertainment Weekly) Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman walk the runway at the Marchesa fashion show during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery 1, Skylight Clarkson Sq on September 13, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images For NYFW: The Shows) Designers Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman walk the runway after the Marchesa fashion show during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery 1, Skylight Clarkson Sq on September 13, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images For NYFW: The Shows) Designer Georgina Chapman arrives at the 87th Annual Academy Awards at the Hollywood & Highland Center on February 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/WireImage) There was a part of me that was terribly naive - clearly, so naive. I have moments of rage. I have moments of confusion. I have moments of disbelief! And I have moments when I just cry for my children. What are their lives going to be? What are people going to say to them? These are the words of Georgina Chapman, the estranged wife of Harvey Weinstein - who has given exactly one interview since her husbands unveiling as a monster who unleashed a reign of terror across Hollywood for decades. Chapman said she couldnt keep food down for days after the allegations of sexual misconduct, harassment, assault and rape (allegations which he denies) spanning two decades, were made against her husband of 10 years, began last year. Since the Weinstein scandal broke, Chapman has been a begrudging casualty of her husbands heinous behaviour. When it became clear that this wasnt an isolated incident and increasingly serious allegations of sexual misconduct began pouring in, she took her children from their Los Angeles home and got out. She is now living quietly in upstate New York and is thinking of her next move. Expand Close Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman attend the "Little Prince" ("Le Petit Prince") Premiere during the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2015 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman attend the "Little Prince" ("Le Petit Prince") Premiere during the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2015 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) She founded high-end brand Marchesa in 2004 and from its launch, it was a near-immediate success story, which, on the surface, should have absolutely nothing to do with Weinstein. But there are a number of reports that at least some of its triumph was at her now-disgraced husbands behest. It was reported that Weinstein forced actresses to wear his wifes works on the red carpet, the implication that if they didnt, they would fall out of favour. Some said no, but most said yes. Year after year, Georgina was pictured at the Met Gala, posing alongside Katie Holmes, Chrissy Teigen, Karolina Kurkova, or with Kerry Washington and Jennifer Lopez at a post-Oscars party. She was as in with the in crowd as it got. Life was, for both Chapman and Marchesa, very, very good. Would Marchesa have been a red carpet essential if not for Weinstein? Probably not. But that doesnt mean that in the 14 years following its debut that the hard work it takes to sustain a brand should be forgotten and tossed aside. It can be argued - and fairly - that she benefited from her husbands brutish behaviour and prospered from the axe of bullying he wielded so relentlessly in Hollywood. But it can also be argued that Georgina is just one of a line of women throughout history that are being punished for the sins of their husband, one of the many women painted as somehow complicit in their partners bad behaviour simply by association. Two powerful supporters have come forward in recent months, in the form of Scarlett Johansson and Priyanka Chopra, both of whom are spearheading the Marchesa comeback. Expand Close Designers Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman walk the runway after the Marchesa fashion show during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery 1, Skylight Clarkson Sq on September 13, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images For NYFW: The Shows) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Designers Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman walk the runway after the Marchesa fashion show during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery 1, Skylight Clarkson Sq on September 13, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images For NYFW: The Shows) Video of the Day When I saw Chopra chose a white strapless ostrich feathered gown by the brand for her bridal party bash on Sunday night, it was clear she was making a statement. This is only Marchesas second high profile appearance in the last year and she was lambasted by some critics, who still felt it was too soon to support Chapman as the wounds post-#MeToo have far from healed. Georginas a friend of mine, and she has been. And its not her fault. And I dont think its right to take it out on a self-made woman what somebody in her life did, the Quantico star told Womens Wear Daily. Thats the wrong attitude. Ive known her for years, and that was a beautiful gown, and deserved to be worn by a bride-to-be. And it made me feel like a princess. It was the right choice. Similarly, Johansson was vilified by some for wearing Marchesa to the Met Gala in May, to which she responded: "I wore Marchesa because their clothes make women feel confident and beautiful and it is my pleasure to support a brand created by two incredibly talented and important female designers. From the outside, it would appear that Chapman has an extension of rich woman problems - her lucrative fashion business isnt exactly booming and she was given $20 million in her divorce, set to make more among the division of the former couples assets. Cry me a river! But she isn't accused of any wrongdoing and there's no suggestion whatsoever that she had even an inkling about the violent allegations made against her husband over the years. When it wants to be, fashion is more often than not, an exceptionally forgiving place. Just look at John Galliano, who, after a four year hiatus, was welcomed back into the world of couture after proclaiming I love Hitler in 2011. He was found guilty of racist and anti-semitic abuse in Paris in September of that year, having months earlier verbally abused a French couple having a beer outside La Perle bar in Paris's Marais district said he repeatedly insulted them with lines including "fucking ugly Jewish bitch" and "fucking Asian bastard". He said he couldnt remember the conversation because of his addiction to alcohol, valium and sleeping tablets. This was something he was personally responsible for and was convicted of and now, its like it never happened. In 2015, designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana acme under fire for calling children born through IVF as "synthetic" and IVF pregnancies are "chemical offsprings and rented uterus." After a few weeks of controversy and a half-assed apology, it was back to business as usual and these days, they are putting their efforts into supporting the Trumps at all costs. Expand Close (L-R) Chrissy Teigen, Georgina Chapman and Rita Ora attend the "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between" Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (L-R) Chrissy Teigen, Georgina Chapman and Rita Ora attend the "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between" Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images) Fashion designers are supposed to be unpredictable, fiery, creative. They just can't be an innocent woman. And what of Georginas beleaguered business partner Keren Craig? She has remained largely quiet amid the scandal, but said in an interview earlier this year that Marchesa wasnt going anywhere and that she had no inkling of Weinsteins predatory behaviour, saying she had a social relationship with him. She doesn't see herself as a victim. That's very important, Craig told Grazia in February. She's just trying to get on with her life. You've got to realise George is such a strong woman. Don't get me wrong, it's a very hard time, but she's quite inspirational. I feel immense sadness for the victims, for the women who have spoken out so bravely. I'm very glad he's getting some help. Prosecutors are still building a case against Weinstein, but even the New York Times is confident that a case will make it far enough to be presented before a judge or jury because of mishandling of evidence and errors made along the way. What a miscarriage of justice it would be if he walked away scot-free and his wife was the one treated like a criminal. The Pakistani government has been accused of caving in to hardline Islamists by agreeing to stop a Christian woman leaving the country following her acquittal for blasphemy. Under the terms of the deal made on Friday night, prime minister Imran Khan's administration said it would begin legal proceedings to place Asia Bibi on the "exit control list". It also agreed not to oppose a petition for a review of the Supreme Court decision to free the mother-of-five, who had been on death row since 2010. In return the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party (TLP) issued an apology for any hurt caused during three days of nationwide protests and called for its supporters to disperse. The deal was described by English-language Dawn newspaper as "another surrender" and campaigners said putting Ms Bibi on the ECL was "like signing her death warrant". Ms Bibi, a mother-of-five, remains in custody at an undisclosed detention facility and her family are in hiding for their own safety. Her lawyer, Saif Mulook, has reportedly fled Pakistan for fear of his life. "I need to stay alive as I still have to fight the legal battle for Asia Bibi," Mr Mulook said. Bibi was accused of making derogatory remarks about Islam after two fellow farm workers objected to her sharing a communal water cup at a local well, because she was not Muslim. Her acquittal led Islamist leaders to call for the death of the judges who made the decision and the removal of the government. Two politicians who sought to help Bibi have been assassinated. Prime minister Imran Khan had initially defended the Supreme Court's decision and pledged to "take strict action against violators". During the three days of protests, the TLP blockaded roads across major cities including Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore, and the capital Islamabad. Schools were closed and mobile phone networks were suspended. Tensions in the country increased on Friday when prominent cleric Maulana Samiul Haq, described as "the father of the Taliban", was stabbed to death in his bedroom in the city of Rawalpindi.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Artesia man is facing multiple charges after being found abusing aerosol spray on Halloween night in Wal-Mart. At approximately 8 p.m. Wednesday, Artesia Police Department officers were dispatched to Wal-Mart in reference to a suspicious person who was reportedly huffing aerosol. Upon arrival, police made contact with Wal-Mart staff, who had identified the individual as Jose Lujan, 22, of Artesia. According to the criminal complaint, Lujan at first provided both Wal-Mart employees and police with a false name and age. After running his actual name, officers found multiple warrants. As police were searching Lujan incident to his arrest, they discovered a needle on his person. Lujan proceeded to grab a bandana as police were preparing to lift him to a standing position and refused to relinquish it. Officers attempted to place him in a wrist lock but were unable due to the fact he was pressing back with his other hand. Officers were eventually able to escort Lujan to a waiting patrol vehicle, where he began refusing to walk. According to the report, multiple officers were forced to pick him up and place him into the backseat. Police transported Lujan to Artesia General Hospital for medical clearance, where he began to pull away and refused to enter. Once again, multiple officers were required to move him, and once inside and handcuffed to a hospital bed, Lujan proceeded to scream and violently rock the bed. Due to his actions, he was sedated and had to be held down during that process, as well, to prevent him from grabbing at hospital staff. After calming down with the assistance of the sedatives, Lujan admitted to his real name but had to be sedated a second time after continuing to rock the hospital bed. Lujan was subsequently charged with resisting, evading or obstructing an officer, criminal trespassing, concealing identity, abuse or possession of glue or aerosol spray, and possession, delivery or manufacture of drug paraphernalia, as well as the five municipal warrants for failure to pay fines and two magistrate warrants for failure to appear. He was scheduled to appear for arraignment today before Judge Daniel Reyes Jr. in Artesia Magistrate Court. In February 2015, at the height of Greece's economic meltdown, the then finance minister Yanis Varoufakis went to the Federal Ministry of Finance in Berlin to negotiate a way out of the mess. Given that Germany was Greece's main creditor, this was an obvious, if awkward port of call. The huge Bundesministerium der Finanzen, Nazi-built in 1936, originally served as the Ministry of Aviation, headed by the notorious Herman Goering. Architectural historians describe the building as one built "in the typical style of National Socialist (Nazi) intimidation". When Varoufakis stepped out of the lift, he found himself in a long cold corridor. Waiting for him at the end of the corridor, seated in his famous wheelchair, was the German Finance Minister, Dr Wolfgang Schauble. When Varoufakis neared Dr Schauble, he put out his hand to greet him. Dr Schauble, however, ignored the outstretched hand and, instead, rushed Varoufakis into his office to get on with the business. Yanis Varoufakis himself tells that story in his book, And The Weak Suffer What They Must?. He goes on to recount how on that same day, a German Junior Minister "playfully" asked him: "When am I going to get my money back?" The 57-year-old Varoufakis, the anti-austerity economist with the big motorbike, flashed across the European sky for six intense months in 2015, serving as the country's finance minister from January to July of that traumatic year. It is an understatement to suggest that he and the Alexis Tsipras-led government of which he was a member enjoyed a "difficult" relationship with Germany and other senior EU member countries. In the week that Angela Merkel confirmed that she will step down as German Chancellor, probably by 2021 if not earlier, Yanis Varoufakis is unlikely to shed too many tears about her impending departure. Setbacks at recent local elections in both Hesse and Bavaria would seem to indicate that ''Mutti'' (Mother) Merkel is losing sway with German voters. While some observers would argue that, to a large extent, Merkel has stood almost singlehandedly steadfast at the European helm, Yanis Varoufakis would beg to differ. Talking to the Sunday Independent and other members of resident foreign press in Rome last week, the articulate, affable Mr Varoufakis identified her as a leading player in a European establishment that has misgoverned the EU since 2010, promoting in particular "an awful policy mix of universal austerity for the many and socialism for the bankers". Back in the summer of 2015, Varoufakis in the end resigned his post because he refused to agree to the terms of a German-inspired Eurogroup ultimatum. He had successfully campaigned against that ultimatum in a July 2015 referendum which returned a 61.5pc vote in favour of rejection. When Greek prime minister Tsipras told him on the night of the referendum that, despite the result, he had decided to accept the Troika's terms, Varoufakis immediately resigned, ruling Tsipras's decision a surrender. Three years later, Varoufakis has not gone away. He was in Rome last week for the launch of "European Spring", the campaign slogan with which his DiEM25 transnational, progressive party intends to contest next summer's Euro-elections, fielding candidates in France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Ireland and maybe elsewhere. (DiEM25, by the way, stands for Democracy In Europe 2025) At this stage, it is hard to see DiEM25 winning many seats across Europe, even if his leading Italian candidate, the charismatic Mayor of Naples, Luigi Di Magisteris, will command plenty of votes. However, this is one election where competing makes the point. Varoufakis may be a sometimes controversial figure in his native Greece where some critics would argue that, rather than fix things as finance minister, he made them worse, in particular by annoying German and other EU partners. However, his original and outspoken thinking, expressed in impeccable English, not to mention a serious academic track record, mean that, outside of Greece, he remains a credible economist. For example, later this month, along with US Democrat, Bernie Sanders, he will be launching the Progressive International in Vermont which "will issue an open call to political forces" from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin and central America to join an international alliance. Mr Varoufakis explains: "The fascists, the nationalists, the racists, people like Trump, Bannon, Salvini, are internationalists, they bind together magnificently. In contrast, progressives are failing (to make international agreements)...The fact that Matteo Salvini (the Italian interior minister) is gaining votes in Italy by becoming increasingly racist is simply a symptom of the inability of progressives to bind together to combine a rational approach to the problem of migration with European humanism." Mr Varoufakis chose to launch his campaign in Rome because he argues that "today Italy is the ground zero of the EU crisis", referring to the ongoing Italy-EU tensions over the Italian budget for 2019. Varoufakis is an outspoken critic of the EU but he remains a convinced "Europeanist" who wants a democratic, Federal Europe. One of his basic tenets is that the EU has been so badly governed over the last decade of "studied stupidity" that it has been unable to react to the current post-2008 crisis of capitalism, leaving the way clear for the "reckless, racist, xenophobic and anti-European" policies of such as Orban in Hungary, Kurz in Austria, Le Pen in France, Salvini in Italy and others. To some extent, the EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) have been "held hostage" to a charter written by the Bundesbank, a charter that left the ECB with no Treasury and left 19 Treasuries with no central bank, meaning that individual countries could not save their national banking systems during a crisis. Ireland knows something about this. This ill-conceived charter has not only undermined the eurozone but it also created the perfect conditions for Brexit. This meant that, at the very moment (post-2008) that the ECB was forced to shrink the money supply, the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan were busy pumping it out, boosting their money supplies. One result of that was that hundreds of thousands of Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Portuguese et al were attracted to England precisely when the then Chancellor of Exchequer, George Osborne, was imposing austerity on English workers - fertile terrain in which Messrs Johnson and Farage could work up plenty of anti-EU feeling. To some extent, that same mistaken reasoning lies behind the current stand-off between Brussels and Rome over the Italian budget. Observers argue that if Italy, despite market turmoil and EU warnings, does not back down on its plan to increase its budget deficit to 2.4pc of GDP next year, then it will face fines and sanctions. Varoufakis tells us that both parties are in the wrong - the EU for imposing fiscal rules that ensure stagnation in zero growth Italy and the Italian government for presenting a budget which does not boost growth whilst cutting taxes: "Cutting the top tax rate, introducing building and tax amnesties will not boost growth. When the rich receive a handout, they take it to Switzerland or Luxembourg..." Mr Varoukfakis, a regular visitor to Ireland, could not refrain from an observation on the Irish Presidential election. In an aside to the Sunday Independent, he said: "I think that Ireland is blessed to have Michael D Higgins as President. There has never been in the history of modernity a president with greater clarity and humanism than Michael D." So, count your blessings. Aid projects in Yemen funded by the international charity Oxfam have been hit in Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes, it has emerged. A vital cholera treatment centre in Abs, in the Hajjah province, was hit in June in coalition war strikes supported by British intelligence - despite the location being reported to the Saudi alliance more than 12 times. Two months before that, coalition air raids severely damaged an Oxfam-supported water supply system that provided water for 6,000 people. Oxfam, which is supported by European and UK funding - revealed the news after Oxfam's Dina el-Mamoun told the International Development Committee this week that UK aid had been bombed. Oxfam's head of advocacy, Toni Pearce, called British policy towards Yemen "irresponsible and incoherent", three years into a war which has sparked the world's largest humanitarian crisis in numbers of people and pushed the country to the brink of famine. And last week Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders said their health facilities have been hit five times by the coalition since the war erupted in 2015, killing 21 patients and staff, and injuring 33 others. Since Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies launched a bombing campaign to oust the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the spring of 2015, the UK has sold an estimated 4.2bn worth of arms to Riyadh. And despite reassurances from the UK government that its intelligence support and training of the Saudi-led forces is helping reduce civilian casualties, the latest report from the Yemen Data Project (YDP) shows that 48pc of all known airstrikes hit non-military targets. The Saudi-led coalition began bombing the country in 2015, imposing a crippling land, sea and air blockade. The campaign was intended to re-instate president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was ousted by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels when they took control of the country in 2014. The Houthis have been accused of bombing aid convoys and laying siege to pro-government areas, leading to starvation. Peace negotiations collapsed this September, and despite calls for renewed talks, thousands of government troops are amassing around the Red Sea port of Hodeidah ahead of a renewed offensive. In the interim the conflict has sparked a humanitarian crisis - with two thirds of Yemen's population now relying on aid. Lise Grande, the UN coordinator for Yemen, said last month that 13m civilians could die from starvation if the bombardment continues. Last Friday the UN warned that a looming famine could put two million mothers at risk of death. Saudi Arabia has come under increased scrutiny for its attacks, which have hit hospitals, schools, homes and markets. The Gulf coalition has repeatedly denied accusations by rights groups such as Human Rights Watch that its actions in Yemen amount to war crimes, or that it strikes civilian infrastructure. They maintain that they conduct comprehensive reconnaissance before each mission, and have in the past accused the Houthis of using civilians as human shields. Independent Memorabilia that belonged to the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, has fetched more than 7.4 million US dollars at auction. Heritage Auctions, based in Dallas, said the item that sold for the highest price, 468,500 dollars, at Saturdays auction was Armstrongs spacecraft ID plate from Apollo 11s lunar module Eagle. JUST SOLD FOR $109,375.00 | Gemini: Neil Armstrong's Owned and Worn Early Flight Suit Directly From The Armstrong Family Collection #HeritageAuctions pic.twitter.com/RQPOt2y6FT Heritage Auctions (@HeritageAuction) November 1, 2018 Also sold were a fragment from the propeller and a section of the wing from the Wright brothers Flyer, the first heavier-than-air self-powered aircraft, which each sold for 275,000 dollars. SOLD FOR $468,500.00 | Apollo 11 Lunar Module Flown Spacecraft Identification Plate Display Directly From The Armstrong Family Collection #HeritageAuctions pic.twitter.com/2veyGXALqS Heritage Auctions (@HeritageAuction) November 2, 2018 The flight suit Armstrong wore aboard Gemini Eight, the 1966 mission that performed the first docking of two spacecraft in flight, brought the astronauts family 109,375 dollars. SOLD FOR: $275,000.00 | Apollo 11 Lunar Module Flown Piece of the Wright Flyer's Propeller, Flown as Part of the First Successful Powered Flight in History at Kitty Hawk in 1903 as well as the First Manned Lunar Landing in 1969, Directly From The Armstrong Family Collection pic.twitter.com/G1OlOOkJBT Heritage Auctions (@HeritageAuction) November 2, 2018 Meanwhile, in a separate auction, a gold-coloured Navy aviators helmet once owned by John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, sold for 46,250 dollars. A view of the flooded house where nine people lost their lives in Casteldaccia (Ansa/AP) Nine people have died after a rain-swollen river flooded a home in the countryside near Palermo, Sicily, Italian state radio said. Heavy rains have lashed Sicily, a southern Italian island, several days after storms ravaged much of northern Italy. State radio said one person survived the flood late on Saturday night by clinging to a tree. Reports added that the victims were from two families who were spending the weekend together. Expand Close Nine people lost their lives, according to reports (Ansa/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nine people lost their lives, according to reports (Ansa/AP) The Italian news agency Ansa said two people were missing on Sunday in other incidents near Sicily after floodwaters swept away their cars, including that of a doctor heading to a Corleone hospital. Italys earlier storms in the north killed at least 15 people, flattened or uprooted millions of trees near Alpine valleys and left several villages without electricity or road access for days. In the years leading up to his death in jail last week, notorious Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger wrote about his regrets in life. Bulger, imprisoned for life for his role in 11 murders, wrote a letter to three teenage girls in 2015, telling them he was "a ninth-grade dropout" who "took the wrong road". The former mobster said he was among "society's lower, best forgotten" members. He told the students, who had first written to him for a school history project, not to spend their time on him. "My life was wasted and spent foolishly, brought shame and suffering on my parents and siblings and will end soon," he wrote. The US Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Bulger (89) died last Tuesday at the jail in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. After being choked and beaten to death in his prison cell, Bulger was wrapped in a blanket and placed in his bed to make it look like he was sleeping. Bulger's killers went so far as to rest his head on the pillow after striking him repeatedly with a padlock stuffed inside a sock, said law enforcement officials. Bulger, who ran Boston's Irish mob while feeding tips to the FBI to weaken his rivals, arrived at the West Virginia prison the night before he was killed. He was shipped there after committing "multiple infractions" at the Coleman penitentiary in Florida. Paul J DeCologero, who has emerged as a suspect in the murder, never crossed paths with the Boston gangster before his arrival at the prison, but there was bad blood between their families. DeCologero's uncle, who is also serving a life sentence in a Kentucky prison for murder, has claimed Bulger once had a contract to kill members of the DeCologero family. The three high school students - Michaela Arguin, Mollykate Rodenbush and Brittany Tainsh, all from Massachusetts - decided to build their project around Bulger, the former boss of Boston's notorious Winter Hill Gang. Arguin said that the theme was leadership and that, rather than choosing a positive leader, they chose a negative one, asking Bulger what he thought about his own legacy. Bulger, from a poor family in Boston, started stealing when he was young. By the 1950s, he was robbing banks. By the 1970s and 1980s, he was heading his infamous gang, known for fixing horse races, among other crimes. Although notorious in Boston, Bulger was largely unknown to the wider world until after he disappeared in 1994. In his absence, his darkest secrets, including his corrupt ties with FBI agents, were gradually laid bare in court hearings, media exposes and a congressional inquiry. He became a curiosity, sharing space with Osama bin Laden on the FBI's '10 Most Wanted' list. Here in Ireland, he was responsible for arranging with IRA boss Joe Cahill to smuggle in weapons for the IRA. Captured in California in 2011, Bulger was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus five years after a Boston jury convicted him of 31 racketeering offences. The indictment against him catalogued 19 alleged murders, and he was found guilty of ordering or carrying out 11 of them. The verdicts in 2013 climaxed a gangland opera of fealty and betrayal that spanned half a century and combined two of Boston's abiding fixations: crime and politics. But on February 24, 2015, Bulger replied to the students' letter from federal prison in Florida declining to participate and urging the teenagers to find a "more deserving" subject, such as a wounded service member. "Good men isolated from society due to war wounds - life for some in pain and loneliness - hearing from school girls that care would do wonders for their morale and recovery," he wrote. Bulger also talked about his brother, William Bulger, whom he called "A Better Man than I". His brother was a former president of the Massachusetts Senate as well as the University of Massachusetts, but was pressured by then-Governor Mitt Romney to resign in 2003. Arguin, one of the students who wrote to Bulger, said in 2015 that his response was "shocking". "It was a completely different side to what he shows to everyone else," she said at the time. "It was kind of weird we kind of had an impact on him, three school girls. You wouldn't expect that." But more than three years later, Arguin feels the same way. "Looking back now, we honestly, truly reached out to try to gain a primary source for our project and never thought he would respond, let alone the broader implications this response has had about the historical understanding of Whitey today," she said after hearing the news that Bulger had died in prison. Arguin, now 20, and studying at Boston College, said the fact Bulger expressed his views to the students was "unique" but what she found interesting was the way that he characterised his remorse. "He felt badly about how he affected his family's reputation," she said, "but not for the families of the victims whose lives he took." Still, Arguin said she was most stuck by his advice. Bulger told the students: "Advice is a cheap commodity. Some seek it from me about crime. I know only one thing for sure - If you want to make crime pay, 'Go to Law School'." "It's something you wouldn't think a mob boss would say," Arguin said. However Arguin, who is a pre-law student, said she has taken up Bulger's suggestion and plans to go to law school - and study criminal law. Washington Post While there aren't too many people who don't face work-related stress on a daily basis very few tackle it a manner that can help better their well-being without and consequentially cause harm to themselves. The good news is that a simple meditation at work will lead to significant improvements in emotional intelligence as well as perceived stress, according to a recent study. Why is this important? Emotional Intelligence (EI) can be even more important IQ, states psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of the best-selling book Emotional Intelligence. Shuterstock.com IQ scores can be too narrow and do not often take into consideration the complete range of human intelligence. In life, the ability to understand and express our emotions in all facets of life should be the measure of human intelligence. The study published in the journal The Permanente Journal found that those who meditated more regularly scored higher on total emotional quotient and had lower perceived stress, also known as psychologicalthe most common occupational health problems affecting workers worldwide. They also showed improvements in general mood, stress management, adaptability, intrapersonal awareness and reality testing. ticbeat.com This indicates that emotional intelligence has a moderating effect on psychological well-being and mental health, the researchers said. "This study demonstrates the benefits of meditation in the workplace," said Laurent Valosek, Executive Director, Center for Wellness and Achievement in Educationa US-based non-profit organisation. "And with a growing body of research on the value of emotional intelligence and the harmful effects of psychological stress, organisations are looking to give their employees tools for reducing stress and developing competencies like centeredness, self-awareness, and empathy," he added. The research team found that during a four-month period, those practicing the transcendentala form of silent mantra meditationexperienced significant improvements in emotional intelligence and perceived stress. estheoclinic.com The research highlighted the role of emotional intelligence and perceived stress as important factors associated with mental and physical health and organisational effectiveness. According to the World Health Organization, psychological stress adversely affects organisational commitment, work engagement, and productivity, as well as contributes to poor mental and physical health. Emotional intelligence has garnered considerable attention in the workplace because of its positive association with mental and physical health and its connection to leadership capacity and performance. Heres how you can meditate mindfully through a more simplistic basic format of meditation before delving into a the more advanced form of transcendental meditation: anapana.vn - Fixate a location for meditating, where youre unlikely to get disturbed. Youll need at least 5 to 10 minutes for starters in the spot you fix. - Sit comfortably with your back straight. Lean against a wall or pillow to keep it upright if youre not comfortable without support. - With your eyes shut focus on your inhalation and exhalations and pay close attention to your breath. - Observe the thoughts that come to your mind non-judgmentally and let go of them. Also, observe the sounds, smells, bodily sensations and emotions and try to let them pass as well. - It is natural to feel all the thoughts and sensations that you do. So dont fight it but try and passively observe them and bring your mind back to your breath. The main goal of transcendental meditation is to transcend thought into a state of pure awareness. SCIENCEFREAK/PIXABAY.COM Transcendental meditation originally has its roots in the Vedic tradition but was popularised world over by the Indian Yogi Maharishi Mahesh. Unlike mindfulness meditation, the idea is not to focus your energy on thoughts permeating in the present, but to settle the mind (and it's thoughts) and put it in a state to transcend thought. Often accepted as the second phase of meditation it refers to fulfilment in a psychological sense. TM is used to calm our active minds by giving it a chance to settle down to the deepest quietest level. The idea is to transcend any impulse of thought and the completely switch off from the conscious stream of thought that rushes through your mind on a daily basis. Heres how you can perform transcendental meditation: It missed several deadlines, but finally, Delhis Signature Bridge over the Yamuna, in the northwest Delhi, is set to be inaugurated by Delhi Deputy Manish Sisodia. The minister has asked people to come and watch the inauguration of this marvel. Read More. Here's More Top News For The Day: 1) Punjab Schoolgirls Allegedly Stripped By Teachers For Disposing Sanitary Napkins In Toilet In a shameful incident in Fazilka district of Punjab, 15 girls of 7th standard were stripped to find out who disposed of sanitary napkins inside the washroom. The school teachers were infuriated that girls were dumping used sanitary napkins in the toilet that they ordered class 8 students to strip their juniors and find out. Read More. 2) Delhi Has Turned Into A 'Smoking Zone,' Breathing Here Is Equivalent To Smoking 20 Cigarettes! The New Delhi is much more modern than the old one and much more polluted also. The Air Quality Index continues to plummet as the level of PM 2.5 levels continue to rise. Doctors in the national capital said on Saturday that breathing the capitals air was equivalent to gutting 15-20 cigarettes a day. Read More. 3) UP DSP Pounces On An Inter-Faith Couple With 'Laathi', Hurls Abuses At Them The video shows Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Ashok Kumar Dixit not wearing his police officer uniform, hurling abuses and threats at a couple. Read More. 4)Funeral Held In Nagpur For Tigress Avni As People React To Her Killing With Grief And Anger Avni was killed in a single shot, point-blank, without even making an attempt to tranquillize her and capture the tiger alive, which the activists were demanding. Amid a tensed atmosphere that was suffused with strong sentiments, a funeral for the tigress was held in Nagpur later in the day. Read More. 5) Karnataka Couple Lives In Toilet As Govt Releases Only Re 1 Out Of 1.60 Lakh To Build Home An elderly couple in Karnataka is forced to live in a toilet as the government hasnt released their funds for building a house for over a year now. Lakshminarasamma and Obalappa, who are landless farmhands, were granted an Indira House by the gram panchayat at Kadapalakere village in Pavagada taluk one-and-a-half-years back, but now they are forced to live in neighbours toilet. Read More. The first train to ferry passengers from India to Nepal will start operating by December this year according to railway officials. An immigration post will be established at the Jayanagar station in Bihar which is the starting point of the route, traversing through a 34 km stretch to the final destination of Kurtha in Dhanusa district in Janakpur Zone of south-eastern Nepal. The check post will most probably be manned by either the Bureau of Immigration or the state government, the Press Trust of India reported. Further, no visas will be required of Indian and Nepalese nationals who will be availing this route. Photo: Representational Image The trains will function in eight to sixteen-hour shifts and will open with four shifts. However, the Nepalese have shown their interest in the operation of both passenger and freight trains on this route. The India-Nepal train is being seen as an attempt to thwart Chinas efforts to establish rail links with Nepal. During Nepals newly-elected Prime Minister, K.P Olis visit to India, the government showed interest in establishing a railway network with the Himalayan nation after Beijing decided to extend its railway network up to Kathmandu. The Jayanagar to Kurtha line was initially built during the British Raj to transport forest logs from Mahottari in Nepal to India. At that time the stretch was 52 km long but its route was eroded by a flood 15 years ago. Photo: Representational Image The railway project which costs around Rs 5.5 billion is divided into three phases. The first includes construction of a 34-km segment between Jayanagar and Kurtha, the second comprises construction of an 18-km segment from Kurtha to Bhangaha in Mahottari district, and the third comprises construction of a 17-km segment from Bhangaha to Bardibas. Out of the total stretch, only three kilometres is a part of the Indian territory. A tiny portion of island has disappeared from Japans territory which has sparked an investigation into the matter. Esambe Hanakita Kojima island was officially surveyed and registered as an island by Japans coastguard only in 1987. At that time, its exact height could not be determined. And now 30 years later, it has supposedly disappeared, possibly due to weather elements. AFP reported that the island had recently risen to a height of 1.4 metres or four and a half feet above the sea level. It could even be spotted from the northern tip of Japan's Hokkaido island. However, this was all before it vanished. Photo: Okinotori islands that have disappeared The disappearance of the island might not turn out to be huge loss just that it will have a shrinking effect on Japans territorial waters. The country will have to conduct precision surveys to ensure that its islands remain intact. Reportedly, the country invests a lot of resources in protecting its outer islands including the Okinotorishima which it claims as an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). However, China, South Korea and Taiwan have disputed Japans claims of identifying the island as EEZ because it doesnt meet the definition of an island under the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea. Japan is an earthquake-prone area due to which many a times it ends up gaining territory apart from losing it. An unsuspected seismic activity was being cited as the reason behind its disappearance though, geologists later said it was probably the result of a landslide that pushed the underwater surface up. The CNN reported that the Japan coast guard was planning a search operation to find the missing island. Meanwhile, the internet was in splits to hear that Japan had lost an entire island. Here are some of the reactions from micro-blogging site, Twitter: Japan loses an island: https://t.co/mNAVb28CML | I really don't feel bad about misplacing my keys now Jaideep A. Prabhu (@orsoraggiante) November 3, 2018 I suggest checking #China officials maritime maps. They may have stolen #Japan's island. https://t.co/LZMFWUL0Q2 Michael R Shannon (@ReluctantUser2) November 2, 2018 Did they look between the couch cushions? Under the fridge? (((Duffy Bloom (@duffybloom) November 3, 2018 japan went and lost a whole damn island like how you gonna tell that to your boss "uhh sir we lost a geographical landmass" https://t.co/a6bEtCW9A8 Jesse Bowers (@jessetbowers) November 2, 2018 When a small island goes missing and people start asking questions. #japan #japanese #island pic.twitter.com/zy63X6bzvK Mayhem Amigos (@MayhemAmigos) November 3, 2018 Hyundai i20 has made a name for itself since its inception and has seen quite a number of sales globally over the years. This might be accredited to the impressive performance and host of features offered by the car. When it comes to passenger safety though, a recent crash test of the 2018 model reveals a not-so-impressive rating. Global NCAP recently crash tested the 2018 Hyundai i20 model, which was made in India and exported to Hyundais African market. The crash test report revealed a 3-star rating for the car for its adult safety while granting a 2-star rating for child safety. Post the crash test, which was conducted at 64 kmph, Global NCAP deemed the vehicle structure unstable, including the footwell area. Global NCAP The model under inspection here is the 2018 version of i20, with the kerb weight of 1286 kgs. The vehicle is equipped with ABS on all four wheels, driver and front passenger airbag as well as front seatbelt pre-tensioners. The car misses out on side and knee airbags. As for the 2 stars awarded for child protection, the limited protection offered to the 3-year old dummy and a lack of ISOFIX anchorages was cited for the lack in optimum rating. The crash test was carried out for the i20 model sold in South-Africa. The variant is exported from the companys India plant. You can do anything, provided you believe in yourself and work hard towards it. 22-year-old Pari is an advocate and she got selected by Plan India - a child rights NGO - to take charge of the Australian High Commission for a day. The decision was taken after she won in a United Nations event on International Day of Girl Child. Pari comes from a Maoist-affected village in Jamshedpur and she believes education is the most potent way to fight Naxalism. Harinder Sidhu, Australian High Commissioner to India and Ambassador to Bhutan also praised Pari and said that it renews Australia's commitment to gender equality. Acting #GirlsTakeover Ambassador Pari addressed an all staff meeting at the High Commission today, and spoke of her personal priorities in womens health and public safety. On #DayoftheGirl, Australia renews its commitment to #genderequality. #IDGC #LeaveNoGirlBehind @Plan_India pic.twitter.com/3R30d12BX7 Harinder Sidhu (@AusHCIndia) October 11, 2018 Plan India, the NGO also took this news to Twitter and posted: In an interview to ANI, Pari said, "With proper education, one can fight against Naxalism and their beliefs. We should provide education to every child so that they can decide what's right or wrong. With education, people would get to know out their rights." Talking about her experience at the Australian High Commission, she added, "I am very happy after serving as the Australian High Commissioner for a day. I hope I can inspire other children in my village to do the same and show their interest in education." After coming back to her village, Pari got a grand welcome.' It is important that the youth of our country have a vision and a constructive one at that. Anything that inspires them to build on that vision is definitely worth the effort. Well done, Pari. Being strong doesn't mean you don't find the challenges hard or painful, it means you have the courage to power through them, no matter what. Madeline Stuart is a 21-year-old who is living with down syndrome and has walked the ramp 60 times. In fact, she is the first person with the syndrome, to walk the ramp. 1. Madeline at the backstage of Soiree show at London Fashion Week Reuters 2. Madeline looks through the window as her mother is being interviewed by journalist Jamie Feldman on her modelling career. Reuters 3. Madeline arrives in New York and celebrates as she gets out of the taxi to walk the ramp for the New York Fashion Week Reuters 4. Madeline stands in between two male models in the New York Fashion Week Reuters 5. Madeline appears backstage as she prepares to walk the ramp for the Burning Guitars runway show Reuters 6. Madeline sits in the taxi after she walked the ramp for New York Fashion Week Reuters 7. Madeline walks down the ramp for Swedish School of Textiles show at London Fashion Week Reuters 8. Madeline having fun with her mother and manager, Rosanne Stuart at the Remedy Diner Reuters 9. Madeline walking with her mother in Times Square. Reuters 10. Madeline stands among the fellow models at the Burning Guitars presentation during New York Fashion Week Reuters There is so much to learn from people like her, but the most important lesson is - don't let people tell you what you can and cannot do. Be brave enough to dream and persistent enough to chase it. A woman in Melbourne was excited when her boyfriend got down on one knee and proposed to her for marriage. However, she wasn't really ready for the proposal - her nails weren't painted! How does that matter, you ask? Well, to get the perfect picture, she needed her nails to be painted. So, her cousin Jenna offered to help. While she (the woman who was proposed to) can be seen kissing her boyfriend in the photo, that perfectly manicured and painted hand you see is not hers. That's her cousins Jenna's hand. Later, Jenna tweeted: My cousins boyfriend proposed to her but she didnt have her nails done lmao. My cousins boyfriend proposed to her but she didnt have her nails done lmao pic.twitter.com/FUwwplzkYg Jenna (@goodgaljenjen) November 3, 2018 The tweet was retweeted over one lakh times, but while the first picture shows the perfect proposal picture the second picture shows the reality! The picture went viral on the internet in no time and netizens were amused by it. Here are some of the most hilarious reactions from people: 1. dont say yes unless ur nails done danielle (@daniellledwards) November 3, 2018 2. Omg duh that is the only reason I regularly get my nails done em (@emilysakkab) November 4, 2018 3. i laughed for like ten mins at these pics Anisha Vora (@Anisha_Vora) November 4, 2018 4. @emilychand this will be us -you always have your nails done https://t.co/1Hh7m8Ap9F bing (@bethchand) November 4, 2018 5. What friends do for each other https://t.co/ZoQ1st9dST Chidozie Akagha (@dozzyKay) November 4, 2018 6. 7. I want a heads up need to have my nails did Eimear Donnelly (@eimeardonnellyy) November 3, 2018 8. @emily_vaughann well if you dont have your nails done theres always this plan B???? elle (@ElleThomas1) November 3, 2018 9. WHAT IN THE WORLD https://t.co/2gomNqSE1w Saydie Hammonds (@SaydieHammonds) November 4, 2018 10. Im this friend my nails are always done so I gotchu https://t.co/2CpfpI80VM Mamita (@_Sxrenee) November 4, 2018 Well, that's one way to fix a picture. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Investopedia and our third-party partners use cookies and process personal data like unique identifiers based on your consent to store and/or access information on a device, display personalized ads and for content measurement, audience insight, and product development. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Investopedia.com, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, click below. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. List of Partners (vendors) When an employee leaves a job due to retirement or termination, the question about whether to roll over a 401(k) or other employer-sponsored plan quickly follows. A 401(k) plan can be left with the original plan sponsor, rolled over into a traditional or Roth IRA, distributed as a lump-sum cash payment, or transferred to the new employers 401(k) plan. Each option for an old 401(k) has advantages and disadvantages, and there is not a single selection that works best for all employees. However, if an employee is considering the option of transferring an old 401(k) plan into a new employer's 401(k), certain steps are necessary. Key Takeaways In some cases, a new employers plan may not accept rollovers from another 401(k), the new company should be asked about this. The biggest advantage of doing a rollover is the simplicity of management afforded by keeping all the funds in one place. The biggest disadvantage in doing a rollover is that investment options are limited by how the plan is run; there is little say in choosing the asset allocation. Rolling Over to a New 401(k) The first step in transferring an old 401(k) to a new employer's qualified retirement plan is to speak with the new plan sponsor, custodian, or human resources manager who assists employees with enrolling in the 401(k) plan. Because not every employer-sponsored plan accepts transfers from an outside 401(k), it is imperative for a new employee to ask if the option is available from the new employer. If the plan does not accept 401(k) transfers, the employee needs to select one of the three other options for the 401(k) account balance. If the new employer plan accepts 401(k) transfers from other companies, there is often a substantial amount of paperwork that must be completed by the employee. The paperwork is provided by the new plan sponsor or human resources contact and requires the name, date of birth, address, Social Security number, and other employee identifying information. In addition, the 401(k) transfer form must provide details of the old employer plan, including total amount to be transferred, investment selections held in the account, date contributions started and stopped, and contribution type, such as pre-tax or Roth. A new plan sponsor may also require an employee to establish new investment instructions for the account being transferred on the form. Once the transfer form is complete, it can be returned to the plan sponsor for processing. After the new and old plan sponsors both approve the transfer, the old plan sponsor distributes the balance of the 401(k) account to the new plan sponsor in the form of a check. After the check is received, the new plan sponsor deposits the check, and investments are purchased according to the employees new plan selections. A transfer from one 401(k) to another is a tax-free transaction, and no early withdrawal penalties are assessed. Rolling over from one 401(k) to another does not incur any fees, nor does it trigger early withdrawal penalties. Advantages of Transferring The biggest advantage of transferring an old 401(k) into a plan with a new employer is the ease of management. Instead of tracking investment selections, performance, or statements for multiple accounts, a transfer creates a single account that can be easily monitored. In addition, 401(k) plans typically carry lower fees on investments and transactions than rollover IRAs managed by professional advisors. Older employees have an additional advantage: Money held in the 401(k) of the company where an employee is currently working is not subject to required minimum distributions (RMDs). If that employee had left the money in their previous employer's plan, they would have had to take RMDs when they reached age 72, the point at which withdrawals become required. Disadvantages of Transferring Transferring a 401(k) may not be the best choice for every employee, as a number of disadvantages exist. Employer-sponsored plans are limited to a certain number of investment options. These restrictions may not allow plan participants to invest the way they want and may lead to poor asset allocation or a lack of diversification over time. Additionally, employees who participate in a 401(k) do not have a say in the company or individual who manages the plan. The plan sponsor and company executives have total control over how the plan is established and maintained. The process of transferring a 401(k) to a new plan also can be time-consuming, as the new plan sponsor is tasked with vetting the old plans qualified status, hire and termination dates, and total balance eligible for the transfer. The Bottom Line The transfer of an old 401(k) plan to a new plan is a great choice for some employees. However, the benefits need to be weighed against the disadvantages before starting the process. Former HSE Director General Tony O'Brien has accused Health Minister Simon Harris of behaving like a "frightened little boy" during the Cervical Check scandal. Mr O'Brien, who stepped down from the role earlier this year, has also admitted the way the HSE handled the screening controversy was a "trainwreck". A 20-year-old man has appeared in court charged with the murder of a father-of-one in Athy, Co Kildare. David Boland died on Thursday after being stabbed. At around 5.30am Thursday, gardai were called to Duke Street in Athy where they found Mr Boland with a number of stab wounds. The 34-year-old was treated at the scene and then brought to the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise but later died from his injuries. This morning, Calvin Cullen of Greenhills in Athy appeared before a sitting of Naas District Court charged with his murder. The court heard when charged at Naas Garda Station last night he replied: "I never meant for him to die. Im so sorry for his family. I hope they believe I didnt mean for this to happen." The accused, who was using crutches, has been remanded in custody and is due back before Naas District Court on Thursday. A second man who was questioned about the investigation has been released without charge and a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. Digital Desk Metro plans for Dublin's southside have been blasted by Fianna Fail as a folly that no one wants. It follows reports that an extension of the underground section through Ranelagh could cost in excess of 100 million. Update 10.50am: A woman has been charged with the murder of a man at a house in south Co Dublin. Grace Miano, aged 50, of Tudor Lawns in Foxrock, was brought before a special sitting of Dublin District court on Sunday morning. She was charged with the murder of 27-year-old Limbani Mzoma at the same address on Thursday night. Miano, who was originally from Kenya, was arrested on Friday after the body of Malawian national Mr Mzoma was found with multiple stab wounds at the house at around 11.30pm on Thursday. Robert Limbani Mzoma. Sergeant Colm OGiollain from Cabinteely Garda Station told the court Miano made no reply after she was charged and cautioned at 9.35pm on Saturday night at the station. The court heard Miano had complained of pains in her head and legs since being taken into custody and that she had been seen by a doctor at the station on several occasions. She requested a medical and psychiatric assessment. Judge Grainne Malone directed that the accused should receive medical attention and that her solicitor, Jonathan Dunphy should liaise with authorities to have a psychiatric assessment carried out if required. Miano, who is receiving social welfare, was granted legal aid. She was remanded in custody to appear before Dun Laoghaire District Court on Friday morning. A post-mortem examination on the body has been completed. It is thought that Mr Mzoma sustained a violent attack and that some of his body parts were removed.- Press Association Earlier: Woman due in court over death of man in Co Dublin A woman is due to appear in court to be charged in connection with the death of a man in south Co Dublin, Garda said. The woman, aged in her 40s, was arrested on Friday after the body of a man was found at a house in Tudor Lawns, Foxrock, at around 11.30pm on Thursday night. She is due before a special sitting of Dublin District Court at 9.30am on Sunday. The man, who was in his 20s, has been named locally as Limbani Mzoma, a Malawian national. A technical examination was carried out at scene by Gardai. It is believed a post-mortem examination on the body has been completed and that the man died of multiple stab wounds. - Press Association In a follow-up to his moving RTE documentary about his fathers failing health, Brendan Courtney turns his attention to his newly-widowed mother, writes Ailin Quinlan An aging mother dealing with widowhood, a middle-aged son trying to help a parent too shell-shocked by bereavement to make decisions for her future its an all-too familiar predicament. However, fashion designer and TV presenter Brendan Courtney tackled this common problem in an unusual way. He made a television documentary about it. Courtneys question is how much responsibility do we need to take for our ageing parents and how much responsibility lies with parents themselves to sit down with adult children and discuss the choices facing them? Were an ageist culture, says Courtney (46), whose hit 2017 documentary We Need To Talk About Dad struck a chord with thousands of people around the country, generating a massive public response through thousands of letters, emails and phone calls. We dont want to think about ageing. Age is seen as a bad thing. Its seen as a weakness and as something thats unattractive. Even my mother hates talking about ageing! We Need To Talk About Dad focused on the Courtney familys struggle to find the best possible care for their father Frank after he suffered a second, and severely disabling stroke, almost a year to the day after his first. We didnt prepare in any way for the possibility of him getting sick again, even though wed been warned he probably would. We didnt choose to ignore it; we just didnt know any better. We didnt have any facilities in place, for example a downstairs bathroom. Dad was a builder and we could have done that, Courtney recalls now. We Need To Talk About Dad aired in January 2017. The following June, Frank passed away. Last year was a very difficult one for Courtney for other reasons too - his best friend died suddenly in March and shortly afterwards his sister was diagnosed with lung cancer. The year 2017 was a year that you just had to cope with, he recalls. It was very busy, but as the dust started to settle, we got on with it and started to talk about the possibility, the notion, of a follow-up documentary to We Need To Talk About Dad. Every single person I met seemed to want to know what happened afterwards - what happened to my Mam and how was she? Just under 18 months on from Franks death, Brendans mother Nuala, a clinical psychologist in her 70s, continues to cope with the effects of bereavement. Shes dealing both with the emotional and financial fallout of losing her beloved husband, whom she first met at the age of 15 and the stark reality of facing a new life as a woman alone. Given the complexity of choices facing his active, healthy, but now-widowed, elderly mother, Brendan made the decision to create a second documentary, this time about Nuala. We Need To Talk About Mam is about people who are older, who are in the full glow of health, but who find themselves widowed or in empty nests; people who have too big a house, Brendan explains. But, as he discovers during the documentary, Nuala herself is not yet quite ready to plan for the future. I wanted to get Mam engaged in looking at the various options. Her attitude seems to be that Ill look after things, but what Im trying to get across to her is that these are her choices and that she needs to make choices so that we dont have to make choices for her. While I was making the documentary I found that many older people wont talk about what might happen in the future. The programme charts the efforts of the 46-year-old and his siblings as they try to help Nuala decide how to live her life after the end of a 50-year marriage to the love of her life. My mother is intelligent and healthy. Shes on no medication, whereas Im on blood pressure tablets, says Brendan, who adds that Nuala still drives and has a busy counselling practice and a full and enjoyable social life - but, he observes, as the years pass, things will inevitably change: Mam cannot work forever so were looking at her financial set up, wondering, what is the plan? The documentary is based around the fact that Mam is getting older and we havent prepared for contingencies around this. It looks at how my mother struggles to figure out who she is after living for 50 years with the same person. Its heart-breaking. Everything you understand is gone. But this is life. We have to accept it, live with it and plan for it. However, the issues around getting older are things many Irish people dont want to even think about, he observes yet in other cultures, these challenges are dealt with very pragmatically: In Demark or Japan or the USA for example, this is seen as the third stage of life. People prepare for it. Irish people, on the other hand, tend to avoid the subject, he believes: Culturally, we dont trust pensions, for example. Im intelligent and I work hard and I have a nice two-bedroomed apartment in the city, he reflects, adding however, that hes also one of those who mistrust pensions: Only about 30% of Irish people take out a private pension - I dont have a pension; I still dont trust the idea, he says. His mistrust of pensions, he reveals, was further underlined by the experience of a nurse he talked to: I talked to a nurse who had a pension - and who lost everything in the crash in 2008. She ended up homeless and living in her brothers shed at the age of 65, after being retired by the state. Shed worked like a dog all her life, educated herself and invested in a pension and it still let her down. One of the options available to Nuala Courtney was downsizing to a smaller house from the four-bed semi-detached family home in Tallaght but because of the proliferation of larger, family-style housing available in the area, things were not that simple: Mam did seek to free up her house and move to a smaller house nearby in Tallaght where she lives, but theres nothing; there are no houses available. And, as Brendan points out, any small houses which do come on the market tend to be staggeringly expensive. Mam has a big side garden so we also looked at getting planning permission to build a small house in the side garden. Its basically about re-thinking the family home and making it work for the entire family. The documentary explores other alternatives too the possibility of taking in tenants, for example, or of engaging in a completely new way of life. Brendan and Nuala visit a unique co-operative housing initiative in Kildare which replicates the Student Dormhouse experience for its residents. They also hit the Irish ex- pat retiree trail to Alicante and experience what life is like for the residents of an Active Adult Community in Florida. We travel to Spain and to Miami to investigate how people retire successfully there, he says. There are a lot of challenges, a lot of laughs; its lighter in mood than my fathers documentary, and Im very proud of it. The big question asked by the documentary is - what does successful ageing look like in this country? We all need to engage with this - mams, dads and their adult children together. Unless someone has a brain injury or a mental illness, they need to engage with people about what they would like their care to be. Courtney did become frustrated with his mothers inability to engage, he admits, but the experience also taught him a lot about the grueling aftermath of bereavement: Its a long process and you cannot force people to make decision,Its particularly hard for the one who is left to make a decision without the person they have spent their lives with. Theyre not only bereaved but they are also alone and that is a very hard thing. However, he insists, the reality is that older people owe it to their adult children to have this admittedly difficult discussion. I want to say to older people that you owe it to your children to have this conversation. I would go as far as to say it is both selfish and unfair not to explore your options with your child. Burying your head in the sand is no longer acceptable given the society we live in and the ever-diminishing options that are available. We Need To Talk About Mam airs on RTE One on Monday at 9:35pm As Mary McEvoy returns to the stage, she talks to Marie Toft about facing her food addiction and losing three stone in weight Actress Mary McEvoy remembers the day her life changed last May. I was in a really grumpy mood, she admits. With her weight approaching morbidly obese levels, she had finally decided to contact a weight loss specialist. I was about to go to France on holidays, she remembers, and I actually said to them, Is there any point in even starting this programme before I leave? The candid response she received was not what she was expecting. They asked me was I going to France to feel the sun on my skin, visit friends and embrace new places or was I going to fill my face with food and wine, she laughs. Less than six months later, Mary has lost three stone and reveals this forthright, no nonsense response changed her life. I was a food addict, she admits. I feel things very deeply and food was my pleasure. I found my comfort in the tub of ice-cream or the pizza. Mary has been working with Katriona Tansley from Lighter Life, whose headquarters are based in Mullingar near where she lives. All weight loss programmes have something to offer, she says. What has really helped me with this programme is the counselling. Thats really important to help maintain the loss. Because as she says, over-eating and food addiction are emotional issues. And she reveals the other big factor in her weight gain was menopause. Its still such a taboo subject, she says. But it had a profound impact on me. You feel like youre no longer a player in life and you do disappear. I disappeared under the weight. But as Mary who will be 64 this year maintains, women of a certain age disappear from film and TV. I found a chasm of difference between my 50s and my 60s. There are a few notable exceptions of older women on screen, like Helen Mirren and Susan Sarandon, but honestly, they are the exceptions. The rare times I see women in their 60s on TV is when theyre advertising having your funeral paid for in advance, she laughs. Theyre these biddable old dears making parsnip jam. I can honestly say I dont know anyone like that. Her new found zest for life is having an impact on her current role in The Matchmaker, the hit play adapted from the renowned Kerry writer John B Keanes novella Letters of a Country Matchmaker. Im enjoying it more than ever, she says. And every time Im on stage, Im loosening another stay in the corset. Having performed in the play for more than 17 years, she describes it as the gift that keeps on giving. I started off in The Matchmaker with Mick Lally (who played Miley to her Biddy in RTEs Glenroe) and for the last few years, Ive played alongside Jon Kenny, who just adds so much to it. Its been running now for 30 years and there are people in the audience who have seen it three times. And despite it being set in an Ireland more than 50 years ago, Mary says the play reveals a different aspect of that time. Its funny, we look back on the 50s and the 60s and see them as priest-ridden and everyone denying themselves. But people had the same needs then as now, they wanted sex and intimacy. And in a way, back then, they were much more practical about their needs. The matchmaker ensured all faculties are in full working order. They provided a really important service and would you believe theyre still around. Im reading about modern matchmakers in Hollywood. Jon Kenny and Mary play a myriad of earthy characters and one of the roles Mary plays is Finnoula Crust who she maintains always gets a big laugh. Finnoula makes no bones about it, she reveals. Shes looking to have her physical needs satisfied. By the end of the play, shes a widow twice over having worn out two husbands and is about to embark on her third marriage. The Matchmaker certainly strikes a chord with audiences since its ultimately about finding The One, no matter what age you are, something John B Keane felt passionately about. Being older doesnt mean everything has to stop, says Mary. By and large, youll be wrong in assuming older people arent sexually active. With her new found weight loss, shes also passionate about older people seizing the day and living the best life they can. I had a moment just a few weeks ago, she recounts, when I realised how much had changed for me. I was trying on shoes in a shop and I was bending down to fasten them. I suddenly realised I wasnt stretching over my tummy and I wasnt out of breath. It was a very simple moment, but for me it was profound. And she insists this isnt just about aesthetics. Its about our health and we have to look after our physical as well as our mental health. I was lost. I felt I had no control over myself and I believed there was no point in even trying to lose weight. Now in her 60s, she reveals shes never been happier. Food is no longer my only pleasure in life. Im using my five senses to find joy and meaning. Its not always easy and I know Ill have to keep working on it but its important to be able to withstand discomfort and to try and master yourself. Im after getting a part of myself back that I believed I had lost forever. The Matchmaker is at Corks Opera House on November 3; Dublins Gaiety Theatre from November 5-10 and in Killarneys INEC on November 11 Burma NLD Says By-Election Losses Signal Need For Reform An election official prepares a ballot for a voter at a polling station in Yangon on Saturday. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy YANGON The ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) had to settle for modest success in Saturdays by-election, suggesting the need for serious reforms, a party spokesman said. Official results are not yet out. But NLD spokesman U Myo Nyunt told The Irrawaddy on Sunday that the party won seven of the 13 constituencies up for grabs and lost four it won in the 2015 general election, when it won nearly 80 percent of the races. The party won the seven constituencies in Yangon, Mandalay, Bago and Magwe regions and Chin State. It lost three seats in Yangon, Kachin State and Sagaing Region to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and another in Chin State to the local Chin National League for Democracy; the NLD won all four in 2015. In Shan and Rakhine states, the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy and an ethnic Rakhine independent won the races as predicted, as both constituencies are strongholds for ethnic minority parties. The NLDs U Myo Nyunt said the partys poor campaigning and perceptions among minorities of the NLD as a party for the majority ethnic Bamar contributed to its losses in the six constituencies in Kachin, Chin, Rakhine and Shan states and Sagaing and Yangon regions (It was the Bamar-dominated USDP, however, that won in Kachin, where a local minority party is also popular). While Saturdays results will not impact the structure of the current government, they do suggest that the NLD can no longer take popular support for granted. More than two years after taking power, and half way through its term, the NLD government, led by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has come under growing criticism for a lack of progress on economic reforms, backsliding on freedom of expression and generally falling short on its election promises, though it has received praise for its stepped-up fight against corruption. U Myo Nyunt told The Irrawaddy that voters today want to see parties taking on and solving the challenges of their daily lives. He said people were frustrated with the governments slow progress because there were some things the NLD could not do alone, such as amending the military-drafted Constitution. When asked if the NLD would make changes to win back the public trust it has lost, the spokesman said the partys senior leaders would have to meet to discuss any reforms. After the meetings we will be able to say what reforms should be done. We should think about it, he said. Yangon-based political commentator U Yan Myo Thein said Saturdays results should induce some soul-searching within the NLD, as they clearly signaled the need to reform the way it runs the party and the government. He said the party should review how well its lawmakers reach out to people disappointed with the government and struggling economically. The commentator was not alone in pointing out the partys problems. U Zaw Myint Maung, the NLDs second vice president and Mandalay Regions chief minister, told local media on Saturday night that the by-election had shown him that his party needed to do better. It proves we have weaknesses, he said. Additional reporting by The Irrawaddys San Yamin Aung in Yangon and Htet Naig Zaw in Naypyitaw. New Zealand telecommunications company Spark has said it is advising the government not to ban any Chinese companies from playing a role in 5G networks in the country. Spark managing director Simon Moutter told the annual general meeting on Friday that his company had no objection to considering Huawei Technologies as a supplier, MSN reported. Australia announced in August that both Huawei and ZTE Corporation would not be allowed to participate in the rollout of 5G networks. The US has done likewise. But last week, reports said Canada would not be following the US lead, despite pressure from two US politicians. The Canadian signals intelligence agency that protects telcos, the Communications Security Establishment, had told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and MPs that Canada had a robust system of testing facilities for Huawei equipment and software to prevent any security snafus. Moutter told the AGM: "We would hope that our government would not preclude them [Huawei] from being considered without incontrovertible evidence their technology presents security risks that the comprehensive security management tools we employ in our networks cannot mitigate. "Although we have yet to make decisions on our 5G technology partners, based on their track record with us, we see no reason why Huawei should not be among the vendors we consider inviting to the process." Huawei was involved with Spark in both the 3G and 4G networks. Moutter said the government should announce its 5G policy so that the necessary spectrum could be allocated. "I can't stress this enough. The policy settings created by government are fundamental to the performance of our sector and to the transformative impacts it can have on New Zealand's social and economic progress," he said. This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. Apart from spending time together, Bollywood's rumoured love birds have been bonding with each other's friends and family as well. Rumours of an impending wedding of the two stars are doing the rounds. Mumbai: Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt - Bollywood's rumoured love birds have been painting the town red off late. Apart from spending time together, the couple has been bonding with each other's friends and family as well. Also Read | Alia Bhatt turns Ranbir's first girlfriend to get nod from Neetu, to break monotony While Ranbir openly spoke about his "new" relationship in an interview with GQ magazine, Alia also got candid about RK during a recent episode of Karan Johar's chat show. Interestingly, Alia had also visited New York last month and went on a double date with Ranbir, Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor. In a candid chat with Hindustan Times, when Ranbir's sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahni was asked about her brother's blossoming relationship with Alia, she said, "Hota hi hai (speculation), ask him! What can I say? I am happy if my brother is happy, and I am a very happy sister." Rumours of an impending wedding of the two stars are doing the rounds, and if a report in Bollywoodlife.com is anything to go by, the two moms discussed, over dessert, dates for a wedding, which is most likely to be in 2020. On the professional front, the actors are currently shooting together for Ayan Mukerji directorial 'Brahmastra' in Bulgaria, which is scheduled to release on August 15, 2019. The cast list also includes Amitabh Bachchan, Mouni Roy, and Tollywood star Nagarjuna. The party of Myanmars embattled head of state Aung San Suu Kyi said Sunday they were defeated in six constituencies in a national by-election, showing uneven support for her government after a string of controversies. Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) swept to power in 2015 in a landslide victory, ending decades of military rule. But her tenure has been full of stumbles, most notably with ethnic groups involved in peace talks with the military which has been marred by skirmishes and ongoing civil war in states like Kachin and Shan. The dissatisfaction came through in the results of Saturdays by-election, in which 13 seats in the lower and upper houses of parliament and regional assemblies were up for grabs. Currently, we won seven seats and lost in six places, NLD spokesman Dr. Myo Nyunt told AFP. Four of the six seats were previously held by NLD candidates. While official tallies have not yet been released by the Union Election Commission, preliminary results show the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) had beaten NLD out on three seats. In some constituencies voters went with ethnic political parties, while people in Rakhine states Yathedaung township threw their support behind the son of a prominent politician who has in the past capitalised on the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists dissatisfaction with Muslim communities. Dr. Myo Nyunt said the losses of these six seats is due to his partys unpopularity with ethnic minority groups and people working for the government. We heard that ethnic groups are not satisfied with our performance regarding the peace process, he said. Political analyst Maung Maung Soe told AFP that the low voter turnout in most of these constituencies hurt the NLDs showing, and voter apathy could really impact them in the next election in 2020 adding that in comparison, the military-aligned USDP has unwavering support. Although NLD supporters are many, they are currently losing supporters from ethnic groups and intellectuals as well as from the media, he said. For press freedom advocates, Suu Kyis shine has worn off due to the jailing of two Reuters journalists who reported on the killing of 10 Rohingya men by the military. They were sentenced to seven years in prison in what has largely been regarded as a sham trial. Outside of Myanmar, the international community has also soured on the former Nobel Laureate, as her image as a rights icon has been shattered due to her handling of the Rohingya crisis. More than 720,000 people of the stateless Muslim minority group have fled Bangladesh since a military crackdown in August 2017, which UN investigators have alleged amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity. Myanmar has denied almost all the allegations, justifying the actions of the military as necessary to combat terrorism. Intensified fighting shook a key rebel-held port city on Yemens Red Sea coast on Sunday, leaving dozens dead as the United Nations warned that children in the war-torn country face a living hell. The bloodshed comes despite growing international pressure to end a years-long conflict that has killed thousands and pushed the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation to the brink of famine. Fifty-three Huthi rebels have been killed and dozens wounded in battles and air strikes over the past 24 hours in Hodeida, according to medical sources in the port city, which is a key gateway for humanitarian aid. Military officials said Saudi-led coalition warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes early Sunday to support pro-government forces in fighting that appear to be approaching the citys main university. Huthi media reported air strikes in Hodeida on Sunday but did not give a fighter casualty toll. Thirteen pro-government troops were killed, according to medical sources in Aden and Mokha, where their bodies were transported. Nearly three quarters of the countrys imports flow through Hodeida, from where they are transported by land to areas further north. The port is controlled by Yemens Iran-backed Huthi rebels and under blockade by Saudi Arabia and its allies in a government coalition. Living hell for children The UN childrens fund (UNICEF) warned an assault on Hodeida city would jeopardise the lives of Yemenis across the country who depend on its port for humanitarian aid. Yemen is today a living hell not for 50 to 60 percent of the children it is a living hell for every boy and girl in Yemen, he told a news conference in the Jordanian capital. The UN has called Yemen, long the poorest country in the Arab world, the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, and warned that 14 million people across the country face imminent famine. The Hodeida clashes erupted on Thursday just hours after the government said it was ready to restart peace talks with the Iran-backed Huthis. The offer followed a surprise call by the United States for an end to the Yemen war, including air strikes by the coalition. Both the coalition and rebels stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes, and the Saudi-led coalition has been blacklisted by the UN for the maiming and killing of Yemeni children in air raids. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict, though some rights groups estimate the toll could be five times higher. Shamefully slow to act UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday pleaded for a halt to violence to pull Yemen back from the precipice. And Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, a special envoy for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), appealed for an immediate ceasefire. As an international community we have been shamefully slow to act to end the crisis in Yemen, she said in a statement Sunday. We have watched the situation deteriorate to the point that Yemen is now on the brink of man-made famine, and facing the worst cholera epidemic in the world in decades, Jolie added. The only way to enable refugees to return home, and to bring down the overall numbers worldwide, is to end conflicts themselves. Multiple attempts to find a political solution to the Yemen conflict, widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, have failed. UN-backed peace talks between the Huthis and government collapsed in September after the rebels refused to travel to Geneva unless the United Nations guaranteed both their delegations safe return to Sanaa and the evacuation of wounded fighters. Yemeni government officials said Tuesday that the coalition had sent more than 10,000 new troops towards the battleground city, seized by the rebels in 2014 along with the capital Sanaa. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the war in the following year to bolster Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi whose government fled to the southern city of Aden. The bridge will have a 154-metre-high glass viewing box, which is at double the height of Qutub Minar. The bridge will be thrown open for public from Monday. (Photo: AFP) New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday inaugurated the much-awaited Signature Bridge over Yamuna river in Delhi, connecting the north and northeast parts of the city. The bridge is an eight-lane carriageway connecting Outer Ring Road and Wazirabad Road which will reduce the travel time by more than 30 minutes for the people travelling towards Ghaziabad. #Delhi: CM Arvind Kejriwal & Dy CM Manish Sisodia inaugurated the Signature Bridge over Yamuna river,today. It will reduce travel time between northeast & north Delhi. The Signature Bridge will be opened for public tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/wbrhACvPMj ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 It is the first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge in India and will offer a panoramic view of the city. Four elevators will take a total of 50 people to the top of the bridge. It will have designated spots for selfie-crazed Delhiites. The bridge will have a 154-metre-high glass viewing box, which is at double the height of Qutub Minar. Manish Sisodia, deputy chief minister described it as a civil engineering spectacle, people can enjoy a panoramic view of the city from there, as in the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The bridge will be thrown open for public from Monday. Pune police submitted affidavit in this regard to probe panel set up by Maharashtra govt under Justice (retd) J N Patel. In his complaint, Tushar Damgude alleged 'provocative' speeches and presentations made at Elgar Parishad on December 31 had 'promoted' enmity between two groups and led to violence at Bhima-Koregaon on January 1. (Photo: File | PTI) Pune: The January 1 violence at Koregaon-Bhima near Pune was triggered by "provocative and inciting" speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave a day earlier, the Pune police told a judicial commission. The Pune police submitted an affidavit in this regard on Friday to an inquiry commission set up by the Maharashtra government under Justice (retd) J N Patel to probe the violence. The Elgar Parishad was organised at the Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31 last year to commemorate the victory of the East India Company forces, comprising a large number of Dalit soldiers, over the Peshwa army in 1818. It led to violence in the area on January 1 this year as well as protests by Dalit groups across the state, including a Maharashtra bandh on January 3. On behalf of the Pune police, Additional Commissioner of Police (South Region) Ravindra Sengaonkar filed the affidavit, Shishir Hiray, special public prosecutor representing the state at the judicial commission, said. When contacted, Sengaonkar confirmed that an affidavit was filed. Elaborating on the content of the affidavit, Hiray Sunday said, "During the investigation of the case, the Pune police realised that the Elgar Parishad itself was the product of some sort of a conspiracy." "And the provocative and inciting speeches made at the conclave instigated the minds of people and the cumulative effect of a widespread conspiracy ultimately resulted in violence the next day at Bhima-Koregaon," he added, quoting from the police affidavit. Hiray said the affidavit of the Pune police was accompanied by recordings of speeches made at the conclave and copies of booklets distributed at the event, which they claimed were "provocative" and spoke of using violent methods to overthrow the democratic system. Earlier, Suvez Haque, Pune (Rural) Superintendent of Police at the time of the incident, had stated in his affidavit that the violence at Koregaon-Bhima was due to a sudden clash between two groups of people carrying blue and saffron flags. "The basic difference between the affidavits of the Pune police and the Pune rural police is that the latter's affidavit is talking about what happened in front of their eyes at Koregaon-Bhima on January 1, whereas the one by Pune police talks about why it happened," Hiray said. "So, the Pune police's affidavit is talking about the larger conspiracy," he added. Four days after the violence, based on a complaint filed by one Tushar Damgude at the Vishrambaug police station within the jurisdiction of Pune police, a case was registered against Sudhir Dhavale, Sagar Gorkhe, Harshali Potdar, Ramesh Gaychor, Deepak Dengle and Jyoti Jagtap. In his complaint, Damgude had alleged that "provocative" speeches and presentations made at the Elgar Parishad on December 31 had "promoted" enmity between two groups and led to violence at Bhima-Koregaon on January 1. The violence had led to the death of one person near Sanaswadi. Police has not received a request from any woman (age groups 10 to 50) for security assistance to visit the sanctum sanctorum. This is the second time Sabarimala temple would open for 'darshan' after the Supreme Court allowed entry of women of all age groups into it. (Photo: File) Sabarimala: As the Lord Ayyappa temple opens on Monday for a special puja, a thick security cover has been put in place after violent protests were witnessed last month against the entry of women of all ages into the shrine. Orders banning assembly of four or more people have been imposed in Sabarimala and nearby areas, police said on Sunday. Around 2,300 personnel, including a 20-member commando team and 100 women, have been deployed to ensure smooth 'darshan' and security of devotees, a move that came in for criticism from the erstwhile royal family of Pandalam, the BJP and the Congress for such fortification. If necessary, around 30 women police personnel in the rank of circle inspector and sub-inspector and above the age of 50 would be deployed at 'Sannidhanam' (temple complex) for security, they said. Pathanamthitta Superintendent of Police T Narayanan told news agency PTI that all arrangements have been made for devotees to have smooth 'darshan.' Ayyappa devotees from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have already reached Erumeli and they will be permitted to go to 'sannidhanam' only on Monday. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPc, banning assembly of four or more people, is in force at Pamba, Nilackal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam for 72 hours from midnight on Saturday. According to news agency ANI, police has not received a request from any woman (age groups 10 to 50) for security assistance in order to visit the sanctum sanctorum. This is the second time the hill temple would open for 'darshan' after the Supreme Court allowed entry of women of all age groups into it. The temple had witnessed high drama last month following frenzied protests leading to around a dozen women in the age group of 10-50 being prevented from reaching it and police and the agitators fighting a pitched battle over the LDF government's decision to implement the court order. The shrine would open at 5 pm on Monday for the "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special puja slated for the next day, marking the birthday of the last king of Travancore Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, and close at 10 pm on that day. Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and chief priest Unnikrishnan Namboodiri would jointly open the temple doors and light the lamp at the 'Sreekovil' (sanctum sanctorum). Devaswom minister, Kadakampally Surendran, said the government would ensure complete protection to believers. So far no women in the 'barred' age group had approached police for protection to offer prayers at the hill shrine, he said. A high-level meeting of senior police officers was held to take stock of the situation. During last month's pujas, media persons were attacked by a section of protesters and police had to face criticism. Dismissing reports that media was being restrained from going to Sabarimala, Kerala Director General of Police Loknath Behara said there was no bar on entry of journalists. No restriction of any sort has been imposed on media persons, he said. "To ensure necessary protection to the media, we are not allowing them now. As soon as security arrangements are complete, media will be allowed in Sabarimala and nearby places." The Pandalam royal family, closely associated with the Ayyappa shrine, said it was "pained" at the heavy security in and around Sabarimala. "Saddened that devotees will have to offer prayers at the shrine amid thick police cover," it said. Protesting the apex court verdict, a 'prayer yagna' will be held, the family said. Meanwhile, the Sabarimala Karma Samithi, a platform of right-wing outfits, including VHP, appealed to media houses not to depute women journalists in the menstrual age group to cover the developments in Sabarimala. In its letter to editors, a copy of which was released to the media, it said even the entry of women journalists belonging to this age group as part of their job was also likely to aggravate the situation. The samithi alleged that even though the Supreme Court has decided to hear the review and writ petitions on the issue on November 13, the state government was intentionally ignoring the "mass movement" against the judgement and was trying to "hastily" enforce it using police force. "In such a situation, the devotees are left with no other choice but to continue with the peaceful agitation," it said. Objecting to the samithi's appeal, the Network of Women in Media, India said it was 'unjustified' and 'unacceptable interference' in the functioning of the media and an 'unfair obstacle' in the way of journalists who happen to be women wishing to cover an important story of public interest. "We believe that the samithi's stand amounts to depriving women journalists of their right to respond to the call of professional duty and responsibility. It also goes against the freedom of expression and right to information that are fundamental rights to which all citizens are entitled," it said. Meanwhile, activist Rahul Easwar, president of Ayyappa Dharma Sena that is among the outfits spearheading the protests, in a video message said, "Like police, we are also fully prepared". Easwar, belonging to the Thazhamon family of Sabarimala thantris, was arrested twice last month in connection with the protests in and around Sabarimala against the government's decision to implement the court verdict and also for making certain remarks. He is out on bail. Noting that the situation in Sabarimala was "explosive," Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Mullapally Ramachandran accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government of 'failing' to handle it. Thousands of police personnel had been deployed in Sabarimala which was akin to "challenging and suppressing" the devotees, he alleged. BJP leader M T Ramesh warned that any attempt by police to hinder devotees from visiting Sabarimala would lead to "serious repercussions." Police would not be allowed to inspect the 'irumudikettu' (offerings devotees carry for Lord Ayyappa), he said. So far, 3,731 people have been arrested and 545 cases registered in connection with last month's violence. BJP and various Hindu outfits are on a warpath against the Left-front government over its decision not to seek a review of the top court verdict. KLAMATH COUNTY, OR- Klamath County received $200,000 dollars in grant money to fight illegal cannabis growers. Sheriff Kayber says the county applied for the grant originally in August and at first it wasn't selected. The county appealed to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. That worked, because Thursday the grant was available to the county. It'll be used until next June for investigations into illegal cannabis. The sheriff's office says it is intent on making sure the county is not a 'soft target' for illegal growers. KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- The Secretary of the United States Air Force toured Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls Saturday. This is the first time in the 173rd Fighter Wing history that a Secretary of the United States Air Force has visited Kingsley Field. Secretary Heather Wilson also listened to some of the concerns airmen at the base have including housing and health care. About 15 community leaders and commanders from Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls had important issues on their minds and in an hour long round table discussion, they got to relay them to the Secretary of the United States Air Force Heather Wilson and Congressman Greg Walden. Some of the many topics discussed were housing and health care for active duty airmen at Kingsley Field, two issues Secretary Wilson said are fairly new since assigning active duty airmen to Kingsley Field only started about four years ago. "They don't have the deep roots in the community. They don't have a health care provider and they need housing and so those kinds of issues are new over the last few years here. We very much appreciate the community's willingness to address those issues," Secretary Wilson said. As Secretary of the United States Air Force Secretary Wilson is responsible for the welfare of all airmen in the United States as well as their families. Congressman Walden said it's important that she take a tour of the base. "We have a great fly space to go train. We have a community that's ready to step forward and even better help health care, housing and better education opportunities for our airmen. I think part of having the Secretary here, she gets to see it firsthand and hear from the men and women who wear our nation's uniform and see the facilities," Congressman Walden noted. As for the next generation of aircraft, the F-35's, Secretary Wilson said there are no plans underway or in the near future to bring them to Kingsley Field. The Secretary will head back to Kingsley Field Sunday to visit with more airmen as well as take a tour around southern Oregon in a F-15. Today you'll be turning all your clocks back one hour. The Oregon State fire Marshal recommends you test out your fire alarms at this time as well. Here's what the Fire marshal says to do to test your alarm is working properly: 1) Push the test button to be sure the battery is working. 2) When replacing batteries, follow the manufacturers instructions for the correct battery type to use. 3) Always retest alarms after installing new batteries. 4) Replace any alarm that fails to operate after installing a new battery. 5) Inspect your alarms to determine if they are 10 years old or older, and replace any smoke alarm 10 years old or older. Look for a date on the back of the alarm. If there is no date, your alarm is more than 10 years old and should be replaced. 6) Follow the manufacturers instructions for regularly cleaning your alarms of dust and cobwebs. Tharoor reiterated his point asking if a good Hindu would want to build a Ram temple at the expense of an act of violence. The Congress parliamentarian was responding to a question about his recent remark that no good Hindu would want a temple at the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. (Photo: File) New Delhi: With calls by right-wing groups for a Ram temple in Ayodhya growing louder, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said no Hindu text condones the use of violence to get one's way and scriptures say people should have Lord Ram in their heart. "In fact, if anything, there is a scripture that says build Ram in your heart. And if Ram is built in our heart it should little matter where else he is or he is not, because he is everywhere," Tharoor said. The Congress parliamentarian was responding to a question about his recent remark that no good Hindu would want a temple at the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Tharoor reiterated his point asking if a good Hindu would want to build a Ram temple at the expense of an act of violence. "My only point is, would a Hindu have wanted to build such a precious place at the expense of conducting an act of violence? A good Hindu is a law-abiding Hindu. A good Hindu is someone who has insaaniyat," the Congress leader said. He said Hindu scriptures do not allow the use of violence to have one's way. "A good Hindu is also obviously somebody who worships and believes in his worship. But where have we been told in our Hindu texts and our Hindu teachings which, in fact since the days of Adi Shankaracharya, have emphasised much more on ahimsa. Where have we been told that we should conduct violence against other people to have our way?" Tharoor said. The Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram said he wanted to know why his remarks had "shocked the BJP so much". "Most good Hindus I know would want a Ram temple at the place where they believe he was born. But most good Hindus would not have wanted it by demolishing other people's place of worship. And this is more or less what Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani also said," Tharoor said. He quoted Advani as having called the day of demolition of the Babri Masjid as the "saddest day of his life". "Advani said he would have respectfully wanted to relocate the site and Vajpayee had also hinted at all sorts of compromises provided the Ram temple could also be built, it could even be a joint wall between a mosque and a temple. Who knows what Vajpayee would have wanted? He is not here to tell us but no, neither of them ever spoke in terms of demolishing the mosque and when it happened they both condemned it. So what am I saying that is so shocking for the BJP?" Tharoor said. On the claims of the right-wing groups about the site where they claim evidence suggests that a temple existed, Tharoor said this was an academic argument. "A temple really did exist. Whether it was the Ram temple we don't know. Definitely there were pillars underneath. But given the experiences of that period so many temples were destroyed and mosques built in their places. I am not challenging the historical veracity of this belief, that debate is over. That's totally academic now," said the Congress leader. The Congress leader acknowledged that "the important thing is that an overwhelming majority of Hindus, particularly in north India, believe this was where Lord Ram was born and where there should be a mandir", but went on to add, "to my mind arguing that point is academic." COOS BAY, Ore. -- Three people were taken to the hospital after a kitchen fire inside a Coos Bay apartment on Saturday. The Coos Bay Fire Department says the fire broke out at around 2:00 p.m. inside a unit on the seventh floor of the Tioga Hotel. They said one victim was listed in critical condition and is expected to be flown to Legacy Emmanuel Hospital's Burn Center in Portland. The two others are in stable condition. Firefighters said the fire was caused by a cooking appliance placed on the range with a burner turned on. The damage to the apartment has been estimated to be around $10,000. Crews said the apartment did not have any working smoke detectors. CHARLES CITY, Iowa One of the men accused of damaging some apartment doors is pleading guilty. Brandyn Michael Steveson, 26 of Charles City, and John Paul Miller, 37 of New Hampton, were arrested on June 25. Charles City police say Miller, armed with a large knife, entered two apartments without permission and then Miller and Steveson hid in one of the apartments until officers arrived and ordered them to leave. Steveson has pleaded guilty to 2nd degree burglary and been sentenced to three to five years of supervised probation. Hes also responsible for $3,263.50 in damage done to the apartment doors. Miller is pleading not guilty to 1st degree burglary and is scheduled to stand trial on November 27. MASON CITY, Iowa- Congressman Steve King said he wasnt going to answer a mans question at a town hall in Des Moines Thursday who he said was comparing him to that of the man who shot and killed 11 people at a Pittsburg Synagogue, but a day later he sat down with KIMT News 3s Brian Tabick to explain what happened. Its insulting to compare me to someone who committed a ghastly assassination of 11 Jews in Pittsburg, said Congressman King. Im not going to tolerate it. Congressman King explained that this is just one incident that has caused a number of donors to drop the senior congressman as well as the National Republican Committee Chairman denouncing him and is the result of the nastiest politics he has ever seen. When the people go to the polls they need to be going thinking of San Francisco, New York, dirty politics and leftists, Congressman King said. That is the antithesis of the Western and North Central Iowa, values that are embodied in my opponent. His opponent, J.D. Scholten, disagrees. What am I doing, he said. We have one TV ad out with a compression and that was just to hold him accountable for not doing any debates. When it comes to losing those endorsements, the congressman explained that Scholtens campaign is attacking donors and even other politicians who have their names on Kings bills. This is as despicable as it gets in a behavior, Congressman King said. To go after donors and try and boycott them or threaten them, but thats going on all over the place. Thats why I lost a few PAC owners and we will settle that when the election is over. But when we asked Scholten about the allegations of political attacks. Thats just nonsense, he said. They have not shown one proof of any of that. Thats just the type of guy he is. The race does seem to tightening as Election Day rapidly approaches, but that too depends on who you ask. August we were up 21 points, in early October were up 20 points and last week were were up 18,King said citing his own pollsters data. I published that at 2 PM Monday and no one would print it. It amazes me that they will print all these internet polls that have no validity and smear it all over the place. There has been only one outlier polling of us and thats his poll, said Scholten. That just shows the type of person he is. Both candidates said they cant wait for the November 6th election to be over. NORTHWOOD, Iowa Several homes were evacuated Saturday morning after a gas leak in Northwood. The Worth County Sheriffs Office says it got a call around 9:30 am of a private party possibly hitting a gas line in the 300 block of 5th Street N. Deputies arrived to the smell and sound of natural gas leaking from the north side of a home. Several properties were evacuated as a precaution until Alliant Energy arrived at the scene to stop the leak. Residents were allowed back in their homes around 10:30 am. The Northwood Fire Department also assisted with this incident. ROCHESTER, Minn. - As part of an 18 stop, 44 hour "Get Out to Vote" bus tour, Republican candidates stopped at the GOP Victory Office in Rochester to rally with supporters on the final weekend before Election Day "Tuesday is gonna be a great day. Early voting is already above where we were in 2016 and we're leading the country. Minnesotans love to vote. We are so proud that we are able to go out and vote and we wear our stickers proudly that 'I voted,'" says U.S. Senate candidate Karin Housley. Also at the stop was candidate for Governor Jeff Johnson, Chair of Republican Party of Minnesota Jennifer Carnahan, candidate for U.S. Congress Jim Hagedorn, candidate for U.S. Senate Jim Newberger, candidate for Attorney General Doug Wardlow, candidate for Secretary of State John Howe, candidate for State Auditor Pam Myhra, and candidate for State House Ken Bush meeting with supporters during the Rochester stop. Each candidate addressed the crowded room of people with a short speech, encouraging people to vote. DFL candidates stopped in Rochester on Thursday as part of their 5-day "Get Out to Vote" bus tour. In the last days before the election, Housley's opponent current U.S. Senator Tina Smith is in St. Paul and Burnsville today meeting with constituents; State Auditor candidate Julie Blaha is traveling the state over the weekend; Attorney General candidate Keith Ellison held a news conference with supporters at the State Capitol Saturday morning; current U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar was in St. Paul and Northfield today; U.S. Congressman and candidate for Governor Tim Wlaz and his running mate Representative Peggy Flanagan traveled across Minnesota this week; candidate for U.S. Congress Dan Feehan is meeting with voters in Albert Lea, Austin, Rochester, and Winona over the weekend; and Representative Duane Sauke has been door-knocking. Bhartis remarks coincided with a body of Hindu seers pressing for Ram temple construction through an ordinance by the Union government. New Delhi: Union minister Uma Bharti on Sunday invited Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to jointly lay the foundation stone of Ram temple in Ayodhya with her and warned all politicians against attempts to construct a mosque on the periphery of the temple as such a move could make Hindus intolerant. Ms Bhartis remarks coincided with a body of Hindu seers pressing for Ram temple construction through an ordinance by the Union government. In an interview, Ms Bharti said, Hindus are the most tolerant community in the world. I will appeal to all politicians: please dont make Hindus intolerant by talking about building a mosque on the outer periphery of the birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya. The Cabinet minister for drinking water and sanitation also asked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to lay the foundation stone of Ayodhya temple with her, saying he would atone for the sins of his party by doing so. Ms Bhartis colleague and Union minister Giriraj Singh said in Bihars Nawada that no power in the world can stop the construction of Ram temple. The people want the government and the court to find a way for constructing Ram temple, the minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises told reporters. Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya echoed his sentiments and told reporters in Lakhimpur Kheri, We can tell for certain in one line that a grand Ram temple would be constructed whenever the time comes. In a related development, the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti, a seers body, met in Delhi on Sunday and demanded that the Narendra Modi government should either bring a legislation or an ordinance to pave the way for construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya before the Lok Sabha polls. The samiti, through a Dharmadesh issued on the concluding day of its two-day long conclave, also asked the Hindu society to unite for the cause and expressed hope that the Modi government will fulfil its wish of construction of the temple at the currently disputed site. It asked people to vote for those who protect Gai (cow), Ganga and Govind (God). Restating Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanaths statement made at an event in Rajasthan on Tuesday, the samiti asked people to light an extra earthen lamp on Diwali in the name of Ram Mandir. To put pressure on the government and also to keep the issue alive in this election season, the samiti has decided to hold public meetings, dharmsabhas and dharmjagrans in Ayodhya, Nagpur and Bengaluru on November 25. Such events will also be organised in all the districts across the states later. Also on December 9, hundreds of saints will congregate in the national capital to hold a dharmsabha to demand construction of the Ram temple. The conclave, which saw participation of over 3,000 seers from across the country, also deliberated on other issues including a central legislation for cow protection, cleaning of the Ganga, illegal immigrants and demanded early completion of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam. Pressure is mounting on the BJP led government for early construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, especially after the Supreme Court deferred the Ramjanbhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case till January, with the Sangh Parivar threatening a 1992 like movement. RSS ideologue and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha has hinted at bringing a private member bill on the Ram temple issue in Parliament. Though the BJP is yet to officially react on the legislation or ordinance demand made by the Sangh Parivar, some of its leaders have been ecohing views in favour of the demand put before the government. NCP leader Dhananjay Munde claimed that this is an attempt to vitiate political atmosphere since elections are around the corner. Mumbai: The Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Raosaheb Danve has said that former deputy chief minister and the senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar can be arrested anytime in the alleged irrigation scam. Mr Danve while speaking at the Atal Sankalp conference at Nigdi near Pune on Saturday in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, said, The police have reached the doorsteps of Ajit Pawar in the irrigation scam. Therefore, his condition is such that there is a sword hanging on his head and he can be arrested anytime. Meanwhile, in a statement, issued by the Leader of the Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative council, Dhananjay Munde said that the investigation is going on in irrigation scam since last four years. Mr Pawar has no role in the alleged scam. Rebutting the allegations of the BJP, Mr. Munde said, This is an attempt to vitiate political atmosphere since elections are approaching. Those who have had relations with the accused in naptha racket (related to fuel adulteration) and who used power to take benefits of government schools should not teach us, but look at themselves. Mr Pawar was among NCP ministers who were in-charge of the irrigation department at different times between 1999 and 2014 when the Congress and the NCP were part of the coalition government in the state. The scam, pegged at Rs 72,000 crore, relates to alleged corruption and irregularities in approval and execution of various irrigation projects in the state during the Congress-NCP rule. By Park Ji-won T-50 Korea and Spain are in talks to hold a joint committee meeting for a possible swap deal involving trainer jets and cargo planes this month, local media reported, Sunday. Brian Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at howeypolitics.com. Find him on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol. Vietnam may give internet companies one year to comply with a controversial cybersecurity law. The cybersecurity bill, which observers say mimic China's repressive web control tools, is set to come into effect in January despite drawing sharp criticism from the US, the EU and internet freedom advocates. Vietnam may give internet companies like Google and Facebook one year to comply with a controversial cybersecurity law, according to a draft decree that outlines how the draconian bill could be implemented. The cybersecurity bill, which observers say mimic China's repressive web control tools, is set to come into effect in January despite drawing sharp criticism from the US, the EU and internet freedom advocates. The bill would require tech companies to store data in the country, and remove "toxic content" from websites and hand over user information if asked by the government to do so. Critics of the bill say it will be a chokehold on criticism in the one-party state where activists are routinely jailed and all independent media are banned. According to a draft decree on how the law may be implemented, published by the Ministry of Public Security Friday, companies offering internet services in Vietnam may be given 12 months to comply. "Enterprises... must archive data (and) set up branches or representative offices in Vietnam," the decree said. It did not outline the punishment for failing to comply, but any country in breach of the law could be barred from offering its services in Vietnam. An enterprise can mean internet service providers, e-commerce sites, online payment firms and social networks. The draft decree added that companies must store user data in the country for at least 36 months. Personal data required to be stored includes everything from a user's name to passport number, medical records, credit card information and biometric data. Google declined to comment Saturday, while Facebook did not immediately respond to a request from AFP. The public has two months to provide feedback on the decree, in line with Vietnamese law, though public comments have not traditionally led to dramatic alterations to proposed bills. The law was passed by Vietnam's rubber-stamp parliament in June, part of a broader crackdown on internet freedoms that has sparked outcry from the country's activists. This week, the government said it had set up a web monitoring unit that can scan up to 100 million items per day to sniff out "false information". A few days later officials said 3,000 sites featuring "inappropriate content" had been blocked. With 53 million users, Facebook is by far the leading site in Vietnam, a country of 93 million. It is a crucial platform for activists -- and many have been jailed based on Facebook posts -- but also a leading site for business owners. Any efforts to block access to the site are likely to spark widespread opposition across the country. An extremist commando attacked a bus carrying pilgrims to the Monastery of St Samuel the Confessor. The pope recited a Hail Mary for their families. The proclamation of the Blessed Mother Clelia Merloni was greeted with a round of applause. The pontiff spoke about the dual commandment, the two sides of the same coin and the needs of the neighbour [which] require certain effective answers, but before this they need sharing. Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Pope Francis expressed his deep sadness over the death of Orthodox Coptic pilgrims killed two days ago in Minya, Lower Egypt. A bus full of pilgrims, on their way to the monastery of St Samuel the Confessor, in a remote and desert area south of Cairo, was attacked by an extremist commando. At least seven people were killed and 19 wounded. Speaking after the Angelus prayer to the faithful in St Peter's Square, Francis said: "I pray for the victims, pilgrims killed just because they were Christians, and I ask Mary Most Holy to console the families and the whole community." After a long moment of silence, he invited those present to recite together the Hail Mary. Before that, the pontiff commented on todays gospel (31st Year of Ordinary Time, B, Mark 12:28b-34), the one in which a scribe came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" and Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and you shall love your neighbour as yourself (30- 31). "By choosing these two words addressed by God to his people and putting them together Jesus taught once and for all that the love for God and love for ones neighbour are inseparable; indeed, they are more than that, they support each other. Even though one comes after the other, they are the two sides of the same coin: Experienced together, they are the true strength of the believer! To love God is to live of him and for him, for what he is and for what he does. And our God is giving without reservation, it is forgiveness without limits, it is a relationship that promotes and makes one grow. To love God means investing our energies every day to be his collaborators in serving our neighbours without reservation, seeking to forgive without limits and nurturing relationships of communion and fraternity." "The Evangelist Mark, the pope noted, does not bother to specify who our neighbour is because our neighbour is the person I meet in the journey of my days ... The needs of the neighbour require certain effective answers, but before this they need sharing. To illustrate this, we can say that a hungry person does not need only a bowl of soup, but also a smile, to be heard, and even a prayer, done together perhaps." "This challenges our Christian communities. It is a question of avoiding the risk of being communities that live by many initiatives but with few relationships: service stations as it were but little company, in the full Christian sense of the term. God, who is love, created us out of love so that we can love others by remaining united to Him. It would be an illusion to claim to love our neighbour without loving God; and it would be just as illusory to claim to love God without loving our neighbour." Before the final greetings, Francis mentioned Mother Clelia Merloni, foundress of the Sisters Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1861-1930), who was beatified yesterday in Romes Basilica of St John Lateran. The new blessed, the pontiff said, was a woman who fully abandoned herself to the will of God, who was zealous in charity, patient in adversity and heroic in forgiveness. Let us give thanks to God for the luminous evangelical witness of this new Blessed and let us follow her example of goodness and mercy. Let us applaud the new Blessed! Snapshot: Western Sydney is a food and grocery powerhouse WESTERN SYDNEY is a food and grocery manufacturing powerhouse, generating $17 billion in output per year and employing 24,400 workers, new research snapshot shows. The Australian Food and Grocery Council research shows Parramatta is the food and grocery manufacturing capital of Sydney, employing 4,980 workers, followed by Blacktown (4,176), Canterbury Bankstown (3,914), Cumberland (2,984), Liverpool (2,154), Campbelltown (2,113), Fairfield (2,081), Penrith (1,428) and Camden (562). Western Sydney exports $2.5 billion of food and grocery manufacturing products a year and sells a further $5.7 billion to interstate and domestic regional markets. Between 2016 and 2017, international exports grew by 10.1%. Council CEO Tanya Barden said Western Sydneys population of 2.1 million is expected to grow by a further 1 million people over the next 18 years, and it is critical to ensure jobs are available in the same areas in which people lived. We are constantly being told that manufacturing in Australia is on its knees, but food and grocery manufacturing in Western Sydney is growing rapidly, Ms Barden said. Since 2011, a total of 1,200 new jobs have been created across Blacktown, Camden, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield and Penrith. Importantly, these jobs allow residents to live and work in their own neighbourhoods, rather than facing a long-haul commute into the city, which takes pressure off our public transport and road networks. Food and grocery manufacturing has the fifth largest output of all industries in Western Sydney, paying $138 million per annum in tax. We should all be thankful of the critical role that food and grocery manufacturing plays in supporting our lifestyles by putting food on our tables, and delivering the highest quality hygiene and personal care products. Also in Australian Food News Key points in the report: Wages Wages and salaries pump $1.9 billion into the Western Sydney economy annually, worth an average $80,000 for every full-time and parttime worker. Jobs Western Sydney food & grocery manufacturing businesses employ 24,391 workers, making the sector the 11th largest jobs provider in Western Sydney. Economics The sector contributes $17.2 billion in annual output and more than $2.5 billion in international exports. Ms Barden said Australians needed to be proud of their food manufacturing sector as a driver of jobs growth and a major contributor to the national economy, particularly with parts of the state battling drought conditions. Food and grocery manufacturing employers in Western Sydney range from major global companies like Campbell Arnotts in Huntingwood and Kimberly Clark in Ingleburn, through to strong Australian brands like Coca Cola Amatil in Northmead and smaller mum and dad operations, she said. All these operations are dedicated to ensuring the safety and highest quality of their products. Bhopal, November 4: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has said it will play a key role in the formation of the next government in Madhya Pradesh as it expects a fractured verdict in the November 28 assembly polls. Madhya Pradesh BSP president Pradeep Ahirwar said the party will vastly improve its tally and win 32 seats, and can even think of heading the next government. The state has a 230-member assembly. "Neither the BJP nor the Congress is going to get a majority. In this case, the Congress would support us to form the government in Madhya Pradesh," he said without elaborating. The Dalit party, which refused to enter into a pre- poll alliance with the Congress, is going it alone in the central state, where the BJP is in power since 2003. "We are going to win 32 assembly seats and create a record in our history of 34 years in Madhya Pradesh due to strong anti-incumbency wave against the BJP and Dalit unity," he told PTI in an interview. "The key to next government formation will be with Behenji Mayawatiji (the BSP president)," he said. Mayawati Says No Alliance With Congress, Blames Digvijaya Singh For Sabotaging Pact. "Our first priority is to form government in MP. We want Behanji to call the political shots in the state," Ahirwar said. The BSP leader ruled out backing the BJP post-poll. Ahirwar said Mayawati will address rallies in the state between November 18 and November 26. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister will address three public meetings each in Rewa and Chambal divisions and one each in Bhopal and the Mahakoshal region, he said. Asked about Congress leader Digvijay Singh's remark that the BSP could not enter into an alliance with his party in MP due to the Centre's pressure on Mayawati, he dismissed the statement as a "total lie". "Whatever the former state chief minister (Singh) had stated was totally wrong. The BSP's history in MP is that it fights elections on its own strength. The Congress is going to pay a price in the polls due to Digvijay's comment," he said. Ahirwar said his party has pockets of influence in MP, where it won 11 assembly seats each in 1993, 1998 and two in 2003, seven in 2008 and four in 2013. According to estimates, Dalits account for 15 per cent of the population in Madhya Pradesh. "We are sitting pretty on 32 seats and in 75 other assembly segments our position is very strong," he said. "The BSP emerged strong in Morena, Rewa, Satna, Datia and Gwalior districts in the last assembly polls," he said. "We are going to open our accounts in Chhatarpur, Panna, Shivpuri, Sheopur, Damoh, Katni, Balaghat and Singrauli districts," Ahirwar claimed. The party's vote share was 8.97 per cent in 2008 which dipped to 6.29 per cent in the 2013 polls. He said the people in MP, especially farmers, are unhappy with the BJP government following the police firing on cultivators at Pipaliya Mandi in Mandsaur district that left six farmers dead last year. "The youth are peeved at lack of job avenues in MP. Vyapam, a massive admission and recruitment racket, had shattered their dream of getting government jobs," he added. In the last assembly polls, the BJP had won 165 seats, while the Congress bagged 58. Their vote share was 44.48 per cent and 36.38 per cent, respectively. Mumbai, November 4: The Maharashtra government has imposed an electricity surcharge of 10 paise per unit on industrial and commercial consumers to finance its scheme to provide 25,000 solar pumps to farmers, a senior official said Sunday. In view of the forthcoming Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly polls next year, state Energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule had recently announced that farmers would be provided one lakh solar pumps in three phases between 2019 and 2021, of which 25,000 would be given in the first phase. The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company has applied a 10 paise per unit surcharge from November 1 to collect funds for the farmers. Arvind Singh, principal secretary in the state Energy department, confirmed the move. "The total expense of the scheme is Rs 825 crore and since the state has no resources to spend on the scheme, we have decided to collect funds by applying a surcharge on consumers," Singh said. Power Supply Demand in Telangana Breaks 10,429 MW Mark. He added that power consumers, comprising commercial and industrial users and excluding residential users, will have to pay an additional 10 paise per unit to the total consumption of monthly electricity units. "We expect to collect Rs 90 crore per month through this surcharge," Singh said. In the first phase, the government will provide solar pumps having a capacity of 3-5 horsepower (hp) to farmers. An official from the Power ministry said the price of a 3 hp pump operating on Alternate Current (AC) and Direct Current (DC) supply was Rs 2.40 lakh and Rs 2.55 lakh respectively. The cost of a 5 hp AC pump is Rs 3.25 lakh whereas the price of 5 hp DC pump is Rs 3.85 lakh. Firozpur, November 4: Police have arrested a Border Security Force (BSF) Jawan on Sunday from Punjab's Firozpur on the charges of spying and sending India's confidential information to Pakistan Intelligence Operative Mirza Faisal, reported DNA. Police have recovered two cell phones and seven sim cards from his possession. The accused has been charged under the Official Secrets Act, 1923 and National Security Act 1980. He was apprehended on the basis of a written complaint by BSF 29 battalion's Deputy Commander. The accused was identified as Sheikh Riazuddin alias Riyaz, a resident of Rana Pura in Maharashtra's Latur district. He is working as an operator in the BSF as per the complaint by the Deputy Commander. Police have started their investigations and taken him into custody after getting remand from the court. Uttar Pradesh ATS Arrests BSF Jawan on Charge of Sharing Vital information with Pakistan ISI. Riyaz used social media platforms like the Facebook messenger from his cell phone to send secret information to Pakistani agent Mirza Faisal. The information ranged from details of the fencing of wires in the border, footages of the streets, contact information of the officers, etc. Earlier in September, Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had arrested a BSF jawan from Noida on the charges of sharing confidential information with Pakistan's ISI agent. The accused Achutanand Misra was honey trapped into sharing information about unit operational details by a woman who claimed to be a defence reporter. Misra used to send secret information through Whatsapp to ISI agents, whose name he saved as 'Pakistani dost' in his contact list. He was booked and taken into custody under the Secrets Act, 1923. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 04, 2018 03:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, November 4: To commemorate Diwali, the United Nations has issued a postal stamp. The UNs postal agency has come out with a special stamp sheet having the symbols of light - diyas, on them. The price of the sheet with stamps is $14.95 which approximately Rs 1100. The stamps are also available on the UN website. The background of the sheet features the United Nations Headquarters building illuminated with the message of Happy Diwali to celebrate the spirit of the festival. Diwali 2018 Date Calendar for India: When Is Dhanteras, Lakshmi Puja, Govardhan Puja and Bhai Dooj? Get Complete Deepavali Holiday Dates Meanwhile, the United States Postal Service (USPS) had in October 2016 launched a commemorative stamp in honour of the festival of Diwali. The USPS Diwali stamp became a reality after seven-years-long efforts and advocacy by the Indian-American community and several Congressional resolutions by influential American lawmakers such as Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. Diwali 2018: Things Other Than Gold You Can Buy on Dhanteras; Heres a List The Festival of Lights, Diwali also called Deepavali is an epitome of the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance." The festival of lights is a five-day extravaganza. This year, Dhanteras falls on November 5 followed by Chhoti Diwali on November 6, Diwali on November 7, Govardhan Puja on November 8 and finally Bhai Dooj on November 9. Apart from Hindus. Sikhs and Jains also celebrate it with full enthusiasm and zeal. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 04, 2018 11:25 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Chandigarh, November 4: Ahead of the festival of Diwali, a terror alert has been issued in Punjab. The alert has been sent to all the major police stations across the state. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has warned of ISI-Lakshkar style in the state, reported CNN News 18. As per the report, terrorists can lob grenades at crowded areas of the state. Yesterday, General Rawat said that foreign powers are making attempts to revive separatism in the state. While addressing a gathering of senior Army officers, defence experts and former senior officials of government and police at a seminar in New Delhi on Changing Contours of Internal Security in India: Trends and Responses, said, Attempts are being made through external linkages to revive insurgency in Punjab, and if early action is not taken, it will be too late. He further added, Let us not think that Punjab (situation) is over. We cannot close our eyes to what is happening in Punjab. And, if we do not take early action now, it will be too late. On November 1, Punjab Police busted a Pakistan-sponsored terrorist module in Patiala. The police arrested one terrorist Shabnamdeep Singh who belonged to Khalistan Gadar Force and was planning to conduct attacks on police stations and posts and crowded places during the ongoing festival season. The police recovered a pistol, hand grenade, CT-100 Bajaj Platina black motorcycle and letter pads belonging to Khalistan Gadar Force and other banned terrorist organisations. Last month, four students including three Kashmiri were arrested with explosive weapons from Jalandhar. Meanwhile, a fifth person was arrested from Chandigarh. In the late night raids conducted by the Punjab police, five AK -47s were recovered from the hostel of the CT Institute. According to reports, the arrested students work for the Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) and Jaish- e- Mohammed terror groups. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 04, 2018 02:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Chandigarh, November 4: A dreadful road accident in Haryana's Sonipat on Sunday left at least 12 people dead and 7 severely injured. The fatal mishap was reported in the evening, around 6:15 pm. Police officials and rescue teams were immediately rushed to the site, located close to Mundlana village on the Gohana-Panipat highway. The victims have been rushed to PGI Khanpur, where the condition of 7 injured commuters is stated to be serious. Whereas, 12 others have been declared dead. Among the deceased, three have been identified as residents of western Uttar Pradesh. They are: Farman Niyaz, Qasim Shabbir and Sabrez Qasim. One resident of Delhi, Ramkaran Singh, has also been confirmed dead. 10 Pilgrims Killed in Odisha's Mahasamund After Car Collides With Truck. The bodies of the deceased will be handed over to the kin after the autopsy is completed. The injured victims could be rushed to the nearest medical facilities in Delhi if their conditions further deteriorate. Sonipat: 12 dead & 7 injured after a truck coming from the wrong side rammed into a car & 2 two-wheelers. Police officials present at the spot. More details awaited. #Haryana ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 According to news agency ANI, a speeding truck coming from the wrong way rammed into a car and 2 two-wheelers, which led to the casualties. A case of negligent and rash driving will be registered by Mundlana village police, under whose jurisdiction the site of accident falls. According to the recent statistics released by the Union Ministry of Roads and Highways, Haryana records 14 deaths on an average per day due to road accidents. In 2017, a total of 5,120 people lost their lives in 11,258 road accidents reported in the state. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 04, 2018 07:56 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Ho Chi Minh City, November 4: France does not "sweep anything under a rug" when it comes to the issue of human rights in Vietnam, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe insisted on Sunday, after sidestepping questions over the Asian country's dismal record on dissent. His comments came on the final day of a state visit to Vietnam, that was largely aimed at drumming up business deals with one of Asia's fastest-growing economies as both sides signed contracts worth a total of nearly USD 12 billion. But the French premier would not be drawn on the Communist government's handling of dissent, which includes jailing people for posting their opinions about hot-button issues on Facebook. More than 50 activists, rights campaigners and bloggers have been put behind bars in 2018, one of the harshest crackdowns in recent years. France Condoles Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Death By Remembering Indo-French Friendship. When questioned by reporters in Ho Chi Minh City, Philippe insisted, "we do not sweep anything under the rug, but we have discussions with the Vietnamese authorities that do not go through the press". "We do it in forums that are going well, the way we have always done," Philippe said after inaugurating a French medical centre in the city. The French premier's visit coincides with the recent release of a draft cybersecurity decree, which outlines how the draconian bill would be implemented. It is expected to come into effect in January, and observers say that it mimics China's repressive web control tools. It woul require tech companies to store data in the country, remove "toxic content" from websites, and hand over user information if requested by the government. Critics of the bill say it will serve as a chokehold on dissent in the one-party state, where activists are routinely jailed and all independent media are banned. Philippe will host a business forum with French tech entrepreneurs before departing in the evening for New Caledonia. The jam-packed three-day visit also included a stop at Dien Bien Phu on Saturday, the site of an epic battle between France and Vietnam in 1954 that would spell the end of France's colonial empire in Indochina. Colombo, November 4: Tamil National Alliance, a political alliance in Sri Lanka that represents the country's Tamil minority, has decided to back the no-confidence motion brought by the United National Party (UNP)against newly sworn-in Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. In a statement released on Saturday, the TNA said that it will no-trust motion against the newly appointed Prime Minister. The party also said that Rajapaksas appointment was a violation of the Constitutions 19th amendment. As per reports, one TNA legislator, S. Vilenthiriyan, has extended support to Rajapaksa. At least four more legislators out of 16 MPs of the groupare believed to be to joining Rajapaksas camp. Sri Lanka Parliament Speaker Recognises Ranil Wickremesinghe as PM The motion of no-confidence has been brought by ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes UNP. However, President Maithripala Sirisena has suspended Parliament until November 16 and also rejected a call of a floor test for the newly appointed prime minister. Meanwhile, Palitha Range Bandara, a legislator of Wickremesinghes party, has claimed that he was offered $2.8 million to extend support to Rajapaksas bid to prove his majority. The Political crisis erupted in the country last month, when Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe on October 26 and replaced him with Rajapaksa, who was also a former president. Rajapaksha has ruled the nation for nearly 10 years. Sirisena and Rajapaksa combine has only 95 seats and is short of a simple majority. Wickremesinghe's UNP has 106 seats on its own with just seven short of the majority. (With agency inputs) (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 04, 2018 09:46 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). A human rights activist have called on the relevant authorities to bring those behind the abduction and murder of Major General Idris Alkali (retired) to book. The lifeless body of Major General Alkali, who went missing since September was discovered by troops of the Nigerian Army in a well last week. Following the discovery by the Army, some human rights activists and sympathizers converged at the Unity fountain in Abuja on Friday, November 3, for a candle light procession in his honour. These activists said they wondered why the perpetrators of the dastardly act will chose to murder a military officer who had put in 35 meritorious years of service to the nation in such an inhumane manner. READ ALSO: Rift between Amosun and Oshiomhole deepens as governor renews attack on APC national chairman The sympathizers, who came out in their scores under the auspices of Concerned Patriotic Citizens condemned the killing of the major general by some unknown peoples. The funeral of late Major General Idris Alkali Source: Twitter While calling for justice for the late general, the group said no individual in the society has the powers to take his neighbours life, lest a member of the Nigerian Armed Forces who has given all his life in the service of the nation. Anngu Orngu, who led the procession, after praying for the peaceful repose of the soul of Major General Alkali, called on Nigerians to treat members of the Armed Forces with utmost respect. READ ALSO: Opinion: President Buhari, WAEC and PDPs toxic air By Garba Shehu Anngu decried the failing standard of humanity in the society, "where a group of persons will take to such heinous crimes against either serving or retired military officers in the country". He said: "It is pertinent that we always recognise and appreciate the selfless efforts of our troops whose struggles often go unappreciated but unfortunately we are ever ready to castigate for any little shortcoming. He also saluted the effort of the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai in maintaining a high standard expected of his office by not allowing the troops to descend into taking the laws into their hands in the process of fetching the missing officer. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the best news updates "It will be necessary to hail the Chief of Army Staff for showing restraint even when the army as an institution has been desecrated. We have witnessed the manner other Army chiefs reacted in such occasions. We comment him for his good relations with the civilian population, Anngu said. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the remains of General Alkali was found in an abandoned well in a village known as Guchwet in Shen district of Jos South local government area of Plateau state. The water from the well was drained on Wednesday, October 31, and the remains of the retired senior military officer was pulled out and covered in a green and white body bag. The military authorities confirmed the development. They added that the appropriate authorities would soon issue a statement on the development. Nigerian Air Force Day Celebration 2018 (54th Anniversary) - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) urged PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar to remain focused - The forum urged him not be distracted by agents of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) - It said that all those within the ruling APC who are attacking Atiku are trying to divert attention from the dismal performance of the APC As preparations for the 2019 presidential elections draw nearer, the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has urged candidate Atiku Abubakar to remain focused and not be distracted by agents of the ruling APC. National President of the AYCF, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, who gave the admonition while speaking to newsmen at the weekend in Kaduna said the Wazirin Adamawa has "demonstrated that he is a formidable candidate as he has already been making intelligent contributions in the search for solution to the nation's present level of unprecedented hardship". READ ALSO: Debe, Odumegwu-Ojukuwus first son, dies at 62 Alhaji Shettima also noted that all those within the ruling APC who are attacking Atiku are trying to divert attention from the dismal performance of the APC at the Federal, State and even Local Government levels, where stagnation has taken over the dividends of democracy". Turning to the recent reports about Atiku's plan to cut down on the price of petroleum products, the AYCF chieftain said "we support any effort to reduce the cost of living for Nigerians and we will pray for him to succeed on this too". Alhaji Yerima Shettima also assured the former VP and Wazirin Adamawa that he would massively mobilize support for the PDP presidential candidate in the North "in order to ensure that victory is Atiku's as our President -to-be, inshaa Allahu" in the 2019 presidential elections. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the federal government is fixing the nation's dilapidated infrastructure despite its lean resources, occasioned by the fall in oil prices. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Nigeria Latest News: Buhari vs Atiku - 2019 Elections | - on Legit.ng Source: Legit Newspaper - WAEC has said it presented President Buhari's results to him after he applied for it - This is contrary to claims by the presidency that that the president did not apply for it - We would not have given him the document if he didnt apply, WAEC spokesman said As the controversy surrounding President Muhammadu Buharis certificate continues, the presidency and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), on Saturday, November 3, disagreed on the reason for the issuance of an Attestation of Results to the president. According to the presidency, Buhari didnt apply for the WAEC result which was issued to him on Friday. However, the examination body said the document was issued because the president applied for it. The senior special assistant on media and publicity to the president, Garba Shehu, had said the initiative to make the documents available to President Buhari was that of the examination body. Shehu, in an interview with The Punch on Saturday, said WAEC authorities made it clear that they read about the controversy generated by the presidents missing certificate and saw the need to save the councils integrity. READ ALSO: BREAKING: Debe, Odumegwu-Ojukuwus first son, dies at 62 The presidential spokesman said: No, the president did not apply for the documents. I made this clear in an opinion I wrote on Friday. The presentation of the documents to the president was strictly an initiative of WAEC. They said they read about the controversy on the pages of newspapers and saw the need to save the integrity of the council. On its part, WAECs spokesman, Damianus Ojijeogu, in an interview said the examination body would not have given the result to the president if he did not apply for it. He said: We would not have given him the document if he didnt apply. It is only Buhari or a court that can ask for the results. There is no other person. So he asked for it. WAEC also said it did not issue the attestation of results to Buhari in 2015 because there was no application for it. The presidents school certificate examination, which was a major controversy in the build-up to the 2015 elections, recently became a matter of public discourse after he told the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that his school certificate is still with military authorities. Buhari stated this while submitting essential forms to INEC for the 2019 elections, which he would be participating in as the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). However, on Friday evening, the president Tweeted via his official handle that he had received the attestation and confirmation of his result. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app But after the result was released, some Nigerians suggested on social media that there was discrepancy in the attestation certificate. Legit.ng had earlier reported that the examination body clarified the alleged discrepancy in the results of the school certificate examination of President Buhari released in 2015 and the results in an attestation certificate issued to the president on Friday, November 2. WAEC explained that in issuing an Attestation of Results to replace a lost or missing WAEC certificate, the subjects, where the candidate had F9, would no longer be captured. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Father Mbaka On Buhari, Atiku In Nigeria Election 2019 on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng News - Former governor Ayodele Fayose has been removed as the leader of the party in Ekiti state - Stakeholders in Ekiti state adopted the Senate minority leader, Abiodun Olujimi, as the leader of the party in the state and southwest - Olujimi assured supporters that they are on the same page with Fayose The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders in Ekiti state have removed former governor Ayodele Fayose as the leader of the party in the state. Senate minority leader, Senator Biodun Olujimi, who is the partys highest ranking political office holder in the southwest geo-political zone was affirmed as PDPs new leader in Ekiti state and southwest region. The Nation reports that the stakeholders called for the immediate dissolution of the present State Working Committee led by the state PDP chairman, Gboyega Oguntuase, and demanded the constitution of a caretaker committee. READ ALSO: Buhari applied for results - WAEC disagrees with presidency These resolutions were reached at Ekiti PDP stakeholders meeting which held in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, and was attended by serving and former political office holders. Those who attended the meeting included Olujimi, former deputy governor, Dr. Sikiru Lawal; former acting governor, Olatunji Odeyemi; Ekiti Assembly deputy speaker, Segun Adewumi; former state PDP Chairman, Chief Bola Olu-Ojo; governorship aspirants, former National Assembly members, former State Assembly members, former local government chairmen and former party officers. Speaking with reporters after the meeting, Senator Olujimi explained that Fayose was excluded from the meeting owing to the fact that he had just been released from detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over alleged financial fraud. We knew what he might have passed through by staying in detention and we know it might not be easy for him to attend this meeting, so there is no faction at all in our party. My being appointed the Leader does not mean there is crisis. The very day he left office was the day he was summoned by EFCC and we knew the rigour he had passed through. We are going to work together, I mean with former Governor Fayose. What we are doing is that we dont want to allow his exit from office to mean the end of PDP in Ekiti. "So, let me assure our supporters that we are on the same page with former Governor Fayose and other stakeholders. We are not factionalised and we shall work hard and ensure we win in next years election, she said. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Also, the suspension of former state secretary, Dr. Temitope Aluko, was overturned and he was affirmed as a bona fide member of the party. The leaders also resolved to throw their weight behind the candidacy of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in the 2019 presidential poll and other Ekiti candidates in the general elections. Legit.ng had reported that Fayose regained freedom after spending 13 days in custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). According to his aide, Lere Olayinka, Fayose was released on Monday, October 29. He is expected to return to the Federal High Court in Ikoyi from November 19 for his trial. Fayose was arraigned at a High Court in Lagos after he presented himself at the office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Abuja. He was later granted a N50 million bail, but failed to meet the conditions on Friday. The former governor and his company, Spotless Limited, are facing an 11-count charge of conspiracy and money laundering amounting to 2.2 billion. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Nigeria Latest News: Federal High Court Grants Fayose Bail On Legit TV Source: Legit - Former BBNaija housemate Tobi Bakare meets British Royals in Ghana - The former reality TV star was invited to the Prince of Wales' 70th birthday celebration in Ghana - Prince Charles and his wife are visiting Ghana for a 5-day historic event to strengthen diplomatic ties between Ghana and the United Kingdom Tobi Bakare, a former Big Brother Naija housemate, has taken to social media to share his recent experience in Ghana. The former reality TV star had been given the honour to meet with British Royals in Ghana. The former TV star who was one of the housemates in the Big Brother Naija 2018, Double Wahala edition, had met with the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla. Legit.ng had earlier reported that Prince Charles who is also known as the Prince of Wales had visited Ghana with his wife, for a five day event to strengthen diplomatic ties between Ghana and the United Kingdom. READ ALSO: Actor IK Ogbonna dismisses marriage breakup rumour, showers praises on wife In honour of the British Royals, a grand reception had been put together to celebrate the 70th birthday of Prince Charles on Friday, November 2. Prince Charles would clock 70 on Wednesday, November 14. Bakare was among the few who were invited to the celebration. He shared photos of his meeting with Prince Charles. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app In his post, he expressed his gratitude at being given the honour to attend the grand reception. He also advised his followers to stay true to what they are doing. He wrote: Was quite an honor to be invited to the Grand Reception in honor of Thier Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall in Ghana to mark His Royal Highness 70th Birthday. What can I say. Just keep doing what you do guys. Stay focused and keep at your hustle. You never know who is watching. It feels good to see the things you do being acknowledged within and outside of Nigeria. Quite an experience. You see as the prince dey laugh. If you want to hear the gist. Buy me drink first . PAY ATTENTION: Get your daily relationship tips and advice on Africa Love Aid group NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Daddy Freeze on Nigerian Pastors and British Royals - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state has referred to the national leader of the APC as the Capo Di Tutti of Lagos - He further accused the partys national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, of conniving with Tinubu to wrest control of the partys south-west structure - Amosun, however, warned Oshiomhole, that his evil design will not succeed in Ogun state The crises within the All Progressives Congress (APC) shows no signs of letting up as Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state has accused the partys national leader, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, of being a garrulous leader who was pandering to the whims of the partys national leader, Bola Tinubu, who he described as the Capo Di Tutti of Lagos. The Capo Di Tutti is an Italian term often used to describe the overall boss within a mafia family or group, Premium Times reports. READ ALSO: Ekiti stakeholders sack Fayose as PDP leader, affirm replacement Legit.ng gathers that Amosun, in a statement released by his information commissioner on Saturday, November 3, made reference to Tinibu, who has control of the APC in Lagos state; though he did not mention him by name. He accused Oshiomhole of conniving with Tinubu to wrest control of the partys south-west structure. The governors accusation mirrors a similar one made two weeks earlier, where he accused the national chairman of conniving with a cabal in Lagos to take over the Ogun state chapter of the APC. The statement, however, read in part: As we have stated before, this evil design will not succeed in Ogun state. Our people are too educated, exposed and sophisticated to come under such odious arrangement. On a general note, Oshiomhole, who became the APC Chairman barely three months ago, is already threatening to write the epitaph of the party in his 100 days of ignominy. Let Mr Oshiomhole and his motley crew of co-travellers in ignominy, be assured that the music has just begun and we hope that you will enjoy the macabre dance to the music of justice. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app This development follows a previous report by Legit.ng, that the national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, lashed out at the governor of Imo state, Rochas Okorocha, and his Ogun state counterpart, Ibikunle Amosun, calling them emperors. Addressing a press conference on Friday, November 2, in Abuja, Oshiomhole, reacting to comments made by both governors on the outcome of APC primaries, specifically described Okorocha as an embarrassment to the APC. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better! APC is the worst party in Nigeria, i regret being a member - on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - Prince Charles who took over as the head of the 53-member commonwealth of nations last April, succeeding his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, has already visited 44 African nations - In his continual visitation to the African continent, Prince Charles is expected in Nigeria to address the persistent attacks of herdsmen on farming communities in the country - Reports have claimed that the prince has not been the country since the past 12 years The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Paul Arkwright, announced in Abuja on Sunday, November 4, Prince Charles would engage in peace-building activities, including addressing the persistent attacks of herdsmen on farming communities in Nigeria. The Prince of Wales and his wife, Princess Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall are expected in Nigeria from Nov. 6 to Nov. 8 in a high profile visit during which the royals would also have audience with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa. Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) ahead of the visit, Arkwright said one of the events on the agenda was for Prince Charles to discuss practical solutions to alleviating the tensions, arising from the activities of herdsmen. READ ALSO: Group alleges plot to rig 2019 election by Atiku, PDP through Trump's lobbyist Herdsmen have launched a deadly onslaught on farming communities in Nigeria in recent years, raising concerns over the future of agriculture in a nation, having majority of its populace engaged in subsistence agriculture. People do want to come together and if we can provide that kind of environment then hopefully, we can come up with some ideas and solutions to resolving some of these conflicts. Some of the issues like the farmers/herders crisis are deep-rooted and are about the economy, land resource, climate change and cultural issues. The Prince of Wales will be looking at the causes, talking to people who are working in this area and together, seeing if we can find solutions and move on. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Arkwright said that addressing the root causes of conflicts would lead to a peaceful and more prosperous Nigeria and also become beneficial to the relations between Nigeria and Britain. He noted that the visit was also aimed at strengthening the existing ties between Nigeria and Britain as members of the Commonwealth. Prince Charles, who took over as the Head of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations last April, succeeding his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, has already visited 44 African nations. Prince Charles has not been here since the past 12 years. 2006 was the last time he was here and the Duchess of Cornwall, has never been to Nigeria. So it is about strengthening ties, particularly people-to-people ties. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read best news on Nigerias #1 news app We want to ensure that through the Commonwealth, which is another theme of the princes visit, we develop links to develop relationships whether in trade, environment or in education, all of which are important to the future of the Commonwealth and to the future of Nigeria. The top diplomat said that other events lined up on the agenda of the visit would focus on culture, music, fashion, among others. Prince Charles will be talking about rural livelihoods, agriculture, the environment, some of the passions that he has which is so relevant to Nigeria today and to young people and the importance of getting young people into jobs. One of his passions as well is how do we build the skills of young people so that they will be equipped for the world. There is a whole range of interests that he has and I think Nigeria is a wonderful place to come to because it brings together all of these interests. The duchess is also to engage in literary activities with children and some Nigerian authors, while the prince would meet with traditional rulers and hold peace-building meeting with Nigerian youth ambassadors. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that President Buhari on Friday, August 31, received the vising German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The German leader, who is concluding her tour of three West African countries, arrived Aso Rock at about 10am. The report added that President Buhari welcomed the German chancellor at the fore court of the Presidential Villa. Election 2019: President Buhari Proves He is Fit to Run in 2019 | Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - The suspects were paraded at Police Headquarters in Jos, the Plateau state capital on Sunday - Plateau police force spokesperson Mathias says the police have put in a lot of work to ensure that they have the right culprits in custody - The suspects, he said, would be arraigned before a judge soon to answer for their role in abduction and murder of the late army general The Plateau State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has paraded 19 suspects who were reportedly involved in the disappearance and death of retired Major General Idris Alkali, the Nigerian Armys immediate past Chief of Administration. Channels reports that the police said the suspects would also be arraigned before a judge soon for proper trial and sentencing. According to the forces spokesperson in the state, Tyopev Mathias, who spoke after the parading of the suspects on Sunday, November 4 at the Police Headquarters in Jos, the police have done all possible to ensure that the real culprits were the ones caught. READ ALSO: Senator Sani warns WAEC over President Buharis certificate He said: The suspects we have got were the ones who led us to the place. They confessed that they initially buried him and later exhumed the body, took it and dumped it into a pit, so what do you think Nigerians would need again? In order to clear our name and make it abundantly clear to everybody, we have involved medical doctors and other forensic experts and investigation is ongoing and immediately we are done, we will still call the press and address them. Mathias revealed that after investigations, the police declared eight persons wanted, including the village head of Dura Did in Jos South Local Government Area of the state. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda While six out of the suspects declared wanted by the police reported to the police, Mathias said the other two were still at large. Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that the remains of late Maj.-Gen. Idris Alkali, which was found by a team of Nigerian Army on Search and Rescue Operation, was buried at Gudu Cemetery in Abuja on Saturday, November 3. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read best news on Nigerias #1 news app The burial, which was concluded at around 3 p.m., was attended by the chief of army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, former Military Administrator of Lagos, Retired Brig.-Gen. Buba Marwa and former Minister of Works and Housing, Alhaji Sunusi Dagash. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Nigerian Air Force Day Celebration 2018 (54th Anniversary) - on Legit TV Source: Legit Labour leaders, on Sunday, November 4, failed to attend the meeting set up by the Federal Government to continue negotiations on the national minimum wage for workers in the country. According to Channels' report, federal government representatives in attendance included Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustapha, Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige and the Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed. READ ALSO: Lagos APC unveils Hamzat as Sanwo-Olu's running mate Representatives of organised private sector were however present at the meeting which was held in the office Mustapha in Abuja. Legit.ng also gathered that another meeting of the National Tripartite Minimum Wage Committee would hold on Monday, November 5 as negotiations continue. A statement credited to Ngige said he urged all members of the committee to attend the meetings in the interest of the nation and to find a solution to the minimum wage issue. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that organized labour was urged to disregard the court injunction procured by the federal government stopping it from embarking on its planned indefinite strike, by a civil society group, Joint Action Front (JAF). The group made the call in a statement released by its chairman, Dipo Fashina and secretary, Abiodun Aremu, on Sunday, November 4. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) insisted that it will embark on a nationwide strike over the non-implementation of N30, 000 as the new national minimum wage. This is despite the National Industrial Courts judgement in Abuja which has ordered that the proposed action be suspended. Ayuba Wabba, the NLC president, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday, October 2, in Abuja. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Minimum Wage: Is N30,000 Too Much for FG to Pay Workers? - Nigeria Street Gist - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng By Cliff Rieders In 1898, in United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, the U.S. Supreme Court made abundantly clear that citizenship by birth is the norm. Wong alleged he was a citizen of the U.S., born in San Francisco in 1873. His parents were of Chinese descent and subjects of the Emperor of China. The court released him from custody as an alien, in essence declaring him a citizen since he was born in our great land. The court took 46 pages to explain that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution means what it says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This was a codification of the principles and history of English law ancient in origin. English law, noted the court, is that: "The principle embraced all persons born within the King's allegiance and subject to his protection." There are exceptions such as when the parents of the child fall under the jurisdiction of the sovereign due to war, or are the children of ambassadors. One will search in vain for any qualification of the principle of citizenship by birth based upon whether the parents are "legally" within the country. The Wong Kim Ark opinion makes interesting read for history buffs, but gives no comfort to those who think the 14th Amendment can be rewritten by legislation or presidential decree. What happens when a person born in America of alien parents, now a citizen, grows up and wants to have his parents become citizens? That is governed by U.S. immigration laws. In my own family, some relatives of my mother escaped the Holocaust, but then fell under the brutal tyranny of Stalin in the Soviet Union. My grandmother on my mother's side was born in Poland, but my mother was born in the U.S. Thanks to immigration laws and the Hebrew Immigration Age Society, those Russian relatives were able to come to the U.S. and become citizens. The states have followed the same rule as England and the U.S. government. The Supreme Court of North Carolina noted that before the Revolution, "all free persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, are native-born British subjects." The U.S. Supreme Court also noted the rule of the common law pertaining to citizenship by birth is "without any regard of reference to political condition or allegiance of their parents ..." My Dad used to quote Agamemnon: "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword." If it is wrong to interpret the Second Amendment to permit gun control, then it certainly would be inappropriate to fool with the 14th Amendment where its history is clear. We should have an honest debate about amending those portions of our Constitution that may be antiquated. We have amended the Constitution more than two dozen times. We banned the sale of liquor and then changed our minds. We gave women the right to vote. When times necessitated change, there was no hesitation. The 14th Amendment was passed in the wake of the Civil War. Should the Second Amendment be amended since at the time it was written citizens used flintlocks and relied upon a militia? Today we have assault weapons and a National Guard. Is there any issue to which the Second Amendment even speaks anymore? The words "the right to bear arms" are not isolated but fit the context of their time. The Supreme Court has decided the Second Amendment affords protections that most of the founders would not have imagined. Likewise, if there is a popular desire to amend the 14th Amendment, to eliminate citizenship by birth for those whose parents are undocumented, we need to have a robust debate on the topic. Attempts to rewrite the Constitution and its amendments through legislation or by Supreme Court fiat is likely to lead us down a dangerous road. At one time the Soviet Union had a marvelous founding constitution. The problem was that it was not followed, or rewritten by laws imposed the iron fist of the Communist rulers. We have waged many wars, including losing 58,000 people in Vietnam, where the war declaration provision of the Constitution was ignored. Conservatives and liberals alike have expressed dismay over the extent to which we are blind to the Constitution when it comes to matters we find uncomfortable or inconvenient. Is it time to talk about a new constitutional convention, or some serious amendments? Cliff Rieders is a trial attorney in Williamsport, Pa. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. The mother of a young woman who was robbed at knifepoint has appealed to the public to help Portlaoise Gardai to track down the suspects. In a Facebook post the woman described what happened to her daughter who had gone after work with her friend to have something to eat and then headed to Portlaoise Train Station to get the next train home. She said they were approached by two men near Fitzmaurice Place. One had bright light and shone it into their faces while, it is claimed, the other had a knife which was used the threaten her daughter. The older told her daughter they "would be stabbed". It is alleged that he said to give him her phone over but he didn't want it as it is an iPhone. It's claimed he her friend's Samsung instead. The mum claimed the man demanded money. He said that if they lied and the men found the money they both 'would be stabbed'. Her daughter handed over her wages that she just been paid and money from her purse after which they ran. The woman said she was sharing details the incident on Facebook to make sure everyone is aware of these two men and anyone who lives in Portlaoise might know of them and might be willing to share information with Portlaoise gardai. The woman described it as an incident people think 'will never happen to them'. Gardai have already appealed to the public for information about the incident which happened at approximately 6.30pm on Saturday evening at Millbrook, Portlaoise which is close to Main Street and Ridge Road. The former health service boss would have pushed through a plan to downgrade Portlaoise hospital removing round the clock A&E cove in the process, according to an interview published in a Sunday newspaper. In an extensive three page interview Mr Tony O'Brien with the Sunday Business Post, the former HSE chief executive discusses what he would do he was given the authority to make hard decisions. While Mr O'Brien is not quoted directly, the newspaper reports that he would have 'pressed ahead' with the controversial plan developed for the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. While it does not directly quote Mr O'Brien, the paper says: "That was stopped by health minister Simon Harris". The former HSE boss, who retired early over the handling of the cervical cancer screening scandal, hit out at Minister Harris for behaving like a "frightened little boy" who "runs scared of headlines". Laois TD and Minister Charlie Flanagan subsequently criticised Mr O'Brien for making a 'personalised attack' on Mr Harris. Mr O'Brien did confirm that he would have made widespread cuts to emergency medicine. "I would have ended 24-hour emergency department cover in a number of (hospital) locations," he said in the interview with Susan Mitchell. Mr O'Brien is quoted on Navan hospital as being the 'best example' of the need to remove full A&E services. He said it receives very few presentations overnight but is staff 24/7 relying on expensive locum doctors. "It's a wasteful use of public resource. And it's not an emergency department. I personally would have a wish to be taken to," he said. Mr O'Brien said there are also too many emergency departments in Dublin something he said the HSE suggested. He also highlighted the "enormous implications the quality and sustainability" facing small hospitals like Portlaoise of not being able to recruit staff. It is almost a year since a report was leaked that recommended the extensive downgrade of Portlaoise hospital with services transferring elsewhere. The plan was authored by the now retired HSE Dublin Midland Hospital Group ceo, Susan O'Reilly. It remains on the Minister for Health's desk. He has promised consultation on the next steps. The downgrade plan would see A&E, ICU, maternity, paediatrics and most surgery withdrawn from Portlaoise hospital. Mr O'Brien had close dealings with the past three health ministers, including Leo Varadkar, involving Portlaoise as a result of the maternity service controversy in which babies died. A local councillor has asked whether properties in the Curragh could be converted into proper living accomodation. Read also: Naas residents up in arms over anti social behaviour Cllr Sean Power put forward a motion at the October Newbridge-Kildare Municipal District meeting. He asked the council whether they could enter meaningful negotiations with the Defence Forces/Department of Defence in view of the extreme shortage of housing in the municipal district. In response, the council said; The Department of Defence has stated that the provision of housing accommodation is a matter, in the first instance, for the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, and the local authorities falling under the remit of that Department. The Department of Defence is committed to providing whatever assistance possible to support the implementation of the Government strategy on housing and homelessness. In this regard, the Department of Defence engages with local authorities in relation to the transfer of appropriate property holdings outside of barracks that are no longer required for military purposes and that could form part of the housing stock available to local authorities. The Department has noted that particular issues arise in relation to providing accommodation to civilians within an operational military barracks, foremost amongst them being security. The Department of Defence further state that, given that they are not the policy holder in this area and are already engaged as a matter of course with the relevant housing authorities in relation to the transfer of appropriate property as outlined above, it is not envisaged that the Department would in effect develop an additional administrative mechanism to replicate the function of a housing authority. The Department further states that, in relation to specific cases of difficulty, when requested to do so, the Department and the Defence Forces provide whatever support possible to assist personnel in accessing available housing supports. In addition, the services of the Defence Forces Personnel Support Service are also available if required. With regard to the Curragh, the Department of Defence has issued contracts for some properties in Orchard Park to the councils solicitors and it is hoped that this matter can be finalised in coming weeks. A murder trial judge has noted the disturbing elements relating to the disposal of the body in a case where the accused said he chopped his friend up with a chainsaw after shooting him dead in self defence. However, he told the jury that the horror shouldnt determine its verdict, with the main issue to decide being how his death was brought about. Mr Justice Paul McDermott began charging the jury last Friday following a trial at the Central Criminal Court. Paul Wells Snr (50) of Barnamore Park, Finglas has admitted shooting dead fellow Dubliner Kenneth OBrien and dismembering his body. However, the father-of-five has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 33-year-old at his home in Barnamore Park on 15th or 16th January, 2016. He claims that the deceased had wanted him to murder Mr OBriens partner, so that he could take their child back to Australia, where he had previously lived. He told gardai that Mr OBrien had brought a gun to his house for this purpose on the evening of the 15th but that he didnt want to do it. He said this resulted in a scuffle between them, that the gun fell, they both tried to get it, but that he got to it first and shot his friend in the back of the head. He said that he then panicked, chopped him into pieces with a chainsaw Mr OBrien had lent him, put his torso into Mr OBriens suitcase and dumped it in the Grand Canal near Ardclough in Co Kildare. In this case, there are disturbing elements in relation to the disposal of the body, said Mr Justice McDermott, as he began his charge yesterday. The main issue in this case is how the deceased died, how was his death brought about, what were the circumstances of his death, he explained. Maybe some of the matters after his death assist you in determining that fact, but the horror that might have been felt at what happend shouldnt necessarily determine the guilt or innocence of Mr Wells, he continued. Its only if it informs you of what happend at the time he was killed that it becomes relevant. He told the jury to consider the state of mind in which the killing was done, whether it was intended or not, or was self defence or not. However, he told the jury that it could consider something done afterwards to cover his tracks if its suggested that it indicates state of mind on the part of the perpetrator. He said that it was for the jury to decide if Mr Wells had intended to cause death or serious injury when discharging the firearm into the back of Mr OBriens head. He said that if the jury was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Wells was the aggressor and that this was a planned assassination, that would be murder. He explained that a homicide was not murder if committed in reasonable self defence. He told the jurors that they had to consider all the evidence in the case, how Mr OBrien came to be at Mr Wells house, why he was there, what happeend, what ensued after he arrived, the nature of the row or fight that Mr Wells described, his description of the gun falling to the ground, the struggle to get that gun and the accused mans state of mind when he got that gun. He said that if they reached a view that Mr Wells was in a situation that justified the use of some force, but he used more force than he knew to be reasonably necessary, the appropriate verdict would be guilty of murder. He said the jury was also entitled to conclude that he did not believe any force was necessary. If Mr Wells killed Mr OBrien because he honestly believed that the level of force that he used in discharging the gun into the back of his head was, in that time and place, necessary to defend himself, but in doing so used a greater degree of force than a reasonable man would have considered necessary, the appropriate verdict in that situation would be not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, he explained. He said that a full defence to murder was open if the defendant killed Mr OBrien using such force as was, in the circumstances, reasonably necessary. If theres a reasonable possibility that hasnt been excluded by the prosecution, you simply acquit him, he said. He explained that if one man attacked the other, the other man had the right to strike a blow in his own defence without waiting to be struck. The jury had earlier heard the conclusion of the defences closing speech. Michael OHiggins SC told the jurors that one of the things theyd do when deliberating would be to use their common sense. Its very good advice, but in certain cases common sense has its limitation, he said. The realm of this case as put forward by the prosecution and the defence is way outside everybodys ordinary daily living. He asked them to keep that to the fore and not rush to any conclusions. It would be wrong to convict Mr Wells because you think he's despicable, he said. It would be equally wrong to acquit him because you took some set against Mr O'Brien. He asked where the evidence was to disprove his clients account of landing behind the deceased in a row-your-boat position during the scuffle and immediately before the shooting. He asked where a ballistics expert was to give an indication of the possible explanations for the slightly downward trajectory of the bullet. He noted the pathology evidence that the weapon had been pressed against the back of the head at the time of the shooting. If people are struggling on the ground and theres a battle for the gun and people are moving, I suggest its ... possible the head and gun could come in contact, he said. He suggested that it was equally possible that, in the heat of that tussle, a gun could be applied to the head and discharged. He said that the real question was whether it was reasonably possible that if it wasnt going to be Mr OBrien, it was going to be Mr Wells. If the answer was yes, there should be an acquittal, he explained. However, if they found that Mr Wells had over-reacted, then the verdict should be manslaughter, he concluded. Justice McDermott will continue his charge on Monday before sending the jury out to consider its verdict. Drumkeerin Councillor Mary Bohan is giving her support to the campaign to petition Coillte to abandon their plans to erect more, even larger wind turbines in the Killavoggy Dromahair Area. These proposed turbines will be up to 165 meters, that is 50% larger than the existing turbines in the area which are 100m in height. Adrienne Diamond who runs Adventure Gently canoe tours with her partner Graham, said families in a 2km radius have been informed by Coillte that planning permission will be sought next year for ten new wind turbines. Adrienne told the paper the locals have no issue with wind turbines and already are surrounded by them, with the closest one 780m away but the new structures will be 50% bigger and even 80m closer. She said they are concerned the turbines which are already quite noisy will cause more noise pollution. She also added that the electricity developed here is not used locally but is going to Dublin. The local group have started a petition and hope to get Leitrim councillors to support them but also aim to change Leitrim County Council's open policy on wind farms. She informed the paper that some counties like Galway only allow 10% of the county to be developed for win farms. Adrienne believes that more wind turbines will be detrimental to tourism. She said visitors to Leitrim want to see the wild, rugged and quiet landscape. You can already see turbines from Lough Gill, she commented. Already there are a considerable amount of wind farms in the Dromahair Killavoggy area and this new wind farm will extend the Arigna development even further into Dromahair. The petition is available in Centra Dromahair and Drumkeerin Post Office. Also read: Wind Farms award more than 105,000 to 34 community groups A TRANSWOMAN who was attacked and robbed by a man who threatened to slit her throat moved out of Limerick as a result of the incident, a court has heard. Dean Hehir, aged 35, of no fixed abode pleaded guilty to multiple charges relating to a number of offences which happened on the evening of January 16, 2017. Limerick Circuit Court was told the most serious of the offences happened in the Castletroy area of the city shortly before 11pm. Detective Garda Donnacha Coakley said the victim, now aged 21, was walking at Plassey Road when the defendant approached her and asked for a few pulls of her cigarette. Hehir, who has more than 70 previous convictions, gave a false name and claimed he was from Adare before asking for directions to the nearest bus stop. While walking to the bus stop, he grabbed the woman by her arm and pulled out a knife. He said he would slit her throat, Det Garda Coakley told John OSullivan, prosecuting. After Hehir attempted to stab the woman, a scuffle ensued and she attempted to run away. However, he followed her and told her it was her time to die. The woman, who sustained a cut to her forearm, managed to escape and ran to a nearby house where she raised the alarm. A car which was seen leaving the area at speed was subsequently located and the defendant arrested a number of months later. Det Garda Coakley said he made full and frank admissions and that the victims phone was recovered. In a victim impact statement, the woman said she still sees the defendants face coming towards me and that her level of trust in people has reduced. She said she struggled to sleep for months following the incident and was later diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was badly bruised and scarred mentally, she wrote adding that her decision to move away from Limerick did help. Brian McInerney BL, said his client was shocked and taken aback when informed, by gardai, that the victim was a young woman. He said Hehir suffers from a severe addiction and that he is easy to deal with sober. He submitted his clients admissions were vital and that with them there would not have been a case against him. He said Hehir, who is currently serving a lengthy prison for a separate offence, is remorseful and is making efforts to rehabilitate himself in prison. Imposing sentence, Judge Tom ODonnell said what happened was terrifying for the woman who had suffered serious psychological fallout. He said the deliberate targeting of a woman walking alone late at night was an aggravating factor as was the use of a weapon and the inflicting of an injury. He imposed a six year prison sentence, suspending the final two and-a-half years. The sentence is to be served consecutively to a three year sentence which Hehir received for a separate offence last year. The judge commented that he hopes the victim will be able to put her ordeal behind her and return to Limerick in the future. CANADIAN-registered Group Eleven Resources has announced the commencement of preliminary drilling at the companys 76.56% owned Stonepark zinc-lead project. The Stonepark area extends from Ballyneety to Bruff and from just south of Pallasgreen to Croom. Preliminary drilling is expected to total 1,500-2,000 metres and focus entirely outside the existing mineral resource estimate footprint The primary aim of the program is to advance Group Eleven Resource ongoing exploration strategy by providing important 3D geological information. Bart Jaworski, CEO of Group Eleven Resources, said: We are excited to embark on this important next stage of exploration in the Limerick basin. Despite being relatively new and underexplored, this zinc camp is already the most metal-endowed region in Ireland, outside Bolidens Navan zinc deposit. Mineralisation discovered to date in this area includes Glencores Pallas Green deposit, our neighbouring Stonepark deposit, our Carrickittle and Oola occurrences, as well as, our five regional prospects identified by the previous operator. Our Gortdrum prospect an open-pit copper mine from the 1960s - is also in the area and postulated as a feeder system for zinc mineralization in the district, he continued. Mr Jaworski said the above deposits and occurrences are located in a roughly concentric pattern around the Limerick volcanic complex. Recent academic work suggests these volcanics may play a significant role in the emplacement of zinc mineralisation. One of the exciting ideas being developed by Group Eleven as part of the Big Think is that known mineralisation represents merely the outer edges of the system - with its heart located towards the centre of the volcanics. With that in mind, it will be very interesting to combine geological information from this preliminary drilling with results from the ongoing Tellus airborne survey to produce high-priority drill targets for next years Big Drill program, said Mr Jaworski. Group Elevens Big Think exploration is an open-minded and methodical search for tier-one zinc deposits in the Irish Zinc District through comprehensive re-evaluation of over 70 years of exploration data, combined with cutting edge geophysical and geochemical techniques. The company believes no other zinc-focused junior or major company is currently exploring on such a broad and deep scale in Ireland. Connemara Mining Company owns the remaining 23.44% interest in Stonepark. Patrick Cillen, Connemara CEO, said this week: Stonepark is where wed expect to see a lot of our newsflow coming from over the next few months. Our best grades have been 25% zinc over 4.5 metres, or 32% zinc and lead combined. Thats really high grade in what we already knew was a high area. Now we have to follow it up. The property is adjacent to Glencores Pallas Green deposit, which is one of the largest undeveloped zinc projects in the world, with an estimated resource of 44 million tonnes grading 8% combined zinc-lead. Group Eleven Resources believes the Pallas Green trend has historically been underexplored and remains poorly understood. In recent times, the trend has been shown to be significantly larger, in terms of mineralisation and alteration, than other mineralised trends in Ireland like Silvermines and Rathdowney. Glencore - an AngloSwiss multinational commodity trading and mining company re-started drilling at its Pallas Green prospect, which is centred around the Caherconlish area, last year. The project had been put into abeyance for a number of years. A Glencore spokesperson confirmed that the company had engaged a local firm for drilling. The objective is to better understand certain aspects of the deposit, they said, adding that any decision about building a fully-fledged mine at the site was a long way down the road. A TEAM of interns from Dell EMC's campus in Raheen have beaten off global competition to win a top prize. They won GameChangers, a global innovation challenge that empowers employees to present creative solutions to real business challenges. Its a yearly competition where local teams develop ideas in the hope of progressing to a regional and global level and the chosen finalists get the opportunity to present to executive leaders. This year, over 700 teams participated globally across 25 locations with the winning idea coming from a group of employees at Dell in Limerick. They developed a simple solution using artificial intelligence technology to reduce customer wait times by using machine learning to predict technical issues before they even emerge. Denis Kelly, the vice-president of global support and deployment and Limericks site leader at Dell EMC said: As a company that is at the forefront of digital transformation, its fantastic that a team from Dell EMC in Limerick has won the global GameChangers competition. By harnessing the power of new technologies, they have developed a innovative solutions that can really enhance the customer experience. He said he hopes the win will encourage his team to new heights. Its a very proud moment for them and for Dell EMC in Limerick, Mr Kelly added. There were also awards for wordpress development firm, WP Engine based in the Engine building at Cecil Street The Texas-headquartered firm won the staff up-skilling award at the 2018 Invest in Ireland Awards. The awards ceremony was held in the Mansion House. SEVEN parents and one teacher put their bodies through hell during the summer when they travelled from the lowest point in Ireland to the highest in less than 24 hours. As far as the organisers of Herbertstown NSs Pedal to the Peak challenge are aware it had never been attempted before. One Friday night at 9.13pm the magnificent eight left North Slob in Co Wexford, three metres below sea level, on their bikes. They cycled through the night to Carrauntoohil in Kerry. They arrived at 9.30am and began hiking to the top with over 40 parents, staff and friends of the school. The magnitude and difficulty of the challenge caught the publics imagination and over 36,000. Mike Fitzgerald, Herbertstown NS teacher and participant, said the school will have 32,635 to spend on improving play areas for the children. We are delighted also to be in a position to donate 2,000 to Crumlin Children's Hospital and 2,000 to Clionas Foundation. It was a great success and we were thrilled with the support we received, said Mike. Representatives of both charities came to the school where they were warmly received as the photo shows! It was great to be able to donate 4,000 of the money raised to the two charities. Throughout the fundraising drive and the challenge itself, it was often a topic of conversation that as well as the school benefiting, we would potentially be able to make a sizeable contribution to Cliona's Foundation and CMRF Crumlin. They do tremendous work and, thanks to the generously of everyone that supported us, that 4,000 will make a difference in people's lives, said Mike. The 32,635 will be be used to redesign current outdoor play areas of Herbertstown NS, possibly resurfacing sections and potentially adding a hurling wall. The school was overwhelmed by the support for Pedal to the Peak and we can't thank everyone that make the fundraiser a success enough, said Mike. Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Town & Country(WASHINGTON) -- Early voting numbers indicate a lot of new voters have taken to the polls already, but theres one cohort of Americans who hold particular power and perspective this year: 18-year-olds who are of voting age for the first time in 2018. Across the country and across the issues, its been a historic year for youth activism -- much of it geared toward getting constituents to the polls on Nov. 6. ABC News has been following 18-year-old activists as part of a multi-month long series on teen voters and the events and influences that help shape their political identities. For Eliot Flores, the importance of getting out to vote is magnified by his own inability to do so. Though he just turned 18, Flores cant vote in his home state of Texas because of his status as a DACA recipient. The heightened rhetoric around immigration -- a top issue for voters across the country -- has pushed him to volunteer on campaigns and educate those who can vote. Across America, the 18-year-olds have also upped the conversation on other top-ticket issues. The most visible movement was born out of Parkland, Florida, where students launched a nationwide campaign against gun violence after enduring one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. As 18-year-old survivor Delaney Tarr put it, "Im voting for my own life and Im voting for the lives of so many others." Arieyanna Williams, 18, is from Chicago. Along with the students from Parkland, Williams has broadened the conversation on school shootings to include daily gun violence in cities like her own. Shell vote for the first time this week in Michigan. Zanagee Artis, an 18-year-old from Connecticut, believes education is one of the most powerful tools. Artis, who will vote for the first time in November, is focused on an issue that he says young people have particular ownership over because of how its impacts could drastically increase over their lives: climate change. Heres how the politics of 2018 have unfolded, from their perspective. Because he can't vote, he relies on others In Texas, where Flores lives, it feels like politics are taking over everything, he said. But in the midst of trying to get his chosen candidate Democrat Beto ORourke elected, Flores is also on his own campaign of sorts -- one to get into college. I feel like they're both races for something important, Flores said. For Flores, his personal campaign to attend college and his campaign efforts on behalf of ORourke merge distinctly around the same thing: His status, and the statuses of thousands more, as recipients of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which President Donald Trump has already attempted to end. "In my own life, I have to be constantly in competition with other students when it comes to scholarships, which are barely available to us as undocumented immigrants, or for acceptance into college. And when it comes to the Beto [O'Rourke] race, it's a race of who can get more votes," Flores said. Undocumented and DACA students are not eligible for federal financial aid, but in some states, like Texas, they're eligible for state aid. I feel like local political campaigns affect us more than presidential ones and since I'm here in Texas, and want to continue studying here in Texas, block walking for Beto is more personal because he supports immigration, Flores said. His ties to the race are a constant reminder that he isn't able to show up to the polls and vote on Tuesday. "By not being able to vote, were really missing out," said Flores, who has lived in Texas for 15 years. "We all have the incentive or the will to make a change or fight for our own future, but were just not given the materials to do so sometimes," Flores said. Stemming from Parkland, young people take on gun violence with political might Inside the Florida state Capitol, before a crowd of her classmates and reporters, she first said, "We know what we want, we want gun reform." Then Tarr, a senior at the time when a gunman opened fire inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, added, "This is to every lawmaker out there ... we are coming after you." Tarr recited those words, and variations of them, at the March For Our Lives last spring, only a month after the shooting that took the lives of 17 students and teachers. During the summer as she made stops on the "Road to Change" and then again as the cohort of spirited teens traveled cross-country in the lead up to the midterm elections. Spurring marching, organizing and voting throughout 2018, Tarr and the Parkland students spent this election year overcoming the political apathy often attached to young people, and showing the potential force of America's youngest voters. Tarr, now 18, will be voting for the first time this year. From the onset of their movement, she and the young band of change-makers made the point that in order to make a difference on gun violence, the political makeup of this country must shift. History must be made. "Soon we will be given the ability to vote, and we will vote them out," Tarr affirmed from the Florida state legislature in the immediate days after the shooting. Between graduating high school and delaying college for a semester, Tarr and her classmates, like David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, Ryan Deitsch, Jaclyn Corin and Alex Wind, traveled to 80 communities in 24 states in 60 days to register young voters as part of their efforts to get out the vote. Younger generations -- Generation X, Millenials and post-Millenials -- now make up the largest share of the electorate, according to Pew Research Galvanizing a historically lackluster 18- to 29-year-old voting bloc might lead to unprecedented turnout on Nov. 6, and the Parkland students could have reverberating impacts on the political landscape of Florida, a key swing state, and Congress. But this year's midterm elections, as Tarr puts it, are "just the beginning." "For us, Tuesday is both a culmination of all of our work these past few months, and just the beginning of our future to come," she told ABC News. "We work nonstop because we have to, and this is finally our time to create change where it matters: in the polls. Were following through on our words, our promises, and taking a stand in the best way we know how. "I think thats pretty powerful," she said. New wave of young voters push for gun control in midterm elections In wake of school massacres, church shootings, and ongoing gun violence in the inner cities of places like Chicago, young voters are channeling their pain at loved ones lost into efforts to get voters to the polls. For Williams, 18, the painful memory of her murdered father's bloody handprints on the wall of her aunt's home, is a constant source of pain and inspiration to help change gun laws and serve as a positive role model. When the Chicago-native isn't helping adolescent students at Mount Hope STEAM Elementary as a teacher's assistant or tackling freshman year at Michigan State University, she's busy urging college students on campus to vote on Nov. 6. Williams feels close to her newly adopted home state and plans to stay in Michigan to vote due to her classes. "I plan to have Detroit in my mind when I vote," Williams told ABC News. "Detroit is like Chicago and Flint still needs clean water. They need people to take action." Williams said she wants to vote for a candidate who shares similar views on gun reform and admires O'Rourke. "Beto is one of those figures I look up to. He's the ideal candidate," Williams said. "Beto has done what other candidates should be doing." Williams has been an advocate for gun control since high school having lost her father and other loved ones to gun violence. To continue the legacy she left behind as a Peace Warrior in Chicago, Williams joined the "March for Our Lives" chapter on campus to continue her activism for gun control legislation. She walked alongside hundreds of thousands of people for the March for Our Lives movement where she met dozens of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivors turned activists. Despite her continuous efforts, Williams questions if all of the work she and others have put in will suffice in the long run. "I wonder if the work we're actually doing is going to be worth it," Williams said. Undeterred by her personal doubts, Williams will continue her advocacy and desires to initiate an organization on campus for minorities to vocalize the daily issues they face. But, the first thing on her agenda is to vote in the upcoming midterms and she knows one thing for certain -- who and what she intends to vote for. "I will vote for hope," Williams said. "Hope will be the person I vote for." Young people urge votes for urgency on climate change Youth activists have been working to keep climate change on voters' radar this year, arguing that young people should vote for candidates who want to take on environmental issues more aggressively than the current administration. After rallies around the country in July the group "This is Zero Hour", led by some activists who aren't even old enough to vote, has been holding get out the vote events and voter registration drives around the country to educate voters on climate issues. Artis, one of the founders who is now a freshman at Brown University in Rhode Island, said he voted for the first time in the primary and will be voting again on Tuesday. He said climate change is the number one issue for him and he hopes to convince more of his peers that the environment is connected to other big issues like health care and racial injustice. "I think that it's super important to try to educate people on the different intersections between the issues and hopefully if people see climate change as the connecting piece they'll definitely weigh it more as a more important issue," he told ABC News. Another organizer, Sohayla Eldeeb, isn't even old enough to vote in her home state of Florida but said she's been working to raise awareness of climate change issues among voters, especially since the recent UN climate report was released. Artis said that even the candidates he supports in Rhode Island could improve their climate policies and he hopes to work with them after the election. For example, he plans to contact Gov. Gina Raimondo's office to get involved in her work on plastics pollution if she's re-elected but also to encourage her to speak out against fossil fuels. He said that after the election "This is Zero Hour" plans to focus on educating the next generation of voters on climate issues. "We're hoping that the people that we are targeting will come to see climate, climate change, climate policy, new energy policy, as something that they're looking at more closely and talking to their elected officials right now," Artis said. "Without that participation, especially young people, asking questions about these things candidates aren't going to change the way that they campaign." Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who will attend the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Shanghai, east China, Nov. 4, 2018. [Photo: Xinhua/Rao Aimin] Xi recalled the meeting between the two presidents during the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in September and the consensus reached, calling on both sides to push for new progress in deepening the comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership while implementing the outcome of the summit and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China and Kenya should maintain high-level exchanges, expand cooperation in all areas, and continue to support each other on issues involving respective core interests and major concerns, said Xi. Xi welcomed Kenyatta to the import expo and said that China is ready to help increase the added value and competitiveness of Kenyan products and expand imports from Kenya. On projects of railway construction, Xi said China is willing to work with the Kenyan side to conduct feasibility studies and hopes Kenya will provide a good business environment for Chinese companies operating there. Xi said both sides should strengthen communication and coordination in regional and international affairs and jointly defend the multilateral system and order. Kenyatta thanked China for hosting the expo, which he dubbed a major innovative move to open its market. He also thanked China for making Africa an important direction in its opening-up. He spoke highly of Xi's proposal of the BRI and his efforts in promoting the FOCAC, calling them "China's important contribution to world peace and common development." Kenya is ready to work with China in safeguarding multilateralism and the free trade system and contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, said Kenyatta. ONE of Limerick and Irelands most promising young film directors has secured a career-defining deal, as his homegrown debut is set to appear across the globe over the next year. Limerick city man Stephen Hall, 28, with fellow producer Paul Thompstone, have released their horror debut Nightshift, which is set to be distributed by Sony Pictures across North America this year. Nightshift tells the story of a young American woman, Amy, starting her first night shift in an Irish hotel, unaware of its dark past. Amy finds herself trapped on the fifth floor of the hotel, forced to relive the horrors of one gruesome night. And the majority of it is filmed in Limerick, between Limerick City Hotel and The George Hotel, with Ennis Old Ground also featured. On top of that, most of the cast is local, including Mungrets Nigel Mercier. It is expected to be released in the Middle East, Scandinavia, China, Vietnam, Taiwan and India, though no dates have been confirmed yet. And the Leader can reveal that Halls film will be released on DVD-Bluray in Ireland and the UK on January 1, 2019. Netflix and Amazon Prime releases are also on the cards for the Shannonside film makers. He said that one of the strengths of the film is its Limerick focus. I wanted to work with people that Ive worked with over the years on various projects because we operate on the same wavelength and on an indie film you have to play to your strengths and the cast and crew were definitely one of the strengths, he said. Most of the film was filmed in Limerick actually. The story was set here and uses the city, colleges, hotels and even the Limerick skyline. Most of the film takes place inside a hotel but while we were outside I really wanted to use the city. Our main character Amy is not from Limerick so I wanted to present it to the audience as she learns about it, he said last week. Hall said that Nightshift is a true independent film, funded from the producers own pockets. The two were on a mission to sell the idea to major agents at last years Cannes Film Festival, by showing off a 20-minute sizzle reel of the best scenes. They came home with a deal with Archstone distribution. He said he feels like we have done the impossible. We made a film on a shoestring and managed to get to so many places that we would have never thought we could. EVERY home in Cappamore will be visited during the parishs first mission in 30 years. Missions are a rarity these days and many wont know what one is. Those of a certain age will recall when an influx of priests invaded a locality, struck the fear of God into the faithful and reminded them of the terrible fate that awaited sinners for all eternity. Times and the Catholic Church have changed. The last mission in Cappamore was in 1988. Fr Dick Browne, parish priest, thinks the time is nigh to run another one. Throughout my ministry I have been exposed to aspects of life that sometimes go unseen by the majority. I have seen suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, real poverty, violence and despair in families and individuals born of hopelessness. Ive seen people whose lives are chaotic and who are not at peace with their families, their neighbours or even themselves and have few if any coping skills to get them through the day. My hope is to reach out to them with the simple message that they are not alone and that the peace of the Lord is achievable in everyones life, said Fr Browne, whose hope is also to support and renew the faithful in their faith and remind them of their valued place in the Catholic community. Together with an organising committee, Fr Browne has secured the assistance of a team of visiting missionaries who, in the first week of the mission, will visit over 800 homes in the parish. The Ceili Catholic Community describe themselves as a community of priests, religious and lay people who are drawn together by God to evangelise. They will stay with host families and eat in St Michaels Day Care Centre. The mission runs on week 1 from Saturday to Friday, November 10 - 16 during which time the Ceili team will visit homes, schools and nursing homes. They will stay for just a few minutes to explain the mission and personally invite people to the second week at St Michaels Church in Cappamore, said Fr Browne. Second week runs from Saturday to Sunday, November 17 - 25. It will consist of a week of celebrations and Masses, each with a different theme. There will be a celebration of the dearly departed, particularly those who have died in 2018, There will be a celebration dedicated to the clubs, societies and organisations in the parish focusing on the valuable role they play in the well being of the community. There will be celebrations of our youth and also of toddlers and expectant mothers, said Fr Browne. It is also hoped to have a drop-in centre where people can meet one of the missionaries in a quiet space for a few moments. All welcome. HOLOCAUST survivor Tomi Reichental had two clear, unequivocal messages for the students and teachers at Colaiste Ide agus Iosef in Abbeyfeale when he visited the school last week. If you see something wrong, dont become a bystander, he said. But he also warned: The slogans we heard in the 40s are being heard again. It is very important we dont forget, that we learn from history. In a quietly powerful and dignified address to some 300 or so students, Mr Reichental told the story that is now, over 70 years after the ending of the Second World War, recorded for posterity in his book, I was a boy in Belsen. My aim is to keep the memories alive, he said, explaining that in the next 15 or 20 years, no survivors will be left. I lost 35 members of my family in the Holocaust. I owe it to the victims that their memory is not forgotten. The Holocaust must never be forgotten. It was premeditated. The aim was to eradicate the entire Jewish population of Europe. It nearly succeeded, Mr Reichental said, pointing out that six million of the 11m Jews in Europe perished. He described his own childhood in a village in Slovakia where his grandfather ran the village shop and his father was a farmer and where their lives were changed with the onset of war and in particular with the introduction of the Jewish Code in Slovakia in 1941. Suddenly, from one day to another, we were excluded from society, he said. The 270 restrictions included the wearing of the Yellow Star, a curfew, a ban on driving and from public places and for him, being kicked out of school. But he explained: Whatever was done in Slovakia was done by the Slovakian Government. The first transports of Jews began in March 1942, young men and women, stripped of citizenship and deported to help the war effort in labour camps. Over six months, 580,000 were taken and less than 500 survived. Tomis family survived until August 1944 when Germany occupied Slovakia. We knew at the time that if we stayed in the village that sooner or later somebody would betray us. The family made plans to escape, obtaining false papers through a Catholic priest but then, Mr Reichental said, describing in detail the day in October 1944 when that plan failed, the Gestapo rounded up 13 members of his family, including his mother and brother. For a while, they were detained in a camp until a selection took place on November 2, 1944. Seven of his relatives were sent to the right to Buchenwald camp. Only one came out alive. Six were sent to the left, his grandmother, mother, aunt, cousin, brother and himself, boarded on to cattle wagons and sent to Bergen Belsen. For seven days, he and his family experienced the horrific conditions of the wagons, without proper food, water or toilets. One man in their wagon died. On November 9, 1944, hungry, disoriented and terrified and following a two-and-a-half arch, they arrived at the gates of Bergen Belsen. Bergen Belsen was not an extermination camp, Mr Reichental explained. It was a detention camp for Jews, gypsies and gays. But over 70,000 died from disease, starvation and cold, he said. We saw skeletons walking around. We didnt know whether they were men or women. It was hell on earth. We saw people die in front of our eyes. The smell of death was everywhere. And the smell of burning flesh as those who died were cremated. But as the months passed and the numbers of dead increased, corpses were left to lie, piled up, unburied, uncremated. Liberation finally came on April 15, 1945 with the arrival of the British Army. The Holocaust, Mr Reichental said, began with whispers and abuse but ended in murder. And he raised a warning about the rise of racism, of xenophobia, of anti-semitism in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe. History is being repeated after only 70 years, he said. And he likened todays refugee problem to events in Europe in the 1930s. When the Jews wanted to escape, nobody wanted them, he said. Now, nobody wants the refugees fleeing persecution. We have racism in Ireland. If you see somebody being bullied because they are foreign, they are a different religion or a different colour, dont become a bystander, he said in conclusion. Get involved and say it is wrong. At the time they did it to us, nobody said it was wrong. In the end it ended with a terrible tragedy. THE Childrens Grief Centre in Limerick has won the National Lottery Good Cause of the Year award. The charity, founded in 2009 by Sr Helen Culhane and which which supports children who suffer loss from bereavement, divorce or separation, won the overall award at an awards ceremony in Dublin this Saturday night. The Childrens Grief Centre scooped the overall National Lottery Good Causes Award 2018 and the Youth Category at the gala event. And the National Lottery Good Cause Awards Overall Winner 2018 goes to Children's Grief Centre - #Limerick! Well done on your fantastic win. Your amazing work truly encapsulates the spirit of National Lottery Funding for Good Causes #GoodCausesAwards pic.twitter.com/s4Jccfp4Y5 November 3, 2018 Presenting the award, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan, said: Loss, whether through death, separation or divorce, can be devastating, especially for the young. This award goes to a dedicated voluntary organisation which provides comfort and support to grieving children. Its committed volunteers work tirelessly all year round to provide an oasis of calm for those who have lost loved ones, helping them find their voice. Community is at the heart of all we do in Ireland and the inspiring National Lottery Good Causes Awards finalists have excelled in their use of Good Causes funds to benefit their localities and the wider society. Good Causes funding has helped us build a better Ireland and has given communities opportunities they would not have had otherwise. Sr Helen Culhane of the Childrens Grief Centre said: We are overjoyed to receive this reward. Children often find it difficult to express their feelings through language so by providing them with clay and paint, sand and crayons, we allow them to choose their own form of expression. The impact of this work with children is incredible. As a result of attending the Children's Grief Centre it has been shown that children are happier, more calm, and have less feelings of anger, guilt and sadness. The centre won 25,000 for the award, plus an additional 10,000 for its category win. Located on the South Circular Road, it is a free and voluntary organisation that supports children between the ages of four and 18 where parents have separated, divorced or where there has been a bereavement. Since it started it has provided a space and place for around 1,000 children to explore their experiences of loss associated with bereavement and parental separation. Sr Helen won the 2017 Limerick Person of the Year award for her work with the charity. Groups from Counties Offaly, Waterford, Dublin, Leitrim, and Wicklow also scooped top honours at the inaugural National Lottery Good Causes Awards. A DRUG addict who was involved in the sale and supply of heroin in order to repay a debt has been jailed for 18 months. Gerard McGrath, aged 33, of Creagh Avenue, Kileely pleaded guilty to having the drugs for sale or supply on November 25, 2015. Detective Garda Sean Twomey told Limerick Circuit Court, a house a Treaty Villas, Thomondgate was searched and that Mr McGrath was the sole occupant of the property at the time. A lump of heroin as well as 21 individual deals were recovered from a sock which was hidden in a medical tub under a mattress in the defendants bedroom. A further quantity of cocaine, worth 173, was also recovered during the search. The total street value of the drugs, which had been in the house for about ten days prior to the search, was 4,549. Detective Garda Twomey said the accused made admissions following his arrest telling gardai he did not own the drugs and was storing them for another person who would call to the house once or twice a day. He added that Mr McGrath, who has a number of convictions for drug-related offences, did not name names when interviewed. Judge Tom ODonnell was told the defendant has a good work history, has had drug problems in the past and had cooperated to the fullest extent. It is accepted by gardai that McGrath was under a considerable element of duress and that the person who owned the drugs was not somebody who gives you a choice. He said his client was between a rock and a hard place and that his anguish was clear from transcripts of garda interviews. Imposing sentence Judge ODonnell noted the defendant is making efforts to address his drug addiction and is no longer using drugs regularly. He said he was conscious of the considerable pressure which McGrath was under but that those who those who get involved the sale and supply of illicit drugs much bear the consequences of their actions. He imposed a two and-a-half year prison sentence, suspending the final 12 months. A MAN who repeatedly kicked a work colleague in the head during a Christmas party has been ordered to pay him 7,000 in compensation. Deividas Toutteevicius, aged 35, of Glenn Coille, Dromcollogher had pleaded guilty to assaulting Nigel Thompson during an incident near his home in the early hours of December 20, 2014. During a sentencing hearing, Garda James Finn said the men, who were colleagues at a local factory, had attended a break-up party earlier in the evening before attending a house party. Limerick Circuit Court was told a lot of alcohol was consumed and that at some point during the night Mr Thompson was asked to leave such was his level of intoxication. Garda Finn said an altercation developed between him and another man as he was leaving and that suddenly and without warning he was assaulted by the defendant who kicked him in the face after he was knocked to the ground. Mr Thompson sustained serious facial injuries including a fractured cheekbone and dental damage. He was out of work for around two months following the incident. Garda Finn told Lily Buckley BL, prosecuting, that Mr Toutteevicius made full admissions when contacted by gardai and expressed shock at the level of injuries which Mr Thompson had sustained. Originally from Lithuania, the defendant, who his married with a number of young children, has been living and working in Ireland since 2004. Judge Tom ODonnell was told he has no previous convictions and is deeply ashamed of his actions. The judge said the unprovoked nature of the assault and the use of a boot were aggravating factors. While noting that alcohol had been consumed, he said what happened was a cowardly attack which could not be excused. He accepted the defendants plea was important as any trial could have been difficult given that many of the potential witnesses are known to each other. Having been informed that 7,000 had been raised by Mr Toutteevicius, the judge ordered that it be paid over to gardai to be forwarded to Mr Thompson. He imposed a two year prison sentence, suspending it for two years. Floods of traffic can clog up an internet server and the wires connecting it to other systems. Back in November 1988, Robert Tappan Morris, son of the famous cryptographer Robert Morris Sr., was a 20-something graduate student at Cornell who wanted to know how big the internet was that is, how many devices were connected to it. So he wrote a program that would travel from computer to computer and ask each machine to send a signal back to a control server, which would keep count. The program worked well too well, in fact. Morris had known that if it traveled too fast there might be problems, but the limits he built in weren't enough to keep the program from clogging up large sections of the internet, both copying itself to new machines and sending those pings back. When he realized what was happening, even his messages warning system administrators about the problem couldn't get through. His program became the first of a particular type of cyber attack called "distributed denial of service," in which large numbers of internet-connected devices, including computers, webcams and other smart gadgets, are told to send lots of traffic to one particular address, overloading it with so much activity that either the system shuts down or its network connections are completely blocked. As the chair of the integrated Indiana University Cybersecurity Program, I can report that these kinds of attacks are increasingly frequent today. In many ways, Morris's program, known to history as the "Morris worm," set the stage for the crucial, and potentially devastating, vulnerabilities in what I and others have called the coming "Internet of Everything." Unpacking the Morris worm Worms and viruses are similar, but different in one key way: A virus needs an external command, from a user or a hacker, to run its program. A worm, by contrast, hits the ground running all on its own. For example, even if you never open your email program, a worm that gets onto your computer might email a copy of itself to everyone in your address book. In an era when few people were concerned about malicious software and nobody had protective software installed, the Morris worm spread quickly. It took 72 hours for researchers at Purdue and Berkeley to halt the worm. In that time, it infected tens of thousands of systems about 10 percent of the computers then on the internet. Cleaning up the infection cost hundreds or thousands of dollars for each affected machine. In the clamor of media attention about this first event of its kind, confusion was rampant. Some reporters even asked whether people could catch the computer infection. Sadly, many journalists as a whole haven't gotten much more knowledgeable on the topic in the intervening decades. Morris wasn't trying to destroy the internet, but the worm's widespread effects resulted in him being prosecuted under the then-new Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He was sentenced to three years of probation and a roughly US$10,000 fine. In the late 1990s, though, he became a dot-com millionaire and is now a professor at MIT. Rising threats The internet remains subject to much more frequent and more crippling DDoS attacks. With more than 20 billion devices of all types, from refrigerators and cars to fitness trackers, connected to the internet, and millions more being connected weekly, the number of security flaws and vulnerabilities is exploding. In October 2016, a DDoS attack using thousands of hijacked webcams often used for security or baby monitors shut down access to a number of important internet services along the eastern U.S. seaboard. That event was the culmination of a series of increasingly damaging attacks using a botnet, or a network of compromised devices, which was controlled by software called Mirai. Today's internet is much larger, but not much more secure, than the internet of 1988. Some things have actually gotten worse. Figuring out who is behind particular attacks is not as easy as waiting for that person to get worried and send out apology notes and warnings, as Morris did in 1988. In some cases the ones big enough to merit full investigations it's possible to identify the culprits. A trio of college students was ultimately found to have created Mirai to gain advantages when playing the "Minecraft" computer game. Fighting DDoS attacks But technological tools are not enough, and neither are laws and regulations about online activity including the law under which Morris was charged. The dozens of state and federal cybercrime statutes on the books have not yet seemed to reduce the overall number or severity of attacks, in part because of the global nature of the problem. There are some efforts underway in Congress to allow attack victims in some cases to engage in active defense measures a notion that comes with a number of downsides, including the risk of escalation and to require better security for internet-connected devices. But passage is far from assured. There is cause for hope, though. In the wake of the Morris worm, Carnegie Mellon University established the world's first Cyber Emergency Response Team, which has been replicated in the federal government and around the world. Some policymakers are talking about establishing a national cybersecurity safety board, to investigate digital weaknesses and issue recommendations, much as the National Transportation Safety Board does with airplane disasters. More organizations are also taking preventative action, adopting best practices in cybersecurity as they build their systems, rather than waiting for a problem to happen and trying to clean up afterward. If more organizations considered cybersecurity as an important element of corporate social responsibility, they and their staff, customers and business partners would be safer. In "3001: The Final Odyssey," science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke envisioned a future where humanity sealed the worst of its weapons in a vault on the moon which included room for the most malignant computer viruses ever created. Before the next iteration of the Morris worm or Mirai does untold damage to the modern information society, it is up to everyone governments, companies and individuals alike to set up rules and programs that support widespread cybersecurity, without waiting another 30 years. Scott Shackelford, Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Director, Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance; Cybersecurity Program Chair, IU-Bloomington, Indiana University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Laramie Christ always knew college was in his future, but out of high school he could not find one that was the right fit. That is, until he found Texas State Technical College in Fort Bend County. The Needville native was part of TSTCs first Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) graduating class in the early 2000s, when the college was still housed inside Wharton County Junior College (WCJC). TSTC in Fort Bend County now stands on its own along Southwest Freeway in Rosenberg and includes two buildings: the Industrial Technology Center and Brazos Center that house 10 technical programs. The campus is expected to grow to hold at least eight buildings in the future. I wanted a career, but a four-year university was not for me, said Christ. I knew I could not sit still long enough to learn anything by book. I learn by doing. Christ was a student studying his academics at WCJC when he learned that TSTC was coming to town. I immediately loved TSTCs hands-on approach, so I enrolled, he said. After doing his research, the 37-year-old realized that HVAC was a sustainable and steady business, which meant job security for him. Everyone needs HVAC services, especially in Texas, he said with a laugh. It was the perfect program for me. Upon earning his certificate and associate degree in HVAC Technology from TSTC he gained immediate employment with a local residential HVAC company. After three years and gaining experience, he applied with Johnson Controls in Houston and 14 years later he is still there and climbing the ladder. TSTC gave me the foundation I needed to build a successful career, said Christ. I knew I could find success, and TSTC allowed me to do that. Christ began at Johnson Controls as an apprentice/tradesman. Then he got promoted to a journeyman/technician and now he is a technical team lead and oversees 15 employees. Through his work at Johnson Controls he services large chillers and air handling equipment for 90 percent of Houston hospitals, the University of Houston, Shell, Exxon and TSTC in Fort Bend County. Its quite funny how I came to service TSTC, he said. I arrived at the campus to talk about an instructor position and left with a service contract. Its pretty ironic. Christ, once a year, also teaches a two-hour HVAC chillers course at TSTC. Its an in-depth lesson that includes a hands-on session. He said he loves speaking with students, answering their questions and seeing in their eyes how much they love what theyre learning. I love TSTC and this is my way of giving back and helping students grow, he said. They have the desire to achieve success and we need them in the field. Christ said he is proud to give back to the college that allowed him to gain a career with great pay and benefits that allows him to support his family. Ive been able to do very well for my family thanks to TSTC, he said. They have helped me exceed my own expectations. HVAC Technology is offered at TSTCs Fort Bend County, Harlingen, North Texas, Waco and Williamson County campuses. For more information on HVAC Technology, visit tstc.edu/programs/HVACTechnology. LAWRENCE, Ind. - He has campaigned on his support for a border wall, railed against the "radical left," and quoted both Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan in his campaign ads. Joe Donnelly, trying to keep his Senate seat here in Indiana, may be a Democrat - but that's not a word that comes up a lot as he campaigns. "You have to run on a party, because you have to be on the ballot, in effect. But the night the election's over, that's over," he said in an interview outside an early voting center last week, before deploying a line he likes to repeat. "I don't serve as a Democrat senator or a Republican senator. I serve everybody in our state." Language like this has become a defining trait of Donnelly's in this re-election campaign as he runs against Mike Braun, a businessman who has aligned himself with the president. Donnelly is one of five Senate Democrats running in a state that Trump won by double digits in 2016 - a 19-point victory here. Donnelly is trying to re-create the coalition of blue-collar workers and moderate Republicans in the "doughnut" counties surrounding Indianapolis who fueled his victory in 2012 and Trump's four years later. Donnelly - like Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, who tried to separate herself from parts of her party by saying she's not one of those "crazy Democrats" - has worked to distance himself from the far left of his party and embraced some of Trump's policies. At a recent debate, he said he was open to changing birthright citizenship, telling an audience, "We have to take a look at that legislation." He has also been a steadfast supporter of a border wall with Mexico, voting in favor of funding it three times and criticizing the upper chamber for failing to deliver the money for Trump's signature policy. Donnelly voted with his party against the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, but unlike Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota - a Democrat running in a state Trump won by 36 points - he didn't turn that into a fundraising boon. He raised $1.4 million in the first half of October. Heitkamp, whose "no" vote on Kavanaugh energized liberals, raised $12 million in the same period. In the campaign overall, Donnelly has raised $16.1 million to Braun's $17 million; the two are basically tied in the polls. The president and his surrogates, including Vice President Mike Pence, who's from Indiana, have visited the state to stump for Braun. That includes a visit by the president on Friday, when he said the Democrats want caravans "full of illegal aliens to flood into our country" Donnelly, in a statement on the rally, noted that he has voted with Trump 62 percent of the time and said, "I hope President Trump will return next year so that I can welcome him back to Indiana after I'm re-elected on Tuesday." Donnelly is also getting help from high-profile Democrats, including visits from former Vice President Joe Biden and, Sunday, one from former President Barack Obama. Pete Buttigieg, the Democratic mayor of South Bend who gets mentioned as someone who could be on a presidential ticket, said the party is better for Donnelly's presence in it. "He's got to appeal to a broad base and it's a healthy thing that our party has a lot of range in it and people who think for themselves," Buttigieg said. But, Buttigieg said, he wouldn't look to Donnelly for leadership on progressive issues. "One thing you learn quickly as mayor is you must not say one thing to one group that you would be embarrassed to have repeated to another, because you're going to see everybody in the day," he said. Until recently Indiana had a healthy crop of Democratic statewide officials and opted for moderate Republicans in the mold of six-term Sen. Richard Lugar, whom his successor, Donnelly, calls a "mentor." The state also voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Yet in 2016 Hillary Clinton won three of Indiana's 92 counties while Trump won 56 percent of the vote. Donnelly's last opponent, in 2012, was tea party candidate Richard Mourdock, who pulled off a major upset by defeating Lugar in the GOP primary - but went into a tailspin after saying rape was "something that God intended" during the campaign. That set of circumstances yielded Donnelly a victory of 150,000 votes - and a reputation among colleagues of being an "accidental" senator. A win this year may be harder, both because of Braun's candidacy and shifts in the state. "This Senate race this year is important, because either it will identify this state as more Republican than it has ever been, or it will identify as it traditionally has been: centrist, moderate and given to split-ticket voting," said Robert Schmuhl, professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana. "It's not clear what the anti-Washington, pro-Trump impulse will mean for Donnelly." Some voters reject Donnelly's efforts to adopt stances from both parties. "I'm wishy-washy, but I think politicians ought to be one thing," said Susan Lucas, 74, a retired bank official and local museum director, a Republican who voted for Donnelly in 2012. "That's what they claim to be at the beginning, 'I'm a Republican', so they should stick with the party." She said was leaning toward voting for Braun. Some accepted Donnelly's bipartisanship as necessary in the context of an increasingly Republican state. Michael Wilson, 40, a habitual ticket-splitter who owns a gourmet food store, said he's going to vote for Donnelly because he opposes Trump. "There's some things with Donnelly where I understand why he did what he did, I understand the choices he's made, but I would have been a little bit uneasy," he said. "Still, I think Donnelly's done a good job. He's in a tight spot." Others, however, said they were unsure where Donnelly's support left him politically. Eric Sexton, a truck equipment salesman who intends to vote for Braun, said: "I don't usually just vote Republican ... but at this point I just want someone who's Trump or not Trump. I want to see someone who promotes business and doesn't create obstacles. I want to vote someone who's going to be predictable; I don't think voters need that unpredictable." Outside the early voting center, Donnelly appeared unperturbed by such criticism, saying bipartisan values were Hoosier values. He said that, like Trump, he talks about jobs and issues that affect families and their ability to make ends meet. Again, he tied himself to the president, recalling a conversation with Trump on the president's plane last September. "He said, 'I hear you'll be real tough to beat.' I said, 'You bet, 100%, Mr. President, and here's why. Those voters who voted for you, the union bricklayer, the fireman, the mom at home - before they were ever Donald Trump voters, they were Joe Donnelly voters, and in 2018 they're Joe voters again," Donnelly said. Days before congressional elections in 1874, the unthinkable suddenly seemed likely. Republican dominance in Washington had been a fact of life since 1861, when Abraham Lincoln became president and the party held sway on Capitol Hill. With the election of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868, the party remained firmly in control - and when Grant was re-elected four years later in a landslide, the Republican juggernaut seemed unassailable. But by the autumn of 1874, the political climate had changed dramatically. An influence-peddling scandal, a depressed economy and lingering Southern white resistance to Reconstruction clouded Republican chances as never before. As Americans prepared to vote in elections that would determine control of the House of Representatives (senators were elected by state legislatures), the end of Republican supremacy in Washington suddenly seemed possible. "The complexion of the next House of Representatives," the Chicago Tribune predicted on Oct. 26, "is likely to be Democratic." That proved to be a colossal understatement. By the time all the ballots had been counted, Democrats picked up an astounding 94 seats in the 293-seat House. Republicans retained control of the Senate, but the change in the House represented a sea change in American politics. With the exception of one two-year interval (1881-1883), the House would remain in Democratic control until 1889. "To use the familiar rhetoric of this hour of exultation and discomfiture," the Democratic New York Herald exulted, "we have the 'tidal wave' or rising sea of success." Midterm "wave" elections in which one party sweeps on Capitol Hill while the other controls the White House have been a recurring feature of U.S. politics since the early 19th century, historians say. Many more would follow the wave of 1874 - including a notable triumph for Republicans 20 years later. In 1894, after a financial meltdown a year earlier and violent labor strife, Republicans gained 130 seats while Democrats shrank from 218 to 93. The election renewed GOP dominance in Washington as Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. In the years that followed, the two parties would take turns surfing midterm waves - Republicans in 1938, 1946, 1994, 2010 and 2014, and Democrats in 1910, 1958, 1974 and 2006. Earlier this year, pundits foresaw a massive Democratic wave on Election Day, but those predictions have given way to more tempered forecasts. Whatever happens, it is unlikely to match the wave of 1874. The political climate had begun to change even as Grant cruised to his easy re-election in 1872. On Sept. 4, under the headline "The King of Frauds," the New York Sun revealed details of a grubby scheme by a Massachusetts congressman to sell valuable stock in a Union Pacific subsidiary to his fellow lawmakers with the intent of promoting the railroad's interests on Capitol Hill. It became known as the Credit Mobilier scandal and led to three congressional investigations during the winter of 1872-1873. The scandal consumed Washington and embarrassed many of the nation's most prominent Republicans. Shortly after the investigations concluded, Congress gave itself a retroactive pay raise - a move that drew immediate and widespread criticism. Even the Republican New York Times was outraged by what soon became widely known as the "salary grab." "The public will not readily forget a piece of rascality so shameless, so despicable, and so conspicuous," the Times thundered. Economic catastrophe added to Republican difficulties. The Panic of 1873 shook Wall Street, closed banks and coal mines, bankrupted railroads and led to widespread unemployment. Hoping to revive the economy, Congress responded with legislation to inflate the currency, but Grant stunned the nation by vetoing the bill. The Herald, reflecting Wall Street's conservative views about monetary policy, applauded the veto but noted that it elevated "the currency controversy into the foreground as the overshadowing issue of American politics." There were other factors at play as well. The massacre of 50 African-Americans defending a Republican-controlled county government in Louisiana in 1873 and an ongoing struggle between Republicans and Democrats to control the state government kept Reconstruction in the headlines. White Southerners who violently opposed the enfranchisement of former slaves flocked to the Democratic Party, while many white Northerners were growing weary with the Republican commitment to protecting the rights of newly freed slaves. In addition, reports that Grant was pondering whether to seek a third term in 1876 - and in so doing disregarding the tradition of presidents serving only eight years - alarmed many in both parties and reinforced fears that the general who led the North to victory in the Civil War favored dictatorial "Caesarism" over democratic government. All of this created a challenging environment for Republicans. Vice President Henry Wilson admitted as much to the Herald on Aug. 19. He conceded the party would be unable to match its performance in 1872 and urged Republicans to unite. "We require to use all our strength, for our antagonists are watching and wary, and although they have several times committed faults, we must not expect them to perpetuate them. They are preparing to make a strong effort to achieve victory in the coming struggle, and we must, if we hope to succeed, be up and doing." Few of his fellow Republicans shared his worries. "Many simply had grown so accustomed to office that they couldn't imagine America without them in charge," historian H.W. Brands has written. One Republican who avoided complacency was Rep. James A. Garfield of Ohio, who began his campaign well over a year before he faced re-election as he circulated a monograph in his district defending his conduct regarding Credit Mobilier. He refunded his pay increase and dutifully campaigned in hamlets and market towns throughout his district as the election approached. His efforts paid off - aided by a divided opposition that put up two candidates to run against him, biographer Allan Peskin notes. Many others were not so lucky. "Rarely has an American political party suffered a defeat on the scale that the Republican Party did in 1874," historian Richard White writes. By White's reckoning, Republicans "went from a 70 percent majority to a 37 percent minority in one election." One of the most notable defeats came in Massachusetts, with Republican Rep. Benjamin Butler. Notable for his droopy eye, fondness for capes and an unusual gait likened by one colleague to "a bass walking on its tail," Butler had been at the center of many of the political dramas of the past decade, including the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. He was also the author of the controversial pay raise bill - and his constituents were in no mood to reward him for it. "Everything was against us, especially the hard times," Republican Rep. Luke Potter Poland of Vermont told the St. Louis Globe on Nov. 11. But economic hardship wasn't the only factor powering the wave, Poland noted. The "people got disgusted with the daily revelations of corruption and fraud, and they concluded to hold the party in power responsible for them all." Democrats saw that too and used their new majority accordingly. A House investigation led to the resignation and impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap and uncovered shady dealings in the Navy and Interior departments. The investigations - together with revelations of a Whiskey "ring" in the Treasury Department that connived with distillers to avoid taxes - tarred the Grant administration's reputation but did little to help Democrats, according to historian Mark Wahlgren Summers. The reason was a political problem as familiar as the wave election itself, according to a New York Democratic operative quoted by Summers. "In the estimation of the public generally," S.L.M. Barlow wrote, "our investigations are looked upon as partisan and useless." Two hundred Illinois veterans were recognized by the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and the Illinois Bicentennial Office for their continued work in their communities after serving the country. Twelve west-central veterans were among those recognized. The Bicentennial HONOR 200 recognized 200 veterans that contributed to their communities. Dona Huffman of Chandlerville was among those recognized and she said she felt honored. Huffman was a member of the Navy from 1984 to 1993 when she entered the Navy Reserves. In 1994 she was decommissioned and went into the Air Force as information management and human resources. Since retiring in 2005, Huffman has been working with Military Affairs at Camp Lincoln. Its extremely overwhelming to be recognized in your home state for work youve done, Huffman said. Its a wonderful recognition the state is giving to veterans. In addition to her work, she tries to support several veterans organizations, from the VFW to the AMVETS. My goal is to pick something each year and contribute in some way, Huffman said. Gov. Bruce Rauner said the sacrifice veterans make for the country deserve to be recognized. America is the greatest nation on earth because of the sacrifice of our veterans, Rauner said. We are proud to honor these 200 men and women as part of our Bicentennial celebration. Their service didnt stop when they took off their uniforms. They continue to be heroes among us by going above and beyond the call of duty to take care of the people in their communities. John McCorkle of Jacksonville was also honored for his work with veterans organizations in the community. McCorkle attended the U.S. Naval Academy, before leaving to enlist in the Army in 1969 and serving during the Vietnam War before leaving the military in 1972. I consider it a real honor, McCorkle said. Ive seen the list and know others on the list. I feel like Im in good company. I consider it an honor since there are so many others that could have been recognized. After the military, McCorkle worked in the Illinois Department of Corrections for 29 years and has been active with different organizations in the community. Ive been active in veterans organizations in town and I try to go to several help groups to help other veterans, McCorkle said. Other recipients were not available for comment. The veterans have been invited to attend the celebration in December and were recognized during a luncheon on October 24. Those honored were: Patrick Brannan of Jacksonville Ernest Gregory of Meredosia Dona Huffman of Chandlerville Donald Jennings of Waverly Matthew Lawson of Winchester Col. Anthony Libri, Jr. of New Berlin Dale Lovekamp of Beardstown John McCorkle of Jacksonville William Neuman of Waverly C.O. Smith of Jacksonville Lauralee Treece of Waverly Edward Wright of Jacksonville Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1233, or on Twitter @JCNews_samantha. Are you tired of falling back and springing forward every year? In 1918, motivated by the worthy goal of saving energy, Congress enacted the law that still has us switching our clocks twice a year, something that occurred this weekend. Since coal was the exclusive energy source at that time, ensuring that Americans had more daylight working hours made sense, and daylight saving time actually did save energy. However, as you read this 100 years later, we should acknowledge that in todays world with the benefit of so many modern technological advancements, daylight saving time has long outlasted its purpose and, as a result is wildly unpopular with folks across the country. Just 33 percent of Americans believe daylight saving time is worth the hassle. Daylight saving time has some significant disadvantages. First, it doesnt really conserve energy. While the use of household lighting decreases during daylight hours, the use of air conditioning and other electronics rises, resulting in an overall uptick in household energy use. Research indicates that on average, daylight saving time contributed to the conservation of just 0.34 percent of energy use. Since this policy is clearly no longer meeting its goal of energy conservation, does it make sense to continue it? Not only does daylight saving time fail to achieve its original intent of saving energy, research has shown that it causes health problems. The risk of heart attack increases 10 percent in the days following springing forward, most likely caused by sleep deprivation and the interruption of biological rhythms, according to researchers. Studies also indicate that we are less productive, more likely to get sick, and just simply exhausted in the days following the time change. Some erroneously believe that daylight saving time is supported by our countrys farmers so they may more easily finish their harvests. In fact, farmers actively fought the daylight saving time proposal when it was introduced. For some reason, this misconception about farmers support for the time change persists. Based on all of this data, it is challenging to find a reason why the daylight saving time policy continues. Perhaps it is because some special interest groups seem to be the only ones reaping benefits. In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Act of 2005, which extended the length of daylight saving time an additional week in the fall, in large part due to an effort by candy producers to allow for more daylight hours on Halloween for trick-or-treating. This is hardly a good reason to continue this outdated practice. In a world without daylight saving time, we could all enjoy additional time outdoors by engaging in recreational activities. We could maintain our sleep schedules, feeling healthier and happier as a result. We could end a senseless practice that has many drawbacks and very few, if any, positive aspects. This is why we plan to introduce the Texas Loves Sunshine Act of 2019 in the upcoming legislative session. Our legislation seeks to keep standard time in Texas, allowing Texans to forgo the jolting process of adjusting to a new time twice each year. Doing something just because it has always been done that way is no reason to continue it. Lets mark the 100th anniversary of this antiquated policy by finally putting an end to it! Larson, R-San Antonio, is a member of the Texas House of Representatives. He can be reached at lyle.larson@house.texas.gov or @RepLyleLarson. Once the ballots are counted and the winners declared in Tuesdays election, most people are going to want a break from politics, and with good reason. But very soon, all of us who participate in this democracy need to get to work fixing it. Unfortunately, a destructive form of politics has taken root across the country. Fundamental norms of our discourse such as the idea that those entrusted with positions of leadership should tell the truth and bring people together with something resembling hope and optimism have been discarded in favor of fearmongering and ruthless divisiveness. The events of the past couple weeks have reminded us why this corrosive approach to politics the approach championed by President Donald Trump, my fellow Republican is so shortsighted and limiting. To be sure, nobody in public office bears responsibility for the mass murder at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and no elected official forced a madman to send pipe bombs to political figures and media organizations. But in the wake of these types of terrifying, horrific events, we need political leaders who can stop pointing fingers and start pulling our country back together. We need those who leave no ambiguity when they talk about the hateful extremists that are trying, with some success, to work their way back into the mainstream of American politics. In short, we need people in public office who see division in our country as a challenge that needs to be resolved, rather than an opportunity that needs to be exploited. Even if they momentarily hit all the right notes of grief and empathy, its nearly impossible for elected leaders who thrive on division to bring us together in the wake of a tragedy. They simply lack the moral authority. In recent weeks, many in elected office have tried to motivate voters by grossly exaggerating the threat posed by a distant group of refugees fleeing their home countries. Its the same win-at-all-costs mindset that convinced some in Washington that they could score points by separating young, scared children from their parents. This isnt toughness or street-fighting, and it certainly isnt leadership. Its a desperate attempt to incite anger instead of going about the more difficult task of building lasting and diverse coalitions around good ideas. But there is always reason to be optimistic in our country, and now is no exception. There are plenty of men and women, some of them on the ballot right now and some who will run for office in the future, who are more than capable of providing the leadership we need. They speak with credibility and honesty. They are willing to upset the most ardent partisans if thats whats required to do the right thing. They work to build consensus, they listen, and they focus their energy on the challenges that will determine our future, from education to public safety to national security. But the work ahead should not only be left to those who hold public office. We can all put our democracy on a better path if we stop taking cues from our most divisive political figures. Its our responsibility to reward candidates and officeholders who want to govern constructively. Its also our duty to consider how we are treating each other. We should be unafraid to disagree over issues and defend our principles. But there is a more appropriate balance to strike between well-meaning policy disagreements and our larger sense of national unity and common purpose. As voters, we need to reassert that we want elections to be contests of ideas, rather than desperate attempts to stoke hostility around issues of identity. Six days after terrorists attacked our country in September 2001, President George W. Bush went to the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., and declared, These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And its important for my fellow Americans to understand that. He recognized his responsibility in that moment to diffuse misplaced hostilities and assert a sense of unity among all Americans. This is the type of leadership that we should demand from whomever prevails up and down the ballot on Tuesday, and its the type of decency that we all need to restore in our public discourse. Republican Joe Straus is the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and a state representative from San Antonio. Regarding For the 10th Congressional District: Mike Siegel (HoustonChronicle.com, Oct. 16): As we approach Election Day, I am compelled to write you in support of U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul and the exceptional work he has done in response to Hurricane Harvey. I serve my area in the Cinco Ranch, Canyon Gate, Kelliwood, Grand Lakes area of Katy as a director at Willow Fork Drainage District and as co-founder of Barker Flood Prevention, an advocacy group purposed to obtain immediate and substantial flood control solutions for Barker Reservoir as well as the greater Houston area. McCaul has worked tirelessly to secure funding for flood control solutions that will repair the damage from Harvey and provide additional infrastructure to create a stronger, more resilient metropolis. His goal of promoting and securing infrastructure (typically cited as the third reservoir) to manage the Cypress Creek is a critical component in the regional flood control plan for Houston. In flood events such as the Tax Day Flood and Hurricane Harvey, Cypress Creek overflows into the Addicks Reservoir and takes up much needed capacity. Since Addicks and Barker work in tandem and feed into Buffalo Bayou, many watersheds in the Houston area are affected by the Cypress Creek located in the northwest quadrant of our region and within the boundaries that McCaul represents. McCaul has not only helped to secure $17.4 billionin funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete needed flood mitigation projects, but he also initiated and helped to pass the amendment to Water Resources and Development Act 2018 to expedite USACE studies such as the Cypress Creek study on flood and disaster recovery in the Houston region. Wendy Duncan, Katy Unfair attacks Regarding For Attorney General: Justin Nelson (HoustonChronicle.com, Oct. 15): Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton should be ashamed of himself. He is running TV ads lying about Houston-born law professor Justin Nelson, his Democratic opponent. Those ads claim that Nelson supports a dangerous open borders policy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Justins own website makes it clear that he will aggressively investigate, apprehend, and prosecute dangerous criminals who would pass through our border. Paxton is taking a page from President Donald Trumps playbook. He is spreading misinformation about illegal immigrants in an attempt to scare voters, and he also is trying to distract Texans from the fact that he is indicted for felony fraud and facing time behind bars. Beatrice Mladenka-Fowler, Houston Dial down the rhetoric As a Jewish Houstonian, I was relieved to see Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart remove prominent and incendiary references to George Soros from his campaign website. Anti-Semitism is a weird and scary animal that comes out in insidious ways on both sides of the political spectrum. One of the most powerful and age-old anti-Semitic tropes is that of elite financier globalists who are running the world. Stanart should know better than to imply Soros is evil and is trying to take over Harris County. He did the right thing by removing it. Norri Leder, Bellaire In Trumps shadow Regarding For the 8th Congressional District: Steven David (HoustonChronicle.com, Oct. 16): Good for the Chronicle editorial board for choosing not to endorse the re-election of long-serving U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady. And in your critique of his performance you didnt even mention that low moment at the recent Trump rally at the Toyota Center in Houston, when Brady smiled and gave a big thumbs up when Trump falsely told the crowd that a 10 percent middle-class tax cut was just days away. Texas deserves much better. David Bradley, Spring Undeserved backing I was so disappointed in the editorial boards endorsements of Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, state Sen. Joan Huffman, and state Rep. Sarah Davis. I know you want to have readers believe that you are fair and non-partisan. But sadly, in your attempt to be even-handed, you fail to evaluate appropriate priorities. All three Republican candidates are supportive of unfair policies and poor allocation of tax funds. Emmetts opposition to bail reform is clearly an indication of his failure to recognize the true injustices in our system of mass incarceration of minorities. Davis co-signing of SB4, the show-me-your-papers measure, was a strike against honest, hardworking immigrants and Hispanics as well as Houston and other Texas cities. Huffmans support of the discriminatory bathroom bill and voter suppression bills should automatically disqualify her from your endorsement. Just because Emmett, Davis and Huffman are Republicans who are less evil than Trump doesnt mean they deserve support. Michael Nichols, Houston In defense of science A recent television ad attacked U.S. Rep. John Culberson for supporting a NASA robotic mission to Europa, a very large moon of Jupiter that has what many scientists think could be an ocean of water under its ice-encrusted surface. The implication is that he should not support the Europa mission because it does not directly benefit his district. It is true that a Europa mission would not bring taxpayer dollars to the congressmans district. It is also true that this mission will comprise a relatively small percentage of NASAs budget (itself about 0.5 percent of federal spending). However, NASAs missions do not launch dollar bills out into space. That money is spent right here, in America, down on earth. Across many congressional districts, Democratic and Republican, bolstering our nations economy, inspiring students, and improving our standing in the world. All things we badly need today. Im writing this not to take sides in a partisan fray, but to try to bring sanity to issues like science that should be apolitical. Terry Virts, former astronaut and author of View From Above Focus on Trump policies Regarding Border bamboozle (Editorial, Friday): The editorial board is spot on with its assertion that President Trumps bombastic belligerence regarding the caravan of Central-American refugees is all about showmanship, fear-mongering and falsehoods. But in the penultimate paragraph, the writer points out the administrations plans to eliminate protections for preexisting conditions, tax cuts to billionaires, and the elimination of the minimum wage. Now the editorial board is certainly within its prerogative to have an opinion on these issues. However, you are using these disagreements to reinforce your negative personal feelings about the president. If indeed you disagree with him on health care, taxes, or wage controls then write a separate editorial stating your reasons, and leave out the character attacks. David M. Woods, Houston Esri Ireland, the market leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), has announced the launch of ArcGIS for Schools, making 500 million worth of digital mapping software available to every primary and secondary school in the country. Up to 9,000 students in over 40 schools in Longford will have free access to Esris digital mapping platform, ArcGIS Online. Also read: AIT celebrates academic excellence at 2018 conferring ceremonies The platform allows students to collect, analyse and visualise data on a wide range of topics. As well as teaching the skills and techniques required for working with GIS, the application enables new ways to study climate change, design cities and towns, explore demographics, understand history, predict future scenarios, and perform many other cross-disciplinary activities. The cloud-based application is accessible through any device connected to the internet including school computers, tablets and students smartphones, allowing pupils to collect their own data in the field. Interactive project-based experience with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) supports STEM learning for students, and ties in well with the recent announcement of computer science as a Leaving Certificate subject. Also read: Longford anglers welcome move to protect wild brown trout in western lakes The initiative has been rolled out by Esri in other countries across the world, including the UK, Canada, the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and New Zealand. Students are applying the technology in a wide variety of ways and creating impactful GIS projects. For example, an Australian school recently mapped and developed solutions to alleviate local school traffic congestion, and students in Virginia have been using the technology to analyse police and fire coverage in four major US cities. ArcGIS for Schools is already in use by 12 pilot schools located across Ireland. These include a primary school and gaelscoil, and at a junior cycle, senior cycle and transition year level. Esri Ireland will provide a fully supported ecosystem consisting of hosted and managed infrastructure and continually updated local and global mapping data and content. Lesson plans aligned to primary and post-primary teaching and a GeoMentor programme, designed to connect mapping experts with local teachers, will also be provided. The programme fits well with the Department of Education and Skills ambition to bring the Irish education system further along the path to being the best in Europe at embedding digital technology in teaching, learning and assessment by 2026, as laid down in the 2018 Digital Strategy Action Plan. Also read: EDI Centre Longford encouraging people to take part in Live Longer and Prosper programme Joanne McLaughlin, ArcGIS for Schools Sponsor, Esri Ireland, commented: The Esri Ireland team is delighted to launch the ArcGIS for Schools programme here in Ireland. Through our work with the pilot schools were really encouraged by the reaction of both teachers and their students. Key to the successful adoption of the programme is the provision of support for teachers through workshops, lesson plans aligned to the curriculum, and a huge variety of online training resources. We believe this initiative can help address the evident STEM skills shortage in this country, by developing key spatial analysis, and critical thinking skills at a grassroots level. The programme is a perfect complement to the Governments digital strategy to further embed technology and digital learning tools in our primary and post-primary schools. Through their exposure to GIS, students will be better prepared to understand our planet and become better problem solvers and evidenced based decision makers. It is crucial we do everything we can now to enable future generations to imagine and realise a better future for all. Also read: Sean Finan is new Chief Executive Officer of Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA) The Tesco store in Longford raised a fangtastic 500 as part of Trick or Treat for Temple Street over the bank holiday weekend. In all 151 stores across Ireland, Tesco colleagues dressed up in a variety of costumes while they hosted Halloween parties at the front of each store with cake sales, face-painting, balloons and much more. Pictures: Spooktacular fun at Ardagh Fright Fest All funds raised by Tesco stores will purchase a new Ultrasound machine for Neurosurgery which will be used during neurosurgical procedures to get real-time views of the brain anatomy and thereby facilitating the removal of brain tumours and accurate placement of devices and shunts. Aoife Donohoe, Head of Corporate Affairs, Tesco Ireland said: We are really proud to have supported Trick or Treat for Temple Street and are amazed by the level of support from our colleagues and customers alike. It really shows what can be achieved when people pull together for a great cause. What a fantastic result for the little heroes of Temple Street. Also read: Physio4Kids Longford Trick or Treat for Temple Street a huge success Denise Fitzgerald, Chief Executive, Temple Street Foundation said: The funds raised by Tesco colleagues and customers at this years Trick or Treat parties in stores across the country is nothing short of phenomenal. We are tremendously grateful to everyone who got involved in the Halloween fun in support of our patients and their families. The funds you have raised will be put to work where they are needed most to transform lives for the better. From all of us here in Temple Street, thank you so much for supporting Temple Street and being a vital part of the extraordinary circle of care that surrounds each sick child in our hospital. Pictures | Village of Abbeyshrule goes all out for Halloween with its 'Ghoul-Scare Trail' Temple Street has been Tesco Irelands charity partner since October 2014 and to date Tesco Ireland has raised 3.6 million in aid of the little heroes of Temple Street. Each year Temple Street Childrens University Hospital treats over 145,000 children from across the country and operates the busiest A&E department in Europe. For thousands of children, Temple Street is the only hospital in Ireland in which they can be treated. Through the charity partner programme, Tesco colleagues and customers can help little people from all over Ireland get better and be real life heroes to children attending the hospital. Longford Leader gallery: Stonepark's Kids Paradise creche gear up for Halloween with hugely successful Trick or Treat Day Rural life and farming are the main topics of Tom McGahon's book 'Fleeting Memory', which also encapsulates the fear of thos who emigrated in the 1950s. The book, written by Tom McGahon, also reflects the strong women who lived in rural Ireland during the more difficult times. 'Fleeting Memory' is a collection of approximately 40 short stories that Tom has been writing over the course of the past ten years or so. I was writing all my life, he told the Longford Leader last week. But I lost more stuff than I have because I didn't file it properly. I've been reading back over stuff and I'm wondering 'when did I write that?' Writing is Tom's main hobby, though he says he's doesn't get a lot of spare time because of the work on the farm. But he'll often find little ideas popping into his head, which he'll take note of for future reference. Oftentimes, I'd have a pen beside the bed and I'd write something down, he said. Something would be in my mind and I'd write it down. Then the fat would really begin to fry. Ideas have often come to Tom in the middle of the night, so having pen and paper on hand has always been essential. I wrote a poem about a blackbird one time at five o'clock in the morning, he recalled. I heard him singing and I wrote the poem. Tom is originally from county Louth, but now lives in Moyvore, just across the Longford-Westmeath border. 'Fleeting Memory' is Tom's first book and the name was inspired by one of his own memories as a child. Fleeting Memory was a race horse in about 1951, he explained, adding that the horse was never beaten - except for one time that he never forgot. I'd have been only nine at the time. He shouldn't have been beaten. They were all talking about Fleeting Memory because they had all put money on him. He never was beaten but he was beaten that day. I never forgot Fleeting Memory. The book, 'Fleeting Memory' is due to be launched on Thursday, November 9, in Milltown Community Centre, Rathcontrath, Co. Westmeath. Guest speakers on the night will be Dick Hogan, Editor of Topic Newspapers, and Claire McCormack, Editor of Agriland. Music will be provided by harpist Anita O'Brien and refreshments will be served. The launch kicks off at 8pm and books will be available on the night for 10. Aotearoa Hip Hop Podcast Hosted by DJ Sir-Vere, this podcast series is a deep dive into Aotearoas Hip Hop history. Several Papa Gino's locations were closed across Massachusetts Sunday as people took to social media to complain about their local shop suddenly shuttering its doors. Nearly 50 locations were closed, according to workers who posted on social media. A couple locations that closed included Stoughton and Dedham. The Chandler Street location in Worcester was also shut down. The company previously said there were 150 stores across New England, but the website listed 97 locations Sunday. Im sorry to announce this but you will no longer get tweets about my life at Papa Ginos. Its not because Im growing up and chose to quit my high school job, they just closed it permanently Katie Cellucci (@KatieCellucci) November 4, 2018 MassLive reached out to the company, based in Dedham, for comment. A full list of closings was not posted online. A list of current locations was on the company's website. The company, Papa Gino's Inc., is the parent company of the pizza chain and D'Angelo Grilled Sandwiches. So papa ginos supposedly closed 37-49 locations overnight with no warning what a good company brad (@bradnthings) November 4, 2018 The owner and safety manager of a Massachusetts-based charter bus company are accused of bribing safety officials in order to ignore violations, federal authorities said. Indictments unsealed in a Boston federal court last week accuse the owner of L&W Travel Inc., 49-year-old Le Wen Wu, and safety manager, 41-year-old Yat Kuen Chan, of bribing a public official. Both face three counts of bribery of a public official and one count each of conspiracy to pay an unlawful gratuity and to bribe a public official and unlawful gratuities to a public official. The bus company, located in Boston, applied in January to register as a charter bus company with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The FMCSA is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation and establishes and enforces safe operating requirements for motor carriers. "Between January and July 2018, the FMCSA made several unsuccessful attempts to contact L&W to complete its registration process, including scheduling a safety inspection," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. "In July 2018, having received no response from L&W, FMCSA sent them an order revoking their registration and requiring L&W to cease all interstate transportation. Thereafter, a representative of L&W contacted FMCSA and scheduled a safety audit and compliance review on July 26, 2018." Wu and Chan are accused of giving a safety investigator a total of $2,800 to influence the outcome of the company's review, authorities said. The alleged bribes occurred between July and August. "For example, on Aug. 1, 2018 Chan allegedly gave the investigator $600 so that the investigator would not place an L&W bus immediately out of service based on two significant safety violations - inadequate brakes and a defective emergency exit door - but rather, would allow L&W to fix the brakes in Massachusetts and drive the bus to New Jersey for repair of the door," federal investigators said. PITTSFIELD - A 30-year-old man was seriously injured in a shooting Saturday morning. Police responded to a ShotSpotter activation at about 9 a.m. and found the victim near the intersection of Spring and Willow streets, Lt. John Soules said. The man suffered at least one life-threatening gunshot wound. Police provided immediate first aid until paramedics could arrive and he was brought to Berkshire Medical Center by ambulance, he said. Police are investigating the crime. Anyone who witnessed the shooting or has any information about it is asked to call the Pittsfield Police Department Detective Bureau at 413-448-9705. Information can be provided anonymously via the Detective Bureau, the Drug Tips hotline at 413-448-9708 or by texting PITTIP and your message to TIP411 (847411). The Berkshire County Sherriff's Department and Massachusetts State Police are assisting with the investigation, police said. SPRINGFIELD -- It's been 29 years since the first time the Puerto Rican flag was raised in Springfield and Maria Perez remembers it like it was yesterday. Perez, a Springfield School Committee member and one of the founders of the annual flag-raising, spoke at the event Saturday afternoon on the steps of City Hall. "I was commenting to Gumersindo Gomez earlier that he and I are the only two people left of nine people who started this and I just want to remember them, including my late husband Freddy Moreno," Perez said. The flag-raising was organized by Gomez, the executive director of the Bilingual Veterans Outreach Center. Both he and Perez moved to Springfield at a time when there was a lot of discrimination against Latinos. The flag-raising was created as a way for the Puerto Rican community in the city to take pride in their culture and heritage, he said. Local and state officials who attended the flag-raising included Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. "I want to thank the Puerto Rican community for all that you bring and all that you add to the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to the city of Springfield," Baker said. "Your community is an important part of what makes this state special and what makes Springfield special." Springfield City Council President Orlando Ramos gave a short history of the the Puerto Rican flag including a time in the 1950s when it was illegal to display or fly the Puerto Rican flag. Ramos said there were many people who defied the law. "It's thanks to all of those that fought back that we are able to stand here before you today and say, 'Que bonita es la bandera puertorriquena' (how beautiful is the Puerto Rican flag)," he said. Holyoke held its flag-raising on Friday at City Hall organized by La Familia Hispana, Inc. The event honored Julita Rojas, Millie Lozada and Carmen Velazquez Ms. Senior Latina 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively. The job of state auditor makes the news only sporadically, and invariably when money or responsibility is mishandled in a state department. But it's a remarkably important job, for the state auditor is assigned the job of being the watchdog for the consumers - more so, in many ways, than even the Legislature or attorney general's office. Incumbent Suzanne Bump continues to force public officials to be accountable. She merits the chance to continue doing so for another term. The Republican endorses Bump's candidacy in the November 6 election. State agencies don't usually like hearing that Bump is looking into their practices. That's a compliment to her office. In her first seven years, Bump has uncovered $1.3 billion in inefficiency, mishandled funds and fraud in state government. Most recently, she has been pushing the Baker Administration to become more diligent in referring elder abuse cases to district attorneys for prosecution. When a state agency is targeted for poor practices by the auditor's offices, it often comes up with excuses before seeking solutions. Nonetheless, Bump has resolutely pushed these agencies to improve their performances, most notably but not exclusively with the Department of Children and Families. She has shifted the focus of her 220-member agency from purely that of a financial audit service to one that addresses the human impact of state operations. That's what drove the DCF audit, and it continues to prioritize vulnerable populations that need a watchdog for their needs. She has kept an eye out for local municipalities that sometimes feel the unfair weight of unfunded mandates from the Legislature. Every state agency must be visited during a three-year cycle. Under Bump, the office of the auditor has forced many of these agencies to either remain aware of best practices or reform outdated, sloppy or otherwise flawed procedures that not only waste taxpyper money but hurt individuals most in need. The auditor plans to take a more active role in the investigation of the state police overtime scandal. That will support ongoing administrative and internal efforts to clean up the department. Massachusetts taxpayers need an auditor's office constantly looking for waste, neglect and mismanagement. The state's residents need an influential voice that takes a hard look at difficult situations, brings their flaws to light and recommends paths to improvement. Suzanne Bump has done that in her two terms in office. She has earned the opportunity to keep state government on its toes for another four years. Massachusetts voters will head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in a series of state and federal legislative races, including contests for governor and U.S. representatives and senator. Beyond weighing in on who will represent the state on Beacon Hill and in Washington, residents will vote on ballot questions concerning nurse staffing ratios, the impact of money in politics and the state's law protecting transgender individuals from discrimination. Congress In Western Massachusetts, residents will vote on candidates running in the state's 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, a Springfield Democrat who defeated challenger Tahirah Amatul-Wadud in the state's September primary, will be the sole candidate on the ballot in the 1st Congressional District, which includes all of Berkshire County and parts of Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties. U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Worcester, will square off against Republican Tracy Lovvorn in the 2nd Congressional District, which spans from Greenfield to Worcester County. McGovern, who was first elected to the House in 1996, is the top Democrat on the chamber's Rules Committee -- setting him up for a potential chairmanship if re-elected to a Democratic-led House. Lovvorn, the founder and CEO of Evolution Physical Therapy in Grafton, has accused McGovern of being part of the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. -- something she's pledged to help end if sent to Congress. U.S. Senate In addition to casting ballots in one of the two Western Massachusetts congressional races, voters will also weigh in on the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Elizabeth Warren, Republican Geoff Diehl and independent candidate Shiva Ayyadurai. Warren, who is seeking re-election to the seat she won over Republican Scott Brown in 2012, has gained national attention as a progressive leader and vocal critic of President Donald Trump. The Democrat has fueled speculation she may pursue a 2020 White House run, telling a Holyoke town hall audience that she would "take a hard look" at a presidential bid after the 2018 midterms. Questions about Warren's future in politics have dominated much of the debate in the three-way U.S. Senate race, with Diehl repeatedly accusing the Democrat of being more focused on a presidential run than serving Massachusetts residents. The Whitman state representative, who co-chaired Trump's 2016 Massachusetts campaign, has argued that his relationship with the White House and the GOP would give state residents a "seat at the table" in Washington. Ayyadurai, meanwhile, has taken aim at both Warren and Diehl. The independent candidate, who is of Indian descent, has repeatedly criticized Warren's claims of Native American ancestry, referring to her as a "fake Indian." Ayyadurai has also questioned the sincerity of Diehl's support for the president and cast the GOP U.S. Senate hopeful as a "fake Trumper." Governor's race Aside from deciding who to send to Capitol Hill, Massachusetts voters will also cast ballots for whom they'd like to sit in the corner office on Beacon Hill. Incumbent Republican Charlie Baker will face Democratic challenger Jay Gonzalez in Tuesday's gubernatorial contest. Baker, who is running on a ticket with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, is looking to build on the work he did during his first term in the governor's office, including his efforts to improve service at the MBTA and address opioid addiction. Gonzalez, a former health insurance executive and state budget chief under former Gov. Deval Patrick, has called for expanding high-quality early education and child care, and increasing taxes for those who earn more than $1 million a year to pay for investments in transportation and education, among other things. The Democrat, who is running on a ticket with Quentin Palfrey, has sought to tie Baker to Trump and criticized the governor's support for other GOP candidates on the ballot this fall. Baker has distanced himself from the president, speaking out on an array of the Trump administration's controversial proposals. Other statewide races Voters will also cast ballots in statewide races for Massachusetts attorney general, auditor, treasurer and secretary of state. Incumbent Democrat Maura Healey is seeking re-election against Republican challenger James McMahon III in the attorney general race. Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin, a Democrat, will face off against Anthony Amore, a Swampscott Republican, and Juan Sanchez, a Holyoke Green-Rainbow Party candidate. Democratic Treasurer Deborah Goldberg will also face two challengers in Tuesday's election: Republican Keiko Orrall and Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jamie Guerin. Democrat Suzanne Bump is looking to defend her seat in a four-way auditor race. She will go up against Republican Helen Brady, Libertarian candidate Daniel Fishman and Green-Rainbow Party candidate Edward Stamas. Ballot questions Three questions will go before Massachusetts voters in Tuesday's election. Question 1 asks voters to weigh in on a proposed law that would limit how many patients can be assigned to each registered nurse in Massachusetts hospitals and some other health care facilities. It would set the maximum number of patients per registered nurse based on the the type of unit and level of care. A yes vote would limit the number of patients that could be assigned to one registered nurse in hospitals and certain other health care facilities. A no vote would make no change to the current laws regarding patient-to-nurse limits. Nurses across the state have split in their support for the ballot measure. The Massachusetts Nurses Association, which supports the proposed law, has argued that many of its 23,000 members report that they are overworked and caring for so many patients that they cannot perform their jobs correctly. Groups like the American Nurses Association of Massachusetts and the Emergency Nurses Association of Massachusetts contend that the proposed ratios are neither evidence-based nor the answer to lessening the burden on the state's RNs. Question 2 asks residents to decide whether the state should "create a citizens commission to consider and recommend potential amendments to the United States Constitution to establish that corporations do not have the same Constitutional rights as human beings and that campaign contributions and expenditures may be regulated." The question, which comes in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial Citizen's United decision that impacted how much corporations and labor unions can spend on political activities, would require the commission to issue its first report by December 2019. U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and U.S. Rep.-elect Ayanna Pressley, both Massachusetts Democrats, have urged support for the ballot measure. A yes vote would create a citizens commission to advance an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to limit the influence of money in elections and establish that corporations do not have the same rights as individuals. A no vote would not create the commission. Finally, Question 3 will ask Massachusetts voters whether they approve of a 2016 law that added gender identity to the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination in places of public accommodation. A yes vote would keep the current law in place, which bars discrimination on the basis of gender identity in public places. A no vote would repeal that provision of the public accommodation law. The ballot question has gained attention in recent weeks, following reports that the Trump administration could roll back Obama-era protections for transgender individuals. In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome! Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018 emblematic of everything it means to be an astrophotographer; the balance between light and dark, the contrasting textures and tones of land and sky and the photographer alone under a starry canopy of breathtaking scale and beauty. It's 2018, the 10th anniversary of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards. The Royal Observatory Greenwich first hosted the winners in 2009. This year the event took place in the National Maritime Museum with this year's winning photos plus some great past winners exhibited in a brand new gallery.Since 2015, Insight Investments has sponsored the competition, and they are certainly backing a winner. In 2018 there were well over ten times as many entries as in 2009. Some 4200 entries came from 91 countries, and all seven continents were represented.I'll be highlighting my favorites of the 31 awards, but you can find the url for the, showing all the winning photos, at the end of this article.The nine judges were unanimous in choosing Brad Goldpaint (USA) as the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018. His photo, Transport the Soul , taken in Moab, Utah was also the winner of thecategory. That's a category for photographs of the night sky including people or a human interest element.I don't always agree with the judges, but this photograph is magnificent. Will Gater, one of the judges, described it asThe Young Photographer of the Year, 15-year-old Fabian Dalpiaz (Italy), produced an exquisite image of a meteor and the Milky Way over the Dolomites in Italy. His Great Autumn Morning could be a painting by one of the great masters of landscape painting.In thecategory, landscape or cityscape images are combined with elements of the night (or twilight) sky. Ferenc Szemar (Hungary) won with Circumpolar. At a given latitude,stars stars near the pole don't set. The image shows a dreamlike landscape, blended with the glow of the Hungarian city of Galyateto, beneath a golden streak in a winter sky. The streak is the circumpolar star Almach. It was photographed over a period of time, and the resulting star trail skims the horizon, but doesn't drop below it.Although Matthew James Turner (UK) was the runner up in thecategory, his photo could easily have been entered in. Moonlight illuminates the ancient stone circle of Castlerigg in England that has stood on a hilltop for 5000 years, surrounded by a ring of mountains. Unusually for Britain, a magical aurora fills the sky above the mountains.The Moon isn't a colorful sight. Black, white and shades of gray are what we see. However Jordi Delpeix Borrell (Spain) used a muted color palette for his image "Inverted colors of the boundary between Mare Serenitatis and Mare Tranquilitatis". (This is the region in which the Apollo 11 astronauts landed in 1969.) Beside its aesthetic value, a color palette has traditionally been used to highlight structure and interesting features that are otherwise difficult to see.For the Young Competition, an 8-year-old Casper Kentish (UK) also photographed the Moon. His First Impressions was Highly Commended. It's an impressive piece of work he used a telescope and an iPad to make the photograph.Martin Lewis (UK) won in this category with The Grace of Venus. We can't see any features on Venus through its thick clouds, but like the Moon, Venus has phases as seen from Earth. The photo shows an elegant slim crescent backlit by the Sun in a dark sky.Lewis was also the runner up in this category with Parade of the Planets. From his backyard in England on planet Earth, he photographed each of the other seven planets of the Solar System. The composite image showed them lined up, each at the size it would appear through a telescope.Mario Cogo (Italy) also got a double win, being both the winner and runner up in thecategory, which is dedicated to deep sky objects in or near our own Galaxy. A splendid image of the Corona Australis Dust Complex took the main prize. Its beauty and detail are the result of a six-hour exposure under a dark sky in Namibia.In Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula, Cogo showed the blue of the Witch Head reflection nebula illuminated by Rigel, a bright star in the constellation Orion.The Milky Way has some small neighboring galaxies, but most galaxies are many millions of light years away. The winning photograph was NGC 3521, Mysterious Galaxy . Steven Mohr (Australia) imaged this beautiful spiral galaxy, which is 26 million light years away in the constellation Leo. The colors of the galaxy show something of its structure. The yellow-red region is composed of older stars, while the blue in the spiral arms are stellar nurseries with young hot blue stars. The attractive background of stars is actually a foreground of stars in our own Galaxy.You can see all the winning photographs on the Royal Museums Greenwich website: https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/astronomy-photographer-year/galleries/2018 When officials with the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority look back at 2018, they will do so with a quiet pride at a job well done. The year began at a much more frenzied pace as the quasi-public utility undertook a challenging project: The $14 million fix of a tunnel and pipe system that brings water from the authoritys largest reservoir to a treatment facility in North Branford. Making the necessary repairs to the system required the creation of a temporary bypass system to allow water to continue to flow from Lake Galliard to the treatment facility. While the temporary bypass was in use, permanent repairs were made to the pipe and tunnel system. Larry Bingaman, president and chief executive officer of the RWA, said the project, which became known as The Great Hill Tunnel and Pipeline, was one of the most important infrastructure projects ever undertaken by the quasi-public utility company. It was certainly one of the largest emergency restorations, Bingaman said. What could have been a multi-year infrastructure project was completed in a matter of months, and without any water quality issues or service interruptions to the hundreds of thousands of local residents we serve. The Great Hill Tunnel and Pipeline restoration project is not only a marvel of engineering, but a shining example of our work as an agile and innovative water utility. Some parts of the permanent system are 90 years old and authority officials had been aware of leaking within the tunnel system since the 1970s. But the sense of urgency to make the necessary repairs increased exponentially last October. Thats when Authority officials discovered a leak in the systems 48-inch cast iron pipes, some of which were buried 30 feet beneath the ground. Sixty percent of the water the RWA brings to customers each day comes from Lake Galliard. Authority officials were concerned that a catastrophic failure of of the system, such as a burst pipe could pose health- and safety-threats. The potential health risk would have come from having to quickly shift for the Lake Galliard system to the one that is used to draw water from Lake Whitney in Hamden. Ted Norris, the RWAs vice president of asset management, said late last year the discovery of the leak was a real game changer that necessitated quick and decisive action. Large volumes of water spewing out of the pipe could have conceivably damaged homes and businesses located downhill for the delivery system. We are on a cant fail mission on this project, Norris said last December after the RWA Representative Policy Board gave its approval for the repairs. But fixing the leak was no easy task. The delivery network of pipes that brings the water from Lake Galliard to the treatment plant climbs a steep hill and is buried beneath Tilcon Connecticuts North Branford quarry. The source of the leak, according to Orville Kelly, the authoritys capital construction lead for the project, was a weight belt that a diver working inside the cast iron pipe lost in a 1973 accident that nearly killed the man. He (the diver) came to the point in the system where the tunnel meets the cast iron pipe, Rose Gavrilovic, the Authoritys director of capital planning and delivery, said describing the circumstances surrounding the accident. The velocity of the water coming from the tunnel got him stuck in the pipe. Over time, Kelly said, the stainless steel buckle on the weight belt caused a chemical reaction that resulted in the corrosion of the pipe. By last October, he said, water was leaking from the hole in the pipe at a rate of 60 gallons per minute. If the buckle had been made of any other metal than stainless steel, we do not believe this (leak) would have happened,Kelly said. Construction of the bypass got under way in December 2017. Repairs to the permanent system got started during January 2018 and were completed in April. Gavrilovic said about 150 feet of pipe waws replaced in the area where the leak occurred. Another 150 feet of structural liner was installed around the section of pipe that runs under the Tilcon quarry. The liner is supporting pipe that is structurally sound, said Dan Doyle, an RWA spokesman . We chose to install it because this area is difficult to access, so while we were working on repairs we made this additional improvement to harden the infrastructure for the future. Once the repairs were made, contractors working for the authority then spent May and much of June restoring the environment around the work area. Kelly said fixing the problem involved coordinating the efforts of a half dozen companies. During peak periods, as many as 40 people at a time were working on the project, Kelly said. It was important that everybody was able to work well together, he said. The repair and replacement project was not without its problems, though. Gavrilovic said weather related issues caused the project to come in about 6 percent over budget or at $14.9 million. Pumps and generators used to make the bypass system work had to work harder in colder weather to keep it running. That mean that the generators had to be refueled multiple times each day, according to Kelly. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com Amazon has held advanced discussions about the possibility of opening its highly sought-after second headquarters in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, including how quickly it would move employees there, which buildings it would occupy and how an announcement about the move would be made to the public, according to people close to the process. The discussions were more detailed than those the company has had regarding other locations in northern Virginia and some other cities nationally, adding to speculation that the site in Arlington County is a front-runner to land the online retail giant's second North American headquarters and its 50,000 jobs. The company is so close to making its choice that Crystal City's top real estate developer, JBG Smith, has pulled some of its buildings off the leasing market and officials in the area have discussed how to make an announcement to the public this month, following the midterm elections, according to public and private-sector officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Amazon has asked that the selection process remain confidential. The company may be having similar discussions with other finalists. Two people close to the process said that if Crystal City was selected, Amazon was likely to move an initial group of several hundred employees into 1851 S. Bell Street or 1770 Crystal Drive, two dated office buildings that have been targeted for redevelopment but could be readied for occupancy by their owner, JBG Smith, in nine months or less. The bid also includes sites in Potomac Yard, in Alexandria. "There's a lot of activity," one individual close to the process said. The person added that people "seem really positive, and they seem pretty confident. . . . What we don't know, maybe there are two or three other sites, and they're doing the same thing. That's what's scary to people around here." At a conference in New York on Thursday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told the crowd: "Ultimately the decision will be made with intuition after gathering and studying a lot of data - for a decision like that, as far as I know, the best way to make it is you collect as much data as you can, you immerse yourself in that data but then you make the decision with your heart." (Bezos also owns The Washington Post) Spokesmen for Amazon and JBG Smith declined to comment, as did Arlington County Board ChairKatie Cristol. Alexandria Mayor Allison Silberberg declined to discuss whether advanced talks were taking place but said, "We think we've put forward a very competitive option, and we're certainly honored to be considered." Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, asked on WTOP Radio on Wednesday about speculation that Crystal City was the front-runner said, "A lot of us are anxiously awaiting a decision, an announcement from Amazon. . . . A lot of [Virginia government] resources are being expended right now, and I think for good reason." A spokesman for Northam declined to comment further on Friday. - - - After launching a reality show-like sweepstakes for a second home in late 2017, Amazon has effectively shut down disclosures about the search in the past nine months. Twenty finalist cities - many of which have spent considerable time and money pursuing the company - have little information about where they stand, according to officials in four other finalist jurisdictions. But stock market investors, online betting sites and corporate relocation experts have all declared northern Virginia the favorite to land the so-called HQ2. Washington-area leaders believe the project is theirs to lose, and that Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia would all benefit economically. Crystal City, with easy transit access, proximity to Reagan National Airport, and ready-to-occupy office buildings, has long been considered a strong contender. The District and Montgomery County, Maryland, also are among the 20 finalists. Betting sites give northern Virginia the most likely odds of landing the project, and stock analysts have sweetened their view of JBG Smith - owner of most of Crystal City - as Amazon's announcement has approached. Analysts at Stifel Nicolaus recently upgraded the company from "Sell" to "Hold" and say just the possibility that Amazon chooses Crystal City has added four or five dollars to the company's stock price. In the Washington area, the anticipation is growing as hints filter out that Amazon is in the final stages of making a decision. The company tentatively considered making an announcement by the end of October, but has now put it off until November, according to individuals close to the process. "They have said publicly they want HQ2 operating in 2019," one person said. "Starting to work on that level of detail with the finalists is something they absolutely are doing. . . . I think it's a very small number of finalists. . . . [The announcement] requires some level of coordination and advance notice." Sharon Bulova, chair of the board of supervisors in Fairfax County, Virginia, where one of the sites is located, has felt the vibe. "What I pick up from residents is enthusiasm," she said. "They're excited about the jobs that Amazon would bring." It's also anxiety. Months of waiting have not quelled concerns about the potential pressure Amazon could place on the region's already steep housing prices, congested roads and yawning divide between its wealthy and low-income residents. When Bezos spoke at an Economic Club of Washington event in September, more than a dozen protesters occupied the sidewalk outside and civic groups - sometimes joined by union activists - have raised concerns about what the addition of such a fast-growing company would mean for the region's schools, roads and housing prices. Even without Amazon, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has estimated that the region needs to add 235,000 housing units by 2025 to keep pace with expected job growth. Amazon's arrival could push the goal to around 267,000 by 2026, according to a recent analysis by the Urban Institute. Right now the region is only on pace to add about 170,000 new units by then, and the shortage threatens to exacerbate inequality." "Whether Amazon comes or not we have a challenge there," said Peter Tatian, of the Urban Institute. "The economic growth that has been going on has been benefiting some people and causing problems for others." Amazon says it plans to make $5 billion in capital investments alone in the city it chooses, and that its headquarters injected an additional $38 billion into the local economy in Seattle, generating an additional $1.40 for every dollar the company spent. But its growth has led to fissures between the company and Seattle. Homelessness in the city has escalated and Amazon vowed to cancel some of its expansion plans if the city passed a new tax on big businesses to raise money to address the problem. - - - Bezos and the company have made several recent announcements that could soften Amazon's public image as it moves to open H2Q. Now the world's wealthiest person, Bezos announced in September that he would donate $2 billion of his own money to support groups battling homelessness in the United States and create a network of preschools in underserved communities. "I don't think it's a coincidence that one of those issue was homelessness," said Joe Parilla, a Brookings Institution fellow. "I think you can draw a pretty clear link between the debate that is unfolding in a lot of these tech hubs and how this gives a little bit of cover to Amazon as it is investing in these hot markets." In October - after bearing months of criticism from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over its treatment of workers - Amazon announced it would raise its minimum wage for all employees to $15 per hour. But the company's request for secrecy has kept a potentially thorny discussion, about how much states and cities should be willing to offer the company for its jobs, in the background. Few of the public subsidies being offered to Amazon from states, cities and counties for the project have been made public, which some analysts say could result in blowback from taxpayers if they are announced as fait accompli. Maryland has offered an incentive package worth an estimated $8.5 billion while the Newark, New Jersey, subsidies are estimated at $7 billion. On Wednesday, a judge in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, ordered the release of Pittsburgh's proposal after a legal fight with a local television station. The decision is expected to be appealed. "I would question why cities weren't more forthcoming [with their proposals], and I suspect it's because there would have been some push back to what the cities were offering," said Heidi Learner, chief economist for the advisory firm Savills Studley. "From the public's perspective the question is what is the city hiding or why shouldn't they share how [those proposals] would actually lead to more tax revenue down the line?" After Amazon initially pressed for more information, some leaders were expecting to hear the list of finalists narrowed down publicly, to give economic development teams from the eliminated cities a chance to move on. "I think the process got away from them a little bit. They probably were planning for some kind of down-selection and changed their position on that," said Jason Miller, chief executive of the Greater Washington Partnership, a business group. In addition to tax breaks, some cities have offered to build or expand roads, transit, data networks or airports if Amazon arrives. Parilla, of Brookings, said it's preferable to "maximize the broader benefit of these investments as much as possible." He also doesn't think it makes sense for Amazon, a $816-billion company, to press a city or state for an enormous subsidy package that could cut into money for other services. "My sense is that Amazon doesn't want to repeat some of the antagonism in Seattle," Parilla said. "It's not great for the brand to be viewed as oblivious to the existing economic and racial inequities in the city where it's going to invest." The ultimate decision is likely to rest with Bezos. He has a history of showing independence in such matters, such as when he needed a headquarters for The Washington Post shortly after he purchased it. The preferred choice among Post executives and consultants was a planned office building near Union Station, which they touted to Bezos during a tour of potential locations. That site was the favorite - until Bezos weighed in, and chose a downtown building. Now that Bezos is nearing a decision on the far more consequential HQ2 search, Washington area leaders are hoping he does not throw another curveball. --- Video Embed Code Video: Amazon is reportedly in the advanced stages of placing its second headquarters in the Northern Virginia suburb of Crystal City. If the city is ultimately the location that is chosen --- 50,000 jobs are expected to come to the area.(Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post) Embed code: Not long before he died, tech visionary Paul Allen traveled to the south of France for a personal tour of a 35-country quest to replicate the workings of the Sun. The goal is to one day produce clean, almost limitless energy by fusing atoms together rather than splitting them apart. The Microsoft co-founder said he wanted to view the early stages of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in Cadarache firsthand, to witness preparations "for the birth of a star on Earth." Allen wasn't just a bystander in the hunt for the holy grail of nuclear power. He was among a growing number of ultra-rich clean-energy advocates pouring money into startups that are rushing to produce the first commercially viable fusion reactor long before the $23 billion ITER program's mid-century forecast. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Peter Thiel are just three of the billionaires chasing what the late physicist Stephen Hawking called humankind's most promising technology. Scientists have long known that fusion has the potential to revolutionize the energy industry, but development costs have been too high for all but a handful of governments and investors. Recent advances in exotic materials, 3D printing, machine learning and data processing are all changing that. "It's the SpaceX moment for fusion," said Christofer Mowry, who runs the Bezos-backed General Fusion Inc. near Vancouver, British Columbia. He was referring to Elon Musk's reusable-rocket maker. "If you care about climate change you have to care about the timescale and not just the ultimate solution. Governments aren't working with the urgency needed." The company Allen supported, TAE Technologies, stood alone when it was incorporated as Tri-Alpha Energy two decades ago. Now it has at least two dozen rivals, many funded by investors with a track record of disruption. As a result, there's been an explosion of discoveries that are driving the kind of competition needed for a transformational breakthrough, according to Mowry. One of the clearest measures of progress in the field was on display last week in Gandhinagar, India, where the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency held its biennial fusion forum. The conference highlighted a record 800 peer-reviewed research papers, 60 percent more than a decade ago. Fusion itself isn't the problem. The tricky part is generating more energy than is used in the process. Such reactors have to mimic conditions found only in deep space, a much more complex and costly endeavor than fission. Heating plasma to temperatures higher than stars and then containing the ensuing reactions inside cryogenic cooling vessels can require a million parts or more. Even if commercial fusion takes longer than expected to achieve, many of the innovations produced along the way will prove lucrative on their own, according to IP Group, a London-based investor in intellectual property. Research firms are already minting patents to protect their creations, from software that simulates plasma burning at 150 million degrees Celsius (270 million Fahrenheit) to a new type of magnet that has applications in health care. "There'll still be significant residual value," said Robert Trezona, who oversees IP Group's investment in First Light Fusion, a company near Oxford University whose advisory board includes former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "It would have been inconceivable for a small company like First Light to make advancements in fusion sciences 20 years ago." One of the most ambitious ventures is Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company founded last year by six MIT professors. Backed by some of the biggest names in business, they're confident they'll be able to produce a prototype of a so-called net energy reactor by 2025. The startup raised $50 million in March from a group led by Italy's Eni SpA, one of several oil producers preparing for a carbon-neutral world. And last month it secured an unspecified sum from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund seeded by Gates, Bezos and fellow tycoons including Richard Branson, Ray Dalio and Michael Bloomberg, the majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. "The greater danger is not having anybody succeed than having everybody," Commonwealth Fusion CEO Bob Mumgaard said by phone from Cambridge, Massachusetts. "We need more smart people driving very hard to crack this." Still, ITER remains the best bet in terms of breaking the code for producing cheap energy on a massive scale, according to Nawal Prinja, a nuclear engineer at Aberdeen-based John Wood Group and a featured speaker at the forum in India. "They're coming up with all kinds of new ideas to make the industry more efficient, but turning ideas into a commercial station is a different story," Prinja said. Only ITER, Latin for "the way," has the resources needed to perfect the kind of reactor that can run entire cities, he said. If so, many of today's fusion investors may not live long enough to benefit from the rollout. It's already taken ITER more than three decades just to lay the foundation of a machine designed to prove the viability of its concept. And it doesn't expect to have a reactor capable of powering a couple million U.S. households until sometime around 2050. Tim Luce, ITER's chief scientist and Allen's host at the sprawling research facility about 50 kilometers north of Marseille, dismissed criticism of the time horizon. What the international effort is trying to accomplish, he said, is simply too ambitious for any one actor in the private sector. "These other competitors have a vision for doing something smaller, but I haven't seen a compelling piece of physics that shows they can do it," Luce said. "It's the story of the tortoise and the hare and we're the tortoise." And then there's Musk, a serial innovator who thinks the whole fusion crowd is barking up the wrong tree. In a weed-and-whiskey podcast that went viral last month, the Tesla and Solar City co-founder said smart money like his is better spent on finding more efficient ways to capture the Sun's energy than on trying to recreate it. "We've got a giant thermonuclear reactor in the sky," Musk said. "It shows up every day very reliably. If you can generate solar panels and store it with batteries, you can have it 24-hours a day." Sometimes, it takes a simple act of kindness and willingness to share to remind us who and what we are as Americans. I think it is fair to say we are living in an ugly time. There is so much hate that people need shields to protect them from the onslaught of hateful speeches and violent engagements when gathering in support of what they believe. Everything is changing and the tides of resistance from both sides are dividing America with a bridge leading to nowhere but a sad conclusion for a country whose founding principles are a hope and a beacon for people worldwide. The level of hate that has clouded America has thrown off our moral compass and the goodwill signage that used to point us in a direction where we learned to embrace our differences, is lost or floundering. Like most Americans, I, too, am troubled by the hate-filled rhetoric that swirls around me and I am very concerned that Americans will push too hard and cross a line from which there is no return. Because there is a point of no return and if that happens, it would take a generation for lifeguards to rescue and resuscitate the American spirit that right now is huffing and puffing and threatening to blow the house down. We all grew up with the lesson that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. We now know that is not true. Words hurt and cut deep. It took a young man about 20 years my junior at a bus stop in Bridgeport to remind me that all is not lost and kindness still prevails among us. Since much of the division in America appears to be centered once again on race, I think it is critical to point out he is white. We live in the same neighborhood but we are only nodding acquaintances. Until a recent morning, we had never had a conversation. But that morning, he came charging out a nearby store, sat down, opened his breakfast sandwich and then extended it toward me without taking a bite. Would you like half? he asked. I was a little taken aback because it is not an offer usually extended in such situations. I declined and he said OK, I am hungry and began to eat as we began to talk. And I wondered as we sat there symbolically breaking bread together if that is all it really takes to bring good will back among people. Maybe we look too hard for answers, think too long about solutions and delve too far into the whys of our differences. Maybe were too focused on being a blue stripe or a red stripe and forget that maybe the white stripe is for common ground. I dont want to be a bulls-eye for conservatives or liberals. I dont want to be classified as a Democrat or a Republican in denial as my coworker calls me. I just want be an American and not be defined by my race and my politics, which are a result of my life experiences. When I was an angry teenager still fuming about the domestic violence that had already made me hate everything about life, my mother would sit me down and try to steer me in another direction. James, she told me. Hate will make you ugly. Her advice is even more relevant today because it is ugly outside. Maybe were all just hungry for a bit of kindness instead of the need to dress in armor. Maybe it is time we break bread again. Who knows? Maybe that was what my neighbor was trying to unconsciously tell me when he offered me half his sandwich. Hate? Maybe all we need is a loaf of bread James Walker is the Registers senior editor. He can be reached at 203-680-9389 or james.walker@hearstmediact.com. Follow him on Twitter @thelieonroars As they readied for one of the most anticipated midterm elections in years, with memories of 2016 Russian interference on their minds, Connecticut election officials said they felt confident last week that they were prepared to conduct a secure, tamper-free election Tuesday. Connecticut is a leading state in election security, said Susannah Goodman, director of the election security program for the nonpartisan election-watchdog organization Common Cause. Connecticut has always had paper (ballots). Theyve done these (post-election) audits. The other thing is that Connecticut does not allow is internet voting, said Goodman. Thirty-two states allow some subsets of voters to send ballots over the internet. And that is a huge problem. Connecticut was one of 21 targets in the Russian cyber attacks during the 2016 election. But its closed-loop system successfully thwarted the attempt. Voting machines in Connecticut are not connected to the internet, reducing fears of hacking. Paper ballots allow officials to check election results. We do not anticipate cyber problems, said Ron Malloy, Democratic registrar of voters in Stamford and older brother of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. I dont see how its going to happen. On Election Day, a team including officials from the Secretary of the States office, State Police, the F.B.I. and the National Guard will be monitoring Connecticut election systems, ready to act if necessary. At their spring conference and training, local voting officials saw a stronger emphasis on hardening election systems against hacking and phishing, said Linda Grace, Bridgeports Republican registrar of voters. Registrars now use more-secure passwords and two-factor authentication to access election systems. While all registrars of voters there are two per town undergo training, election practices in each town vary slightly, depending on local issues including, the size of communities and their budgets. Stuart W. Wells III, who has been the Norwalk Democratic registrar for 10 years, has been downloading the list of 53,000 Norwalk voters every day and examining it for inexplicable changes, something state officials do, too. The voter roll is one part of the election system that is on internet servers. Its the canary in the coal mine type-of-thing, Wells said. If we saw a lot of changes we couldnt account for, we would let (the state) know right away. We get a pretty good early warning that way. Regional election monitors In Fairfield County, however, councils of government (COGs) have opted to bypass one election bulwark a regional election monitor. The Western Connecticut Council of Government which contains Greenwich east through Westport and north to New Milford and the Connecticut Metro Council of Government the Bridgeport area both opted not to employ a regional election monitor in 2018. The seven other COGs in the state all hired monitors, according to the Secretary of the States office. In Connecticut, where elections are run by local officials in the 169 towns, regional election monitors make sure pre-election preparations are satisfactory; assist when problems arise on Election Day; and help audit election results. This fall the Secretary of the States office received a $5 million federal grant, part of which it allocated to pay regional election monitors to conduct addition training in cybersecurity with local registrars. The Secretary of the State cant possibly spend large amounts of time with each (town), said Galen Wells, regional election monitor for the Naugatuck Valley. If you have people who are having problems, you can spend a great deal more time with them and get to know what their problems are. Wells was a regional monitor for the Western Connecticut COG in 2016 and 2017, when the position was fully funded by the state legislature. She was paid $11,000 a year, she said. The leadership discussed this and decided that municipalities who feel they need a regional election monitor (in 2018) can contract on their own terms, said Francis Pickering, executive director of Western Connecticut COG. We did poll all registrars of voters in region and this essentially emerged from that poll. The Bridgeport metro COG never hired a regional election monitor. The COGs board did not want to hire a monitor without a continuous state funding source, out of concerns it would become an unfunded mandate, said Matt Fulda, executive director of the COG. Perceptions of voting Mary Ann Doran, a Republican registrar of voters in Danbury, said she was more concerned about fraudulent voting than cyber security. You could pick up a piece of mail out of my address and go to the poll and vote for me, said Doran. I know from talking to my poll workers when we do the training about what is an acceptable ID, thats their biggest concern. Numerous studies on voting fraud have been conducted by universities and media outlets and concluded that incidence of voting fraud is infinitesimally small. News21, a national investigative reporting project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, found just 56 cases of noncitizens voting between 2000 and 2011. Nevertheless, talk of voter fraud and election security concerns have contributed to a worsening public perception, said Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, who is seeking re-election. Every single day someone asks me if their ballot will be counted and is it safe? said Merrill, the most recent past-President of the National Association of Secretaries of State, and current chair of the Cyber Security Committee. I think in Connecticut people are feeling a little bit better, but nationwide... this was the real goal of the Russians. J. Fiereck Photography Over the past few months, the Connecticut Association of Realtors (CT Realtors), hosted three gubernatorial candidate debates at the Shubert Theater attended by nearly 4,000 Realtors and their guests. We hosted one for the Republican primary in June, one for the Democratic primary in July and one between Ned Lamont and Bob Stefanowski in September. Why? As Realtors, we are on the front lines with home buyers, sellers and business owners every day and work with Connecticut property owners across all income levels. We see firsthand the homeowners and business owners that are leaving the state. The reality is not that people are simply leaving to retire to a warmer climate, they are leaving because they can no longer afford to live and or do business here. The last of the Marine Corps' remaining EA-6B Prowlers have wrapped up their final mission in the Middle East, where they supported troops taking on the Islamic State group. Now, the electronic-warfare aircraft will soon be headed to the boneyard. More than 250 members of Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 2 are returning to North Carolina after spending seven months operating out of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The squadron -- the last to fly the service's decades-old electronic-warfare aircraft -- is only about four months away from being deactivated. But that didn't slow the Death Jesters downrange, where they were tapped with supporting two campaigns simultaneously: Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, and Operation Freedom's Sentinel in Afghanistan. "The mission of the Prowler is and always has been to deny, degrade and disrupt the enemy's use of the electromagnetic spectrum," said Capt. Robert Ryland, an electronic-countermeasures officer with VMAQ-2. Being based in Qatar, he added, allowed them to respond to missions for both operations. Ryland declined to specify how many flight hours the crews flew throughout the deployment, due to operational security concerns. But the operational tempo remained high throughout the deployment, he said. "The presence of electronic warfare is extremely important to the supported unit," he said. "Though this is the final EA-6B deployment, the need for electronic warfare will remain high worldwide in the future." The Marines were called on to support not only U.S. ground troops, but coalition forces as well. From planning missions to executing them, the squadron worked with troops from several countries. "There were a lot of people on this deployment who've dedicated their entire lives to this aircraft, its community and most importantly, the electronic-warfare mission," Ryland said. The End of an Era The Prowler has been a part of the Marine Corps' aviation arsenal since the Vietnam era. The aircraft has been vital on the battlefield, since, including during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and now in the fight against ISIS terrorists. Seeing the Prowler used all the way up until its sundown says a lot about its capabilities, said 1st Lt. Sam Stephenson, a spokesman for 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Despite the aircraft's age, Ryland said the Marines with VMAQ-2 were able to maintain high readiness throughout this final deployment. "There's sometimes a bit of a misconception that old equals having a hard time getting jets airborne, but that's actually not the case with the Prowler," he said. Ryland credits their skilled maintainers, who've worked on Prowlers for a long time. Some joined VMAQ-2 when other Prowler squadrons deactivated. Now as VMAQ-2 prepares to deactivate, too, the Marines with this squadron are on the lookout for new opportunities. Some will transition to other Marine Corps aircraft, join a different branch, or leave the military when their service time is up, Ryland said. "Everybody has their own personal plan for what they'll do next," Ryland said. Lt. Col. Greg Sand, EA-6B requirements officer with Marine Corps headquarters, told Military.com last fall that the Prowler's sunset wouldn't force anyone out of the Marine Corps. If Marines weren't selected to transfer to work on another aircraft, he said they could always serve in B-billets or support their headquarters. And some with EA-6B aircrews were also transitioning to work with drone squadrons, he said. Despite the end of the Prowlers' era, the need for electronic-warfare capabilities on the battlefield isn't going away. Throughout the aircraft's sundown process, Stephenson said the Marine Corps has been building up a suite of new electronic-warfare capabilities across the Marine air-ground task force. According to Marine Corps planning documents, that includes pods or sensors that can be affixed to other aircraft and new signals intelligence and cyber capabilities. "This will be the new way the Marine Corps plans to transition from utilizing the Prowlers to a more distributed strategy where every platform contributes and functions as a sensor, shooter and sharer and [includes] an EW node," Stephenson said. Marine units heading to sea or combat are already carrying some of those capabilities, Sand said. They offer commanders a great deal of flexibility, since they can be added to fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. "A MAGTF commander can just walk out onto a flightline now, see the asset, and he or she owns that asset and can task that asset," Sand said. And Marine ground troops will still be able to call on joint forces when they need airborne electronic attack capabilities, he added. "The Prowler in practical terms has been replaced in additional capacities by the Navy [EA-18G] Growler," Sand said. "That's a Super Hornet ... with a pretty fierce EW capability. The Growler really is the follow-on to the Prowler." For now, VMAQ-2 still has a few months of work left before the Prowlers' final flights. When the squadron does get ready to say goodbye to its beloved aircraft in March, Ryland says they'll hold a sundown ceremony at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina. Any Marine who worked with the Prowler, whether a year or decades ago, is invited to attend. "The Prowler has been a really incredible workhorse for the Marine Corps, the United States and allied forces for many, many decades," Ryland said. "I know the people who fly and fix these aircraft have a lot of respect for them and certainly for those who came before us. "There is a tremendous amount of hard work and training that goes into performing the Prowler mission," he added. "It's a great honor, every time I get to fly in one." _______ Hope Hodge Seck contributed to this report. -- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins. China's Sub Force Is Growing More Powerful. This Is What the US Navy Needs to Do to Stay Ahead How to use the mindat.org media viewer Click/touch this help panel to close it. Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image) Controls - all media types Zoom in and out of media using your mousewheel or with a two-finger 'resize' action on a touch device. Use the mouse or your finger to drag the image or the view area of the image around the screen. < and > at the left and right hand side of the screen move forwards and backwards for the other images associated with the media you selected. Usually this is used for previous/next photo in a gallery, in an article or in search results. Keyboard shortcuts: use shift + the left and right arrow keys. < and > in the bottom center are used for switching between the photos of the same specimen. Keyboard shortcuts: use the left and right arrow keys. > in the bottom center, raises the information box giving details and further options for the media, < at the top of this box then hides it. Keyboard shortcuts: use the up and down arrow keys. ? opens this help window. Keyboard shortcuts: use the H key or the ? key. Other keyboard shortcuts: 1 Fit image to screen 2 Fill screen with image 5 Display at full resolution < Make background darker > Make background lighter space Hide/dim titles and buttons Scalebar If the field of view (FOV) is specified for the photo, the scalebar appears in the left bottom corner of the viewer. The scalebar is draggable and resizeable. Drag the right edge to resize it. Double click will reset the scalebar to it's default size and position. If the scalebar is in default position, double click will make it circular. Controls - Video Video files have a standard set of video controls: - Reset to start, - Skip back, - Play, - Pause, - Skip forwards. Keyboard shortcuts: You can stop/start video play with the P key. Controls - Animation (Spin Rotation) Animation (usually 360 degree spin rotations) have their own controls: - enable spin mode. Note that while images are loading this option will not be available but will be automatically activated when the animation has loaded. Once active you can spin the image/change the animation by moving your mouse or finger on the image left/right or by pressing the [ or ] keys. The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types. The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control. Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways: - without any special equipment using cross-eyed or parallel-eyed method - with stereoscope - with anaglyph glasses. - on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system) For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them. Controls - photo comparison mode If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu. Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder. Summary of all keyboard shortcuts MINNEAPOLIS -- The Detroit Lions are getting ready to play their first game since trading Golden Tate to the Philadelphia Eagles. But first, they offered him a contract extension before sending him packing. That bit of news comes courtesy of MMQB, and isn't exactly a surprise. Detroit had been negotiating with Tate's people since the summer. The question was never whether the Lions would offer a new deal, but whether they'd be willing to meet Tate's demands. Tate is expected to ask for top dollar, which for a slot receiver, comes out to roughly $15 or $16 million per year. He's not likely to get that because of his age -- he'll turn 31 before playing a down on the new deal -- but is expected to find a competitive market in free agency. And the Lions' trade of Tate now telegraphs their belief they'd be unable or unwilling to meet that price point. The Tate trade is a blow to a team that sits just one game out of first place in the NFC North, but does net them a third-round pick in return, an excellent price for an aging receiver on an expiring contract. The Lions will open the post-Tate era Sunday against Minnesota with Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones on the outside. Brandon Powell, TJ Jones and Andy Jones are all dressed and could contribute to some kind of committee to replace the club's top man in the slot. OSHTEMO TOWNSHIP, MI - A man was shot early Sunday morning in the 5900 block of Copper Beach Boulevard, according to the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office. The shooting occurred around 4 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 4 in Oshtemo Township, according to a news release issued by the sheriff's office. Deputies have not identified a suspect and the investigation is ongoing. Deputies responded early Sunday morning to the area of South Drake Road and West KL Avenue on a report of shots fired. After receiving the call, deputies were informed that a male gunshot wound victim had arrived at a local hospital. Investigators later determined that the shooting occurred on Copper Beach Boulevard. The release also states that the incident is being considered an assault with intent to murder. Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to contact the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office at 269-383-8748 or Silent Observer online or at at 269-343-2100. | BY Ricki Green | Following the successful 1400 stores, 1400 stories series created by March One, IGA has re-engaged the storytelling specialists to deliver a Christmas campaign that focuses on the locals and the retailers powerful connection to community. IGAs new Christmas campaign is anchored around those at the heart of its brand local communities, supplier, charities and independent retailers and features real shoppers and their families cast from local IGA stores. Danielle Wilkes, general manager marketing at Metcash Food & Grocery, says the new campaign Showcases all the occasions leading up to Christmas and the local spirit of our IGA store owners. From their support of local producers to giving back to charities. The IGA Christmas campaign captures the values that underpin the festive season a time for family, friends, neighbours and communities to come together. Its a spirit that IGA champions every day of the year. Says Ben Coverdale, creative director and owner, March One: After our recent work with IGA, we had a clear understanding that at the heart of IGAs brand are locals: local storeowners, local suppliers, local communities and local shoppers. It was a natural fit to build the campaign around those locals, using shoppers cast from the Taren Point IGA store. The campaign will come to life on Sunday 4th November across TV, OOH, digital, social and in-store, and features Australian actor and comedian Shane Jacobson. Agency: March One ECD Ben Coverdale MD: Greg Bechly Account Director: Mel Tozer Design: Saxon Duke GM Marketing: Danielle Wilkes Senior Marketing Manager: Nada Steel National Brand Manager: Hayley Lusk Head of Brand: Helen Kealy Director: Dean Friske Producer: Tina Schiano DP: Tony Luu Grade: Scott Maclean Visual Effects: Stage23 Sound: Ism Studios Stills: Jason Doyle, Andrew Ratter, David Silva: Studio Commercial With 160 deals, IT and ITES was the busiest sector followed by manufacturing and healthcare (47). The banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space was third, recording 41 deals. Let's take a look at the biggest mergers and acquisitions in India this year. (Representative image) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Adani Transmission will acquire KEC International's entire stake in KEC Bikaner Sikar Transmission for Rs 227.5 crore, both companies informed the exchanges on November 3. The company has entered into a share-purchase agreement with KEC International to acquire its entire stake of equity shares representing 99.99 percent of the total issued, paid-up and subscribed equity share capital and preference shares in its subsidiary KEC Bikaner Sikar Transmission, the Gautam Adani-promoted company said in a statement KEC Bikaner Sikar Transmission holds a minimum 25 years concession licence to operate and maintain the 400 kV D/C Bikaner-Sikar Line of 344 circuit km in Rajasthan, it said in a statement. With the successful construction and ahead-of-schedule commissioning of the Bikaner Sikar Transmission Line, KEC has further strengthened its presence in the tariff-based competitive bidding space, the pre-qualification and experience of which will be leveraged for securing similar opportunities in the future in India, Vimal Kejriwal, MD and CEO of KEC International, said. The company won the project through competitive bidding and was completed almost four months ahead of schedule by KEC International. Representative image A Kolkata-bound A320 neo plane of IndiGo returned to Lucknow on Friday, with initial inspection showing that the aircraft suffered bird strike, according to the airline. An IndiGo spokesperson said the aircraft that was involved in the air turn back to Lucknow airport was powered by PW1100G-JM engines. "Initial inspection observed evidence of a bird strike and the engine performed as expected in this situation. Further investigation is currently in progress," the spokesperson said. The number of passengers on the flight could not be immediately ascertained. A P&W spokesperson also said that initial inspection observed evidence of a bird strike and the engine performed as expected in this situation. "We continue to work closely with our customer to support their operations and minimise any disruption," he said. According to him, the PW1100G-JM powers a fleet of more than 280 A320neo aircraft worldwide, which have achieved more than 1.3 million engine flight hours of operation. | BY Ricki Green | BWM Dentsu Group (including Haystac, Cox Inall Communications, Cox Inall Change, and Cox Inall Ridgeway an Indigenous social impact agency) has today announced its strategic partnership with Swinburne University and internship program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students looking to enter the creative and media industries. The Indigenous internship is one of the first of its kind in the sector, and is being undertaken by the BWM Dentsu Group as part of its recently implemented Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), a document created with the intention of building a bridge between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. The partnership aligns with Swinburne Universitys own RAP, which achieved Elevate status the highest possible RAP level in 2017. In addition, the partnership is in line with the universitys long history of championing professional placements and internships to enhance the skills and employment prospects of its students. Co-designed to provide opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, the internship is expected to help address the underrepresentation of Indigenous people in the creative industries 1 . Says Belinda Murray, managing director of BWM Dentsu Melbourne: We want to ensure the creative sector is a welcoming, dynamic, safe and nurturing environment for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. On top of this, were also excited to improve BWM Dentsu Groups creative offering by opening ourselves up to the diversity of thinking that this talented group of young people will bring to the agency. Through this partnership with Swinburne University, we arent just helping young people find their feet in a new industry, were also helping our industry grow and thrive as a result of improved inclusion and diversity. Says Professor Andrew Gunstone, executive director of reconciliation strategy and leadership at Swinburne: Swinburne, and the Moondani Toombadool Centre, prides itself on its commitment to student success. This program presents a fantastic opportunity for Swinburne Indigenous students to gain exposure to the creative industry, while also aligning with Swinburnes vision to create future-ready learners, and our RAPs commitment to self-determination and reciprocity. Were thrilled to be working with the BWM Dentsu Group to offer Swinburne Indigenous students such a wide and compelling range of opportunities. Together, were excited about creating experiences that extend student knowledge, bring Indigenous knowledge to industry, and foster understanding. Everyone benefits from that kind of partnership. Students involved in the program will begin their internship in January 2019 in the BWM Dentsu Groups Melbourne office, and work across all the agencies in the BWM Dentsu Group. The Group plans to roll out a similar program in its Sydney office later in 2019. All agency staff will participate in cultural awareness training to increase their broader knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander matters, people, culture and heritage. To attract more investments, especially to sectors like aerospace, defence and automotive, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is planning to acquire additional 68,000 hectares over the next five years. Maharashtra on average nets around 30 percent of the total foreign direct investment coming to the country, making it a top destination for foreign companies. The corporation, which currently has a land bank of 84,000 hectares and nearly 288 industrial estates across the state, will have to invest nearly USD 2 billion into these land banks to create the necessary infrastructure, according to a top official of the corporation. "We have seen there is a huge demand in sectors like automotive, defence, aerospace, chemical engineering and garment industries. We are planning to acquire 68,000 hectares over the next five years to give a boost to these industries," MIDC joint chief executive Annasaheb Misal told PTI here over the weekend. He further said an investment of nearly USD 2 billion will also be needed to create the necessary infrastructure. "New investments are coming into the country. Of the total foreign direct investment that comes to the country, nearly 35-50 per cent come to Maharashtra. If we provide the necessary infrastructure we are sure more and more industries will come up in the state, " he said. Asked about the state government's decision to take back the lands from companies which didn't commence operations, Misal said, "During the past two years alone we have taken back 1,000 plots. We want serious players who will not just set up business here but also be a source of employment generation as well." The statement is interesting as only last week the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had said he was delaying the proposed mega refinery the 60- million-tonne-per-annum West Coast Refinery) in Ratnagiri due to the issues with land acquisition. The refinery, which if built, will be the largest in the world is being planned as an equal joint venture between the three national oil marketing companies and the worlds largest oil company Saudi Aramco and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Similarly, the much-trumpeted Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project is facing serious delays due to protest by the farmers in the state and Gujarat and is a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The over Rs 1-trillion project is almost fully funded by Japan. Representative image The Narendra Modi government is seeking to push its ambitious labour reforms agenda, with six months left of its term, by arriving at a consensus with other parties to further its legislative agenda and come up with better deals for worker unions, including Bharatiya Janata Party-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Hindustan Times reported. Nipendra Mishra, Principal Secretary to PM Modi, held a high-level meeting with secretaries of ministries and NITI Aayog officials to plan how to take the pending bills regarding labour reforms forward, the report stated. The initial plan was to translate 44 complex labour laws into four separate codes. These are wages, industrial relations, social security and welfare, and occupation safety, health and working conditions. While Mishra couldnt disclose any information, government sources told the paper that the discussion revolved around taking stakeholders into confidence, including representatives of state and trade unions. Some states and trade unions perceive the codes as anti-labour and pro-industry, whereas the bills provide flexibility, social security and more bargaining power to workers, a source told the paper. The government may also expand the social security benefits of these workers. The meeting discussed a proposal on free social security to some sections of the workforce, with the government paying the premiums on these, the report said. A government official told the paper that the Atal Pension scheme and the PMs life and accident insurance scheme could be changed in some aspects to provide social security to workers. The government acknowledged in the meeting that there is a need to push for these reforms as they were stuck due to political disagreements. NITI Aayog and the Labour Ministry are responsible for talking to states and bringing them on board for these changes, the report stated. Out of the four codes, only the Wage Code bill has been introduced in Lok Sabha in 2017 and is being reviewed by a Parliamentary panel. We have rejected some of the provisions of the bill. In principle, we are totally opposed to the proposed industrial relations code as it makes it almost impossible to have a trade union, CITU General Secretary Tapan Sen told the paper. Cyberattacks in India may rise by up to 10 percent in 2018 compared to 53,000 cases reported last year. According to the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), which is the last line of defence for the country's IT networks and infrastructure, between January and May, 40 percent of the cyberattacks originated from China, 25 percent from the US, 13 percent came from Pakistan and 9 percent from Russia. Compared to last year, attacks from Pakistan and North Korea have increased this year, a senior official at CERT told Hindustan Times. The attacks could be fatal as India's financial markets, transport networks and critical infrastructure heavily depend on IT networks. Interventions of such nature can result in massive and widespread disruption. Cyberattacks will increase as the use of internet increases. But, reporting of cyberattacks is still very low in India. Only 5 percent of cyberattacks are reported to authorities, Jiten Jain, CEO of Indian Infosec Consortium, told the daily. The attackers have primarily focused on the countrys financial networks and government arms, according to the data shared by the cyber security establishment with the Prime Ministers Office. Power plants and power grids have also borne the brunt of such attacks. As per the CERT, 20 percent of the attacks in 2018 targeted financial networks and government departments each. Oil refineries, power plants and oil and gas pipelines followed with 15 percent and telecom and defence communication networks were next in line. National Cyber Security Coordinator Gulshan Rai, India's top IT security official, said threats faced by the country are no different than those faced by its counterparts. The attacks and penetration of the information and communication technology infrastructure are increasing across the country in line with the trend across the world. The Indian situation is in line with the world, Rai said. Attacking the proposed "grand alliance" of Congress, TDP and other parties for the December 7 assembly polls in Telangana, TRS leader and minister in the caretaker government KT Rama Rao on Saturday said the alliance partners should specify on what basis they had come together. The proposed grand alliance comprises Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), which is a partner in it. Though the alliance partners have had several rounds of discussions on seat-sharing and other issues, they have not reached a final agreement. "There is no answer when asked what is the criteria for the alliance between Congress and TDP," he said, addressing a gathering at the TRS office. TRS had allied with Congress in 2004 and TDP in 2009 after the two parties adopted a pro-Telangana stance, Rama Rao, son of TRS president and Caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, said. Claiming that it was TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu, who calls the shots in the alliance, he alleged that irrigation projects in Telangana would suffer if the alliance came to power, as Naidu had opposed them in his capacity as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister. The TRS has been attacking the 'unholy alliance' between Congress and TDP, saying the TDP was formed by late N T Rama Rao on an anti-Congress plank. State Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy earlier said the TRS should speak about its performance in the last four years, instead of attacking the alliance between Congress and TDP. Iranians chanting "Death to America" rallied on Sunday to mark both the anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent reimposition of US sanctions on Iran's key oil sector. Thousands of students in the government-organised rally in the capital Tehran, broadcast live by state television, burned the Stars and Stripes, an effigy of Uncle Sam and pictures of President Donald Trump outside the leafy downtown compound that once housed the US mission. Hardline students stormed the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979 soon after the fall of the US-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days. The two countries have been enemies, on opposite sides of Middle East conflict, ever since. Iranian state media said millions turned out for rallies in most cities and towns around the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and its hardline top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The turnout figure could not be independently confirmed by Reuters. Rallies replete with "Death to America" chants are staged on the embassy takeover anniversary every year. But US-Iranian rancour is especially strong this time round following Trump's decision in May to withdraw the United States from world powers' 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. The deal brought about the lifting of most international financial and economic sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran curbing its disputed nuclear activity under UN surveillance. The restoration of US sanctions on Monday targeting Iran's oil sales and banking sectors is part of a wider effort by Trump to force Tehran to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes outright as well as support for proxy forces in conflicts across the Middle East. The top commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said at the Tehran rally that Iran would resist and defeat a US "psychological war" and the return of US sanctions, meant to cripple the Islamic Republic's oil exports and financial institutions. "America has launched an economic and psychological war as a last resort ... But America's plots and its plans for sanctions will be defeated through continued resistance," said Jafari. In a speech on Saturday, Khamenei said Trump's policies faced opposition around the world. "America's goal has been to re-establish the domination it had (before 1979) but it has failed. America has been defeated by the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years," he said. Fondurile europene disponibile pentru activitatile neagricole in mediul rural s-au epuizat inainte de finalul sesiunii, fiind primite online 1.149 de cereri de finantare, in valoare de peste 204 milioane de euro, informeaza Agentia pentru Finantarea ... Premierul grec, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a anuntat joi o serie de masuri pentru cei nevaccinati, printre care interdictia de a intra, cu incepere de luni, in spatii inchise, cu exceptia localurilor pentru luat masa, noteaza AFP. "Cu incepere de luni (22 ... Germania intentioneaza ca vaccinarea impotriva COVID-19 sa devina obligatorie pentru personalul din spitale si caminele de batrani, in incercarea de a opri o revenire a epidemiei in tara, au anuntat joi guvernul si autoritatile din landuri, dupa o re ... Jay-Jay & Flynny Flynny thanks the courier for this moment of kindness when he wasn't okay In August, Dahna Goldstein, a 44-year-old entrepreneur and mother of one, was feeling frustrated. She was glued to the coming midterm elections, following myriad candidates and the rising tide of disrupters around the country, and she wanted to take what had become a focus of her personal life and include it in her professional life. She wanted a message tee or something like it, anyway that she could wear in a boardroom. She didnt want to leave her wardrobe politics to the weekends. There was this huge disconnect between what I was feeling going on around me in the country and what was going on in my work life, Goldstein said. She complained to her friend Alexandra Posen, an artist who is the sister of designer Zac Posen and who was the creative director of his company until 2010. They came up with an idea: a silk scarf, the kind you may wear with a suit jacket, etched with fine line drawings of every Democratic female political candidate on the Nov. 6 ballot. They thought other women might be interested. A new company, Resistance by Design, was born. This election cycle, getting out the vote is not just a talking, or lobbying, point. Its a product category. First, in November 2016, there was #PantsuitNation and women heading to the polls in white to declare their allegiance with the suffragists and potentially with the first female president. Then, in January 2017, there was the Womens March and that iconic pink hat. And now, as the midterm elections loom, there are bamboo cotton T-shirts and cashmere sweaters and leather totes emblazoned with exhortations to Vote or Dont Block the Box; there are garments heralding Power to the Polls. There is a special trunk show devoted to Vote tees on Moda Operandi and a page on elle.com for Vote merch. Is it just a marketing moment? Carpetbagging on a hot-button issue to sell stuff? Its possible. Thats the easy accusation. But there is real money, critical mass and some risk involved. And that tends to suggest something more is going on. This isnt the sloganeering DIY uniforms of yore, the stuff of protests past (although there is some of that; see Zazzle, Etsy and Cafepress). This isnt just companies urging consumers to vote or modeling civic behavior by giving employees time off to vote, like Levis and Patagonia. This is a rejection of the premise that political fashion is for marching on the barricades on your own time. This is a proposition for a new one: clothes as an overt expression of values to be worn all the time, anywhere. Take that to the ballot box and check it. This is Prabal Gurung and Tory Burch and Wes Gordon of Carolina Herrera and Diane von Furstenberg and Rag & Bone putting words and symbols to cloth. This is a quilted leather tote scrawled with Give a Damn, a collaboration by MZ Wallace (whose bags Hillary Clinton carried at the Benghazi hearings) and Lingua Franca (whose cashmere sweater scrawled with poverty is sexist was worn by Connie Britton to the Golden Globes in January). This is a canvas bag for Swing Left, an organization dedicated to canvassing in swing districts, by the New York Fashion Week indie darlings Eckhaus Latta. It features line drawings and the words Is this what you wanted/ Lady Liberty in a foam crown/ Twirling the sign/ Everything must go/ At some point. We were really feeling emotional about the political situation, and women having a voice and the importance of getting out there to vote, because thats the way to make things change, said Monica Zwirner, a founder of MZ Wallace. It seemed like time for a call to action, and it was almost our duty to create that possibility. According to Valerie Steele, curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, which in 2009 staged an exhibition titled Fashion and Politics that looked at more than 200 years of statement-making clothes, political fashion has been around for decades. Most often, however, it was pins and generic T-shirts. Even the paper dresses from the late 1960s that were practically wearable posters for Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey were off-label. But while activists have been wearing their issues on their sleeves for as long as slogans have existed, the involvement of the fashion industry on many levels is fairly new. Conventional wisdom long dictated that brands should never show their party affiliation, lest they alienate a host of potential consumers. If you wanted to find out what designers believed, you had to go to their tax records and find out where their donations went. Now you go to the stores. As corporate America has woken up and started speaking up, so, too, has the fashion industry. Its not just Starbucks (or Disney or Apple) anymore. We are living in a different time, and we cant not do something, Alexandra Posen said. And the thing you can do as a designer is uniquely leverage your skills. Part of this has to do with social media: As visual imagery has become a means of mass communication, what you wear becomes an even more important signal of identity and values. Its one of the reasons the MAGA hat has become shorthand for the current administration and why increasingly it makes sense to offer up a physical alternative to the cap. Like, for example, the multicolored Vote bamboo-cotton tee designed by Gurung to represent not only the action but also the idea of the rainbow nation. As opposed to the angry red one. Steele traces the rise of this more formal political fashion to the Obama administration, arguably the first truly digital White House, as well as to the related fundraising efforts of Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, via her Runway to Win. The synergies picked up steam during the Hillary Clinton campaign, with brands like Supreme endorsing Clinton and offering up related products. (Wintour famously wore a sequined Hillary T-shirt during New York Fashion Week in 2016.) And when Clinton didnt win, the resulting disenchantment could be seen on multiple runways, including those of Public School and Christian Siriano. Still, its notable that as fashion has gotten more involved, it still claims to be relatively nonpartisan. Although it is a traditionally liberal community that has come out against President Donald Trump and many of his initiatives, Zwirner was careful to say that voting is a way for everyone to be involved, no matter how they vote. Likewise, Tory Burch, who went from writing an op-ed essay in The Wall Street Journal in 2016 urging companies to give their employees Election Day off to creating a Vote tee (the kind she models with a brightly striped A-line skirt in various social media posts), prefers not to categorize what she does as political. She calls it humanist. That may be. But for most people buying the clothes, they function as a clarion call for change. And while in theory that change simply could mean reversing voter apathy, the clear impetus is to upend the status quo. Thats political, whether anyone wants to admit it. And although no one really expects one person wearing a T-shirt (or scarf or bag) to get other people to alter their behavior, there is something about constantly seeing an issue that makes it percolate through the consciousness. Especially because, unlike such efforts in the past, which often reeked of marketing as opposed to commitment, all of the profits, if not all of the proceeds, from many of these products go to nonprofits. Since the beginning of October, the MZ Wallace x Lingua Franca bag has raised more than $100,000 for She Should Run, an organization that supports women running for office. The sales of Burchs tee go to Yara Shahidis Eighteen x 18, which is focused on the next generation of voters, and 100 percent of the profits from the Resistance by Design scarf go to Emilys List and Emerge America. On Moda Operandis Vote 2018 trunk show, where a variety of the tees priced from $50 (for an Edie Parker style with trompe loeil pins) to $195 (for Brandon Maxwells design with a red vote over the left breast and a cowboy hat in place of the o), all proceeds go to Rock the Vote. Four of the 13 styles are sold out. When people say stick to fashion, and I get a lot of that on social media, it irritates me to no end, Burch said. Im going to make it the title of my next book. Because I think people will continue to weigh in on this, and thats a good thing. Gurung agreed. As designers, clothing is our language, our medium for communication, so for myself and many others, a statement T-shirt, sweater, sweatshirt or entire collection is our way to show the world what we stand for, he said. To spread our message by joining with the people who can take our message from the runway or the racks to the streets. Or the polls. This week, we will see what kind of trend this really is. Republican congressmen in four Illinois districts are fighting to keep their seats as Democrats effort to take control of the House reaches new battlegrounds, including areas the GOP has held for decades. Invigorated Democrats, motivated largely by opposition to President Donald Trump, have talked for months about a blue wave that could flip the 23 seats the party needs to claim the House. Theyre looking to Illinois to help them get there, and say people are registering their displeasure not just by voting, but by knocking on doors and calling voters. Democratic candidates across Illinois are benefiting from this surge in enthusiasm, and have tremendous grassroots support to help them deliver their message and get voters to the polls, said Sean Savett, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman. The party in the White House typically loses seats in the first midterm after a presidential election, but Republicans say theyre not ceding ground. The Republican National Committee is spending $275 million in races across the U.S. this cycle, and has made more than 600,000 voter contacts in Illinois. Trump was in southern Illinois Saturday to campaign with two-term Rep. Mike Bost. We are doing everything that we can do defy history, said RNC spokeswoman Ellie Hockenbury. Heres a look at the battlegrounds: 13th District Candidates: GOP Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville, Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan of Springfield The district: Central Illinois and parts of southwestern Illinois. The race: Londrigan, like Democrats across the country, has made health care and coverage of pre-existing conditions the centerpiece of her campaign. She talks often of the life-threatening illness her son had as a child, and how it could have bankrupted her family if they hadnt had insurance. And shes criticized Davis for voting for a GOP bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Davis credits the GOP tax bill for low unemployment and the strong economy, and says hes worked with the Trump administration to help the district. Vice President Mike Pence held a fundraiser for the three-term congressman, and other GOP officials also have made stops in the district, which includes the University of Illinois and Illinois State University as well as more rural areas. . 6th District Candidates: GOP Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton, Democrat Sean Casten of Downers Grove The district: Chicagos west and northwest suburbs. The race: Democrats pinned Illinois 6th District long a safe GOP seat as a top 2018 target after voters there backed Hillary Clinton over Trump by seven percentage points in 2016. Casten, a scientist and businessman whos never held public office, has argued Roskam is too conservative for the increasingly diverse district. Hes hit the six-term congressman on issues like abortion rights, which Roskam has a long record of opposing, and attacked his ties to Trump. Roskam says its Casten whos too extreme, and has criticized him for name calling and mean tweets. Roskam has touted his role as an architect of the GOP tax bill, which he says means a $1 billion tax cut for the district, and warned that Casten wants to hike taxes. . 12th District Candidates: GOP Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro, Democrat Brendan Kelly of Swansea, Green Party candidate Randy Auxier of Murphysboro The district: Southwestern and southern Illinois, including communities east of St. Louis, and Illinois southernmost tip. The race: Bost is a longtime state representative who won the congressional seat in 2014, two years before voters in the once reliably Democratic district backed Trump by almost 15 percentage points over Clinton. Bost says it was the inevitable outcome in a district that has been slowly growing more Republican, and where steel workers and coal miners feel abandoned by the Democratic party. But Democrats remain hopeful about taking it back. They recruited Kelly, a Navy veteran and St. Clair County states attorney with local roots. Hes campaigned on a platform of saving southern Illinois, which includes investing in infrastructure and getting big money out of politics. Trump held a rally with Bost in the congressmans hometown after also campaigning in the district in August, when he stopped at U.S. Steel in Granite City. . 14th District Candidates: GOP Rep. Randy Hultgren of Plano, Democrat Lauren Underwood of Naperville The district: Chicagos far western, northwest and north suburbs, rural areas of northern Illinois. The race: Underwood is a nurse who worked in the administration of former President Barack Obama. She has a manageable heart condition, and says she decided to take on Hultgren because of his vote for health care legislation that would have made coverage of pre-existing conditions more expensive. Hultgren is a former state lawmaker who was elected in 2010 to represent the district, which was once held by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. He has also stressed the strong economy, and credited the GOP tax bill for economic and job growth. Hultgren has easily won re-election since taking office, and the district supported Trump in 2016. But Underwood has garnered national attention from the cover of Time magazine to lending her name to a Ben & Jerrys ice cream flavor. She raised more than $2 million in the third quarter more than four times what Hultgren raised during the same period. Associated Press Writer The surveillance tape from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Tyler showed a man forcing their 19-year-old daughter into her pickup. Megan LeAnn Holden's family now knows the rest of the story. Johnny Lee Williams Jr., 25, revealed the details Thursday before pleading guilty to capital murder. He described how he abducted Holden after she left the Tyler store, shot her and then drove to buy a cheeseburger a half-hour after leaving the body on the side of a West Texas highway more than 400 miles from her home. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty for Williams, who received consecutive life sentences on the capital murder charge as well as two counts of aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping and robbery. The abduction of Holden, a Wal-Mart store clerk, was captured in chilling detail on videotape after her night shift on Jan. 19. "We had enough to convict him," said April Sikes, Smith County first assistant criminal district attorney. Williams attorney Bobby Mims said his defense team had submitted a plea offer several times before it was accepted Wednesday. "We felt it was a slam-dunk death penalty case for the prosecution," Mims said. Sikes said Holden's family was willing to accept the plea. But first, they wanted Williams to debrief them on the last 24 hours of her life. Williams told the family he randomly chose Holden because he thought he could overpower her. He said he was supposed to spend that night at the house of a nearby friend, but since the friend wasn't home, he walked to Wal-Mart. Sikes said Williams told the family he "didn't have a plan for how it was going to end." He said Holden was cooperative and later "relieved" when he told Holden he was bringing her back to Tyler and turned the pickup around. But according to Sikes, Williams said Holden struck him in the face after he made a U-turn to get gas. Williams said he then stopped the car, pushed Holden through the passenger door and choked her before shooting her in the head. Sikes said Williams also admitted to raping Holden twice and apologized to the family. "This information was very important to them," Sikes said. In a victim impact statement delivered in court after Williams was sentenced, Sheri Dunlap, Holden's mother, told Williams he was the most selfish man she'd ever encountered. She said she appreciated his apology but would never be able to forgive him or forget what he had done. "I want this to haunt you until you realize what you've done," she said crying, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported in its Friday editions. Mims said the debriefing was difficult but "healthy" for Williams. Williams was arrested Jan. 21 at a hospital in Willcox, Ariz., while seeking treatment for a gunshot wound. A clerk at an RV park near Bowie, Ariz., shot Williams in the shoulder during a robbery attempt, authorities said. Police said Williams, who was discharged last year after four years as a Marine and serving in Iraq, was arrested in December in Tyler on a cocaine possession charge. He was released the same day on $2,000 bond. Dunlap and James Vincent Holden, Holden's father, have filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart and The Wackenhut Corp., which provided security to the store. As milder weather sets in this fall, gorgeous autumn colors have finally started to pop up on trees around Texas. Many are in the northern portion of the state, where temperatures have already dipped into the 30s this year and fall is in full swing but there are plenty that are just a short road trip away from San Antonio. Overlooked in a campaign consumed by fiscal issues, criminal-justice reforms enacted by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy are a quiet wedge issue in the race to succeed him, with Republican Bob Stefanowski taking advice from the governors loudest critic on crime, Sen. Len Suzio of Meriden. Democrat Ned Lamont and petitioning candidate Oz Griebel recently published outlines on criminal justice issues, and in debates they have generally applauded the legislative and executive policies pursued by Malloy under the umbrella of what he calls his Second Chance initiatives, which are part of a national reassessment of an era of mass incarceration. But this is not an issue voters have seen in television ads, nor one that the candidates often choose to highlight. A coalition led by ACLU Smart Justice, which campaigns for policies that reduce racial disparities in the justice system and offers alternatives to prison, complained in open letters to the candidates that none of them adequately address criminal justice. The financial and human costs of mass incarceration are too high for Connecticuts candidates for governor to be silent on this issue, said Gus Marks-Hamilton, an ACLU field organizer. Connecticut has made critical progress toward criminal justice reform under Gov. Malloy, but our next governor, whoever that is, will have much more work to do. The open letters were sent on Oct. 25, and Lamont responded by posting a criminal justice platform four days later, followed by Griebel with a 12-point statement on Thursday. Stefanowski did not respond, the ACLU said. Stefanowski is alone in asserting Connecticut must be tougher in determining how much time inmates serve for violent crime, but he has never articulated how that would be accomplished. Judges in Connecticut impose sentences knowing that inmates can earn good-time credits in prison, but offenders convicted of violent crimes must serve a minimum of 85 percent of their sentence one of the tougher standards in the U.S. According to the ACLU, Connecticut still imprisons more people on a per capita basis than any other state in New England. Suzio wants to abolish the states Risk Reduction Earned Credit program, which allows eligible inmates up to five days a month off their sentences. Suzio says inmates should serve every day of their sentences, taking away what correction officials say is an incentive for inmates to behave in custody and prepare for their release. Im not suggesting that, Stefanowski said in an interview. But he said that he generally finds Suzio persuasive that many inmates are being released too early. Hes done a lot of analysis on this. But in a statement on his campaign web site, Stefanowski is unequivocal. He promises to end the early release program, as Suzio calls it. There are countless articles about offenders who were released under this program only to commit more heinous crimes, Stefanowski says on the site. Its time violent offenders serve their full sentence. Ending the program, however, would impact inmates serving time for non-violent crime. Another contradiction is that Stefanowski was unsure last week when asked if he would favor raising the requirement that all inmates convicted of violent crime serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. Stefanowski, a former global corporate executive who lived abroad for 10 years and didnt vote for 16 years, has rarely strayed from his promise of slashing taxes and state spending, betraying annoyance when asked about non-fiscal issues. Ive looked at all of them. Ive looked at education. Ive looked at health care. Ive looked at the early release program, transportation, Stefanowski said. My primary (focus), its not a social agenda. Its to get this economy moving. With Malloys approval ratings among the lowest in the U.S., Lamont has distanced himself from the two-term Democratic governor. A notable exception is his recently published policy statement promising to continue efforts to repeal laws with racially disparate impacts, end bail for minor crimes and refocus prisons from punishment to rehabilitation. The contrast in this election couldnt be clearer. Bob Stefanowski believes that our model policies are out of control, Lamont says in an introduction to his criminal-justice plan. I understand that we need to move forward, not backward, on reform. His platform endorses the Risk Reduction Earned Credit Program. I reject politicians scare tactics about criminal justice reform, Lamont said. We know our risk reduction program works, because we have lower crime rates and declining incarceration rates since its inception. Providing incentives for incarcerated people to earn their way to release improves prison staff safety and advances our criminal justice systems rehabilitative mission. Lamonts policy statement also commits him to legislation modeled on a bipartisan bill in Pennsylvania that would automatically seal the criminal records of rehabilitated offenders, removing an obstacle to decent housing and jobs for many offenders after release. But on Saturday at a get-out-the-vote rally in the basement of the historically black Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Haven, Lamont made no mention of second chances, bail reform or his support for guarding against laws that, no matter their intentions, negatively impact communities of color. Sen. Gary Winfield of New Haven urged the crowd to work for Lamont, but he said later in an interview that urban Democrats have been frustrated by Lamonts seeming reluctance to emphasize an issue that is both important to minority voters and separates him from Stefanowski. Winfield said Democrats still are concerned about being labeled soft on crime, even if those reforms increasingly are being embraced by conservative think tanks and red-state governors. I think in every election, criminal justice is that touchy issue that people dont know how to talk about. I think you always have to be smart on crime, Winfield said. I think there has been a push to get Ned to say more about criminal justice. I have tried to get him to talk about the racial and ethnic impact statements, but campaigns have their own strategy. One of Malloys successes was overcoming GOP opposition and Democratic reluctance to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for simple drug possession in school zones and reclassifying possession crimes as misdemeanors. Spreading 1,500 feet from the property line of every school, day care and public housing complex, the zones cover nearly every home in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford. The result was stiffer penalties for the same crime in cities than in suburbs. Non-partisan legislative analysts predicted that the changes passed in 2015 would mean 1,120 fewer inmates. The actual drop a year after passage was 1,130. Rep. William Tong, the co-chairman of the legislatures Judiciary Committee and the Democratic nominee for attorney general, did remind the Bethel A.M.E. audience of the criminal justice reforms including the new drug laws. As he left, Lamont shrugged off his failure to talk about the issue, noting his unambiguous support for reforms on his web site and the fact he was preceded by Tong. William Tong was on that issue strong, so I didnt feel a need to repeat it. But look, it works, Lamont said of second-chance reforms. Its working across the country, and the crime rate is down and people are getting a second chance. And there are tens of thousands of folks who otherwise would be incarcerated and are now productive members of our society. And, by the way, the taxpayers are saving hundreds of millions of dollars. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp's dual roles as both referee and Republican competitor in the state's gubernatorial election collided Sunday, when the government office he controls announced a "hacking" investigation into the Georgia Democratic Party and his campaign for governor subsequently condemned the "criminal behavior" he allegedly discovered. But neither Kemp's campaign nor his secretary of state's office provided evidence that Democrats had tried to hack into Georgia's voter registration system. And within hours of the investigation's announcement, two voting rights attorneys disputed its premise - suggesting that Kemp launched the probe as a distraction, hours after they told authorities about potential security flaws in the electronic voter systems he is responsible for maintaining. "We alerted the authorities. We expected Mr. Kemp to take action. We were surprised to see the apparent response to that was accusing [the Democrats] of hacking," said David Cross, a Washington, D.C., attorney who is helping sue Georgia to make it use paper ballots, said at a news conference Sunday afternoon. By late Sunday, Kemp's opponent, Stacey Abrams, was trying to reframe the investigation as yet another example of how - she says - the Republican has abused his government power as he seeks a higher office. "Within the past hour it was revealed that Brian Kemp's office, along with the FBI, was notified by a third party yesterday morning regarding a major security vulnerability of Georgia's elections database," Abrams' campaign wrote in a statement. "Kemp's false accusations against the Democratic Party of Georgia were nothing more than a pathetic attempt to cover up for his failures." The office of the secretary of state, which Democrats have accused throughout Kemp's campaign of manipulating the electoral system for his benefit, announced the investigation Sunday morning with an all-caps headline that appeared directly below a voter's guide on a government website: "AFTER FAILED HACKING ATTEMPT, SOS LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO GEORGIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY." The attached statement contained no evidence and almost no details on the Democratic Party of Georgia's "possible cyber crimes," but it said Kemp's office had launched the investigation Saturday evening and alerted the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. By early Sunday afternoon, however, Cross and at least one other voting rights attorney had called foul on Kemp. Cross forwarded an email between himself and an FBI agent from Saturday, sent before Kemp's office launched its probe. In it, the Washington lawyer tells the agent that a secretary of state website set up for voters to check their registration status and find polling locations may be leaking confidential voter information. "Thanks!" the agent replies. "We'll pass the information along to the Secretary of State's Office for them to evaluate." Bruce Brown, a lawyer with the Coalition for Good Governance, told the Who What Why blog that he had alerted Kemp's attorneys to similar issues on Saturday. The outlet reported that the Democratic Party of Georgia had also been in contact with election security experts to express concern about the state's electronic voter systems. After those reports were publicized Sunday, Kemp's state office partially confirmed them in an update to its original statement on the failed "hack." "We opened an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia after receiving information from our legal team about failed efforts to breach the online voter registration system and My Voter Page," reads the news statement. "We are working with our private sector vendors and investigators to review data logs. We have contacted our federal partners and formally requested the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate these possible cyber crimes. The Secretary of State's office will release more information as it becomes available." This isn't the first time Kemp's office has claimed its voting systems were hacked based on thin evidence. After the presidential election in 2016, the Hill reported, he accused President Barack Obama's Department of Homeland Security of launching at least 10 failed cyberattacks on Georgia. An investigation during President Donald Trump's administration concluded that the supposed attacks were actually "normal and automatic computer message exchanges generated by the Microsoft applications involved." This weekend's investigation into Kemp's rival party was immediately condemned as a political ploy by Democrats and some commentators, who believe he should not oversee an election in which he is competing. "Brian Kemp's scurrilous claims are 100 percent false, and this so-called investigation was unknown to the Democratic Party of Georgia until a campaign operative in Kemp's official office released a statement this morning," Rebecca DeHart, executive director of the state Democratic Party, wrote in a statement to reporters. "This is yet another example of abuse of power by an unethical Secretary of State." Abrams, who is polling almost neck-and-neck with Kemp, told CNN on Sunday that she had been unaware of her opponent's investigation into her party. "He is desperate to turn the conversation away from his failures, from his refusal to honor his commitments, and from the fact that he's part of a nationwide system of voter suppression," she said. In a statement late Sunday, Kemp's spokesman issued the following statement: "In an act of desperation, the Democrats tried to expose vulnerabilities in Georgia's voter registration system. This was a 4th quarter Hail Mary pass that was intercepted in the end zone. Thanks to the systems and protocols established by Secretary of State Brian Kemp, no personal information was breached. These power-hungry radicals should be held accountable for their criminal behavior." Voting rights has become a major issue in the campaign, which has drawn national attention because Abrams, 44, if elected, would become the nation's first black female governor. Abrams, who four years ago started a nonprofit group whose goal was to sign up hundreds of thousands of unregistered people of color, has clashed repeatedly with Kemp, whom she calls "the architect of voter suppression." Kemp investigated the group, with which Abrams is no longer affiliated, on suspicion of fraud but found no wrongdoing. Kemp, 55, who has argued that the policies are aimed at preventing voter fraud, also has been criticized for having purged more than a million voters from the rolls during the past year. He has rejected calls, including one from former president Jimmy Carter, that he should step down as the state's top elections official while he is running for governor. Although lawmakers and elections officials in Republican-controlled states have cited concerns about cheating to enact strict voter registration and identification laws, there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the United States. Kemp's office came under intense scrutiny last month when the Associated Press reported that more than 53,000 voter registration applications - 70 percent of them from African Americans - had been held up because the identification information was not an "exact match" to other state records on account of discrepancies such as a dropped hyphen in a person's name. On Friday, a federal judge ordered the state to immediately stop using the rule, saying it would probably lead to violations of the voting rights of a large number of people. Less than two weeks ago, in a separate case, a federal judge ordered elections officials to stop automatically rejecting absentee ballots after advocates filed suit against Gwinnett County, which threw out hundreds of ballots because of discrepancies in signatures or missing addresses. President Trump hosted a campaign rally for Kemp in Macon, Georgia, on Sunday. The marketing materials for Ruyi Island, a man-made chunk of land about three miles (five kilometers) northeast of the capital of China's Hainan province, depict a utopia for the wealthy. An artist's impression shows families strolling along marina boardwalks strung with fairy lights and villas nestled around palm tree-lined lagoons. In reality, Ruyi Island -- five years after construction started -- remains a huge sand bank, a few cranes sitting idle. Its developer, Beijing-based Zhonghong Holding Co., is in the process of selling, or at least trying to sell, the 13 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) project to a competitor after burning through cash and piling up debt. Ruyi Island offers a glimpse of the convulsions shaking China's more than 100,000 developers, who rushed to capitalize on friendly government policies, insatiable housing demand and a near-limitless supply of cheap debt in recent years. With the government now prioritizing keeping corporate China's mountain of debt in check, the industry finds itself in the early innings of an epic shakeout. Making matters worse, local authorities in parts of China are starting to dismantle a system where developers collect cash from buyers long in advance of finishing their homes, potentially robbing them of a major funding channel. "If scrapping the pre-sales system takes shape, that will speed up the consolidation wave," said Zhao Ke, property analyst at China Merchants Securities Co. "It'll be survival of the fittest." This year is on track to be the busiest on record for consolidation among China's developers, with $24.5 billion of deals -- mostly in the form of large firms buying stakes in smaller ones -- announced since Jan. 1, data compiled by Bloomberg show. At least six have thrown in the towel so far in 2018, announcing plans to sell all their land and exit the industry. How developers found themselves here is a consequence of China's unique mix of economic growth, urbanization and penchant for speculation. For hundreds of millions of Chinese enriched by a booming economy, owning property became an obsession over the past decade as prices skyrocketed. On-off government efforts to cool the market only served to stoke the speculative fervor, as money zoomed into areas not affected by curbs. For developers, it all amounted to a near-limitless business opportunity, and many went deep into debt to finance giant projects that often sold out in hours, with would-be buyers in some cases storming sales offices. Last year, the government turned its attention to dangerous levels of corporate debt and moved to limit financing options for property companies, putting many in a precarious position. The average cash-to-short-term debt ratio among publicly traded developers fell to 128 percent at the end of June, the lowest since 2015 and just over half the year-earlier level, Bloomberg-compiled data show. And with stocks plunging, selling shares to raise funds often isn't a viable option. And in the next few years, developers face a mammoth wall of bond maturities. "Very likely the act of deleveraging will kill a bunch of players," said Sean Zhang, Cushman & Wakefield Inc.'s China head of financial advisory services. "Lots of companies have found the funding doors completely shut. I've started to tell some clients: don't bother financing, you'd better sell." Zhonghong, the Beijing-based developer of Ruyi Island, illustrates Zhang's point. The developer lurched into full-blown crisis this year, defaulting on bond payments and having its stock halted after a 62 percent plunge since Jan. 1. Financing strain has forced it to suspend construction on almost all property projects this year, including Ruyi Island. Shenzhen's stock exchange is expected to make a decision shortly on whether to delist the group. Meanwhile, the sale of Ruyi Island to bigger competitor Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. is in limbo after the Shenzhen bourse raised questions about how Zhonghong will use the proceeds, and the project's development status. Officials at Zhonghong declined to comment. Kaisa, eyeing Hainan's prospects as a new free-trade zone and luxury tourist resort, said all parties are pushing ahead with the Ruyi Island deal. "The Jiangdong New District where Ruyi Island is located carries great potential," a public relations official said in an emailed statement Tuesday. "Should the acquisition succeed, the project will become a masterpiece of tourism property by Kaisa." Among developers driving consolidation in recent years is Sunac China Holdings Ltd., whose executives quipped at a results briefing in August that it does more deals than most investment bankers. Sunac tends to rely on an in-house M&A team for its acquisitions. A index tracking 22 major Chinese builders surged as much as 6.4 percent in Hong Kong on Thursday, the biggest intraday gain since January, and closed 5.3 percent higher. "The bigger a player is in size, the more upper hand they may get during the heavier sector headwinds squeezing minnows out," E-House's Executive President Zhang Yan said. She added that land parcels owned by the top seven builders in China amounted to 35 percent of the total held by the top 100. Yango Group Co., a developer from Fujian province, became one of China's 20 biggest listed developers by sales last year after going on a takeover spree. In September, it paid 5 billion yuan for home builder Chongqing Yuneng Industrial Group Co. "Acquisition opportunities have emerged a lot more recently," Wu Jianbin, an executive vice president at Yango, said in an interview. "Some smaller players are finding it harder to get financing, or are facing much higher costs. And so they become more willing to sell projects to us." But the years of M&A have taken a toll on Yango, with Fitch Ratings Ltd. in October estimating the company's leverage as one of the highest among rivals of a similar size, when measured by net debt versus project inventory. Wu said Yango is now focused on generating cash flow. "Future decisions on acquisition opportunities all boil down to one math: How much time it takes to break even," he said. The ripples of fear are spreading as another potentially devastating development brews: Authorities in Guangdong are said to be considering scrapping a pre-sales housing system that has become firms' biggest source of financing. Already, such a ban has been quietly rolled out in one city, despite regulators saying the issue is still at the opinion-gathering stage. How widespread the policy change will eventually become is anyone's guess, but could reshape the industry. A complete, nationwide pre-sales ban could wipe out about a third of small developers, according to China Merchants Securities' Zhao. Analyst Zhang Dawei at Centaline Group has an even more dire assessment, saying as many as half of all players could go. The sense of urgency is growing. Every day, smaller developers come knocking on Fullsun International Holdings Group Co.'s door looking to sell assets, Chief Executive Officer Tong Wentao said. The Fuzhou-based developer acquired 86 percent of its land bank by area via M&A last year, data from China Real Estate Information Corp. show. "But we've turned more cautious on investments ourselves... we don't even look at the lower quality ones now," Tong said. "Sentiment is taking a turn. The market just started to feel winter." Shots rang out in Pittsburgh. And in Washington, for the first time in her life, Yael Fisher felt scared to be Jewish. "I had never felt in danger because I'm Jewish, physically in danger," Fisher, 22, told her friends as she picked over the remnants of their Chipotle dinner last week. "I had to run an errand alone, and I was nervous. I've never felt that before." Her three friends, all of them also 22 and Jewish, nodded gravely. Hayley Berger told Fisher she remembers the day she first became aware that there are Americans who hate Jews, who hate Jews so much that they would murder. It was the day in April 2014 when a white supremacist fatally shot three people outside the Jewish Community Center and a Jewish retirement home in her Kansas suburb. Reuben Siegman recalls the day he learned: He was living in St. Louis last year when a Jewish cemetery in town was vandalized. Graves were toppled again, days later, at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. "That drove me to wear a kippah for a while," he told his friends. "It was like: 'I will be Jewish. And there's no violence you can do that will scare me away from that.' " For many young Jews across the nation, last month's mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh was a jarring lesson. Many millennials who grew up hearing about anti-Semitism from their parents and grandparents think of the Holocaust, Eastern European pogroms and the Spanish Inquisition when they think about violence against Jews - stories they read in history books about events that happened well over half a century ago, and all in the old country, not the United States. The Pittsburgh rampage, committed by a gunman who reportedly shouted "All Jews must die" as he fired, shattered what remained of that illusion. Young Jews in the United States are now aware: They live in a country where anti-Semitism still lives - and where it kills. The idea that hatred against Jews resides in the past has been fading for the past few years as anti-Semitism has reared its head repeatedly. Hate crimes have increased. In the days since the Pittsburgh shooting alone, vandals wrote "F--- Jews" on the wall of an Irvine, Calif., synagogue and "Kill All Jews" inside a Brooklyn synagogue. Twitter seethes daily with anti-Semitic messages that attract billions of views. President Donald Trump himself has been accused of anti-Semitic messaging, and when neo-Nazis marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, last year chanting "Jews will not replace us," Trump responded that there were "very fine people on both sides." For Gaby Kirschner, 24, the realization dawned in May of last year, when she went to a New York City protest actions of the Trump administration. She had never been very religious; she still describes her childhood Hebrew school as "an old lady in a basement yelling at me after school." She learned about the Holocaust there, but she never learned that Jews had been discriminated against in the United States, barred from social, professional and educational opportunities for decades. "We were never taught this is still going on today," she said. But on that day last May, Kirschner heard a group of pro-Trump counterprotesters shouting "Jew" at her as she walked down the street. It happened on Twitter, too. Strangers replying to her tweets about sports, writing back, "Jew." She was rattled. She went back to the religious practice she had left after her bat mitzvah at age 13. She started attending Jewish communal meetings, feeling pride in her faith: "If they want me erased, well, here I am!" Yet she still felt scared on the street, wondering whether a stranger looking at her might sympathize with neo-Nazis, wondering if he could read her identity right on her face. After that day at the protest, she did something else that she had been pondering previously for cosmetic reasons, and now desired for safety: She got a nose job. Five years ago, young Jews were keenly aware of discrimination experienced by other people - and less focused on discrimination against Jews. In a major survey of American Jews conducted by Pew Research, 80 percent of respondents ages 18 to 29 said there was a lot of discrimination against Muslims, compared with 58 percent of 18-to-29-year-old Americans as a whole. Sixty-nine percent of young Jews said there was a lot of discrimination against blacks and Hispanics, compared with 50 and 57 percent of young Americans. Just 39 percent of young Jews said in 2013 that they perceived anti-Semitism as prevalent in America, according to a new analysis of the survey data by age conducted this week for The Washington Post by Pew's associate research director Greg Smith. By 2018, Jews of the same age were far more likely to report perceiving discrimination. When the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding published a survey this year asking a diverse sample of 500 Jews and 500 Muslims about their experience of discrimination in America, Jews ages 18 to 29 were more likely than older Jews to say they had personally experienced discrimination because of their faith: 64 percent of young Jews said yes. Thirty-five percent of young Jews in the survey guessed "most" Americans of their faith had experienced religious discrimination, far more than the 10 percent of Jews ages 30-to 49 who answered the same way or the 13 percent of Jews older than 50 (or than Muslims of any age). Older generations of Jewish Americans have told their children the stories of persecution that their ancestors fled to get to this country, whether they left Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, fled the Nazi Holocaust midcentury or came from any number of other regions of the world where Jews were in harm's way. But American anti-Semitism - the quotas restricting Jews' entrance to certain universities, the neighborhoods where Jews were unwelcome, the organizational discrimination that kept Jews out of hotels and summer camps until they created their own - all of that very rarely makes it into Hebrew school curriculums. So millennials tend to think of anti-Semitism as an old problem, and a European one. "My understanding of anti-Semitism was I thought about the Holocaust my grandparents experienced. I hadn't necessarily thought about it in the context of the modern day," said Gaby Joseph, 24. That changed when Joseph was studying abroad in Copenhagen in 2015, and a gunman killed a guard outside a synagogue there. Police suspected he was influenced by the terrorists who killed shoppers in a kosher grocery store in Paris the month before. "I felt honestly a little naive, as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, that I could be shocked by something like this," Joseph said. She emailed her grandfather from her study abroad program, telling him how distraught she was by the shooting. He replied with just one line, she said: "It's hard being a Jew." Suddenly she saw how different her perception of anti-Semitism was than his, how safe she had always felt as a Jew in a world where he felt imperiled. Last week, before she packed into the crowded sanctuary at Adas Israel synagogue in Washington, D.C., to pay tribute to the people killed in Pittsburgh, she opened up that one-line email once more. Again, it felt like a gut punch. For others, it hit home for the first time watching the news after the Pittsburgh attack. "Watching the news the other day was the first time I ever cried in front of the news," said Corey Teich, 27. He was sickened by the discourse that the Pittsburgh shooter allegedly read and embraced - the attitude, spread online, that Jews are outsiders who are undermining American society. "I so rarely ever thought about it. You know the word 'anti-Semitism.' You know about the Holocaust. You read about it in Hebrew school," he said. "You know it's happened in history. You know that theoretically it's possible. But you never think about it, because you feel safe - probably so did the people who lived in Squirrel Hill." His Jewish identity lies in bagels and lox and "Seinfeld"; he rarely attends a synagogue, he said. But he found himself feeling an urge he couldn't quite explain this week, to put on his chai necklace - the Hebrew word for "life." The prejudice, he said, is "more prevalent and more real" than he ever knew. "It definitely makes me prouder to be who I am, because there are some people who want to take that away." For the young adults eating takeout Chipotle near D.C.'s Dupont Circle on Thursday night, the next day loomed large - the first Shabbat since the massacre at Tree of Life would begin at sundown Friday. Jews around the world issued calls to "show up for Shabbat," inviting Jews and non-Jews alike to gather in synagogues. These four young people, participants in the Jewish service corps Avodah, planned to host 30 guests at the home where they live during their one-year commitment to work in social service jobs. They hoped to offer solace to people in mourning. They hoped they could cook enough food. For Fisher, the reality of the hatred outside their close-knit circle couldn't quite sink in. She told her friends she had been reading statistics published by the Anti-Defamation League showing the largest one-year increase ever recorded in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States. "That's crazy. I don't feel like I have ever encountered that directly," she said. "Obviously, it exists - but where is it?" She paused. Now, they all knew the answer. "In Pittsburgh." Details have emerged in the arrest of a Laredo man accused of sexually abusing two children. LPD arrested Carlos Manzano-Rodriguez, 54, in late October on one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child and two counts of indecency with a child by contact. FOREIGN affairs minister Retired Lieutenant General Sibusiso Moyo is yet to return to work, nearly two months after he was rushed to an upmarket Harare hospital with an undisclosed health complaint. The coup spokesmans unexplained illness has curiously coincided with vice president Constantino Chiwenga also being side-lined by poor health. Chiwenga, then head of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, led the military intervention which toppled then president Robert Mugabe last November. Home affairs minister Cain Mathema has stepped in as acting foreign affairs minister and took part in meetings with visiting Indian vice president Venkaiah Naidu in Harare Saturday. Moyo was taken ill mid-September and admitted at the Avenues Clinic in Harare where reportedly underwent two operations. He has not been seen in public since. Sources told NewZimbabwe Sunday that Moyo was on the mend, he is doing some work such as advising and guiding; taking some decisions even. But we are not sure when he will be back at work. Last month presidential spokesman George Charamba dismissed media reports claiming that Moyo had been airlifted to South Africa for treatment. It is understood that he had two operations meant to remove some growth in the stomach. He was treated at a local hospital and only travelled to South Africa today for a review, said Charamba at the time. Moyo was the public face of the military coup which ousted then president Robert Mugabe last November. After soldiers swooped onto the streets of the capital on that eventful night, Moyo later appeared on television to deny a coup was underway, claiming that the military was only hunting down criminals around Mugabe. NewZimbabwe Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News The police have apologised to seasoned lawyer Mordecai Mahlangu, after conceding to wrongfully arresting and detaining him on charges of trying to obstruct the course of justice. He was arrested in 2009 over his representation of Michael Peter Hitschmann, who was a witness in the late Roy Bennetts trial at the High Court. He was arrested in November 2009, and spent a night in police cells after he prepared an affidavit indicating that Mutare arms dealer Hitschmann the States star witness in Bennetts trial was not going to testify because the evidence that the State recorded was obtained through torture. The State accused Mahlangu of having written the affidavit on Hitschmanns behalf and caused him to sign it when he approached him for advice. However, Mahlangu was later acquitted on the charges, before he filed a lawsuit against the then Prosecutor-General Johannes Tomana and former police commissioner general Augustine Chihuri, along with two detectives Henry Dowa and Clever Ntini for unlawful arrest. He argued that his arrest was not warranted as he was acting purely as a legal practitioner giving advice in accordance with his professional requirements. In a latest development, the two detectives and the Home Affairs ministry have since acknowledged that the arrest and detention was unlawful. First, second and fifth defendants (Dowa, Ntini and Home Affairs ministry) acknowledge as follows: the plaintiffs arrest on the 2nd and 3rd of November 2009 was wrongful, unlawful and contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. We regret our individual and collective roles in the said arrest and detention of the plaintiff. We acknowledge that a legal practitioner discharging his mandate in terms of the law, such as was the plaintiff in this matter, should never be hindered in the exercise of his duties and indeed should not suffer the same fate as the plaintiff in this instance. We collectively proffer our unreserved apology to the plaintiff herein for the hurt, humiliation and suffering he suffered as a result of the wrongful arrest and detention, the detectives and the Home Affairs ministry said. The parties have since come up with a deed of settlement, bringing the nine-year battle to finality. The first, second and fifth defendants jointly and severally the one paying the others to be absolved will pay the plaintiffs wasted costs in the agreed amount of $8 500 plus VAT (Value Added Tax) and the fee payable to plaintiffs counsel in the sum of $5 000 plus VAT before end of day on Friday the 30th of November 2018, the deed of settlement reads. Lewis Uriri and Sylvester Hashiti argued the matter for the respondents, while Thabani Mpofu represented Mahlangu. In his suit, Mahlangu had cited Dowa and Ntini, who were the arresting officers at the time of his persecution, Chihuri, who was the commissioner-general at the time of his arrest, Tomana, the former Attorney-General and former co-ministers of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi and Theresa Makone as defendants. He was suing the defendants in their personal capacity. Mahlangu was caught up in attempts by Tomana to have Hitschmann, who was the key witness in the terrorism trial of Bennett impeached for giving contradicting evidence. Bennett who is now late was facing charges of illegal possession of arms for purposes of committing terrorism, banditry and sabotage. Hitschmann, a former police officer and arms dealer, disowned some of the weapons attributed to him by the State as well as e-mail print-outs purportedly showing communication between him and Bennett. The State wanted Hitschmann to be an accomplice witness and its case hinged on confessions said to have been made by the arms trader implicating Bennett in 2006. Hitschmann, who retained Mahlangu as his counsel, disowned the confessions, including a video recording, saying he was tortured to make the statements. Mahlangu was also taken into custody after leading testimony from Hitschmann that he was a registered arms dealer when he was arrested in March 2006 and collected firearms from white commercial farmers who were forced off their land. Hitschmann was jailed for illegal possession of dangerous weapons in 2006 but the court threw out the more serious terrorism charges and also found that he had licences for most of the weapons that he kept. Mahlangu in court successfully rubbished Tomanas claim before High Court judge Chinembiri Bhunu said that Hitschmanns testimony was different from statements he made on his arrest, implicating Bennett, and his attempts to have him impeached by the court was stonewalled by the ZLHR board chair, who has abused by the police over his unwavering stand. DailyNews Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News In a shocking claim which could put under pressure Finance minister Mthuli Ncube under further political scrutiny, rabble-rousing influence peddler William Gerald Mutumanje is spilling the beans on his recent hatchet job on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). The maverick former Zanu PF youth league official has made sensational claims that he was paid $40 000 to discredit the four suspended RBZ top officials, as well as businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei, the Daily News On Sunday can exclusively reveal. This bombshell comes after Mutumanje who is more commonly known as Acie Lumumba was last month briefly and irregularly appointed as the head of a communications taskforce in the Finance ministry. Ncube was later pressured to sack him after he made staggering allegations on Facebook, on supposed illegal foreign currency dealings at the central bank claims which shook Zanu PF and the government to their core. In his social media blast, Mutumanje named the four senior RBZ officials and Tagwirei whom he referred to as Queen Bee as being at the centre of illegal foreign currency dealings leading to the precautionary suspension of the central bank executives by governor John Mangudya. However, and in a new twist to the countrys raging State capture saga, Mutumanje now claims that he was in fact paid $40 000 dollars to smear the RBZ directors Mirirai Chiremba, Norman Mataruka, Gresham Muradzikwa and Azvinandaa Saburi. In a recorded voice message in possession of the Daily News On Sunday, Mutumanje revealed seemingly nonchalantly that he had sold his soul to the devil by accepting the money which he apparently needed desperately to send his ailing father for treatment in India. Hi mukoma (brother), please get hold of me, I have been trying to get hold of you. Ndakakumbira sisi (I asked sister) Linda to get you through Tineyi, but no one is getting back to me. I need you kuti mundisvitsirewo message kuna mukoma K (Tagwirei). I have no way of getting through to him and you know I am very compromised at the moment. I cant even call him directly without compromising myself. From the bottom of my heart, and anyone who knows my heart and you know me, there is no way I would do this (smear people), Mutumanje said in his intercepted message, apparently meant for an associate of Tagwirei. I know I am even compromising myself by sending this audio note. Its just that I really need you to get the message to him. Please get hold of me. I need you to help me navigate myself out of this mess. Its an absolute mess. Very frightening, gory things are being plotted. How I found myself right in the middle forget even the middle, in the front of it is a myth to me. I know I am compromised, Mutumanje added. I know I had a problem and you know what my problem was and you know I asked for help. There wasnt anyone paying attention to my needs and in the end I think I sold myself to the devil to get it done and here we are, for nothing in return. I just want you to get the message kuna mukoma. You know there is no way people can be fired from the RBZ because of Lumumba. Are you serious? Makazvitarisa imimi (looking at it) knowing this system you really think Lumumba is the reason why people were fired from RBZ, Mutumanje said. Please make time to see me. I need your intervention. If you dont make time to see me, at least forgive me for what I am about to do. I am doing everything I can to avoid putting names, to avoid even saying most of the script. Anyway, I thought let me reach out to you, please call me back, make time to see me. I have tried to reach out to Jusie but mese mato decider kuti ndatova muvengi wenyu hamusikuda (perhaps you have all decided that Im now your enemy). Pamwe munoda kuti mutange manzwa kuti ndapera but guys I promise you, Mutumanje said further. He made it clear in the voice recording that he had been used by politicians in the hatchet job, before making further astonishing claims that a war was about to erupt between President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his deputy Constantino Chiwenga. This fight is inevitable. There is a real fight starting between number one (Mnangagwa) and number two (Chiwenga). If I am going to be useful, can I please be useful to people who are my friends and who will also look after my interests than for people who are simply using me like the way you use a condom you use it and throw it away. I hope you get back to me, Mutumanje said. Efforts to get a comment from Ncube were fruitless as he did not respond to questions sent to him yesterday. However, contacted to comment on this, Information deputy minister Energy Mutodi dismissed Mutumanje. We are not aware of that. Whatever he is doing is no longer official. After his earlier fingering of RBZ officials and Tagwirei in allegedly corrupt deals, Mutumanje had gone on to promise to spill more beans on other supposedly corrupt government officials who he claimed were on the payroll of a powerful cartel said to be working hard to capture Mnangagwa in the manner that the Gupta brothers in South Africa allegedly did on former president Jacob Zuma. Yesterday, Mutumanje was not taking calls despite having earlier enthusiastically spoken to our sister paper, the Daily News, on these matters last week. However, his revelations have since triggered a nasty brawl within Zanu PF, amid party vultures said to be working hard to capture Mnangagwa and his government. In the meantime, Tagwirei who has interests in agriculture and energy has come under increasing scrutiny from various quarters over his dealings with the government. Zanu PF insiders last week also told the Daily News that the war for resources which was manifesting itself in brazen attempts to capture the State could shatter the ruling party and also derail the governments push to turn around the countrys sickly economy. DailyNews Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Jesus Announces Plans To Return Once The Dow Clears 27,000 The Onion Man shot by pet dog insists he didnt mean to do it Independent Cockroaches deliver karate kicks to avoid being turned into zombies Ars Technica Probiotics of the plant world: Why soil microbes are gaining worldwide interest Australian Broadcasting Corporation News The New Canon Chronicle of Higher Education SI gets a makeover Physics World. Kilogram redefined. The most intellectual creature to ever walk Earth is destroying its only home Guardian A new, eye-wateringly high estimate of the cost of obesity in the US Ars Technica Wars over fish increasingly likely as countries use military force to protect critical commodity Australian Broadcasting Corporation News (The Rev Kev) Business is big in Germany, but not easy, World Bank says Handelsblatt Brexit Waste Watch Cancer-linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water Bloomberg (JohnnyGL) Big Brother IS Watching You Watch Kill Me Now Realignment and Legitimacy Class Warfare Syraqistan Russia Taibbi: Russias Biggest Problem Will Soon Be Ours Rolling Stone. Matt Taibbi. Missed this earlier this week. India Trump Transition Wilfred Owen A Poet Who Wrote the Great Wars Epitaph Even as It Was Writing His The Wire . One hundred years ago today, Wilfred Owen fell to German machine gun fire. His mother received the news one week later, as bells pealed to celebrate the wars end. Antidote du Jour: See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. Jerri-Lynn here: This post examines US data and finds that the majority of kidney exchanges continue to be performed within hospitals a fragmented market that imposes a large efficiency cost. I wonder whether the authors are missing some details about why this is the case. These might include doctors not trusting the transportation arrangements for inter-hospital exchanges, particularly who is legally responsible for the organ during transportation and handoff, and thus prefer to conduct the entire operation in house. Additionally, the parties involved might prefer completing transplants all under one roof, as such an arrangement would allow donors to see the patients who benefit from the exchange (perhaps?), or to be able to thank various parties and participants in the transfer chains. Readers? Any thoughts? This is an area I know very little about but hope to foster discussion by posting this piece. By Nikhil Agarwal, Itai Ashlagi, Eduardo Azevedo, Clayton Featherstone, Omer Karaduman. Originally published at VoxEU National kidney exchange platforms significantly boost the number of life-saving kidney transplants by finding complicated exchange arrangements that are not possible within any single hospital. This column examines US data and finds that the majority of kidney exchanges continue to be performed within hospitals, suggesting a fragmented market that comes at a large efficiency cost. National platforms may need to be redesigned to encourage full participation, with reimbursement reform. A transplant is a life-saving treatment for patients with kidney failure. Unfortunately, most patients will never receive a transplant because there is a severe shortage of kidneys. The waiting list for deceased donor kidneys now exceeds 100,000 patients. Some patients are lucky enough to receive donations from living donors: friends, relatives, and rare Good Samaritan donors (Matthews 2017). But many patients who have a potential living donor cannot receive a transplant directly because they may not be biologically compatible. These incompatibilities occur because of blood type and because of the patients immune response to the donors proteins. Many patients with a willing donor remain unmatched because of biological compatibility. Kidney exchange is an innovative way to increase transplants. The idea is to find exchanges between pairs of patients and donors (Rothet al. 2004). For example, suppose Alice is willing to donate a kidneyto Benbut is incompatible; and Charlie and Debbie are in an identical position. However, it may be possible to transplant Alices kidney to Debbie and Charlies kidney to Ben (see Figure 1). Such a two-way swap enables both patients to receive a transplant, with each patients related donor only donating one of their kidneys. Figure 1 Although Donor 1 is willing to donate a kidney to Recipient 1, and Donor 2 to Recipient 2, they are incompatible. However, it may be possible to transplant Donor 1s kidney to Recipient 2, and Donor 2s to Recipient 1. This basic principle has been extended to three-way swaps and even a six-way swap.1 Good Samaritan donors can also enable kidney chains, where each donates a kidney to a stranger, to transplant many more patients.2 Figure 2 A three-way exchange is also possible, extending the basic principle of the two-way exchange Source: UAB News,The University of Alabama at Birmingham. From 2008 to 2014, kidney exchange has grown from 300 transplants per year to 800 transplants per year. The system grew from one-off arrangements made by individual doctors or hospitals that were treating many patients, to a small consortia of hospitals, and finally to national kidney exchange platforms. These platforms use systematic computer algorithms that are able to find more complicated arrangements, such as kidney chains and three-way or four-way swaps. The algorithms are most powerful when a large number of patients and donors are all registered on the same system. This evolution and growth of kidney exchanges have resulted from a mix of practical experimentation and academic studies. Medical doctors, economists, and researchers from various disciplines were involved with the creation of some of the first large kidney exchange platforms, and continue to work towards finding ways to better match patients and donors (Shute 2015, Roth et al. 2007, Rees et al. 2009, Anderson et al. 2015). By 2014, the national platforms were responsible for about 400 transplants per year. The Impact of Market Fragmentation In a recent study we found that, despite the growth of these national kidney exchange platforms, the majority of kidney exchanges continue to be performed within hospitals (Agarwalet al. 2018). Hospitals only sign up a fraction of their patients with national kidney exchange platforms, while many hospitals do not participate in any of the national platforms. And, even among most hospitals that do participate, kidney exchanges tend to be performed internally. The evidence suggests that not only is the market fragmented, but this fragmentation has a large efficiency cost that reduces the total number of transplants performed. National platforms, because of their size, can find more transplant possibilities and therefore match a greater fraction of patients than any single hospital can. First, we found that hospitals conducting their own matches are more likely to perform inefficient matches. For example, models show that it is almost never optimal to transplant a blood-type-O donor to a patient that does not have blood type O in a kidney exchange. This is because a blood-type-O donor is universally blood-type compatible and his or her organ can usually be used to set up a larger cycle or chain. Yet, individual hospitals are two to four times more likely to perform this type of inefficient transplant than national platforms. Second, we used detailed data on transplants and knowledge of the matching algorithms to estimate how size influences the ability of a hospital or platform to perform kidney exchanges. We found that individual hospitals are too small to perform efficiently. According to our estimates, improving the matching via coordination through the large national platforms can increase the total number of kidney exchange transplants by 25-55%. This corresponds to a waste of 200-440 transplants per year. Policy Implications From a policy perspective, these findings suggest that we need to understand the reasons why hospitals do not participate more in national platforms, and design policies to increase participation. There are two primary reasons why hospitals do not fully participate in kidney exchange platforms: First, current platform rules give incentives for hospitals to hoard easy-to-match patients and donors. Using these easy-to-match patients and donors in internal exchanges can often help the hospitals transplant other patients, while submitting them to a national platform may leave these patients un-transplanted. But registering the easy-to-match patients and donors brings a greater benefit to the kidney exchange system as a whole. Thus, current platform rules often put the hospitals in the difficult position of having to choose between helping their own patients or doing what is bestfor the system as a whole. Second, hospitals have to incur unreimbursed costs of participating in kidney exchange platforms. These include hiring additional transplant coordinators, performing additional medical tests, and paying platform fees. These costs are not covered by Medicare or insurance companies and can be a barrier to participating in kidney exchange platforms, particularly for small hospitals. Both of these problems can be fixed using simple policies. Redesigning platforms with an eye towards encouraging full participation can alleviate the first problem. The platform can prioritize patients at hospitals that register altruistic donors as well as their easiest-to-match patients and donors, which could encourage hospitals to register those patients. These easy-to-match patients and donors are essential in arranging kidney exchanges. For example, altruistic donors are necessary for starting kidney chains that enable transplants for many patients. Hospitals should be encouraged to register altruistic donors at national platforms, which can set up long kidney chains. Fixing the second barrier calls for reimbursement reform, both at the federal level and at the individual insurer level. This concern has been voiced by researchers and by the medical profession as well, who have proposed ways in which to alleviate this problem (Rees et al. 2012). These lessons may be applied more broadly. Most European countries that have a national kidney exchange platform require full participation and do not face this free-riding problem (possibly due to the structure of the health system). However, each of these platforms is small and some countries, such as Austria and the Czech Republic, and Italy, Spain, and Portugal, have been trying to combine their platforms. Just like some hospitals do in the United States, these countries have so far shared only the patients and donors that they cannot match internally, leading to poor results. The results from this study can explain some of the challenges and potential solutions in this endeavour. There are many other approaches currently being explored to expand kidney exchange, and make it a more effective tool so that patients currently waiting for a kidney can get a transplant. One idea, proposed by researchers at Boston College, is to find ways in which all kidney patients with living donors are incentivised to participate in kidney exchanges by utilizing the deceased donor pool (Sonmez et al. 2017). Another proposal is to use kidneys from deceased donors to initiate kidney chains (Haynes and Leishman 2017). These innovations hold the promise of vastly expanding the number of kidney transplants that may be possible. References Agarwal, N, I Ashlagi, E Azevedo, CR Featherstone, O Karaduman (2018), Market failure in kidney exchange, NBER Working Paper No. 24775. Anderson, R, I Ashlagi, D Gamarnik and AE Roth (2015), Finding long chains in kidney exchange using the travelingsalesman problem, PNAS 112(3): 663-668. CBS News (2018), Patients of six-way kidney swap meet for the first time, video, 20 January 2018. Matthews, D (2017), Why I gave my kidney to a stranger and why you should consider doing it too, Vox.com, 11 April. Pope, A (2018), Nations longest single-site kidney chain passes 100, Alabama Newscenter, 19 August. Rees, MA, JE Kopke, RP Pelletier, DL Segev, ME Rutter, AJ Fabrega, J Rogers, OG Pankewycz, J Hiller, AE Roth, T Sandholm, MU Unver, et al. (2009), A nonsimultaneous, extended, altruistic-donor chain, New England Journal of Medicine 360:1096-1101. Rees, MA, MA Schnitzler, EY Zavala, JA Cutler, AE Roth, FD Irwin, SW Crawford, AB Leichtman (2012), Call to develop a standard acquisition charge model for kidney paired donation, American Journal of Transplantation 12(6): 1392-7. Roth, AE, T Sonmez and MU Unver (2004), Kidney exchange, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(2): 457488. Roth, AE, T Sonmez and MU Unver (2007), Efficient kidney exchange: Coincidence of wants in markets with compatibility-based preferences, American Economic Review 97(3): 828-851. Shute, N (2015), How an economist helped patients find the right kidney donors, NPR, 11 June 2015 Sonmez T, U Unver and MB Yenmez (2017), Incentivized kidney exchange, Boston College Working Papers in Economics 931 (revised 2018). Haynes, CR, and R Leishman (2017), Allowing deceased donor-initiated kidney paired donation (KPD) chains, OPTN/UNOS Kidney Transplantation Committee, concept paper. Endnotes 1 See https://www.cbsnews.com/video/patients-of-six-way-kidney-swap-meet-for-the-first-time/ 2 See https://www.alabamanewscenter.com/2018/08/19/nations-longest-single-site-kidney-chain-reaches-100/ (Natural News) The Spanish tamarind (Vangueria Madagascariensis) can potentially be used as a medicinal plant because of its phenolic and flavonoid content and antioxidant capacities, according to a study published in the Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences. In the study, researchers from Omdurman Islamic University in Sudan, Sudan University of Science and Technology in Sudan, and Jazan University in Saudi Arabia aimed to determine the antioxidant potential of the leaf, bark, and seed cake of Spanish tamarind. For the study, they extracted dried powdered Spanish tamarind leaf, bark, and seed cake with 80 percent methanol to produce a methanolic extract of each plant part. Then, they identified the total phenolic contents and total flavonoid content of each sample. In addition, they measured the antioxidant activities of the extracts of each plant part and their inhibitory effect on cell growth of various cancer cell lines. Based on the results, the leaf extract of Spanish tamarind had the highest amounts of total phenols and flavonoids among the samples studied. The researchers found that the plant extracts possessed phenols, such as syringic, gallic acid, P-hydroxybenzoic, chlorogenic, vanillin, ferulic, and p-coumaric acids, with chlorogenic acid being the main phenolic compound. The Spanish tamarind leaf extract also exhibited a high potential for free radical scavenging activity and was the only effective extract against the tumor cell lines examined. These results also confirm the traditional use of Spanish tamarind as a treatment for various diseases. Therefore, the researchers concluded that Spanish tamarind extracts, especially its leaf extract, can be considered as a promising medicinal plant because of its high levels of antioxidants, phenols, and total flavonoids. More on Spanish tamarind Spanish tamarind is a widely distributed plant from Madagascar and Africa, mainly in tropical regions. Despite its name, it is not at all related to tamarind (Tamarindus indica). Spanish tamarind can grow up to 6.56-16.4 m high. It adapts well for a wide variety of soil, and although it can easily survive drought and the temporary absence of water, it cannot exist outside of tropical regions because it is not resistant to frost. The plants leaves are shiny, large, and oval-shaped. During fruiting time, its small greenish-white flowers that are borne in clusters in the axils of the leaves turn to round to pear-shaped fruits which can grow up to 5 cm and contain four to five large seeds. At full maturity, its fruit is green, smooth, and has white dots. The fruit turns brown ocher and crumples when ripe and good to eat. The only edible part of the fruit is the inner part, which is a brown and mushy pulp. The fruits flavor at this stage is suggestive of the tamarind. The fruit can also be eaten when it is fresh at full maturity, during which it is sweet and sub-acid, suggesting the taste of an unripe or greenish apple. The fruit can also be made into juice and applesauce. Spanish tamarind is considered a native medicinal plant. It is used as a biomedicine for controlling diabetes, fighting against joint problems, as well as digestive problems. Consuming Spanish tamarind has also been recommended for improving liver health, promoting weight loss, and providing relaxation. Read more news stories and studies on medicinal foods by visiting FoodCures.news. Sources include: Science.news STFC.org.au AZMartinique.com (Natural News) We would wager that before news broke last week that POTUS Donald Trump was considering an executive order to end so-called birthright citizenship the granting of automatic citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, including illegal immigrants maybe 1-in-5 Americans knew this occurs in our country on a regular basis. The 14th Amendment, ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War, addresses many aspects of citizenship, Cornell Law Schools Legal Information Institute notes. One of them addresses birthright, and it is contained in the first sentence of Section 1 of the amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. Many people believe this passage makes it clear that anyone who is born in the United States, regardless of how it happens, is automatically a U.S. citizen. And thats been U.S. policy since about the 1960s or 1970s. But there are some who believe the phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof makes it equally clear that if a mother is inside the U.S. illegally and is a non-citizen, they are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they are subject to the jurisdiction of their home countries (because they themselves are not U.S. citizens). Therefore, their offspring cannot be automatically deemed a citizen. In fact, at the time the amendment was authored, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, who introduced the jurisdiction language adopted within the amendment, made it clear that it should include a full and complete jurisdiction, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now. Experts disagree on this point, but as conservative author, lawyer, and columnist Ann Coulter noted in a recent column, no one is more wrong about what subject of birthright citizenship than the talking heads on most cable news channels. Following POTUS Trumps initial statement in an interview with Axios on HBO that he has been advised he could end birthright citizenship with an executive order, all of the usual Left-wing suspects who knew nothing about the amendment or its history beforehand waxed poetic about how the president was a dunderhead (again) and a constitutional no-nothing because hey, the 14th Amendment says otherwise and thats all there is to it. (Related: POTUS Trump changes tactics on ending birthright citizenship and its a good thing.) Two requirements for citizenship But as Coulter notes, Of course the president can end the citizenship of anchor babies by executive order for the simple reason that no Supreme Court or U.S. Congress ever conferred such a right. Rather, she continued, Its just something everyone believes to be true. Coulter, who helped craft immigration legislation as an aide to Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., in the mid-1990s, noted that the Supreme Court has never considered the 14th Amendment as granting automatic citizenship to babies born to parents in the country illegally. In fact, she points out that the high court has repeatedly found that the main object of the amendment was to settle the question as to the citizenship of free negroes, making them citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside. So, she adds, its simply a fiction to believe that the Constitution grants birthright citizenship under any and all circumstances. Coulters not the only constitutional expert who does not believe the 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship. Theres actually two requirements for automatic citizenship: Youve got to be born on U.S. soil, and you have to be subject to the jurisdiction, Prof. John Eastman, the Henry Salvatori professor of law and community service and former dean at Chapman Universitys Fowler School of Law, told Fox News host Laura Ingraham last week. And [Democrats] just read that last clause out of the Constitution as if its not there, or as if it means the same thing as being physically present here. Read more about Democrats open borders policies at OpenBorders.news. Sources include: NewsTarget.com TheNationalSentinel.com AnnCoulter.com (Natural News) A recently released report from the International Drug Policy Consortium just concluded that the War on Drugs is a massive failure. The United Nations call to dismantle the international illegal drug trade by 2019 has gone nowhere, and in fact, it appears that things are worse now than ever before. As the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) contends, the war has had virtually zero impact on the availability of illegal drugs worldwide, and has been detrimental to human rights, health and safety. Some of the biggest players in the rise of illicit drugs in the United States include open borders and sanctuary city policies. Even the DEA admits that fentanyl (an extremely potent and lethal opioid drug) from China is smuggled into the United States through the Mexican border. And yet, the radical Left says that even mentioning the fact that bad things are often trafficked into the U.S. through Mexico is racist, and anyone who wants to secure the border for national security reasons is a Nazi, a fascist, or a xenophobe. It is no wonder that this war has gone nowhere. The War on Drugs fails As data from the IDPC report show, drug-related deaths have increased by a staggering 145 percent over the course of the last decade. In 2017, there were over 71,000 overdose deaths and thats just in the United States. Many thousands of people have been executed for drug-related offenses internationally, as well. In a statement, Ann Fordham, the Executive Director of IDPC, commented, This report is another nail in the coffin for the war on drugs. The fact that governments and the U.N. do not see fit to properly evaluate the disastrous impact of the last ten years of drug policy is depressingly unsurprising, Fordham added. The report notes that illegal drug use has led to mass incarcerations, with an estimated 1-in-5 prisoners locked up for drug-related offenses. A majority of these charges are related to possession for personal use. Whether or not possession in and of itself ought to be a crime is a hotly debated topic, but the impact remains clear: People are suffering, and drugs are increasingly rampant in our society regardless of the governments efforts. Open borders equal total mayhem Writing for Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz contends that Obamas legacy of open borders and sanctuary cities has directly contributed to a rising drug problem. As stated above by the IDPC, drug-related deaths surged during the last ten years eight of which include Obamas presidency. Horowitz explains: The two years with the biggest surge in heroin seizures at the border, by far, were 2014 and 2015, the years with the largest surge of Central Americans who came because of the promise of DACA. The epidemic-level surge in heroin and fentanyl unmistakably coincided with Obamas shutdown of immigration enforcement between 2010 and 2013. The promise of Obamas amnesty resulted in the surge in young male drug mules from Central America, the enriching of the drug cartels who control the smuggling routes, the growth of MS-13 drug distributors, and the poisoning of our people. He contends further that the connection between drugs and sanctuary cities is impossible to ignore: More people crossing the border means more opportunities for drug cartels to turn people into drug mules. While open borders are problem enough, the lure of sanctuary cities is especially magnetic for this kind of set-up. Recall the precedent that was set in the murder of Kate Steinle: Jose Garcia Zarate, Steinles killer, had been deported five times. He had seven felonies on his criminal record, including felony drug charges. He killed Kate Steinle with a gun stolen from a federal officer. And the good progressives of California saw fit to not only let this man walk the streets by releasing him from jail before the murder, but they acquitted him of all charges afterwards. The real question is why wouldnt drug cartels want to do business in the U.S.? They literally get away with murder here. Sources for this article include: PlanetFreeWill.com ConservativeReview.com Embers falling on their heads, Venesa Rhodes and her husband had seconds to rush their two beloved cats into their SUV before a wildfire last summer would overtake them all. One cat got in. But the other, named Bella, bolted and disappeared as the blaze bore down. The couple had no choice but to flee, and their home and much of the neighborhood in Redding, California, soon was reduced to ash. Rhodes and her husband, Stephen Cobb, presumed Bella was dead. Devastated by their losses, they moved 1,800 miles to Rhodes' hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, to start over. Nearly six weeks later, they got a call that left them gobsmacked: Bella was alive. Volunteers had put out a feeding station at Rhodes' burned-out property, staked it out after spotting the cat, and then trapped her. "I started bawling," Rhodes said from Anchorage, where Bella was curled up in a corner sleeping. "We were shocked. We were just so overjoyed and just hoping she was OK." Rhodes and Cobb are among dozens of people who lost their homes in the deadly Carr Fire but had their lives brightened weeks or months later when their pets were found. A network of about 35 volunteers called Carr Fire Pet Rescue and Reunification is responsible for many of the happy endings, which continue more than two months after firefighters extinguished the blaze, which destroyed more than 1,000 homes and killed six people. The group formed with the help of another volunteer animal group born out of the devastating Tubbs Fire, which killed at least 22 people and destroyed thousands of homes last year in wine country north of San Francisco. Robin Bray, a field coordinator for the Carr Fire group, said about 80 pets have been reunited with their families using social media and specially made kiosks in Redding where images of found pets are posted. Most are cats that have "been through hell," she said. Bray said each new reunion fuels her and the other volunteers, many of whom use their own money to trap and treat the animals. "We've seen amazing things," Bray said. "We're finding cats that were in a house and the owners presumed they had passed. The heat of fire breaks windows in houses and cats jump out and run and hide. They're survivalists." The volunteers go to elaborate lengths to catch the animals, which often are traumatized and injured. Equipped with night-vision cameras, traps and lots of food for bait, the volunteers stake out an area where a missing pet has been spotted, waiting for the right moment to drop a trap. They won a hard-fought rescue of a dog nicknamed Buddy on Oct. 27 after he had eluded capture for weeks. They tried luring him with steak and french fries, another dog and a pickup truck like the one his owner drove before finally nabbing him. It was a two-woman, two-hour operation. One woman crawled on the ground and placed food under a trap and the other waited in a truck and pulled a rope to complete the capture. Bray, a private pilot by day, once spent nearly seven hours trapping a cat. The wait was worth it, she said. "So many of these people have lost everything," Bray said. "The only thing they care about is finding their pet that they love. They want that hope back in their lives and we're trying to provide that." Jessica Pierce, a Lyons, Colorado-based bioethicist who studies end-of-life issues involving humans and their pets, said losing a beloved animal and a home is a double whammy of grief. "To then be reunited with a pet you thought was gone, that would be like getting a piece of your home back," she said. "For many people, pets are a sense of home, and they identify home with a sense of comfort and peace." Steve and Susan Cortopassi were reunited with their cat, Big Ernie, on Oct. 3, more than two months after the fire started. Their other cat, Elsa, was found about three weeks after the fire, which destroyed their home of 30 years. The Cortopassis had to evacuate in the middle of the night. They grabbed their two dogs but weren't able to track down the cats. A friend showed Cortopassi cellphone video of her destroyed home a couple days after the fire and she figured the cats were gone forever. "It was just complete and utter devastation," she said. "It's just a miracle they're alive. It's like, life finds a way." Rhodes got her call on Sept. 2, 41 days after the fire began. Bella, who is 2, had some burns on her belly, her long black hair was singed to medium length and she was underweight. Her formerly gray paws are now permanently pink. When she was found, Rhodes and Cobb drove to Redding over five days with their other cat, Mama, so the whole family could be reunited. After staying in a hotel for another five days to make sure Bella was OK, the whole family returned to Alaska. "We have friends that don't even like cats thinking how crazy we were and we just said, 'They're part of our family,'" Rhodes said. "I lost a lot. Thank goodness we did get Bella back because our hearts were just sunken." Twin brothers suspected of gunning down two people in San Diego in 2013 killing one of the victims were arrested Friday night in Mexico, authorities confirmed. The San Diego Police Department (SDPD) announced Saturday the arrests of Anibal Avila and Edward Avila, both 27. The pair have been wanted for the past five-and-a-half years in connection with the deadly shooting of Rafael Robles, 34. On April 11, 2013, at around 2:45 p.m., shots were fired in the 4000-block of 39th Street in San Diegos Corridor neighborhood, near City Heights. When police officers arrived, they found Robles and another victim lying on the ground in an alley, each suffering from gunshot wounds. The victims were taken to local hospitals; Robles died a short time later, while the second victim survived. SDPD detectives identified the suspects as the Avila twins and believed the duo had fled to Mexico. Warrants were issued for both of their arrests, but, until now, they had remained at large. The Avila brothers were arrested by Mexican law enforcement and turned over to U.S. authorities at the San Diego-Mexico border Friday night, the SDPD said. They were booked into San Diego Central Jail each on one count of first-degree murder and attempted murder, their bail set at $3 million. The twins are scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 6. Homicide detectives have said that the brothers got into some sort of argument with the victims before pulling out a handgun and firing on them. The suspect fled the scene in a dark-colored pick-up truck. A 16-year-old Hayward boy was arrested Friday in connection with a suspected gang-related shooting last week near the San Mateo Caltrain station parking lot, authorities said Saturday. A 20-year-old San Mateo man suffered a non-life-threatening injury in the shooting, which was reported around 9 p.m. on Oct. 26, police said. When officers responded, they found the victim in the Caltrain parking lot with a single gunshot wound. After canvassing the area, police found the gun suspected in the shooting and determined the incident happened in a nearby alley along North B Street. Detectives identified the Hayward teen as a suspect and tracked him down to a location in Burlingame, where he was taken into custody about 3:20 p.m. Friday. A search warrant was served at the teen's home in the 800 block of West Sunset Boulevard in Hayward, where additional evidence was collected, police said. The teen was booked into San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of attempted homicide, juvenile possession of a firearm, and gang enhancement. Anyone with information regarding the incident, or the identity of other involved parties is asked to contact Detective Nicole Von Glahn at (650) 522-7655 or by email at nvonglahn@cityofsanmateo.org. Anonymous tips may be submitted here or by calling the SMPD Secret Witness Line at (650) 522-7676. Nearly eight months after one of its autonomous test vehicles hit and killed an Arizona pedestrian, Uber wants to resume testing on public roads. The company has filed an application on with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to test in Pittsburgh, and it has issued a lengthy safety report pledging to put two human backup drivers in each vehicle and take a raft of other precautions to make the vehicles safe. Company officials acknowledge they have a long way to go to regain public trust after the March 18 crash in Tempe, Arizona, that killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, as she crossed a darkened road outside the lines of a crosswalk. Police said Uber's backup driver in the autonomous Volvo SUV was streaming the television show "The Voice" on her phone and looking downward before the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board said the autonomous driving system on the Volvo spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled. A Volvo emergency braking system also had been turned off. "Our goal is to really work to regain that trust and to work to help move the entire industry forward," Noah Zych, Uber's head of system safety for self-driving cars, said in an interview. "We think the right thing to do is to be open and transparent about the things that we are doing." Among the other precautions, San Francisco-based Uber will keep the autonomous vehicle system engaged at all times and activating the Volvo's automatic emergency braking system as a backup. In addition, Uber is requiring more technical training and expertise of employees sitting behind the wheel of the vehicles, according to a 70-page safety report the company released Friday. The report comes after the ride-hailing company shut down autonomous vehicle testing to do an internal review of its safety procedures, as well as an outside review by risk management firm LeClairRyan. Although the report covered all the main bases, Uber should have gone even further given its self-driving car killed Herzberg, said Bryant Walker Smith, an assistant law professor at the University of South Carolina who has been studying the issues affecting autonomous vehicles. In its most glaring omission, Uber didn't accept responsibility for Herzberg's death the first involving a fully autonomous vehicle, he said. "Frankly, I'm looking for more from Uber than from other companies, and I suspect that governments may be as well," Walker Smith said. Under Pennsylvania's voluntary autonomous guidelines, the Transportation Department has until Nov. 13 to approve or deny Uber's application, or to ask further questions. Pennsylvania law at present doesn't allow testing of autonomous vehicles without human backup drivers. Google's Waymo already is carrying passengers in the Phoenix area without human drivers, and General Motors' Cruise Automation expects to do that next year. Pittsburgh officials can't legally prevent testing, but they are in safety talks with Uber and four other entities that have permits to test autonomous vehicles, said Karina Ricks, the city's director of the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure. For instance, the city wants to limit self-driving vehicle speeds to 25 miles per hour in urban settings, even if the posted speed is higher. "Lower rates of speed give more time for the vehicle and the safety driver to react and prevent a crash," said Ricks, who characterized the talks as fruitful. Pittsburgh is home to Uber's autonomous vehicle development center, making it a logical choice for the resumption of robotic car tests. "We are engaging with the city, with the officials, and are very eager, I think, to ensure that we make a return to the road in self-driving mode in consultation and close partnership with them," said Miriam Chaum, head of public policy for Uber's self-driving vehicles. Later it will discuss bringing its self-driving cars back to Arizona, California and Toronto, Ontario, its other test sites. Arizona suspended the company's permission to test after the crash. Thousands of Iranians rallied in Tehran on Sunday to mark the 39th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover, as Washington restored all sanctions lifted under the nuclear deal, NBC News reported. The crowd chanted "Down with U.S." and "Death to Israel" during the rally in the capital, and state TV said similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns. Iranian students stormed the embassy shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The U.S. cut off diplomatic relations in response. Iran's clerically-led government celebrates the embassy takeover every year as a decisive blow against the United States, which had supported the autocratic rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The embassy compound, widely known as the "den of spies," is now a cultural center. Anger and distrust of the United States is surging again following President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers despite Tehran's compliance with the agreement, which was negotiated under the Obama administration. And on Friday, the Trump administration announced the restoration of sanctions on Iran's shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored. What to Know Two people were injured when the facade of Common Ground and its neighboring buildings in Brighton collapsed onto the sidewalk. Everyone who was inside the restaurant has been evacuated, according to officials. Officials warn there is heavy traffic in the area of Harvard Avenue due to the emergency response. According to officials, two people have been injured after the facade of Common Ground, a restaurant on Harvard Avenue in Boston's Allston neighborhood, and its neighboring buildings collapsed onto the sidewalk. One female victim was transported to the hospital with critical injuries. Witnesses say she sustained serious head injuries. "When the roof came on top of them, I started calling 911," one witness said. The second victim, a male, did not need medical attention for his injuries but went to the hospital with the other victim. The two appear to have been connected, Deputy Superintendent Susan Schiller said. Six people in the restaurant were evacuated through the back of the building, the fire department said. The owner of Common Ground, Bob Oguin, says he was in the basement of the restaurant when he heard a loud bang. He ran upstairs to find the mess. "It sounded like an earthquake," he said. According to Oguin, there were 30-40 people inside the restaurant when it happened. Everyone inside was okay; it was the woman outside who was hurt. Oguin says the restaurant will be closed for six months and employees are going to lose their wages. He's hoping insurance will cover it. "It's horrible," he said. The collapse also damaged cars parked outfront of the building. "Obviously other people got hurt, so there's much more pressing issues. But it still...it sucks," Dylan Shea, whose car was damaged, said. Stephen McNiel of the Boston Fire Department said Sunday afternoon that the building sustained about $500,000 in damages. He also said all utilities have been shut down to the buildings affected and it will take some time for officials to assess the structural integrity of the buildings. "It's the parapet wall, and when these things fall, typically it will start to fall and it's like a domino effect where it all comes down," McNiel said. He says the collapse appears to be random. There was no warning it was going to happen. "In many ways it's amazing there weren't any more injuries," McNiel said. Other shops that share the building with the restaurant include a salon, an ice cream shop and a clothing store. They are all shut down for the night. The fire department is using a drone to check out the damage from the roof. McNiel says they're also looking at cameras nearby that may have recorded the incident. No further information was immediately available. A search is underway for a woman who was swept away by Lake Michigan waves near Highland Park Sunday morning, according to officials. Authorities said the Coast Guard and local agencies responded to an emergency call around 9:15 a.m. Sunday at Park Avenue Beach, "where 10 individuals of an independent cold weather swim group entered Lake Michigan from the boat launch area and encountered difficulty lake conditions," stated a press release. A helicopter arrived at the scene around 11:45 a.m., officials said, after lake conditions impeded search boats from entering the water. One of two men found in distress was found unresponsive by local responders and given CPR before being transported to Highland Park Hospital. The 46-year-old man was pronounced dead upon arrival, police said. Police departments along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Illinois and Wisconsin have been advised to monitor their beaches for the missing swimmer. No further details were immediately available. A rocket fired from Gaza struck a residential home in southern Israel early Wednesday and the Israeli military began attacking militant sites in Gaza in response after days of rising tensions. The Magen David Adom medical service said a woman and her three children, whose home in Beersheba was struck, were being treated for shock after they fled to their shelter upon being awoken by warning sirens shortly before 4 a.m. Her swift response likely saved their lives, as the home was destroyed and debris was scattered throughout the street, damaging parked cars and adjacent structures. Next-door neighbor Segev Naveh said he did not hear the warning sirens and was awoken by the massive blast. "It was very scary," he said. "If it was falling on my house I would be dead for sure." The medical service said two other Beersheba residents were injured during the panic to seek cover. The military said another rocket from Gaza landed in the sea, just off the coast of one of the larger cities in central Israel. No injuries were reported. Following the attacks, schools in Beersheba were closed and Israel's military chief was cutting short his visit to the United States to come back and manage the crisis. As a first response, Israeli military jets pounded Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Health Ministry said a 25-year-old militant was killed inside one of the posts targeted. Three other people were wounded. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said 20 Hamas targets were struck, including offensive tunnels, weapon workshops and naval shafts. The military released video showing militants preparing to fire another rocket toward Israel before they were targeted. The rocket attack on Beersheba was the first in months and the first that hit an Israeli home there since the 2014 summer war between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers. Beersheba, which is some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Gaza, is the biggest city in southern Israel, with a population of around 200,000. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars over the past decade and fighting has flared up on several occasions recently, though neither side appears to be interested in another full-blown war. Egypt has been trying to mediate a long-term cease-fire to stave off another confrontation. In a rare move, seemingly aimed at easing the tensions, the "joint coordination room of resistance factions," which includes Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups, issued a statement distancing themselves from the rocket fire. "We reject all irresponsible attempts that try to change the direction and sabotage the Egyptian efforts, including the overnight firing of the rocket," they said. "At the same time, we emphasize we are ready to confront the Israeli aggression." The head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel, is scheduled to visit Gaza this week to renew high-level cease-fire talks. Conricus, however, rejected the militants' denials, saying the rocket that struck Beersheba was a mid-range, locally produced weapon that was in the possession of only two groups: Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Regardless of who fired it, he said Israel holds Hamas responsible for all violence emanating from the territory it controls. The rocket attack came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the time had come to deliver a "heavy blow" to Hamas after weeks of escalating violence along the border. Lieberman announced Wednesday that all crossings into Gaza were being shut in response to the attack and the fishing zone around Gaza was being limited. Hamas has held weekly border protests for the past six months, aimed in part at easing a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was put in place after the Islamic militant group violently seized power in 2007. The blockade has restricted Hamas' ability to govern and made life extremely difficult for Gaza's 2 million residents. Electricity is supplied for roughly four hours a day, unemployment stands at more than 50 percent and tap water is undrinkable. The protests have intensified as Egyptian-mediated cease-fire efforts faltered. Last week, some 14,000 Palestinians thronged to the perimeter fence, burning tires and throwing rocks, firebombs and grenades at soldiers stationed atop earth mounds on the other side. Some 20 Palestinians breached the border during Friday's protest. Seven Palestinians were killed, including four who the military said had entered Israel and approached a military position. In response, Israel halted Qatari-donated fuel shipments to Gaza's power plant and warned that if the violence didn't stop there would be series consequences. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened "very painful blows," saying Israel was very close to waging a "different kind of activity." "If it has any sense, Hamas will cease its fire and violent outbursts now," he said Sunday. Since March, 155 Palestinians have been killed during the protests. One Israeli soldier was killed by sniper fire in July. Hamas seeks a cease-fire with Israel to secure an easing of the blockade but accuses its West Bank rivals, Fatah, of thwarting the effort. Repeated attempts to reconcile Hamas and the West Bank-based administration of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have failed, adding to the desperation fueling the demonstrations. In Israel, the fiery threats against Hamas have been coupled with concern over being dragged into an unnecessary escalation that may have more to do with Palestinian infighting. Thousands of Central American migrants traveling in a caravan through southern Mexico resumed their journey toward the United States by hitchhiking and walking along highways on Saturday, after a governor reneged on a brief offer to provide dozens of buses to take them to Mexico City more quickly. Gov. Miguel Angel Yunes announced Friday evening that authorities in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz would be providing not only humanitarian assistance to the migrants but buses to leapfrog them to the country's capital, three weeks after the migrants began their grueling journey. "It is very important that they be able to move soon from Veracruz toward another place," Yunes said in a video message. "For that reason, we also offered them transportation so that, if possible, tomorrow ... they may be able to go to Mexico City or to the place they wish." Organizers of the caravan of about 4,000 migrants told its members that they would be leaving the town of Sayula around 5 a.m. Saturday in convoys of 10 buses for the 10- to 12-hour trip. A jubilant caravan coordinator told the group: "We are all going!" But almost immediately afterward, Yunes released a second video saying that because Mexico City's water system was undergoing maintenance and 7 million of its people would be without water over the weekend, it would not be correct to send the migrants there. The maintenance has been known about for weeks. Migrants expressed surprise and disappointment at the decision before setting out by their own means for Isla, a town about 43 miles (70 kilometers) away. A day prior, the migrants made a trek of 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Juchitan, Oaxaca, to Donaji, Oaxaca, and then even farther along to Sayula. "They're playing with our dignity. If you could have only seen the people's happiness last night when they told us that we were going by bus and today we're not," said Gerardo Perez, a 20-year-old migrant who was tired from the trip. Saira Cabrera, a 36-year-old migrant traveling with her husband and two children aged 7 and 13, said she was frustrated. "It's a letdown that first they told us yes, and then they said no. People are mad and confused," she said. Caravan organizers released a statement rejecting Yunes' decision and demanding that he fulfill his offer of buses to Mexico City. The migrants' request for buses to the capital were also ignored by the Mexican government days earlier when they were in Juchitan. The latest reversal comes as Mexican authorities appear conflicted and divided over their approach to the caravan. On Friday, another caravan of migrants this time from El Salvador waded over the Suchiate River into Mexico, bringing 1,000 to 1,500 people who want to reach the U.S. border. That caravan tried to cross the bridge between Guatemala and Mexico, but Mexican authorities told those traveling in it they would have to show passports and visas and enter in groups of 50 for processing. The Salvadorans expressed misgivings that they would be deported, so they turned around and waded across a shallow stretch of the river to enter Mexico. Although police were present, they did not try to stop the migrants, who later walked along a highway toward the nearest large city, Tapachula. Mexico is now faced with the unprecedented situation of having three caravans stretched out over 300 miles (500 kilometers) of highways in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, with a total of more than 6,000 migrants. The first, largest group of mainly Honduran migrants entered Mexico on Oct. 19. Though that caravan once numbered as many as 7,000, it has shrunk significantly, although it has become difficult to give an exact number as migrants have advanced toward small towns any way they can. Another caravan, also of about 1,000 to 1,500 people, entered Mexico earlier this week and is now in Mapastepec, Chiapas. That group includes Hondurans, Salvadorans and some Guatemalans. In addition, the government identified a smaller group of 300 Central American migrants walking further ahead, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. Immigration agents and police have been nibbling at the edges of the two caravans farthest ahead. A federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said 153 migrants in the second caravan were detained earlier in the week during highway inspections in Chiapas, a short distance from the Guatemalan border. There has also been pressure on the main caravan. Federal police have been pulling freight trucks over and forcing migrants off, saying their habit of clinging to the tops or sides of the trucks was dangerous. At other points along the route, police have forced overloaded pickups to drop off migrants and ordered passenger vans to stop helping with transportation. With or without the Mexican government's help, it remained unclear how many migrants would make it to the U.S. border; many days of scorching heat, constant walking, chills, rain and illness have taken their toll. Mexico's Interior Department says nearly 3,000 of the migrants in the first caravan have applied for refuge in Mexico and hundreds more have returned home. Ahead, they await more uncertainty. President Donald Trump has ordered U.S. troops to the Mexican border in response to the caravans. More than 7,000 active duty troops have been told to deploy to Texas, Arizona and California. Trump has also told the U.S. military mobilizing at the southwest border that if U.S. troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were rifles. He plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum. Though some migrants clashed with Mexican police at a bridge on the Guatemala border, they have repeatedly denied coming with any ill intentions, saying they're fleeing poverty and violence. "We aren't killers," said Stephany Lopez, a 21-year-old Salvadoran with the first caravan. Sweeping accusations that the Kremlin tried to sway the 2016 U.S. election haven't chastened Russian trolls, hackers and spies and might even have emboldened them. U.S. officials and tech companies say Russians have continued online activity targeted at American voters during the campaign for Tuesday's election, masquerading as U.S. institutions and creating faux-American social media posts to aggravate tensions around issues like migration and gun control. Russia denies any interference. So far U.S. authorities haven't announced any huge hacks or the kind of multipronged campaign suspected in the 2016 election, and it's hard to judge whether the more recent Russian actions have any link to the Kremlin or will have any electoral impact. But why do they appear to be at it again? Dozens of Russians suspected of meddling in 2016 have been hit with U.S. charges or sanctions, including well-placed magnates. Moscow's ties with the West have deteriorated badly amid ever-more-shocking allegations of Russian interference abroad. And some argue that Russian meddlers don't need to mess with the U.S. midterms this year because they got what they wanted in 2016: Donald Trump in the White House and mass disillusionment with the democratic process. The Kremlin likes Trump because he's one of the rare Western leaders to embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin, but its hoped-for Russian-American rapprochement hasn't really materialized. A Democratic House or Senate after Tuesday's U.S. election would make that an even more distant prospect. "Russians have a preference and they will do what they can to swing (the result) in their favor, especially if margins are tight," said James Nixey, head of the Russia and Eurasia program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. He cautions, however, that "Russia is not responsible for all of America's problems. America has splits and fissures like all of us, and Russia puts in a lever and pries them open." Some Russians, meanwhile, wear the U.S. accusations as a badge of honor, a sign that their country is a fearsome world power again. The first person charged with foreign interference in the 2018 midterms, Elena Khusyaynova, said "my heart filled with pride" at the news. Speaking last week on Russian TV after being indicted in the United States for a covert social media campaign for both the 2016 and 2018 votes, she added, "It turns out that a simple Russian woman could help citizens of a superpower elect their president." Pavel Koshkin of Moscow's USA and Canada Institute called accusations of meddling "a gift to Russian propaganda and Russian politicians," who can use U.S. anti-Russian sentiment "as a tool in stirring anti-Americanism and increasing their approval ratings." The 2016 U.S. election thrust Russian foreign interference into the spotlight, but it wasn't an isolated project. It fit into a yearslong effort by Putin's Kremlin to take revenge over what's seen as the U.S.-led humiliation of post-Soviet Russia, through crippling loan programs and NATO's post-Cold War expansion. The Kremlin also resents what it considers U.S. interference in the politics of countries once under Moscow's sphere of influence, from Ukraine to the Caucasus. To many Russians, what's happening now in the U.S. is just payback. The resulting U.S. sanctions have damaged the Russian economy, but if the goal was changing Russian foreign policy, "this goal certainly hasn't been achieved," said analyst Masha Lipman. "In fact, the opposite is true. The more pressure (on Russia), the lower the desire or willingness to concede." As special counsel Robert Mueller has investigated possible Russian collusion with Trump's 2016 campaign, Moscow has increased efforts to make its mark elsewhere in Syria, Libya, and in political debates across Europe. So far in 2018, Russian agents have been accused of a nerve agent attack in Britain, trying to hack the world's chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands, and seeking to derail a referendum in Macedonia to stop the country from joining NATO and the European Union. Even after Mueller's team in February indicted a dozen Russians linked to the Internet Research Agency, the so-called troll farm in St. Petersburg, its sponsors openly continued to target U.S. audiences. One of its projects, a news site called USAReally, covers tight U.S. congressional races and is closely following the migrant caravan heading north from Latin America. "Yes, we are a Russian site. We talk to Americans about America. But is that forbidden?" its chief editor Alexander Malkevich, an avowed Trump fan, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Influence readers? Every media wants to do that. ... and so what?" He acknowledged that Russian-American relations are unlikely to improve quickly no matter the outcome Tuesday and expressed interest in the 2020 U.S. presidential race. Malkevich also assails what he calls the myth of American democracy. That's one more way that alleged Russian manipulation of U.S. social media serves the Kremlin's interests: By discrediting Western democracy, that strengthens Putin's argument to his own voters that his authoritarian model of governance is best. "The growing confrontation with the West and a focus on it on national television channels probably helped consolidate this effect of a fortress under siege," one of Putin's metaphors for modern Russia, Lipman said. "And pledging allegiance to the leader is a matter not only of loyalty but even of national security and national identity. " Many of the Russians accused of interference in the 2016 U.S. campaign have moved underground or moved on. Some shut down their social media presence. Some have changed jobs. One of the indicted troll factory workers, Sergei Polozov, announced on the Russian social network VKontakte that he was "using his notoriety for a good cause" and had persuaded Russian censors to block four Ukrainian news sites. He vowed to continue fighting those who "try to drag Russia through the mud" and thanked "those who want to join me in the fight against informational enemies." The troll factory, meanwhile, has moved to bigger offices in St. Petersburg, just 2.5 kilometers (a mile and a half) across town. A case involving the death of a man who was struck by a Metro-North train in Darien is going before the Connecticut Supreme Court. Justices are scheduled to hear arguments Monday on whether federal law prevents Kevin Murphy's widow from filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Metro-North in state court. The lawsuit says Murphy slipped on ice at the Noroton Heights train station, fell onto the tracks and was struck and killed by a Metro-North train in March 2013. Murphy's widow, Jamey Murphy, says the through train was wrongly traveling on the tracks closest to the platform, instead of other tracks away from the platform. Jamey Murphy appealed to the state Supreme Court after a lower court judge dismissed her lawsuit, citing federal laws including the Federal Railroad Safety Act. Connecticut State Police have identified the pedestrian who was killed in a hit-and-run crash on Route 63 in Bethany on Sunday morning. Troopers said they were called to Route 63, on the Bethany and Naugatuck town lines, after getting a report of a pedestrian that was hit by a car around 7:30 a.m. According to police, the vehicle fled the scene after the crash. A possible description of the vehicle is a dark green 1997-2001 Jeep Cherokee with front end damage, including a right broken or missing headlight. Naugatuck Police said the pedestrian who was hit has died. Officials have identified the pedestrian as 25-year-old Tony Pires Goncalves, of Derby. Officers shut down Route 63 from Clark Road to Edwards Road in Bethany and asked drivers to use alternate routes. The road was closed for several hours. The crash is under investigation by Connecticut State Police. Anyone with information that can help investigators identify the operator or the evading vehicle is asked to contact Troop I in Bethany at (203) 393-4200. More than 1,000 runners and walkers jumped at the chance to join Jamies Run in Wethersfield on Sunday morning. I actually run it for a little boy named Luke Dunn. He died three years ago. I run every year in memory of him, said Amy Camilleri, of Wethersfield. Many had touching reasons for wanting to take part in a 5K, 3K Charity Walk or Kids K Fun Run. And it all raises money for Connecticut Childrens Medical Center. More than 1,000 runners and walkers jumped at the chance to join Jamies Run in Wethersfield on Sunday morning. Its super gratifying. Its sort of amazing to us how far-reaching our mission has been or how far-reaching Jamies spirit has been for us, said Kelly Knotts. Kelly Knotts and her husband, Kurt, started the event in honor of their daughter, Jamie. She was diagnosed with a rare type of liver tumor and passed away in January 2010 at the age of five and a half months. Weve had such a great core of supporters that have been with us since our battle when Jamie was in the hospital. People really rallied around us. We wanted to keep that energy going, said Kurt Knotts. With the help of a team of volunteers, Jamies Run is now in its 9th year and benefits Pediatric Clinical Trials and Family Assistance programs. So far, the group has donated more than $380,000 to CCMC. They tell us it makes a difference and theyre just so grateful for it, because it really does, said Kelly Knotts. The Huasao wetland in the heart of the bygone Incan Empire languished for years as a wasteland that locals used as their dump. Cleaned up and given a second life, it's now attracting droves of tourists lured by magical figures plucked straight from Hollywood movies. Towering statues of Ents trees that walk and talk in the "Lord of the Rings" movies and a smaller reproduction of Groot from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" series are set amid the woodsy landscape and glassy lagoons. They're drawing crowds eager to pose for selfies. Although it's a small area, environmentalists cite its recovery as part of a global battle to reverse the trend of filling or draining wetlands to make way for new farmland, industry and neighborhoods. Experts say such developments have already devoured a third of the world's wetlands. Those behind the restoration say they included the eye-catching statues to target young people, while hoping to spark their appreciation of nature. "I thought it made sense to focus on children, to stir their enthusiasm for the environment," said Jeancarlo Pacheco, a Peruvian agronomist who led the recovery effort. The wetland covering 5.5 hectares (14 acres) sits a short drive from Cuzco, the historic capital of the Inca empire high in the Andes mountains. For decades, locals used the wetland to dispose of animal carcasses, construction waste and any kind of trash, including non-biodegradable plastic. A group of environmentalists recently set out to reclaim it. They won $1.3 million in backing from Peru's government and the Development Bank of Latin America. That covered the cleanup and construction of walkways, channels and an island surrounded by small lagoons that capture water streaming down the mountains. Next came the statues five of them. Some of the tree-like figures tower 5 meters (16 feet) tall, with branch-like hands dramatically reaching out. A less menacing Groot, a pop culture icon from the Marvel movie, wears an inviting smile. It opened on May 1, and the next day got a surprise boost from afar when "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn tweeted photographs of the statues. Roughly a thousand people now visit each week, mostly locals under age 30, officials say. Jose Luis Venero, a Peruvian biologist and wetlands expert, said snapping selfies with the statues is fine, but he really wants visitors to walk away having learned the vital role wetlands play as habitat for birds and bees as well as cleaning water and preventing floods. Some 58 bird species build their nests at this wetland, including the yellow-crowned night heron, one of many that migrate from the southeastern United States. These herons have been spotted four times recently at the rejuvenated wetland. "Wetlands are the airports of migratory birds, where no one shows a passport upon landing," Venero said. "If we don't care for these wetlands, many of these migratory birds could go extinct." Early voting ends in Florida on Sunday and dozens of South Florida locations remain available to cast ballots ahead of the Tuesday general election. Florida's early voting period will run from Oct. 22 to Nov. 4. Locations in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., while Monroe County locations will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Miami-Dade County will host about 28 early voting locations. Broward County will host about 22 early voting locations. Palm Beach County will host about 14 early voting locations. Monroe County will host about five early voting locations. Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford said she was on a Delta Air Lines flight into Boston Tuesday night when she noticed that a passenger next to her was in distress. Stanford, who is an African American physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, said she was helping the passenger when her medical credentials were questioned by several flight attendants, even after she showed the flight attendants her medical license. "She is a highly sought after, highly talented physician," said Dr. Michael Sinha, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. "She has two residencies and two fellowships under her belt." Shortly after the incident, Stanford sent several tweets about it. "As a black woman doctor who showed my medical license to help a passenger on DL5935 your flight attendant still did not believe I was a physician," she said in one tweet. In a statement, Delta said, "We thank Dr. Stanford for her medical assistance on board Republic flight 5935 IN D-BOS, and are sorry for any misunderstanding that may have occurred during her exchange with the in-flight crew." Sinha is an advocate for gender equity with degrees in medicine and law who works with Stanford through the American Medical Association and the Massachusetts Medical Society. "Myself and a couple of my colleagues really want this to become a national issue and to have this conversation again," he said. Sinha also said Standford participated in a bias-in-medicine symposium just over a week ago, with her friend, Dr. Tamika Cross a black OB-GYN who also accused Delta of discrimination in 2016, which sparked the hashtag #whatadoctorlookslike. After the 2016 incident, Delta stopped requiring attendants to verify medical credentials. Shilpa Pherwani is CEO of Interactive Business Inclusion Solutions, which works with companies to provide employees with diversity and implicit bias training. The company is currently working with another major airline to audit its diversity policies. "Really look at training, that gets to how you are recruiting and hiring," Pherwani said. "How you do career development. How you're giving performance evaluations, feedback, how do you develop your people, is it an equitable environment?" In another tweet, Stanford said she spoke with Delta, which promised to address the incident and thanked her for being a Sky Miles member. She is unsure whether any further changes will be made. Delta also said the plane on which the incident occurred is operated by Republic, a Delta Connection carrier. "We are proud of Dr. Stanford for immediately coming to the aid of an ailing passenger but are dismayed that her credentials and qualifications were questioned," Massachusetts General Hospital President Peter L. Slavin said in a statement. A gunman killed two people and wounded five others at a yoga studio in Florida's capital before killing himself Friday evening, officials said. Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo told reporters Friday night that the man shot six people and pistol-whipped another after walking into the studio, which is part of a small Tallahassee shopping center. The suspect then fatally shot himself, DeLeo said. Authorities have identified the shooter at a yoga studio in Tallahassee and the two people he killed, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. The Tallahassee Police Department has identified the shooter as Scott Paul Beierle, 40, the newspaper reports. The department identified the two people who were killed as Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, and Maura Binkley, 21, the Democrat reports. The newspaper says that Van Vessem was internist who served as chief medical director for Capital Health Plan. Capital Health Plan issued a statement praising Van Vessem, the Democrat reported. "As CHP's longtime chief medical director, Nancy has been a guiding, visionary force in our daily work to serve the wellness and health care needs of thousands of families in this community. Her dedication, caring, leadership, humanity, and experience made her one of the most respected, inspiring, and accomplished medical professionals in the state and country. Our hearts are filled with sorrow and prayers for her family. We all have been so blessed to have Nancy in our lives," the company said. Florida State University President John Thrasher says Van Vessem and Binkley had ties to the university. "To lose one of our students and one of our faculty members in this tragic and violent way is just devastating to the Florida State University family. We feel this loss profoundly and we send our deepest sympathies to Maura's and Nancy's loved ones while we pray for the recovery of those who were injured," Thrasher said in a statement. DeLeo said police are asking for anyone who saw something unusual around the time of the shooting to contact police. He said the shooter acted alone and authorities are investigating possible motives. He declined to say what kind of gun the shooter had. Video from the scene at a yoga studio in Tallahassee, where a gunman killed at least two people and injured several others before killing himself. "We're all very saddened and shocked by the events that occurred, but it's important that people understand that there is no immediate threat outside of what has already occurred this evening," DeLeo said. Melissa Hutchinson said she helped treat a "profusely" bleeding man who rushed into a bar after the incident. She said three people from the studio ran in, and they were told there was an active shooter. "It was a shocking moment something happened like this," Hutchinson said. The people who came in were injured, including the bleeding man who was pistol-whipped while trying to stop the shooter. They told her the shooter kept coming in and out of the studio. When he loaded his gun, people started pounding the windows of the studio to warn people. City Commissioner Scott Maddox was on the scene. He said on Facebook, "In my public service career I have had to be on some bad scenes. This is the worst. Please pray." Elle Welling said she was leaving a liquor store across the street from the shopping center and saw at least three people loaded into ambulances. "You don't think about this in Tallahassee and now you have to," said Welling, 26, who lives in the neighborhood. The plaza is home to popular restaurants, a jewelry store, a framing shop, a hair salon and other businesses. Erskin Wesson, 64, said he was eating dinner with his family at a restaurant located below the yoga studio when they heard the gunshots above them. "We just heard 'pow, pow, pow, pow,'" Wesson said. "It sounded like a limb falling on a tin roof and rolling." The restaurant's owner came by a short time later, asking if anyone was a doctor, Wesson said. His step-daughter is an emergency room nurse and helped paramedics for about an hour, he said. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is the Democratic nominee for governor, tweeted that he's breaking off the campaign trail to return to Tallahassee. He earlier appeared at a campaign event with former President Barack Obama. Im deeply appreciative of law enforcement's quick response to the shooting at the yoga facility in Tallahassee today. No act of gun violence is acceptable. I'm in close communication with law enforcement officials and will be returning to Tallahassee tonight. Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) November 2, 2018 "I'm deeply appreciative of law enforcement's quick response to the shooting at the yoga facility in Tallahassee today. No act of gun violence is acceptable. I'm in close communication with law enforcement officials and will be returning to Tallahassee tonight," Gillum tweeted. Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, called DeLeo and the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to get details of the shooting. I have been briefed by FDLE and local law enforcement regarding the shooting in Tallahassee. FDLE is on the scene and assisting local police. I will remain in constant communication with law enforcement. We have offered state assistance. Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) November 2, 2018 "I will remain in constant communication with law enforcement. We have offered state assistance," Scott tweeted. Tallahassee's crime and murder rate has been an issue in the governor's race, with Gillum's opponent, Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, calling the capital Florida's most crime-ridden city, a claim that is incorrect. What to Know A 22-year-old man died after he was shot in the torso during an argument, police said The man was shot in the torso several times at a home on Guy R. Brewer Blvd, between 107th and 108th avenues, in Jamaica, Queens No one has been arrested in connection with the shooting, and an investigation is ongoing A 22-year-old man was shot in the chest and died during an argument at a Queens baby shower, police said Sunday. Tymel West, of Queens, was shot several times at a home on Guy R. Brewer Boulevard, between 107th and 108th avenues in Jamaica, the NYPD said. West's family and friends were having a baby shower Saturday night when an argument broke out, police said. The dispute spilled outside and someone shot West multiple times in the chest. People left candles on the sidewalk for West, a father who was remembered as a close friend, a "chill person" and a "good dude." No one has been arrested in connection with West's death. The investigation is ongoing. Southeastern Pennsylvania woke up to heavy damage after a severe storm tore through the region and brought with it heavy rain and flooding. Some regional rail services were suspended and thousands were without power Saturday morning after the storm, which began Friday night, hit the region. SEPTA regional rail riders were forced to find alternative means of transportation as a portion of the Paoli/Thorndale regional rail line was suspended due to multiple trees falling onto overhead wires. Shuttle buses were carrying people between the Malvern and Thorndale stations. However, the shuttles were not able to access the Whitford station, and riders are advised to seek alternative transportation. At the Malvern Station, passengers were asked to board on the outbound platform. Service was later restored on the Paoli/Thorndale regional rail line Saturday evening. Thousands were without power throughout the day though it was restored for most customers Saturday night. The severe weather also clogged up storm drains with leaves and debris at Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, leading to flooding and water damage in the building. The school will be closed for students on Monday as a result. The worst of the storm seemed to be over by Saturday afternoon, but the National Weather Service issued flood warnings for parts of Berks, Montgomery, Lehigh, Bucks, Chester and Northampton counties in Pennsylvania as well as Hunterdon and Warren counties in New Jersey. Those warnings expired around 3:45 p.m. however. Despite the tornado warnings, the National Weather Service confirmed there was no tornado in our area. Instead, areas of straight line winds caused the damage. The mayor of a Utah city was killed during an attack in Afghanistan while he was serving with the state's National Guard, the Salt Lake Tribune and other media reported. North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor died Saturday in an apparent "insider attack" in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, the Tribune reported. Another U.S. service member is being treated for wounds sustained in the attack, American military officials said. The Utah National Guard has identified the service member killed as a member of the Guard. The Guard member's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. But Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer J. Cox wrote on his Facebook page that Taylor, 39, has been killed. "Devastating news. North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor was killed today while serving in Afghanistan," Cox said. "I hate this. I'm struggling for words. I love Mayor Taylor, his amazing wife Jennie and his seven sweet kids. Utah weeps for them today. This war has once again cost us the best blood of a generation. We must rally around his family." U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch issued a statement Saturday about Taylor's death on Twitter. "Brent was a hero, a patriot, a wonderful father, and a dear friend. News of his death in Afghanistan is devastating. My prayers and love are with Jennie and his 7 young children. His service will always be remembered," Hatch said. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert plans to hold a news conference on Sunday to discuss the death. Taylor was deployed to Afghanistan in January with the Utah National Guard for what was expected to be a 12-month tour of duty. Taylor, an officer in the National Guard, previously served two tours in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan. At the time of his deployment in January, Taylor told local media that, as an intelligence officer, he will be assigned to serve on an advisory team training the staff of an Afghan commando battalion. "Right now there is a need for my experience and skills to serve in our nation's long-lasting war in Afghanistan," he said. "President Trump has ordered an increase in troops, and part of the new strategy focuses on expanding the capabilities of the Afghan commando units." Taylor became mayor of North Ogden, a city of about 17,000 people 46 miles north of Salt Lake City, in 2013. The Tribune reported that on the day of his deployment in mid-January, North Ogden police escorted Taylor and his family around town as hundreds of residents lined the streets to see him off. North Korea has warned it could revive a state policy aimed at strengthening its nuclear arsenal if the United States does not lift economic sanctions against the country. The statement released by the Foreign Ministry Friday evening came amid a sense of unease between Washington and Seoul over the use of sanctions and pressure to get the North to relinquish its nuclear program. The ministry said North Korea could bring back its "pyongjin" policy of simultaneously advancing its nuclear force and economic development if the United States doesn't change its stance. The North came short of threatening to abandon the ongoing nuclear negotiations with the United States. But it accused Washington of derailing commitments made by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump at their June summit in Singapore to work toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, without describing how and when it would occur. In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he plans to talk next week with his North Korean counterpart, apparently referring to senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol. Pompeo did not provide the location and date for the meeting, which will likely be focused on persuading North Korea to take firmer steps toward denuclearization and setting up a second summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un. "A lot of work remains, but I'm confident that we will keep the economic pressure in place until such time as Chairman Kim fulfills the commitment he made to President Trump back in June in Singapore," Pompeo said. The North Korean Foreign Ministry statement, released under the name of the director of the ministry's Institute for American Studies, said the "improvement of relations and sanctions is incompatible." "The U.S. thinks that its oft-repeated 'sanctions and pressure' leads to 'denuclearization.' We cannot help laughing at such a foolish idea," it said. The ministry described the lifting of U.S.-led sanctions as corresponding action to the North's "proactive and good-will measures," apparently referring to its unilateral suspension of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and closure of a nuclear testing ground. Following a series of provocative nuclear and missile tests last year, Kim shifted to diplomacy when he met with Trump between three summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who lobbied hard to revive nuclear diplomacy between Washington and Seoul. However, the North has been playing hardball since the summitry, insisting that sanctions should be lifted before any progress in nuclear talks, which fueled doubts on whether Kim would ever deal away a nuclear program he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival. Ahead of his first summit with Moon in April, Kim said the country should shift its focus to economic development as the "pyongjin" policy had achieved a "great victory." He also declared that the North would stop nuclear and long-range missile tests. The North dismantled its nuclear testing ground in May, but didn't invite experts to observe and verify the event. Friday's statement marked the first time the North said it could potentially resume weapons tests and other development activities since Kim signaled a new state policy in April. "If the U.S. keeps behaving arrogantly without showing any change in its stand, while failing to properly understand our repeated demand, the DPRK may add one thing to the state policy for directing all efforts to the economic construction adopted in April and as a result, the word 'pyongjin' may appear again," the statement said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "Pyongjin" means "dual advancement." Moon has described inter-Korean engagement as crucial to resolving the nuclear standoff. A large number of South Korean CEOs accompanied Moon in his September visit to Pyongyang, when he and Kim agreed to normalize operations at a jointly run factory park and resume South Korean visitors' travel to the North when possible, voicing optimism the international sanctions could end and allow such projects. But South Korea's enthusiasm for engagement with its rival has also created discomfort in the United States amid growing concerns that the North is dragging its feet with its promise to denuclearize. South Korea last month walked back on a proposal to lift some of its unilateral sanctions against North Korea to create diplomatic space following Trump's blunt retort that Seoul could "do nothing" without Washington's approval. A Maryland firefighter is on administrative leave after he was arrested and charged with arson in Pennsylvania. Prince George's County firefighter and medic Lt. Sean Christopher Roth was arrested on Friday in York County, Pennsylvania, in connection to an arson on Aug. 29, the Prince George's County Fire Department said. Roth, 39, faces charges of arson with intent to collect insurance, fraudulent insurance claim and risking catastrophe. He is being held in jail on $25,000 bond. He has been in the Prince George's County Fire Department for more than 19 years, fire officials said. Roth will stay on administrative leave with pay until further notice, the department said. The York County Fire School said in a statement Roth was also an instructor who taught numerous classes at the school. "Although Mr. Roth was not an employee of the York County Fire School, he was an active instructor for Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) which often hosts fire service related courses at the York County Fire School," the school said in the statement. "The Fire Chiefs & Fire Fighters Association of York County, Inc. Board of Governors have placed Mr. Roth on a leave of absence from being an instructor for any courses at the York County Fire School pending the outcome of his legal actions." No other information was released about the fire. A man has been arrested after a woman was found killed inside a hotel room in Crystal City Sunday morning, police say. Arlington County Police said officers responded to a hotel in the 1700 block of Jefferson Davis Highway about 9:40 a.m. and found 20-year-old Natasha Rivera, of Stafford, Virginia, dead inside the room. Officers arrested 24-year-old Rodolfo Rivera at the scene. Rodolfo Rivera was charged with murder and is being held without bond, police said. Police called the death a "domestic-related homicide." A medical examiner will determine Natasha Rivera's cause of death. Police are asking anyone with information to call 703-228-4166. Candidates for a slew of statewide offices are going to be crisscrossing Massachusetts in a final push for votes. Democratic candidate for governor Jay Gonzalez hit the campaign trail. On Saturday he greeted voters in Boston, Framingham, Brockton, Taunton, New Bedford, Falmouth and Quincy. He shook hands and took photos at a campaign office rally in Brockton with incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "I know I'm the little guy in this election," Gonzalez said. Polls show he's trailing Republican Gov. Charlie Baker by nearly 40 points, but he told supporters to forget about the numbers. "Don't let anyone tell you this election's already been decided. The pundits and the polls have been way off base lately," Gonzalez said. He also went after Baker's support for Warren's opponent in the Senate race, arguing that a vote for Geoff Diehl is a vote for President Trump's policies. "By supporting Geoff Diehl, Charlie Baker is backing an anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, pro-NRA agenda," he said. On Sunday, Gonzalez has scheduled events in Pittsfield, Springfield, Worcester and Lowell. Baker meanwhile stumped for votes in Springfield and Shrewsbury on Saturday. Baker says he and Gonzalez disagree on one big thing: how to spend your tax dollars. "We started with a big budget deficit. Now we have a surplus. We didn't raise taxes, we just came up with smarter, better ways to deliver services," he said. With a 70 percent approval rating, Baker's the most popular governor in the country. But like his opponent, he doesn't care about the polls. "How many times have we said, 'The only poll that matters is the one on Election Day?'" Republican U.S. Senate candidate Geoff Diehl joined supporters at rallies planned Saturday in Fitchburg and Worcester. Warren made stops in Brockton and New Bedford on Saturday. On Sunday, Warren has scheduled events in Springfield and Worcester. Election Day is Tuesday. Discussions between frozen food chain and Kennet Shopping revealed at Newbury Vision ICELAND could be on its way back to Newbury if ongoing talks to bring the frozen food specialist to the Kennet Shopping centre are successful. The supermarket giant closed its Newbury store on December 31 last year to make way for a new 61-bed retirement complex at its Pearl House site on Bartholomew Street. At the conclusion of Newbury Vision, the opposition leader of Newbury Town Council, Martha Vickers (Lib Dem, Northcroft) asked what progress, if any, there was to bring Iceland back to the town. In his response, Steve Gray, from Global Mutual, which is involved in the operations of the centre, said: We dearly would like to have Iceland in the Kennet centre. Iceland have another operation, Food Warehouse group, which is forming a large part of their strategy for opening stores that is largely based on retail parks. We are getting their attention, but it has to be absolutely perfect. Weve met them a couple of times, weve looked at a couple of options that werent viable and we are now presenting a third option to them to hopefully get them into the town centre. Meanwhile, two new arrivals have be en announced for Kennet Shopping. Sundaes Gelato, which has a number of ice cream parlours across the UK, including Basingstoke and Oxford, is set to move in. As well as ice creams, it also sells waffles and milkshakes. Department store Shaws The Drapers, which also has stores throughout the country, was also unveiled as a new occupant. No firm date has yet been set for either company to move in. The towns of New Milford, Kent, Roxbury and Washington will offer a variety of programs to recognize Veterans Day. In New Milford The town of New Milford will honor veterans at a special ceremony Sunday, on Veterans Day. An armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, ending World War I. The Roger Sherman Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, will hold a veterans breakfast from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the VFW Hall on Avery Road. A Quilt of Valor will also be presented during the breakfast. For more information and RSVP, email Bonnie Butler at bbutler5129@gmail.com or 860-354-5129. After, a ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. on the south end of the Village Green. In case of inclement weather, the ceremony will be held at the VFW hall on Avery Road. The Auxiliary of the New Milford VFW Post 1672 will sponsors its annual Light Up the Night for Veterans luminary event for Veterans Day. Luminaries were sold for $5. Luminary bags were decorated and to honor veterans and active duty military members. The bags will be lighted and placed around the lower section of the Village Green Saturday at 8 p.m. and remain on the Green until after Veterans Day ceremony. For information, or to order a luminary, call 860-354-7995. The Roger Sherman Chapter DAR will also hold a special gravesite dedication service of a Revolutionary War patriot Monday at 1 p.m. at the West Meetinghouse Road Cemetery in New Milford. The gravesite of patriot Solomon Hill, and his wife, Amy Stone Hill, will receive a NSDAR grave marker in recognition of their service in the Revolutionary War. Solomon Hill was born in 1759. At age 16, he served in Col. Hinmans Fourth Regiment in 1775. Solomon Hill is a patriot of several members of the Roger Sherman Chapter NSDAR, who have proven direct lineal descent. Refreshments will follow the gravesite dedication at the Merryall Center for the Arts at 8 Chapel Hill Road. For information and RSVP, Bonnie Butler at bbutler5129@gmail.com or 860-354-5129. In Kent Veterans will visit Kent Center School for an assembly Friday at 10 a.m. Martin Lindenmayer, the commander of Hall-Jennings Post # 153, will lead the veterans into the gymnasium and onto the stage. He will demonstrate and discuss the proper handling of the American Flag. The veterans will then conduct a flag folding-ceremony with student participation. Veterans have also been invited to the classrooms after the ceremonies to relate their experiences personally and answer questions. Immediately following, the veterans will have a light lunch in the cafeteria. On Veterans Day, a service will be held at 11 a.m. at the Kent Veterans Memorial Monument on Maple Street. Lindenmayer will serve as host for the ceremony, which will include an invocation from Monsignor Vitorio Guerrera of Saint Kateri Tekawitha Parish, followed by a seven gun salute and taps. The Conservation Commission has donated and planted a maple tree that is located adjacent to the veterans monument to recognize veterans. The commission will hold a short dedication ceremony after the service. St. Kateri Tekawitha will offer a luncheon for veterans and their families at Sacred Heart Church in Kent after the ceremony. In addition, members of the American Legion, in cooperation with Davis IGA, will conduct their annual fundraiser outside the IGA to support American Legion programs and veterans through Sunday. In Roxbury The tragedy of World War I will be brought to life on Veterans Day at 2 p.m. at Hodge Memorial Library and Museum at 4 North St. Moderated by Doug Winkel, four volunteers will read a selection of poems that trace the progress of the war and the changing attitudes about it as the extraordinary number of casualties, deaths and destruction took their toll. The event is organized by Georgette Miller and will feature refreshments prepared by Renee David. In addition to including the texts of the poems, the program will also provide some background information on the war and the poets who were so affected by it. The town of Roxbury and the Roxbury Council on Aging will hold a reception for veterans Monday at 1 p.m. at the Roxbury Senior Center, 7 South St. All Roxbury veterans are invited to attend. In Washington The Institute of American Indian Studies in Washington will hold a traditional Veterans Day ceremony Nov. 10 at noon. The ceremony at the 38 Curtis Road museum will include prayers and drumming to honor the contributions and valor of Native American veterans. This year, there will be a special traditional ceremony to honor Charles Lindberg Kilson, Senior, as well as the memory of his brother, Earl Anderson Kilson, Senior of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. Both brothers served in the United States Navy during the Korean War. Earl also served during the early years of the Vietnam War. The public, veterans and non-veterans are invited to attend. Following the ceremony, visitors are invited to a light lunch in the museum. It is estimated that more than 12,000 American Indians served in World War I and that 44,000 American Indians, out of a total Native American population of 350,000 served with distinction between 1941 and 1945. During World War II, on the home front, more than 40,000 Native Americans left their reservations to work in factories and other war industries. Many of these battle-hardened Native American Indians that served in WWII also served in the Korean War along with new Native American recruits like Charles and Earl. More than 42,000 Native Americans, 90 percent of them volunteers fought in Vietnam, and Earl was one of the many Native American Indians that continued to serve their country in the Vietnam War. Today, there are almost 200,000 Native American military veterans. Charles resides in Sandy Hook, but he and his wife and his family lived on the Schaghticoke Indian Reservation in Kent, where he is an active member with the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. Earl lived with his family on the Schaghticoke Reservation in Kent, for much of his young life. Upon his death, he was an active member of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. Sorry! This content is not available in your region New Delhi: The wait for the Signature Bridge in the national capital is finally over after 14 long years. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will inaugurate the 575-metre-long suspension bridge on Sunday and it will be thrown open for public on Monday. Built over river Yamuna, Signature Bridge will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi. It will also share the traffic burden of the Wazirabad bridge. It will also offer a panoramic view of the city and have designated selfie spots. Read More | Central Banks Autonomy: Is India only country to witness fight between government and bank? Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia visited the bridge on Friday and conducted inspection to ensure everything is in place. Delhi! Here is your pride ..The Signature Bridge .. Ready to welcome you tomorrow for inauguration ceremony.. 4pm onwards.. Sunday. 4th Nov. pic.twitter.com/kVicLkACWh Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) November 3, 2018 Delhiites will be able to enjoy a panoramic view of the city from the 154-metre-high glass box on the top of the bridge, where they will be taken in four elevators with a total capacity of carrying 50 people. The elevators area likely to be operational in two months, an official said. Also Read | Ozone levels have stopped becoming larger Announced in 2004, the bridge has missed several deadlines since 2011. The proposal for the bridge, mooted in 2004, received approval of the Delhi Cabinet in 2007. It was initially expected to be completed at a modified estimate of Rs 1,131 crore for the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi in October 2010. In 2015, the cost of the project rose to Rs 1,594 crore. Reportedly, the bridge was proposed for the first time as early as in 1997 at an initial cost of Rs 464 crore. All you need to know about the Signature Bridge: It is a 575-metre-long suspension bridge. It will reduce travel time between north and northeast Delhi, taking the load off Wazirabad bridge There will be an observation deck on the tip of the pylon to take a panoramic view of the city. The pylon is boomerang-shaped and is a high-steel glass structure. The viewing deck is likely to be open to public by February. The visitors will be taken to the viewing deck in four elevators, which will be able to carry around 50 people at a time. The elevators area is likely to be operational in two months. The proposal for the bridge, mooted in 2004, received approval of the Delhi Cabinet in 2007. As per reports, the bridge was proposed for the first time as early as in 1997 at an initial cost of Rs 464 crore which escalated to a whopping Rs 1,500 crore. The Signature Bridge is one of the most expensive projects of the Delhi government. (With agency inputs) New Delhi: As the gunning down of five Bengalis by suspected United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) terrorists sparked off stir in Assam's Tinsukia district, a four-member Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation on Sunday visited Kheronibari village to meet the bereaved families of those deceased. The TMC delegation, led by party leader Derek O'Brien, also consists of Lok Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra. "This is a humanitarian visit. This is a visit to stand with the grieving families. We hope to reach Tinsukia in about two hours and spend some time with the families," O'Brien told PTI outside the Dibrugarh airport in Assam. "What has happened is a dastardly killing of the most deprived and poorest Indian citizens... They have been murdered in cold blood," the senior TMC leader added. Read | Sabarimala Temple: Hindu outfits ask media houses to not depute young woman journalists to cover issue In a chilling incident, a group of unidenfied assailants shot dead five individuals of the Bengali community, including three of a family on the banks of the Lohit river at Dhola in Tinsukia district on Thursday evening. However, the ULFA terrorists group has denied its involvement in the incident. Here are the Highlights: 11:58 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The TMC delegation gave Rs 1 lakh each as compensation to the families of the five people killed by ULFA terrorists 11:38 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Dhola(Assam): TMC delegation led by Derek O Brien meets families of the five people killed by ULFA terrorists in Tinsukia Dhola(Assam): TMC delegation led by Derek O Brien meets families of the five people killed by ULFA terrorists in Tinsukia pic.twitter.com/XUP0S2aEQG ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 11:36 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Condemning the killing of "innocent people", Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal conveyed his sympathy to the families of the deceased, adding that strong action will be taken against the perpetrators of this dastardly violence. "We will not tolerate such cowardly act," he added. Sonowal appealed to the people of Assam to maintain peace and harmony. He also directed all deputy commissioners and SPs to remain alert. 11:36 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In In the wake of the brutal murder in Tinsukia, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also expressed her anguish, saying an "environment of violence" was prevailing in the country. New Delhi: Several Hindu outfits in Kerala agitating against the entry of women of menstrual age into the Sabarimala Temple have urged media houses not to depute women journalists to cover the issue ahead of its opening for a special puja on Monday. This will be the second time after the Supreme Court allowed entry of girls and women in the age group of 10-50 into it. The appeal was issued by the Sabarimala Karma Samiti, a joint platform of right-wing outfits, including the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Hindu Aikyavedi. Read More | Delhi Police seizes 625 kg of firecrackers from Sadar Bazar The samiti has been spearheading the agitation against the apex courts order lifting an age-old ban on the entry of women in menstrual age group into the temple, whose deity Lord Ayyappa is a celibate. In its letter to editors, a copy of which was released to the media, the samiti said even the entry of women journalists belonging to this age group as part of their job was also likely to aggravate the situation. Recognising your right to support or oppose the devotees stand on this issue, we hope you will not take a stand which would aggravate the situation, it said. Also Read | Tinsukia Killing LIVE: Four-member TMC delegation reaches Assam When the temple opened for monthly puja for five days last month, first time after the court order, women reporters, on their way to cover the occasion, were heckled, their vehicles attacked and young female devotees forced to turn back as protesters, including activists of Hindu fringe groups, laid a siege to the road leading to Sabarimala. Besides the usual poojas, "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special pooja, will be held on Tuesday and the shrine will be closed at 10 pm. A prohibitory order under section 144 CrPc banning assembly of four or more people had come into force at Pamba, Nilackal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam from midnight Saturday till Tuesday midnight. Barricades have been erected at many places en route to Nilakkal and police personnel are allowing vehicles only after checking, according to report in the DNA. New Delhi: Supporters of Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and the AAP entered into a scuffle amid heavy security arrangements minutes before the inauguration of the Signature Bridge in national capital on Sunday. The much-awaited Signature Bridge on the Yamuna is set to open for public on November 5. As per the project plan, the bridge, which will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi, will have designated selfie spots. Manoj Tiwari claimed that the police and Aam Aadmi Party supporters misbehaved with him when arrived at the inauguration of the Signature Bridge. #WATCH BJP Delhi Chief Manoj Tiwari, his supporters and AAP supporters enter into a scuffle at the inauguration of the Signature Bridge in Delhi; Police present at the spot pic.twitter.com/NhvqxudDTT a ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 aI was invited to the inauguration event. I am an MP from here (North-East Delhi). So what's the problem? Am I a criminal? Why has the police surrounded me? I am here to welcome him (Arvind Kejriwal). The AAP and the police have misbehaved with me,a said Tiwari. According to Tiwari, it was him who had re-started the construction of the bridge after it was stalled for many years. "In my constituency, I re-started construction of the bridge after it was stalled for many years and now Arvind Kejriwal is organising an inauguration ceremony,a Tiwari said. Reacting to the incident, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: aUnprecedented. Chaos by BJP at Signature Bridge inauguration site. Its a Del govt prog. Police mute spectator. Can LG, being head of Del police, ensure peace and order at Signature bridge inauguration site?a Unprecedented. Chaos by BJP at Signature Bridge inauguration site. Its a Del govt prog. Police mute spectator. Can LG, being head of Del police, ensure peace and order at Signature bridge inauguration site? a Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 4, 2018 Aam Aadmi Party leader Dilip Pandey said thousands of people had arrived at the inauguration to celebrate without an invitation card, but Manoj Tiwari was doing ahooliganisma. aBJP people thrashed AAP volunteers and local people. They have been admitted to a hospital,a said Pandey. Delhiites will be able to enjoy a panoramic view of the city from the top of the bridge, where they will be taken in four elevators with a total capacity of carrying 50 people. The elevators area likely to be operational in two months, an official said. .@ArvindKejriwal along with the entire Delhi Cabinet will inaugurate the World Class Engineering Marvel : #SignatureBridge today in a Grand Program from 4PM onwards. Stay Tuned !#AAPatWork pic.twitter.com/mDf2xI2y5N a AAP (@AamAadmiParty) November 4, 2018 He said the bridge will serve as a tourist destination with the 154-metre-high glass box giving a bird's-eye view of the city to visitors. Announced in 2004, the bridge has missed several deadlines since 2011. The proposal for the bridge, mooted in 2004, received approval of the Delhi Cabinet in 2007. It was initially expected to be completed at a modified estimate of Rs 1,131 crore for the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi in October 2010. In 2015, the cost of the project rose to Rs 1,594 crore. Reportedly, the bridge was proposed for the first time as early as in 1997 at an initial cost of Rs 464 crore. The bridge will share the burden of vehicular traffic currently borne by the Wazirabad bridge. (With agency inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Founder of Art of living Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who has been attempting to work out a negotiated settlement to the vexed Ram Temple- Babri Masjid issue, on Sunday took part in the 'Dharmadesh', the two-day meeting of Hindu seers at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi. Pitching for the construction of Ram Temple at the disputed land of Ayodhya, Ravi Shankar said, " We must find a way for Ram Temple. Ram Temple is people's wish and it should be fulfilled". Terming the Government's ordinance route the last option in the issue, Sri Sri Said, "Talks between the parties is the first option to solve the matter". The Supreme Court verdict on Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case, which has been deferred to the first week of January, 2019, is the second option to deal with the decade old socio-political debate in Ayodhya, he added. Read | Light a diya for Lord Ram this time, work in Ayodhya will start very soon: Yogi Adityanath Apart from Ravi Shankar, Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti chief Jagadguru Hansdevacharya and other top Hindu saints attended the two-day Dharmadesh meeting. Over 3,000 saints, who assembled at Talkatora Stadium for national integration, passed a resolution on Ram Temple, saying that there will be "no more talks or compromise" regarding the matter. "Make law or bring ordinance," the seers claimed. Wading into the Ram Mandir debate, Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev said, "If the apex court doesn't take a decision soon, then Parliament is the highest institution in a democracy and there is nothing wrong in bringing a legislation". The 'Dharmadesh', which started on Saturday morning came a day after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Friday threatened to launch a 1992-like temple agitation to ensure the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Read | Ayodhya: RSS releases HUGE statement on Ram Temple Briefing the media about the two-day long 'Dharmadesh' meeting, Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti General secretary Swami Jitendra Saraswati said, The two-day meeting will have three sessions. The first session will be of paying homage, where the karsevaks who died due to gunshots during ram mandir protest in Ayodhya will be remembered. Besides this, the cow vigilantes who died in front of the parliament in 1996 will also be paid tribute, RSS General Secretary Bhaiyaji Joshi said. "In the second session, the missionaries who have been following different ways for conversion will put forth their points and proposal will be kept against Ponga babas in this session," he said. "Third session will take place on November 4, where big saints like Sri Sri will give their viewpoint on Sabarimala and Ram Mandir issue. The same will be done keeping in mind the emotions of the saints" Joshi added. Read | Ayodhya Land Dispute: Hindus losing patience, says Giriraj Singh after SC's order The decade-old controversy over Ram Temple got a booster after the Supreme Court on October 29 listed the matter for further hearing in January, 2019, saying that "it had its own priority". For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A Kolkata-bound A320 neo plane of IndiGo returned to Lucknow on Friday, with initial inspection showing that the aircraft suffered bird strike, according to the airline. An IndiGo spokesperson said the aircraft that was involved in the air turn back to Lucknow airport was powered by PW1100G-JM engines. Initial inspection observed evidence of a bird strike and the engine performed as expected in this situation. Further investigation is currently in progress, the spokesperson said. The number of passengers in the flight could not be immediately ascertained. Also Read | Madhya Pradesh Elections: Congress releases its first list of 155 candidates A P&W spokesperson also said that initial inspection observed evidence of a bird strike and the engine performed as expected in this situation. We continue to work closely with our customer to support their operations and minimise any disruption, he said. According to him, the PW1100G-JM powers a fleet of more than 280 A320neo aircraft worldwide, which have achieved more than 1.3 million engine flight hours of operation. In recent times, there have been engine issues with P&W engines-powered A320 neo planes operated by IndiGo and GoAir. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Bringing in the Diwali cheer, prices of petrol and diesel continued to be slashed on Sunday on softening international oil prices. The past two weeks have provided some relief to consumers battered by two months of relentless rate hikes. Petrol price dipped by 21 paise a litre and diesel by 17 paise, according to the price notification of state-owned oil firms. In Delhi, petrol was pegged at Rs 78.78 a litre and diesel at Rs 73.36 per litre. Meanwhile, in Mumbai, petrol was sold for Rs 84.28 per litre and diesel at Rs 76.88, a decrease of Rs 0.21 a litre and 0.12 a litre in petrol and diesel, respectively. The prices of petrol and diesel in Kolkata were Rs 80.89 and Rs 75.39, respectively. In Chennai, the prices were pegged at Rs 82.06 and Rs 77.73, respectively. Read More | Central Banks Autonomy: Is India only country to witness fight between government and bank? Fuel prices have been declining since early October as oil companies factored in softening of international rates. State-run oil marketing companies Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) revise fuel prices with effect from 06:00 am on a daily basis. Also Read | Dharmendra Pradhan gives credit to PM Modi after US allows India, seven nations to buy Iran oil Before the October 5 price cut, petrol in Delhi had hit an all-time high of Rs 84 per litre while diesel was at record Rs 75.45. This came down to Rs 81.50 per litre for petrol and Rs 72.95 in case of diesel. In Mumbai, petrol had hit a peak of Rs 91.34 on October 4 and diesel was sold at a record high of Rs 80.10. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Amid growing demands by Hindu groups for construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Sunday a piece of good news regarding the issue is awaited devotees all over the country. Speaking at the concluding ceremony of Gyankumbh, a two-day meet at Patanjali Yogpeeth in Haridwar on improvements of the higher education standards, said a South Korean delegation was coming to Ayodhya to celebrate Diwali on November 6 when the festival of lights would be celebrated at Lord Ram's birthplace on a grand scale. The UP CM also appealed to everyone to light a lamp this Diwali in the name of Lord Ram. Meanwhile, Swami Paramhans Das, mahant of Tapaswi Chawni temple in Ayodhya, has threatened self-immolation on December 6, if the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was not officially announced by then. Paramhans, who sat on an indefinite fast on October 6 demanding a law be passed by the Modi government for construction of Ram Temple, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath must make the announcement by December 5. "When the government forced me to break my fast, the chief minister promised me he would soon announce the date for construction of Ram Mandir. He also promised me a conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where I could personally make my demands but nothing has been done," said Paramhans. "I am giving one month to the Modi government to take steps for the construction of Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya. This time from corporator to President of India is from Bhartiya Janata Party but they are not doing anything for Ram Mandir," he said. On Sunday, senior Congress Manu Singhvi said the BJP-RSS raise the Ramjanmabhoomi dispute ahead of every poll and then confine Lord Ram to "exile" after it is over. He hit out at the ruling dispensation and said it had insulted god by using the issue for political gains. "After 1992, in every elections, they (BJP and RSS) raise the issue. Once the polls get over, they again consign Lord Ram to exile," Singhvi said. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Lord Ayyappa temple in Keralas Sabarimala is set to open for the monthly pooja on Monday and this had kept the security personnel on their toes in the backdrop of violent protests over entry of women of menstrual age last month after the Supreme Court permitted women in the 10-50 age group to offer prayers at the shrine on September 28. At least 12 women had made a vain attempt to trek the hills soon after the verdict, however, had to return midway amid violent protests and threats from temple authorities to shut down the shrine. According to a Kerala police release, 1,500 personnel, 100 of them women, are keeping vigil at Sabarimala and nearby areas from Pamba to Sannidhaman. A 20-member commando team has been deployed at Sannidhanam, Nilackal and Pamba, the release said. Meanwhile, the BJP's state unit said its president PS Sreedharan Pillai has received a death threat. Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and chief priest Unnikrishnan Namboodiri will open the temple doors and light the lamp at the 'Sreekovil' (sanctum sanctorum) on November 5 at 5 pm. Around 1500 police personnel have been deployed from Pamba to Sannidhanam: IG Ashok Yadav to ANI on #SabarimalaTemple to open for a day tomorrow #Kerala pic.twitter.com/3bKEV8Tfm1 ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 Besides the usual poojas, "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special pooja, will be held on Tuesday and the shrine will be closed at 10 pm. A prohibitory order under section 144 CrPc banning assembly of four or more people had come into force at Pamba, Nilackal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam from midnight Saturday till Tuesday midnight. Barricades have been erected at many places en route to Nilakkal and police personnel are allowing vehicles only after checking, according to report in the DNA. Read More | Signature Bridge: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to inaugurate 575-metre suspension structure today Kerala had witnessed widespread protests by devotees after the state government made it clear that it was bound to implement the top courts verdict on the entry of women of all ages into the temple. The shrine had witnessed high drama after around a dozen women in the 10-50 age group were prevented by protesting devotees from entering it after the temple doors were opened for monthly pujas between October 17 and 22. Also Read | Redmi Note 6 Pro expected launch on November 6; Know specs The temple will again be opened on November 17 the three-month-long Mandalam-Makaravilakku festival, when VN Vasudevan Namboothiri, a native of Palakkad district, who was elected as the new melshanthi (chief priest) of the Lord Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala for the next one year, will take charge. Namboothiri is currently serving as the priest of an Ayyappa temple in Bengaluru. MN Narayanan Namboothiri, from Chengannur, would be the new priest of Malikappuram shrine at the Sabarimala temple complex. Both the priests were selected through a draw of lots conducted in front of the sanctum sanctorum. Kerala: Security deployed at Nilakkal base camp as #SabarimalaTemple will open for a day tomorrow pic.twitter.com/OdMnb3j5H7 ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Antarctic stratosphere created ideal conditions for destroying ozone in 2018, declining levels of the depleting chemicals prevented the hole from being as large as it would have been 20 years ago, scientists from the NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have revealed. ALSO READ | Central Banks Autonomy: Is India only country to witness fight between government and bank? "This year's colder temperatures would have given us a much larger ozone hole if chlorine was still at levels we saw back in the year 2000," said Paul A. Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland. According to NASA, the annual ozone hole reached an average area coverage of 22.9 square km in 2018. NOAA scientists said colder temperatures in 2018 allowed for the near-complete elimination of ozone in a deep, 5 km layer over the South Pole. This layer is where the active chemical depletion of ozone occurs on polar stratospheric clouds. "Even with this year's optimum conditions, ozone loss was less severe in the upper altitude layers, which is what we would expect given the declining chlorine concentrations we're seeing in the stratosphere," added NOAA scientist Bryan Johnson. Nations of the world began phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances in 1987 under an international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol. The 2018 ozone hole was strongly influenced by a stable and cold Antarctic vortex the stratospheric low-pressure system that flows clockwise in the atmosphere above Antarctica. ALSO READ | Dharmendra Pradhan gives credit to PM Modi after US allows India, seven nations to buy Iran oil In 2016 and 2017, warmer temperatures in September limited the formation of polar stratospheric clouds and slowed the ozone hole's growth. In 2017, the ozone hole reached a size of 19.7 square km before starting to recover. In 2016, the hole grew to 20.7 square km. However, the current ozone hole area is still large compared to the 1980s, when the depletion of the ozone layer above Antarctica was first detected. Atmospheric levels of man-made ozone-depleting substances increased up to the year 2000. Since then, they have slowly declined but remain high enough to produce significant ozone loss. For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. 3 1 of 3 / Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 / Contributed photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3 BETHEL Attorneys will detail at a seminar this week how residents can preserve their assets and independence as they age. Bethel Health Care Center and the Cascades Assisted Living Community will host an event on Wednesday with elder law attorneys Thomas E. Murphy and Michele F. Murphy, of Danbury. NEW MILFORD Children will be able to help their classmates and their school with a new fundraiser at Sarah Noble Intermediate School that rewards students for acts of kindness. Students are sponsored by friends and relatives either with a flat fee or by paying a certain amount for each act of kindness done during the two week period. The fundraiser is run by APEX Leadership Co., which first teamed up with the school two years ago to offer a fun run. It runs similar to a fun run, but theyre rewarded for acts of kindness and not miles, said PTO President Megan Byrd. Beginning Monday through Nov. 16, students will complete acts on their own at school and home, as well as in groups at the culminating event where there will be 12 to 15 stations of kind activities. Some of the activities included will be writing notes to veterans and firefighters and signing a banner for students affected by the recent hurricanes. The APEX Serve program has been used in 3,000 schools in 30 states, according to the companys website. The website describes the program as combining fitness, fundraising and leadership into a powerful united event that builds your funds and your students character education. Byrd said the school was struck by the companys service option and thought the message fit nicely with what the students were learning at school. She said the lessons that coincide with the fundraiser will help instill the message of helping others and counter the idea of doing the acts to be rewarded. Each year, the company uses an acronym to share messages with students. This years word is STRONG, which stands for Selfless, Trustworthy, Refueled, Overcome obstacles, Next level and Grateful. Each lesson will focus on a different theme. Byrd said the selflessness lesson will especially achieve this because it will teach the students these acts make the community a better place to live. She said this might also ripple through to the adults. It makes everyones lives better, she said. My overall hope is to get that spirit of kindness going in our kids. Byrd said she also plans to have her children present the fundraiser to their relatives as the sponsorship itself is an act of kindness for the school because the students are not directly being paid for these acts. She said if people are uncomfortable paying for these things, theyre encouraged to do an act of kindness on their own and help someone in their own community. It is a tricky situation where we have to explain that you dont do kind things for money, but the money goes back to the school, she said. This is the PTOs major fundraiser for the year and so Byrd hopes to raise $30,000 to $35,000 to cover a large portion of the parent groups budget, which is used for field trips and other activities for the students. Anyone who would like to support the campaign, but doesnt have a student at the school can send a check for the SNIS PTO directly to the school and mark it for the fundraiser. Im excited, Byrd said. After a devastating injury left Randy Lachmuth paralyzed late last year, he hopes to finally leave the hospital make it back to his East Kelowna home within a few weeks. On Saturday, more than a dozen volunteers showed up at his house to get his yard ready for his return. The Yard Angels initiative is organized by Creative Roots Landscaping, a local company that's held two other similar events in town this year. It's been so successful and so fun for all our team to pitch in and do something good for people who deserve it, said Ryan Markewich, part owner of Creative Roots. Randy was in Australia with his wife Karen last December for their daughter's wedding when a wave pulled him underwater and drove him head first into the ocean floor. Randy broke two vertebrae and was rendered a quadriplegic. He's been recovering at Vancouver General Hospital for months, and was recently transferred to Kelowna General Hospital, but his wife expects him home with the next few weeks. He's very anxious to get out of a hospital setting and get back to the home again, said Karen, who added they're still looking to hire a caregiver before he comes home. Having Ryan here today with Creative Roots and all of his gang, it's just awesome, I can't explain it. I can't imagine taking it on myself. Many of the volunteers working at the Lachmuth residence Saturday were Creative Roots employees, while others simply wanted to help out. Markewich said they accept nominations from the public for the Yard Angels program, and four separate people nominated the Lachmuths for Saturday's free yard cleanup. It doesn't take a lot to give back. It's a few hours on a Saturday a few times a year to make people proud, Markewich said. Motorized molecules driven by light have been used to drill holes in the membranes of individual cells and show promise for either bringing therapeutic agents into the cells or directly inducing the cells to die. Above-Motorized molecules that target diseased cells may deliver drugs or kill the cells by drilling into the cell membranes. The illustration shows a motorized molecule sitting atop a cell membrane (left) and molecules activated by ultraviolet light drilling into the bilayer membrane (right). Researchers at Rice, Durham and North Carolina State universities demonstrated in lab tests how rotors in single-molecule nanomachines can be activated by ultraviolet light to spin at 2 to 3 million rotations per second and open membranes in cells. The researchers used motors based on work by Nobel laureate Bernard Feringa, who won the prize for chemistry in 2016. The motor itself is a paddle-like chain of atoms that can be prompted to move in a single direction when supplied with energy. Properly mounted as part of the cell-targeting molecule, the motor can be made to spin when activated by a light source. They are experimenting on micro-organisms and small fish before moving on to rodents. Clinical trials in humans are expected to follow and it is hoped that the results may have the potential to save millions of lives. Nature Molecular machines open cell membranes Abstract Beyond the more common chemical delivery strategies, several physical techniques are used to open the lipid bilayers of cellular membranes. These include using electric and magnetic fields, temperature, ultrasound or light to introduce compounds into cells, to release molecular species from cells or to selectively induce programmed cell death (apoptosis) or uncontrolled cell death (necrosis). More recently, molecular motors and switches that can change their conformation in a controlled manner in response to external stimuli have been used to produce mechanical actions on tissue for biomedical applications. Here we show that molecular machines can drill through cellular bilayers using their molecular-scale actuation, specifically nanomechanical action. Upon physical adsorption of the molecular motors onto lipid bilayers and subsequent activation of the motors using ultraviolet light, holes are drilled in the cell membranes. We designed molecular motors and complementary experimental protocols that use nanomechanical action to induce the diffusion of chemical species out of synthetic vesicles, to enhance the diffusion of traceable molecular machines into and within live cells, to induce necrosis and to introduce chemical species into live cells. We also show that, by using molecular machines that bear short peptide addends, nanomechanical action can selectively target specific cell-surface recognition sites. Beyond the in vitro applications demonstrated here, we expect that molecular machines could also be used in vivo, especially as their design progresses to allow two-photon, near-infrared and radio-frequency activation By the end of many close elections, the Democrat and Republican have slinked toward the middle. Their bases secure, they hope to capture a majority in the moderate turf where most people live. Thats how it works in Politics 101, especially in this state, with 41 percent unaffiliated but not in Connecticut 2018. Liberal Democrat Ned Lamont and conservative Republican Bob Stefanowski have mostly hewed to their ends of the political spectrum, leaving the moderate voters wondering which one, if either, is their man. The reasons are slightly different for each, although one reason theyve stuck to their base messaging is the same for both: Its who they are. Lamont, 64, is more moderate in style and background, as a wealthy business entrepreneur and civic volunteer from Greenwich. His supporters say that alone will help him pick up moderate voters, and they remind us hed be the first business founder and CEO to occupy the governors mansion (yeah, I know, the Executive Residence) in generations. Stefanowski, 56, has a personal brand built on anti-government anger as an outsider not only to elected office but to civic activity as a whole. Thats a naturally less moderate stance. When the Madison executive and consultant votes for himself Tuesday, hell cast only his second ballot in 18 years, in any election. Both have part of the recipe that would have allowed them to sneak into the middle, and both lack a key ingredient. Lamont has the broad policy positions to pull off a centrist raid. For example, he has said everyone must step up to the table to solve Connecticuts $2 billion budget gap. (Its not $4.5 billion over two years, folks; thats double-counting.) Stefanowski seized on that remark as proof Lamont will raise taxes, when in fact its basically a moderate, politically obvious position to hold. But Lamont never locked down the base of low-income minority voters, labor unionists and suburban progressives. That has kept him from straying to the middle. Thats why on Friday he was out there at a labor rally in New Britain, promising, as CT Mirror said in a headline, Were going to be fighting for you. Some of that is the traditional get-out-the-vote push on the weekend before Election Day, of course. And some is him showing he still needs to win the unvarnished support of his core groups. For example, Lamont has not loudly and clearly said hed seek concessions from state employee unions and teachers by working with them, as a friend. Hes hinted at it at times, said it outright a few times and denied some aspects of it at other times as when I asked him during a luncheon for retired teachers whether hed try to reopen the health and pension deal. He said no, a deal is a deal. The reason: He cant waver toward the middle because he really, really needs that base to support him. Oh, and theres the Malloy factor. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy campaigned in the arms of public employee unions, only to cut 4,000 jobs, demand five years of pay freezes, launch two new, lower tiers of employees with lower benefits and add mandatory health payments. Naturally, some in the labor movement feel burned. Some are less than eager to do it all again for Lamont, even though they know theyd be far worse off under Stefanowski who has said he wants to break the unions outright. Anyway, Lamont doesnt seem to want to back away from his undiluted support for unions and cities. He and Stefanowski seem less willing to bend their ideologies than, say, Republican Tom Foley and Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in the last go-around. Stefanowski has his anti-government base safe and sound in the back of his campaign bus. He could say or do anything he wanted and theyd still vote for him, as his model, President Donald Trump, correctly said during his own campaign. But he never had a road map to the center, having staked his journey on a singular, far-right vow: ending the state income tax and other levies without adding revenues elsewhere. By refusing to discuss details, take reporters questions for more than five minutes or present an economic plan beyond Malloy has killed Connecticut which is not borne out by the facts hes boxed himself into the lane on the far right side of the road. And, like Lamont, Stefanowski seems satisfied with that although it makes us all wonder why he was a registered Democrat from October 2016 until July 2017, right before he declared as a Republican. And so we have a vast, vacant middle, with dissatisfied voters giving each candidate a negative rating around 40 percent. They are both transactional candidates at a time when our state needed transformation, one observer said a reminder that true change means more than just promising to stick to an ideology. But the middle will vote, and Stefanowski makes up ground among older, whiter, largely male voters. Lamont, younger, women, people of color. Dont believe the Gravis Marketing poll that came out Friday, giving Lamont 46 percent, Stefanowski 37 percent and petitioning unaffiliated candidate Oz Griebel 9 percent, with Lamont leading even among men. That polls 681 respondents were 40 percent Democrat leaning, far more than the 36 percent Democrat registration. Its a dead heat, people. Your vote counts. Circumstances appear to favor Stefanowski although Lamont could change that with a big turnout. The forecast for rain Tuesday helps Republicans. Lamont had hoped the voter registration numbers and Stefanowskis ludicrous refusal to engage in issues would put him over the top. Instead, we have an angrier state than most of us had imagined. Stefanowski feeds off that anger. In a videotape released Friday by Democrats, he tells a gathering of Republicans during the primary that he would file Hartford for bankruptcy and shut down New Haven for being a so-called sanctuary city. And, crucially, Lamonts aw shucks personality has failed to ignite people in great enough numbers to give him breathing room. On Saturday afternoon, Lamont and other Democrats filled the basement of the Bethel AME Church in New Haven. Margie Ford, an insurance agent who was in the church for a choir practice, said Lamont has the charisma to deliver big crowds to the polls Tuesday. Others in New Haven are more skeptical including a woman named Patricia, who said she liked the other guy more, but couldnt say why. Griebel is taking a share of the center, but his voters are policy watchers, not the ones who would have voted for Stefanowski whose ignorance of the specifics on the issues tends to attract lower-information feelers rather than thinkers. That does not mean all Stefanowski voters are low-information, just that hes a more natural magnet for them than Lamont. The bottom line: Lamont will lose on Tuesday unless his campaign excites 20-somethings, urban African Americans and suburban women fed up with Trumpism. The first two of those are the flightiest groups in all electiondom. Any Democrat needs those groups, of course, but more so for Lamont because hes left the middle up for grabs. November is America Recycles Month, and Big Brothers Big Sisters SWCT Foundation and Savers Stores are teaming up to save the environment one outfit at a time. The organizations are asking community members to donate gently used clothing to keep clothes out of landfills. The clothing collected at donations sites will be resold at local Savers stores and the proceeds benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters SWCT. NEW HAVEN New Haven police respond to upwards of 100 calls a week on domestic violence incidents and earlier this year responded to a call involving one of their own. In fact, four members of the New Haven Police Department were involved in alleged domestic violence incidents in a three-month period this year. They included Lt. Rahgue Tennant, Officers Ryan Walker and Luis Lopez and another unnamed officer whose case was thrown out of court. Tennant allegedly assaulted his wife several times, holding her and their children hostage in their New Haven home for days, the Register previously reported. He is charged with second-degree assault, unlawful restraint, three counts of risk of injury to a child and second-degree threatening. Tennant remains on paid administrative leave while state police investigate. He is due back in Superior Court Nov. 16, online records show. Walker was charged by Trumbull police with reckless endangerment and breach of peace after pleading guilty in an incident in which he allegedly choked an intimate partner, according to court records. Walker remains on administrative duty as his case is reviewed by internal affairs. Lopez was arrested and charged in two incidents, one in which he allegedly repeatedly physically abused an intimate partner and locked the person in an attic for hours. He is on administrative duty as his case was referred to a family relations officer. He has not entered a plea. In my career, Ive seen a lot of officers arrested for domestic violence, New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell said. What is unique is weve had four within a three-month period, but whats not unique is when you look at what is really going on, officers are under a lot of stress and its not an excuse, because no officer has a right to put their hand on another individual. Campbell said the stress of work conditions, marital issues, finances and other things create a storm of tensions for which officers may not know how to seek help because of the negative stigma associated with getting help for emotional issues. The department offers an employee assistance program, which is utilized by his members more than any other department in the state, Campbell said, in addition to peer support and training supervisors to watch out for the officers. (The incidents) didnt happen on the job, Campbell said. They happened in their homes and outside of New Haven, with the exception of Lt. Tennant. What we try to do is when we see this happen, we make sure the officer gets assistance and reach out to the families because theyve been victims and want to make sure they get help they need, Campbell said. The stress of the job is experienced by the entire family and thats one reason Im pushing so hard for the Family Justice Center and an additional resource for law enforcement outside the community. The Family Justice Center, which announced an upcoming soft launch of Nov. 13, gathers services around the victims under one roof, including police, prosecutors, victim advocates and other providers. The center is planned for downtown New Haven where its central to transportation, the Police Department, City Hall and the courthouse. It would also aim to help children involved in domestic violence as either witnesses or victims. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, or NCADV, one in four children were exposed to at least one form of family violence during their lifetimes. Most children exposed to family violence, including 90 percent of those exposed to intimate partner violence, saw the violence, as opposed to hearing it or other indirect forms of exposure. Since the last incident, weve had a number of officers come forward to get help they need and thats what you want to see after an uptick, Campbell said. You want to see people coming forward and getting help, he said In the future we need to emphasize zero tolerance for domestic violence. We provide services and we cant expect you to be a guardian for the community if youre not guarding your heart. Intimate partner violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, according to the NCADV. It can be uniquely difficult for families of law enforcement to get out of a domestic violence situation, said Karen Jarmoc, chief executive officer of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence. We know victims are fearful to reach out to law enforcement for help for many reasons, she said. They fear they wont be believed and the officers relationship within the law enforcement community will not allow for a fair and impartial response. They fear their confidentiality will be breached if their partner lives in one town and is reported in another town. They are fearful their partner will lose their job if they reach out for help because that may be the familys only job, Jarmoc said. For individuals whose partner works in law enforcement, its complicated and there is heightened fear. The CCAD doesnt track how many domestic violence incidents involve law enforcement, but Jarmoc said they are seeing charges lodged against officers in domestic violence incidents, which indicates to her that law enforcement is being held accountable. They are being arrested and it gives the opportunity to talk about when your partner works in law enforcement, why it creates additional concerns for the victim, Jarmoc said. Thats why law enforcements response is so important. The victim is fearful enough. One in three women and one in four men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner, with nearly one in five women having experienced severe physical violence from an intimate partner, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New Haven last year, officers responded to 4,217 domestic violence calls, and 2,058 arrests were made related to domestic violence calls, according to BHcares Umbrella for Domestic Violence Services. On average, New Haven sees one domestic violence homicide per year, but this year has seen two, Campbell said. Moreover, presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500 percent, according to data from the NCADV. Since all officers are licensed to carry a gun and may keep firearms in the home, this can add to an already dangerous situation in which a spouse is being abused by law enforcement. State Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, a domestic violence survivor, pushed for legislation in 2016 to help protect victims in domestic violence situations through a bill that would require firearms be given up pending a temporary restraining order. The last action taken on the bill was that year, so current law requires gun owners accused of abuse to surrender their guns only if a judge issues a permanent restraining order, leaving guns in the home during during the vulnerable period a victim may be leaving the abusive relationship. In the cases of Tennant, Walker and Lopez, they all kept guns that were seized when police responded. It takes an average of seven times before a victim can leave their situation for good because when a victim leaves their abuser, theyre actually in greater danger than when they stay, according to the UDVS. Between 70 to 75 percent of all women who are victims of domestic violence homicides were leaving or attempting to leave the relationship at the time of their death, according to the NCAD. Campbell said when a member of the department perpetrates domestic violence, its always deflating. Its sobering because it reminds us were not super men or women and we do recruit from the human race and as long as we do that, well experience what the community experiences. We need to keep that in mind. Jarmoc said the CCADV does work on arrest policies, training and trauma with police departments across the state, including New Haven, and the strong working relationships established over the years of conducting training is useful when having conversations with a department if an officer is involved. Since all these happened, we made it very clear that we dont tolerate domestic violence, Campbell said. On duty or off, its not tolerated. If a person is convicted and cant carry a gun, they cant be an officer. Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that Ryan Walker was arrested by Torrington police. He was actually arrested by Trumbull police. mdignan@hearstmediact.com Proportional representation has become a polarizing topic in the province. Voters have a chance to get rid of the current first-past-the-post system, in favour of PR, and the 'Yes' and 'No' sides are battling it out for public support. On Saturday, a small group of PR supporters held a rally at the Vernon post office where they not only delivered their message, but their ballots as well. Sue Young helped to co-ordinate the rally, and said PR will provide a more balanced government in Victoria. She said voting yes would result in a more representative democracy and will ensure voters have a representative in the Legislature. Opponents of PR have expressed concerns the system would fragment the government, but Young said research has shown it will actually make a stronger government. What happens is that smaller parties representing different ideas come together, they cooperate, they compromise and research shows that it produces better legislation, said Young. If, in the next couple of years, there seems to be fewer gray squirrels sitting alertly under your bird feeders, tails and whiskers a-twitch, do not blame fishers and their full-bodied weaselly ways for their absence. Or coyotes. Or owls and hawks. Or your next-door neighbors barking dog. Blame this years paltry acorn crop. For surveys are showing few acorns in Litchfield County. Were not seeing any, said Diane Swanson, director of the Pratt Nature Center in New Milford. There are definitely not as many as in past years, said Cathy Hagadorn, director of the Connecticut Audubon Societys Deer Pond Farm sanctuary in Sherman. Its definitely not a mast year. But a few miles south, theres hope. Northern Fairfield County may have been blessed this year with enough acorns to keep the environment chugging along. What Im seeing is a good, healthy mast, said Sean McNamara, Reddings tree warden. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection surveys bear this out. DEEP wildlife biologist Michael Gregonis said the agency surveys 12 locations in the state for their acorn crops each year. Each site has 25 red oaks, and 25 white oaks. The DEEP rates each years crop on a scale of 1 to 6. The lower the number, the fewer acorns. The Housatonic River Wildlife Management Area in Kent and Cornwall, scored a 1.9 this year. Huntington State Park in Redding nearly doubled that, at 3.8. Jeff Ward, forester for the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, said spring rains may have washed the pollen out of flowering oaks, ruining the chance of those flowers producing fruit. It may also be there was a frost when they were flowering, the DEEPs Gregonis said. East of the Connecticut River, the acorn straits are dire. Gregonis said the oak trees there having been stressed badly by drought and two years of severe gypsy moth infestations produced almost no fruit this year. Theyre struggling, Ward said aid of those acorn-less trees. They dont have the energy to produce acorns. This matters. Acorns may bop you when you hike and rattle the hood of your car, but they are one of the great drivers of the states ecosystems. They feed a host of rodents, including squirrels gray, red and flying mice and chipmunks. Blue jays cache them for winter snacks. Crows eat them. So do deer. Omnivores like wild turkey and black bear chow down on acorns as well. In mast years which occur in five-to-seven-year cycles oak trees produce a huge amount of acorns, blanketing the ground with their hard-shelled, becapped fruit. Squirrels, chipmunks and mice fatten up and have lots of babies. That means in the following year, theres lots of prey for fox, coyote and raptors. The population evens out. Gregonis said the DEEP has found hunters harvest fewer deer in mast years. Thats because deer, with plenty of food in front of their noses, tend to stay in one spot to feed. They arent forced to wander past hunters stands, or walk into fields to eat grass where theyre easily seen and felled. All those animals caching acorns mean the nuts get spread out across the landscape. That increases the chance that at least one acorn, buried in some sunny spot, will take root and become a tree seedling. Hagadorn, of Deer Pond Farm, said its a testament to the stubborn nature of oak trees that they will produce hundreds of thousands of acorns in their long lives in order to produce just a few seedlings that will grow to become trees. Imagine what would happen with humans if they did something thousands of times, but only succeeded twice, she said. Thank God trees are tough. Hagadorn said that oaks attract thousands of insects in the spring. White oaks, especially, she said. They can be home to hundreds of species of insects. In turn, that means hungry songbirds migrating north will flock to those trees for a much-needed meal. We have a section of white oaks here that we call Scarlet Tanager Row, she said. The birds just line up. Hagadorn said she has advised people that, if theyre looking to plant one tree in their yards to benefit the environment, a white oak is a good choice. It feeds the world in a variety of ways, she said, and provides welcome shade as well. Its the epitome of a giving tree, she said. Contact Robert Miller at earthmattersrgm@gmail.com. Living my whole life in in New Jersey, it is sad how hard it is to afford living in this state now. New Jersey has not had proper leadership and has not shown financial responsibility in recent years. Property taxes have people leaving this state every day. Administration after administration has failed to make the state's full contribution into state pension and benefit funds, putting a constant strain on the budget every year. However, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, has been hitting the road to bring attention to a report titled "Path to Progress NJ," the work of the Economic and Fiscal Policy Workgroup, a panel that Sweeney appointed. The report contains recommendations for actually addressing New Jersey's financial crisis, such as public employee benefit reductions, that could finally relieve the burden of high property taxes that are financially crippling our residents. These recommendations were compiled by experts, not politicians. The proposals are ambitious, optimistic and they show leadership. Seeing Sweeney take such an ambitious plan directly to the people with roundtable discussions is admirable. That is the kind of leadership we need if we're ever going to see a change. Daniele Spence, Glassboro Editor's note: The writer works as an aide to the Gloucester County freeholders, and is enrolled in the state's Public Employee Retirement System. Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com Photo: CTV Hundreds gathered in anger Saturday in Woodstock, Ont. to protest the transfer of a local woman's killer to an Indigenous healing lodge. Tori Stafford was eight years old when she was kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered in 2009. Terri-Lynne McClintic pleaded guilty to Tori's murder, and is less than 10 years into serving her life sentence for the crime. McClintic was moved from prison to Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge near Maple Creek, Sask. earlier this year. This is somebody who received a 25-year max sentence and is in a healing lodge, Rodney Stafford, Tori's father, said. Those at the Woodstock rally wore purple ribbons, in honour of Tori's favourite colour. They chanted "Send her back", referring to McClintic. "She murdered my granddaughter, theres no two ways about it, she admitted, thats why she didnt go to trial, Doreen Graichen said, Tori's grandmother. Ernie Hardeman, a local Progressive Conservative MPP, joined the crowd and called for McClintic to spend her life behind bars. "She should be behind bars for life, like the judge told us she was going to be, Hardeman said. A report on how and why the transfer from prison to the healing lodge occurred is expected in the coming days. -with files from CTV Vancouver. -- A city councilman has filed a complaint with the County Board of Elections over a polling location change at City Hall amid a high-profile hearing on the Hub Hoboken scheduled for election day. Councilman Michael DeFusco in his complaint said that a polling location in City Hall was moved to the building's basement with little notice sent to residents. This move coincides with the city Alcoholic Beverage Control Board's hearing on the Hub, the Hudson Place nightclub that was shut down after videos of sex acts at the bar were shared online. The hearing, originally scheduled for Sept. 20, was pushed back twice: once to Oct. 25, and then again to Nov. 6 at 2 p.m. "A crowded polling place, presence of press and police, as well as City Hall employees, including but not limited to the mayor and his staff who are normally not present on Election Day, may dissuade or unfairly influence voters," the First Ward Councilman said. An official with the Board of Elections has reached out to the state Attorney General and is awaiting a response, DeFusco said. "Elections are essential, and to have any media circus or the presence of officials, elected or otherwise, in the vicinity of a polling place is troubling," DeFusco said. "Residents of Ward 1, Districts 1 and 4 will vote, as they always do, in City Hall, and as usual, we will have signs and staff directing people to the exact location if they are unsure of where to go," a city spokesperson said. "We have no reason to believe that City business, including the ABC Board meeting, which will take place on a separate floor, far removed from the polling location, will impact turnout." Along with selecting a representative to the Senate, voters in the Mile Square City will have the chance to reinstate runoff elections. The city's past three mayoral races have been won by candidates who received less than 50 percent of the votes cast. This story was updated to include a statement from the city. Corey W. McDonald may be reached at cmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @coreymacc. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. Authorities are investigating how a man died after his body was found washed up on a Gateway National Recreation Area beach Saturday. New Jersey State Police Sgt. Jeffrey Flynn said the agency's Marine Services Bureau responded to the area of Horseshoe Cove on Sandy Hook in the afternoon to investigate the report of a body found on shore. The site in Monmouth County is one of New Jersey's most popular shore destinations in the summer months. Flynn said investigators were still working Saturday evening. No further details were immediately available. In mid-October another man's body was recovered on Sandy Hook. He was later identified as a West Orange resident. Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Bill Gallo Jr. on Twitter @bgallojr. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips In Texas, it's illegal to carry a gun into a bar. In Tennessee, you can bring your handgun into a bar, but you can't have even a sip of alcohol. In Iowa, the threshold for when you're too drunk to carry a gun is the same as driving: .08. Many states have similar laws -- but not New Jersey. It may be because the state's strict laws mean most carrying handguns are current or retired officers, and you might think cops know better than to get drunk while armed. But that's exactly what happened when Michael Gaffney lost his life to a drunk, off-duty cop in 2016. Michael Gaffney Now that his killer has been convicted, his loved ones want lawmakers to create and pass a bill they're calling "Gaffney's Law," named for the 37-year-old Piscataway father killed during a fight with a then-Newark cop outside a Union Township bar in 2016. Gaffney walked away but Joseph Macchia, 36, restarted the brawl and then he shot him three times, a jury found in June. Macchia was fired and is now serving a 6-year prison sentence. "I think all 50 states should have drink and carry laws," said Gaffney's mother, Judy Valdes of Berkeley Township. "This never should have happened to Michael. It should have already been a law." Johanna Aguilar, Gaffney's girlfriend of 10 years before his death, said she believes most cops are smart enough to leave their guns locked at home if they plan to drink. "It's common sense. If you're intoxicated you shouldn't be able to carry or fire a weapon, just like you can't drive a car," she said. Not long after Gaffney died, his friend started a petition on Change.org calling for "Gaffney's Law" to make it illegal for police officers to drink while armed with a handgun or to carry weapons into any bar or establishment where they plan to drink. Valdes said they now think it should apply to anyone who has a handgun in New Jersey. State law only allows certain people to carry firearms, like current or retired police officers and people who can need it for their jobs, or rare cases when a civilian can prove he or she needs a handgun to protect themselves from a specific, proven threat. Joseph Macchia (NJ prisons photo) Aguilar, of Piscataway, said that soon after Gaffney died, she contacted her state senator, Sen. Bob Smith, but never heard back. She contacted and met with Assemblyman Jamel Holley, whose district includes the township where the shooting occurred. She said he seemed interested in packaging it with another bill, but nothing ever came of it. Aguilar or Valdes have not reached out to any legislators since then, but they're hoping news coverage and the more than 6,000 signatures on the petition will encourage a lawmaker to sponsor a bill. After hearing about the proposed law Friday, Rev. Robert Moore, the executive director of the Coalition for Peace Action, in Princeton, which includes the anti-gun violence group CeaseFire, said it sounds like the kind of legislation his group could get behind. "We should proactively take steps to stop that from reoccurring," he said of Gaffney's death. He said it would need refining, such as specifying whether the legal limit would be .08, as it is for driving a car. "It certainly sounds like a good idea and a reasonable, common-sense idea," he said. Calls and emails to the state offices of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) , the Policemen's Benevolent Association (PBA) and the Association of Chiefs of Police were not returned Friday. James Stewart, president of the Newark FOP Lodge 12, said in a statement that Macchia's case has been dealt with and that a law wasn't necessary. "I can cite at least five other instances where Newark cops have been in liquor establishments where armed robberies occurred and they were able to take action only because they were armed," he said. "In today's climate, where everybody knows what the term 'active shooter' means, cops need to be the professionals they took an oath to be, and be responsible for their actions," he said. "More legislation is not the answer." Alexander Roubian, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, declined to comment on whether such a law is necessary, but said "rule number one" of responsible gun ownership is never mixing alcohol and firearms. Even if one beer may not make someone intoxicated, he said, instructors and responsible gun advocates always advise gun owners to avoid any alcohol while carrying. Roubian said noted that drunken shootings are not common, especially in New Jersey, where so few people can carry handguns. "There's no epidemic of people going out and doing this" because most gun owners are responsible, he said. Roubian said he also believes that since most people carrying guns in New Jersey are police officers, the state Attorney General's Office could make such a rule statewide without having to go the legislative route. Current policies The state Attorney General's office doesn't have existing rules or guidance about when and how officers can carry guns while off duty, spokesman Peter Aseltine said. "Issues related to law enforcement officers carrying firearms off-duty are addressed in police training and Standard Operating Procedures issued by individual police departments," he said. The New Jersey Association of Chiefs of Police suggests in a model firearm policy on its website that departments include the following language: "Officers shall not carry a firearm while consuming or under the influence of alcoholic beverages to any degree whatsoever (unless such consumption is approved in accordance with the performance of official department duties)." The policy also says that while officers are encouraged to carry their service weapons while off duty "to enhance their ability to take law enforcement action when appropriate and necessary," they should not be carried if officers "anticipate consuming alcoholic beverages." NJ Advance Media inquired and sent public records requests about the off-duty firearms policies of the seven biggest municipal police departments in the state. Newark's policy dictates that off-duty officers "may be unarmed at their own discretion" when on vacation, when there is a risk of loss or theft of the gun, such as a beach, or when participating in activities where it would not be advisable. "Such activities especially include those at which alcoholic beverages are consumed," the regulation says. In Atlantic City, according to Sgt. Kevin Fair, "the decision to carry off-duty is up to the individual officer and they must consider several factors when making that determination, including the consumption of alcohol." Elizabeth officials said they had no policy specifically addressing off-duty drinking while carrying. Jersey City, Paterson, Trenton, and Camden did not provide answers by Friday evening. There is a federal law that mentions current or retired officers carrying guns while drinking, but the law is primarily meant to deal with reciprocal carrying rights and not people carrying in their home state, Aseltine said. The 2004 Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act says "qualified" current and retired officers can carry a handgun almost anywhere in the U.S., but specifies that being under the influence of alcohol or another intoxicating or hallucinatory drug or substance" is disqualifying. However, the Attorney General's Office decided in 2005 that the federal law did not change gun ownership rules within the state. 'This needs to be done' Aguilar said she hopes law enforcement wouldn't be opposed to "Gaffney's Law," because it's obviously a bad idea to drink and carry a weapon -- and most cops know that. Sure, there are "cop bars" where officers like to wind down after a shift, but Aguilar said she believes most lockup their guns before imbibing, based on conversations with her friends and family in law enforcement. And while some might say that what happened to Gaffney was a rare occurrence, Aguilar pointed to headlines from around the country where drunk officers shot people. In a single week in 2014, articles from the New York Times and the New York Post detailed three drunken shootings by New York City cops, though one was accidental. Valdes said she also supports the police, but she thinks the law could prevent unjustifiable killings like the one that took her son. "If I'm going to get anything out of this, to find peace in my heart, it's getting this law passed so it doesn't happen to anyone else," she said. "It's not even in my heart. It's in my gut. This needs to be done." "For me, Mike was supposed to be my forever. I never saw any future without him," Aguilar said of her late partner. She said it's also hard to see his 15-year-old daughter, Alexia, grow up "knowing how much she meant to him, and all the plans he had for her." Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips I usually read an entire book before I write about it. But, "The Paulist Biblical Commentary" would take one week of doing nothing else to finish its 1,654 pages with double columns. Paul McMahon, its project manager and acquisitions director of Paulist Press, has already read it twice. He and three other employees each drove a car to transport just 48 copies of the huge tome to Boston College for a special conference, "The Bible in the Life of the Church," last month. It is also the 10th anniversary of the college's School of Theology and Ministry, formed by the merger of Weston School of Theology and BC's Ministry Institute. Two of its professors are among the six general editors of the PBC, "the first pastoral commentary on the Bible," according to the Rev. Mark-David Janus, publisher of Mahwah-based Paulist Press. Unlike traditional commentaries, which analyze each word of the Bible, the PBC "focuses on the pastoral meaning of the text," said Janus, who has led Paulist for nine years. Five years in the making, the PBC employed more than 70 authors, one-third of them women, "to open the door to the study of Sacred Scriptures for a new generation of believers," Joseph Cardinal Tobin, archbishop of Newark, wrote in his foreword for the book. As archbishop where the publisher is located, Tobin would typically issue a "nihil obstat," or imprimatur, and his was glowing. Only released last month, the PBC has already sold 1,500 copies and Janus expects this to be a 15-year project. It is too bulky to ever become a paperback - it weighs seven pounds - and a DVD is impractical. The genius of this work is that it mines the Bible for insights into contemporary church issues. For example, on prophets, Jersey City native Sister Carol Dempsey writes: "A feminist and liberationist perspective addresses issues of patriarchy, hierarchy and gender." At the conference, five sessions were attended by over 400 people over two days and featured some of the most prominent Scripture scholars in the English-speaking world. Most well-known was Jesuit Rev. Richard Clifford, professor emeritus in the STM with 49 years of teaching behind him. He was one of the PBC general editors along with fellow Jesuit the Rev. Thomas Stegman, the school's dean and moderator of the program. Even if she were not identified as a Dominican Sister of Caldwell, I could have told that Dempsey was born in Jersey City - we have the same accent. She is now a professor at the University of Portland, Oregon, and one of the PBC's general editors. She shared about the many years she worshiped at Our Lady of Sorrows, Jersey City, where she also played the guitar. Graduate students worked the conference and I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Hoboken resident Charlie Bates, whom I had interviewed for a story on Mustard Seed in Hoboken years ago. Since then, he has graduated from St. Peter's Prep and Villanova and is finishing a Master's. He hopes to work on organizational development -- hospitality and personal relations -- in a parish setting. "I am interested in developing best practices for parish life," said Bates, who expects to finish in December 2019. Luke Timothy Johnson wants people to see the relevance of the Bible today, not as some ancient text. In his keynote, "Scripture in the Life of the Church," he said that so much of Bible scholarship explores what the world was like at the time the Scriptures came into being." But, it's more pressing to consider, he said, "the world that Scripture produces," that is imagining how the Bible can impact the world today. The Bible speaks to us now, he said, and we need to discern "what God is doing now." Since same sex relations in the Bible are culturally conditioned, I asked him if a same sex theology could be justified by Scripture. "Yes," said the Candler School of Theology professor emeritus. "The Bible is always authoritative; it's just not normative." That's an example of how the PBC offers insights and foundations for issues challenging the church today. Now I am more inspired to take the time to read the PBC to open up secrets of the Scriptures that can fashion a new Catholic church for the 21st century. The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, FAX: 201-659-5833; Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken. Details ... "The Paulist Biblical Commentary," edited by Jose Enrique Aguilar Chiu; Richard J. Clifford, S.J.; Carol J. Dempsey, O.P.; Eileen M. Schuller, O.S.U.; Thomas D. Stegman, S.J.; Ronald D. Witherup, P.S.S. Paulist Press. $149.95. Tom MacArthur can no longer, in good conscience, listen to your criticism on health care. Lies, all lies! This is what the embattled congressman in the 3rd district always says, whenever he's accused of gutting protections for people with conditions from cancer to arthritis. He says it to older people in Burlington and Ocean counties, when they ask why the nonpartisan advocacy group for retirees, AARP, warned his plan would force them to pay more for their health care. MacArthur lies again about health care - this time, to baby boomers | Editorial He says it on television, to his Democratic opponent, Andy Kim. "You know that our bill specifically protected people with pre-existing conditions," MacArthur recently claimed, adding, "You can't just keep saying dishonest things because it plays well." But this is exactly what MacArthur is doing. What happens if you call him out on this, as a voter with a pre-existing condition? How do you get around all the political spin? First, MacArthur will tell you this: His effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act last year would not have hurt your aunt with diabetes, or son with cystic fibrosis. It included an amendment that specifically protected people with pre-existing conditions! But that's been debunked by PolitiFact, among many, many others. Insurers would be required to sell you a policy, but at any unbearable price they want. The protection is fake. If you point that out, MacArthur will say he created a special fund to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions aren't charged more. But that claim has been debunked, too. The nonpartisan analysts at the Congressional Budget Office - whose chief was picked by Republicans -- AARP, and other health experts agree this fund, for so-called "high risk pools," wouldn't be enough to shield you from unbearable premiums. MacArthur will respond by telling you, based on zero evidence, that the CBO and AARP are simply wrong. At which point you may ask, what about the American Medical Association and patient advocacy groups, like the American Heart Association and JDRF (Type 1 diabetes), which also said your plan could make coverage completely unaffordable? MacArthur's team will argue that his amendment would have decreased premiums for some people. This is true. Premiums could go down for young, healthy folks, if we let insurers offer them skimpy junk plans. But if they actually end up needing those benefits, it'll be a lot more costly. And when the young and healthy go their own way, that leaves a risk pool weighted to older or sicker people, which drives up costs for them, the CBO concluded. As a final Hail Mary, MacArthur will tell you this: What he did does not constitute an "age tax" on older Americans, as the AARP dubbed it. Why? Because it is not a literal government tax - as if that constitutes some relief. He will refer you to a PolitiFact article that notes that some states, like New York and New Jersey, have their own protections that would mitigate the damage MacArthur tried to do, by limiting the premium increases for older people based on their age. What a campaign slogan: "Vote for me because state governments will limit the damage!" And the truth is, those state protections will not stop older, sicker Americans from being charged more. Because in states that limit premium hikes based on age, older people who do not yet qualify for Medicare can still get nailed by increases based on pre-existing conditions, which are more common among them. Insurers will use this as a proxy for age, when spiking your premium. MacArthur's plan would also have gutted Medicaid, the primary source of funding for nursing homes, relied on by countless retirees who drain their savings on health bills. MacArthur can't argue with this, aside from dismissing it all as a lie. But the facts are the facts. As he himself said in the debate, "You can't fix things with gauzy generalities," and "you can't just keep saying dishonest things because it plays well." If only he'd listen to his own advice. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. By Alan J. Steinberg As we approach the midterm elections, the Nuremberg-like atmosphere of Donald Trump rallies plus his flagrant abuses of power terrify his critics. They raise the question: Is Donald Trump a fascist? There are two matters of fact regarding Donald Trump that are irrefutable. The first is that he is not a conservative but is, in fact, the direct adversary of all the core beliefs of Ronald Reagan. The second is that in terms of his politics, that is to say, his methods of obtaining and maintaining power, Trump has been a practitioner of both fascistic strategy and tactics. Ronald Reagan was a follower of Edmund Burke, who deemed the preservation and respect for institutions as essential for the preservation of orderly democratic government. Trump, the anti-Ronald Reagan is on a mission to destroy our leading institutions, including the independence of the FBI and the Justice Department and the very existence of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Reagan was a follower of Adam Smith, who believed in free markets and free trade. Donald Trump is a foe of free trade, an advocate of tariffs and a leader of trade wars. Reagan was a strong advocate of freedom of the press and civil liberty in the marketplace of ideas, as advocated by John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Trump does everything possible to hinder freedom of the press, chiefly by encouraging and condoning violent attacks against journalists and labeling them as an "enemy of the people. In determining whether Trump is fascistic either governmentally or politically, two books serve as excellent guidelines. For guidance as to what constitutes fascistic government, the best book is "Totalitarian Government & Autocracy," written by Carl J. Friedrich, my political theory professor at Northwestern, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor. As for a comprehensive guide to fascistic politics, the recently published book by Yale professor Jason Stanley, "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them", is emerging as the authoritative work. Friedrich and Brzezinski list six basic features of totalitarian regimes, of which fascism is the most prominent type in an era where Marxism has largely receded: an ideology, a single party led by one man, a terroristic police, a communications monopoly, a weapons monopoly, and a centrally directed economy. Trump certainly aspires to be an authoritarian leader. And he is attempting to get monopoly control of communications by his intimidation of journalists. American institutions have thus far resisted Trump's attempts to gain authoritarian power. Yet in his attempt to do so, Trump is implementing the major political strategic and tactical practices of fascism. And as Jason Stanley has stated, the political practices of fascism, rather than any philosophy, constitute its ideology. The major strategic practice of fascism is the credo of "us and them." With Trump, the "us" is white America, and the "them" is every nonwhite group, most notably African-Americans and Hispanic groupings. Trump has a lifetime record of blatant bigotry against African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. Examples abound: His leadership in the "birther" movement, his campaign for the death penalty against the Central Park Five even after their innocence was proven, his discrimination against African-Americans in the rental of his housing units in Brooklyn in the 1970s, his attempts to bar a distinguished American jurist, Gonzalo Curiel from presiding over the Trump University fraud case on the basis of his Mexican ancestry. This solid record of bigotry enhances Trump's ability to communicate with his principal political ally: the white nationalist movement. Trump encounters one complication, however. The white nationalist movement is antisemitic to its core. Trump is not an antisemite. Yet he will not jeopardize his alliance with white nationalism by rebuking it for its antisemitism. So he will remain deliberately apathetic to white nationalist antisemitism and use his support of Israel, which is hardly based on any idealistic concerns, as a shield against criticism of his inaction. Trump is also a master at utilizing the tactics of fascist politics, as set forth by Jason Stanley, in support of his fascistic strategic goal. These tactics include creation of a mythical American past, a virulent anti-intellectualism which aims to dissuade American society from a healthy self-examination, and the seductive tool of demagogic propaganda, which is the essence of the Trump tweets. The only check on Trump's relentless drive for autocratic power is our system of checks and balances and separation of powers. This is why I have left the Republican Party and urge the election of a Democratic House of Representatives and Senate. Alan J. Steinberg served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission under Gov. Christie Whitman. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez is a terrible candidate. Despite the lack of a conviction, his corruption trial revealed plenty of dubious moral decisions that he absolutely knew were wrong when he made them. New Jersey deserves better. You should also totally vote for him. This is one of those situations as an adult of voting age where you have to forget the civics lessons and vote for an undeserving candidate because of its effect on the country at large. Are you rewarding a man who in no way deserves a reward?Certainly. Should you do it anyway? Certainly. To begin with, it's not as if there's a morally pure alternative. Bob Hugin has his own host of issues, like suspect business practices and a propensity for truly gross campaign tactics. His ads about Menendez soliciting underage prostitutes are lies and Hugin knows it. He twisted himself in knots justifying the ads during an interview with The Star-Ledger editorial board and still his lack of moral fiber as it relates to campaign ethics isn't the reason you should avoid him like the plague. Hugin has been and remains a loyal Trump adherent. He has given Trump massive amounts of money and served as a Trump delegate during the convention. He has half-heartedly attempted to distance himself from the president during the campaign, but I'm not buying it. Menendez, for his myriad flaws, can be counted on to provide a check on President Trump, a man who legitimately thinks he can revoke birthright citizenship via memo. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. Ask Drew Kanevsky what he thinks about U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, and the registered Democrat doesn't hold back. Menendez, a fellow Democrat, is crooked, a disaster, the kind of guy who "lacks the integrity and moral compass to represent me," Kanevsky, of Belleville, said. Still, there's a chance Kanevsky will head to the to polls Tuesday, close the curtain and do something he really, really doesn't want to do: vote for Menendez. "I think the president is a joke," Kanevsky said, explaining his dilemma. "The No. 1 thing I would like from my senator is to go down there and be a strong check on the president." For Democrats with lukewarm feelings about Menendez, Kanevsky just summed up this year's high-stakes Senate race in a nutshell. When asked to choose between a Democrat whose bribery and corruption case ended in a mistrial or a Republican, Bob Hugin, they think will rubber stamp President Donald Trump's agenda, they'll probably take the Democrat, no matter how much they dislike him. "I'm definitely holding my nose," Mia Moore, a Princeton Democrat, said. "I am from Chicago, so I am kind of used to voting for seedy people anyway." Did not see the #NJSenateDebate (maybe that is a good thing) but I'll hold my nose and vote for Menendez since Hugin will be a Trump lemming in the Senate. With that being said, the NJ Democratic party should make it clear to Menendez that this will be his last term in Congress. David R. Veloz (@David747Heavy) October 25, 2018 As cringeworthy as that might be for party leaders to hear, it shouldn't surprise them. Yes, Menendez is a high-ranking senator with seats on key committees and a mostly progressive voting record. But he's also never been overwhelmingly popular with New Jersey voters, and that was before allegations he swapped luxury hotel stays and private flights in exchange for political favors, including helping a donor's foreign girlfriends get visas. Menendez' criminal trial ended last year with a deadlocked jury, and the charges were later dropped, though the Senate Ethics Committee "severely admonished" him. Yet the stench still permeates for many voters. In early October, 22 percent of likely Democratic voters said they were still undecided on the Senate race, compared to just 6 percent on the Republican side, according to a poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University. Of the voters who do plan to support Menendez, just 29 percent are "very enthusiastic" about it, compared to 58 percent of the supporters for Hugin, his Republican challenger, according to a recent Rutgers-Eagleton survey. Though Menendez carries a small lead in the polls, the message is clear: "Democrats are pretty disenchanted with their candidate," said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Polling at Rutgers University. As a NJ resident, I'm bitter that the Democratic party establishment forced us into a Vote-for-the-Crook-it's-Important situation. It's a populous blue state--they couldn't find someone else? I'll be holding my nose & voting for Menendez, but what an own goal if he loses. Ilyana Kuziemko (@ikuziemko) October 18, 2018 Hugin, a former pharmaceutical company executive, has tried to capitalize on that apathy, hoping to win over independents or moderate Democrats who might be willing to vote Republican. He's spent more than $30 million of his own money on an aggressive campaign, including dark TV ads that brand Menendez as the very essence of corruption. But Hugin still has one big problem -- convincing people he won't be a lackey for Trump. "When Bob Hugin goes to Washington, the only people he will be beholden to are the people of New Jersey. Period," spokesman Nick Iacovella said. Menendez, meanwhile, has tried to marry Hugin to Trump at every turn, and Democrats' hatred for Trump is probably the best thing he has going for him. While it's difficult to win an election just by not being as disliked as somebody else, this could be the year, and the state, to pull it off. Asked about those simply accepting the lesser of evils, Menendez' campaign said the support for the senator is genuine. "There is a palpable energy being felt among Democrats across the state," spokesman Steven Sandberg said. "At the end of the day, we believe they will judge Bob Menendez by the totality of his record and all that he has done and delivered on behalf of New Jersey." And, he added, New Jerseyans want "a proven champion who will fight for them and stand up to Donald Trump's dangerous policies." Sen. Bob Menendez(D-NJ) is up 51-44% over Bob Hugin(R) in LVs (new Q poll). Menendez is lucky it's a blue-leaning year. WARNING--ANECDOTE COMING: What stands out to me is how unhappy many Ds are that the bosses in NJ gave them Menendez again, instead of a less sullied nominee. Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) October 17, 2018 For some Democrats, that seems to be enough. Moore voted for Menendez in 2012, though she wasn't especially enthusiastic about it, she said. She was "really upset" with Menendez when the allegations came out and thought he was lucky the jury ended up deadlocked, she said. She had hoped another Democratic candidate would emerge in the primary, but now that she's forced to choose between Menendez or Hugin, she knows what she has to do. "I am definitely going to vote for (Menendez) just because of, I think, what's at stake. Democracy," she said. Therese O'Connell, of Audubon Park, has a whole family of Menendez nose holders, she said. She and her six children will all vote for him, though she wishes he had resigned and let another Democrat ride the expected blue wave to victory. "I just think in this climate, we need somebody that's free and clear of any allegations and no cloud hanging over them," O'Connell said. "But when I look at my choice, there is no way I would vote for Hugin. No way." The stakes are simply too high for Democrats to vote any other way, predicted Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University. "There is recognition that this isn't about a single individual," Harrison said. "This is about the direction of the country." Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Authorities continued their search Saturday for a suspect in the death of a man found in a yard of a South Jersey home. Penns Grove Chief of Police John T. Stranahan Sr. said Randy O. White, 27, was discovered in a side yard between two homes on South Broad Street in the borough late Friday morning. White, who was a Penns Grove resident, did not live in the area where he was found, the chief said. Stranahan said an autopsy determined White's death was a homicide. Because of the ongoing investigation, Stranahan said he couldn't immediately release the cause of White's death. Police have interviewed those who discovered White dead and called 911. As of Saturday night, authorities didn't have any suspects in custody. Penns Grove police are being aided by the Salem County Prosecutor's Office, New Jersey State Police and Carneys Point Police Department in the investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Sgt. Jason Spera at 856-299-0304, Det. Jim Gillespie at 856-935-7510 or Penns Grove's main police dispatch number at 856-299-0055 Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Bill Gallo Jr. on Twitter @bgallojr. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips A faculty member at a Cranford school has been arrested for making terroristic threats against the campus, according to police. Matthew Acosta, of Kenilworth, faces charges of third degree terroristic threats and risking widespread injury or damage. The 33-year-old works at Orange Avenue School, which houses third through eighth grade students. Cranford Police received a report Friday of a threat made to the school by a faculty member, and arrested Acosta following an investigation. He was sent to Union County Jail to await a detention hearing. "In today's day and age, we must take every threat or negative comment involving our schools seriously," Police Chief Ryan Greco said in a statement. "We will act swiftly and certainly to protect the safety of our children." It was not immediately clear what role Acosta served at the school. In an email to families in the district, Superintendent Scott Rubin called the incident "extremely unsettling," but added that there was no current threat to the school. He said a staff member reported the threat to the school's principal, who then contacted police. Rubin stood by the district's hiring process, calling it "very thorough," and noting it requires fingerprinting and reviews of both an applicant's state and federal criminal history. A visible police presence will greet students and families Monday morning as they return to school, and additional counseling services will be available. "I am deeply saddened that this event occurred, but I am so appreciative of the collective response of Orange Avenue School administration, [Orange Avenue School] staff, and the Cranford Police Department as we work together to ensure the continued safety and well-being of our students," Rubin said. Correction: A previous version of this story stated Acosta was arrested Saturday. He was arrested Friday. Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Alanna Kelly Road conditions are expected to be favourable on Sunday over the Southern Interior highways, but meteorologists are warning visibility could be reduced. Environment Canada meteorologist Cindy Yu said not much precipitation is expected to fall today. The freezing levels we are expecting will stay stable and we are expecting better conditions than last weekend, she said. Five to 10 millimetres of snow fell over many of the highways Saturday night into Sunday morning. The Coquihalla Summit didnt have a whole lot of snow accumulation, she said. Yu said due to the elevation of the Pennask Summit being around 1,700 metres, it received about seven centimetres of snow. Allison Pass didnt receive a whole lot, because the elevation for that pass is about 1,300 metres, she said. Little Bear, on the Coquihalla Highway between Hope and Merritt, is about 1,600 metres and got about six centimetres. Kootenay Pass received about 14 centimetres of snow last night, and will likely have another few centimetres by the end of the day. You can see that most of the sites below the 1,600 metres didnt receive a whole lot of snow and that is pretty much where the snow level was, said Yu. Most highway passes received wet snow and they were just slight about freezing. Yu said driving on most of the Southern Interior highways will be OK. The temperatures are warm enough that it should be OK, and we are having partially clear skies through today so that is good for travelling, she said. Temperatures are expected to cool down tonight and many add just a few more periods of light snow or flurries. We are not expecting any significant amounts having said that two to four centimetres is still possible in some locations, she said. According to Yu, the wet snow will stick together and could cause visibility issues. "When the snow is quite wet in the sky we tend to get the big flakes, she said. Just because we are forecasting some light snow it doesnt mean it wont reduce visibility so take caution. Drive BC has provided these seven tips to help you travel safely: Make sure your car has proper tires. Make sure both your headlights and taillights are working Make sure your car has a full tank of gas. Dress the part. Pack warm clothes, boots, gloves and blankets. Bring food and water. Check DriveBC. Carry a cell phone. For updates on road conditions visit this link. After having an argument over a bad grade he got in school, a Florida teen strangled his mom, authorities said, and buried her body in a fire pit at a nearby church, according to a report by the Miami Herald. Gregory Ramos, 15, is suspected of killing 46-year-old Gail Cleavenger in their home in east-central Florida and burying her body at a church north of Orlando (map), the Volusia County Sheriffs Office told the Miami Herald. Detectives found Cleavengers body at River City Church early Saturday morning (Nov. 3), police said. According to the report, Ramos told authorities he got into an argument with his mom over a D grade that he got at school Thursday night (Nov. 1). The boy got upset after his mom called his dad, who was out of town for work. Read the full story from the Miami Herald. Utah Mayor Brent Taylor was killed Saturday (Nov. 3) during an apparent insider attack" in Kabul, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The attacker was killed by Afghan Forces, according to NATO. Taylor was a major with the Utah National Guard. He had been deployed to train Afghan commando battalion members. The Salt Lake Tribune reports: "After he got his orders in January to deploy to Afghanistan, North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor went live on Facebook to tell his constituents hed be gone and what to expect. "It was an easy choice for him, one that was months in the making, rooted in decisions hed made years ago to serve God, his family and his country. 'While I am far from perfect in any of these respects, he said, I have given my life to serve all three of these loyalties whenever and however I can.' Read the entire Salt Lake Tribune report here. Photo: Contributed It is beginning to look at lot like winter on our local hills. Both Sovereign Lake and SilverStar have posted bases of 29 cm and 28 cm, respectively. The Environment Canada forecast is calling for showers throughout the North Okanagan to start the week, but those showers could turn to snow at higher elevations. Today: A mix of sun and cloud with 40 percent chance of showers and risk of a thunderstorm. Snow level 1500 metres. Wind becoming south 20 km/h this afternoon. High 11. UV index 1 or low. Tonight: Cloudy. 30 percent chance of showers changing to 70 percent chance of showers late this evening. Snow level 1300 metres. Wind south 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low plus 4. Monday: Mainly cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers. Snow level 1400 metres. High 10. UV index 1 or low. Monday Night: Cloudy periods with 60 percent chance of showers. Low plus 2. Nov 4, 2018 NR Superstar Mahesh Babu who has been shooting in the United States for around a month is back in Hyderabad today. He will be inaugurating his AMB Cinemas, Multiplex on 8th of this month. It is a joint partnership with Sunil Narang of Asian Cinemas and built their first Multiplex in Gachibowli. Aamir Khan's Thugs of Hindosthan will be the first release in the Multiplex. They will be building many multiplexes in AP and Telangana in the coming months. Maharshi is being readied for April 5th, 2019 as Ugadi Special. Click the Movie button below for more info: Maharshi On both sides, people are driven by a conviction that their needs, their hopes and their dreams have been disregarded by a rigged system that has no respect for them as people or citizens. When it comes to definitive answers, I think we have to first emphasize that this mystery has yet to be solved, said Keith Weller, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, which helps organize the ozone layer talks. The CFC-11 mystery has wide implications. The ozone layer has been healing, but the return of a banned substance is an alarming breach in one of the worlds most effective environmental pacts and could slow the layers recovery. CFC-11 is also a potent greenhouse gas. If it is leaking directly into the atmosphere from factories, even more gas may be held in the products made in those factories for example, in insulation foam and may enter the atmosphere when those products are eventually destroyed. Scientists discovered decades ago that CFC-11 and other manufactured chemicals used as refrigerants and aerosols and in the production of insulating foams were destroying the ozone layer, which shields humans, crops and animals from the most damaging solar rays. In 1987, countries agreed on the Montreal Protocol to phase out such gases, steadily replacing them with ever safer substitutes. The protocol has been praised as a model environmental initiative. The Chinese government has said it will investigate and stamp out any illicit production off CFC-11, and Chinese industrial associations have vowed that their businesses will not use the chemical. Officials announced last month that the police had broken up an illegal CFC-11 plant in Henan, a rural heartland province, and found more 30 metric tons of the chemical on the site, according to an official report. People have a right to feel like they can worship and be safe, not fearful, said Georgia Boothe, vice president for child welfare at Childrens Aid, which has helped Mr. Polite in the past. But I also know this man is very troubled. It was during a gay pride rally for Barack Obama on the steps of City Hall in 2008 where Ms. Quinn first met Mr. Polite. She offered him the internship after hearing about his story, which was featured last year in a New York Times article about the Neediest Cases Fund, a yearly campaign that raises money to help social services agencies. Childrens Aid is one of eight organizations that receive funding from Neediest Cases. Mr. Polite had first been taken out of his mothers home when he was in kindergarten. He ran away at 13 and asked the Administration for Childrens Services to place him in foster care. The agency found conditions at his home to be unsanitary and complied with his request. Then came a string of placements. Mr. Polite eventually was placed with foster parents just before he turned 21, the year children age out of the child welfare system in New York. He struggled with marijuana use while at Brandeis, was forced to take time off and had to enter rehabilitation and get a job. Mr. Polite learned he had bipolar disorder and was prescribed medications. But his ability to stay on the medications was always difficult, loved ones said. He had serious psychiatric setbacks and struggled with drug use and delusions as he attempted to complete his studies. He was a really smart young person, Ms. Boothe said. He was really very determined to try and finish college, and we wanted to help him. When he graduated in May, the hope was that Mr. Polite had figured out a path forward. Childrens Aid hosts an event at its headquarters every year at which clients who have graduated from college return to serve as credible messengers for children still in the system and facing struggles. Hardy Fox, a driving force behind the Residents, an avant-garde band that playfully subverted the conventions of rock music for decades while insisting on anonymity, which the group maintained by performing in outlandish costumes, died on Oct. 30 at his home in San Anselmo, Calif. He was 73. His husband, Steven Kloman, said the cause was glioblastoma. The Residents were more than a band: They were performance and visual artists, critics and deconstructors of pop culture, and music video pioneers. Their cacophonous, gleefully absurdist music presaged forms of punk, new wave and industrial music. The band found a following even though its work could be difficult, if not outright annoying. Strangled-sounding vocals have long been characteristic of their recordings, along with crunching electronic drones that retain a homemade, low-tech quality, the New York Times pop music critic Robert Palmer wrote in 1986. Mr. Fox said the groups sound was rooted in traditional rock n roll and meant to challenge what the music had become. Roy Hargrove, a virtuoso trumpeter who became a symbol of jazzs youthful renewal in the early 1990s, and then established himself as one of the most respected musicians of his generation, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 49. His death, at Mount Sinai Hospital, was caused by cardiac arrest brought on by kidney disease, according to his manager, Larry Clothier. He said Mr. Hargrove had been on dialysis for 13 years. Beginning in his high school years Mr. Hargrove expressed a deep affinity for jazzs classic lexicon and the creative flexibility to place it in a fresh context. He would take the stock phrases of blues and jazz and reinvigorate them while reminding listeners of the long tradition whence he came. He rarely sounds as if he stepped out of a time machine, the critic Nate Chinen wrote in 2008, reviewing Mr. Hargroves album Earfood for The New York Times. At brisk tempos he summons a terrific clarity and tension, leaning against the current of his rhythm section. At a slower crawl, playing fluegelhorn, he gives each melody the equivalent of a spa treatment. This incident, like at Emanuel, was not an attack on a particular group. It was an attack on America because it challenges our right to assemble and worship our God in the way we want. RABBI JEFFREY MYERS, of the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh, speaking about the 2015 attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., in which nine worshippers were killed and last weeks attack at his synagogue at which 11 congregants were killed. All of which places Mr. Swan at a sticky nexus of journalistic ethics and best practices in an era when the audience for White House reporting has never been bigger and the judgments never harsher. Ratings and subscriptions are up, and reporters become household names, but they are often denounced as fake news by the right and as brown-nosers by the left. How do you practice insider journalism with an administration that a large share of the country is rooting for, regardless of the truth of the presidents claims, and that another large part thinks is morally repugnant? said Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed News (and a former employee of Mr. VandeHeis). That is a really hard challenge. For all the slings and arrows sent his way, Mr. Swan, who declined to comment for this article in the wake of last weeks dust-up, has lived his own American dream. The son of Norman Swan, a prominent television journalist in Australia, he arrived here in 2014 after a promising career in the Canberra trenches, where among other scoops he discovered video of an Australian senator hurling the feces of a kangaroo. On a visa for a congressional fellowship, he spent nearly a year being rejected for reporting positions until landing a job at The Hill. I probably interviewed five or six hundred people in my life, and I just knew right away that he was going to be a great reporter, said Bob Cusack, the editor in chief. Sources and competitors of Mr. Swan, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because, well, its Washington, described a hustler and charmer with a herculean work ethic, often squeezing in four source meetings a day. He seemed drawn to me, recalled Ms. Quinn, who met him at an Axios party at Nobu. He asked me to dinner. Days before the midterm elections, President Trump released two videos to try to convince voters to cast their ballots for Republican candidates. One is only on Twitter. The other is running on TV. Both are designed to stoke fear, but in very different ways. And they reveal the G.O.P.s two-pronged election strategy. The latest one was posted and pinned to the top of Trumps Twitter account, a platform that the president regularly uses to provoke controversy. It stokes racist fears and carries an inflammatory message that falsely links crime and immigration: Attempt of murder It presents no numbers or facts, and takes specific aim at a caravan of migrants and asylum seekers currently moving toward the U.S. border. It also features a twice-deported Mexican immigrant, who was convicted of killing two law enforcement officers, and falsely links his case to the Democratic Party. The add feels like an amateur YouTube video, with quick cuts, a mix and match of fonts, and news clips and stock footage lifted from various sources. Its in contrast to this slickly produced cinematic TV ad released days earlier. It cost millions to air and doesnt showcase Trumps likeness or voice. The protagonist is a white professional woman, a demographic that recent polls show Trump needs to win over. The biggest issue, which are jobs It focuses on an economic message. The ads lullaby-like tone is sporadically interrupted by dark hectic flashbacks of the 2008 financial crisis. To support the idea that now is better than then, statistics are presented: 23,000 net new jobs But the ad leaves out key facts. Sources are obscured, like here, where the CNN has been erased, and numbers are framed misleadingly, like here, where an illustration of unemployment in January 2010 suggests that joblessness was rising. Yet the rate sharply dropped in the following years ending at 4.7 percent, by the time President Obama left office. The two videos showcase the crux of Trumps midterm strategy: Targeting different demographics with different messages about different fears. For swing voters and those who are hostile to Trump, it portrays casting a ballot for Republicans not Trump per se as the right decision for those who want economic stability and the American dream. Because the future worth fighting for is not guaranteed. And for his hardcore base, he ratchets up a virulent message that America is being overrun by brown-skinned men and criminals. AUTO INDUSTRY BMW, caught in middle of trade war, will report earnings. BMW will publish its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, and they are likely to provide more detail about how much damage it has suffered from President Trumps trade war. BMWs factory in Spartanburg, S.C., which produces sport utility vehicles popular in China, has been caught in the crossfire of tit-for-tat tariffs. BMW, based in Germany, already warned in September that profit would be less than earlier forecasts, in part because of trade tensions. Jack Ewing ECONOMY Fed to meet, but a rate rise is not expected. The Federal Reserve's policymaking committee meets this week, but changes in policy are not on the menu. The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point at its last meeting, in September, and it is widely expected to raise rates by another quarter-point at its next meeting, in December. This week, the Fed is just passing time. The committee usually meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, but this week's meeting is on Wednesday and Thursday, avoiding a conflict with Election Day. One mildly interesting milestone: This will be the last committee meeting that is not followed by a news conference. The Fed's chairman, Jerome H. Powell, has announced that he will hold a news conference after each of the Fed's eight meetings next year, an increase from the current schedule of quarterly news conferences. Binyamin Appelbaum MEDIA INDUSTRY Disney theme parks expected to contribute to strong earnings. Disney shares climbed 12 percent from early July to the end of September, far outpacing growth by the Standard & Poors 500-stock index. When Disney reports earnings for that period on Thursday, investors are expecting the companys momentum to continue. Per-share earnings should total $1.33, a 24 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier, according to analysts estimates. Contributing will be Disneys vast theme park business, which has been white-hot the result of new attractions, higher prices and a strong economy in the United States. Television, which is Disneys largest business, should have a solid quarter (unlike a year ago), along with Walt Disney Studios, which released Ant-Man and the Wasp to blockbuster ticket sales in July. HYDE PARK, N.Y. The Democrats thought they had the most devastating weapon: a political video showing the Republican incumbent hugging a young mother with a brain tumor and a spinal condition, and promising to protect her coverage of pre-existing conditions only to vote for the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare weeks later. The Republicans, in turn, believed they had the most devastating piece of political tape: the Democratic challenger rapping a decade ago, using expletives and a racial epithet common among black rap artists, as he veered into controversial topics. The question: Which clip will prove more politically potent in America in 2018? The race in a swing district a couple of hours north of New York City that, just like the nation, voted twice for President Barack Obama and then swung to President Trump in 2016 has become one of the most expensive of 2018. It is a battle, in miniature, of the same fault lines and forces buffeting the midterms across the country, with Democrats blitzing Republicans on health care and Republicans trying to rally their base by leveraging sometimes inflammatory cultural issues. The Republican, Representative John Faso, is white; the Democrat, Antonio Delgado, is black. LONDON Before she found her voice as a feminist poet, Judith Kazantzis, who grew up in one of Britains most prominent literary families, began writing as an escape from the humdrum life of a housewife. Trapped was one way she described it, in her early poem Home. Another poem, One a.m., November, published in 1977, evoked a kind of domestic isolation: the vibrant, experienced dishwasher drums in the night the cat bunches on the very edge of the ping-pong table lulled by the swish and wallow of saucepans I began to write to remedy the despair of a young housebound mother, she wrote in an author statement submitted to the British Council, an organization that promotes culture abroad. In a career that spanned nearly four decades, Ms. Kazantzis, who died on Sept. 18 at 78, published 12 collections of poetry, numerous essays and a novel, Of Love and Terror, published in 2002. Her writing explored themes like the power relations between men and women and the abuses of power against the weak, and when it was first published in the 1970s, it resonated with an emerging new feminism one that was giving a platform to women to express their repressed anger toward patriarchy, find a place in the literary establishment and, perhaps more important, connect with one another. The former Obama aides who co-host Pod Save America have stood out as voices of political maturity. They predicted that Democrats chances of taking over the House are no better than 50-50 and even worried that Democrats could lose everything. But really, this should be no surprise and suggests that Democrats should temper their expectations, if not their hopes. Even if they win the House, it would be a normal course correction, not a repudiation. On average, the party in power has lost 24 House seats in the midterm elections in the postwar era, just one more than Democrats need to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker again. And the presidents who did not lose House seats in their first midterm election were Lyndon Johnson and George Bush in 2002, the year after 9/11. Opinion Debate Will the Democrats face a midterm wipeout? Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. Tory Gavito and Adam Jentleson write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. Ross Douthat writes that the outcome of the Virginia gubernatorial race shows Democrats need a new way to talk about progressive ideology and education. With millions of ballots already cast in more than a dozen states, its already more than the total number of ballots in the 2014 midterm control of the United States Senate is probably already out of reach for the Democrats. More likely is that Republicans will expand their majority by 2-4 seats. A number of critical races will likely be very tight and things could change. In my home state of Arizona, voters have slowly discovered that Kyrsten Sinema is not really the centrist she has pretended to be and are turning toward the Republican candidate, Martha McSally, a former fighter pilot. Ms. Sinema is still the same person who said in 2006 that stay-at-home mothers are leeching off their husbands and that conservatives are Neanderthals. Yet, its still close and Ms. Sinema could still win. The enormous size of this years electorate makes polling even more difficult than usual. In Texas, Beto ORourke, has raised far more money than Senator Ted Cruz and has captured the imagination of the political press, but has not led in a single poll and is currently far behind. Across the country, Democrats have consistently out-raised Republicans, but one of the lessons of this cycle may be that you cant buy a wave election. With Mr. Trump more popular than Mr. Obama just before the 2010 midterms, Republicans just might retain a House majority too, but if they do it, it will be close. Even if they dont and Democratic gains there are balanced by Republican gains in the Senate, it is simply not a blue wave and is just a typical midterm adjustment by voters. What this would suggest is that Mr. Trump, or at least his policies, are much more popular than his media detractors believe. This cycle was always going to be more difficult for Democrats than they thought. Even though the progressive agenda is embraced with almost religious totality by electoral supermajorities on the coasts and in many cities it is deplored almost everywhere else. That conflict is the basis for the sharp division in our politics. Democrats made a strategic error with the failed character assassination of Brett Kavanaugh. The viciousness of the choreographed, late-in-the-process attacks and Democrats rush to jettison the presumption of innocence disgusted many people who might otherwise have been more open to the Democrats message. And it did what Republicans had been unable to do for themselves: galvanize their base. SAN FRANCISCO More than 450 antiquarian book dealers in at least 26 countries pulled their books off an Amazon subsidiary on Monday, an impromptu protest after the site abruptly said it would drop all sellers from several nations. The flash strike against AbeBooks, which removed over 2.5 million books from the marketplace, is a rare concerted action by vendors against Amazon, which depends on third-party sellers for much of its merchandise and revenue. The protest arrives as increasing attention is being paid to the extensive power that Amazon wields as a retailer a power that is greatest in books. The stores are calling their action Banned Booksellers Week. The protest got its start after AbeBooks sent emails last month to booksellers in countries including South Korea, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia to say that it would no longer support them. We apologize for this inconvenience, the company said. As the news spread, even unaffected dealers were surprised and angered. AbeBooks, together with Amazon itself, is by far the biggest international marketplace for secondhand and rare books. The front-runner After Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat and the former mayor of Los Angeles, failed to get enough votes to make the general election, Mr. Newsom has enjoyed a comfortable front-runner status in the governors race. He has spent as much time campaigning for congressional candidates as he has for himself. His Republican opponent, John Cox, has been rather quiet, but has tried to stop what some call a coronation for Mr. Newsom. All eyes on Orange County In the words of Ronald Reagan, its where the good Republicans go to die. But the G.O.P. is fighting hard to ensure that the party itself is not dying there, despite changing demographics. Party stalwart Dana Rohrabacher is in the fight of his career against Harley Rouda, a former Republican himself now vying to represent the largely wealthy coastal area. And while Congressman Duncan Hunter is facing a criminal indictment, polls suggest he will beat out his Democratic challenger, Ammar Campa-Najjar, the son of a Mexican-American mother and an Arab father. Throughout the state, the results could turn on whether or not Latinos turn out to vote in large numbers, which is far from certain. How to vote With polls showing several Congressional races in the state as a tossup, the only thing that matters is who shows up to vote. If you vote by mail but have not sent it in, simply take it to a polling place Tuesday morning. Look up your polling place here. And when you go, let us know what you see: email us at catoday@nytimes.com. Reporters from The Times will be stationed throughout the state through Tuesday and beyond, trying to understand just what Californias results suggest about the future of our state and country. LOUISVILLE Stephon Harbin leans Democratic but says he resents being pigeonholed in one party. House Speaker Paul Ryan, for instance, strikes an intellectual chord with him despite being a Republican. For Mr. Harbin, following politics is part of a civic duty to make his city a better place. The only way its going to change is if youre instrumental in the change. It has to be a team effort, Mr. Harbin said recently as he sat in the living room of his bungalow in Louisvilles California neighborhood, southwest of downtown. Id run for office, if I could. But Mr. Harbin, who is 47, cannot run for office. Twenty-nine years ago, he was arrested for selling cocaine a scheme, he said, to pay for his freshman year in engineering school at the University of Louisville. The ensuing felony conviction, and another that followed two years later, stripped him of his political rights for life. His first arrest came when he was 18, and he was convicted barely two weeks before Election Day. I never had the opportunity to vote, he said. My dentist, a registered Republican, did not vote in the last midterm elections, in 2014. But the owner of my local bookstore, a registered Democrat, did vote then. So did my accountant, who is not registered with either party. I know these details not because the dentist, the bookseller and the accountant volunteered to share their voting histories with me. I found out from VoteWithMe and OutVote, two new political apps that are trying to use peer pressure to get people to vote Tuesday. The apps are to elections what Zillow is to real estate services that pull public information from government records, repackage it for consumer viewing and make it available at the touch of a smartphone button. But instead of giving you a peek at house prices, VoteWithMe and OutVote let you snoop on which of your friends voted in past elections and their party affiliations and then prod them to go to the polls by sending them scripted messages like You gonna vote? Dont get me started on George Soros. The caravan, I feel that all these people are being paid off. I believe its paid for by George Soros. George Soros, the billionaire Democratic fund-raiser who has long been villainized in certain right circles. Billionaire George Soros bankrolls the resistance. Hes been the target of anti-Semitic smears and is often at the center of conspiracy theories. Whos behind the puppets? Whos the puppet master? George Soros. Accused of everything from secretly influencing left-wing policy to funding a caravan of migrants going north toward the United States. Who do you think is behind these caravans? A lot of speculation that its George Soros. George Soros George Soros The likes of Soros These fabulations have been common on the fringes for years. George Soross Open Society Foundation But now, his name saturates nearly every corner of the G.O.P. ecosystem. You hear it from voters in small towns in Southern Illinois. Soros, George Soros, I believe is paying all these people. On primetime newscasts on Fox. George Soros George Soros George Soros And even from the president himself. George Soros The longtime investor and philanthropist became the target of misinformation and conspiracies starting in the 1990s. Extremists in the U.S. and Europe cast him as a central figure in a secret cabal of Jews and globalists working to take over the world. A front man for the house of Rothschild called George Soros. Bilderberg group. But Soros is no longer only invoked in fringe, anti-Semitic conspiracies. In 2004, he became a target for Republicans more broadly when he donated $27 million in an effort to defeat then President George W. Bush. If we re-elect President Bush, we are telling the world that we approve his policies, and we shall be at war for a long time to come. And now, Soross name has become shorthand for conservatives across all echelons of power to convince people that there are cryptic forces allied against them. From leaders of advocacy groups From the Soros-occupied State Department. to state Senate candidates You know, Soros Even House representatives Theres three people who are trying to buy the Congress and flip it. One is Soros. Soros, others, may be funding this and sitting Senators. Do you believe George Soros is behind all of this? I believe it fits in his attack mode and at the very top, the president. Go to a person holding a sign who gets paid by Soros or somebody There is no evidence for these allegations. In fact, Fox later had to come out and condemn this guest. The Soros-occupied State Department. But voters, at least least some of them, seem to be buying it. All the riots and all the marches hes placed ads in Craigslist paying people $15 an hour or who knows what. You know, hell flat out tell you that his agenda is to destroy America. Candidates are making a final pitch to voters across the United States. ATLANTA For weeks, Brian Kemp, the Georgia secretary of state and Republican candidate for governor, has faced accusations that he is trying to suppress the minority vote in his race against Stacey Abrams. And just days ago, a federal judge ruled that the state needed to adjust elements of its so-called exact match voting requirement, calling them needlessly burdensome. Now, in what Democrats said was a desperate attempt to deflect attention just two days before a crucial midterm election, Mr. Kemp used his official position Sunday to announce, with scant evidence, that the Democrats were under investigation for allegedly trying to hack the states voter registration files. Democrats immediately denounced the claim as bogus and called it an abuse of power. The controversy over voting rights, and the basic mechanics of Georgias electoral process, has roiled one of the nations marquee races. Mr. Kemp is locked in a tight contest with Ms. Abrams, the Democratic nominee, who would become the first African-American woman to lead any state if she wins. For weeks she has been accusing him of trying to suppress the minority vote and called for him to step aside as secretary of state something he has declined to do while calling allegations of suppression a farce. Mr. Kemp is a staunch supporter of President Trump, and appeared with him at a rally Sunday in Macon, Ga. In brief remarks before and during the rally, Mr. Kemp made no reference to the investigation. Mr. Trump, who has made numerous baseless claims of voter fraud in the past, spoke at length about voting issues, but did not mention the probe. So many candidates for Congress, particularly women, are running on this issue not just making it part of their platform and not just supporting it, but actually running on it, said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the grass-roots arm of Everytown for Gun Safety. Everytown, which is largely funded by Michael Bloomberg, has endorsed 196 candidates this year in 36 states, and more than 40 volunteers for Moms Demand Action are running for office. [On the road with the Parkland activists.] One of them is Amber Gustafson, who was the groups Iowa leader in the run-up to the 2016 election. A gun owner and former Republican, Ms. Gustafson is now challenging the majority leader of the Iowa Senate as a Democrat. (She went from Republican to independent in 2008 and registered as a Democrat in 2016, driven mainly by her views on health care and guns.) She said she discussed gun policy with every voter she visited. I say, Im a gun owner and I always put my hand over my heart and I care about the Second Amendment, but I also want to make sure that guns do not fall into the hands of people who shouldnt have them, she said. She supports universal background checks and red-flag laws, which would allow the temporary removal of guns if a persons relatives or law enforcement attest that they pose an immediate threat. She emphasizes that her opponent, State Senator Jack Whitver, supported a bill that would have dismantled Iowas permitting system for gun purchases. Some of this years gun-control candidates are, like Ms. Gustafson, gun owners, who hope that will give them more credibility with some voters on the fence about restrictions. Mr. Crow, a hunter who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, likes to emphasize that he has used weapons of war and had them used against me. Ive never needed an M4 or AR-15 or anything like it to deer, duck or rabbit hunt, Mr. Crow said. Nor would I need a weapon like that to defend my home or my family here in the United States. Tyler Sandberg, a spokesman for Mr. Coffman, the Republican incumbent, called bans on specific types of firearms or magazines extreme. He added that Mr. Coffman supported red-flag laws and had helped to write a bill that would offer federal grants for state red-flag programs, as well as a school security bill. Westchester! Fahhh Rockaway! Tel Aviv! That one made him perk up a little, inside a local Republican headquarters overstuffed with National Rifle Association hats and Make America Great Again casual wear. Tel Aviv, Mr. Giuliani said, noting his own citys Jewish population. Thats part of New York. Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and current presidential lawyer, had come to campaign with Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee for governor here. He had also come to brag a little, in a place with plenty of New York expats and other admirers. His city, he observed, saw tumbling crime rates on his watch. His mayoralty had made him the kind of figure Republicans called upon as a surrogate in faraway states. What, then, of Mr. DeSantiss Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee? He was mayor of a big city, good test. And he failed completely, Mr. Giuliani said, citing crime issues in Tallahassee, including a fatal shooting on Friday. My goodness, the guy would be a wreck if he cared about all the murders in the city. Hed be going around like this. Mr. Giuliani made a face that mayors are supposed to make, presumably, when they care. Mr. Gillum has framed the violence as a function, largely, of N.R.A. influence in the state. Mr. DeSantis would have none of that. Taking the microphone from Mr. Giuliani, he suggested that Mr. Gillum who has chafed at his opponents tendency to call him Andrew in debates had not earned a fuller title. In the military youre entitled to be called by the rank only if you served honorably in that position, Mr. DeSantis said. And the fact of the matter is, he has not served honorably as the mayor. Matt Flegenheimer If Democrats manage to lose just the Heitkamp seat, they have a (remote) chance of winning the Senate. They would have to win three of these four Republican-held seats: Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Tennessee. Of the four, officials in both parties think Democrats are best positioned to win in Arizona and Nevada, where Mr. Trumps incendiary language on immigration has infuriated Hispanic voters. Whats less clear is which of the remaining two seats is more viable: In Tennessee, Democrats insist that Phil Bredesen, the former governor, is only narrowly trailing in the Senate race. Public polls, though, show the Republican, Representative Marsha Blackburn, enjoying a lead. That leaves yes the Texas race between Representative Beto ORourke and Senator Ted Cruz. Republicans insist that the race is in their favor and that Mr. Cruz leads outside the margin of error in polling. But early voting in Texas is reaching historic levels and veteran Democrats say its folly to trust any polling when its not clear what the universe of voters could be, given that Mr. ORourke has excited many Texans beyond those who usually vote. So, yes, control of the Senate could be coming down to turnout. Kemps office investigates Georgia Democrats over alleged hack attempt The office of Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican nominee for governor, said Sunday that the authorities had opened an inquiry into the Democratic Party of Georgia after a failed attempt to hack the states voter registration system. Mr. Kemps office offered no evidence or details of the episode. Democratic leaders called the inquiry an abuse of power and political stunt by Mr. Kemp, given his dual role overseeing an election in which he is also running for the states top job. Democrats said any claims of the party being involved in a hack were false. Mr. Kemps office disclosed two days before an election in which polls show Mr. Kemp effectively tied with Stacey Abrams, who is trying to become the first black woman elected governor anywhere in the United States. Ms. Abrams said Sunday that the hack inquiry was a desperate move on Mr. Kemps part. Pressed on whether partisan politics colored consideration of the question, Mr. Ross said in sworn testimony to Congress in March that he was responding solely to a Justice Department request for data to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He also said he knew of no talks with the White House about the matter. But that story has since unraveled. Internal government documents produced in the principal lawsuit on the issue, in New York, show Mr. Ross pressured the Justice Department to request the citizenship question, not the other way around. They also show the involvement of President Trumps chief strategist at the time, Stephen K. Bannon, in the discussions. After Mr. Bannon requested that Mr. Ross talk to someone about the census, Mr. Ross met with Kris Kobach, a fierce immigration opponent whom President Trump had appointed to a panel on voter fraud. The federal judge in the main lawsuit ordered Mr. Ross to testify under oath, stating that his intent and credibility are directly at issue, but last month the Supreme Court at least temporarily blocked the testimony. Another deposition of a senior Justice Department official who worked with Mr. Ross on the question went ahead as scheduled. The lawsuit, which goes to trial on Monday, could have profound ramifications. Census figures determine not only where hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds are spent, but how the House of Representatives and by extension, the Electoral College and other political districts are remapped every decade to reflect population changes. Because immigrants and minorities disproportionately vote Democratic, a depressed head count could also expand Republican Party control when new political boundaries are drawn in 2021. While Mr. Ross has insisted that there is no clear evidence that the citizenship question would deter people from filling out census forms, the Census Bureaus own researchers repeatedly have found just that. In a memo last fall and in summaries of focus groups this spring, they noted that a wide range of ethnic minorities had voiced fears that the government would use citizenship information to persecute or even deport them and one group with Vietnamese heritage even abandoned a focus group after learning that the next census would ask about citizenship. CACHICHIRA, Bolivia The hunt began at nightfall under a crescent moon and with a chorus of frogs, which suddenly went silent when the rifles fired and the thrashing erupted. The bodies were dragged onto the deck of three boats: Six crocodilians were landed one night and 14 the next. Some were nearly eight feet long, head to tail. As gastronomy leaps from one trend to the next, the search for the next new thing has become a quest without end for many chic restaurants. And the role of the chef is changing, too: The greatest cooks these days are also the greatest storytellers, not just serving up meals, but also long yarns about the who, what and where of the origins of their ingredients. Which is why I was with some of the finest chefs in the Andes at Lake Colorada in northwestern Bolivia, home of the spectacled caiman a relative of the alligator. Once every few years, a group of cooks and owners from acclaimed restaurants in Bolivia, Argentina and Peru hire a river boat to take them to places unlisted in the Michelin Guide and where no food critic has likely ever dared to tread. The president of the United States has one of the most powerful bully pulpits in the world. President Trump has used that platform to spread his populist message through language often shorn of diplomatic niceties and demeaning of his opponents. And his language has been picked up by a number of leaders in other countries to offer justification of their own actions and to promote like-minded policies. Some leaders or leaders of national institutions have used similar language to go after political opponents, push their own populist agendas or even shield themselves from criticism of human rights abuses or the erosion of democratic norms. The latest example came on Friday, when the Nigerian army cited remarks by Mr. Trump to defend its owns actions after fatally shooting unarmed protesters. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted after spending eight years on death row on blasphemy charges has appealed to President Trump for refuge, citing danger to the familys lives. Ashiq Masih, the husband of Asia Bibi, whose case has outraged Christians worldwide and been a source of division within Pakistan, also appealed to Britain and Canada for assistance. The appeal came as the police said they had arrested more than 150 people on charges of arson, vandalism and violence during the protests that erupted after Ms. Bibis acquittal. A senior police officer, Nayab Haider, said on Sunday that officers were using video to identify others involved in committing assaults, torching property and vehicles, and blocking highways, The Associated Press said. The Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labaik blocked major roads in Pakistans biggest cities for three days, calling for the killing of the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Ms. Bibi on Wednesday, and terming Prime Minister Imran Khan and the countrys army chief enemies of Islam. LONDON A British man who spent five months at sea is believed to be the first person to swim around the island of Great Britain, making his way back to land in Margate, a coastal town in southeastern England, on Sunday. The swimmer, Ross Edgley, 33, had not been ashore since June 1, when he set off on his 1,780-mile aquatic journey. Sunday morning, he was welcomed ashore by loud, enthusiastic cheers. It still doesnt feel real, Mr. Edgley told the BBC. For more than 150 days, Mr. Edgley swam six to 12 hours a day. He spent the rest of his time eating and sleeping on his support boat, from where he documented his quest in episodes streamed online. MILAN Nine members of two families were killed in the same house in Sicily when the torrential rains and high winds that have been lashing Italy caused a river to burst its banks Saturday night. In just moments, rushing water filled the villa where the families were staying, drowning those inside. A father and his daughter escaped harm because they had left the house to do some shopping. A third person climbed a tree to survive. The deaths at the villa, in Casteldaccia in Palermo Province, brought the number of people killed in Sicily this weekend to 12. Three other people died in their cars hit by torrents of water. Unlike Mr. Deripaska, Lord Barker had a largely spotless reputation. His only minor brushes with scandal came in 2006, when he left his wife to live with a male interior decorator, and in 2012, while serving as energy minister, when he made the tabloids for using a microwave at Parliament to warm a cushion for his pet dachshund, Otto. Lord Barkers appointment, the company declared, was proof of its commitment to the best standard of corporate governance. His allies say his efforts since then have been focused on what is best for the company its employees and all of its shareholders rather than on Mr. Deripaskas personal benefit. Others saw Lord Barkers appointment as chairman of EN+ as proof of a phenomenon known as Lords on Boards, a long line of eminent Britons willing to lend their names and connections to Russias scandal-singed elite. Before entering politics in the early 2000s, Lord Barker had worked in Moscow as the head of investor relations for Sibneft, a Russian oil company connected to two Russian oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, a onetime business partner of Mr. Deripaskas. Lord Barkers job was to persuade often skeptical investors and financial journalists that Sibneft had shaken off its shady past in rigged privatization deals and broken with the habits of its oligarch founders. Now, Lord Barker assumed the chairmanship of EN+ and the London listing was a success. Mr. Deripaska, with his family, took around $1.5 billion from the stock sale and was able to repay VTB. Then in April came the sanctions announcement from Washington, which Mr. Deripaska described in a statement as groundless, ridiculous and absurd. The worlds aluminum market shook, as shares of EN+ went into a nosedive on the London exchange, where the company quickly lost more than half of its value. The sanctions, which punish third parties that do business with designated companies and individuals, led to a mass exodus of his advisers. In London, Mr. Rudds public relations company bailed, as did the consultancy business run by Lord Mandelson. Citigroup and Credit Suisse, which EN+ named in January as joint corporate brokers and which earlier had worked on the companys public offering along with other banks, swiftly severed relations. In Washington, Mr. Waldman terminated his representation of Mr. Deripaska and Rusal. When the Rex-Rheni was built in 1966, it would have been considered a big ship. Today, at least under normal conditions, it would be one of the smaller ones on the Rhine, where it is not unusual to see a 600-foot freighter capable of hauling 6,000 tons when there is at least 12 feet of water. A clause in German shipping contracts that allows ships to set their own prices when the water level is below about 32 inches at Kaub makes such trips worthwhile for smaller boats, even if their holds arent full. But the clause cannot make the river deeper. We need the level in the Bodensee to rise, said Martin Deymann, using the German name for Lake Constance. His 35 ships stopped transporting goods along the middle section of the Rhine last month. We need rain, and hopefully it will come before it becomes cold and it comes down as snow. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates A Shiite cleric who was a central figure in Bahrains 2011 Arab Spring protests was sentenced on Sunday, along with two other senior opposition figures, to life in prison, overturning previous acquittals on charges of spying for Qatar. Amnesty International called the sentence a travesty of justice. The public prosecutor said the court had sentenced the cleric, Sheikh Ali Salman, secretary general of the opposition al-Wefaq group; and Sheikh Hassan Sultan and Ali Alaswad, members of the same group, for transferring confidential information to and receiving financial support from Qatar, according to Reuters. The prosecutor had appealed a court ruling that acquitted the three last June in a rare victory for opposition figures who say they have been targeted for their political views. Mr. Salman is already serving a four-year prison sentence on charges of inciting hatred, after he was arrested in 2015. Mr. Sultan and Mr. Alaswad were tried in absentia. CAIRO Egypt said on Sunday that it had killed 19 militants linked to an ambush that left seven Christian pilgrims dead, as President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi scrambled to respond to a surge of Christian anger against his government. The Interior Ministry said Egyptian forces had killed the militants during a chase through a mountainous area in the desert west of the ancient monastery where gunmen opened fire on three buses filled with pilgrims on Friday. Six of the seven pilgrims killed in the attack came from the same extended family, Coptic Orthodox officials said. The announcement on Sunday was accompanied by graphic photographs of bloodied bodies lying in the sand. But it offered few details about the circumstances of the raid, including its timing or whether the government had experienced any casualties. As Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia charmed Goldman Sachs bankers and Silicon Valley executives on an American tour this spring, some of his most trusted lieutenants were taking care of business in Washington. In a low-key ceremony two blocks from the White House, Saudi officials signed an agreement with Booz Allen Hamilton, the American consulting company, to help train the kingdoms growing ranks of cyberfighters. The agreement would open great horizons by improving the skills of the kingdoms cybersecurity experts, Saud al-Qahtani, a top adviser to the crown prince overseeing the deal, said in Saudi Arabia in a statement to the official press. It did not mention his continuing campaign to silence critics both inside the kingdom and online. Mr. Qahtani was fired last month after Saudi officials linked him to the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying he had contributed to an aggressive environment that helped lead to the killing. But while Mr. Khashoggis death prompted investors from around the globe to distance themselves from the Saudi government, Booz Allen and its competitors McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group have stayed close after playing critical roles in Prince Mohammeds drive to consolidate power. Since President Trumps election, his loyalists online have provided him with a steady stream of provocative posts and shareable memes, often filtered up from platforms like Reddit through media channels like Fox News. In return, Mr. Trump has championed many of their messages as his own, amplifying them back to his larger base. This feedback loop is how #JobsNotMobs came to be. In less than two weeks, the three-word phrase expanded from corners of the right-wing internet onto some of the most prominent political stages in the country, days before the midterm elections. On Oct. 11, a video went viral on Twitter. The clip alternated between footage of angry protesters and clips of cable news anchors discouraging the use of the word mobs to describe those activists. The mob depiction is rooted in the right-wing talking point that Republicans are the rational alternatives to violent left-wing protesters, like the so-called anti-fascists who clashed with far-right groups last year. Soon after the supercut video went viral, the phrase jobs not mobs began gaining momentum. The jobs part of the phrase refers to the record low unemployment and job growth in the United States, for which Mr. Trump has taken credit. Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip, quickly endorsed jobs not mobs as a potential slogan. Because of the cartoonists popularity among the pro-Trump crowd online, this was a key moment. A screenshot of Mr. Adamss tweet was posted to Reddit, followed by a meme with the phrase laid over an image of factory workers at the top and a violent protest at the bottom. This meme can go far, one Reddit user wrote. The creator of the meme, who goes by the pen name Bryan Machiavelli, told The New York Times he charges $200 an hour for his memetic warfare consulting services. Users on Reddit and Twitter continued to push the slogan, as popular pages on Facebook began to pick it up. The transfer of a message across social networks is one way a meme like this becomes amplified. Over the following days, #JobsNotMobs was used in reference to everyone from liberal protesters to Central American migrants trying to come into the United States. The phrase was pushed by a series of increasingly prominent conservatives who have often railed against anti-fascist protesters. James Woods, the actor, tweeted it on Oct. 13. The next day, Charlie Kirk, a pro-Trump activist with a large internet following, sent it out. Women for Trump Movement, a Facebook page, wrote about it in a post that was shared 1,200 times. Conservative media outlets routinely pick up stories that are gaining traction on the pro-Trump internet, and #JobsNotMobs was no exception. On Oct. 15, Fox & Friends aired a segment on the phrase, saying: The Trump administration is focusing on what Americans really care about. Not mobs, but jobs! Soon, Republicans around the country were racing to feature #JobsNotMobs in campaign materials. Bigot or not: The debate over Tipu Jayanti celebrations in Karnataka Bengaluru oi-Deepika S Bengaluru, Nov 4: Every year before Tipu Jayanti, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) begin sparring with each other. This time as well, the Karnataka government charged BJP with trying to disturb communal harmony over the issue of 'Tipu Jayanti' celebrations on November 10 and warned of stern action against those trying to violate law and order that day. The birth anniversary celebrations of Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of the princely state of Mysore, have been held on November 10 by the state government since 2016. "The BJP is unnecessarily opposing Tipu Jayanti celebrations. But, however strong their opposition is, we will celebrate Tipu Sultan who fought against the British," G Parameshwara told the media in Bengaluru. The Home Minister further alleged the BJP for trying to make political gains out of this, keeping the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in view. Addressing reporters after the meeting, Jayamala said, "We will definitely go ahead with the Tipu Jayanti celebration on November 10, it is our duty. Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has already taken a decision to this effect. BJP will be held responsible if there is any kind of untoward incident in the state on that day." Meanwhile, minister of state for skill development Ananth Kumar Hegde requested the state government not to include his name in the invitation card for the event. However, Parameshwara said Hegde's name had already been included and it was up to him to decide whether he wanted to attend the function or not. Hegde had made a similar request last year. Background The previous Siddaramaiah-led Congress government had begun the practice in 2015, when it officially observed the anniversary amid protests by the BJP and other organisations. Two persons had been killed in Madikeri town of Kodagu districts that year during the protests. Those opposing the celebrations had maintained Tipu was a despot, an anti-Hindu who forced conversions and persecutor of Kodavas and Catholics, while ex-CM Siddaramaiah held Tipu to be a secular ruler who fought four wars against the British. While the BJP has claimed this to be a ploy for appeasing Muslims, the Congress accuses this to be BJP's means of consolidating Hindutva vote, given its leaders have previously taken part in Tipu Jayanti celebrations. Notably, Kumaraswamy had criticised the Siddaramaiah government's decision to spend government funds on the celebrations instead of prioritising "development of the state". He had even accused the then Congress government of playing into the BJP's hands and creating a situation of communal divide. Why did Tipu Sultan and his legacy become controversial in Karnataka? The saffron party has time and again also stated that Tipu Sultan, the ruler of then Mysore from 1782 till his death in 1799, slaughtered several Hindus in Srirangapatna - his seat of power - and in Kodagu, which he invaded during his reign. The Congress party has continued to maintain that Tipu Sultan, popularly known as the "Tiger of Mysore", helped in building a progressive Mysore state and gave it technological prowess. For the Congress, the minority Muslim votes are of prime importance especially at a time when the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) has been gaining ground in Mangalore and nearby areas. But for many others, both the political parties are only using Tipu Sultan's name for electoral gains. This year, the Tipu Jayanthi Virodhi Horata Samithi is fighting against the state government's move. Meanwhile, a public interest litigation against the celebration of Tipu Jayanti is to be heard by the high court on November 9. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 23:36 [IST] As Sabarimala temple reopens, Hindu outfits urge media not to send women journos India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Nov 4: As the Sabarimala temple gets ready to reopen for a day on Monday, the Hindu outfits, barring women's entry in the shrine, have urged media houses not to send women journalists to cover the event. Notably, the temple is opening for a day on Monday, for the second time. Also Read | As Sabarimala temple opens up, 2,000 security personnel stand guard It is leanr that Kerala authorities have decided to deploy women police officers above the age group of 50 to handle the situation that may arise. The Sabarimala temple was opened to women between the age group of 10-50 following a September 28 Supreme Court verdict which lifted the ban on entry of women belonging to the menstruating age group in the hilltop shrine. However, the actual time of opening the temple gates for women marked massive protests across the state. Several women, including journalists and activists who attempted to enter the shrine, were forced to return by devotees who protested outside the shrine. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 15:48 [IST] By being placed third on seniority list, here is what Justice Joseph has missed out CBI not a divine organisation, says Justice Chelameswar India oi-Shubham Ghosh Mumbai, Nov 3: He is one of the former Supreme Court judges who revolted against former chief justice of India Dipak Mishra over his style of functioning. Sixty-five-year-old Justice Jasti Chelameswar was present at an event called 'Dissent in Democracy' at the Father Angels School campus in Mumbai on Friday, November 2, where he spoke with Sanjay Jha, the president of All India Professionals Congress over a number of issues. Speaking on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the premier investigative agency which is witnessing a serious internal squabble between two of its top officials, Chelameswar said the CBI is neither a constitutional nor statutory body and though everyone wants to investigate a matter, it is "not a divine organisation". 'CBI not a divine organisation' He spoke on the CBI and the political tool it has become. He said, "The body is neither constitutional nor statutory. Everyone wants the CBI to investigate a matter, but it is not a divine organisation. "There is no proper legal framework in it and all political parties are responsible for it as they have all used it as an instrument when in opposition," he said. Going public was the only option says Justice Chelameswar on the famous presser by SC's top 4 'Possible that Centre brings law for construction of Ram Temple' Chelameswar also said that there is possibility that the Centre brings in a law for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. He said there have been instances earlier where the court's decisions were scuttled by law and it is possible that the central government comes up with a law on the controversial temple despite the apex court giving the case a hearing. He also said the country should have opened to such things much earlier and since it was not stopped then, the law is a possibility now. 'A good judge rather than a bad chief justice' When asked on him not becoming the chief justice, the veteran judge said he would be rather be remembered as a good judge than a bad chief justice. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 9:51 [IST] Construction of Ram Temple is my dream, says Uma Bharti India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Nov 4: Union Minister Uma Bharti raked up the issue of Ram Temple and said that she is ready to do everything for the construction of the temple. Speaking to media, Bharti said, "The construction of Ram Temple is my dream and whatever initiative is required from my end I am ready for it." She further said, "I have actively participated in Ram Janambhoomi Andolan & hearing of a case is also underway in connection with it. And I am proud of it." It is to be noted here that Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute cases will be heard by an appropriate bench in the first week of January 2019. While voices emerged within the BJP, favouring early construction of the temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 8:33 [IST] Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, AAP workers clash at Signature Bridge inauguration India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Nov 4: Supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by state party chief Manoj Tiwari and Aam Aadmi Party members were involved in a scuffle during the inauguration event of Signature bridge in Delhi. In videos, Manoj Tiwari can be seen being stopped by police and AAP supporters from attending the inaugural event. On live television, the Delhi BJP chief was seen throwing punches at the policemen - even hitting one of them on the face - till he was overpowered and escorted out. "I was invited to the inauguration event. I am MP from here. So what's the problem? Am I a criminal? Why has the police surrounded me? I am here to welcome him (Arvind Kejriwal). AAP and police misbehaved with me," Manoj Tiwari said. Also Read 'Delhi's Eiffel Tower': Signature Bridge inaugurated, opens to public tomorrow He also said that the work for the bridge was stalled for several years and he got the construction started again when he became the MP. "In my constituency (North East Delhi), I re-started construction of the bridge after it was stalled for many years and now Arvind Kejriwal is organising an inauguration ceremony," he said. #WATCH BJP Delhi Chief Manoj Tiwari, his supporters and AAP supporters enter into a scuffle at the inauguration of the Signature Bridge in Delhi; Police present at the spot pic.twitter.com/NhvqxudDTT ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 In its defence, Delhi unit of the BJP also shared a video in which AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan was seen pushing Manoj Tiwari off the stage while Kejriwal delivered his speech. Tiwari said the AAP MLA also threatened to shoot him. "The whole incident took place in the presence of Delhi CM. I am going to file an FIR over the incident," he said. Hitting back at Tiwari, AAP claimed that the BJP is indulging in hooliganism. "Thousands of people have come here to celebrate without an invitation card, but the MP (Manoj Tiwari) considers himself VIP. He is doing hooliganism. BJP people thrashed AAP volunteers and local people. They are admitted to hospital," Aam Aadmi Party leader Dilip Pandey said. Kejriwal took to Twitter to attack the BJP for the chaos. "Unprecedented. Chaos by BJP at Signature Bridge inauguration site. Its a Del govt prog. Police mute spectator. Can LG, being head of Del police, ensure peace and order at Signature bridge inauguration site?" he said. Unprecedented. Chaos by BJP at Signature Bridge inauguration site. Its a Del govt prog. Police mute spectator. Can LG, being head of Del police, ensure peace and order at Signature bridge inauguration site? Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 4, 2018 The much-awaited Signature Bridge on the Yamuna will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on November 4 and will be thrown open for public on November 5. It will reduce the travel time between north and northeast Delhi. Being deemed as a tourist spot with the 154-meter-high glass box, the bridge will give a bird's-eye view of the city to visitors. DG Vanzara wanted ex-minister dead, Sohrabuddin got contract: Witness tells Court India oi-PTI New Delhi, Nov 4: A witness in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh alleged fake encounter case told a trial court in Mumbai on Saturday that Shaikh had killed former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya. The killing had allegedly been ordered by former Gujarat IPS officer DG Vanzara, the witness further claimed. Pandya was murdered in Ahmedabad in 2003. The witness - name not disclosed - said he met Shaikh in 2002 and became good friends with him and his wife Kausar Bi and his associate Tulsi Prajapati. "During that time, Sohrabuddin told me he had got money from DG Vanzara to kill Gujarat's home minister Haren Pandya and he completed the job. I then told him that what he did was wrong and he had killed a good person," the witness told the court. The witness further said that in 2005 he was arrested by Rajasthan police and lodged at Udaipur jail where he met Prajapati. "Prajapati told me that the Gujarat police killed Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi," the witness said, deposing before special CBI Judge SJ Sharma. The testimony will continue next week. Shaikh and his wife were killed in an alleged fake encounter in 2005 by Gujarat police. Prajapati was later killed in another alleged fake encounter by Gujarat and Rajasthan police. Of the 38 people charged by the CBI for the two alleged fake encounters, 16 were discharged by the trial court. Those discharged included BJP chief Amit Shah, Vanzara and all senior officers of Gujarat and Rajasthan police. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 16:39 [IST] Hero on a white stallion: Shashi Tharoor takes dig at PM Narendra Modi India oi-PTI New Delhi, Nov 4: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand". Tharoor had waded into a controversy at the Bangalore Literature Festival on Sunday last by claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling". A criminal defamation complaint had been filed against him in a Delhi court earlier in the day for his "scorpion" remark. Tharoor again took a swipe at the prime minister, calling him "a hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand saying I know all the answers". "Modi is a one-man government and everybody dancing to what he says," he said at an event organised by an industry body, adding India now has the "most centralised PMO" in history. "Every decision is taken by the PMO (prime minister's office). Every file has to be sent to the PMO for approval," he claimed. On the next parliamentary election, Tharoor said that there will be both pre-poll and post-poll alliances between the Congress and other opposition parties, but Congress president Rahul Gandhi "may not be" the prime ministerial face. The coming Lok Sabha election is important in that it will deny the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term in power, the Congress MP said. He said the decision on the prime ministerial face of the Congress alliance would be a collective one and "it may not be him (Gandhi). The Congress has a broader notion of a leader unlike the BJP. We had people like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and others having tremendous track record". Gandhi is the unquestionable choice of Congress workers as their leader. "If free and fair elections are held among the Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi wins hands down," the Congress MP said. Continuing his criticism of the Modi government, Tharoor said, "We are having a top-down, over-centralised and inefficient government running the country and there is nothing positive in the Indian economy." "Demonetisation was a bad idea implemented badly and GST was a good idea implemented badly," Tharoor said. He said that the Indian stock is down across the globe. "The rupee was heading towards the 'Margdarshak Mandal' (a reference to a BJP panel comprising its elderly leaders)," he quipped and later clarified that the BJP panel had leaders above the age of 75. He said that communalism, cow vigilantism and mob lynching have been so extreme that India had never seen such "bizarre politics in the past". "There are damning statistics to prove that," he added. Tharoor, who was the minister of state for external affairs in the UPA government and is currently chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, said there was "total collapse of relations between India with other countries". "Nobody knows what is the coherent foreign relations policy with Pakistan, similarly with Nepal and Sri Lanka," he said. Tharoor regretted that Gandhi is being dubbed a 'Pappu' by some in the social media. "This is not fair and it is unjustified. Congress workers are really stitched to the Gandhi family and want their leader to be from there," he said. Regarding the Sabarimala temple controversy, Tharoor said, "These issues are being whipped up to distract attention from the real problems like oil price rise, Rafale deal, etc." Speaking at another programme, he alleged that the trend of erecting statues and raising the issue of Ram temple in Ayodhya were attempts to distract the masses from "failures" of the BJP government at the Centre. He said the trend of erecting statues reminded him of the Roman empire when people where distracted from the oppression they faced through 'bread and circuses' (distribution of free food and staging of huge spectacles). "The issues of Statue of Unity, Ram temple, Ram statue at Ayodhya are distractions. I would urge the public of India to move away from these distractions and focus on the realities and lives of the Indians," the Congress MP said. "The reality is the Indian Aam Aadmi (common man) has been suffering for the last four and half years... This suits the agenda of the government that has failed to perform," he said. Tharoor's comment comes in the backdrop of plans to install a statue of Lord Ram on the banks of the Sarayu river in Ayodhya. Joining the chorus for the construction of Ram temple in the Uttar Pradesh pilgrim town of Ayodhya, Union minister Vijay Goel had Friday said it should be done at the earliest through any means -- constitutional, legislative, judicial or community dialogue. The VHP and the RSS have demanded an ordinance to acquire land for constructing the temple in Ayodhya. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 12:16 [IST] Information panel sends notice to RBI chief over wilful defaulters' list India oi-PTI New Delhi, Nov 4: The Central Information Commission has issued a show-cause notice to RBI Governor Urjit Patel for "dishonouring" a Supreme Court judgment on disclosure of willful defaulters' list. The CIC has also asked the Prime Minister's Office, the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to make public the letter of former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan on bad loans. Irked over denial of information on disclosure of the names of wilful defaulters who have taken bank loans of Rs. 50 crore and above by the RBI despite a Supreme Court order, the CIC has asked Patel to explain why a maximum penalty be not imposed on him for "dishonouring" the verdict, which had upheld a decision taken by then Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, calling for disclosure of names of willful defaulters. Andhra Finance Minister likens PM Narendra Modi to 'anaconda' Patel, speaking on September 20 at the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), had said the guidelines on vigilance, issued by the CVC were aimed at achieving greater transparency, promoting a culture of honesty and probity in public life and improving the overall vigilance administration in the organisations within its purview, the CIC pointed out. "The Commission feels that there is no match between what RBI Governor and Deputy Governor say and their website regarding their RTI policy, and great secrecy of vigilance reports and inspection reports is being maintained with impunity in spite of the Supreme Court confirming the orders of the CIC..." Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said. He said it did not serve any purpose in punishing the CPIO for this defiance, because he acted under the instructions of the top authorities. "The Commission considers the Governor as deemed PIO responsible for non-disclosure and defiance of SC orders and CIC orders and directs him to show cause why maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for these reasons, before November 16, 2018," Acharyulu said. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 20:52 [IST] Hazard took a free kick on the right and the ball eluded several players in the penalty box before reaching the unmarked Morata at the back post, and he struck his fourth goal in his last four league games. Maneka Gandhi slams Maha for 'Brutal Murder' of Tigress Avni; Govt says it was last resort India oi-Deepika S Mumbai, Nov 4: Union Minister Maneka Gandhi today lashed out at the BJP-led Maharashtra government for ordering the "ghastly murder" of a tigress that was believed to have killed 13 people in the last two years. She also promised to take up the matter with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at the earliest. The tigress known as Avni was shot dead by Asgar Ali, the son of famed sharp-shooter Nawab Shafat Ali, at Borati forest in Yavatmal district on Friday. It left behind two 10-month-old cubs. Tigress Avni, believed to be responsible for deaths of 13 people, shot dead in Maharashtra The Union Minister alleged in a series of tweets that Asgar Ali's act of shooting down the tiger was "patently illegal" because he was not authorised to kill. "It's nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite requests from many stakeholders, Maharashtra Minister for Forests Sudhir Mungantiwar gave orders for the killing," she said. "I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case... legally, criminally and politically." Gandhi also questioned the Maharashtra government's decision to hire Nawab Shafat Ali and his son for hunting down Avni. "Shafat Ali has killed three tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boars in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and is involved in a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad," she said in another tweet. "I fail to see why a state government should even bother about such a man, let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts." The fate of the two cubs left behind by Avni was a matter of concern, the Union Minister said. "This ghastly murder has put two cubs on the edge of a sad death in the absence of their mother," she added. Mungantiwar, however, said the tigress was shot dead as a last resort. "Hundreds of forest department personnel have been trying to capture the beast alive for the last three months, but they were attacked each time. We decided to kill the tigress only after all attempts to tranquilise it failed," he added. The Supreme Court had directed in September that Avni be shot at sight. This prompted a flurry of online petitions seeking that the tigress be pardoned. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 17:43 [IST] Rahul to decide on CMs of MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Thursday 'I will not go to Centre, will live and die in Madhya Pradesh: Shivraj Singh Chouhan Third 'son' of Indira Gandhi, 9-time MP Kamal Nath is the new CM of Madhya Pradesh MP Assembly Polls: Congress releases 2nd list of 16 candidates India oi-Deepika S Bhopal, Nov 4: The Congress party on Sunday released the second list of 16 candidates for polls to the 230-member state assembly slated for November 28. The party had on Saturday declared its first list of candidates who will be contesting on 155 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh elections 2018: Congress releases list of candidates for 155 seats The names of Congress state unit chief Kamal Nath and poll campaign committee in-charge Jyotiradtiya Scindia are not on the list. They are touted to be frontrunners for the chief minister's post if the party wins. The list of 155 names, released late Saturday night, includes that of 21 women and 24 fresh faces. It has struck a fine balance between supporters of Scindia and former chief minister Digvijay Singh, sources said. Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections: CM Chouhan's brother-in-law Sanjay Singh joins Congress The party, on expected lines, renominated 46 MLAs while dropping Govardhan Upadhyay, Shakuntala Khatik and Manoj Kumar, sitting MLAs from Sironj, Kerera and Kotma respectively. They have been replaced by Ashok Tyagi, Jaswant Jatav and Sunil Saraf. The BJP stole a march on the Congress Friday by releasing its first list of 177 candidates for the assembly polls, fielding Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Budhni seat. The polling to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls will be held on November 28 and the counting of the votes will be held on December 11. The tenure of the Madhya Pradesh 230-member House expires on January 7, 2019. The BJP is in power in Madhya Pradesh with 166 seats in the House. PM Modi to host President Putin: What to expect from the bilateral New archaeological museum in PM Modi's hometown, 6 years after approval India oi-PTI Ahmedabad, Nov 4: A new archaeological museum all set to open in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hometown Vadnagar in Gujarat with coins dating back to 3rd century BC and artifacts excavated from the area over the last 13 years on display. The design of the new museum, spread over 6,000 square metres, was approved by PM Modi in 2012, when he was the chief minister, YS Rawat, Officer on Special Duty at the state's sports, youth and cultural activities department, told news agency PTI. Andhra Finance Minister likens PM Narendra Modi to 'anaconda' Six years after the approval of the design, actual construction on the new archaeological museum began a couple of months ago. The construction was delayed by several years as two contractors backed out of the project due to issues arising out of the building's designs. The new museum will replace the old one built in the town in 1996 which was partly damaged in the 2001 earthquake, he said. "Chandrababu Naidu first back-stabbed NTR, now betraying TDP principles" "The museum will showcase artifacts unearthed during two excavation exercises - one carried by the state archaeological department between 2005 and 2012 and the other by the Archaeological Survey of India after 2014," Rawat said. In his travel accounts, 7th century Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang had talked about the existence of 11 monasteries in the area. A team of the state archaeological department had managed to unearth one monastery in Vadnagar in 2008. The ASI also recently unearthed a large structure along the eastern bank of the Sarmishtha lake in the town. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 18:03 [IST] AP EAPCET Round 1 seat allotment delayed again: New date to be announced soon Pollution in Delhi akin to smoking 15-20 cigarettes a day India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Nov 4: Doctors in the national capital on Saturday said the impact of air pollution on public health can be compared to smoking of 15-20 cigarettes a day. To showcase the ill effects of air pollution, an installation depicting human lungs was unveiled at a city hospital. "I have seen a change in the colour of lungs over the past 30 years that I have been operating. Earlier, I used to see black deposits only in smokers and others would have pink lungs. "But, nowadays, I only see black lungs. Even teenagers have black spots on their lungs. This is frightening. With this unique installation, we hope to show people the reality of what's happening to their lungs, said Dr Arvind Kumar, founder trustee, Lung Care Foundation, Chairman - Centre for Chest Surgery, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. Also Read | How these countries successfully tackled air pollution: A lesson for Delhi "The impact of the foul air on public health can be compared to smoking 15-20 cigarettes a day," he said. The lungs in the installation are fitted with white Hepa Filters, which due to exposure to Delhi air will turn black, demonstrating the impact of air pollution on healthy lungs, a statement issued by Sir Ganga Ram hospital said. The installation is a part of a campaign launched by the Help Delhi Breathe initiative, the Lung Care Foundation and the hospital, it said. Also Read | Delhi air quality turns 'severe': Avoid outdoors at all costs, says govt Air pollution has reached alarming levels in Delhi and is causing severe damage to the health of the citizens. We have to act immediately to control this menace, otherwise the health consequences will be disastrous. We are already seeing an increasing number of patients in our hospital continuously complain about cough, irritation in throat and nose,said Dr SP Byotra, vice-chairman, Board of Management, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. Inspired by the World Health Organization's (WHO) first-ever global conference on air pollution held recently in Geneva, the campaign hopes to raise awareness on the effects of air pollution in the capital and to urge policy makers to take prompt remedial action, the statement said. According to the organizers, the installation is a reminder of a warning issued by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: "The world has turned the corner on tobacco. Now it must do the same for the 'new tobacco' the toxic air that billions breathe every day. "The impact of air pollution on our health is evident. Yet both the Delhi government and the central government have failed the citizens. We need to take bold steps to course correct this deadly path India is on. "In the name of development, industries are polluting without consequence. As citizens, we need to hold our representatives accountable for the environment.This election year citizens should say loud and clear: 'saans nahin toh vote nahin',said Reecha Upadhyay, Campaigns Director, Help Delhi Breathe. The growing concern is reflected in the notification by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, of the National Clean Air Programme that focuses on the prevention, control and abatement of air pollution and on augmenting the air quality monitoring network across the country, Upadhyay said. Also Read | Toxic air killed over 1 lakh children aged below 5 years in India in 2016: WHO In addition, the Delhi government has put in place the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) to respond to high air pollution days, he said. "A key objective of our campaign is to ensure that the remedial programs at state and central levels are implemented and the benefits communicated to citizens, Upadhyay said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 8:56 [IST] 'If Congress isn't doing anything, we can't be sitting ducks': TMC attacks grand old party Tinsukia killings: TMC delegation meets families of men killed by suspected militants India oi-Madhuri Adnal Dhola(Assam): A four-member delegation of Trinamool Congress leaders led by Derek O Brien meets families of the five people killed by ULFA terrorists in Tinsukia. Besides O' Brien, the delegation includes TMC MPs -- Mamata Thakur, Nadimul Haque and MLA Mahua Moitra. The Assam Police have provided them with security cover. Unidentified gunmen in battle fatigue shot dead five individuals, including three members of a family, near Kheronibari village in Tinsukia district on Thursday night. Also Read | Assam: 5 people killed by ULFA in Tinsukia district On Friday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed anguish over the killings and said an "environment of violence" was prevailing in the country. Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee demanded a court-monitored inquiry and called for the resignation of Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal over the incident. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 12:10 [IST] India saw 31 children die by suicide every day in 2020; experts say Covid upped psychological trauma Yoga guru Baba Ramdev says couples who have more than two kids shouldn't be allowed to vote India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Nov 4: In a bizarre statement, Yoga guru Ramdev on Sunday said that if any couple has more than two children then they should not be given the right to vote and people who choose to remain unmarried should be given special honour. While addressing an event, Yoga guru said,"In this country, people who never get married should be given special honour. And if someone chooses to get married, then there should be a restriction on that couple to produce only two children. Anyone having more than two children should be deprived of voting rights.'' #WATCH: Yog Guru Ramdev says, "is desh mein jo hamari tarah se vivah na kare unka vishesh samman hona chahiye, aur vivah kare, to 2 se jyada santaan paida kare to uski voting right nahi honi chahiye" pic.twitter.com/hXhsZtM07l ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2018 Contrary to Ramdev's statement, BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj had earlier asked Hindu women to have at least four children. Also Read | Man held for creating fake Facebook profile of Patanjali's Acharya Balkrishna This is why I... Want to request women to give birth to at least four children. Give one to sadhus and ascetics. Media says there are ceasefire violations happening, so send another to the border," the saffron-clad MP from Unnao had said. PM Modi to host President Putin: What to expect from the bilateral Your foreign trips have not brought back black money, Cong tells Modi India oi-Madhuri Adnal Jaipur, Nov 4: The Congress said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign trips had failed to create an environment that would help bring back black money stashed abroad or fugitives from the law. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said the Modi government had failed to extradite those who allegedly committed scams and fled with public money. A prime minister does not travel abroad on a fun trip but he represents his country, and creates influence which should benefit his country in times of disputes or need, he told reporters here. Also Read | How much did PM Modi's 41 foreign trips in 4 years cost? But in the last four and a half years, the PM could not create enough influence to bring back those like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and others, he added. During the last Lok Sabha elections, Modi had promised to bring back black money, which did not happen, the MP said. Instead, the tax payer's money was taken away and he could not stop it from happening, he said. Azad said CBI director Alok Verma was recently sent on leave as the agency was about to begin investigations into the Rafale fighter deal with France, a charge already denied by the government. He alleged the BJP government was involved in corruption running in thousands of crores , and BJP-ruled states like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were also suffering from graft. Also Read | PM Modi's foreign travel since 2014 cost Rs. 1,484 crore: Centre He claimed the BJP government had failed in keeping promises. It gave slogans like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao', which did not amount to anything and the government just focused on publicity, he charged. The Pradesh Congress committee also released a Rajasthan report card , alleging that the state's Bharatiya Janata Party government is a failure. The Rajasthan Assembly elections, likely to be a mostly straight contest between the ruling BJP and the Congress, will be held on December 7. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 8:39 [IST] China has never taken one inch of land from other countries: Xi tells Biden US designates Pakistan, China as countries of particular concern for religious freedom violation Where is Peng Shuai? Missing Chinese tennis star safe, will appear in public soon: editor of Global Times After Imran Khan trip, China backs Pakistan on dispute with India, nuke group International pti-PTI Beijing, November 4: China on Sunday said it supported Pakistan's "quest for peace through dialogue" to settle the outstanding disputes with India as it backed Islamabad's "engagement" with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). A joint statement, issued here after Prime Minister Imran Khan's talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, said China backed Pakistan's efforts to improve ties with India to settle "outstanding disputes", without directly mentioning the Kashmir issue. Saudi fund has decreased pressure on foreign exchange reserves: Imran Khan "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," the joint statement said. The ties between India and Pakistan had strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016 and India's surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In recent years, China has refrained from taking a public stance on the India-Pakistan ties, expressing hope for resolution of the disputes through dialogue. On the Kashmir issue, China's oft repeated stand was that it should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. India too supports dialogue as the way to resolve the issue with Pakistan but maintains that the talks and terrorism cannot go together. For its part, Pakistan supported active participation of China at the platform of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Under Imran Khan, Hafiz Saeed's JuD and FIF now have legit status Also significantly, China tacitly expressed its backing for Pakistan's efforts to secure the NSG membership. India has been seeking entry into the 48-member elite nuclear club, which controls nuclear trade, but China has repeatedly stonewalled its bid. While India, which is backed by the US and a number of western countries has garnered the support of a majority of the group's members, China has stuck to its stand that new members should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making India's entry difficult as the group is guided by the consensus principle. India is not a signatory to the NPT. China's repeated stonewalling on India's membership bid in the NSG has become a major stumbling block in bilateral relations. After India's application for entry into the elite group, Pakistan too had applied with the tacit backing of Beijing, which is a key member of the NSG. "The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to multilateral, non-discriminatory arms control and non-proliferation endeavours," the joint statement said. "They noted with concern the continued pursuit of double standards in the application of non-proliferation norms and procedures and called for policies upholding rule of law and long-standing rules," it added. China appreciates and supports steps taken by Pakistan for strengthening the global non-proliferation regime, the statement said. In this context, China supports Pakistan's engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers Group and welcomes its adherence of NSG Guidelines, it added. China also heaped praise on Pakistan for its efforts to counter terrorism and said it recognised Islamabad's efforts in actively strengthening financial regulations to combat terrorism financing, and called on all relevant parties to view Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts in an objective and fair manner, according to the joint statement. But at the same time China is pressing Pakistan to crackdown on Uygur Islamic militants crossing in and out of the volatile Muslim-majority Xinjiang province bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. "The Pakistani side reaffirmed its support to the Chinese side in safeguarding its sovereignty and security, and combating separatism, terrorism and extremism including East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)," the statement said. China blames the separatist ETIM, an al-Qaeda linked group, for the violent attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the country. Both China and Pakistan agreed to further enhance cooperation against "Three Evils' of extremism, terrorism and separatism", the statement said. All weather friends, China and Pakistan also agreed to enhance their defence cooperation. China is the main supplier of defence equipment for Pakistan. They agreed to further enhance defence cooperation, maintain high-level visits and exchanges at various levels between relevant departments of the two armed forces, the joint statement said. Both sides have agreed to make full use of the China-Pakistan Defence and Security Consultation mechanism, deepen cooperation in areas such as military exercises, training cooperation, personnel exchanges, and equipment and technology cooperation, it said. During his visit, Prime Minister Khan has held talks with President Xi and Premier Li mainly focussing on seeking China's loans to tide over serious financial crisis faced by Pakistan. China while stating that it would extend necessary support to Pakistan reportedly committed USD 6 billion funding but did not so far officially confirmed it. PTI We have decided to deepen cooperation to combat terrorism: PM Modi after talks with Rajapaksa In bid to gain support, Lankan PM, President may free Tamil prisoners International oi-PTI Comolmbo, Nov 4: The legislator son of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa today indicated that the demand of the Tamil minority community to release all Tamil prisoners may be fulfilled soon, a move aimed at persuading the Tamil legislators to support Rajapaksa. "President Sirisena and Prime Minister Rajapaksa would make a decision very soon," Namal Rajapaksa tweeted. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE had run a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. China is not competing with India in Sri Lanka, analysts say in wake of island crisis Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was the president at the time, has repeatedly said that the war was against the LTTE and not against the Tamil community. Since the war with the LTTE ended in 2009, the Sri Lankan government has denied that the imprisoned LTTE members are political prisoners. Tamils say some of the prisoners have been held over a long time under anti-terrorism law without even being formally charged. Namal's comments are aimed at persuading the legislators in the Sri Lanka's main Tamil party -- Tamil National Alliance (TNA) -- to switch their allegiance to Rajapaksa in his bid to prove majority in the parliament. Sri Lankan political crisis its internal affairs: China So far Rajapaksa has 100 MPs on his side while sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has 103 MPs in the 225-member house. Most of the 22 remaining MPs, including the TNA, are likely to oppose Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa's camp had already enticed a TNA legislator to join ranks by giving him a deputy ministerial position. The TNA's parliamentary strength has been reduced to 15 as a result and there was speculation that at least four more of them were willing to support Rajapaksa. The TNA has said it will support a no-trust motion Rajapaksa, amid mounting pressure on President Sirisena to let the suspended parliament hold a vote to end the political crisis. In a statement, the TNA on Saturday said Rajapaksa's appointment was a violation of the Constitution's 19th amendment. The alliance had "decided to vote in favour of the no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa," the statement said. Rajapaksa claims he has enough numbers to prove his majority and at least six of Wickremasinghe's men have defected to his side. The current suspension of parliament by the president is seen as a key to Rajapaksa negotiating for enough defections. Wickremesinghe was sacked by President Sirisena on October 26. His United National Party claims that Mr Wickremesinghe's sacking was "unconstitutional and illegal". The president's move has plunged the country into a constitutional crisis with Mr Wickremesinghe claiming he is still the prime minister. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 15:37 [IST] Indeed, the level of singing and acting stayed consistently high, with bass-baritone Samuel Youn imposing as Mimes comparably corrupt brother Alberich; and mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller magisterial in her Lyric debut as the entombed goddess Erda, her dramatic rise from her slumber another achievement for this production. As she ascended, the aforementioned actors made her enormous gown billow and quiver while she addressed the Wanderer (Wotan). The Forest Bird that led Siegfried through the thicket was equally magical, an actor holding the glowing puppet aloft, the beauty of its appearance and the flow of its motion very nearly making you forget that it wasnt airborne on its own. Soprano Diana Newman became the personification of the winged creature, her radiant upper register and anthropomorphic movement as poetic to see as to hear. High school: Give teens a glimpse of how government works by introducing them to local politics. Take them to council meetings where issues are hotly debated, and allow them to get to know politicians as people, Kawashima-Ginsberg says. When you know people, you are less likely to make hasty judgment about their intentions, she says, and those hasty assumptions about what our political leaders think or will do are often a source of disaffection and disengagement. Show them that politics is a messy, living process, she says, not the neat laws that students read about in their history textbooks. Burge never was charged directly in any of the many torture allegations against him, though he was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993. Years later, in 2010, he was convicted of lying to federal authorities about his conduct and sentenced to prison. Lawsuits by victims of Burge, who died in September, have cost taxpayers millions in settlements and judgments. The man, whose name was not being made public, was dead on the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiners office. An autopsy Saturday determined the man died of multiple sharp force injuries and blunt force injuries to the head, the office said. A 26-year-old man who swam out of the vehicle after it entered the water told police he had two friends in the car, but he wasnt sure if they were able to get out in time, police said. "Love. That's why I did it," he said. "Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why we're all here. ... I could care less what Robert Bowers thinks, but you, the person reading this, love is the only message I wish instill in you. If my actions mean anything, love means everything." If you had a thyroid problem, whether it was relatively routine like an overactive thyroid or (serious) thyroid cancer, he was a really good doctor. With his extensive experience and knowledge, he was a really good person to go to, said Dr. Kenneth Polonsky, dean of the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine, and executive vice president of medical affairs at U. of C. Raoul reported receiving a $1 million campaign check late Friday night from House Speaker Michael Madigan, as part of a final flurry of campaign cash to help push the Hyde Park Democrat across the electoral finish line with a victory in his first statewide race. The African-American state senator also is seeking to benefit from a late radio ad cut by the predecessor of his Springfield seat: former President Barack Obama, who also will appear at a Sunday rally for the Democratic ticket at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Investigators say DNA evidence shows Montana was the man who raped a Coral Springs woman in 1987 wearing a ski mask and claiming he had a gun. The DNA evidence linked to Montana was on a tampon the woman was wearing when she was assaulted. Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here. Former President Barack Obama visits Chicago in a last-minute, high-profile appeal to voters on behalf of Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker and the partys other top hopefuls at the UIC Pavilion on Nov. 4, 2018, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) This is a festival that brings together the fastest growing minority here in the Aurora and Naperville area, and we want to celebrate this holiday that is part of our culture, Bhatia said. The world at this time is full of chaos, and there are all kinds of crime, famine and war. We need to press on and focus on the goodness of humanity and showcase that how there is hope, and love and caring. PHOTOS How to negotiate a salary Talking about salary with a potential or current employer can be intimidating. While 81% of employees surveyed by Glassdoor in 2019 believed they deserved a raise, 40% accepted their initial salary offer and did not negotiate in their current or most recent job. Rather than wallow in low wages, leverage these tips to overcome the sweaty palms and self-doubt that come with salary negotiation. Besides the windows, she said some of the original framework was damaged in this latest incident and shell have to search for specialized craft workers who can repair it while maintaining the buildings historical integrity. Ammonium Phosphate Market Research Report Global Forecast 2018-25 Estimated with Top Key Players like: Lanxess AG, Solvay S.A., CF Industries Holdings, Inc. Ammonium Phosphate https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/11641 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/11641 www.upmarketresearch.com UpMarketResearch published an exclusive report on Ammonium Phosphate market delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 113 pages which highly exhibits on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability. 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OJSC EuroChem MCC Innophos Holdings Inc. Italmatch Chemicals S.p.A. Yara International ASA United Phosphorus Limited Potash Corp. Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL)Ammonium Phosphate Production by Region North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)Get Best Discount On This Report @Global Ammonium Phosphate Market: Product Segment Analysis Monoammonium Phosphate (MAP) Diammonium Phosphate (DAP)Ammonium Phosphate Breakdown Data by Application Metal Finishing Chemicals Water Treatment Chemicals Food & Beverage Detergent & SoapsGet Free Exclusive PDF Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/11641The report categorizes the market into segments by companies, end-use, type and potential regions. As an enterprise owner or a market entrant, the report offers you a comprehensive analysis beneficial for you to take a positive traction as and when needed. 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Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.About UpMarketResearch:UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States Agriculture Market Size and Forecast to 2025 | Growth and Analysis by Leading Key Players- Deere & Company, Trimble Inc., Agco Corporation, Agjunction, Inc., DJI, Boumatic Robotics, B.V. and Lely Holding S.A.R.L. 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The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Alopecia global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018 - 2025.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.For more information on this report, please visit:The following manufacturers are covered in this report: Lifes2good Kirkland Signature Johnson & Johnson Dr. Reddys Laboratories. Cipla. Alpecin. Vitabiotics. Sun Pharma. Phyto Ales GroupAlopecia Production by Region North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)Get Best Discount On This Report @Global Alopecia Market: Product Segment Analysis Oral treatment Topical treatment Other treatmentAlopecia Breakdown Data by Application Male FemaleGet Free Exclusive PDF Sample Copy of This Report @The report categorizes the market into segments by companies, end-use, type and potential regions. As an enterprise owner or a market entrant, the report offers you a comprehensive analysis beneficial for you to take a positive traction as and when needed. It offers a complete study of analytics necessary to decide on trending segments and potential market areas to operate.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. 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Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.About UpMarketResearch:UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States I just moved back to Oregon a few months ago. On Oct. 9, I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to switch over my drivers license and register to vote in Oregon. When I got my license, I asked the clerk repeatedly, "Am I registered to vote now in Oregon?" To which the response was, repeatedly, "Yes, you are automatically registered." Today, when I still didn't see a ballot in the mail, I called the county elections office, and was told I failed to register in time to vote in this election. They have the October 9th date in the computer when I registered at the DMV, but they said there is 21 days from when the DMV registers you, until you are registered "automatically" with the elections office. So even though I went to a government office specifically to register to vote, and was told that I was registered to vote before the registration deadline, I cannot vote this year and there is nothing I can do. This is the first midterm or presidential election I will miss since I turned 18, and it's crushing. I wonder how unique my story is. The DMV registered a lot of people between Sept. 26 and Oct. 16. If I can convince anybody to go and drop off their ballot in an official drop box, who might otherwise have missed their chance to vote, it would make me feel a little better. So please, go vote! Jeremy Copperman, Southwest Portland In recent weeks, canvassers along the Interstate 5 corridor have been telling Oregonians how to vote on six statewide issues: "Yes" to re-elect Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, "yes" on an affordable housing bond initiative, and "no" on four conservative ballot initiatives. It's not immediately clear who paid for the effort door hangers handed out by canvassers say they're from "the Oregon voter guide." Those curious enough to go online will find the funders include the state's powerful public employee unions and such groups as Planned Parenthood. The canvassers are part of a strategy by unions and advocacy groups to get Democrats and like-minded Oregonians to vote down the slate of conservative ballot measures and keep Brown in the governor's office. Hannah Love is Our Oregon's political director. At the center of the effort are the union-financed nonprofit Our Oregon and its political action committee, Defend Oregon. The ballot measures' and governor's campaigns have paid those entities a combined $5 million to assist and in two cases run their campaigns this election cycle. Though the groups' work registering and turning out voters has helped other Democratic gubernatorial candidates in the past decade, their canvassers did not talk up the governor's race the way they have this year. Former Gov. John Kitzhaber "had nowhere near the field effort that Brown does," both paid and unpaid canvassers, said Kevin Looper, a Democratic voter turnout strategist and past executive director of Our Oregon. He worked on both of Brown's gubernatorial campaigns and those of her predecessors, Kitzhaber and Ted Kulongoski. Still, Our Oregon and Defend Oregon's voter turnout work was "one of the reasons Kulongoski got re-elected [in 2005], and is the only reason Chris Dudley was not governor," he said of the ex-Blazer and Republican candidate who came within 1.5 percentage points of Kitzhaber in the 2010 Election. "Kate Brown's campaign is coordinating with [Defend Oregon and Our Oregon] to try to make sure there's as little overlap as possible in progressive energies," Looper said. "Everybody's trying to pull in the same direction." Mark Wiener, a Democratic political strategist whose firm Winning Mark is doing work for Defend Oregon and the No on Measures 105 and 106 campaigns, agreed with Looper that the voter turnout machine has helped multiple Democratic governors win election or re-election over the years. Wiener worked on Kitzhaber's 2010 and 2014 campaigns. Progressive movements have done a good job ensuring "it's a single tide trying to lift all boats," he said. "The fact that the other side doesn't have the same facility is sort of shame on them," he said. Another common factor in Brown's campaign and the efforts to beat back the conservative ballot initiatives this year? Nike money. The sportswear giant has given $35,000 directly to the campaigns to defeat three of the initiatives and $110,000 to Brown. It's also donated $150,000 to a political action committee called the Common Good Fund started by Julia Brim-Edwards, Nike's senior director of government and public affairs. The PAC threw its financial support behind the "no" camps on the tax initiatives and Measure 105, which would repeal Oregon's sanctuary state law. It also reported giving $30,000 to Defend Oregon. "I think [Nike has] an interest in trying to build bridges in an environment where there hasn't been a lot of bridge-building of late," Wiener said. Brim-Edwards started the PAC around the same time Our Oregon dropped its costly effort to get a so-called corporate transparency initiative on the fall ballot. It would have forced companies, including her Washington County-based employer, to disclose tax information. After a flurry of urgent meetings with Nike and union representatives shortly before a key initiative deadline in July, Brown told Oregon Public Broadcasting that she'd brokered a deal. The governor has been adamant that there was no discussion with either party about how they would help her re-election campaign. Our Oregon and its PAC are running the campaigns to defeat Measure 103, which would ban taxes on food and soda, and Measure 104, which would make it impossible for the Legislature to trim tax breaks without a three-fifths supermajority vote. Though the measures wouldn't cut existing taxes, they would restrict the Legislature's ability to raise revenue in the future as Democrats and some Republicans want to discuss in 2019. "Both 103 and 104 were very serious threats to anybody who cares about the state budget," Looper said. "So, Defend Oregon had to figure out, in a world in which there's also threats to (reproductive) choice and communities of color around the racial-profiling measure, how's there going to be enough money and enough concerted effort for us to defeat all this stuff?" Looper was referring to Measures 106, which would ban the use of public funds for abortion, and Measure 105. The anti-Measure 105 campaign has used the two groups to handle roughly 73 percent of its work. And one of Brown's three political action committees has done 22 percent of its get-out-the-vote spending with Our Oregon and Defend Oregon. Some of that money went to wages, salaries and benefits for workers at Defend Oregon. The mingling of campaigns is possible because Oregon places no limits on the transfer of money between political action committees, something that is regulated in 22 states. Oregon, in fact, doesn't put caps on any political contributions. "In Oregon, mingling of resources is allowed, without restriction," lawyer and campaign finance reform advocate Dan Meek wrote in an email. Recent polling paid for by the Common Good Fund shows how intermingled the campaigns' finances are: the full $84,200 cost was described as an in-kind contribution to both the anti-Measure 103 and -Measure 104 campaigns and the political action committee Defend Oregon. One explanation for the growing importance of Our Oregon and Defend Oregon in campaigns is that political parties are playing a smaller role in turning out voters, said Jim Moore, director of political outreach at Pacific University's Tom McCall Center for Civic Engagement. "If this were 20, 30, 40 years ago, all of this would be the job of the party itself," Moore said, noting that parties have weakened. "Now the interest groups and the candidate-controlled PACs have stepped in to fill the void. This is a national issue." As for Oregon's business community, Moore said that it doesn't have any analogous groups coordinating political strategy. "There's like 18 of them, and getting them under the same tent is hell." John DiLorenzo, a Portland attorney and registered lobbyist for grocers and other business interests, said the Our Oregon and Defend Oregon campaign coordination is an example of the cohesiveness between Democrats and unions that has eluded Republicans and many businesses. The business community "bands together when it's fighting things," like Measure 97, the $3 billion corporate tax initiative that was soundly defeated in 2016, DiLorenzo said. "But I have never seen it as organized as it is on the Democrats' side." Tim Nesbitt, a former adviser to Kulongoski and Kitzhaber, said Our Oregon has a key resource of value to any Democratic campaign. "They've always been a lot better at building a voter file and getting out the vote," Nesbitt said. "It takes time to build that ... That is a resource that nobody else in Oregon can match." This story has been updated to reflect the following correction: an earlier version of this story incorrectly listed Jim Moore's title. Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 In the race for a seat on the Portland City Council, candidate Loretta Smith has quietly earned financial support from a key set of local power brokers: real estate developers. That support has come during the run-up to Tuesday's election, which many view as a make-or-break moment in the power struggle between real estate developers and tenants' rights advocates to have the larger voice in City Hall. Developers in particular worry that rent control may come to Portland if Smith, the underdog in the race, does not win. On that front they see a likely ally in Smith, who has cast herself as a business-friendly moderate. Developers suspect her opponent, Jo Ann Hardesty, would be a surefire foe. "Jo Ann believes in rent control. Loretta opposes rent control," said John DiLorenzo, an attorney who represents apartment complex owners. "We're dead-set against rent control," he said, calling the prospect of limiting rents "an existential crisis" for Portlands housing supply. As a result, land owners, real estate brokers and construction executives have contributed vastly more to Smith than Hardesty, campaign finance disclosures show. Smith, a two-term Multnomah County commissioner, has raised about $200,000 from developers since the May primary, when she finished 25 percentage points behind Hardesty. In that same time, Hardesty, a social justice advocate, former state representative and Navy veteran, has snapped up less than $20,000 from donors with real estate ties. Smith said in a telephone interview that she has developers' support her because of her moderate take on housing policy and her plan to open the never-used Wapato Jail as a homeless shelter. "They like the fact that I want to clean up the streets," Smith said. Hardesty, who declined to comment, has campaigned on a different approach to stanching Portland's affordable housing and homelessness crises. She believes in vastly expanding renter protections and reforming how the police interact with the homeless. She has chosen some of Portland's most progressive housing advocates as close advisers. For developers, having a friend on the city council can be an invaluable asset. Builders have long had clout in City Hall. But they depend upon the mayor and commissioners for amenable zoning and building code rules -- and occasional approval of their construction projects over the objections of neighborhood activists. Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who is retiring from the council after 20 years, is a moderate who generally has not stood in the way of developers. "We're at a real pivotal moment in our city in my opinion," said Tom Brenneke, a Smith supporter who is president of a local development firm. He likened Smith to Saltzman, calling both "balanced and predictable." Brenneke and three other real estate executives who have fundraised for Smith all said they support her in part because of her campaign to use Wapato as a homeless shelter and services center. "Loretta had the guts to stand up and say, 'Let's do something productive with Wapato,'" Brenneke said, referencing Smith's support for the plan despite opposition from the rest of the Multnomah County board of commissioners. Smith strongly backs the Wapato shelter idea and has made it a central tenet of her city council campaign. She says people on the streets, most of whom struggle with addiction or mental health conditions, need a stable place indoors like the former jail would provide to get stabilized before finding housing. Hardesty strongly opposes the plan, going so far as to call its supporters "idiots," in part because it is not being spearheaded by the homeless. The never-used jail is located in an industrial part of far-north Portland far from bus lines, social services centers and neighborhoods. And many question the optics of having people sleep in former jail cells due to poverty or mental health needs. Chris Nelson, co-founder of development firm Capstone Partners, said in an email he backs Smith's Wapato plan as a "one bold (albeit controversial) partial solution to addressing this huge problem in our community." Moreover, builders said they find Smith more open-minded about development than Hardesty, who supports rent control, has spoken unfavorably about real estate incentives and briefly backed a moratorium on construction of luxury housing. "Jo Ann made some statements that maybe made our industry nervous," said Jim Mark, chief executive of commercial real estate firm Melvin Mark Companies. Mark cast Smith, on the other hand, as someone "you can get behind, but who you're not going to agree with all the time." DiLorenzo, who has vocally opposed the city tenants union to which Hardesty is allied, put his views flatly, calling Hardesty "a radical." Jim Winkler, president of a firm that builds residential and commercial real estate, said his decision to back Smith was due in large part to what he said is a need for more rational policy coming from City Hall. "I want someone who's involved in the decision chain to listen," Winkler said. "I think we're more likely to get that with Loretta than Jo Ann." For her part, Smith said she's demonstrated that open mindedness to developers during her eight years as a county commissioner. "They know that I have an open door even if we disagree," she said. -- Gordon R. Friedman Have a tip about Portland City Hall? Contact Gordon: GFriedman@Oregonian.com A company that processed donation payments for Patriot Prayer has cut ties with Vancouver, Washington-based organization after it was barraged by calls from critics over the last several days. When Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that supporters of the right-wing group had posted a security force on the upper levels of a downtown parking garage during one of its regular incursions into the city, the Oregon chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations began urging Patriot Prayer's critics to contact GivingFuel. But it wasn't until an opinion column on the group's leader, Joey Gibson, in The Sunday Oregonian drew intense backlash that the message really took hold, CAIR Chairman Zakir Khan said. He and CAIR had been urging GivingFuel to sever ties with Patriot Prayer for months, Khan said. Gibson said the site had been fielding complaints about its relationship with him for much longer. The volume of complaints had gotten to be too much, Gibson said representatives told him. "I respect them as a private organization to do whatever they need to do in terms of how they want to make money," Gibson said. "They're a small company. From what I understand, it was a financial decision." GivingFuel in a statement told The Oregonian/OregonLive it felt "the actions of Patriot Prayer fell outside of our terms of use." "Our goal is to empower organizations to positively impact the world and we make great software to help them do it," the company said. "This was not a political decision." GivingFuel did not say how Patriot Prayer violated its rules. But the group has long drawn the ire of left-leaning groups and officials for the violence that pervades its Portland rallies. Ultimately, that's what CAIR and other critics voiced to GivingFuel over the last several months. "I think most people in Portland, if not all, are against these far-right militant groups coming into town," Khan said. "If Joey Gibson's group had respect for any people who have experienced trauma, I think they wouldn't come into Portland anymore." Gibson said the loss of GivingFuel as a conduit for donations won't impact his organization's bottom line much. He's already shopping around for another payment processor, he said. Gibson will also continue to visit Portland. He's attending another rally in Portland Nov. 17, this one organized by one of his longtime Patriot Prayer lieutenants. "When I open up a new account with a different company, I'll probably get a big response with a lot of donations," he said. "It's probably going to help me in the long run." --Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344 ecampuzano@oregonian.com Police along Oregon's southern coast shot and killed a suicidal man Saturday who aimed his shotgun at officers and fired, Coos County District Attorney R. Paul Frasier announced in a statement. The fatal shooting occurred in Bandon after a nearly 4 1/2 standoff. The Bandon man who died, 65-year-old Robert Charles Foster, attempted to commit suicide last month by trying to hang himself from a bridge. He reportedly told officers on Saturday to "come and kill me," the district attorney said. Frasier said preliminary information suggests Foster planned his actions "with the intent of provoking the police to shoot and kill him." Foster called police at about 11:30 a.m. on Saturday and threatened to set off an explosion, the district attorney said. Foster had parked a pickup truck about 100 yards behind a church and was seen with a shotgun. An acquaintance of Foster's also told police he claimed to have filled milk jugs with gasoline and had a full propane tank inside a plastic garbage can in the back of his truck. Police used a drone to fly over the truck and spotted milk jugs and a trash can, the district attorney said. A negotiator attempted to communicate with Foster over a speaker system for several hours, according to the district attorney. But Foster exited his truck with a shotgun at about 3:50 p.m. Eight minutes later, Foster "pointed the shotgun in the direction of the officers and fired one round from the shotgun," the district attorney said. Officers shot back at Foster, who died on scene. The six officers who fired at Foster are on paid administrative leave, as is customary in such shootings. The district attorney did not immediately release the officers' names but identified them as: two Oregon State Police troopers, two deputies from the Coos County Sheriff's Office, one officer from the Coquille Police Department and one officer from the North Bend Police Department. Foster tried to commit suicide on Oct. 11, the district attorney said. But Bandon's police chief and a sheriff's deputy tackled Foster before he could jump from a bridge. -- Brad Schmidt bschmidt@oregonian.com 503-294-7628 @_brad_schmidt An Australian man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after a judge ruled that he'd helped his wife commit suicide in 2014 to reap more than $1 million in life insurance -- a conviction that is believed to be the first of its kind in the country. Prosecutors said 69-year-old Graham Robert Morant of Queensland persuaded his 56-year-old wife, Jennifer Morant, to kill herself in her car on Nov. 30, 2014. He reportedly drove her to a hardware store to buy the supplies she needed to do so, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company. According to the report, Jennifer Morant suffered from chronic pain, anxiety and depression at the time of her death. She had three life insurance policies worth $1.4 million in Australian dollars, of which Graham Morant was the sole beneficiary. She was discovered with a note that said "please don't resuscitate me." Last month, a jury found Morant guilty of counseling and aiding suicide. The former charge carries a maximum 10-year sentence, which Morant will serve concurrently with the six-year sentence of aiding suicide, according to the BBC. "You took advantage of her vulnerability as a sick and depressed woman," Judge Peter Davis said during the sentencing Friday. "You counseled your wife to kill herself because you wanted to get your hands on the $1.4 million." Davis said Morant had "not shown any remorse" for his actions, and that his financial status as of 2014 made his sinister intentions even more apparent. Prosecutors allege that Morant was in debt, had limited funds and wanted to spend the funds on a religious commune "as a haven from the biblical rapture." Morant initially said he had nothing to do with his wife's suicide, according to ABC. During the trial, Jennifer Morant's friend Judy Dent said that before her death, Jennifer Morant had "made it clear her husband wanted the insurance money." Dent testified that Jennifer Morant told her: "I have to kill myself and Graham will be helping me." After the sentencing, Dent told ABC she'd remember Morant for her "bubbly, very full-on, very engaging" personality. "I don't think there's any winners in this situation and it's been a long four years," Dent said. The case has parallels with that of a young American woman, Michelle Carter, who was convicted last year in the death of her boyfriend after she'd pushed him to commit suicide through calls and texts. She was sentenced to two and half years in a correctional facility, with 15 months suspended. Morant will be eligible for parole Oct. 23, 2023. -- The Washington Post The following year, President Woodrow Wilson established Armistice Day to commemorate the end of the war, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website. The name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day in 1954 to honor all who served in the military. Is Islam, as such oppressive to women? The situation is more complex than many in the West presume it to be. A trio of passages that I found worthy of note in John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007): Is Islam the Problem? Because anti-women views are often believed to result from religious sentiment, important questions that must be asked are: Does religiosity among Muslim men correlate with less egalitarian views toward women? Is there merit to the arguments of those who say that womens lagging status in much of the Muslim world is attributable to Islamic principles? Our data analysis would say no to both questions. When we compared the men who say that women and men should have the same legal rights with men who espouse the opposite view, for the most part, we found little difference in their degree of religiosity. In fact, in Lebanon, Morocco, and Iran, men who support womens rights are found to be more religious than those who do not support womens rights. The only exception among the eight countries included in this analysis is Turkey, where the opposite is true. In Turkey, in contrast to other parts of the Muslim world, religiosity correlates heavily with lack of education, which could explain this result. A similar trend is evident among men convicted of honor killings, long believed to be the result of religious zeal. For example, research indicates that 69.4% of the men who committed honor killings in Jordan did not perform their daily prayers, and 55.5% did not fast. That these men fail to observe the most obligatory rituals of Islam suggests that their act of murder is not motivated by religious zeal or devotion. Rather, other factors normally associated with criminal behavior are more likely to play a role. For example, most of these men had a record of violent behavior: 35.1% had already served sentences for previous crimes. Furthermore, 32.4% were illiterate, only 3.7% had attended college, and 24.1% were brought up in broken homes. (123-124) While Westerners still often see the veil as a symbol of womens inferior status in the Muslim world, to Muslims, Western womens perceived lack of modesty signals their degraded cultural status in the West. (109-110) The data simply do not support the persistent popular perception in the West that Muslim women cant wait to be liberated from their culture and adopt the ways of the West. (110) An arsonist who set fire to a house with four children inside deserves the 18- to 120-year prison sentence he is serving, a state Superior Court panel has decided. In fact, James M. Dubrock should be glad hes not serving multiple sentences for murder, President Judge Emeritus John Bender stressed in the state courts opinion. Dubrock directly jeopardized the lives of six individuals, including four minors, in one heinous act, Bender wrote. It was fortune alone that prevented catastrophe in this case. Investigators said a surveillance camera filmed Dubrock, now 35, dousing the porch of the home in Summerville, Jefferson County, with gasoline and setting it alight around 1 a.m. on Feb. 20, 2016. A 15-year-old boy in the house saw the flames and alerted the other occupants, who escaped unharmed. The others in the home at the time were a married couple, two boys ages 5 and 3, and an 8-month-old girl. Dubrocks wife was the ex-wife of the homeowner. The blaze caused about $10,000 in damage. Police said they arrested Dubrock when they found him nearby wearing clothing that reeked of gas. Dubrock received his jail term after he pleaded no contest to six arson charges. On appeal, he claimed that punishment is manifestly unreasonable because no one was harmed by the fire. The teenager who just happened to be awake when the blaze erupted - not Dubrock - is the one to thank for that, Bender observed. In the aftermath of the synagogue shooting last weekend that left 11 members of a Jewish congregation dead, media outlets zeroed in on the fact that suspect Robert Bowers was treated by Jewish staff at Allegheny General Hospital. Bowers was treated by at least three Jewish doctors and nurses, hospital President Jeffrey K. Cohen told Pittsburghs WTAE. Were here to take care sick people. Were not here to judge you, Cohen said. One of those staff members took to Facebook on Saturday, a week after the shootings, to describe his experience with Bowers. Ari Mahler is a trauma nurse who watched himself being talked about on numerous media outlets, including CNN, Fox News, PBS and local news stations about the fact that he did his job. Mahler, the son of a rabbi who experienced anti-Semitism as a child, said he did not see evil when he looked into Bowers' eyes, but rather a clear lack of depth, intelligence, and palpable amounts of confusion. Robert Bowers thanked me for saving him, for showing him kindness, and for treating him the same way I treat every other patient, Mahler wrote. This was the same Robert Bowers that just committed mass homicide. The Robert Bowers who instilled panic in my heart worrying my parents were two of his 11 victims less than an hour before his arrival. Mahler added that Bowers had no idea that he was Jewish, and he did not disclose this fact during Bowers' treatment. Besides, if he finds out Im Jewish, does it really matter? The better question is, what does it mean to you? Mahler wrote. Love. Thats why I did it. Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why were all here. The meaning of life is to give meaning to life, and love is the ultimate force that connects all living beings. Read Mahlers full post below: Twenty-three is the magic number. That's how many seats Democrats need to "flip" in Tuesday's mid-term election to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January. Republican strategist Charlie Gerow (PennLive file) Democrats have three things going for them in their quest to take those 23 seats. First, history is on their side. For a century and a half, mid-term elections have been rough on the party that holds the White House. On average, the party in the minority picks up more than 30 seats, far more than necessary for the Democrats to control the House. Sometimes the losses by the majority are devastating. Barack Obama lost more than 60 seats for his party in his first mid-term election. Few are willing to bet that Donald Trump won't cover that over/under in 2018. Second, the Democrats have enjoyed an "enthusiasm gap" or voter intensity advantage for most of the campaign year. Mid-terms produce a far smaller turnout than in presidential years. Voter enthusiasm drives turnout and turnout determines the outcome of many mid-term contests. Recently, though, Republican enthusiasm and intensity have begun to surge. It began in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings and has continued to steadily increase. Election campaigns are fueled by momentum, and it has shifted to the Republicans as the campaign comes to a conclusion. Finally, Democrats looked to pick up many of the 44 seats being vacated by incumbent Republicans through retirement, resignation or running for other office. Open seats, where neither candidate enjoys the power of incumbency, are the best opportunity for pickups. Democrats have targeted more than half of those 44 seats. Many of those seats are right here in the Keystone State. More than one-third of our congressional delegation elected two years ago will not be returning in January due to retirement, resignation or running for higher office. Adding to that was the "Judicialmandering" of the state's congressional districts by the state Supreme Court earlier this year. All of a sudden, incumbents had new constituencies and open seats looked very different. As a result, Pennsylvania once again became the epicenter of a national battle. Most states don't even have seven members of Congress, much less seven open seats. And few have as many competitive seats as Pennsylvania. Democrats bet heavily on capturing seats in the collar counties around Philadelphia where President Trump is less popular than in other parts of the state. Their strategy appears to be working. In the new 1st District, however, moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick will likely hold on to his seat although by a slim margin. In the other seats around Philadelphia, Democrats appear to be in better shape. It was always going to be very difficult for Republicans to hold on to the seats vacated by Patrick Meehan, who resigned, and Ryan Costello, who announced his retirement after the filing deadline for the May primary. Those seats may well be lost to the Democrats as may the new 7th District seat, formerly held by Charlie Dent. Republicans originally thought they had a good shot at retaining the seat when the Democrats nominated a left-wing candidate instead of a more moderate standard-bearer. But a poor campaign by the Republican has left the seat vulnerable. If Susan Wild takes the 7th, Madeleine Dean the neighboring 4th, and Mary Gay Scanlon Chrissy Houlahan capture the Meehan (5th) and Costello (6th) seats, Pennsylvania will have four women representing four contiguous districts. That would be a first, not only for the commonwealth, but also for the nation. On the other side of the state, a race pitting two incumbents, Conor Lamb and Keith Rothfus, is also a tough one for the GOP. Lamb entered the race with media star power left over from his special election victory earlier in the year. Rothfus, an outstanding congressman, had a very steep hill to climb in the face of all that. In an interesting twist, Republicans will pick up the seat currently occupied by Lamb as state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler goes to Washington. Democrats also targeted some traditionally less likely seats, including a couple here in the mid-state. National Democrats and outside interest groups poured money into the districts of Scott Perry and Lloyd Smucker hoping that lightening might strike. While they made both races much closer than they otherwise would have been, both Perry and Smucker should get re-elected, although by smaller margins than they would like. Ditto with the new 16th Congressional District seat in northwestern Pennsylvania currently held by Rep. Mike Kelly. If Democrats win that seat there's a Blue Wave coming off Lake Erie, as well as from every other direction. Republicans would truly be in real trouble. Turnout will, of course, be the key. We shouldn't need any more encouragement than we've already gotten to be at the polls on Tuesday. Pennsylvania is once again the key. PennLive Opinion contributor Charlie Gerow is the CEO of Quantum Communications in Harrisburg. His 'Elephants & Donkeys' column appears weekly opposite progressive commentator Kirstin Snow. It's all so overwhelming. And people are tired. Exhausted. They're Sick of the rhetoric and saddened by the news on a daily basis. Kirstin Snow (PennLive file) Pennsylvania has seen some of its worst tragedies the past week including the mass murder of congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill outside Pittsburgh and a child run over and left for dead at a bus stop in Tyrone. If the nastiness of the comments sections on these stories bear any testimony to the tensions we're feeling as a nation, Election Days and the following days will prove only to bring more ugliness to the surface. But that can't stop us. Staring down our nation's likely most important midterm elections ever- our duty to cast our vote may never be more imperative than at this moment, and Pennsylvanians are playing the nation's lead role in the move to turn the US House of Representatives back to blue. We must turn outrage into action at the polls. The right to vote is one of the most vital tenets of American democracy. When you get to your polling place, it's important to know the law. Only voters who have never voted at that precinct before are required to show identification, according to Pennsylvania law. That identification does not have to be photo identification, but it must contain your name and address. It is illegal for poll workers to require you to present photo ID, law states. Just because your name is not in the poll book, does not mean you are not registered to vote, according to a release from Gov. Tom Wolf's office. Voting officials should call the county board of elections to confirm your status. Additionally, if you have limited English language proficiency, you are legally permitted to bring someone into the voting booth with you to assist in casting your vote. More voting rights information can be found here. The races for Governor and US Senate appear to be leaning democratic. This in no way means your vote isn't important as the rest of the docket has the most ability to directly affect the way in which you live, work and play. Several of the state's U.S. House races have morphed into near dead heats, particularly in central Pennsylvania. What many would have considered an easy win for GOP incumbent Scott Perry is now considered a toss up with him facing democratic challenger George Scott. With redrawn districts as a result of past gerrymandering, the new regions appear to lean left. Much like the gubernatorial candidates, Scott and Perry couldn't be more different with the keen exception that they both have stellar military service records. Perry is a member of the Freedom Caucus- the most conservative and unyielding group in the House. Scott, a Lutheran pastor, said he would join the Problem Solvers Caucus (Perry used to be a member, then quit.) The Problem Solvers is a bipartisan caucus looking to build legislative bridges rather than walls. If there's anything we need in Washington now, it's more problem solvers and fewer problem creators. Another race that wasn't expected to be as close as it is currently is between GOP incumbent Lloyd Smucker and democratic challenger Jess King in the 11th District. The district leans heavily Republican, yet King has made significant progress with her grassroots campaign style. Again, the two couldn't be more different with polar opposite views on healthcare, college debt, medicare, and immigration. Finally, the nation's pols have continued to follow the race in district 17 between two rare incumbents as a result of redistricting. Democrat Conor Lamb is leading republican Keith Rothfus in polling, and the GOP has pulled its funding from the Rothfus campaign to focus on closer races across the country. The differences between the two aren't as stark as those previously mentioned. Still, in their latest rapid-fire debate, the House nominees in the new 17th Congressional District stayed cordial while illuminating differences including the minimum wage, gun control and the Capitol Hill testimony of Christine Blasey Ford. WTAE-TV hosted the hour-long event, which C-SPAN carried nationally. No matter how apathetic or angry we may have become during this election cycle, please, do not miss this opportunity to let your voice be heard on matters of national, state and local importance. Vote-- because literally- your life and that of your family could depend on it. PennLive Opinion contributor Kirstin Snow is the principal of Snow Public Affairs in Harrisburg. Her "Donkeys & Elephants" column appears weekly opposite conservative commentator Charlie Gerow. Kayaking Around Specks in the Ocean in Belize Story and photos by Tim Leffel An off-the-grid camping base on Glover's Atoll of Belize offers a way to completely unplug the electronics and watch an underwater show instead. As my kayak cuts through the clear water, I catch fleeting glimpses of orange and yellow tropical fish when I near a coral reef. Occasionally a more vigorous one catapults up from below and flies across the surface. This is all a pleasant diversion when paddling along in open water. The black mass moving toward me, however, is vaguely unsettling as it gets closer, my "friend or foe" Cro-Magnon instincts putting me on guard. As its shape becomes clearer though it's a thing of beauty, a spotted eagle ray with a four-foot wingspan gliding right beside me then going on his way. I'm on Glover's Atoll in Belize, a roughly oval shaped collection of tiny connected islands and rocky outcrops that goes on for 20 miles, far away from the fancy vacation resorts of Ambergris Caye. We're nearly 40 miles from the mainland out here. We're nowhere near any shipping lanes or permanent settlements. We've arrived by motorboat but are now mostly moving around on our own power, by kayak or paddleboard, adjusting our body clocks to the sun's schedule. At night we dine by the light from solar-powered batteries and gas lamps in our platform tents. Belize is a poster child for growing the economy of a sparsely populated country through tourism. Like any destination welcoming far more visitors than it has residents, however, there are bound to be negative sentiments bandied about by both locals and visitors. It's overrun, it's spoiled, the cruise ships have ruined everything. You should have seen it in the good ole days... I have mixed feelings about all the "progress" too, but in the end it's up to the people of Belize to decide the right mix. They do still have an admirably tiny number of chain hotels, even among the luxury resorts, and almost no chain restaurants. Through flashes of action now and then, they give more than lip service to sustainability and the environment. Most politicians and business leaders seem to inherently know this is a fragile landscape, that they are stewards of a country-long reef, a jaguar jungle, and a small land footprint threatened by rising sea levels. For me this trip to a far-flung atoll is a chance to see the original Belize, the one that existed when one of Island Expeditions' founders Denver Willson-Rymer arrived here the same decade the country officially became independent and was smitten. "I came down here in the mid-80s from Canada looking for a way to maybe make some money in our dead winter season," he says as we meet up at their jungle camp Bocawina Resort. "We started running kayak trips around the islands and we managed to get a few more bookings each year to keep growing. There were plenty of bumps to get over and there still are, but last year we celebrated our 30-year anniversary." Unplugged on a Tropical Island After rappelling waterfalls and spotting parrots and aracaris at Bocawina jungle lodge, I ride into Dangriga and board the boat out to Glover's Reef Atoll. After a long ride, we pull up to a dock with a hammock and see gleaming white tents with wood decks waiting for us. The tour of the facilities by our local guide and activities director Michael doesn't take all that long. We've got shared bathrooms at the back, a kitchen where the cook Freddy reigns, a dining and drinking area, and our sleeping quarters. Nothing fancy, but we can take a shower and sleep on a mattress, so more than the basic needs are covered. We can charge our devices by the solar power outlet strip, but apart from taking photos and reading, this is a time to shut the gadgets off. There's no signal out here except a weak satellite Wi-Fi one at the other end of the island at a hotel's bar. This is a place to stare at sunrises and stars instead of screens. We spend much of our time staring at what's under the water. Most days there's some kind of snorkeling excursion, exploring different sections of the main reef making up this atoll, plus some of the 700 patch reefs in the vast area inside it. This marine reserve and UNESCO World Heritage site is a unique one, a vast open-water lagoon surrounded by a necklace of coral, with steep drop-offs not far off the reef's edge. We're well beyond the barrier reef that extends from the Riviera Maya of Mexico down through Honduras. From the air the atoll is a patch of light blue in a dark blue sea, like a fabric patch on a pair of jeans. This area is known for its pillar coral, large stalks that extend up a meter or more. The creatures swimming around them vary a bit each time, including eels, rays, and sea turtles. Always there's an abundance of fish, from barracuda and angel fish, trigger fish and nurse sharks. Usually a huge grouper or two will swim by and elicit some soundless underwater "Ahhh"s. For proof that Belize stakeholders are at least trying to strike a balance between the environment and commerce, the Nassau Grouper story is good showpiece. The fish was severely threatened in the '00s as commercial overfishing was depleting stocks and disrupting spawning patterns. The Belize Fisheries Department formed a coalition with a half dozen environmental groups, NGOs, and fishing organizations to come up with an equitable solution that would stop the decline. The eventual managed access program agreement allows territorial fishing rights to small-scale local fisherman, while protecting 10% of the waters as "no take zones" where no fishing at all is allowed. The Glover's Reef Atoll was the first testing ground for the concept, with parts of the area available for fishing and other parts off-limitswith serious fines for violations. This has meant free reign for fish watching where the snorkelers and scuba divers are, while still allowing the fishermen to continue their family businesses in other spots. Fishing by Hand Line in Belize We get a taste of what it's like to fish these waters the first full day, when a distant storm has kicked up the waves, making it too rough for snorkeling or kayaking. In a motorboat we head out to one of the designated fishing areas with nothing but reels of fishing line, hooks, and squid for bait. I don't have very high hopesI've been on fishing trips where most of the time was spent waiting for something to happen. On this one though, it doesn't take long after the motor is shut off before various people in the group start shouting after feeling a tug on the line. Continue to Page 2 Philae Temple Complex The ancient Egyptian name of Philae was Pilak, from which the Greek and Latin Philae was derived. During the Islamic era, it was known to the local people as El-Oasr, the "Castle," or as Geziret Anas el-Wogud, after the hero of one of the tales in the "Arabian Nights," who traced his beloved to the island, where she had been locked up by her father. The oldest surviving temple buildings here date from the time of Nectanebo I (circa 370 BC) and the principal deity worshiped was Isis, although Osiris, Nephthys, Hathor, and the cataract gods Khnum and Satet were also venerated. The imposing buildings that stand today were erected by the Ptolemies in the last two centuries BC and by the Roman Emperors in the first three centuries AD. Many inscriptions show that pilgrims flocked to Philae in Greek and Roman times to pay homage to the mysterious and benign Isis, goddess of healing. Long after the introduction of Christianity, the Nubians remained faithful to the cult of Isis, and it was only in the time of Justinian (AD 527-565) that the temples were closed and some of their chambers converted for use in Christian worship. From then until the coming of Islam, a Coptic town flourished on the island. Until the construction of the first Aswan Dam the island ranked as one of the most beautiful places in Egypt and attracted large numbers of visitors every year. Thereafter it was under water for the greater part of the year and the temples were accessible only between August and December. The construction of Egypt's High Dam project threatened to engulf them for good, but they were saved from this fate by the great international rescue operation sponsored by UNESCO and carried out between 1972 and 1980. The island of Philae was surrounded by a cofferdam, and the area within this was drained; then a new site was prepared on the neighboring island of Agilika, the temples were broken up into sections, which were carefully numbered, and they were then re-erected in the same relative positions on Agilika. As you're walking around the temple, note the gray coloring of the lower part of the walls and columns. This is the effect of their annual immersion over the time period between the two dams. Despite those years of annual immersion and then being moved stone-by-stone to an entirely new site, the imposing and magnificently preserved temples of Philae still retain their power to impress. 10.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard A group of Republican voters in Arizona was interviewed, and a common theme emerged. They wont vote for Republican candidates while Trump is president. It is important to see the words in the exchange that an NBC News reporter had with Arizona voters: Q: Who did you vote for? GOP Voter: Sinema. Q: The Democrat? GOP Voter: Yes. Video: A group of Republican voters in Arizona was interviewed, and a common theme emerged. They wont vote for Republican candidates while Trump is president. https://t.co/9LBE5yOqwa pic.twitter.com/l9sFWYpsBg Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) November 4, 2018 Q: Do you usually vote Democrat? GOP Voter: No. Q: Are you Republican? GOP Voter: Yes. But not anymore. Im changing. The Republican Party is not the same as it used to be. Q: Do you usually vote Democrat? GOP Voter: No. Registered Republican. Q: Why vote for Sinema, then? GOP Voter: To change things up. GOP Voter: Not too happy with the state of the Republican party right now. GOP Voter: Im a former Republican, and Im taking a break from voting for any Republicans as long as Donald Trump is president. Q: Why not Martha McSally? GOP Voter: Shell support his policies. Trump is hurting Republican candidates in the midterm The picture that is beginning to emerge in the final days of the midterm election is that Donald Trump is pushing voters out of the Republican Party with his extremist rhetoric. Trump is making the Republican Party smaller, whiter, and more male than ever before. Voters are not just rejecting Trump. They are beginning to reject anyone who stands beside him or with him. The rejection of Trump is why the economic numbers dont matter. Jobs reports are meaningless because the decision that voters are making no matter which issue is their top priority is based on how they feel about Trump and the direction that he is taking the country in. Trump is literally voters who used to support his party to the Democrats. Donald Trump is making the Democratic Party bigger while moving the older GOP white male dinosaurs inch closer to extinction. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 535 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Brendan OBrien and Alex Dobuzinskis (Reuters) A gunman who killed two women at a Florida yoga studio and wounded five other people before taking his own life had previously been accused of harassing young women, police said on Saturday. Authorities said they do not know why Scott Beierle, 40, opened fire on Friday afternoon after posing as a customer to join the class at the Hot Yoga studio in Tallahassee. Detectives are searching for links between him and the victims. The bloodshed prompted the citys mayor, Andrew Gillum, who is also Floridas Democratic candidate for governor, to halt his campaign temporarily and return to Tallahassee. The two women who died were identified as a student and a faculty member from Florida State University. Police said Beierle was a graduate of FSU who served in the military, and that he had been the subject of calls to authorities in the Tallahassee area related to harassment of young women. In a statement, police said Beierle was staying in a local hotel at the time of the attack, and that investigators were also searching his home in Deltona, Florida, more than 200 miles (322 km) southeast of Tallahassee. Police did not give more details on incidents involving Beierle and young women. Citing court records, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported that he was arrested in 2012 and 2016 on charges of grabbing womens buttocks, but both cases were dismissed. An attorney who previously represented Beierle could not be reached for comment. Two women who were wounded in the shooting remained hospitalized in stable condition on Saturday, police said. Two other shooting victims and a man who was pistol-whipped by Beierle were treated and released. There were indications that several people not only fought back but tried to save other people, Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo said at a news conference. DOCTOR AND STUDENT One of the women killed was identified as Nancy Van Vessem, 61, a doctor specializing in internal medicine who was a member of the faculty at Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee. The other was named as Maura Binkley, a 21-year-old student at FSU. Their deaths were just devastating to the FSU family, said the universitys president, John Thrasher. Van Vessem also worked as chief medical director for Capital Health Plan, which described her in a statement as a guiding, visionary force and one of the most respected, inspiring, and accomplished medical professionals in the state and country. FSU said her research was focused on restructuring healthcare for people with multiple chronic diseases. According to the Miami Herald newspaper, Binkley had attended Dunwoody High School in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, and was a senior at FSU with an English and German double major. She participated in an FSU exchange program over the summer and spent four months studying at the University of Wuppertal, near Dusseldorf in Germany. It can be really scary at first knowing that you are going to spend a semester far away from home, Binkley told Florida State University News upon her return. But in the end, the experience is so rewarding and makes the world seem so small. Among officials who went to the studio after the shooting was city commissioner Scott Maddox. In my public service career, I have had to be on some bad scenes. This is the worst. Please pray, Maddox posted on Facebook. Dozens of yoga practitioners gathered on Saturday morning for an open-air session in front of the State Capitol. Called Yoga For A Cause, the event was in support of people affected by Hurricane Michael. The Tallahassee Police Department posted a photo of the gathering on Facebook with the quote It holds so much meaning and the hashtags #TallyStrong and #OurCityOurHome. (Reporting by Brendan OBrien in Milwaukee and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Matthew Lewis and Dan Grebler) 102 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) Criticized by lawmakers and others for being unable or unwilling to stop false and inflammatory information about divisive political issues, social media and tech companies say they are doing more to boost voter turnout for next Tuesdays U.S. congressional elections. Snap Inc, Facebook Inc and other firms will remind users to vote and link to a nonprofit guide for identifying the correct polling place, ballot items and hours. The involvement of sites that appeal to younger users is encouraging to some democracy advocates, who worry about lower electoral participation by younger voters. Only about 17 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds voted in the previous congressional elections in 2014, though some opinion polls say the proportion could be much higher this year. Democrats are generally favored to win the 23 seats they need to wrest the majority from Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, an advantage they could use to block President Donald Trumps agenda of hardline immigration policy and other Republican positions that are anathema to Democrats. Republicans have a stronger chance of keeping control of the Senate, according to opinion polls and nonpartisan forecasters. Santa Monica, California-based Snap on Thursday said it would send a rare blast message to all of its U.S. users on election day, Nov. 6. The message will include the link to poll location information. Snap typically sends such messages only on holidays. The companys Snap Maps feature, which shows locations of users who opt in and locations of special activity, will also link to polling location data. It will be the first time that the feature, which had 100 million monthly users in February, contains a link to an outside service, Gettothepolls.com, which draws its material from state officials. Mike Ward, program director of TurboVote, the nonprofit project working with the big tech companies and the states, welcomed the map feature. A previous Snap effort to steer users to registration information, including online applications in the more than 30 states that offer them, drew 400,000 people. Facebook and Spotify will also display the Gettothepolls.com link. Facebook and other social media will also prompt people to signal to their friends when theyve voted, which Ward said is effective. Car service company Lyft said it will offer free rides through a number of nonprofits, including the League of Women Voters. Rival Uber last week simplified its procedure for offering free or discounted rides, directly knocking $10 off the cheapest version of its ride-hailing service. (Reporting by Joseph Menn; editing by Grant McCool) 4.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard It is no secret to the American public, that Fox News is Mr. Trumps favorite news outlet, with Fox & Friends being his go-to show. As Charles Blow, Opinion Writer for the New York Times makes clear: This show, with its kindergarten-level intellectual capacity, moved from parroting conservative policies to constructing presidential priorities. Fox & Friends has essentially become Donald Trumps daily briefing. Dubbing the news outlet and Mr. Trump as the Trump-Fox feedback loop, Politico concluded after three months of monitoring Mr. Trumps Twitter feed, that Trump was simply live Tweeting Fox and Friends talking points. Put another way: While Trump has access to one of, if not the best, intelligence apparatus in the world, one that has a budget of 73 million dollars per year, it is apparent he prefers to rely on conservative cable news hosts to understand current events. What seems to Americans across this land to be nothing more than random thoughts stirring through Trumps brain, actually have their etiology in Fox News programming. Case in point: Matthew Gertz, Senior Fellow for Media Matters for America concludes: On Tuesday morning, for instance, on his first morning back in Washington after an 11-day vacation, the president tweeted what I believe were five consecutive tweets based on Foxs programming. The network, and specifically their flagship morning show, Fox and Friends have led Trump to publicly proclaim that Huma Abedin, the former Secretary of States aide should be imprisoned. Furthermore, Trumps Tweets regarding the NFL, the concocted Uranium One scandal against Mr. Trumps former opponent, and his attacks on the FBI premised on nothing but conspiracies each have their roots in the network and show. And just look how the network and show have provided Trump with talking points mostly false regarding the dreaded caravan. And lest anyone has forgotten, it is estimated that Mr. Trump spends approximately nine hours per day in what is termed Executive Time, leading him to being the most freewheeling President in modern-day political history, attempting to fulfill his role in one of the most regimented job position in the country. As Gertz points out in his piece in Politico; In December, Mediaite put the co-hosts of Fox & Friends at the top of its Most Influential in Media list, pointing out the topics they cover essentially set the national agenda for the rest of the day. Mediaite is not wrong. Later that day, Kellyanne Conway congratulated the hosts of Fox & Friends for the distinction, with Trump following up with his own note of congratulations urging the many Fake News Hate Shows to study your formula for success! The question then is, Why does Mr. Trump feel such an affinity for Fox News, specifically Fox & Friends, while referencing the rest of the media as fake news which he labels the enemy of the people, a highly charged characterization and attack on the nations first amendment right? Perhaps Ainsely Earhardt, co-host for Fox & Friends can assist here. On Thursday morning, after playing a video clip of Trump being pressed during his interview with Axios, specifically when Jim VandeHei asks Trump why he refers to the media as the enemy of the people, Trump responded as follows: It is my only form of fighting back. I couldnt be here if I didnt do that. After airing the clip of the interview, Ainsely Earhardt provides a rare moment of truth to the viewer. She states: How frustrating would it be if youre the president of the United States and every single time you turn on the TV on most of the channels, theyre misconstruing what you say? And you know your heart and you know your words and you know your voice, and then you watch other people report on what you say and its completely different than what you mean. That has to be frustrating. Thats why hes saying its fake news. And hes saying, if you dont want to be called the enemy, then get the story right, be accurate and report the story the way that I want it reported. First, has Earhardt lost her mind? Every single president who has served this nation has had some viewer misconstrue what they had been saying. How about former President Obama and Foxs selective editing on statements he made such as if you have a business, you didnt built that? Second, the most oft cited reason Trump supporters have given for being behind Mr. Trump is his ability to tell it like it is, right? According to Earhardt, Trump is failing in this department as much as he is failing to make good on his promises to the American people. In a similar vein, how many surrogates does the man need to interpret what he said, providing the public with hours of endless spin? And Earhardt wants us to believe the journalists are reporting something completely different than what Trump means? Spare us! Finally, and most importantly, Earhardt exposes what Trumps real issue with media outlets is with the last sentence of her statement: And hes saying, if you dont want to be called the enemy, then get the story right, be accurate and report the story the way I want it reported. And there you each have it folks. Trumps beef with the media is plain and simple: he wants all media outlets to report the story the way he wants it reported. If they dont, he considers those outlets, fake, and the enemy of the people. If that does not make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, I do not know what will. That is the kind of statement dictators and autocrats make. And this right here is the reason liberals and progressives must get out and vote on November, 6, 2018. For if we dont, we may very well not have a democracy left by the time the next election rolls around. Or worse, Fox News will be governing our Nation. 418 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Brendan OBrien (Reuters) Two women killed by a gunman who burst into a yoga class at a Florida shopping center were named on Saturday as a student and faculty member from Florida State University. Police who rushed to the Hot Yoga studio in Tallahassee on Friday afternoon after reports of gunfire found four other people with bullet wounds and the body of the 40-year-old shooter, Scott Beierle, who had apparently shot himself. The bloodshed prompted the citys mayor, Andrew Gillum, who is also Floridas Democratic candidate for governor, to temporarily halt his campaign and return to the city. Authorities said there were signs that members of the class had confronted Beierle after he opened fire inside the studio and then pistol-whipped one of them. There were indications that several people not only fought back but tried to save other people, Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo said at a news conference. Detectives were looking for any links between the gunman and the victims, he said. Two of the wounded remained in the hospital on Saturday in stable condition, police said. One of the two women killed was identified as Nancy Van Vessem, 61, a member of the clerkship faculty at Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee. The other was named as Maura Binkley, a 21-year-old student at FSU. Their deaths were just devastating to the FSU family, the universitys president, John Thrasher, wrote on Twitter. Gillum said on Twitter that no act of gun violence was acceptable. Tallahassees murder rate has been an issue in the governors race ahead of Tuesdays election, with Gillums opponent, Republican former U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis, accusing him of being weak on crime. Citing court records, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported that Beierle had a history of arrests for grabbing women. Among officials who went to the studio after the shooting was city commissioner Scott Maddox. In my public service career, I have had to be on some bad scenes. This is the worst. Please pray, Maddox posted on Facebook. Alex Redding, a patron at a nearby bar, told the Democrat that people came inside seeking assistance, saying a man had started shooting after acting strangely inside the yoga studio. Other victims, barefoot from their class, came into the bar in shock and barely able to speak, except to say shooter, the newspaper reported. (Reporting by Brendan OBrien in Milwaukee and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Matthew Lewis) 3.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The big crowds coming out for Barack Obama are in Trumps head, as the mentally teetering president mentioned crowd size three times in less than a minute while talking to reporters. Trump said, Im now leaving for Georgia. Ill be doing a rally. We have a tremendous number of people as you probably know standing outside trying to get in. Its for Brian Kemp. Were then going to Tennessee where we have a tremendous crowd. Were having a lot of crowds. I dont know what that means, but I guess we always have a lot of crowds. In Tennessee, its Marsha Blackburn. Shes doing well. Shes a great candidate. Shell be a great senator from Tennessee. That will be the second stop. Well have a busy day. Tremendous crowds. Video: The big crowds coming out for Barack Obama are in Trumps head, as the mentally teetering president mentioned crowd size three times in less than a minute while talking to reporters. https://t.co/KKdqv0KVfN pic.twitter.com/wiBUs2FkUM Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) November 4, 2018 Obama has been blowing Trump out of the water on crowd size, and it bothered the White House so much that over the weekend they released a statement claiming that Trumps crowd size on Friday was exactly the same as Obamas. Trumps always obsessed with crowd sizes. Trump will claim that he has big crowds when he doesnt, even as people are walking out while he is still talking. After his Sunday morning claim that he has record-high approval rating with African-Americans, Donald Trump is showing signs of being back on his trajectory of rejecting reality when things are not going well. One of the reasons why Republicans are struggling is that Trump treats Republican candidates like an afterthought. These rallies arent for the candidates. The rallies are for Trumps ego, and it is clear that the return of the popular Obama has punctured Trumps ego bubble, which is why he felt the need to obsessively mention the size of the crowd at rallies that he hasnt arrived at yet. As the hours pass, there are growing signs that Trump is cracking under the pressure of Democrats retaking all or part of Congress. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 8.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard It has been 263 days since Valentines Day. Now, with just two days until Election Day, many students from Stoneman Douglas High School are getting ready to cast their first votes. It was on Valentines Day that 17 of these students classmates and teachers were murdered at their Parkland, Florida high school. Since then most of them have turned politically active. They have held marches, school walkouts and voter-registration events throughout the country. The consensus is that they have really made a difference. But they have all been waiting for one big thing, and that occurs on Tuesday: their first Election Day. Since the horrific massacre at their school the student activists have made a huge effort to reach the 4 million U.S. citizens who turned 18 this year and are now eligible to vote for the first time. With the idealism of the young, they have been trying to counteract the voter apathy that is also prevalent among young people. They have been urging all voters old and young to support gun reform, in the name of their fallen classmates. It is kind of the culmination of everything weve been working for, said senior Jaclyn Corin, one of the founders of the March For Our Lives group. This is truly the moment that young people are going to make the difference in this country. Corin voted with her dad at an early polling site on her 18th birthday. She visited a half-dozen cities just last week. Shes been getting up at three in the morning to catch her planes going to far-flung destinations where she is carrying her inspirational message. Students like Corin, along with fellow students David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, have been living life in a whirlwind for months. They have had great support from many celebrities, they have been on the cover of Time magazine, and they have been on all the late night talk shows. They even have book deals. But none of that will mean anything unless they achieve their main goal, which is to motivate young voters to cast ballots by the end of the day on Tuesday. At the University of Central Florida (UCF) last week Stoneman Douglas graduate and current UCF student Bradley Thornton escorted other students to the nearest early voting location. Another UCF student said she wouldnt have voted if the Parkland student activists were not on campus. Ive never voted in an election. I actually did it because of them, the student said. Corin said she has run into a great deal of voter apathy as she has traveled around the country. She mentions that voter turnout in the last midterm elections in 2014was the lowest since World War II. Its really about tying it back to gun violence or tying it back to immigration or whatever that person is passionate about, Corin said. Ive used that tactic so many times and it has actually worked. It remains to be seen how much the votes of young people will impact this years midterms. But one thing we know for sure is that the inspired (and inspiring) students from Stoneman Douglas High School are doing everything they can to make the impact larger than it has ever been. In memory of their fallen classmates, they have wanted to make a difference, and that is something they have surely done, no matter what the outcome of the election on Tuesday. 927 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Chris Kahn and Daniel Trotta (Reuters) Hispanics are more interested in voting this year than in the last U.S. congressional midterm elections in 2014 and their enthusiasm outpaces that of all U.S. adults, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll released on Sunday. The poll also found likely Hispanic voters nearly twice as inclined to support Democrats for the House of Representatives as Republicans in Tuesdays elections. Voter registration groups are using Republican President Donald Trumps nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric as an opportunity to drive up Latino enthusiasm. In an illustration of their passion, one group that is part of an alliance that has reached out to more than 1 million potential voters in Arizona took its name from the Spanish word for fight. Most opinion polls and political handicappers expect Democrats to win the 23 seats they need to assume control of the House. Republicans are favored to keep control of the Senate. Latinos could play a crucial role in several races, from tight Senate battles in Arizona and Texas to Floridas close Senate and governors races. In California, the flourishing Latino population has helped put in play some Republican-controlled House districts Democrats hope to flip. The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken Sept. 1 to Oct. 29, found that 36 percent of Hispanic voters said they were certain to vote, up from 27 percent in 2014. That increase is nearly double the five percentage point rise in voter enthusiasm among all Americans over the same period, the poll showed. Enthusiasm appears especially high among Hispanic Democrats. Forty-two percent of Hispanic Democrats said they were certain to vote, up from 29 percent in 2014. Among likely Hispanic voters, 60 percent said they will vote for a Democratic candidate for the House, and 32 percent would back a Republican. Hispanics are a politically diverse group, with 55 percent of likely voters identifying as Democrats, 31 percent as Republicans and 12 percent as independent, the poll showed. Just over half, 53 percent, of likely Hispanic voters said they were very motivated to pick a candidate for Congress who opposes Trump, compared with 43 percent of all likely voters, 75 percent of likely Democratic voters and 9 percent of likely Republican voters. GET YOUR VOICE HEARD For candidates in border states with large Hispanic populations such as Arizona, a fundamental question is whether Latino voters will turn up in large numbers on Tuesday. The voting bloc has long held potential for the Democratic Party but often disappoints. Record-low Hispanic turnout in 2014 was a warning sign for both parties. Bea Nevarez hopes to turn that around, registering 800 people to vote this year. In the final days before the elections, she went door-to-door to encourage people to vote in Tucson. Nevarez, 18, works for a group called Lucha, a Spanish word meaning struggle or fight. It is a partisan affiliate of One Arizona, a broad alliance that says it has knocked on 1.5 million doors in the state this year, part of a broad grassroots effort to reverse declining Latino participation. One Arizona says it has registered 200,000 voters this year. Im out here trying to get your voice heard, Nevarez tells reluctant voters. Her persistence paid off when she knocked on the door of Jose Alberto and Norma Moreno, Mexican immigrants who are now U.S. citizens. Sitting at his kitchen table, Jose Alberto Moreno, 62, at first told Nevarez he had no intention of voting. I dont believe in any of that. All politicians are liars, said Moreno, who works at a furniture warehouse. But Nevarez insisted, engaging him in a conversation that eventually turned to healthcare, Morenos main concern. After a few minutes, he agreed to vote. Im going to do it now. She convinced me, Moreno said. The Republican National Committee said it has also reached out to voters in Arizona this year, as part of a drive in 11 states. Americas 29 million Latinos account for nearly 13 percent of eligible voters this year, but their turnout rate has declined since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center. Only 27 percent of eligible Latinos voted in the last midterm elections in 2014, and only 16 percent of those aged 18 to 35, Pew said. Some activists said they were motivated by watching Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff whose anti-immigrant policies brought his office multi-million-dollar penalties for racial profiling and eventually a contempt of court conviction. He maintained that the prosecution was political, aimed at helping oust him from office. Trump later pardoned him. We have seen an igniting of fear, division and violence under this (Trump) administration, but thats not new to Arizona, said Alejandra Gomez, a co-executive director of Lucha. We had the original Trump here under Arpaio. (Reporting by Chris Kahn in New York and Daniel Trotta in Tuscon, Arizona; Editing by Jason Szep and Grant McCool) 2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Trump responded to press criticism that he has been mispronouncing his words by trying to incite more violence against CNN. Here is a clip from the Trump campaign stop for Brian Kemp in Georgia: Crowd in Georgia chants CNN sucks as Trump attacks media for criticizing him over occasionally mispronouncing words. pic.twitter.com/GeADq0B9Pj Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 4, 2018 CNN had bombs mailed to their offices by a man who attended Trump rallies and was a hardcore Trump supporter. Instead of dialing down, Trump is doubling down, because fanning the flames is all that Trump knows how to do. A thoughtful person who respected the office that he holds and the power that comes with it would stop attacking media after one of their supporters mailed pipe bombs to his critics. Trump has responded to the pipe bombs by using the terrorism as a tool to try to incite more violence against CNN. When people say that this is the most important election of their lifetime, this is what they are talking about. A Democratic Congress wont be able to stop the words that come out of Trumps mouth, but voters can send Trump a message that his style of violence-inspiring hate-filled politics is a losing strategy. The rhetoric isnt going to change, so it is up to the voters to reject those who stand with and support Trump. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 1.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard President Trumps military deployment to the Mexican border will cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $200 million by the end of 2018, according to Pentagon figures. That number, which includes the cost of National Guard forces that have been there since April, will increase greatly if the deployments continue into 2019. Trump said he plans to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, which would roughly equal the size of the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. Since the Trump administration is calling on the Pentagon to cut unnecessary expenditures this amount of money is significant. Trump recently told the military it had to slash next years budget by $33 billion due to this years extremely large increase in the federal deficit. Many Trump critics, including military veterans and Democrats in Congress, have criticized him for wasting money in a politically motivated stunt ahead of Tuesdays midterm elections. Wasting money is not going over well in the Pentagon right now, when the military budget is under pressure to impose cutbacks. Over 100 House Democrats wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on November 1, saying: Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to make comprehensive, common-sense, and humane reforms to our immigration system, the President continues to turn to politically-motivated fear mongering and uses Department of Defense resources and personnel as a means to drive his troubling anti-immigration agenda. A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, tweeted that the deployment was wasteful: Our men and women in uniform are better trained, better equipped, and better led so they meet any threat with confidence. A wasteful deployment of over-stretched Soldiers and Marines would be made much worse if they use force disproportionate to the threat they face. They wont. Our men and women in uniform are better trained, better equipped, and better led so they meet any threat with confidence. A wasteful deployment of over-stretched Soldiers and Marines would be made much worse if they use force disproportional to the threat they face. They wont. GEN(R) Marty Dempsey (@Martin_Dempsey) November 1, 2018 The Trump administration still maintains that the deployment is necessary. The commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan, argued that the deployment is necessary to effectively and safely handle the possible arrival of thousands of migrants walking toward the border in caravans from Central America. But military planning documents, dated October 27 predict that only 20 percent of the migrants are likely to complete the journey to the border. This means the armed force protecting the United States could be ten times larger than the invading force of unarmed (and very tired) refugees. Although Defense Secretary Mattis said this week that the military doesnt do stunts, the deployment of such a large force does seem like a political stunt. The military has a lot of things that it needs to be doing these days, said a former Pentagon official. Looking at estimates of the size of the caravan, you could ask the question as to whether this is the most appropriate use of U.S. active-duty forces. 10.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Vigilantes with guns. Heavily armed white militias. This could be the scene at the United States border with Mexico very shortly as groups of civilians are answering President Donald Trumps call to arms. They are going to fight against the invasion of poor refugees that theyve been told is coming. They have heard the warnings from the president and from Fox News. that caravans of Central American migrants moving through Mexico pose a massive threat to American security. And they want to do something about it. They want to help the situation. So they have packed up their camping gear and weapons and stocked up on provisions and tanks of water. They even have aerial drones to allow them to keep a better eye on remote parts of the Mexican border. In fact, they are now forming their own caravans and will be following actual American military troops to the border areas where they believe the invasion will occur. Shannon McGauley, president of the Texas Minutemen, told The Washington Post that he is making preparations now so he can head to the border in a few days. Well observe and report, and offer aid in any way we can, McGauley said. Weve proved ourselves before, and well prove ourselves again. McGauley and other Minutemen have been inspired by Trumps call to restore order and defend the country. He believes Trump when he said there is going to be an invasion of thousands of Central American migrants. The invading force of poor refugees, including many women and children (all of whom are unarmed) has been advancing slowly through southern Mexico. Its not clear when (or even if) they will reach the Rio Grande River where McGauley and his men will be setting up camp. Trump has said many times that unknown Middle Easterners, very tough fighters, and large numbers of violent criminals are traveling in the caravans. McGauley said he probably has over 100 volunteers coming to defend the Rio Grande. I cant put a number on it, he said. My phones been ringing nonstop for the last seven days. You got other militias, and husbands and wives, people coming from Oregon, Indiana. Weve even got two from Canada. When The Post asked if his group would be using weapons against the migrants, McGauley laughed and said, This is Texas, man. U.S. military planners have issued warnings to Army commanders who have been told to watch out for the armed civilians. Armed vigilantes showing up beside thousands of U.S. troops, Border Patrol agents, police officers and migrants could make a tense situation even worse. It may even result in unwanted and unnecessary violence. Military officials have been expressing their concerns about what they call the arrival of unregulated militia members self-deploying to the border in alleged support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They believe that as many as 200 militia members could show up and get in the way of regular military and law enforcement operations. They operate under the guise of citizen patrols, a military report said. And there have been several incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments. Manuel Padilla Jr., the top Border Patrol officer in the region, has not yet given any new orders to his agents in the field. We dont have any specific information about the militias, Padilla said. We have seen them in the past, and when things start getting really busy, we have to make sure to let the community know theyre out there. But theyre doing that on their own, he added. McGauley said that the Militiamen plan to report suspicious activity to the proper authorities. But landowners in the area said they do not want the militias around. One such local resident, Michael Vickers, said that he will not let militia members from outside the area onto his property. He also said that he and other area landowners dont trust the outsiders. They are a bunch of guys with a big mouth and no substance to them, said Vickers. Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. Using words the students identified as necessary in order to understand what theyve been learning about wolves, they talked about how while English consistently uses the, Spanish has different articles based on the gender of the word and whether its plural and singular. A new full-service hotel is coming to Meeting Street. And according to the city board which voted to approve the project, there was nothing in the city's code to stop it. Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Michael Majchrowicz is a reporter covering crime and public safety. He previously wrote about courts for the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts. A Hoosier native, he graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism. Adam Parker has covered many beats and topics for The Post and Courier, including race and history, religion, and the arts. He is the author of "Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr.," published by Hub City Press. You are the owner of this article. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. Editorials represent the institutional view of the newspaper. They are written and edited by the editorial staff, which operates separately from the news department. Editorial writers are not involved in newsroom operations. The Post and Courier provides a forum for our readers to share their opinions, and to hold up a mirror to our community. Publication does not imply endorsement by the newspaper; the editorial staff attempts to select a representative sample of letters because we believe its important to let our readers see the range of opinions their neighbors submit for publication. In one of several key statewide races in South Carolina this fall, Democrat Constance Anastopoulo, left, is looking to upset Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson. File/Provided. File/John A. Carlos II/Special to The Post and Courier Editor's note: The Guam Daily Post asked the candidates running for a seat on the Consolidated Commission on Utilities a set of questions related to the issues they may have to deal with if they are elected. These are their answers. Question: Should Guam continue with the plan to build a massive power plant? Michael Limtiaco: Updating and upgrading our islands infrastructure is important. Our current baseload power plants run on heavy oil and are aged which is bad for our environment and decreases overall reliability. This is a good plan. The cost of the new plant is a major factor that must be prudently examined. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. William Parkinson: Yes, the Cabras plants are getting very old. We need to look to get them replaced with something newer and more efficient so they can be retired, ideally with something that is easier to interface with renewables. Waiting for them to break down is not the time to replace them. Simon Sanchez: Guams power demand is projected to grow. In order to have enough reliable power, we have to replace our four old Cabras generators with new generation that burns less fuel, burns cleaner fuels and allows for more renewable energy. This should be our last conventional generation as we maximize renewables. Francis Santos: Yes. With the catastrophic loss of Cabras 3 and 4, the Guam Power Authority needs to replace much-needed baseload generation. This will be accomplished by the building of a new and efficient power plant. Q: Should the Guam Power Authority reduce or increase incentives for people to install solar panels? Limtiaco: Producing energy from renewable sources is smart. Although I like the idea of monetary incentives, I would need to examine this potential solution more. It is not as simple as providing incentives to address power production and consumption when solar production is optimal. GPA still needs to provide 100 percent of the power when solar production is not available during bad weather or during the evening. Parkinson: Yes, GPA should increase incentives for solar. When switching to renewables, we need to walk down the cliff and not jump off it. If GPA is part of the process, theyll ease the transition and make sure it's done in a manner that doesn't have unintended consequences. Sanchez: Ratepayers without solar energy contribute a $2.5 million annual subsidy to ratepayers with solar. The subsidy is too generous and should be replaced with a different, less expensive approach that rewards private solar users to store solar energy for evening use by GPA. After utility scale, smaller-scale distributed renewables is our future. Santos: Recently, GPA and the CCU approved the net metering policy for solar panel owners. For the next five years, solar panel owners, new and existing, will benefit from full credit for their renewable energy investment. Q: Should the Guam Waterworks Authority continue the practice of backbilling? Limtiaco: Until we can account for a vast majority of water distribution, we should continue backbilling; otherwise, a disproportionate amount of ratepayers will end up subsidizing the nonpaying consumers in the form of higher rates. Writing off receivables should be avoided. However, we should exhaust all efforts in fixing the root cause of the backbilling. Parkinson: No, residential ratepayers should be exempt from backbilling. Its anti-consumer and hurts people living on fixed incomes the most. Ive experienced backbilling firsthand and wouldnt want anyone to experience the stress that comes with staring at a massive bill from out of nowhere. Sanchez: Backbilling results from customers receiving more services than they were billed for. This means other ratepayers have to pay the costs for that service. Backbilling tries to balance these two issues and is a common practice because of its fairness. However, GWA needs to better inform and quickly resolve billing problems. Santos: Yes, the burden of proof for backbilling GWA customers is based on an analysis conducted by the GWA customer service division. Customers are given the opportunity to challenge the findings of GWA. Q: Do you support GWAs billion-dollar master plan? Limtiaco: I am in full support of both GPA's and GWAs plans for infrastructure improvements, which the government of Guam has put off for far too long. Ratepayers are now paying for the sins of the past. If we do not improve the infrastructure, anything we do is just a Band-Aid, and everything from reliability to quality will suffer. Parkinson: I dont support the billion-dollar master plan. The people of Guam cant afford more rate hikes. Many people live on a fixed income and the cost of living on island is out of control. I will vote no on any water or power rate raises on residential consumers. Sanchez: Unfortunately, much more remains to be done to build compliant, sustainable water and wastewater systems. The current 20-year estimate is $1 billion. It will need continual updating for needs and savings. The challenge remains to find a way to afford these upgrades while protecting our water and ocean resources now and for the future. Santos: Yes, extensive research and planning were conducted by professional engineers and financial experts to develop this master plan. This plan will provide GWA with a roadmap of the needed improvements to our water and wastewater systems. Q: What three things need to change at GPA? Limtiaco: First, I would like to improve customer service. Id like to see GPA modernize its customer service by offering 1) programs to monitor and decrease energy consumption and monitor bills for homes and businesses; 2) online service requests, eliminating the need for physical visits; and 3) automatic outage reports and updates. Secondly, we need to reduce outages by focusing on managing vegetative growth. Damage to power distribution assets caused by vegetation meeting power lines during high winds and storms is the leading cause of outages. A potential solution is to properly grade these easements, so they can be maintained by use of highly productive grounds maintenance equipment. Lastly, we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel power generation to stabilize the variation on electricity bills caused by fluctuations in fossil fuel prices, and aggressively pursue utility scale renewables with storage to resolve intermittency caused by weather conditions. Parkinson: Accountability. Find out what happened to the Cabras units that exploded. GPAs official position is the cause hasn't been determined, but because the settlement has been paid, theyre done with the issue. That is irresponsible. Cant prevent it from happening if we dont know how it happened. CCU must say no to GPA rate raises. Every time the CCU is asked to raise the rates, they acquiesce to GPA. How will GPA adopt sustainable practices if it can get a rate raise every time they make a mistake that taxpayers pay for? Sanchez: Both utilities need to improve customer service and communications. GPA and GWA are working together to merge customer information systems in order to make customer service seamless to our ratepayers. While completing utility scale solar projects by 2021, GPA must also encourage the move to smaller scale distributed solar energy. Working with private citizens and solar providers, we can create more solar energy using private rooftops and smaller land parcels. Finally, GPA must improve power reliability for our most southern villages to better ensure power (and water) services remain available during typhoons. Santos: I will change the word change to improvements. With the approval to build our new power plant, work has begun on the design of the plant and the required infrastructure to support the plant. This new baseload generator will be essential for the power requirements related to the construction of the new military base and other facilities related to the military buildup. In addition, there is anticipated growth in our affordable housing industry which will also require power generation. At the direction of the CCU, GPA and GWA customer service divisions are now working in collaboration for the implementation of a combined and single database. This new improvement will better serve our GPA and GWA customers by allowing our customer service personnel the ability to transact power, water and wastewater issues or concerns. Q: What three things need to change at GWA? Limtiaco: Firstly, we need to spend the money we either borrow or set aside via system development charges or revenue earmarked for capital expenditures aggressively. There is no point in paying interest on bond proceeds if you are not going to ensure that the proceeds are effectively utilized and turned into revenue-generating assets or cost-reduction improvements. We do this by ensuring that GWA is properly staffed to get projects shovel-ready, solicited and awarded. Secondly, we need to assist through policy development and support GWA management efforts to find and repair the leaks in the system. Forty percent of all GWA water distribution is nonrevenue generating. This is unacceptable, because we ratepayers are subsidizing this inefficiency. Lastly, we need to protect our environment by improving our wastewater treatment and phasing out septic tank systems as sewer distribution lines become available from aggressive implementation of infrastructure projects. This will protect our aquifers and ensure we have clean water. Parkinson: Exempt residential ratepayers from the practice of backbilling. This unduly hurts our older population that lives on fixed incomes. Redundancies in administrative positions need to be looked at. GWA spent more in pay raises than they did in new lines in 2016. More emphasis needs to be put into investing resources in providing better, more consistent service, especially in the south where I have heard countless stories from people who have had no water for extended periods, rather than adding admin positions that dont do any of the incredibly important nuts-and-bolts work of providing basic services. Sanchez: Both utilities need to improve customer service and communications. GPA and GWA are working together to merge customer information systems in order to make customer service seamless to our ratepayers. GWA must finish storm-proofing the remaining 11 percent of its assets in order to improve from 99 percent to 100 percent capability to run through a typhoon. The proposed master plan provides for this change. GWA must address backbilling issues in a more timely manner. Ratepayers are willing to pay for the water they used, but waiting months for resolution makes it difficult for both customers and GWA. Santos: I will change the word change to improvements. Similar to GPA, GWA specifically our customer service division will soon be implementing our single customer database project. This new and improved initiative will provide our customers with a single customer service personnel interaction to handle issues and concerns related to water, wastewater and power. Improvements continue with the work of our leak detection and repair teams. Our goal is to reduce the number of reported leaks throughout our system and the response time by our teams to repair and restore affected customers. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 4) Malacanang came for the President's defense after controversy stirred over his remarks on the celebration of All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the President's comments mocking the Catholic practice should be taken in jest. "A joke is a joke and the same does not require an explanation. Nor should it be given as a religious slight," Panelo said. President Rodrigo Duterte earlier questioned the celebration of All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day, and called the saints drunkards during a situation briefing on the aftermath of Typhoon Rosita. "Sabagay itong t****** talaga itong mga Katolikong p***. Bakit naman may All Souls' Day tapos may All Saints' Day? Hindi nga natin alam kung sino 'yang mga santo na 'yon. Sino 'yung mga g*** na 'yon? Mga lasenggo," the President said Thursday. [Translation: Well, these Catholics. Why do they have All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day? We don't even know who those saints are. Who are those? Just drunkards.] He also suggested to have him worshipped as a saint. "Get hold of a picture of mine. 'Yan ang ilagay niyo sa altar [That's what you put on the altar]- Santo Rodrigo," the President added. Panelo argued that the statements were a joke by indicating the reactions of the audience present during the briefing. "The fact that they burst into laughter (as shown by the video clips of the TV news) showed that they were not offended by what the good Bishop and a few critics perceived to be an offensive religious statement," he said. Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines Vice President, earlier urged Filipinos to pray for Duterte and called him a "very sick man," following his recent remarks. "Please remember, Jesus taught us to be merciful when dealing with sick people. I think it should be obvious to people by now that our country is being led by a very sick man. We pray for him. We pray for our country," the bishop's Facebook post said. The victim, a 25-year-old Gary man, told police he was driving in the area of 47th and Broadway when a gray vehicle started chasing him, Hamady said. The victim said two people in the vehicle started shooting at him at the point, Hamady said, so he attempted to flee in his vehicle westbound on 47th before hitting another vehicle at Harrison Street. Whats this? An actual expression of common sense in California? Yes, it has actually happened. CalPERS, the public employee retirement system in California, has one of the largest investment portfolios in the world (0ver $350 billion), though it is still not large enough to fulfill its pension obligations. Naturally being a political plaything, several years ago CalPERS board decided that it should use its investment clout on behalf of social investing, which of course means in plain speaking lower return investing. By its own estimate, CalPERS decision to exit tobacco stocks back in the late 1990s reduced portfolio returns by $3 billion from 2001 to 2014. It seems CalPERS has decided to beat a retreat from social investing. Barrons reports today: A funny thing happened recently in the left-leaning Golden State. In a board election last month, members of the California Public Employees Retirement System, or Calpers, the biggest pension fund in the nation, threw out their president and gave ESG investing a bloody nose. ESG is the increasingly popular asset-management style that applies environmental, social, and governance standards to screen potential investments. Following this approach, an investor might avoid certain stocks or push shareholder proposals to modify corporate behavior. Unfortunately, they often favor hard-to-define social objectives rather than the narrower goal of maximizing shareholder returns. In the vote, Jason Perez, a sergeant in the Corona, Calif., police department, upset board member Priya Mathur, a 15-year Calpers veteran, who was also board president and a champion of Calpers focus on ESG investing. . . In an interview with Barrons, Perez credits his win to a growing belief among members that ESG wasnt doing them any favors. Calpers social investment focus and lack of returns received a lot of attention of labor up and down the state.Everyone noticed the performance and [Calpers] desire to concentrate on social issues. The Barrons story passes along CalPERS estimate that its unfunded future liability is $138 billion, but most independent observers place the number much higherover $500 billion by some estimates. Not even Warren Buffett-level returns will suffice to bail out public employee pensions in California or many other states. But this is a small step in the right direction at least. P.S. How long, however, will it be until California politicians demand that CalPERS divest from corporations that dont meet Californias new legal mandate that half of their boards of directors must be women? I give it one year or less. Earlier today, John wrote: By historical standards, the Democrats performance in this years midterm elections wont be good. The current consensuswhich may be wrong, but lets go with it for nowis that they will net at least 23 House seats, enough to gain control of that chamber, and probably a few more, while losing a seat or two in the Senate. This is sub-par for the first midterm election of a presidency. I agree. However, the Senate presents a special case because the Democrats are defending ten seats in states carried by Donald Trump two years ago. Few expected Republicans to capture Senate seats in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. However, in early 2017, Republican insiders liked the partys chances of winning in North Dakota, Missouri, Montana, Indiana, and maybe West Virginia and Florida. There was some concern about the GOP holding Nevada, but few were very concerned about Arizona. Thus, there was good reason to expect Republicans to pick up at least four seats, thereby increasing the majority to 55-45. If Republicans pick up just one or two seats, as John reasonably predicts, the GOP should consider this a disappointment. In such an election, Republicans would probably pick up North Dakota and Missouri. They might hold both Nevada and Arizona in the two-seat pickup scenario. In the one-state scenario, they might lose one of these seats. Losing in Red States like Montana and Indiana would be disappointing. Losing Arizona to a hippie-dippie peacenik who holds her state in contempt would be a punch in the gut. So would seeing Sen. Claire McCaskill defeat Josh Hawley, if it comes to that. If the GOP suffers these results, an inquest would not be amiss. However, the scenario John describes wouldnt sober up either party. The Democrats would take solace from losing just one or two seats in the Senate. Republicans would take solace from losing fewer than the normal number of House seats. Thus, ironically, the comfort for each party would come from the chamber it failed to win control of. Such is politics. What if one of the parties defies expectations and does better than predicted in both chambers? Would this sober up the disappointed party? I doubt it. Democrats would blame the strong economy and wait for the economy to take a turn for the worse. Our economy always has, eventually. Republicans would note that the first midterm of a presidency rarely goes well for the party in power, and that Presidents Clinton and Obama both bounced back from trumpings/shallackings to win a second term. The interesting question for me is how many trumpings/shallackings it takes these days to sober up a political party. I dont know the answer, but I suspect its a pretty large number. PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-03 20:35:51 Press Information Polaris Market Research Contact us- Mr. Neel Corporate Sales, USA Polaris Market Research Phone: 1-646-568-9980 Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.com Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com Mr. Neel Manager 1-646-568-9980 email https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/ # 730 Words Contact us-Mr. NeelCorporate Sales, USAPolaris Market ResearchPhone: 1-646-568-9980Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.comWeb: www.polarismarketresearch.comManager1-646-568-9980 According to the new market research Packaging Printing Inks Market, [By Substrate (Paper, Metal, Plastic, and Others); By Printing process (Lithographic, Flexographic, Digital, Gravure, and Others); By End-use (Food & Beverage, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, industrial, and Others); By Regions)]: Market size & Forecast, 2018 2026", The Packaging Printing Inks market is expected to reach USD 13.45 billion by 2026 from USD 8.1 billion in 2017, at a CAGR of 5.8%.Packaging ink is one of the largest application segments for the printing inks. Packaging printing inks are applied on different substrates via different printing processes depending on the requirement. Some of these major substrates include plastics, metal, and paper.Request free sample copy of this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/packaging-printing-inks-market/request-for-free-sample Major Key Player in Global Market: -PPG Industries, Inc.AkzoNobel NVFlint GroupValspar CorporationSun Chemical CorporationSiegwerk Druckfarben AG & Co.ALTANASakataToyo Ink.The global packaging printing is mainly driven by the rapid growth of the packaging industry. Packaging industry growth is an outcome of number of trends depending on different geographical regions. Investments in construction & housing, growing urbanization, flourishing cosmetics & healthcare sectors, and the development of retail chains are some of the crucial drivers for the global packaging industry.Increase in the personal income and the living standards of consumers in the developing as well as in some emerging nations have fuelled consumption across a wide array of consumer products that require packaging. Different trends in the packaging industry such as the Internet of Things (IOT), 3D printing, and consumer parcel shipping business concerning the dimensional weight pricing have also played vital role in the growth of packaging materials and packaging printing inks.Speak to our analyst and gain crucial industry insights that will help your business grow: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/packaging-printing-inks-market/speak-to-analyst The global packaging printing ink industry has also witnessed growth prospects on account of continuous technological developments. High color strength water-based flexo, 100% VOC free EB flexo, improved UV blocking packaging inks, and nanographic printing technology are among some of the recent developments in the field.Packaging industry is very dynamic, influencing directly or indirectly all other industries and significantly underpins the packaging printing inks industry. The packaging printing ink processes differ with different regions of the world. For instance, flexographic is the leading packaging printing ink process in North America whereas gravure is the dominant process in the Asia Pacific region.Packaging printing ink industry is subjected to regulatory framework and policies as some of the ink formulations are known to have harmful impact. Food and pharmaceutical packaging are the most affected end-use segments if the ink formulation contains volatile organic compound or is a solvent-based ink. International agencies such as EPA, REACH, and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) have initiated and implemented different policies for the use of water-based or safe packaging printing inks.The report provides an extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market trends and growth prospects of the Global Packaging Printing Ink Market, 2017-2026. This report comprises a detailed geographic distribution of the market across North America, Europe, APAC and South America, and MEA. North America is further segmented into U.S., Canada. Europe is divided into Germany, UK, Italy, and Rest of Europe. Asia-Pacific is bifurcated into China, India, Japan, and Rest of Asia-Pacific.Browse Complete Report Details @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/packaging-printing-inks-market/ Competitive LandscapeAsia Pacific and North America are the popular regional markets for the packaging printing inks industry. China, Japan, India, and Southeast Asian countries have mainly driven the demand in Asia Pacific with steadily growing trends concerning packaging inks in the food & beverage industry.About Polaris Market ResearchPolaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities.Contact us-Mr. NeelCorporate Sales, USAPolaris Market ResearchPhone: 1-646-568-9980Email: sales@ polarismarketresearch.com Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-03 20:35:21 Press Information Polaris Market Research Contact us- Mr. Neel Corporate Sales, USA Polaris Market Research Phone: 1-646-568-9980 Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.com Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com Mr. Neel Manager 1-646-568-9980 email https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/ # 775 Words Contact us-Mr. NeelCorporate Sales, USAPolaris Market ResearchPhone: 1-646-568-9980Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.comWeb: www.polarismarketresearch.comManager1-646-568-9980 The U.S. Midstream Oil & Gas Equipment market is expected to grow from USD 697.17 billion in 2017 to USD 983.73 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 3.9% during the forecast period.The industry for equipment manufacturing and rental services sector dramatically fell owing to sudden decrease in well count and completions in 2015 & 2016. But it is expected to return to achieve healthy growth by 2019, as the upstream sector is benefiting from the slow recovery of the oil prices and also additional export opportunities that was not available for both liquefied natural gas and crude oil. The U.S. is one of the leading five global exporters. The increasing demand for transportation fuels along with the rising complexity for clean fuels, there are legal and regulatory constraints that have actually threatened to higher global trade in many of the U.S. strategic export markets influencing the U.S. Midstream Oil & Gas Equipment market growth. The countrys exporters has been facing requirements of local contents, trade restrictions, labor requirements and rising cost along with decreasing competitiveness of U.S. exports due to growing Chinese and some European markets.Request sample copy of this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/u-s-midstream-oil-and-gas-equipment-market/request-for-free-sample Top Key Player: -Abbot GroupTransoceanZenith Oilfield TechnologyNational Oilwell Varco IncorporatedSchlumbergerWeatherford InternationalHalliburton CompanyENIBaker HughesCameron InternationalFMC TechnologiesAker Solutions.The countrys abundance of shale reserves along with its increasing shale exploration and production has ultimately urged the need for high level of investment to accommodate the changing regional requirements of gas transportation; by 2019 the demand for ongoing construction will begin to ebb. Even though the projection for LNG export facilities has been clouded by the current uncertainty in crude prices market fundamentals will drive the eventual construction of many facilities over the forecast period. Many of these projects are likely to be under construction till 2020. The facilities will be the primary application sites and will drive the U.S. Midstream Oil & Gas Equipment market for a wide range of equipments including valves, pumps and compressors.The industry participants in the country face significant competition from the Korean, German and the Chinese players. By competition, the U.S. industry participants have been particularly competitive in manufacturing of gas treating and processing equipments, compressors, automatic valves, storage tanks etc. These specific trends in manufacturing of these equipments are likely to continue with the countrys exports weighted more towards specialized high tech equipments. Hence, with such increasing production and processing of shale reserves and the countrys increasing focus on midstream industry demand for oil and gas equipments are projected to increase over the forecast period.Make Inquiry about this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/u-s-midstream-oil-and-gas-equipment-market/inquire-before-buying The report provides an extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market trends and growth prospects of the U.S. Midstream Oil & Gas Equipment Market, 2017-2026. This report comprises a detailed geographic distribution of the U.S. Midstream Oil & Gas Equipment market across North America, Europe, APAC and South America, and MEA. North America is further segmented into U.S., Canada. Europe is divided into Germany, UK, Italy, and Rest of Europe. Asia-Pacific is bifurcated into China, India, Japan, and Rest of Asia-Pacific.Competitive LandscapeSouthwest region has the highest number of refineries in the country with many export facilities in the cost. The region has the countrys largest oil & gas reserves which create additional opportunities for processing in the field vicinities. The states of Texas and Oklahoma host 35 refineries with Texas accounting for 30 of them. Another two refineries are planned in Texas and are to be operational by 2019. These activities are expected to boost demand over the forecast period in the region.Browse Complete Report Details @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/u-s-midstream-oil-and-gas-equipment-market/ About Polaris Market ResearchPolaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities. Adept with a highly competent, experienced and extremely qualified team of experts comprising SMEs, analysts and consultants, we at Polaris endeavor to deliver value-added business solutions to our customers.Contact us-Mr. NeelCorporate Sales, USAPolaris Market ResearchPhone: 1-646-568-9980Email: sales@ polarismarketresearch.com Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com The Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has said that Central Banks new corporate governance policy limiting the tenure of directors of BDCs might be difficult to implement. Aminu Gwadabe, President, ABCON, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos that the difficulty would arise because the business of BDCs was largely driven by trust and personality of operators. NAN reports that the CBN had on November 2 introduced new code of corporate governance rules for BDCs which, among others, limited the number of family members that could be on the management of BDCs and separated the position of the board chairman from the chief executive. The regulation also bars government agencies ownership of BDCs and allowed non-executive directors of BDCs to serve for a maximum of three terms of four years each to ensure continuity and injection of fresh ideas. The limit of directorship tenure in the policy for the BDC sub sector will be difficult to implement as a lot of trust and personality is a driven force for the business. There will definitely be teething challenges like any other policy, Gwadabe said. The ABCON chief said corporate governance was germane to a successful management of every organisation. The issue of beneficial owner is a pointer even in complex organisations like banks and stock exchange companies, Gwadabe added. He noted that the small and retail scale nature of BDC operations has often made owners in most cases lukewarm in implementing effective management and implementation of regulations. The ABCON chief said that the associations automation for BDC operations was aimed at ensuring corporate governance. According to him, ABCONs effort at corporate governance was already translating to ease of regulatory supervision with increasing transparency and operating in accordance with international standards. NAN reports that the regulation said the BDC boards shall be accountable and responsible for the performance and affairs of the BDC and members of the board are severally and jointly liable for the activities for the BDC. (NAN) The Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and his new wife, Naomi Oluwaseyi, attended the opening night of Art X in Lagos on Friday. ArtXLagos 2018, founded in 2016 by Tokini Peterside to showcase the most innovative contemporary African artworks, was declared open by monarch at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos. This years fair opened with a private VIP Preview during the day, where guests were invited to experience the cutting edge of contemporary African art. A VIP Opening Cocktail followed the daytime preview in the evening. It brought together dignitaries, leading collectors, Hubert Wigwe, Atedo Peterside, Babajide Sanwoolu, Mo Abudu and Yinka Shonibare. Guests also mingled between two exquisite VIP lounges designed by ALARA and textile designer, Banke Kuku. Late Ben Enwonwus famous painting Tutu which was sold for an impressive 1.2 million ($1.67 million) at an auction earlier in the year was also on display at the art fair. The organisers noted that the public display of Tutu marks a significant moment in Nigerias art history as this marks its first public display in Nigeria since 1975. Mr Peterside and Access Bank Plc CEO Herbert Wigwe also spoke on the importance of the fair and its centrality in the growth of Africas art economy in their welcome address. Thereafter, the Ooni was invited to the stage where he addressed the audience. During his speech, the monarch stated that arts have been in existence long before the advent of photography. Art connects the human race with the past and future while playing a pivotal role in binding the human race together, the monarch noted. We can see this from the display of Tutu here today and I can attest to you, that this is one of the greatest records in our history for the entire mankind. That art piece has actually recorded a huge milestone all over the world. Renowned Nigerian Sculptor Yinka Shonibare Ooni and wife at Art X Lagos 2018 Renowned Nigerian Sculptor Yinka Shonibare Art lovers might not know the spirituality involved in the arts; it actually connects, replicates various imagination of things that have happened in the past, present and what will actually happen in the future. What we are doing today is something that binds all of us together, he said. The 3-day art exhibition and fair will also feature 18 renowned galleries from different countries from within and outside Africa. The art fair will also feature ART X Talks, with a host of exciting speakers, artists, and thought leaders set to take the stage. ART X Talks will also run on Sunday when Mr Shonibare will give a keynote talk. In addition, Teni the Entertainer, Ghanaian musician Amaarae, and BOJ, accompanied by some of Lagos finest emerging visual and graphic It was meant to be the Abuja 2018 Nation Building Workshop of the Apostles in the Market Place, a platform for change agents, but it turned out to be what some quests called a night loaded with wisdom, and the challenge of what just one faithful person could achieve in nation building. The speakers and philanthropists who gave account of their interventions in the lives people on Saturday, left many souls touched; and when the story of a girl who had dropped out of school in Lagos, but is now excelling at a school in Abuja was told, it moved people to tears. At the end of the event, many people left the Congress Hall of the Transcorp Hotel heavy with food for thought. The workshop, with the theme Building the Nigeria of Our Dream, was organised by Apostles in the Market Place (AIMP), a nongovernmental, non-denominational and non partisan organisation. The AIMP, a community of Christian leaders and professionals from different fields committed to nation building and the birth of a new and functional Nigeria, is a network of change agents that are passionate about social transformation. They mobilise, equip and support reformers that are committed to building a new Nigeria. The event was attended by top government functionaries, ministers, senators, captains of industry, religious leaders and youths. Delivering the keynote address, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo decried the loss of values in the country, especially among the youths and called for the teaching of cherished values, integrity are veritable measures to build and rebuild a nation. He said: I am to speak on the theme of the workshop, what can we do to rebuild our nation, but I have also decided to ask the question why we need to rebuild? Obviously it is because a lot has been destroyed, values, principles, have been destroyed, moral efforts and all of the other various things that we have cherished have been destroyed. And the reality is, of course, that as the years have gone by, we simply have not paid much attention as we ought to, especially to issues of values. So today people are not even certain any more what those values should be. One of the things I discovered while pastoring was that very many young people do not understand any more, what the real moral questions are. It is not just a matter of values being lost, many young people dont understand what is wrong anymore. Mr Osinbajo, who quoted Psalms 11:3, Mathew 28 :19 and Romans 8: 19, said the responsibility of rebuilding a nation is in the hands of the righteous. It turns out that there is a whole lot that the righteous can do, when the foundations appear to have been destroyed. The reasons why the question was asked the righteous, somehow God has decided that, it is the duty and assignment of the righteous to build and rebuild the nation. The scripture tells us also that the righteous are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. In other words, everything that was done wrong with our society is just waiting for the righteous to take action to rebuild them, he said. Mr Osinbajo also said it was also expected of the righteous to be a good role model by living a life of integrity . We must recognise that even when we make mistakes, we must not give up on doing the right thing; we must set examples of what we want the world to be. We must teach these values, we must teach righteousness in our churches We must teach the values everywhere, we must teach the values to young people, it is so important that we recognise that righteousness has to be taught. So, we need to teach integrity, we need to teach the ways of righteousness, it is really up to us to let young people understand that integrity pays. The currency of the world is trust, if you cant be trusted it becomes extremely difficult to do business and sustain any kind of relationship. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, who quoted from Ezekiel 22:30, said God was searching for faithful individuals to rebuild society. Minister of Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah He said God was looking for a man to stand in the gap to remedy the challenging situations in the society. Mr Enelamah said it was necessary for Nigerians to take responsibility individually by faithfully committing to proffering solutions to identified challenges in any area. He said Nigerians must accept responsibility individually to become the person God could use to rebuild the country. It has been said that it takes only one committed generation to rebuild a society. If we can individually accept responsibility today, not pointing our fingers at other people but each make a personal commitment to our beloved country, we will be a generation that can rebuild Nigeria. You can make a difference, I can make a difference; God is searching for people in business, in the family, government to make a difference and rebuild the nation. Man is Gods preferred method when it comes to solving human problems, the minister said. John Enelama, Founding Executive Director of AIMP, who introduced the body to the audience said what truly make a nation great were the values passed from one generation to another. He said only a transformed people could transform a society, adding that Nigeria required men and women who would lead the transformation in all sectors of the economy. Mr Enelama said: The biggest thing a nation needs is a transformed mindset because God cannot change you until you change the way you think. High point of the event was the presentation of Make an Impact awards to some Nigerians that passionately embarked on impactful projects for the needy. All the award receivers told moving stories that inspired and drew applause. The projects included those on healthcare services for people with disability, scholarship to out of school children, free legal services to prison inmates, among other empowerment services for vulnerable Nigerians. The impact makers include Slum2School; The Irede Foundation; Diamond Light; and Shinning Light Kingdom. A brief and colourful graduation ceremony was also held for the inaugural class of the Change Agents Academy. The wealth of the night was even evident in the closing remarks of Olukayode Pitan, MD/CEO of Bank of Industry. Staying on the theme of the ability of one man to change society, he cited the examples of how one vote made America adopt English Language instead of German, and other changes the decision of individuals had made in the history of mankind. Urging all Nigerians to work together to rebuild the nation, he also noted that, One person can a lot. Frank Ufomadu is the producer of a new Nollywood movie titled The Chronicles featuring Onyeka Onwenu, Segun Arinze, Victor Osuagwu, among other stars. The movie is a historical account of the Mbaise people of Imo State as told by the oldest indigene of the town. Here, the producer tells PREMIUM TIMES about the idea behind the movie PT: Did you deliberately set out to shoot a movie on the Mbaise people? Frank: Yes I did. The movies plot spanned three generations namely the colonial era, the post-colonial era and the 21st century. It wasnt just about the Mbaise people as we also touched on the Opobo Kingdom. With the latter, we were able to find out the interaction the Jaja of Opobo had with the white men. But, I felt it was high time someone told a story about Mbaise and its people especially since Im a native of Mbaise. I encountered so many challenges as the movie was largely research-based. So, I visited many elders in the different communities in Mbaise trying to find out more about the misconceptions. So, this films plot was derived from stories from the elders. I focused on Mbaise because; you know film making is different from writing a novel. In films, you need to be direct, if Id gone from one village to the other, the audience would get distracted so that is the reason why I focused on one particular area but you touch the rest one way or another. It took me three years to shoot the film because the narrator was the oldest indigene of Mbaise he was about 110 years when we began talking to him. So, he narrated the story in phases and sometimes he skipped some aspects due to old age. Whenever we visited him, he was either ill or too tired to speak to us. So we went back and forth for over three years. Sadly, he passed on about a week ago. PT: What is the movies plot? Frank: Taunted for coming from Mbaise, Imo State, two teenagers seek to understand why their ancestry is being laughed at. At their insistence, their parents take them to their grandmother (Onyeka Onwenu) who spends the night telling them the story. The movie will reveal how the saying Spare the snake and kill the man came about during the pre and post colonial eras in the eastern part of the country, and how a particular musical band falsified the belief to include the Mbaise man. I was in secondary school when I heard about the stigma. I asked my people but I couldnt get an answer.Actually, that adage came from a band, Oriental Brothers, but many people didnt know what transpired between the Oriental Brothers that led to that adage. PT: So what are some of the intriguing aspects of the film? Frank: The audience would be surprised to know that Mbaise has the highest number of priests in the east. In fact, every single home in the town has at least one priest or nun. I was told that when the white men came into Nigeria, the first resistance they had was in Mbaise so they had to go back and reinforce. Thereafter, they committed a genocide, which was never documented. When the whole thing was about to ruin their relationship with the communities in eastern Nigeria, they had to go back and bring the priests who gave them specific injunctions focused on Mbaise people because that is where they committed a crime. So, the priest who was based there, preached to the indigenes to become born again Christians so that they wouldnt in any way try to revolt. That automatically made the Catholic Church to have its roots in Mbaise. Then they took a lot of Mbaise people back to Europe to train them as priests and in no time, Mbaise became a strong base for the Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria. PT: Perhaps you could have shot a documentary instead? Frank: I found out that todays youth no longer read. If you write a book, they might not read. The moment you put on a television, tune it to Africa Magic or to any movie, theyll stay glued to the TV but hardly will you see a child that will tune to Discovery Channel. If Id shot a documentary, which definitely would have aired on channels like Discovery, they wouldnt watch it. So, I thought about the best way to capture it to make it reach the target audience, and I felt its best to make it a film. Our youths like going to cinemas and watching Africa Magic movie channels. If I decide to shoot a documentary tomorrow, anyone who has seen the film and wants to learn more will then be keen to see the documentary. Lest I forget, we also told the story of the Oriental Brothers in the movie. PT: Whats the budget for this movie? Frank: The initial budget we had for this production was N20million and at some point, we exhausted. But so far we have spent N23million till date. PT: how did you arrive at the white men you featured in the movie? Frank: Ive seen a few movies where one of the white men in the movie, Mr. Avinash (a Lebanese) featured in. I actually sat down with my team to analyse the cast members characters .We ran a poll on some of the names we had, I collated the votes and the actors with the highest votes were chosen. I actually didnt vote Mr. Avinash but because the majority voted for him, I had to choose him. We did everything professionally to make sure we get the best. PT: And the village cast? Frank: The characters for the village scenes were featuring in a Nollywood for the first time and they did wonderfully well. PT: Where was the movie shot? Frank: Part of it was shot in Oyo State; the village scenes were shot in Oyo State. PT: Why didnt you shoot in Mbaise? Frank: Thats because we couldnt get a good location that was suitable enough. Mbaise is almost developed so there arent real mud huts or villages per se. There were parts of the movie where we needed to fly drones and if we shoot in Mbaise we wont get that village setting because the zinc houses, which the drone would capture, would ruin everything. We needed a location where wed be able to fly a drone for the radius of about half a kilometre and we wont see any zinc house. PT: What plans do you have for this movie? Frank: After this movie will be screened in Nigerian cinemas, in schools and in village squares. This is history; its a subject, which is no longer in the curriculum. Im sure the people that own the story will definitely take up the story. PT: Is this your first film? Frank: This is my second film. The first one was titled Storms and it was shot in 2016. It was just a glamour film. The acceptance was very poor. It was an above average project and I used it to test the waters. It taught me all I needed to know just in time for this movie. PT: Do you have another movie in the works? Frank: Yes I do and my next movie will be centered on Ogbanje. Ive carried out a lot of research on Ogbanje and Ive become aware of the secret of Ogbanje. The movie will be released in the first quarter of 2019. When you are a feisty entrepreneur like me, you are not afraid to take on the big projects, Braun said. He cited the states road and bridge repair and replacement program, which he described as among the best in the country, as one of those projects. Buhari Acts On NHIS Scandal Over two weeks after the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Usman Yusuf, brushed aside an order by the governing council of the agency to proceed on indefinite suspension, President Muhammadu Buhari eventually ordered the embattled embattled official to go on administrative leave effective from November 5. The presidents directive was conveyed in a letter by the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha. Mr Yusufs refusal to obey the directive of the governing council worsened the crisis in the health agency with rival groups of workers taking different stands on the matter. The council had announced the suspension on October 18 over alleged misconduct and fraud and also stated that it had set up a panel to investigate the allegations against him. The House of Representatives is also investigating the allegations. Tackling Maternal Mortality The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, called for accelerated girls education in order to reduce maternal mortality rate in Nigeria. The minister made the call while unveiling hospital equipment donated by Coca-Cola Company to National Hospital, Abuja. He said educating girls will make them more informed about safe delivery, attributing the high mortality rate in the country to lack of education, empowerment and poverty. Mr Adewole also said empowering women will increase health services quality and availability. Dogs Can Now Detect Malaria Study Sniff dogs can be trained to detect malaria in people infected with the disease even if they are not showing symptoms, according to a new study by Durham University. Though the findings are still at early stage, the lead researcher from Durham University, Steven Lindsay, said in principle they have shown that dogs could be trained to detect malaria infected people by their odour with a credible degree of accuracy. The researchers from the Medical Research Council Unit of The Gambia and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used nylon socks to collect foot odour samples from apparently healthy children aged five to 14 in the Upper River Region of The Gambia in West Africa. According to the researchers, dogs trained in Britain to distinguish between the scent of children infected with malaria parasites were able to identify 70 percent correctly malaria infected samples from the total samples collected. Gombe: Five Killed In Cholera Outbreak At least five people were killed in an outbreak of cholera at Kembu in Balanga Local Government Area, Gombe State. The states acting epidemiologist, Nuhu Bile, said the cases brought the number of cholera mortality to 13 in the state, while no fewer than 500 patients had been treated and discharged in the last five months. According to him, 70 patients were treated and discharged in the fresh outbreak, five people died before medical help could reach them and 16 others were being treated at the health centre for the disease. WHO Stings `AIDS curing preacher The World Health Organisation (WHO) came down heavily on a local preacher in Zimbabwe reportedly claiming he had received divine revelation of a herbal cure for HIV/AIDS . WHO reaffirmed there is no cure for HIV, insisting that people living with HIV and AIDS need to continue with anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy to manage their infections. Alex Gasaira, WHOs representative in the country, explicitly stated that there is no cure for HIV infection. According to media reports, the Zimbabwean cleric had notified his congregation in the capital, Harare, of the cure for HIV and AIDS. Mice Vaccine: Hope For Secondary Stroke Victims Japanese researchers have tested a vaccine in mice that may protect people who had a stroke against blood clots for more than two months without increasing the risk of bleeding, a study published in the American Heart Associations journal, Hypertension, reported. The experimented vaccine called S100A9 caused no autoimmune response and may one day replace oral blood thinners to reduce the risk of secondary strokes caused by blood clots. The study co-author and professor at Osaka University, Hironori Nakagami, said the vaccine worked as well as the oral blood thinner clopidogrel in a major artery and will help many stroke patients (ischemic strokes) who need to take medications that makes their blood less likely to clot and help prevent another stroke. Grants For Free Ante-natal in Bayelsa Over one thousand pregnant women in Bayelsa State who have been captured in the state governments free maternal care for pregnant women programme have been given grants for their transport fare to access ante-natal clinics. Bayelsa Governor, Seriake Dickson Governor Seriake Dickson announced this during the official launch of the states Safe Motherhood Campaign in Yenagoa, the state capital. He said N3000 grant would be given monthly to each pregnant woman in the state, for their transport to hospitals and clinics to access medical care until their babies are born. He said the initiative was a result of the deliberate effort taken after a summit on maternal and infant mortality which agreed that a policy on Safe Motherhood be introduced, with the Primary Healthcare Board and State Ministry of Health as partners. Babies Born To Older Dads A Stanford study has linked babies of older fathers with a variety of increased risks at birth, including low birth weight and seizures, though theyre slight. The paper published in the journal BMJ showed that babies born to fathers of an advanced paternal age, which roughly equates to older than 35, are at a higher risk for adverse birth outcomes. The study, based on data from more than 40 million births, also suggested that the age of the father can sway the health of the mother during pregnancy, specifically her risk for developing diabetes. The data revealed that once a dad hits age 35, theres a slight increase in birth risks overall. The older a fathers age, the greater the risk, according to the study. A newly-introduced social media code of ethics for members of the Nigerian military has recorded some of its earliest sanctions, PREMIUM TIMES can report. This newspaper obtained details of at least 149 personnel who were penalised for violating a section of the guidelines within the first three months after they came into force. The affected service members, majority of whom are non-commissioned officers, were accused of uploading pictures of themselves in military fatigues on social media, an act considered offensive under the guidelines issued in June 2018. A breakdown of the sanctions shows 33 naval officers were found wearing their uniforms in fresh social media uploads, 40 soldiers were caught in the same act while 76 members of the Nigerian Air Force were affected. The errant naval personnel comprised 15 commissioned officers and 18 ratings. Ten of the 40 Nigerian Army personnel are commissioned officers, with captain as the most-senior rank, while the remaining 30 are soldiers. The Air Force saw 17 of its officers and 59 non-commissioned officers identified as violating the social media guidelines. The 10-page guidelines, published by the Defence Headquarters, imposed by Chief of Defence Staff, Gabriel Olonisakin, on June 11 sought to curb undignified use of social media by members of the armed forces, especially acts that could render them susceptible to enemies trap or jeopardise ongoing military operations. Personnel should not post their pictures or those of their colleagues in military uniforms, or pictures containing military structures, platforms and other military related items, said one of the slew of cautions in the guidelines. The guidelines also included a Dos and Donts section, which encouraged officers to always like postings by all institutions of the armed forces but must not use social media languages such as LWKMD, LMAO, LOL, OMG, BRB in professional posts. Military personnel were also required to warn their family members against controversial conducts on social media. Personnel will be held liable for any security issues arising from postings in respect of them by civilian friends or relations. They are therefore, to educate their friends and relations as necessary regarding military security and what should not be posted on social media, the guidelines said. Officers court-martialled Although the guidelines did not contain potential punishments for specific offences, there was a provision that said all officers would be punished as prescribed by the Armed Forces Act or the Cyber Crime Act. The 149 officers were those caught between June 11 and September 18 by the Defence Headquarters. It was not immediately clear how many of the 149 personnel have been disciplined for breaking the no-uniform-on-social media rule, but military spokesperson, John Agim, said he was aware arrests had been made. Some persons have been arrested for violating the guidelines and are currently being court-martialled, Mr Agim, a brigadier-general said. But only their lawyers could say the kinds of punishment involved. PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately identify the persons rendering legal assistance to the embattled military officers. A senior military officer told PREMIUM TIMES some of the affected officers could be compelled to proceed on early retirement, dismissed or even sentenced to jail, depending on the context of their violations. The armed forces is not where you commit wrongdoing and try to bribe your way out, you will receive maximum punishment as appropriate, the top personnel said. Pushed to the wall The Nigerian military has been on the defensive in recent years, as many officers, including those fighting Boko Haram in the terror-ravaged North-East, are taking to social media to ventilate on issues bordering on their welfare. The military personnel, mostly soldiers, have been reported in the media as sending out anonymous pictures of the poor food they are being fed. Some have complained about how their salaries and allowances were being depleted by commanders, allegations that often received strong rebuttal from top military brass. One of such instances came in February when some officers who said they were engaged in the Boko Haram war alleged gross maltreatment by military authorities. The officers called on the Nigerian public and President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently intervene in their situation or risk allowing the counter-terrorism efforts to deteriorate. The Army swiftly responded to the anonymous complaints at the time with a call for disgruntled elements to abandon service. It also said those raising the concerns were sponsored by politicians, although no proof was provided to substantiate the claim. Nigerian military personnel are also known to have regularly used social media to mourn the death of their fallen colleagues, even when the military had not formally notified their loved ones. All these acts have pushed the military to the wall, Mr Agim said. But it is not only in Nigeria, other countries are imposing measures to discourage their military officers from revealing too much information on social media. It was not immediately clear how many militaries across the world have imposed social media guidelines, but Western countries, including the United States, which Mr Agim said had such measures in place, do not appear to have prohibited uploading of pictures in military uniform on social media. There is no such policy, a U.S. Air Force officer told PREMIUM TIMES Sunday, preferring not to be identified in print. We can post pictures on social media in uniformsexcept on AORs (areas of responsibility) that are considered combat and sensitive. Military [officers] can post photos on social media provided nothing in the posts endangers troops, reveals locations, mission operations or troops movements, the officer said. India appears to have military guidelines which bear similarities with Nigerias, but this was imposed in 2016 after a senior military officer was enmeshed in a honey trap scandal linked to the Pakistani intelligence agency. The military in India forbids personnel from opening pornographic contents on social media, as well as setting pictures of themselves in uniform as their social media profile. But it did not place an outright ban on uploading pictures with uniform online. No harm intended Mr Agim said the rules were not intended to harm the officers or over-police their social media activities, but Nigeria is facing serious security challenges which the military has been at the forefront of bringing to an end. It is a challenging face we are in in terms of security, Mr Agim said. We have the responsibility to take measures that will protect all members of the armed forces who would in turn protect the country as a whole. An Abuja-based lawyer, Ken Asogwa, said even though it might be difficult to hold a balanced position on the matter, the military does not seem to have done anything fundamentally wrong with its guidelines on social media conduct. INFOGRAPH EXCLUSIVE 149 Nigerian soldiers in trouble for uploading photos on social media [Infograph by George Kaduna] The truth is that the military officers are human beings like everyone and the Constitution guarantees their fundamental rights, Mr Asogwa told PREMIUM TIMES. But since they have signed up to the codes of the military, they are statutorily bounded to comply by the social media guidelines. If you think the military authorities are abridging your fundamental rights, you leave there and enjoy your rights elsewhere. But since you have signed up to the military code, it is not too much to expect you to comply with their rules, especially when such rules are drafted for security reasons, he said. Mr Asogwa said even private firms are increasingly issuing guidelines defining how their staff members should conduct themselves online, suggesting it would be unfair to single out the military because it is a public institution. SEE FULL LIST HERE: List of 149 soldiers being punished by Nigeran military for uploading photos on social media LIST OF NAVY PERSONNEL IN UNIFORM ON SOCIAL MEDIA 1.CAPTAIN ADO GAMBO NN/1911 2. COMMANDER AKINTOMIDE OLAMILOKUN 3. COMMANDER MARK YAUTE ABASHI NN/2329 4. LIEUTENANT COMMANDER JIBRIL UMAR ABDULLAHI NN/2761 5. LIEUTENANT COMMANDER MUSTAPHA ABUBAKAR NN/2966 6. LIEUTENANT COMMANDER ATTAI ABDULLAHI 7. SURGEON LIEUTENANT MARK ANEHE ABANUM NN/3171 8. LIEUTENANT AMEZHINIM AMON AGBESOR NN/3566 9. SUB-LIEUTENANT ILYASU ABDULAZIZ NN3173 10. SUB-LIEUTENANT MUSA ABUBAKAR NN3178 11. SUB-LIEUTENANT CALEB ITYAVENEM ABAGYEH NN/3287 12. SUB-LIEUTENANT OLUFEMI EBENIZER AJALA NN/3351 13. SUB-LIEUTENANT LUKMAN ABASS NN/3645 14. SUB-LIEUTENANT OKPE EMMANUEL NN/4103 15. SUB-LIEUTENANT OLUWATOSIN AGBELEMOSE NN/4107 RATINGS 16. OPERATIONS SPECIALIST ALI MUSA 17. OPERATIONS SPECIALIST UMAR FAROUK 18. ABBAS AKINPELU 19. ABDULLAHI FAISAL 20. AHMED YUNUS 21. AKANNI SEGUN 22. AKINTUNDE CAMPBELL BISOLA 23. ALLOY GODWIN 24. ANCY ARAN 25. BEATRICE PETER 26. DEREK JACKSON 27. EDOH OCHEFIJE 28. EJEMBI JOSEPH 29. ESSIEN U 30. JIMANG JAMES 31. OFEM EMMANUEL PATRICK 32. REGINA NUHU 33. SIMON GABRIEL LIST OF ARMY PERSONNEL IN UNIFORM ON SOCIAL MEDIA (OFFICERS) 1. CAPTAIN ABUBAKAR GADA Z NA/12442 2. CAPTAIN ABUBAKAR ABDULRAZAQ NA/12902 3. CAPTAIN ABDULKADIR SADIQ M NA/14548 4. CAPTAIN ABDULLAHI NASIRU 5. LIEUTENANT ABUBAKAR USMAN NA/11735 6. LIEUTENANT ABUBAKAR ADAMU NA/12689 7. LIEUTENANT ABUBAKAR ABDULMUDALLABI M NA/13375 8. LIEUTENANT ABDULLAHI HASSAN NA/15041 9. LIEUTENANT ABDULAZEEZ SALAMI 10. OLUWASEGUN S. BADEWALE SOLDIERS 11. LANCE CORPORAL IGWU P 12. LANCE CORPORAL MICHAEL E 13. PRIVATE OLOJEDE E 14. PRIVATE SARAH O 15. ABBA MUSA KURA 16. ABUBAKAR ADAMU 17. ABUBAKAR ABDULKADIR 18. ALABI AA 19. AMINU GARBA 20. BALA MUBARAK 21. BALOGUN RAMON 22. DAKAM BARTHOLOMEW 23. DANJUMA BABA 24. EMMANUEL OWOLABI OLUWASEGUN 25. INIOBONG FRANCE 26. JAMILU UMAR 27. JOHNKENNEDY IKECHUKWU OGUNMEROBI 28. JONATHAN IBRAHIM 29. MASUR YADUMA 30. MOHAMMED ABUBAKAR 31. MUHAMMAD ABUBAKAR 32. NASIRU ADAMU 33. OBANLA TOKUNBO CHARLES 34. OYIBO JUSTINAH 35. PETER YUNANA 36. POPO EJIRO 37. STEPHEN AYUBA 38. SUNDAY OLUMUYIWA 39. UMAR BAPETEL 40. UMAR HARUNA LIST OF AIR FORCE PERSONNEL IN UNIFORM ON SOCIAL MEDIA 1. GROUP CAPTAIN ALIERU MUSA AJANI NAF/2353 2. WING COMMANDER ADEBANJO ADEOSUN NAF/2350 3. ADEYANJU SHITTU ISMAILA ADESOLA NAF 3095 4. FLIGHT LIEUTENANT VICTOR AJEYE NAF/3012 5. FLIGHT LIEUTENANT A ABDULSALAM NAF/3233 6. FLIGHT LIEUTENANT MUHAMMAD SANI ADAM NAF/3428 7. FLIGHT LIEUTENANT MAHMUD AHMED BATAGARAWA NAF/3452 8. FLYING OFFICER ABUBAKAR SALIHU ABBE NAF/3580 9. FLYING OFFICER YAKUBU HARUNA ABDULLAHI NAF/3609 10. FLYING OFFICER HAMISU AHMED NAF 3648 11. FLYING OFFICER ALYASAU ADAMU NAF/3662 12. FLYING OFFICER ABDULATEEF ABUBAKAR ALEGE NAF/3784 13. FLYING OFFICER ABUBAKAR SADIQ ABDULKADIR NAF/4006 14. FLYING OFFICER BODE ABIODUN NAF/4127 15. FLYING OFFICER MUJAHEED ADAMU (MUJY) NAF/4188 16. FLYING OFFICER MASUD ABDULLAHI NAF/4208 17. FLYING OFFICER SHEHU ABUBAKAR NAF/4210 AIRMEN 18. SERGEANT SAMUEL EFEMENA 19. CORPORAL BULUS ADAMS 20. CORPORAL ALABI D 21. CORPORAL CHARLES LT 22. JACOB J. JAMES 23. LANCE CORPORAL ALHASSAN LY 24. LANCE CORPORAL GIMBA S 25.LANCE CORPORAL AJINUNGA CP 26. LANCE CORPORAL EJAINU PT 27. LANCE CORPORAL SOHE JS 28. LANCE CORPORAL ILIYA N 29. AIR CRAFTMAN MOHAMMED A 30. AIR CRAFTMAN MUHAMMAD A 31. AIR CRAFTMAN SALISU A 32. AIR CRAFTMAN ALIYU MM 33. AIR CRAFTMAN TANIMU YA 34. AIR CRAFTMAN IBRAHIM AG 35. AIR CRAFTMAN BALA Y 36. AIR CRAFTMAN LAWAL A 37. AIR CRAFTMAN MATTHEW AMOS 38. AIR CRAFTMAN EMMANUEL SL 39. AIR CRAFTMAN MUHAMMAD SDD 40. AIR CRAFTMAN YAKUBU DABO 41. AIR CRAFTMAN EBRI ED 42. AIR CRAFTMAN DAVID PG 43. AIR CRAFTMAN JAMES 44. AIR CRAFTMAN AUGUSTINE TIMOTHY 45. AIR CRAFTMAN MAIYAKI A 46. AIR CRAFTMAN BADMUS AO 47. AIR CRAFTMAN HASSAN M 48. AIR CRAFTMAN AHMED I 49. AIR CRAFTMAN ISAAC EJ 50. AIR CRAFTMAN ADAMU SA 51. AIR CRAFTMAN ALBERT S 52. AIR CRAFTMAN BASHIR A 53. AIR CRAFTMAN WILLIAMS PN 54. AIR CRAFTMAN AHMED A 55. AIR CRAFTMAN LEMU DANIEL 56. AIR CRAFTMAN EYAH PC 57. AIR CRAFTMAN YOHANNA BG 58. AIR CRAFTMAN HUSSAINI YD 59. AIR CRAFTMAN BABA ES 60. AIR CRAFTMAN UKPO IO 61. AIR CRAFTMAN LOT MOSES 62. OKAFOR EMMA 63. METUSELLAR TIMOTHY 64. JOHNSON OLUGUNNA 65. OBIOMA GIDEON 66. RAUWASI SHAIABU 67. KENNETH BELLO 68. YILA WILLIAMS 69. OLAYINKA ADESOLA 70. OBED CHUKWUMBA 71. ROTIMI OLUGBENGA OJO 72. HARUNA BALA SALEH 73. STEPHEN MOSES 74. ROLAND HENS 75. MUSTAPHA SHUAIBU 76. NEHE TIMOTHY The multiple crises rocking Nigerias ruling party showed no signs of abating on Saturday as a governor attacked both the party chairman and another major leader of the party. Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State accused Adams Oshiomhole of being a garrulous leader who was pandering to the whims of Bola Tinubu, who he described as the Capo Di Tutti of Lagos. The Capo Di Tutti is a term of Italian origin often used to describe the overall boss within a mafia family or group. Although Mr Amosun did not directly name Mr Tinubu, the statement by his information commissioner made apparent reference to Mr Tinubu who has firm control of the APC in Lagos State. The governor accused the party chairman of conniving with Mr Tinubu to wrest control of the party structure in the South-west. He had made a similar accusation about two weeks earlier, accusing Mr Oshiomhole of conniving with a cabal in Lagos to take over the APC in Ogun. In the Saturday statement, Mr Amosun was reacting to Mr Oshiomholes statement on Friday where the latter described the Ogun governor and his Imo State counterpart, Rochas Okorocha, as behaving like emperors. PREMIUM TIMES published Mr Oshiomholes criticism of the governors on Friday at a press conference in Abuja. Mr Oshiomhole explained that the Ogun governors loyalists conducted a primary not recognised by the APC national headquarters. However, Ogun State governor decided in his wisdom to conduct his own self help, I mean resulting to what you can call self-help by conducting what he called his own primary. The Secretary to Ogun State Government became the Chief Returning Officer and I and other NWC members were watching the Channels Television and we saw the Secretary to Ogun State Government proclaiming himself as the returning officer, and purported to have conducted primary, Mr Oshiomhole said. In his response, on Saturday, Mr Amosun, in a statement by his information commissioner, Dayo Adeneye, accused the party chairman of double standard. The ground on which Oshiomhole disputes the gubernatorial primary in Ogun State is that the result was not announced by the State Electoral Committee from Abuja, therefore the governor resorted to self-help, Mr Adeneye said. We wonder why Oshiomhole accepted the result of the primary election in Lagos State whose result was also not announced by the State Electoral Panel. Why will the same scenario be acceptable in Lagos State but regarded as self-help in Ogun State? Is it because it was executed by the Capo Di Tutti in Lagos State? PREMIUM TIMES reported the controversial Lagos governorship primary where the primary committee sent by the party headquarters initially distanced itself from the primary before making a U-turn. In the Lagos case, Mr Tinubu had his way and incumbent governor Akinwunmi Ambode lost his chance for re-election as he lost the APC primary and eventually accepted the result. Mr Amosun said the design of Mr Oshiomhole and his collaborators to hijack the government of Ogun State and hand it over to a gang of expansionists in the South-west will fail. Despite authorising the release of three statements within two weeks attacking the party chairman, Mr Amosun said he would not exchange words with Mr Oshiomhole because where he comes from, there are acceptable standards of conduct expected of people holding certain offices, a virtue he wishes Oshiomhole would exhibit. THE CAUSE OF CONFLICT As with many other states, the conflict between Messrs Amosun and Oshiomhole was brought to the fore following the APC primaries in Ogun State. The governorship primary supported by Mr Amosun produced his anointed candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, as governorship aspirant while the primary committee sent by the party headquarters in Abuja conducted a separate primary in Ogun. The latter primary produced Dapo Abiodun. Mr Abiodun is believed to be the preferred candidate of Olusegun Osoba, a former Ogun State governor and close ally of Mr Tinubu. APC Chieftain, Bola Tinubu Mr Osoba and Mr Amosun have been at logger heads for years for the control of the APC structure in Ogun. In his Saturday statement, Mr Amosun, a close ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, reiterated he would only recognise Mr Akinlade as the APC governorship candidate in Ogun. He said the only gubernatorial primary held in the state was that of October 02, 2018 which produced Mr Akinlade. He said the emergence of Mr Akinlade was initially through a consensus arrangement as allowed by the party constitution but was nevertheless subjected to a primary election when some gubernatorial aspirants disagreed with the outcome of the consensus arrangement. This is however, without prejudice to the sanctity of the consensus arrangement which Adams Oshiomhole hypocritically tries to demonise. Nigerians will recall that Oshiomhole himself was elected National Chairman of the APC by consensus arrangement which witnessed all other contestants to the office being prevailed upon to step down for him (Oshiomhole). OTHER PROBLEMS Apart from the controversy surrounding the governorship ticket, Mr Amosun also accused Mr Oshiomhole of other improprieties. We wish to call the attention of Nigerians to another evil being perpetrated by Oshiomhole in Ogun State. As at today November 03, which is 24 hours after the deadline for submission of names of candidates for the House of Assembly, Oshiomhole has not given INEC Party Candidate Form (CF001) to any of the 26 candidates who won the primaries for the ticket to contest for the Ogun State House of Assembly. APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomole Photo: DailyPost The primary was conducted on October 07 by the State Electoral Committee headed by Col. Ali Ciroma. This is despite the fact that the State Chairman of the party had kept vigil at the national secretariat of the APC in the last two weeks to collect the forms. If Oshiomhole is denying the outcome of the gubernatorial primaries because the State Electoral Committee shied away from announcing the result, what is the reason for denying all the 26 candidates for the House of Assembly freely elected by members of the APC in Ogun State? We want Nigerians to note the duplicity and meddlesomeness of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his gang in the affairs of the APC in Ogun State. It is also important to note that Oshiomhole unilaterally replaced four of the nine winners of the primary election into the House of Representatives. This includes Hon. Mikhail Kazzim, a serving member of the House who won the primaries by defeating Olumide, the son of Chief Olusegun Osoba, with 28,802 votes to Osobas 4,209. Oshiomhole removed Hon. Kazzim who won the primaries and replaced him with the man he had serially defeated, not only in the last primary election but also in the general election of 2015. In yet another instance in Ado Odo Ota Federal Constituency, Oshiomhole substituted the winner of the primary for the House of Representatives, Hon. Rotimi Rahmon with the name of Hon. Jimoh Ojugbele, who did not even contest to go back to the House of Representatives but contested the primary for the Senate and was defeated. In his conduct, Oshiomhole is opening a new chapter in the history of elections in Nigeria- a situation where a gang of desperate politicians will sit somewhere in another state and write the result of an election that never took place; what our people creatively refer to as Offshore Rigging!. This is what Oshiomhole and his gang are trying to foist on Ogun State. Lawyers say you cannot build something on nothing. Oshiomhole and his gang are trying to build a storey building of fraud on nothing. The governor also rejected the allegation by Mr Oshiomhole that he withdrew the security of the primary committee sent by the headquarters. As regards the claim of Oshiomhole that Sen. Amosun withdrew the security of the panel, Indabawa, Chairman of the panel, is a retired Commissioner of Police. He came into Ogun State with a full complement of police team which he claimed was provided for him by a Deputy Inspector General of Police. How could Amosun have withdrawn policemen he did not assign or over whom he had no control? All of these have clearly shown that the motive of Oshiomhole is not the rule of law which he proclaims on the roof top. It is rather, an evil plan with some collaborators, desperate to hijack the government of Ogun State and add it to the harem of states under their rapacious gang of exploiters. As we have stated before, this evil design will not succeed in Ogun State. Our people are too educated, exposed and sophisticated to come under such odious arrangement. On a general note, Oshiomhole, who became the APC Chairman barely three months ago, is already threatening to write the epitaph of the party in his 100 days of ignominy. Mr Amosun then reiterated a stance that shows he could back his preferred candidate to run on the platform of another party for the governorship election. Let Mr Oshiomhole and his motley crew of co-travellers in ignominy, be assured that the music has just begun and we hope that you will enjoy the macabre dance to the music of justice. By the Grace of God and the support of the good people of Ogun State, Hon. Adekunle Abdulkadir Akinlade will be sworn in as the new governor of Ogun State on May 29, 2019, the information commissioner said. The police in Plateau say despite burial, scientific tests are still being conducted to confirm that the body parts found last week were those of a missing army general. The Nigerian Army last week declared the body parts found in an abandoned well in Plateau as those of Idris Alkali, a major general, who had been missing for over a month. The army said multiple suspects who led officials to the well confirmed the body parts belonged to missing general. The Plateau police spokesperson, Tyopev Terna, spoke to journalists on Sunday while parading 19 persons arrested for their alleged roles in the murder. Mr Terna was reacting to questions by journalists on whether the body parts found were actually those of Mr Alkali. Scientific investigation is on-going. The fact that the corpses has been buried, it doesnt stop scientific investigation. Investigation can go on, he said. Our expert came and took sample of what we got and that is why I can tell you authoritatively that scientific investigation is on-going. Everything is as good as you have asked. First and foremost, the suspects we have caught were the ones who led us to the place. They confessed that they were the ones who initially buried him and exhumed the body, took it and dumped it into a pit. PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how the army discovered a shallow grave where it said Mr Alkalis remains were initially buried before they were taken away from there. Mr Terna, however, says the police are not relying only on the statement of the suspects. What do you think Nigerians will need again? Like I have said, in order to make it abundantly clear to everybody, we have involved medical doctors and other forensic experts and investigation is on. So, immediately we are done, we will still call the press, Mr Terna said. The spokesperson said the suspects will soon be charged to court. Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army has reiterated that the other two suspects in connection to the murder of Mr Alkali, who are still at large, are still wanted. Kayode Ogunsanya, deputy director army public relations at the armys 3 division, made this known on Sunday in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES. This headquarters still solicit the assistance of the general public for information or the whereabouts of two wanted persons who are yet to report to the Nigerian Police Plateau State Command. Burial of Idris Alkali The two wanted persons are Mr Chuwang Samuel aka Morinho and Mr Nyam Samuel aka Soft Touch. This headquarters can be contacted on GSM number 09074028881 as sources of information would be treated as confidential. The general public be rest assured that all those who participated in the killing, no matter how highly placed, shall be brought to justice, he said. Missing, Found Dead Mr Alkali was declared missing on September 3. On September 29, the Nigerian Army recovered Mr Akalis vehicle that contained some of his personal effects. These were found in a pond in Dura Du community of Plateau State. Weeks later, the army showed journalists a shallow grave where it said Mr Alkalis body was initially buried. The abandoned well where the body of the missing general was found Eventually, the remains of the officer was found in an abandoned well in a bush at Guchwet Village in Shen Du District of Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau on October 31. His remains were buried at Gudu Cemetery in Abuja on Saturday. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari urging him to use his good offices and leadership position to direct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, SAN, and/or appropriate anti-corruption agencies to without delay investigate allegations of bribery against Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, as contained in the widely circulated video clips allegedly showing Mr Ganduje receiving bribe. The organisation said: if there is relevant and sufficient admissible evidence, Mr Ganduje should face prosecution at the expiration of his tenure as governor. The organisation also urged the government to instruct the Attorney General and/or appropriate anti-corruption agencies to ensure the protection and guarantee the safety and security of journalist Jaafar Jaafar, who reportedly published the video clips. In the open letter dated November 2, and signed by SERAP senior legal adviser, Bamisope Adeyanju, the organisation said, Given the history of corruption in Nigeria, especially unresolved allegations of grand corruption against many state governors, your government cannot and should not look the other way regarding the allegations against Mr Ganduje. Any allegations of bribery and abuse of power in any state of Nigeria is of concern to every Nigerian, and should therefore, be of concern to your government. The organisation also said, The obligations of your government to combat corruption in Nigeria extend to all the three tiers of government, namely, the federal government, state government and local government. Although primarily a matter of concern for Kano State, the allegations of bribery against Mr Ganduje have assumed such a proportion as to become a matter of concern to the federation as a whole, and therefore, to your government. The organisation asked the government to take the recommended steps within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter, failing which SERAP will institute legal proceedings to compel your government to act in the public interest. According to the organisation, Taking the recommended steps would help to enhance your governments fight against corruption and contribute hugely to promoting the public interest, the interest of justice as well as prevent any abuse of the legal process. Any failure and/or refusal to act would undermine the goal of your governments anti-corruption fight and tacitly serve to encourage persistent allegations of corruption among many state governors to continue with almost absolute impunity. The letter read in part: Vigorously seeking to enforce anticorruption legislation and the UN Convention against Corruption to which Nigeria is a state party against alleged corrupt state governors, will show that your government is with concerned with the overall well-being of the federation and willing and able to enforce important constitutional principles. The Attorney-General of the Federation has power, conferred on him by section 174(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and anticorruption agencies have the powers to act on the allegations of bribery against Mr Ganduje for the sake of ensuring transparency and accountability, and promoting the common good, peace, order and good government of the federation (which includes Kano State). Taking prompt action on the allegations of bribery against the governor would also be entirely consistent with the provisions of section 15 subsection (5) of the Constitution, which requires your government to abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power, regardless of the state where such practices take place. Section 15 specifically defines government to include the government of the federation, or of any state, or of a local government council or any person who exercises power or authority on its behalf. Section 61(2) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC) Act also provides that public officers accused of bribery may be prosecuted by the appropriate authority for such an offence. SERAP is concerned that growing allegations of corruption including bribery against many state governors have not been investigated and that several of the governors involved are getting away with their alleged crimes. We note that while a governor may enjoy immunity from arrest and prosecution, he does not enjoy immunity from investigation. Any criminal allegation against a sitting governor including Mr Ganduje can and should be investigated pending the time the governor leaves office and loses immunity. The findings of such investigation can also be the basis for initiating impeachment proceedings against the governor. The troops the president wants to deploy to our southern border will be able to do nothing more than provide logistical support to the Border Patrol, such as building tents and shoveling manure. That's because using the military to enforce immigration or criminal laws at the border or to perform any other law enforcement activities is itself illegal. BOSTON, Nov. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On Saturday, at the 2018 Realtor Conference & Expo in Boston, Massachusetts, the National Association of Realtors hosted its 2018 Appraisal Forum. The forum, officially titled, "Demystifying Agent-Appraiser Communication: Law, Liability and Best Practice," highlighted proper approaches for communication and cooperation between agents and appraisers. The event began with a panel conversation between Lynn Madison, Owner of Madison Seminars in Schaumburg, Illinois; John Torvi, Vice President of Marketing and Sales at the Herbert H. Landy Insurance Agency in Needham, Massachusetts; Melanie McLane, owner of Jackson Real Estate in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania; and Charlie Lee, associate counsel with NAR. Lee focused on clarifying the misconception that real estate professionals are prohibited from speaking to appraisers. In reality, Lee said, no rules or requirements on the federal, state, or agency level prohibit an appraiser and agent from speaking to one another during the appraisal process. However, Lee reminded Realtors that appraisers and real estate professionals have separate and distinct roles during the home buying process. "Real estate professionals (brokers, agents) have a responsibility to serve their clients, while appraisers are brought into this process exclusively to develop the best appraisal they can. Still, real estate professionals are encouraged to communicate with appraisers in a professional and productive manner, as relevant information from real estate professionals may help an appraiser independently arrive at an opinion of value. However, and most importantly, a real estate professional should never communicate with the intent of trying to influence an appraiser's appraisal," said NAR's Lee. The group also highlighted regulations governing conversations between appraisers and agents, while panelists shared anecdotes to illustrate how to avoid liability on all sides of the transaction. "NAR represents approximately 25,000 state-licensed and certified appraisers throughout the country. Today's forum was a valuable way for members to learn the right way to communicate with an appraiser without running afoul of appraiser independence requirements from some of the nation's brightest minds on this topic. "Overall, I am confident that the contents of today's discussion will generate valuable feedback to the Real Property Valuation Committee going forward, which will benefit everyone in our association," said NAR President Elizabeth Mendenhall, a sixth-generation Realtor from Columbia, Missouri and CEO of RE/MAX Boone Realty. In her remarks, McLane stressed the importance of mutual respect between agents and appraisers while emphasizing the claim that neither party is ever always right. John Torvi, who traveled to Boston from nearby Needham, reiterated that point. "Just because an appraised value doesn't meet the agent's expectations, it doesn't mean it's a bad appraisal. As someone who works with both appraisers and agents, I hear both sides of the story. This panel discussion allowed for a better understanding of the valuation process to benefit appraiser, agents, sellers and buyers," Torvi said. The National Association of Realtors is America's largest trade association, representing 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. SOURCE National Association of Realtors Related Links http://www.realtor.org DALLAS, Nov. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) is celebrating autumn by beginning to operate several new routes just in time for the holiday season. More Options for California Travelers Northern California Expansion Southwest continues complementing its robust service for California travelers by strengthening its commitment to San Jose, California. By the end of this month, the carrier will offer up to 98 departures a day to more than two dozen destinations across the United States and Mexico. To reach that milestone, the carrier began service today between: San Jose, Calif. and Tucson, Ariz. (nonstop itineraries are available Sundays-Fridays) Starting Monday, Nov. 5, 2018, the carrier will increase the number of weekday flights between: San Jose, Calif. and Portland, Ore. (eight roundtrips on weekdays, an increase of two flights each weekday) San Jose, Calif. and Orange County/Santa Ana (11 roundtrips on weekdays, an increase of one flight each weekday) Burbank's New Flights Take Off Today, the carrier also added nonstop service between: Burbank and Houston (Hobby) (nonstop itineraries are available Sundays-Fridays) Burbank and Chicago (Midway) (nonstop itineraries are available Sundays-Fridays) Growing In the Nation's Capital Southwest is growing its presence at Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National airport with more service. The carrier began nonstop service today between Oklahoma City and Washington, D.C. (Reagan National). More weekday service begins Monday, Nov. 5, 2018, with one additional roundtrip flight between: Washington, D.C. (Reagan National) and Nashville (an increase to four weekday roundtrip flights) Washington, D.C. (Reagan National) and Dallas (an increase to five weekday roundtrip flights) Nonstop Between the Big Easy and the Big Apple Beginning today, Southwest began operating daily flights between New York (LaGuardia) and New Orleans. On Monday, Nov. 5, 2018, the carrier will add one additional frequency on routes it currently serves between: New York (LaGuardia) and Dallas Love Field (an increase to five weekday roundtrip flights) New York (LaGuardia) and Denver (an increase to three weekday roundtrip flights) New York (LaGuardia) and Kansas City, Mo. (an increase to two weekday roundtrip flights) With these new additions, Southwest will offer up to 35 flights a day from LaGuardia. Passport Stamps for the Holidays Southwest also began weekend service between Chicago (Midway) and Cabo San Lucas/Los Cabos, Mexico. Additionally, seasonal daily international service returned on routes between: Austin and Cancun Denver and Puerto Vallarta Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood and Belize Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood and Grand Cayman Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood and Turks and Caicos Houston (Hobby) and Liberia, Costa Rica St. Louis and Cancun On Saturday, Nov. 10, 2019, the carrier will resume weekly seasonal service on Saturdays between: Nashville and Cancun Columbus, Ohio and Cancun Indianapolis and Cancun Even More Nonstop Flights Take Off Today, the carrier began daily nonstop service linking Denver and Lubbock. Additionally, the airline began nonstop flights on Sundays between Houston (Hobby) and Philadelphia and Houston (Hobby) and Sacramento. Customers may book seats on any of these flights or any of the carrier's more than 4,000 daily departures through Southwest.com. The carrier's schedule is open through June 8, 2019. ABOUT SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. In its 48th year of service, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other air carriers with exemplary Customer Service delivered by more than 58,000 Employees to a Customer base topping 120 million passengers annually, in recent years. Southwest became the nation's largest domestic air carrier in 2003 and maintains that ranking based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's most recent reporting of domestic originating passengers boarded. During peak travel seasons, Southwest operates more than 4,000 weekday departures among a network of 99 destinations in the United States and 10 additional countries. Southwest has announced its intention to serve Hawaii, subject to requisite governmental approvals. Southwest coined Transfarency to describe its purposed philosophy of treating Customers honestly and fairly, and low fares actually staying low. Southwest is the only major U.S. airline to offer bags fly free to everyone (first and second checked pieces of luggage, size and weight limits apply, some carriers offer free checked bags on select routes or in qualified circumstances), and there are no change fees, though fare differences might apply. Book Southwest Airlines' low fares online at Southwest Airlines or by phone at 800-I-FLY-SWA. SOURCE Southwest Airlines Co. Related Links http://www.southwest.com WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Evelyn Y. Davis, 89, died peacefully, Sunday, November 4, 2018, at Washington Medical Center. President of the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation, Davis was a philanthropist, successful investor, financial skeptic and defender of shareholder rights in calling for boardroom accountability on behalf of publicly owned companies. The daughter of the late Herman H. DeJong, M.D. and Marianne Witteboon DeJong, Davis was born August 16, 1929 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as she self-described, "on the wrong side of the ocean but the very right side of the tracks." Davis immigrated to Baltimore, Maryland, during World War II with her brother, the late Col. Rudolph H. DeJong, M.D., to join their father, a distinguished neurologist, who taught at Johns Hopkins University. She graduated from Catonsville (Maryland) High School in 1947 and attended Western Maryland College and George Washington University before beginning her legendary investing career. From 1965 until 2011, Davis published "HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS," an annual newsletter that covered the Washington scene; corporate governance; executive compensation; location and dates of corporate meetings; as well as the issues and votes on numerous shareholder proposals. She owned stock in more than 80 corporations in varied and diverse industries, and regularly attended shareholder meetings throughout the United States, beginning in 1959. During her career, Davis was featured in many newspapers and magazines and frequently appeared on many national television programs including CNBC "Nightly Business Report," NBC "The TODAY Show," and other programs on CNN, and Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. She lectured on corporate governance issues at Babson College, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, Penn State's School of Journalism and many other venues. A four-time divorcee with no children, Davis formerly resided at Watergate East, where she served on the co-op's Finance Committee and maintained her office at the Watergate Office Building. Davis will be laid to rest in historic St. Paul's Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C. and memorialized at a private service at St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C. FOR INFORMATION, CONTACT: Mr. Richard W. Bryan, Esq. Mr. John E. DeBord Jackson & Campbell, P.C. LHT Consulting Group, LLC [email protected] [email protected] 202-457-1638 704-650-3163 SOURCE Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation ST. CROIX, Virgin Islands, Nov. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Limetree Bay Refining ("Limetree Bay Refining"), LLC announced today that it has reached agreement in principle with the supply and trading arm of a major international oil company on the restart of the idled refinery located at Limetree Bay, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (collectively, the "Refinery"). Under the contemplated terms, the oil company would enter into a tolling agreement and serve as the Refinery's supply and offtake counterparty. Details about the agreement will be made available in the next week to ten days. Limetree Bay Refining anticipates completion of the restart by late 2019. Limetree Bay Terminals, LLC ("Limetree Bay Terminals"), which is an affiliate of Limetree Bay Refining, purchased the Refinery and associated terminal assets out of bankruptcy in 2016. Since that time, the company has returned over 25 million barrels of storage capacity to service and currently has more than 1,100 total workers at the Refinery site. Shortly after acquiring the idled Refinery, which has a peak processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, Limetree Bay Refining began exploring opportunities for a restart. Over the ensuing two years, the company advanced the project with strong support from the administration of the Honorable Kenneth E. Mapp, Governor of the Virgin Islands. Earlier this year, the parties successfully negotiated a new operating agreement, which was ratified by the 32nd Legislature of the Virgin Islands on July 25, 2018 and signed into law by the Governor soon thereafter. "The refinery restart project is the product of a collaborative effort with many Virgin Islanders," added Brian Lever, President of Limetree Bay Refining. "I want to express my gratitude, first, to Governor Mapp, whose vision and support were instrumental in enabling us to attain this milestone. I am also grateful to the 32nd Legislature, led by Senate President Jackson, for its consideration and approval of the new refinery operating agreement. My team and I look forward to further advancing the refinery restart and the positive impact we hope to have on the local community through jobs, taxes, and economic activity." Governor Mapp applauded the announcement of the Limetree agreement. "I am happy that the refinery has taken a major step with this Agreement," he said. "The refinery will bring at least $1.5 billion in outside investment over the next fourteen months. It has already created 1,100 construction jobs, and once the refinery reopens it will generate upwards of 700 permanent jobs. Over the next ten years, the restarted refinery will produce hundreds of millions of dollars in new direct revenues to the Government. I am grateful to our partners at Limetree Bay for creating this opportunity, and I look forward to a productive and collaborative relationship with both companies now and in the future," Governor Mapp said. The restart efforts will be completed by a skilled team led by Brian Lever. Limetree Bay Terminals continues to be led by Darius Sweet, who serves as Chief Executive Officer. The company will provide storage and terminaling services for the Refinery and will continue to lease crude oil and petroleum product storage capacity to third-party customers. About Limetree Bay Refining Limetree Bay Refining and its affiliate Limetree Bay Terminals own idled refinery equipment with peak processing capacity totaling 650,000 barrels per day, approximately 32 million barrels of storage capacity, and a world-class deepwater port. Limetree Bay Refining and Limetree Bay Terminals continue to make significant investments to revitalize the St. Croix facility as an environmentally-compliant, multi-purpose energy center that will conduct large-scale refining operations and provide third-party storage services for crude oil and refined petroleum products. SOURCE Limetree Bay Refining Los Angeles, Nov 4 : Actress Leah Remini said she never presented an "authentic" version of herself to people when she was a Scientologist because she had to try and recruit them to the religion. Speaking to Jada Pinkett Smith on an upcoming episode of "Red Table Talk", she said: "Regardless of what was being presented to you, from me as a friend, you were seeing a side of me that was not 100 per cent authentic because my job was to always be a perfect person in front of you, or any celebrity, to solely get you into Scientology, fully indoctrinated, fully on board and deserting any other beliefs." Remini's appearance on the show came after she and Pinkett ended a feud which began when she said the "Girl's Trip" actress was a Scientologist last September, reports femalefirst.co.uk. The 47-year-old actress said she was grateful that the "old school" actress was the bigger person and "reached out" to resolve their differences. "It was really beautiful and she reached out to me. She was much more bigger than me in that way. It was nice to reconnect and release ourselves from all that nonsense that doesn't matter... "What was really emotional about it was realising that there was two broken little girls in us that were abandoned by their fathers and turned into fighters who clashed." Baghdad, Nov 4 : Iraqi security forces have began a large-scale security operation to clear areas in western Iraq from the Islamic State (IS) militants, the Iraqi military said. The operation is designed to hunt down the remnants of the extremist militants in the vast desert area between the provinces of Salahudin, Nineveh and Anbar, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul, spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, said in a statement on Saturday, Xinhua reported. The security forces will advance westward to the Iraqi-Syrian border, the statement said. Late last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, also commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, emphasized in a statement "the importance of continuing precautionary efforts and keeping track of terrorist groups to secure the border with Syria." Meanwhile, a leader of the paramilitary Hashd Shaabi said in a statement that reinforcements had been dispatched to the border with Syria after the IS militant group seized positions of Syrian Democratic Forces on the Syrian side near the border. The Iraqi forces, backed by Hashd Shaabi forces, have been deployed in the desert area for months to secure the Iraqi side of the border and prevent infiltration of IS militants from Syria to Iraq. Tripoli, Nov 4 : Deputy Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya Maria Ribeiro has stressed support of the UN to national and international efforts to establish stability in Libya. Ribeiro made her remarks on Saturday during a visit to the new headquarter of the Libyan Higher Commission of Elections in the capital Tripoli, Xinhua reported. Ribeiro told the Commission's Board of Directors Member Abdulhakim Belkher that supporting the efforts to organise and conduct future elections of Libya is a key goal of the UN. Earlier in May, the Islamic State (IS) carried out a deadly suicide attack on the headquarters of the commission, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 10 others. It was the most violent IS attack in Tripoli for years. Libya has remained in chaos following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi. The country is struggling to make a democratic transition amid political division and unrest as well as dominance of armed groups and militias with shifting loyalties. Washington, Nov 4 : US First lady Melania Trump has decided not to hit the campaign trail alongside her husband President Donald Trump, as he spends the last days before the November 6 midterm elections criss-crossing the country. "Due to her schedule as a mother and as First Lady, especially with the upcoming holidays and international travel, there are no plans for her to campaign," Melania Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham told CNN on Saturday. Asked whether Melania Trump, although not physically present at campaign events, stays in the loop on her husband's midterm push agenda and if she weighs in on his rally appearances, Grisham responded: "Yes." She is scheduled to join the President when he travels to Paris on November 11. Her last major campaign appearance and a speech was nearly two years ago, days before the November 2016 presidential election, when she spoke in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the First Lady has a favourable rating 13 points higher than that of her husband, according to the most recent CNN poll, with Melania Trump at 54 per cent and the President at 41 per cent. Washington, Nov 4 : US President Donald Trump said in a campaign rally in Florida that he won't allow a caravan of Central American migrants, which is heading towards the Mexico-US border, to enter the country. Speaking to supporters at the rally held on Saturday at a hangar at Pensacola International Airport, Trump said that there were reports of many "bad people" being part of the caravan and added that they would not be allowed to enter the country, reports Efe news. He accused Democrats of promoting an open border and wanting to invite caravan after caravan of immigrants - referring to Central American immigrants who have entered Mexico with the aim of reaching the US - and said that this would lead to more crime. The President also criticized Andrew Gillum, the Democratic Party's candidate for the post of Florida Governor, for seeking to abolish the federal agency, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which he said was "full of patriots" who arrested 127,000 illegal immigrants last year. Trump said that nearly all of the illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine entered the US through the southern border, and called for stronger borders. Saturday's rally was aimed at mobilising the Republican support base for the midterm elections, set to be held on November 6. You are here: Business China's steel industry saw profits surge in the January-September period, alongside progress in environmental protection and deleveraging, data from an industry association shows. The industry's total profit soared 86 percent year on year in the period, reaching around 230 billion yuan (about 33 billion U.S. dollars), according to the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA). Profit rates of steel companies have reached the average of China's major industrial firms, reversing the situation where low profit and deficit plagued the country's steel companies, the association said. Liu Zhenjiang, secretary-general of the CISA, attributed the industry's growth to rising demand for steel and the steady price of ironstone. Output of crude steel and steel rose by 6.07 percent and 7.21 percent in the past three quarters, respectively, while the steel inventory remained at a low level, showing both strong supply and demand, said Liu. Data from the association shows the price of ironstone, a raw material for steelmaking, edged down over the past nine months, contributing to the profits of steel companies. Chinese steel makers attached more importance to pollution control and deleveraging after they gained more profits, Liu said. CISA data demonstrates the efforts of steel companies in reducing pollution emissions, with the emission volume of waste water down 1.13 percent year on year. The industry's asset-liability ratio continued to drop amid steel companies' efforts to pay back debts, which came in at 66.11 percent at the end of September, down 3.91 percent year on year, said the CISA. London, Nov 4 : Certain genetic factors may impact our body in intriguingly paradoxical ways. A team of scientists has identified 14 new genetic variations that were linked with higher Body Mass Index (BMI) but have the potential to lower risk of diabetes, lower blood pressure and lower heart disease risk. According to researchers, it is because the location -- around middle or round the liver -- where surplus fat is stored could be genetically determined. This location is more important than the amount when it comes to insulin resistance and risk of diabetes and other conditions. "There are some genetic factors that increase obesity, but paradoxically reduce metabolic risk. It is to do with where on the body the fat is stored," said Brunel Alex Blakemore, Professor at the Brunel University London. The findings revealed that as they gain weight, people who carry these genetic factors store it safely under the skin, and so have less fat in their major organs such as the liver, pancreas and kidneys. "Directly under the skin is better than around the organs or especially, within the liver," Blakemore added. For the study, published in the journal Diabetes, the team examined more than 500,000 people aged between 37 and 73. They used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans of these people's waists to match where they stored extra fat with whether they showed signs of Type-2 diabetes, heart attack and risk of stroke. "There are many overweight or obese individuals who do not carry the expected metabolic disease risks associated with higher BMI," explained Hanieh Yaghootkar from the University of Exeter in Britain. "Meanwhile, some lean or normal weight individuals develop diseases like Type-2 diabetes," Yaghootkar noted. New Delhi : The US midterm elections will be held on November 6. Many knowledgeable observers are calling these midterms the most important elections in a generation. Thats because, even though this is an off-year election in which there is no presidential contest, the election itself is a referendum on Donald Trump. President Trump's aggressive and attacking leadership style and personality has taken a country that was already divided and driven the voters into polarised camps. He has consistently governed for and bonded with his Republican base and ignored and alienated those who vote Democratic. Trump has intensified his polarising tactics in the run-up to election day through his comments nationally, as also in his campaigning for Republican candidates in states across the country. He has asked his ardent supporters to see each election as being about him. This has energised them and galvanised those voters who oppose him. The battle lines have been drawn. The outcome will be determined on election day. The basic outcome will be control of the US Congress which has two chambers: The House (which has 435 members distributed based upon the populations of the 50 states) and the Senate (which has two members per state). Currently, the Republicans have a majority in both the House and the Senate. The much more important outcome will be what the results will mean for US governmental policy and practices. No matter how Congress splits, the President's approach to foreign policy and international relations will remain nationalistic and isolationist, with the most visible impact in India being in areas such as trade, treaties and immigration. The largest impact in the US itself will be in Congressional support for, or in resistance to, moving forward President Trump's agenda. That agenda has included tax cuts providing nominal benefits to the average citizen and substantial benefits to the wealthy and large corporations, and the dismantling of Obamacare -- the programme that was designed to provide reasonably-priced health-care coverage for all Americans. Trump's agenda has also featured downsizing and radically changing the focus of domestic agencies that Democrats value highly such as the Departments of Education, Interior, Labour, Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. From a purely legislative standpoint, it doesn't matter much whether the Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress, the control is split, or the Democrats gain control. The reason is that, for nearly a decade, Congress has been suffering from congressional dysfunction. There has been little across-the-aisle compromise and not much legislation has been passed. Where the control will matter is in terms of support for the President's agenda. After the election, President Trump will continue to govern, as he has primarily to this point, through executive order. A Republican majority in both chambers will aid and abet those orders and might occasionally pass legislation related to them. Split control would mean endless battles, with one chamber blocking or reversing the actions of the other. The most intriguing possibility is Democratic control of both chambers which would undoubtedly produce, among other things, attempts to curb Trump's immigration proposals and to reverse his Obamacare interventions. And, depending on what Special Counsel Robert Mueller finds, might even lead to articles of impeachment. In sum, the US mid-term elections matter not because they will bring about dramatic changes in law-making but because changes in the law-makers will influence the tone and tenor of our national dialogue and the attitudes of the American public. The United States of America is at a pivot point. Continued Republican control will reinforce and extend the current darkness, fear and withdrawal from the world stage. Split or Democratic control will signal the potential for sunlight, hope, optimism and a recommitment to international leadership. Which will it be? At this point, a few days before the election is held, the most likely possibility appears to be split control of Congress with the Republicans retaining the majority in the Senate and the Democrats gaining a majority in the House. Fivethirtyeight, a research firm that does projections employing its statistical analysis of the findings of several polling organisations, gave the Democrats a 6 in 7 chance of winning control of the House and the Republicans a 6 in 7 chance of keeping control of the Senate. That is no guarantee, however. Polls do not vote, people do. They will do so on November 6. The citizens of the US, India and the world will know the actual results then. After that, there will be no more conjecture, just the consequences. (Frank F. Islam is an entrepreneur, civic and thought leader based in Washington DC. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at ffislam@verizon.net ) Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 4 : A Kerala Minister on Sunday dismissed nepotism allegations levelled against him by the state opposition, saying they were baseless. Higher Education Minister K.T. Jaleel has come under fire after the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) said a close relative of the Minister who was a B. Tech graduate, was appointed as general manager in a state-owned corporation, which is all set to get a non-banking finance company license . The IUML is the second biggest party in the Congress-led opposition. Speaking to the media here, Jaleel said the appointment of a general manager in the Kerala State Minorities Development Finance Corporation, under his Ministry, was done according to the rules of the government. "We put out ads in several newspapers inviting people to apply for the varios posts. Seven candidates had applied and three was chosen for an interview, but none was found suitable. "Hence a person working with the South Indian Bank was selected. The state government has the powers to appoint anyone on deputation and in fact the previous two people who were appointed to this post were selected on deputation," said Jaleel. The Minister added: "The new appointee, who is an expert in banking, has started his work and was computerising the records and this act has turned the IUML leadership jittery, as the list of loan defaulters is getting prepared. Those who are now up in arms and levelling baseless allegations know that if the present process continues, many will be in trouble." Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and the state Congress President Mulapally Ramachandran have also demanded Jaleel to step down. The Minister pointed out that today there were many B. Tech graduates working in banks, adding that the former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan was an electrical engineer. Srinagar, Nov 4 : One of the two persons killed in Saturday's gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district was a civilian, police said on Sunday. Police had earlier said that two militants were slain in fighting between rebels and security forces in Khudpora village. The bodies were recovered on Sunday and one of them turned out to be a civilian identified as Shahid Ahmad Mir. Police sources said the civilian's body was handed over to the family. The other person killed in the gunfight was a Kashmiri militant, Muhammad Irfan Bhat. Police said a couple of militants managed to escape during the encounter. Mexico City, Nov 4 : Over 3,200 Central Americans who had been heading towards the US, have now applied to Mexico for asylum over the past two weeks, the government said. The applicants, mainly Hondurans, were part of a massive caravan of migrants headed on foot towards the US, reports Xinhua news agency. In a joint statement on Saturday, Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry and Interior Ministry said a total of 3,230 asylum applications were received to date. With US President Donald Trump taking an increasingly hostile stance towards the migrant caravan, many have opted to try and remain in Mexico. More than 400 of the applicants have decided to abandon the procedure and have asked to be deported, officials said. "It is a migratory exodus," Interior Minister Alfonso Navarrete said last week, adding the migrants were fleeing poverty and a lack of opportunities. Authorities estimate the first caravan includes 5,347 people at this point, with 4,347 making their way north through Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Veracruz and another thousand travelling through the southern state of Oaxaca. Tehran, Nov 4 : Thousands of Iranians took to the streets across the country on Sunday to mark the 39th anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran now named "den of espionage", amid looming American sanctions slated to come into effect from Monday. The embassy was stormed by Iranian students on this day in 1979, and its personnel were held hostage for 444 days, reports Xinhua news agency. The US broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 and the ties between the two countries have since remained severed. The demonstrators carried placards and chanted slogans against the US and its regional allies including Israel. Since the 1979 takeover of the US mission by Iranian students following the overthrow of the then Washington-backed Iranian King, the people have been marking the occasion every year by holding rallies on the anniversary dubbed as "National Day against Global Arrogance". The occasion this year coincides with the re-imposition of a comprehensive package of sanctions slapped against Tehran by Washington. The White House announced on Friday that the fresh sanctions on Iran, which will take effect on Monday, will be the "toughest" and "unprecedented", targeting "critical sectors" like energy, shipping, shipbuilding and finance. The US has kept accusing Iran of agitating regional instability and exporting violence, despite repeated denials from Iran. American President Donald Trump, who pulled out of the hard won Iranian nuclear accord on May 8, said the deal was "one of the worst and most one-sided deals the US has ever entered into". Beijing, Nov 4 : China and Pakistan on Sunday agreed to further develop their military cooperation after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan ended his official talks with the Chinese leadership here. In a joint statement released as Khan flew to Shanghai, China also came out in support of "Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries". Islamabad and Beijing also "dismissed the growing negative propaganda" against the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which New Delhi opposes, "and expressed determination to safeguard the CPEC projects from all threats". On defence, security and counter-terrorism cooperation, both sides agreed to further enhance defence cooperation and maintain high-level visits and exchanges at various levels between the two armed forces. The statement said the two countries had decided to "make full use of the China-Pakistan Defence and Security Consultation mechanism, deepen cooperation in areas such as military exercises, training cooperation, personnel exchanges, and equipment and technology cooperation". Calling for a peaceful and stable South Asia, the statement underlined the importance of pursuit of dialogue and resolution of all outstanding disputes to promote regional cooperation. "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," it said. China also backed Pakistan's engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), of which both Islamabad and New Delhi are not members, and said it welcomed Pakistan's adherence of NSG guidelines. The joint statement covered virtually every area of bilateral relationship including economy. China and Pakistan signed 15 agreements and MoUs on a range of issues during Khan's visit. "In political relations and strategic communication, both sides stressed they will continue to view China-Pakistan relations from a strategic and long-term perspective. "The Chinese side reiterated that China's relationship with Pakistan is always a matter of highest priority in its foreign policy." Canberra, Nov 4 : The population of the endangered Australian marsupial also known as bilbies has been holding steady despite a rising threat from natural predators, a survey has found. Rangers across Australia's deserts involved in the Bilby Blitz programme have spent six months surveying 248 areas of land in the Northern Territory and Western Australia for traces of the greater bilby and its predators, reports Xinhua news agency. Richard Moyle, the Central Land Council's land management officer, confirmed that rangers found evidence of bilby activity in 58 of the areas. "Everyone loves a bilby, they're cute, they're furry so they have that appeal," Moyle told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Sunday. The greater bilby is a desert-dwelling marsupial native to Australia that grows to 55 cm in length on average excluding its tail. The lesser bilby was declared extinct in the 1950s. The species has largely been wiped out by feral cats, foxes, weeds and fire. Moyle said rangers found evidence of feral cats in 111 of the search areas and foxes in 50 of them. Bilby Blitz was launched by Threatened Species Commissioner Sally Box in March to connect indigenous rangers with their non-indigenous peers. Patna, Nov 4 : Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Sunday said that no power in the world could stop the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. "No power in the world can stop construction of Ram temple because people's patience is running out for it," the Minister told the media in Nawada, his parliamentary constituency in Bihar. Giriraj Singh has urged the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government and the Supreme Court to come forward and resolve this issue. The Supreme Court has directed the listing of the Ram Janmabhoomi title suit to January 2019. Bhubaneswar, Nov 4 : The Odisha government on Sunday requested the Uttarakhand government to provide necessary support to the 42 Odia pilgrims stranded at Badrinath due to snowfall. State Joint Relief Commissioner P.R. Mohapatra wrote to the Chamoli District Collector requesting him to extend the necessary support to the pilgrims and arrange for their safe return to Odisha. He said the pilgrims were returning from Badrinath when, due to heavy snowfall and road blockages, they were stranded at a lodge on Saturday. They are starving and facing several problems due to power cuts, said Mohapatra. Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also spoke to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and requested him for the safe return of the pilgrims. He was assured of full support and medical care. You are here: As China is set to host the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai for the first time from Nov. 5-10, numerous German companies have already announced their intention to participate in the event in a bid to seize new cooperation opportunities. The CIIE is expected to give firm support to trade liberalization and economic globalization, and actively open the Chinese market to the world, according to its official website. Gateway The Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) is CIIE's organizer for Germany and encourages German enterprises to showcase their competitive products and services through the new platform. The CIIE will be an opportunity and an important gateway for German companies to enter the Chinese market, said Thomas Koenig, DIHK director for East Asia. "We are confident that the CIIE is one of the first steps for making sure that there are good conditions for German companies to do business in China," he told Xinhua in a recent interview. The event is an excellent opportunity for German companies to celebrate their successes in China, yet provides a chance for new German companies with little to no China exposure to see the country as a destination for their products and ideas, he added. "We've heard that more than 150,000 domestic and international buyers are expected to attend the expo, which doesn't happen often," said Simone Pohl, delegate and chief representative of the Delegation of German Industry & Commerce in Shanghai. "So the CIIE has received a warm response from the German business community, as they would like to establish closer business contacts with Chinese companies," Pohl added. "For the German and other foreign companies that are already in the Chinese market, the CIIE is a great opportunity to deepen business ties between the German and Chinese sides," said Pohl. "While for the newcomers entering the Chinese market, the CIIE is a starting point for them to learn about and experience the market." Large scale The expo has attracted 2,800 exhibitors from over 130 countries and regions. Of the world's 44 least developed countries, more than 30 will be present at the event. More than 100 new products and technologies are expected to debut at the expo, according to statistics from the organizers. "There will be a total of 170 German companies participating in this year's CIIE. We are very pleased to see such a large scale of participation, which underlines the German-Chinese friendship and partnership," Koenig said. The German pavilion will highlight new technology, ideas and products relevant to the Chinese market, he continued. In addition, Koenig said that the CIIE is about showcasing the new opportunities that exist in today's China, a country open for investment. "China does encourage more exchanges with foreign companies, and also it is very open for business. And that kind of spirit is something we DIHK of course very much support," Koenig added. Germany is one of the expo's 12 guests of honor. China has been Germany's largest trading partner for two years. Pohl said that German companies have high expectations for the expo. "Germans like to plan things and prepare in advance. We plan to showcase not only the business side but 'the whole of Germany' during the CIIE," Pohl added. According to the Economic and Commercial Counsellor's Office of the Embassy of China in Germany, the number of German exhibitors is third highest after the United States and Japan. German companies like Siemens, Bayer, Metro, SAP, BMW will be present at the event. Business opportunities Lothar Herrmann, CEO of Siemens Greater China, told Xinhua in a recent written interview that Siemens hopes to enhance exchanges with partners and customers from across the world at the CIIE. "This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's historical opening and reform. The CIIE is a strong gesture of China to commit to continuing opening-up in a new era of globalization," Herrmann said. "As a long-standing partner for China, Siemens welcomes and appreciates China's efforts in opening-up," he added. Another German exhibitor Bayer also told Xinhua that it expects to take this opportunity to let the present audience know more about Bayer's strategy and products and to seek new cooperation possibilities. "Hosting the CIIE is a major decision of China with a view to start a new round of high-level opening-up policies and an important initiative to open up its market to the world," said Bayer in a statement replying to Xinhua's interview. As a world-class high-end expo, the CIIE will create adequate opportunities for the attending countries and corporations to display, exchange and cooperate, the statement read. Bayer considers China as a crucial market for its global business strategy and as an important driver for growth. It is optimistic about its future prospects in China and its ability to contribute to China's development through innovation and science. Philippe Palazzi, chief operating officer and management board member of Metro AG, said "China is an important growth market for Metro and we'd like to take the opportunity of the CIIE to showcase our strength in imports and global sourcing, which is one of our core competences as an international player in food distribution." "We also want to use such a great platform to enhance our exchange and communication with local customers, business partners and other stakeholders as we are committed to the long-term development in China," Palazzi told Xinhua. Palazzi also wishes to explore the CIIE to discover more suitable business import partners to provide high quality products to meet the demands of customers in China. Meanwhile, German software corporation SAP told Xinhua that the CIIE provides a new platform for global businesses to collaborate and promote common prosperity in the world economy and trade. SAP believes the event is a great opportunity to share its expertise as well as learn from others about changing industry dynamics. "We look forward to meeting companies we can collaborate with as we are always seeking to expand our ecosystem of partners," the corporation said in a statement. Sabarimala (Kerala), Nov 4 : With the Lord Ayyappa shrine opening for a day on Monday, the temple town has been virtually taken over by some 2,300 Kerala Police personnel after protests marred the last pilgrimage season. The pilgrims will be allowed to go up the pathway only on Monday afternoon, an official said. The temple opens its door at 5 p.m. and closes on Tuesday at 10 p.m. Pathanamthitta District Collector P.B. Nooh has declared prohibitory orders in and around the temple town banning the gathering of four or more persons to foil street protests. The Bharatiay Janata Party (BJP) and numerous Hindu groups are up in arms against the September 28 verdict of the Supreme Court that allowed women of all age groups to enter the temple. The Kerala government has said it will implement the ruling, pitting it against the protesters. All the roads leading from Nilackal to the base camp of the temple town Pamba are barricaded and have been declared out of bounds till Monday morning by the police. The police are checking each and every vehicle that passes in and around the temple town. On Sunday, after protests, the police allowed the media to travel till Nilackal. Kerala BJP spokesperson M.T. Ramesh warned the police against examining the holy kit (Irrumudi Kettu) that is carried on the head by the pilgrims. Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said that there appeared to be some shady goings on as the media had never before been banned into the temple town. "If the media is kept away, then the authorities want to hide something," he said. State Congress President Mulapally Ramachandran said: "Parties like CPI, academics, intelligentsia and socio-cultural icons should prevail upon (Chief Minister Pinarayi) Vijayan to see that he handles this very sensitive issue in a more mature way." The Sabarimala Karma Samithi has written to media groups not to depute lady journalists to cover Monday's events at the temple that are generally out of bounds for women in the age group 10 to 50. The Samithi is angry that when the temple opened for the monthly prayers last month, attempts by two women journalists to do their job from the temple top were thwarted by protesters. The representatives of the Pandalam Royal family, the custodian of the jewellery of the Sabarimala temple, said the temple was passing through "tough times" as the temple town had been taken over by the police. "We will hold a special prayer and singing of hymns when the temple opens," said Sreekumar Varma. Pathanamthitta district Superintendent of Police T. Narayanan said on Sunday that as of now, there had been no request from women to enter the shrine. As of Sunday , the police have registered 545 cases and arrested 3,731 persons who protested last month when the temple opened for six days. Only around 100 are still in jail, while the rest have secured bail. New Delhi, Nov 4 : Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday slammed the Maharashtra government over the killing of the maneater tigress Avni. Gandhi, in a tweet, hit out at Maharashtra Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar saying "it is nothing but a straight case of crime" and said she will take up the matter "very strongly" with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, Mungantiwar gave orders for the killing. "I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case. Legally, criminally as well as politically" Gandhi added. Avni was a five-year-old tigress identified as "T1" who had created terror in Maharashtra's Vidarbha forests. She was shot dead early on Saturday near Borati village in Yavatmal district. Avni died after three months of a massive hunt undertaken with the help of trap cameras, drones, trained sniffer dogs along with a team of forest department officials and spotters. As per the Supreme Court directives, forest department officials were required to first tranquilize and trap her, but in Saturday's operation, she allegedly attacked the stalking team which shot her. Beijing, Nov 4 : China on Sunday patted Pakistan for its "efforts" to have peace talks with India to resolve the "outstanding" Kashmir dispute. During the ongoing China visit by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Beijing and Islamabad issued a joint statement which had some references to India and the issues where it is involved. "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," the statement said. After taking to power in August, Khan had sought to resume dialogue with India after almost two years of chill in bilateral ties following a deadly attack by Pakistani terrorists at an Indian army base in 2016. India agreed for a meeting between its External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in September, only to cancel it after another attack by Pakistani terrorists. China says it has a neutral stance on the Kashmir dispute between Indian and Pakistan, but its officials have hinted that Beijing can try to broker peace between them, an idea junked by New Delhi. The artery of Beijing's Belt and Road project, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is planned through a part of Kashmir held by Pakistan and claimed by India. The statement also said that "negative propaganda" was being spread about the CPEC, in a clear reference to India which opposes the project. "Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to CPEC and agreed that it was a win-win enterprise for the entire region and would bring regional prosperity and development through enhanced connectivity." The officials in Imran Khan government had expressed concern over Chinese investments under the CPEC, fearing that country might not be able to repay its Chinese debts. There was no reference to the highly-anticipated Chinese financial aid to Pakistan, the main reason for Khan's visit. The "all-weather allies" as they call themselves said the UN sanction regimes should not be politicized. "Both sides underscored the need for all states to avoid politicization of the UN sanctions regime and the work of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)." China, a member of the 1267 UN committee, has blocked India's application to ban Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar. Pakistan in June was formally added to the FATF'S 'grey list' of countries which fund terrorists. In the statement, Beijing again backed Pakistan entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) where it has repeatedly refused India's admission. "China supports Pakistan's engagement with the NSG and welcomes its adherence of NSG Guidelines." China says India is a non-signatory to nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty and cannot be let in. It says if India can be given exception, why not Pakistan. The statement talked about Islamabad's support to China in fighting separatists in restive Xingjiang province. To Beijing's surprise, Islamabad had expressed concerns over the treatment of Uighurs Muslims in Xinjiang by Chinese authorities, who they suspect of being separatist and sympathizers of EITM. Islamabad also backed Beijing's entry into the eight-member South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation. On defence, security and counter-terrorism cooperation, both sides agreed to further enhance defence cooperation and maintain high-level visits and exchanges at various levels between the two armed forces. The statement said the two countries had decided to "make full use of the China-Pakistan Defence and Security Consultation mechanism, deepen cooperation in areas such as military exercises, training cooperation, personnel exchanges, and equipment and technology cooperation". Paris, Nov 4 : Voters in New Caledonia, France's archipelago in the South Pacific, on Sunday decided to remain French in a referendum vote. According to partial results, about 60 per cent of 175,000 people eligible to vote -- mainly descendants of colonial settlers, said "No" to the call of pro-independence indigenous Kanaks, Xinhua news agency reported. Turnout in the referendum was 73.68 per cent. Located more than 16,700 km from the French mainland, New Caledonia was declared a French overseas territory in 1946. Panaji, Nov 4 : Ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's "immobilisation" due to a prolonged illness has affected the efficiency of the state administration, making the bureaucracy slack, state Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai said on Sunday. He launched a "quasi-government" helpline here, which he said, had the potential to work as a "super government" to tide over bureaucratic delays and other administrative bottlenecks. Sardesai also said that Parrikar's health had improved since his treatment at Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences. "To an extent, it is a quasi-government structure (helpline). I or my party can interfere in government and help someone, if it can reach that level... One day you will allege that this is a super government. We are willing to do that for Goans," Sardesai said. Sardesai, President of the Goa Forward party, an ally of the BJP-led coalition, also said that the need for the helpline was felt because of "slow administration" and a slack bureaucracy, adding that the novel initiative would help "give a boost to governance". "Parrikar is a workaholic. As a CM, he worked a lot and it had an impact on the people and bureaucracy. Today, if he is missing from action or is immobilised, naturally it will have an impact on the government and administration. It has happened. I am not willing to say it has not happened," Sardesai said, adding that bureaucrats were "going counter to the orders of many ruling politicians". Parrikar is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New York and Delhi for nearly nine months. He returned from Delhi's AIIMS on October 14. To a question, Sardesai said: "I am not an astrologer. I cannot assess how long he (Parrikar) will do it (run administration) or how long someone will last. But I can say one thing. The manner in which it is being projected outside, it is not the case (CM's health)". Kolkata, Nov 4 : A section of intellectuals, close to the ruling Trinamool Congress, on Sunday condemned the massacre of five Bengali Hindus in Assam's Tinsukia district on November 1. They staged a protest demonstration here, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of creating unrest in the north-eastern state. "The terror outfit that was initially suspected has also denied involvement. Who then is responsible for the brutal killings?," Painter Subhaprasanna said. The intellectuals also slammed the Centre's role in the roll-out of the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC), which has allegedly caused tension in the state. "It is unbelievable that any human being can make unarmed people stand and shoot them ruthlessly. There was a cordial existence of Bengalis and Assamese in Assam but since the roll-out of the draft NRC, peace has been disrupted," Economist Abhirup Sarkar said. He said that the ruthless killings were a reflection of that unrest. A vicious environment of "aggressive regionalism" is prevailing in the country, said a Trinamool Congress delegation that visited Dhala in Assam's Tinsukia district on Sunday. New Delhi, Nov 4 : A number of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ministers including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday seconded a demand by Hindu seers for an ordinance or law for construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Speaking at an event at Bikaner in Rajasthan, Yogi Adityanath said: "Light an extra lamp for Lord Ram this Diwali as you see your sentiments taking shape, because the work will soon begin there (Ayodhya). The time has come to fulfil that resolve. After Deepawali, we will move forward." Union Minister Uma Bharti said no one could stop a Ram temple at Ayodhya. "A grand temple will be built, nobody can stop it. Rama Lalla will keep presiding where he is now," she said. Giriraj Singh, another Union Minister, said in Bihar's Nawada that "no power in the world" could come in the way of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. "The (Supreme) Court has taken several matters in the middle of the night. So if they have time for terrorists, why not for Ram who is the object of faith for 125 crore Indians? People had high hopes, their hopes were dashed and that is why they are filled with anger. No power in the world can come in the way of Ram Mandir," Singh said. Minister of State for Law and Justice P.P. Chaudhary said he "personally" felt that a law should be brought for construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya. "Ram Mandir should certainly be built. We want a judgment on this at the earliest. It is the desire of 85 per cent of the population that a judgment on it should come fast," Chaudhary said. "I cannot speak on behalf of the government, but my personal opinion is that since the court is taking very long in this matter, a legislation can be brought," he added. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said it was the government's right to decide where to install Lord Ram's idol. "Whether Ram's idol will be installed or not, nobody has a right to discuss this mater but the government. Government has the right to decide whose idol it installs and where. If there is a need to install Lord Ram's idol, then it is our duty to do it. And people should not worry about it. The opposition at this moment is worried," Sharma said. The Congress, however, dismissed the BJP's pitch as plain politics ahead of elections. "After a gap of five years, and as the election approaches, they (BJP) remember the Ram Mandir. What were they doing till now? There was a BJP government before and even now... one should not politicise the issue," former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said. Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari said that the Congress party's stand was clear, which is to wait for the court's verdict. "The Congress party's stand is that we should wait for the court's decision or resolve it through talks," Tiwari said, adding that whatever the BJP leaders were speaking made no sense. A congregation of Hindu seers here on Sunday demanded the government bring an ordinance or a law for construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, stressing that even the courts have to respect the "public sentiments". Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, Nov 4 : It was 'green Diwali this time for widows of Vrindavan who celebrated the festival inside the Gopi Nath Temple by making rangolis and lighting earthen lamps on Sunday. In its sixth year, the event for the first time witnessed pollution-free celebrations where widows, some of them in their 90s and 100s participated. "With an aim to bringing a ray of happiness at their twilight years, we have come up with this unique idea to organise the festival of lights, especially for the widows," said Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh Movement. The Vrindavan widows have earlier defied age old Indian traditions by celebrating not only Diwali but Holi and Raksha Bandhan as well besides taking part in Durga Puja celebrations in West Bengal. "Sulabh takes care of around 800 widows living in various ashrams and we will continue with its nationwide campaign for welfare of widows," Pathak added. New Delhi, Nov 4 : A number of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ministers including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday seconded a demand by Hindu seers for an ordinance or law for construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The Congress on the other hand accused the BJP of remembering Ram temple when the election approaches and said the BJP also knows that any ordinance will be unconstitutional as the issue is pending before the Supreme Court. Speaking at an event at Bikaner in Rajasthan, Yogi Adityanath said: "Light an extra lamp for Lord Ram this Diwali as you see your sentiments taking shape, because the work will soon begin there (Ayodhya). The time has come to fulfil that resolve. After Deepawali, we will move forward." Union Minister Uma Bharti said no one could stop a Ram temple at Ayodhya. "A grand temple will be built, nobody can stop it. Rama Lalla will keep presiding where he is now," she said. Giriraj Singh, another Union Minister, said in Bihar's Nawada that "no power in the world" could come in the way of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. "The (Supreme) Court has taken several matters in the middle of the night. So if they have time for terrorists, why not for Ram who is the object of faith for 125 crore Indians? People had high hopes, their hopes were dashed and that is why they are filled with anger. No power in the world can come in the way of Ram Mandir," Singh said. Minister of State for Law and Justice P.P. Chaudhary said he "personally" felt that a law should be brought for construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya. "Ram Mandir should certainly be built. We want a judgment on this at the earliest. It is the desire of 85 per cent of the population that a judgment on it should come fast," Chaudhary said. "I cannot speak on behalf of the government, but my personal opinion is that since the court is taking very long in this matter, a legislation can be brought," he added. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said it was the government's right to decide where to install Lord Ram's idol. "Whether Ram's idol will be installed or not, nobody has a right to discuss this mater but the government. Government has the right to decide whose idol it installs and where. If there is a need to install Lord Ram's idol, then it is our duty to do it. And people should not worry about it. The opposition at this moment is worried," Sharma said. The Congress, however, dismissed the BJP's pitch as plain politics ahead of elections. Congress leader Tom Vadakkan told the media that the party has cleared its stand on the issue. "This matter is pending before the Supreme Court and in such condition bringing an ordinance or private member bill and time to time their (BJP) leaders remarks are completely unconstitutional." Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari said that the Congress party's stand was clear, which is to wait for the court's verdict. "The Congress party's stand is that we should wait for the court's decision or resolve it through talks," Tiwari said, adding that whatever the BJP leaders were speaking made no sense. A congregation of Hindu seers here on Sunday demanded the government bring an ordinance or a law for construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, stressing that even the courts have to respect the "public sentiments". Patna, Nov 4 : The Bihar government on Sunday dismissed 175 police constables and suspended 23 police officials for rampaging in the city after the death of a female colleague, who was reportedly denied leave despite being ill. More than 300 police constables had gone on a rampage here on November 2, damaging properties and attacking police officers, after a woman colleague who had reportedly been refused leave died. Of the 175 police constables dismissed, most were trainees. The government also suspended 23 police officials, including havildars and assistant sub-inspectors. According to officials, the action was taken after a high-level meeting of top police officers here. Hours after the police constables went on a rampage, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asked Bihar police chief K.S. Dwivedi to submit a detailed report at the earliest. You are here: The China International Import Expo, scheduled be held in Shanghai from November 5-10, will greatly open trade opportunities for South Africa and the African continent as a whole. This is the view expressed by top South African business people, commercial institutions and development analysts in interviews with Xinhua. South African development analyst Ruben Richards said the Expo will offer an opportunity to cope with the current turbulent economic climate. "This global platform will force us to be competitive and shed some of our entitlement and preferential mentality," said Richards, head of the Ruben Richards Foundation and former executive secretary of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "This is a unique opportunity for proudly South African products to be tested in a robust market and difficult economic climate." Janine Myburgh, President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), said she "would advise all exporters or potential exporters to become involved in trade shows like this, as they offer good opportunities to meet likely customers and to spot opportunities or gaps in the market." Myburgh said she expected South African business entities to engage with China that has the world's largest population, the second largest economy and is the second largest importer and consumer in the world with great potential for the growth of consumption and import. Given that this is the first import expo in China, Myburgh believes the South African business delegates would respond positively. "I'm sure many businesses will find the Expo an exciting challenge. Most businesses look for export opportunities, especially when the rand is so week. It is an opportunity to build new markets and develop trade relations," she said. She said South African delegates would also bring important offerings to the Expo, including tourism, where South Africa has a lot to offer, and places like the Western Cape Province which will also have a lot to gain. "We now have an opportunity to 'sell' South Africa as a tourist destination and undo some of the (past) damage," Myburgh added. In terms of expectations, she explained that South African business people will be looking for opportunities to increase trade and to tell the Chinese more about South Africa and its potential as a trading partner. "South Africa already exports iron ore, manganese etc to China but there are opportunities to develop other mineral exports and the export of manufactured goods, especially agricultural products," she said. She noted that there are big opportunities for agricultural products, processed food and wine. "This is particularly important for the Western Cape which has a well-established and efficient fruit growing sector. It is also an area which creates many jobs," she said. The CCCI president also said there is huge demand from China for nuts, especially pecan nuts, and more recently avocados. She said new pecan nut farms along the Orange River in the Western Cape are extremely modern and productive, with drip irrigation systems and sensors to monitor the moisture in the soil. Some of these new orchards, she said, can be monitored on cell phones and instructions can be fed by cell phone to increase or decrease the water supply. "I would imagine that there are big opportunities for minerals and gemstones as well as products like sugar, maize, coffee and even rooibos tea," she said. Enrico Marinus, Executive Director of MaxEnergy, who has experience in trading with Chinese entities and works extensively with business entities on the continent, noted that the Shanghai import expo "would probably be good for creating awareness of the respective country offerings." He believes that there needs to be acute interventions that address the long term development needs in order to create stability and prosperity. "We need to encourage more innovation on the African continent and less restrictive travel and market access," Marinus said. New Delhi, Nov 4 : A minor girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by her uncle in east Delhi, police said on Sunday. Police said the victim, 10, had gone to her aunt's residence in Shakarpur where her uncle, 32, sexually assaulted her in his wife's absence. "The accused threatened the girl with dire consequences if she disclosed his crime to her parents, before dropping her near her house," a senior police officer said. "The minor narrated the entire crime to her mother, who then approached the police. We have registered a case after the victim was sent for medical examination," he said. The accused has been absconding. Ottawa, Nov 4 : Two aircrafts collided mid-air over Ottawa's west end on Sunday, which led to one of them crashing in a nearby field, the police said. Police said one of the aircraft crashed into a field near McGee Side Road just east of the 417 in Carp in rural west Ottawa. The other aircraft was redirected to Ottawa International Airport and safely landed there, sustaining only minor damage, Canada's CBC news reported. Paramedics are on the scene and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is investigating. Police say it is not yet known how many people were aboard each plane or whether any injuries have been reported. It's not clear what type of aircraft were involved and how the collision occurred. The crash is the second in the Carp area in less than a month. In mid-October, an ultra-light plane crashed on a road, narrowly missing a house and leaving the pilot seriously injured. Medebound LLC and Ping An Healthcare Diagnostic Center, affiliated to one of China's biggest insurers Ping An China, held a cooperation signing ceremony at Shangri-La Hotel, Shanghai. The ceremony signifies the two sides will establish a comprehensive cooperation on building a docking channel for the top medical resources in China and the U.S. on radiology, oncology, cardio-cerebral vascular diseases and altogether 72 medical specialties. Ms. Ying Jiang, General Manager of Ping An Healthcare Diagnostic Center (hereinafter referred to as the Center) and Dr. Sheena Liu, Chairman of Medebound, signed the contract on behalf of both parties. Ms. Ana Niu, Director of the Center, Mr. Bo Zhang, Director of the Business Development Department, and Mr. Cen Su, Marketing Director of Medebound also witnessed the signature. Ms Jiang said, Ping An Healthcare Diagnostic Center is oriented to meet peoples health needs, and is committed to becoming a leader in Chinas third-party health diagnostic industry. This can be achieved by technologically advanced equipment, national authoritative medical experts, partnering medical institutions covering the whole country, strong IT systems and professional operation management capabilities. The collaboration between the Center and Medebound will provide even more comprehensive and diversified medical services for Chinese patients, and will also become a model for new healthcare collaboration initiatives. As the exclusive representative of Castle Connolly in China, Medebound covers 72 medical specialties and has the access to the top 5% medical resources in the United States, said Dr. Sheena Liu. "The cooperation with Ping An sets an important milestone of Medebound's development in China and will also open a fast track to the top global medical expertise for more Chinese patients. This is also the primary mission of Medebound." About Ping An Health (Diagnostic) Center Ping An Healthcare Diagnostic Center is an important member of Ping An Healthcare blueprint, and is subsidiary to Ping An International Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. The Center is not only positioned itself as a third-party medical service provider, but also a participant and promoter of the development of China's healthcare industry. The Center plans to invest 30 billion RMB in five years to establish 1,000 diagnostic centers nationwide and to build a shared economy in the medical field, aiming to become a leader in the third-party diagnostic industry in China. About Medebound LLC Founded in 2015, Medebound (http://www.medebound.com/en) is a tele-health/second opinion company with the focus on connecting Chinese patients/physicians with US doctors. This is achieved by creating a proprietary bi-lingual HIPAA-compliant tele-health platform, which facilitates secure medical imaging/records translation, transferring and tele-consultations between Chinese patients/local physicians and leading American specialists; and by establishing an exclusive strategic/equity relationship with Castle Connolly Top Doctors, an established, trusted and authoritative resource for identifying Americas leading physicians, with more than 52,000 U.S. physicians across 72 medical specialties. With this highly-differentiated physician resource and first-of-its-kind bilingual IT platform and a strong execution team operating both in the US and China, Medebound has gained significant market traction with customers including major hospital centers and insurers in China. For more information, contact Erin Shen, Media Relationship, erin.shen@medebound.com James A. McConnell, Ultra Electronics - USSI Invited papers are rare; however, the conference organizers recognize the expertise USSI has in this area and reached out to us for a positive contribution. Ultra Electronics-USSI, a global leader in acoustic sensors, announces the presentation of a scholarly paper on underwater acoustic vector sensors at the 176th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, November 8 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. This paper will be presented to scientists in academia and industry by James McConnell and Timothy Rorick. USSI has over 50 years of experience in producing anti-submarine warfare (ASW) underwater warfare (UWW) solutions that incorporate acoustic vector sensor technology. McConnell and Rorick will share this expertise through a back-to-basics presentation focusing on the more common embodiment directional sensors take on for use in low-frequency underwater acoustic applications. James McConnell, paper co-author and USSI Business Development Manager for Advanced Transducers commented: Invited papers are rare; however, the conference organizers recognize the expertise USSI has in this area and reached out to us for a positive contribution. The conference presentation will serve as a good marketing tool for USSI to reach a wider audience for our products and services. The Acoustical Society of America was founded in 1929 to increase and diffuse the knowledge of acoustics and promote its practical applications. To request an abstract of the presentation, email sales@ultra-ussi.com. Inquiries: Patrick Allison, Vice President Marketing & Sales 260-248-5628 Heather Lutton, Product Manager 260-248-3632 http://www.ultra-ussi.com Further information about Ultra: Ultra Electronics is an internationally successful defense, security, transport and energy company with a long track record of development and growth. The Group manages a portfolio of specialist capabilities generating innovative solutions to customer needs. Ultra applies electronic and software technologies in demanding and critical environments ranging from military applications, through safety-critical devices in aircraft, to nuclear controls and sensor measurement. These capabilities have seen the Groups highly-differentiated products contributing to a large number of platforms and programs. Ultra has world-leading positions in many of its specialist capabilities and, as an independent, non-threatening partner, is able to support all of the main prime contractors in its sectors. As a result of such positioning, Ultras systems, equipment or services are often mission or safety-critical to the successful operation of the platform to which they contribute. In turn, this mission-criticality secures Ultras positions for the long-term which underpins the superior financial performance of the Group. Ultra offers support to its customers through the design, delivery and support phases of a program. Ultra businesses have a high degree of operational autonomy where the local management teams are empowered to devise and implement competitive strategies that reflect their expertise in their specific niches. The Group has a small head office and executive team that provide to the individual businesses the same agile, responsive support that they provide to customers, as well as formulating Ultras overarching, corporate strategy. Across the Groups three divisions, Ultra operates in the following eight market segments: After weeks of grooming and evictions shows, the finale was held at National Theatre on Saturday, November 3, 2018. It was a speculator night for the 10 beautiful finalists who competed fiercely for the crown. Three of Ghanas top actress, Jackie Appiah, Joselyn Dumas and Naa Ashorkor who was a former host of Miss Malaika were chosen as judges for the memorable night. READ ALSO:Joselyn Dumas stuns in pink dress for breast cancer month These beautiful judges did not only come to select the new queen but also give us stunning style tips. Jackie Appiah, looked exquisite in a blue-black dress paired with matching heels. Her clutch and accessories matched perfectly with the pearls in her dress while she smiled beautifully for the camera. ece-auto-gen Joselyn Dumas looked ethereal in an African print apparel. Her hair and makeup game were just amazing. ece-auto-gen READ ALSO:10 dresses from the Glitz Africa Fashion Week you can wear to your church Naa Ashorkor also didnt disappoint us with her fashion choice for the night. According to the Director of the Transformation Programmes, Office of the Police Service, vigilante groups operated confidently because they were backed by political parties. He was speaking at a symposium organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) in Accra last Wednesday, October 31, 2018 to discuss ways in which stakeholders could foster efforts to eradicate the menace. If care is not taken, we will have rule of political parties instead of rule of law," he warned. If you thought that vigilante activities constitute a problem now, then wait until it truly explodes. I call it Ghanas unexploded political ordinance. I get worried when I hear people lambast the police for failing to arrest these persons. The police have every power to clamp down on them, but how do you expect us to act when our hands are tied under the very laws that govern our operations?, Dr Agordzor asked. Ghana is battling the growing culture of political vigilantism where desperate unemployed young men are recruited to by political parties to cause mayhem. The governing New Patriotic Party has publicly admitted to creating the Delta Forces and Invincible Force but said they were formed to provide security. But the groups have been attacking party members, MPs and minister as well as destroying state properties, claiming they have been neglected. READ MORE: Journalist beaten to a pulp by NDC vigilante group The National Democratic Congress also recently outdoored "The Hawks" vigilante group. According to the NDC General Secretary, group is to provide internal security for the party. The All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC) on Saturday said it will make greater efforts to boost development of private businesses. Xu Lejiang, secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group of the ACFIC, called the latest symposium on private enterprises a "milestone" and "compass," which he said affirmed the private sector's important contribution to China's economic and social development and pointed out the direction for the sector's future development. Xu made the remarks as the country vowed in a symposium Thursday to unswervingly encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector and support private enterprises to develop toward a broader stage. The ACFIC will continue to play its role in connecting the government with enterprises, communicate with the government on difficulties plaguing the companies and push for implementation of the government's supportive policies, Xu said. Xu said the organization will use innovative methods to better serve the private companies, providing consultancy service in policies, talents, laws and regulations. The ACFIC is conducting a third-party evaluation on the implementation of government policies to make financing more accessible and affordable for micro and small companies, Xu said. The suspects had previously successfully followed a customer, broke into his parked vehicle, took Gh14,000 and fled in a silver coloured Toyota Corolla vehicle. Unknown to them, their operation was successfully captured by the closed-circuit television (CCTV) system at the scene of the incident. READ ALSO: undefined A police source told Graphic Online that the victim, Felix Teye Okunnor, a resident of Devtraco Estate at Tema Community 25, reported to the police that he had withdrawn cash of Gh14,000 from Ecobank in the meridian area on the said day. He explained he kept the money under the drivers seat and drove to Francophone near Ghana Water Company, parked and stepped out to buy a phone. When he returned to the car, a Toyota Tundra with registration number GT 1031-13, he detected it had been broken into and the money stolen. Fortunately, the CCTV footage captured a man breaking into the Tundra and was later whisked away by a silver coloured Toyota Corolla with registration number GX-2329-18. READ ALSO: undefined On Friday, November 2, 2018, at about 11 am, the silver coloured Toyota Corolla was spotted at the meridian cluster of banks with two occupants on board. Police swiftly moved to arrest the vehicle with the driver Frank Thomas and his accomplice Chequan Michael Mustapha and sent them to station for interrogation. Police found different dresses and shoes in the boot of the vehicle and also found a number of talisman on the suspects, said to be for protection. When the police moved with the suspects to their house at Kotobabi number two, eleven Nigerians living in the same apartment were rounded up. According to the police source, items retrieved from them included eleven laptops, eight assorted mobile phones, four pen drives and a cash of 2000. The clash was over supremacy for the control over an illegal mining site in the region, Pulse.com.gh understands. Of the 20 who were wounded in the clashes, 14 have been treated and discharged while six are said to be in critical condition. Deputy Upper West Regional Police Commander, ACP Peter A. Ndekugri, has confirmed the bloody skirmishes that happened on Friday. He has vowed to go after the suspects who inflicted multiple cutlass wounds on each other over what is believed to have political undertones. The leader of the "Jamaican youth,"Alhaji Abdullah Iddriss, has said in an interview that he received a call from one his boys that they were under attack. He said the police has the resources to clampdown on political vigilantes but expressed worry of political interference, admitting the hands of the police are tied. He was speaking at a symposium organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) in Accra last Wednesday, October 31, 2018 to discuss ways in which stakeholders could foster efforts to eradicate the menace. "If care is not taken, we will have rule of political parties instead of rule of law. If you thought that vigilante activities constitute a problem now, then wait until it truly explodes. I call it Ghanas unexploded political ordinance, he said. According to him, the time has come for immediate reforms of the Constitution. He specifically called for the appointment of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to be depoliticised. As a result, he sustained multiple injuries. In addition, he had the windshield of his vehicle smashed by the vigilante group. ece-auto-gen The matter has been reported to the Northern Regional Police Command while the former District Chief Executive (DCE) for Central Gonja was issued with a medical to seek attention at the Tamale Teaching Hospital. The organiser of the group in an interview has justified the assault. According to him, the regional secretary is undermining the authority of his chairman. The secretary and his people are disturbing the chairman too much. The chairman told them the meeting cannot happen but they refused. They have been having secret meetings behind the chairman so just this morning, we heard that they were going a secret meeting again, unfortunately the chairman them they should not hold that but they told the chairman that, nobody can stop the meeting; so they went to the Global Dream Hotel to the meeting again but unfortunately something happen againwe went and sack them, news website mynewsgh quoted him as saying. ece-auto-gen Ex-president Mahama, who is seeking to lead the party into the 2020 polls has urged the feuding factions to use dialogue. A statement issued by his campaign team said: "Former President John Dramani Mahama is urging the rank and file of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Northern Region to remain calm and resort to dialogue to resolve any misunderstanding. ece-auto-gen While speaking at the foundation-laying ceremony of the university on Tuesday, October 30, 2018, Malgwi said the institution will begin operations with five faculties and 39 programmes. According to him, the institute was designed to operate with 14 faculties, 113 departments and 493 programmes. However, the chief of army staff, Tukur Burutai announced that N2b has been earmarked for the take-off of the university project. ece-auto-gen The university is designed to create the critical mass required for research, innovations, testing and development of military equipment in the 21st-century setting, he said. Representing President Muhammadu Buhari at the foundation laying ceremony, the Minister of education, Adamu Adamu said the establishment of the university would be of immense benefit not only to the military but also to the country. Since we came on board we have increased access by establishing new universities at the federal, state and private level, he said. This year alone, we have established Nigerian Maritime University, Delta; Nigeria Air Force Institute, Kaduna and the Nigeria Army University, Biu. The student union president, Seyi Anamasaun while confirming the tuition increase to Premium Time said the hike will not stand. What we have woken up to is rather unexpected, shocking and challenging. This cannot stand. I have called an emergency meeting with all SU executives and all Faculty presidents and we shall release a comprehensive report after, he said. Unlike other Federal Universities, the tuition increase in UNILORIN varies from one faculty to the other. ece-auto-gen A student of the university, Munir Ambali, who spoke with Premium Times about the increase said the increase depends on the amount each faculty has been paying before now. The university's Director of Corporate Affairs, Kunle Akogun also confirmed the hike saying, the increment is just marginal with the current economic reality and we are still below other universities, Meanwhile students have been reacting to the tuition increase on social media. ALSO READ: UNILORIN produces 103 first class graduates Here are what some of them are saying on Twitter: According to reports Mr. Bernard Ogar, his wife Blessing and three children lived like a nomadic group before a corps members brought attention to them on social media. The effort has afforded the family a chance to get healthcare at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Calabar, Cross River State. ece-auto-gen Dr. Essien Ekpe, the head of Clinical Services at the facility describes to Punch News the improvement observed in the family since visiting the hospital. We got to know about this when we saw a post on social media that a family of five (vagrants) were just perambulating the area. After that, we got a call from the minister of health mandating us to do something about it. Immediately, the Medical Director in charge of the hospital directed me to arrange a team to bring them to Calabar. "So, a crack team, led by Dr. Ndubuisi Ikedife, went to Ukpa and the whole family of five were brought here. The only altercation we had was the man, who though resisted, but was not violent. It was as if he had taken the vagrancy as a way of life. Reports reaching us indicate that he was a comfortable person in one small tent in a bare land. He had an attitude of not receiving anything from anybody, not even from those who wanted to help. "He does not accept money but could direct one to where to buy food for him and he will accept the food. On getting to the hospital, we got more information regarding his history. We were told that he is a graduate of the University of Calabar; he read Mathematics. "He was somewhere in Enugu State doing business and was doing well with all the indices of a progressing man. The family was intact. Somewhere along the line, it was learnt that the brother died and he lost his job that was where his deterioration began. He was said to have relocated back to the village and he started living like a lunatic. "The family found out and collected the first two children from him, but he still went on to procreate and that was how he gave birth to three. They have been living happily as vagrants. They are not all mentally ill, it is only the father that is mentally sick, but because of his influence, he wielded some power on them and they had to follow him all over the place the way he wanted. "Otherwise, the children are like every other children jumping about with curiosity. The wife has been very quiet. At first, we thought she was very secretive, but further interview with her showed nothing. In just one week, the family has done very well. "The man has become less delusional, but we are still keeping him because we noticed a form of over-valid idea." How family was rescued Dr. Ndubuisi Ikedife who led a team to capture the family noticed their kitchen was organized during a visit to an open field where they lived. Ogah's children were observed to be attentive while their parents protested mildly when health personnel tried to take them into custody. On getting to Bekwarra, we first contacted the corps member who posted their pictures on social media. We also met with the village head who helped mobilised the youth to assist us in rescuing the family. "They had a land where they lived. It is a well maintained land, which according to the village head was his fathers land. We learnt that the first two children were taken away by the sisters and that when he came to the village he destroyed the fathers house with the claims that a grown-up child is not supposed to stay in his fathers house. "We noticed that they had well packaged and clean kitchen utensils such as plates. We told him why we came but he turned down our gesture. We had to sedate him and the wife became agitated, we had to do same to her but the children were just quiet and obeyed what we told them. The traditional ruler told us that government or philanthropic individuals could build a house for him at the spot he was arrested because it is his land." ece-auto-gen In a chat with a Punch News reporter, Mr. Bernard Ogar puts his age between 70 and 80 but his partner cuts in to interrupt. Darling you are not up to that. The family is described as close-knitted with a root of simplicity and love. Ogar the head who is reportedly middle-aged thinks the world should be about love. It is all that matters to him. Oshiomhole said this on Saturday, November 3, 2018, at a meeting with Archbishop Anthony Obinna and representatives of the Christian community in Imo state. The APC chairman also condemned what he described as the Governors lack of respect for the Church. Daily Post reports that he said Governor Rochas Okorochas personal battle with the Christian community in Imo State is a matter between him and the Catholic Church. We in APC, we are not party to that. We do not want our party to be dragged into such contestation because it will not be helpful to us. Our road to power is election by the people, we cannot antagonise the people. Even the ordinary man in Imo is entitled to respect not to talk of the leaders of the Christian community. And so, we distance ourselves from all of those things that Rochas has done which some times has been a source of huge embarrassment to our party which sometimes we have been able to manage in-house. So, I sincerely apologise to Bishop Obinna and Christians in Imo State. Atiku Abubakar Oshiomhole also said that defeating the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, in the 2019 presidential election, will be easy. He said Now that we know that our main opponent is Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, we will defeat him again the way we have defeated him before. And I am confident that President Muhammadu Buhari will return because he has a quality which none of them can boast of, which is integrity, integrity, integrity. To make statement about the others, we will just generate what former President Obasanjo has to say about Atiku and what Atiku has to say about Obasanjo. By the time we read it, you make up your mind if Nigeria is looking for a leader who they can trust, whether it is one with unquestionable integrity, or is the one that there are debates as to whether or not how much we can trust. I am confident that God will give us victory at the end of the day. So, I want to assure all those who are genuinely aggrieved, I have a duty along with my colleagues in the NWC to work to heal wounds, for reconciliations. So, we are setting up various panels, groups of eminent leaders drawn from APC, statesmen and women within our party who we believe can help us to talk to all those who are aggrieved, so that we sort out all the grievances and approach the next coming election as a functioning party and by the special grace of God, we will win. You are here: Nepali government officials and business people believed that the upcoming China International Import Expo (CIIE) would open a window for Nepali businesses to explore the vast Chinese market. The expo was scheduled to be held on Nov. 5-10 in Shanghai, as part of China's efforts to open wider its market by importing products and services worth 10 trillion U.S. dollars in the next five years. Nepali Minister for Industry Commerce and Supply Matrika Yadav will lead a government delegation to participate in the event. Government agencies including Investment Board Nepal, Nepal Tourism Board and Trade and Export Promotion Center (TEPC) will also participate in the expo. From the private sector, 14 representative organizations of various enterprises and individual enterprises will participate, according to the TEPC. Nepal will display its carpet, garment, handmade papers, metal crafts, Thanka, local arts, pashmina, ceramics, silver jewelries, tea and coffee as well as various products produced by Nepali women entrepreneurs and disabled people. Sarad Bickram Rana, executive director of TEPC, a trade promotion body under Nepal's Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supply, told Xinhua on Friday that they expected the expo would help boost Nepal's goods and service exports to China as well as help attract more Chinese investment to Nepal. "As Nepal has a huge trade deficit with China, this expo may help boost Nepal's export and reduce the trade gap," he said. Increasing tourist arrivals and investment from China to Nepal is already helping bridge the gap. China is the second largest source market of Nepal's tourism with arrival of 104,664 Chinese visitors in 2017. China pledged the highest foreign direct investment to Nepal three years in a row as the Himalayan country received China's pledge of over 400 million U.S. dollars in last fiscal year 2017-18 that concluded in mid-July, according to Nepal's Department of Industry. Representatives of the business bodies participating in the import expo said they expect more order for Nepali goods from China during and after the event. Surendra Bhai Shakya, vice-president of Federation of Handicraft Associations of Nepal (FHAN), the representative body of the handicraft manufacturers in the Himalayan country, told Xinhua Friday that he expected the expo would open the door for many types of Nepali handicraft products in the Chinese market. "Currently, various statutes of metal crafts and thanka paintings are being largely exported to China. But, we have several types of handicraft products and we can market them in China through this expo," he said. Nepal exported handicraft products including metal and woolen products, pashmina and silver jewelries worth 4.6 million U.S. dollars to China in the last fiscal, representing 22 percent of the country's total export to China, according to Nepal's central bank data. According to Nepali handicraft exporters, traditionally Nepal exports most of its handicrafts to Western countries, but China has emerged as a good alternative market. The import expo in Shanghai will help promote Nepali goods not only to the Chinese market but also to global markets as there will be participations from around the world, said Chandra Prasad Kachhipati, former president of Fair Trade Group Nepal, a consortium of companies and organizations involved in social entrepreneurship. The Fair Trade Group Nepal will display selected products such as artistic bed cover, Mithila art (an art representing South Eastern Nepal), pashmina and ceramics during the expo. According to a tweet by WAEC, the document is given to a candidate whose certificate is damaged or missing. The exam body also went on to explain that it also carries the passport photo which the candidate submitted during application. WAEC says Buhari applied Speaking on the issuance of the attestation of result to the President which generated a lot of reactions from Nigerians, the spokesman of WAEC, Damianus Ojijeogu told Punch that Buhari applied for the document. He said We would not have given him the document if he didnt apply. It is only Buhari or a court that can ask for the results. There is no other person. So he asked for it. Presidency says WAEC acted on its own Meanwhile, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in an interview with Punch, said WAEC took the initiative to issue the attestation of result to the President to clear its name. Shehu said No, the President did not apply for the documents. I made this clear in an opinion I wrote on Friday. The presentation of the documents to the President was strictly an initiative of WAEC. They said they read about the controversy on the pages of newspapers and saw the need to save the integrity of the council. Requirements for attestation of result According to WAEC, it started issuing attestation of results in 2015. When asked by some Nigerians on Twitter, why the document was not presented to Mr. President back then, the body replied saying that Buhari did not apply for it. WAEC also listed the 6 things those who want to be issued with an attestation of result have to do. ALSO READ:WAEC accused of manufacturing result for Buhari According to the exam body, you will have to: 1. Write a letter of application. 2. Get a police report on lost or damaged certificate. 3. Provide a photocopy of the lost or damaged certificate. 4. Submit two recent passport-sized photos. 5. Get a sworn affidavit for collection of Attestation of Result. 6. Pay an administrative fee of N20, 000. The House also described Umar as a rare gem with an unparalleled accommodative posture. This is contained in a statement issued by the Press Secretary to the Assembly Speaker, Alhaji Jibrin Gwamna, to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lafia. The statement quoted the speaker, Alhaji Ibrahim Abdullahi, describing the first class traditional ruler as shocking and too sudden. He said that the death of Umar has created a vacuum to the people of Awe and the state at large, adding that his demise is a great loss not only to the Awe traditional council but to the entire state. Abdullahi said that Umar had worked tirelessly for the emancipation of the people of Awe and the state at large, adding that his (Umars) demise would be felt by the people of the state. The Late Sarkin Awe is a peace maker, promoter and a bridge builder and he has also contributed a lot to the development of not only Awe but to the state at large. The news of the death of Alhaji Abubakar Umar was heartbreaking, painful but God gives life and takes at will. We the entire members of the House commiserate with the family and indeed the good people of Awe and the state at large over the death of our rare gem. We (legislators) urge the family and Awe traditional council not to be depressed but to be courageous and have faith in God as well as to see his death as an act of God, the statement read in part. He prayed God to grant the entire family and Awe traditional council the fortitude to bear the loss. The speaker also called on the people of the state to live in peace and tolerate one another irrespective of their ethnic, religious and political affiliation. NAN recalls that Umar died on Nov. 3 at the aged of 69 at a hospital in Abuja following a brief illness having spent 33 years on the throne. Several videos allegedly showing Ganduje receiving bribes from contractors have been published on social media. The organization also urged the government to instruct the appropriate anti-corruption agencies to ensure the protection and guarantee the safety and security of journalist Jaafar Jaafar, who reportedly published the video clips. In the open letter dated November 2, 2018, and signed by SERAP senior legal adviser Ms Bamisope Adeyanju, the organization said, Given the history of corruption in Nigeria, especially unresolved allegations of grand corruption against many state governors, your government cannot and should not look the other way regarding the allegations against Mr Ganduje. Any allegations of bribery and abuse of power in any state of Nigeria is of concern to every Nigerian, and should therefore, be of concern to your government. The obligations of your government to combat corruption in Nigeria extend to all the three tiers of government, namely, the federal government, state government and local government. Although primarily a matter of concern for Kano State, the allegations of bribery against Mr Ganduje have assumed such a proportion as to become a matter of concern to the federation as a whole, and therefore, to your government." 14 days ultimatum The organization asked the government to take the recommended steps within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter, failing which SERAP will institute legal proceedings to compel your government to act in the public interest. Taking the recommended steps would help to enhance your governments fight against corruption and contribute hugely to promoting the public interest, the interest of justice as well as prevent any abuse of the legal process. Any failure and/or refusal to act would undermine the goal of your governments anti-corruption fight and tacitly serve to encourage persistent allegations of corruption among many state governors to continue with almost absolute impunity, SERAP added. The organization also said Vigorously seeking to enforce anticorruption legislation and the UN Convention against Corruption to which Nigeria is a state party against alleged corrupt state governors, will show that your government is with concerned with the overall well-being of the federation and willing and able to enforce important constitutional principles. The Attorney-General of the Federation has power, conferred on him by section 174(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and anticorruption agencies have the powers to act on the allegations of bribery against Mr Ganduje for the sake of ensuring transparency and accountability, and promoting the common good, peace, order and good government of the federation (which includes Kano State). ALSO READ: Taking prompt action on the allegations of bribery against the governor would also be entirely consistent with the provisions of section 15 subsection (5) of the Constitution, which requires your government to abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power, regardless of the state where such practices take place. Section 15 specifically defines government to include the government of the federation, or of any state, or of a local government council or any person who exercises power or authority on its behalf. Section 61(2) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC) Act also provides that public officers accused of bribery may be prosecuted by the appropriate authority for such an offence. SERAP expresses concern SERAP is concerned that growing allegations of corruption including bribery against many state governors have not been investigated and that several of the governors involved are getting away with their alleged crimes. We note that while a governor may enjoy immunity from arrest and prosecution, he does not enjoy immunity from investigation. Any criminal allegation against a sitting governor including Mr Ganduje can and should be investigated pending the time the governor leaves office and loses immunity. The findings of such investigation can also be the basis for initiating impeachment proceedings against the governor. Ganduje denies Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has however denied collecting bribe from contractors. According to Ganduje, the video clips released by the publisher of Daily Nigerian, Jafaar Jafaar, were aimed at tarnishing his image politically. The Governor made this known at a probe panel set up by the Kano State House of Assembly to investigate the allegations against him. According to Daily Post, the outspoken Senator said that they dont even believe in the philosophy of Mr. President. Sani, who recently resigned from the ruling party, also accused the APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole of being weak. He said I must be very frank with you, Tinubu has done his best but there is a limit to what he can do. He isnt from the North and has a lot of issues to attend to but what was very clear, I wont rain insults on the President or Chairman of the party, but what I would say is that their weaknesses, their vulnerability, their failures have been evident in the very sense that they were helpless in the face of firepower by the state governors. The Buhari administration is now run by invisible forces and has disconnected from the vision it started with. If you look at his attitude to governance and his philosophy of being for everybody and nobody has led the party nowhere and it is also leading the party nowhere. Be decisive Sani also said that the President needs to be decisive. If you are a leader, you cannot preside over a nation by body language or side language. You have to take decisions, you have to be decisive. You dont also have to depend on the decisions of others but you can consult others for the decisions which you are going to take. The governors under the APC today dont respect President Buhari; they have no respect for him and they dont share what his philosophy is all about. While the chairman of the party sees the need to preserve the loyal band within the party, the governors dont see the need for it. They want to plant their stooges. As far as I am concerned, the seat that I occupy, the Kaduna Central senatorial seat, Nasir el Rufai is putting a stooge there to keep the place for him so that after he is out of government, he can also be a senator. The governors see senatorial seats as places they should preserve for their future and thats why you find some people going to the national assembly without standing up to do their work as parliamentarians, because they were there standing in for somebody, he added. Sani predicts APC's downfall The Senator recently told Channels TV during an interview that the ruling APC will crumble when Buhari leaves the scene. He said "From the statement coming from people who for a very long time have been sitting on the fence and have not been voicing out their opinions, you can see it very clearly that the party cannot last beyond the lifespan of President Muhammadu Buhari. "Buhari remains the heart, the soul, and the oxygen of the party. I don't think after Buhari, there'll be APC again in the sense that everything begins and ends with him. "When you have a party like that, then you know very well the terminal point is predictable." Oshiomhole incurred the wrath of some state Governors and other members of the ruling party following the outcome of the just concluded party primaries across the country. Punch reports that the state chairmen have been meeting in Abuja since last week to discuss about the issue. A source however revealed that the National leader of the APC, Bola Tinubu will not let it happen. The source said Tinubu does not want Oshiomhole removed; so, he too is moving up and down to protect him (Oshiomhole). One of his moves is his private visit to the President recently. This may stop the plot of the chairmen because his visit to the President was not unconnected with the Oshiomhole issue. Tinubu meets Buhari Tinubu was in the Presidential Villa twice in the past week to meet with President Buhari. After his first visit, the APC National Leader openly declared support for Oshiomholes style of leadership. Tinubu also told newsmen that the APC chairman cannot be removed because he has not violated the partys constitution. Governors and Senators vs Oshiomhole According to Punch, some aggrieved Governors are also working on getting the support of Senators who lost out in the primaries to throw Oshiomhole out. The APC chairman has been openly antagonized by some Governors, notably Rochas Okorocha of Imo, Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun, Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo over his handling of the primaries. Oshimhole's reaction Oshiomhole in his reaction, said that he will not sell his conscienceto keep his job. The APC chairman also said that he promised to maintain rule of law in the party and also uphold the voice of the members, adding that party supremacy must be respected. A source privy to the goings on, said I can tell you that there is an attempt by the disgruntled governors to rake in as many members of the National Executive Committee as possible, to force a meeting by NEC and pass a vote of no confidence in Oshiomhole. But I can also tell you that we have made our moves to counter that. As I speak to you right now, the entire South-South and South-Easts chairmen, who are members of NEC, are resolute that the attempt (by the governors) will not see the light of the day. You saw the last communique they issued the other time; the one from the South-South chairmen? I was the brain behind it. We have also done the same thing with the South-East. We have those zones excluding Imo State in the South-East locked down in support of Oshiomhole. In addition to that, we have also reached out to the majority of the chairmen in the North and the South-West. Apart from two states in the South-West that is the chairmen of Ogun and Ondo all others in the South-West are fully with us. In the North, the zone is being coordinated for us by the chairman of the chairmen, who is the Chairman of Borno State chapter. Apart from Zamfara, we have almost all other chairmen in the North. Oshiomhole has Buharis blessing The source also told Punch that Oshiomhole enjoys the full support of President Buhari. Citing the case of Okorocha and Amosun, the source wondered why the two Governors, after getting Senatorial tickets, also want to impose their Governorship candidates on the party. They know that they dont have the backing of the Presidency. Anyhow you look at it, Oshiomhole enjoys the support of Mr. President (Muhammadu Buhari). The reason why some of us are resolute in our support for Oshiomhole is because although he is not a perfect man, he is trying to implement the promises that he made to all APC senators with a presidential backing; and getting them implemented, he has incurred the wrath of some of these governors who are not on the same page with the senators. It is the same with the House of Representatives. Now imagine someone like Senator Lanre Tejuoso (Ogun-Central). This is a man who has been loyal to Mr. President. When we needed him most, he was with us to prevent the veto and override of Mr. President, to ensure that Mr. President was not impeached. We also needed his vote and he gave his vote to us on the issue of elections sequence that was targeted at Mr. President, to take the president to the back of elections timetable. We had him supporting us. But now, all of a sudden, the guarantee he would have needed to return to the Senate, he is now deprived of, the source added. APC spokesman reacts Speaking on the alleged moves to remove Oshiomhole, the APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu said he is not aware of any plot. Issa-Onilu also added that the ruling partys internal issues will not be discussed in the media. On the plans to convene and emergency meeting, the spokesman said I am not aware of any plan to convene a NEC. There are procedures for doing such things, and to the best of my knowledge, the process has not been initiated. Other reactions Also, a front-line supporter of Buhari, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege said any attempt to remove Oshimohole will be resisted. He also said Some of us are standing by Oshiomhole because he is standing by us. Majority of us have so far succeeded (in getting tickets) but a couple of them failed. Oshiomhole should know that he has the backing of the APC Senate Caucus at all times. On his part, the Majority Leader of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan dismissed the reports, saying that the APC chairmans removal will not solve the partys problem. I dont think there is any truth in it because disagreements are normal in political parties and organisations. And leadership requires that when there are disagreements, the parties involved come round a table and discuss to find a way forward. There are so many issues up for discussion and I dont believe that there is any particular effort to just get the national chairman of the party removed because of the situation today. My instinct tells me that my party a very progressive party will not be going for that kind of thing, just removing the chairman because that will not address the issues. Oshiomhole, in response to claims by the Osun Governor that he is working for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said Amosun acts like he is an emperor. The APC chairman, who said that he will not allow impunity, also added that there is no room in the ruling party for emperors. Oshimhole and his gang In his reaction, the Osun state Governor in a statement issued to newsmen by Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Adedayo Adeneye, said The design of the national chairman and his collaborators to hijack the government of Ogun State and hand it over to a gang of rapacious expansionists in the South-West will fail. State primaries Speaking further, Amosun said This is however, without prejudice to the sanctity of the consensus arrangement which Adams Oshiomhole hypocritically tried to demonise. Nigerians will recall that Oshiomhole himself was elected national chairman of the APC by consensus arrangement which witnessed all other contestants to the office being prevailed upon to step down for him (Oshiomhole). The grounds on which Oshiomhole disputed the governorship primary in Ogun State is that the result was not announced by the State Electoral Committee from Abuja, meaning that the governor resorted to self-help. We wonder why Oshiomhole accepted the result of the primary election in Lagos State when the result was also not announced by the State Electoral Panel. Why will the same scenario be acceptable in Lagos State but regarded as self-help in Ogun State? Is it because it was executed by the Capo Di Tutti in Lagos State? We wish to call the attention of Nigerians to another evil being perpetrated by Oshiomhole in Ogun State. As of today, November 3, which is 24 hours after the deadline for submission of names of candidates for the House of Assembly to the INEC, Oshiomhole has not given INEC Party Candidate Form (CF001) to any of the 26 candidates who won the primaries to contest the Ogun State House of Assembly. The primary was conducted on October 7 by the State Electoral Committee headed by Col. Ali Ciroma. This is despite the fact that the state chairman of the party had kept vigil at the national secretariat of the APC in the last two weeks to collect the forms. If Oshiomhole is denying the outcome of the governorship primary because the State Electoral Committee shied away from announcing the result, what is the reason for denying all the 26 candidates for the House of Assembly freely elected by members of the APC in Ogun State? We want Nigerians to note the duplicity and meddlesomeness of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his gang in the affairs of the APC in Ogun State," Daily Post reports. Underground plots According to sources, all the state chairmenof the All Progressives Congress (APC) have finalised moves to remove Oshiomhole. Punch also reports that some Governors who are at loggerheads with the APC chairman are rallying Senators to perfect his sack. Ajegana-Kudu sought to represent Nasarawa Eggon East constituency at the state legislature at recently concluded APC primaries. In a letter to his Ubbe Electoral Ward Chairman of the party, Nasarawa Eggon Local Government Area of state, the aspirant who earlier resigned as Special Assistant to Gov. Tanko Al-Makura to contest the election, said he was no longer comfortable to remain in APC. Part of the letter dated Nov. 2, 2018, read: RESIGNATION OF MEMBERSHIP OF ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS (APC). I bring you my full compliment in the best of traditions and wish by this communication to formally offer to you my resignation from the All Progressives Congress (APC). l had joined the APC in 2014 with Registration Number as NAS/NAE/02001078, and remained committed to the partys ideology. As I resign my membership of the party at this point in time, I wish to thank Gov. Tanko Al-Makura and the party for giving me the opportunity to serve as Special Assistant to the governor. I also thank the partys stakeholders and supporters for their unflinching support given to me while in the party. I wish the party well in all her future endeavours. Ajegana-Kudu however did not disclose his next line of action or new party. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the aspirant had on Oct. 10 rejected the result of the State House of Assembly primary election of his constituency. He told newsmen shortly after exercise that the whole process was compromised by the APC Returning Officer, who refused to show/give the delegates list to the aspirants. Ajegana-Kudu also alleged that the delegates list was doctored, with the delegates intimidated and harassed by hired thugs at the venue of the election. The aspirant called for the cancellation of the election, appealed to the National Leadership of APC to organise a fresh election and the venue relocated from Nasarawa Eggon. I Hon. Jacob Ajegana-Kudu, an aspirant for the Nasarawa Eggon East Constituency, after carefully assessing the outcome of the Oct. 6, 2018, State House of Assembly All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries elections. Hereby reject the result of the election conducted at Nasarawa Eggon Guest House. The election, which produced Hon. Mohammed Aggah Muluku as the winner of the election was marred by a lot of irregularities. I rejected the result of the election on the ground that the whole process was compromised by the APC Returning Officer, who refused to show/give us the delegates list. When asked about the delegates list, he said it was directive from above and the so-called delegates list was hand written and we wonder why the list was doctored and hand written. The delegates list was doctored (tempered) with in the six electoral wards of the constituency with the exception of Umme ward where Hon. Mohammed Aggah Muluku came from. The Returning Officer of the election came to the venue of the election in Nasarawa Eggon very late night, this is a deliberate attempt to favour Hon. Mohammed Aggah Muluku, who lived in Nasarawa Eggon town. Delegates were camped against their wishes for two days in various hotels in Lafia. For example, Wakama and other wards delegates were camped by those who want to win at all cost at Ikpekus Hotel, along Kwandere road, Lafia. Are the delegates supposed to be camped? Failure to nullify the election may lead to APC losing the 2019 election in the constituency because the election was compromised and it is against the wishes of the majority of the people of the constituency, he added. The aspirant urged his supporters to remain calm, be law abiding and wait for further directive from his campaign organisation as events unfold. It's not just the conditions that are frosty. These are NATO's biggest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, a fact which has upset Russia. "When I first landed in Norway, I was really cold, my body went into shock.... But as the time has gone by I've actually adapted to it" said Martinez, perched in the turret of an Abrams tank. The military exercises are taking place from October 24-November 7. The manoeuvres are aimed at training the Atlantic Alliance to defend a member state after an aggression by a third party. Worried about the "unpredictable" behaviour of neighbouring Russia, especially since the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, Oslo had insisted on hosting Exercise Trident Juncture. Some 50,000 troops, 65 ships and 250 aircraft from 31 countries are being deployed several hundred kilometres (miles) from Norway's border with Russia in the Arctic, leaving Russia vowing to "retaliate". Moscow has now announced plans to test fire missiles in international waters off Norway in its own show of strength, and proximity. 'We cant' always stop' Meanwhile the fictional "Battle of Oppdal" is underway, with US Marines pitted against Spanish and Italian troops over control of an airfield, very few of them accustomed to the biting cold. For the Abrams tanks teams, based in North Carolina and more used to deseret manoeuvres, operating their 60-tonne behemoth in the snow and ice is a challenge. "The driver has to be very careful because we can't always stop when we need to" explains Lance Corporal Joaquin Medina, an ammunition loader aboard one the tanks, its colour and camouflage patterns standing out starkly in Norway's icy north. "Like two days ago, when it was very snowy and very icy, our tracks would just pedal. When we tried to stop, the tank would keep moving," he added. On the "battlefield" the thermometer shows relatively mild conditions for the time of year, six degrees Celsius (42 degrees Fahrenheit), minus one degree with the windchill factor. Certainly cold enough for some of the US troops to stand behind their tanks to warm themselves from the engines air outlet. "A lot of people are from the southern states and in california where the coldest is usually around 70 degrees (Fahrenheit)," said Janar Ploompuu, of the second armoured reconnaissance battalion, surrounded by colleagues bundled up against the cold and wearing thick white boots. Far from the Cordoba sun The army mechanics face another stern test -- making sure that the tanks hydraulics system don't freeze up. The Lepanto mechanised battalion of the La Reina regiment, usually stationed in Cordoba, in sunny southern Spain, has been preparing in temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four degrees Fahrenheit) for the NATO exercises. "We have been training in the Pyrenees," said their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Villalonga. "We have been taking driving lessons on snow, we have been in contact with our mountain school and have received lessons on how to move and live in such weather conditions," he added. Already the US Marines have decided to deploy around 700 troops on rotation in Norway, independent of the current NATO exercises, to acclimatise its forces to operating in freezing conditions. Several European armies are following suit. Prosecutors spent years piecing together a sweeping case against Guzman, who was extradited in 2017 after twice escaping prison in Mexico -- first hidden in a laundry cart, then slipping down a tunnel that reached his prison shower. Guzman has been branded the world's biggest drug lord since Colombia's Pablo Escobar, who was dubbed "The King of Cocaine" and was one of the wealthiest men in the world until police shot him dead in 1993. Experts say the government has a near water-tight case likely to send Guzman, 61, to a maximum security US prison for the rest of his life. But at what price? "Is it going to stop even one additional pound of cocaine from coming into the United States? Probably not. The machine keeps rolling," says Rob Heroy, a North Carolina lawyer who has defended other Mexican drug barons. The Sinaloa cartel that Guzman founded in 1989 is still hugely powerful. His co-defendant Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada remains at large, and violent drug trafficking continues unabated in Mexico. Last year, there was a record 29,000 murders in Mexico. In the United States, opioid addiction has spiraled into an epidemic. In 2016, an average of 174 Americans died every day from drug overdoses. 'Most expensive trial in history' Jury selection will be conducted in security conditions reserved only for the most dangerous defendants. US District Court Judge Brian Cogan will preside over the process behind closed doors. The 12 jurors, with six alternates, will remain anonymous. US Marshals will escort them to and from court every day. These ordinary men and women will determine whether Guzman -- the diminutive father of two whose nickname means "shorty" -- is guilty or not of 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges. According to the indictment, the Sinaloa cartel, which Guzman is accused of leading from 1989 to 2014, became "the largest drug trafficking organization in the world... with thousands of members." US prosecutors contend that from 1989 to 2014, the cartel smuggled at least 340,892 pounds (154,626 kilograms) of cocaine into the United States, as well as heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana, raking in $14 billion. Guzman pleads not guilty, but the government has presented so much evidence -- more than 300,000 pages and at least 117,000 audio recordings -- that the defense complains they haven't had enough time to review it all. Heroy estimates the trial will cost US taxpayer "more than $50 million," a price tag that includes protection programs for at least some of the several hundred witnesses expected to testify. "It's probably set up to be the most expensive trial in the history of the US," he told AFP. Even Guzman's lawyers are in the dark as to all the former associates, hired hands or rivals who have turned informants. Informants Some of the informants have already been absorbed into the US witness protection program, given new identities and homes around the country. Others are already in jail, housed in special wings to protect them from reprisals. If cooperating with the government can endanger their lives, and those of their families, it can also help reduce their own sentences. "No one is going to have pictures of him (Guzman) carrying cocaine, taking the suitcase with money," said Heroy. "The case is going to be based on these informants." Guzman has been held in solitary confinement in New York since Mexico extradited him in January 2017, one day before Donald Trump took office. He spends 23 hours a day in his cell. The only visitors he is allowed are his three lawyers and twin, seven-year-old daughters, from whom he is separated by a thick glass screen. The judge has banned his 29-year-old beauty queen wife, Emma Coronel, from visiting. Instead, she has attended almost all his pre-trial hearings, waving and blowing him kisses from the gallery. Arrested for the first time in Guatemala in 1993, El Chapo spent more than seven years in a Mexican prison before his first escape in 2001. Re-arrested by Mexican marines in February 2014, he escaped again 14 months later. Guzman was re-captured in January 2016 after a visit from Hollywood actor Sean Penn and a Mexican actress, who wanted to make a film about his life, allowed Mexican authorities to trace his whereabouts. "Yet the same time I say it, it is very important for the stability of the world, for the region and for the world, that Saudi Arabia remain stable. "I think that a way must be found to achieve both goals." Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi regime, was murdered inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul last month, and Turkish officials are still searching for his remains. After at first denying the murder, Saudi officials eventually admitted he had been killed in the consulate, blaming a "rogue operation" and arresting 18 people. Riyadh's international standing has been damaged by the affair and the Turkish authorities have made it clear they will keep investigating the matter. Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations, but both nations have strong links with the United States -- and all three countries share a common enemy in Iran. "The larger problem is Iran and we have to make sure that Iran does not continue the malign activities that it has been doing over the last few weeks in Europe," said Netanyahu. Referring to what he said were two Iran-backed terrorist plots that Israel had helped foil in Europe, he added: "Blocking Iran is uttermost on our agenda for security, not merely for Israel but I believe for Europe and the world as well." Courting Gulf states Israel considers Iran to be the main threat to its safety and has backed the United States in its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. Israel has been quietly courting Gulf Arab states which share its suspicion of Tehran. Netanyahu held surprise talks with Oman's Sultan Qaboos in Muscat last month -- accompanied by the head of Israeli intelligence service Mossad, according to Netanyahu's office. On Friday, the foreign minister of Bahrain, a close Saudi ally, praised the Israeli premier's stance. Khalid bin Ahmad tweeted that "despite the ongoing dispute, (Netanyahu) has taken a clear position on the importance of stability in the region and Saudi Arabia's role in consolidating that stability." Netanyahu also called on other countries to support US sanctions against Tehran. New US sanctions go into effect on Monday. He said sanctions so far had forced a marked decrease in the amounts Iran had devoted to "aggressive and terrorist" activities. A total of 572 officials have been punished during Chinese central authorities' first round of inspection of a national crackdown on gang crimes. Ten inspection teams have been sent to 10 provincial-level regions in China to carry out the inspection that lasted one month. With the inspection teams' work, a total of 1,791 cases of corruption related to gang and organized crimes as well as the "protective umbrellas" behind such crimes have been put under investigation, according to statistics from the office of the leading group of the inspection. Also, during the inspection period, the 10 inspected regions have busted 96 gangs and assets worth of over 5 billion yuan (US$726 million) related to such crimes have been sealed or seized. The second and third rounds of inspection are scheduled to be carried out next year so that all provincial-level regions will be inspected. "Colombia is one of our closest partners in Latin America and the two countries cooperate on counternarcotics, regional security and mutual economic prosperity," the statement added. It said Trump "looks forward to future opportunities to engage," following talks with Duque on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September. The meeting had been initially set for December 2. The Colombian foreign ministry said the change was simply due to Trump's "modified" travel plans in Latin America. Colombia and the United States have historically had a close relationship, with the US government providing millions of dollars in aid to combat drug trafficking and guerrillas. Both Duque and Trump have been harshly critical of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's leftist regime. Odinga assured his supporters that his decision to take up the role of AU High Representative for Infrastructure Development in Africa would not alienate him from local politics. I am going nowhere," Odinga told his supporters at a funeral in Yimbo, Siaya County, "My new appointment as AU envoy comes with an office in Nairobi. I will just be travelling to Ethiopia, South Africa and other African nations on assignment and returning to the office in Nairobi, where I will be based." He clarified. ece-auto-gen His comments added weight to those of his elder brother Oburu Odinga who dismissed those calling for Railas retirement as day dreamers. "He is a politician by blood. Those thinking he will retire soon are daydreaming," Oburu said. A section of politicians allied to DP Ruto have been calling for Odingas retirement from local politics and concentrate on his continental engagements. According to the AU chair, Odingas new role at the AU will entail supporting and strengthening the efforts of the Commissions relevant departments. ece-auto-gen Resident music reviewer Paula Yeoman shares her top picks for summer tunes, by focussing on New Zealand artists. Listen to the full interviews above. Weekend Life - the Sunday edition, 10am-2pm Sunday on RadioLIVE and streaming live to the rova app on Android and iPhone. RadioLIVE. Where do we get the word caucus from? What does "carrying the torch" mean and what does champagne ham have to do with champagne? Ask Max a question here and Graeme will pass it on to Max. Warning: John Dybvig does try to contain himself, but there are a few swear-words used in his piece, so listen to this week's Letter from America at your own risk. John Dybvig is back to share the latest in US politics and culture, and give us his thoughts. This is a colorful book, full of great stories and forceful (if not always admirable) personalities, who deserve to be remembered. It gives us repeated lessons of how banking is a business always intertwined with the government, demonstrated in the long history of Citibank, a very important, very big, often quite creative, and sometimes very troubled bank. It reminds us of the theory of Charles Calomiris that every banking system should be thought of as a deal between the bankers and the politicians. According to then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsons instructive memoir of our most recent financial crisis, on November 19, 2008: Just one week after I had delivered a speech meant to reassure the markets, I headed to the Oval Office to tell the president that yet another major U.S. financial institution, Citigroup, was teetering on the brink of failure. I thought the programs we put in place had stabilized the banks, he said, visibly shocked. I did, too, Mr. President. This exchange led to the instructions from the President which appear on page 1 of Borrowed Time: Dont let Citi fail. At this point, as the book tells us, The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Citigroup guessed that Citibank would be unable to pay obligations or meet expected deposit outflows over the ensuing week. Citigroups own internal analysis projected that the firm will be insolvent by Wednesday, November 26. As ever, the authors add, the latest crisis in the banking sector caught many regulators by surprise. Now, if Citibank had failed and defaulted on its obligations, what would have happened? Nobody wanted to find out. Then-New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner forecast that it would be a catastrophe, the book relates, and quotes the then-head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Sheila Bair: We were all fearful. In their place would you, ladies and gentlemen, have been fearful, too? Yes, you would have been. Would you have decided on a bailout of Citibank, as they did? Yes, you would have. The FDIC had a special and very pointed reason to be fearful: a failure of Citibank would have busted the FDIC, toothis government insurance fund would itself have needed a taxpayer bailout. As we learn from the book: The FDIC staff did a seat-of-the-pants calculation and estimated the agencys potential exposure to Citibank to be in the range of $60 billion to $120 billion. Even at the low end of that estimated range, losses would exhaust the $34 billion or so in the [Deposit Insurance Fund]. So the FDIC would have been brokejust like the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation was twenty years before. In short, the bailout of Citibank was an indirect bailout of the FDIC. This insightful lesson is not made explicit in the book, but is a clear conclusion to draw from its account. Going back in history to 147 years before these events of 2008, we find the situation interestingly reversed. In 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, City Bankat that point spelled with a sensible y and not the marketing i of much later timeswas helping save the government, as the U.S. Treasury scrambled to raise money for the army. We learn from the book that Moses Taylor, then the head of City Bank, played a leading role in gathering private and municipal funds to equip and sustain Union troops and also in managing the issuance of federal debt to pay for the war. In the summer of 1861, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase visited a group of New York bankers and told them he needed $50 million at once. The bankers huddled, and the Tylor, speaking for the group, announced, Mr. Secretary, we have decided to subscribe for fifty millions of the United States governments securities that you offer, and to place the amount at your disposal immediately. We can imagine how relieved and happy that must have made the Treasury Secretary. As the Civil War dragged on and became vastly more expensive, one of the ways to finance it was the creation of the national banking system to monetize the government debt. City Bank then became a national bank, as it still is. However, the limitations of the national bank charter made it hard to be in the securities business. How City Bank got around this in the boom of the 1920s makes interesting reading, including how it actively financed the stock market bubble of the decade. Then came, of course, the collapse and the disaster of the 1930s, and that brought government investment in the preferred stock of City Bank by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The debate is over whether City really needed Washingtons money, the book tells us, or was persuaded to participate in a broader program intended to show that the government was shoring up the nations banking system. It continues, Just as in 2008note how financial ideas as well as events repeat themselvesfederal officials in the 1930s wanted healthy banks to accept government investment so that the weak banks that really needed it would not be stigmatized. But which category was City Bank in? The authors conclude that it seems likely that City really did need the money. Citibank was and is a very international bank. This has its advantages, but also its problems. In the 1930s, City was in trouble from its international loans to, as the book relates, Chile, Cuba, Hungary, Greece and most importantly, Germany. Germany had boomed in the 1920s and was the second largest economy in the world. It had financed its boom with heavy international borrowing, especially from the United States. By the 1930s, it was obvious that this had not been a good idea from the lenders point of view. In the natural course of events, the costly 1930s experience became ancient history, and in the 1970s, Citi (now spelled with an i) was the vanguard of a great charge into international lending, in which a lot of other banks followed. The leader and chief proponent of the charge was Walter Wriston, Citis CEO and the most innovative and best known banker of his day. Says the book: Wristons most remarkable achievement at Citibank was persuading Washington that lending money to governments in developing countries was nearly risk-free. But the government was already cheering for these loans. There had for years been a tendency among many government officials to look with favor on loans to less-developed countries [LDCs]. About these loans, Wriston notoriously said, Theyre the best loans I have. Sovereign nations dont do bankrupt. No, they dont. But they do default on their loansand quite often, historically speaking. And default many foreign governments did, starting in 1982. At that point, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve was the famous Paul Volcker. As the book discusses, his solution to the possibility the U.S. banking system had become insolvent was to mandate that the LDC loans not be called the bad loans they were, that no loan losses would be booked against them, and that the banks would indeed have to make new loans to keep the Ponzi scheme going. In other words, the solution was to cook the books. With this big gamble, as it turned out, things did keep going. When LDC loans were finally charged off in the late 1980s, there was a new boom on: financing commercial real estate. This boom in turn collapsed in the early 1990s. We might say there is a theme and variations involved. In 1981, just before the Wriston-led charge into LDC debt went over the cliff, the biggest ten banks in the United States, in order, were: Bank of America (the one in San Francisco, long since sold) Citibank Chase Manhattan Manufacturers Hanover Morgan Guaranty Chemical Bank Bankers Trust Continental Illinois First National Bank of Chicago Security Pacific Consider this: of the ten, only two still exist as independent companies. Eight of the ten are gone. To people not in the financial trade, or even to younger ones in it, these once-important names are probably unknown. As a song written by one of my old banking friends goes: You were a big bank, Blink and now youre gone! But Citibank, the subject of the eventful history related by Borrowed Time, is not goneit is still here. Which is the only other survivor of the former top ten? Maybe you would like to guess?* In short, if you have a taste for the adventures and evolving ideas, the ups and downs, the growth and reverses, and the innovations and blunders of banking over the years, you will enjoy this history of a most remarkable institution. *The answer is Chemical Bank, although it has changed its name to JPMorgan. A large number of birds are flocking to northeast China for a stop-over before heading further south for winter migration. More than 20,000 migratory birds are stopping at the Xingkai Lake National Nature Reserve every day for temporary stays, according to Liu Huajin from the reserve. "Every year, from mid-September to mid-November, migratory birds from Russia make stop-overs at the reserve," said Liu. The lake is located in Jixi, Heilongjiang Province and is the biggest border lake on the China-Russia border. The wetland in the reserve is connected to Russia. "Each autumn, we can monitor up to 400,000 birds flying here, but the actual number might be bigger," Liu said, adding that the birds include red-crowned cranes, oriental white storks and grey sea eagles. The nature reserve is an important national station for examining wildlife diseases, and staff there often collect bird waste for testing. This year, staff will collect more than 2,000 such samples for testing purposes. Jerry Thomas has worn a few different hats in his life, but the one he was wearing on Sunday Photos taken at the local art gallery ATHICA's new exhibit reception on Saturday, August 18, 2018 off of Pulaski Street in Athens, Georgia. This was the exhibit to be hosted in the independent gallery's new location. (Photo/Christina R. Matacotta, crmatacotta@gmail.com) The UGA Foundation, which owns the 155-acre campus in Costa Rica, announced the sale of the property to the Council on International Educational Exchange via an article published by UGA Today on Feb. 25. Changes resulting from the sale wont take effect until the fall 2019 program concludes. Professor James Porter pauses for a portrait outside the Odum School of Ecology in Athens, Georgia on Oct. 18, 2018. Porter served as chief scientific adviser and principle cast member of "Chasing Coral," an Emmy Award-winning documentary about the impact of climate change on coral reefs around the world. (Photo/Sarah Mitravich) Natonin, Mt. Province (CNN Philippines, November 4) Days into the search operations in landslide-hit Natonin town, authorities are refocusing their efforts on ground zero, as survivors say portions of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) building in the area was the last known location of those still missing. Ground Commander BGen. Leopoldo Imbang said survivors were helping them pinpoint the area where people could be located. "Meron tayong survivor na nagsasabi na doon daw ang pinaka-area. Ang problema, di mo naman pwede biglain doon, dapat maggawa ka ng daanan para makadaan ang equipment mo and it will not endanger yung ibang responder na nasa ibaba," Imbang said. [Translation: We have survivors who tell us where the area is. The problem is we can't go there immediately. You have to create a road where equipment will pass and will not endanger other workers below.] As of Sunday, 17 people have been retrieved in the landslide, while 11 others remain missing. The search and retrieval operations have been extended until Friday, November 9. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) said almost 90 percent of Natonin town is prone to landslides, the one that occurred on Tuesday was bound to happen. MGB Cordillera Chief Geologist Benigno Espejo said they began noting landslides as early as 2015. "As early as 2015, meron ng parang paggalaw diyan, parang ay landslide na diyan sa taas... Yung triggering factors na lang ang kailangan para magka-landslide. And triggers nga niyan usually ay malakas na ulan," he said. [Translation: There have been movements as early as 2015, it's like there are landslides up top... But triggering factors still need to be present for a landslide. And the usual trigger is heavy rain.] On October 27, the Office of Civil Defense-Cordillera Administrative Region (OCD-CAR) had asked the Interior Department in the region to direct local chief executives to carry out preemptive evacuation in areas identified as high and very high risk to landslide and flooding. Barangay Banawal, where the deadly landslide occurred, is on the list, including 10 other barangays of Natonin. OCD-CAR Regional Director Ruben Carandang said, "They missed something in their duties and responsibilities as the chairman of the Municipal Risk Reduction and Management Council. Pati yung [Even the] barangay chairman." Residents still evacuated at the height of Typhoon Rosita on October 30. Unfortunately, they took shelter at the DPWH building, which was swept away by an avalanche of rocks and mud. Natonin Mayor Mateo Chiyawan said people sought shelter in the building believing it was safe, as it was made of concrete. "Concrete ang building ng DPWH, yun talaga ang pinupuntahan ng tao, kaya medyo yung konting residents doon, doon sila nagpalipas ng malakas na hangin," he said. [Translation: The DPWH building is concrete, and that is where people go, so the few residents there, that's where they go to let strong winds subside.] Chiyawan said the DPWH building was initially built in 2017 and was followed by expansion projects, and the construction was allowed because the MGB was supposed to have given its go signal. However, the MGB said it did not issue any clearance for the building to be built. Espejo said, "As far as our record is concerned, is wala kaming na-issue [we did not issue anything]... Unang-una [First], within high landslide susceptible, secondly is parang may gullies siya [it seems like there are gullies] so usually, we don't recommend any building along waterways." Rostum Martinez of the DPWH Mt. Province 2nd Engineering District said it was an old building, which was expanded. "It was erected 2010, 2011. Yung building na yun. Kaya ang ginagawa namin, ine-enhance, nag-a-annex kami," he said. [Translation: That building was erected in 2010, 2011. So we are enhancing, annexing.] Meanwhile, DPWH Secretary Mark Villar earlier ordered the review of the safety of other building sites in the country. In the dead-heat governors race, Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski spent the Saturday electrifying their bases to push them over the finish line on Election Day. For Stefanowski, that meant rallies in Darien and Greenwich - a nod to the traditional GOP strongholds of wealthy Fairfield County suburbs - and stops in Shelton and Naugatuck Valley towns where Republicans also perform well. Meanwhile, Lamont spent time in areas that have sent Democrats to the state House. He stopped in Torrington, Meriden and the backbone of the Democratic party, the cities of New Haven and Hartford. A poll by Hearst Connecticut Media and Sacred Heart University released Thursday found Stefanowski leading Lamont for the first time. But his small edge - just 2.4 percentage points - is within the margin of error. Stefanowski touted the poll result at a Greenwich Save the State rally attended by about 150 people - mostly middle-aged and older voters and party locals, and heavily white. They see it slipping away, said Stefanowski, of Democrats. But he urged those listening, Dont take anything for granted. Weve got to finish strong. Weve got to get the vote out on Tuesday. Lamont and other Democrats warned a crowd of 150 mostly African African people of Trump-style policies invading Connecticut if Republicans took control, speaking at a rally at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church in New Haven. Several speakers called it a moral imperative to vote for Democrats. We know whats at stake, said a hoarse Lamont. Im not going to turn my back on whats right for Connecticut. Both candidates focused on motivating women on Saturday. Stefanowski had a Women and Families rally in Darien and before his Greenwich rally, summoned seven female members of the Greenwich Republican party on stage to tout their support for the Republican ticket. Lamont held a womens rally in Meriden with Democrat Jahana Hayes, who is running in the 5th Congressional District. Much of Stefanowskis recent gains were among women, who in the earlier poll showed 50 percent support for Lamont. That has dropped to 40.8 percent, the new poll finds, with 34.8 for Stefanowski. Both candidates, who have been described as having an enthusiasm gap, used other politicians to boost them Saturday. Lamont leaned on popular incumbents U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro to excite Democrats in New Haven. I have never been more proud to be a Democrat in this nation, said DeLauro, before promising the crowd that Democrats can take the U.S. House. Likewise, Stefanowski deployed the powerful speaking of state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides of Derby at his Greenwich rally, where almost the entire Republican ticket appeared except for Republican attorney general candidate Sue Hatfield, and Stefanowskis running mate, Joe Markley, a strongly conservative state senator who has been noticeably absent on the campaign trail. There is nobody with an R behind their name that is anti-anything, asserted Klarides. (Democrats) are saying that because they are scared. They are saying it because on Tuesday this state is going to go red. In New Haven, Democratic State Rep. Juan Candelaria and state Sen. Gary Winfield whipped up the crowd for Lamont by warning that Republicans would cut services, prompting raucous cheers of Ned! Ned! Ned! Attorney general candidate William Tong also joined Lamont in New Haven. Both gubernatorial candidates have the television airwaves plastered with commercials on the final weekend before voters head to the polls. Shortly before Lamonts arrival in New Haven, two cars drove through the neighborhood mounted with loudspeakers broadcasting recorded messages from Lamont and Candelaria, urging people to head to the polls Tuesday. emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson U.S. politicians and media are reporting that the service member killed in an apparent insider attack in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, was the 39-year-old mayor of a city in the state of Utah. The Salt Lake Tribune and other media reported on November 3 that North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor was serving with the National Guard when he was killed earlier in the day. U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and the states lieutenant governor, Spencer Cox, confirmed Taylors death. "Devastating news. North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor was killed today while serving in Afghanistan," Cox wrote on his Facebook page. "I hate this. I'm struggling for words....This war has once again cost us the best blood of a generation. We must rally around his family," he added. North Ogden is a city of 17,000 people north of Salt Lake City. Taylor was deployed to Afghanistan in January with the Utah National Guard. At the time, he told local media he would serve as an adviser to an Afghan commando battalion. A statement from the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said another U.S. service member was wounded in the attack. The assailant was a member of the Afghan security forces who was immediately killed by other Afghan forces, the statement said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the "green-on-blue" attack -- in which Afghan forces turn their weapons on international soldiers with whom they are working. Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP NORAK, Tajikistan -- As dusk falls, when most of the townsfolk are deserting the streets and heading home for dinner, Olimshoh Khudoynazarov is preparing for watch duty. He slips on a red armband and affixes a badge identifying him as a member of Norak's "Volunteer Patrol," a makeshift line of defense against extremism for the south-central Tajik town of just over 50,000. "Each night, a group of eight men watch Norak's streets to help the police keep law and order," the 52-year-old says of the 250-strong band of state-backed vigilantes. Many have backgrounds as police or other security bodies, and initially helped authorities maintain the peace until 10 p.m. But their roles and numbers expanded after four foreign cyclists were killed and two others injured when they were mowed down in a vehicular attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group in July. "Now we stay until midnight and beyond, sometimes till 2 a.m.," Khudoynazarov says. "Many things have changed since summer." Dim Prospects In The 'City Of Lights' Norak once enjoyed a reputation as an idyllic Soviet city. Its namesake hydropower plant, constructed in the 1960s on the Vakhsh River, earned it the moniker "City Of Lights," and powered an image of progressiveness that attracted thousands of young workers to build their future. Neighboring villages dotted with mud-brick homes and dirt roads gave way to a growing multicultural city that at one point was home to residents of more than 40 different ethnic backgrounds. Tourists flocked to the area to see what until just a few years ago was the world's largest dam -- a concrete wonder surrounded by picturesque mountaintops that provides electricity to 70 percent of Tajikistan. But Norak's aging statue of Vladimir Lenin, which still stands in the central square, has seen the town fall on hard times. The collapse of the Soviet Union and Tajikistan's five-year civil war led many residents to leave in the 1990s. Jobs became harder to find. Opportunities vanished. Official statistics don't support the idea that Norak is worse off than other areas of Tajikistan, suggesting that unemployment is more or less in line with the national average of 2.3 percent. And like many other Tajik towns and cities, Norak has undergone a facelift in recent years, with authorities renovating main streets and government buildings, repairing highways, and creating new parks and culture centers. But considering that more than 30 percent of Tajikistan's population lives below the poverty line, and its agriculture-dependent labor force is well-known for migrating to Russia and other countries for seasonal jobs, actual unemployment is widely believed to be much higher than 2.3 percent. And the situation is widely believed to be much worse in Norak. The local employment agency provides numbers that indicate that more than 45 percent of Norak's potential workforce has no permanent employment, and a recent report indicates the town is situated in one of the poorest areas of the country. "Our young people don't have the opportunities we had," says Qurbon Qosimov, a former firefighter who moved to Norak some four decades ago from the northern Tajik town of Konibodom. Retired driver Ismatullo Ashurov, who arrived in 1971 and witnessed the heyday, says simply that the older generation "had it better." "Everybody would come to Norak to work," the 73-year-old says. "It's different now." Hometown Connections To A Brutal Attack The July 29 attack involved ramming a vehicle into a group of foreign cyclists, and multiple attackers then exiting the car and stabbing survivors. Two Americans, one Dutch, and a Swiss cyclist were killed and three others were injured before the assailants fled. The attack led to the arrest of 15 people, whose trial began in October. The details of the case do not paint Norak in a good light. In August, five men were arrested in Norak, which was determined to be the hometown of two of those suspected of carrying out the attack. The five are alleged to have been recruited by way of WhatsApp by Asliddin and Jafar Yusupov, two brothers from Norak who were killed in a police operation that immediately followed the killings. The authorities allege that members of a terrorist cell gathered at a house in Norak to identify potential targets and plot an attack, adding to the town's notoriety for harboring Islamic militants. Norak was already on Tajik authorities' radar: government officials had previously estimated that at least 30 residents had traveled abroad to join the ranks of the extremist Islamic State group, and another 20 suspected Islamic State militants had been detained in the town itself. Among those who left to fight in Iraq and Syria were two infamous IS recruiters: a 26-year-old native of Norak's Tutqavul district. One, Anushervon Azimov, was believed to have recruited some 100 people to join IS before he was killed in Syria in 2016. The other is Abu Usama Noraki, aka Tojiddin Nazarov, who according to Tajik authorities has launched a campaign to brainwash young Tajiks to join IS in Afghanistan. Embarrassed by the additional and unwanted spotlight being shown on the town in the wake of the attack on the Western bicyclists, Norak authorities and residents alike are left wondering what went wrong. Opportunity Is Where You Find It Unemployment and lost opportunities may be factors, but they don't tell the whole story. Just because times are tough doesn't mean every youth turns to militancy. This summer, 17-year-old Idimoh Sultonzoda received good news: she had earned a space at a university in the capital, Dushanbe, and will earn a teaching degree once she completes five years of distance-learning courses. It also requires that she travel to the university at least twice a year to attend intensive courses and to take exams. To make ends meet she sells homemade snacks and drinks at a stall in the shadow of the Lenin monument. "I started this business to cover expenses, because my parents can't afford to pay" for school, she says, noting that her business does well on hot days when people stop by to purchase samosas or sunflower seeds. "You can find work if you really want to," she says. "I made [an opportunity] for myself." Across the road, 27-year-old Firuz Qosimzoda is taking a stroll in the fresh air with his wife and their one-month-old baby daughter. Qosimzoda works as an engineer at the Roghun hydropower plant, set to take the mantle as Tajikistan's most prestigious power generator, some 125 kilometers away. Qosimzoda says his salary is "adequate" to cover expenses for his young family, which shares a home with his parents. "I still hold a junior position but hope to move up in the career ladder," he says. "Then my salary will increase, too." Qosimzoda is excited about his own career prospects, but admits that "not all young people have jobs" in his hometown. No Place To Dream, Nowhere To Turn At a nearby bazaar, many young men can be seen selling goods, pushing carts, or offering taxi services. "I do all kinds of odd jobs, whatever I find," says a man in his 20s. "I work in people's houses painting walls, or repairing barns. I also work in farms in the harvest season. What I earn is barely enough for food and other basics." He declines to give his name, not an uncommon occurrence in Tajikistan, where authorities don't tolerate dissent, and people are reluctant to openly voice criticism. "I am not even 25 yet but I don't see any good future for myself, I'm even afraid of dreaming, because it won't come true anyway," the man says. "I don't know who I should complain to or seek advice." Many in the Muslim-majority country of 8 million turn to the mosque, but municipal authorities and local religious figures insist that Norak's young people are no more inclined than others in the country toward militant Islam. Echoing a widespread sentiment among locals, the town's chief imam, Abdulhay Naimov, says "there is no explanation" for its reputation for producing Islamic State recruits. "We're shocked," Naimov says. "What I know is that young men don't learn extremist ideas in our mosques. In fact, in mosques we always warn them against the dangers of extremism." The state maintains firm control on religion in Tajikistan, and only allows approved forms of Islam. Naimov plays a big role in the counterterrorism efforts started by the government in Norak following the attack on Western cyclists. "It's the main topic of every Friday prayer, in community meetings, and even in private funeral services. We use every opportunity to spread the message," Naimov says. Deputy Mayor Shahlo Hasanzoda says the authorities have spoken to around 4,000 residents as part of the campaign. They have spoken to young people and their parents, and called some 700 young men working in Russia. "We urge parents to watch their children -- grown-up sons -- to talk to them, to warn them against recruiters," Hasanzoda says. "We asked [parents] to report to authorities if they notice any suspicious changes in their children's behavior. They also welcomed ideas as to how to combat the spread of extremist ideas, and Hasanzoda drew some conclusions as to where they were originating. "What I gather is that almost all of those who joined IS from Norak were recruited during labor migrations in Russia," she says. "Being far from home, low-paid heavy physical work, loneliness, etc., it makes them vulnerable to being led astray." As for those in Tajikistan, she says, "possibly some young people learn radical teachings from different sites on the Internet." From One Friend To Another According to government figures, at least 30 of the some 1,100 Tajiks believed to have joined the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq came from Norak. Addressing the town's high representation in such statistics, Washington-based Eurasia specialist Edward Lemon cites research from other areas of Central Asia that revealed a link was found between recruitment and local relationships. "A major factor which helps explain why some districts are overrepresented in extremist recruitment figures is the role of connections," the DMGS-Kenna Institute Fellow at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School told RFE/RL. Recruitment "often takes place through a member of the family, as in the case of the Yusupovs, or a classmate or colleague." He notes that a World Bank report estimated that 67 percent of the population in Norak's home district lived in poverty, "making it one of the poorest areas of the country." And while he says he doesn't believe poverty causes radicalization on its own, it does drive many to migrate to Russia. There, he says, many Central Asian migrants "find work, live with, and socialize with people from their hometown. So if one falls under the influence of extremists, they are likely to persuade others." It's a pattern, Lemon concludes, that "may well explain why Norak has produced a disproportionate number of terrorists." Tajik authorities also appeared to be aware of the possibility of such links, and early in the Tajik investigation into the attack ordered 20 Tajik migrant workers to return home from Russia for questioning. 'Those Few Extremists Don't Represent Us' Temperatures still hover at a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius on a mid-October evening, but the streets of Norak are already empty. "We used to hang around with friends till late, but parents have become much stricter now," says 23-year-old Rustam Roziqov. "My parents tell me not to leave home after sunset, they ask who I spend time with, what me and my friends talk about, what we do." Since the attack on Western cyclists, parents across Norak have been instructed by authorities to watch their children -- including "children" in their late 20s. The office of the Norak mayor conducts regular meetings with officials, community leaders, and religious figures on security and counter-extremism issues. Fotima Sharipova, a 55-year-old housewife, has attended several of the meetings. Sharipova has three sons and a daughter, all grown up and married with children, but she says she is keeping a watchful eye on them "to make sure they don't mix with bad people." "The other day my youngest son went to a wedding and I joined him, too. He begged me, 'Mom, please, don't come, you're embarrassing me,'" she says. "I went with him anyway, because I'm worried and I take this seriously." Iran held annual celebrations marking the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, hours before the reimposition of sanctions by Washington on Irans key oil sector. Thousands of people gathered on November 4 at the compound that once housed the U.S. mission for a government-organized rally broadcast live on state television. The participants burned the U.S. flag and pictures of U.S. President Donald Trump, and chanted slogans such as "Death to America. Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis and has seen sporadic protests in recent months, but Iranian officials insisted that the country will resist and defeat the return of American sanctions. Similar events were being staged across the country as well, Iranian state television reported. On November 4, 1979, Iranian militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days after Washington refused to hand over Iran's toppled shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, for trial in Iran. The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since then. This years celebrations come before penalties targeting Iran's energy, shipbuilding, shipping, and financial sectors are due to come into effect on November 5 following Trumps decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. Washington in August started reimposing sanctions on the Iranian economy that were lifted under the deal in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear program. The moves are part of a broader U.S. economic campaign to pressure Iran over what Trump's administration describes as its "malign conduct" such as nuclear and missile development and support for militant groups in the Middle East. Iran denies that. Temporary Waivers Washington has said the restrictions aim to reduce Iran's oil exports to zero, but it granted temporary waivers to eight countries to continue imports of Iranian crude. In an interview with Fox News, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to reveal which countries received waivers, but he said the eight unidentified nations "need a little bit more time to get to zero." Pompeo did not rule out the Trump administration extending the waivers beyond six months. Bloomberg reported that the eight countries include China and India, the biggest buyers of Irans oil, as well as Japan and South Korea, key U.S. allies in Asia. Turkey will also be permitted to continue buying Iranian oil, but the softening doesnt extend to Europe. "These sanctions have already had an enormous impact," the state secretary said, adding that Trump's policy of "maximum pressure will be fully in place as of tomorrow." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 3 praised Trump for reimposing the sanctions, calling it an historic move. "For years I've been calling for sanctions to be fully reimposed against Iran's murderous terrorist regime, which threatens the entire world," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. Both the United States and Israel are foes of the government in Tehran. In a speech at the Tehran rally on November 4, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, vowed that Iran "can overcome this economic war and failure of the sanctions project is imminent." On November 3, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei portrayed the sanctions as part of a long tradition of American hostility toward Iran, which he said had prevailed as the winner. Earlier, President Hassan Rohani warned Iranians that they may face more difficulties after the United States reimposes the sanctions. "The situation was hard for people in the recent months, and it may be hard in the next several months, too," Rohani said during a televised cabinet meeting on October 31, according to state television. With reporting by AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Fars The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has issued a rare rebuke of its American ally, asserting that a U.S. Twitter posting concerning neighboring Iran goes beyond diplomatic norms and represents an interference in Iraqs internal affairs. In a Twitter posting on October 30, still on its account, the U.S. State Department told Iran it must permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias operating in Iraq. In a statement issued on November 3, the ministry called on the U.S. to delete the comments and to avoid their recurrence in the future and to observe the rules of international law. The statement said the move was one of the requirements set down for Iran to behave like a normal state and avoid the effects of fresh sanctions that will come into force on November 5. Iranian-backed Shiite militias operating in Iraq took part in the U.S.-led campaign to drive the Islamic State (IS) militant group from Iraqi territory. Iraq has since formally integrated many of the militias into its security forces, but the United States has demanded that militias be disarmed and disbanded. The Foreign Ministry said it "would like to point out thatthe statement [concerning the militias] goes beyond diplomatic norms and mutual respect for the sovereignty of states as a well-established principle of international law. Iraq has attempted to balance its relations with the United States, which provides financial and military support, and Iran, which carries significant influence with members of Iraq's Shi'ite population. The U.S. administration on November 2 announced it was reimposing sanctions to take effect on November 5 against Tehran, targeting the energy, shipbuilding, shipping, and financial sectors. The sanctions were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in exchange for curbs on Tehrans nuclear activities. U.S. President Donald Trump in May pulled out of the pact and in August began reintroducing sanctions on the Iranian economy, saying the terms of the accord were not strict enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and accusing Tehran of supporting militant activity in the region. Iran denies the allegations. U.S. officials said they were granting temporary waivers to some countries to allow them to continue to import Iranian energy products to avoid economic hardships. Iraqi officials said they have received such a waiver, although U.S. officials have not confirmed the remarks. With reporting by Reuters, Middle East Eye, and Press TV Every year, some of the best and brightest in the field of Central Asia studies gather for the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) conference. This year the University of Pittsburgh hosted the conference from October 24-28 and one of the people attending was RFE/RL's Media Relations Manager and Majlis podcast moderator Muhammad Tahir. It was an excellent opportunity to try doing a Majlis podcast in front of an audience, who were given an opportunity to ask the panelists questions, and make comments themselves on how they view the evolving situation in Uzbekistan. The topic was the changes in Uzbekistan: how believable are these changes and how far could they go? Joining the talk was Jennifer Murtazashvili, associate professor and director of the International Development Program at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; Navbahor Imamova, a journalist at RFE/RLs sister organization Voice of America, where she works for the Uzbek Service and hosts the show called Amerika Ovozi, which can be seen on YouTube; and our longtime Majlis friend Luca Anceschi, professor of Central Asian Studies at Glasgow University. I was not at the CESS this year, but I joined the discussion via Skype. Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes. The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman recently acquitted of blasphemy after eight years on death row has pleaded for asylum from Western countries, saying his family was in great danger in Pakistan. "I am requesting [U.S.] President Donald Trump to help us to leave [the country], and I am requesting the prime minister of the U.K. help us and as far as possible grant us freedom," Asia Bibi's husband said in a video message, news agencies reported on November 4. The husband, Ashiq Masih, also called on Canadian leaders for help. Bibi, a mother of five, was sentenced to death in 2010 for allegedly insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad -- a charge she has denied. The case has attracted global attention, and several countries have offered Bibi asylum. The Supreme Court overturned Bibis conviction on October 30, sparking three days of violent, nationwide protests by hard-line Islamists demanding Bibis execution. The demonstrations mostly ended on November 2 after the government agreed to impose a travel ban on Bibi and to allow her case to be reviewed. Criticism The government is now facing criticism for making a deal with the radical Tehrik-e Labaik Pakistan party (TLP) and for failing to take action against the leaders of the protests. However, the Interior Ministry has promised to register cases against all those miscreants who under the guise of peaceful protests caused destruction to property and harmed unarmed citizens." Criminal cases have been registered against hundreds of demonstrators and protest organizers, Dawn newspaper reported on November 4. Senior police officer Nayab Haider said that more than 150 people were arrested on charges of arson, vandalism, and violence during the demonstrations. He said that police were using video clips to identify those involved in assaults, torching property and vehicles, and blocking highways. A government official estimated that the protesters caused around $1.2 billion in damages. On November 4 in the southern port city of Karachi, some 2,000 supporters of an Islamic party held a protest march against Bibis acquittal but they remained peaceful. Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan, and the mere rumor of committing the crime can incite lynching. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence in Pakistan for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. With reporting by Dawn, AP, and The News Russian police have detained at least six protesters in Moscow at two small, state-sanctioned antigovernment rallies coinciding with celebrations of Russia's National Unity Day holiday, according to a monitoring group. Three organizers of the nationalist rally held in Moscow's Lyublino district, on the city's southeastern outskirts, were also detained November 4, according to OVD-Info, an independent group that monitors crackdowns on demonstrations. Russian monarchists staged a separate demonstration in Shchukino, on the northwestern outskirts of the capital, during which a protester was detained. Turnout at the two gathering was low, with less than 100 people attending each protest. Authorities had permitted marches and rallies in 12 Russian cities, including St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, that were held on National Unity Day. The holiday was established by the Kremlin more than 10 years ago to replace communist-era celebrations of the Bolshevik Revolution anniversary. In Moscow, the nationalist rally took place under the slogan "Bread and Freedom to the Russian People" and the participants chanted slogans that included "Freedom to Political Prisoners" and "Russia Without [President Vladimir] Putin." At a nationalist march in St. Petersburgs Udelny Park police seemed to outnumber the protesters. Organizers said that they were prohibited from carrying banners reading slogans such as "Down With Dictatorship." Ahead of the gathering, the organizers said that anyone "friendly to nationalists" was free to join the rally, except "leftist internationalists," communists, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, "representatives of pro-Kremlin organizations," and supporters of Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and the separatists has killed more than 10,300 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. Russia has repeatedly denied financing and equipping the separatist forces despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, insisting that the fighting was a civil, internal conflict. 1612 Battle In the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, a few dozen people joined a nationalist march on Victory Street that lasted only half an hour. A pro-government rally was held in the city center at the same time, with the participants carrying portraits of Putin, according to Yekaterinburg Online website. WATCH: Putin, Patriarch Kirill Lay Flowers On National Unity Day In the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, up to 20 people took part in a nationalist rally. National Unity Day is a national holiday created by Putin in 2005 to celebrate a Russian victory over Polish forces in 1612. It took the place of Soviet-era commemorations of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which are held on November 7. At a November 4 event in Moscow, Putin called on Russians to stick together and described patriotism as an important part of our national culture, the core of our genetic memory." Putin and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, laid flowers at a monument on Red Square to remember those who fought in the 1612 battle. Putin has used the holiday to promote patriotism and seek to consolidate society and strengthen the Kremlins grip on a vast, diverse country. But celebrations in recent years have been marred by antigovernment rallies and scuffles between protesters and riot police. Last year, authorities detained over 70 demonstrators after nationalists gathered in Lyublino for an antigovernment rally. While Putin has promoted a patriotic brand of nationalism, the Kremlin is wary of hard-line ethnic Russian or Slavic nationalists, many of whom are disenchanted with his leadership. The government has prevented them from marching in central Moscow in recent years. With reporting by TASS, Interfax, and Petr Kubalek in Prague The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Supporters of Russian nationalist groups marched in Moscow on November 4, a day officially marked as National Unity Day. Several people were detained during the march. The holiday was created by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2005 to celebrate a Russian victory over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1612. A weeklong series of commemorations has begun in France to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, with some 80 world leaders expected to attend. French President Emmanuel Macron on November 4 hosted his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, where the two leaders attended a concert in the city's cathedral. Macron will also host ceremonies on the battlefields across the country where hundreds of thousands of men died in muddy trenches during long stalemates between the Allies and German forces. Among the WWI sites he will visit are Verdun and the Somme, where British Prime Minister Theresa May is also expected to participate in ceremonies. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russias Vladimir Putin were expected to participate in the final ceremony at Paris's Arc de Triomphe on November 11 -- a century to the day since the day the fighting ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. U.S. officials have said it is likely the two leaders will briefly meet at some time during the commemorations. Trump, Putin, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to participate in the final ceremony. French officials have promised tight security after a series of deadly attacks in France blamed on Islamic militants over the past three years. Most World War I battles on the western front were fought in France and Belgium. The war resulted in the end of the Ottoman, Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian empires, and at least 16 million people are estimated to have died due to the conflict. Based on reporting by AFP, The Guardian, and Sky News Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Thousands visit local graves in celebration of Dia de Muertos Cancun, Riviera Maya Thousands of people were counted entering the local panteons in Cancun and Playa del Carmen as they paid tribute to their loves ones for the days of Dia de Muertos. Local graveyards recorded an average of 8,000 per day as friends and family members headed into the panteons to remember their loved ones. There were no tears shed since Dia de Muertos is about celebrating lives, which is traditionally done with photos, flowers, food and favorite items including toys for children who have died. Auric Oliver Maquinay, director of Public Services in Solidaridad reported thousands of people arriving at the grave site with hundreds coming in the evening. Vendors were outside the entrances where visitors were able to buy flowers, candles, incense, food and other objects traditionally placed on the tombs and altars of the deceased. Photo: Instituto de la Cultura y las Artes A majority of the grave sites also offered prayers for the arrival of the souls in celebracion del Hanal Pixan, a Maya tradition. While some stood and listened to the sermon, others finished arranging graves or enjoyed the traditional food that is offered to the deceased such as mucbilpollo and tamales. Many grave sites also had live music by mariachis. Dia de Muertos is celebrated around Mexico by some on the eve of October 31, but traditionally, it is celebrated around the country November 1 and 2. A heavy truck lost control and crashed into a line of vehicles waiting at a toll station on the Lanzhou-Haikou Expressway. Officials said another 44 people were injured in the pile-up at the toll station which is close to Lanzhou, capital of Gansu. Ten of the 44 injured people were seriously injured, according to local government source. The local traffic police sent more than 260 officers to the accident site to control traffic, rescue the injured and give first-aid treatment. The truck driver was slightly injured in the crash. All the injured were sent to a hospital and the injured truck driver was put under investigation. According to Chinas Xinhua news, the lorry driver told authorities his brakes failed as he travelled down a hill towards the toll station in the continuous section of the expressway. Investigation into the cause of the accident is underway. The Gansu provincial authorities demanded an examination of dangerous sections of expressways across the province. Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are often flouted or go unenforced. Chris Hemsworth Ahmedabad, Nov 4 (PTI): Chris Hemsworth has begun shooting for Netflix thriller "Dhaka" in Ahmedabad. The "Avengers: Infinity War" star, who landed in the country last week, shared a few glimpses from the sets of the film on Instagram, Saturday. Hemsworth, 35, posted three stories on the photo-and-video sharing platform. He captioned the first story: "First day shooting in India." The actor introduced himself, stuntman Bobby Holland Hanton, and his make-up man in the video while he was getting ready for the shoot. "Day 1, we are in India... I'm Chris, I play dress ups for a living," he said. The second story followed Hemsworth having a good time on the city streets with the crew members as loud music blasted in the background. In the next video, the actor can be seen relishing a customised edible Thor "welcome package". Advertisement Chris Hemsworth begins 'Dhaka' shoot in India "I've got to India... It's a welcome package... All edible, including my picture, hammer... Look at this, terrific," Hemsworth said in the story as he bites the chunks of chocolate gifts. "Dhaka", an action thriller, will revolve around the kidnapping of an Indian boy. The film marks the directorial debut of Sam Hargrave. It follows Rake (Hemsworth) who has been hired to liberate a kidnapped Indian boy, being hidden in Bangladesh capital, Dhaka. Physically brave but an emotional coward, the man has to come to terms with his identity and sense of self. "Infinity War" directing duo Anthony and Joe Russo have penned the script and they will also produce the feature via their AGBO banner. The film will also be shot in Thailand this year. Captain Amarinder Singh has ridiculed the nonsensical claim of his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal Spokesman News Service: Chandigarh, November 4: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has ridiculed the nonsensical claim of his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal that the stubble burning Punjab was solely responsible for the high levels of pollution in the national capital, asking the AAP leader to stop indulging in political theatrics and to check out the facts before shooting from his mouth. In a statement issued here on Sunday, Captain Amarinder Singh came out with a series of hard facts to rubbish Kejriwals ludicrous statement, which he trashed as yet another attempt by the Delhi Chief Minister to divert public attention for his own governments abysmal failure on all counts. Having failed to deliver on governance to the people of Delhi, Kejriwal was, as usual, trying to take refuge in falsehoods and fabrications, said the Chief Minister. Advertisement Taking a dig at Kejriwal for his preposterous logic that the satellite pictures of stubble burning in Punjab was proof of it being the primary cause of the Delhis severe pollution, Captain Amarinder Singh said even a school kid would know better. Can he (Kejriwal) really be an IIT graduate? asked the Punjab Chief Minister, pointing to the sheer irrationality of his Delhi counterparts reasoning. Stubble burning He (Kejriwal) has the audacity to call the picture scientific proof of his demented logic, observed Captain Amarinder Singh, adding that had the Delhi Chief Minister bothered to check the data, he would have thought a hundred times before coming out with such a reckless statement. Captain Amarinder Singh demolished Kejriwals illogical and ridiculous claim with recorded factual data, and warned that the people of Punjab would not take politely to the AAP leaders attempts to pin the blame for his own failures on their state. Advertisement He will see in the Lok Sabha elections what Punjab thinks of him and his AAP, said the Chief Minister, asking Kejriwal to be prepared for treatment worse than what he saw in the state in last years Assembly polls. To begin with, the Punjab Chief Minister pointed out that the Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi remains more than 300+ even during December and January every year, when there is no stubble burning in the neighboring States. This clearly indicates that the New Delhi environment is impacted by its own sources within Delhi, which are predominantly vehicular emission, construction activities, industrial activities, power plants, burning of Municipal Solid Waste and sweeping activities, he added. Further, Captain Amarinder Singh pointed out that as per the latest report of air pollution forecast by Weather Research and Forecasting Model of the India Meteorological Department, winds over Delhi-NCR had changed from north-westerly to easterly, so there was hardly any influence from crop fires in Punjab and Haryana. Yet, Delhis air quality continued to be very Poor, with an average PM2.5 concentrations of 208 micrograms per cubic meters on 2nd November, which was caused mainly from local vehicular and industrial emissions. What is more, the increase in the concentration of PM2.5 due to stubble burning is proportionately less as compare to PM10. Thus, the contribution of stubble fire in the increase of PM2.5 is less, whereas, the Ambient Air Quality in Delhi witnesses an increase in the PM2.5 during the winter months, observed Captain Amarinder Singh. Advertisement Air Quality Index of Delhi Due to decrease in the temperature and wind velocity, the pollutants in the atmosphere are unable to disperse, which is the major cause of increase in the AQI at most places in north India. In particular, New Delhi AQI crosses the 400 mark due to high emissions from activities of a large population in a confined area of NCR and inversion phenomenon of the climate. During October 2018, the wind velocity became static and decreased to less than 2 KM/hr, Captain Amarinder Singh further pointed out, referring to available scientific data. Captain Amarinder Singh asserted that had stubble burning been the reason for Ambient Air Quality deterioration then it should have impacted the air quality index of the cities of Punjab in the first place. However, it had been observed that the average AQI of Punjab during October, 2018 was 117, while the average AQI of Delhi hovered around 270. Most of the cities in Punjab have witness clear climate with long distance visibility, in sharp contrast to Delhi, he added. Advertisement As far as stubble burning incidents was concerned, he said that the number of such cases till 3rd November was 25394, against 30832 reported last year clearly showing a decreasing trend. The number of fire incidents per lakh acres of area under paddy plantation is 390, which is very nominal. In fact, the number of fire incidents per village is less than 2 (considering the number of villages in Punjab is 12700), said Captain Amarinder Singh, adding that the State had been able to persuade 98% farmers not to practice the stubble burning. The data clearly indicated that Kejriwals government in Delhi had failed completely in addressing the problem of pollution in the national capital, said Captain Amarinder Singh, adding that the Delhi Chief Minister was, quite obviously, hunting for scapegoats to put the blame for his own failures. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa Spokesman News Service: Chandigarh, November 4: The Cooperation Minister, Punjab, S. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has said that the sugarcane crushing work in all the sugar mills of the State would commence from 8th-15th November. He further said that all the sugar mills would be issued directions by the SUGARFED to make proper arrangements during the fixed timeframe and start the crushing work so as to not let the sugarcane farmers encounter any difficulty. In a press communique issued here today, S. Randhawa laying bare the true picture before those protesting on the issue with political ends, said that during the past 10 years of the previous regime the sugarcane crushing work usually began in mid-December whereas he has ensured its commencement one month in advance. The minister asked those protesting that why didnt they voiced their protests then? He further said that these protests are politically motivated and have absolutely no connection with the farmers or their interests. Advertisement Had the protestors been the true well wishers of the farming community then they wouldnt have been sitting quiet over the course of past 10 years. He also said that it is a pro-farmer initiative of the present Punjab Government which has also emerged as the benefactor of the farming sector through its debt relief scheme. Divulging more, the Cooperation Minister while giving details of the previous decade said that in 2015-16 the crushing work began on 4th December in the sugar mill at Gurdaspur & Batala, in 2012-13 in Ajnala sugar mill the work commenced on 7th December, In 2009-10 the work started in Bhogpur sugar mill on the 16th December, In 2009-10 the work got kickstarted on 30th November in Nawanshahar sugar mill. In 2016-17 in Nakodar sugar mill the work began on 6th December, In 2009-10 and 2011-12 in Buddhewal sugar mill the work began on 5th December, In Morinda sugar mill the work started on 1st December in 2008-09, 2011-12 & 2015-16 while in the Fazilka sugar mill the work started on the 15th of December in 2011-12. Advertisement Meanwhile the Managing Director of SUGARFED Mr. Davinder Singh has said that as per the directions of the Cooperation Minister the sugarcane crushing work would commence in all the sugar mills from 8th-15th November and directions are being given to all the mills in this regard. While the ocean energy sector is still at an early stage of development, a new report analyses ten future emerging technologies to generate energy from the ocean tides and waves. An integrated systems approach is necessary for their successful commercialisation. It still takes a level of almost science fiction fantasy to imagine that we can use the oceans' permanent movement to power our cities and houses. Yet, such ideas are on designer desks, going through demonstrations of viability, towards possible commercial success. Moving to economically viable ocean energy technologies is a huge step towards decarbonisation and the growth of the blue economy in many coastal areas. With only 17 MW compared to 15.8 GW of offshore wind of operating capacity installed in European waters, mostly as demonstration or first-of-a-kind precommercial projects, every technological solution proposed to bridge the gap between R&D stage and the commercialisation of ocean energy devices can be seen for the time being as a future emerging technology. advertisement As part of the European Commission's internal Low Carbon Energy Observatory (LCEO) project, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) is developing an inventory of Future Emerging Technologies relevant to energy supply. 30 experts in the ocean energy analysed the needs for the sector, and the type of innovations to bridge the gap with the market. The new report, Future emerging technologies for the ocean energy sector: innovation and game-changers offers policy makers and all other ocean energy stakeholders an array of innovations that can bring ocean energy to the market, but it still needs further R&D, supported by private, national or European funding, and that would help maintain European leadership in this emerging sector. The experts describe state of advancement of each of the technology family, advantages, technological limitations, as well as their technology readiness level. Emerging industry brimming with ideas In Europe a large variety of concepts have been developed for ocean energy conversion, with more than 200 different devices proposed. advertisement The experts talk about ten ocean energy technology families, which group together wave or tidal converters, subsystems and components that are characterised by a common operating or design principle. Tidal energy In terms of speed of development, the first generation of tidal energy converters is heading the group. They have reached the pre-commercial stage with the total installed capacity of around 12 MW in Europe and the speed of development is medium, with devices having reached maturity after 10+ years of R&D. Floating tidal devices do not require heavy and costly foundation systems. Speed of the technology development is medium/fast (meaning between less than 5 to 15 years), with some floating tidal platforms already at an advanced stage of development. Third generation tidal energy converters extract energy from a tidal flow or water flow using the sails, kites, or simulating fish-swimming motion. The speed of development is medium/fast, and is affected by the development of materials and ancillary technology. Wave energy As for wave energy, the research goes back 40 years. The availability of testing facilities and new computational tools are making research more accessible and opening up new opportunities leading to novel approach to the first generation of wave energy concepts. The advancement of artificial intelligence and learning algorithms offer an opportunity for developing designs which are more efficient. Development speed is in medium-slow range. Novel wave energy concepts exploit the material-flexibility and the orbital velocities of water particles to convert wave power to electricity. They are characterised by an overall simplicity of design compared to first generation wave energy devices. Yet they are at early stages of development, with no device installed in real sea and the maximum power rating for the device yet to be identified. Innovative tidal and wave energy power take off This big group of different approaches on how to extract power from the ocean and convert it into electricity offers many possibilities for innovation and unlocking the potential of ocean energy in Europe. Direct drive, hydraulic and inertia systems are more advanced. Mechanical systems can be at a relatively fast pace, while dielectric elastomers offer fast speed of development but require more R&D. Further information on those concepts is available through Marinet 2 P Horizon 2020 project, the Wave Energy Scotland program and the European Marine Energy Centre list of wave and tidal energy technology. Conclusions and recommendations for further work An integrated systems approach is required to develop successful marine energy systems; therefore collaboration with industry and engagement with original equipment manufacturers from the early stage of development is recommended. System capabilities and requirements should be properly defined and made transparent to increase the effectiveness of future emerging technologies development and applicability to ocean energy technologies. The transferability of solutions from other sector, as well as the development of new technologies and materials could impact significantly on the speed of development of future emerging technologies for ocean energy. The impact of the future emerging technologies should be put in the context of the priorities for the ocean energy sector as identified through the Ocean Energy Roadmap and the SET-Plan Implementation Plan. A further analysis is needed to prioritise which options could have the greatest impact on the sector in achieving short-term goals (2025 targets) and long term ambitions (100 GW of installed capacity by 2050). This report compiles the outcomes of an international workshop on emerging energy technologies held in March 2019. sGBM is a rare type of brain cancer in adults. The incidence varies from 2 to 5 per million people per year. For example, if Hong Kong's base population of 7.5 million people is taken as a reference, over 15 people will be diagnosed with sGBM tumors annually. sGBM starts off as low-grade glioma (LGG) tumors around nerve cells that surround the spine and brain, and its 5-year survival rate is under 10%. Currently, sGBM tumors are treated with a chemotherapy drug called temozolomide (TMZ), first developed in Europe and became available for widespread patient use in the early 2000s. TMZ invokes non-specific DNA damage to tumor cells to prevent it from reproducing and spreading. However, history and patient data show that sGBM patients undergoing TMZ treatment almost invariably have relapses which display mutations that allow the sGBM tumors to evade a second round of TMZ treatment, making it chemo-resistant and pushing researchers to look further afield to seek better treatment options. For the first time, this study revealed the somatic mutational landscape of sGBM in 188 cases, and showed that a significant proportion (approximately 14%) of sGBM patients displayed a new mutation, METex14 (some of those simultaneously harbor another mutation, named ZM fusion), which led to more aggressive tumor growth. Previous studies were much smaller (typically 20 patients or less) and therefore meant that findings were inconclusive. Promisingly, a MET kinase inhibitor molecule named PLB-1001 was identified and is able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, a key treatment characteristic. This new molecule shows remarkable potency in selectively targeting sGBM tumors and sGBM tumors that co-display this mutation. Beijing Tiantan Hospital has given the green light for PLB-1001 Phase I clinical trials. Successfully enrolled patients are those who display this mutation or have a history of sGBM tumors and fall within the right age bracket. "This clinical trial and its results are quite significant in furthering the knowledge about sGBM treatment. Precision cancer medicine promises to tailor treatments according to personal cancer mutations, but it is complicated by the dynamic changes during cancer evolution. sGBM tumors are high on the list of toughest tumors to treat," said HKUST's Prof. WANG Jiguang, who led this Beijing-Hong Kong collaborative study. "Developing computational models on cancer evolution helps to predict cancer cells' future behavior and prioritize treatment options. In this study, MET is one of the running targets we have identified. By using PLB-1001 as a standalone drug, our collaborators were able to see shrinkage of the tumors over a two-month period in selected patients. More studies need to be done to see if PLB-1001 can be used in conjunction with other drugs to have longer lasting results." Prof. Wang is Assistant Professor at HKUST's Division of Life Science and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Prof. Tao Jiang's team at Beijing Tiantan Hospital has been enrolling a large number of Chinese glioma patients for genomic sequencing and running this clinical trial, and initial findings indicate that PLB-1001 is safe to use as a monotherapy for sGBM patients and especially those who have the specified mutation. This may lead to new combinational chemotherapy cocktail treatments for patients later down the line. Ultimately, this finding offers a new silver lining for both medical researchers and sGBM patients alike, and will continue to shed more light on how to better treat this aggressive tumor type. Time and tide, which wait for nobody, are not waiting any longer off the shore of Sausalito. The cops have placed bright orange warning stickers where no warning stickers have ever gone before. Theyve placed them on the decks of dozens of small anchor-out vessels bobbing in Richardson Bay. Warning, the stickers says. The Sausalito police may remove any vessel which has been left in city waters for 72 hours. And thats exactly what the cops say they plan to do, beginning this weekend. Weve been getting more and more complaints, more reports of thefts and other problems, Lt. William Fraass said. As the number of vessels goes up, the calls for our services go up. And up. The boats just sit there, like a giant parking lot, said Officer Brian Mather. More like a giant junkyard. For decades, small boats have squatted off Sausalito, their occupants unable or unwilling to pungle up $1,000 or more per month for the right to tie up at a tony marina berth. Over the past year or so, the number of vessels that anchor out, or sit motionless away from shore, has doubled. Now about 250 boats adorn Richardson Bay in either a charming giant armada or nautical homeless camp depending on whom you ask within hailing distance of the $35-a-plate Crab Louis restaurants frequented by the wide-eyed tourists who insist on regarding Sausalito as an artists colony. On a brief cruise through the floating anchor-out community, The Chronicle saw vessels in good repair, vessels in poor repair and vessels about ready to descend to Davy Jones Locker. Some boats were barnacle-encrusted dross with algae-green hulls, rotted cabins and missing paint. Their decks were piled high with what the mothers of the anchor-out sailors would doubtless call junk. For months, Fraass has warned the boaters, at City Council and community meetings, that the citys patience was nearly scuttled. Longtime anchor-outer Alden Bevington says he was evicted from his 33-foot yawl, Sanctuary, about a month ago and the vessel, which he conceded was in poor shape, was hauled off by the city and destroyed. This is a social issue, not a law enforcement issue, Bevington said. This is a problem of the economy. Richardson Bay is one of the last places where people can drop an anchor and stay. Bevington, who describes himself as the ad hoc foreign minister of the anchor-outs and seems to know everyone by name, acknowledged that some of his fellow boaters are broke, discouraged and in need of counseling. But being down and out isnt a crime, he said, on land or on the water. Sausalito, he said, prides itself on its slogan of keep Sausalito salty. Thats what were trying to do, he said. But the police dont want a dialogue. They want us gone. Sausalito Mayor Joan Cox said the anchor-outers are a colorful population and some are well-intentioned, and we have compassion for them, but they dont have permission to live on the water. She said the city did not want to go out and seize boats, (but) this is a public health and safety issue. Boaters who rent slips at high-end Sausalito marinas such as Schoonmaker Point complain that many squatters paddle ashore in kayaks and rowboats to use the marina restrooms. But not everyone. And not everything sinks to the bottom of the bay. Soap floats, and so do other things. The main problem is the lack of toilets, said Harbormaster Mike Rainey, gazing out from his office at the slips with the paying customers and at the bay beyond, with the free spirits. In theory, theyre supposed to have their toilets pumped out, he said. Ive never seen a pump-out boat going out to service the vessels. Rainey said he allows the anchor-outs to tie up at the Schoonmaker Points dock, use its restrooms and toss trash in its Dumpsters. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. The alternative, he said, is worse. Some anchor-outers know about boats, Rainey said. Others dont. On calm summer and fall days, he said, thats not an issue. In rough weather, it is. The first big storm, some of these boats will break loose and run into other boats, or be carried over to Tiburon and slam into a dock, he said. Kirk Morrison and his friend Nick Masturzo pay about $700 a month to berth their 21-foot motorboat at Schoonmaker Point. They wave at their fellow sailors on the anchor-outs, but theyre not particularly happy about subsidizing them. Its a free-for-all out there, Morrison said. Its a problem. Its like trying to solve the homeless problem in San Francisco. I dont know what the solution is. Lt. Fraass said the first phase of enforcement will focus on about two dozen unoccupied boats. Later phases, he said, could target the anchor-out boaters themselves. The warning stickers are the latest weapon to be fired in the decades-long battle of at-will boating on Richardson Bay. In the 1950s and the 1980s, non-rent-paying houseboaters conducted well-publicized organizing drives to protect their vessels. In 1971, houseboater Russell Grishman pulled a knife and tried to cut the tow lines that had been fastened by sheriffs deputies to his condemned craft. Deputies pointed their handguns at him, and he decided to put his knife down. The new warning sticker policy follows Sausalitos decision in 2016 to pull out from the Richardson Bay Regional Agency after some residents complained that its board, made up of city and county officials, wasnt doing enough. Were focusing strictly on the unoccupied vessels, Fraass said, before quickly adding, at this time. Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Billionaire tech investor Ron Conway, whose ability to raise big money for moderate candidates and causes made him Public Enemy No. 1 among the citys left-leaning politicos, has seemingly vanished from the local November election landscape. Or has he? Not according to Conways longtime political nemesis, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who insists that Conway is still in play even if you cant see him. He is 100 percent, and through proxies, engaged in this election and doing everything he can to defeat progressive candidates, Peskin charged when asked last week about Conways activities. Conway dismisses Peskins assertions, saying theres too much dangerous vitriol in our country already right now, so I wont dignify one mans tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories. Conway first surfaced as a major local player during the 2011 election of Mayor Ed Lee, helping to channel hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign war chests of moderate candidates and causes and against progressive anti-tech causes and incumbents. In addition to Lee, Conway and his band of like-minded donors helped elect London Breed to the Board of Supervisors and David Chiu to the state Assembly. They also helped defeat progressive former Supervisor David Campos and Supervisor Jane Kim when they sought higher office. Conway and his fellow Airbnb investors also were big in the move to make the citys tax code more tech-friendly and in the fight over short-term rental controls. Over time, however, Conway became the lightning rod for the left, who cast him as part of the billionaires who control City Hall. But his attempt to thwart Peskins return to City Hall in 2015 was a resounding defeat. With the passing of Lee in December, Conway immediately began pushing his friend Breed for the mayors job only to find that his presence had become a liability. And while Conway continued to raise money for Breed, he did so quietly, with as few fingerprints as possible. Still, his wife gave $200,000 to defeat Breeds mayoral rival Kim, ostensibly over her vote years earlier to reinstate Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi following his domestic violence conviction. This time out, Conway said hes moved away from the local fray and is almost wholly focused on what we need to do nationally to take back the House for the Democrats and stop Trump, spending a million dollars on get-out-the-vote efforts and gun control. I would think thats a priority that progressives would agree with me on, Conway said. But while Conway may be on the sidelines locally not having personally spent money in any of the local races the political action committee he helped form is still running hard. Progress San Francisco, a moderate business, labor and tech PAC launched in 2015 to bolster Lees agenda, has poured more than $1.5 million into helping moderate District Four supervisor candidate Jessica Ho and District Six candidates Christine Johnson and Sonja Trauss. Office remodel: UC President Janet Napolitano is spending more than $1 million to retool her office staff after stinging criticism last year from Sacramento lawmakers over their handling of a state audit. The first step was to bring in Huron Consulting Group on a $735,000 contract to give the office a once-over. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times 2017 Based on recommendations from Huron, Napolitano has just hired a veteran communications and public relations expert Claire Holmes to a revived post as the $360,000-a-year senior vice president of external relations and communications. Its a nice salary but less than the $374,625 that Dan Dooley (husband of Gov. Jerry Browns chief of staff, Dianna Dooley) made before the position was eliminated in 2014. Napolitano has faced some rough going since an independent investigation found her office interfered with a state audit of its spending habits, findings that contributed to the departure of two of her trusted aides. That prompted Napolitano to hire Huron to re-evaluate her operation. Now, based on firms recommendation, the heads of the communications and external affairs units will report to Holmes, who in turn will report to Napolitano. Halloween horror: Peninsula reader Tru Love (no joke) tells us her 12-year-old son was trick-or-treating on Halloween night when a homeowner on the 2600 block of Cowper Street in Palo Alto handed him a bag of peanut M&Ms with a message on the wrapper urging a vote for Stacey Ashlund for local school board. Halloween is for kids, not politics, Love says. Who does that? How rude. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross Justin Sullivan / Getty Images BART police took one suspect into custody Sunday morning after a report that a man who had been in an argument on a train at the El Cerrito Plaza station had left the station with a gun. Police searched the area and found a man matching the description. They arrested 18-year-old Emmanuel Garden-Craft on suspicion of possession of narcotics for sale, possession of a concealed firearm and possession of a loaded firearm, according to BART spokesman James Allison. He is being held at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Allison said. President Trump is barnstorming the country as a get-out-the-vote evangelist for Republicans, preaching that Tuesdays midterm elections are a referendum about me. He may get more than he bargained for, and California is likely to play a large role in that. The results will probably lead to a Californian becoming speaker of the House. But it remains to be seen if the chamber will be led by a determined check on Trump like San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi, or a champion of his agenda like Bakersfield Republican Kevin McCarthy. What happens Tuesday also will shape the federal governments policy on two issues that poll high on the list of Californians concerns: immigration and the environment. And the results in the states seven tightly contested, GOP-held House districts could either deliver a knockout punch to the California Republican Party or deflate the Trump resistance at ground zero. While nobody in the Republican Party can rally its core voters like Trump, the presidents harsh pre-election rhetoric could come with a cost, said James Taylor, a professor of political science at the University of San Francisco. Donald Trump staying in campaign mode is a sign of political genius and a sign of political weakness, Taylor said. Its ominous also, because its not sustainable (for Republicans) two or three election cycles down the road. Heres whats at stake for California on Tuesday: Leadership in Washington: The most immediate spoil of winning the majority in either house of Congress is leadership. The ruling party controls everything from the chamber floor down to the subcommittees. McCarthy, the GOP majority leader, and Minority Leader Pelosi are both favorites to retain their positions in the party hierarchy, although neither is an outright lock. Several Democratic candidates have said the party should look to someone besides Pelosi, a longtime lightning rod for GOP attacks, but she retains substantial support in the caucus. Among the Republicans, McCarthy is the heir apparent to move up from the No. 2 job with Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin retiring, though he faces potential holdouts among more conservative members. A fellow San Joaquin Valley Republican, Rep. Jeff Denham of Turlock (Stanislaus County), told The Chronicle, I have not heard of a race at all. McCarthy will be our next speaker as long as we hold the majority. Leadership has ripple effects throughout the committees. Burbank Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, for example, would probably take over the House Intelligence Committee, putting him in charge of the direction of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election as well as oversight of the nations surveillance apparatus. Its not just about whether the House flips. The size of the majority matters, too. If a GOP majority is slim, it could give outsize influence to a group of conservatives known as the Freedom Caucus, who often refuse to support legislation that doesnt meet their strict litmus tests. Ironically, that could give Democrats leverage to negotiate with a Speaker McCarthy for votes. Similarly, a narrow Democratic majority could expose intraparty divisions, especially between Pelosi allies on the one hand and, on the other, members from red-leaning districts who campaigned on opposing her and strongly progressive new members who have also distanced themselves. Immigration: If Republicans retain control of Congress after Trump made immigration a wedge issue in the campaigns closing days, they could take it as a mandate to fund a wall on the Mexican border and enact other aggressive immigration measures. That would be the case even and maybe especially in places such as California that limit officials cooperation with federal enforcement efforts. A Democratic House or Senate doesnt make it much more likely that immigration reform could happen, either. Trump would have veto power over anything that came out of Congress, and lawmakers of both parties looking ahead to a 2020 presidential race would have little incentive to compromise. There would be a slim chance of a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which protects young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors. Trump has tried to kill the policy, which covers nearly 700,000 people, 200,000 of them in California. But he has also indicated at times that he would be open to a deal if it included Democratic concessions such as funding for a border wall and limits on legal immigration. Nevertheless, he has walked away from every deal offered to him, and Democrats show no appetite for engaging him further. With little chance of an immigration agreement, Pelosi-led Democrats would probably focus on oversight of how the Trump administration handles the issue. They could schedule hearings on family separations, troop deployments to the border and the treatment of immigrants in detention, slowing down the administrations other initiatives. I think most importantly, it will mean oversight of the actions of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the immigration advocacy group the National Immigration Forum. How are the agencies spending resources, how are people being treated in detention? I think the list of things to look into by Congress is getting longer day by day. Environment: As with immigration, a Democratic House would have little chance of enacting policy but could harass the administration by scrutinizing changes it has made through the Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department. For example, congressional Democrats could entangle the EPA in investigations into its plans to revoke Californias authority to set stricter standards than the federal governments for vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases. Congress can certainly slow things down, said Andy Kelley, communications director with the California League of Conservation Voters. Likewise, the House Natural Resources Committee would be hard-pressed to consider the Trump administrations proposal to sell off public lands to private corporations, with at least six California Democrats expected to be part of the committee majority, Kelley said. On Thursday a federal judge struck down a California law that sought to give the state more power to override the sale of federal lands. State lawmakers passed the law last year to make it harder to develop, log or drill for oil on some of the 46 million acres the federal government owns in California. A Democratic House majority may also be able to stall Trumps proposal to increase oil drilling off the coast, an idea that polls show is widely unpopular in California. Resistance morale: If the Democrats dont at least win the House, I think it will suck the oxygen right out of their sails, said John Thomas, a GOP pollster and strategist in Los Angeles. They will have an existential crisis. Taylor, the University of San Francisco professor, said a loss will have a demoralizing effect on the grassroots energy that was stoked by groups such as Indivisible and Swing Left that formed in reaction to Trumps victory two years ago. They will know that they lost in 2016 and 2018 to this man who who has done everything he could to sabotage his own party, Taylor said. But Aram Fischer, a San Franciscan who is a top California organizer for Indivisible, which claims up to 200,000 members in the state, said the grassroots wont wilt if Republicans hold the House because the recruiter-in-chief will still be there. And whether its the climate or education or health care, concerns about those issues are still there, Fischer said. Thats whats animating people. Republicans pulse: Only 14 Republicans are in Californias 53-member House delegation, and the party might take it as a victory if its losses Tuesday are limited to two seats, Thomas said. One race in particular is key: the Orange County contest between Republican Young Kim and Democrat Gil Cisneros to fill an open seat now held by the GOP. If the Korean-born Kim prevails, Thomas said, look for the Republicans to try to run more Asian American women as a baby step toward regaining relevancy statewide. But as Trump has said, this is a referendum about him. And for a president famously unwilling to give an inch or admit defeat, there may be no such thing as a loss. If Donald Trump can take away from the night that he won the Senate and maybe gained a seat or two, then he will point to his campaign efforts wherever they won, Taylor said. That man, he added, can turn a two into a 10. Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer, and Tal Kopan is The Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: jgarofoli @sfchronicle.com, tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli, @TalKopan San Francisco residents personal data could gain an extra layer of protection under Proposition B, a ballot measure that supporters say could give the city some of the toughest data protection rules in the country. Prop. B, which was authored by Supervisor Aaron Peskin and is on Tuesdays ballot, would require the city administrators office to craft an ordinance outlining how third-party companies such as Salesforce, Google or Scoot must protect consumer data if the city issues them a permit, grant or license. The ordinance must be based on 11 principles outlined in the measure, which include discouraging the use of personal information that may identify a persons race or religion, and removing personal information that could identify an individual when data are collected for research purposes. If the measure passes, the city administrator would have to present the recommendations to the Board of Supervisors in May. Public hearings would follow before the board voted. It is really a statement of concern and principle by the electorate of San Francisco that we believe privacy is a right and that everyones personal information should be sacred and protected, Peskin said While supporters of the measure say it could lead to a major shift in how private companies handle consumer data beyond just in contracts with the city the measure has received no support or opposition from any major companies. Those against the measure, such as the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the First Amendment Coalition, worry how a small subsection of the measure could undermine the citys Sunshine Ordinance, which ensures easier access to public records and to strengthen the open meeting laws. Its a double-edged sword, said Aaron Field, co-chair of the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee. It allows them to update the Sunshine Ordinance in ways that could be good, but gives them power that enables them to do things with the ordinance that are bad for Sunshine. Without a good reason, we shouldnt hand that power to officials. Peskin said the opposition is misreading the text, and that the measure could actually strengthen the Sunshine law by giving the board power to make bureaucratic changes to the 19-year-old ordinance. Prop. B states that any changes must be consistent with the intent of the 1999 law. Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani Flash Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday pledged to strengthen the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and build a closer community with a shared future between the two countries. Li made the remarks in Beijing when holding talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is paying an official visit to China and will attend the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. China and Pakistan are good neighbors, good friends and good partners, Li said, adding that the traditional friendship between the two countries is deep-rooted. He stressed that China and Pakistan, as all-weather strategic cooperative partners, have a high level of political mutual trust and close cooperation in various fields, firmly supporting each other on matters that concern their core interests. "China always regards Pakistan as a diplomatic priority," Li said. During Khan's visit to China, the two sides will issue a joint statement to send an important signal to the world that China and Pakistan are committed to promoting a better and faster development of bilateral ties, according to Li. On the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Li said that CPEC projects have been meticulously examined, conform to commercial principles and are economically feasible. "China is willing to continue working with Pakistan to accelerate the construction of the CPEC in accordance with the principle of openness and transparency, in order to benefit both peoples," he said. China appreciates Pakistan's commitment to safeguarding CPEC construction as well as the personal safety of Chinese institutions, and hopes that Pakistan will continue to make greater efforts, Li said. Li also promised to expand the imports of and market access for quality products from Pakistan, and strengthen bilateral cooperation in fields including finance, agriculture and fisheries. "We hope to see a stable and developing Pakistan. We are willing to provide assistance to Pakistan within our capability and work together to achieve regional peace, stability and prosperity," Li said. For his part, Khan said with the continuous deepening of the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership, the relations between the two countries at all levels are becoming stronger. He said the CPEC has become a reality and is being fully implemented. Pakistan views the CPEC as a great opportunity for development, benefiting the Pakistani people and promoting Pakistan's economic and social advancements. Pakistan will continue to promote CPEC construction and protect the safety of CPEC projects and Chinese staff, said Khan. Khan thanked China for its strong support when Pakistan was in a difficult time, adding that Pakistan will always be a trustworthy friend of China. Hailing China's remarkable achievements during the past 40 years, Imran Khan said Pakistan also strives to push the domestic reforms process. "We are willing to learn from China's development experience, deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields, and strengthen high-level visits and exchanges at all levels, so as to push the bilateral relations to a higher level," Khan said. After the talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of more than 10 documents on cooperation in areas including science research, justice, poverty reduction, health and customs. Prior to the talks, Li held a red carpet ceremony to welcome Khan. China's top legislator Li Zhanshu also met with Khan on Saturday. A smoky fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains continued to burn Sunday, spreading slowly through tinder-dry timber and growing to 25 acres, according to Cal Fire, while a separate vegetation fire nearby was quickly contained earlier in the day. The Rincon Fire, which ignited Saturday night near the Paradise Park neighborhood northeast of the UC Santa Cruz campus, was 30 percent contained Sunday afternoon, said Scott McLean, a Cal Fire spokesman, despite earlier reports that the fire was fully contained at 6 acres. Some years ago, a young travel writer who was about to take his first overseas trip to West Africa got these five words of advice from an older, more experienced colleague: "Brush your teeth with beer." Why? Because travelers to certain parts of the world face a significant risk of debilitating water-borne disease if they don't take some simple precautions. That advice about the questionable contents of water systems in less-developed nations, even in hotels, still holds for many of the world's exotic destinations. A new report from medical travel insurance provider GetGoing summarizes which countries pose the greatest threat of illness to travelers, how diseases are most commonly transmitted, and how to protect yourself if you go there. The report highlights five countries that it calls "the riskiest nations across the globe" for traveler illness: >India, well known in tourist circles for traveler's diarrhea, a.k.a. "Delhi belly." But the country also carries the risk of developing typhoid and hepatitis A "due to poor sanitation," the company said. (I traveled to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Agra, took normal precautions, and never took a hit in the gut, thankfully.) >Kenya, popular among affluent travelers for the chance to see herds of African wildlife, also carries the risk of contracting five various ailments: traveler's diarrhea, hepatitis A, malaria, typhoid and dengue, the company said. >Thailand, one of the most renowned vacation destinations in Asia, presents a very high risk of traveler's diarrhea, GetGoing said. (I've never had a problem during several trips to Bangkok over the years, so I'm guessing the problem might be greater in the countryside and at beaches.) >Peru, the home of the often-photographed Machu Picchu ruins in the Andes, is "the riskiest of all of South America and is a hotbed for diseases such as dengue and typhoid," the company reported. >Indonesia, which poses a significant risk of hepatitis A, GetGoing said. The other countries making the riskiest list include: Mexico, Dominican Republic, South Africa, Costa Rica, Cuba, Egypt and Sri Lanka. How do travelers come down with these illnesses? The report cites three major sources of disease for travelers. The biggest risk comes from the things you ingest. It's nice to try out new kinds of exotic cuisines on your trip, but local food is "one of the main sources of illnesses" like traveler's diarrhea, the company advised something that afflicts 20 to 40 percent of travelers. Is it undercooked? Has it been sitting out in the sun during the hotel's patio buffet service? Have vegetables been washed and if so, with what kind of water? Speaking of water, it goes without saying that you should avoid tap water even in hotels and only drink beverages that come in sealed containers, like bottled water, beer or wine. When you sit down at the bar during cocktail time, don't order anything on the rocks, because that ice is probably made of water from the local pipes-- or water stored in dicey rooftop water tanks. Freezing the water into ice preserves the bacteria, it does not kill them, according to the report. Going out for an expedition in the jungle or a walk along the river? "The World Health Organization estimates that the mosquito is the deadliest animal alive," GetGoing said, killing a million people every year. So consult maps that show danger zones for malaria and dengue and take precautions. GetGoing also advises seeing your doctor before departure to make sure you have all the necessary and recommended vaccinations, and taking along insect repellents that include DEET, to be sprayed in your room and/or on your exposed skin when you go outdoors. And take along hand sanitizer, because many things you touch at the destination could be covered with germs like the local money, which is passed from person to person many times. If you are not sure what risks await in countries where you are going, ask your doctor-- for example, in San Francisco, Kaiser Permanente offers the services of a "travel nurse." In my travel bag, I always stock an anti-diarrheal medication like Lomotil and Pepto-Bismol tabs for stomach aches. And remember, not all travel ailments are communicable diseases. One of the most common problems for travelers is altitude sickness, which can actually kill some people at very high locations in mountainous countries. And there's a risk you might not think of when you go for a swim in the ocean: jellyfish stings, which are common worldwide and produce stinging, burning, welts and "intense pain," the company warned. After an encounter like that, you'd likely rather drink the beer than brush your teeth with it. You can click here to find a graphic summary of GetGoing's findings and advice. What's the scariest or most painful bug you've picked up on overseas trips? How do you avoid getting sick overseas? Tell us about it in the comments. Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. Petaluma police used a Taser on a 27-year-old man who was resisting arrest then took him into custody Saturday night. Salomon Huitron, of Petaluma, was arrested on a felony warrant for vandalism to a neighbors car, as well as resisting officers. He was booked into Sonoma County Jail. Nga Ly's 3-year-old son Mason loves riding BART with his grandpa, so when it came time to plan Halloween costumes, the whole family got in on the transit theme and dressed up as components of a BART station, she wrote online. She dressed as one of the fare gates that could soon get a $150 million upgrade. Her husband was a BART map. Her youngest was a Clipper card, prompting someone on Twitter to wisecrack, "Did they lose the baby at some point when it had $20 on it," and Mason was a train. ALSO: BART employee administers CPR, applauded for saving rider's life "We had no idea our costume would be such a hit!" Nga told The Chronicle earlier this week. "My husband sewed all of it, using mostly felt, ribbon, a glue gun, and a sewing machine. He only spent $35 on all of the materials. Many people on Halloween asked if I sewed it, but I loved saying that my husband did (the creative genius, the man that holds up our family as much as mom does)." The people of BART were touched by the elaborate tribute. "This pretty much made our night," BART tweeted. So they returned the favor by sending young Mason a toy train. The toys will soon be on sale at BART's customer service window at the Lake Merritt station in Oakland. FROM SFC: The winner of the Total SF Halloween Costume Contest 2018 "We put it in the mail today," BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said Friday. "During the Fleet of the Future open-house event, we gave out these soft toy trains that look like the Fleet of the Future," she explained. "We gave all of those out. People love them and are like, 'Where can we get them? So we ordered a ton more, we just got the shipment in." "Then we had this picture of this adorable family," Trost said. "When she reached out to us on social and said, 'Hey, that's us,' we said, 'Hey can we pop one of these into the mail?' Because she said she did this because her son loves BART." Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter ATLANTA The office of Georgias secretary of state, Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican nominee for governor, said Sunday that authorities had opened an inquiry into the Democratic Party of Georgia after a failed attempt to hack the states voter registration system. Kemps office offered no evidence or details that could be independently verified Sunday, and Democratic leaders were quick to call the allegation false, portraying the inquiry as an abuse of power Kemp is also overseeing the election and a political stunt two days before a historic vote in Georgia. Kemp is locked in a tight race with the Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams, who would become the first African American woman to lead any state. She denounced the inquiry Sunday as a desperate move. The sudden release of the four-sentence statement about the investigation infuriated Georgia Democrats frustrated with Kemp, whom opponents have portrayed as a master of voter suppression because of purges of voter rolls and additional limits on voting. He has repeatedly refused calls to step down as secretary of state to avoid perceptions of bias. Georgias voting procedures and laws have been subject to numerous legal challenges and formal complaints leading up to election day. As recently as Friday, a judge sided with critics of Kemp in one case, stating the procedures for verifying the eligibility of voters whose citizenship was in question were creating confusion as election day looms. The secretary of states investigation is also likely to further inflame the rancorous national debate over Republicans allegations of electoral fraud many of which have proved to be baseless and whether those claims are being used to unfairly harm the Democrats electoral chances. Voting rights and suppression are particularly combustible issues in Georgia, a Deep South state with a long history of denying the franchise to people of color. Kemp, Georgias secretary of state since 2010, is white and is the favored candidate of Trump, who has falsely claimed that millions of people voted illegally in his November 2016 victory. Kemps office has overseen legal purges of more than 2 million inactive voters from the rolls since 2012 and stalled more than 50,000 applications filed by voters, most of them black. But he has called charges of suppression a farce and said he had made it easier to vote and harder to cheat in our state, noting that Georgia has added 1 million voters to the rolls since he took office. Abrams, in a round of television interviews Sunday, said Democrats had done nothing wrong and accused Kemp of trying to rile up his base by misleading voters yet again, as she put it to an Atlanta TV station. Kemps office said the FBI was notified about the inquiry into the alleged hack. Kevin Rowson, a spokesman in the FBIs Atlanta field office, said the bureau had no comment. When the FBI receives referrals, agents decide whether to proceed with an investigation. Alan Blinder and Richard Fausset are New York Times writers. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, a prolific player who provided his jazz sound to records across a vast range of styles and won two Grammys, has died at age 49, his manager said. Hargrove died in New York on Friday of cardiac arrest stemming from a longtime fight with kidney disease, longtime manager Larry Clothier said in a statement. Clothier said Hargrove was known just as intensely for his brimming fire and fury as he was for his gorgeous, signature balladry. Over and over, his sound attested to and sanctified his deep love for music. His unselfish timbre covered the waterfront of every musical landscape. Many of Hargroves peers regarded him as the greatest trumpeter of his generation. Through his own bands and as a sideman, Hargrove brewed his jazz with African and Latin sounds, R&B, soul, pop, funk and hip-hop. He led the progressive, genre-melding group the RH Factor, played in sessions for Common, Erykah Badu and DAngelo, and collaborated with jazz giants including Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis. He is literally the one-man horn section I hear in my head when I think about music, Questlove, drummer and leader of the Roots, said on Instagram. Love to the immortal timeless genius that will forever be Roy Hargrove yall. A native of Waco, Texas, Hargrove was discovered by his fellow trumpeter Marsalis while Hargrove was playing at a performing-arts high school in Dallas. He went on to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and then transferred to the New School in New York, where he joined in jam sessions at jazz clubs in the evening. One of those clubs, the Blue Note, said on its Twitter account that Hargrove was a young master and friend gone too soon. Hargrove released his first solo album, Diamond in the Rough, in 1990. He won his first Grammy in 1998 with his Afro-Cuban band Crisol for its album Habana. He then won another in 2002 for Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall, featuring a band he led with pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Michael Brecker. Questlove, who worked with Hargrove on several projects, said his improvisational skills were astonishing. I cant properly document how crucial and spot on Roy was with his craft man, he said. We NEVER gave him instructions: just played the song and watched him go. Bass player Christian McBride said on Twitter: I have no words over the loss of my dear brother of 31 years. We played on a lot of sessions together, traveled a lot of miles together, laughed a lot together, bickered on occasion and I wouldnt change our relationship for anything in the world. Bless you, Roy Hargrove. Trumpet player and composer Keyon Harrold called Hargrove the trumpeter jazz king on Instagram. The spirit that radiated from the bell of his horn was always a force of youth enthralled with the wisdom of old, Harrold said. Hargrove is survived by his wife, Aida, daughter Kamala, mother, Jacklyn, and brother, Brian. Andrew Dalton is an Associated Press writer. Flash For the first time in a long time, an aid convoy reached the Rukban refugee camp on the Syrian-Jordanian border on Saturday, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) said in a statement. The aid, which was delivered by both the SARC and the UN, reached the camp where 50,000 Syrians live in "tough humanitarian conditions," said the SARC statement. Humanitarian workers took one month to prepare the shipment, which constitutes of 78 truckloads of aid including wheat bags, children clothes, medical supplements for women and children as well as cleaning kits. The aid, which was delayed from last week, was accompanied by 107 humanitarian workers from SARC and a team specialized in vaccinations. Chief of SARC Khaled Hboubati said that delivery of the aid came after obtaining assurances and guarantees from all sides as well as the Syrian government offered facilitations. He said that the step is positive toward delivering more food parcels and nonfood items to the camp to alleviate the suffering of the Syrians and meet their humanitarian needs. UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator Ali Al-Za'tari said on Saturday that aid delivery is emergent, which includes food and water. He said that a vaccination campaign will target 10,000 children to shield them from life-threatening diseases as well as measles and polio. Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the aid shipment is the first to reach the camp since April 2017 as afterward roads were cut off to the camp. The aid convoy reached the camp under the protection of Russia, according to the Britain-based watchdog. The Observatory added that floods washed away a lot of tents in the camp amidst the tragic situation suffered by the camp residents. The camp is largely inhabited by Syrians who fled their areas in the eastern countryside of Homs province in central Syria as it is located in the remote southeastern countryside of Homs province near Jordan. The Observatory placed the number of refugees in the camp at 60,000 civilians and rebel fighters. The fighters belong to six rebel factions of those who rejected to reconcile with the government and sought refuge in this area in September 2015 when the Syrian government forces advanced to their original location in the eastern countryside of Homs. The Observatory accused the Syrian government of cutting the supply route to the camp, which is run by the rebels. But the state news agency SANA charged that the U.S. forces in the Tanf area where the camp is located hindered the delivery of aid in the past. SANA said that the U.S. forces recruited young men in the camp in exchange for money. The state news agency stressed that the Syrian government is working to provide necessary facilitations for the delivery of aid item to all Syrian areas without exceptions. Flash The government of Tanzania made clear on Saturday that there were no plan to privatize its insurance body, the National Insurance Corporation (NIC). Susan Mkapa, the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Planning, said the government has embarked on plans to de-list NIC from public institutions that were set to be privatized. Mkapa assured NIC staff that their jobs were secure and there was no need for panic. Mkapa was speaking at the NIC workers' council held in the capital Dodoma. She said that the provision of insurance services by NIC was a policy issue and therefore the institution will remain under the government. Mkapa, who represented the Minister for Finance and Planning Minister, Phillip Mpango, said the government's decision to stop NIC from being privatized was aimed at strengthening the institution. "The ministry has extended job contracts for NIC workers for three months. Official communication will be made on the decision. Workers should continue working hard as the process is being finalized," she said. She called on NIC to execute its duties competitively, increase efficiency, be innovative and avoid working in the business-as-usual style. Sam Kamanga, NIC Managing Director, said some of the public institutions were hesitating to use NIC services because the government has not issued a statement regarding its fate. Flash State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the inauguration ceremony of the Dominican Republic embassy in Beijing with visiting Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina and Foreign Minister Miguel Vargason Saturday. Hailing the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the Dominican Republic on May 1, Wang said there has been new progress every day since then. He said China is ready to work with the Dominican Republic to promote bilateral cooperation in various fields following the political guidance of the two countries' leaders, so as to make greater contributions to the common development and shared prosperity of the nations and their two peoples. Within one and a half months, China and the Dominican Republic have opened an embassy in the other's country, Wang said, adding that the move will build a bridge of friendship linking the political center of the two countries, and open a new window of mutual understanding between the two peoples. Vargason said the decision to establish diplomatic ties with China is a wise choice and a historical moment in the Dominican Republic's foreign relations. The Dominican Republic regards China as a reliable partner and would like to take the opportunity of President Medina's visit to jointly establish mutually beneficial relations with China, he said. Medina and Wang jointly unveiled the nameplate of the embassy. Flash Heavy nuclear missile cruiser "Peter the Great" of Russia's Northern Fleet entered the Barents Sea on Saturday to "perform combat training missions," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a press release. The cruiser crew will conduct a series of exercises on anti-submarine and air defense and perform combat training exercises with the use of practical weapons, it said. Two Russian Tu-142 anti-submarine planes on Friday patrolled the neutral waters of the Norwegian Sea for more than 12 hours, and the flights strictly abided by international law, the Defense Ministry said in another statement Saturday. Earlier this week, two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers patrolled the neutral waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas for 10 hours. Russia flexed its muscle as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is holding the "Trident Juncture 2018" drills in Norway and its surrounding seas from Oct. 25 to Nov. 7, the largest since the end of the Cold War. The drills involve around 50,000 troops from the 29 NATO members and its partners Sweden and Finland, as well as about 250 aircraft, 65 vessels and up to 10,000 vehicles. MILPITAS (BCN) Police shared photos Friday of a 38-year-old suspect who was arrested Sunday in connection to an armed robbery at a Milpitas bank. Alexander Barsolaso Ventura allegedly walked into U.S Bank at the Seasons Marketplace at 1525 Landess Ave., flashed a gun and demanded cash from the bank teller. San Jose police located him in the city later that day and took him into custody without incident, according to Milpitas police. Ventura was on probation and was found with a .22-caliber revolver and a U.S. Bank envelope filled with cash, police said. He was booked into Elmwood Jail without bail due to a misdemeanor warrant for violating a court protective order, according to police. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. PETALUMA (BCN) A 27-year-old Petaluma man was arrested and tased after refusing to cooperate with a police investigation and then attempting to barricade himself in his home when police tried to detain him on Saturday evening, according to police. Police said Salomon Huitron was accused of repeatedly harassing a neighbor and vandalizing the person's car since mid-October in the 100 block of Rocca Drive. Because of the alleged vehicle damage, police obtained a felony arrest warrant for Huitron. On Saturday, police said they were called to the neighborhood again for a reported disturbance involving Huitron. Police said Huitron hadn't cooperated during any of the previous calls to the area, and appeared ready to resist arrest Saturday as he ran back inside the home when officers arrived, as he had done in previous incidents. Huitron then barricaded the front door with his body to try to resist arrest, according to police. Officers eventually entered Huitron's home and confronted him in his backyard, where he allegedly continued to ignore commands. Police eventually tased him to take him into custody. Huitron suffered minor injuries and was booked into the Sonoma County Jail. No officers were injured. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN JOSE (BCN) An Amber Alert was issued today for two children allegedly abducted by their mother on Friday during a supervised visit in San Jose, authorities said. The mother, Diana Moreira, 33, is believed to be driving a gray 2012 Mini Cooper with California license 6UWL251. She is possibly heading to Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to the alert. On Friday at 5:22 p.m., San Jose police responded to a welfare check at Emma Prusch Farm Park at 647 S. King Road. Police said Moreira was on a supervised visit with her 1-year-old son Alexander Penaloza, 11-year-old daughter Pricila Penaloza, along with a Child Protective Services social worker. When the social worker took the daughter to the restroom, the mother disappeared with the baby, police said. Then, while the social worker was looking for the mother and son, the daughter also went missing. Police believe the children are with their mother. Moreira is described as Hispanic, 5 feet 4 inches tall, 120 pounds, with a medium build and with brown hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a black tank top and black leggings with neon stripes. Priscilla Penaloza is described as Hispanic with light brown/blond hair with pink tips, 4 feet 7 inches tall and 80 pounds. She was wearing a green jacket with fur on its hood and black Adidas pants. Alexander Penaloza is described as Hispanic with black hair, 20 1/2 inches tall and about 24 pounds. He was wearing a gray puffy coat, blue jeans and black vans. Anyone with information on the missing children is asked to call 911 or the San Jose Police Department at (408) 277-8900. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. It's easy to think of creepy items in your living room that would be instant deal breakers for potential buyers: a coffin, for instance. (With or without someone in it.) A meth lab. A ghost with an attitude problem. First impressions start with curb appeal, but next to the kitchen, the space that arguably carries the most weight isyou guessed ityour living area. After all, it's where we spend the most time trying to decompress and escape the worries of the day. So buyers, of course, are going to run full speed the other way if they stumble across a living room that freaks them out. We asked real estate pros about the biggest buyer deal breakers theyve encountered in a living room. 1. Dead bugs Nancy Wallace-Laabs, a licensed real estate broker in Texas, once viewed a house where hundreds of dead June bugs were piled up inside a living room window screenabout an inch deep all the way around, she recalls. The insect graveyard was an instant turnoffto everyone. No one was even attempting to buy the place, Wallace-Laabs says. Surprise ending: She and her husband ended up buying the home themselves at a steep discount, giving those June bugs a proper burial, and turning the property into a rental. The lesson: Make sure every corner of your living room is pest-free before you show your home. 2. Your collection of _________ Those sad clown paintings on your living room walls might strike you as hilarious, but a potential seller will slowly back out the door. Anything too thematic should be removed from your living room, says Marie Bromberg, a licensed real estate salesperson with Corcoran in New York City. Keep in mind, the more obscure the collection, the creepier it is. Victorian dolls? An obvious no. But even a huge array of decorative items can strike buyers as icky. Brombergs example of choice: cowhide and animal skulls. At some point, they veer from Southwestern vibe to Silence of the Lambs. Pack your precious collections away, no matter how harmless they may seem to you. Even too many pet accessories will make the apartment feel like a shelter, Bromberg adds. 3. Surprise smells Without question, experts list bador just unexpectedodors as the No.1 living room turnoff. One time I brought a buyer to a listing and the owner's tenant was cooking hotdogs on a Foreman grill, Bromberg recalls. It was an open layout, meaning the kitchen had no wall between itself and the living room. The hotdog became more memorable than the apartment." Pat Vosburgh, a licensed Realtor with NextHome Gulf to Bay in St. Petersburg, FL, has had clients that never made it past the living room because of the overpowering scent of cigarette smoke. Smells can really break a deal, she says. The best scent in your house? The smell of nothing, says Justin Riordan, founder of Spade and Archer Design Agency, a Portland, ORbased firm that offers home staging. It clearly communicates that the house is clean and stink-free. 4. Evidence of your pets You might accept the fact that your beloved German shepherd sheds his whole coat onto your couch cushions. But potential buyers won't be as understanding. Yes, [buyers] will vacuum when they buy the home, but some feel they will never get all the hair up, Vosburgh says. And its not just hair that can gross them out. Vosburgh remembers taking clients through one house and coming out covered in dog hairand fleas. "My husband had on dark pants, so he didn't see them until we got in our car. They were jumping all over the place, Vosburgh recalls. We had hundreds on us. She had to flea-bomb her car. Her clients had to do the same. They were freaked out, Vosburgh says. (Unsurprisingly, they didn't make an offer on the home.) Nobody ever bought a house because it has evidence of a pet, Riordan says. They have, however, decided not to buy a house because it stunk, they were afraid, or allergic. 5. Darkness Light is the No. 1 seller of homes," Riordan says. "Please, for goodness' sake, let in the light. He recalls one client who hated the fact that her living room window faced the street and insisted on heavy sheers to block the vieweven though they kept the space in gloomy semidarkness. She left the sheers up against our request to take them down and when the house sat on the market for a few weeks, complained that our staging wasn't working, Riordan says. He persuaded her to take down the draperies for just one open house. Funny enough, she had three offers by the end of it and the property sold for over asking, he recalls. Light. Sells. Spaces." 6. Evidence of death or hoarding in the home Jennifer Salomon works for a Central Florida company called Bio-One, which specializes in trauma scene cleanup and hoarding. "We've cleaned everything from animal hoarding to decomposing bodies to homes covered entirely in trash," Salomon says. But here's the thing: They're not always called right away. "We've had families who've tried to clean a past loved one's home [before it goes on the market], and it just gets to be too much, both emotionally and physically," Salomon says. "I would not recommend a biohazard scene such as a crime or death that occurred in a home to be done by unlicensed professionals," she adds. "It's illegal and a huge safety concern for all involved." It's also a deal breaker for buyers. 7. Any personal photos A photo on the living room wall of you and your family at Disney World isnt creepy (usually), but can still be a major turnoff to buyers. Everyone says this, and somehow no one believes it, Bromberg says. Every client I've had pushes back with But the photos are professional,' 'They look like magazine photos,' 'My kids are cute,' and 'Families will want to see another family lived here.'" It doesnt matter. Bromberg once toured a home where many of the family photos were "Star Wars"themed"like family members in full Yoda and Padme regalia," she says. "My buyers found it very awkward." The post 7 Things in Your Living Room That Are Freaking Out Potential Buyers appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com. TEHRAN Thousands of Iranians rallied Sunday in commemoration of the 39th anniversary of the takeover and hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, just hours before the re-imposition of American sanctions lifted by a nuclear deal. The 444-day crisis after the fall of the U.S.-allied shah transfixed America, as nightly images of blindfolded hostages played on television sets across the nation. Ultimately, it would when President Jimmy Carter left office that all 52 captive American diplomats were freed. Sunday, hard-liners vented their rage at a new American president, Donald Trump, who pulled America out of the nuclear deal struck by his predecessor that the United Nations says Tehran still honors. With crippling sanctions on Irans vital oil industry set to take effect Monday, Irans anemic economy likely will suffer more, though politicians and protesters struck a defiant tone. Today the Iranian nation will show that Mr. Trump is too small to be able to bring Iran to its knees, said Ali Larijani, Irans parliament speaker. The annual commemoration marks when student demonstrators climbed over the fence at the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, angered about Carter allowing the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the United States. The students soon took over the entire compound. A few staffers fled and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran before escaping the country with the help of the CIA, a story recounted in the 2012 film Argo. While the commemoration annually sees American flags burned and cries of Death to America rise up, it also has a carnival-like atmosphere for the students and others taking part. Some waved massive inflatable ballistic missiles. Others held signs lampooning Trump, including images of him contorted into a Nazi swastika or as a missile chasing after a dove. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander-in-chief of Irans paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, gave a speech vowing that Iran can overcome this economic war and failure of the sanctions project is imminent. On Friday, the Trump administration announced the restoration of sanctions on Irans shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored. Amir Vahdat and Jon Gambrell are Associated Press writers. Amazon has held advanced discussions about the possibility of opening its highly sought-after second headquarters in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, including how quickly it would move employees there, which buildings it would occupy and how an announcement about the move would be made to the public, according to people close to the process. The discussions were more detailed than those the company has had regarding other locations in northern Virginia and some other cities nationally, adding to speculation that the site in Arlington County is a front-runner to land the online retail giant's second North American headquarters and its 50,000 jobs. The company is so close to making its choice that Crystal City's top real estate developer, JBG Smith, has pulled some of its buildings off the leasing market and officials in the area have discussed how to make an announcement to the public this month, following the midterm elections, according to public and private-sector officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Amazon has asked that the selection process remain confidential. The company may be having similar discussions with other finalists. Two people close to the process said that if Crystal City was selected, Amazon was likely to move an initial group of several hundred employees into 1851 S. Bell Street or 1770 Crystal Drive, two dated office buildings that have been targeted for redevelopment but could be readied for occupancy by their owner, JBG Smith, in nine months or less. The bid also includes sites in Potomac Yard, in Alexandria. "There's a lot of activity," one individual close to the process said. The person added that people "seem really positive, and they seem pretty confident. . . . What we don't know, maybe there are two or three other sites, and they're doing the same thing. That's what's scary to people around here." At a conference in New York on Thursday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told the crowd: "Ultimately the decision will be made with intuition after gathering and studying a lot of data - for a decision like that, as far as I know, the best way to make it is you collect as much data as you can, you immerse yourself in that data but then you make the decision with your heart." (Bezos also owns The Washington Post) Spokesmen for Amazon and JBG Smith declined to comment, as did Arlington County Board ChairKatie Cristol. Alexandria Mayor Allison Silberberg declined to discuss whether advanced talks were taking place but said, "We think we've put forward a very competitive option, and we're certainly honored to be considered." Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, asked on WTOP Radio on Wednesday about speculation that Crystal City was the front-runner said, "A lot of us are anxiously awaiting a decision, an announcement from Amazon. . . . A lot of [Virginia government] resources are being expended right now, and I think for good reason." A spokesman for Northam declined to comment further on Friday. - - - After launching a reality show-like sweepstakes for a second home in late 2017, Amazon has effectively shut down disclosures about the search in the past nine months. Twenty finalist cities - many of which have spent considerable time and money pursuing the company - have little information about where they stand, according to officials in four other finalist jurisdictions. But stock market investors, online betting sites and corporate relocation experts have all declared northern Virginia the favorite to land the so-called HQ2. Washington-area leaders believe the project is theirs to lose, and that Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia would all benefit economically. Crystal City, with easy transit access, proximity to Reagan National Airport, and ready-to-occupy office buildings, has long been considered a strong contender. The District and Montgomery County, Maryland, also are among the 20 finalists. Betting sites give northern Virginia the most likely odds of landing the project, and stock analysts have sweetened their view of JBG Smith - owner of most of Crystal City - as Amazon's announcement has approached. Analysts at Stifel Nicolaus recently upgraded the company from "Sell" to "Hold" and say just the possibility that Amazon chooses Crystal City has added four or five dollars to the company's stock price. In the Washington area, the anticipation is growing as hints filter out that Amazon is in the final stages of making a decision. The company tentatively considered making an announcement by the end of October, but has now put it off until November, according to individuals close to the process. "They have said publicly they want HQ2 operating in 2019," one person said. "Starting to work on that level of detail with the finalists is something they absolutely are doing. . . . I think it's a very small number of finalists. . . . [The announcement] requires some level of coordination and advance notice." Sharon Bulova, chair of the board of supervisors in Fairfax County, Virginia, where one of the sites is located, has felt the vibe. "What I pick up from residents is enthusiasm," she said. "They're excited about the jobs that Amazon would bring." It's also anxiety. Months of waiting have not quelled concerns about the potential pressure Amazon could place on the region's already steep housing prices, congested roads and yawning divide between its wealthy and low-income residents. When Bezos spoke at an Economic Club of Washington event in September, more than a dozen protesters occupied the sidewalk outside and civic groups - sometimes joined by union activists - have raised concerns about what the addition of such a fast-growing company would mean for the region's schools, roads and housing prices. Even without Amazon, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has estimated that the region needs to add 235,000 housing units by 2025 to keep pace with expected job growth. Amazon's arrival could push the goal to around 267,000 by 2026, according to a recent analysis by the Urban Institute. Right now the region is only on pace to add about 170,000 new units by then, and the shortage threatens to exacerbate inequality." "Whether Amazon comes or not we have a challenge there," said Peter Tatian, of the Urban Institute. "The economic growth that has been going on has been benefiting some people and causing problems for others." Amazon says it plans to make $5 billion in capital investments alone in the city it chooses, and that its headquarters injected an additional $38 billion into the local economy in Seattle, generating an additional $1.40 for every dollar the company spent. But its growth has led to fissures between the company and Seattle. Homelessness in the city has escalated and Amazon vowed to cancel some of its expansion plans if the city passed a new tax on big businesses to raise money to address the problem. - - - Bezos and the company have made several recent announcements that could soften Amazon's public image as it moves to open H2Q. Now the world's wealthiest person, Bezos announced in September that he would donate $2 billion of his own money to support groups battling homelessness in the United States and create a network of preschools in underserved communities. "I don't think it's a coincidence that one of those issue was homelessness," said Joe Parilla, a Brookings Institution fellow. "I think you can draw a pretty clear link between the debate that is unfolding in a lot of these tech hubs and how this gives a little bit of cover to Amazon as it is investing in these hot markets." In October - after bearing months of criticism from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over its treatment of workers - Amazon announced it would raise its minimum wage for all employees to $15 per hour. But the company's request for secrecy has kept a potentially thorny discussion, about how much states and cities should be willing to offer the company for its jobs, in the background. Few of the public subsidies being offered to Amazon from states, cities and counties for the project have been made public, which some analysts say could result in blowback from taxpayers if they are announced as fait accompli. Maryland has offered an incentive package worth an estimated $8.5 billion while the Newark, New Jersey, subsidies are estimated at $7 billion. On Wednesday, a judge in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, ordered the release of Pittsburgh's proposal after a legal fight with a local television station. The decision is expected to be appealed. "I would question why cities weren't more forthcoming [with their proposals], and I suspect it's because there would have been some push back to what the cities were offering," said Heidi Learner, chief economist for the advisory firm Savills Studley. "From the public's perspective the question is what is the city hiding or why shouldn't they share how [those proposals] would actually lead to more tax revenue down the line?" After Amazon initially pressed for more information, some leaders were expecting to hear the list of finalists narrowed down publicly, to give economic development teams from the eliminated cities a chance to move on. "I think the process got away from them a little bit. They probably were planning for some kind of down-selection and changed their position on that," said Jason Miller, chief executive of the Greater Washington Partnership, a business group. In addition to tax breaks, some cities have offered to build or expand roads, transit, data networks or airports if Amazon arrives. Parilla, of Brookings, said it's preferable to "maximize the broader benefit of these investments as much as possible." He also doesn't think it makes sense for Amazon, a $816-billion company, to press a city or state for an enormous subsidy package that could cut into money for other services. "My sense is that Amazon doesn't want to repeat some of the antagonism in Seattle," Parilla said. "It's not great for the brand to be viewed as oblivious to the existing economic and racial inequities in the city where it's going to invest." The ultimate decision is likely to rest with Bezos. He has a history of showing independence in such matters, such as when he needed a headquarters for The Washington Post shortly after he purchased it. The preferred choice among Post executives and consultants was a planned office building near Union Station, which they touted to Bezos during a tour of potential locations. That site was the favorite - until Bezos weighed in, and chose a downtown building. Now that Bezos is nearing a decision on the far more consequential HQ2 search, Washington area leaders are hoping he does not throw another curveball. (c) 2018, The Washington Post. Written by Jonathan O'Connell and Robert McCartney. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Staten Islanders get a bad rap for many things. But theyre not greedy, according to a new study. In fact, Staten Island was ranked one of the most generous counties in New York State, according to a new survey by SmartAsset -- a financial technology company that sought to find the counties that made the most donations in 2016. Americans donated about $200 million to non-profit organizations last year, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). And Staten Island ranked the seventh most charitable county in the state. Staten Islanders donated about 22.6 percent of their income, and 81.9 percent of the population on Staten Island made donations in 2016, the study says. Here are the 10 most charitable counties in New York. 1. New York, or Manhattan 2. Rockland 3. Nassau 4. Westchester 5. Putnam 6. Suffolk 7. Richmond, or Staten Island 8. Saratoga 9. Orange 10. Dutchess The study measured how much people donate as a percentage of their net income, and the proportion of people in a given county who made charitable donations. SmartAsset calculated peoples net income to determine the amount people donated as a percentage of their income. They looked at tax return data and subtracted total taxes paid, mortgage interest, mortgage points and mortgages insurance payments from total income to get each countys net income. The company then divided each countys total charitable donations by its total new income to see how much residents are donating relative to their income. SmartAsset then took the total number of tax returns with charitable donations and divided them by the number of total tax returns to get the proportion of people in each county who make donations. The company then indexed and equally weighted the two factors to yield the most charitable counties score. According to WalletHub, New York State was ranked the 15th most charitable state in the country in 2017. FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - It is one of the most hotly contested midterm election seasons in American history, with Republicans and Democrats battling for control of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in a super-heated political climate. Democrats think there is a blue wave coming that will restore them to the House majority. Party members have been chomping at the bit to vote ever since GOP President Donald Trump took office in 2017. Republicans, meanwhile, believe that they will increase their majority in the Senate, with their voters energized by the battle over Brett Kavanaughs appointment to the Supreme Court as well as by the migrant caravan heading to our border from Central America. There are key races everywhere you look, including gubernatorial contests across the country. It could all remake the political map come next Wednesday. Or not. Looming over all is Trump. Midterm elections are a referendum on the sitting president, and the party that rules the White House almost always loses congressional seats in the midterms. Against this backdrop, Rep. Daniel Donovan (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) seeks another two-year term in Congress. His opponent is Democrat Max Rose, an Army veteran of the Afghanistan war and a former healthcare company executive. For us, the choice is clear: Donovan deserves another term in office. The congressman has long been a diligent and dependable public servant on Staten Island. He began his career here as Borough Hall chief of staff, and he also served as deputy borough president and was Staten Islands longtime district attorney. Though a supporter of the president, Donovan voted against Trump on three of the presidents key agenda items: The tax reform bill, Obamacare repeal, and punishing sanctuary cities. Though priorities for Trump, Donovan said those bills were bad for Staten Island and South Brooklyn. Bucking the president speaks well to Donovans independence and his desire to do what he sees is best for his constituents. Its a credit to him, particularly given Trumps popularity here on Staten Island. Donovan has also taken care of business, keeping legislation to help Superstorm Sandy victims and those sickened by fallout from the 9/11 attacks as top priorities. And we believe that Donovans non-ideological approach and refusal to always back Trump will serve the congressman well should he indeed find himself in the House minority. Rose has made a number of good points during the campaign, including his opposition to safe injection sites for drug users. Refusing to follow the lead of more liberal Democrats, he rejects calls for Trumps impeachment. He favors sensible immigration reform and border security, and opposes abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Rose has also taken a more moderate stance on other issues. We applaud him for that. We also thank him for his military service. But Rose has seriously overreached in his criticism of Donovans response to the opioid crisis, which began to blossom during the Republicans time as district attorney. While we concede that Donovans taking a campaign donation from opioid manufacturers (money that he later pledged to donate to anti-drug efforts) is a bad optic, Rose goes too far in basically blaming Donovan for the crisis itself. A Rose campaign mailing of Donovan amid a mountain of pills is disingenuous at best and deceptive at worst. We have also been troubled by Roses calling Donovan a coward and a spineless doormat at various points during the campaign. At a time when both sides are calling for a dialing-down of inflammatory rhetoric, such talk has no place in this or any race. That being said, we have been impressed by Roses energy and engagement with voters during the campaign. Though a relative newcomer to Staten Island, he has brought much to the political debate here. We challenge Rose to continue his involvement in the borough should things not go his way in the election. Donovan has served with distinction. He has been a credit to the boroughs civic and political life. The Advance has endorsed him in his past races, including his GOP primary battle against former Rep. Michael Grimm earlier this year. We see no reason to withdraw that endorsement. We urge Staten Islanders to return Donovan to the House. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6. 14 Olmsted-Beil House Park STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Olmsted-Beil House Park sits back off of Hylan Boulevard just south of Richmond Avenue obscured by overgrowth and other homes. You may say to yourself Olmsted, that name sound familiar, but,why do I know it? Well, here is why: Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., along with his senior partner Calvert Vaux, was the designer of New York Citys Central Park, also Prospect Park in Brooklyn and many others across the country. He is often known to be the father of American landscape architecture. It is believed that in the Olmsted-Beil House is where Olmsted and Vaux began drafting their plan for Central Park which was entered into a competition to design the park which they ended up winning. According to Margaret Boyle-Cullens 1953 and 1954 articles in The Staten Island Historian a quarterly publication of the Staten Island Historical Society, the first part of the house was most likely built by the first recorded owner of the property Domine Petrus Tesschemaker who acquired it in a land grant from Governor Thomas Dongan on November 3, 1685. Future owners added to it including Olmsted who also reshaped the driveway into a serpentine path, possible a precursor to the ones used throughout Central Park, and planted many trees. Some of those trees, which he acquired as nursery stock from France in 1850: cedars of Lebanon; a black walnut; ginkgo, horse chestnut and osage oranges, are still growing on the property. Over the years it has been been know as: The Poillion House; Oaklands; Tosomock Farm (Olmsteds name for it); Woods of Arden and now Olmsted-Beil House Park. The Olmsted family owned it from 1848-1866. The New York City Landmark, designated in 1966, listed also on the National Register of Historic Places, was sold by its last owner Carlton Beil in 2006, to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. His daughter Carlotta DeFillo said, Our father, way back in the 1980s I believe, if not sooner, wanted the house and the land and the trees to be part of the parks system so that the house would never bulldozed, the land would never be built on and the trees would never be knocked down. It really meant a lot to him. She also said that he and her sister Eloise spent many years working with the parks department and other people to make sure it was saved and that the work is continuing now. There are plans to add the Kassmann-Dunn property next door that was originally part of Olmsteds property to the park. The Olmsted house and grounds have since fallen into a state of diss-repair and efforts are being made to raise the necessary funds to stabilize and restore them. Tina Kassmann-Dunn, who along with sisters Carlotta DeFillo and Felicity Beil and others have formed the Friends of Olmsted-Beil House to help in those efforts, said, We have his house, nobody else has his house. We have his classroom. I think thats the best thing. We have where it all started. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! John Moore/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In a speech that alternated between appeals to national and local audiences, President Donald Trump urged Montanans to vote out incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester while also railing against hot-button issues like the caravans of Central American migrants making their way to the southern border. The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan of illegal aliens to flood into your communities, the president said, speaking to a hangar full of supporters near Bozeman airport. Its an issue that many Montanans who were in line to see the president speak on Saturday said was important to them, although they added that they had long been concerned about illegal immigration and that they weren't worried solely because of the caravans. My view was pretty much already set in stone," Matt Woody, a plumbing contractor in Bozeman, told ABC News. "That just kind of reinforces the need to close the border and regulate whos coming across. We can't even find apprentices right now, or laborers, and there's a huge need for [a] work force, but I think they should be legal. I don't think they should just come across the border." Trump also hailed the deployment of thousands of active-duty U.S. military personnel to the border, praising them and then lauding the addition of barbed wire at parts of the border. We have our military on the border. And I noticed all that beautiful barbed wire going up today, barbed wire used properly can be a beautiful sight, he said. He also reiterated phrases from the past to describe the caravans, three of which have mobilized so far and are making their way through Mexico. These are bad people as I say bad hombres," Trump said. "There are some bad hombres in that group. So they came out with a list of 300 really bad ones, really bad ones. Theyre in there. The "list" he referred to was a statement from the Department of Homeland Security stating that over 270 of the thousands of individuals in the various caravans have criminal histories, including gang membership and crimes involving robbery and sexual assault. He also warned of additional caravans forming in Central America. Now they have worse caravans actually being formed. Its terrible, he said. Trump mocked TV pundits who say he should be talking about the booming economy instead of stoking fears about what he has called an invasion on the southern border. CNN is telling me how to run the campaign, but in the meantime, Im president and theyre not, he said. Not everything was about Democrats and the media. The president talked up the strong economy, evident in a record-low unemployment rate, higher year-on-year earnings and steady job growth at the beginning of his remarks. But immigration was the issue he kept returning to, despite the fact that Montana has one of the lowest percentages of undocumented immigrants of any state, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey. Yet, despite having such low numbers of illegal immigrants, most Montanans that ABC News spoke to said the issue was at the top of their minds for this election cycle. Immigrations left our country unsafe. Its taken jobs away from workers," Todd Green, who runs a high-end stereo equipment business in Three Forks, about 30 miles from Bozeman. "I have no problem with legal immigration. Bring in legally as many workers as we need. But as far as people breaking the law, who come here, its not right." During the speech, Trump riffed on reports that a little-known accuser of Justice Brett Kavanaugh had recanted her allegations of sexual assault. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley referred the woman, Judy Munro-Leighton, to federal investigators. He also suggested that other accusers may follow suit. Christine Blasey-Ford, who testified under oath before the Judiciary Committee about her allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, has maintained her account of events. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. She lied about the story. About rape. She lied, Trump said. And then were supposed to sit back and take it. And supposing he didnt get to be [a Justice], hes a tremendous man. And what about the others... when are they gonna say what happened? The rally marked Trump's fourth trip to Montana this election cycle. He acknowledged that it has much to do with his personal animus toward Tester, who as the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee expressed concerns about alleged inappropriate behavior by Trumps VA secretary nominee, Admiral Ronny Jackson. The allegations prompted Jackson to withdraw from consideration. He tried to destroy Admiral Ronny Jackson. Who is the most clean-cut, wonderful person youve ever met," Trump said. "He tried to destroy him and Ive never forgotten it, and honestly, its one of the reasons Ive been here so much." For Montanans who were there to see Trump, though, there are different reasons to oppose Tester. "Jon has not done the job that he's supposed to have been doing for the 12 years he's been there now," Tom Buckmaster, a resident of Bozeman, told ABC News. "It's time; we need a change." Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Zamboanga City (CNN Philippines, November 5) Two people were killed while 40 others were injured after a passenger jeepney overturned and fell into a ditch in Barangay Guisao, Zamboanga City, on Saturday, according to a police report. Investigation disclosed that the jeepney loaded with cargo and passengers was traveling the hilly road of Barangay Lanzones going to the city proper when its brakes failed, tipped over, and dragged to about 25 meters on the concrete pavement. The crash caused the two fatalities identified as Elvis Delos Reyes, 38, and Hamir Dela Cruz, 30, were stuck underneath the steel siding of the vehicle. Dela Cruz died on the spot while. Delos Reyes was given medical treatment at Zamboanga City Sanitarium hospital, but was declared dead later on. The driver of the jeepney identified as Dessy Jon Enriquez voluntarily surrendered at Zamboanga City Police Station 4 and will face a case for reckless imprudence resulting to double homicide and multiple physical injuries. His jeepney has also been impounded. Telstra says it will consider compensating business customers who were paralysed by a technical outage which took down EFTPOS machines nationwide on the weekend, with the industry ombudsman also saying compensation is on the cards. The telco has blamed a third-party technology provider for the outage which hit late on Friday and was not resolved until late morning Saturday, forcing many small business owners to demand cash from customers during their busiest trading period. Small business owners said they lost customers due to the outage. Credit:Glenn Hunt Taxi drivers and ATMs were also affected, and a number of business owners took to social media to call on Telstra for compensation for the business they had lost. A Telstra spokesman said the company would consider the calls for compensation. Teenagers now see sexting as a social norm and its dangers need to be addressed directly in classrooms as part of the sex education curriculum, a leading researcher has warned. Wendy Craig, a professor in psychology at Canada's Queen's University, has told a bullying conference in Sydney that children as young as 13 believe all their friends are sexting and that nearly 40 per cent of them say they are actually engaging in the practice. "Is [sexting] a problem? Is it normal? There's a real debate around this," Wendy Craig, a professor of psychology at Queen's University told an anti-bullying conference in Sydney. Credit:Shutterstock She said along with it being taught with schools, parents should also be prepared to have a discussion about sexting with their children. "Is it a problem? Is it normal? Theres a real debate around this," Professor Craig told the NSW governments Care. Respect. Support Anti-Bullying Strategy conference last week. There are different styles of yoga designed to make you sweat. Bikram was named after another controversial founder, Bikram Choudhury (he was later accused of sexual misconduct), who popularised the series in the 1970s. Bikram is highly regimented: It consists of 26 postures, mostly done twice in a row, in a hot, humid room where temperatures can exceed 100 degrees. The idea is that the heat helps protect your muscles from injury while also allowing you to deepen the poses. Because the Bikram series never changes, it's good for beginners as well as advanced practitioners, unless they're the type of people who get easily bored. Hot yoga, on the other hand, is derived from Bikram but is flexible in format. It just means the room is warm typically between 35 and 42 degrees and might contain any range of postures or particular series. Classes might look different depending on where you're practicing. In a heated class, a teacher will probably remind students that, if they start to feel lightheaded, they always have the option to lie down on the mat. People with conditions including cardiovascular disease, back pain, asthma, diabetes, low blood pressure or pregnancy should consult with a doctor before trying this practice. Iyengar yoga Pronounced eye-yen-gar, and developed by the esteemed teacher BKS Iyengar in the 1970s, this practice is regimented, form-focused and prop-centric. (Yoga props, or tools that help you modify poses or support your body, include blocks, straps, bolsters and blankets, among other items.) There are hundreds of different sequences, so there is a lot of variety among classes, and it can be practiced by students at all stages. Poses are held for stretches of time and do not flow from one to the next: The goal is to achieve proper alignment, as well as build strength and balance. This is a good style to explore if you're trying to truly understand postures from the inside out. Vinyasa yoga If you've ever been to a yoga class where the word "flow" was a dominant part of the instructor's vocabulary, it was probably a vinyasa class. In this type of yoga, the emphasis is on performing poses that are fluid from one to the next (in a more fluid execution of the sun-salutation sequence). There is no set series for these classes; teachers might ask practitioners to call out things they want to work on and tailor it to those requests. Mindfulness of breath, and marrying your breath to movement, is a part of this practice, too. Loading Many of these classes are open-level, but studios often will mark more challenging classes as intermediate or advanced. For those with injuries, keep in mind that vinyasa can be physically challenging (you can always ask your instructor for modifications). Depending on where you're taking the class and who is teaching it, this form of yoga can feel like a full-on aerobic workout. Even the basic "flow" aspect can be tough - teachers will call for students to take a vinyasa between poses - moving from downward dog into high plank and then into low plank (called chaturanga), before lowering yourself to the ground, moving through upward dog and then back to downward dog. Taking a vinyasa requires a fair amount of strength (it can be modified by dropping your knees, as with a push-up). But once you get the hang of it, the feeling is powerful. Ashtanga yoga Ashtanga is similar to vinyasa you'll flow from one pose to the next and be guided by your instructor to link your breath to the movement of your body but the difference is that it's always the same poses, in the same progression. Expect a good workout; you'll challenge yourself and get sweaty. Yin yoga If you're looking for a practice that will help support you during other styles of yoga, and you're patient enough to stay in a posture for long periods of time, then yin might be for you. In these classes, the instructor will have you hold a posture for several minutes, which helps connective tissue such as tendons, ligaments and fascia become more flexible. A long half-pigeon pose can be painful in the moment. But your body will thank you the next time you're holding Warrior II. Restorative yoga Have you ever walked into an unfamiliar yoga class and left an hour later wondering why you didn't do a whole lot of moving? You may have been in a restorative class. The goal of this practice, which is good for students of all experience levels, is relaxation, rejuvenation and healing. It is a slow-paced, meditative style that focuses on stretching by holding poses for up to several minutes, sometimes with supportive props such as blankets and bolsters, and turning attention inward. There's a reason restorative classes often happen in the evening with the lights turned down: They're like non-sleeping naps that aim to leave you feeling - you guessed it - restored. Loading Aerial yoga If there is a part of you that regrets never running off to join the circus, aerial yoga, a style that can be found in specialty studios, offers you the opportunity to feel like you're swinging from a flying trapeze (or at least being suspended in mid-air under slightly less stressful circumstances). With its goal of stretching, aerial yoga adds elements of Pilates and dance to traditional yoga poses, supplemented with a hammock so that practitioners can hold the postures while hanging in the air. Although the jury is still out on the specific health claims of this practice, it can, with the aid of gravity, help students deepen poses that might be more difficult on the ground. Also file under: super fun. Even so, it may not be right for everyone. Pregnant women, and anyone with an injury or medical condition, should consult a health professional before pursuing this practice. Boutique yoga styles Fire crews worked overnight to try to bring the Pierces Creek bush fire under control. At 9am, the multiple fire hot-spots were not yet fully contained but the Emergency Services were confident that the 10 crews involved had made substantial progress. Containment lines were in place but crews were working to make sure embers didn't jump them. ACT rural firefighters at the fire containment line at Pierces Creek. Credit:Elesa Kurtz According to a statement from the ACT Emergency Services Agency, fire fighters had mopped up hot spots identified by on-the-ground patrols, helicopter surveillance and thermal imaging equipment in aircraft. Fire breaks had been strengthened and areas cleared of trees and other potential fuel. A Canberra woman had her eight-year-old girl in the car with her when she was driving more than three times the legal limit in Bungendore, police say. NSW police said the 29-year-old Palmerston woman's car was also unregistered and uninsured when they stopped it on Bungendore Road about 7.20pm Saturday. "Her eight-year-old daughter was in the car at the time it was stopped. The woman returned a positive result to a roadside breath test. She was arrested and taken to Bungendore Police Station where a subsequent breath analysis returned a reading of 0.186," police said in a statement. She is expected to appear in Queanbeyan Local Court next month, her authority to drive in NSW was removed and a child at risk incident was created. Police said a 48-year-old man was also charged with high-range drink driving after his car crashed into a house in Narooma on Friday evening. He had a blood alcohol level of 0.238 and will face Narooma Local Court later this month. Missing Canberra man found Were sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss Rescuers took almost two hours to reach an injured man after his vehicle rolled down a ravine in remote bushland on Sunday. ACT Emergency Services said the 42 year old had been driving alone in Brindabella National Park when he crashed near Two Sticks Road, just north of the NSW border. A passer-by found him and called Emergency Triple Zero just after midday. It took more than two hours for ACT Ambulance Service and ACT Fire and Rescue crews to reach the man, who had suffered a broken leg. ACT Fire and Rescue had to abandon their remote area 4WDs and walk, with intensive care paramedics, 30 minutes to the crash site. Police are probing whether a sophisticated drug lab uncovered in south-west Sydney created the pills circulated at the Defqon.1 music festival, where two people died of suspected overdoses in September. Weve uncovered tablet dies and certainly chemicals from this particular clandestine lab which are not dissimilar to what we saw at the Defqon.1 festival at Penrith in September, State Crime Commander, Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith Smith, told media on Sunday morning. At that festival we had two deaths, obviously 11 other kids that were presented to hospital had significant presence of prohibited drugs in their system. We found a chemical MDA, which is a parent chemical, which is what we found in the lab. The organisation has proven itself adept at attracting big names to its events, with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, then treasurer Scott Morrison and Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese pictured at functions on its website. The AIABCs political associations have raised concerns about corporate influence-peddling within politics and potential "astroturfing", where something that sounds like a grassroots community organisation is actually established by, and for, corporate interests. A Fairfax Media investigation has tracked the links between Mr Robert, the Liberal National Party member for Fadden on the Gold Coast, and his corporate supporters from the Fadden Forum to the AIABC. Never far from controversy Mr Robert has proven himself very good at raising money for Queenslands LNP. But it has also got him into plenty of strife. In an unrelated but recent controversy, Mr Robert had trouble connecting to the internet from his Gold Coast home, charging taxpayers up to $2800 a month, but his connections to political donors and Prime Minister Scott Morrison run deep. In 2016, Mr Robert resigned from the Turnbull ministry after helping Liberal Party donor Paul Marks sign a deal in China for a company in which they both held shares while he was on personal leave. He was elevated back to the ministry in August this year. Australian Ibero-American Business Council launch event with Ibero-American ambassadors with Assistant Treasurer Stuart Robert (centre). Credit:AIABC website Mr Robert was Mr Morrisons numbers man in the recent coup against Mr Turnbull and shared a home with him in Canberra. As the best LNP fundraiser in Queensland, Mr Robert has supported one donor by giving a speech in their favour in Parliament and lobbied the City of Gold Coast council on their behalf. Two people who were formerly on Mr Roberts staff have been elected to political office recently Kristyn Boulton to the Gold Coast council and Sam OConnor to the Queensland Parliament. Mr Robert also bankrolled an unsuccessful campaign for another of his staff Felicity Stevenson to get elected to the Gold Coast council. He used $60,000, raised via the Fadden Forum, to help Ms Stevenson and Ms Boulton campaign as independent candidates. The transactions were looked at as part of a broad inquiry into political corruption by the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission. The CCC completely cleared Mr Robert, Ms Stevenson and Ms Boulton of any wrongdoing. In April this year, Mr Robert started a new venture by setting up and promoting the Australian Ibero-American Business Council. For its first five months it had three directors, including one listed as secretary Mr Margerison, previously the longtime chairman of the LNP fundraising machine. (L-R) AIABC board member Shaun Cartwright, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and John Margerison, AIABC founding director. Credit:AIABC website Mr Margerison, an entrepreneur and self-described "strategy expert", is the director of a Queensland-based conglomerate called the DJ Group which is a "major partner" of the council. DJ Group directors have connections to other members of the AIABC and its board. Mr Epstein, who replaced Mr Margerison on the board in early September, bought a stake in DJ Partners, another AIABC member, two months before he became chairman. Mr Margerison did not respond to requests for comment. Mr Epstein declined to comment. The AIABC website says it "regularly hosts high level political, diplomatic and business functions and small intimate VIP business events across the country". (L-R) AIABC board member Shaun Cartwright, former foreign Minister Julie Bishop, and AIABC founding director John Margerison. Credit:AIABC website Dentists, eye doctors and property developers AIABC has 22 members listed on its website including Gold Coast-based tax lawyers, a dental group, a disability support services company, property developers and an ophthalmologist. The AIABC ranks are mostly filled by companies which in total have declared donations of more than $240,000 to the LNP in the past two years directly or via their owners. Mr Robert says his time as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties - where he closed trade deals with South American countries - was the genesis for AIABC because there was "zero engagement at a serious government or diplomatic level" with South America. "So I went to some business guys [and] said we've got to build this and get it done properly," Mr Robert said. "And then encourage everyone to connect with the emerging market in terms of where we're going to go. "The two great emerging markets are South America and of course Africa." Mr Robert said John Margerison is a "very good friend" and denied Margerison was involved in fundraising at AIABC. "There's no fundraising involved [with AIABC], its board is bipartisan, it was a bipartisan launch connected to the parliamentary friends of Ibero America trade and commerce, Mr Robert said. "When I set it up I was the patron, to say hey 'I think this is a great idea and I'm going to get this thing up'. But as soon as I became a minister I resigned from that. "I don't have any role at all. But Smiles Inclusive chief executive Mike Timoney, whose firm operates over 50 dental practices in Australia, said he had been to about five AIABC events this year and Stuart Robert was at them all. "I know Stuart and John [Margerison] from previous business relationships so I have been going to their forums for five or six years, [and] they invited me to join that one [AIABC]," Mr Timoney said. "We all sort of followed along [from the Fadden Forum] more people came in from the South America side and we carried on networking." Asked what benefit he would gain from AIABC membership, Mr Timoney said he employs a few Brazillian dentists. He added there's "a lot of opportunity coming out of South America in terms of their innovation". "They [Brazil] deliver first world dentistry at third world prices," he said. The network of Mr Robert's business contacts seemingly intersects with those of AIABC and its members. For example, he is one of the largest investors in a private company - Centaur resources - that claims projects across South America that will yield "low-cost lithium". Mr Robert also declared ownership of a stake in Sequoia Financial, an under-the-radar wealth and asset manager which is another AIABC member, in his parliamentary interests. But he says the mention is wrong as he bid for a stake in Sequoia and was unsuccessful. Director of Scott PDI, a Queensland property development company, Peter Scott said he was offered a spot on the AIABC by Stuart Robert and "jumped" at the chance. "He's introduced, not only to us but other business people, business opportunities down there [in Latin America] and we jumped at it frankly," Mr Scott said. The network of Mr Robert's business contacts seemingly intersects with those of the AIABC and its members. For example, he is one of the largest investors in a private company Centaur Resources that claims projects across South America that will yield "low-cost lithium". Central and South American nations listed as charter members of the AIABC said they supported the idea of more connections with Australia but did not pay to be members. Former ALP senator Stephen Conroy and Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese are featured on the AIABC website but appeared to be unaware of the involvement of some LNP members. 'Didn't want to be rude' Mr Albanese told Fairfax Media he had stumbled into the AIABC launch event by mistake after the leadership dialogue he was meant to be at changed venues. Mr Conroy recently joined the board of AIABC as an unpaid director and is yet to attend a board meeting. He declined to comment. Anthony Albanese speaking at the Australian Ibero American Business Council launch event at Parliament House. Credit:AIABC website University of NSW senior lecturer of international and political studies Belinda Edwards said the AIABC appeared to be a body that could be used to put its members in the driving seat for negotiating deals in South America. "This looks like an exercise in astroturfing, where business interests are trying to create what looks like a broad-based community organisation but actually they control it," Dr Edwards said. Three more people have been charged over their alleged roles in parental abduction ring that stretched across Australia, allegedly financing and assisting women to abduct their own children and hide them in violation of family law court orders. A 75 year-old Taree woman, a 68-year-old Newcastle woman and a 46-year-old Townsville woman were served future court attendance notices for allegedly assisting the vigilante group in the abduction of three children. Australian Federal Police also conducted search warrants on four premises in NSW, Queensland and Victoria. Police allege the women were a principal part of the group, providing support, transport and accommodation to allow two mothers to evade law enforcement detection. The 87-year-old woman was in her backyard at 8.30am when she was grabbed from behind. She felt a knife against her throat and a gun barrel against her head. Dragged inside and told to lay on her bed, the woman thought her life would end. Nearly a year later, police are still hunting for the man who bound, threatened and robbed the elderly woman in Preston. Senior Detective Constable Matt McKenzie says it's one of the most disturbing and disgraceful acts he's investigated: To bind and threaten to kill and 87-year-old female is that lowest of the low". A father of two boys, Mr McGrath had visited psychiatrist Dr Peter Marriot weekly since 2007, including the day before his tragic death. Dean McGrath. "My mood varies from sadness to tears to anger. I experience flashbacks of bloodied, dead bodies. I feel anxious all the time. I suffer from headaches. I am hyper-vigilant. I feel naked without a gun. I have little enjoyment in life," Mr McGrath said in an affidavit to the Victorian Workcover Authority. He traced his mental health problems back to a siege in Hampton in August 2002, less than a year after he joined the elite taskforce often referred by other police as the "Sons of God". Waiting for instructions, he watched as a man killed his 10-week-old daughter by smashing her against a wall. "I was at the front window of the flat and watched it happen." Vivid memories of the incident would haunt his dreams. "I saw the young girl who would now be a toddler in a white dress with red blotches. My wife said I was grinding my teeth heavily at night and I began to lose a fair amount of my hair," he said in the affidavit. In February 2005, Mr McGrath was involved in the mobile intercept of Wayne Joannou, who was wanted over the murder of a man in Sydenham the previous year. Joannou, sitting in a car parked in a South Melbourne street, levelled a shotgun at SOG officers and was met with a volley of gunfire. "I remember seeing his bullet-riddled body with blood." A talented artist, Mr McGrath was asked to sketch the scene. He said part of a damaged window from Joannou's car was mounted at the SOG office as a grim souvenir of the mission. The officers involved also signed a front-page story from the Herald Sun that was put on display. A few months later, in April 2005, Mr McGrath was first through the door of the Brooklyn home of the notorious Chaouk family. Mohamed Chaouk, 29, died when he was shot in the neck by another SOG member. "It was dark and men were yelling and torch lights moved rapidly. There were four loud shots above me and I thought I had been shot. A man had been shot dead at the top of the stairs by an SOG member. I felt sick, guilty, ashamed and distressed," Mr McGrath stated. He said formal debriefing sessions or counselling were rarely offered. Usually members would head to the nearest pub. Mr McGrath's growing reliance on alcohol had come to the attention of colleagues, who would place empty beer bottles and bottle tops in his locker. On another occasion, a .45 calibre bullet was also placed on the locker's top shelf. He failed an internal psychiatric examination, which was immediately spread among his colleagues and triggered further bullying and taunts. He was called "Magoo" by workmates, who would shout: "Magoo, it's medication time." A self portrait by Mr McGrath. He claimed a senior-ranking officer would also sneak up and punch him from behind. "I can take pain, but sometimes my ribs would hurt for a couple of days, but I could not complain or (I would) face further ridicule," Mr McGrath stated. After filing a WorkCover claim in 2008, a superintendent and an inspector visited Mr McGrath at his home. Increasingly paranoid, Mr McGrath covertly recorded the conversation, during which the senior officers conceded there were problems within the hyper-masculine ranks of the SOG. "They've got a jungle mentality, in all aspects they eat their own, that's their culture," one officer said to Mr McGrath and his wife. He was later found to have a permanent impairment of 50 per cent and received a significant ex-gratia payment from the force. Last week, the owner of the plumbing factory in Governor Road, David Grierson, 46, was acquitted by a Supreme Court jury of the attempted murder of Mr McGrath. The decision devastated his family and friends. The charge had already been downgraded from murder after Justice Michael Croucher found the cause of Mr McGrath' s death could not be established. Mr Grierson had claimed he acted in self-defence, because Mr McGrath entered his plumbing factory armed with a sawn-off shotgun. He demanded drugs and money from Mr Grierson, before hitting him with the butt of the gun. Mr McGrath found drugs and money, but was not satisfied, the court was told. He put down the gun, picked up a 47-kilogram statue and walked towards Mr Grierson, before losing balance and stumbling. "When he fell to the ground there was a loud thump," prosecutor Peter Chadwick said during his opening. David Grierson leaves the County Court last week. Credit:AAP Mr Grierson was alleged to have grabbed the gun and repeatedly struck the barrel on Mr McGrath's head and neck. The jury heard Mr Grierson ignored calls to stop, saying: "F--- him. You can't rob me. You can't do this to me." The gun used to bludgeon Mr McGrath was never recovered. Jurors had to weigh up what caused Mr McGrath's death and could only find Mr Grierson guilty if they believed beyond reasonable doubt that he, and not the crushing blow of the statue, was to blame. Alan McGrath is bitterly disappointed with the police investigation. "The police never went to the factory. It took the killer to hand himself in before they entered and found Dean's lifeless body ... The homicide squad thanked us for causing a commotion otherwise they may have never recovered his body," Mr McGrath said. Ann McGrath said several convicted criminals had entered the factory in the hours after Mr McGrath's death and smoked the drug ice, while a small child related to one of the men was fed fish and chips. "They tied up his body, wrapped him in plastic and placed him into an airconditioning unit that was sealed at one end, and then they had a cement truck waiting on standby to dump him. Does this sound like self-defence?" Ms McGrath asked. WARNING: Graphic images below. A police officer has been attacked by a large Bullmastiff dog while attempting to handcuff a man outside a Redcliffe house on Saturday. Police attended a house on Bulong Avenue around 11.30am after receiving reports a man, who was subject to an outstanding arrest warrant, was armed with a knife and making threats. A police officer has been attacked by a dog during an arrest Credit:Glenn Hunt Upon arrival, it is alleged the 43-year-old man attempted to ride his motorcycle toward police to evade arrest, a police spokeswoman said. A tweet by embattled Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi which shows the identities of people sleeping rough on a Perth street has outraged Shelter WA chief executive Michelle Mackenzie. The suspended Lord Mayor posted two images on Saturday of homeless men sleeping on the step of a Japanese restaurant on Murray Street. One of the images Lisa Scaffidi tweeted of a man sleeping rough on Murray Street. Credit:Twitter @LisaScafPerthLM The images, which WAtoday has chosen to blur, were accompanied by a comment referencing people sleeping rough outside shop fronts as an issue facing Perth local businesses in an already struggling retail sector. One of the men can be seen wrapped in a thin sleeping bag with his head resting on a makeshift pillow made from clothes, with a few belongings, and a coffee and sandwich seemingly left for him by a passerby. Qantas is facing calls to match Virgin's decision to give priority boarding to war veterans and salute them before take-off. The US-style proposal comes at the end of a week-long campaign by the Coalition, which will see veterans given discount cards and lapel pins, on top of a half-a-billion dollar extension of the War Memorial. Defence Industry Minister Steve Ciobo said it "would be terrific" if Qantas matched Virgin's pledge. Credit:Fairfax Media Defence Industry Minister Steve Ciobo said it "would be terrific" if Qantas matched Virgin's pledge, which is part of a News Corp campaign. "I want to congratulate Virgin for, in many respects, being a trailblazer," he said on Sky News. Melbourne's most marginal seats have been promised new parks in Labor's multi-million dollar pledge to create more open space in an increasingly crowded city. A total of $35 million would go towards acquiring land to build 25 small parks in built-up areas, largely in inner-city electorates where Labor may be hoping the promise of more green space will hold back the Greens. Of the 18 "pocket parks" that have been announced, 14 will be located in marginal electorates. Two new parks have been promised in the states smallest electoral district, Prahran, which is also the most states most marginal, held by just 0.4 per cent by the Greens. The Coalition starts with a slight advantage. Victorias population growth is overwhelmingly in Labor and Green seats. At last count, Labor/Green seats on average had 5 per cent more voters than Coalition seats. In a close finish, the Coalition could win most seats even if Labor wins most votes. This election is still alive. This is where the Liberals and Nationals hope to win it. THE FRANKSTON LINE The Frankston rail line, from McKinnon to South Frankston, hosts the four seats that have decided the last two Victorian elections. In 2002 and 2006, they all voted Labor. But in 2010, they all swung to the Liberals, giving Ted Baillieu his one-seat majority. And in 2014, they all swung back to Labor, three of them by just a few hundred votes. They start with upwardly mobile Bentleigh (0.8 per cent), and bayside Mordialloc (2.1), but then theres battling Carrum (0.7) and at the bottom of the line, Frankston (0.5). Bentleighs suburbs these days are pretty well off; you can buy a good coffee there. But as you go down the line, the incomes get lower and the divorce rate higher. The Liberals reportedly see their best chances as Bentleigh and Carrum. They need to win big here to win the election. THE OUTER SUBURBAN FRINGE If the clash of inner and outer suburban cultures were as big as some claim, these seats would be heading the Liberals way. Tens of thousands of aspirational young families have moved into new outer suburbs, to do battle with bills and mortgages. But in the 2016 federal election, their votes shifted Labors way. Four marginal seats are in the north: Macedon (3.8), Sunbury (4.4), Yan Yean (3.7) and Eltham (2.7). Yan Yean alone has added 12,500 voters since 2014, and Labor has sandbagged it by building the Mernda rail line and duplicating Yan Yean Road. Its hard to see the Liberals breaking through here. Four are in the south-east: Cranbourne (2.4) has added 15,000 more voters since 2014, and both sides have committed lots of resources and promises to win it, Narre Warren North (4.6) and Narre Warren South (5.5). Monbulk (5.0) is probably out of reach. The Coalition must win one or two here to win government. INNER MELBOURNE In the inner suburbs, the momentum is to the Greens and the Liberals. North of the Yarra, the Greens now hold two of the four seats they have targeted from Labor Melbourne (2.4) and Northcote (5.6) and the bookies expect them to add Brunswick (2.2). If the Liberals issue an open ticket with no preferences, as threatened, the Greens could also take Richmond (1.9). The inner south has two three-cornered contests: Prahran (0.4) where the Greens squeezed home in 2010, and Albert Park (3.1). Labor is confident it can win back Prahran. Albert Park is now one of Melbournes richest areas: it will be a Liberal seat one day, but maybe not yet. GEELONG, BALLARAT AND BENDIGO Once safely Liberal, Victorias three biggest regional cities are now Labor strongholds, and are growing fast. The Liberals have a chance of making gains in Ballarat, where Labor MPs are retiring from Wendouree (5.8) and Buninyong (6.5). But its hard to see them winning Bellarine (4.9) or Geelong (6.0), or downing Transport Minister Jacinta Allan in Bendigo East (5.1). The closest battle in 2014 was in the one seat the Liberals won, South Barwon (Liberal, 2.9). It could be the close one again. RURAL/REGIONAL: COALITION v LABOR If the vote reflects the latest polls, the seats we will be watching on election night will be the country seats where the Coalition is defending its turf. Labor has its sights on retaking Ripon (0.8) around Ararat, the once safe Labor seat of Morwell (1.8), taken for the Nationals in 2006 by former footy star Russell Northe, the misnamed Eildon (3.8), whose voters are mostly on Melbournes north-east fringe, and the Westernport seat of Bass (4.6). Morwell could be anyones seat. Labor, Liberals and Nationals all have a chance, as might Northe if he stands again, and former senator Ricky Muir, standing for the Shooters party. RURAL/REGIONAL: COALITION v INDEPENDENTS The Greens are the thorn in Labors side, and independents are the threat to the Coalition. Cathy McGowans win in the federal seat of Indi in 2013 was followed in 2014 by Suzanna Sheed taking Shepparton from the Nationals (by 2.6 per cent). This time three McGowan campaign workers are standing: Jacqui Hawkins in Benambra (Liberal , 9.7), Tammy Atkins in Ovens Valley (Nationals, 16.6) against embattled MP Tim McCurdy, and Michelle Dunscombe in Eildon. Add former local councillor Ali Cupper, who got within cooee last time in Mildura (Nationals, 8.0), and country regions with good reason to be dissatisfied, and those safe Nationals seats in northern Victoria dont look so safe anymore. The wicked problem In any election, concrete promises draw attention. New train lines, schools, roads. But the invisible infrastructure is also crucial; the laws that shape our response to thorny social issues. Family violence remains the primary law and order issue in Victoria: police are called to an incident in this state every seven minutes, according to Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Through a forensic process, the 2015 royal commission produced an exhaustive set of recommendations to tackle the wicked problem (as Commissioner Marcia Neave described it). But cultural change unfolds over years, decades even. The political attention span is much shorter. But political parties have begun to wake up to the importance of the issues that matter most to women voters, especially those aged between 35 and 49, who have proved prepared to switch their vote on these burning social issues: domestic violence and mental health. The biggest sticking point The most significant difference between the two major parties is their approach to the royal commissions recommendations. Premier Daniel Andrews and the late Minister for Women Fiona Richardson announce the terms of reference for the Royal Commission, alongside Fiona McCormack, CEO of Domestic Violence Victoria. Credit:Emma Morgan Labor has said, explicitly, it will support and fund them. This government has committed $2.6 billion dollars to family violence (more than any other state or territory, or the federal government). So far, 90 of the recommendations are complete or underway. The Greens also support implementing all the recommendations. But Liberal family violence spokesperson Georgie Crozier has said they might be a financial imposte and she would look for efficiencies that could be realised. Asked explicitly at the forum if she would back them, Ms Crozier said she would work through the detail if elected, with a focus on safety and supporting victims. Its a position that frustrates many in the family violence sector, including Domestic Violence Victoria head Fiona McCormack. We need to move away from a new approach every term of government. We wont address those family-violence related murders that way, Ms McCormack says. Liberal MP, shadow minister for women Georgie Crozier Credit:Jason South Mandatory sentences Both parties have pledged to introduce mandatory sentencing to tackle violent crime. The Liberals will extend these to family violence - offenders who contravene a family violence order would face a minimum term of two years, and those who persistently breach an order would be locked up for a minimum of three years. Everyone agrees perpetrators should be held to account, but the Law Council of Australia has consistently opposed mandatory sentencing, saying it places restrictions on judicial discretion, and there is no evidence that it reduces crime. Strangulation The risk of women being murdered dramatically increases if their partner or former partner attempts to strangle them. One study found the odds jumped by 800 per cent. The Liberals have backed a call from Victoria Police to create a new strangulation offense for family violence and sexual offenders, with perpetrators to get a six-year minimum jail term. Labor hasnt condemned the idea. A spokesperson for Minister Hutchins said the government would have more to say in the coming months. Queensland has introduced an offense for strangulation, with more than 700 persecutions last year. But its too early to tell if it has made a substantial difference to the safety of women. Intervention Orders The Liberals are backing a police push for powers to serve intervention orders on the spot when called to a family violence incident. But this raises the issue of misidentification, says Womens Legal Service senior policy lawyer Marianne Jago. Police unfamiliar with the dynamics of family violence can mistake victims who defend themselves as the primary aggressor. When it reviewed recent files, the Womens Legal Service found almost 60 per cent of clients who were named as the respondents to police intervention orders had been incorrectly identified as the perpetrator. Survivors Lara (not her real name) feels lucky to be alive after 20 years of marriage with a psychologically and physically abusive husband. She left the pre-election forum feeling disappointment and frustration. Sister Patricia Fox was smiling as she arrived in Melbourne, but the corners of her eyes filled with tears when she embraced old friends and family. The Australian nun was kicked out of the Philippines by President Rodrigo Duterte for protesting against human rights abuses. Sister Patricia, 79, was greeted with cheers from supporters at Melbourne Airport on Sunday morning. She had lived in the Philippines for 27 years. I mean I felt happy to be coming home because I have my family and friends in this community, but I was sad too ... it was really really hard leaving, she said. Athens: John Macris may have been killed by an Albanian contract killer as part of an escalating turf-war within the Greek mafia that has already resulted in six other murders in the capital since the start of the year. A funeral was held for Macris, a former Sydney underworld figure, on Sunday night at the Saint Nectarios Greek Orthodox Church where he had worshipped. Macris security business was hastily closed down. Credit:Latika Bourke. The 46-year-old's body will be flown to Australia for burial despite him having moved to Athens to set up a new life seven years ago. Greek press reported Johns father, 82-year-old Stelios, had returned to Australia for the burial. Fairfax Media can reveal Greek authorities were aware of Macris' notoriety and time spent in jail in Australia for commercial drug supply when he moved to the country at the start of the decade. Tel Aviv: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has joined the rest of the world in condemning the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But he doesn't want the controversy to shatter his country's quiet, emerging alliance with the kingdom against a common enemy, Iran. What happened at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month "was horrendous and should be duly dealt with," Netanyahu told reporters Friday in Bulgaria, his first public comments on the Khashoggi affair. "At the same time, it is very important for the stability of the world, for the region and for the world, that Saudi Arabia remain stable." Damascus: UN officials and volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent offered children vaccinations and distributed aid on Sunday, the first assistance since January to reach thousands of people in a remote refugee camp on Syria's border with Jordan. The remote Rukban camp was set up over three years ago and is home to nearly 50,000 people who have been stranded in limbo during the Syrian civil war. Fadwa Baroud of the United Nations Office of the Resident Coordinator said it was the first time a UN aid convoy had accessed the camp. Oter aid has been unreliable and intermittent. Before January, aid only reached the camp from Jordan and aid workers were barred from accessing the camp due to security concerns. Washington: Brent Taylor, the mayor of North Ogden, Utah, and a father of seven, was killed in action on Saturday while serving in Afghanistan as a member of the Army National Guard, officials confirmed. Killed in Afghanistan: North Ogden City mayor Brent Taylor. Credit:North Ogden City Taylor was killed in an apparent insider attack after a member of the Afghan security forces opened fire at a base in Kabul where foreign troops provide training to Afghan forces. The attack wounded another US service member. News of Taylor's death brought shock and grief to a Utah community in which he had served as mayor since 2013 and, before that, as a City Council member. "I hate this. I'm struggling for words," Utah Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox posted Saturday. "I love Mayor Taylor, his amazing wife Jennie and his 7 sweet kids. Utah weeps for them today. This war has once again cost us the best blood of a generation. We must rally around his family. Thank you for your sacrifice my friend." Washington: Two days before Election Day, the office for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is in a closely contested race for governor, announced on Sunday it was opening an investigation into the state Democratic Party for a "failed attempt to hack the state's voter registration system," a move Democrats slammed as a political stunt. Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp gives a thumbs-up as he greets the crowd during a rally in Dalton, Georgia. Credit:AP "After a failed attempt to hack the state's voter registration system, the Secretary of State's office opened an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia on the evening of Saturday, November 3, 2018," Kemp's office said in a statement. "Federal partners, including the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation, were immediately alerted." Further details about the nature of the alleged hack attempt or its connection to the Democratic Party were not provided. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size At this time of day, Virginia Hernandez, an 18-year old Humanities student at Miami Dade College, would normally be in class. But today her professor dismissed the students early, telling them they had a more important place to be: a get-out-the-vote rally at the college's North Campus. So Hernandez and her friends are outside in the sun on this sweltering, soupy mid-October morning, for a lesson in democratic participation. Miami Dade, one of the biggest universities in the country, is an open-admission college, meaning anyone with a high school diploma can attend. Most students are black or Hispanic, and come from low-income families. Students on the North Campus specialise in cinematography, biology and funeral service education (there's even an on-site embalming laboratory and casket display room). The buildings are all grey concrete and harsh lines, reflecting the brutalist style popular in the 1960s. Softening the scene are rows of palm trees and a man-made lake, a favourite place for iguanas to bask in the sun. Dozens of the creatures some fat and orange, with spikes running down their spines; others lithe and green luxuriate by the water. Signs warn not to feed them: they can bite. Enrol to vote: students campaign to get their classmates engaged in Miami. Credit:Jorge Martinez Advertisement Today is the last day to register to vote in Florida before the November 6 midterm elections, and the university is going all-out to ensure that as many students as possible get their names on the electoral roll. Making voting cool is a hard ask, but they're giving it a red-hot go: a DJ is playing Drake and Rihanna, and food trucks serve free pizza and Cuban sandwiches. Loading The next challenge is convincing the students to cast a ballot. Voter turnout among young Americans is usually abysmal, especially in midterm elections. In the most recent midterms, in 2014, just 16 per cent of Americans aged between 18 and 29 voted compared to 55 per cent of those aged over 60. This is a big deal, campus president Malou Harris exhorts from a podium, reminding the students that previous generations risked their lives for the right to vote. This election is a game changer! Asked what the biggest issue is for them in their first election, Virginia Hernandez and classmate David Turino respond instantly: guns. There should be more restrictions there have to be background checks, it should be harder to buy a gun on the black market, Hernandez says. Speaking to other students here, they say the same thing for them, ending America's love affair with guns is the animating issue this election. Advertisement A gun shop on every corner: Miami. Credit:Jorge Martinez Nicknamed the Gunshine State, Florida has some of the loosest gun laws in America. Walking around Little Havana in downtown Miami, you see pawn stores everywhere displaying pistols, rifles and shotguns beside gold necklaces and stereo speakers. A big reason is the aggressive lobbying of the National Rifle Association (NRA), led in Florida by the organisation's "first lady of freedom" Marion Hammer, who has worked for decades pressuring the state's politicians to enact gun-friendly legislation. In 2016, there were 2700 deaths by firearm in Florida, more than the total recorded in Australia over the past decade. It is also the site of some of the country's deadliest mass shootings. Forty-nine people were gunned down at a gay nightclub in Orlando in 2016. And in February this year, 17 people were killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a 40-minute drive from Miami Dade College. It is impossible to overestimate how numb most Americans had become to the regularity of mass shootings at the time of the Parkland shooting. We dont want your f---ing thoughts and prayers, we want you to do something. Advertisement When a gunman opened fire at a music festival in Las Vegas last October, killing 58 people, former congressman Steve Israel wrote an opinion article in The New York Times the next day headlined: Nothing Will Change After the Las Vegas Shooting. In the piece, he laid blame with the NRA and the Republican Party but also the general public. Youve become inoculated, he said, addressing readers. Youll watch or listen to the news and shake your head then flip to another channel or another app. This horrific event will recede into our collective memory. He was right. Just days after the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in US history, gun control faded from the headlines. Congress passed no legislation to stop a similar massacre happening again. But after Parkland, something changed. The students who survived the attack harnessed their grief to create a national student movement dedicated to preventing gun violence. Emma Gonzalez yells, "We call BS!" at a rally for gun safety after the Parkdale shootings. Credit:Alamy It started the night after the shooting, when a small group of Parkland students got together and came up with the name Never Again, which soon became a trending hashtag on Twitter. At a rally the week after the shooting Senior student Emma Gonzalez shot to national attention with her blistering we call BS speech. Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS, she said. Advertisement At a town hall meeting broadcast live on CNN, surviving students and the parents of victims confronted Republican Senator Marco Rubio and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch in what has been described as one of the TV events of the year. You've become inoculated. This horrific event will recede into our collective memory. The month after the shooting the students organised the March for Our Lives, a rally in Washington DC that drew between 1.2 and 2 million people, making it one of the largest protests in American history. In the lead up to the midterms, the Parkland students embarked upon a 20-state bus tour with two clear goals: enrolling as many first-time voters as possible and making gun safety a top-tier election issue. Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2018. Credit:AP Robert Spitzer, author of The Politics of Gun Control, says Parkland was a turning point in the US gun safety debate. This was the first time high-school students themselves seized the moment and said, 'Were sick and tired of the government doing nothing', he said. Advertisement Noumea: A majority of voters in the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia have chosen to remain part of France instead of backing independence, election officials announced Sunday as French President Emmanuel Macron promised a full dialogue on the region's future. A man casts his vote at a polling station in Noumea, New Caledonia. Credit:AP The decision to keep ties with France was a watershed moment for the archipelago that lies east of Australia and has sun-kissed lagoons and a strong nickel mining industry. The independence referendum itself was a milestone in New Caledonia's three-decades-long decolonisation process, which was borne out of deep resentment by the region's native Kanaks of decades of ill treatment by their European coloniser. WASHINGTON Vice President Mike Pence recently was asked by Washington Post reporter Robert Costa: "What will the Space Force do?" In his response, Pence did not run down a list of duties that might be assigned to the new military branch. But he did comment extensively on why he and the president feel strongly that a Space Force should be established. It all started on the campaign trail in 2016, Pence recalled. "The president and I had a conversation about his interests in really reviving American leadership in space, and particularly when it came to human space exploration. And we both shared a concern that while America continues to be dominant in space, in terms of technology, in terms of our accomplishments, that we were losing momentum in recent years; that America had essentially been consigned to low-Earth orbit, and we actually off-lined our own platforms when we grounded the shuttle program," said Pence. "The president saw all of that as intolerable." [Presidential Visions for Space Exploration: From Ike to Trump] Trump's initial focus was on NASA and the civilian space mission, and along the way, he said, "it became very clear to us that it's absolutely essential that America remained as dominant in space, from a national security perspective, as we are on the Earth. And that's where the president conceived of the idea of a Space Force." "Does that mean adding weapons to space?" Costa asked, echoing a frequent criticism that a Space Force would accelerate the militarization of outer space. Pence insisted that human space exploration is a civilian operation done by NASA and "that's what we want it to be." But the president also believes that "making sure that we have the security in space to advance human space exploration is the underpinning of the Space Force." Vice President Mike Pence addresses the National Space Council. (Image credit: NASA) Pence again explained that the Space Force is "part of the president's vision for really reinvigorating American leadership in space and once again lead in human exploration." He said Trump believes that by standing up a new military department, "that will ensure American security in space, even as we lead the world farther and faster into the vast beyond." It was made clear from Pence's statements that the administration regards the Space Force and returning to the Moon as pieces of the larger puzzle of American leadership in space. This view, however, is not how other Space Force proponents have framed the issue. A December 2017 white paper by the Office of Management and Budget titled "OMB Report on the Leadership, Management and Organization of the Department of Defense's Space Activities" argued for the consolidation of disparate and scattered authorities in national security space to ensure there is accountability. OMB also argued that an independent service for space was the answer to the "conflict of interest" that exists in the Air Force with responsibilities for both air and space programs. The themes of the OMB report appear in the rhetoric of Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Rogers led a legislative push to stand up a Space Corps within the Department of the Air Force and has become an ardent supporter of Trump's Space Force idea. But civilian space concerns were never part of Rogers' rationale for spinning off a new military branch. In his first extensive comments on the subject at the 2017 Space Symposium, Rogers called out the Air Force's management of space as the central problem, and alleged that space budgets were being being short-changed as rival powers step up developments of anti-satellite weapons. DoD needs an independent voice for space, Rogers argued, and he objected to the secretary of the Air Force being dual-hatted as the Pentagon's principal space adviser. "Does anyone think there might be a conflict of interest between space and the other mission priorities of the Air Force?" Rogers asked. "National security space is competing with other service priorities." Rogers pushed legislation last year that removed the job of principal space advisor from the Air Force secretary. Another strong backer of the Space Force is former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Doug Loverro. Like Rogers, he has made the case for a new service first and foremost because space does not get proper attention in the current organization. "When the Chinese shot down their own satellite in 2007, both Air Force and non-Air Force leaders throughout the Pentagon could be heard saying that there was no way to defend space, and that we should move to non-space alternatives," Loverro wrote in a SpaceNews op-ed. A key reason why a separate service is needed, he said, is because "space is not part of the Air Force identity." Different priorities in civilian, military space Neither Rogers nor Loverro has raised civilian space concerns in their arguments for a Space Force. And that is how it should be, contends Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a supporter of a separate service for space. "I think it's important for people to remember why we separated civil and national security space in the first place," Harrison told SpaceNews. "Civil space is focused on science and exploration. It is something we do in partnership with other nations, friends and foes alike, for the benefit of all. National security space is focused on protecting our security interests and those of our allies and partners." The Space Force debate, said Harrison, is about "how we should organize, train, and equip our national security space forces to most effectively protect our security interests here on Earth. It should not be conflated with space exploration or the commercial development of space." Loverro told SpaceNews that the vice president talks about the issue in terms that resonate with the public. By framing the space discussion as a return to the glory days of American space exploration, Pence is speaking "in a language that more Americans understand," Loverro said. "They don't understand what the DoD does in space so the appeal towards exploration and commercial endeavors puts it in terms they understand." It's also worth remembering from history that "the military made the seas safe for exploration and commercialization. Even in fiction, such as Star Trek, the military linkage to exploration is clear. So while that may not be the nearest term impact of a Space Force, it is not entirely inconsistent with historical analysis to link the two." In the interview with Costa, Pence suggested that casting civilian and military space goals under the wide umbrella of U.S. leadership in space makes the message more appealing. "I think millions of Americans, whatever their politics, would agree that somewhere along the way we lost our vision and our passion for leadership in space," he said. "And the president's call for a renewal of our commitment to human space exploration, a return to the moon, reaching out at Mars, the establishment of a Space Force, I think that taps into that American aspiration that we are in a very real sense, a nation of pioneers. I think the American people are excited to see us do that again." The administration official who would oversee a new military branch, Defense Secretary James Mattis, said on Tuesday that the Space Force would have both defensive and offensive missions. Speaking at the United States Institute of Peace with former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Mattis said the Space Force would be charged to protect military satellites, including those like GPS that support the civilian economy. "We have to defend what we have in outer space that is used for navigation, communication, peaceful purposes, commerce, banking all these kinds of things," Mattis said. "But we're going to have to be prepared to use offensive weapons in space should someone decide to militarize it and go on the offensive. You cannot simply play defense. No competitive sport in the world can just play defense and win." A spokesperson for the National Space Council said in a statement to SpaceNews that the vice president in recent media interviews "has taken the opportunity to convey the breadth of President Trump's space efforts from before day one of the administration to today. These efforts include: growing space commerce and streamlining burdensome, outdated regulations; energizing our civil space exploration efforts to push beyond low Earth orbit and return to the Moon; and ensuring military space superiority by establishing the Space Force." These are "separate lines of effort that are all part of achieving the administration's goal of U.S. leadership in space a priority that President Trump and Vice President Pence are deeply committed to." This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. The Obliged was written by Geraldine Inoa and was directed by Rosemary Rodriguez. Inoa joined the writers room under new showrunner Angela Kang and has no other writing credits on IMDb. The episode is Ricks (Andrew Lincoln) penultimate episode and features two powerful scenes between Lincoln and Norman Reedus (Daryl) best friends on camera and on set. There are some excellent goodbye scenes and some interesting debates over motives and the future for a number of different characters. Overall, I liked this episode even more on a second watch.In a nice parallel to last weeks opening of Ricks morning, we get Michonnes (Danai Gurira) typical day. She cares for Judith (Chloe Garcia-Frizzi), looks after the running of Alexandria, and the sick, but shes still not able to sleep at night because her katana is calling to her. At night, Michonne lets her inner warrior out and keeps her edge by going out and killing walkers. This is also a nice call back to when they all first arrived at Alexandria and Carl and the others would sneak out to kill walkers. It also gives us some beautiful scenes with Gurira and that katana which are like dance. Finally, this explains the mysterious substance on Michonnes arm in the opening of the last episode that she wipes off as Rick comes in the room walker blood.In the final part of the opening, we get a somewhat heavy handed reminder of the two types of justice that Michonne is fighting against when she comes upon a walker who has been hung like Gregory. As she ponders him, shes attacked by another walker and drops the katana. She manages to pick up a bat that just happens to be lying around and kills the walker. Of course, none of us can see a bloody bat and not think about Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Glen. It gives Michonne pause about her nocturnal rambles.This is a perfect transition, of course to the next scene. Back at Hilltop, Maggie (Lauren Cohen) looks out at all shes accomplished after handing Hershel to his care giver shes a working Mom after all. Shes determined to finally get her revenge for Glen. She, no doubt, believes that this will be an end to it but wasnt hanging Gregory just the beginning of a return to violence?Jesus (Tom Payne) brings Maggie another letter from Georgie as Maggie packs to go carry out her mission. Does anyone doubt that Maggie will take Georgie up on her offer because shell realize that the only way for her to truly break this cycle of violence and create a better world for Hershel which Glen would have wanted will be to go and work with Georgie at least for a while? Maggie tells Jesus shell read the letter later but hes not stupid.Maggie asks him to keep looking after things at Hilltop for her while she goes to make things right. And Jesus asks like Gregory? Maggie insists that shes not asking Jesus to agree with her, and he tells her that there was a time that he did. I was a bit surprised that Jesus agreed that Negan deserved to die. However, his biggest criticism is people making calls that arent theirs to make with no consultation with anyone else. Rick for Negan and Maggie for Gregory. Jesus sees both as wrong because he just wants to be sure that Maggie isnt wrong in the same way that Rick was and he wants to make sure that Maggie doesnt regret what she does.It becomes clear pretty quickly that a lot of people know what Maggie is about to do and support her. Diane (Kerry Cahill) who we havent seen much of this year yet is waiting with the horses to accompany Maggie. When Rick tries to stop Maggie from getting to Negan, the relays know what Maggie is about to do and dont alert Alexandria or Michonne.At the bridge the metaphor for Ricks new world the water is rising and there seems to be no hope. The water, of course, is a metaphor for the violence of the world about to sweep away the beginnings of a new civilization. Eugene (Josh McDermitt) briefs Rick that mother nature has served them up some whoop ass and taken out the upstream levee. It is always a joy to listen to Eugenes dialogue but I do think that this season, it is in danger of becoming a parody of itself. Everyone is leaving the project not wanting to work with each other anymore and Eugene has little hope that they can save the bridge with their reduced numbers.I did adore the fact that Eugene has named the herds for Shakespeare characters much the way meteorologists name hurricanes, though much cooler. He tells Rick that the two herds that theyve been tracking Tybalt and Cordelia are on parallel courses a nice foreshadowing to when they arent at the end of the episode. I also loved Eugene calling the Complete Shakespeare The Great Book. The look on Ricks face is priceless as Eugene explains that his big relief past the camp being safe if the herds didnt merge was that any portmanteau of the two names didnt sound good!Eugene also apologizes for not having been able to do more. Hes clearly beating himself up and says maybe if hed just read more books. And we get the first of Ricks obvious good bye scenes. He tells Eugene not to do that not to beat himself up or diminish his own importance to the group. Rick tells him hes not just some guy who read a lot of books. He tells Eugene that he made something and got them this far. He gives Eugene the pep talk that Eugene needs.Rick next moves on to Carol (Melissa McBride). She tells him shes taking her people home to the Kingdom. Rick is concerned about the Kingdom. Carol tells Rick that shes sent Alden (Callan McAuliffe) to head off the group that left and bring them back to the camp. However, its clear to Carol that the time has come for the Sanctuary people to decide for themselves who they want to be and of course, Carol, who Rick points out also had to decide who she wanted to be, is the perfect person to have recognized this in the group. She assures Rick that while they dont want them in charge anymore, they also clearly dont want Negan. Carol reminds Rick that they all had to figure out who they wanted to be.Rick worries they might not be doing the right thing, but if anyone gives him hope for how things work out, its Carol. She assures him that shes still trying to figure things out. Carol also apologizes to Rick she really wanted it to work. Rick is clearly more emotional when talking to Carol and I suspect that Lincoln was also struggling with saying goodbye to long time cast members. After all, only three from the first season now remain soon to be two.Jerry (Cooper Andrews) comes in with a message from Jesus that Maggie is on her way to Alexandria. Daryl is no doubt waiting to hear this and offers to give Rick a ride on his motorcycle which will be faster than Ricks horse.Back at Alexandria, Michonne who is looking after Judith and is also a working Mom receives her daily report from Nora (Tamara Austin). Michonne clearly doesnt look forward to these updates. The news about the tomato crops is bad they cant stop the crows, and apparently this will start to be a theme this year. As the world rebalances with fewer humans, other things like huge flocks of birds start to be a problem. The other bad news is that Negan is apparently on a hunger strike. Michonne offers a solution for the crops and takes on feeding Negan his lunch as her responsibility.As Daryl misses the turn for Alexandria, we get a nice shot of the cement with exposed rebars that is going to be a factor later. Rick immediately tells Daryl that hes going the wrong way another nice metaphor for Daryls moral journey. Daryl does pull over almost as soon as he asks. He then tells Rick he made sure that the message didnt go through. The two begin fighting and end up in a giant hole their relationship is truly at its lowest point. Truly, the metaphors are really not subtle.Michonne brings Negan his lunch and tells him that the hunger strike ends today. Negan insists that hes just not in the mood to eat. Negan wants Michonne to stay and talk. He reminds her that hes proof that they are making civilization at least thats what Rick says. He knows hes an important symbol for them. Michonne tells him that shell stay for 20 minutes. Negan knows his own powers of persuasion or his power to get under peoples skin.Rick is frantic to get out and accuses Daryl of putting them in the hole on purpose. But of course, Daryl wouldnt have endangered their lives its why he stopped before Rick could jump off the bike. Daryl just wanted to keep Rick out of the way but Rick tries to explain the importance of Negan staying alive exactly the point that Negan just made to Michonne. But Daryl is more focused on the importance of killing Negan to Maggie.Once again, we get a re-iteration of where this all began. Daryl reminds Rick that he wouldnt even be alive if it werent for Glen Rick wouldnt have found Lori or Carl and so on. And Daryl gets to have first crack at saying fuck on the show when he tells Rick that without Glen, Rick sure as fuck wouldnt have found any of them. Rick, of course, thinks about Glen and the debt he owes him every day. But in the end, the course Rick is following is the one that Glen himself would have endorsed. Rick is also sorry every damn day about what he took from Maggie but hes also given her something.This is such a powerful scene between these two wonderful actors. Rick is surprised at how much Daryl wants Negan dead. Rick points out that Daryl let Dwight live after what he did to him. Daryl says what? Keeping him in a closet and parading him around so he couldnt talk. Is Daryl repressing the horror of his incarceration or has he really come to terms with it? Is it not his personal trauma that he wants vengeance for but the death of his friend at Negans hand?Rick and Daryl differ completely in the symbol that Negan provides. Daryl sees it as hope for those who want to see Ricks civilization fail. Negan isnt dead, so they could regain the upper hand. Rick was sure that Maggie was coming around, and Daryl concedes that she was trying, but she just couldnt live with it like Oceanside. Rick is shocked to learn that Oceanside killed the Saviors. And Rick is shocked that Daryl is ok with Oceanside executing the Saviors and didnt tell him. Daryl admits that he was ok with it.Rick tells Daryl that the war will be for nothing if Maggie kills Negan because he becomes a martyr. Every person who died, died for nothing including Carl. Daryl asks about the rest of them and whether after all the shit theyve been through maybe they couldnt handle it. Daryl points out that Rick keeps asking them to have faith in all these other people but he feels that Rick doesnt have enough faith in them. In their core group. Rick is shocked and denies it. Daryl tells him that hed die for Rick and he would have died for Carl but he has to listen to him. Daryl tells Rick that hes chasing something for Carl that aint meant to be. He tells Rick to just let Carl go.Rick points out that he never asked anyone to follow him. Daryl tells him that he knows but maybe he should have. It would have opened a dialogue as Jesus suggested Maggie do. This scene was such a master class in acting as the two actors brought the intensity, but also knew when to step back from that. I loved the passion of Lincoln speaking of Carl and the way Reedus took the intensity down to Daryls laconic intensity.Gurira and Morgan also knock it out of the park with their conversation and set us up for their continuing interactions. Negan sees a kindred warrior in Michonne. Michonne denies that shes trapped running Alexandria while Rick is out with his merry band having all the fun. She tells him that she has everything the potential of the future while he is rotting in his prison cell. And in case you still missed the connection to last weeks opening as she pushes off the bars of his cell, she wipes her arm in exactly the same place she wiped off the blood in last weeks opening scene. Negan has hit a nerve she does feel like shes being constrained by her new role and she is fighting against it.Negan tries a different tactic and starts talking about his wife who hes glad cant see him now and who was an angel. It has the desired effect on Michonne who goes from insulting Negan to actual sympathy over his wifes death from cancer as it turns out. And Negan knows Michonnes other weak spot Carl. He starts by saying that he and his wife would have loved to have had a kid a kid like Carl. That gets Michonne admitting that she thinks about Carl every damn day. A nice echo of Rick and Glen. And why they are both committed to keeping Negan in the cell.Negan the perceptive bastard realizes that Carl wasnt Michonnes first child. She seems to realize what hes doing and gets defensive telling him he has 10 minutes left to eat his lunch. Michonne stupidly tells Negan her sons name was Andre and he just didnt make it. Negan compares Andre to his wife it was a good thing because they were weak. Negan knows his wife made him not weak hes not stupid enough to say hes strong he remains seemingly subservient and passive, the better to get under Michonnes defenses. Again, he compares himself to her. Neither of them are made to be contained by walls they need to be out there. Its like an addiction. Michonne dumps Negans lunch proving hes hit a nerve when he tells her that shes glad Andre is gone because he would have made her weak.We get back to the junkyard and Jadis (Polly McIntosh) has Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) tied up with wire, of course. She tenderly wipes his face, and then as he wakes up, shes got another walker on a stick ready for him. He tries to tell her she doesnt have to do it, but she insists theres only one option left to her. Gabriel is the price of admission.Gabriel insists that he knows her shes afraid, but shes changed. Anne insists that she hasnt changed the way he did. She hasnt opened her heart to let others in. Gabriel insists it wasnt him it was others doing it. I loved the way this episode had these parallel scenes between characters which examine how and why the characters change and their views and hopes for the future. Gabriel insists that hes a better person because of her and he takes the blame for what shes about to do. Gabriel realizes that he pushed her away because he was afraid and then he tells her that he forgives her for whatever she has to do and hopes shell forgive him one day. In the end, she cant do it and pulls the walker back at the last minute and knocks Gabriel out again.Back at the camp, Carol is packing everything up. Shes hoping to make it to the Kingdom by nightfall, but naturally, Jed (Rhys Coiro) is back with Aldens gun and a bunch of other Saviors. Carol is backed up by Beatrice (Briana Venskus) and the others still at the camp. Im really hoping that Alden who wasnt as fast as Carol isnt dead! Jed knows that Oceanside has been killing them and its war. Jed calls Carol a weak little woman who got in a lucky shot and Carol actually drops her gun and steps aside! Jed takes the keys and Carol takes him down. We hear shots but never really see what transpires at the camp.Michonne goes back to work but cant keep thinking about what Negan said her eyes stray from her legal books to her katana and then she goes back with lunch part two. Michonne asks why he said what he said. He denies that he was trying to piss her off of course, he wasnt. He wants to get under her skin and manipulate her. She wants to know why he said what he did why he cares what she thinks. He tells her that she never comes down its always Rick or someone else. Michonne wants to know why that matters. He tells her that they are the same its all or nothing, and shes as trapped as he is. Negan insists that they are connected to the dead in the same way, and she cant stand that they are the same. Michonne denies that they are. She tells him that they do what they have to to get shit done, but he gets a kick out of it, and she tries every day to make things better, to bring people together not pit them against each other. She admits that she sacrifices and compromises. She admits that she takes strength from the dead but she lives for the living, and she makes no apologies. She acknowledges the deaths of her sons, but insists that the world will be better for her daughter and every other person who comes into it.Negan sees that Michonne isnt scared that she is him, but that shell end up like him with everyone she loves and cares about gone. Michonne finally realizes that Negan is desperately trying to connect with her. He tells her that theres nothing worse than nothing. Michonne tells him that as long as hes breathing, its not nothing. She tells him his time is up one way or another, hes eating. He takes one bite and then he asks about Lucille! He knows that the katana is the same for Michonne. But Michonne has hung her katana up at least during the day. Its there to inspire her, but it doesnt control her.Michonne realizes that the entire conversation was about her being his best hope to get to at least see Lucille. Michonne tells him that they dont have the bat. Lucille has been abandoned where Negan dropped her. And then Negan completely loses it and starts bashing his head into the cinderblock wall!Daryl and Rick hear the shots and start frantically trying to get out of the hole just before it starts raining walkers on their heads. Daryl takes care of the walkers as Rick tries to climb out and then Daryl piles up the dead walkers as a way to get out. As they get higher, the pit fills with walkers trying to pull them back down.Rick makes it out first. The coast is mostly clear but more walkers are coming. He tells Daryl to hurry and then reaches down for him, encouraging his brother to take his hand. Daryl has to trust Rick to save him as he lets go of his handholds. Rick has saved Daryls life again. Rick refuses to leave hes going to lead the herd away from the camp. Daryl tells him to lead the walkers to the bridge it isnt going to hold anyway. But Rick refuses to sacrifice the bridge either. All of these last words will sit with Daryl we know they will. Daryls last words to Rick are Be safe. And then the two ride off on their respective mounts. I have to wonder how long it took for them to find a white horse for RickGabriel wakes up to find Anne gone. Shes left a note pinned to the inside of his jacket: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I need to go fast. She leaves Gabriel alone and in tears. But will she go alone? The only way out that I can see for Rick is if the helicopter picks him up as Annes A. Which is a throwback to the rail car in Terminus tooMichonne is reading Game Day to Judith when she suddenly turns the page to see a bat. She asks Judith for a kiss, but shes thoughtful in the quiet moment. Meanwhile, Maggie and Diane come across Michonnes kills on their way to Alexandria.Once again, Rick on horseback just like in the first season, turns a corner to be confronted by an unexpected herd hes lead Tybalt to Cordelia. But unlike the first season, when the horse rears and Rick falls off, the horse gets away and Rick is spiked onto a rebar like a shish kabob for the walkers.This was a nicely written episode with lots of parallel scenes. The acting was stellar throughout especially Andrew Lincoln with Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus. I was a little worried about Michonne falling under the spell of Negan, but while both revealed a lot about themselves, I trust Michonne to be the smarter of the two at the end of the day. Im still not convinced the show has legs without either Andrew Lincoln or Chandler Riggs, but theres no denying that Gurira, Reedus, and McBride have the acting ability necessary. What did you think of the episode? Are you committed to continue with the show after the next episode? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! New York, November 3, 2018 (SPS) - Calls for support for the self-determination of the Sahrawi people were numerous on Wednesday at the United Nations Security Council where the majority of delegations reiterated unequivocally their support for the inalienable right of the Sahrawis to self-determination. The US delegation to the UN, which was the first to speak after the vote on the resolution extending the mandate of MINURSO, referred to "a new approach" by the United States to resolve the conflict, saying that there can no longer be "Business as Usual" with Minurso and Western Sahara. A key element: the American declaration made public just after the adoption of the resolution makes no reference to the Moroccan autonomy plan and is in line with their position expressed in October during the work of the Fourth Committee on Decolonization. namely, "let the colonial peoples freely determine the political status of their territories". In a message to France and Morocco, the United States "warned against any idea (that can make believe) that the finish line was crossed". "The political process is just beginning," said the US diplomat, while the representative of France already mentioned "a positive dynamic that must be built" to justify his request to extend the mandate of the Minurso a year. What is certain, the Geneva process will be under the watchful eye of the US administration that will monitor closely the progress and results. More affirmatively, Jonathan Cohen said that the Geneva meeting will not be "a single event" but the beginning of a process for the settlement of the conflict. The Security Council "will not let Minurso and Western Saraha fall into oblivion," he promised. The request of the Security Council and Washington for the relaunch of the political process is expressly addressed to Morocco, which has so far undermined all initiatives to resume negotiations. The Polisario Front, for its part, has repeatedly reaffirmed its willingness to participate in the settlement process without preconditions. Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Bolivia and many other delegations reaffirmed their support for a solution granting Sahrawis the right to speak about the future of their territory. Sweden, which voted in favor of the resolution, welcomed the resumption of negotiations, which will begin in early December in Geneva. His representative, Irina Schoulgin Nyoni, said her country would like to contribute to ending the status quo in Western Sahara. "Resolution 2414 has paved the way for the resumption of the UN-sponsored political process, while today's 2440 maintains positive momentum with the resumption of direct negotiations," said Irina Schoulgin Nyoni. "The ultimate goal () is to achieve a just, lasting, mutually acceptable political solution that allows the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara," she added, asserting that "this ultimate goal remains as relevant as ever". Before the Security Council, the representative of Sweden recalled that the question of Western Sahara has so far suffered "a lack of attention and political will". "This is no longer the case today, the opportunity is given to resolve one of the most protracted conflicts on the agenda of the United Nations," she said. "The United Kingdom supports the work of Personal Envoy Horst Kohler and focuses on the progress made towards achieving a lasting, mutually acceptable solution that provides for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara," said its representative to the UN. Speaking at the meeting, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the international community and the Security Council should "contribute to the success of the process launched by Mr. Horst Kohler. This is a unique chance to advance the settlement of the Western Sahara issue, "he insisted. "Ethiopia continues to say that the solution to this dispute must be based on a mutually acceptable political solution, respecting the right to self-determination enshrined in the United Nations Charter. Only the implementation of this right can help get out of the crisis," said its representative, Taye Atske Selassie. However, Ethiopia abstained from voting because the remarks made by its delegation were not taken into account by the United States, he said. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA A bill adopted by the Japanese government on Friday to widen the scope of accepting foreign workers from April 2019 is aimed at easing serious labor shortages in various sectors and thus removing a hindrance to economic growth. The bill also suggests the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took into consideration requests from industry organizations, with an eye on a House of Councillors election next summer, because stable support for the Cabinet is greatly propped up by good economic conditions. "It has become very difficult to secure employees in such fields as nursing care and construction. It is becoming a serious factor in the impediment on [economic] growth," Abe said during Friday's meeting of the House of Representatives' Budget Committee as he stressed the significance of widening the acceptance of foreign workers. While there are strong concerns within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner Komeito, it was Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the prime minister's right-hand man, who led the government to change its stance. Suga had been briefed about labor shortages in the nursing care industry, and started to examine the issue as a secret policy task last autumn. He was also prompted by the fact that labor shortages have become conspicuous in the construction sector, among other fields, ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. At first, the government ministries and agencies concerned held cautious views out of worries over a possible deterioration of public safety and adverse affects on the employment of Japanese. However, Suga is believed to have pushed through the plan to accept more foreign workers. Thanks to Suga's efforts, Abe called for detailed discussions on the issue at a February meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. In June, the plan was incorporated into the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform, known as the "big-boned policy." Some political pundits say the move is aimed at garnering votes for elections. The government is considering accepting foreign workers in 14 fields, such as agriculture, nursing care and construction, in response to requests and petitions from those industry groups. "[Abe] probably wants to do a favor for the business circle and industry organizations concerned, with an eye on unified local elections next spring and a House of Councillors election next summer," a senior LDP official said. The focus of discussions from now on will be on how many foreign workers should be accepted. Prior to Friday's Cabinet meeting to approve the bill, the LDP's Judicial Affairs Division adopted a resolution demanding the government decide a basic stance "by coordinating with the LDP." The government did not include in the bill specific figures about the scope of accepting foreign workers. Instead, it intends to include a number for the labor shortage in each industry in an ordinance for the bill. With his hippie pigtails and smart suits, Steve DeAngelo perfectly embodies the split in todays cannabis industry. Hes an old-school activist and advocate who joined the cannabis reform movement in the 1970s, attending July Fourth smoke-ins in front of the White House and traveling the country to spread the word on the healing powers of weed. But hes also a canny businessman with an expert read on the marketplace, which led him to begin with a profitable hemp company and later open Harborside Health Center, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the world, which went public on the Canadian stock market with a valuation of $150 million. His most recent venture is Arcview Group, an angel investment company focused on cannabis entrepreneurs. Here, he talks about where the industry is, where its going and what entrepreneurs can do to get in on the so-called Green Rush. Related: 7 Hottest Jobs in the Cannabis Industry Right Now Is it really true that you were born at 4:20 pm? It is. Its on my birth certificate. Keep in mind I was born in 1958, quite some time before 420 was established as a code for cannabis. I like to say that I dont know how Mom managed to pull that off, but I will be eternally grateful to her for that. Where do you see the cannabis industry going in the next three to five years? Were seeing a trend away from raw flowers, away from the smoked-format cannabis products toward socially discreet and convenient product formats -- cartridges, vape stands, little breath mints, transdermal skin patches, tinctures. Were also seeing the development of cannabis tourism. One of the big problems in Denver and Las Vegas is that the hotel chains dont want people to smoke cannabis in the rooms, and they have been imposing very serious fines. You cant smoke in the nightclubs, you cant in restaurants, on the sidewalks, in the parks. So what happens? People come from out of town and go to cannabis shops, and theyve never had cannabis before. They cant smoke anywhere, so they buy edibles and then they overconsume the edibles. And everybody has a bad experience. If youre inviting tourists into this legal state and letting them go into shops and buy weed, you need to give them someplace to consume it safely. Related: Where to Find Funding for a Cannabis Business What advice do you give people trying to enter the industry? Every weekend, somewhere in the country theres a cannabis event of some type -- conferences and conventions. The industry is still small enough that you can meet people like me when you go to these things. You can also join an organization like the National Cannabis Industry Association or one of its state subsidiaries, like the California Cannabis Industry Association. These organizations have inexpensive memberships that will entitle you to receive newsletters and go to events. Youre obviously a cannabis consumer. Do you need to use it to succeed in this business? No, but it is a requirement to understand the product, your consumers and the market. Ive seen a lot of people who were successful in other businesses approach cannabis with a kind of contemptuous attitude, using packaging thats oriented toward the typical image of the stoner. You also have the traditional business guy looking at investing. Somebody who wants their money will give them an incredibly optimistic spreadsheet saying they can invest $100,000 and make $5 million in a year. In a normal circumstance, a businessperson would drill down and ask serious questions. That doesnt happen in cannabis. People assume you can make tons of money. Its a fear of missing out. What I hear all the time is I missed out on the internet boom, and Im not going to miss out on this one. But just like every other business, eight out of 10 cannabis businesses go belly-up. Do you think cannabis will be legal in the U.S. in five years? I do. There is legislation pending in Congress called the STATES Act that will allow states to make up their own mind, and the federal government will no longer interfere. I expect that to pass in 2019 or 2020. Youll see a big move into cannabis by U.S. pharmaceuticals at that point. What does that mean for small-business owners? Eventually, cannabis will be a mature industry, and the barriers to entry will be higher. But we are not anywhere close to that happening yet. In my view, when we have larger or more mainstream companies coming in, it dials down the stigma and advances legal reform. Related: 100 Cannabis Leaders of 2018 Small cannabis businesses need to understand their strengths and weaknesses. There are things large cannabis businesses cannot do. For example, at my farm in the Salinas Valley, Im not going to plant a 56,000-square-foot greenhouse with a strain of cannabis I dont know. My loss will be too high if its not a winner. But a guy whos growing a couple thousand cannabis plants can put in 10 or 15 or 100 of something hes never grown before, and if it turns out great, hes got a winner. Then he can bring that winner to me, Ill pick it up, and there will be a beneficial system for everybody down the supply chain. Related: The Most Experienced Guy In Cannabis Has a Warning for You Are California's 'Pot Deserts' About to Get Greener? This Is the Key to Real Growth in Cannabis Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved T he 17-year-old boy who was stabbed to death outside Clapham South Tube station has been named as Malcolm Mide-Madariola. The Met named college student Malcolm, from Peckham, on Sunday afternoon as its murder investigation continued. Malcolm was knifed outside the station on Friday afternoon. He later died of his injuries in hospital. The lead cop in the investigation said there had been an "altercation" between two groups of boys a few minutes before the stabbing. No arrests have been made. A message left at the scene of the stabbing / Tom Horton/PA Flowers and tributes have been left for Macolm near the south-west London station where he was attacked. A friend, who is also 17 and did not want to be named, described him on Saturday as a "sweet" young man with ambitions. She said: "He was sweet and nice and he always used to message me if he knew I was sad." He is believed to be a student at a college near to the scene where he was attacked. A police cordon near Clapham South station on Saturday / Tom Horton/PA Malcolm's killing at about 4.35pm on Friday came less than a day after 15-year-old Jay Hughes was pounced on in a "premeditated attack" near a chicken shop in Bellingham, south-east London. Meanwhile, a man believed to be aged 22 was fatally stabbed in Anerley, south-east London, at about 12.30pm on Sunday. Det Ch Insp John Massey, of the homicide and major crime command, said: The stabbing in Balham Hill [where the station is located] followed an altercation a few minutes earlier involving two small groups of young males near to Clapham South Underground station. However, I dont believe anyone involved had travelled on the Tube. There were a large number of people present when emergency services arrived at the scene, and although many have come forward, I want to ensure that we have spoken to all potential witnesses. If you were in the area and saw anything suspicious, in particular if you saw an altercation or anything suspicious on Friday afternoon near to Clapham South station, then please call the incident room. T he father of a murdered teenager today reflects on "the worst moment of his life" as he appeals for information one year after his son's death. Michael Jonas Snr said his familys life completely changed a year ago when his 17-year-old son, Michael Jonas Jnr, was brutally stabbed to death in a south London park. The 54-year-old said he still thinks about what could have happened if he had seen his son on the night of his death, and described seeing his son in a hospital as the worst moment of [his] life. Police made a fresh appeal for information earlier this week to mark the first anniversary of the teenager's death on Friday as Mr Jonas urged the public to assist the investigation. Michael Jonas, 17, died last year / Metropolitan Police He said: My family and I are still devastated. Please help the police to find those responsible." Aspiring mechanical engineer, Michael Jnr, of Crystal Palace, was walking alone through Betts Park, in Anerley, before he was chased and killed by a group, police said. Officers have called it a hideous crime, and despite six people being arrested, on January 15 all murder charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence. Michael, when he was younger Mr Jonas said: We as a family really feel like a loser, we just think this should have never happened. Mr Jonas said he was on the bus to Crystal Palace, to see his son, when he got the terrible news Michael had died. He said: The phone rang and it was my daughter. She said she had the police at her door and she said that Michael was apparently in trouble. New CCTV images released by police of the night that Michael died So I was thinking what could it be that Michael is doing for him to be in trouble? And then she said Oh daddy, hes been stabbed, apparently hes dead. When she used that word, the policewoman said sorry to let you know, but Michael is no longer with us. Mr Jonas said the shock of hearing his son had died caused him to fall over on the bus. Desperate to get to his son, he said he frantically asked the driver of the bus to get there as soon as he could. Frustrated at not being able to get to his son, Mr Jonas, a bus driver himself, said he exited the bus before running down the steep hill towards Betts Park, where he was met with a police cordon. He said: I got down there and the road was cordoned off. I managed to run to the police and I was just shouting Im his dad. I just kept asking how do they know its him, how do they know its Michael? Police and forensics at Betts Park (NIGEL HOWARD ©) / NIGEL HOWARD Once Mr Jonas was home later that evening, the grieving father said he kept ringing Michaels phone, in the hopes he would pick up. It just kept going to voice mail. I was just thinking why is he not answering, he said. The next day, accompanied by family and officers, Mr Jonas was asked to identify his son in hospital. They asked me to describe him and told me when I went in there [where Michael was] he would be lying down. Seeing him was one of the worst moments of my life, I was just so sad. CCTV images of suspects 1 /5 CCTV images of suspects Metropolitan Police Metropolitan Police Metropolitan Police Metropolitan Police Metropolitan Police A year later, Mr Jonas said he and the family are constantly asking what if and wondering what could have happened if Mr Jonas had driven to see his son that night, or if he had called him earlier in the day to say he would see him. Police are offering a 20,000 reward for anyone who is able to help Michaels family and has information that may help an investigation. Mr Jonas said: My family and I are still devastated. Please help the police to find those responsible. Police and prison is not the only solution to the problem we are facing with violence on our streets. We also need the people of our communities to do the right thing and help us get justice for Michael. Remember that as law abiding citizens of this country, passing on information that helps tackle crime does not make you an informer or a snitch, youre just doing what you know is right. "It only makes sense to help keep our surroundings and families safe. Dont believe it cant happen. Never say never. Let us stand in this together and help reclaim back our community that we know and love. A 22-year-old man has been stabbed to death in broad daylight in a south-east London residential street. Police were called at about 12.30pm on Sunday to reports of a man with stab injuries in Samos Road, Anerley. An air ambulance was also scrambled but despite paramedics' efforts, he was pronounced dead at the scene at 1pm. Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge, Ellie Reeves, posted on Twitter that she was "devastated" at the news. (NIGEL HOWARD ) / Nigel Howard She wrote: "Devastated to hear about the murder on Samos Road today. The second murder in my constituency in 72 hours. "I am waiting for further details but my thoughts are with the victim and their family. This has to stop." It comes after 15-year-old Jay Hughes, also known as Jai Sewell, was stabbed to death in Bellingham, south-east London, on Thursday. Jai Sewell, 15, was stabbed 100 yards from his home on Thursday / **FACEBOOK IMAGE** The man also died just yards from the park where Michael Jonas Jnr was brutally killed in November last year. Mr Jonas's father Michael Jonas Sr, 54, today told the Standard he still thinks about what could have happened if he had seen his son on the night of his death. He described seeing his son in a hospital as the worst moment of [his] life. After today's incident he told The Sun: "I can't believe this. There's no end in view. "I feel so sad, I feel very upset. No one is learning, no one is picking up anything from Michael's incident. People don't really care." Forensic officers examine the crime scene in Bellingham after Jai Sewell was stabbed to death / Nigel Howard Sunday's murder is the fourth knife death in south London in the space of five days. On Friday, 17-year-old Malcolm Mide-Madariola was stabbed to death outside Clapham South station. On Thursday, Jay Hughes was killed in Bellingham. Boy, 17, knifed to death outside Clapham South Tube Station On Wednesday, Rocky Djelal, 38, died from fatal knife wounds next to a childrens playground at Southwark Park. The identity of the latest victim is not yet known. The Met said there had been no arrests as it launched its "urgent investigation". A police cordon was put in place as forensic officers combed the scene for evidence. T en thousand flames illuminated the moat at the Tower of London to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. Yeoman Warders, also known as Beefeaters, who have all served in the military, and representatives from the armed forces, began lighting the flames last night as part of a trial run ahead of a ceremony today. The display is to remember the sacrifice made by those who lost their lives during the First World War. Volunteers will take between 40 and 50 minutes to manually light the remaining flames, gradually illuminating both the Tower of London and its empty moat. Trial run: the flames alight at the Tower of London / MoD The flames, each emanating from an individual canister, will burn for about four hours before needing to be replenished with fuel by volunteers before the next night's display. The Tower of London was lit up last night with 10,000 flames ahead of the WWI centenary next weekend / @TomOleary72 The spectacle, named Beyond the Deepening Shadow, will be accompanied by a specially commissioned sound installation featuring choral music and words from war poet Mary Borden's Sonnets to a Soldier. The flames will be in place every night until the centenary next weekend / MoD Many of the volunteers for the installation also helped with the display of poppies at the landmark in 2014, according to a spokeswoman for Historic Royal Palaces, the organisation responsible for maintaining the Tower of London. A beefeater stands among the flames in the Tower of London's moat / Gavin Goodhart The display saw 888,246 ceramic poppies placed outside the Tower of London, with each flower representing a life lost by a soldier from Britain or its colonies. The event at the Tower of London is entitled Beyond the Deepening Shadow / MoD Many of the volunteers have a family connection to the First World War, the spokeswoman added. General the Lord Houghton, Constable of the Tower, said: "The First World War claimed the lives of over 18 million people across the globe. The sacrifices of those who lost their lives in WWI will be remembered this week / @JatinderKailey "We remembered them at the Tower on the anniversary of the start of the war, and it feels equally appropriate that we should again commemorate their sacrifice 100 years after hostilities came to an end. "Many of the Tower community have served in the Armed Forces, and it is important for us to ensure that those who lived, served, fought and died during this time continue to be remembered, and that the lessons from these conflicts continue to be shared." The flames were lit by Beefeaters and volunteers with a connection to WWI / Sgt Paul Randall RLC The ceremony, which will take place between 5pm and 9pm, will be repeated each night until Sunday, November 11. Moira Cameron Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London holds a torch during the service. / MoD Members of the public can view the installation for free and there is also ticketed access to the moat, where the installation can be viewed up close. Beyond the Deepening Shadow at the Tower of London 1 /10 Beyond the Deepening Shadow at the Tower of London Beefeaters will start the process of lighting the flames formally at a ceremony on Sunday Sgt Paul Randall RLC The display is to remember the sacrifice made by those who lost their lives during the First World War Sgt Paul Randall RLC Volunteers will take between 40 and 50 minutes to manually light the remaining flames Sgt Paul Randall RLC The flames will burn for about four hours Sgt Paul Randall RLC The spectacle has been named Beyond the Deepening Shadow Sgt Paul Randall RLC The flames will be accompanied by a specially commissioned sound installation featuring choral music and words from war poet Mary Borden's Sonnets to a Soldier Sgt Paul Randall RLC Many of the volunteers for the installation also helped with the display of poppies at the landmark in 2014 Sgt Paul Randall RLC The poppy display saw 888,246 ceramic poppies placed outside the Tower of London Sgt Paul Randall RLC The ceremony will take place between 5pm and 9pm Sgt Paul Randall RLC It will be repeated every night this week until remembrance day next Sunday Sgt Paul Randall RLC Theresa May is due to take part in a series of events this week as the centenary of the end of the bloody four-year battle draws near. Mrs May said: "Next week will mark one of the most significant moments in our nation's history. "One hundred years after the guns fell silent on the Western Front, each and every one of us can pause to reflect on the immense sacrifices that were made by so many. "The killing fields of France and Belgium are scarred by the horrors of war, but the strength and closeness of our relationship today is a testament to the journey our countries have travelled together. M asked anti-establishment protesters led by international 'hactivist' group Anonymous are expected to descend on central London this evening. Demonstrators from the Million Mask March will wear masks inspired by the film 'V for Vendetta' as they march through the capital, calling on people from around the world to join in their anti-government message. The annual Bonfire Night protest has been taking place every year since 2013, with protesters to march against government corruption, surveillance and the "encroaching destruction of many civil liberties we hold dear". With the event now just hours away, here's all you need to know about the Million Mask March. Million Mask March London 2016 1 /15 Million Mask March London 2016 Getty Images Getty Images Protesters confront the police on The Strand, PA Protesters confront the police on The Strand PA Police arrest a protester clutching a mask in Trafalgar Square Getty Images Protesters don V for Vendetta-inspired Guy Fawkes masks EPA Protestors follow police down Whitehall, London PA There is an increased police presence for the march Joel Goodman/LNP Masked protesters hold banners and flares as they stand on Nelson's Column Getty Images The march was organised by the group Anonymous to protest austerity, government policy and what they consider corperate AFP/Getty Images Campaigners set off flares as they began the march to Downing Street Getty Images The group met at Trafalgar Square Getty Images A masked protester holds a sign which reads 'We Are Legion' in Trafalgar Square Getty Images Many are wearing the Guy Fawkes mask associated with the Anonymous hacking collective Getty Images A protester holds a sign reading 'England under new management' AFP/Getty Images What is the Million Mask March? The Million Mask March is part of a global anti-establishment movement spearheaded by Anonymous, with the masks inspired by the 2006 thriller V for Vendetta. It aims to stand up to mass internet surveillance, austerity economics, official corruption, erosion of civil liberties and other causes. The biggest events are in London and Washington, but protests have taken place in 800 cities in the past. Thousands are thought to have taken part in the marches since its launch five years ago. A post on the group's Facebook page reads: We have seen the abuses and malpractice of this government, and governments before it. We have seen the encroaching destruction of many civil liberties we hold dear. We have seen the pushes to make the internet yet another part of the surveillance state. "We have seen the governments disregard for migrants, for the poor, the elderly and the disabled. We have seen the capital, profit and greed of the few put before the well-being of the many and we say enough is enough The government and the 1 per cent have played their hand, now it is time to play ours. When and where is the Million Mask March? This years demonstration is set to take place at 6pm on Sunday, November 5 at Trafalgar Square. Police usually impose conditions on the march, and have in previous years limited it to three hours and on a route between Trafalgar Square and Whitehall. Roads around St James's Park and Green Park usually close early on, while other roads could be fully closed if police deem this necessary. What can be expected of this years march? Dozens of police vans head to Million Mask March In the past, police have ramped up their efforts amid concerns peaceful protest is the last thing on the minds of some of those attending". Last year protesters descended on Trafalgar Square where they gave speeches, handed out flyers with some occasionally shouting into the crowds before the march headed towards Parliament Square, where it blocked off traffic as people set off flares and chanted. After Piccadilly Circus, the march went on to Westminster and Southwark before ending back where it began at approximately 9.30pm before beginning to disperse. The 2016 event erupted into anarchic scenes as fireworks and flares were lit and thrown into crowds and launched at police officers. Scores of riot police were deployed and 53 people were arrested as furious protesters shouted of f*** the police. While at 2017's march, police made 25 arrests and fireworks were let off around Trafalgar Square and Downing Street. Police say criminality at the event has increased year-on-year, with only 15 arrests in 2013. In previous years, monuments have been criminally damaged and protesters have even tried to take over buildings, Scotland Yard said. What is Anonymous? Anonymous is a group of hacker-activists which aims to target establishment hypocrisy. It originated in 2003 from the website 4chan an online forum where users' identities are obscured by forced anonymity. Since 2008s Project Chanology, when the collective took on the Church of Scientology in a series of protests, pranks, and hacks, it has become increasingly associated with collaborative hacktivism on a number of issues. A rron Banks has claimed there was no Russian interference in the pro-Brexit campaign. In a staunch denial of any wrongdoing in the 2016 referendum, Leave.EU co-founder Mr Banks told the Andrew Marr Show: "There was no Russian money and no interference of any type. I want to make that clear." But he told the BBC presenter on Sunday that the source of the 8million funding - the biggest political donation in UK electoral history - was insurance company Rock Services. Arron Banks said there was 'no Russian money' as he appeared on the Andrew Marr show today / BBC He said: "The money came from a UK-registered company [which he claims to be Rock Services], it was generated from cash, generated from businesses in the UK and the whole misunderstanding revolves around the role of Rock Holdings as a holding company. "I'd just like to say, absolutely for the record, there was no Russian money and no interference of any type. I just want to be absolutely clear about that." Asked again where the money came from, Mr Banks repeated: "The money came from Rock Services, which is a UK-limited company. It was generated out of insurance written in the UK and contrary to some press reports, we insure nearly half a million customers a year, the size of Manchester. It's a sizeable business. "I'm telling you it came from insurance business written in the UK. Arron Banks arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London on Sunday for the Andrew Marr interview / Victoria Jones/PA "I'm confused with the Electoral Commission referring this to the police. We've not been asked by the Electoral Commission to produce our bank statements." The investigation into Mr Banks was launched after the elections watchdog said it had reasonable grounds to suspect he was not the true source of the cash. But he insisted: "We have an insurance business [Rock Services] which generates a large amount of cash, 20m to 25m a year. The money from Rock Services went to Leave.EU." There had been a row over Mr Banks' appearance on the show, with prominent Remainer Lord Adonis writing to Lord Hall, the director general of the BBC, to say the invite was a "serious editorial misjudgement". Arron Banks, centre, arrives for the Andrew Marr interview on Sunday / Victoria Jones/PA In the heated exchange, Mr Banks told Mr Marr: "You just want to smear me, yeah you do." In another jibe, he said: "I think I know business affairs better than you." He claimed the investigation was about "undermining Article 50, undermining the Brexit result, and it's a collection of very vicious Labour MPs who have grouped together with the Guardian and Financial Times to try to undermine Brexit". He added: "We know the Electoral Commission has got a bias on this." He was also asked why he wrote to constituents of Damian Collins - chairman of the digital, culture, media and sport committee - calling him a "snake in the grass". He replied: "Well he is." T heresa Mays office has dismissed as "speculation" reports she has secured private concessions from Brussels that would keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU. Downing Street said "negotiations are ongoing" and that a Sunday Times report claiming a proposed agreement had been reached on future customs arrangements at the Ireland-Northern Ireland border was "speculation." However, UK and EU officials have said in recent days that a deal is getting closer and could be sealed this month. Mrs May's deputy, David Lidington, said on Friday that negotiators were "very close" to an agreement. Theresa May 'convinced' UK will secure good Brexit deal Reports on Sunday suggested the prime minister would meet with her cabinet on Tuesday to discuss her plan and she hoped there would be enough progress by Friday for the EU to announce a special summit. The plan would resolve the issue of the Irish border, the key obstacle in Brexit talks, by avoiding the need to treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK, the Times said. Asked about the report, a spokesman at Mrs May's office said: "This is all speculation. The prime minister has been clear that we are making good progress on the future relationship and 95 percent of the withdrawal agreement is now settled and negotiations are ongoing." It came as more than 70 business figures called for a people's vote on the final terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU, warning that the country faces "either a blindfold or a destructive hard Brexit". Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures 1 /20 Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Common PA Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images European Council President Donald Tusk holds a news conference after receiving British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter in notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May takes her seat after announcing in the House of Commons PA The time 12:20pm shows on Big Ben on March 29, 2017 in London, England. The British Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the Houses of Parliament as Article 50 is triggered and the process that will take the United Kingdom out of the European Union begins Carl Court/Getty Images D-day: pro-EU protesters outside of the Houses of Parliament today as Theresa May prepares to trigger Article 50 AFP/Getty Images EU Council President Donald Tusk holds British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter which was delivered by Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow (not pictured) that gives notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters PMQ's in The House of Commons PA Jeremy Corbyn speaking at PMQ's in The House of Commons Sky News Theresa May leaving for the House of Commons Jeremy Selwyn Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the headquarters of Vivendi in Paris where he took part in TV interviews to discuss the imminent triggering of Article 50 by the UK to leave the EU Stefan Rousseau/PA Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow arrives at the EU Council headquarters for as meeting before hand delivering British Prime Minister Theresa May's notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow arrives at the British representation of the European Union in Brussels Aurore Belot/AFP/Getty Images A giant headed Theresa May in Parliament Square, London during a protest by Avaaz after PM signed a letter to trigger Article 50 that starts the formal exit process by the UK from the European Union David Mirzoeff/PA British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson walks down Whitehall Jack Taylor/Getty Images Britain's PM Theresa May signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50. AFP/Getty Images With just five months to go until Britain exits the EU, divorce talks have seemingly ground to a halt. There is huge uncertainty among businesses causing the value of the pound to see-saw on any news about a possible breakthrough in the talks. Other reports on Friday suggested that the EU had agreed with Mrs Mays previous proposition that a backstop post-Brexit customs arrangement would cover all of the UK. This could give mainland Britain some scope to set trade rules while keeping Northern Ireland aligned with the EU. British housing minister James Brokenshire said on Sunday there was still an issue around Northern Ireland in the Brexit talks, referring to a yet-to-be finalised backstop arrangement which would prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland if no better solution can be found. "That very much remains our focus and attention in getting that deal," he told the BBC. EU diplomats said on Friday they doubted a deal could be completed in time for a tentatively scheduled summit on November 17 and 18, but that it could perhaps come a week later. Cabinet support for any exit agreement is crucial for Mrs May, with the Conservative Party deeply divided over Brexit. The support of Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is also crucial, with the party vowing to scupper any deal that treats Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. A man and a child died and nine others were injured in a horror crash involving a car and a minibus in Cheshire. Police and paramedics rushed to the scene of the crash on the A34 in Alderley Edge in the early hours of Sunday. Two people, a man and a child, died at the scene, North West Ambulance Service. Another adult was rushed to Manchester Royal Infirmary and a child was taken to the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. Both their conditions are not known. Seven more people suffered minor injuries and were taken to Macclesfield District General Hospital. A Cheshire Police spokesman said: At 12.04am November 4, emergency services were called to a serious collision on the A34 Melrose Way in Alderley Edge. A leading figure in British black theatre revealed in a book he wrote a decade ago that his parents are both white, it emerged today. A copy of an ebook by Anthony Ekundayo Lennon was unearthed by the Sunday Times. In the 1990 book, Mr Lennon revealed he was born Anthony David Lennon in Paddington, west London, in 1965 to white Irish parents. However he said he received jibes in the street nonetheless from people who saw him has mixed race, the paper reported. Mr Lennon has been awarded taxpayer support to aid his development as a black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) arts figure. He was named as one of four "theatre practitioners of colour" awarded a paid traineeship as part of an Arts Council funded programme. The traineeship is part of an Artistic Director Leadership Programme. Arts Council England provided 406,500 for a group of theatres to "deliver a comprehensive programme of talent for future Bame leaders." Mr Lennon was accused of cultural appropriation when he appeared in the 1990 BBC Everyman drama documentary exploring race Chilling Out at the age of 24. He said in the programme: "When I'm alone in my bedroom looking in the mirror, thinking about stuff I've written down, thinking about my past relationship-wise, pictures on the wall, I think I'm a black man. Actor Lennie James said in the documentary: "Sometimes I feel like you are watching me. Watching me to say this equals a black man. Then you're taking it from me and sticking it on yourself." One unnamed black actor told the Sunday Times: "When I discovered his background I thought it was unfair that a white man had taken a black person's place on a Bame scheme." Mr Lennon started as a trainee with Shoreditch theatre company Talawa. The group that awarded the funds told the paper "Talawa were satisfied Anthony was eligible for the opportunity... he has identified as a mixed-heritage individual." Arts Council England said: Talawa raised their wish to support Anthony with us. In responding we took into account the law in relation to race and ethnicity. This is a very unusual case and we do not think it undermines the support we provide to black and minority ethnic people within the theatre sector. F ormer Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service Sir Jeremy Heywood has died from cancer aged 56, Downing Street announced today. Sir Jeremy, who was Britain's most powerful civil servant until his retirement last month, was succeeded in the role of Cabinet Secretary by former National Security Adviser Sir Mark Sedwill. Sir Jeremy closely served four Prime Ministers and was once dubbed every PMs favourite civil servant because of his ability to get things done. Sir Jeremy passed away on Sunday morning, his wife Suzanne said in a statement. She paid tribute to a "wonderful father" who "crammed a huge amount into his 56 years". She said: "He saw it as a huge privilege to work so closely with four prime ministers and two chancellors and was unwavering in his efforts to help each of them reach their goals. "He was always conscious of the need for civil servants to see the world through ministers' eyes while at the same time respecting the boundaries between politicians and civil servants. "Away from his work, he inspired admiration, respect and affection in his many and diverse group of friends and returned it to them. "Jeremy could light up any room or conversation and loved hosting a good party." Prime Minister Theresa May said Sir Jeremy worked tirelessly to serve our country and said his death was a huge loss to British public life Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said on Twitter: "Jeremy Heywood was a great civil servant. "He put his intellect, professionalism & charm at the service of Ministers of all parties & was never afraid to give honest even if unwelcome advice. "Thoughts, prayers & heartfelt sympathy to his family." Former prime minister Gordon Brown said: "The country has lost a leader of exceptional ability, unquestioned integrity and - as we saw in the way he fought his illness - remarkable courage. "Jeremy Heywood was the most dynamic civil servant of his generation, a leader who inspired confidence, whose expertise was recognised by all and whose impartiality was never in doubt. "Jeremy was a unique civil servant who may not always have agreed with proposals from ministers but always had a positive and often better alternative to offer. "He will be sorely missed for the remarkable contribution he has made to the government of Britain." Tory chief whip Julian Smith added that he had been "truly inspiring to work with and his contribution to British public life has been huge. Such a loss." After he stepped down days ago, the Prime Minister said he had given exemplary service to the public in an illustrious career. S even of the eight children injured in an accident involving a giant inflatable slide at Woking fireworks have been discharged from hospital, police said. The eighth victim has been kept in hospital under observation, but their injuries are not believed to be significant. Those taken to London hospitals were treated at St George's Hospital and King's College Hospital, while one was treated at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, South East Coast Ambulance said. Police investigation: The slide sits on the ground in Woking Park / PA Fireworks organiser Michael Holden, of Woking District Rotary, said on Sunday it appeared the children had fallen to the ground from the top of the slide. Mr Holden, who estimated around 5,000 people were in the park when it happened, said the circumstances around how the children were injured remain unclear. "We don't still know yet what exactly happened but eight children appear to have come off near the top of the slide and landed on the floor alongside it," he said. Police have appealed for anyone with footage of what happened to contact them. L ouis Theroux is back on the small screen tonight with the first of his new three-part series, Altered States. The documentary maker explores America and visits two different states with three different ways of life. Theroux gets to meet a whole host of new people, talking to them about their views, learning and even getting involved with their daily routines. Ahead of episode one, here is everything you need to know about Louis Theroux: Altered States: Getting involved: Louis Theroux is fed by a member of the Sex Positive Portland group in Love Without Limits / BBC What is Altered States about? The short series is split into three parts, each episode with a focus on a different taboo topic. The first, titled Love Without Limits, is Therouxs exploration of Oregon, Portland. Here, he investigates attitudes to sex, lust and marriage in a state where polyamory and non-monogamy is prevalent. His travels even lead him to join up with a Sensual Eating party as part of Sex Positive Portland, which sees him stripped to the waist and fed strawberries. Takes My Baby, set in California, will feature Theroux exploring attitudes towards adoption in the state it occurs the most while Choosing Death experiences a different side of California with a much-debated topic of euthanasia. What does Louis Theroux say about his new series? Speaking about his experience at the party during Love Without Limits, Theroux described how he threw himself into things, taking turns being both a giver and a taker. He said: It was all rather embarrassing, but at the same time a little bit liberating. For a moment the idea of a world in which the currency of sex and love was more free-flowing made a tiny bit of sense. I felt like I needed to throw myself into it in order to show commitment and be respectful to the others. Everyone else was going way further than I was. There were people kind of spasming in ecstasy. Blindfolded: Louis Theroux in Portland / BBC There was a lot of nipple tweaking and one woman went round squirting whipped cream on her breasts and feeding the whipped cream to various people. Theres something quite reassuring about having it. Its like the NHS. You dont have to work too hard to find something decent, or something your kids can watch that doesnt have adverts for dildos in the middle of it, he said of the television on the trip. When is Altered States on? Louis Theroux Altered States: Love Without Limits starts Sunday on BBC Two at 9pm. T he X Factor's Saturday night public vote has been cancelled after the show experienced an unfortunate audio malfunction which angered fans. The sound fault started when judge Ayeda Field introduced Danny Tetley, and it continued throughout his performance of Queens Who Wants To Live Forever, and through Anthony Russells rendition of Imagine Dragons Demons which followed afterwards. So disruptive was it, ITV issued an apology to viewers, a message which flashed across television screens reading: We are sorry for the temporary interference in sound. ITV tweeted the apology as well. In spite of this, however, viewers took to Twitter to convey their anger. Comparing the sound to that of Doctor Who robots one viewer wrote: The Daleks are performing on The X Factor tonight? If Danny and Anthony go home tomorrow, its not their fault. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUDIO!!!! wrote another fan. No apologies to those performers who have had their performances ruined? Youve got to be more professional than that... #vetothevote wrote a third. X Factor host Dermot O'Leary failed to issue an apology during the show because this week it had been pre-recorded. At the end of it however, ITV posted a message which stated: "Due to a technical issue, tonights vote has been cancelled. It will open in tomorrow nights show." Following the programme, an ITV announcer was also reported to have said: "Were very sorry for the problems with the sound on the X Factor tonight." The spooky sound fault, however disruptive, nonetheless echoed the show's theme, 'Fright Night'. Contestants embraced it on stage whilst two of the judges very much embraced it off it. Simon Cowell arrived as a mummy and Robbie Williams dressed up as someone who he said "gives everybody around the world complete nightmares", Simon Cowell complete with a white shirt and sunglasses, Cowell's signature look. Performances were overall strong, with judges commending Dalton Harris rendition of Radioheads Creep and Shan Ako's performance of The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel in particular. The number of companies removed from the Trade Register dropped in the first nine months of 2018 by 1.55 percent, as compared to the similar interval of 2017, reaching 58,669, according to the statistics recorded by the National Trade Register Office (ONRC). Most companies removed from the registrar were recorded in Bucharest - 9,320 companies (6.07 percent fewer Y-o-Y) and in the following counties: Cluj - 2,462 ( minus 8.10 percent), Timis - 2,365 (plus 5.53 percent) and Iasi - 2,335 (minus 11.15 percent). At the opposite end, the fewest companies removed from the registrar were recorded in the counties of Covasna - 415 (16.83 percent fewer than in the similar period of 2017), Ialomita - 417 (plus 1.71 percent) and Calarasi - 471 (minus 23.41 percent).The most significant rise in the number of removals was recorded in the counties of Dambovita, of 38.46 percent, Giurgiu, 31.99 percent and Vrancea, 24.76 percent.By domains of activity, the highest number of removals was recorded in wholesale and retail trade, the repair of automobiles and motorcycles - 16, 137 (plus 6.07 percent as compared to last year;s first nine months), agriculture, forestry and fishing - 6,968 (plus 33.18 percent) and constructions - 4,879 (plus 6.09 percent).As many as 4,768 companies were removed from the Trade Register in September, most in Bucharest - 825 and in the counties of Constanta - 218 and Cluj - 196. The strongest contribution that the founding president of the Romania Together Movement, Dacian Ciolos might have to the Opposition's action, would be to have the promised party's documents released and to stop attacking the other political formations that have daily at the forefront of the anti-Dragnea (Liviu Dragnea, leader of the Social Democratic Party, major at rule, ed.n.) fight, leader of the Liberal deputies Raluca Turcan said on Sunday. "The strongest contribution Mr. Ciolos might have to the Opposition's action would be to have, once and for all, the documents of the much-promised party released and stop attacking the other parties that have been every day, not sparingly or between two flights, at the forefront of the anti-Dragnea fight for defending democracy in Romania," Turcan wrote on Facebook. She considers "it may have been useful" for Dacian Ciolos to specify on how many votes on behalf of his party the Opposition can rely on at a possible censure motion."As the leader of the PNL [National Liberal party, ed.n.] group in the Chamber of Deputies, I have discussed with several colleagues in the opposition trying to figure out with whom Mr Ciolos is negotiating the overthrow of the PSD-ALDE [Social Democratic Party, major at rule, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, minor at rule, ed.n.] government. Any vote would be of great help. It might have been useful for Mr Ciolos to specify on how many votes we can rely on his behalf for a possible censure motion. Thus, we can urge the lodging of a motion leading to the dismissal of the incompetent government maneuvered by Liviu Dragnea (including the removal from office of Mrs Carmen Dan, incompetent and abusive minister, former prefect of Teleorman at the time of the Ciolos government)," Turcan mentioned.She added that, although she has seen and heard a lot in politics, she still does not understand how anyone can negotiate the removal of a government having neither a parliamentary group nor a party.On Sunday, Ciolos said that the PNL finds itself within the old political class sphere and obstinately refuses to reform itself."Unfortunately, I say with great regret, PNL finds itself within the old political class sphere and obstinately refuses to reform itself and join us in a profound reformation project of the Romanian society. A project focusing on welfare. They are waiting for PSD [Social Democratic Party, major at rule, ed.n.] to fall naturally and take their place. The experience in 1996 with CDR [the Romanian Democratic Convention, ed.n.] and in 2004 with DA Alliance showed us that this model does not work," Ciolos wrote on Facebook. Prime Minister Viorica Dancila conveyed on Sunday, during a meeting with His Highness Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud al-Said, Deputy Prime Minister for the Council of Ministers of the Sultanate of Oman, the Government's commitment in strengthening cooperation, a press release of the Romanian Executive informs. "The two dignitaries assessed the stage of the bilateral relations and voiced their appreciation for the positive trend recorded in the last years, materialised not least by the expansion of the legal framework between the two states. The head of the Romanian Executive conveyed the commitment of the Government in Bucharest in strengthening and expanding cooperation in the common interest domains for both parties. In context, she referred to concrete opportunities for sectoral collaboration, in such domains as agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, education, culture, health, research and innovation and showed that Romania has an attractive business milieu, improved through recent legislative changes, such as the ones brought to the law on public-private partnership," the release shows. According to the cited source, the Romanian Prime Minister expressed her conviction that the opening of the Romanian Embassy in Muscat and the signing of the Agreement between the Government of Romania and the Government of the Sultanate of Oman on the visa waiving for holders of diplomatic, special and service passports, on the occasion of her visit to Muscat, represent significant steps in deepening the bilateral political dialogue, which could lead to the expansion of the Romanian-Omani relations, in their entirety.The Deputy Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers of the Sultanate of Oman brought to mind the openness of the Omani authorities to work with Romanian counterparts in all areas of common interest. At the same time, the high-ranking Omani dignitary has highlighted the existence of numerous opportunities for investment, which can be achieved in both directions of the bilateral relationship. His Highness emphasized the importance of cooperation at the level of the two Chambers of Commerce and Industry, as well as the exchange of experience between the Omani and Romanian companies, the release reveals.At the same time, he suggested deepening exchanges of good practice in the field of public-private partnership. His Highness Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud al-Said has also shown interest in cooperation in education, given the acknowledged expertise of the Romanian side, the Executive mentions."The two dignitaries also made an exchange of views on the situation in the Middle East, the Romanian Prime Minister appreciating the balanced position of the Sultanate of Oman in the regional files. The Romanian official also stressed the importance of deepening the dialogue within the Gulf Cooperation Council, as an optimal way of identifying the solutions to the security challenges in the region. Prime Minister Viorica Dancila also mentioned that Romania will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2019, a position from which our country will take action to deepen regional and bilateral cooperation," the press release further shows.The Romanian Prime Minister thanked His Highness Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud al-Said for the welcome and conveyed to the high-ranking Omani dignitary the invitation to pay a visit in Bucharest. The meeting was followed by a working lunch hosted by His Highness, in honour of the Romanian dignitary, at Al Bustan Palace, in the presence of the ministers of the Cabinet of Oman and 130 guests of the diplomatic body accredited in Muscat, the cited source also informs. (CNN) Passengers at some European airports will soon be questioned by artificial intelligence-powered lie detectors at border checkpoints, as a European Union trial of the technology is set to begin. Fliers will be asked a series of travel-related questions by a virtual border guard avatar, and artificial intelligence will monitor their faces to assess whether they are lying. The avatar will become "more skeptical" and change its tone of voice if it believes a person has lied, before referring suspect passengers to a human guard and allowing those believed to be honest to pass through, said Keeley Crockett of Manchester Metropolitan University in England, who was involved in the project. The 4.5 million ($5.1 million) project, called iBorderCtrl, will be tested this month at airports in Hungary, Latvia and Greece on passengers traveling from outside the EU, with the aim of reducing congestion. "It will ask the person to confirm their name, age and date of birth, (and) it will ask them things like what the purpose of their trip is and who is funding the trip," said Crockett. But privacy groups have raised concerns about the trial. "This is part of a broader trend towards using opaque, and often deficient, automated systems to judge, assess and classify people," said Frederike Kaltheuner, data program lead at Privacy International, who called the test "a terrible idea." The technology has been tested in its current form on only 32 people, and scientists behind the project are hoping to achieve an 85% success rate. Previous facial recognition algorithms have been found to have higher error rates when analyzing women and darker-skinned people, with an MIT study earlier this year finding that technology developed by companies including IBM and Microsoft contained biases. "Traditional lie detectors have a troubling history of incriminating innocent people. There is no evidence that AI is going to fix that -- especially a tool that has been tested in 32 people," Kaltheuner added. "Even seemingly small error rates mean that thousands of people now have to prove that they are honest people, just because some software said they are liars," he added. "I don't believe that you can have a 100% accurate system," Crockett said in response to criticism, adding that the technology will become more accurate as it is tested on more passengers. The system will be overseen by human guards, who can see the results of the AI tests on each passenger. Only passengers who give their consent will come face-to-face with the technology in its initial trial, with consent forms available at the airports when they arrive. The system "will collect data that will move beyond biometrics and on to biomarkers of deceit," said project coordinator George Boultadakis, of information technology service company European Dynamics in Luxembourg. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Passengers to face AI lie detector tests at EU airports." US President Trump has ordered 15,000 National Guard soldiers to take positions along the border with Mexico. Bloodshed is possible. Migrants can be shot at if they throw stones at the military. The force is comparable in size to the US contingent in Afghanistan. NGOs, such as Pueblo Sin Fronteras, say there is no political agenda. This affirmation is hard to believe. The US militarys mission is to prevent the much-talked about caravan of migrants from crossing the border. Armed civilians are there to help. Bloodshed appears to be imminent; a negotiated agreement is no more than a pipe dream. It comes to the crunch on the eve of midterm vote. The way the US administration tackles the problem may be decisive for the outcome of the elections and the presidents position. Donald Trump promised to protect the 3,200 km-long southern border during his election campaign. The time is right to show the president is true to his word. Republican candidates are vigorously backing his stance on the issue trying to motivate voters. Crossing the Rio Grande from the Mexican shore is the way to become an illegal immigrant on US soil. Its easy enough for someone who can swim. Tires and makeshift rafts are used to help women and children. About 800,000 people use this route yearly. Not all but many immigrants are involved in criminal business. Criminal gangs help to get to the other side asking for favors afterwards. Even if these people have no relation to illegal activities, they take away jobs from US citizens. The wall is being built too slowly, covering only about a thousand kilometers. President Trump has not yet received the funding for Mexico border from Congress. Border guards or checkpoints are unable to stop the uncontrolled flow. The outcome of the midterm elections is crucial for the wall project. The Republican win will make the allocation of the required $25 billion possible, if not, the walls future will hang in the air as uncertain as the fate of the president himself. If clashes take place at the border, the chief executives opponents will grab the opportunity to use it to their advantage. One can only guess how many people do realize that the caravan is a well-orchestrated provocation to deliver a blow against Republicans before the Nov.6 vote. As a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the US is obligated to protect refugees who left their country due to well-founded fear of repression. But those who seek asylum have to ask for it first and prove they are really persecuted as well. They have the right to try but they cant cross the border freely. Asylum can be denied if a person is not in danger but there is no agreement with Mexico on how to return those who have been denied entrance. Let legal intricacies be left alone. What really matters is that Americans begin to choose their views over interpersonal relationships with battles raging between as us and them. And those battles are not always verbal. The end of birthright citizenship proposed by President Trump is another issue to hit headlines and divide Americans. To some degree it is an electoral stunt, but also an effort aimed at drastically changing the migration policy of the country. This is another issue to deepen the divisions tearing up America the nation that has never been so ripped apart since the Civil War. Angry and often violent protests, clashes, police abuse and targeted attacks involving explosives and firearms are dangerously becoming routine. Several pipe bombs recently sent to high-profile Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, demonstrate how dangerous the situation has become. The GOP is getting more conservative, while Democrats are getting more liberal. The society is polarized with the left and right. Liberals and conservatives are unable to find a common language. The partisan divide over issues related to race, immigration and welfare has widened. It exerts impact on the way people talk, who they associate themselves with, and how they view themselves. Can the nation hold together in the long run? According to a recent Rasmussen poll, one third of Americans strongly believe a civil war is likely soon. Whatever is the outcome of the elections, the nation will remain separated with the trust in the institutions and politics vanishing at an alarming pace. The idea of the countrys break up does not seem so outlandish anymore. Foreign policy is no exception to the rule. When people are so far apart, international issues may rather add more fuel to political discord or, on the contrary, bring them together. So many times in history the existence of enemies threatening the nation, true or not, has been used as a unifying factor. Thats the purpose of singling out Russia as a country that "challengesAmerican power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity as the US National Security Strategy states. In reality, the United States is posing a threat to itself. Beset by aggravating domestic problems, it is trying to fix them by artificially creating outside enemies instead of trying to go to the bottom of it and understand what causes the woes and how to fix things. The caravan problem and the heated election campaign may become sparks to kindle a fire. More nations are allowing women to be combat pilots and women are qualifying but not in the numbers needed to make up for the overall shortage of these specialists. The problem here is that other factors are limiting the number of qualified women willing to be combat pilots. In more affluent nations the birth rates have declined to below replacement rate (meaning the population is shrinking.) The most obvious example of that in Asia is Japan, the first Asian nation to modernize and achieve a Western level of affluence. So while in 2018 Japan had its first female fighter pilot (for F-15s) and is striving to increase the number of women in the military (6.4 percent now to 9 percent by 2030) the government is also providing all manner of incentives for women to marry and have children. The growing population shortage has made it more difficult to get anyone to join the military and with the growing threat from China Japan is trying to expand its armed forces and finding there are not enough Japanese for that, as well as much else in the country. There is a similar situation in Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Even China is now suffering from low birth rates among the several hundred million well educated and highly skilled people in its new (and growing) middle class. China is now facing, for the first time in its history, a declining population caused by low birth rates (rather than war or pandemic disease). Women fighter pilots face another unique obstacle; the need for upper body muscle mass. Fighter pilots have long been seen as chick magnets because they were in good physical shape. That physical fitness was not a preference for fighter pilots but an essential job requirement. While the flight controls have been powered for decades there was no technology to deal with the g (for gravity) force. When maneuvering a jet fighter in combat you will often have to take turns at high speed and at that point you increase the gravitational force (you feel much heavier) and you need lots of muscle power so you can keep operating the flight controls and avoid blacking out. That is pretty much guaranteed if you hit 9 (nine times the normal gravitational force) Gs. Female, as well as male, fighter pilots have to spend a lot of time in the gym doing their weight training. Men have a natural advantage as they normally have more upper body muscles than females. This requirement can also run into cultural obstacles as gyms for women have been a thing in the West for thousands of years but are a relatively new concept in many other cultures. Communist China noted this unique aspect of combat flying early on and when they began recruiting female pilots in the 1950s they all went to air transport units. When many helicopter pilots were needed after the 1950s there were few problems recruiting and training women for the job. While most male military fliers aspired to be fighter pilots women saw transport pilot jobs as a more sensible goal, especially when commercial aviation eventually turned to female pilots to solve pilot shortages. Meanwhile it has become something of a status symbol for nations to have female fighter pilots. Earlier in 2018 India joined the growing number of nations that allow women to take those jobs when three female fighter pilots completed their training. The Indian Air Force has 1,600 women in uniform and about a hundred are pilots. Like many other nations India has had women flying helicopters and transports since the 1990s. Over 40 nations have women in the military and most allow female pilots for non-combat aircraft. But a growing number are allowing women to fly jet fighters. Even Moslem nations are doing this. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) has had women flying F-16s since 2007 and in September 2014, as Arab warplanes joined in the air attacks on ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) in Iraq, it was revealed that one of the Arab pilots was a woman, a UAE F-16 squadron commander. This sort of thing is becoming more common in Moslem countries, and has long been customary in non-Moslem nations. Thus in 2013 it was no surprise when Pakistan revealed that it had a female fighter pilot, flying a Chinese F7 (MiG 21 clone) jet. She was one of 316 women in the air force, which is more than three times what there were in 2008. But she is the only fighter pilot, one of the few in the Moslem world. Only about .7 percent of Pakistani military personnel are female, compared to 10-15 percent in most Western nations. The differences say a lot about the much greater effectiveness of Western armed forces. Many countries have cultural problems with women in the military and particularly with female pilots. But there is a growing demand for female military pilots mainly because there are not enough qualified men. India and Pakistan (which graduated its first female pilots in 2009) are both having a hard time keeping male pilots in uniform. Too many of the men depart for more lucrative, and less stressful, careers as commercial pilots. But in these two countries women may not be the solution. Currently, only about half of women officers stay in past their initial five year contract. Indian women, even military pilots, are under tremendous social and family pressure to marry. Those that do may still be pilots but married women are urged by family and ancient traditions to quickly have children. The Indian Air Force provides its female officers with ten months leave for this, six months during pregnancy and four months after delivery. The air force does this because pilots are very expensive to train. Fuel costs the same everywhere, as do spare parts. So what India may save in lower salaries is not enough. A good pilot costs over half a million dollars for training expenses and takes over five years to train. So the Indians are betting a lot of money and time on keeping their female pilots flying. Many women are willing to take up the challenge. But they have already heard from their peers in Western air force that motherhood and piloting can be a very exhausting combination. Islamic nations have higher illiteracy rates overall and even higher rates for women. Because of that these nations have a severe shortage of technically trained people. Those women that do get an education in Islamic cultures tend to be very bright and able. So there's a need and a solution close at hand. But because of those religious restrictions, and the generally very macho attitudes in Islamic nations, there will never be as many women in uniform as there could be. This means that Islamic armed forces will continue to come up short when it comes to maintaining and using military technology. The future of military operations is more technology, so you can see where this is leading. No wonder Islamic radicals want to go back to the past. Unfortunately, the non-Moslem world is not inclined to join them. Taking a knife to a gun fight doesn't work and many Moslem military leaders are taking note. American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 have had a tremendous impact on Moslem attitudes towards women in the military. Moslems seeing so many American women serving in the military and being competitive at it had a big impact. Some 300,000 American military women served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 700 were killed or wounded in action. Moslem women and men were impressed with these infidel (non-Moslem) women who were real soldiers. They wore the uniform, the body armor, carried weapons, and could fight. Despite resistance from many men, there is more pressure in Moslem countries to let women serve in the local military. Pakistan, which saw female American troops passing through and heard a lot of the stories of these women warriors doing their jobs next door in Afghanistan, is witnessing growing pressure to allow Pakistani women to operate like American women in the military. Currently, Pakistani attitudes towards women in the military are about a century behind the West. In the Pakistani military some 90 percent of the women serving are doctors and nurses. The rest are also technical specialists, brought in mainly because there were not enough technically qualified men to meet the need. One technical specialty that even Moslem nations turn to the women for is pilots. Noting the success of female military pilots in the United States since the 1980s an increasing number of other countries are moving in that direction as well. The reason is simple, many of the women who go through flight training turn out to have better flying skills than the average male pilot. American use of female military pilots goes back a long way. During World War II (1939-45) the United States used women pilots to ferry military aircraft around, including bringing them to the airfields where combat missions were flown from. These female pilots were considered civilian contractors but some male pilots could not help but notice that many of these women were very good pilots. In Russia the need for good pilots led to hundreds of women being put to work flying bombers and fighters in combat. But in Russia, as elsewhere, the women were removed from airplanes when the war was over. It took another three decades before the women regained in peacetime the jobs they had in wartime. Now over 40 nations, most in the West, employ women as military combat and non-combat pilots. But while the number of nations with female military pilots increases the actual number of pilots is not growing as fast. Worldwide women are increasingly part of the military. In many nations over ten percent of military personnel are female. In the U.S. military its now 15 percent and that is where it is headed for many other nations. A century ago it was under one percent (and most of those were nurses and other medical personnel). More women are in uniform now because there aren't enough qualified men, especially for many of the technical jobs armed forces now have to deal with. Being a fighter pilot is one of the most demanding, physically and mentally, military jobs ever. Nations with lots of jet fighters have to use what flying talent they have or greatly reduce their capability for success in air combat. Bay of Plenty Do you want the opportunity to work on one of the busiest ports in New Zealand? Then read on! We have an exciting role for... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz A Bay of Plenty radio station has taken out the supreme award at the 2018 Maori Radio Awards. TumekeFM, based in Whakatane claimed the title of Te Pou Toa o te Tau 2018, Iwi Radio Station of the Year 2018, at this years awards which were held in Rotorua on Saturday night. The award is one of five claimed by the station which also include Best Station Imaging, Best Programme Director, Best Current Affairs or Talkback Programme and Best Outside Broadcast. In a joint statement, Te Reo Irirangi o te Manuka Tutahi chairman Layne Harvey and manager Jarrod Dodd say they are humbled to have received the award. The Maori broadcasting space remains an environment of challenge and opportunity. Advancements in technology, language priorities and audience trends require us to seek to exceed those expectations by embracing innovation and change in the promotion of te reo me ona tikanga. The organisation says its thankful to its supporters. The board, management, and staff, wish to acknowledge the judges, other finalists, Te Whakaruruhau o Nga Reo Irirangi, the Maori Media Network and Te Mangai Paho. We would also like to thank our communities and listeners, our licence holder, Te Runanga o Ngati Awa, our clients and sponsors and all our volunteers and supporters for their continued endorsement. Nga mihi mahana, nga mihi maioha ki a koutou. A Tauranga organisation is doing its part to help improve the lives of children and young adults throughout the Bay of Plenty. Bidfood Tauranga has recently presented a cheque for $15,000 to the Graeme Dingle Foundation Bay of Plenty, amongst what has been described as a long term partnership. Bidfood are a long term supporters of ours, says Graeme Dingle Foundation BOP Trust founder Dan Allen-Gordon. They support us in everything whether thats sponsoring our events or our programmes. On a national level, the organisation has supported the Foundation for Youth Development and their Project K Programme for more than eight years. In that time its donated close to $400,000, with many branches also doing their own fundraising over and above to help support the cause. Bidfood Tauranga is one of many being a testimony to this, recently having donated $15,000. The cheque handover involved programme leaders along with Year 10 students from Mount Maunganui College, who are currently part of the Project K programme. They are in the last week of their community challenges and have been helping different organisations including Homes of Hope, Good Neighbour Trust and the Historic Village, says Dan. This is all possible because of the support we receive from Bidfood. Weve got our two programmes running and if it wasnt for them wed probably be down to two. It really does help to make a massive difference to changing the lives of young people in Tauranga. Bidfood actually put a lot of effort into fundraising for us. A portion of profits made from some of their lines actually go directly to us. He says its not just monetary support either. Two of our Otumoetai College boys will be starting work with Bidfood over the summer holidays. Theyll be out on the trucks, helping with deliveries six days a week during one of the busiest times of the year. Theyre very hands on, they help with product, when we need it at our events like graduations. They actually attend a lot of these events and theyre fully involved. The dedication of Papamoas war memorial next Sunday on November 11 at 2pm, comes 100 years since the armistice that ended World War One. The cenotaph, which is located at the Stella Place Carpark overlooking the sea, commemorates six local men who made the ultimate sacrifice. It also recognises the service of all New Zealands servicemen and servicewomen in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations. Papamoa locals Mick OCarroll, Bill Newell and Steve Morris worked for seven months to make the memorial a reality. When I arrived in Papamoa last year I noticed there wasnt a fitting place to remember those who gave their lives so that can live in freedom today, says Mick, a formal Warrant Officer in the Navy. Mick is satisfied saying that we now have the perfect place for locals to gather and pay their respects. Papamoa was a very small rural village when cities and towns up and down the country were building memorials to remember their brave loved ones, says Tauranga City Councillor Steve Morris. Today over 26,000 people call Papamoa their home and we now have a memorial that reflects a community our size but more importantly, it honours our six brave servicemen in one place, together, at home for the first time. The Mount RSA will take ownership and responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of the memorial. President Bill Newell is grateful for the sponsors that have been so generous. Id particularly like to thank Neil Gedge from Elliotts Funeral Services who sourced the beautiful granite spire at cost and paid for its engraving. Id also like to thank McLeod Cranes for helping Neil with its installation on site. The 3m spire is just the first stage. By ANZAC Day next year, thanks to the generosity of Farmer Motor Group, a Navy Flagstaff will sit next to it to honour the service of nuclear test veterans in the Pacific. Mick and Steve went to visit Mike Farmer at the Hewletts Road dealership last week hoping for a donation. We left with the whole thing paid for, says Steve. Mick says that local businesses have been generous and quick to step up. We were pretty optimistic in hoping to raise enough money for something to be installed by Armistice Day, says Mick. Im pleased Ill be commemorating Armistice Day at home in Papamoa. The dedication will be at 2pm. Due to the number of veterans wanting to attend the dedication, we wanted to leave enough time for them to make their way to the site after the other services around town at 11am, says Bill. Bay of Plenty Our client has plenty of work in the pipeline and as such they are in need of qualified or experienced carpenters for an... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Just as William Faulkner's Mississippi; Jane Smiley's Iowa, and Luis Alberto Urrea's borderlands shape their work, so Diana Abu-Jaber's Central New York informs her narratives. An author of fiction, memoir and commentary, she is also a professor of creative writing and literature at Portland State University. She divides her time between Oregon and Florida but, although she no longer lives locally, her roots run deep in Central New York. "Syracuse made me a writer," Abu-Jaber says, "and how that happened will be the topic of my talk at the Rosamond Gifford Lecture Series." She will speak Nov. 12 at the Crouse-Hinds Civic Center, discussing how her youth in a bi-cultural Central New York family that also resided in Jordan, her father's homeland, for two years and lengthy vacations, fashioned her life and her writing. She grew up in Euclid, north of Liverpool village, in a one-of-a-kind home that had been designed, built, and originally occupied by a local architect. Made of redwood timbers, the house, as Abu-Jaber recalls it, had been set off in wide-open fields and maple trees at the intersection of Rt. 31 and Morgan road. "I used to invite my high school friends over for poetry readings and assorted happenings," Abu-Jaber recalls. "It was the perfect spot for an aspiring writer to hold a rotating literary salon." Abu-Jaber and her sisters, Monica and Suzanne, graduated from Liverpool High School, and Diana earned her baccalaureate degree in creative writing from SUNY Oswego. She recalls, "Back then, my professors were colorful and strange and creative in ways that many faculty members are not allowed to be anymore, with so much emphasis on committee work and corporate-style notions of excellence and professionalism." Looking back, she says, "I miss the people. My professors, my fellow writers, and the people I worked with--especially at the Sweet Shoppe in the Student Union, where it felt as if we were hosting a party with piles of sugar every day. I miss the arts and music scene, especially around the Low Life Caffe, a Water street haven that served 20 blends of coffee. It was an exciting time to be a student at SUNY Oswego." Patricia Abu-Jaber, the author's mother, was a reading specialist at Liverpool Middle school for nearly 30 years, retiring in the late 1980s. Her father, "Gus," was a dynamic, brilliant cook, and her maternal grandmother was a serious baker. Abu-Jaber grew up between their influences in both writing and cooking. "Their approaches to cuisine reflected their approaches to life; they didn't agree on a lot, but together, they taught me to take food as seriously as I did all my other endeavors." References to places familiar to Central New Yorkers are threaded through her novels "Arabian Jazz" and "Origin." Readers will also find passages that relate to local scenes in her 2016 book, "Life Without a Recipe: A Memoir of Food and Family." This is Abu-Jaber's most intimate story, drenched in all the sweetness of her grandmother's German baking and replete with the savory spiciness of her father's Middle Eastern fare. Grandmother blends and mixes, while father chops and smashes, and all the while, they toss insults at each other, their antipathy as necessary to sustenance as are the products of their culinary arts. In her latest book, readers learn that living without a recipe helps the narrator survive the kitchen wars, find her special identity in a houseful of sisters, cousins and frequent guests, and develop her unique creative pathway. It also, however, leads to some miss-measured lifetime decisions and ill-timed relationships. All experiences are thrown into the pot and shared openly. It's an honest, funny chronicle of one family's love of food and, despite upheavals and disagreements, love of one another. Abu-Jaber is calling her Gifford lecture "Writing While Syracusan," and she intends to reveal that, despite how difficult and sometimes scary it can be to tell one's story, growing up in Central New York gave her what she needed to become a writer. THE DETAILS: Who: Author Diana Abu-Jaber What: Rosamond Gifford Lecture Series When: Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. Where: Crouse-Hinds Theater, Civic Center Tickets: $35, students discounted with ID. Call 315-435-2121 Editorial cartoonists focused on President Donald Trump's various proposals on immigration intended to fire up Republican voters before Tuesday's midterm elections. Trump dispatched troops to the U.S. border with Mexico to meet a caravan of migrants from Central America who intend to ask for asylum in this country. The president also falsely claimed he could revoke birthright citizenship with an executive order. Other topics in the cartoons include the mass shooting of worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue, which is being prosecuted as a hate crime; whether young people will vote this coming Tuesday; and the arrival of daylight savings time. Cartoons were drawn by Bill Bramhall, Chan Lowe, Dan Wasserman, Dana Summers, Drew Sheneman, Scott Stantis, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey and Joel Pett of Tribune Content Agency; Tim Campbell, Mike Lester and Signe Wilkinson of the Washington Post Writers Group; and Tom Toles of Andrews McMeel Syndication. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's pitch for a third four-year term goes something like this: I turned around the long-neglected Upstate New York economy with $44 billion in state aid, including renovations to our airport and state fairgrounds. Wages and employment are up. Income and business taxes are down. Property taxes are high, but they would be even higher without the 2-percent tax cap I passed. As for Albany corruption, it's a few bad apples spoiling the bunch. And don't forget about gay marriage and sensible gun control. Cuomo is polished and forceful, a builder and a doer. He's in the conversation as a presidential contender. But under his leadership, New York's progress has been uneven. A million New Yorkers have left the state since 2010. Upstate's economic recovery from the 2009 recession has lagged behind the nation's, and Central New York's recovery has lagged behind even more. Some of those billions the state spent on economic development went to poorly planned, corrupt or underperforming projects. While property taxes haven't gone up dramatically from year to year, they certainly haven't gone down, and New York's taxation ranking against other states has barely budged. Cuomo's fight for ethics reform has been half-hearted, at best, obstructionist, at worst. He's blind to corruption right under his nose. If Cuomo really wanted it, New York already would have comprehensive ethics reform and real property tax relief. He won't take that on. So elect someone who will. Voters have four alternatives: Republican Marc Molinaro, Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, independent candidate Stephanie Miner and Libertarian Larry Sharpe. We endorse Molinaro to refocus state government's attention from the national stage - the Trump resistance, Puerto Rico hurricane relief -- to the places we live, work and go to school. As the Dutchess County executive, Molinaro has had to balance a local budget with all the state-mandated costs and demands pressing down on him. As a child growing up on food stamps, he knows what it's like to be dependent on public assistance. As the father of a special-needs child, he's dealt with the bureaucracy and regulations that impede delivery of necessary services. Molinaro's big idea to reduce property taxes is to gradually shift the local share of Medicaid from local taxpayers to the state. In Onondaga County, 70 percent of your tax bill goes to pay for Medicaid. Under Cuomo, the state agreed to cap the local share of Medicaid, and assume any growth in costs. Molinaro would shift the entire burden to the state gradually, over 15 years. We encourage him to find a solution that does it faster. Only drastic action will break the back of high property taxes, and Medicaid funding is the place to start. Molinaro also would disband Cuomo's Regional Economic Development Councils, which dole out taxpayer dollars to developers and companies, and instead spend the money on roads, bridges, sidewalks, transit, broadband, water and sewer infrastructure. This shift is part of his anti-corruption agenda, which also includes term limits, closing the LLC loophole, independent redistricting and ethics policing, and more transparency in budgeting and executive branch operations. In other words, a 180-degree turn from the status quo. Cuomo had his chance. In 2013, he appointed a Moreland Commission to investigate Albany's culture of corruption. He disbanded it in 2014, before it could finish its work. Out of Moreland's ashes came this year's corruption trials over the Buffalo Billion, the film hub and the LED lighting factory in DeWitt. The hard-charging governor demanded results; testimony revealed how far his staff would go to deliver. The end result was a series of ill-conceived projects in Central New York and an embarrassment for his administration. We endorsed Cuomo in 2010 to clean up Albany, and again in 2014 despite his failure to do so. Not again. Not this time. Change in Albany starts at the top. While Cuomo has been good for New York, many New Yorkers in Upstate aren't feeling it. New York can do better. Molinaro deserves a chance to try. Why we endorse The purpose of an editorial endorsement is to provide a thoughtful assessment of the choices voters face in an election. We offer editorial endorsements to stimulate the public conversation and promote civic engagement. Voting is a right and an obligation of citizenship. That part is up to you. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6. Syracuse.com editorials Editorials represent the collective opinion of the Advance Media New York editorial board. Our opinions are independent of news coverage. Read our Members of the editorial board are Tim Kennedy, Jason Murray and Marie Morelli. To respond to this editorial: Post a comment below, or submit a letter or commentary to . Read our If you have questions about the Opinions & Editorials section, contact Marie Morelli, editorial/opinion leader, at Donald Trump Jr. plans to stop in Rome on Monday night to rally support for U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney on the eve of the 22nd Congressional District election, Tenney's campaign said Sunday. Trump Jr. will become the fourth member of his family to personally visit the sprawling district in Central New York and the Southern Tier in an election that has attracted national attention. Tenney, R-New Hartford, and Democrat Anthony Brindisi are locked in a dead heat, according to public polls, in a race that has emerged as one of the most competitive in the nation for a House seat. Tenney's campaign said Trump Jr. will speak at 8 p.m. Monday at a public event the Beeches Inn and Conference Center. President Donald Trump visited Utica in August to raise money for Tenney. His daughter, Ivanka, and son, Eric, have also appeared at events with Tenney during her campaign against Brindisi. Trump's White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, headlined rallies for Tenney supporters Saturday in Canastota and Endicott. The president remains popular in the eight-county 22nd District, which he won by 15 percentage points in 2016. But polls show Tenney is viewed less favorably than Trump by district voters. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's lead over Republican Marc Molinaro has declined nine points in the final month of the 2018 race for governor, according to a new poll made public Sunday. Cuomo still has a comfortable lead over Molinaro (49-36 percent) ahead of Tuesday's election, the Siena College poll of likely voters found. But Molinaro has gained ground since he trailed by 22 points (50-28 percent) in the Siena poll at the end of September. Molinaro cut into the governor's lead as voters expressed the most unfavorable view of Cuomo in his eight years in office, the poll found. More voters now view Cuomo unfavorably (49 percent) than favorably (45 percent). The poll of 641 likely voters was conducted by telephone calls to landlines and cell phones from Oct. 28 through Thursday (Nov. 1). The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. Steve Greenberg, a spokesman for the Siena poll, said the latest survey found Molinaro now leads among independent voters (41-34 percent). The Dutchess County executive trailed among independents by 10 points at the end of September. Molinaro also leads in Upstate New York by 10 percentage points over Cuomo (46-36 percent) but Cuomo has the overall edge based on the strength of his support in New York City (77-14 percent). About 7 percent of voters remained undecided ahead of Tuesday's election. Three third-party candidates are favored by a combined 7 percent of likely voters, led by Libertarian Larry Sharpe (3 percent). Former Syracuse mayor Stephanie Miner (2 percent), who is making an independent bid for governor, and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins (2 percent) of Syracuse were struggling to break out of the pack days before the election, the poll found. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 HORNELL, N.Y. -- An Upstate New York police department has debunked rampant rumors on social media that candy laced with LSD, a hallucinogenic drug, had been given out to trick-or-treaters on Halloween. The Hornell Police Department in Steuben County received a number of inquiries into the matter, police said in a Facebook post Friday night. While police and paramedics did respond to a medical call, there was no evidence of foul play. In response to several inquiries as to possible LSD laced candy given out on Halloween night. Our agency and Hornell... Posted by Hornell Police Department on Friday, November 2, 2018 "Our agency and Hornell Paramedics did respond to a medical call regarding a city resident experiencing a reaction after biting into a piece of candy. Paramedics treated the resident at the scene and did not find evidence indicating the consumption of a drug," police said. "Police and Fire did monitor the situation throughout the night and did not have any related calls regarding issues with candy nor did the Hospital. The candy has been tested at our office and did not indicate the presence of a Hallucinogen." The candy in question was the Goetze Caramel. Hornell Police urged city residents to throw the candy out if residents were uncomfortable consuming the treat. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. In brief: The US midterm election takes place next week, and while all eyes are on the results, many people are waiting for any evidence of Russia directly interfering with the vote. If the country is found to have meddled, the Department of Defense is ready to launch a cyberattack against it. According to a report from the Center for Public Integrity and the Daily Beast, which cites current and former senior officials familiar with the plan, the DoD and US intelligence agencies are ready to strike back against Russia with an offensive cyberattack if it is found to have electronically interfered with the November 6 elections. Russian trolls trying to influence American voters using social media is almost expected these days, and something that continues despite Facebook (and others) taking measures to combat the problem. A government-sanctioned cyberattack is, of course, a serious move, one that will take more than memes and attempts to sway voters opinion to make happen. It seems the attack will only take place if concrete evidence of Russia attempting to tamper with the results, registrations, or voting process emerges. The plan comes as the result of an executive order signed by President Trump earlier this year, which revised the rules on how and when the US can launch cyberattacks against other countries. The previous framework involved a multi-agency process taking place before such an attack could be carried out; now, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats can approve retaliatory strikes without the approval of others in the government, and in certain cases without White House approval. Just how much the threat of a cyberattack dissuades Russia from directly interfering with the midterms, if that is its plan, remains to be seen. Back in November 2016, the US warned it would hack the countys infrastructure if it meddled directly with the US presidential election, a threat that Russia called unprecedented, and insolent. There won't be an iPhone capable of 5G at least until 2020, new reports say. According to Fast Company, this is because of Intel, whose 8161 5G modem for future 5G iPhones are still encountering some issues. The report aligns with previous rumors suggesting Apple is planning to ditch Qualcomm for 5G components and will instead rely on Intel as its sole provider for cellular modems. "Intel has been working on a precursor to the 8161 called the 8060, which will be used for prototyping and testing the 5G iPhone. The 8161 will be fabricated using Intel's 10-nanometer process, which increases transistor density for more speed and efficiency," reports Fast Company. Intel 5G Problems Though Apple is firm on cutting its ties with Qualcomm, the Cupertino brand is allegedly unhappy with Intel's progress thus far. Apparently, Intel is still trying to figure out how to reduce heat dissipation with its latest chips. This is crucial since some U.S. carriers, such as Verizon and AT&T, plan to use millimeter-wave spectrum for its 5G networks. For the uninitiated, millimeter-wave signal requires considerable "heavy lifting" from modem chips. It causes higher-than-normal levels of thermal energy inside the phone to a degree where the heat can be felt on the phone's exterior. Battery Life Another issue is battery life. It doesn't take a genius to know that any kind of heat generation inside an electronic device powered by a rechargeable battery will cause that battery to drain faster than usual. As such, if Intel's 5G modem fails to successfully reduce heat dissipation, battery life will definitely be affected. This is similar to what had occurred with early 4G LTE handsets. Despite everything, Intel apparently isn't worried. Allegedly, the chipmaker says the issues mentioned above should get resolved pretty soon, and that it's not serious enough for Apple to have to go back to using Qualcomm components again. That being said, Intel is reportedly concerned that Apple has a "Plan B" up its sleeve in case everything blows over for Intel. Apparently, Apple might also be talking with chip manufacturer MediaTek about potentially supplying modem chips. Of course, everything mentioned above belongs in rumor territory. Needless to say, take everything with a grain of salt. However, the idea of Apple having a Plan B that involves MediaTek seems highly plausible, especially since entering a partnership with Qualcomm once again is probably out of the question after their nasty legal fallout. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commission When Cocha restaurant owners Enrique Pinerua and Saskia Spanhoff decided they wanted to spruce up their block of North 6th Street, they reached out to the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge and the Downtown Development District for ideas. Their request would ultimately bring together a diverse group of people working toward two goals: beautifying downtown Baton Rouge and giving ex-offenders in a re-entry program a chance to do something good for their community. On Saturday, participants in the Rehabilitating Individuals through Strategic Encounters, or RISE, program joined a small group of volunteers to tackle the first project on the restaurant owners list. They put a fresh coat of white paint on a wall, creating a canvas for a colorful mural that will be completed later this month. Bringing arts into rehabilitation can really help people to find their place and ... help them go back into civil life, said Melissa Arnold, chief financial and human resources officer for the arts council. Art is an equalizer for a lot of people, she added. It gives people a way to connect and to find commonality. She said Renee Chatelain, the council's president and CEO, works with RISE and wanted to make it a part of Saturday's event. U.S. District Court Judge Shelly Dick and Magistrate Judge Erin Wilder-Doomes, both of the Middle District of Louisiana, oversee RISE. Launched in January 2017, the voluntary program aims to set nonviolent offenders on a positive path while on supervised release from federal prison. +4 Baton Rouge federal court graduates 3 offenders from inaugural 're-entry court' program Michael Finley found himself Wednesday yet again sitting in a federal courtroom, but this time he had a smile on his face. The U.S. Middle Dis The yearlong RISE program, which serves about six people at a time, involves regular meetings with a judge and cognitive behavioral therapy sessions, among other requirements. Those selected to participate are deemed to be at high risk of landing back in prison. People who finish the program can get time taken off their supervised probation sentences. Weve looked for ways to ensure that our participants have an opportunity to be involved in something in the community, Wilder-Doomes said. After youve been incarcerated and youre coming back into your community, it gets really important for them to understand theyre a part of this community. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Michael Young, a RISE participant, smiled as he talked about the program, saying hes confident it is leading him toward a better life. If we need help, we have each other to lean on, he said. And the therapy component of RISE helps us to realize the way we were thinking wrong. He said he was proud to be part of the beautification work on Saturday. This is where I grew up at. This is where Im from Baton Rouge, Young said, adding that the project is helping our community to be better. The mural, which will depict a Louisiana outdoor scene with trees and wildlife, will be painted on a building across North 6th Street from Cocha. The two buildings, located between Main and Laurel streets, have the same owner, Larry Sciacchetano. There also are plans to add outdoor seating in a parklet outside Cocha and to conceal some unattractive garbage bins with a gate. Taylor Jacobsen, an LSU landscape architecture graduate student, will paint the approximately 2,000-square-foot mural, the centerpiece of which will show birds, bugs and other critters flocking to a tree of life. It symbolizes "putting roots here in downtown" with plans to stay for many years to come, Cocha owner Pinerua said. "Were really, really excited about being in this time and place in downtown. He said the finished mural will be all the more meaningful because of the people in the RISE program who had a hand in painting it. Any time that they walk by here, they can tell their families, I helped do that, Pinerua said. Thats going to bring up their self-esteem. Its going to bring up their self-worth. Livingston Parish residents heading to the polls Tuesday will decide the fate of a new half-cent sales tax that Sheriff Jason Ard says would fund a law enforcement officer in every school. The idea emerged after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, raised fears that a similar tragedy could happen here. The sales tax is expected to raise $8 to $9.4 million next year and would last in perpetuity. It is designated to fund the operations of the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, "including, but not limited to, stationing Sheriff deputies in public schools throughout the Parish of Livingston in order to provide for the safety and security of the students and faculty therein," according to the measure's language. School resource officers are specially trained law enforcement officers who patrol schools, mentor kids and investigate fights, drugs and signs of possible abuse at home. If the tax passes, Livingston would be the state's third parish to post officers on every campus. Livingston sheriff steps up efforts to pass school safety tax, PAC formed to promote it Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard is ramping up his efforts to pass a half-cent sales tax that would fund his department and more school res The ballot measure pits against each other two strong sentiments in Livingston Parish. Many people are strong supporters of law enforcement and the schools, and recent school shootings have exacerbated fears that it could happen here. But residents have long been critical of new taxes, giving a thumbs down in recent years to tax proposals to build new school buildings and do drainage work in flood-prone areas. Ard has promised to use the collected tax money to staff each of the 46 school campuses in the parish with law enforcement officers, plus more officers as supervisors and substitutes. He has estimated the cost of the program at around $5.5 million annually. The tax represents a major step-up of law enforcement presence in the schools and a sizable change in the sheriff's annual budget. At present, just 10 officers who work in the parish schools. The sheriff has a budget of approximately $30 million without the new tax. The sheriff, Livingston Parish School Board and a pro-tax political action committee called Safe Schools for Kids have been pushing the tax in recent weeks. There's also been unorganized opposition from some residents who say they are skeptical of the language of the proposal and its potential revenues. Ard and Livingston Parish Superintendent Rick Wentzel have been speaking at churches, schools and community groups around the parish in support of the tax. Many of the schools also sent home letters with students that say a "logical and effective response" to school violence is to put an officer at every campus. The letter also says resource officers improve school environments by preventing violence at school and bullying and connecting at-risk kids to services. Livingston school resource officer tax: Here's how your money would be spent Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard's rough plan for how he would spend a half-cent sales tax targeted at hiring law enforcement officers for "I believe its going to pass," Wentzel said in an interview Friday. "I know when people start looking in their hearts and they start looking at the needs of safety in our schools what is the cost of something like that? People are going to see its for the children." Lori Steele, a spokeswoman for the sheriff, said Ard was unavailable for an interview for this story. But Larry O'Neill, who helped lead the failed push to pass a drainage tax in southeastern Livingston Parish last year, said he is not persuaded by the messaging. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up In an interview, O'Neill said does not see placing an officer at every school as a primary need, when the parish has so many other issues, including drainage. "Of course none of us want any of our children hurt, in my case its grandchildren. But we really haven't had that issue here," O'Neill said. O'Neill said he is also concerned Ard is asking for more money than he needs and that the tax would last in perpetuity. He said he'd be more likely to vote in favor of a quarter-cent tax. "We're talking about $9 million. You don't need about half that to put resource officers in there," O'Neill said. "His numbers don't add up to me." If the measure passes, the tax could bring in a surplus for the Sheriff's department of anywhere from $2.5 million a figure the Sheriffs Office readily acknowledges is likely to more than $3.9 million if revenue comes in higher than projected and costs turn out to be lower. Ard has said surplus funds would be used to purchase more equipment and hire additional deputies for the growing parish. His chief finance officer, Jamie Felder, has defended the amount by saying it is the sum needed to guarantee the program can be implemented immediately and secured for the future. Meanwhile, parish-wide elected officials have remained mostly mum on the topic. The Advocate reached out to them this week for their position on the measure. Livingston Parish President Layton Ricks declined to say whether he is for or against the tax proposal. He said he did not think residents wanted to hear from him about how to vote. Should the tax pass, I have full confidence in Sheriff Jason Ard," Ricks said. "He will spend this money wisely to protect our schools." Livingston Parish District Attorney Scott Perrilloux said he is supporting the tax, although he has not gone out to campaign for it. "I know its a large amount of money, but I would support it in that it would hopefully provide for safety in the schools," Perrilloux said. Parish Clerk of Court Tom Sullivan gave a wholehearted endorsement of the proposal. Sullivan said he fears there could be a violent incident here, as there has been in other areas. He also said law enforcement officers in schools can be good mentors for kids and can teach them early that police are not the enemy. "I understand that anti-tax movement, but at the end of the day, when I cast my ballot, and I already have, I could not live with myself if I had the opportunity to do something to at least to try to curb violence in the school of a child or grandchild," Sullivan said. Livingston Parish Assessor Jeff Taylor did not respond to requests for comment. WASHINGTON Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy and Democratic U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond have joined a bipartisan chorus of high-profile Louisiana politicians backing Amendment 2, a ballot proposition that would require unanimous jury verdicts in state criminal cases. Both Cassidy and Richmond characterized Louisianas current law which allows a jury to convict or acquit defendants even if two jurors dissent as an injustice against basic American values. The 120-year-old practice is marred by explicitly racist origins and also extremely unusual in the United States. Every other state but Oregon requires unanimous verdicts; Louisiana and Oregon require only 10 of 12 jurors to agree. Richmond and Cassidy are the only members of Louisianas congressional delegation to take a stand on Amendment 2, with other Louisiana politicians in Washington either declining to comment on their position or not responding to inquiries from The Advocate. The proposed change has seen little public opposition among elected officials. The vast majority of Louisiana politicians have either endorsed Amendment 2 or remained silent on the issue. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican and outspoken hard-liner on many criminal justice issues, is the only high-profile figure in the state to come out against making jury verdicts unanimous. Landry, however, has apparently backed off his public opposition in recent days and is now declining to comment on the issue. Marc Morial, Urban League president and former New Orleans mayor, stumps for unanimous juries in Louisiana Casting it as a key step in a broader struggle to build a more equitable justice system, National Urban League President Marc Morial on Wednes Richmond, the states lone Democrat in Congress and the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, has long championed the change to the states constitution. His re-election committee put nearly $50,000 into ads featuring the congressman urging voters to back the amendment. Amendment 2 is a common-sense, bipartisan reform that will improve our justice system and safeguard innocent peoples freedom, Richmond said Thursday in a statement. Everyone should be for that. The issue is so important I knew I couldnt sit on the sidelines, so I have been working to help inform voters of what the amendment is and what it would mean. Cassidy announced his own unequivocal support for requiring unanimous juries on Wednesday. The senator previously told The Advocate he was strongly leaning toward voting in favor of Amendment 2 but wanted to do additional research before making a final decision. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of our society, and a split-jury law undermines that principle, said Cassidy, the state's senior senator, in a statement. Louisiana should join Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and every other state but one in requiring unanimous jury decisions in all non-capital felony cases. Louisiana already requires unanimity in capital cases, as well as lesser felony cases that can be heard by six-member juries. Our Views: Unanimous juries are a rigorous hurdle, which is why Amendment 2 is worthy of endorsement Louisiana is one of only two states Oregon is the other that dont require the unanimous agreement of 12 jurors to convict someone accused Cassidy's announcement noted the wide range of groups from across the ideological spectrum currently backing the change, including the Catholic Church, the conservative Louisiana Family Forum and the liberal ACLU of Louisiana. The states Republican and Democratic parties have both endorsed the ballot measure. A yes vote on Amendment 2 would require a unanimous jury verdict in all felony cases for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2019. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, a vociferous critic of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards criminal justice reforms and a potential Edwards challenger in 2019, declined through a spokesperson to take a position on the change. So too did U.S. Reps. Ralph Abraham, R-Alto, another potential GOP candidate for governor, and Mike Johnson, R-Bossier. Reps. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge; Clay Higgins, R-Port Barre; and Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson; havent publicly taken a position on the change and didnt respond to messages seeking comment. On Tuesday, Louisiana's registered voters in several dozen towns and villages with a few thousand or fewer residents, along with those in a handful or larger cities, will elect police chiefs. Actually, only about half will have this chance, as around half of these contests have just a single candidate. French Settlement police chief steps down after second malfeasance arrest French Settlement's police chief stepped down from his elected position on Wednesday, a day after his arrest on counts of malfeasance in office. Which is one more than some places have. The community of Lucky unluckily had no one file for the office. Calvin was predestined for the same. Citizens of Noble also face this ignoble prospect. And Palmetto was bugged by the same indifference. These municipalities are shaped by Louisianas Lawrason Act from 1898. It implemented a procedure to recognize new municipalities, replacing the previous need to pass a special legislative act for each one. The act reflected public distrust, prevalent in that era, of centralized government power, particularly in the South. It mandated that municipalities have several executives, but required that voters elect only two: a mayor and police chief (called a marshal in a few jurisdictions). The act also authorizes a referendum process that lets citizens empower the mayor to appoint the police chief. An elected chief has a lot of autonomy. The mayor and aldermen craft a budget for police and may make final decisions on hiring and firing police personnel, but the chief administers all other aspects of operating a law enforcement agency. Any citizen who qualifies as an elector and resident may run, regardless of law enforcement background. But even if voters elect an experienced lawman, that person earns the job not from demonstrated ability but by receiving the most votes. Running a good campaign and/or having the personality to leverage family relations and friendships into votes brings victory and delivers a job with a badge and full-time salary. These skills have little to do with providing superior law enforcement. Worse, the fragmented executive authority this arrangement produces can lead to friction with other elected leaders that hampers service delivery. And, worst of all, with accountability imposed only once every four years and for reasons that may have more to do with popularity than performance, temptation for corrupt behavior increases. Since last spring, half a dozen Louisiana elected chiefs have been arrested for a variety of alleged crimes. That includes French Settlements Chief Harry Brignac, the poster child for what can go wrong with having an elected chief. Last year, citizens complained when his wife drove a village police car in a parade, contrary to state law and city orders. Some weeks later, she fled officers in a vehicle, which led to no-contest pleas for DWI and driving with a suspended license. Undaunted, at her husbands request last month, she drove the police car again. When pulled over with her license suspended, she was booked again, and Brignac was arrested for malfeasance in office for having her operate the vehicle. That marked the second time in three months he stood accused of that offense. Earlier, he had faced allegations that he used town funds for a personal purchase. He maintains his innocence and chalked up the turmoil to the towns mayor and alderman wanting to force his resignation. He resigned on Wednesday. Almost all elected Louisiana police chiefs appear to perform their duties honestly. But the appointment of chiefs permits greater vetting and scrutiny from other elected officials, promotes less conflict within the executive branch, and, especially in smaller municipalities, invites more cost-efficient governance. The Louisiana Legislature should change statutes to preclude, except for the largest municipalities, the option to elect police chiefs. Jeff Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University-Shreveport. He is author of a blog about Louisiana politics at www.between-lines.com and writes about Louisiana legislation at www.laleglog.com. Follow him on Twitter, @jsadowadvocate or email jeffsadowtheadvocate@yahoo.com. His views do not necessarily express those of his employer. Louisiana is one of only two states Oregon is the other that dont require the unanimous agreement of 12 jurors to convict someone accused of a serious crime. In the widespread discussion of a proposed change that would require unanimous juries in Louisiana for felony convictions, few critics have offered a plausible reason why voters shouldnt approve the measure, which is on the Nov. 6 ballot as Amendment 2. One objection to the much-needed reform seems very much shaped by the times. Since Americans are so divided these days, skeptics of Amendment 2 argue, how can we expect 12 people to agree on anything? Wont requiring unanimity frustrate the workings of the court system? Our Views: Myths about jury reform Amendment 2, a proposed change to the state constitution that would require unanimous verdicts before the government takes away your freedom, The simple answer is that getting 12 jurors to agree on a persons guilt is supposed to be challenging. Thats precisely why the agreement of 12 citizens from various walks of life to convict a fellow citizen of a felony bears such authority. That unanimity, often the product of extended deliberation, affirms the standard of guilt beyond reasonable doubt exactly the kind of yardstick that we would want if we, or someone we love, were accused of serious wrongdoing. This is a rigorous hurdle, but no one can plausibly claim that its impossibly high, since 48 other states put thousands of defendants behind bars each year while requiring the agreement of 12 jurors in each case to do so. To cynically suggest that Louisiana needs a lower bar for felony convictions is an insult to the wisdom and intelligence of our people. Can't see video below? Click here. Yes, our culture is often divisive. But one remedy for that division is to grow and nurture the tasks of citizenship that join us in common purpose. For centuries, one of the most important citizen duties has been that of a juror in a criminal trial, an obligation made all the more solemn because of the unanimity most American courts require for felony convictions. In troubled times, we shouldnt reject the ideal of unanimity in the jury room; we should embrace it as a sacred trust that calls us to shared ideals. In such civic rituals, we often find more unity with our fellow Americans than we had expected. In fact, common ground isnt extinct in political life, as evidenced by the broad bipartisan support for Amendment 2. Both the Republican and Democratic parties of Louisiana are backing the amendment, along with a number of the states top prosecutors and a vast array of conservative and liberal groups. Amendment 2 is worthy of those endorsements. We urge voters to affirm that support by voting yes. With the 2018 election season down to its final days, some of Louisianas six incumbents in Congress are making a big last push. Theyre not knocking on every door and chasing each possible vote in their own districts, though. Instead, theyre focusing their energy on setting themselves up for what comes after. In one sign of the times, 1st District U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise is busy on the campaign trail far from his conservative suburban New Orleans home base, appearing on behalf of fellow Republicans in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia, according to Politico. At least four of his staffers have been dispatched to help still more colleagues in still more states. Scalises main agenda, as everyone whos paying even a little bit of attention knows, isnt to beat the three Democrats, one Libertarian and one Independent who signed up to run against him. That much he clearly considers a given. Its to try to help enough vulnerable Republicans hold on to allow the GOP to keep its majority and to allow Scalise, now the House majority whip, to move up to majority Leader or perhaps even House speaker. Hes surely the most prominent, but Scalise isnt the only local representative already looking past Tuesday. U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, the delegations only Democrat, represents the 2nd District, which runs from his native New Orleans upriver to Baton Rouge, and hes facing three challengers for reelection. Yet he too is obviously assuming voters will send him back, and planning for the next Congress. Richmond, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, recently threw himself into the debate over his partys future should Democrats retake the majority. In a Dear Colleague letter, he endorsed the notion that one of the top two positions should go to an African-American member if there is any change in our top leadership positions. Congressman Ralph Abraham raising statewide profile with ad reaching voters outside district WASHINGTON With just days to go before Election Day, U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham is re-introducing himself to voters with a new ad. But most of Right now, the top two spots are held by white politicians, U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi of California and Steny Hoyer of Maryland. The third-ranking Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, is African-American and has long been a mentor to Richmond, and several younger black members have also expressed interest in leadership posts. And Richmond himself could find footing in the leadership ladder, or at least snag a good subcommittee chairmanship. Then theres U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham, who represents a largely rural district centered around Monroe. He drew three challengers and is running a biographical television ad thats officially aimed at heading them off. The commercial, though, happens to be airing some of the big media markets that skirt the 5th District, so a nice byproduct for him is that he is introducing himself to voters statewide who will vote in next years gubernatorial contest. Despite his own reelection this year, Abraham has made no secret of his interest in competing for governor in 2019. The collective take-away here, at least superficially, is a depressing one for people who favor robust elections. None of these three is sweating the outcome Tuesday. Nor are their three colleagues, U.S. Reps. Clay Higgins of Port Barre, Garret Graves of Baton Rouge and Mike Johnson of Benton. One silver lining, though, is that all of them at least attracted challengers. Some are the usual suspects, others are politically out of step with most of their fellow constituents but eager to argue for different policies. A couple, Tammy Savoie in the 1st District and Mimi Methvin in the 3rd, could be considered part of a national movement of accomplished Democratic women taking on establishment men. Savoie is a military veteran and clinical psychologist who argues that Scalises conservative policies dont address his poor states needs. Methvin is a former judge, congressional aide and federal prosecutor campaigning for Higgins' seat against the corrupting influence of big money in politics. It may not be the year of the woman here in Louisiana, as it could be in other states, but both are the kind of candidates who could easily run well in more competitive districts. And theres an outside chance that Louisiana could see more competitive districts in the future, once the Legislature that voters choose next year get its crack at redistricting following the 2020 census. Experience suggests thats too much to hope for. On the other hand, forcing incumbents to ask for voter support every two years is a start. If all this years long shot challengers accomplished anything, at least they did that. On Friday, the Archdiocese of New Orleans released a groundbreaking list naming 57 ordained clergy members who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list was released by Archbishop Gregory Aymond after a team of 10 people, including staff members and outside legal counsel, reviewed 2,432 personnel files. The graphic below lists each of the men accused, along with key dates in their allegations including their time in the clergy, the period of alleged abuse, the date of their accusation and the date of their removal, departure or death. It also maps out the Archbishop overseeing the church at the time of the allegations. Can't see PDF below? Click here. Information compiled by The Advocate's Jeff Adelson and Dan Swenson. MORE COVERAGE: Jesuits' reason for keeping abuse claims against Donald Pearce quiet? His victim requested it The decision not to disclose alleged sexual abuse committed by a former Jesuit High School president resulted from a victim's request that the Reveal of 57 New Orleans clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse a major step for Catholic officials New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond on Friday released the names of 57 former clergy members credibly accused of sexually abusing minors t New Orleans clergy sex abuse crisis: List of accused; see letter from Archbishop Aymond Archbishop Gregory Aymond on Friday released the names of 30 diocesan priests, 25 religious order priests and two deacons who, in the last cen Clergy sex abuse crisis timeline: Key names, dates, scandals as N.O. list nears release Many court cases, key moments and scandals have preceded the Archdiocese of New Orleans' decision to release a groundbreaking list of clergy m Key dates in the Catholic sex abuse scandal ARCHBISHOP PHILIP M. HANNAN YEARS: Sept. 29, 1965 Dec. 6, 1988 1977: George F. Brignac, a Catholic deacon and elementary school teacher, is charged and acquitted in Jefferson Parish of three counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile. 1984: Gilbert Gauthe, a Catholic priest in Lafayette, is criminally charged with child sex and eventually admits to molesting 37 children. Its the first major child-abuse scandal to rock the church. 1988: Brignac is charged with molestation of a juvenile, this time in Orleans Parish. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the case, for reasons that are not clear. ARCHBISHOP FRANCIS B. SCHULTE YEARS: Dec. 6, 1988 -- Jan. 3, 2002 Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up September 1992: James R. Porter, a former priest in Fall River, Mass., is charged with 46 counts of child molestation. Subsequent news stories reveal that church officials knew of Porters habitual abuse but allowed him to serve as a priest in multiple parishes nonetheless. Clusters of similar settlements are uncovered in other U.S. cities. 1992: Jason Berry, the New Orleans journalist who covered the Gauthe case, publishes "Lead Us Not Into Temptation," the first major investigative book about systemic abuse by the church. March 11, 1993: Occasional press reports uncover more cases of settlements and concealment around the country. Archbishop Schulte announces new protocols for handling allegations of child sex abuse by priests, involving a board of 11 laypeople. ARCHBISHOP ALFRED C. HUGHES YEARS: Jan. 3, 2002 June 12, 2009 Jan. 6, 2002: Three days after Archbishop Hughes formally succeeds Schulte, the Boston Globe publishes its first piece in devastating series about the church's systemic shuttling around of abusive priests. The series ignites a national firestorm as victims around the country surface with stories of abuse. May 16, 2002: Archbishop Hughes announces that an 11-member review board, which includes laypeople, has reviewed files of 1,000 clergymen who worked in the archdiocese and found that in the past, 12 had been credibly accused of abusing children, but there had been no disclosures to the public. June 2002: Americas bishops meet in Dallas amid national fury over widespread revelations of systematic cover-ups across the church. They agree to new reform protocols, coming up with a document called the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Dec. 3, 2003: The Archdiocese of New Orleans releases to a national bishops conference the results of an internal investigation into abuse by local priests. It gives tallies, but no names. The conclusion is that 10 clergy members have abused about three dozen children since 1950. Aug. 24, 2005: Six men file a package of lawsuits saying they were abused as children at Madonna Manor and Hope Haven, two Marrero orphanages run by the church. ARCHBISHOP GREGORY M. AYMOND: June 12, 2009 -- present Oct. 20, 2009: The Archdiocese of New Orleans pays $5.2 million to settle the Madonna Manor and Hope Haven claims. Officials do not name the clergy members involved; a total of 17 were accused. May 11, 2018: The archdiocese pays more than $500,000 to resolve the claims of a former altar boy at Holy Rosary School who says he was repeatedly raped by Brignac. June 20, 2018: The Advocate reports on the Brignac settlement; church officials say they were preparing to tell parishioners. The newspaper also reveals that Brignac has continued to serve as a lay lector in a Metairie parish at the discretion of the local pastor, and apparently in violation of the church discipline against him. June 20, 2018: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., and the highest-ranking prelate to be touched by scandal, is suspended over credible allegations that he abused a teenager decades earlier. Subsequent revelations demonstrate that many fellow bishops knew of his depredations but did not act. Meanwhile, revelations of the systemic abuse of children by clergy and the subsequent coverups - has ignited popular firestorms in Ireland, Australia, Chile and elsewhere. Pope Franciss handling of the crisis worldwide becomes a flashpoint for unprecedented internal criticism, including internal calls for his resignation. Aug. 14, 2018: A Pennsylvania grand jury issues a sweeping report documenting sexual abuse by roughly 300 priests across the state over a period of decades. The report alleges that more than 1,000 children were victimized and sets off a new national firestorm. Aug. 24, 2018: In wake of the Pennsylvania report, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announces hell open a state probe into the Catholic churchs actions in that state. At least a dozen other states have since followed suit. Oct. 16, 2018: As a new Catholic crisis builds, Archbishop Gregory Aymond says that sooner rather than later, he will release the names of all local clergy members who have been credibly accused of child abuse and removed from ministry during the last 50 years. Four other Louisiana dioceses plan similar disclosures. Oct. 19, 2018: Federal authorities begin issuing subpoenas to church officials in Pennsylvania, signaling the opening of the first known federal probe into church abuse. DO YOU HAVE A STORY OF SEXUAL ABUSE YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH THE ADVOCATE? Click here for information on how to safely share that story. The list of alleged clergy sex abusers that New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond released on Friday has foisted difficult questions on local Catholics, forcing them yet again to re-evaluate their trust in priests who guided them in faith and the archbishops who presided over abuse or revelations about it. The allegations detailed in Aymond's list of 57 priests and other clergy occurred over decades under the rule of archbishops whose names have become landmarks in place and time for the faithful of New Orleans. In addition to potentially challenging those legacies, the list has sparked criticism as much for what it doesnt reveal as for what it does: priests who apparently returned to their flocks or popped up in other parishes despite credible allegations they had abused children. In some cases, men named on the list, such as Monsignor Howard Hotard and Gerard Jerry Howell, appear to have gone on to serve publicly as priests even after they were purported to have been removed from ministry." Aymond's list marked a first for the Catholic Church in Louisiana. It is expected to be followed soon by similar rosters from at least four of the states six other dioceses as the state's bishops seek forgiveness and an end to a sordid, multiple-decades scandal that extends globally. But while Aymond hailed the churchs bold step toward transparency on Friday, the archdiocese struggled to explain what appear to be lapses over the years in its enforcement of its own rules for dealing with and reporting clergy sex abuse. No warnings issued A troubling aspect of Fridays disclosure which was aimed at restoring some parishioners' flagging trust in the church was that the list spotlighted some cases in which the church failed to warn the flock even after a clergyman had been revealed as an abuser. Hotard, the longtime pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Slidell, was removed from ministry in 2002 based on an allegation received in 1995, according to the archdiocese. But that was news to Slidell parishioners, who believed Hotard had retired in good standing in 2001, when he turned 75. He apparently was still in good standing when he retired. But even in his later years, after Bishop Alfred Hughes removed him, Hotard continued to say Mass at chapels on the north shore from time to time, including at Rouquette Lodge, a Catholic senior-living complex in Mandeville. When Hotard died in 2013, Aymond presided at his funeral Mass, and the archdiocesan newspaper, the Clarion Herald, ran a glowing obituary. It called Hotard a staunch traditionalist and noted that during his tenure at Our Lady of Lourdes, he permitted only boys to serve at the altar. They were required to wear black trousers and black shoes, which they often kept in the sacristy, and white gloves. Jerry Binder, a St. Tammany Parish Council member and longtime parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes, called the announcement of Hotards removal total news to me. I never had an inkling, he said. Sam Caruso, a former seminarian and former mayor of Slidell who attended the church for years, likewise said he had no clue. I never heard that from a single person. Never did I ever hear that he was removed from the ministry, Caruso said. The vast majority are going to be stunned by this, absolutely shocked. Then there was the case of Thomas Gaspard Glasgow, a priest who had at least seven local pastoral assignments, including six in the city. The archdiocese received an allegation about him in 2007 and deemed it credible, removing him from ministry the next year. But though only six years had passed since church leaders had promised to alert parishioners any time they received a credible allegation about a living priest, Hughes made no such announcement. Until Aymond released the list Friday, a decade later, nothing was said publicly about Glasgows removal. Its not clear whether Glasgow has attempted to hold onto any of the trappings of priesthood during the last decade. He could not be reached for comment. Hughes, who is now on the faculty at Notre Dame Seminary, did not return a call seeking comment. Sarah McDonald, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said that policy was not followed properly with Glasgow, and with releasing the list we are rectifying that situation. The failure to report Glasgow stands out because he was the only diocesan priest to be removed since 2005, according to Aymonds list. Shining a light The list also shined a light on the vile case of Howell, a priest who worked with, and sexually abused, deaf children. The archdiocese received an allegation of abuse in 1978, and Howell was eventually removed from ministry. The list released Friday said he was removed in 1980, two years after the allegation surfaced. But after being presented with additional information, McDonald acknowledged Saturday that date might be inaccurate. Official church records maintained by bishop-accountability.org and provided to The Advocate show that Howell spent time in 1981 and possibly 1982 at the House of Affirmation, a church-run facility in Massachusetts where priests who were thought to be possible pedophiles were often sent. After his stint there, the official records show Howell returned to the New Orleans area and spent the next three or four years in stints at Our Lady of Prompt Succor in Westwego, which had an attached school, and Prince of Peace church in Chalmette. McDonald described the listed date for Howells removal as a discrepancy, adding that the archdiocese would review his file and update the list as warranted. She said the church is addressing the issue of keeping priests who were removed from ministry sidelined. "We are aware that some removed from ministry have violated the mandate given to them by the archbishop of New Orleans," McDonald said. "This has caused the archbishop great concern, and he is working on a process to ensure this can be monitored and addressed." Richard Ducote, an attorney who has represented local clergy abuse victims, said he represented victims of Howell after he resurfaced. Howells victims worked out a deal with Archbishop (Philip) Hannan that Howell would not be in this area anymore, and he popped up saying Mass, Ducote said. He described an unusual conversation he said he had with Hannan, in which he said the archbishop explained why Howell remained in the diocese. He said, Heres the problem. Under church law, if I send him away to another diocese, Im still responsible to pay for his support, his rent, his medical care and everything.' So hes using it as a justification for Howell still being there, Ducote said. Hannan, who led the New Orleans archdiocese from 1965 to 1989, presided in an era when well over half of the priests on Aymond's list allegedly abused minors, and when revealing such conduct marked a departure from the norm. Before him, Joseph Rummel was archbishop when as many as 23 of the named priests abused children. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The list's shortcomings The list itself has spurred a different kind of criticism, as some survivors and advocates lament, among other complaints, that Aymond did not include brothers, nuns and lay employees of the archdiocese. Terry McKiernan, founder of the watchdog site bishop-accountability.org, also pointed to a lack of dates for the pastoral assignments listed with each name, making it hard to determine when or for how long each priest served in those posts. Aymond said he anticipated people would find shortcomings with the initial list. "If it doesn't satisfy them, I'm sorry, first of all," Aymond said, "But secondly, we would not have files on the religious women and the religious men such as brothers. All that is handled by their religious community." But those reasons fell flat with Beth Taylor, who wrote a book about being raped by a Dominican brother at St. Anthony of Padua Church and School, in Mid-City, over seven years. She identified him as the late Louis Boucher, who is not on the list. It is disgusting. The Catholic Church has yet to learn its lesson, said Taylor, 64, who revealed the abuse years later and said she received a financial settlement to cover her medical and therapy bills. Those of us who were physically and sexually abused will never be the same," she said. "I lost my virginity at age 5. You lose your innocence. You lose a lot. And then when it comes back as an adult you think you are losing your mind. The information that the archdiocese released for each of the 57 named clergy is less than some other dioceses have provided in similar lists. About 60 dioceses across the country, or about a third of all U.S. dioceses, have released such lists. The standards vary widely, along with the amount of information provided. The most revealing lists often fall under the terms of civil settlements with victims, or as part of an agreement with victim creditors in church bankruptcy proceedings. The diocese in Portland, Oregon, for instance, released hundreds of pages of documents through a bankruptcy case that include letters showing how church leaders responded, or failed to respond, to allegations of priestly abuse when they were first reported. Its been almost three years since the Seattle diocese released a revised list that includes religious brothers and sisters as well as priests, and lists the years they worked in various ministries or schools. Mary Dispenza, Northwest director for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said she still receives calls from victims or family members craving more information. Its step one. It should have been a long time ago. What we want as much as names are the stories, she said. Ive had families call me and say, As a priest he was so kind and so good. What did he do? Give us the story. Help us with this. Stories have the power to change us. So until theyre willing to give over everything, the problem will not be solved. Differing reactions Survivors were of two minds about the list that Aymond published on Friday. One, who asked to remain anonymous, said he found little comfort that it includes Michael Fraser, the priest he claims abused him as a teenager. Fraser was removed from ministry in 2004 based on at least one allegation from six years earlier, according to the archdiocese. "It pisses me off," the man said of the sheer number of churches and schools where the listed clergy worked. For other survivors, the list brought validation. Pierre Prevost said he was at work Friday afternoon when Aymond's list came out and he quickly scrolled down. Sure enough, I found him, Prevost, 57, said of Patrick Brady, the Dominican priest he'd accused of abuse in a 2006 lawsuit. Brady was assigned to St. Anthony of Padua, in Mid-City, in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the boys he was accused of abusing went on to kill himself. Prevost soon received a text message from his sister, acknowledging what she'd long doubted. Till then, my sister thought I was full of crap, Prevost said. I was just glad that he was finally brought out. The archdiocese said it was notified of an allegation against Brady in 2002, three years after the priest's death. Its not clear when Brady's Dominican order received that allegation. The list did not detail how many allegations the church received against Brady, or any other clergyman. Prevost said he knows of at least three others. Im glad it came forward. I still think theyre full of bull, he said. I still think theres more to come out, and more names. Aymond acknowledged as much Friday when he was asked about those with fresh or still-pending allegations. "My message to them is: Please share that information with us," he said. "The list will be changed as we find other allegations that are substantiated. This is not a list once and for all." Saturdays 4 p.m. Vigil Mass was standing-room-only at Metairies St. Mary Magdalen Church, where disgraced deacon and accused serial child abuser George Brignac named on Fridays list was a lay lector until earlier this year. There was a brief nod to the previous days events during the homily by deacon Chuck LeBlanc, who primarily shared his story about his journey to becoming a deacon. LeBlanc explicitly referred to the abuse crisis and described how the process to become a priest or deacon now is extremely rigorous, requiring psychological screening, background checks, credit checks and repeated interviews. He also supported Aymond's confidence in safeguards adopted after the abuse scandal that erupted in 2002 in Boston. A husband and wife held hands as they walked to their car after the Mass. The woman, who declined to give her name, said she wasnt about to abandon her Catholic faith after 74 years. Her beloved sister remains a nun, she said, adding, Im sticking with it. But her husband offered a different take, shaking his head in disgust as he walked away. Im a Christian. I believe in God, he said. Then he gestured toward the St. Mary Magdalen church building. I dont believe in that in there. Staff writers Andrea Gallo, Sara Pagones and Matt Sledge contributed to this story. Editor's note: This story was updated Nov. 4 to correct the location where Howard Hotard sometimes said Mass after he was removed from ministry. St. Tammany Parish workers are facing the prospect of a second year without a raise as the parish government grapples with budget constraints following two failed tax renewals. Even so, the Parish Council is considering giving a pay hike to one group of employees: those in the Public Works Department. Councilman Richard Tanner sought Thursday to amend the 2019 operating budget to provide a 2 percent cost-of-living raise for those workers, something that Finance Director Leslie Long estimated would cost $273,000. Councilmen Jerry Binder and T.J. Smith said they could not oppose a raise for public works employees, who Binder said make "much less than $35,000 a year," but they pointed out that other parish employees also have small paychecks. Binder said some employees in other departments make less than $25,000 a year. If the council voted for Tanner's measure, he said, "Would we walk out of this meeting happy for public works and sad for everyone else?" Smith said he wanted to include other employees who make $35,000 a year or less. Tanner agreed that the problem is not limited to that group of employees, but he said public works is funded by a dedicated sales tax. "We have the money for Public Works," he said. By contrast, other employees are paid out of the parish's general fund, which is strapped because of voters' rejection in March of two one-fifth-cent sales tax renewals, one for the jail and one for the courthouse. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The parish has taken a number of austerity measures since then, including a hiring freeze, layoffs and the decision not to give raises this year or in the upcoming budget year. But Councilwoman Maureen O'Brien pointed to the tax failures as an argument against raises. Many people in the private sector haven't received raises lately either, she said, adding that her constituents include single mothers and others who struggle to pay their bills. "The people have spoken," she said. "I think it's time we listened." But Binder said he doesn't believe that voters were saying not to give employees pay raises when they voted against the tax renewals. Councilman Jake Groby said giving raises to some employees but not others would cause ill feeling between departments. He also complained that the amendment had come up suddenly, without sufficient time to research the issue. Long was unable to give an immediate estimate of what it would cost to give all employees making less than $35,000 a 2 percent raise. Groby called for tabling the matter to get solid numbers, and that's what the council ultimately decided to do, postponing action on the proposed amendment and the budget itself until its Dec. 6 meeting. The Parish Council has a Dec. 31 deadline for adopting the $99 million 2019 operating budget and the $20.3 million capital budget proposed by Parish President Pat Brister. A new research report has found what many Louisiana families already know: that the typical cost of child care and early education is unaffordable for the majority of working parents in the Pelican State and across the country. The report, released recently by the national advocacy organization Child Care Aware, said that at $7,540 per year, the average cost of infant care in Louisiana is nearly the same as the annual cost of tuition at a four-year college in the state. On average, married parents pay up to 10 percent of their annual income for child care in Louisiana, the report found, but the ratio can be much higher for other types of households. Single parents, for example, pay on average 37.9 percent of their income for care at an infant center, while married parents of two children living at the poverty line pay up to 47.4 percent. "I think the message is that in all states, child care is unaffordable for families," said Melanie Bronfin, executive director of the nonprofit Louisiana Policy Institute for Children. The report drew on findings Bronfin's organization published last year, documenting how child care issues play out for Louisianas workforce, businesses and the economy. That study found a "large, negative economic impact" in Louisiana and is being replicated in other states, the Child Care Aware authors noted. "As advocates and policy makers at the state level work to make the case for quality early childhood education, they are turning to regional and state research for evidence," the national report said. When comparing costs nationwide, Louisiana actually fared better than most other states, the report found, as it's one of seven nationwide where families on average pay 10 percent or less of their annual income. Nationwide, early care for children up to age 4 can exceed 27 percent of household income for working, single-parent families and cost $9,000 a year per child for any household, Child Care Aware found. In some states, the sticker shock can be much higher, with families paying up to $16,000 or more a year for day care. But while state averages are relatively low in Louisiana, the cost of child care also can vary widely among parishes. In New Orleans, for example, day care centers can cost parents up to $250 a week or more, coming to more than $13,000 a year. The burden can have significant impacts on local and state economies, the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children found in its 2017 report. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The report, called "Losing Ground: How Child Care Impacts Louisianas Workforce Productivity and the State Economy," said that child care issues result in more than $1.1 billion in losses annually for the state's economy. Overall, more than 16 percent of those interviewed for the report had quit jobs because of child care issues, and more than 14 percent had turned down a promotion, the experts noted. And not only are they still too high for families, but the lower tuitions for early education in the Pelican State also come with the price of lower quality. "We are one of the cheapest states but part of why that is is because of our high child-teacher ratios, and that's a problem," Bronfin said. She and others point to a recent state legislative auditors report, which found that child care centers in Louisiana generally don't match best practices in the industry, such as meeting national child-teacher ratios, and that they are woefully underevaluated. For example, the audit found that Louisiana is one of only eight states that allow family and in-home providers to care for more than six children at a time without having to get a license. Bronfin and other local child care experts have for years said that such problems persist because the state invests less than half of 1 percent of its general fund in early care and education. There are no easy fixes to the scope of the problem in our state, Bronfin said. The national Child Care Aware report did highlight some bright spots in Louisiana, however, including the state's investment in the form of School Readiness Tax Credits. The package of five tax credits, passed by state lawmakers a decade ago, gives eligible families refundable credits, and also provides incentives for child care providers to improve employee training and center resources. Experts also noted that in an effort to improve quality, the state Department of Education has created a unified rating measure based on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System to help parents gain information about a centers quality and give the care providers benchmarks for improvement. Bronfin and others are now using the data to lobby for lower teacher-child ratios, more teacher education programs and more infant seats in day care centers. "Our focus on evidence-based documentation of real need has encouraged national and state actors to follow our lead, Bronfin said. Louisiana's tax system is not quite the most unfair in the nation, but that's just because it is standard practice in America to place a disproportionate burden on the poor. According to a study just released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, Washington State sets the regressive standard, while we rank 14th. If your income is $17,100 or less in Louisiana, you'll pay 11.9 percent of it in taxes. That number shrinks the further you go up on the income scale and is roughly halved by the time you reach fat-cat territory. Sales and excise taxes take 9.2 percent from the poorest, and 1.2 percent from the richest. Such tax policies exacerbate rising income equality, which is unconscionable, in the institute's view. Likewise, Jan Moller, director of the Louisiana Budget Project, believes it is not unreasonable to ask the highest-income residents and corporations to pay their fair share of state and local taxes. Maybe so, but don't expect those higher income residents and corporations to fall over one another in the rush to pay more. We tried fairness once, and they soon put a stop to that. The result of that experiment was a tax system as lopsided as ever while recurring budget deficits and crises became a crushing inevitability. Everyone knows that the recipe for a progressive tax system must include reducing sales tax rates and a switch of emphasis to income taxes. You don't need a degree in economics to see that sales taxes penalize households living hand-to-mouth while the rich have plenty left over to invest in stocks and bonds. That was a truth universally acknowledged 20 years ago, when advocates of reform also pointed out that income taxes produce more reliable revenues that grow as the economy expands. Thus in 2002 Louisiana adopted the Stelly Plan, which cut sales taxes and boosted income taxes in a more or less revenue-neutral fashion. That was accomplished by state constitutional amendment, so the idea had broad public support to begin with. But people notice higher income taxes, while savings at the shops do not register so strongly. Besides, many taxpayers figured that their income taxes had gone up by more than their sales tax payments went down, and no doubt they were right. If the poor are to get a break, it is obvious that their wealthier fellow citizens have to pick up the tab. A lot of taxpayers nevertheless felt they had been sold a bill of goods and then State-Rep. Vic Stelly, for whom the plan was named, suffered the traditional fate of the prophet in his own country. If taxpayers or at least wealthier taxpayers clamored for the income tax raises to be scrapped, nobody proposed repealing the other half of the Stelly Plan. That was the state of affairs when Bobby Jindal began his first term as governor in 2008 by noting how idiotic it would be to eviscerate Stelly at an annual cost to the state of $358 million. But free money never loses its appeal to the voters and Jindal soon caved in. In fact, he went further than that; when he announced the death of Stelly, you'd have thought he came up with the idea. Stephanie Grace: Tax cut? Maybe. A lost opportunity? Definitely. I went shopping over the weekend, checked my receipts and saw that I was charged 4.45 percent of the price of my purchases in sales tax. Had I He certainly came to embrace it with enthusiasm. It marked the beginning of his highly successful campaign to wreck the state's finances and drastically undermine such fundamental public services as higher education and health care in the name of starving the government beast. The state budget remains a mess, with legislators seemingly determined not to look beyond sales taxes for a solution to our chronic shortfalls. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes that Louisiana's tax structure contains other regressive elements, such as the state income tax deduction for federal taxes paid, the lack of inheritance taxes and a low earned income tax credit. The central thrust of tax policy is to favor the better off, and it is the better off who have the political clout. Until they decide they have too much money, radical change is not in the cards. Email James Gill at Gill1407@bellsouth.net. Could she stop earning the salary she relied upon while she did a teaching degree? But Dr Franklin struggled with the dilemma that faced many people wanting to make a career switch in later life, and faces education chiefs wanting to lure older, more experienced people into the profession. Jane Franklin was a Sydney University research scientist, specialising in molecular biology and neuroscience. She won awards and had the respect of her peers, but on the cusp of her 60th birthday, she decided she didn't want to be a scientist any more. Her answer lay in a program run by Teach for Australia and the Australian Catholic University, which involves a brief, intensive, in-house course followed by two years of combined study and learning on the job while being paid a modest wage. The number of career-changers doing the course is rising. In 2017, they made up 57 per cent of the course's cohort. This year, 70 per cent were coming from different careers, ranging from lawyers and bureaucrats to one axe thrower. After a six-week course in Melbourne, Dr Harper took a job in the Northern Territory town of Katherine. She doesn't do a full teaching load she has free time to do the required course work and assignments for her masters in teaching. "I think teaching is something you have to do you need the theoretical knowledge, but in order to be able to do it, you have to do it," she says. "The more you do it, the more you know you don't know, so you try to find out. "I didn't really want to stop to do another degree. It was that idea of being able to be working, be doing a job, and changing my career at the same time." Milk products sold in Canberra and New South Wales are being recalled amid fears of broken lids spilling into containers. Capitol Chilled Food Australia has issued a recall for a range of Canberra Milk full cream milk products with use-by dates from November 5 to November 15. In a statement, the company said routine testing had found faulty lids on some of the containers, which may have broken off and spilled into the containers, creating a choking hazard. The company has examined all the caps and seals from the milk batch, finding only a "very minimal" number with faults. No consumer complaints had been made about the faults. Laws preventing pubs and bars from opening in Melbournes wealthy inner-east will be ditched if the Andrews government is re-elected in November. A planning academic who recently published a book on the city's dry zones, though, says the laws described by Labor as "archaic" on Monday should only be removed the same way they were applied: by a local vote. Daniel Andrews in a bar on Cup Day 2014. "If you think the dry zones are archaic, it's more appropriate to [remove them] in the same way they were brought in, which is by a local vote they werent imposed on anyone," said Elizabeth Taylor from RMIT, whose book Dry Zones has just been published. Dry area rules for some of Melbourne's eastern suburbs date back to the 1920s temperance movement, and are still imposed on parts of the Whitehorse and Boroondara council areas. Mario A. Segale, a Seattle-area real estate developer who unwittingly lent his name to perhaps the most famous video game character in history Nintendo's Mario died at a local hospital on October 27. He was 84. Loading Starting in the 1950s, Segale built a small empire in construction and real estate in Tukwila, a suburb of Seattle. Around 1980 he rented a 60,000-square-foot warehouse to Nintendo, a Japanese video-game company, as it sought to expand to the US market. In his book Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World, David Sheff wrote that a small company team had gathered in the warehouse one day and was struggling to come up with American names for the characters in the arcade game Donkey Kong. They were stuck on the character of a squat carpenter wearing a red cap when there was a knock on the door. It was Segale, who had come to berate Minoru Arakawa, then the president of Nintendo of America, for being past due on the rent. Airport departure cards are now a thing of the past! Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said: "This will improve the experience of all travellers departing New Zealand, enabling a faster and smoother process ahead of the busy holiday period". "It will also save more than 100,000 hours of time currently spent by travellers completing more than 6.5 million departure cards per year." We are stoked because we just do not need the ADMIN of filling in these things at airports. AND we don't have to awkwardly ask to borrow pens any more when we forget our own! Advocate for Hong Kong Warns US Legislators: Citys Freedom at Risk WASHINGTONWhen the United Kingdom handed over Hong Kong to the Peoples Republic of China, a treaty guaranteed the city would retain its way of life through the adoption of the policy of one country, two systems. An expert who monitors Hong Kongs freedoms came to Washington to warn U.S. legislators that this policy, which was meant to preserve the rule of law and protections for human rights, is threatened with becoming meaningless. According to Benedict Rogers, chair of trustees of the UK-based group Hong Kong Watch, the final straw in the degradation of Hong Kongs special status would be the passage of Article 23 of the autonomous territorys Basic Law. Rogers said at an event hosted by the NGO Citizen Power For China/Initiatives for China in Washington on Nov. 1, that since the student-led pro-democracy protests of 2014, Hong Kong has experienced an unprecedented crackdown on its freedoms. Student protesters have been imprisoned; political candidates have been disqualified from running for election, and legislators have been barred from the citys legislature. Press freedom, academic freedom, and the rule of law are all facing pressure in an atmosphere where the Chinese Communist Partys authoritarian rule increasingly limits freedom. Now, pressure has been building for the current administration to enact Article 23, which stipulates that the city should pass a national security law prohibiting treason, secession, sedition, and subversion. Plans to roll out the law in 2003 failed, after at least 500,000 people marched from Victoria Park to the Government of Hong Kongs Central Offices to protest against it, which could have been used by the government to curtail freedom of speech and other civil liberties. The current version of Article 23 has tougher provisions than the 2003 version. Fifteen years later, however, Rogers said: With the system that is in Hong Kong at the moment, where Beijing is more and more encroaching every day, and there is no representative democracy, no universal suffrage, Article 23 poses the most serious threat to basic rights. So I think that should be the line that the U.S. should be watching and should be ready to act if that happens. During this trip, Rogers delivered this message to officials of the U.S. State Department and the staff of different congressional offices including that of House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) chair Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and CECC co-chair Chris Smith (R-N.J.), among others. A piece of legislation passed in 1992 could be the occasion for registering U.S. unhappiness with changes in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Policy Act gives Hong Kong a special status by allowing the United States to continue to treat the city separately from mainland China for matters concerning trade export and economics controls after the 1997 handover. Rogers said he has been asking people, if Hong Kongs autonomy continues to erode, one-country, two-systems continues to be virtually dismantled, and if Hong Kong just becomes another Mainland Chinese city, why should it have that special status? I dont have a case at this stage for dismantling the Hong Kong Policy Act and special status for Hong Kong, Rogers said. I do think it should be reviewed and it should be on the table. Hong Kong and Beijing should be left to no doubt that if further erosion occurs, the U.S. should be prepared to take these measures. Rogers co-founded Hong Kong Watch in 2017, an advocacy organization to speak up for Hong Kongs freedom and the rule of law, after he was denied entry to Hong Kong upon arrival on Oct. 11, 2017, on the orders of the Chinese government, an incident which drew international media attention widely. Australian Man Persuaded Wife to Suicide, Gets 10 Years in Prison An Australian man who encouraged his wife to commit suicide four years ago was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Nov. 2. Graham Morant from Queensland was convicted in October of counselling and helping his wife, Jennifer Morant, to commit suicide. You aint getting her money now sick man. She was your wife! BBC News Australian who encouraged wife's suicide jailed in landmark case https://t.co/SpzzhYx95Y Layla. (@Laylaabegum) November 2, 2018 The jury was told that prior to her death, the 68-year-old Morant had driven his wife to a hardware store to buy a petrol generator. On Nov. 30, 2014, Jennifer, then aged 56, was found dead next to the petrol generator in her car, near a note that said Please dont resuscitate me, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) reported. Jennifer had been suffering from chronic pain, depression, and anxiety. But she did not have a terminal illness. A Queensland Supreme Court judge said that Morant wanted to access Jennifers insurance benefits. Morant stood to gain AU$1.4m (US$1 million) as the sole beneficiary of three life insurance policies. Prosecutors said that Morant, a self-proclaimed devout Christian, told his wife that he would use the insurance money to build a religious commune on the Gold Coast, where he would be pastor, in preparation for the biblical rapture. Counselled Suicide The court heard that Morant even told his wife that committing suicide would not be seen as a sin in Gods eyes because she would be helping the church financially. Morant also reportedly told Jennifer that she would not be strong enough to survive the rapture, the ABC reported. You counselled your wife to kill herself because you wanted to get your hands on the AU$1.4m, Justice Peter Davis said in the Queensland Supreme Court on Nov. 2. Your general financial position was such that $1.4 million was a very significant sum, as it would be to most people, Davis said. Morant had pleaded not guilty to the charges, but a jury found that Jennifer would not have killed herself without his involvement. The Daily Mail reported that Morant told police that Jennifer had wanted to die. However, two people close to Jennifer testified that she did not want to kill herself, and was afraid of what Morant kept telling her to do. I had such a zest and zeal to live. She had such a zest and zeal to die, Morant told police in an interview, according to the Daily Mail. Justice Davis said Morant had shown no remorse. You took advantage of her vulnerability as a sick and depressed woman, Davis said to Morant. Morant was sentenced to 10 years for counselling suicide, and six years for aiding suicide. He will serve the charges at the same time, and be eligible for parole in October 2023. The ruling sets a national precedent as there has not been a prior case in Australia for someone to have been convicted of counselling another person to suicide. In August 2017, a woman in the United States was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide via text messages and phone calls, according to the BBC. In Australia, the crisis support service hotline is 13 11 14 (Lifeline). In the United States, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255. Young people can call the Kids Help Phone on 1-800-668-6868. Other worldwide suicide hotlines can be found at www.befrienders.org. From NTD.tv Chinese Authorities Suspected of Hiding Possible Spread of African Swine Fever A recent video circulating online that shows empty stands at a town market in Chinas south-central Hunan Province is being interpreted as an indication that African swine fever (ASF) may have spread there. Chinese authorities, however, appear to be seeking to keep the public in the dark. A video posted to Twitter on Oct. 28 claimed to show a large-scale agricultural trading market in Jishou County, Furong Township in Hunan Province. There, the stands were all full, except for those where pork is sold, according to the Twitter post. But an announcement from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Oct. 30 only reported ASF outbreaks in Hunans Yuanling County. An earlier report, on Oct 23, identified Changde City and Yiyang City as sites of the first outbreaks of ASF in Hunan Province. The illness was first reported in early August in northeastern China. It has since spread widely through 13 provinces and the directly governed municipality of Tianjinaccounting for almost half of the countrys regions. ASF is highly contagious and kills nearly all pigs and wild boars that are infected. There is no known cure or vaccine. The disease is so far not known to affect humans, even if infected pork is consumed. Scientists at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization told scientific journal Science that the illness likely arrived in China via imported pork products, and that a genetic analysis indicates the ASF virus found in China is closely related to the strain circulating in Russia. The Chinese language Epoch Times sought to verify whether ASF had spread to Furong Township through phone calls to local residents. Mr. Li, from a local health clinic, told The Epoch Times that pigs in that area have all become sick, hence the farmers werent allowed to sell the pork. The situation is serious. We havent had pork in the market for a week now, he said. An employee of a hotel in Furong Township also confirmed to The Epoch Times that pork isnt allowed to be sold in the area. Local Chinese authorities are seeking to keep new cases quiet. Mr. Chen, from Shaoyang City, which is several hours away from Furong Township, told The Epoch Times that local authorities have said that the carcasses of any pigs that contract ASF should be buried immediately so that the news isnt leaked. He suspects that local officials and businesses are colluding to cover up the severity of the outbreak. Meanwhile, Mr. Song, of Shandong Province, said about the ASF outbreak, No one knows exactly where those dead pigs go. ASF testing is being heavily restricted by the Chinese regime. Currently, only the national level Animal Health and Epidemiology Center is allowed to conduct ASF testing. Even provincial epidemic control laboratories are only permitted to send samples, sources told Radio Free Asia in an Oct. 17 report. The Chinese regime has a history of covering up disease outbreaks in order to protect against bad publicity or public panic, such as with the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s. Epoch Times staff member Yi Ru contributed to this report. Bodycamera Footage: Woman Smokes Crack After Leading Police on Chase Warning: Viewer discretion is advised Police in Michigan released bodycam footage of a woman apparently smoking crack cocaine before she was removed from her vehicle. In this job, you can never say youve seen it all, Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham told Fox2. I think she truly believed she was going back to prison and figured shed get one more hit of crack cocaine before she does her time. The Macomb County Sheriffs Office said 36-year-old Kristi Rettig was driving without taillights on Oct. 25. The vehicle disobeyed all attempts to get it stopped and began to flee police, the sheriffs office wrote in a Facebook post on Nov. 1. They first attempted to pull Rettig, 36, over by deploying stop sticks that damaged her vehicles tires. She then crashed into two police cars before driving off the road and stopping. When officers approached her vehicle and ordered her to get out of the car, the footage shows Rettig apparently smoking crack. The driver and passenger were instructed by several deputies, with drawn pistols, to show their hands. The passenger complied, however, the driver had other priorities. As you can clearly see in this deputys body camera, the driver ignores deputies commands and begins smoking crack cocaine, police wrote on Facebook. Rettig is charged with fleeing and eluding police, possession of a controlled substance, and operating with a suspended license. Alexandra Weed, a passenger in Rettigs car, was charged with possession of a controlled substance. Neither Weed, Rettig, or any sheriffs deputies were injured in the incident, the sheriffs office stated. The department noted that the epidemic is real, referring to Rettigs inhalation of freebase cocaine. Drug addiction is a serious problem that affects people from all walks of life, but help is available at all hours of the day. Drug abuse hotlines are an excellent place for people with questions about addiction and potential treatment. Drug treatment advisors are available 24 hours per day, seven days a week by calling 1-888-744-0069 or by visiting Drugabuse.com. People cast their ballots to vote in the referendum on New Caledonia's independence from France in Noumea, on November 4, 2018. (Theo Rouby/AFP/Getty Images) French Colony of New Caledonia Votes on Independence MELBOURNEQueues formed at polling stations across New Caledonia on Sunday, Nov. 4, as the French archipelago in the South Pacific voted whether to become the worlds newest state. The referendum on the independence of New Caledonia is the result of a 30-year long decolonization process. It is the first auto-determination vote to be held in a French territory since Djibouti in the Horn of Africa voted for independence in 1977. Tensions have long run deep between pro-independence indigenous Kanaks and descendants of colonial settlers who remain loyal to Paris. Voters have been asked the question Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent? A yes vote would not only dent the pride of France, once a colonial power whose reach spanned the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific Ocean, it would deprive Paris of a foothold in the Indo-Pacific region where China is expanding its presence. Footage on Australian television showed people queuing in front of polling stations, with the turnout reaching nearly 42 percent by midday, according to the office of the High Commissioner in Noumea, the capital. Some 175,000 out of the 280,000 people living on the archipelago are eligible to vote, with polls showing earlier in the week that the islands are expected to vote to remain a French territory. Posters calling for a no vote said that France is the only chance while the proponents of independence called in their posters to vote for a multicultural, in solidarity, peaceful nation. During a visit to the archipelago in May, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the pains of colonization and saluted the dignified campaign for autonomy led by the Kanaks. He and his administration have sought to strike a neutral tone on the vote. New Caledonias economy is underpinned by French annual subsidies of some 1.3 billion euros ($1.48 billion), nickel deposits that are estimated to represent 25 percent of the worlds total, as well as tourism. It enjoys a large degree of autonomy but depends heavily on France for matters such as defense and education. First discovered by the British explorer James Cook, the New Caledonia archipelago lies more than 16,700 kilometers (10,377 miles) from France. It became a French colony in 1853. Under colonial rule, the Kanaks were confined to reserves and excluded from much of the islands economy. The first revolt erupted in 1878, not long after the discovery of large nickel deposits that are today exploited by French miner Eramets subsidiary SLN. More than 100 years later, in the mid-1980s, fighting broke out between supporters of independence and those who wanted to remain French, amid festering anger over poverty and poor job opportunities. A 1988 massacre in a cave on the island of Ouvea left 19 indigenous separatists and two French soldiers dead and intensified talks on the islands future. A 1998 deal provided for a referendum on independence to be held by the end of 2018. Under the terms of the deal, in the event of a no vote, two further referenda can be held before 2022. Geyser Near San Andreas Fault Moves 60 Feet in a Day: Report Video shows rare eruption of Steamboat geyser Yellowstone Officials in Imperial County, California, say a bubbling mud geyser is moving and is now dangerously close to railroad tracks, Highway 111, and optic cables. The county declared an emergency over the geyser, KYMA-TV reported in October, adding that officials are trying to prevent the geyser from reaching the Union Pacific tracks and the highway. That geyser encroaching on the railroad also encroaching on the Kinder Morgan pipeline. And there some fiber optic out there and the highway, Imperial County Fire Chief Alfredo Estrada told the outlet. The geyser has been in existence since 1953, said an Imperial County fact sheet about the phenomenon. In the past 11 years, the geyser has moved slowly however recently the rate of movement has increased and has been encroaching on the railroad, it says. Its located about a half-mile from Highway 111 and Gillespie Road. The Los Angeles Times on Nov. 1 reported that recently, the geyser, which is also called a mud pot, moved 60 feet to the west in one day. Prior to that, it had moved 60 feet over a few months. The spring is located near the southern end of the San Andreas Fault, but it isnt related to any seismic activity, U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Ken Hudnut told the Los Angeles Times. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) said it has plans in case the geyser reaches Highway 111. Caltrans will have to close state route 111 if that mud pot advances to a point where it impacts the state road. We obviously have to divert traffic, Caltrans Public Information Officer Ed Joyce told KYMA. This isn't all that far from our home.. A Moving Geyser on the San Andreas Fault in California https://t.co/asZxaIrKHg via @weatherchannel raynardo (@raynardo) November 3, 2018 While the geyser can produce dangerous gases, Kelley said that as long as people stay well away from any of its release, its not posing a direct threat to anybody. Attempts to stop the geyser havent worked, LiveScience noted on Nov. 2. The mud pot slipped beneath an underground wall that was constructed by Union Pacific, and officials also tried draining its water but to no avail. The spring is acting like a slow-moving sinkhole. It has a depth of 40 feet, LiveScience said. Its a quirky thing, said David Lynch, a geophysicist, to LiveScience. If there was no railroad nearby, you wouldnt even know about it. This would just be something out there chewing out the desert. The Seismological Society of America says mud pots and mud volcanoes are geothermal features produced when water or gas is forced upward through soil and sediments. Mud pots can assume a variety of forms, typically being depressions or enclosed basins containing gas seeps, bubbling water or viscous mud. Mud pots can also be water-laden and appear as bubbling muddy water. Mud volcanoes, on the other hand, are elevated conical structures composed of accumulations of viscous mud extruded from a central vent. They range from finger-sized to several kilometers across, though the largest in the Salton Sea area are about 2 meters high. Small mud volcanoes on land, ranging from one to 10 feet in height, are usually called mud cones or gryphons and are usually associated with volcanic and seismic activity, it says. Yellowstone Geyser Throws up 80 Years Worth of Trash Meanwhile, a geyser in Yellowstone National Park effectively threw up 80 years worth of trash. On September 15, 2018 Ear Spring erupted and ejected lots of decades-old trash, Yellowstone officials said on Facebook. The last significant Ear Spring eruption was in 1957, the U.S. Geological Survey said. After Ear Spring erupted on September 15, employees found a strange assortment of items strewn across the landscape Yellowstone National Park Foreign objects can damage hot springs and geysers. The next time Ear Spring erupts we hope its nothing but natural rocks and water, park officials wrote on Facebook. You can help by never throwing anything into Yellowstones thermal features! Said a supervisory park ranger to FourStatesHomePage.com: You might think that if you toss something in a hot spring or in a geyser that it disappears, but it doesnt disappear. It stays in that and what normally happens is you can actually plug up a feature and kill the feature. And thats happened in many places in the park. An approximately 8-foot diameter area of surrounding ground is breathing rising and falling by about six inches every 10 minutes, USGS experts said in a news release a few weeks ago. The U.S. Geological Surveys Yellowstone Volcano Observatory wrote at the time of the Ear Spring eruption: Ear Spring, a normally docile hot pool, had a water eruption that reached 20 to 30 feet high on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018. The eruption ejected not only rocks, but also material that had fallen or been thrown into the geyser in years past, like coins, old cans, and other human debris, it said. The last known similar-sized eruption of the spring was in 1957, although smaller eruptions occurred as recently as 2004. As a result of these changes, Yellowstone National Park has closed portions of the boardwalk. The geyser rarely erupts. The USGS said the spring has erupted just four times in 60 years, most recently in 2004, LiveScience noted. The geyser is located on Yellowstones Geyser Hill near world-famous Old Faithful. The Ear Spring geyser activity is not linked to the famed Yellowstone Supevolcano that has drawn clickbait headlines in recent years. Ashiq Mesih (R) and Eisham Ashiq, the husband and daughter of Asia Bibi, speak during an interview with AFP in London, on Oct. 12, 2018. (Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images) Husband of Freed Pakistani Christian Woman Appeals to Trump for Refuge ISLAMABADThe husband of a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted after spending eight years on death row on charges of blasphemy has appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump for refuge, citing danger to family members lives. Ashiq Masih, the husband of Asia Bibi, whose case has outraged Christians worldwide and been a source of division within Pakistan, also appealed to the United Kingdom and Canada for assistance. The Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) party blocked major roads in Pakistans biggest cities for three days, calling for the murder of the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi on Wednesday, and terming Prime Minister Imran Khan and the countrys army chief enemies of Islam. The TLP called off the protests late on Friday after striking a deal with the government that could see authorities seek to put Bibi on an exit control list barring her from leaving the country and open a review of the verdict in the courts. I am requesting the President of the United States Donald Trump to help us exit from Pakistan, Masih said in a video recorded by the British Pakistani Christian Association and seen by Reuters. I also request the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to help us, I also request the Prime Minister of Canada, he said, while also asking for help on behalf of his brother Jospeh Nadeem who has assisted with Bibis case. The U.S. Embassy and British and Canadian High Commissions in Islamabad did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the video. On Saturday, Bibis lawyer Saiful Mulook told Reuters he had left Pakistan to save (my) life from angry mob and because of fears for the safety of his family. Bibi was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. She always denied having committed blasphemy. Her case caught the attention of then Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer who spoke in Bibis defense before being assassinated by his bodyguard in 2011. The TLP was founded out of a movement to support Taseers assassin, who was hanged in 2016. Federal minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was also killed after calling for her release. Bibis whereabouts are unknown, but the TLP has warned the authorities against taking her out of the country. There will be a war if they send Asia out of country, TLP leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi said after the deal with the government was reached. Islamist parties have characterized Bibis release as Pakistans government caving into Western demands. By Saad Sayeed In North Korea, Sexual Abuse of Women Is Common: Report North Korean officials commit sexual abuse against women with little concern for consequences, according to a report from nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) released Oct. 31. Sexual violence in North Korea is an open, unaddressed, and widely tolerated secret, said Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watchs executive director. It appears to be so commonplace in North Korea that it has become accepted as part of ordinary life, HRW said in a news release. The abuses are perpetrated by North Korean men in positions of power, such as party officials, police officers, prison guards, and soldiers. What can we do? They consider us [sex] toys. We are at the mercy of men, Oh Jung-hee, a former trader in her 40s, told HRW. Sometimes, out of nowhere, you cry at night and dont know why. The report is largely based on the testimonies of 62 North Koreans who have left the country, eight of whom are former officials. Survivors rarely report cases; many women said that they didnt report the abuses because they didnt think it was unusual. The North Korean regime also often fails to investigate complaints, which would often be reported by the victims relatives or friends. The idea that sexual violence is wrong, that it would not be my fault, that some law person could be there to try to protect me could have never even occurred to me while living in North Korea, sexual abuse victim, Kim Eun A, told HRW. Women Suffer Sexual Abuse Both Inside and Outside of Police Custody In the report, titled You Cry at Night, but Dont Know Why: Sexual Violence against Women in North Korea, HRW interviewed a total of 106 North Koreans (72 women, 4 girls, and 30 men), all of whom had left the country. The human rights group also interviewed other experts and academics familiar with sexual abuse issues in North Korea. Interviewees told us that when a guard or police officer picks a woman, she has no choice but to comply with any demands he makes, whether for sex, money, or other favors, HRW said. This applied to women both in prison or in police custody, as well as to women out in society. Many North Korean women trade goods in order to sustain themselves and their families, according to the report. However, conducting trade in society makes them vulnerable to officials who target them for sexual favors, because the market system in North Korea is regulated according to the local situation, and rules can be interpreted in different ways often subject to the officials or market regulators involved. The lack of clear rules or regulations leaves women vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, HRW said in the report. The economic situation in North Korea is really desperate so more and more women take it upon themselves to feed their families and they do it in any way they can. They get involved in trading or smuggling, paying bribes to officials to turn a blind eye, explained Emma Daly, HRWs communications director. For many women, these bribes actually amount to rape or sexual assault. They know that saying no, refusing a demand for sex from an officer means they risk everything. They could lose not just their incomes, their livelihoods, but their freedom, they could be sent to prison camps, to labor camps, Daly added. Park Sol Dan, a former trader in her 40s from Kangwon province who left North Korea in 2014, told HRW that it was common to experience or witness unwanted sexual advances from persons on trains like ticket inspectors, police officers, and secret police officials. In 2012, she once saw a police officer having sex with a female passenger on a train, while passing through the police officials carriage. When I saw them, I just thought: Poor woman. She is too pretty, or maybe didnt have enough money to pay a bribe. It is impossible this relation is consensual, Park Sol Dan said. When police officers are out on patrol, they see pretty women and try to find something wrong. Even if she has her ID, travel pass, and all the necessary documents, they say oh, this or that is wrong, Offering your body to a police officer is so common. There is nothing else you can do, she added. Oh Jung Hee, formerly from Ryanggang province, described to HRW about being sexually assaulted many times. On the days they felt like it, market guards or police officials could ask me to follow them to an empty room outside the market, or some other place theyd pick, she said. It happens so often nobody thinks it is a big deal. The HRW report also acknowledged that gross abuses of women occur in prison or in detention. The researchers were able to interview some survivors who had been raped or sexually abused. The Human Rights Watch Report HRW also noted that a 2014 UN report had previously also found that the North Korean regime had been guilty of forced abortions, and rape committed against women in detention and prison. In some cases, female inmates are raped using physical force. In other cases, women are pressed into consensual sexual relations to avoid harsh labor assignments, or to receive food. Such cases may also amount to rape as defined under international law, the 2014 UN report said. To address concerns of sexual abuse against women in North Korea, the report outlined several lists of recommendations tailored toward the North Korean regime, ranging from law reforms to enforcement, to proposed changes in the health sector and education sector to increase awareness about the rights of women and girls. HRW also outlined other action points recommended for surrounding nations, U.N. agencies and International NGOs. North Korean women should not have to risk being raped by government officials or workers when they leave their homes to earn money to feed their families, Roth said. Kim Jong Un and his government should acknowledge the problem and take urgent steps to protect women and ensure justice for survivors of sexual violence. From NTD News A woman uses WhatsApp on her phone in Kampala, Uganda, on July 5, 2018. (Isaac Kasamani/AFP/Getty Images) Internet Users in Africa Bemoan Social Media Tax More countries in Africa impose taxes on use of social media platforms KAMPALA, UgandaWhen the Ugandan parliament approved taxes on the use of social media platforms in spring, Ian Ortega was one of the millions of Ugandans who spoke out against the policy. But he didnt envisage the scale of its impact on his string of online businesses which thrive on traffic from social media. The tax on the so-called over the top (OTT) media services impacts communication and social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others. Since July, when the tax took effect, the website traffic that originates from social media to Ortegas marketing website has suffered a significant decline. As a person whos already paying a fair amount in taxes, I didnt receive this social media tax in good faith, Ortega told The Epoch Times. On my website pages, theres also been a decline in the engagement rate because of the tax. As such, I have become even more skeptical of newer taxes. I believe a government that uses taxation as the only source of revenue is not creative enough. Ugandas new social media tax policy has been a bitter pill for people like Ortega who use the web for social expression and personal aspirations. Ugandans now pay 200 Ugandan shillings ($0.05) a day to use popular online platforms. It all started earlier in the year, when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni announced a tax regime partly to curb lugambo on social media. Lugambo is a term used by the locals in Uganda for gossips. To also defend the social media tax, Museveni was quoted in local media as saying the tax may generate as much as 1.4 trillion shillings (about $360 million) per year. The Ugandan government has been criticized in the past for suppressing freedom of speech after shutting down websites and social media sites. Murungi Agnes, a social worker in Kampala, Ugandas capital, described the new tax policy as obnoxious, adding that the policy had betrayed its purpose owing to the fact that people still spread the gossip like the government claims. I was very disappointed in the government because there are more crucial things to focus on like poor health, security, and education systems, she said. For activists challenging the policy, the thrust of their arguments is Ugandas poverty statistics. More than 20 percent of Ugandas 40 million populations live in abject poverty. Analysts fear the tax will increase the huge digital divide in the country by limiting access to the internet, especially to the poor citizens of the East African country, as internet access costs are already high relative to peoples income in Uganda. For example, the price for a 1-gigabyte prepaid mobile data package is over 15 percent of the average Ugandan citizens monthly income. Following the Model Moves to impose taxes on social media and internet use are gaining traction in other African countries. In neighboring Kenya, for instance, the parliament has recently approved measures to impose excise duty on telephone and internet data services. Commenting on the policy, Benjamin Rufusa, a Nairobi-based public affairs analyst, described the trend as an obsession shared by some African leaders to generate funds through taxation instead of production. The researcher is already anticipating the impact of the new tariff which will take effect in November. I will have to dig deeper into my pocket and reduce my time online. This is not a good thing for a scholar and researcher like me. Reduced calls to my friends and family members will affect my work a great deal, said Rufusa. Some telecommunication firms in Kenya, however, think the tax policy is a good move. Mark Phillips, who works with Safaricom, for one, argues that the tax is an important revenue model for telecommunication companies, stressing it would in turn, improve the countrys economy. Concerns Grow East Africans are not the only ones crying foul over the tax on social media services. Benin President Patrice Talon recently introduced a decree which prescribes a fee of 5 CFA francs ($0.01) per megabyte consumed by users of OTT services such as Facebook and WhatsApp. Worried that the trend would soon become the norm in West Africa, PIN Nigeria, a Nigerian digital rights group, has been pushing for the abolition of social media tax in Africa. The citizens of many African countries, including some of those currently affected by this policy, are barely able to boast of good connectivity (or any connectivity at all) to the internet, Tope Ogundipe, PIN Nigerias Director of Programs, said in a statement. Richard Mulonga, the founder of Bloggers of Zambia and a lecturer at the Zambia Institute of Mass Communication, said that increased charges on calls made via platforms such as Whatsapp and Viber in his country will adversely impact freedom of expression. Mulonga said many Zambians opt for internet calling options as a suitable alternative because traditional calls in the south-central African nation are very expensive and of poor quality. The activist is planning to launch a legal challenge, while calling on Zambians to sign an online petition against the policy. We view the tariff as a threat to neutrality and affordability. We also see it as a threat to free speech, media rights, and access to information, he said. Mom Says Woman Tried to Kidnap Her 9-Week-Old Baby at Kansas Target A Kansas mother said a woman tried to kidnap her 9-week-old baby as she shopped at Target store in the Kansas City area. Rachel Youngs told WDAF reporters that she was at the Target store on Shawnee Mission Parkway getting groceries on the morning of Friday, Nov. 2, when the disturbing incident allegedly took place. Youngs said an unknown woman with a dog approached her in the baby section. The woman seemed friendly at first, Youngs recounted and told her she thought her 9-week-old baby was adorable. I made a comment on how cute her dog was, and she went around to the front of my cart and made a comment about how cute my baby is, Youngs said. She made a comment saying, Yeah, Ill trade you my dog for your baby, and I thought she was just joking, Youngs said. A Kansas mother says someone tried to kidnap her 9-week-old baby as she shopped at Target, according to WDAF. FOX 61 Youngs said that during the conversation, the woman told her she had considerable experience as a babysitter. She also told her she was a professional dog groomer. Just was super, super nice and she went to the front of my cart and asked me if she could hold my daughter, said Youngs. And she starts taking her out of the car seat, and she hands me her dog. The mother said she agreed to let the stranger hold her baby. As shes holding my baby she started saying weird things. She started asking me, Do you have a godmother? I said no, and she said, Id love to be your godmother, Ill split everything 50/50. And I was like this is kind of weird, like, who says this to a random person? Youngs told WDAF reporters. Youngs said she became more alarmed as she continued to talk with the woman. And she said, Just so you know, I was arrested for attempted kidnapping, said Youngs, Thats when I was like, OK, you know what? Theres something wrong. All of a sudden, this woman starts walking off with my daughter, and I yelled at her. I said, I need my baby back! She said the woman gave back the baby, but only after hesitating for a moment. Shawnee police were called to the scene. They reportedly told Youngs that they were limited in what they could do because she voluntarily handed the woman her baby. They just said, Well, theres nothing we can really do because you technically gave her permission to hold your baby, and my exact words were, OK, so me giving her permission to hold my baby for a couple minutes gives her permission to take off with my child? Youngs said. Deputies told reporters that the woman who held Youngss baby is known to law enforcement. Youngs said the disturbing interaction has taught her to be more fearful of strangers. Someone could come up to you and just be as nice as possible, and I try to trust people, and so many people do, but you cant trust anyone, Youngs said. She said she wants her experience to be a warning to others to be more vigilant. Fox61 posted the story of Facebook, sparking a range of user comments. First of all, you dont let some random stranger touch or hold your kid, said commenter Amanda Marie. The woman could be mother Teresa and I wouldnt allow her to touch my kid. Amy Tirado, another commenter, said I have had weird creepo people come up and tickle my babys feet before and such and Im like all mama bear over them. I would NEVER let a stranger hold my baby ever unless they were a doctor or nurse or someone who worked with kids who could be held accountable. Officials: Utah National Guard Member Killed in Afghanistan in Insider Attack KABUL, AfghanistanAmerican military officials say a member of the Utah National Guard has been killed in an apparent insider attack in the capital of Afghanistan. The officials say another U.S. service member is being treated for wounds sustained in the attack in Kabul on Saturday, Nov. 3. A statement from a spokeswoman for the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support says the attacker was a member of the Afghan security forces and that initial reports indicate the assailant was immediately killed by other Afghan forces. The Utah National Guard has identified the service member as Mayor of North Ogden, Brent Taylor, North Ogden City Councilman Phil Swanson confirmed on Saturday. Taylor had served with the Utah National Guard since 2013. He had been deployed in January this year and was serving as an intelligence officer who was training Afghan forces. The employees of Fox 13 extend their condolences to the family of Brent Taylor, who visited the station in 2017. We thank him for his service and sacrifice. https://t.co/TQ2noqGGjW Marc Sternfield (@msternfield) November 3, 2018 The incident is under investigation. Utah Governor Gary Herbert and Major General S. Burton are planning to address the press on Sunday, Nov. 4, at 12 p.m. at the Utah National Guards Draper headquarters. Swanson told Fox 13 that Taylor was a one of a kind man. They two had known each other for several years. Another month has flown by since my last update, Taylor wrote about his deployment in April, reported Fox 13. Things are going great, and I absolutely love the dedicated US and Afghan soldiers I serve with every day. A GoFundMe page has been set up for Taylors family. The Epoch Times staff contributed to this report. Watch Next: Antifa Origin Exposed: Spawn of Russian Communism The communist-anarchist extremist group Antifa has more to its story than meets the eye. Its origins trace back to a front operation of the Soviet Union, which aimed to use violence and intimidation to further its reach. Philippines Duterte Sends Warning to Communists Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered police and armed forces to arrest communists who occupy land illegally; those who resist violently will be shot. Duterte made the announcement on Oct. 28 during a speech (pdf) celebrating the birthday of his friend and former Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano. The announcement was made in response to the killing of nine farmers in Bacolod, Philippines on Oct. 20, who were occupying part of a privately owned sugarcane plantation. The nine farmers killed were members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), according to the Philippine National Police (PNP). The NFSW is a farmers organization that was founded in 1971. The NFSW introduced the farm-lot program for cultivating idle land (also known as bungkalan) in the 1980s; this has since been a major source of conflict between landowners and laborers. What Occurred on Oct. 20 On Oct. 20, a group of 14 farmers arrived at a sugarcane farm, the Hacienda Nene, Purok Pine Tree, on the outskirts of Sagay City. The farm is in the province of Negros Occidental, known as Philippines sugarcane capital. The farmers had planted beans and other crops and were resting inside improvised tents. At around 9:30 p.m., a group of gunmen fired at the victims, killing nine, according to the Manila Standard. In an Oct. 22 statement, the PNP said they believed the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and New Peoples Army (NPA) were behind the attack as part of their bungkalan. The PNP referred to bungkalan as part of a grand design to occupy private and government property using their mass base and to create untoward incident then blame it on the government. The NPA, which is part of the Communist Party of the Philippines, seeks to overthrow the Philippine government and to expel U.S. influence from the Philippines. Deceitful Recruitment The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (the regional arm of the PNP) put out a statement on the incident on Oct. 29 with testimony from Nove Bantigue, who says shes the niece of one of the shooting victims, Rannel Bantigue. She told police her uncle was deceitfully recruited by the NFSW. My uncle was recruited by a certain Rene Manlangit, NFSW organizer, because he was promised to have parcel of the land in Hacienda Nene. She said her uncle had only joined the group two days before the shooting. There were more or less 15 new recruits and my uncle was among them with the promise of owning a land. This I think is the reason why all of them were enticed to join the group, the niece said. She also said she learned that during the incident, Manlangit was in the area when the killing was happening and believed he was behind it. In a Facebook post on Oct. 25, the Negros Occidental police said that certain groups were hindering their investigations and spreading fake news: They see the collaboration of the PNP and AFP as a threat to their goal that is why they are spreading fake news to scare the public. They are turning the table in order to ruin the joint forces and for the government to take the blame of the shooting incident in Sagay. Charges Laid On Oct. 28, Rene Manlangit and Rogelio Arquillo, who were identified as recruiters of the NFSW, were charged with murder, according to a police press release. Upon the examination of the statements of the complainant-witnesses, there is only one common ground. That is, the recruiters deceived the victims and enticed them to join by promising them a parcel of land once their cause would succeed, said Chief Supt. John Bulalacao. Both Duterte and the PNP have linked the Oct. 20 shooting to the New Peoples Army. Thats how it is The style of the communists is they kill their own comrades and blame it on the [government]. The NPA are such fools, the president said on Oct. 24. Dutertes Response Duterte has declared an Agrarian land reform for Negros province. To my brothers and sisters who are with the NPA, if you want land distribution, slow down and wait because we will claim even the privately-owned lands, but we will do it in accordance with the law, Duterte said during the distribution for certificates of land ownership award on Oct. 31. Do not confiscate nor seize or occupy the lands that are already owned. Dont do that, dont steal lands that already have tenants, Duterte added. Duterte sent a strong message to communists who intend to occupy lands illegally. I have issued an order to the police and to the Armed Forces. If you resist violently then my orders to my soldiers and policemen is just simply to shoot, Duterte warned. From now on there will be no confiscation of other peoples or somebody elses property. Do not do that because you are sowing anarchy. Police Identify the Victims of the Florida Yoga Studio Shooting Police have identified the women who were killed on Friday, Nov. 2, when a gunman stormed a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida, and opened fire. Nancy Van Vessem was a doctor. Maura Binkley was a college student. Both were part of the Florida State University community. Heres what we know about them: Maura Binkley Binkley was a 21-year-old student at Florida State, according to school President John Thrasher. In a statement posted to its Facebook page, the Delta Delta Delta sorority called Binkley a beloved sister. As a leader in the (Alpha Eta) chapter, Maura embodied the Tri Delta woman brave, bold and kind, the statement from President Kimberlee Sullivan said. Our hearts are with her family, our sisters and the FSU community during this difficult time. According to FSUs website, Binkley was studying for a double major in English and German. Binkley spent this past summer studying at the University of Wuppertal in Germany, the website said, and she found the experience so rewarding. She grew up in the Atlanta metro area and was known to friends and family for her compassion. Maura truly lived a life really devoted to peace, love and caring for others, her father, Jeff Binkley, told CNN affiliate WSB. Her father says Binkley planned to graduate college in May and had been working on her Teach for America application. Nancy Van Vessem Van Vessem, 61, was a doctor who was chief medical director for Capital Health Plan, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. She was also a faculty member at Florida State, Thrasher said. According to the Florida State College of Medicines website, Van Vessem was in charge of coordinating third and fourth year clerkship rotations in internal medicine on the schools Tallahassee campus. She had gotten her medical degree from St. Louis University, the website said, and her research focus was restructuring health care for people with multiple chronic diseases. Big Bend Hospice in Tallahassee shared a tribute to Van Vessem on its Facebook page, calling the doctor a physician and leader who touched countless lives as Chief Medical Officer at Capital Health Plan. Dr. Van Vessem was part of the Big Bend Hospice community, the statement said. She was our friend and a champion for end-of-life care. The-CNN-Wire & 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. South Korea Struggles With Surge of Yemeni Asylum-Seekers SEOUL, South KoreaThe sudden surge of Yemeni asylum-seekers to South Koreas Jeju island isnt something the government was ready to deal with. On Oct. 17, South Koreas Ministry of Justice announced that its granting temporary stay permits to most of the more than 500 asylum-seekers, which allows them to leave the island, but denied them refugee status. More than 350 were granted humanitarian stay permits, while some were rejected due to criminal records or for being judged as economic migrants. Some cases are still under review. I dont have any idea what I will do next, said a 31-year-old asylum-seeker, who asked to remain anonymous. Im puzzled. Earlier this year, the South Korean government tightened a visa system that had encouraged tourism to the resort island, striking Yemen and some other countries from the list of nations whose citizens could get a 30-day stay without a visa. The Yemenis with permits are allowed to stay for a year, and the visa can be extended, depending on the asylum-seekers security situation at home and the applicants conduct in South Korea. They arent allowed to bring their families to South Korea. NANCEN, a local NGO supporting refugees, said the permits allow employment but dont allow social welfare benefits including pensions, workers compensation, health care, and employment insurance benefits. Still Better Like most other of the Yemenis, the asylum-seeker who spoke to The Epoch Times came to South Korea via Malaysia. Before that, he stayed in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia for a time after leaving his war-torn country. Although disappointed that he wasnt granted refugee status, he said the Korean government is still better than the Yemeni government. He said hes staying in a flat provided by a local Buddhist community, while a Catholic church on the island is providing accommodation for another 200 asylum seekers on the island. Controversy The Yemeni refugee applicants who were granted humanitarian stay permits had no serious criminal records such as terrorism-related offenses, according to the Korean government. Still, in ethnically homogenous South Korea, the arrival of the asylum seekers stands as a source of controversy. One of the main issues fueling the controversy is that most of the asylum-seekers are young men. Of the more than 500 Yemenis who came to the island, only about 40 of them are women. For some, this demographic stands in contrast to the image they have of claimants leaving a war-torn country, expecting refugees to be women, children, and the elderly. That has some locals calling the asylum-seekers fake refugees. Other reports about the asylum-seekers also add to the controversy, including the claim that some were offered work months ago in such areas as fishing, but quit after complaining the work was too hard. The Epoch Times couldnt verify the validity of such claims. They cannot do the 3D (i.e., difficult, dirty, and dangerous) jobs. What refugees are they? They are illegal aliens aimed at money, a local netizen said in a post, typical of some of the sentiments expressed against the Yemenis. Before leaving Yemen, the asylum-seeker who spoke to The Epoch Times said he ran a shop that sold computers and electronic accessories. In South Korea, he said he is willing to do any job to survive. Protests The National Action for Korean (NAK) is one of the organizations that has been requesting immediate expulsion of the asylum-seekers, holding more than 20 protests. The NAK also requested an end to the refugee law, arguing that the law is being misused by illegal aliens to extend their stay in the country. One of the main reasons that some oppose granting refugee status to asylum-seekers is what they say were Europes troubles after accepting refugees in great numbers. Many European countries are suffering from troubles caused by the refugees who have been coming in increasing numbers, such as crimes and terror, said Peter Young-yeel Ko, a lawyer who is opposed to asylum-seekers remaining in South Korea. Ko says that with the existing refugee legislation, the government cant effectively manage cases where foreigners come into the country and apply for refugee status. He says fake refugees can remain in the country legally, and cant be expelled until their application has been processed. Others think the government should grant refugee status to the asylum-seekers because the Yemenis face a war back home. Tropical Storm Xavier Forms in Eastern Pacific Tropical Storm Xavier, which formed southwest of central Mexico and is churning out in the eastern Pacific Ocean, is already bringing heavy rains to the region, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center on Nov. 4. The NHC said in a 9 a.m. advisory that Xavier is about 115 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph while moving north at 6 mph. There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect, the agency said, but it stressed that interests along the southwestern coast of Mexico should monitor the progress of the storm. Xavier is expected to make a turn toward the northwest and west-northwest and a similar forward speed is expected tonight and on Monday. Its followed by a westward motion by Tuesday. On the forecast track, Xaviers center is expected to remain offshore the coast of southwestern Mexico and begin to move farther away from the coast tonight and on Monday, the NHC said. According to the agency, Weakening is forecast during the next few days, and Xavier is expected to degenerate into a remnant [low-pressure system] by Tuesday. Hurricane Season The 2018 Atlantic hurricane season officially started June 1 and officially ends Nov. 30, the NHC said. The peak of each hurricane season is typically late August to early September, but early October also can see many hurricanes, AccuWeather noted. Regarding November hurricanes, The last season to produce a November named storm was in 2015. The tropical depression that would eventually become Hurricane Kate formed southeast of the Bahamas on Nov. 8, forecasting website WeatherBug noted. Hurricane Kate quickly strengthened and became a tropical storm and became a hurricane by Nov. 11, it added. While the storm didnt make landfall, the storm weakened an eventually merged with a cold front over the northern Atlantic and spawned wild autumn weather, including high winds and some flooding in Ireland and Wales, WeatherBug said. Another storm named Hurricane Kate, which formed in November 1985, did $300 million worth of damage and killed 15 people, according to reports. Hurricane Michael Update The death toll from Hurricane Michael, which made landfall in Florida last month, was raised to 45 across several states, according to The Associated Press. Florida Emergency Management Division spokesman Alberto Moscoso said last week that two more deaths were noted in Bay County, Florida. Twenty-one people have been confirmed dead in the county. Meanwhile, officials in Jackson County, Florida, also confirmed three more deaths to AP. Three more deaths were also recorded in Washington County. Michael hammered the Florida Panhandle on Oct. 10, bringing near-Category 5 winds of 155 mph. Mexico Beach and Panama City, both in Bay County, were the hardest-hit areas. An Iranian military speedboat patrols the waters as a tanker prepares to dock at the oil facility in Irans Kharg Island, on the shore of the Persian Gulf, on March 12, 2017. (ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images) Trump Administration Announces New Iran Sanctions, Possible Waivers for China, Others The Trump Administration announced additional sanctions on Iran on a teleconference on Nov. 2 led by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. The new sanctions will be directed toward energy, shipping, shipbuilding, and financial sectors, representing the final round of snapback sanctions as a result of the United States withdrawal from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), they said. In a separate press release, the White House called the sanctions the toughest ever, and said reimposing sanctions will cut off revenues the [Iranian] regime uses to bankroll terrorist groups, foment global instability, fund nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and enrich its leaders. Pompeo emphasized how increased U.S. sanctions on Iran leading up to todays announcement had ensured that Iran is not able to increase its revenue from oil as its exports plummet, while keeping prices stable for the American consumer. We will, we expect, have reduced Iranian crude oil exports by more than 1 million barrels even before these sanctions go into effect, he added. Mnuchin particularly spoke to SWIFT, an international financial transactions messaging system. Contrary to what he called fueled misinformation, he stated that SWIFT, if it provides financial messaging services to certain designated Iranian financial institutionscould be subject to sanctions. He qualified that transactions for humanitarian purposes would be exempt, as they had been in the past, but cautioned that banks must be very careful that these are not disguised transactions. Pompeo also explained that eight jurisdictions would receive temporary allotments to the newly-announced sanctions. He said the list would be provided on Monday, when the new sanctions are set to take effect. When questioned about whether the European Union or other nations or jurisdictions would receive waivers (or SREs, significant reduction exemptions), he answered [T]he EU will not be receiving an SRE. Similarly, Secretary Mnuchin said a list of banks subject to the new sanctions would also be provided on Monday. Bloomberg News reported that China was negotiating to continue purchasing Iranian oil under an SRE, and that similar agreements were already reached with Japan, India, and South Korea (citing a senior administration official and other anonymous sources). Senator Marco Rubio of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee responded to the administrations announcement, specifically noting the SWIFT transactions issues as well as the issuance of SREs: More must be done to press the SWIFT financial messaging service to once again sever connections with the Central Bank of Iran and other sanctioned Iranian banks by a certain date. Sanctions waivers being given to key purchasers of Iranian oil, most alarmingly China, give Iran a financial reprieve, and should be eliminated as soon as possible. Senator Rubio has been a strong critic of China on its human rights record and foreign policy, as well as having questioned Trump Administration policy toward it. He strongly criticized a Commerce Department deal with the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE this past July. Secretary Pompeo noted in his statement today that the SREs were being granted to the eight jurisdictions (to be named Nov. 5) only because they have demonstrated significant reductions in their crude oil and cooperation on many other fronts and have made important moves towards getting to zero crude oil importation. These negotiations are still ongoing. Also in its press release, the administration declared it is providing fewer exceptions to sanctions than the last administration. (CNN) On a bad day, you might lose your wallet or keys, but it's a lot harder to lose an entire islet. However the Japan Coast Guard is planning a search mission after an uninhabited islet called Esanbehanakitakojima seemingly disappeared off the northern coast of the country. The small outcrop was previously found some 500 meters off a village called Sarufutsu on the northern tip of Hokkaido island, Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun reports. Its absence was noticed by author Hiroshi Shimizu, who produced a picture book on hidden islands and had traveled to the area in search of inspiration. Puzzled, Shimizu asked local fishermen what had happened. An elderly local confirmed that there used to be an island in the vicinity, according to Asahi Shimbun, but it can no longer be seen from land or from nearby boats. However, other fishermen said that Esanbehanakitakojima shows up as an islet on navigation systems. Authorities are concerned about its whereabouts as the islet is used to mark Japanese territorial waters in the Northern Territories, an area that is also claimed by Russia. Known to Russians as the Kurils, the islands were taken over by Soviet forces shortly after the end of the World War II. In 2014, the Japanese government officially named 158 uninhabited islands to demarcate its waters. Beneath the waves? According to international law, nations can only claim waters around islands that are visible above the sea surface at high tide. A 1987 survey showed that Esanbehanakitakojima protruded 1.4 meters above sea level, and a 1988 sea chart from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan described it as an islet. "There is a possibility that the islet has been eroded by wind and snow and, as a result, disappeared," Tomoo Fujii, a senior coast guard official, told Asahi Shimbun. If Esanbehanakitakojima has sunk beneath the waves, Japan will lose 500 meters of territorial waters. Japan also has a long-running territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Search on after Japanese island 'disappears'." Trump Calls For Support to Continue Great Movement Taking Power Back From Corrupt Ruling Class 'MAGA' rally in Pensacola, Florida Just three days from the midterm elections, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made a stop in Pensacola, Florida, to urge voters to get out to the polls before Election Day. They campaigned for Gov. Rick Scott, who is trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson; and U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, who is running for governor against Andrew Gillum, the Tallahassee mayor. Pence told an energized crowd at Pensacola International Airport, The choice in this election is a choice between tax hikes and tax cuts. Its a choice between more government and more freedom. Really, its a choice between resistance and results. Trump told the crowd his administration of two years has been part of the most successful political movement in the history of America. The Democrats want to turn back the clock, throw American into reverse, and return power to a corrupt, selfish ruling class that only looks out for themselves, he said. You know that. That is why this movement started. In the last month alone, we added another 250,000 jobs, and that is despite the hurricanes. You know, hurricanes devastate your monthly and quarterly numbers, Trump said of the economy, and his administrations tax cuts and regulation cuts. Republicans passed a massive tax cut for working families and we will soon follow it up with another 10 percent tax cut for the middle class, he added. Were taking care of our veterans and we are rebuilding Americas military might like we havent done in 50 years. And everything is made in the USA. Regulation Cuts In addressing regulation cuts, Trump said, Remember, I said we want to cut two for every one. Right now, its trending at 22 for one, we [add] one regulation and we take out 22. A highway that would take 20 years to get approved, would go through a processan environmental impact process, he said. It would take 20 years we [now] have it down to two and a half years. Trump said that the cutting of time- and money-wasting regulations does not mean lower environmental standards for projects. If it doesnt pass environmental standards, if we do anything to interfere with our clean air or our crystal clean beautiful water, we wont approve it, Trump said. Representing Florida Trump said he had no confidence in Ricks far-left opponent, Senator Bill Nelson, because in the two years of his presidency, he had never seen or heard from Nelson. The only one I see is Crying Chuck, he said, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. He represents everyone. Bill never calls me and says, You know Id like to get something for Florida, Trump continued. Okeechobeethe damwere doing that because Rick Scott was driving us all crazy in the White House. He was driving us crazy. Hed call again, Its Rick Scott, Governor, Sir. As soon as I give him that, he wants other things. But honestly, isnt that what you want? he said. With Okeechobee, I did it for him [Scott] because he was just back and forth, hes sending me plans, its like a construction job and its a big deal, and hes calling, Trump said. And then all of a sudden, Bill Nelson heard about it and he had a news conference to announce Okeechobee dam, and he had nothing to do with it. A vote for Nelson is just a vote for Chuck Schumer, Trump quipped. Judicial Activism Trump also hit out at Democrats over the Justice Kavanaugh accuser who came forward earlier on Nov. 3 to admit that she had lied about being raped by Kavanaugh. They [Democrats] tried to destroy a great man with an incredible family, Trump said. Could you imagine if this man, who people predicted would be a supreme court justice ten years ago didnt get the job because of that? But she admitted it never happened, she never met him, Trump said. This is disgraceful. Trump said that Andrew Gillum as governor would destroy Florida. Theyll impose socialism on the state of Florida welcome to Venezuela. And theyll erase Americas borders, Trump continued. Ron stands 100% with the men and women of law enforcement. Gillem wants to abolish ICE. Last year alone, ICE officers arrested more than 170,000 criminal aliens, he said. These are people with criminal records here and in the countries from which that they come, including those charged or convicted with 48,000 assaults, 12,000 sex crimes, and 1,800 murders. Promises Ill protect Floridas cities by standing with the men and women or law enforcement, DeSantis told the crowd. Im not going to attack them, like Andrew Gillum has, Im not going to sign an anti-police pledge. In a jab at Gillum, he noted that Tallahassee has the highest crime in Florida. No wonder they had the highest murders in their history last year. Continuing on from Trumps comments on Justice Kavanaugh, DeSantis said, I will appoint solid constitutionalists to our state supreme court, similarly to how the President has appointed people to our federal courts. We can end judicial activism in Florida one month into my term. The president finished up by calling for unity to return power to the American people. Loyal citizens like you helped build this country and together we are taking back our countryreturning power to you, the American people, Trump said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. US Army Troops Lay Down Barbed Wire Along Texas Border Ahead of Caravan U.S. Army engineers are building barbed-wire fencing and a facility to house U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel and other officials along the U.S.Mexico border in Texas, to deal with the caravan of several thousand migrants from Central America that are headed toward the United States. The Associated Press and Getty Images published photos and video footage of Army personnel setting up walls and installing the barbed wire over the weekend. The encampment is located at the U.S. port of entry in Donna, Texas, about 20 miles from McAllen. On Nov. 4, a representative for the Pentagon said that the Department of Defense hasnt received a request to build facilities to house migrants, AP reported. The group of migrants, currently in Mexico, is intent on reaching and entering the United States. President Donald Trump last week ordered troops to the border, saying that as many as 15,000 troops could be sent as part of Operation Faithful Patriot. I saw that beautiful barbed wire going up, Trump said during a campaign rally in Montana, of the Army engineers construction over the weekend. Beautiful sight. The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan to flood your communities, depleting our resources and flooding our nation, Trump said to the Montana crowd Nov. 3. Bad Hombres in Caravan Regarding the stream of migrant, Trump told the crowd there are bad hombres in that group, making reference to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report that says 270 people from 20 countries who are traveling with the caravan have a variety of criminal histories, including rape and robbery. So they came out with a list of 300 really bad ones, really bad ones. Theyre in there, Trump noted. We continue to be concerned about individuals along the caravan route. In fact, over 270 individuals along the caravan route are gang members or have criminal histories, including known gang membership, the DHS statement said. Those include a number of violent criminalsexamples include aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, sexual assault on a child, and assault on a female. Citing the Mexican ambassador to the United States, the DHS said some caravan members are very violent and some of the people in the caravan have been very violent against authority, even though they have offered the possibility of entering in compliance with immigration law and refugee status. Mexicos Interior Minister Navarrete Prida on Oct. 30, meanwhile, told a local radio station that criminal groups have infiltrated the caravan. I have videos from Guatemala that show men dressed in identical clothing, sporting the same haircuts, handing out money to women to persuade them to move to the front of the caravan. We know, for a fact, that some members of the caravan threatened [Mexican] Migration Institute personnel and we have images showing many of them preparing Molotov cocktails, Prida said, according to the DHS. Last week, speaking to reporters, Trump issued a warning to migrants in the caravan not to throw rocks at border authorities. We will consider that a firearm, Trump said on Nov. 1, Fox News reported. We will consider that the maximum we can consider that, because theyre throwing rocks viciously and violently. Were not going to put up with that. They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. I told them to consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks, like they did at the Mexico military and police, I said, consider it a rifle. Some news outlets misconstrued Trumps statement, publishing headlines that Trump ordered soldiers to shoot migrants who throw rocks. I didnt say shoot. But they do that with us [throw rocks]theyre going to be arrested for a long time, Trump told reporters on Nov. 2. The caravan poses a serious threat to the sovereignty of the nations borders, the president said, suggesting that more groups will form and will head to the border. If these caravans are allowed into our country, only bigger and more emboldened caravans will follow and you see thats whats happening now, Trump said. Woman Freezes to Death After She Fell Off Her Bike in a Cemetery A woman froze to death in a cemetery overnight after police were called to attend to the injured woman but were unable to locate her. Jacqueline Parsonss body was discovered by a dog walker in the British city of Hull in the morning hours of Oct. 28, the Hull Daily Mail reported. A post-mortem has revealed the 53-year-old died of hypothermia. The woman had fallen off her bike on Saturday evening but although police were called after a passer-by saw her in distress, two officers conducting the search failed to find her. Family members have spoken of their anguish after discovering she had died in pain. It is bad enough to find out that I had lost a sister, said her brother Rob, who lives in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, before adding after hearing that you just hope that there was no pain. Then we found out that not only was she in pain but she was on her own too, he said, according to the Daily Mail. She was a very nice girl and she should have been on holiday now. She was due to go away last Wednesday with her sister and her family but instead she was on a slab in the mortuary, he said. She had all of her life in front of her, said her grief-stricken brother. Humberside Police confirmed they had received a call late Saturday afternoon that a woman was in distress in Western Cemetery. Officers set out to investigate but for some reason could not locate the woman. The case has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). A post-mortem has since been carried out and the womans death is not being treated as suspicious, a spokesman for Humberside Police told the Hull Daily Mail. We are linking the two calls together. We are now acting on behalf of HM coroner to gather evidence on their behalf. We want to offer our condolences to the womans family at this difficult time. We referred this to the IOPC as is standard procedure. This has been passed back to our Professional Standards Department who will conduct a full assessment and investigation, he said. Parsonss brother said that the passer-by spoke to her after seeing her in distress. It was on Tuesday evening that I got this new information that actually the passer-by had seen my sister in distress, he said, according to the Daily Mail. She was complaining about her leg and whether she broke it or not I dont know. But she was in a lot of pain and she was shouting for help. The passer-by asked her if she wanted him to call ambulance and she said No I want help. He left her there and went home and the way Ive heard it is that it was an hour and a half before he called the police, her brother said. The police went there, found nothing and then went away so this was a complete shock to us, he added. The brother added the passer-by who saw his sister has been left absolutely distraught by her death. He said he looks forward to the inquiry that will examine how the police responded to the call. There was a woman on a bike in distress on Saturday evening and then lo and behold on Sunday morning there was a woman dead lying in the cemetery alongside her bike, he said, according to the Daily Mail. It is just absolutely awful and the whole family is in complete shock at the moment. Woman Speeds Through School Zones at 70 mph Fleeing Police A Georgia woman is facing multiple charges after leading police on a high-speed chase where she hit 70 mph through two different school zones. Deputies from Coweta County, responded to call from a clerk at the Delta Community Credit Union on GA-34 in the city of Newnan, 40 miles southeast of Atlanta. The clerk reported that a woman was trying to cash a fraudulent check. When officers arrived, the woman jumped into a black Toyota Camry and fled the parking lot, evading one officer who tried to block her from leaving. Becker, 35, of Jasper, Georgia, continued to flee, hitting speeds as high as 90 mph at some points in the chase. She blasted through not one but two school zones at speeds around 70 mph. Becker blew through the two school zonesArnall Middle School and White Oak Elementary Schoolat around 3:30 p.m. Becker apparently had trouble controlling her vehicle at the speeds she was hitting; at one point she veered off the road and sideswiped some trees, NBC News reported. Police officers tried to get near enough to her car to force her off the road, but heavy traffic prevented them from performing a Pursuit Intervention Technique (often called a PIT maneuver) safely. Deputies didnt give up, though, and after several high-speed miles one of the deputies managed to pull up next to Baxters car and push it off the roadway. According to LiveLeak, Becker had several bags of cocaine in her possession when she was captured. She tried to swallow some of them while at the sheriffs office for interrogation. NBC News reported that she was also in possession of some quantity of marijuana. Becker was first taken to a local hospital for a checkup, and was then taken to Coweta County Jail where she is being held without bond, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Becker faces charges of identity fraud, forgery, narcotics possession, felony fleeing, speeding in a school zone, reckless conduct, going inside a guard line with drugs, suspended license, reckless driving, and failure to maintain her lane. From NTD.tv GUILFORD Patricia Wilson Pheanious was sitting on the porch of her Ashford home when her husband came out and told her that someone was on the phone and wanted to talk about her ancestry. Dennis Culliton, co-founder of the Witness Stones Project, in which markers are placed where enslaved Guilford residents lived or worked, had found a living descendant, the sixth-great-granddaughter of Montros and Phillis, Africans brought from Barbados to Connecticut in 1710. Wilson Pheanious knew that her father, Lt. Col. Bertram Wadsworth Wilson Jr., was a Tuskegee Airman, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross and a Bronze Star. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He had been personnel director for the University of Connecticut. What she didnt know was the possibility that my fifth-great-grandfather, if Ive got it counted right, was a freeman who fought in the Revolutionary War in the 6th Connecticut Regiment from 1779 to 1783. That would have been Sharper Rogers, who may have been married to Flora, a daughter of Montros and Phillis. And she didnt know that the man who had bought Montros and Phillis in Boston in 1728, David Naughty, had put in his will that the couple and their eight children should all be freed at the death of his wife, according to Culliton, but that his wife, Ruth, would live 33 years after Naughtys death, until 1772, and that only one of the children would ever make it out of slavery. When she died, in her will, which is very explicit, she frees Montros and Phillis but she doesnt free any of the children, Culliton said. Flora died before Ruth Naughty did, so she never was freed, but her son, Cesar, Wilson Pheanious fourth-great-grandfather, was freed in 1800. There was a Colonial census taken in 1774 and that was the peak of slavery in Connecticut, Culliton said. In Guilford it clearly shows we had about 60 slaves in Guilford at that time. The Witness Stones project began last year when Culliton, a social studies teacher at Adams Middle School, and Doug Nygren, a retired social worker, started the program of installing markers in Guilfords sidewalks, based on the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) in Germany that memorialize victims of the Holocaust. The project includes a lesson in which Adams 300 eighth-graders are researching one of Guilfords enslaved residents, studying primary documents, such as wills and census records. For Culliton, it was a surprise to find Wilson Pheanious living in Ashford she is former commissioner of the state Department of Social Services and is running as the Democratic candidate for the 53rd District House seat held by Republican Sam Belsito. Wilson Pheanious, 68, said she knew her family had its share of accomplishments. I knew that I had elders who had gone to college, for example, long before it was customary, she said. It was a highly educated family and there was a great emphasis on education. And her son, Cheo Hodari Coker, has made a name for himself as a film and television writer and the creator of the Netflix series Luke Cage, based on a Marvel Comics superhero. At the same time, a lot of terrible things happened to this family, Wilson Pheanious said. They were freed by a will and then indentured by another will. But she is impressed by what Culliton has found. The fact that they were property owners, the fact that they were free people, the fact that they had trades, she said. One of them ran the business of his master and actually was responsible for sending the masters son to Yale. Its difficult to put into words how this has concretized my connection to America and to my birthright as an American, and to have schoolchildren in Guilford doing the research that lays out that path, how exciting that is for me. In all, including her three grandchildren, Jomo, Jahi and Kaia Coker, Wilson Pheanious now has a connection to 11 generations of her family, unusual for someone whose ancestors were forced to come to America as slaves. Among the details she found out was that the photo of Aunt Delia that hung in the house was actually her great-grandmother Ardelia Burk Wilson, and she looks just like my niece Nandi, Wilson Pheanious said. According to Culliton, the real idea behind this project is an educational opportunity for eighth-grade students to learn about slavery in Connecticut. We have them specifically research enslaved people and the write stories about them. He said a result of the research into slaves lives is restoring their humanity. They had agency, they made choices, such as running away, purchasing their freedom. They could do something to better their lives. They also made other choices, such as sabotage or work slowdowns. Sometimes they were freed by their owners because they were loyal or dutiful, showing fidelity, Culliton said. One of Montros and Phillis children, Moses, was considered king of the local slaves, Culliton said. It was almost like an extrajudicial system Instead of going to the white masters they would deal with it on their own level. His stone was placed last year, along with those of his sister Candace and their mother, Phillis. The stones this year will be in honor of Phillis husband Montros, and Pompey, the oldest son and the last known slave in Guilford. The third will be of an enslaved man named Jouachim. The house where the Naughtys lived is on the corner of Park and Boston streets and its where the Guilford Savings Bank is today, Culliton said. The bank, located in a house built in 1810, replaced the Naughtys house, he said. Julia Schroers, 13, is researching Jouachims story and said the project is important because slavery has been a little bit brushed over. There were other people here that built the community that did these amazing things. She said the project reaches back into history to say to enslaved people, you were here, you did this, you really helped build the town. Julia, whose father is German and whose mother is Jewish, has seen the German stumbling stones, calling them a tribute to the people who have died, and I think America doesnt have any outlet for remembrance for these people who had their rights stripped away and their humanity and still did amazing things for this country. Scout Coimie, 13, is also researching Jouachim and said, I didnt know Id get to learn all these different people that I had no idea lived in this town. She said she knew Connecticut had slaves because we were part of the 13 Colonies, but I didnt know the full extent of the slaves that we had in Guilford and I feel like this project is helping me learn more about our history and community. Tom Bushnell, also an eighth-grade social studies teacher, said the project involves nine teachers, including language arts teachers, who work with the students on the writing portion. I think the kids and school and community have all responded really positively to a project that challenges the students to study centuries-old documents, he said. The culmination is we go to the Green (and) the kids are recognized for all the work that theyve done and I think theyve taken great pride in that, Bushnell said. You can see in their faces the sense of pride (for) the work that theyve done. The ceremony will be held at 9:45 a.m. Nov. 15 on the Green across from Town Hall. In case of rain, the ceremony will be held in the Adams Middle School gym. Wilson Pheanious said the students research into slavery helps correct the lack of respect African Americans have suffered. When one talks about the phrase Black Lives Matter Of course theyve always mattered but theyve never been acknowledged, which, she said, is a source of the racial animus that goes on to this day. My line has been here from before the Revolution. I am indelibly part of this country, Wilson Pheanious said. There are so many painful reminders of what slavery was and did that, when there were triumphs, they should be held up. I didnt come from nowhere. That certainly didnt come from me. It came from nine generations of ancestors. edward.stannard@hearstmedia ct.com; 203-680-9382. The total price of President Donald Trump's military deployment to the border, including the cost of National Guard forces that have been there since April, could climb well above $200 million by the end of 2018 and grow significantly if the deployments continue into next year, according to analyst estimates and Pentagon figures. The deployment of as many as 15,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border - potentially equal in size to the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan - occurs as the budgetary largesse the military has enjoyed since Trump took office looks set to come to an end. Although the costs of the border deployments will be a tiny slice of a $716 billion annual defense budget, they arrive as the Trump administration is calling on the Pentagon to cut unnecessary expenditures. The White House recently ordered the Pentagon to slash next year's budget for the military by about $33 billion in response to the largest increase in the federal deficit in six years. ALSO: Trump says border troops could hit 15K, surprising Pentagon Veterans and Democratic lawmakers have complained that Trump is wasting military dollars in a politically motivated stunt ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, at a time when the Pentagon budget is under pressure. "Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to make comprehensive, common-sense, and humane reforms to our immigration system, the President continues to turn to politically-motivated fear mongering and uses [Department of Defense] resources and personnel as a means to drive his troubling anti-immigration agenda," more than 100 House Democrats wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Nov. 1. Retired Gen. Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the deployment as "wasteful" in a message on Twitter and said Marines and soldiers were already overstretched. Administration officials have defended the deployment. Mattis said this week that the military doesn't do stunts. The commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan, argued that the deployment is necessary to "effectively and safely" handle the possible arrival of as many as 7,000 migrants walking toward the border in caravans from Central America. MORE: Patience wears thin as migrant caravan heads north But military planning documents, dated Oct. 27 and published by Newsweek, predicted that only 20 percent of the migrants, or about 1,400 at the higher end of estimates, were likely to complete the journey to the border, raising questions about the size of the deployment. "The military has a lot of things that it needs to be doing these days," said Susanna Blume, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. "Looking at estimates of the size of the caravan, you could ask the question as to whether this is the most appropriate use of U.S. active-duty forces." It isn't clear how many U.S. troops will end up on the U.S.-Mexico border. About 2,000 forces from the National Guard are already there, operating under an order Trump issued in April. Northern Command has said more than 7,000 additional active-duty troops will join them in Arizona, Texas and California. Trump said this week that he will be deploying between 10,000 and 15,000 troops but didn't make clear whether those figures included the National Guard. The cost of the National Guard deployment from April 10 through Sept. 30 amounted to $103 million, according to Pentagon figures. The Defense Department expects the Guard deployment to cost an additional $308 million through the end of next September, including the last quarter of 2018, so long as the operations continue apace. Active-duty forces, which Trump deployed under his recent order, generally are less expensive because they don't require additional pay or benefits. Travis Sharp, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessments, estimated that the cost of deploying 8,000 active-duty troops through mid-December in addition to the Guard would amount to $40 million to $50 million. Should the administration deploy 15,000 active-duty troops, as Trump suggested, the estimated cost would rise to as much as $110 million, Sharp said. The forces could end up staying past mid-December, depending on the status of the caravans, which by most accounts are still weeks away from the border. An extension of the deployment could result in costs in excess of those estimates. As of Saturday morning, about 3,500 active-duty service members have been deployed as a part of the mission, dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot, said Maj. Mark Lazane, a Northern Command spokesman. They include about 2,250 in Texas, 1,100 in California and 170 in Arizona, he said. Photographs taken Friday at the port of entry in Hidalgo, Texas, show U.S. soldiers stringing concertina wire while working with CBP. The soldiers are wearing standard camouflage uniforms along with body armor and helmets, and appear unarmed. Lazane said soldiers who do not typically use firearms in their day-to-day jobs while stateside will continue to work without them, though Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, the chief of Northern Command, has the authority to change that if desired. Democrats have complained that in addition to paying for the border deployments, the Defense Department internally allocated $7.5 million to advanced planning for a 37-mile barrier along the side of a military bombing range in Arizona that abuts the border. Democratic lawmakers said the barrier alone could cost as much as $450 million. Mattis offered a safety justification for the barrier in testimony to Congress earlier this year, suggesting that any migrants crossing the border through the range could end up hurt. Critics have said the project amounts to a move by the president to build part of the border wall he promised on the campaign trail by tapping military resources. Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said last week that the White House had instructed the Pentagon to prepare a $700 billion budget for 2020 - about 4.5 percent less than the $733 billion the department had planned. Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general and director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for National Defense, said many of the units deploying to the border are fulfilling duties approximate to their wartime missions and could end up with good training from the field. He said the expenditure would be marginal in terms of the overall American defense budget. "The military needs every dollar it can get. Having said that, this is not in the scheme of things a huge thing," Spoehr said. "It probably will pass almost unnoticed in terms of the budget." - - - The Washington Post's Dan Lamothe contributed to this report. Connecticut is on fire! Does anyone care? If your neighbors barn were in flames, youd raise the alarm to extinguish a familys potential economic ruin. Today, a great economic conflagration is burning across our beautiful state. The well-respected Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth issued a bipartisan report with this summary, Connecticuts platform is burning. But where are the citizens banding together to fight this incendiary disaster? If my barn were actually on fire, Im positive neighbors would act. Yet, when Connecticuts capital is on fire, we do not. Why? Simply, we lead busy lives. We ignore symptoms declining property values, dated transportation, education issues, stagnant economy, people and businesses abandoning our state. On Nov. 6th, lets think differently and act as if our vote can extinguish this rampant fiscal fire and rebuild a better Connecticut. I hope, like me, youll vote for Bob Stefanowski for Governor and responsible Connecticut Republicans like Terrie Wood. Robert Spike Reed Darien ST. LOUIS Having served in the U.S. Navy during both World War II and the Korean War, Bob White had grown accustomed to traveling on the water. But Saturday saw the Edwardsville man take to the skies as he and son David took part in a Greater St. Louis Honor Flight. The whirlwind journey had the two leaving St. Louis early Saturday morning for Washington, D.C., and returning to a welcome home ceremony Saturday night. Greater St. Louis Honor Flight organizes the events and this flight was the last of nine scheduled for 2018. The flights are open to U.S. veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam Conflict. Southwest Airlines covers the costs of the flight for the veterans with their guardians paying their own way. David White, of Glen Carbon, made the trip with his 93-year-old father. It was a really cool thing, David White said. Ive never been to (Washington) D.C., before. Once in the nations capital, the group of 23 veterans and guardians from St. Louis visited the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Air Force Memorial, the Marine Corps War Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, where they stopped at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. David White said the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was particularly special as the visitors witnessed the Changing of the Guard and some of the St. Louis contingent participated in a wreath-laying ceremony. But, for Bob White, seeing the memorials for the two wars he served in was the primary draw. He wanted to see the World War II Memorial. He wanted to see the Korean memorial, David White said. Those were the two he was in. Bob White graduated from Edwardsville High School in 1943 and one month after he received his diploma, he was training at Naval Station Great Lakes, north of Chicago, preparing to serve the Navy in World War II. White was assigned to a landing craft and took part in the 1944 invasion of France, D-Day. He was later transferred to the Pacific and served aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Saratoga through the end of the war. He was called back to the Navy in 1951 and served another 16 months during the Korean War. White had two homecomings from his time on active duty and another Saturday night. Twenty-two veterans and one veteran Army nurse took part in the flight, which are always met on their return by dozens of active-duty military personnel, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts as well as family and friends. Bob White, suffering a cold, didnt hesitate to describe his favorite part of the Honor Flight. Coming home, he said. But the significance of the trip wasnt lost on him, either, as he had been waiting for some time to travel to Washington, D.C. Hurricane Florence postponed the original flight day, but the delay, apparently, didnt dampen Whites enthusiasm. He was sitting in the wheelchair at 4 a.m., waiting for us to pick him up, David White said. 15 hours ago The Top 3 Large-Cap Stocks to Buy Under $100 Owning Quality Large-Cap Stocks Doesn't Have to Break The Bank There are certainly a lot of advantages associated with investing in large-cap stocks. These are companies with a market capitalization of over $10 billion and play a huge role in determining the overall direction and trend of the indexes. Read Article Nine Brits safe after yacht set afire by lightning PHUKET: A yacht with nine British nationals on board burned to the waterline and sank in Au Kung, off Phukets northeast coast, late yesterday afternoon (Nov 2). tourismmarineSafetytransport By Eakkapop Thongtub Sunday 4 November 2018, 04:38PM The yacht, a Beneteau 50-ft sloop called Emmjay, caught fire at about 5pm. Phuket Marine Chief Wiwat Chitchertwong confirmed that all nine on board were safely recovered by a passing fishing boat. Chief Wiwat noted that he had been informed that the fire started after the yacht was hit by lightning. No other details were released, though it was reported that Vice Governor Thanyawat Chanpinit has been assigned to follow upon the police investigation into the cause of the fire. The Emmjay is openly listed as available for bareboat charter. A crew list provided to The Phuket News showed no Thai nationals on board at the time of yesterdays fire. The incident comes as Phuket officials and their superiors in Bangkok continue their campaign to convince Chinese tourists that Phuket is a safe holiday destination. The campaign began after a huge plunge in bookings by Chinese tourists after the Phoenix tour disaster on July5 killed 47 Chinese tourists. The Dark Underworld of Thailands Foreign University Students Thirty years ago, Thailand hosted very few international students. Today, the number has grown upwards of 30,000 when one counts all grades and short-term exchange students. On the surface of things, 400% growth sounds like the greatest return in the world. Yet, growing evidence suggests that these figures are hiding some demons. Education By The Phuket News Sunday 4 November 2018, 11:00AM What kind of academic future are our teens walking into? Photo: Pexels UPDATE: The Senior Director of the GED Testing Service has responded to this article. The response, in full, can be read here. Since the 1970s, Thailands birthrate has been consistently dropping and computerisation has been consistently increasing. The Bangkok Post and The Nation have both reported that Thai universities and colleges are expecting 50 to 75% of their campuses to close in the next 10 years. This, in turn, has opened a Pandoras Box of problems. As classes empty and tuition evaporates, few Thai academics are untouchable from job loss. Thailand tends to be especially heavy on administrative staff, tradition, pomp, circumstance and ceremony. All of that, of course, is very expensive and so some savvy Thai universities have looked to fill their empty desks by bringing in more foreign students. But, there are serious concerns about the quality of Thailands increasing array of international university graduates, and these issues run the gamut from simple quality control problems all the way to alleged criminal activity. A cross-reference of Unesco published data and various public records indicated that there are four conspicuous problems affecting todays international university students here in Thailand. These problems consist of anemic Stem ratings (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in the Thai educational sector, unsuitable international candidates for university enrollment, illegal work, and a lack of Western-style licensing exams to prevent malpractice. The problems begin with the Stem scores of Thai students today, as they will be our foreign students teachers tomorrow. Unescos 2017-2018 Global Education Monitoring Report showed that barely 50% of todays Thai students are competent in maths and reading. Unesco also published that Thailands national student proficiency testing system is not reliable. (This system is sometimes called O-Net.) Taken together, these deficiencies can create weaknesses in the Thai teachers who often help educate international students but there are also alarming concerns regarding the quality of our international university and foreign college students themselves. The Phuket News has obtained evidence indicating that some international undergraduate programs popular in Thailand have been admitting student school leavers to college, even though they dont have high-school degrees. The documents demonstrate that at least two undergraduate programs have been engaging in this practice over the past five years. Some campuses have offered so-called grace periods for high-school dropouts to acquire what is known as a General Educational Development (GED), a high-school equivalency certificate generally frowned upon by most of the Western world. More alarmingly, these records strongly suggest that the grace periods have not always been adhered to. Over several months, a special reporter for The Phuket News has cross-checked the transfer patterns of students in these programs and came upon a document that indicated that one program instituted a GED prerequisite in order for students to graduate only last month. By the simple process of deduction, that means foreign high-school dropouts have been engaging in college instruction in Thailand for at least four years. Ergo, these so-called grace periods seem little more than a means to lower the entry bar. The Phuket News has also acquired a document that indicated that another undergraduate program has been enrolling foreign students into degrees taught in English, even though these students are not asked to prove that they actually speak English. For instance, one web advertisement that was published online just a few months ago read: Q: Do I need to take an IELTS or TOEFL exam before being admitted? A: You can join the program with only an in-house English exam given by [the school.] To explain, IELTS & TOEFL are standard English proficiency exams for foreign students from non-English speaking countries. In addition, The Phuket News has recently learned that foreign students enrolled on the same program may soon be graduating from an American university due to a partnership between that Thai college and an American school. But, The Phuket News has also learned that these same students might not have fluency in English until two years into their studies. This is not likely to be normal practice at an American university and seems entirely unorthodox to either common academic standards, or routine American university enrollment standards. This suggests that some of Thailands international college students are simply being enrolled in Thailand in order to evade the entry standards of American universities on a commercial or repetitive basis and graduate later on. A practice that many would find morally bankrupt. And it only gets worse from there. Thailands Education Visa expressly prohibits employment. Yet, Thailands authorities have long-suspected that many international undergraduate students are breaking that law. There was a heavily reported crackdown on this very issue by Immigration and the Tourist Police. Operation X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner has been widely publicised throughout Thailand. This year, the Royal Thai Police arrested hundreds of illegal foreign workers. Numerous unqualified English teachers were handcuffed, collared and dragged out of at least 74 of Thailands international schools and language institutes. Critically, The Bangkok Post reported Pol Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn did not say that any of those illegal teachers were qualified professionals limping from one legitimate visa to another, but exactly the opposite. Those arrested were reportedly illegally teaching on student visas. Police Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn sought cooperation from educational institutes and entreated them to avoid helping foreigners change their Tourist Visa to a Student Visa, The Bangkok Post reported. The results of Operation X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner have suggested that foreign students who engage in educational visa fraud do not necessarily limit their criminal activities to illegal teaching. The operation has ensnared a complex web of often concurrent crimes; all the way from international romance scams to complex illegal drug networks. In summary, as Thailands number of international students soar, the reality is that their teachers are often not up to Western standards and that some programs have been flouting Thailands labour laws, as well as allegedly skirting the standard entry requirements commonly applied around the world for American university programs through which some students may soon graduate. Compounding these woes, Thailand presently lacks occupational licensing examinations that are on par with those of many Western states and countries. These are the crucial exams that verify the competency of some of societys most critical occupations... such as teachers, doctors and lawyers. At present, Thailand has no equivalent licensing examinations in the post-graduate, pre-degree window of time on some critical teacher-training programs that mirror their Western counterparts, says Dr Ian Reide, a multiple Ph.D holder, historian, teacher and software designer from The University of Western Australia. He explained that Thailands licensing examination issues need to be updated, but this is little understood by the general public. Practically anyone can become a foreign college student, but that does not mean that they are competent to work after they graduate, and these exams stop unqualified candidates from committing occupational malpractice post-graduation. But Thailands glaring weaknesses here are clearly being exploited. According to a slew of Thai college websites, foreign students can come to Thailand to study architecture, accounting, aerospace engineering, automotive design, business, dentistry, many forms of finance, food science, public health, medical science and, very notably, foreign-language teaching, as well as teacher-training programs. As it stands, Thailands mechanisms to detect high school dropouts and prevent them from entering college have proven to be barely present, or easily evaded. Its mechanisms to detect international students not fluent in English are also being skirted. In effect, recent revelations demonstrate that a growing number of international undergraduate programs offered in Thailand seem to be taking in unsuitable students today; but solving the problems by backdating their records tomorrow. The investigation opens up wide-ranging questions that are as yet unanswered. These questions include how high-school dropouts can be ethically enrolled in college; how those who have not yet finished high school can be expected to master college or university topics; how the general public can rely on them without Western-style licensing exams prior to being granted a diploma; how any student not fluent in English can possibly master complicated occupations taught in English; by what means these students are obtaining high grades; as well as how students who might harbour these deficiencies can possibly be deemed as suitable prospective American university graduates? Large numbers of substandard students could constitute a serious hazard for any advanced nation outside Thailand whose government could be liable for defaulted student loans. Whilst many foreign students pay Thailand in cash for their education, further education in their Western countries is likely to be on credit. Substandard foreign college and university students in Thailand today could be your dentist, teacher, or architect tomorrow. The revelations revealed in the course of this investigation are shocking and their consequences could eventually be enormous. And, if left to continue, the person who may someday pay for those consequences could very well be you. Winter Wonderland to honor Gordy Osthus this year, opens Nov. 26 This year, the Watertown Optimist Club dedicates the Winter Wonderland in honor of the man who helped create it - Gordon "Gordy" Osthus. Betty Disero, a former Toronto city councillor who in 1991 briefly ran for mayor, has landed the top job in a completely different community. Disero was recently elected lord mayor of Niagara-on-the-Lake, as the scenic tourist town calls its top municipal politician. She became the first woman to hold that post, after four years as a town councillor who made her mark warning residents about the hazards of uncontrolled development. The town of more than 17,000, famous for wineries and the Shaw theatre festival, will also have a female deputy lord mayor, since Clare Cameron garnered the most votes for council. In some ways, Disero said in an interview, the issues shell face in her four-year term mirror those of the much bigger boom town she left in 2009. This town is growing so much more quickly than before, so were starting to have, believe it or not, issues with traffic congestion, overdevelopment, losing some of the character of what used to be here, Disero said, adding that in other ways Niagara-on-the-Lake is very different from Toronto. Toronto is not a farming community. We are a farming community here, she said. Im learning about irrigation, the need for protecting bees, certain types of herbicides and pesticides trying to balance all of that and the need for safe passage for pedestrians while allowing farmers to farm properly. Disero entered politics in the early 1980s as a Toronto separate school trustee, jumping in 1985 to council in the Davenport ward by defeating 25-year incumbent Joe Piccininni. She was a major force at city hall for almost 18 years, the last six on the council of the new amalgamated city, with posts including chair of the Toronto Harbour Commission and later the TTC. Then mayor Mel Lastman appointed Disero, a Liberal able to work across political lines, to a task force with a goal of diverting waste from landfill after Lastmans plan to send waste to a decommissioned northern mine fell apart. In March 2003, Disero stunned colleagues by announcing her retirement from politics, later setting up a lobbying firm, Boomer Consulting, named after her family dog. Disero said it was a family tragedy the 2009 death of her adult son Michael that prompted her move out of Toronto. I needed to run away. I needed to start over, she said. I came to visit a friend in Niagara-on-the-Lake and it just felt like home the weekend I was here. The following weekend I came and bought a property and then built a house. She worked on her garden and learned about her new home until a Canada Day barbecue in 2014, when friends noted the rapidly growing towns official plan hadnt been reviewed in decades. They recalled her political past and urged her to make what was a successful run for council. Disero says she tried to build alliances but found herself on the losing end of 8-1 votes, at odds with council colleagues who didnt share her view about sometimes slowing down development amid fears that agricultural land, even in the protected Greenbelt, could become GTA-style subdivisions. There were a lot of people saying we needed to put in a tree bylaw, so developers couldnt just come in and clear-cut. Some around the council table kept calling it the Toronto intrusion, the idea that some trees and heritage sites deserve protection, but I didnt get that from the public, she said. I understood it. It was political a little bit offensive, but my colleagues on council were not used to pushing. She decided to run for lord mayor and beat incumbent Patrick Darte with 4,169 votes to his 2,743. Disero says in her four-year term, she will push to finally modernize the official town plan and create an administration that can cope with the development in the area. I guess theyre not used to noise control and other issues large urban areas have been dealing with for years. All of those must be brought into the mix here, while protecting homeowners property rights, she said, adding she marvels at Torontos growth while visiting her former home. I get a bit of a Wow! feeling when I visit Toronto, but Niagara-on-the-Lake is my home now and I love every day here. Tom Elltoft, a local real estate agent who grew up in Niagara-on-the-Lake, says he is happy to have the Toronto transplant leading his hometown into the future. I think its great to have somebody who can offer the experience she has in her background, he said. We suddenly got on the radar of Toronto developers as they push out and I think we were feeling a little ill equipped at all levels to deal with it. You dont want to close the doors on development everyone has to grow but it was feeling a little Wild West. MONTREALWhile the word midwife seems to suggest a feminine-only practice, the first Quebec man to enter the profession is adamant that he doesnt need a different title. Louis Maltais points out that the word, which comes from Old English, actually means with woman and that it goes straight to the core of what a midwife does. Its about women, and it will stay like this, because its about womens time and their experiences, and the name says that, Maltais said. Were there for women. Maltais turned heads earlier this year when he became the first Quebec man to enter and complete the provinces only university-level midwife training program. The months since then have been a whirlwind that included delivering his 100th baby over the summer, moving back to his hometown of Chicoutimi, and attending screenings of a documentary about his experiences, titled Un homme sage-femme. Maltais, who is a young-looking 31, said he feels his peers and his patients have been open to having a man in their midst. Part of the reason he allowed the documentary crew to follow him, he explained, was to share his experience with others including men who may want to enter the profession. I think its not for every man because its very feminist, and thats a very important part of it, but when you feel really comfortable with this, women are very open, he said in an interview ahead of the films first Montreal screening at the Cinematheque quebecoise on Saturday. The documentary, which is showing until Wednesday, will also be broadcast on French-language TV at a later date. While about one woman in 20 doesnt want him at their birth, Maltais said most are receptive and they generally become more comfortable over time. Maltais said he debated becoming an osteopath or an acupuncturist before deciding to become a birth specialist, for reasons hes not entirely sure how to explain. He was looking for a job where he could connect with people, and he started researching the Bachelor of Midwifery program at the Universite du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres, where he was attracted to the professions patient-centric approach. I like the challenge, and to bring something different and something very important for women, to help women find their power to give birth, he said. This is huge, and I was looking for something huge that would have many meanings. While midwifery has been practised in Canada for centuries, notably by Indigenous women, the practice began re-emerging in the mainstream in the 1960s and 70s along with the womens right movement, according to the Canadian Association of Midwives. Currently, midwives are present at about 11 per cent of births in Canada, although that varies widely by province. Ontario had the most midwife-led births last year with over 23,400, although B.C. had the highest percentage at over 22 per cent. Midwives provide health care to women during pregnancy, labour and the postpartum period, with the goal of facilitating a positive experience centred on the mothers needs. Like any other new midwife, Maltais says hes still learning to navigate the tricky line that requires him to respect womens wishes while occasionally having to set limits to minimize risk. We are guides. We follow women, but we have to say no when we have to say no, because (safety) is the first thing, he said. The Canadian Association of Midwives says it only knows of one other male midwife who was trained in Canada, although there may be a handful who did their training elsewhere. But while male midwives are extremely rare in Canada, the association points out thats not necessarily the case in other countries. And as demand rises to the point where many midwives have long waiting lists, the groups president said shes more than happy to welcome Maltais into their ranks. From the position of the Canadian Association of Midwives, we want more midwives practising in Canada, whatever gender they may be, Nathalie Pambrun said. Read more about: A paper published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests life expectancy in Canada could be threatened by the same factors that are causing it to fall in the United States. There are some signs which are pointing in the same direction, said Juergen Rehm of Torontos Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, a large teaching and research hospital. We find the same (trends), to a much lesser degree, in Canada. Rehm said life expectancy in the U.S. has begun to decline slightly something so rare in a rich nation that the last time it occurred in the U.S. was during the Second World War. Most of the new decline is due to an increase of deaths of despair: drug overdoses, suicide or alcohol abuse. The increase deaths are heavily correlated to areas with poorer and more rural people, said Rehm. Ninety per cent of whats happening with deaths of despair in the United States is happening in rural America, he said. You cannot let large parts of a country have a net loss in salary over ten to 15 years and expect those people to be as happy and as clear as before. In a commentary in the journal, Rehm said a similar trend appears to be taking hold in Canada. Read more: The worlds wealthy are buying their way to longer lives B.C.s average life expectancy drops for first time in decades due to surge in overdose deaths Overdose deaths have been increasing, to about 4,000 in 2017. They used to be under 2,000 not that long ago, Rehm said. Deaths from alcohol-related diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver are also increasing. And while Canadian income inequality is far from U.S. levels, Rehm points to World Bank figures showing it is on the rise. Our life expectancy is increasing, but its plateauing. Findings from a separate paper in the same journal back him up. The Public Health Agency of Canada says the average Canadian lifespan is 82 years still the tenth-longest in the world. But its up only slightly from 81 years in 2006. And Canadas current ranking is two notches lower than it was a decade ago. The same study finds the death rate from mental and substance use disorders increased by 11 per cent from 2006 to 2016. The agency found Canadians are generally in good health, although health issues in an aging population are shifting to disease and disability. Rehm said there are ways for Canada to avoid a decline in life expectancy driven by deaths of despair. Dont make booze cheap, for one. Rehm refers to dozens of studies linking price and availability of alcohol to its abuse. We have people speaking about one buck a beer, or nonsense like that, said Rehm, referring to a popular campaign promise by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Rehm also suggested doctors need to re-examine why and when they prescribe opioid painkillers. While Canada has seen half the prescription opioids in the U.S., were still the second-highest country in the world. And politicians need to think about the impact of what they pass into law. We should allow those policies that are at least not worsening our gap between the rich and the poor. Rehm makes no apologies about straddling the worlds of health research and economic policy. Im a statistician, he said. Im not a member of a political party, Im not a member of anything. I look at the data. Will I convince everybody? No, but Ill do my best. WASHINGTONStates and storylines for Canadian observers to keep an eye on Tuesday as voters in the U.S. head to the polls for midterm elections: WOMEN: Hes not on the ballot, but Donald Trump might as well be which is why Democrats have been focusing their campaign efforts on college-educated white women, arguably the most motivated segment of the American electorate after two years of a famously divisive and misogynist president. Add to the mix the against-all-odds confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in spite of high-school sexual assault allegations from the credible Christine Blasey Ford, and you have a powerful voting bloc capable of and widely expected to overturn the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Can Trumps all-out effort to mobilize his base, comprised heavily of non-college-educated men, break up the so-called Blue Wave? MICHIGAN: Thanks to term limits, change is coming to Michigan regardless of the outcome. Former Democratic Senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer is battling rival Bill Schuette to succeed the term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, while some polls suggest Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat, is facing a challenge from Republican challenger John James. Michigan is one of eight states bordering the Great Lakes that belong to the 2008 Great Lakes Compact, an interstate agreement with Ontario and Quebec to monitor the quality and quantity of Great Lakes water. Usually its a relatively bipartisan issue, but it could be impacted by who wins the gubernatorial races in particular, said Capri Cafaro, executive in residence at American Universitys School of Public Affairs and a former state senate Democrat in Ohio, another signatory. MARIJUANA: Also on the ballot in Michigan as well as another key border state, North Dakota are measures to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana. The drug remains illegal at the federal level, which is why crossing the border has become more complicated for Canadians working or partaking in the newly legalized pot industry. But as legalization looks poised to spread to more and more states, it can only help expedite action on the federal front, which some observers, including former Trump spokesman Anthony Scaramucci, expect the president to take after the midterms. TURNOUT: While midterm elections typically generate less voter interest than their presidential counterparts, 2018 is already bucking the trend. In the 37 states plus Washington, D.C., where some form of early voting is allowed, more than 31.5 million ballots had already been cast as of Saturday, with 22 states and D.C. exceeding turnout levels from 2014. In closely watched Missouri, for instance, projections anticipate turnout of 55 per cent, the highest in nearly 25 years. OHIO: One of the most critical elements of Donald Trumps remarkable 2016 victory was his ability to flip blue-collar Ohio, long a critical battleground that the Republicans won by eight points two years ago, thanks in large measure to his America First trade mantra. Whether Democrat challenger Richard Cordray can wrest the governorship away from opponent Mike DeWine two-term Republican Gov. John Kasich has reached his term limit depends largely on whether Cordrays focus on workers rights can overthrow working-class fondness for the president. NAFTA/USMCA: Its not a ballot issue for Americans, who have long since moved on. But with the deal still requiring ratification in all three countries and Section 232 tariffs on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum exports still in place, there are more than enough loose ends to keep stakeholders near the edge of their seats. Few experts anticipate any problems in Congress even if the Republicans lose the House; its less an issue of if than of when. And when is important, given the ongoing impact of tariffs deferred, to a degree, by a strong domestic economy and U.S. farmers keen to have access to export markets in Mexico and Canada. WISCONSIN: When Canadians contemplate all their recent NAFTA angst, the dairy-drenched border state of Wisconsin often springs to mind and gratitude to Trump for a U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that provides better access to export markets could well play a role Tuesday. But Wisconsin is intriguing for a different issue, one near and dear to Canadas heart: health care. Republicans like Gov. Scott Walker, a Trump ally and a vociferous critic of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, have been desperately trying to convince voters they wont eliminate Obamacares protection for people with pre-existing conditions. Walker is in a pitched battle with Democratic rival Tony Evers. TEXAS: Deep in the heart of this traditionally Republican bastion is one of the marquee matchups of the 2018 midterms: the Canadian-born Republican senator and Trump tormentor-turned-ally Ted Cruz versus young upstart Democrat challenger Beto ORourke. Cruz has a fairly comfortable lead in the polls, but the very fact that ORourke has given Cruz a scare underscores the fact that Democrats, fuelled in part by ORourkes surge and energized young and Latino voters, are challenging Republicans all over in the increasingly progressive Lone Star state. Read more about: Postmedia Network Inc. will no longer be delivering newspapers to schools across Canada in order to comply with federal laws that restrict how cannabis is advertised to minors, the company said Sunday. A spokeswoman for the Canadian news media company said print deliveries have been cancelled to elementary and high schools across the country that take part in the Newspapers in Education program. Phyllise Gelfand said the move was necessary to ensure compliance with the Cannabis Act, which restricts cannabis advertising and promotions that could appeal to youth. The Cannabis Act states that one of its purposes is to protect young persons and others from inducements to use cannabis. This includes prohibiting promotions, packaging and types of products that are appealing to minors. We deeply regret that this precludes us from delivering print editions to elementary and high schools, Gelfand said in an email, adding schools received their last round of print deliveries of Postmedia newspapers on Oct. 31. We see tremendous value in supporting schools with this program and we are exploring ways to reintroduce the program that comply with the Cannabis Act. Read more: Canadians concerned about young people using e-cigarettes, survey finds The Newspapers in Education program is an international initiative that aims to improve media literacy in schools. Gelfand said schools can still be part of the program by registering for free electronic editions of the papers, which do not contain the cannabis ads. This is a rapidly evolving area and we plan to stay appraised of applicable guidelines in order to ascertain whether the program can be reinstated, said Gelfand. We will continue to revisit the issue and may be in a position to reinstate the print NIE program to elementary and high schools. Postmedia whose flagship publications include the National Post, the Montreal Gazette and the Toronto Sun represents more than 140 brands across print, online and mobile platforms, according to its website. Police were forced to intervene as more than 1,500 protesters delayed the start of a Toronto debate featuring Steve Bannon, the former strategist who helped Donald Trump win the White House. At least three protesters rushed the door at The Munk Debate tonight to chain it shut. A melee ensued, and the police moved in, reported Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno, who was attending the event. Video posted on social media showed officers outside the downtown venue using batons to hold back the crowd, and police tweeted that 12 people had been arrested. Read more: Munk Debates blames technical error for wrong results in Bannon-Frum faceoff Opinon | Rosie DiManno: Bannon vs. Frum at Toronto debate generates sound and fury Opinion | Vinay Menon: Want to expose Steve Bannons dangerous ideas? Let him debate them The charges ranged from assault to trespassing and public mischief, Toronto police spokesperson Gary Long told the Star. He also said that two police officers suffered minor injuries. 1 officer hit with a stick, another punched in the face, police tweeted. Long said he isnt aware of any other injuries. Debate organizers explained the roughly half-hour delay by saying they anticipated protests and wanted to ensure everyone was safe. Bannon was eventually introduced to begin his defence of political populism against conservative commentator David Frum. In his opening statement, interrupted by a shouting protester, Bannon gave a nod to the protesters exercising their free speech rights before laying out his views. Society is on the verge of a revolution, Bannon said. Its not a question of whether populism is on the rise and whether populism is going to be the political future, Bannon said, prompting derisive laughter at times. The only question before us is it going to be populist nationalism or populist socialism. In his own opening statement, Frum said the new populism promoted by Bannon is a ``scam and a lie, saying so many populist leaders around the world, including Bannons former boss, U.S. President Donald Trump, are crooks. Does the kind of politics that Steve Bannon is speaking for and President Trump articulates, does that politics offer me anything? Frum said to audience applause. It offers you nothing. It does not care about you. It does not respect you. Bannon accused critics of populism, and its recent successes in several countries, of resorting to smear tactics. Critics who accuse Bannon of being a white supremacist wanted the debate scrapped. While the 90-minute event at a downtown auditorium was sold out, the theatre was barely half full at the scheduled start time. To ensure the debate went ahead, albeit late, members of the public were seated even after it began. Protesters circled Roy Thomson Hall on Friday night to let Bannon know he was persona non grata in Toronto. The demonstrators called out those who came to see the former Trump strategist and the organizers of the Munk Debates, charging they were helping him to spread the politics of hate and division. He hates Jews. He hates Blacks. He hates you because of the person you live with, whether you are a lesbian or gay, organizer Nigel Barriffe yelled into a microphone. He should be ashamed and he should never have platform in our great city, said Barriffe, president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. Bannon squared off against Conservative commentator David Frum, a senior editor at The Atlantic Magazine. They debated the resolution, Be it resolved, the future of western politics is populist, not liberal. Attendees were greeted by chants of shame on you as they stood in line. They were wanded and frisked by security guards as they entered the venue. Bannons controversial appearance attracted protesters from more than 40 social-justice organizations, including anti-poverty activists, unionists and defenders of immigrants and refugees. They carried banners and homemade signs with similar messages: Bannon = Hate, Say no to Islamaphobia, and Stop racism. Some signs carried messages like this one, taking aim at those who invited Bannon to Toronto: Munk Debates: Steve Bannon and David Frum to debate whether hate crimes are better than war crimes. There was a heavy police presence and organizers say 11 protesters were arrested. Speaker Anna Willats described Bannon and Frum as two right-wing warmongering peas in a pod and accused them of spreading neo-liberal and white nationalist ideas. We need to organize together to resist the racism and violence that result from the ideas theyre putting forward, said Willats, who is from the social justice group RadTO. She urged the public to make connections between Bannons rhetoric and increasing occurrences of racism, violence and oppression. The far-right is organizing and we need to stop it, Willats said. Speaker Cynthia Levine-Rasky paid tribute to the 11 worshippers who were killed by a gunman at a Pittsburgh synagogue a week ago. What happened on Oct. 27 affects all of us...everyone, our common humanity, she said. We stand together.... Our strength is standing together against the forces that aim to divide us, Levine-Rasky said. with files from The Canadian Press Read more about: It promised to be the biggest scoop of Roy Howards life. The Great War was over. He had chased the rumour all day in the French city of Brest, but now he finally had it on the record from a high-ranking naval official. It was Nov. 7, 1918. The war was not over, but Howard had reason to believe that it was. As the president of the United Press wire service, he sent the good news back to New York, sending the continent into a frenzy of false joy, sealing his name in the history books forever: Roy Howard, the man who broke the false armistice or as he liked to call it the premature armistice. It was a fluke that it made it through the censors, but it seemed legitimate when it landed in New York just before noon. Reporters at rival agencies tried to match it in vain. Had they missed the story of the century? There was no official confirmation from the U.S. government, but once the first tentative reports hit the streets at lunchtime, people didnt return to work. The party had begun. Toronto newsrooms received the United Press bulletin aroundthe same time. Word began to spread by telephone, telegram and word of mouth. People poured out of offices and factories and gathered in front of the Star, as they often did when news was breaking. There was no official confirmation, but never before, the Star wrote, has the city been so deeply stirred. Allen Cuthbertson grabbed his camera. The 30-year-old had taken over his family carpet company at the beginning of the war and knew downtown well. He climbed to the top floors of the citys tallest buildings at King and Yonge. From his perch, he saw the ticker tape catch on the hydro and streetcar lines. There were horns, whistles, pots, pans, laughter, shouting, singing, every noise, all at once. People were blocking traffic and dancing on the sidewalks. For the first time in its history, the Star noted in its evening edition, Toronto today might be symbolized by a Cheshire cat that has the greatest grin in the world, the smile that wont come off. The next morning, Toronto and much of North America woke up to a terrible hangover. Soldiers were still advancing. Through a series of coincidence and confusion, the false armistice had grown from rumour into a fact. Read more: First World War letters put a human face on the war that shaped us as a nation Walking the Western Front | World War 1 Books help start tough talks with kids about war In their evening edition, the Star acknowledged the mistaken report, but they called it the wildest orgy of pleasure ever witnessed in Canada, and unequalled in the history of the Queen City. The Associated Press, the great rival to the United Press, called it the greatest hoax of recent years. James Smith, a retired history teacher from England, had taught this time period for decades, but never learned about the false armistice until he picked up a book at a second-hand shop six years ago. He was fascinated and began to dig through archives and old newspapers to parse the conflicting information, mystery and intrigue. I became quite angry that nothing had been picked up about it in British history books, he said. So he created his own website. Details of what happened that day vary depending on the narrator. The following is drawn from telegrams, letters and accounts from Roy Howards personal archives, held at the Media School of Indiana University. By the end of the First World War, the United Press was still considered an upstart in the newswire game. Created in 1907 by American newsman E.W. Scripps, the ambitious and talented journalist Roy Howard had been president of the service since 1912, and he and his reporters worked hard to expand their coverage of the world and to be a bona fide competitor of The Associated Press (founded in 1846). Howard had just finished a business trip to South America when he arrived in Paris in fall 1918. Although he was an executive with connections, he was also an accredited war correspondent. It was no secret that the war would be over soon. The Germans had been talking about an armistice since October, but the Allies wanted unconditional surrender, and kept pushing eastward. Howard, 35, was planning to sail home from Brest, a major telegraph hub and military port on Frances west coast. When he arrived on the morning of Nov. 7, the official who picked him up at the train station asked if hed heard the grand news. The war was over. Howard knew that if he could confirm the rumour, hed have a head start over any reporter filing from Paris, given the slowness and inefficiency of the French telegraph lines, and the fact that Brest was right on the coast with a direct line to New York. The reputation of a newswire was made on quick, accurate coverage of history-defining moments like assassinations and elections. (To this day, The Associated Press notes: Over the past 170 years, we have been first to inform the world of many of historys most important moments, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the fall of the Shah of Iran and the death of Pope John Paul.) United Press reporters had worked hard to prove themselves during the war, and Howard had that same drive. I doubt whether anyone other than Roy Howard could have got that story out of Brest, Smith says. Most people who write about it say he was the right man in the right place, at the wrong time. As he walked around the U.S. naval base with a military escort, official confirmation proved elusive, but drinks and toasts To the Armistice! were not. Howard was worried that his advantage over Paris was slipping away. Luckily, or unluckily, as it turned out, his breakthrough came that afternoon. Admiral Henry B. Wilson, the commanding officer of the United States naval forces, had received a telegram from Paris. The war was over. Howard asked if it was official. Story Behind the Story delivers insights into how the Star investigates, reports, and produces stories. Absolutely, right from headquarters right from Paris I just got it a few minutes ago, Wilson told him. Wilson was planning to send the news to a nearby French newspaper, and he had no problem allowing Wilson to share the news with readers back home in the U.S. He even sent his French-speaking confidential secretary with Howard to expedite the dispatch at the cable office. Howard stopped at the office of the French paper nearby so the message could be typed. It was mistakenly given a Paris dateline, and then it was sent at 4:20 p.m. Brest time. Would he go down in history as the man who broke the story? All around him people were already going bugs at the news. Even the thrifty French merchants were giving out bottles of wine. Howard had no idea his story had quickly cleared censors, and similar celebrations were kicking off across North America. Over the years, Howard told the next part of the story the moment the nightmare dawned a bit differently. In a 1918 letter to a colleague, he said he found out after dinner when he was at the French newspaper office. In his 1936 account, it was more dramatic: he was dining at Brests liveliest restaurant with intelligence officers, and before he could even order a cocktail, a messenger came in with the horrifying update from Adm. Wilson. A later investigation by U.S. military intelligence would determine the false armistice had become official through a game of broken telephone between American and French military circles in Paris. Capt. H.J. Whitehouse, the acting director of the Liaison Service, which acted as a go-between for different branches of the American forces, as well as other Allied forces, had reliable and authentic information that the armistice had been signed. One of his men, Capt. Stanton, had received the information from a French officer. American intelligence officers were doubtful they hadnt heard anything from their senior contacts, and they tried to quash the rumour all day. They informed headquarters that it should be treated with greatest reserve. But an attache at the U.S. Embassy in Paris had already sent a telegram to Washington, and it was talked about as a fact at the American Club luncheon in Paris. In this climate, a naval intelligence officer wired the news as authentic to Adm. Wilson in Brest, who told Roy Howard. (The same investigation figured the root cause of the rumour was a temporary, very localized ceasefire planned on Nov. 7 for a peace delegation telegrams had been intercepted and misconstrued.) Its fascinating because it gives a real insight into the absolute chaos and confusion in communication from the front and between newspapers at the time, Smith says. A stunned Howard hoped the censors had killed his story. He filed another bulletin, hoping to correct his mistake, but in a cruel twist, that version was held up by naval censors. His original report, he would later learn, had been helped along by the presence of Wilsons confidential secretary, and an erroneous Paris dateline that suggested it had already been cleared by the American censor there. Also, Howard noted, the censors room in Brest was deserted when he and Wilsons aide were there. Everybody was partying. In Paris, the censors had been able to rein in their local papers from publishing reports, Smith says. In England, the false armistice news had actually made it there 20 minutes earlier than the U.S., via the American Embassy in London, he says. Reuters must have had a contact there, because it was issuing special bulletins. Very quickly, the British Foreign Office issued a cautionary note to tell the agency it wasnt true. Reuters within 20 minutes issued a disclaimer saying Cancel that, but it was too late, Smith says. It was evening in England, and people were lighting fireworks and ringing the church bells, both violations of wartime restrictions. Back in North America, doubt had crept into newsrooms, but not the streets. AP had no confirmation from its war bureaus. In Washington, the State Department issued a denial, to little effect. News services and correspondents that questioned the authenticity of this bulletin were ridiculed, Howard later wrote. The world wanted a good time and a twenty word news bulletin furnished the detonating spark, he wrote. The Star had a tight afternoon deadline. Up to the hour of going to press no official confirmation had been received, it wrote on the front page, which had stories of people dancing in the streets. The paper was published for 5 p.m.: Unofficially reported armistice is signed, the front page read. The Telegram, also an evening paper, took a different approach. Germany has not yet signed a surrender. The Globe, with a later deadline for a morning publication, was measured. It included stories about the quiet celebrations in homes over the peace news, and how the jubilation in Hamilton was not dampened by the denials. In one story aptly headlined, Tell me, is the news official? a reporter visited soldiers in a military hospital. Its the old mothers Im thinking of, one soldier said. Ive always thought that peace, if it did come, would be a big strain, and now if theyre disappointed, he trailed off. You learn a lot about womens patience lying here, Sister. The most fascinating element, Richard Schwarzlose wrote in The Nations Newsbrokers: The Rush to Institution from 1865 to 1920, was that readers were willing to trust their emotions to a few lines of newsbroker bulletin and do it all over again four days later when the real armistice was signed. Roy Howard was having a very bad week back in France. The general manager in New York sent him a telegram that reached him Nov. 9. The United Press had held firm to the story as long as it could. But in the message, every line was worse that the last, all capital letters and no punctuation. Your original Paris flash received published everywhere exactly as sent Announcement yesterday caused greatest demonstration American history daylong nightlong opposition services papers attacking Unipress viciously Impossible overestimate seriousness incident which unparallelled all newspaper history The best thing to do was get an explanation out. Howard scrambled to figure out what went wrong. Im still a bit groggy from this jolt, he wrote to his Paris bureau chief. I am fully conscious of what it has done to us in America. Adm. Wilson, who had sworn the news was official, felt pretty bad. He said that Howard had acted in good faith. Of course he has no idea of what the thing means to us, but he could see that it was a bad mess and he came all the way through to do everything within his power to undo the damage, Howard wrote. Howard replayed the scenario in letters to colleagues and friends: There would be nothing for me or any other newspaper man to do except just what I did. The public seemed to understand. In their minds the war was over, and they accepted the mistake in good spirit, he wrote. But other journalists, led by The Associated Press, were calling the United Press a nefarious outfit who should be made to pay for the clean-up, and Howard a traitor to his profession and country. Indignation burned like a brush fire in the columns of those virtuous paragons of American journalism which had not printed the report, Howard wrote. In Toronto, the Tely was feeling quite virtuous. When the real armistice was signed, it was the first to report it. First as usual, with the truth, it said, including a drawing of Star publisher Joseph Atkinson riding a star through the sky, his hair askew, and in his hand a fake armistice bulletin. When the official records of the State Department were declassified in the early 1930s, Howard was cleared of blame. In a telegram sent on Nov. 8, 1918, Edward House, the U.S. diplomat at the centre of peace talks, said that if there was any fault in the matter, it rested with an American official in Paris and the French official who passed along the rumour. In 1936, writing in a colleagues book, Howard wondered whether that French official might actually be German. The Germans wanted an armistice desperately and wanted it quickly, he wrote. They were faced with starvation, anarchy and civil war. Time meant everything. The Germans knew the Allied military leaders would keep pushing so they could be ruthless with their terms, but families everywhere wanted peace, and if these nationals could just be told that an armistice had been signed it was reasonable to suppose that their joy would be so great that no power would risk continuance of the war. Smith, the retired history teacher, says that the German spy theory was first outlined by American intelligence officer Arthur Hornblow, who would later become a Hollywood producer dabbling in screwball comedies, film noir and musicals like Oklahoma. Hornblow was in Brest that day, and spent some time with Howard. Smith thinks the spy theory was a cover-up for the huge blunder, but it cant be proven either way. If there were originally any German documents about the spy activities, a lot of the German activities during the First World War were destroyed during the Second World War in bombing, he says. Smith subscribes to the theory outlined in the U.S. military documents that a telegram for a temporary ceasefire was misunderstood. He is amazed by the way the false armistice persisted as a folk memory in North America. President Truman noted it in a 1951 speech and mentioned Roy Howard by name. F. Scott Fitzgerald dropped it into a book. Everybody experienced it. Thousands and thousands of them, even to the extent of saying, Oh, he was born on the false Armistice Day, Smith says. But in England, the story quickly disappeared. Howard, who was a major shareholder in United Press, had worried the mistake would cost at least a quarter of a million worth of damage, but there was no lasting financial impact. Smith says some editors and newspapers wouldnt fully trust the United Press bulletins until they saw The Associated Press reporting on the same, but Howard went on to have a long career. He became chairman of the board of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, but he continued to report, travel the world, and interview world leaders. He never lived down the false armistice, but he seemed to have a sense of humour about it. Once, while giving a speech at a dinner, someone heckled him. Smith says that Howard was quick and good-natured with his reply: Hey, you listen to me. I stopped a war at one stage, you know. Read more about: CORDOBA, MEXICOThousands of bone-tired Central Americans set their sights on Mexico City on Sunday after making a gruelling journey through a part of Mexico that has been particularly treacherous for migrants seeking to get to the United States. An estimated 4,000 migrants are in the Gulf state of Veracruz, where hundreds of migrants have disappeared in recent years, falling prey to kidnappers looking for ransom payments. The days 124-mile (200-kilometre) trek was one of the longest yet, as the exhausted migrants tried to make progress walking and hitching rides toward the U.S. border still hundreds of miles away. The migrants now aim to regroup in the Mexican capital, seeking medical care and rest while they await stragglers. The caravan has found strength in numbers as it meanders north, with townspeople pouring out to offer food, water, fresh clothes and replacement footwear. In a thundering voice vote Sunday night, about 1,000 migrants at the gymnasium in Cordoba voted to try to make it to Mexico City on Monday, which would be their longest single-day journey yet since the caravan began 178 miles (286 kilometres) by the shortest route. Earlier Sunday, the bulk of the caravan streamed into the colonial city of Cordoba, in Veracruzs sugar belt, where they were greeted with Caribbean music and dance. Meanwhile, bleary eyed migrants who had charged ahead to Mexico City expressed gratitude for the support of their fellow travellers, saying they would not have had the strength or courage to get so far on their own. A few arrived at a large outdoor stadium in the capital, where they lounged on bleachers and watched Mexicans play soccer. City employees piled hot food onto Styrofoam plates for the migrants, some of whom had hopped freight trucks to speed their arrival to the capital. Others rested inside a church in the city of Puebla. Read more: Halifax activists want Canada to weigh in on migrant caravans No buses for now, weary caravan migrants set to resume march Migrant caravan demands transport as second group enters Mexico It is unclear what part of the U.S. border the caravan will aim for eventually, or how many may splinter off on their own. Most of the migrants said they remain convinced that travelling as a large mass is their best hope for reaching the U.S. The migrants generally say they are fleeing rampant poverty, gang violence and political instability primarily in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. We think that it is better to continue together with the caravan. We are going to stay with it and respect the organizers, said Luis Euseda, a 32-year-old from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, travelling with his wife, Jessica Fugon. Others went ahead, maybe they have no goal, but we do have a goal and it is to arrive. Mynor Chavez, a 19-year-old from Copan, Honduras, was also determined to continue. I have no prospects (in Honduras). I graduated as a computer technician and not even with a degree have I been able to find work, he said of his home country. Manuel Calderon, 43, a migrant from El Salvador, lifted his shirt to show scars from two bullets he said pierced his torso in his home country. He dreams of making it back to the U.S., from which he was deported a little more than two years ago. On the road, Calderon was received by ordinary Mexicans lending a hand. Catalina Munoz said she bought tortillas on credit to assemble tacos of beans, cheese and rice when she heard the migrant caravan would pass through her tiny town of 3,000 inhabitants. She gathered 15 others to help make the tacos, fill water bottles and carry fruit to weary travellers on the roadside. Mexico faces the unprecedented situation of having three migrant caravans stretched over 300 miles (500 kilometres) of highway in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz. On Friday, a caravan from El Salvador waded over the Suchiate River into Mexico, bringing around 1,000 people who want to reach the U.S. border. That caravan initially tried to cross the bridge between Guatemala and Mexico, but Mexican authorities told them they would have to show passports and visas and enter in groups of 50 for processing. Another caravan, also of about 1,000 people, entered Mexico early last week. That group includes Hondurans, Salvadorans and some Guatemalans. The first, and largest, group of mainly Honduran migrants entered Mexico on Oct. 19. Mexican officials have appeared conflicted over whether to help or hinder their journey. Mexicos Interior Ministry estimated Saturday that there are more than 5,000 migrants in total currently moving through southern Mexico via caravans or in smaller groups. The ministry says 2,793 migrants have pursued refugee status in Mexico in recent weeks and around 500 have asked for assistance to return to their countries of origin. Uncertainty awaits migrants who reach the U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered U.S. troops to the Mexican border in response to the caravans. More than 7,000 active duty troops have been told to deploy to Texas, Arizona and California ahead of the midterm elections. He plans to sign an order that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum. Read more about: NOUMEA, NEW CALEDONIAA majority of voters in the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia chose to remain part of France instead of backing independence Sunday, a watershed moment that led French President Emmanuel Macron to promise a full dialogue on the archipelagos future. Final results had 56.4 per cent of the voters who participated in the referendum deciding to maintain ties with the country that has ruled New Caledonia since the mid-19th century and 43.6 per cent supporting independence, the high commissioners office said. Im asking everyone to turn toward the future to build tomorrows New Caledonia, Macron said, speaking from the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris. The spirit of dialogue is the sole winner. More than 174,000 registered voters were invited to answer the question: Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent? The referendum attracted record-high turnout of 80.6 per cent so many voters that some polling stations in the capital, Noumea, had to stay open about an hour longer than planned to handle the crush. The vote itself was a milestone in New Caledonias three decades of decolonization, a process prompted by the ill treatment Europeans inflicted on the regions Indigenous Kanak people. New Caledonia, an archipelago east of Australia, has a nickel mining industry as well as sun-kissed lagoons. The high commissioners office reported limited outbreaks of unrest in Noumea as votes were counted, with seven cars set ablaze, some roads closed and two instances of stone-throwing. But otherwise the vote was overwhelmingly peaceful. Praising both sides for their responsible campaigns, Macron said contempt and violence were the only losers in the historic poll. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is set to meet with New Caledonian officials Monday to discuss the political future of the territory of 270,000 people. New Caledonia receives about 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in French state subsidies every year, and many had feared the economy would suffer if ties were severed. Residents of the region include the native Kanaks, who represent about 40 per cent of the population, people of European descent, which make up about 27 per cent and others from Asian countries and Pacific islands. Voter Monette Saihulinwa said she opposed independence. I dont necessarily want our lives to change, the 50-year-old said. Others hailed the ballot as historic. Weve been waiting for 30 years for this vote, said Mariola Bouyer, 34. This vote must demonstrate that we want to live in peace, no matter our race, our roots. Its building a country together. The referendum was the result of a process that started 30 years ago to end years of violence between independence supporters and opponents that had overall claimed more than 70 lives. The two sides agreed upon a 1988 deal and another agreement a decade later included plans for an independence referendum. The New Caledonia archipelago became French in 1853 under Emperor Napoleon III Napoleons nephew and heir and was used for decades as a prison colony. It became an overseas territory after World War II, with French citizenship granted to all Kanaks in 1957. Under French colonial rule, the Kanaks faced strict segregation policies and suffered discrimination. Read more about: Male, pale and stale. Is this the fate of the foundations that give out billions to Canadians? This summer, Britains Association of Charitable Foundations revealed the race, age and gender of the board members of the nations 300 biggest private foundations. (Private foundations are the ones set up by families and companies vs. by governments.) What percentage of these board members are white? Ninety-nine per cent. Almost as shocking, 97 per cent of board members are 45 years old and older. So much for reflecting the people and organizations they donate money to. In the U.S., things are a bit less unbalanced, according to industry tracker BoardSource: 85 per cent of foundation directors are white, (with 40 per cent of boards being all white), 55 per cent are male and 69 per cent are 50 years and older. Given the shift in foundation giving throughout the world to underserved communities, its not just ironic and unfair that the giving decisions are overseen by members of the worlds smallest and overserved communities, its inefficient. The arguments for diversity are now backed up by all kinds of data that not only show more diverse decision-making bodies make better decisions, but that involving the people affected by those decisions gives their efforts a much better chance of working. What a decade ago was Huh? is now Duh. This astounding lack of diversity in British and American foundation leadership got me to thinking: How diverse are Canadas private foundation boards? So I did some research and came up with the following numbers. Theyre not scientific, but they are indicative, and I doubt a more rigorous study would reveal much different numbers. I looked at the Top 12 private foundations in Canada based on how much they donated. The figures, provided online by Philanthropic Foundations Canada are current to 2015. The top foundations range from No. 1, the Mastercard Foundation, which gave $65.9 million to No. 12, the Flatt Foundation, which donated $20.2 million. Canadas Top 12 private foundations have a total of 95 board members. Of these, 51 per cent are white men and 60 per cent are men; 42 per cent are women and 11 per cent are racialized women. This is not bad compared to the U.S. or Britain, where there are still more men called John on the boards of FTSE 100 companies than there are women. And yes, I get that family foundations especially need to put family members on their boards. But when you think that half the population of Toronto was born outside Canada and that more than half Torontos population is made up of what used to be called the visible minority, then the largest visible majority group in the city is, by definition, non-white women. And there sure arent many of them on the big foundation boards. Is Toronto a marker for the rest of Canada? No and yes. No, because Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Yes, because Canada is growing increasingly diverse and its government has staked our future on that trend continuing. So Canadas richest families would do well to reflect the very people their generosity is set up to serve. There were more than 914,000 visits to Toronto food banks last year. While thats down slightly from the year before, its a significant increase over the last decade and more than double what it was when the Mike Harris government took an axe to welfare. What happened after Harris slashed welfare rates and introduced workfare is particularly relevant now that another Progressive Conservative government is promising to overhaul social assistance, as early as this week. In the Harris era, the government spoke about the rising costs of the system and the need to get people back to work. And nasty references were made to mothers on welfare spending money on beer and how the poor could economize by haggling over dented cans of tuna at the grocery store. This time around, Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod is taking great pains to stick to a more compassionate-sounding message. Indeed, she has said our government is very compassionate and knows well that these programs serve Ontarios most vulnerable. Still, the Ford government does seem to be heading to rather the same place: There are people on welfare who should be working and were going to make that happen. Few disagree with the principle that people who are able to work are better off working than collecting a welfare cheque. The challenge has always been finding the best way to support people who wind up on social assistance because of a crisis in their life and help them get back on their feet. Nearly a million people are living in households sustained by Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program, and MacLeod would like them to believe that over the past 100 days she has landed on the solution to lift them all up. Based on her low-key review of social assistance the government now has a plan to help those who can work get jobs and provide broader supports for those on disability support, she says. Theres no need to be afraid of whats coming and everyone will be pleasantly surprised. But the Ford governments early moves suggest there is plenty of cause for concern. It has already cut the planned 3-per-cent increase in social assistance payments in half; scrapped the basic income pilot project that was investigating whether theres a better way to lift people out of poverty; and stopped a series of necessary changes to social assistance rules that would have made life better for people while theyre on welfare and made it easier for them to get off it. Making someone who cant pay the rent and put food on the table now even poorer, as the government has done, does not help prepare them for a job. And the fact that MacLeod has defended those moves as compassionate is yet more reason to be worried about what shell come out with next. The minister also seems perfectly content to gloss right over the fact that many of todays jobs dont actually lift people out of poverty. And the series of retrograde changes that her government made to labour laws, specifically designed to benefit workers in low-paid precarious jobs, has only made that situation worse. As the Daily Bread Food Banks latest annual report notes, the social assistance reforms in 1995 set in motion a hunger crisis that continues today. Under 15 years of Liberal governments some improvements were made, but nothing came even close to compensating for the 21-per-cent cuts to rates under Harris and the effect of years of inflation. Ontarios poorest are worse off today than they were before Harris reformed the system, claiming the status quo is not working very well for them. Now theyre facing another Progressive Conservative government that claims the system isnt working for them and also promises change is coming. Little wonder theyre concerned. We all should be. On Tuesday, Americans will go to the polls to elect a third of the Senate and all the members of the House of Representatives in whats known as the mid-term elections. It is an American political tradition that the sitting Presidents party is punished during these elections, with most tending to lose seats in Congress. Today, the smart money says that President Trump, despite a vicious and divisive campaign against the Democrats, will experience a particularly sharp rebuke. Due to an electoral map that tilts heavily to rural, traditionally Republican parts of the country, his party looks set to hold the Senate. But the House of Representatives will likely return to Democratic control, under the leadership of one of the most formidable and longest-serving American legislators, Nancy Pelosi. It will mark the Democrats return to power after being swept out resoundingly during former president Obamas first term in 2010. The Democrats are on a roll; they have found their voice. Theyve raised an astonishing amount of money. They have swung significantly to the left and adopted white-hot rhetoric that echoes the frustration felt by their supporters. They are supported by an energized base furious at Trump and his supporters; a base who sees such a takeover as the only way to effectively stymy the presidents agenda. And they just might be right in the short term. After all, Pelosi has made a career of thwarting conservative ambitions. Winning the House would let the Democrats use process to tangle up regulatory changes, vote down legislation and open investigations into the president and his team. It would allow them to distract the administration from its policy agenda and would expose them to major legal risks. But, from the department of unintended consequences, it just may be that in doing all of these things to undermine the president, the Democrats will end up making Trumps re-election case for him. For the last two years, when it comes to national policy, the president has been the only show in town. With a Republican Senate, a Republican House, and Republicans holding a record number of governorships, the spotlight has been solely focused on the presidents party, as has the criticism that comes with it. The Democrats, on the other hand, have been in the enviable position of being able to criticize with little requirement to present their own solutions. And that has proven a tough place for the president to be. Indeed, the presidential approval rating almost always declines when voters dont have an alternative against which to compare them. As a wise elder once said, I dont need to be perfect. I just need to be better than my opponent. As a result, the torrent of critical coverage of Trump over the last two years has taken its toll. His approval rating is significantly lower than his predecessors at this point in his presidency. But those numbers may be deceiving. While, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.com, polls show around 50-53 per cent of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump, those same polls also show an unshakable core of roughly 40-42 per cent of Americans who approve of him. That is no small number. Consider those results in a Canadian context: according to the CBCs comparable polling aggregator, in the last 10 polls, Justin Trudeau averaged approval of 40 per cent of Canadians, while 49 per cent disapproved of his performance numbers that are, within the margin of error, the same as the presidents. So, while polarizing, and perhaps even unusual, those numbers still provide a respectable base from which to launch a re-election campaign. If the Democrats do indeed take the House, they will be able to hinder the implementation of Trumps agenda but they wont have been handed a silver bullet. The presidents base will be energized, his fundraising turbocharged and, crucially, the contrast of ideas that he needs to win will be set up. It just might turn out that the moment the speakers gavel is placed in Pelosis hands may one day be known as the day that Trump ensured his re-election. Jaime Watt is the executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. and a Conservative strategist. He is a freelance contributor for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @jaimewatt Read more about: OTTAWAThe symbolism, to Avi Lewiss eye, was spot on. The leader of the federal New Democratic Party, on Bay St. on Friday morning, talking about how the ultra-wealthy need to pay their share. But, for Lewis, the imagery fizzled with Jagmeet Singhs message: a trio of policy proposals about stocks, corporate wealth and taxation that might be too technocratic to get people worked up. And if you, like Lewis, believe Canadians are ready for a firebrand version of left wing politics a populism of the left, he says then thats just not going to cut it. Why go for something that you have to explain? What populism tells you is that there are simple truths about our economy that can be communicated with great power, said Lewis, who co-authored the environmental and social democratic treatise, the Leap Manifesto, with his wife, author and activist Naomi Klein. Jagmeet is absolutely in the right direction, Lewis said. Hes taking a little step, and he needs to leap. Populism is often assumed to be a right-wing phenomenon, a buzzword to characterize the Donald Trump movement in the United States. In that context, the word is shorthand for a politics of anti-elitism and xenophobia that Trump is fighting for real Americans against the dominant forces of globalism, the ideological culprit he blames for shipping working class jobs to China and letting too many outsiders into the country. But populism isnt exclusive to one side of the political spectrum. Jan-Werner Mueller, a politics professor at Princeton University, told the CBC last week that populists can come in different ideological shades, so long as they trade in a rhetoric of divisiveness that questions the legitimacy of those who dont share their views. Its always about excluding others, he said. For that reason, Mueller considers Hugo Chavez, the late Venezuelan socialist strongman, a populist of the left. He doesnt use the label for U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn politicians who rail against inequalities perpetuated by unbridled capitalism, for instance, but who dont necessarily vilify their opponents as illegitimate contenders for power. Lewis, however, sees the emergence of Corbyn and Sanders along with a burgeoning left-leaning movement within the U.S. Democratic Party as signs that the energy of populism seized by the right can also be claimed by the parties of the left. And in Canada, that means the NDP. Im talking about electrification of the base, he said. The party needs to chug this Kool-Aid rapidly if they dont want to be wiped out. David Laycock, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University, co-edited a 2014 book about the federal NDP called Reviving Social Democracy. Laycock argues populism isnt always linked with authoritarian tendencies seen by right-wing leaders like Hungarys Viktor Orban and even Trump. He said one of populisms central tenets is an argument that the fundamental division in society is between the people and some sinister elite. For right-wing leaders, that elite tends to be heavy-handed government bureaucrats, a media maligned as progressive and out of touch, or groups that benefit from the largesse of state handouts, Laycock said. On the left, it is the corporate elite or the wealthy few who abuse their power at the expense of the wider populace. That brand of leftist populism has a long history in Canada, he said. It reared its head in 1837, when William Lyon MacKenzie led a rebellion against the Upper Canada Family Compact, a cabal of wealthy and well-positioned appointees with great political power. In the early 20th century, farmers organizations started progressive movements in Ontario and the Prairies that Laycock characterized as populist, which came together in the early 1930s to help form the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the socialist precursor to the NDP, that predicated its existence on a critique of corporate power. It wasnt until the Reform Party came along that the dominant form of populism became right wing rather than left wing in Canada, he said. Laycock believes Andrew Scheers Conservatives are gently experimenting with populist messages, including recent statements about how the media is biased against their party. He said the NDP could do something similar with more aggressive arguments for distributing wealth or slashing subsidies to big corporations. Michael Adams, president of the Environics Institute and author of a recent book about the potential for populism in Canada, argues that this country is on a unique trajectory that dampens the viability of divisive politics. Canadians are more likely to be union members than Americans, for instance, while people here have universal health care and more generous social programs than south of the border, he said. At a time of relatively robust economic growth and low unemployment, all this could dampen the prospects of a left populism about a corporate elite ripping off the general population. Were not feeling those kinds of eruptions at near the scale as were seeing elsewhere, and especially the United States, Adams said. But Lewis insists populism is the path to success for the NDP. He said the right has appropriated the populist mantle from the left, in that politicians like Ontario Premier Doug Ford argue they are governing for the people. New Democrats need to compete with a similar slogans, which Lewis describes as demands that grab attention and boil down complexities about climate change, the push for a sustainable economy, and the role of government into simple messages like Free Transit For All or Federal Jobs Guarantee. Lewis said theres potential to spark momentum if leaders can talk about these issues in a way that is easy to understand and emotionally invigorating. That is the opportunity we could use to have a left-wing populism that could change everything, he said. Read more about: (CNN) From the jungles of Myanmar to the streets of Hong Kong, police throughout Asia are fighting a war against methamphetamine. By many indications, they're losing. Demand for both crystal meth and yaba, tablets that typically contain a mixture of meth and caffeine, is skyrocketing. Production is increasing at an unprecedented clip, and so is the body count. Leaders in places like Bangladesh and the Philippines are waging deadly drug wars that have cost thousands of lives. But this isn't "Breaking Bad" -- meth isn't just used by the poor and the downtrodden. Meth no longer discriminates in Asia; it has become the dominant drug of choice across the region, irrespective of class, age or gender, according to Jeremy Douglas, who is in charge of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) southeast Asia operations. In a career spanning 16 years, Douglas said he's never seen demand like this. "No situation is exactly comparable, but this is off the charts," he said. Experts say the boom is due to a serendipitous combination of domestic and geopolitical issues that have aligned to the benefit of the region's drug gangs. The majority of meth production is happening deep inside the jungles of the Golden Triangle, a lawless area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet. Experts say it's easy to conceal drug production there and move it on at short notice. Drug runners, meanwhile, are exploiting new roads and infrastructure being built as part of an ambitious, trillion-dollar Chinese initiative to connect markets across the globe, using the flow of people and licit goods to mask drug trafficking. And the profits, likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars, are being laundered via intricate international schemes, often using front companies in countries where lax oversight makes it easy to hide money. "It's a perfect storm in terms of the production of methamphetamine," says John Coyne, a former head of strategic intelligence at the Australian Federal Police who now works on border security issues at the Australia Strategic Policy Institute. "It's pushing Southeast Asia into what could be in time a methamphetamine epidemic." Production A large portion of meth seized throughout the Asia Pacific region has been traced to Myanmar's northern Shan State, where militias and warlords reign supreme. Perhaps the most prominent is the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and its political wing, the United Wa State Party (UWSP). The two have waged a years-long struggle for autonomy for the ethnic Wa population, people who share a common language as well as cultural and historic ties with their neighbors in China's southern Yunnan province. Shan State boasts a compelling combination of a good poppy-growing climate and a dearth of law enforcement. For years, the Golden Triangle was the source of the majority of the world's illegal heroin and opium. Authorities in the West have long accused the UWSA and UWSP of funding their armed struggle against the Myanmar central government with the profits from drug production. The UWSA is believed to boast around 30,000 fighters. Verifying either claim is incredibly difficult. Northern Shan State is one of the hardest places in the world to access; some joke it's easier to get into North Korea. The UWSA granted journalists a rare visit to the region in 2016, during which time they denied allegations of narcotics trafficking. Official numbers appeared to lend credence to the claim that the UWSA is no longer producing heroin, at least at first glance. Golden Triangle heroin production and distribution has been on the decline, according to numbers from the United Nations. Authorities warn that's likely because the big players have ditched heroin in favor of a new, cheaper to produce alternative: methamphetamine. "There's a lot of evidence coming together from across the region pointing back to the same groups, pointing back to the same locations," said Douglas with the UNODC. The UWSA's decision to get into the meth game, experts say, is partly a response to market forces, but it's also motivated by profit and ease of production. Methamphetamine is a synthetic drug. It's made in a lab using chemicals and doesn't require drug makers to cultivate organic crops, such as poppies, as is the case with heroin. These labs can be covered by a tarp or moved on short notice. You can't do that with a poppy field. Distribution Once the meth is made, the next challenge is transportation. The Golden Triangle was for years one of the most impoverished and underdeveloped places on the planet, but that's changing thanks to China's One Belt One Road initiative -- a massive infrastructure development project intended to help connect global, predominately developing economies. Beijing has big plans in Myanmar, where it has spent billions to connect China's landlocked Yunnan province to port cities in South and Southeast Asia. Laos and Thailand have seen similar investments. An unintended side affect of these infrastructure improvements is that they've made it easier for meth traffickers to transport product from deep inside Shan State to the rest of Southeast Asia, Coyne said. "What you've got is a large, legitimate trade of people, goods, etc., flowing out of Myanmar and Laos in which you can hide your drugs," said Coyne. Meth from northern Shan State in both crystal and pill form has been found as far away as Japan, New Zealand and Australia. A record 1.04 billion Australian dollars ($800 million) worth of meth, believed to have originated in Shan State, was found by police in Western Australia in December. This year, authorities have conducted dozens of meth seizures in Thailand, China, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia. Shockingly, it only took five months for seizures in Malaysia and Myanmar to surpass the 2017 totals, according to Douglas. While those busts could mean law enforcement is winning its fight against traffickers, it also shows the sheer quantity of meth being moved. Coyne warns of another possibility -- that meth producers have gone into overproduction, which drives down the per unit cost of making drugs, which in turn makes it easier for dealers to live with these massive busts. "They can afford to lose larger quantities and still make profits," he said. Laundering All that money has to go somewhere, and law enforcement say drug dealers are using intricate financial networks to hide their ill-gotten gains. The most prominent -- at least publicly -- is the case of the Zhao Wei, a gambling magnate accused by the U.S. government of using his casino in Laos to help the UWSA launder proceeds from the sale of meth. Casinos are used for laundering because they involve so much cash trading hands, but Zhao has the added benefit of operating inside what Douglas at the UNODC calls a "criminal mini-state." "It operates like his personal fiefdom," Douglas said. Zhao has reportedly negotiated a 99-year lease with the Lao government to operate what's known as the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. The zone lies along the Mekong River that flows between Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. At its center sits the Kings Romans casino. Zhao's agreement with the Lao government allows his business to operate under its own set of unique laws, rules and regulations. The only areas in which Zhao defers to the central government are on matters related to the military, the judiciary, and Lao foreign policy, Zhao told Chinese state media in 2011. The system is ostensibly designed to help attract foreign investors into the special economic zone. However, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Zhao and the casino in January, alleging that Zhao uses the lax regulation to help facilitate "the storage and distribution of heroin, methamphetamine, and other narcotics for illicit networks, including the United Wa State Army, operating in neighboring Burma." Zhao has persistently maintained that the accusations leveled against him are "groundless." "The U.S. government's unilateral sanctions on other countries and regions is unreasonable and ridiculous behavior and for other purposes. Such behavior has created profound misunderstanding for the world community thus causing unnecessary concern for a number of investors and visitors," he said in February, shortly after the Treasury Department ruling, according to Lao state media. "The Kings Romans Group's investment and development strictly complies with the law and signed agreements. There are neither reasons nor motivations for us to run illegal businesses. On the contrary, we have cooperated with the government of Laos to prevent and combat strictly illegal acts." The Lao Ministry of Planning and Investment did not respond to CNN's request for comment, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency declined CNN's request for an interview for this story "due to some ongoing activity related to the case." Cashflow The U.S. Treasury Department, which did not respond to CNN's request for comment for this story, alleges that a key cog in Zhao's operation sits thousands of miles away from his casino in the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. That cog is a company called Kings Romans International (HK) Co., Limited. It and Zhao were both sanctioned by the Treasury Department in January of this year. According to records from the U.S. Treasury Department and the Hong Kong Corporate Registry, the business is housed in a spartan office tower called Wu Chung House nestled in a commercial part of the city's busy Wan Chai district, a fast gentrifying red light district still famous for its seedy bars. The Treasury did not specify what exactly goes on in the office. Hong Kong, however, maintains a reputation as a notorious hub for moving dirty money, with authorities in the city openly acknowledging the problem. "Our competitive advantages here -- namely, free flows of capital, people, goods and information; well established legal system; sophisticated market infrastructure; and advanced professional services -- also make our market attractive for criminals seeking to hide or move funds or evade financial sanctions," Arthur Yuen, the deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), said in April, during a speech at a conference sponsored by the Association of Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialists. The Kings Romans office is supposed to be located at the end of a dimly lit hallway on the 36th floor of Wu Chung House, according to public records, but there was no sign of it when CNN visited. The building's directory shows that a company called Shuen Wai Holding Limited uses the office space. Real estate records confirm that Shuen Wai is the property's owner. Shuen Wai and Kings Romans share more than just an address, however. Shuen Wai and one of its two company directors were sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2008 amid allegations that the office was a key part of the financial network used by the UWSA to launder profits from drug sales. "It makes total sense that the UWSA would be operating out of Hong Kong. They have a long history of mixing illicit with legal activities ... and Hong Kong is the perfect place to do that for them," said Evan Rees, an analyst at the intelligence firm Stratfor. Down the dark hallway at the office's entrance, Shuen Wai is the only business that's visible. Its name is displayed in shiny block letters above an empty secretary's desk. It was decorated with ornate wooden sculptures and marble floors, but with half the lights off and no one in sight. The fact that the business was highly visible was a surprise to some of the sanctions experts CNN spoke with about the case. "They usually at least make an effort to repaint the sign, even if it is the same address and same cast of characters in front of you," said Peter Harrell, a sanctions expert at the Center for New American Security who previously served as deputy assistant secretary for counter threat finance and sanctions in the State Department's Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. "Operating 10 years without changing the name, that's pretty brazen." When CNN rang the doorbell at the office, a middle-aged, bespectacled man answered. He said the company was previously involved in the jade trade but now works in funeral services. He refused to give CNN his name, but said he had been an account manager at the company for 20 years, during which time he has known the two individuals currently listed as Shuen Wai's co-directors. He said the duo are based in mainland China and only come to Hong Kong a few times a year, a couple days at a time. He agreed to pass on a message to them from CNN -- which they did not respond to -- and then retreated back into the office. When CNN called back a couple days later, the individual said the couple was not willing to speak to CNN. When asked about the Wu Chung House connections, the UN's Douglas stressed that each case is different and the age of a specific holding company was not something he could comment on. "That said, if the holding company has been a front for drug trafficking for 10 years it is pretty serious and concerning, and authorities should be investigating," said Douglas. "If links are found and organized crime activities are confirmed then there should be some serious actions taken, and questions will need to be asked about how a front company has been able to run for so long in the open in Hong Kong." Hong Kong authorities declined to comment when asked about the case. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Asia's meth boom." WORDEN In a place with more than a centurys worth of history to its name, its hard not to find relics from bygone days. Such is the case at Worden Lumber. Amid the office supplies and paperwork, binders and boxes, exist reminders of the businesss beginnings. A sepia-toned, framed photo shows founder John Mueller standing under a building sign reading Worden Lumber Co. A worn apron on a countertop advises customers to dial 2161 to reach the company; an even older, tattered apron says phone 16 for building material. Its a history that will be neither erased nor forgotten, but the 116-year-old business will soon close its doors, the latest in a line of small businesses struggling to keep up in a market dominated by high-profile, low-cost chains. Ive known for two or three years this day was coming, we just didnt know when. So its not a shock to me, Worden Lumber president Robert Strothmann said. I hate to see something like this go. Its sad. Its just one more example of small, family-owned business its getting harder and harder. Theres too many big box stores out there putting a lot of people like us under. Strothmann has been with the business since 2001 and has been the companys president since shortly after his cousin, David Hellmann, passed away on Nov. 28, 2012. Hes watched as the numbers, both in sales and employees, have dwindled Strothmann said the company saw sales peak in 2006 at approximately $3.25 million, roughly four times what they sold last year. Strothmann said the company currently only has three people on its payroll; for contrast, the company consists of eight buildings spread across three parcels in Worden. Its just at the point where, you battle through winter, you go backwards, and then you try to make up for it in the good season, Strothmann said. It just was getting a little too difficult to do. The family business The village of Worden itself is not much older than the lumber company, having been incorporated on Oct. 22, 1877. In its early days, the village was booming, home to several hotels, grocery stores, furniture stores and several saloons. Worden Lumber Company was started in 1902 by Mueller. The business grew and was passed down from generation to generation over the years: Mueller sold the business to his son-in-law, Reinhardt Hellmann, in the 1930s; Hellmanns son, Floyd, bought the business in 1976; he retired in 1990, handing the business over to his son, David, and son-in-law, Joe Schelling, who still helps out at the business, Strothmann said. And the family affair doesnt stop at the business. For years, Strothmann has lived in Floyd Hellmanns old house, making Worden Lumber both a personal and professional labor of love. Ive been coming back and forth since I was a boy, to visit Dave and his family. My dad was Daves moms brother, Strothmann said. So yeah, I have a fondness for Worden, for sure. Worden Mayor Preston Hall said the village likewise views the business as part of its family. He is also not unaware of the fiscal implications of the loss Worden Lumber is one of the few remaining businesses in town, and makes up the vast majority of its sales tax revenue. The Village Board and I are very saddened to be losing the Worden Lumber Co., not just because of any economic impact it might have on our village but because I compare it to someone losing a family member, Hall said. The village is losing part of their family with this business closing, they have always been a willing partner to help improve our community by donating to local charity projects and always trying to help someone with friendly costumer service and the highest of quality of products. New beginnings Worden Lumber customer Marcie Foster is also sad to see the business go. Oh, yeah, Foster said. Where am I going to get my building supplies? It was a closed door that opened a new one for Foster, her husband, Bill, and sons Bobby and Bill. The family owns and operates Fosters Outdoor Service, and Marcie is a broker with Epic Realty. When they heard the business was closing, they were interested in purchasing a building to house their lawn and landscaping equipment, but the conversation just kept growing, Foster said. In the end, they ended up purchasing all eight buildings across the three lots. What they do with all the space is open for discussion. Foster said six of the buildings, comprising approximately 25,000 square feet of space, are ready and open for storage of items such as boats, campers and RVs. Fosters Indoor/Outdoor Storage also has outdoor space available, Foster said. Another building, once Worden Lumbers cabinet shop, has HVAC, working restrooms and an air compressor and could easily be rented out to another business, Foster said. Still another building, which only until recently was adorned with a Worden Lumber sign, has the bones of a convenience or retail store. Foster said theyve received interest from potential occupants for various buildings already, and anyone interested in renting out one or more of the realtor-owned buildings can call her at 618-980-4836. We are excited that the Fosters have decided to purchase the property and have plans to open a storage facility utilizing the outbuildings as storage units and have plans to lease the storefront as retail space, Hall said. The Fosters have invested in several properties in the village of Worden over the last few years and have done a great job improving the properties that they own. I have spoken to Bobby Foster about the plans for the retail space and he said they do have a couple people who are very interested in leasing the storefront and providing a much needed convenience store. It was just time As for Strothmann, hell soon trade in the village and business that have occupied so much of his life and move back to Indiana. Like the century-plus-old business, Strothmann has felt the effect of time and decided a change was, if not inevitable, at least needed. If Im going to do something different, the sooner the better, Strothmann said. Im not getting any younger. It was just time to do it. Reach managing editor Nathan Grimm at 618-208-6456. EDWARDSVILLE Hal Pattons public service record dates back two decades. Patton, a dentist at Patton Dental in Edwardsville and owner of Natures Way Tree Nursery, was first elected to public office in 1997, when he was voted onto the Edwardsville City Council. He served there for six years, until 2003, and in 2004 he was elected to the Madison County Board. In 2013, Patton returned to city government, this time as mayor of Edwardsville. Hes served in that capacity ever since. Patton, running as a member of the newly formed Downstate United Party, now has his sights set on state office. A 1986 graduate of Edwardsville High School, 1990 graduate of Centenary College and 1994 graduate from the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry, Patton is vying for the Illinois Senate 56th District seat vacated by the retiring state Sen. Bill Haine of Alton. Patton recently took the time to answer some questions for The Telegraph: Why are you running? For years, I sat back like so many others, thinking the chaos in Springfield would get straightened out. But as long as Mike Madigan is in office, things will never change. It is time for downstate Illinois voters to take back their representation, to speak as one voice about the things that matter most to us: fiscal responsibility, excellent schools, job opportunities for our hardworking people, and steadfast support for the First and Second Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. I have a proven record of results as Mayor of Edwardsville. We have created 4,800 jobs over the five years I have been Mayor, which is a stark contrast to what has been happening in Illinois. If the voters of the 56th District send me to Springfield I will be a voice for them, not Chicago. This political climate is as polarized as weve seen in recent memory. Given the state of politics, do you plan, and if so, how do you plan to work in a bipartisan fashion to make sure things get done in Springfield? During my time on the City Council, County Board, and as Mayor I have had to work across the aisle if I wanted to get things accomplished. When I first started on the County Board there were very few Republicans. To get results for the citizens of Madison County I worked across the aisle and found common ground with Democrats. We were able to do great things for the citizens here and made Madison County a better place to live. During my time as Mayor, we have been successful working together in a bipartisan fashion. We understand that people have different ideological beliefs but we have put that aside to help create a strong community. We have never been nasty in our debates and always find common ground. Campaign finance reform and term limits are policies that could greatly better our political atmosphere. The states deficit is no secret. Higher taxes, legalization and regulation of certain things, trying to retain and recruit businesses to generate more revenue, something else entirely whats the way out? Illinois has to make changes to get out of the deficit. We cannot stay on the path that Springfield politicians have put us on. As Mayor, we have introduced policies that have helped bring businesses to the area. We have grown our tax base which has allowed us to run our city without raising taxes. With increased revenues from growth, we have been able to contribute close to a million dollars a year more to our police and fire pension fund. Growing the economy and combating wasteful spending should be the priority in Springfield right now, not political games. The Riverbend has not been immune to the heroin and opioid epidemic. What do you view as the best course of action to combat it? As of Sept. 17, both houses of Congress have passed legislation to stem the tide of over prescribing opioids, to provide funding for addiction treatment, and training to emergency workers. As a health care provider, I have been leading the effort to avoid prescribing addicting drugs to my patients when non-addicting medicine effectively manages the pain. Continuing education should be required for all providers, just as for CPR certification. Additional measures I support include prescription drug monitoring programs including information from all states and we should look at profiteering drug companies providing funding for addiction treatment centers. Gun control seems to be an issue thats come to the forefront for voters, including in Madison County, where a pro-gun rally was recently held on the steps of the courthouse. Where do you stand on gun control and are there any changes to the laws you would like to see, or are the laws fine how they are? To curb gun violence we need to get firearms out of the hands of criminals and those with mental health issues. Law abiding citizens have not been an issue when it comes to gun violence. Tougher penalties for repeat gun offenders should be looked at as a possible deterrent. Proper respect and firearm safety is something that should be promoted. From a young age my father taught me gun safety and I have continued that with my children. Is there any particular issue that is of distinct importance to you in running for this position? During the campaign I have had the pleasure to knock on doors and talk to voters across the district. In every part of the district I have heard people wanting to leave the state because of high taxes and not enough good paying jobs. We need more good paying jobs in this state and I have been successful in Edwardsville by bringing in over 4,800 good paying jobs over the past five and a half years. We have also been able to create over $600 million in building permits and over 175,000 hours of union labor. I have also heard about the devastating impact the recent income tax hikes have had on citizens. We cannot tolerate any more tax hikes, as my opponent supports, that will just drive more citizens out of the state and to lower taxing states. Skyrocketing property taxes are forcing people out of their homes. We need to do all we can as a state to keep our citizens here. Many people also have concerns over the ever increasing costs of prescription drugs. We cannot have people on fixed incomes avoiding their doctors advice because they cannot afford their prescriptions. This will only lead to future medical complications and drive up costs. Finally, we need strong representation that is not going to be influenced by Mike Madigan. He has been the person in charge for over 36 years while over pension system has become the worst funded in the nation. Giving him another vote will do nothing to solve our biggest problems. BETHALTO Mike Babcock is hoping to parlay his nearly decade of experience as Wood River Township supervisor into a leadership role at the state level. Babcock, a Republican who has been the townships supervisor since 2009, is running for the Illinois House of Representatives 111th District seat currently occupied by Democrat Monica Bristow. Babcock previously challenged Bristows predecessor, state Rep. Dan Beiser of Alton, for the seat. Along with being the township supervisor, Babcock owns and operates Babcock & Associates Insurance Firm. He is a 1983 graduate of Lewis and Clark Community College with an associate degree in electronics, and a 1990 graduate of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with a degree in marketing. Babcock recently took the time to answer some questions for The Telegraph: Why are you running? I grew up in Roxana and have lived in the Metro-East my whole life. I went to school here, started my business here, and raised my family here. This is my home and for too long I have witnessed its economic decline. Friends, family, and jobs have left the state for better opportunities elsewhere. Why has this happened? It happened because policymakers in Springfield have created an environment where people and businesses are overtaxed, over-regulated, and have lost faith in the integrity of their government as a result of failed leadership by Mike Madigan and his caucus. This must change, and being a force for positive change is why I am running. I want to use the experience I have gained living and working in this community to deliver real results. As Wood River Township Supervisor, I never raised taxes, and the township has run budget surpluses for nine years straight. Im blessed to have started and maintained a successful small business and in doing so I learned all too well how government stands in the way of free enterprise and entrepreneurship. Bureaucracy is strangling existing businesses and leading anyone thinking of coming to Illinois to think twice. These are not small problems, and I am committed to working hard every day to empower our area to realize its vast potential. This political climate is as polarized as weve seen in recent memory. Given the state of politics, do you plan, and if so, how do you plan to work in a bipartisan fashion to make sure things get done in Springfield? My view is that in order to be an effective leader, elected officials must be civil and even-tempered. I firmly believe that Democrats love their country and the state. I am wholeheartedly willing to work with them to develop good policy. I am open to including Democrats on legislation I introduce and will work with them to address their concerns to the best of my ability. Illinois government is too partisan and too acrimonious to accomplish what is necessary for the people and I will do my best not to contribute to that climate. At the end of the day, our state is diverse and comprises many viewpoints that I will work to understand and interact with. The states deficit is no secret. Higher taxes, legalization and regulation of certain things, trying to retain and recruit businesses to generate more revenue, something else entirely whats the way out? The leadership of Mike Madigan has been a disaster for the states budget and has directly resulted in higher taxes for Illinois families and businesses. The fact of the matter is that the deficit is not something that will be solved in one legislative session, or ten for that matter. There is no single solution and I fully acknowledge the difficult task that we must collectively undertake to address the deficit and pension crises. I am a proponent of looking at every line of the state budget, known as zero-based budgeting, reviewing every agency expenditure, and justifying every expense in order to eliminate government waste. The General Assembly has to adhere to policies that will incrementally move the state toward solvency, and that takes long-term commitment. This means making our regular pension payments in order not to fall in arrears, cutting government waste and duplicative units of state government, and adhering to realistic revenue estimates in order to truly balance the budget. We also need new leadership and a new vision that prioritizes spending on the core functions of government. Mike Madigans house has failed to deliver a stable, fiscally responsible government for the people of the state and ultimately should be held accountable for this failure by the voters. The Riverbend has not been immune to the heroin and opioid epidemic. What do you view as the best course of action to combat it? Legislators must ensure that local authorities have the resources they need, in training and equipment, to confront this tragic and complex issue on the ground. Those suffering from addiction, too, must be treated carefully by the criminal justice system and have access to proper treatment. The criminal statutes must also be clear: anyone pushing opioids into the community must face severe penalties. I am encouraged that there have been several positive steps taken by the General Assembly in recent years to study and confront this problem; passing the Heroin Crisis Act was one such step. I look forward to engaging more thoroughly with this issue and to ensuring that the provisions of these new laws are fully implemented. Gun control seems to be an issue thats come to the forefront for voters, including in Madison County, where a pro-gun rally was recently held on the steps of the courthouse. Where do you stand on gun control and are there any changes to the laws you would like to see, or are the laws fine how they are? I attended the rally and I fully support the Second Amendment. My position is, and always has been, that the problem is not with guns but with criminality and a failure to address mental health issues that lead to violent behavior. Both the federal and state constitutions are clear that the right of citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed and I intend to vote in accordance with this principle as an elected official. I have earned an AQ rating from the NRA as well as an A rating from the Gun Owners of America. Is there any particular issue that is of distinct importance to you in running for this position? Attracting and maintaining quality jobs to the district is my highest priority. With a thriving economy, we will be able to pay our debts and support our local institutions. Most importantly, families will be able to remain in Illinois. The Metro East has not prospered to its potential under current and prior leadership and has been utterly failed by policies from Mike Madigan. Policies that have regulated and taxed jobs out of the area and harmed families. I vow to cast my first vote as a Representative against Mike Madigan for Speaker of the Illinois House and will work diligently to promote job growth, lower taxes, and advocate for the working families of the Metro East. GODFREY Her feet now wet, Monica Bristow is seeking an extended stay in Springfield. Bristow was appointed to the Illinois House of Representatives last December to serve out the term of retired state Rep. Dan Beiser of Alton. Bristow, a Democrat, is being challenged by Republican Mike Babcock to represent the states 111th House District. She received a bachelors degree in business from Lindenwood University and started working at Olin Corporation as a work student in high school. That career continued and progressed over the next 20 years with the corporation. Bristow then became president of the RiverBend Growth Association, where she worked to bring local business, labor and community members together to help build a strong economy in our area. She was named Chamber Executive of the Year Award from the Illinois Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. Bristow recently took the time to answer some questions for The Telegraph: Why are you running? As leader of the RiverBend Growth Association, an organization dedicated to economic development in our region, I worked with local businesses every day to create good-paying jobs in our community and to help grow our economy. Im using that experience in Springfield to fight for whats important to our families. As I go door-to-door throughout the district, I hear a lot about not only creating new job opportunities for those seeking work, but also protecting the retirement benefits of those who have worked all their lives to earn them. I oppose plans to create a new tax on retirement savings and also oppose Springfields 32 percent tax increase because I know that middle-class families cant afford to pay more to fund waste, dysfunction and corruption in Springfield. Instead of adding to the tax burden already weighing down working families, I am fighting to stop wasteful spending and close corporate loopholes so that we can invest in our schools, road projects that create jobs locally and opioid prevention. This political climate is as polarized as weve seen in recent memory. Given the state of politics, do you plan, and if so, how do you plan to work in a bipartisan fashion to make sure things get done in Springfield? As an independent voice for lower taxes and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, Ive been able to find common ground with Republicans on many pieces of legislation. I also supported a bipartisan, balanced budget that includes a significant investment in our infrastructure, provides $350 million in new funding for our schools, and prioritizes critical services like opioid prevention. I believe that Republicans and Democrats need to work together on issues that are important to the people of Illinois and that legislators should always put people above partisan bickering, which is what I have always done. The states deficit is no secret. Higher taxes, legalization and regulation of certain things, trying to retain and recruit businesses to generate more revenue, something else entirely whats the way out? Illinois must remain focused on putting the middle class first. I strongly oppose any efforts to raise taxes on the middle-class. I believe there are many areas in Illinois government that we can cut spending, including wasteful programs and government bureaucracy, which can help us put funds towards ensuring quality healthcare, job training programs, and incentives for employers that create jobs here in Illinois. In addition, I support property tax relief for homeowners, while opposing the mileage tax, opposing a retirement tax, and opposing any tax or fee that adds to the burden of the middle class. The Riverbend has not been immune to the heroin and opioid epidemic. What do you view as the best course of action to combat it? Its clear that Illinois must take steps to expand access to treatment and reduce the stigma associated with addiction. I am working with local police, educators and medical professionals on a comprehensive response to the opioid and drug abuse crisis that includes increased funding for drug abuse prevention programs to save lives and to help law enforcement combat drug dealers. A comprehensive approach to heroin and opioid addiction must also include a more comprehensive reporting program requiring hospitals to report statistics of all overdose cases to the Department of Public Health to help identify particularly at-risk areas and communities, helping legislators allocate resources and potentially helping law enforcement identify areas of heavy drug trafficking. We also need to take steps to reduce overprescribing opioids. When patients are overprescribed, these leftover pills can be left in drawers and medicine cabinets, where children can easily find them and open a door to addiction. I hope to work with medical professionals and law enforcement to limit how many of the most powerful painkillers can be prescribed to a patient at one time and expand safe drug disposal options throughout the state while ensuring that people with chronic pain have access to the medicine and relief they need. Gun control seems to be an issue thats come to the forefront for voters, including in Madison County, where a pro-gun rally was recently held on the steps of the courthouse. Where do you stand on gun control and are there any changes to the laws you would like to see, or are the laws fine how they are? For many families in our region mine included hunting and shooting are honored traditions passed down generationally. Its important to me that our states laws and regulations protect the rights of law-abiding, responsible gun owners, and I have fought to protect those rights in Springfield. Because of my clear legislative record on protecting our constitutional freedoms, I am the only candidate for state representative in the 111th District who is endorsed by the NRA and received an A rating. Is there any particular issue that is of distinct importance to you in running for this position? Jobs: I believe that we need to take back our economy by demanding an honest wage, closing corporate loopholes and prioritizing local companies and employees over foreign corporations. There are many common-sense solutions to keeping local jobs in our communities. Our tax dollars should support good-paying jobs in our communities, not padding the profits of big corporations that offshore American jobs. I voted to require our tax dollars go to businesses that create jobs here by buying only American-made products. Im also fighting back against unfair trade deals that have taken jobs from the Metro East and sent them to foreign countries. I am supporting legislation that would require any wealthy corporation to pay back every penny theyve received from taxpayers when they move our jobs overseas. Health care: Millions of people live with pre-existing conditions that make it difficult enough already to seek and receive quality health insurance. While Washington politicians continue to mess with our health care, including plans that would strip health care from millions of middle-class families, critically ill children and the frail elderly, I will stand up for our local families. I will fight to cap skyrocketing premiums and require insurance companies to provide health care to those with pre-existing conditions. Working with OSF St. Anthonys Hospital Foundation as a board member, I know the value and importance of local hospitals and healthcare facilities, and I will fight in Springfield to make sure they receive the state money they are owed. When the budget impasse threatened funding for local healthcare facilities, I fought to pass a balanced budget that ensures local healthcare facilities and hospitals have the resources and tools necessary to serve local families. Taxes: I oppose Springfields 32 percent tax increase and also oppose plans to create a new tax on our retirement savings. I passed legislation to cut politicians pay and am fighting to stop wasteful spending instead. I believe that local families cant afford to pay more and will oppose any effort to raise taxes on middle-class families. With skyrocketing property taxes making it harder for Metro East families to make ends meet, I am fighting to cut taxes for all homeowners and provide additional relief for seniors and veterans. I also strongly oppose any new plan to tax drivers for every mile they travel, which would only hurt middle-class families more. Education: We need to keep our tax dollars here, and they should not be going to fund schools in Chicago or Cook County. I worked across the aisle to provide $350 million in new funding for our schools so that every child has the opportunity for a quality education. I also want to make sure that local community colleges, like Lewis and Clark, have the proper resources and continue to grow. I worked with local leaders on legislation to start a new pilot program that would expand nursing programs and keep more jobs locally. I also believe its critical that we invest more in job training programs and trade schools. ALTON It was a freshwater rodeo in Alton on Sunday morning as kayaking cowboys corralled a wily waterfowl to begin the birds journey to the Wild West. A male pelican with an injured wing was caught by staff and volunteers with the Treehouse Wildlife Center in Dow, who descended on a small lake across from the National Great Rivers Museum with kayaks, nets and raincoats on the wet, blustery day. The two-pronged operation to drive the animal from the water to those waiting on land had a simple strategy, according to Treehouse Rehabilitation Manager Rachael Heaton. The whole plan was to get enough kayakers to help spook the animal onto land. Of course that doesnt always happen, a water bird will prefer to make its stand in the water, Heaton said. Thats what ended up happening, so the boats ended up catching it with one of the nets in the water and then slowly brought it to land where we were then able to grab it. That was a pretty standard rescue, you never know what the animal is going to do, Heaton said. You can set up and plan as much as you want, but eventually the animal decides the outcome. The bird has called the small body of water home for more than a year, unable to fly and migrate with other pelicans due to an apparently injured wing, Heaton said. Area residents had been calling Treehouse for quite some time, concerned that the pelican might have to spend another winter alone in the Riverbend area. It will now be flown on an airplane to Utah. Tracys Aviary in Salt Lake City has said they will provide a home for it where there is a big lake where it can live with other pelicans and have plenty of food every day, Heaton said. We were worried about him for the winter, and now we know we dont have to worry. Hell have a good life now. Rachael Heatons father, Craig Heaton of Collinsville, was one of the kayakers who herded the bird. It doubled back on the boaters several times, outmaneuvering the colorful craft several times before one kayaker was able to snare it with a net. Treehouse is really good at catching animals and we are really good at kayaking, so it was a good mix, said Craig Heaton, who has helped his daughter capture injured birds before. Wild birds are really fast. It can be a challenge just rounding them up. It feels great to see them rehabilitated, it does a little part in keeping our wildlife sustainable, Craig Heaton said. Talitha Jackson of Granite City was on shore Sunday with her family as part of the group waiting for the pelican to be driven their way. She was the caller who initially informed Treehouse about the pelican. I am honored that they called and asked us to participate, Jackson said. The Treehouse Wildlife Center is a great bunch of people and Im fixing to become a member. Jackson has mixed feelings about the pelican she has seen several times each week while driving along Illinois Route 143 to and from Alton. Its bittersweet, Jackson said. Im going to miss driving by here all the time and seeing him, but Im glad hes headed for a better life and Im glad they got him right before the heart of winter set in. Activist judges and some university profs, in a feeding frenzy of chaos, like pigs at their troughs. Political preferences, narrated on air, laced with a venom, hatred, and despair. Philosophical insanity tarnishing whats true, intermingling in a sea, of red, and deep blue. Who Are We America, a series of articles I shared and published, beginning nearly seven years ago, identifies many issues, embellishing various fringe groups and segments across this nation. Nevertheless, some constituents are genuinely seeking common sense resolutions for all people; for all citizens legally entitled to benefits America provides. One understanding of We the People indicates the ultimate goal of this experiment in democracy, is to yield to a majority and principles serving as foundation stones in the American Republic. The United States Constitution, a sacred document, frames a government established to sustain basic freedoms and liberty, yet, directly structured to support a balance of powers. Americas judicial system was not designed to initiate policies, nor to legislate and ignore what the majority desires. Mob Rule is not a guaranteed freedom, nor should it ever influence or sway judgments and opinions. What is culturally popular should never be a standard utilized to undermine majority beliefs, policies, and, or, constitutional principles. No individuals rights should override the majority. No hysterical voice should command respect unless its delivered within a realm of comprehensible discernment with verifiable facts. Shrieks of maddening and personal malcontent, or unsubstantiated accusations and displeasure, should not be accepted as viable assertions of someone seeking any form of social or political justice. Activists do not have a guaranteed right or license, to invade anothers privacy, nor to disrupt others lives, nor are they part of any justifiable solution. An example of behavior many find unacceptable is protection of college professors allowed to spew unbridled attacks written or verbally, at a specific individual or group. Rants wrapped in hatred, whether on a college campus, as a state legislator, public servant, celebrity, circuit attorney, private citizen, political activist; and veiled under freedom of speech, unjustly stand as spoken; inflicting harm with malice intended; indicating no concern for content, fairness, impact, integrity, and justice. Some newspapers, editorialists, contributing columnists, columnists, sustain influential positions among certain populations; regardless of their lack of any professional doctrine, objectivity, or parameters to work within. At best, one might note these abstract, damaging, extreme forms of communication are consistently unambiguous. Technology, designed to draw people together, drives them apart. A line from a poem of mine, written in the early 1970s, illustrates what America has become. Children react wordlessly, side-by-side, yet so far awayaggressive language hurtles full force, like an unstoppable locomotive, or death of a friend. America in 2018 is bound in one sense, by the past fifty-plus years of profound Supreme Court decisions. Some decisions and proclamations, serve as examples of America striving to become the best it can be. What is honored with respect to the American Flag, includes all of us, as we are. One should respect those whose caskets have been and will be wrapped in an American Flag. All should appreciate America, consciously evolving as the finest nation on earth; America seeks perfection, yet, like the outcome for every human on earth, perfection in this world is elusive. Congress must find a means to function in a coherent, cohesive, and constructive manner. Members must diligently endeavor to articulate positions which take into account the voices of a majority, a sense of fairness, with justice for all citizens. Wherever ones seat in congress is located, there must not be a division of interests, so strong, it prevents interactivity and fruitful production. Richard Baird is Vietnam veteran, a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He portrays Elijah Parish Lovejoy and has done so for more than thirty years. He is a past president of the Alton Museum of History and Art, past member of the local Growth Association, and the ongoing force behind the Memorial Day Sunset Ceremony at Altons National Cemetery. The Travel Consultant will be responsible for planning, selling, arrangingtravel Itineraries and bookings for our clients. The Travel Consultant will betasked with promoting and booking traveling arrangements for clients,formulating tour or holiday packages with the goal of enhancing clientsatisfaction and growth to our client base. Katie Redmond and Robert Sweeney first met in trendy Dublin nightclub Tripod back in 2011. They got engaged on a cosy Christmas Eve morning at their home in Terenure five years later and set about planning their August '18 wedding celebration in the chic Clonwilliam House in Wicklow. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp "We didn't have any specific ideas of what we wanted with the exception of the venue," says Katie, "we were both quite laid back about the whole planning process and knew we didnt want to be consumed by it. "As soon as we chose Clonwilliam, I didnt need to worry about anything." Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An outdoor wedding in Ireland is always risky, and the weather can make or break a day with very few alternatives on the backburner - however Katie and Robert clearly like to live life on the edge! Having decided just days before to cancel their marquee and just pray for the rain to hold off, they were rewarded with a beautifully sunny, outdoor spiritual ceremony on the grounds of Clonwilliam House. The one hiccup? "Our ceremony musicians got the ceremony time wrong and didn't make it in time!" Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Despite one or two mishaps however, neither the bride nor the groom would change a thing about the day. "I honestly dont think there is anything we would change, it exceeded all our expectations!" Photographer Claire Brown of Studio Brown was on hand to capture the day. The Dress Katie wore a strapless A-line gown from Pronovias, which she bought from the flagship Pronovias store in London. "My sister got married in June of this year so we travelled over to London twice together with our mum and both ended up finding our dresses in Pronovias," Katie explains. Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Katie admits she initially found wedding dress shopping somewhat overwhelming, and while she only technically visited one bridal store, she tried on close to 20 dresses in total. Robert and his groomsmen had a bit more of a straight-forward search for their suits, purchasing them from Protocol on Dublin's Dawson Street - "the first and only place Rob visited!" Katie's bridesmaids wore Jenny Yoo dresses in different styles, all of which were purchased from The Suite on Dublin's Drury Street. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Video of the Day The Decor The decor at the venue was all done by Clonwilliam House. "My favourite part of the decor was the cherry blossom centre pieces on the dinner tables," says Katie. "I had mentioned this idea to Miriam [Clune, of Clonwilliam House] and she was able to arrange them for me. I loved them." The Stand-out Moments For the bride, spending the morning of the wedding getting ready with bridesmaids and family in Clonwilliam House's beautiful bridal suite was a particularly perfect start to the day. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Food The couple used catering company Naomi's Kitchen for their wedding food, who delivered an incredible feast for all from afternoon to night. At their drinks reception they served a selection of canapes including Irish salmon pate on homemade Guinness rounds, mini gourmet hamburgers and goats cheese frittata, while the drinks on offer were caipirinha, prosecco and Archway beer. For starters at the main meal, guests were served an antipasti board with a selection of Mediterranean cheeses, homemade basil pesto, hummus, grissini and ciabatta. Main course was fillet of Irish beef with green peppercorn cream, served with pomme puree, sweet potato crisp and organic pea shoots. Dessert was a French pear and almond slice. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp For evening food guests were treated to homemade gourmet sausage rolls with Naomi's Kitchen spiced apple and tomato chutney which were served up at midnight. The Advice "As cliche as it sounds," says Katie, "enjoy every moment as it goes by so fast and try not to stress out about the little things as you won't even notice them on the day." Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Honeymoon Katie and Rob spent a week in Spain after the wedding and plan to travel to Bali early in the new year. "We have requested the Supreme Court to put Asia Bibi on the Exit Control List The fate of a Pakistani Christian woman accused of blasphemy was in limbo Saturday after the government allowed Islamist hardliners to appeal against her acquittal and put her on a no fly list. Asia Bibi's lawyer who saved her from the gallows left the country early Saturday after threats to his life. Bibi, who had been on death row since 2010, was acquitted of all charges by Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday, triggering protests by Islamist hardliners who paralysed the country for three days blocking roads and disrupting traffic in major cities. The protesters, however, ended their action on Friday night after the government reached a controversial deal to put Bibi on the no fly list and saying it would not object to an appeal against the verdict, which was filed earlier in the Supreme Court. "We have requested the Supreme Court to put Asia Bibi on the Exit Control List as soon as possible so that she could not fly out of the country," Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, the lawyer of Qari Salam who filed the case against Bibi, told AFP. "We fear that she would be flown out of the country so we have requested the court for a early hearing of the case," he said adding that he would "exploit all legal remedies to make sure Asia Bibi is hanged according to the law". Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook and Pakistani media criticised the government for caving in to the Islamist hardliners after Prime Minister Imran Khan had earlier appeared to stand up to them following the court verdict. Mulook said the Islmist outcry was "unfortunate but not unexpected". "What's painful is the response of the government. They cannot even implement an order of the country's highest court," he said, adding that "the struggle for justice must continue". Dawn, the country's oldest newspaper, blasted the deal as "another surrender" in an editorial on Saturday. "Yet another government has capitulated to violent religious extremists who neither believe in democracy, nor the constitution," it read. According to the agreement, which came after a failed first round of talks, legal proceedings will follow to impose a travel ban on Bibi and stop her leaving the country. "Her life would be more or less the same, either inside a prison or in solitary confinement for security fears" until a decision on the appeal, said Mulook. Blasphemy is a massively inflammatory charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam and its Prophet Mohammed can provoke death at the hands of vigilantes. Mulook himself left Pakistan early Saturday, citing threats to his life from Islamist hardliners and other lawyers. "In the current scenario, it's not possible for me to live in Pakistan," the 62-year-old lawyer told AFP before boarding a plane to Europe. "I need to stay alive as I still have to fight the legal battle for Asia Bibi," he said. Meanwhile, life in the major cities of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad returned to normalcy as shops opened and traffic resumed after the protesters dispersed Friday night. The Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party (TLP), which has largely led the demonstrations, announced an end to the mass protests after reaching a deal with the government. A five-point agreement seen by AFP, signed by both parties, said the government would not object to an appeal of the verdict, filed earlier in the Supreme Court. The TLP, founded in 2015, blockaded the capital Islamabad for several weeks last year calling for stricter enforcement of Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws. That protest forced the resignation of the federal law minister and paved the way for the group to poll more than 2.23 million votes in the July 25 general election, in what analysts called a "surprisingly" rapid rise. Ahead of the general elections, the clamour for a Ram temple at Ayodhya has hit a peak. The Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti convention on its second day, on Sunday, echoed the RSS demands when it claimed that the government should take initiative to ensure that the temple construction commenced by December. Former BJP MP and Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas member Ram Vilas Vedanti said, according to The Indian Express, I pray to Ramlalla in Ayodhya to give sadbuddhi (wisdom) to all and our Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that construction of a grand temple of Ramlalla could be started in December. The Hindu seers also said a mosque could be built in Lucknow, and that they did not want to see any bloodshed in the country. Vijay Goel became the first Union minister to call for an expedited legislative route for the construction of Ram temple, when he said, on Friday, that it should be done at the earliest through any meansconstitutional, legislative, judicial or community dialogue. He claimed that the building of the temple is a "matter of faith" for "crores of people" and ways should be found to "amicably resolve" the issue to pave the way for its construction. A campaign, Ek Diya, Ram ke Naam, launched on Saturday, saught to promote the bid for the construction of the temple in Ayodhya. He also took a dig at Congress saying, if its president Rahul Gandhi is also visiting temples, "the party should not have any objection to it [construction of temple]". "A number of people from different walks of life will converge at my official residence here tomorrow to light up thousands of diyas seeking to send a symbolic message for building of the Ram temple," he said. "It is a wish of crores of people that Ram temple should be constructed. So, the temple should be built at the earliest through any way, be it constitutional or legislation or court or through dialogue between all the parties involved," Goel told PTI. He said lighting up of diyas is part of the campaign that will go on till November 7, and people can also show support on social media by using hashtag of #JalaoEkDiyaRamMandirKeNaamKa. Incidentally, a big cutout of a temple has been erected at the main entrance of his residence at 10, Ashoka Road and a mock-up model of a temple on its premises. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, recently said the appropriate bench will decide the future course of hearing in January on the appeals filed against the Allahabad High Court verdict in the Ayodhya land dispute case. As many as 14 appeals have been filed against the 2010 High Court judgement that suggested that the 2.77 acres of disputed land be partitioned equally among three partiesthe Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. Many experts have said that the matter should be taken up by the court after 2019 elections, as it might affect the voters. "Elections keep happening...and the delay is from the court's side, not the government side," he said. His remarks came on a day, when the RSS, the ideological mentor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said Hindus were "insulted" by the apex court's observation that Ram temple is not a priority. Goel said under the campaign, BJP workers will light a lamp at their homes dedicated to Lord Ram. He also appealed to people to light a lamp dedicated to Lord Ram this Diwali, the festival of lights. The minister's demand for early construction of the temple came just a day after his party MP Rakesh Sinha had announced that he would bring a private member's bill on this issue in Parliament's upcoming Winter Session. Goel said if the opposition feels it is a political issue, they should end it, once and for all, by allowing the construction of the Ram temple. The Visva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have demanded an ordinance to acquire land for the temple in Ayodhya. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev made a strong pitch for constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya Saturday, saying a legislation should be brought in Parliament if the Supreme Court does not deliver a verdict on the matter soon. -Inputs from PTI The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite... Chinese infra co to invest Rs 250cr, make India sourcing hub Kolkata, Nov 4 (PTI) LiuGong India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China-based infrastructure heavy equipment maker Guangxi LiuGong, is planning to invest Rs 250 crore to strengthen operations and make Inda a global sourcing hub, an official has said. "We are committed to make in India. Planning to make India as a second global sourcing hub after China for some products for certain international markets," Liugong India director (sales and marketing) Nischal Mehrotra told PTI. LiuGong has 20 manuafcturing plants, of which 17 are in China, one each in Poland, Brazil and India. Mehrotra said the company believes in India's growth story in the long run despite recent crises like IL&FS default which led to an abrupt slowdown in project execution besides impacting demand for the last two months. He said going by the vision of the Indian government, a lot of action waiting to happen in the infrastructure and mining space. The Chinese outfit has invested about Rs 300 crore in its existing manufacturing base at Pitampura in Madhya Pradesh during the last 10 years but the company has proposed to pump Rs 250 crore in near future once the new emission norms are notified. Hydraulic excavators and compactors will be sourced from India for exports to the Middle East, Africa and SAARC countries, the company Mehrotra said it has cumulatively sold over 4,000 machines in India and in the current fiscal the company hopes to sell 1,500 units. The company has also started manuafacturing 7 tonne payloaders to stregthen its product range. PTI BSM JM JM Ahmedabad, Nov 4 (PTI) Chris Hemsworth has begun shooting for Netflix thriller "Dhaka" in Ahmedabad. The "Avengers: Infinity War" star, who landed in the country last week, shared a few glimpses from the sets of the film on Instagram, Saturday. Hemsworth, 35, posted three stories on the photo-and-video sharing platform. He captioned the first story: "First day shooting in India." The actor introduced himself, stuntman Bobby Holland Hanton, and his make-up man in the video while he was getting ready for the shoot. "Day 1, we are in India... I'm Chris, I play dress ups for a living," he said. The second story followed Hemsworth having a good time on the city streets with the crew members as loud music blasted in the background. In the next video, the actor can be seen relishing a customised edible Thor "welcome package". "I've got to India... It's a welcome package... All edible, including my picture, hammer... Look at this, terrific," Hemsworth said in the story as he bites the chunks of chocolate gifts. "Dhaka", an action thriller, will revolve around the kidnapping of an Indian boy. The film marks the directorial debut of Sam Hargrave. It follows Rake (Hemsworth) who has been hired to liberate a kidnapped Indian boy, being hidden in Bangladesh capital, Dhaka. Physically brave but an emotional coward, the man has to come to terms with his identity and sense of self. "Infinity War" directing duo Anthony and Joe Russo have penned the script and they will also produce the feature via their AGBO banner. The film will also be shot in Thailand this year. PTI RDS RDS Dhaka, Nov 4 (PTI) Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday announced that her government will construct 560 model mosques and an Islamic university with the Saudi assistance, in an attempt to woo hardline Islamists ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled next month. Speaking at an event here, Hasina said the he Saudi government "will assist us in these projects", the Dhaka Tribune reported. Hasina's Awami League party is considered as the secular party while her rival Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is close to hardliners. Her move to build hundreds of mosques is seen as an attempt to woo Islamist voters who have been traditionally voting for Zia's BNP and her ally Jamaat-e-Islami, according to experts. The event was organised by Al-Hiyatul Ulya Lil-Zami'atil Qawmiya Bangladesh, the highest organisation of Dawra-e-Hadith of Qawmi madrasa, to honour the prime minister following her government's recognition of the Dawra-e-Hadith degree of the Qawmi madrasa system. Thousands of students and teachers of Qawmi madrasas attended the rally. At the rally, Qawmi leaders expressed their desire to see the prime minister in power for a third consecutive term. "Since Sheikh Hasina has recognised (the top Qawmi madrasa degree) we want her to come to power again, so that she can fulfil the rest of our demands, Qawmi leader Fazlul Karim said. The speakers said "there is a change in Bangladesh now, and Qawmi leaders were not able to receive a prime minister before, with such warmth, because none had listened to their demands." On September 18, parliament passed a bill to recognise the Dawra-e-Hadith degree as equivalent to a post-graduate degree in Islamic Studies and Arabic. PTI PMS ZH PMS PMS Rome, Nov 4 (AP) Storms lashing Sicily have killed at least 12 people with torrential floods, Italian authorities said as the country's leader headed Sunday to the stricken Mediterranean island. Divers pulled out nine of those victims from a home flooded by a rapidly swelling river in the countryside near Palermo. State TV broadcaster RaiNews24 said the sole survivor of the flood that ravaged the home with water and mud was the owner, who had just stepped outside to walk the family dogs Saturday when the torrent hit. News reports said the man at first clung to a tree, then ended up on the roof of a nearby house. He used his cellphone to call for help but it was too late for the others, who included a one-year-old baby, a three-year-old child and a teenager. The victims were from two families who had gathered in the country villa for the weekend. A man's body was also found on a guardrail along a Palermo-area road after floodwaters swept away his car, Italian news reports said. Across the island, in the town of Cammarata, near Agrigento, the fire department said its divers were working to recover the bodies of two people swept away while driving on a road near the flooding Saraceno River. Also in Agrigento province, firefighters rescued 14 people from a hotel in the town of Montevago, which was threatened by floodwaters from the Belice River. Agrigento, famed for the ruins of ancient Greek temples, is a popular tourist destination. Elsewhere in Sicily, at least two other people were missing Sunday after floodwaters swept away their cars, including a doctor heading to the hospital in the hill town of Corleone. Other storms had battered northern Italy earlier in the week, killing at least 15 people, uprooting millions of trees near Alpine valleys and leaving several Italian villages without electricity or road access for days. In Casteldaccia, the hamlet where the river flooded the home in Sicily, neighbor Maria Concetta Alfano said she, her husband and their adult disabled daughter fled after barking dogs drew their attention to the rising waters in the Milicia River, the Italian news agency ANSA said. It quoted the husband, Andrea Cardenale, as saying he drove away as "water was up to the hood of the car." Rescuers retrieved the bodies from the home. A Sicilian prosecutor opened an investigation to determine if any human error, such as possible inadequate drainage of the river, might have played a role in the deaths. (AFP) SMJ SMJ Colombo, Nov 4 (PTI) President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday announced reconvening of Parliament on November 14, which he had suspended two days after sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickeremesinghe and replacing him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksha. According to a gazette notification, issued by his Secretary Udaya R Seneviratne on Sunday evening, the assembly would be recalled on November 14. In a dramatic turn of events last month, Rajapaksha became the new Prime Minister of the Indian Ocean island nation after Sirisena sacked premier Wickremesinghe who termed the move as "unconstitutional" and vowed to prove his majority in Parliament. The sudden development came amid growing tensions between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe on several policy matters and the President has been critical of the Prime Minister and his policies, especially on economy and security. PTI CORR SMJ SMJ SMJ Islamabad, Nov 4 (PTI) A senior Pakistani minister on Sunday said that appeasement to "avoid bloodshed" sends a dangerous message to non-state actors, a day after the radical Islamist parties reached a deal with the government to end their protests against a Supreme Court verdict acquitting a Christian woman of blasphemy charges. Asia Bibi, 47, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. A three-judge apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar last week overturned her conviction, sparking protests led by the radical religious parties and other groups across Pakistan. In a series of tweets, Pakistan's Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari said that the history shows that appeasement never works. "Appeasement to avoid 'bloodshed' in a war-weary Europe led to massive bloodshed & destruction in the form of WW II," Mazari said. "Appeasement to "avoid bloodshed" sends a dangerous msg to non-state actors & undermines the very concept of democratic peaceful protest. The State has to enforce Rule of Law, Constitution & stand by state institutions esp when they are targeted. #IStandWithSupremeCourt," she tweeted. ".. & despite sceptics & beyond despondency I trust PM (Imran) Khan to deliver on his commitment to Rule of Law, Constitution & defence of state institutions as well as to human rights guaranteed in Constitution - not just in present situation but also on issues like Enforced Disappearances," she added. Mazaris comments comes in the wake of the three-day long protests led by the radical group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and other parties that paralysed the country from October 31 to November 2. The TLP only ended their ended sit-ins across the country following a deal with the government on the issue of acquittal of Aasia Bibi on Friday. As per the agreement, the government will immediately initiate a process to place the name of Asia Bibi on the no-fly list (exit control list). The government has also promised to take appropriate legal action to redress any deaths that may have occurred during the protests against the verdict and to release all people picked up in connection with the agitation starting October 30. Meanwhile, the interior ministry has initiated criminal proceedings against the rioters and booked 5,000 people, including TLP chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi and senior leader Afzal Qadri, on charges of rioting and disrupting peace during the demonstrations. PTI ZH ZH Gold worth Rs 46 lakh seized at airport in Chennai Chennai, Nov 3 (PTI): Gold worth Rs 46 lakh was seized by the Customs authorities in two incidents at the airport here recently. In the first incident, officials of the air intelligence wing, acting on a tip-off that the yellow metal was being smuggled in from South Asian countries, recovered one kg of the gold worth Rs 33 lakh concealed below a seat of an aircraft which had arrived from Singapore, a press release said. In the second incident, the officials intercepted a 34-year-old passenger Syed Abuthahir, upon his arrival from Kuala Lumpur on October 31, and recovered two long gold strips worth Rs 13 lakh in his baggage, the release said. Abuthahir, who was arrested, was a repeat offender, it said. On October 30, the officials recovered undeclared 15,000 Singapore dollars equivalent to Rs 7.9 lakh in the hand baggage of a passenger, the release said. The currencies were seized under the Customs Act 1962, it added. PTI VIJ NVG NVG New Delhi, Nov 4 (PTI) Following are the top stories at 1700 hrs. TOP STORIES: DEL6 UMA BHARTI-RAM TEMPLE Talk of building mosque close to Ram temple can make Hindus intolerant: Uma Bharti New Delhi: Union minister Uma Bharti said Sunday while Hindus were the "most tolerant" people in the world, any talk of constructing a mosque on the periphery of a Ram temple in Ayodhya could make them "intolerant". By Jatin Takkar DEL7 DL-POLLUTION-VEHICLES Only .079 p.c of estimated 40 lakh banned old vehicles impounded by agencies in Delhi New Delhi: The Delhi government may have deregistered 40 lakh old vehicles to curb pollution in the national capital but the enforcement data shows a dismal picture with only 3,196 (.079 per cent) such vehicles impounded by agencies after they were banned by the NGT in 2014. By Abhishek Shukla DEL3 BIZ-PETROL-PRICE Petrol price cut by 21 paise; total reduction reaches Rs 4.05 in 18 days New Delhi: Petrol price has been cut by over Rs 4 per litre and diesel by Rs 2.33 in the last 18 days on softer international rates, a pace faster than the spike in prices witnessed in the two-month period beginning mid-August. NATION: DEL2 JK-ENCOUNTER Two militants killed in encounter in J-K Srinagar: Two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in an overnight encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said Sunday. MDS4 KL-LD SABARIMALA Tight security in Sabarimala as temple opens Monday for spl puja Sabarimala: As the Lord Ayyappa temple opens Monday for a special puja, a thick security cover has been put in place by police and orders banning assembly of four or more people have been imposed in Sabarimala and nearby areas after violent protests were witnessed last month against the entry of women of menstrual age into the famed shrine. DEL1 POL-REDDY-INTERVIEW TRS-BJP have 'more than tacit' alliance in Telangana: Jaipal Reddy New Delhi: Alleging a "more than tacit" alliance between Telangana's ruling party TRS and the BJP, senior Congress leader S Jaipal Reddy said on Sunday that the two parties could eventually join hands after the assembly polls. By Asim Kamal BOM3 MP-CONG-LIST MP polls: Cong releases first list of 155 candidates Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh Congress announced its first list of 155 candidates for polls to the 230-member state assembly slated for November 28. DEL4 RAIL-NEPAL-INDIA First India-Nepal passenger train on broad gauge likely to begin from Dec New Delhi: The first passenger train to run on broad gauge between India and Nepal is likely to run from December this year, sources in the railways have told PTI. By Ananya Sengupta CAL4 NL-CHURCH SC verdict on homosexuality, adultery detestable: Church body Kohima: The apex church body in Nagaland has taken strong exception to the recent Supreme Court judgments decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults as well as adultery, terming them "detestable" and "unacceptable" to Christians. LEGAL LGD1 DL-HC-COUNTERFEIT HC directs e-commerce site to ensure products for sale on portal are not counterfeits New Delhi: In a step towards ensuring counterfeits of popular branded products are not sold on online marketplaces, the Delhi High Court has directed an e-commerce platform to make sure that each item put up for sale on its site is genuine. FOREIGN: FGN9 CHINA-INDOPAK China backs Pakistan's 'quest for peace through dialogue' with India Beijing: China on Sunday said it supported Pakistan's "quest for peace through dialogue" to settle the outstanding disputes with India and backed Islamabad's engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers group (NSG). By K J M Varma FGN1 US-STUDY-RADIATION Findings that cell phone radiation causes cancer in rats do not apply to humans: Experts By K S Parthasarathy Massachusetts: A recent US study claiming that radio-frequency radiation emitted by cell phones causes cancer in rats does not apply to humans, according to experts. (Eds: PTI SPECIAL) FGN8 PAK-BLASPHEMY-ARRESTS Pakistan arrests 250 for rioting, disrupting peace Islamabad/Lahore: Pakistan police on Sunday arrested nearly 250 people from across the country on charges of arson, vandalism and violence during the three-day mass protests following the acquittal of Christian woman Asia Bibi. BUSINESS: DCM23 BIZ-GANGA-WATER-VESSEL PM to greet India's first container vessel on inland waterways in Varanasi New Delhi: In a first for the country's inland water transport, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 12 will receive a container vessel in Varanasi on the river Ganga, Union Minister NItin Gadkari said Sunday. PTI NSD NSD Lucknow, Nov 4 (PTI) Terming "extremely dangerous" an RSS functionary's remark that the Sangh, if needed, will launch an agitation for a Ram temple in Ayodhya, the AIMPLB Sunday said the recent activities related to the issue were "politically driven". On Friday, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi had said the Sangh will not hesitate to launch an agitation for a Ram temple at Ayodhya, if needed. The remark came amid a growing clamour for a law to clear the way for its construction at the disputed site in Uttar Pradesh. "The flurry of activities vis-a-vis the demand for construction of a Ram temple by the so-called Hindu outfits and their impatience clearly indicates that it is politically-driven. "This is being done to build pressure for the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But, what those outfits do is still not clear," general secretary, India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Maulana Wali Rahmani told PTI. He said if the RSS launches a movement in this regard, "it will be extremely dangerous" and will lead to an "atmosphere of chaos in the country". "The quantum of hatred between the Hindus and the Muslims was not so much in 1992. In the recent years, the rift has widened. At this point of time, the hatred between the two communities has increased significantly," Rahamai claimed. Maulana Ashad Rashidi, president of the Jamait Ulema-e-Hind's Uttar Pradesh unit, said, "All of us have to exercise patience and wait for the court's verdict." "Whatever is the verdict of the court, it must be accepted. This will ensure an atmosphere of peace in the country," he said. Outlining the RSS's stand on the Ram temple issue at a news conference Friday, Bhaiyyaji Joshi had said Hindus were feeling "insulted" by the Supreme Court's declaration that it had priorities other than the Ayodhya issue and insisted for an ordinance if all options run out. "We will not hesitate to launch an agitation for a Ram temple, if needed, but since the matter is in the Supreme Court, there are restrictions," he had said when he was asked by a newsperson whether the Sangh will launch an agitation for Ram temple construction like in the 1990s. Joshi was interacting with the media after the conclusion of the National Executive meeting of the RSS in Uttan town in Thane district on the outskirts of Mumbai. PTI NAV SMI ANB ANB New Delhi, Nov 4 (PTI) Indian wildlife experts have urged the government to be vigilant against poaching of tigers and rhinos after China eased a 25-year ban on the trade of body parts of the animals, and said New Delhi should also raise their concern with Beijing at international fora. They said the decision by China is likely to result in decline in the population of the animals and has potential "grave and devastating" implications for tiger and rhino conservation in India. According to media reports, China has partially lifted the ban on the use of tiger bones and rhino horns for medicinal uses. The ban was imposed in 1993 to save the endangered species. Dipankar Ghose, director-species and landscapes programme at WWF-India Secretariat, said the consequences of such a reversal is likely to adversely affect the population of the two species across the globe. According to a latest survey, India has 2,226 tigers and 3,500 rhinos are left in both India and Nepal. "People involved in illegal wildlife trade of tiger bones and rhino horns might target the wild populations in India. Our country, with 60 per cent and 85 per cent of global populations of wild tigers and greater one-horned rhinos respectively, will be under threat of poaching. "India and other tiger range countries are committed to doubling populations of wild tigers under the ambitious Global Tiger Recovery Programme, and reversal of this ban on commercial trade of tiger bones would have devastating implications on reaching the Tx2 goal," Ghose said. Tx2 is a 12-year ambition to double wild tiger numbers by 2022, the next year of the tiger. Ghose said the ban on trade of tiger bones and rhino horns in China had reduced the demand, and as a result there was less pressure on the population of wild tigers and rhinos. "The Environment Ministry along with the state governments would need to strengthen protection of wild tiger and rhino populations and be vigilant against poaching. It would also need collaboration between enforcement agencies at central and state level for curbing illegal trade in tiger and rhino derivatives," he said. Gajender K Sharma, another wildlife expert, said China's reversal of the ban has "potential grave implications" for the conservation and welfare of tigers and rhinos in India. "We urge the Indian government to voice their concern on this matter with the Chinese government via fora like the Global Tiger Forum. We also urge the government to take steps to prevent any poaching incidents that may happen in the future as an impact of this decision," said Sharma, India country director, World Animal Protection. Elaborating the implications of the Chinese decision, Sharma said this may result in these species being poached in the wild to fuel a renewed demand in products containing body parts of the animals and also enhance the possibility that it may stimulate a demand for these products in India. "Either way, this relaxation appears to be a retrogressive step that is not in the best interest of tigers and rhinos in India and elsewhere wherever they are found," Sharma added. PTI TDS ABH ABH Mathura/Agra Nov 4 (PTI): Environment activists and local authorities are alarmed as dead fish have been found floating in the Yamuna at Mathura, apparently due to the discharge of toxic waste into the river. Thousands of dead fish have been seen since Thursday, they said. People who had gone to the ghats for a bath were the first to spot them that day, an activist said. Mathura district magistrate Sarvagyaram Mishra said officials took note the first day this happened and the district pollution control board was directed to pick samples of river water. Officials are also concerned as this has happened just ahead of Yam Dwitya on November 9 when a large number of devotees are expected for a holy dip in the Yamuna. Officials in Mathura are blaming the death of fish on the discharge of toxic effluents through drains and canals that flow in from Haryana. Uttar Pradesh principal secretary for irrigation has got in touch with his counterpart in Haryana to check the flow of toxic waste, officials said. They said Haryanas irrigation department will probe how polluted water entered the Yamuna. Meanwhile, in Agra, environment activists Sunday launched a big clean-up exercise on the riverbank opposite Etmauddaula monument, sometimes called the `Baby Taj. Members of the River Connect Campaign were picking garbage, waste from leather units and damaged idols from the bank. "The mass death of fish in Mathura and Vrindavan was an alarm bell. But so far the government bodies have not addressed the issue and are seen passing the buck," complained activist Ranjan Sharma. "The task is too big but citizens have to take the initiative. You cant wait indefinitely for government agencies to halt the pollution of our water bodies," said environmentalist Devashish Bhattacharya. Each day thousands of tourists visit the monuments along Yamuna riverbanks but no one is concerned about keeping the environs clean," said another activist. "People clean up their houses ahead of Diwali and dump the garbage in the river. This has to stop," she added. Mathuradheesh temple priest Goswami Nandan Shrotriya said student groups should be involved in cleaning up the river which is not only the lifeline of the city, but the entire tourism industry is dependent on monuments along its banks. PTI COR ASH ASH Haridwar, Nov 4 (PTI) Asserting that a Ram temple will be built in Ayodhya soon, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said Sunday a piece of good news regarding this awaited devotees all over the country. He said a South Korean delegation was coming to Ayodhya to celebrate Diwali on Nov 6 when the festival of lights would be celebrated at Lord Ram's birthplace on a grand scale. Speaking at the concluding ceremony of Gyankumbh, a two-day meet at Patanjali Yogpeeth here on improvements of the higher education standards, Adityanath said the Lord Ram's devotees all over the country will not have to wait for long for a piece of good news on the construction of a grand temple in Ayodhya. He also appealed to everyone to light a lamp this Diwali in the name of Lord Ram. On improvement of the higher education standards in the country, the UP CM said the use of unfair means at examinations must be stopped and teachers should be made accountable for it. Noting that these measures will lead to major changes, he said it has been done in Uttar Pradesh. Yoga guru Ramdev said Yogi Adityanath was the country's future and the BJP MPs should bring a legislation in Parliament to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya. "Parliament is the highest institution in a democracy," Ramdev said. Technical sessions of Gyankumbh were out of bounds for the media and the suggestions made by academicians and educationists at the event will be forwarded to the Union Ministry for Human Resources. PTI CORR ALM RAX RAX Jammu, Nov 4 (PTI) All necessary security arrangements have been put in place as the Civil Secretariat, seat of the Jammu and Kashmir government, will reopen here on Monday after a 10-day break owing to the bi-annual 'Darbar Move'. The Civil Secretariat, Raj Bhavan and other Darbar Move offices closed in Srinagar on October 26 after six months functioning there. The 'Darbar Move' was started by the then Maharaja Gulab Singh in 1872 to escape the extreme heat during summers in Jammu and biting cold of winters in Srinagar. The practice was continued by elected governments post-independence to provide governance benefits -- by turns-- to both Kashmir and Jammu regions of the state for six months. All necessary security and other arrangements have been made to ensure smooth functioning of the government from here, officials said. They said the security agencies have worked out their strategy to deal with any kind of law and order situation and maintain peace in the city. In the aftermath of the killing of a senior BJP leader and his brother by suspected militants in Kishtwar district on Thursday night, the security situation was reviewed afresh across the Jammu region in view of the Darbar Move, the officials said. Besides special checking points at various places in the city, additional policemen have been deployed in and around vital installations and thoroughfares, including the Civil Secretariat, the officials said. They said closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras have been made operational to maintain a close vigil. Security has also been tightened along the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the officials said. They said police have also chalked out its plan to deal with protests by striking government employees and others on the opening day of the Civil Secretariat. Rahbar-e-Taleem teachers forum has announced "secretariat gherao" on Monday to press for its various demands, including seventh pay commission benefits. Like yesteryears, the city of temples this time was also given a facelift to welcome the government. The wall painting has come up at various places in the city, while the secretariat along with other offices and quarters has been renovated. Besides the wall painting, many works like repair and black topping of roads, marking of yellow and white lines on the signals, plantation on dividers, cutting of ornamental plants on dividers to enhance the beauty and branch cutting alongside the roads was undertaken over the past several weeks. The city also witnessed flower decor and installation of flower pots on bridges and various designated places and repair of defunct lights on flyovers and roads. The state government spends crores of rupees every year to shift voluminous records between the two capital cities twice a year, besides paying similar amount as allowance for the several thousand employees who shift base with the government. There have been demands from various quarters to abolish the practice and set up permanent civil secretariats in Jammu and Srinagar cities so that people can get redressal to their problems round the year while saving substantial amount of the public money. PTI TAS SNE SNE Lucknow, Nov 4 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court has asked the Uttar Pradesh government if it has installed CCTV cameras to monitor police stations in the state and how personnel behave with visitors and victims. The court's Lucknow bench has asked Additional Advocate General V K Sahi to apprise it of the situation on November 27. A bench of Justice A R Masoodi passed the order Saturday on a habeas corpus petition. Petitioner Rishi Kapoor has alleged that his mother Sudha Kapoor was illegally detained at the Aashiyana police station here and hence, she be produced before the court and be further set at liberty. Hearing the petition, the high court summoned Sub-Inspector Ajit Kumar to submit a report on the manner in which the custody and welfare of the alleged detenue was ensured. The court also inquired about the installation of CCTV cameras at police stations in Uttar Pradesh. In April 2015, the Supreme Court had in a landmark verdict directed the Centre and state governments to put police stations and interrogation rooms under surveillance of CCTV cameras. The apex court had passed the directives on the recommendations of a three-member team of advocates constituted by it. Hearing a PIL, the Allahabad High Court had also some years back asked the principal secretary to file response as regard the installation of CCTVs in police stations. PTI COR SMI ANB ANB Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 4 (PTI) Dismissing as "baseless" the nepotism charges levelled against him, Minister for Local Administration, K T Jaleel Sunday said he was ready to face any probe. The Muslim Youth League had on November 2 alleged that Adeeb K T, a cousin of Jaleel, was appointed general manager in Kerala State Minorities Development Finance Corporation, flouting rules. "There is nothing to hide. I am not afraid of any investigation. If there is nepotism, let them go to the court. We can appoint anyone on deputation if they have the requisite qualification," the minister said. He also said the allegation came up after the corporation initiated the process to recover bad debts. "Many Muslim League leaders started facing the heat after the corporation initiated the process to recover the unpaid loans. Some league leaders have taken huge amounts of loan and have not repaid," Jaleel alleged. Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala demanded the resignation of the minister alleging rules were flouted to make the appointment. "The minister even diluted the education qualification for the post. It is clear that due process was not followed in the matter," Chennithala alleged. However, justifying the appointment, Jaleel said Adeeb was a manager of a scheduled bank and after being appointed at the Corporation, he had to forego many benefits that he got from the bank. He also reiterated that only seven people had applied for the post out of which three appeared for the interview but could not fulfil the eligibility criteria. "Many of the allowances available for the bank managers are not available for the general manager of the corporation. Probably that is the reason why only a few turned up for the interview," Jaleel noted. Meanwhile, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the explanation given by Jaleel was not satisfactory and sought his resignation from the ministry. Jaleel is the second minister of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government being accused of nepotism. In October 2016, just five months after coming to power, then Industries minister E P Jayarajan had to resign on a similar charge. However, Jayarajan was reinstated as a minister in August this year. PTI RRT UD ROH RHL Noida (UP), Nov 4 (PTI) The Guatam Buddh Nagar administration has asked all private schools in the district to adhere to the Uttar Pradesh Self Financed Independent Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, brought in this year to check arbitrary fee hikes by institutes, according to officials. The schools have been asked to prepare their fee structures in accordance with the Act and publish it on their websites as well as share details with the district regulatory committee, headed by the district magistrate, within seven days, the officials said. The schools have also been directed to not change uniforms before five years and not select only particular shops for parents to buy books and dresses for their wards, as mandated by the Act, they said. The instructions were laid out during a meeting between the administration officials, principals of all private schools and representatives of the All Noida Parents' Association in Greater Noida on Saturday, according to an official statement. "The fee regulation act is applicable to all schools which take Rs 25,000 or more annually in fees but does not include pre-nursery schools," District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh said. "The management of all schools will prepare their fee structure in accordance with the Act. They should share their fee structure on their websites and also apprise the fee regulation committee about it within a week," he said. He warned action against any school which is found working in contravention of the Act, according to the statement. "No change in school uniform will be allowed within five consecutive academic years. In case, a school decides to change the uniform, it will have to provide an appropriate justification. It also bars schools from asking students to purchase books or dress from a particular shop. The parents should have the freedom in such matters," Singh said. The Uttar Pradesh Assembly had on August 31 passed the UP Self-Financed Independent Schools (Fees Regulation) Bill, 2018, that seeks to regulate fee structure in private schools in the state. The statement of objectives and reasons appended to the bill states that it has been brought to the notice of the state government that self-financed schools were increasing fees arbitrarily without consulting guardians of the students in the absence of an effective law. It elaborates that the students and parents have to shoulder unnecessary financial burden, which affects the education of students. PTI KIS KJ Millions of people are struggling to stay on top of their financial information as banks and utility providers wage war on paper bills. Companies are no longer just promoting paperless billing they are either removing choice in how statements and bills are received, or they are penalising people who order hard copies. BT recently raised the cost of its paper bills for broadband customers by a fifth now 3 each. Next year, Nationwide Building Society will stop posting annual savings statements to customers, encouraging them to check their accounts via online banking instead. Waging war: BT recently raised the cost of its paper bills for broadband customers by a fifth Cost is cited as the main reason for cutting back on paperwork, but printing and posting a bill costs business no more than 45p. No big company that charges for paper billing does so for less than 1. Campaigners say the casualties of the relentless march towards digital-only services are vulnerable consumers. These people need financial information to hand rather than on-screen so they can make better decisions and avoid missing payments. Judith Donovan is chair of the Keep Me Posted campaign that promotes choice in how bills are delivered. She says: 'It is as if vulnerable people do not matter or they do not have enough money to be considered important by businesses leaving big brands to call the shots. This is plainly wrong.'Among those affected are the visually impaired, mental health sufferers, people who cannot afford a computer or broadband or do not want them and those with no or poor internet access. More than five million households have no internet access. Many more have the ability to transact online but do not want to because they are worried about fraud and like paper bills. Donovan adds: 'The fundamental concern of our campaign is about the right of all consumers to choose how they trade with suppliers it is not about being pro or anti-digital.' Now no documents means no proof of ID Even when people accept the new world of paperless billing, problems arise when it comes to applying for a mortgage or a rental property. Lenders and landlords want original copies of bills for ID purposes that are difficult to stump up when none exist. Dan Wilson Craw, director of campaign group Generation Rent, says: 'Renters move frequently every two to three years. This entails bureaucracy that often demands proof of address, for example in registering with a new GP or library. Having access to paper statements helps renters avoid a lot of stress involved in moving home.' Families and solicitors are also struggling with the rise of digital legacies. For example, families helping a relative with dementia could search for bills in a drawer. Now, vital information can be locked away in a computer. Angharad Lynn, senior associate at law firm Veale Wasbrough Vizards, says: 'It is common for bank statements to be online, shares to be uncertificated and for an individual's financial information to be password protected. The difficulty arises when someone dies or loses capacity as then it can be hard to get all the relevant information.' BROADBAND STATEMENTS ARE BIGGEST RIP-OFF Telecoms providers are among the worst culprits for paper bill fees, as all major brands apply them. Charges are routinely higher than experts estimate the cost of printing and posting a bill. BTs penalty for broadband customers is the most stark at 3. Sky customers pay 1.75 a statement while TalkTalk charges 2. Most high street banks encourage paperless billing, though industry rules mean they must provide a free paper statement if requested. Energy suppliers are also guilty of favouring consumers who comply with paperless billing. The cheapest tariffs are often reserved for those happy to sacrifice paper bills, effectively penalising households not content to go along. Customers searching for cheaper energy tariffs can use a handy tool from Citizens Advice that shows whether a supplier offers paper bills. Visit energycompare.citizensadvice.org.uk. Lynn says it is common for solicitors to have to submit corrected account information to Revenue & Customs in relation to inheritance tax because assets come to light several months after a person's death. She adds: 'Another difficulty can be in relation to ID. We are required to take copies of people's passports, driving licences and a utility bill from the last three months. Many people simply do not have a utility bill any more.' Nicola Waldman, partner at firm Hodge Jones & Allen, specialises in wills and probate. She says: 'Unless attorneys or executors have access to computer records, important bills can be missed.' Money can also continue to be paid for services no longer used because a person caring for a relative does not know about them for example, a mobile phone which is no longer in use. But if a bill lands on the doormat, a carer knows it needs to be dealt with. Waldman adds: 'There is a greater danger of abuse and fraud when assets are managed online and where a third party has access to those accounts or passwords and are pretending to be the account holder.' To share your experiences with the Keep Me Posted campaign, or to request an information pack write to Keep Me Posted, PO Box 72064, London EC4P 4DZ. If you have a view on paperless bills, email laura.shannon@mailonsunday.co.uk or write to: Personal Finance, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS. The City's chief financial watchdog is ruling nothing out in its bid to ensure buyers of general insurance get a fairer deal from providers in future. As part of its new study into the multi-billion pound general insurance market launched last week, the Financial Conduct Authority plans to size up how home and motor insurance is sold in other countries to see if Britain's insurers can adopt any of their best practices. It is also looking at whether technology can help deliver cheaper prices for buyers. The nub of its work will centre on why customers who loyally stick with their insurer are unwittingly exploited with premium hikes far above what new customers pay. Concern: Chris Woolard of the Financial Conduct Authority In preparing the groundwork for its study, the regulator found that buyers of household insurance who renew every year with the same insurer end up paying 70 per cent more after five years than someone buying the identical policy from the same provider for the first time. This stark statistic confirms that loyalty does not pay an issue The Mail on Sunday has consistently highlighted through its longstanding Broken Loyalty campaign. Such exploitation of loyalty recently led Citizens Advice to lodge a 'super complaint' with the Competition and Markets Authority. The charity looked at key bills including home insurance, broadband and energy and calculated that 80 per cent of people are penalised for misguided loyalty in at least one of these product areas. The regulator has until the end of this year to respond to the complaint. Efforts have already been made to force insurers to improve their treatment of trusting customers. Since April last year, home and motor insurers have been obliged for the first time to display the previous year's premium on renewal notices so customers can quickly see the extent of any rise. The regulator confirmed some insurers are likely to have their knuckles rapped for not playing by the book. Many are not displaying the old premium as required while others are burying it out of sight. Chris Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the regulator, says: 'Some firms are not doing it particularly well.' Of serious concern are 'vulnerable customers'. Woolard says: 'Someone renewing five years in a row is likely to be paying 70 per cent more than a new customer. Those who pay ten years in a row without comparing deals are even more of a concern they are likely to be people with health conditions or older people with no access to the internet. They will find it hard to get the best prices.' Woolard urges families who believe an elderly or sick relative has not been treated fairly on premiums to step in and help them complain to the insurer and then escalate the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service if they are not happy with the response. Customers should not delay taking action on insurance costs the watchdog is not due to publish its final recommendations on improving the general insurance market until the end of next year. The regulator has invited input by early next month on how the market can be improved. Amongst ideas it wants to look at are customer-friendly practices in other countries. In Austria, for example, homeowners tend to take out a policy for several years. Someone with car or home insurance should not just accept a renewal quote even if it compares favourably to last year's price. Use a comparison website service to check the competition. But read the small print carefully to ensure any new cover is at least as good as the previous policy taking particular care to check exclusions and excesses, the sums a policyholder must pay towards any claim. Alternatively, ask a broker to do the legwork. You can find one via the British Insurance Brokers' Association at biba.co.uk. A six-part podcast series has been launched to help the hundreds of thousands of people expected to become carers for ageing relatives every year. The idea originates from Annabel James, founder of AgeSpace a website and forum providing support and information for anyone looking after the health and finances of an older person. She started the website after her own mother suffered a stroke. Helping hand: The first episode of the podcast series is available now and explores 'financial organisation' James says: 'We struggled to know where to find information and what to do with regards to funding all the support and care my mum required. 'Our aim is to try to do the hard work for people who find themselves in a similar situation signposting to the best information and resources out there.' James co-hosts the series with financial adviser and author Jason Butler. The first episode is available now and explores 'financial organisation'. The next five episodes covering how to fund care, equity release, inheritance, power of attorney and making a will are to be released every Friday until December 6. Each episode lasts ten to 12 minutes. To listen, visit agespace.org/podcast. The series can also be downloaded on to smartphones and tablets via the AppStore or Google Play. James also hopes to attract more people requiring help to her website. She adds: 'We hope AgeSpace becomes the equivalent of Mumsnet for the middle-aged to help make the best decisions about the care of elderly parents and relatives.' According to charity Carers UK, 6.5 million people across the country care for a person who is elderly, disabled or sick. Financial support, which many will not know they are eligible for, includes Carers Allowance, Council Tax relief and contributions to fuel costs. To find out more visit carersuk.org. Lok'nStore is another company reaping the benefits of changing consumer and business norms. Founded by chief executive Andrew Jacobs in 1995, Lok'nStore owns and operates self-storage units, with 29 stores up and running and a further 13 in the pipeline. Midas recommended the shares at 307.5p in 2015. Today, they are 415.5p and City analysts think they are worth more than 600p. In America, there are 9.3 square feet of self-storage space per person. Here, there is less than 0.7 square foot. US trends often wend their way to Britain and this is likely to be no exception. People increasingly use self-storage because they have too much stuff and need somewhere to put it while they save for bigger homes. Companies use self-storage as a flexible way of keeping goods. Some use the sites to run small online businesses as well. Whatever the reason, self-storage is a growing sector and Lok'nStore is doing well. Annual results posted last week showed a 34 per cent increase in profits to 5.3 million for the year to July 31, and a 10 per cent rise in the dividend to 11p. The numbers should continue to rise, particularly given that Jacobs plans to open so many new stores over the next few years each site carefully chosen to accommodate local demand. The units have changed as well as the firm has focused on modern, attractive, purpose-built properties. MIDAS VERDICT: Jacobs founded Lok'nStore more than 20 years ago, he remains deeply committed to the business and still owns 18 per cent of the shares. The company has upped its game in recent times but it is valued less highly on the stock market than its larger peers. That should change over the next couple of years, taking the stock price higher. This was a good investment in 2015. It is even better now. Traded on: Aim Ticker: LOK Contact: loknstore.co.uk or 01252 521010 Marks & Spencer's fashion boss Jill McDonald is under mounting pressure to stabilise the firm's decline in clothing sales after a difficult start to the winter season. M&S, which recently launched a collection modelled by TV star Holly Willoughby, is this week expected to reveal falling profits for the half year to the end of September. Sources said cost-cutting targets had led to clothes stocks being cut back too severely, hampering sales of ranges that had proved popular. Star turn: TV celebrity Holly Willoughby is a Marks & Spencer brand ambassador Unseasonably warm weather had also upset expectations. Company insiders have insisted McDonald, who joined a year ago from Halfords, has full support from the board. But one City source said: 'Jill's background isn't in clothing and the question is whether the performance will improve quickly enough under the intense scrutiny of company chairman Archie Norman.' He has quickly brought in his own management team since his arrival in September 2017 with more than half of directors already replaced. He warned in the summer that the company is on a 'burning platform', with too many high street stores. Norman is expected to say this week that M&S is making progress and that key successes include the signing of the popular Willoughby. M&S's house stockbroker Clive Black, at Shore Capital, has forecast a 3 per cent profit slide in the first half to 212 million. Most other analysts expect the performance to be worse. Pubs boss Tim Martin has suffered a slapdown from City advisory firms that are urging JD Wetherspoon shareholders to reject several motions at the company's AGM next week. Investor adviser Pirc has said Martin should not be re-elected as chairman because, as founder and a 32 per cent shareholder, he is not 'independent' enough for the job. Glass Lewis is against Wetherspoon's pay scheme, under which its finance boss Ben Whitley has been given an 11 per cent pay rise to 192,000. Signing off: Investor adviser Pirc has said Tim Martin should not be re-elected as Wetherspoon's chairman Both bodies have told investors to vote against non-executive director Sir Richard Beckett because, after nine years, they consider he has served enough time on the board. Martin took a pre-emptive swipe at advisory firms in Wetherspoon's annual report in September. He hit out at corporate governance guidelines which he says discourage lengthy executive and board tenures at companies. He said: 'Wetherspoon has a significant competitive edge in governance, since all of our directors, bar one, were in situ at the time of the last financial crisis... [The] 'institutionalising' of inexperience seems wrong.' We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. The following companies are subsidiares of Sherwin-Williams: Acquire Sourcing LLC, CTS National Corporation, Comex North America Inc., Compania Sherwin-Williams S.A. de C.V., Contract Transportation Systems Co., Dongguan Lilly Paint Industries Ltd, Duron, EPS (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., EPS B.V., Geocel Holdings, Geocel Limited, Guangdong Valspar Paints Manufacturing Co Ltd., Inver East Med S.A., Inver France SAS, Inver GmbH, Inver Industrial Coating SRL, Inver Polska Spoka Z O.O, Inver Spa, Invercolor Bologna Srl, Invercolor Ltd, Invercolor Roma Srl, Invercolor Torino Srl, Invercolor Toscana Srl, Isocoat Tintas e Vernizes Ltda, Isva Vernici Srl, Leighs Paints, M.A. Bruder & Sons, Omega Specialty Products & Services LLC, Oy Sherwin-Williams Finland Ab, PT Sherwin-Williams Indonesia, PT Valspar Indonesia, Paint Sundry Brands, Pinturas Condor S.A., Pinturas Industriales S.A., Piton Paints Limited, Plasti-Kote Co. Inc., Plasti-kote Limited, Productos Quimicos y Pinturas S.A. de C.V., Quest Automotive Products UK Limited, Quetzal Pinturas S.A. de C.V., Ronseal (Ireland) Limited, SWIMC LLC, SWIPCO Sherwin Williams do Brasil Propriedade Intelectual Ltda, Sherwin Williams Colombia S.A.S., Sherwin-Williams (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Belize) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (Caribbean) N.V., Sherwin-Williams (Ireland) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sherwin-Williams (Nantong) Coatings Technology Co. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Nantong) Company Limited, Sherwin-Williams (S) Pte. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Shanghai) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Vietnam) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (West Indies) Limited, Sherwin-Williams Argentina I.y C.S.A., Sherwin-Williams Aruba VBA, Sherwin-Williams Automotive Mexico S.de R.L.de C.V., Sherwin-Williams Balkan S.R.L., Sherwin-Williams Bel Unitary Enterprise, Sherwin-Williams Benelux NV, Sherwin-Williams Canada Inc., Sherwin-Williams Cayman Islands Limited, Sherwin-Williams Chile S.A., Sherwin-Williams Coatings India Private Limited, Sherwin-Williams Coatings S.a r.l., Sherwin-Williams Czech Republic spol. s r.o, Sherwin-Williams Denmark A/S, Sherwin-Williams Deutschland GmbH, Sherwin-Williams Diversified Brands Limited, Sherwin-Williams France Finishes SAS, Sherwin-Williams Italy S.r.l., Sherwin-Williams Norway AS, Sherwin-Williams Paints Limited Liability Company, Sherwin-Williams Peru S.R.L., Sherwin-Williams Pinturas de Venezuela S.A., Sherwin-Williams Poland Sp. z o.o, Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine Coatings, Sherwin-Williams Realty Holdings Inc., Sherwin-Williams Services (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sherwin-Williams Spain Coatings S.L., Sherwin-Williams Sweden AB, Sherwin-Williams UK Coatings Limited, Sherwin-Williams do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., Spanyc Paints Joint Stock Company, Syntema I Vaggeryd AB, Taiwan Valspar Co. Ltd., The Sherwin-Williams Acceptance Corporation, The Sherwin-Williams Headquarters Company, The Sherwin-Williams Manufacturing Company, The Sherwin-Williams US Licensing Company, The Valspar (Asia) Corporation Limited, The Valspar (Australia) Corporation Pty. Ltd., The Valspar (Finland) Corporation Oy, The Valspar (France) Corporation S.A.S., The Valspar (France) Research Corporation SAS, The Valspar (Malaysia) Corporation Sdn Bhd, The Valspar (Nantes) Corporation S.A.S., The Valspar (Singapore) Corporation Pte. Ltd, The Valspar (South Africa) Corporation (Pty) Ltd, The Valspar (Spain) Corporation S.R.L., The Valspar (Switzerland) Corporation AG, The Valspar (Thailand) Corporation Ltd., The Valspar (UK) Corporation Limited, The Valspar (Vietnam) Corporation Ltd., The Valspar Corporation, The Valspar Corporation Limitada, UAB Sherwin-Williams Baltic, Valspar (India) Coatings Corporation Private Limited, Valspar (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Valspar (Uruguay) Corporation S.A., Valspar (WPC) Pty Ltd, Valspar Aries Coatings S. de R.L. de C.V., Valspar Automotive (UK) Corporation Limited, Valspar Automotive Australia Pty Limited, Valspar B.V., Valspar Coatings (Guangdong) Co. Ltd., Valspar Coatings (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Valspar Coatings (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Valspar D.o.o Beograd, Valspar Industries (Ireland) Ltd., Valspar Industries (Italy) S.r.l., Valspar Industries GmbH, Valspar LLC, Valspar Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Valspar Paint (Australia) Pty Ltd, Valspar Paint (NZ) Limited, Valspar Powder Coatings Limited, Valspar Rock Company Limited (Japan), Valspar Specialty Paints LLC, and ZAO Sherwin-Williams. The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH. Merck & Co., Inc. pays an annual dividend of $2.60 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 3.13%. Merck & Co., Inc. has been increasing its dividend for 10 consecutive years, indicating the company has a strong committment to maintain and grow its dividend. The dividend payout ratio of Merck & Co., Inc. is 91.87%. Payout ratios above 75% are not desirable because they may not be sustainable. Based on earnings estimates, Merck & Co., Inc. will have a dividend payout ratio of 39.16% next year. This indicates that Merck & Co., Inc. will be able to sustain or increase its dividend. View Merck & Co., Inc.'s dividend history. ALBANY - Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is well positioned to win re-election on Tuesday, despite a tightening in the race, according to a Siena Research Institute poll. The two-term incumbent is collecting 49 percent of the vote in Sunday's poll, while Republican challenger Marc Molinaro is at 36 percent, the three third-party candidates are splitting 7 percent and 7 percent of voters are undecided. Cuomo's margin is down 9 points from a month earlier, but still well outside the poll's margin of error of 3.9 percentage points. "Republicans are 'coming home' to support their nominee much stronger than last month, although Cuomo continues to do better with Democrats than Molinaro does with Republicans," Siena pollster Steve Greenberg said in a statement. "Independents have flipped, giving Molinaro a seven-point lead after favoring Cuomo by 10 points last month," he said. "Cuomo's huge lead in New York City more than cushions his narrow three-point lead in the downstate suburbs, and upstate, where Molinaro leads by 10 points." Additionally, for the first time in his nearly eight years in office, the poll found that a plurality of voters have a negative opinion the governor. Molinaro has a 4-point net favorability rating, but 46 percent of voters don't have an opinion about him. Statewide races Democrats running for U.S. Senate, state comptroller and state attorney general are also poised to win on Tuesday, according to the poll. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is up 58 percent to Republican Chele Farley's 35 percent, in a race that is 9 points closer than the poll a month ago. Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's 37 point lead over Republican Jonathan Trichter is the largest of the statewide races, and is comparable to where the race was a month ago. In the race for state attorney general, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James is getting 49 percent of the vote and Republican Keith Wofford is at 37 percent, with 14 percent of voters undecided. "James and Wofford continue to battle it out in the only statewide race with no incumbent. But little has changed in the basic dynamics of this race over the last month," Greenberg said. "Both candidates are running strong with their party's voters and independents who had tilted slightly toward James, now tilt toward Wofford by four points." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "James's natural advantage in New York City overwhelmingly Democratic and where she's won two citywide races continues to be the difference in this race, as she has support of nearly three-quarters of voters there. However, outside of the City, Wofford has a slim lead among suburban and upstate voters," he added. Washington D.C. President Donald J. Trump remains unpopular in New York, with 58 percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of the president. This is comparable to results since the summer, but down from polling in the spring. New Yorkers also want to see control of the House of Representatives flip, with 56 percent backing a Democratic majority. The poll, which was conducted between Oct. 29 and Nov. 1, assumes that 46 percent of the vote will come from upstate, 27 percent from New York City and 28 percent from the surrounding suburbs. It projects that Democrats will account for 46 percent of the turnout, and Republicans will be 31 percent. David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87 Los Angeles Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, a prolific player who provided his jazz sound to records across a vast range of styles and won two Grammys, has died at age 49, his manager said Saturday. Hargrove died in New York on Friday of cardiac arrest stemming from a longtime fight with kidney disease, longtime manager Larry Clothier said in a statement. Clothier said Hargrove "was known just as intensely for his brimming fire and fury as he was for his gorgeous, signature balladry. Over and over, his sound attested to and sanctified his deep love for music. His unselfish timbre covered the waterfront of every musical landscape." Many of Hargrove's peers regarded him as the greatest trumpeter of his generation. Through his own bands and as a sideman, Hargrove brewed his jazz with African and Latin sounds, R&B, soul, pop, funk and hip-hop. He led the progressive, genre-melding group The RH Factor, played in sessions for Common, Erykah Badu and D'Angelo, and collaborated with jazz giants including Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis. "He is literally the one man horn section I hear in my head when I think about music," Questlove, drummer and leader of the Roots, said on Instagram Saturday. "Love to the immortal timeless genius that will forever be Roy Hargrove y'all." A native of Waco, Texas, Hargrove was discovered by his fellow trumpeter Marsalis while Hargrove was playing at a performing-arts high school in Dallas. He went on to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and then transferred to the New School in New York, where he joined in jam sessions at jazz clubs in the evening. One of those clubs, the Blue Note, said on its Twitter account Saturday that Hargrove was a "young master and friend gone too soon." Hargrove released his first solo album, "Diamond in the Rough," in 1990. He won his first Grammy in 1998 with his Afro-Cuban band Crisol for its album "Habana." He then won another in 2002 for "Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall," featuring a band he led with pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Michael Brecker. Questlove, who worked with Hargrove on several projects, said his improvisational skills were astonishing. "I can't properly document how crucial and spot on Roy was with his craft man," he said. "We NEVER gave him instructions: just played the song and watched him go." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Other tributes flowed from the musical community as word spread of Hargrove's death. "I have no words over the loss of my dear brother of 31 years," bass player Christian McBride said on Twitter. "We played on a lot of sessions together, traveled a lot of miles together, laughed a lot together, bickered on occasion and I wouldn't change our relationship for anything in the world. Bless you, Roy Hargrove." Trumpet player and composer Keyon Harrold called Hargrove the "trumpeter jazz king" on Instagram. "The spirit that radiated from the bell of his horn was always a force of youth enthralled with the wisdom of old," Harrold said. Hargrove is survived by his wife Aida, daughter Kamala, mother Jacklyn and brother Brian. Memorial plans are in the works, but no details have been announced yet. Isla, Mexico Patience among 4,000 Central American migrants appeared to be wearing thin on Saturday, as exhausted members of the caravan journeying toward the United States openly disagreed with organizers who are shepherding the group through southern Mexico. Several thousand migrants opted to rest in the towns of Juan Rodriguez Clara, Veracruz and Isla, Veracruz, which are about 40 miles from their previous rest stop in Sayula. Another contingent splintered off by hitchhiking rides and walking to Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, which lies about 80 extra miles to the north. Many said they no longer had faith in those organizing the large group after confusion broke out regarding buses that would have taken migrants on a route to Mexico City. On Friday, Veracruz Gov. Miguel Angel Yunes reneged on a brief offer to provide transportation, saying that it would not be correct to send the migrants because Mexico City's water system was undergoing maintenance and 7 million of its people would be without water over the weekend. In the lapse between his decisions, organizers told members of the caravan that buses would indeed be available, causing some migrants to go to sleep with the impression that they should wake up early to stake out a place in line. Human rights activist Ernesto Castaneda said there's still a possibility that bulk transportation will be arranged Saturday. But as migrants struggle with exhaustion, blisters, sickness, and swollen feet hundreds of miles from the closest U.S. border, tempers flared within their ranks. "People are mad and confused," said Saira Cabrera, a 36-year-old traveling with her husband and two children aged 7 and 13. Gerardo Perez, a 20-year-old migrant, said he was tired. "They're playing with our dignity. If you could have only seen the people's happiness last night when they told us that we were going by bus and today we're not," he said. It remained to be seen if the group would stick together and continue employing the 'strength in numbers' strategy which has enabled them to mobilize through Mexico and inspire subsequent migrant caravans to try their luck. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. On Friday, another caravan this time from El Salvador waded over the Suchiate River into Mexico, bringing 1,000 to 1,500 people who want to reach the U.S. border. That caravan initially tried to cross the bridge between Guatemala and Mexico, but Mexican authorities told them they would have to show passports and visas and enter in groups of 50 for processing. The Salvadorans opted instead to wade across a shallow stretch of the river to enter Mexico. Police in the vicinity did not try to stop the migrants, who later walked along a highway toward the nearest large city, Tapachula. Mexico is now faced with the unprecedented situation of having three caravans stretched out over 300 miles of highways in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, with a total of more than 6,000 migrants. The first, largest group of mainly Honduran migrants entered Mexico on Oct. 19. The caravan has shrunk to less than 4,000 migrants, although it has become difficult to give exact numbers as migrants advance toward small towns any way they can. Another caravan, also of about 1,000 to 1,500 people, entered Mexico earlier this week and is now in Mapastepec, Chiapas. That group includes Hondurans, Salvadorans and some Guatemalans. Mexican officials appeared conflicted over whether to help or hinder their journeys. FALFURRIAS, Texas - Gun-carrying civilian groups and border vigilantes have heard a call to arms in President Donald Trump's warnings about threats to American security posed by caravans of Central American migrants moving through Mexico. They're packing coolers and tents, oiling rifles and tuning up aerial drones, with plans to form caravans of their own and trail American troops to the border. "We'll observe and report, and offer aid in any way we can," said Shannon McGauley, a bail bondsman in the Dallas suburbs who is president of the Texas Minutemen. McGauley said he was preparing to head for the Rio Grande in coming days. "We've proved ourselves before, and we'll prove ourselves again," he said. McGauley and others have been roused by the president's call to restore order and defend the country against what Trump has called "an invasion," as thousands of Central American migrants advance slowly through southern Mexico toward the U.S. border. Trump has insisted that "unknown Middle Easterners," "very tough fighters," and large numbers of violent criminals are traveling among the women, children and families heading north on foot. The Texas Minutemen, according to McGauley, have 100 volunteers en route to the Rio Grande who want to help stop the migrants, with more likely on the way. "I can't put a number on it," McGauley said. "My phone's been ringing nonstop for the last seven days. You got other militias, and husbands and wives, people coming from Oregon, Indiana. We've even got two from Canada." Asked whether his group planned to deploy with weapons, McGauley laughed. "This is Texas, man," he said. And yet, the prospect of armed vigilantes showing up beside thousands of U.S. troops - along with Border Patrol agents, police officers and migrants - is considered serious enough that miliary planners have issued warnings to Army commanders. According to military planning documents obtained by Newsweek, the military is concerned about the arrival of "unregulated militia members self-deploying to the border in alleged support" of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The assessment estimates that 200 militia members could show up. "They operate under the guise of citizen patrols," the report said, while warning of "incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments." The military report provided no further details about the alleged thefts. Manuel Padilla Jr., the top Border Patrol official in the agency's Rio Grande Valley sector, the nation's busiest for illegal crossings, said he has not issued any instructions to agents in the field or to landowners whose properties are adjacent to the river. But he plans to meet with community members next week, he said, to address their concerns. "We don't have any specific information about the militias," said Padilla, reached by phone along the border. "We have seen them in the past, and when things start getting really busy, we have to make sure to let the community know they're out there." "But they're doing that on their own," Padilla said. McGauley said that in addition to weapons and camping gear, his group will have night-vision goggles and aerial drones with thermal sensing equipment, capable of operating in darkness. He emphasized that the group would report any suspicious activity to authorities and would heed any instructions from Border Patrol agents or military personnel. Several landowners in the area said they do not want the militias around. Michael Vickers, a veterinarian and rancher who lives an hour north of the border in Falfurrias, said that he will not let militia members from outside the area onto his property and that he doubts most area landowners would trust outsiders. "They are a bunch of guys with a big mouth and no substance to them," said Vickers, a Republican who heads the 300-strong Texas Border Volunteers. The group doesn't call itself a militia, although it patrols ranchland to intercept migrants who hike through the brush to attempt to avoid Border Patrol checkpoints. The group uses ATVs, night-vision goggles, spotlights and trained dogs. "People on the [Rio Grande] have been calling us," Vickers said. His group is in a "holding pattern," he said, adding, "We can have 100 volunteers in a hot area in four to eight hours. "We've already talked to a bunch of landowners who wanted to know if we'll be operating if the Border Patrol can't be there to keep their property from being vandalized and their crops from being messed up." "We're ready to move," he said. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Others in South Texas are less enthusiastic. Lucy Kruse, 96, said immigrants often stop on her property as they walk through the bush country, sometimes breaking into a small cabin to sleep. Her family's ranch lies amid the thorny mesquite brush, cactus and tawny dry grass 80 miles north of the border. As the migrant caravans head north, she and other landowners in the area worry that the number of trespassers walking through their ranches will increase dramatically. But many say the militias coming to the area also pose a threat. "I will not let militia on my land," Kruse said. "They're civilians stepping into a situation where the Border Patrol is supposed to be in control and make decisions. They could damage property or harm workers. I would guess they would be trigger-happy. If they shot someone, they might just say the person they shot was reaching for a gun." Joe Metz, 80, lives in what looks like a pastoral tropical paradise near Mission, a town of 84,000 in the Rio Grande Valley. Tall, green sugar cane grows beside the wide river, and citrus trees dot the sandy small hillocks away from the banks. The Rio Grande is less than a mile from Metz's living room window, and a section of border wall crosses his property. He has watched for years as border-crossers ford the river and walk onto his land, their first step on American soil. The wall has slowed the flow significantly, he said, but between 50 and 100 people a day still cross through the farm next door. He worries that the caravan, which includes many women and children, will surge through the area, but he doesn't want armed vigilantes on his farm. "The militia just needs to stay where they are," said Metz, a Republican. "We don't need fanatical people. We don't need anybody here with guns. Why do they have guns? I have dealt with illegals for 30 years, and all of them have been scared, asking for help. The militias need to stay up north where they belong. We have no use for them here. They might shoot someone or hurt someone." But the heir to the state's largest and most influential ranch disagrees. Stephen "Tio" Kleberg, who has lived most of his life on the 825,000-acre King Ranch outside of Kingsville, said that he will allow militia groups on his ranch, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island. "I think if the [caravan members] get across the river, they need to be caught and sent back," said Kleberg, who wears a bushy handlebar mustache and chews an unlit cigar. "Once they get on U.S. soil, they need to be stopped and detained. We don't have enough Border Patrol, ICE and Highway Patrol to handle them. If we get 2,000 or 3,000 people, we will need the militia," Kleberg said. - - - Miroff reported from Washington. Tipperary Fianna Fail TD Jackie Cahill has said that the 250m deal to support the Spanish coal mining industry as it comes to an end is exactly the type of deal that the North Tipperary area needs to help it transition away from its reliance on peat-harvesting employment. Last week, Spains government secured agreement between management, unions and other stakeholders for a 250m deal that will see investment in Spains northern Asturias, Aragon, and Castilla y Leon regions and support for miners who may see their employment end. "The deal covers Spains privately owned mines and mixes early retirement schemes with environmental restoration work in addition to finance to help re-skill younger workers for new and emerging industries," he said. The Thurles-based TD said that the Spanish situation was similar to that of North Tipperary, where, last year, the Littleton bog closed with the loss of 70 jobs. "With the expected loss of hundreds of Bord na Mona jobs in the Midlands, I think a Sustainable Transition Forum is needed to support local communities and jobs," he said. The agreement in Spain demonstrates that it is possible to make progress on the Paris 2020 targets but without the wholescale damage to communities and regions." The TD said that his party's proposal for a Sustainable Transition Forum, underpinned by funding from the EUs Globalisation Fund, was what North Tipperary and the Midlands needed to allow it move away from its dependency on jobs associated with peat harvesting. "The question, for me, is not how do we keep every single job, but how do we replace these jobs with well-paying, sustainable jobs that will keep our communities thriving and prosperous. Thats the challenge, but its a challenge that can be overcome, and Fianna Fail will not be found wanting," said Deputy Cahill. editorial@tribune.com Neeraj Bagga Tribune News Service Amritsar, November 4 Approved by the district administration, the retail firecracker market started its operation in New Amritsar here on Sunday. Only 10 firecracker traders were authorised to install temporary firecracker shops ahead of Diwali this year. These were selected through a draw of lots. As many as 480 traders had applied for the same. A trader, Pappi Sharma, said the response of customers was not encouraging on the first day. He added that they swiftly installed tin shed booths to catch the attention of customers on the weekend before Diwali. He hoped that customers would turn up in soon for cracker purchase. There is a 10 per cent rise in the prices of crackers as compared to the last year. This is an ordinary hike as the input cost as well as diesel price have gone up. The entire material is procured from Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu, said traders in the market. As per the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC), only 20 per cent of the total number of temporary stalls installed here in 2015 could be set up this year. Fifty six stalls had been set in 2015. The traders can sell firecrackers between 8 am and 10 pm. Only 10 licensed vendors editorial@tribune.com Our Correspondent Kharar, November 4 The Majri police have arrested three persons in connection with a dispute between two groups that resulted in an attack on a farmhouse here a few days ago. Villagers of Kubaheri are up in arms and have threatened to start an agitation if the FIR registered against them is not cancelled. Kharar DSP Deep Kamal said the police had arrested Jaswant Singh and Sant Singh Laddi, both residents of Kubaheri village, in connection with a case registered against residents of Kubaheri village on an attempt-to-murder charge. He said similarly Gulab Singh, a resident of Patiala, had been arrested from the other group in connection with a case registered against the group members on abduction and other charges. Cross-cases were registered by the Majri police in connection with the attack. There was a dispute between the owner of a farmhouse and Kubaheri villagers over the disposal of dirty water. It was alleged that two shots were fired by one group during the attack and Bahadur Singh, a resident of Kubaheri village, was abducted. On the other hand, a case was registered against 250 residents of Kubaheri villagers on a charge of attacking the farmhouse. Meanwhile, a large number of villagers today held a meeting at Kubaheri village and slammed the police for arresting two residents of the village. They alleged that the police was not including the name of Ajit Singh Kular, owner of the farmhouse, in the FIR even thought he was present on the spot when the incident took place. They have threatened to start an agitation if suitable action is not taken in the matter. editorial@tribune.com Mohali, November 4 Sleuths of the STF, Mohali, have arrested three drug peddlers, including a convict, with 200 gm of heroin, worth Rs 20 lakh in the international market, here. They are Avtar Singh, alias Jagtar Singh, alias Jagga, from Manakpur Sharif village in Mohali, Major Singh from Rani Majra village in Mohali and Ankush Gabba from Panchkula. STF SP Rajinder Singh Sohal said the trio was going in an Accent car to supply drugs to customers when they were arrested at PTL Chowk in Phase 5 on a tip-off. During their interrogation, we came to know that Jagga was a convict in another NDPS case that was registered at the Kurali police station. The court had pronounced 10-year jail for him in the case. After remaining behind bars for four years, he had filed an appeal in the High Court after which he was granted bail recently. After coming out of the jail, he again started supplying drugs, said Sohal. He said Ankush and Major Singh were drug addicts. They used to procure drugs from a Nigerian, Frank, in Delhi and sell it here, said the SP. A case has been registered against the trio. TNS Salil Desai Salil Desai Pune-based author and columnist ACADEMICIAN and author Ramachandra Guha tweeted recently that he was unable to join Ahmedabad University because of circumstances beyond his control. Subsequently, it has been revealed that the circumstances he was referring to were the threat held out by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Ahmedabad, to him and the university authorities that they would oppose an 'urban naxal' such as Guha from contaminating the university and from transforming it into a breeding ground of anti-national activities like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Guha has taught at several prestigious universities in India and abroad, and has written some of the finest books on the 19th and 20th century Indian history like India before Gandhi (2013), Makers of Modern India and has been earning plaudits for his latest book Gandhi The Years that Changed the World. He was slated to join as the Shrenik Lalbhai Professor of Humanities and Director of Gandhi Winter School at Ahmedabad Universitys School of Arts and Sciences on February 1, 2019. This was announced in mid-October. The ABVP, the students wing of the BJP, then seems to have swung into action and it threw a spanner in the works by submitting a memorandum to the university authorities, demanding the cancellation of Guhas appointment on the grounds that his writing was critical of the Hindu culture and accusing him of being a communist and an anti-national. What seems to have happened thereafter is that under immense political pressure and perhaps even fears for the renowned academics safety, Ahmedabad University or Guha or both decided that discretion is the better part of valour. The episode is shameful because it shows just how easily right-wing political forces, when in power, can go about scuttling and undercutting any independent-thinking individual or institution. All that they needed was to brand an eminent scholar as anti-national and anti-Hindu and hint at the threat of trouble. While an individual is always a soft target, the institution too felt it more prudent to buckle. Indeed, it is also an early warning bell of what to expect if the same dispensation returns to power because these are standard tactics eerily reminiscent of what the Iron Curtain era communist (left-wing) regimes would do in several eastern European countries, or, for that matter, what even the USA did in the 1950s during the McCarthy red scare years, when intellectuals, academics, writers, scholars critical of the government or inimical to it, were neutralised by the simple expedient of armtwisting, intimidation and informal blacklisting. In fact, it is far more effective and sophisticated because it does not carry the social stigma associated with murdering intellectuals, like in the case of Professor Kalburgi, Gauri Lankesh, Narendra Dabholkar or Govind Pansare. This kind of tactic also provides right-wing political forces the alibi of democratic protest to justify targeting intellectuals by drawing parallels to other protests. For instance, typically, the protest by a students' body in 2015 against Gajendra Chauhan, appointed head of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), can be cited as a precedent for the right to oppose Ramachandra Guha. Never mind that the two persons stature and credentials in their respective fields are hugely different as are the context and reasons. Moreover, Chauhan, unlike Guha, was a government appointee and, therefore, had its backing, nor was there a threat of violence to him. Most importantly, Ahmedabad University is a private university, unlike the FTII, which is financed by the Central government. Despite these distinctions, in the current majoriatrian climate, the right-wing can draw a false equivalence and make naked intimidation sound like democratic protest with astonishing ease. Nor is it the only weapon in its armoury against intellectual dissent or suppressing academic and scholarly points of view considered anti-Hindu. Recently, an attempt was made by Delhi University's Standing Committee on Academic Matters to remove three books written by a Dalit scholar, Dr KanchaIllaiah Shepherd, from the post-graduate syllabus of its political science department course on social exclusion. The books God as Political Philosopher: Buddha's Challenge to Brahminism; Why I am not a Hindu; and Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution were recommended for removal obviously because they were seen as searing critiques of Hinduism. Again, the tactic used was similar. The books were denounced as derogatory to the Hindu faith, and its author anti-Hindu. While the resultant uproar has staved off acceptance of the committee's recommendation for the moment and DU has said the final decision will be taken by its Academic Council, it is clear that the central idea is to keep chipping away at islands of intellectual independence. A third strategy is also at work in this project which was evident in a decision taken earlier this week when Indian-American author Rajiv Malhotra was appointed honorary professor at JNU's Centre for Media Studies. While the capture of state-funded academic institutions like the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), Indian Institute of Advanced Studies to rewrite history is well documented and has been in full swing since the current government came to power, it is being actively complemented by disguising ideology as academics and ideologues as scholars, which is probably the most dangerous and damaging development of all. With intimidation, infiltration and indoctrination all at work in tandem, one shudders to think how long before the few islands of academic independence are completely inundated by waves of anti-intellectualism. laxmi@tribune.com PRIME Minister Narendra Modi's policy decision that promises micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) to get hassle-free loans in 59 minutes is a good economic decision, which legitimately aims to woo an important political constituent of the ruling party ahead of the 2019 General Election. After the informal sector, the MSME is the backbone of the economy in terms of providing gainful employments to millions of Indians. The efforts to handhold it for hassle-free finance, assured work-orders and freedom from the Inspector Raj will not only boost the country's manufacturing sector, but also help in reducing India's burgeoning imports. Although the latest World Bank report indicates that India leapfrogged 23 spots to the 77th rank in the Ease-of-Doing-Business rankings in the perception of the global business giants, PM Modi's 12-point policy decisions announced on Thursday will change the ground realities for the local entrepreneurs, who are often ignored in the reckoning of multilateral agencies. The easy access to cheap finance up to Rs 1 crore will be of immense help for the small businesses in unlocking their true potential with minimal risks to banks compared to their corporate clients whom they gave thousands of crores of loans without adequate collaterals, one of the prime reasons for accumulated NPAs worth over Rs 10 lakh crore. While the move will help small export-oriented manufacturing units, the government should also hasten the process of input tax credit under the GST regime to ease the liquidly crunch of exporters. The directive that public sector firms will compulsorily procure 25 per cent from MSMEs should not only be enforced strictly, but the government may also consider extending it to the private sector, not through compulsion, but by giving them tax incentives. The government must not, however, push the banks to lend indiscriminately by providing targets, because ignoring prudential norms might lead to fresh NPAs, which the country cannot afford. Besides, it should be the responsibility of all stakeholders to ensure that the loan is extended for legitimate business purposes and it is serviced as proposed. uttara@tribuneindia.com Yash Goyal Our Correspondent Jaipur, November 4 Former Haryana chief minister Bhupeinder Hooda said on Sunday recent developments rival Indian National Lok Dal indicated that the party was fading fast. "Because its INLD's internal dispute, it wouldnt be appropriate for me to comment. I said two years ago that the INLD was a diminishing party. (It looks like) it would be true by next assembly elections. Its very existence would be in danger by next assembly elections Hooda said at a press conference. INLD patriarch Om Prakash Chautala recently expelled his grandsons Dushyant and Digvijay from the party for indiscipline in a development that brought the partys faultlines out in the open. Hooda, a senior Congress leader, was in the state to campaign before next months assembly elections. Ram Mandir an election pitch The BJP used the Ram Temple every election season to get votes, he said. "If Ram Mandir is built in Ayodhya, I would go and lit a Deepak there. Every election since 1991, the BJP has used the issue for vote bank politics. Lord Ram is the god of every person. Its more about astha (belief) than about doing politics with it, he replied to a question. Asked if his party would support an ordinance on building Ram Temple at Ayodhyaa demand several Hindu organsiations have made after the Supreme Court refused to hear the case before JanuaryHoodas answer remained vague. "Let them (central government) bring it first. Otherwise this is a hypothetical question, he said. Congress CM face When asked who would be Congresss chief minister face in next months assembly elections, Hooda parried. "Any competent party leader could be CM without contesting the polls. Its up to the party high command to decide whom it should or should not field. Congress's face in the upcoming polls is the public. Elected MLAs will choose their leaders, and party high command will give its final approval. The Congress has so far refused to name a chief ministerial candidate for the elections, although both Pilot and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot have been largely considered the partys front-runners. Rajasthan is scheduled to hold elections on December 7. editorial@tribune.com Vishal Joshi Tribune News Service Kurukshetra, November 4 For the first time this year, Shamsher Singh, a rice grower from Khidrapur village in the district, has not burnt stubble. Convinced by the significance of green disposal of paddy residue, Shamsher constituted Kisan Sewa Samiti, a cooperative society of 10 farmers, and bought two bailer machines for cutting organic waste. Shamsher, who planted non-basmati varieties on his 40 acres of land, said farmers could earn significantly by selling organic waste. We availed a subsidy offered by the state government and a bailer machine cost us Rs10 lakh. After charging Rs500 per acre from farmers for clearing farms of stubble, our custom hiring centre (CHC) is being paid Rs135 per quintal for crop residue by a private paper mill at Bhakli near Pehowa, he said. Shamsher admitted that before associating with the paper mill, he was also taking burning as the easiest way to clear fields after harvesting paddy. After clearing stubble on 1,100 acres in Khidarpura and Loharmajra, we supplied about 18,000 quintals organic waste to the mill. We earn money from what was previously treated as sheer waste, he said. Harikrishan Saini, director, Sainsons Paper Industry, said he had procured stubble from about 40,000 acres in the vicinity of the mill. He said the waste generated from the non-basmati crop was used as fuel in the customised boiler to energise an in-house 5-MW power plant, whereas the residue of the basmati variety was pulped for paper manufacturing. For the last four years, we have been deploying machines for collecting the paddy waste from the fields for free. We pay farmers between Rs150 to Rs240 per quintal for organic waste. Last year, we clear fields from 30,000 acres and another 10,000 area has been added this year, said Saini. Dr Karamchand, Deputy Director, Agriculture, the state-supported CHC were earning while engaging with the paper mill. The enterprise at Bhakli is also contributing significantly for the pollution-free crop disposal in the district, he added. As the mill has proposed to set up an additional 3.5-MW capacity for its boiler by using biomass, the industry will require more stubble for fuel. The entrepreneur has proposed to sell the generated power to the grid by using crop residue, he said. editorial@tribune.com Tribune Reporters Chandigarh/Sonepat, Nov 4 Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar on Sunday made it clear that the state government would not backtrack on its stand of utilising private buses on kilometre basis as 500 of these 700 buses had already been engaged. The minister, along with state BJP president Subhash Barala and Women and Child Development Minister Kavita Jain, was interacting with mediapersons at Gohana in Sonepat district. There will not be any discussion with representatives of the Haryana Roadways Employees Union on this issue till November 14, the date fixed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, he said. The state government would abide by directions of the High Court, he asserted. In reply to a question about dismissal of employees during the strike, the Transport Minister explained that these employees would be given a chance in the ongoing process of recruitment of 905 conductors for duty aboard private buses. The roadways employees, who had been on strike since October 16 against the state governments decision to hire 700 buses of private owners, ended their strike on November 2 after intervention by the High Court. The employees had been claiming that the state governments decision was a step towards privatisation of the Transport Department. They alleged that the state government had been trying to benefit a private transporter by hiring private buses. Talks between the government and striking roadways employees failed twice on October 21 and 24 with the protesters sticking to their demand on scrapping of the decision to hire 700 private buses under the kilometre scheme. Under the kilometre scheme, buses would be owned by private operators, who would pay the salary of drivers and bear diesel and maintenance cost. Conductors would be appointed by the government and revenue generated from tickets would be deposited with the state exchequer. Meanwhile, Balwan Singh, a member of the coordination committee of roadways employees, urged the state government to withdraw the no work, no pay decision enforced during the strike, as it was against the direction of the High Court. If the state government does not take back the decision of withholding the salary of striking employees, we will be forced to observe a black Diwali, he said. editorial@tribune.com The decision of the BJP Government to woo foreign investment has led to a virtual scramble among the bureaucrats to get their name included in the list of those who would be joining the bandwagon that would travel overseas. With big plans of getting investment worth Rs 80,000 crore, a high level delegation is expected to travel to countries like Singapore, Mauritius, Japan and the UAE to solicit investment in the state. Even officials, who are remotely associated with the Investors Summit being planned for February in Dharamsala, are desperately trying to get their name included in the list of those who would travel abroad. The sectors in which investment has been proposed include industry, power, tourism, health and the farm sector. Seeing the desperation of the babus to go abroad, it might get difficult to decide as to who qualifies. The easier way out is to cancel the abroad travel plans, remarked a bemused official. Well that is how babus are. They never miss out an opportunity to enjoy a free foreign junket, whether the government stands to benefit from it or not. Me too fear grips netas The fear of their name figuring in the Me too list has gripped many BJP leaders in the state. The name of a political figure in the Chief Ministers office was dragged into the controversy recently even though the allegations are yet to be substantiated. While some senior leaders are terming it as an outcome of political bickering within the party, there are others who say that it would be better not to rake up the issue as many netas could fall prey to this trend, which seems to be catching on. Such allegations will not remain confined to the BJP as netas in other political parties, including the Congress, could face the heat. As such not many in the Congress are willing to rake up the issue, admitted a BJP leader. Surprisingly or not, there seems complete unanimity among the BJP and Congress leaders on the issue of keeping mum and ignoring such issues as the heat could turn against anyone, rightly or wrongly. Markanda sulks Agriculture minister and Lahaul Spiti legislator Ram Lal Markanda is sulking these days as Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur seems to be ignoring him. The reasons, according to the minister, are many. Jai Ram Tahkur has yet to visit snow-battered Lahaul valley where Markanda is facing ire of the farmers stir as the tribals did not get even a penny in compensation for the massive losses they suffered to their crops due to heavy snowfall in September. It is when the Chief Minister has been generous to Gobind Singh Thakur, who has emerged his "blue eyed boy", giving Rs 34 crore as assistance to rebuild Kullu district. There are talks that Thakur has sidelined Markanda as the minister has been branded as a Pt Sukh Ram's chela. Markanda was not seen with Jai Ram Thakur at several public forums, including recently-concluded Kullu Dashera, revealed party workers. Markanda has sought special package for Lahaul-Spiti, which had suffered losses worth Rs 94 crore due to snowfall. Will Jai Ram Thakur oblige Markanda or cold shoulder him? Only time will tell. BJP leaders skip Nadda's function Union Minister of Health JP Nadda was at Dharamsala to preside over the nation level function for Micro Medium and Small Enterprises. Though his office had called all the BJP MLAs, current and former, and ministers from Kangra to attend the function just two ministers Kishan Kapoor, who represents Dharamsala Assembly constituency, and Bikram Thakur, whose department was holding the function, and just one MLA Rakesh Pathania, graced the occasion. The BJP has 11 MLAs in Kangra district out of which four are Cabinet ministers. Why just two Cabinet ministers and just one MLA attended the Nadda function has made political rumour mills work overtime. Some attribute it to growing discontent in the BJP cadre in Kangra while others to non availability of Nadda to the BJP leaders from the region. (Contributed by Pratibha Chauhan, Kuldeep Chauhan and Lalit Mohan) shriaya.dutta@tribuneindia.com Jammu, November 4 A fraudster, allegedly involved in issuing fake no-objection certificate (NOC) related to the Jammu Development Authority (JDA), was arrested after a four-year-long hunt here, police said on Sunday. Ghulam Qadir, a resident of Diwar village of Tral in south Kashmir's Pulwama district, was arrested from Nikki Mohalla in Sidhra locality of the city Saturday, a spokesperson of the Crime branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Police said. He said Qadir was wanted in a case registered in 2014 under various sections of the Ranbir Penal Code including cheating, forgery for purpose of cheating and using as genuine a forged document. "The accused is involved in issuing fake NOC relating to the JDA land located at Sidhra Majeen," he said. PTI shriaya.dutta@tribuneindia.com Boston, November 4 Veteran actor Anupam Kher was conferred a 'Distinguished Fellow' title at the Cambridge MIT Sloan School of Management here. "Thank you IndiaGlobal at Cambridge MIT Sloan School... This honour gives me a further sense of responsibility towards my country. A lower middle class Kashmiri boy from Shimla has come a long way," Anupam tweeted on Sunday. He also shared a few photographs from the event and he is seen holding up a frame which has details about the honour. The full-day India Global Summit at MIT Sloan School of Management was an opportunity to learn about India's emerging influence in the global economy. Anupam was one of the key speakers. The actor, who has featured in over 500 movies, has been busy shooting in New York for American series "New Amsterdam". Earlier, he resigned as chief of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) due to his work commitment. IANS editorial@tribune.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 4 Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi is up in arms against her own partys government in Maharashtra over the killing of tigress Avni on Saturday and dared to take up the case legally, criminally and politically. Maneka, a well-known animal rights activist, described the Avnis killing in the BJP-led Maharashtra as a brutal murder and a test case of crimes against animals. She slammed BJPs Sudhir Mungantiwar, Minister of Forests, Maharashtra, for allegedly ordering the killing of the tigress and threatened to take up the matter with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. I am deeply saddened by the way tigress Avni has been brutally murdered in Yavatmal. It is nothing, but a straight case of crime. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, minister Sudhir Mungantiwar ordered the killing. He has been doing this regularly and this is the third tiger being murdered, besides several leopards and wild boars, Maneka said siding with a range of activists who have called the killing a late night state-ordered encounter. The WCD minister said the Maharashtra minister had been using Hyderabad-based shooter Shafat Ali Khan for the killing of tigers and leopards. This time his son (Asghar Ali) has also appeared in the scene illegally to murder the tigress. His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilising, capturing and quarantining the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under the orders of Sudhir Mungantiwar, Maneka Gandhi said in a tweet. She said this ghastly murder had also put two cubs at the edge of a sad death. Animal rights activists have alleged tranquilising was not even attempted and the cat was shot in cold blood with an intention to kill. People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has demanded the killing to be called a wildlife crime and investigated accordingly. editorial@tribune.com Guwahati, November 3 Protesters squatted on railway tracks, pelted vehicles with stones and burnt tyres on roads in some districts of Assam during a 12-hour state-wide bandh today. The bandh call was in protest against the gunning down of five men in Tinsukia district recently. The shutdown, which began at 5 am, mostly affected life in Barak Valley, which is predominantly inhabited by Bengali-speaking people, and parts of the Brahmaputra Valley, officials said. The bandh was called by the Sadou Asom Bengali Yuba Chatra Federation and several like-minded organisations. The Congress is supporting the bandh in Barak. The BJP has extended its support to the stir in Hailakandi, district BJP president Subrata Nath said in a press note. Tinsukia and Dibrugarh were exempted from the purview of the bandh as the two districts had observed a strike yesterday. Shops, business establishments, educational institutions, private offices remained closed and vehicles kept off the roads in the Barak Valley districts of Cachar, Karimganj and Karimganj. Congress MLA Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha, who came out to impose the bandh in Silchar, was picked up by the police. He was released later, officials said. In Brahmaputra valley, demonstrators raising slogans and holding placards demanding security for Bengalis came out in large numbers in the railway town of Lumding in Hojai district and squatted on tracks near the station. They tried to disrupt the movement of Brahmaputra Express and Guwahati-Silchar passenger trains, but were dispersed, sources said. Commercial establishments kept shutters down and vehicles did not ply in Hojai district. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, November 4 Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday lashed out at the BJP-led Maharashtra government over the "ghastly murder" of man-eating tigress Avni, calling it a "straight case of crime". Tigress Avni, who is believed to be responsible for the deaths of 13 people in the past two years, was killed in Maharashtra's Yavatmal on Friday as part of an operation. Avni is survived by her two cubs who are 10 months old. She was shot dead by sharp-shooter Asgar Ali, son of famous sharp-shooter Nawab Shafat Ali, at compartment no 149 of Borati forest under the jurisdiction of the Ralegaon police station. Reacting to the killing of Avni, Gandhi in a series of tweets lashed out at the Maharashtra government for giving the orders to kill her despite opposition from several stakeholders. "I am deeply saddened by the way tigress Avni has been brutally murdered in Yavatmal," she said in a tweet. "It is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, (Sudhir) Mungantiwar, Minister for Forests, Maharashtra, gave orders for the killing," she said in another tweet. She said she is going to take up the matter "very strongly" with Maharashtra Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis. "I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case. Legally, criminally as well as politically," she said. She also came down heavily on Mungantiwar for giving order to private marksman Shafat Ali Khan's son to carry out the hunting operation. "Every time he has used Hyderabad-based shooter Shafat Ali Khan, and this time his son has also appeared in the scene illegally to murder the tigress," she said in a tweet. "His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilise, capture and qurantine the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under orders of Mungantiwar," she tweeted. "Shafat Ali Khan has killed 3 tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad," she said in another tweet. She questioned Maharastra government's decision to take services of Khan and his son. "I fail to understand why a state government should even bother about such a man let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts," she said. Gandhi also expressed concern over the well being of the two cubs left behind after the killing of their mother. "This ghastly murder has put two cubs at the edge of a sad death in the absence of their mother," she said. Meanwhile, Mungantiwar Sunday said, Avni was shot dead as a last resort when all attempts to tranquilise her failed and she attacked officials. Speaking to PTI, Mungantiwar said nobody in the Forest Department wanted to kill the tigress and, thus, hundreds of personnel from the department were trying to capture her alive since the last 3 months. In September this year, the Supreme Court had said Avni could be shot at sight, which prompted a flurry of online petitions seeking pardon for the tigress. - PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Sabarimala, November 4 With the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala set to open for monthly poojas on November 5, the police are on high alert and tight security arrangements are in place in the backdrop of violent protests over entry of women of menstrual age last month. According to a Kerala Police release, 1,500 personnel, 100 of them women, are keeping vigil at Sabarimala and nearby areas. A 20-member commando team has been deployed at Sannidhanam, Nilackal and Pamba, the release said. Meanwhile, the BJP's state unit said its president P S Sreedharan Pillai has received a death threat. Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and chief priest Unnikrishnan Namboodiri will open the temple doors and light the lamp at the 'Sreekovil' (sanctum sanctorum) on November 5 at 5 pm. Besides the usual poojas, "Sree Chitira Atta Thirunal" special pooja, will be held on November 6 and the shrine will be closed at 10 pm. Prohibitory order under section 144 CrPc banning assembly of four or more people will come into force at Pamba, Nilackal, Elavungal, and Sannidhanam from midnight Saturday till November 6 midnight. Barricades have been erected at many places en route to Nilackal and police personnel are allowing vehicles only after checking. The temple complex and nearby areas had witnessed violent protests by Ayyappa devotees against the entry of young women when it was opened for last month's poojas from October 17-22. At least 12 women had made a vain attempt to trek the hills soon after the Supreme Court verdict permitting women in the 10-50 age group to offer prayers at the shrine. They had to retreat following the protests and demonstrations by devotees. Comprehensive traffic arrangements have been made by police in Pathnamthitta district where the shrine is located. Private vehicles carrying pilgrims would be allowed to proceed only up to Nilackal, a base camp, police said. The Keralapolice has introduced online booking for pilgrims, which would enable them to conveniently choose the day and time of darshan. According to officials, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation tickets are compulsory for all pilgrims, whoreach Nilackal, except those who go by foot. The devotees can avail the ticket booking facility and choose the darshan time also. The KSRTC has also made arrangements for the pilgrims who reach for darshan on foot, to avail online tickets from Pamba at the foothills. Meanwhile, the state government said it was prepared to hold talks with the Nair Service Society (NSS), an outfit of the influential Nair community, which is against entry of young women into the hill shrine. "The government is prepared to remove misunderstandings with NSS and has an open mind for talks with the outfit," Devaswom (temple administration) minister Kadakkampally Surendran told reporters. The attack against the NSS office here Friday was "well-planned," he said. BJP leader K Surendran alleged that government had some "hidden agenda" on Sabarimala temple. He said the party's state president, P S Sreedharan Pillai, has received a "death threat" Saturday through speed post and the DGP has been informed. BJP and various Hindu outfits are on the warpath against the left government over its decision to implement the Supreme Court verdict allowing women of menstrual age to enter the shrine. PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com New Delhi, November 4 Union minister Uma Bharti said on Sunday although Hindus were the most tolerant people in the world, any talk of constructing a mosque on the periphery of a Ram temple in Ayodhya could make them angry. The minister also invited Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to lay the foundation stone of the temple in Ayodhya with her, saying he would atone for the sins of his party by doing so. Hindus are the most tolerant community in the world. I will appeal to all politicians: please dont make Hindus intolerant by talking about building a mosque on the outer periphery of the birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya, Bharti said. She said when there could not be a temple in the holy town of Medina or a mosque in the Vatican City, it would be unfair to talk about a mosque in Ayodhya. Describing the Ayodhya dispute as one of land and not faith, the firebrand Hindu leader said: This is now only a matter of dispute of land, not dispute of faith. It has been resolved that Ayodhya is the birth place of Lord Ram. She also stressed the need for an out-of-court settlement of the contentious issue, and urged all political leadersincluding Gandhi, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, BSP leader Mayawati and TMC chief Mamata Banerjeeto support this. We need support of all political parties on this issue. I invite all leaders including, Rahul Gandhiji, come lets lay the foundation stone of the Ram temple with me, Bharti said. By doing so, the Gandhi-scion could atone for the past sins of the Congress, which always created hurdles in building the temple in Ayodhya, she said. Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh, Banerjee, Mayawati and the Left parties should support the BJP on this issue as it is of national interest, she said. But they arent letting the matter get resolved. The Congress will have to quit the habit of dividing the country in the name of religion, Bharti said, reiterating that all political parties should unite on this issue. Bharti, who had participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s, said she was fully committed to the construction of Ram temple. If they tell me that Ram Mandir will be built only over my dead body, then so be it, she said. Uma Bharti is one of several leaders facing trial for the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. No stopping Ram Temple Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said on Sunday that no power could stop construction of the Ram Temple. Although saying he could not comment because the title dispute was still sub-judice, he said his party the Bharatiya Janata Party "was, is and will always" favour construction of the temple in Ayodhya. He quickly added: "We can tell for certain in one line that a grand Ram temple would be constructed whenever time comes". He was responding to queries about a congregation of religious seers in Delhi who have called on the central government for an ordinance to construct the temple. "As on date, the matter is pending with the Supreme Court and its verdict is awaited," he said. What we can firmly assure (people) is that not even a brick in the name of Babar would be laid or allowed to be laid at the birthplace of Ramlala. He also took a swipe at Congress president Rahul Gadhi, but didnt name him. The people are realising the 'asaliyat' and 'nakaliyat' (what is genuine and what is fake) of those who are attempting to cheat the Hindu community by putting on 'janev' (religious thread)," he said, referring to an old statement the Congress had made in defence of its president Rahul Gandhi. "The Congress must explain as to why it wanted the case to be heard in 2019," he added. PTI/Agencies editorial@tribune.com Vishav Bharti Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 4 Three civil surgeons in Punjab have come under the scanner for allegedly getting undeserved promotions under the disability quota. Two of the three never figured in the states disability list throughout their career but got disability certificates just before getting promoted from Senior Medical Officer to the post of Civil Surgeon. Now the government has asked for a review of the disability of Dr Balwant Singh, Dr Arun Kumar Gupta and Dr Parvinderpal Singh, serving as Civil Surgeons of Kapurthala, Sangrur and Ludhiana, respectively. Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Satish Chandra has asked Government Medical College, Patiala, to form a group of three experts to examine the disability certificates of these doctors. The decision has been taken on the recommendation of the Commissioner for Persons with Disability. We have sought a report within 15 days, said Chandra. Senior doctors Dr Lovleen Garg and Dr Jasbir Aulakh, who themselves are disabled, alleged that two of the three got themselves included in the list by using unfair means and the extent of the thirds disability is shown as being far more than actual. As per a list of government handicapped doctors prepared on January 17, 2013, only Dr Balwant Singh was among the six doctors who were placed in the category of disabled. Dr Gupta and Dr Parvinderpal Singh were included in the list just before their promotions were due. As per the representation, Dr Parvinderpal Singh was issued a disability certificate on March 27, 2017 by the Civil Surgeon, Patiala. He was serving as the District Health Officer in the same district at the time. According to his certificate, he suffers from forward bending of spine and ankle disability. But, in the representation, it has been alleged that there is no mention of the percentage of bending as per Cobbs angle, which is the standard measurement technique used by the Centre to determine spine disability. Dr Singh said he was ready for any government review. Dr Gupta, whose name was added to the list in 2015, was shown as suffering from multiple disability due to ankle fracture and backache due to disc desiccation. The representation claims that both the problems are treatable and can be classified as temporary disability. Dr Gupta, when contacted, said he himself is an orthopaedics surgeon and met with a road accident in 1985 and due to subsequent complications, he has great difficulty in moving around and the injury interferes in his day-to-day activity. Similarly, it has been alleged that the percentage of disability in Dr Balwant Singhs certificate has been shown to be far more than the actual disability. When contacted, Dr Singh said his certificate was made in 1980 according to the government guidelines at the time. editorial@tribune.com Jupinderjit Singh Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 4 A political alliance comprising AAP rebel MLAs, leaders of Panthic organisations on dharna at Bargari, the BSP, Lok Insaaf Party, rebel Akali Dal leaders and Patiala MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi is set to take shape in the state. Sources said leaders of these parties had met in Jalandhar last week and finalised the details. They have even decided on the date of announcement, representatives of two parties have told to The Tribune. They said the suspension of AAP MLA Sukhpal Khaira from the party was likely to expedite the process. Gurdeep Singh Bathinda, general secretary, United Akali Dal, said time was ripe to give a political alternative to the people of Punjab, who have been cheated by both the Congress and the Akalis. He confirmed that meetings had already taken place, but refused to divulge details. He, however, said talks were also on with rebel Akali leaders, including Ranjit Singh Brahmpura. Meanwhile, Khaira, who visited his Assembly constituency Bholath on Sunday, said his future plans were in the hands of the people of the state and the NRIs. We will go by the wish of the people. We are looking to unite like-minded parties, including the groups from the Bargari morcha. We are aiming to form a secular set-up instead of a religion-based group. The political affairs committee of the rebel AAP group of eight MLAs will meet in Chandigarh on Monday. The sources said another meeting was scheduled this week where apart from the Khaira group, Panthic leaders and BSPs national general secretary Megh Raj would be present. The state unit of AAP, meanwhile, has also called a meeting of its core committee on Tuesday to chalk out the future strategy. Another political alternative? Sources say AAP rebels, Panthic leaders, the BSP, Lok Insaaf Party, rebel Akalis and Patiala MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi are set to forge an alliance. They say though a meeting in this regard was held in Jalandhar last week, the suspension AAP rebels Sukhpal Khaira and Kanwar Sandhu is likely to expedite the process. Still ready for talks: Sandhu Patiala: Suspended AAP MLA Kanwar Sandhu on Sunday said they were not given a fair chance to put forward their point of view. He said the move would impact the peace talks, but we are still open to hold the fresh round of dialogue to end infighting. He claimed: We have been suspended evev as talks were on. This clearly shows that the move is aimed at scuttling the peace process. tns editorial@tribune.com Neeraj Bagga Tribune News Service Amritsar, November 4 Commissioner of Railway Safety, Northern Circle, SK Pathak began a two-day statutory inquiry into the Amritsar train tragedy on Sunday. He stated that the Railways, prima facie, was not responsible for trespass (by local residents) as there was a boundary wall 16.5 metres from the rail track. In a mock run, he boarded the DMU (diesel multiple unit) from Manawala railway station to the Amritsar station. The train passed the accident site at the same time as it had done on Dasehra day (October 19). He said the DMU had reached the accident site seconds after the Amritsar-Howrah Mail, which had repeatedly whistled. Pathak said applying the emergency brake when the DMU was running at a speed of 92 km per hour would have caused the bogies to crash into one other. He said about 20 persons, mostly officials, were questioned on Sunday, adding that the Punjab Chief Secretary, Deputy Commissioner KS Sangha and Punjab Police officers had been intimated about the probe. He added that a civilian, Satyendra Kumar, had come forward to get his statement recorded. Pathak said the preliminary report would be submitted within 30 days and the final report in six months. Earlier, he visited Joda Phatak and held a session at the Northern Railway mechanical workshop. Local MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla met Pathak at the workshop. Aujla demanded that the DMU speedometer be checked for suspected tampering. MP raises questions Amritsar MP Gurjeet Aujla has asked the Railways to answer these questions editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 4 The proposed meeting between Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and a delegation of the protesting teachers, which was scheduled for Monday, was cancelled after the latter failed to call off their agitation. Talking to The Tribune, CMs political secretary Sandeep Sandhu said: During the talks the representatives of the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha had with Special Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar and me separately last week, it was decided that we will stop the ongoing transfers and scrap the web portal they were objecting to and in turn, the teachers will call off their protest. But due to internal differences, they did not stop the agitation. We cannot hold any talks with them under pressure, Sandhu said. Meanwhile, Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha convener Devinder Punia said their agitation would continue. We will celebrate black Diwali in Bathinda, Patiala and Amritsar, he said. The protesters on Sunday gave a memorandum to several Cabinet ministers at their residences urging them to accept their demands. We will raise slogans against the state government throughout the state on Diwali, said union leader Bikramjit Singh. The teachers have been staging a dharna in Patiala, since October 7. They are against the state government's decision to fix their monthly salary at Rs 15,000 during probation period for regularisation of their jobs. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Ropar, November 4 A complaint has been filed against Aam Aadmi Party leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira after he along with his security guards forcibly removed boom barriers at the Solakhian toll plaza today. Uma Shankar Ayyar, administrative officer of the toll plaza, in his complaint claimed that Khairas action led to heavy financial losses to the concessionaire. Khairas car reached the toll plaza at 11 am and after finding long queues he argued with the staff there that they could not harass commuters by making them wait for hours. He asked them to remove the boom barriers and let the vehicles pass without paying toll tax. Khaira claimed that forcing commuters to wait for more than three minutes at a toll plaza was violation of Supreme Courts ruling. When the toll plaza authorities did not budge, he with the help of his security guards removed the boom barriers. Khaira also uploaded the entire incident on the Facebook. Ayyar in his complaint said Khaira and his PSOs lifted boom barriers from lane number 5 to 10 and let hundreds of vehicles pass without paying user fee causing revenue loss to the concessionaire. He denied that there was a ruling from any court that commuters were not bound to pay user fee after waiting for more than three minutes. Khaira said commuters who paid hefty road tax were made to wait at toll plazas, adding that he would protest whenever he comes across such situation. The local SHO confirmed that he had received a complaint against Khaira and action would be taken in this regard only after preliminary investigation. However, this is not for the first time that a toll plaza witnessed such protest by a politician. Two years ago on December 29, 2016, Lok Insaf Party supremo Simarjit Singh Bains staged a protest at the Ladhowali toll plaza near Ludhiana against charging user fee from commuters despite making them wait in long queues. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Nabha, November 4 Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat said here on Sunday that the declaration of Referendum 2020 was an attempt by Pakistan to disturb peace in Punjab through modules sponsored by spy agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). As far as Punjab is concerned, the referendum talks about a deadline that has been announced internationally, but the fact is that there are similar threats to peace in the North East, he added. Recent arrests in terror-related cases should act as a wake-up call for everyone, including the people of the state. We need to be more cautious, especially in view of the festive season, the Army Chief said. I have read recent media reports of terror modules being busted in Punjab. It shows the neighbouring country is hell-bent on disturbing peace in Punjab as they know that the state is on the development track and the people dont back Referendum 2020, he said. Gen Rawat stated that the August rally in London in support of a separate state proved that attempts were being made to revive insurgency in Punjab. Foreign linkages are at work, he added. Talking to The Tribune on the sidelines of the founders day function at Punjab Public School (PPS) here, the Army Chief said peoples determination had helped them crush insurgency in Punjab. Earlier, Gen Rawat lauded Punjab Public School for giving many officers to the armed forces. Police issue alert amansharma@tribunemail.com Nabha (Patiala), November 4 A day after warning that attempts were being made to "revive insurgency" in Punjab, Army Chief General Bipan Rawat on Sunday accused Pakistan of trying to vitiate the atmosphere in the country. Rawat also stressed that people needed to be careful during the ongoing festival season to prevent anti-national forces from succeeding in their nefarious designs. "See we have a neighbouring country which always tries to vitiate atmosphere here. Our country is progressing which is not liked by them," Rawat told the media here. Rawat had on Saturday said "external linkages" were trying to "revive insurgency" in Punjab and Assam and if early action was not taken, it would be too late. Noting that Punjab was progressing at a "very fast" pace, Rawat said attempts were being made to disrupt peace in the state. "I have been reading what is coming out in the media. There is Referendum 2020 coming in the UK... Whatever we call it but there is an attempt being made to disrupt the peace again in Punjab," he said. "We have to be careful," Rawat added. Hundreds of people had turned up at the Trafalgar Square in London on August 12 in support of a pro-Khalistan rally. The Sikhs for Justice group had said its rally was intended to raise awareness for a non-binding referendum in 2020. The Army chief further said terror modules were busted in Punjab recently and people of the state must remain alert. "Punjab is such a state where militancy ended completely. Why? Because people of the state stopped it," Rawat said. Punjab had seen one of the worst phases of insurgencies in the 1980s when the pro-Khalistan movement was at its peak, which was eventually quelled by the government. The Army chief further asked the security agencies and the people of the country to remain alert as terrorists could strike in any part of the country during the festive season. "Festival season is coming and we need to be more alert at this time," he said. - PTI gspannu7@gmail.com Tribune News Service Amritsar, November 4 Railway Safety Chief Commissioner SK Pathak on Sunday began his probe into the train tragedy here on Dusshera in which about 60 people were killed and several others injured. A big boundary wall is 16.5 metres away from the railway track, he said. He said the DMU had arrived at the accident site fraction of seconds after the 700 metres long Howrah Mail had crossed which had abundantly whistled. After conducting a mock trial, he said applying brakes at 92 km per hour, it was found that the train took about 500 metres to halt. It meant that the run off site would have still come under its impact, he said. He ruled out applying of emergency brakes at that point as it would have caused compression zone causing boggeys to ram into one another. He informed that about 20 people were interviewed today and chief secretary Punjab, Deputy Commissioner Amritsar KS Sangha and Punjab Police officials were intimated regarding the probe. He added that one civilian, Satyendra Kumar, also came to record his statement. He stated that preliminary report would be submitted within 30 days and final report within six months. editorial@tribune.com Manmeet Singh Gill Tribune News Service Amritsar, November 4 Senior SAD leader and Khadoor Sahib MP Ranjit Singh Brahmpura on Sunday said he would not give up till party president Sukhbir Badal and former minister Bikram Majithia were ousted. He accused the duo of "destroying" the reputation of the party, Akal Takht and the SGPC. He said he was not worried about his expulsion from the party. Addressing a gathering of supporters at Chohla Sahib in his constituency, Brahmpura alleged that the duo had destroyed the party with their "misdeeds". He said the entire party leadership must seek forgiveness at Akal Takht. He, however, praised former CM Parkash Singh Badal and even stopped his supporters from shouting slogans against him. "He (Badal) has always considered my advice. But when I asked him to act against Sukhbir, he said it was beyond his control and then I decided to resign," the MP said. Brahmpura also accused the two leaders of running mafia and managing pardon for dera chief and Bargari killings. When dera supporters were protesting, the SAD didnt even warn them, but when Sikhs were protesting peacefully at Bargari, cops were ordered to open fire at them, he claimed. Meanwhile, several local leaders who the SAD had claimed had left Brahmpura, were present at the stage. shriaya.dutta@tribuneindia.com Massachusetts A recent US study claiming that radio-frequency radiation emitted by cell phones causes cancer in rats does not apply to humans, according to experts. There is "clear evidence" that male rats exposed to high levels of radio frequency radiation (RFR) like that used in cell phones developed cancerous heart tumours, the study had concluded. The USD 30 million study by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) that took 10 years to complete also showed "some evidence" of tumours in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats. Following the report, some NGOs and scientists propose that the WHO's Inter Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) must upgrade the present Group 2B (possible human carcinogen) classification of RF radiation to Group1 (human carcinogen). But specialist agencies have asserted that the finding does not apply to humans. The International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), the panel whose recommendations are followed by majority of nations and agencies such as the WHO, published a note categorically stating the study does not provide any actionable input to change the currently existing safety guidelines for RFR. It may be mentioned here that India's safety guidelines for RFR are only 10 per cent of the ICNIRP values. The US Federal Communication's Commission, the standard setting body in this field follows the advice of the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health. FDA has strongly criticised the conclusions of the USNTP study and restated that the current safety guidelines are adequately safe and there is no need to revise them. "For female rats, and male and female mice, the evidence was 'equivocal' as to whether cancers observed were associated with exposure to radio-frequency radiation," a statement from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said. "We believe that the link between radio frequency radiation and tumours in male rats is real, and the external experts agreed," senior NTP scientist John Bucher said. However, he conceded that one could not compare the exposures used in the studies directly with the exposure that humans experience when using a cell phone. On the limitations of the study, he said, "In our studies, rats and mice received radio frequency radiation across their whole bodies. By contrast, people are mostly exposed in specific local tissues close to where they hold the phone. In addition, the exposure levels and durations in our studies were greater than what people experience." The NTP reports reveal how difficult and expensive it is to set up a system, which exposes the statistically needed number of rats/mice (3000 in several groups) to reproducible, accurate doses of RFR. "We have relied on decades of research and hundreds of studies to have the most complete evaluation of radio frequency energy exposure. This information has given us the confidence that the current safety limits for cell phone radio frequency energy exposure remain acceptable for protecting the public health," Jeffrey Shuren, director of Center for Devices and Radiological Health, asserted. The FDA's mandate is to ensure that cell phones and any radiation emitting electronic product are safe for the public to use. Shuren assured the public that "we only begin to observe effects to animal tissue at exposures that are 50 times higher than the current whole body safety limits set up by the Federal Communication Commission for radio frequency energy exposure". He referred to the unusual findings in the study: the rats exposed to whole body radio frequency energy lived longer than rats that were not exposed to any radiation (control group); only male rats exposed to the highest radiofrequency energy dosage developed a statistically significant number of heart schwannomas, which are very rare in humans, when compared to the control group in this experiment. He disagreed with the NTP's finding of clear evidence for heart schwannomas. There was a lack of a clear relationship between the doses of radiation administered to the animals and their subsequent tumour rate. "The study was a huge fishing expedition that looked at many tissues and did not correct for multiple comparison issues. Consequently the results (increase in one rare tumour type in male but not female rats, and not in mice of either sex) may be statistical flukes," Ken Foster, professor bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, told this writer. He also felt that, as the exposures to the animals were very high, their body temperature increased, so there may have been some level of heat stress. "So if there is a real effect it may well be due to heating," he cautioned. Will NTP study trigger a revision of IARC's classification of RFR? "I am skeptical that IARC would consider the totality of evidence changed sufficient to have another assessment by the working group." he replied. "IARC classifications are based on a rigorous set of decision rules, but in practice they are interpreted by a group with its own biases so things are not as pure and free of politics as one might hope," Foster said. On September 4, the ICNIRP questioned the usefulness of the NTP studies, noting their inconsistencies and limitations. The studies did not provide a consistent, reliable and generalisable body of evidence for use as a basis for revising the current human exposure guidelines, it said. PTI laxmi@tribune.com AT the State Banquet held at Srinagar on the 31st instant, His Excellency the Viceroy made a long speech, expressing appreciation of the good work going on in Kashmir. In the course of a reference to the war His Excellency said "the record of exploits of Kashmir troops must be a source of pride to His Highness and his Commander-in-Chief Raja Sir Hari Singh and also to Brigadier-General Rose and all the inspecting officers who have laboured so hard and successfully in bringing those fine troops to such a high state of efficiency." sanjiv@tribunemail.com DUBAI, November 4 Iranians chanting Death to America rallied on Sunday to mark both the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent reimposition of US sanctions on Irans oil sector. Thousands of students in the government-organised rally in the capital Tehran, broadcast live by state television, burned the Stars and Stripes, an effigy of Uncle Sam and pictures of President Donald Trump outside the leafy downtown compound that once housed the US mission. Hardline students stormed the embassy on November 4, 1979 soon after the fall of the US-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days. The two countries have been enemies, on opposite sides of Middle East conflict, ever since. Iranian state media said millions turned out for rallies in most cities and towns around the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and its hardline top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The turnout figure could not be independently confirmed by Reuters. Rallies replete with Death to America chants are staged on the embassy takeover anniversary every year. But US-Iranian rancour is especially strong this time round following Trumps decision in May to withdraw the United States from world powers 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. Reuters sanjiv@tribunemail.com Beijing, November 4 China on Sunday said it supported Pakistans quest for peace through dialogue to settle the outstanding disputes with India as it backed Islamabads engagement with the Nuclear Suppliers group. A joint statement, issued here after Prime Minister Imran Khans talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, said that China backed Pakistans efforts to improve ties with India to settle outstanding disputes, without directly mentioning the Kashmir issue. China appreciates Pakistans quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistans efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries, the joint statement said. The ties between India and Pakistan had strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016 and Indias surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In recent years, China has refrained from taking a public stance on the India-Pakistan ties, expressing hope for resolution of the disputes through dialogue. PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Washington, November 3 Illegal immigration costs American taxpayers US$ 100 billion a year, President Donald Trump has said as he slammed the opposition Democratic party for advocating an open border policy facilitating an easy entry of illegal immigrants into the US. His comments came amid a row over a caravan of an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people mostly from three Latin American countries El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala who are currently at the southern US border along Mexico with the intention to enter America. Trump said that soldiers deployed to stop the illegal immigrants from entering the US would not open fire, but would arrest them if they threw stones at the troops. Illegal immigration costs American taxpayers more than US$ 100 billion every single year, more than three times the entire state budget of Indiana. We need to use our precious resources to help our fellow Americans who respect our laws, not illegal caravans who break into our borders and break our laws," Trump said at an election rally in Indiana. Democrat immigration policies not only drain US treasury, but they threaten communities, he alleged. Nearly 100 per cent of heroin in the US enters through the southern border, along with roughly 90 per cent of the cocaine, the majority of meth and a substantial portion of the ultra-lethal fentanyl, killing youths all over the country, the President claimed. Trump said that the Caravan of people coming from Latin American countries have some criminals in it. In the caravan, more than 300 people have criminal records and have serious problems that US don't want to get involved with. The administration wants people coming in, but they have to come in legally. The November 6 mid-term elections is about security. This election is about prosperity, Trump said. "For years, you watched as we let foreign countries plunder our wealth, shutter our factories, and steal our jobs. But those days, if you haven't noticed, are over. "I recently announced that we are replacing the horrible NAFTA deal, one of the worst trade deals, with an incredible, brand-new US-Mexico-Canada agreement. The USMCA is a giant victory for Indiana farmers, manufacturers and dairy producers," he told his supporters as he listed out his achievements. Trump said that his administration has taken the toughest ever action to crackdown on China's very abusive trade practices. "And I spoke to (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping) today. They want to make a deal, but we have to have a fair deal. We have to have a deal that's fair for the United States," he said. And China has to open up their borders for US companies, he demanded. Trump said he withdrew the US from the horrible, one-sided Iran nuclear deal. "And just today, we announced that we are re-imposing all sanctions lifted under that ridiculous deal that should have never been signed in the first place," he said. We will have in place the toughest ever sanctions on this brutal Iranian regime. And at some point, they're going to get very smart and they're going to come back and negotiate a real deal, a fair deal, and a deal that lets them thrive. We want them to thrive," Trump said. The US has recognised the capital of Israel and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem, he said. Together, we have made extraordinary progress, and we are just getting started. But the Democrats want to turn back the clock, put America in reverse, and give power back to a corrupt, selfish ruling class that only looks out for themselves. I know them well," Trump added. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com Noumea, November 4 The Pacific islands of New Caledonia opted to remain part of France on Sunday, early results showed, as voters rejected independence in a closely-watched referendum seen as a measure of support for Paris in one of its many strategic outposts. Some 18,000 kms from the French mainland, New Caledonia is home to a quarter of the world's known supplies of nickel-a vital electronics component-and is a foothold for France in the Pacific. With 70 per cent of voting slips counted, 59.5 per cent of people had rejected the proposition that New Caledonia become independent, the local electoral authority said. Some 175,000 people were eligible to vote in the remote islands fringed by spectacular beaches, with opinion polls ahead of Sunday's ballot predicting a large majority in favour of staying French. But there are fears the referendum could inflame tensions between indigenous Kanak people, who tend to favour independence, and the white population which has settled since France annexed the islands in 1853. These differences caused ethnic strife in the 1980s which claimed more than 70 lives. It led to the 1998 Noumea Accord which paved the way for a steady devolution of powers as well as Sunday's referendum. Separatists had urged Kanak voters to choose self-determination for Kanaky, their name for New Caledonia, and throw off the shackles of the "colonial" authorities in Paris. The Kanak community is plagued by high school dropout rates, chronic unemployment and poor housing conditions. "My father, my grandfather fought for this country and today is the second fight in the ballot box," said pro-independence supporter Patrick Watrone as he voted Sunday. "Today, us young Kanaks, we have no jobs. If we are the ones who manage the country, we will have more opportunities," said Fabrice Ude, 28. But indigenous people make up less than 50 per cent of the electorate and some Kanaks back staying part of France, not least due to the 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) the French state hands to the islands every year. Going it alone, "I'm not sure we have all the assets we'd need to succeed," said Marc Gnipate, a 62-year-old pensioner. Michaele Mikena, 61, also "voted no. I'm not afraid of independence, but I am attached to France, I owe it a lot". Under the 1998 deal, further referendums on independence can still be held before 2022. French President Emmanuel Macron, who is due to give a televised address after the results, has largely stayed clear of the campaign but during a visit to Noumea in May he declared "France would be less beautiful without New Caledonia". He also raised concerns over increasing Chinese influence in the Pacific, where Beijing has invested heavily in Vanuatu, a territory which broke from France and Britain in 1980. Accusing the US of "turning its back on the region in recent months", Macron said China was "building its hegemony step by step" in the Pacific-suggesting an independent New Caledonia could be Beijing's next target. Australia has also expressed concerns about China's activities in neighbouring island states-which the Lowy Institute think-tank estimates received USD1.78 billion in aid from Beijing from 2006-16 -- boosting its own spending in response. Home to 269,000 people, New Caledonia is one of a handful of French island outposts-a legacy of the country's 19th-century empire-which retain strategic importance. The referendum will be a test of the appeal of remaining part of France for such far-flung territories, which are heavily dependent on state handouts but where many feel overlooked by Paris. Both French Guiana in South America and the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte have been rocked since last year by major protests over living standards and perceived neglect. France also faces renewed calls for independence from nationalists on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. - AFP sanjiv@tribunemail.com PARIS, November 4 The South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia voted against independence from France on Sunday in a long-awaited referendum that capped a 30-year long decolonisation process. A yes vote would have deprived Paris of a foothold in the Indo-Pacific region where China is expanding its presence, and dented the pride of a former colonial power whose reach once spanned the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific Ocean. Based on provisional results and with a participation rate of nearly 80 per cent, the No vote stood at 56.9 per cent, local TV station NC La 1ere reported on its website. The New Caledonians have chosen to remain French...It is a vote of confidence in the French republic, its future and its values, President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech on French television. The referendum was the first auto-determination vote to be held in a French territory since Djibouti in the Horn of Africa voted for independence in 1977. Voters in the largely self-governing territory had been asked the question, Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent? Macron said he understood the disappointment of those who wanted independence, but added that the French state would ensure liberty, equality and fraternity for everyone. Reuters sanjiv@tribunemail.com A 10-foot bronze statue in honour of Indian soldiers who fought during World War I was unveiled at Smethwick in Englands West Midlands region on Sunday. Unveiling comes a week before Armistice Day on November 11. Guru Nanak Gurdwara, Smethwick, had commissioned the Lions of the Great War monument, which depicts a Sikh soldier, to honour the sacrifices made by millions of South Asian personnel of all faiths. gspannu7@gmail.com Colombo, November 4 President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday announced reconvening of Parliament on November 14, which he had suspended two days after sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickeremesinghe and replacing him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksha. According to a gazette notification, issued by his Secretary Udaya R Seneviratne on Sunday evening, the assembly would be recalled on November 14. In a dramatic turn of events last month, Rajapaksha became the new prime minister of the Indian Ocean island nation after Sirisena sacked premier Wickremesinghe who termed the move as unconstitutional and vowed to prove his majority in Parliament. The sudden development came amid growing tensions between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe on several policy matters and the president has been critical of the prime minister and his policies, especially on economy and security. PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com Colombo, November 4 Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksas legislator son Namal Sunday indicated that the long-held demand of Tamil minority community to release all Tamil prisoners may be fulfilled soon, a move aimed at persuading the Tamil legislators to support Rajapaksa. President (Maithripala) Sirisena and Prime Minister Rajapaksa would make a decision (on the issue) very soon, Namal tweeted in Tamil language. Since the war with the LTTE ended in 2009, the Sri Lankan government has denied that those imprisoned LTTE members are political prisoners. Tamils say some of the prisoners have been held over a long time under anti-terrorism law without even being formally charged. Namals comments are aimed at persuading the legislators in the Sri Lankas main Tamil partyTamil National Alliance (TNA)to switch their allegiance to Rajapaksa in his bid to prove majority in the parliament. So far Rajapaksa has 100 MPs on his side while sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has 103 MPs in the 225-member assembly. Most of the 22 remaining MPs, including the TNA, are likely to oppose Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa camp had already enticed a TNA legislator to join ranks by giving him a deputy ministerial position. The TNAs parliamentary strength has been reduced to 15 as a result and there was speculation that at least 4 more of them were willing to support Rajapaksa. The TNA has said it will support a no-trust motion Rajapaksa, amid mounting pressure on President Sirisena to let the suspended parliament hold a vote to end the ongoing political crisis. In a statement, the TNA Saturday said Rajapaksas appointment was a violation of the Constitutions 19th amendment. The alliance had decided to vote in favour of the no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa, the statement said. Rajapaksa claims he has enough numbers to prove his majority and at least six of Wickremasinghes men have defected to his side. The current suspension of parliament by the president is seen as a key to Rajapaksa negotiating for enough defections. Wickremesinghe was sacked by President Sirisena on October 26. His United National Party claims that Wickremesinghes sacking was unconstitutional and illegal. The presidents move has plunged the country into a constitutional crisis with Wickremesinghe claiming he is still the prime minister. PTI THE murder toll continues to rise following the shooting deaths of three men in separate incidents between Thursday evening and yesterday morning. The killings took place in Laventille, San Juan and Freeport. Two of the victims have been identified as Aaron Thomas and Nathaniel Phillip, while the victim in the Freeport incident remained unidentified up to yesterday evening. The pre-election splurge by the PNM-led Tobago House of Assembly (THA) draws attention to constitutional loopholes that should be addressed. Here is an administration which went in with a comfortable majority for the election which was held in January this year and came out in a dead heat with the challenger party. -:- Message from Tripadvisor staff -:- This topic has been closed to new posts due to inactivity. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one. To review the Tripadvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason. Hi guys, I'm traveling to Christchurch via Sydney. My connecting flight is an 8hr 10 minute layover. I won't have a visa as my application was sent to VACCU for assessment. Will the 10 minutes over the 8hr allowed be an issue for me. Hi to all, My husband and I are visiting CR for the first time this December. It's our honeymoon so I really want to plan it as optimally as possible. We are flying into SJO and renting a 4x4 there. We have 12 days in CR, then we continue to Panama. For the first night (we arrive rather late) we booked at Villas Calas, close to La Paz waterfall and on the next day we are heading to La Fortuna/ Arenal. We plan to spend 3 nights in Arenal, 2 nights in Bijagua, 2 in Monteverde, 3-4 in Manuel Antonio. We are not yet fully decided on the rest of days, but want to be somewhere with an easy acces to Panamian border later on. I look forward to your opinions... 1. Do you find this itinerary doable, especially in terms of driving time? Should we add/skip any of the places? 2. Is Poas Volcano open to the public? If we havre just one morning, where should we visit? 3. Is Monteverde clooud forest worth it? (We want to go on a canopy tour, but I read the weather can be fairly bad there. Would it be more reasonable to extend some of our previous stops (Arenal or Bijagua)? I may add while we wish to see some wildlife, (just) burds won't drive us nuts :)) 4. What activities/tours in Arenal area do you reccommend most? We would like to combine some (not too demanding) hiking with thermal springs in the evening... I would appreciate proposals of less touristy hikes/tours... 5. Where should we spent the last few nights in CR? Would missing out on Corcovado NP/ Drake Bay be a mistake (if so, how to incorporate it?) 6. For which of the national parks would you recommend hiring a guide? Can we find one at a spot or is prebooking necessary? Thank you all in advance for your comments and recommendations. BR, Tjasa I've gone back and forth on our itinerary but have it down now. My original plans had too much moving around and going in and out of Vietnam going to Cambodia which we have decided to check out another time. The only think we have booked is our flights to Vietnam and home, and our first few nights in Hanoi and a few nights in Nihn Bihn. Arrive Hanoi - Nov 24. 3 nights in Hanoi -- then off to do a night night cruise in Halong Bay -- then 3 nights in Nihn Bihn. On Dec 2, we plan on going back to Hanoi to fly to HCMC. I've got Dec 2-9 in the South. (8 nights) At this time of year, is is better to have everything pre booked or is it ok to look into things when we are there? Like the cruise in HB? It looks like there are a lot of flights from Hanoi to HCMC. I'm normally a pre booker but haven't even looked at flights yet. Should I be booking that ASAP? We don't have a lot planned for HCMC yet. Any tips/suggestions? We do want to spend 2-3 days at the Mekong Delta... Thanks to all that have helped me already and thank you to anyone that can help in my last min planning. Hello - We're making a first time trip to Japan the last week of February/first week of March. We have 11 days, and this is a surprise trip for our Japan-obsessed 12 year old daughter. Most of the trip I will be trying to make up for the fact that we are NOT going to bunny island. I'm hoping feeding some deer in Nara and seeing some monkeys in hot springs will make up for that. She's into Sailor Moon and all things Kawaii and most of her idea about Japan is about Tokyo, but she's also averse to noise, crowds and cigarette smoke (I know this will be a challenge and trying to manage this with quiet retreats and alternating more active days with rest days. Her other must-do is DisneySea. I've saved some money to splurge on a private tour or an extra experience or two, and wondering where to insert that. Also wondering if/how to try to spot Mt. Fuji in the distance somewhere along the way. Here's what I have planned. Days where I state "open touring" I am also open to the idea of a day trip. Friday - Arrive Narita early evening and get to hotel #1 in Nihonbashi. Saturday - Open touring in Tokyo Sunday- Open touring in Tokyo Monday - Open touring in Tokyo Tuesday - DisneySea Wednesday - Train to Kyoto, hotel #2, open touring in Kyoto Thursday - Day trip to Nara Friday - Open touring in Kyoto Saturday - Travel to Monkey Park, hotel #3 Sunday - Explore Monkey park Monday - Travel back to Tokyo, hotel #4 in Harajuku area (this is so that all the coveted junk, er I mean treasures, from the Daiso 100 yen store can be purchased on the day of departure and not lugged around the entire trip) Tuesday - Last morning in Harajuku area, travel to Narita for 6:30pm flight Any advice or ideas appreciated! Thank you!! Hello All, I will be enjoying my sabbatical in New Zealand for two months next year and my plan is to dedicate around 4-5 days to Fiji at the end of April. I'm a photographer and my one and only plan is to capture some of those lovely white sand beaches & palmtrees that the Mamanuca group has to offer. I'm not interested in snorkelling and Nadi also doesn't impress me much on photos, so it's really just the islands I want to focus on. I will probably want to see Monuriki (because of Cast Away) but other than that I have no concrete plans yet. My questions: 1) Can I base myself in Nadi and return there every day? 2) Can I do island hopping with those ferries? E.g. start DAY 1 on Monuriki, spend a few hours there, then on my way back to Nadi check out another island for a few hours, and then do something similar on DAY 2 and 3. I was trying to check out the website of Mamanuca express but I really do not see them offering such "packages". 3) How much would I pay for the ferry tickets? Also struggling to find concrete info on this (and the Bula pass seems to be a no-go for me, as I'm planning to visit a few islands only and then call it a day) 4) Which islands would you recommend besides the Tom Hanks island that fit the above criteria? 5) Would you suggest that I check out the Yasawa group too or will I be better off with just focusing on the Mamanucas? Thank you for your help in advance! Aron Re: Anyone use LAXride.net to and from LaGuardia? 5. Re: Anyone use LAXride.net to and from LaGuardia? Never heard of them. I wouldn't go near them here. I think the best thing you can do is to get a cab from LGA to Penn Station, and take the Amtrak train to Philly; then take a cab home. Purchase your Amtrak ticket as soon as possible, in advance, because the cheaper seats sell out. Amtrak itself suggests purchasing two weeks ahead, but I've found for several trips along the Northeast Corridor that two weeks out is insufficient to get the cheapest tickets at the times you want. More like two months before is better. Depending upon what time and day your flight gets in, cab fare to Penn will probably be about $50. Here's a link to Amtrak: If the Amtrak fares are too steep, you could also take NJ Transit to Trenton, and transfer there for a SEPTA train. Voter turnout Voter turnout in the 2014 mid-term elections was the lowest in over 70 years, with just 36.4 percent of eligible voters casting ballots. Since 1964 when turnout was close to 49 percent, voter participation had been dropping. One of the most prevalent reasons for the lack of voter turnout is the inability of many folks to get to the polls on Election Day. This year the NAACP has launched a Power of 5 Campaign, which includes a charge to get voters to the polls by asking people to take leadership of their own spheres of influence by ensuring that 5 people are able to get to the polls on Election Day, November 6th. In Rensselaer County we are committed to increasing voter turnout in this years midterms. We encourage all voters to join our campaign to help 5 of your friends, relatives or neighbors get to the polls next Tuesday. The future belongs to you. Make it happen. We also want it to be known that the Rensselaer County/Troy Branch of the NAACP is in total support of and concerned for the safety of our Jewish brothers and sisters, we stand with them in this troublesome time now, in the past and in the future. Billy Carter President Rensselaer County NAACP Support for Tistrya Houghtling for New York State Assembly As a small business owner in Columbia County, I am writing in support of Tistrya Houghtling for New York State Assembly in the 107th District. Tistrya is hardworking and driven just like many of the small business owners I know. She understands many of the difficult issues small business owners face in New York Stateand how important successful businesses are in making our communities thrive and grow stronger. Tistrya will be an outspoken voice for us in Albany to bring the beneficial changes we need not only for new start up businesses but also helping thoses of us who have been in business for many years. On November 6th, Vote Tistrya! Linda Hursa Angels Trumpet Flowers & Gifts New Lebanon,NY - Uhuru had given the police officers 90 days to vacate the government leased houses - Boinnet disclosed the police would start receiving house allowances from December 2018 - Government will Boinnet build houses for officers who want to rent close to stations Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet has confirmed government commitment to police reform agenda on house allowance following President Uhuru Kenyatta's directive requiring cops to vacate public houses. Speaking to officers at Embakasi Police College on Saturday, November 3, Boinnet disclosed the police would start receiving house allowances from December 2018, based on Nairobi housing rates. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Administration Police to start taking criminals to court in latest police reforms Boinnet(left) addresses police officers. He confirmed the government will disburse police house allowance in December. Photo: National Police Service/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Administration Police to start taking criminals to court in latest police reforms Responding questions from the juniors, Boinnet indicated plans are underway to build more houses for officers who want to rent close to station so as to avoid heavy traffic jam. He added it is upon them to choose where to stay as long as they do not abscond duties. "We want our officers to work without having to worry about their families. Some of the officers have been working on shifts due to lack of housing. Going forward, each can operate from anywhere," Boinnet said. READ ALSO: Administration Police to start taking criminals to court in latest police reforms As part of ambitious police reforms, junior police and prison officers who currently reside in government leased houses will vacate by January 31. To effect the new policy, Uhuru asked the National Treasury to initiate termination of all leases with landlords of police estates within 90 days of the effective date of the new allowances after which the officers will be required to enter into tenancies with property owners. The changes are meant to ease congestion in government police houses and help the officers to settle down in houses with their families comfortably. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Joseph Irungu and Jacque Maribe in court over the murder of Monica Kimani - On Tuko TV Source: Kenyan Breaking News - Uhuru noted it is wrong to celebrate leaders after their demise - In August, 30 women traiblazers were feted with various state commendations - Uhuru reiterated his administration is keen to celebrate women achievers The government has embarked on initiative which will see great Kenyan women who made tremendous contributions to the society recognised when they are still alive. Through Trailblazers Programme, President Uhuru Kenyatta said his administration intends to create a special day to remember some of the women trailblazers for their selfless outstanding achievement. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Former Maendeleo ya Wanawake leader Jane Kiano is dead Uhuru Kenyatta said plans are underway to create a day to celebrate women trailblazers. Photo: Uhuru Kenyatta/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: My father, Uhuru's father were just hustlers who worked their way up - Raila Odinga The president who spoke during the funeral mass for the ex-Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organisation chairperson, Jane Kiano, noted it is wrong to celebrate leaders after their demise. "A time has come for us to recognise the women who have made great contribution to this country. We will no longer wait until they pass on to celebrate them. This is why we are running the trailblazer program to honour such women, he said. READ ALSO: Raila humbled by Uhurus move to award Ida Odinga with prestigious title Jane was feted alongside other 29 women on Thursday, August 23, with various state commendations which saw Ida Odinga, wife to ODM leader Raila Odinga scoop Elder of the Order of the Golden Heart of Kenya award. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Joseph Irungu and Jacque Maribe in court over the murder of Monica Kimani - on Tuko TV. Source: Tuko.co.ke By now, everyone is well aware of the stereotypes often attached to their ethnic group. Do not get me wrong, it is all fun and games. So in all the years you have spent on God's green earth I am sure you have laughed, sneered or giggled after hearing what people think of your tribe. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Former ex-Aunty Boss actress Shiro finally addresses marriage woes, reveals she has a lot to say READ ALSO: New love interest? Vera Sidika caught wining and dining with hot Tanzanian model Calisah Kenyans on social media decided to come up with a new fun way to bring people together as they described what goes on in the minds of people from different ethnic groups. Kambas have for long been associated with mangoes and bright, screaming colours like orange and yellow. READ ALSO: Heartwarming photos from Sonko's adopted son's graduation ceremony Apparently, they are also obsessed with romping and woman eating. Please do not shoot the messenger Our Luo brothers are often criticised for running to the streets to riot or throw stones. Lol do not sulk my people these are the words of Kenyans not ours. READ ALSO: Afueni baada ya utafiti kupata dawa ya kutibu HIV/AIDS Kikuyus on the other hand have been described as people who will sell you anything at any time. Apparently, they also have a thing for uthamaki, whatever that is. Kenyans on various social media platforms then went ahead to say throughout their lives they were made to believe all cows and pieces of land belong to the Masai. Is it true though? Now, the list is endless. In the midst of the fun, netizens also found a way to attack slay queens and what they describe as fuckboys. Be prepared to laugh! What would you describe as the perfect slay queen starter pack? I would say, fake designer bags and attire, sponsor one and two on speed dial and heels higher than their standards. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Shosh Cecilia Story Continues: Shosh Cecilia Gets New Teeth | Tuko TV Source: Tuko.co.ke - Uhuru is expected to sign deals that will step up horticultural exports to China - He is in China at a time the country is tossed in a fish import row with China - Kenya has accumulated huge debts from China as a result of close diplomatic relations - A section of citizens feel the country is already enslaved to the Asian country President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to pen an avocado export deal during his visit in China where he is set to attend the first China International Import Expo (CIIE). The deal is also expected to bolster the export of other horticultural products, for instance, mangoes and cashew nuts to the expansive Chinese market. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Government lifts ban on Chinese fish imports Uhuru arrived in Shanghai on the morning of Saturday and he is among the top guests who have turned up for the trade fair which will kick off on Monday. Photo: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: President Uhuru Kenyatta to lead delegation of horticultural farmers to China Uhuru arrived in Shanghai on the morning of Saturday, November 3, and he is among the top guests who have turned up for the trade fair which will kick off on Monday, November 5, to Saturday, November 10. On Sunday, November 4, Uhuru met with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping who he held talks with. READ ALSO: China threatens to stop SGR funding after Kenya bans Chinese fish imports The meeting was focused on promoting economic and trade exchange and cooperation between the two countries. It is the second trip trip Uhuru is making to the Asian super power in a period of less than three months. The September visit saw the head of state sign a private-public partnership deal for infrastructural development to a tune of at least KSh 15 billion. Uhuru is in China amid a time when there is a heated debate on importation of Chinese fish that is feared to have flooded the Kenyan market. READ ALSO: Afueni baada ya utafiti kupata dawa ya kutibu HIV/AIDS The department of fisheries had issued a ban aimed at collapsing fished imports from China from January 2019. It, however, on Monday, October 29, lifted the ban stating it needed more time to develop frameworks that will guide the implementation of the ban. "This is to inform you that the same had been put to stay to allow further consultations, assessments, and development of frameworks for handling tilapia imports," the statement form the department's boss Susan Imende read. READ ALSO: China defends corporal punishment against Kenyan SGR workers, says its part of Chinese culture A section political pundits, however, interpreted the lift as a move to quell what seemed like a raging trade war between Nairobi and Beijing ahead of Uhuru's visit. China had on the other hand, threatened to impose trade sanctions on Kenya stating that the ban would be unfair treatment for Chinese people trading in the county. TUKO.co.ke, nonetheless, understands the country is yet to secure funding for the execution of Phase 2B of the Naivasha - Kisumu SGR despite an existing pact. Some political pundits have interpreted the funds delay as China's reaction against the governments's intentions to paralyse fish trade. China has, however, affirmed that it has no intentions of creating business rifts with Kenya whatsoever. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. How street Women In Kenya Deal With Periods | Tuko TV. Source: Tuko President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, who is currently on an official visit to Turkey, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew have signed an agreement on cooperation and collaboration between Ukraine and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The presidents meeting with the patriarch was held behind closed doors in Istanbul, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. Today is a historic day, which was founded on the first days of the restoration of Ukraines independence, Poroshenko said in a short statement after the meeting. According to the president, the signed agreement "creates all the conditions for the preparation process for a unification assembly and the process of providing a tomos to be brought into clear correspondence with the canons of the Orthodox Church." In turn, Patriarch Bartholomew stated that a decision regarding the autocephaly of the Ukrainian church "will lead to the unity of all members of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine." He said that as a result of the meeting, the agreement on cooperation between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ukraine had been signed. As reported, on October 11, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to issue a tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. ish The patriarch noted that the Russian government justified its 2014 seizure of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula by articulating a blanket assertion that Moscow has the right and the obligation of protecting and defending the Russian-speaking population anywhere in the world. The leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate says steps toward independence from Moscow must be carried out carefully to avoid giving the Kremlin a pretext for further Russian incursions into Ukrainian territory. Patriarch Filaret's statement came after a synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople chaired by Patriarch Bartholomew I, who is considered the leader of the 300-million-strong worldwide Orthodox community, decreed on October 11 to "proceed to the granting of Autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine," RFE/RL reports. The synod, however, made sure to warn against violence and attempted property takeovers. In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL, Filaret talked in detail about the process of establishing a fully independent Ukrainian church Read alsoPatriarch Filaret to ask Ukraine's parliament to rename UOC of Moscow Patriarchate Believers have the right to choose, Filaret said. If any parish wants to switch from the Moscow Patriarchate and join the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, then two-thirds of the parish must vote for that transition. As of now, more than 150 parishes have joined us, he said. The most delicate issue surrounding the official separation is competing property-ownership claims of the Kyiv Patriarchate and Moscow-loyal church representatives in Ukraine. Filaret insists there will be no illegal seizures of church buildings in Ukraine that are currently under the control of the Moscow-loyal church, which is under the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church. Read alsoTraitors or Russian agents? Clergy caught in Ukraine church row This is what Moscow wants raider seizures that create the grounds for interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, Filaret told RFE/RL. Filaret noted that the Russian government justified its 2014 seizure of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula by articulating a blanket assertion that Moscow has the right and the obligation of protecting and defending the Russian-speaking population anywhere in the world. Now they want to create conditions [where they can claim their activities are] for the protection of the Orthodox believers, Filaret said. Knowing this, we do not want to give them a reason for interference in our internal [affairs], and therefore there will be no forcible seizure of church buildings." Nevertheless, Filaret rejected the Moscow Patriarchates claims to the famous Kyiv Pechersk Lavra the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves. The almost 1,000-year-old monastery in Kyiv is a Ukrainian national monument, a center of Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe, and the place of residence for the leader of the Russia-loyal church, Metropolitan Onufriy. Everyone knows that Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is a Ukrainian shrine that is the states property, Filaret told RFE/RL. Therefore, they can say anything, but the laws say a completely different thing. Read also"This is disinformation": Filaret on alleged plans to "seize temples" once autocephaly granted to Ukraine church Still, Filaret insisted the Kyiv patriarchate does not want to forcibly seize lavras or other monasteries or parishes in Ukraine. All such disputes, he said, should be resolved on a "voluntary basis. The 89-year-old Filaret had been a front-runner to head the Russian Orthodox Church during the Soviet era. But he was excommunicated in 1997 over his efforts to set up the Kyiv Patriarchate as an independent Ukrainian church following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraines Moscow-loyal church, as well as the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, consider the Kyiv Patriarchate as schismatic and heretical. The investigation into the attack on the activist has not yet revealed the organizers of the atrocious assault. Kherson activist, adviser to the Mayor of Kherson and acting manager of affairs at Kherson City Council's executive committee Kateryna Handziuk, 33, died on November 4, her fellow activists wrote on Facebook. Handziuk was attacked on July 31. Someone hurled at her sulphuric acid from a bottle. According to unconfirmed reports, the death was caused by a blood clot that broke off, InfoResist wrote. Over 30% of the total body surface area was affected by severe burns, and doctors assessed her condition as serious. As the case gained wide media coverage, the police reported the detention of the first suspect, a local resident whose name is Mykola Novikov, 39, but witnesses claimed he had an alibi. He was later released from custody after charges were dropped. The attack on Kateryna Handziuk was ordered by law enforcers, according to a posting on Facebook by Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko. According to a photocopy of the case file memo on transferring the materials to the Security Service of Ukraine, posted by Mr Lutsenko, the attack had been carried out with the "assistance of separatist organizations in the south of Ukraine" and aimed at "destabilization of socio-political situation" in the region. The United Nations in Ukraine condemned the appalling attack on a civil activist Kateryna Handziuk. "The United Nations in Ukraine is also closely following up other recent attacks on civil activists in Ukraine. All cases have been or will be documented and analyzed by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine," the United Nations in Ukraine said. "We call on the government and law-enforcement agencies to conduct a transparent, comprehensive and effective investigation into the attack on Kateryna, and into all such cases. We reiterate that a vibrant civil society with guaranteed fundamental right to freedom of speech and security is necessary for transparent and accountable governance," said the report. The president urged law enforcers to do their best to punish those responsible for the attack on the Kherson official and anti-corruption activist. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko called on law enforcement agencies to make every effort to bring to responsibility those guilty of the acid attack on a Kherson city council official and prominent civic activist Kateryna Handziuk, who died at a Kyiv hospital November 4 after a long treatment. Speaking to a Ukrainian community in Antalya during his Turkey visit, Poroshenko said: I have just been informed that activist Kateryna Handziuk, who was splashed with acid in a monstrous attack, unfortunately, died in a hospital, Poroshenko said. Now I'd like to ask our law enforcers to do everything possible to find the murderers, punish them, to make sure that they appear at the dock. We all must join forces to make this happen, help law enforcement agencies, the police, so that the evil is punished, Poroshenko said. Read alsoActivist survives attack in Dnipropetrovsk region: Smashed in head with brass knuckles (Photo) As UNIAN reported earlier, Kherson activist, adviser to the Mayor of Kherson and acting manager of affairs at Kherson City Council's executive committee Kateryna Handziuk on July 31 survived an act of acid throwing. Handziuk's injury was over 30% of the total body surface area, and doctors assessed her condition as serious. She was transferred to a Kyiv hospital, where died on November 4 after long treatment. She reportedly died of a blood clot. Police qualified the attack on the official as an attempted murder committed with extreme cruelty. Six suspects were detained, one of whom was later released from custody as charges against him were dropped. Three suspects Vyacheslav Vishnevsky, Volodymyr Vasyanovych, and Viktor Horbunov are now under house arrest. The alleged organizer of the assassination, Serhiy Torbin, remains in custody. On two occasions, Russian proxy forces fired from weapons proscribed by Minsk agreements. Over the past day, the situation in the Joint Forces Operation zone remained under full control of Ukraine troops while Russian invaders opened fire on the positions of the Ukrainian troops 20 times. At the same time, Russian proxy forces on two occasions used weapons proscribed by Minsk agreements, the JFO press service reports. "Russian occupation troops fired from 82 mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, large-caliber machine guns, and small arms at the JF positions in the areas of Zolotoe, Shumy, Avdiyivka, Pisky, Nevelske, Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Bohdanivka, Chermalyk, Pavlopil, Vodiane, and Shyroke," reads the report. Read alsoJFO: Ukraine reports 22 enemy attacks in Donbas in past 24 hours Two Ukrainian soldiers were injured in the shelling. The defenders of Zolote and Pisky came under fire from 82mm mortars, while Ukraine positions near Nevelske were shot at the enemy infantry fighting vehicles," the report says. Three times over the past day, hostilities erupted outside Krasnohorivka in the Donetsk direction. Invaders opened aimed fire from grenade launchers and large-caliber machine guns. Units of the Joint Forces adequately returned fire from regular means. According to intelligence data, over the past 24 hours three invaders were killed and another three were wounded. The JFO HQ added that from day-start on Sunday, the enemy fired at Ukrainian positions three times - in the areas of Avdiyivka, Hnutove and Novotoshkivske. Near the latter settlement, 10 enemy mines of 82 mm caliber landed on the positions of Ukraine defenders. A JF soldier was wounded in action. Russian proxy forces eight times used weapons proscribed by the Minsk agreements. From day-start on Sunday, Russian occupation forces violated the ceasefire in Donbas 14 times, according to the press center of the Joint Forces Operation HQ. One Ukrainian soldier was killed in the shelling and another two were injured. At the same time, it is noted that the Russian proxy forces eight times used weapons proscribed by the Minsk agreements. "The enemy opened aimed fire from mortars of various calibers, weapons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, as well as grenade launchers, large-caliber machine guns, and small arms," the JFO HQ said. Read alsoDonbas war update: 20 attacks, two soldiers injured Russian occupation forces fired at the positions of the Joint Forces near the settlements of Krymske, Novotoshkivske, Zolote, Avdiyivka, Pisky, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Vodiane, and Lebedynske. Near Khutir Svobosny, occupiers opened fire from 120mm and 82mm mortars, weapons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, as well as grenade launchers, large-caliber machine guns, and small arms. Russian invaders engaged positions of the Joint Forces outside five more settlements using 82mm mortars, reads the report. Captain Robert Aguilar rejected the fact that the increased Russian activity in the area had had an impact on the actual exercise or that it had been in the way of command ship operations. A Russian reconnaissance plane flew right over NATO's command ship, the Mount Whitney during a NATO exercise off Norway coast, in international waters, on Friday. USS Mount Whitney is the heart of NATO Trident Juncture. From this vessel, which is the world's most advanced command and control ships, drills chief Admiral James Foggo manages the overall exercise scenario, according to VG, a Norwegian news outlet. The invading team in the exercise, of which U.S. Marines are part of, are also commanded from there. Captain Robert Aguilar rejected the fact that the increased Russian activity in the area had had an impact on the actual exercise or that it had been in the way of command ship operations. "The area they have notified that they [Russians] want to practice is south of where we are. We are not operating in that area now. It's not a factor for us," said the Captain. Read alsoRare NATO-Russia talks address military drills, 1987 missile treaty - Reuters "Bear Foxtrot! Height - about 300 feet!" one of the crewmen was heard shouting as a VG correspondent toured the ship. In the sky right above the ship, a Russian Tupolev TU-142 swooped - a reconnaissance and anti-submarine plane, which in NATO has been named "Bear F/J". Shortly afterwards, an American helicopter followed. On deck, the Russian bomber raised awareness. It flew low and slow, and was clearly visible from the deck. "We know it's been around, but this is the first time we've seen it properly," said one of the crewmen. Read alsoBusiness Insider impressed by low-altitude passes of Ukrainian fighter jet (Video) "This is routine. Russia's long-haul flight, flying across the North Sea, is routinely caught up and we meet Russian forces in other areas we operate in," said Admiral Guy Robinson, according to a VG report delivered in Norwegian. "NATO can monitor international waters, and whose nations will bring their own reactions to it, they will send out aircraft that can capture and observe it." "It does not matter if the aircraft had weapons on board. The question is whether they would had any intention to attack. And they had not. We are out here and do our operations, they are out there and do theirs. NATO earlier this week was keen to tone down the risk that the Russians would interfere with the "Trident Juncture" exercise, which is now taking place in Central Norway with more than 50,000 troops involved. One of the areas of joint collaboration for military mobility has come from NATOs Trident Juncture exercise, now underway. European nations are not moving as fast as needed to resolve long-standing logistical issues that could tie up efforts to meet invading Russian forces, according to a top NATO general. From a military perspective, of course I would say it is not moving fast enough, Lt. Gen. Jan Broeks, director general of the alliances International Military Staff, said Wednesday, according to Defense News. It is not moving fast enough. Of course, there is always an element of how fast you can get financing, building the brigades, building the roads, Broeks added. Its a lot of work. but we need to be ambitious and we need to be very clear, in a military context. Since Russia seized Ukrainian territory in 2014, NATO nations have woken up to the challenges involved in moving military forces from one side of the continent to a potential eastern front, an issue that broadly falls under the military mobility heading. Officials have been upfront that the situation needs a lot of work and investment, but Broeks comments underline how much more work there is to do. Those challenges largely fall into two sets. The first is logistical finding which roads can support the weight of military equipment, increasing capacity at key ports or repairing aged rail tracks. The second is legal making sure nations have preapproved forces from other nations to enter their airspace and cross their borders. Read alsoRussian recon aircraft makes low pass over NATO command ship Broeks, who is from the Netherlands, traveled to Washington this week accompanied by Lt. Gen. Esa Pulkkinen, the Finnish officer who serves as director general of the European Unions military staff. The two were hosted by the Center for a New American Security think tank. Pulkkinen said the legal set of challenges is the one that can be most easily tackled. These are the areas where you can proceed more [quickly]. Some of the issues are in the hands of the EU, some in the hands of the member states, he said. And Broeks indicated there may be developments in the area of authorities coming weeks and months ahead of the alliances 2019 political guidance document. When I think about rapid air mobility, its a very critical element, he explained. At the moment, it is a procedural element. If we were deploying forces either through airlifts or through support through airlift, or elements of this [such as] rotary-wing and fixed-wing supporting missions, if they would not have to go through procedures for clearance, then were there in rapid air mobility. We in Europe control this, he added. We need to go with nations because nations own the airspace. Since taking over their respective jobs, the two men have made it a point to regularly attend dinners to foster closer ties between military planning for NATO and the EU; the visit to Washington represents the first time two officers in those jobs have traveled together to America, and the trip is part of an effort to assuage concerns within the U.S. government that NATO and the EU are not coordinating defense priorities. Much of that concern stems from the EUs announcement in late 2017 of the Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defense, or PESCO, a fund for EU defense projects. American officials quickly sounded the alarm that PESCO could take funds away from NATO priorities. Both Broeks and Pulkkinen have downplayed those concerns, with the two pointing to military mobility as one example where PESCO can help support NATO nations with extra funding while providing benefits for non-NATO nations. But Pulkkinen also emphasized that while PESCO is funding some initiatives on the mobility front, it should be treated as extra help, not the central solution. Read alsoRare NATO-Russia talks address military drills, 1987 missile treaty - Reuters Another area of joint collaboration for military mobility has come from NATOs Trident Juncture exercise, now underway. Both men said the exercise includes a focus on moving units through various airspaces and over borders. We get lessons learned out of this because the UK has forces [moving] through the Netherlands, through Denmark, through Norway. The Germans move forces north. So we get a lot of this, both from interoperability and military mobility, Broeks said. We dont have any EU exercises at all, [so] any chance to improve the interoperability of the forces, including the EU members' state forces, is good for us, Pulkkinen added. We are very grateful on the EU side that some non-NATO EU allies are [involved]. Israeli expert Avraam Shmulyevich on the After Empire portal says that it represents the shift from Muslim terrorism to Russian political terrorism and from attacks on civilians to attacks on the state. At first glance, the attack on the FSB building in Arkhangelsk appears to be but one of a series of similar terrorist acts in the Russian Federation, Natalya Gulevskaya says; but a closer examination of the personality of the criminal, his motives, and his modus operandi show that it is something far more serious. Indeed, the Russian commentator suggests, it is a black swan event of the kind that suggests the Putin regime has now passed the point of no return because the powers that be have created a situation which has given birth to the first terrorist attack with political motives against the anti-constitutional actions of the authorities, according to Euromaidan Press. Russia has a rich history of revolutionaries and political terrorists, Gulevskaya points out; but never before has there been a political terrorist act carried out not in the struggle for power or against the anachronistic norms of the Basic law of the state but against the actions of officials who have violated the rights and freedoms of the individual. Read alsoFSB blast in Arkhangelsk: Details revealed This is a very concerning sign both for the ruling powers that be and for the entire population, she says. The Putin regime has not been able to create an ideology which could justify not only the seizure and usurpation of power but also the appropriation of the financial potential of the state. Thus, this action marks the beginning of the end of the construction of the Chekist state and already in the near future we can expect a conceptual shake up or the latest wave of the collapse of the empire. Three other commentators also suggest that the Arkhangelsk bombing involves more than meets the eye. Israeli analyst Avraam Shmulyevich on the After Empire portal says that it represents the shift from Muslim terrorism to Russian political terrorism and from attacks on civilians to attacks on the state. The Arkhangelsk bombing, he observes, has its predecessors: the Primorsky partisans, the blowing up of monuments, the burning of official buildings of the FSB and United Russia [party], and the periodic shooting of policemen. Now, clearly, it is the turn of the Russian North, which never knew serfdom. Read alsoThe Atlantic: Russia is co-opting angry young men Shmulyevich says it is especially noteworthy that the terrorist did not put forward any specific demands. That makes this action typical political terrorism or even a civil war, no longer just terrorism but a war with the system as such. Igor Eidman, a sociologist who works as a commentator for Deutsche Welle, suggests that what happened in Arkhangelsk is the rebirth of the Narodnaya Volya or SR [Socialist Revolutionary Party Ed.] movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All the conditions are in place for this both in society and the state, for new revolutionaries and for new secret police spies like Azef. And commentator Mikhail Pozharsky says that the Putin regime has brought this on itself. If you ban legal politics and persecute people for peaceful action, this will lead to radicalism. If you create terrorists out of innocent people with the help of torture, then sooner or later it will come into someones head to carry out a real terrorist act. Shaikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, Chairman of the UAE Fatwa Council and President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, discussed with the UK Ambassador to the UAE, Patrick Moody, prospects of cooperation between the Forum and the British Government. ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 05th Nov, 2018) Shaikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, Chairman of the UAE Fatwa Council and President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, discussed with the UK Ambassador to the UAE, Patrick Moody, prospects of cooperation between the Forum and the British Government. The meeting addressed ways of inculcating the values of tolerance, peace and counterterrorism around the globe and the forum's role therein. They reviewed the activities of the Inclusive Citizenship Forum, to be organised by the Forum for the Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies in cooperation with Wilton Park - an executive agency of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office - on November 12- 14 in Abu Dhabi. The Forum will be attended by a number of middle Eastern religious personalities, intellectuals, politicians and media professionals. DUBAI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 04th Nov, 2018) Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammed Belhaif Al Nuaimi, Minister of Infrastructure Development, met today with Ramin Kuluzadeh, Minister of Transport, Communication and High Technology of Azerbaijan, and his delegation, to discuss enhancing bilateral ties between the UAE and Azerbaijan, especially in the areas of infrastructure and transport. During the meeting, which took place at the ministrys headquarters in Dubai and was attended by Eng. Hassan Mohammed Juma Al Mansouri, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Infrastructure Development, and Eng. Ibrahim Al Wahabi, Assisting Under-Secretary for the Projects Implementation Division, Dr. Al Nuaimi presented the UAEs achievements in the areas of infrastructure and transport, its leading international position in competitive indexes, and its vision to be among the worlds leading countries by 2021. Al Nuaimi also praised the overall bilateral ties between the two countries, while stressing the importance of exchanging expertise in the areas of infrastructure and transport. Kuluzadeh acknowledged the UAEs achievements in the areas of infrastructures and roads, which has enhanced its international position, while highlighting his own countrys achievements and recent projects, which have supported its development. (@FahadShabbir) ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 04th Nov, 2018) The National Centre of Meteorology, NCM, has issued a warning, calling on seafarers to take precaution while out at sea until 08:00 on Monday, 5th November. In a statement, the NCM said fresh easterly and southeasterly winds will continue resulting in rough waters in the Oman Sea. Reported wind speeds will reach 40 km/hr, with wave heights ranging from four to six feet. ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 04th Nov, 2018) Abu Dhabis Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) approved, today, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Companys (ADNOC) new integrated gas strategy and plans to increase its oil production capacity to 4 million barrels per day (mmbpd) at the end of 2020 and 5mmbpd by 2030. The SPC meeting was presided over by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and Vice-Chairman of the SPC. The SPCs approval of ADNOCs gas strategy will add potential resources that will enable the UAE to achieve gas self-sufficiency, with the aim of potentially transitioning to a net gas exporter. At its meeting, the SPC announced new discoveries of gas in place, totaling 15 trillion standard cubic feet. It also announced new discoveries of 1 billion barrels of oil in place and approved ADNOCs new five-year business plan and capital investment growth of AED 486 billion (US $132.33 billion) between 2019-2023. The gas strategy will sustain LNG production to 2040 and allow ADNOC to seize incremental LNG and gas-to-chemicals growth opportunities, where they arise, from the UAEs dynamic demand/supply position and evolving energy mix. H.H. Sheikh Mohamed reaffirmed the support of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for ADNOCs transformation into a performance-led, more commercially minded organisation and its focus on creating long-term, sustainable value to enable the UAEs economic ambitions. He also expressed the SPCs recognition of ADNOCs strong financial and operational performance, its use of creative and strategic partnerships to unlock and drive substantial value across the entire business and its strong commitment to maximising in-country value. The SPC is the highest governing body of the oil and gas industry in Abu Dhabi. The Council formulates, approves and oversees the implementation of Abu Dhabi's petroleum policy and follows up its implementation across all areas of the petroleum industry to ensure that the set goals are achieved. The other SPC members attending the meeting, at ADNOCs Headquarters, were H.H. Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council; H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs; H.H. Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Court of Abu Dhabis Crown Prince; H.H. Sheikh Dhiyab bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Suhail Mohammed Al Mazrouei, UAE Energy Minister, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO; Hamad Mubarak Al Shamsi, Secretary-General of the SPC; Dr Ahmed Mubarak Al Mazrouei, Secretary-General of the Executive Council; Khaldoun Al Mubarak, CEO and Managing Director of Mubadala; Riyad Abdul Rahman Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Finance; Awaidha Murshed Al Marar, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Energy Department; Abdullah Nasser Al Suwaidi, and Suhail Faris Ghanem Al Marui. ADNOCs integrated oil and gas strategy underpins its AED 165 billion Downstream investment plans announced in May, which will see the company triple production of petrochemicals to 14.4 million tons per annum by 2025. In May, at its Downstream Investment Forum, ADNOC unveiled a blueprint to create the worlds largest integrated refining and petrochemicals complex in Ruwais, which will enable it to further stretch the value of every barrel it produces. In addition to being used for power generation and other industrial uses, natural gas is the fuel that powers most chemical and refining processes. Through a combined program of strategic partnerships and investments, ADNOC will increase its range and volume of high-value downstream products, secure better access to growth markets around the world and create a manufacturing ecosystem in Ruwais that will stimulate the creation of in-country value, private-sector growth and specialised job opportunities. Meanwhile, the announcement of the discovery of significant new oil reserves endorses the Abu Dhabi governments historic decision, earlier this year, to open six geographical oil and gas blocks for competitive bidding. Based on existing data from detailed petroleum system studies, seismic surveys, log files and core samples from hundreds of appraisal wells, estimates suggest these new blocks hold multiple billion barrels of oil and multiple trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The first exploration and production licenses are expected to be awarded in the first quarter of 2019. The licensing strategy represents a major advance in how Abu Dhabi unlocks new opportunities and maximizes value from its hydrocarbon resources. It is also consistent with ADNOCs approach to expanding its strategic partnerships across all areas of its business. The successful bidders will enter into agreements granting exploration rights and, provided defined targets are achieved in the exploration phase, be granted the opportunity to develop and produce any discoveries with ADNOC, under terms set out in the bidding package. Dr. Al Jaber said, "His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and the SPCs approval of our comprehensive growth plans, along with our historic gas self-sufficiency strategy,marks an important new, accelerated phase in the delivery of ADNOCs 2030 growth strategy. In line with our wise leaderships directives, our strategy will ensure we maximize value from all our resources to enable the UAEs socio-economic ambitions. We will continue to unlock and deliver increased and commercially viable production from our oil and gas reserves, in response to the worlds growing demand for energy. "The incremental increase in our oil production capacity will enable ADNOC to continue to be a reliable and trusted energy supplier that has the flexibility and capacity to respond and capitalize on the forecasted growth in demand for crude." "At the same time, the substantial investments we will make, in the development of new and undeveloped reservoirs, gas caps and unconventional resources, will ensure we can competitively meet the UAEs growing demand for power generation and industrial use. While responding to domestic demand, we will maintain our international commercial commitments and seize incremental LNG and gas-to-chemicals growth opportunities," Dr Al Jaber added. Industry projections, Dr Al Jaber highlighted, validate ADNOCs integrated oil and gas strategy. For the first time, the world is on the verge of consuming 100 million barrels of oil per day, with oil consumption increasing by an additional 10 million barrels per day by 2040, he said. Over the same period, demand for natural gas will increase by 40 percent, while the market for higher-value polymers and petrochemicals will grow by 60 percent. The integrated gas strategy is the first time in ADNOCs history it has been in a position to commercially and holistically unlock its abundant new gas resources. One of the challenges in developing parts of ADNOCs gas resources isthe sourness of parts of Abu Dhabis gas. However, a number of factors, including the gas pricing reforms introduced in 2016, enabling more market-based pricing, the availability of more advanced technology and ADNOCs growing and industry leading experience in developing sour gas reservoirs are making it possible for ADNOC to unlock more gas resources and increasing value extraction. Under the new gas strategy, ADNOC will develop the Hail, Ghasha and Dalma project that taps into Abu Dhabis Arab formation, which is estimated to hold multiple trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas. The project is expected to produce more than 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day. ADNOC will also unlock other sources of gas, which include Abu Dhabis gas caps and unconventional gas reserves, as well as new natural gas accumulations, which will continue to be appraised and developed as the company pursues its exploration activities. Meanwhile, reflecting ADNOCs role as an enabler of the UAEs prosperity, implementation of its 2019-2023 business plan and capital investment growth of AED 486 billion will have a significant impact on the nations economy, with ADNOCs in-country value program helping to drive domestic growth and diversification over an extended period of time. The benefits will include creating employment opportunities for UAE nationals and maximising the use of local products, manufacturing and assembly facilities, services and infrastructure. (@FahadShabbir) ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 04th Nov, 2018) The UAE is home to one of the worlds leading peaceful nuclear energy programmes, said Patrick Reyners, Secretary-General of the International Nuclear Law Association, INLA, while noting that the countrys coordinated efforts are unique, and the achievements of the Barakah Nuclear Plant are impressive. In a statement to the Emirates news Agency, WAM, on the sidelines of the 23rd Nuclear Inter Jura 2018, currently being held in Abu Dhabi, Reyners added that the UAEs peaceful nuclear programme is comprehensive and will help support its economic and social development, as well as provide safe and environmentally-friendly nuclear energy. "The progress of this programme, since its inception a little more than tens years ago, has been spectacular, and we look forward to the commissioning of the first reactor," the INLA Secretary-General enthused. Commenting on why the conference is taking place in the nation's capital, Reyner said the bi-annual conference signals the importance given by the INLA community of nuclear law specialists to the progress of the nuclear energy programme in Abu Dhabi. He noted that the conference will feature many specialists in legal affairs, as well as government representatives, executive officials and nuclear energy experts from around the world, who came to discuss a range of topics that include international agreements, nuclear responsibility, nuclear fuel cycles, building new nuclear power plants, sustainable development and international safeguards. Reyners explained that the INLA is an international non-profit association that was established in December 1970 in Brussels, with some 650 members from around the world. The association has held conferences in 20 countries since 1973, as it seeks to reinforce the relationships between legal experts with interests in nuclear law, encourage research and development, and promote cooperation in this area. The conference, which was organised by the INLA and is being hosted by Abu Dhabi for the first time in the middle East, in partnership with local and international authorities including the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Authority and Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, will end on 8th November. The first day of the conference addressed a range of issues, such as developments in the UAEs peaceful nuclear programme. (@ChaudhryMAli88) DUBAI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 04th Nov, 2018) The International Institute for Tolerance, part of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, has announced the list of speakers for the World Tolerance Summit (WTS) sessions, which will be held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, on 15th and 16th November 2018. With the theme 'Prospering from Pluralism: Embracing Diversity through Innovation and Collaboration', the two-day summit brings together more than 1,000 high-ranking government officials, specialists, academics, peace experts, social activists, diplomats, international and local organisations, intellectuals, stakeholders and representatives of the public and private sectors. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance, will attend the summit and deliver the keynote speech at the opening ceremony. The Chairman of the Higher Committee for the summit and the Managing Director of IIT, Dr. Hamad Sheikh Ahmed Al Shaibani will also be present during the summit's proceedings. The participants in the event will discuss several issues including how to spread the message of peace and tolerance globally, and the role of governments in promoting tolerance, peace in diversity, the role of social media in spreading social messages to ensure respect for cultural and religious pluralism, and the commitment to dialogue, peaceful coexistence and the role of the academic curriculum in promoting tolerance and peace. The summit will shed light on the key topics that will be presented in six sessions, in which 30 speakers will participate, in addition to six specialised workshops. Speakers during the sessions will include Dr. Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, Speaker of Federal National Council, FNC; Princess Lamia bint Majed Saud Al Saud, Secretary-General and Member of the board of Trustees of Alwaleed Philanthropies from Saudi Arabia; Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf; Adama Dieng, Special Adviser of the UN-Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide, and Ambassador Dr. Ahmed lhab Gamaleldin, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Human Rights and International Humanitarian and Social Affairs from Egypt. The World Tolerance Summit will provide an innovative and creative solution to spreading awareness of tolerance among the youth and promote education about the active implementation of tolerance in ones daily lifestyle. The event will emphasise and affirm the universal right for all to adhere qualities of tolerance in society and to encourage Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, activities among local and international institutions. (@rukhshanmir) UNITED NATIONS, Nov 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :The United Nations and Syrian Arabic Red Crescent (SARC) kicked off a joint aid operation on Saturday, delivering vital humanitarian assistance to 50,000 suffering people in south-east Syria's Rukban camp, near the Jordanian border, the UN said. In a statement welcoming the aid convoy, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recognized that while "the long-needed delivery is an important achievement, the overall humanitarian access to this informal desert camp remains wholly inadequate." As such, he called on all relevant actors "to ensure continued, full, safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to the tens of thousands of displaced Syrians in this remote area, and to all people in need throughout the country." "The population at Rukban has not received assistance since January this year, and they are increasingly desperate," Mark Lowcock, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, recently told a Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria. "We are delivering food, sanitation and hygiene supplies, nutrition and health assistance in addition to other core relief items in cooperation with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent," Ali Al-Za'tari, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, said. The inter-agency aid operation is expected to take three to four days as it also conducts an emergency vaccination campaign "to protect some 10,000 children against Measles, Polio and other deadly disease" and undertake rapid needs assessments. The convoy was meant to deliver assistance to Rukban camp on 27 October, but was postponed for security reasons. Between basic commodity shortages, protection concerns, increasing violence and the death of several children unable to access medical treatment, the overall situation in the camp remains critical. According to news reports, Rukban camp, which is a cluster of about 10,800 makeshift tents and mud huts, has been labeled as "one of the most desperate places in Syria." SARC's president called the operation "a huge positive step for the people there." The UN urges all parties to allow safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to all in need in line with their obligations under International Humanitarian Law. "While this much-needed delivery is an important achievement, a longer-term solution must be found for the many civilians living in Rukban," Al-Za'tari said. "We must do everything we can to continue helping civilians living in the harshest conditions in there," he concluded. (@ChaudhryMAli88) Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Lahore BA Nasir on Saturday visited Raiwind to review security arrangements for Tablighi ijtima (congregation). LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Nov, 2018 ) :Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Lahore Nasir on Saturday visited Raiwind to review security arrangements for Tablighi ijtima (congregation). During his visit, the CCPO also reviewed security arrangements in the surrounding areas of congregation and said that policemen were performing their duties with responsibility and courage to maintain law and order. He said that a comprehensive traffic plan has been evolved to ensure smooth traffic flow, adding that a police desk has been set up to facilitate people. The CCPO said that 12 DSPs, 36 SHOs, 306 upper subordinates and 3,000 policemen under the supervision of three SPs have been deployed to ensure foolproof security. The policemen were performing their duties in three shifts, he said and added that search operations have also been conducted in adjoining areas of congregation. No one would be allowed to park their vehicles without parking stands, he added. SP Sadar Ali Raza, SP City Traffic Asif Siddique and ASP Raiwind Ayaz were also present. (@ChaudhryMAli88) ISLAMABAD, Nov 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :Pakistan has witnessed exponential growth in e-commerce activities over the past few years as sale value of industry has so far touched Rs100 billion mark. Lured by lower transaction costs, convenience and expanding internet penetration, both enterprises and consumers have started shifting their transactions online but country still lags behind regional and comparable economies in terms of digitization of its payment systems and efficiency of its logistics environment. The issues related to e-commerce have been persistent despite increase in its adoptability among the masses and consistent penetration in coverage areas. The industry could move at much faster peace if these issues are fixed on long-term basis by industry players and other stakeholders. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its report has identified some weak areas of e-commerce industry and it highlighted how accelerated growth could be achieved while addressing issues related to the industry, which will also benefit economy at a large scale. The sales of local and international e-commerce merchants reached Rs20.7 billion in 2017 and Rs 40.1 billion in 2018 - an encouraging growth of 93.7 per cent. However, the data only covers transactions made via digital channels (credit/debit cards, interbank funds transfer (IBFT), prepaid cards, and mobile wallets). The issues that Pakistani e-commerce industry needs to focus on include: longer delivery times which are often cited as a major deterrent to wider adoptability of e-commerce channel. Delivery times are usually affected when either third party logistics partners fail to deliver on time, and/or inventory management systems of sellers prove inadequate to fulfill flexible needs of electronic channel. The other issue is online payments. The absence of trust in online platforms and inadequate implementation of consumer protection laws pertaining to e-commerce, amid an already low digital literacy environment, become a deterrent to rapid digitization envisioned by policy-makers and industry players. In particular, consumers tend to be hesitant when transacting using online channels, as they worry that their personal information (such as credit card number, bank account number, address, etc.) may be leaked or misused by unauthorized persons. Lack of awareness is another issue and still, approximately 90 per cent of e-commerce transactions in Pakistan are Cash on Delivery (COD) due to multiple reasons. From consumer side, a preference for cash may be attributed to low financial and digital literacy, security of online payment channels and instruments, and availability of dispute resolution mechanism in case a wrong or substandard product is delivered to customers. Moreover, Lack of options is another issue. The efficacy of online payment system gets diminished as many banks do not by default allow debit cards to be used for online transactions. Either the customers have to contact bank's helpline to activate debit cards for e-commerce for a set timeframe, or debit cards simply cannot be used to transact online. In this regard, commercial banks should allow their consumers the option to pre-select at time of issuance of debit cards the right of e-commerce application, alongside providing them due security and a Transaction Monitoring Systems protocol, which is already in place for credit cards. The other issues are high cost of doing business and stock management. On stock management front, a section of e-commerce companies and vendors sell their products through logistic service are in process of digitizing their inventory systems. This enables sellers to operate on a Just in Time (JIT) rather than on a Just in Case (JIC) basis, thereby reducing storage and processing costs and quickening purchasing process. With entrance of Chinese digital giants such as Alibaba (through acquisition of Daraz.pk) and Ant Financial (via a 45 percent stake investment in Telenor Microfinance Bank), the e-commerce landscape of Pakistan can be expected to evolve rapidly. Following success of their technological products and services in China, these players are likely to introduce and inspire variants of the same in the digital landscape of Pakistan. On payments front, the market players would tap into exponentially growing usage of e-commerce platforms on mobile phones (the phenomenon often referred to as m-commerce) and offer new modes of transaction settlements. The next step would be to use consumers' purchasinghistory to devise a credit scoring mechanism to offermicro-loans for transactions and, eventually, savings. (@ChaudhryMAli88) ISLAMABAD, Nov 3 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Nov, 2018 ) :The Fedral Government on Saturday decided to take action against the miscreants who had vandalized public property during the two-day protest in various cities of the country. According to religious scholars, vandalism was done by miscreants who were not part of their ranks, the Ministry of Interior, in a statement here, said. Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Khan Afridi was given a detailed briefing by different agencies on the situation. The statement said the Cyber Wing of Federal Investigation Agency and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority were reviewing the inflammatory content on social media. Both the agencies had been directed to obtain forensic data of miscreants as action would be taken against those who were spreading contents based on hate and violence. Details of damages had also been sought from Punjab government and other institutions, it added. The Interior Ministry had also asked for CCTV footages of the people involved in damage to the public property. The elements would be identified through footages and arrests would be made, the statement said. KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) is starting an operation against encroachments on major arteries of Saddar from Monday (November 5). This was decided at a meeting chaired by Metropolitan Commissioner Dr. Syed Saif-ur-Rehman at the Commissioner Office, here on Sunday, said a statement. The meeting was also attended by the representatives of different organisations taking part in this operation. The district administration, Rangers, police, district municipal administration South, Cantonment board, Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, SSGC and K-Electric will take part in the anti-encroachment operation which will be carried out in three phases. The shopkeepers and other trade community were informed through banners and pamphlets to remove the encroachments or these will be removed by anti-encroachments staff. The removal of encroachments from alongside road and pavements around Empress Market will begin on November 05. In the first phase all encroachments will be removed from footpaths, and in the second phase encroachments will be removed alongside shops. In the third phase, all encroachments will be removed in and around Empress Market to restore this building in original shape. Addressing the meeting, the Metropolitan Commissioner said that K-Electric should disconnect the electricity supply to all those pushcarts, patharas and other illegal structures which were established in front of shops in Saddar. He said that action will be taken against such officials of K-Electric who were indulged in providing electricity to encroachers. He said that police and rangers would provide cooperation in this connection and all machinery required for this operation has been arranged. He said that the footpaths' repair and maintenance work will also be done. The Metropolitan Commissioner directed the director anti-encroachments to form 14 teams with six persons in each which necessary machinery and vehicles. Clear number should be affixed on these trucks which deliver the seized items, he added. LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :Punjab Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan has said that the new local government (LG) system for the province is now lying with the Law Department which is giving it the final shape for presenting it in the Punjab Assembly for approval. Talking to the party people in his office here on Sunday, he said that after its approval from the prime minister, work on the local government draft was rapidly under way, which would strengthen the new members of the system financially and administratively. He said that election of mayor would be directed on party basis, while tehsil and city governments would be established as early as possible. Abdul Aleem Khan said that the outgoing government of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) deliberately rendered the local government representatives toothless so that each and every penny could be placed at the disposable of so-called Khadim-e-Aalaa. But, now major changes would be brought about on the lines of developed countries. The minister lauded the achievements made during the tour of Prime Minister Imran Khan to China and said that after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a positive response from China would prove to be a milestone for real progress and prosperity in Pakistan. He said that some forces were afraid of the achievements of the incumbent government and are busy in hatching conspiracies to fail the endeavours of the PTI government. Abdul Aleem Khan said that problems of people were being solved on priority basis. He said that unemployment was a major issue of the youth and the incumbent government would take special measures to increase job opportunities. He said that in different departments, there were big hurdles for the common man to get success to the authorities concerned. He said that the outgoing government ruined the basic structure of governance and corruption destroyed the public sector. He listened to a number of complaints and issued on-the-spot orders for their redress. (@FahadShabbir) Lawmakers unanimously approved bills for University of Gwadar and Government Employees Benevolent Fund (GEBF) in Balochistan Assembly on Saturday. QUETTA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Nov, 2018 ) :Lawmakers unanimously approved bills for University of Gwadar and Government Employees Benevolent Fund (GEBF) in Balochistan Assembly on Saturday. The session of Balochistan Assembly was presided over by Deputy Speaker Sardar Babar Musa Khel. The University of Gwadar bill was presented in the session. On which Provincial minister for Information Zahoor Buledi said that the Federal government has already allocated Rs.one billion rupees for the formation of university in Gwadar. No delay should be made in establishing this university, as Gwadar holds great importance in connection to China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Later, minister for information Zahoor Buledi presented bill for GEBF. Opposition members approved both the bills for University of Gwadar and GEBF but has shown reservations regarding bill presented for appointment of special assistance to the Chief Minister. The opposition members opined that the special assistance bill has mentioned the salary and privileges of the special assistants but their responsibilities have not been ascertained. During the session on request of MPA Nawabzada Aslam Raisani legislators hold fatah khawani for the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S) Ameer Maulana Samiul Haq, who was assassinated yesterday at his residence in Rawalpindi. (@ChaudhryMAli88) ISLAMABAD, Nov 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Naeem ul Haq Sunday said Prime Minister Imran Khan would be announced revolutionary steps for poverty alleviation from the country very soon. Talking to ptv, he said Prime Minister Imran Khan was too impressed from China's revolutionary steps which were taken regarding overcome poverty alleviation and improving agriculture sector. He said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was negotiating with China regarding agriculture reforms and poverty alleviation from last one year before establishing its government in the country. Naeem ul Haq said agriculture sector was always ignored in the country but the incumbent government would bring improvement in this sector through introducing reforms. Replying to a question, he said PTI had always supported China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project because it would be helpful to strengthen national economy and improved the other sectors including steel, cement, trade, agriculture and infrastructure through this mega project, adding it would leave positive impact on the country economy as well LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :On the directions of Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, a young vendor, who was deprived of his bananas by protesters in Sheikhupura, was compensated by the authorities financially. Protestors had picked up bananas from his donkey-cart. The Video of the incident got viral on the social media. The Punjab CM, after watching a tv report, directed Deputy Commissioner Sheikhupura to trace the poor vendor and pay him the price of his commodity. The DC traced the young vendor not only paid the price of bananans but also gave him financial assistance. (@ChaudhryMAli88) ISLAMABAD, Nov 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF) has chalked out a number of activities to mark the upcoming World Science Day on November 10 (Saturday) under this year's theme "Science a Human Right" to acknowledge the contribution of science and scientists toward development of the society. PSF would arrange thematic lectures, scientist convention, number of competitions for science students and an award ceremony to mark the day, said an official of PSF while talking to APP. PSF would also award the winners of the poster and essay competition which were being held these days. The winners of Poster competition arranged through 27 educational boards from across the country have been selected. According to the results of poster competition, Haleema Sadia from LIMS School, Hayatabad, Peshawar took first position and Khadija Naveed from Green Dots Girls Higher Secondary School, Faisalabad clinched second position. While Mahrukh Tariq from Convent school Nowshera and Muhammad Sajid from Government High School, Bile Gunj shared third position. The winners of the competition securing first, second and third positions would be given gold, silver and bronze medals along with cash prizes worth Rs. 20,000, Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 10,000 respectively in a ceremony to be held on World Science Day, the official informed. The winners of the essay competition would also be finalized by the jury members soon, the official added. Young Science Achievers would also be invited to attend the World Science Day and awarded by PSF for their contributions in the field of science. The official told that nine Sub-centers of PSF across the country would be actively engaged for arranging quiz competition, science exhibitions and debate competition for the students. The students selected to participate in the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO), scheduled to be held in Botswana from Dec 2-11, would also be given award letters on the day, the official added. On November 10, the whole world would celebrate World Science Day focusing on the importance of science in and for society. UNESCO urges all scientists, educators, students and media to celebrate science for peace and development. The World Science Day highlights the relation between science and society. It aims to create societal awareness of how science contributes to sustainable societies, international solidarity, international collaboration in science for the benefit of society, and raising support to battle challenges that science faces today. Senior Minister Punjab Abdul Aleem Khan on Saturday directed the authorities concerned to immediately take steps for removal of solid waste in all cities of province. LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Nov, 2018 ) :Senior Minister Punjab Abdul Aleem Khan on Saturday directed the authorities concerned to immediately take steps for removal of solid waste in all cities of province. He ordered for dumping waste at the landfill sites in 24 hours. After improving law and order situation, Abdul Aleem Khan said that waste should be disposed of as early as possible. The minister has given directions to Managing Director of Solid Waste Management that in each union council waste containers should be cleared and special teams be constituted to supervise cleanliness work. He added that due to special circumstances there were hurdles to remove the waste for the last two days. But now situation is normal and there should be no delay in clearing waste. He said that apart from Lahore, special steps should be taken for removal of waste in all other cities. (@rukhshanmir) FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) ::The police on Saturday claimed to have killed two dacoits in an encounter in Millat Town police limits. A police spokesman said two dacoits opened fire at policemen on Jhumra Road near Faisalabad Dry Port when the officials directed them to surrender. In retaliation, the police also opened fire and during encounter the accused were killed whereas a police official, Zeeshan, and an unidentified passerby were injured and shifted to the Allied Hospital. During initial investigation, an accused was identified as Khalil of Shehzad Colony who was wanted to the police in a number of dacoity and robbery cases registered in seven police stations of the district. ISLAMABAD, Nov 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :World Tsunami Awareness Day 2018 will be observed on Monday across the world including Pakistan aims at minimizing the number of people affected by disasters worldwide. The day is celebrated on November 5th every year with the purpose of defending the valuable lives of everyone around the globe. World Tsunami Awareness Day raises awareness regarding precautionary measures to be taken against tsunami. In 2018, World Tsunami Awareness Day will align with the International Day for Disaster Reduction and the "Sendai Seven Campaign" and will focus on Target "C" of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction which aims at reducing direct disaster economic loss in relation to GDP. World Tsunami Awareness Day is used as the platform for making people aware of the signs of a tsunami. It is important to map the seabed of the oceans to recognize the causes of tsunami. International efforts are important to map oceans for discovering riskier seismic areas and areas with the probability of landslide. It is important that government of the member countries of the UN come together and share cooperation to map the oceans. This will help in better educating people about the preventive measures to be taken in the event of the tsunami. World Tsunami Awareness Day creates awareness amongst everyone especially the population living in coastal areas that the moment they sense tsunami, they shouldn't wait for official warnings, instead, run. Prevention and education also involve educating people to react as fast as they can. People should also know the best locations to run to; it should be far from the seaside and at higher altitudes. Indicative panels should be fixed at all the seashore to guide people about the safe regions during the tsunami. Though tsunami is comparatively an exceptional type of natural disaster, but it causes destruction in several nations around the world. Tsunamis pose a severe threat to the world and it could even obstruct the accomplishment of sustainable growth. The Sendai Framework for the Reduction of Disaster Risk was adopted at the 3rd WCDRR (World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction) held at the United Nations in March 2015. At the conference held in Sendai, the Agenda for 2030 for Sustainable Development was also proposed. This influenced Japan along with many other countries to dedicate a specific day as the "World Tsunami Awareness Day" and the same was designated by the UN. Fifth November was chosen as the World Tsunami Awareness Day in the honor of the famous Japanese tale of "Inamura-no-hi", which means "burning of the rice sheaves". During an earthquake in the year 1854, a farmer noticed the tide diminishing which is a sign of an approaching tsunami. In order to warn the villagers, he set his entire harvest on fire; the villagers, as a result, evacuated the village immediately and fled to higher ground. Later, he constructed an embankment to plant trees as a barrier against future tides. It is important to recognize the natural warning signs of Tsunami in order to take preventive measures. Since huge earthquakes may cause tsunamis, you must be able to feel the earth shaking severely. World Tsunami Awareness Day helps in improving our knowledge and awareness of tsunamis, and how should we react if stuck in any such situation. Several conferences, debates, seminars, quiz etc are organized at national and international levels to make people aware of the tsunami risk. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) The Argentinian Navy and the US Ocean Infinity seabed exploration company have agreed to prolong the search for the ARA San Juan, the Argentinian submarine that disappeared off the country's coast last year, until April, according to media. According to the Nacion newspaper, the navy and the company agreed to extend the search period by another 120 days. The extension will enter into force in December when the current search period ends, the newspaper added. The Argentinian Navy concluded a contract with Ocean Infinity, the US company specializing in hydrographic and geophysical surveys of the seabed with the use of advanced equipment, for the search of the missing submarine in August. The company is known for conducting a search operation for the missing MH370 Malaysian airliner. Ocean Infinity has reportedly committed to receiving payment from Argentina only if ARA San Juan is found. The submarine with over 40 crew on board went missing after reporting about a technical malfunction. The search and rescue operation for the submarine involved equipment and personnel from various countries, including Russia. The Argentinian authorities scrapped the rescue 15 days after the sub stopped communicating but pledged that the search for the vehicle would continue. DAMASCUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) Syrian President Bashar Assad discussed with the Russian delegation the outcomes of a quadrilateral summit in Istanbul as well as the issues related to the creation of Syria's Constitutional Commission, Assad's press service said on Sunday. The Russian delegation, headed by Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev, is currently vising the Syrian capital. "Lavrentyev briefed Assad during the meeting about the results of the quadrilateral summit in Istanbul . .. The sides spoke about the formation of the commission to discuss the current [Syrian] constitution, there is an agreement to continue the joint work of Russia and Syria to remove the remaining obstacles to the formation of the commission," the press service said. During last week's summit in Istanbul, the leaders of Russia, Turkey, France and Germany stressed the need for a lasting ceasefire in Idlib and called for the Constitutional Committee to convene before the end of 2018. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that if Poland goes ahead with its plans to increase US military presence on its territory, Belarus and Russia will have to respond to the buildup. On October 26, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told Sputnik that Poland would strengthen military cooperation with the United States, stressing that Warsaw sought permanent presence of US servicemen in the country. Earlier in the week, Czaputowicz took part in the meeting of the Munich Security Conference in Minsk. "I told the [Polish] foreign minister - he spoke here in Minsk: we are not going to fight with you. Therefore, there is no need to create unnecessary bases. Otherwise, we along with the Russians will have to respond. It means that we will have to deploy something in order to counteract you, " Lukashenko said, as quoted by the Belta news agency. Belarus does not seek any military conflicts and has an exclusively peace-loving foreign policy, the president underlined. US President Donald Trump said in September after talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, that Washington was considering Warsaw's request to have a permanent US military presence in Poland. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on October 4 that a Polish-US working group had begun studying the possibility of setting up a US military base in Poland. BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) As many as four Swedish servicemen have been injured during the NATO Trident Juncture 18 drills in Norway, media reported. The soldiers were injured when they were inside a military vehicle that collided with a tank during the military exercises, the Belga news agency reported. The injured were hospitalized, two of them have been already released, according to the outlet. On October 7, a German soldier died as a result of an incident that occurred during military drills held by the Lithuania-based NATO battalion, according to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry. Trident Juncture 18 are taking place in Norway and surrounding areas of the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea, including Iceland, and the airspace of Finland and Sweden from October 25 to November 23. (@rukhshanmir) BUDAPEST, Nov 4 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Nov, 2018 ) :As the Guest of Honor, Hungary is seeking to explore the Chinese market at the upcoming China International Import Expo (CIIE) to enhance trade cooperation, the Hungarian authority has said. "China has an immensely large and ever growing customer potential," the Hungarian National Trade House (MNKH) said in a statement obtained by Xinhua on Friday. The state-run agency is responsible for the Hungarian participation to the import expo. Hungarian companies will "exploit the opportunities offered by the Chinese market" to "encourage the expansion of Hungarian food and agricultural exports," MNKH said. "In view of the exponentially growing Chinese economy, we pushed our resources towards delicate and luxury products, opening to the premium-grade Hungarian product groups as well," it added. As one of the 12 Guest of Honor, Hungary will exhibit its products, including wine, cheese and hams, on a large pavilion of 256 square meters at the CIIE. The first-ever CIIE, scheduled for November 5-10 in Shanghai, will see the participation of over 130 countries and regions, and more than 2,800 companies. China has been the world's second largest importer of goods for nine consecutive years, and made up 10.2 percent of global imports in 2017. VILNIUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) Two-week long international military exercises, dubbed the Iron Wolf (Gelezinis vilkas) and involving 3,500 servicemen from 14 countries, began in Lithuania on Sunday, the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said in a statement. "On Sunday, the two-week international military exercises 'Iron Wolf' begin ... In total, about 3,500 soldiers from 14 countries will take part in the 'Iron Wolf' maneuvers. Apart from the servicemen of Lithuania, who organized the drills and the soldiers from Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway and Luxembourg, who serve in the NATO battalion, the servicemen from the United Kingdom, Estonia, Italy, Canada, Slovenia, Ukraine and the United States will take part in the maneuvers," the statement read. The drills are aimed at evaluation of the servicemen's capabilities in speedy relocation across the country, according to the Defense Ministry. "The maneuvers will cover not only military locations, the range named after General Silvestras Zukauskas and the Gaizhun range, but also civilian territories. The convoys of military equipment are set to pass through public roads and settlements," the ministry added. Russia has repeatedly criticized NATO's buildup and exercises close to its borders, saying such actions were provocative, and could lead to regional and global arms race and destabilization. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) The Japanese and US military officials conducted a theoretic simulation of an operation on thwarting China's potential "invasion" of the disputed Senkaku Islands in the Japanese Defense Ministry building in January, media reported Sunday. According to the Kyodo news agency, the plot of the theoretical drills featured the Japanese army "defending" the Senkaku Islands from the Chinese military that have presumably disembarked there from vessels disguised as fishing boats. The US Navy officials participated in the simulation, the media added, stressing that it was the first ever simulation devoted to the "Senkaku defense. " Tokyo and Beijing have long been involved in a territorial dispute over the disputed Senkaku Islands, referred to by China as the Diaoyu Islands, which are located next to important shipping routes, and potentially large oil and gas fields. Japan claims it has possessed the islands since 1895, while Beijing recalls that Japanese maps made in 1783 and 1785 pictured the islands as belonging to China. After World War II, the islands were controlled by the United States until Washington returned them to Japan in 1972. Taiwan and mainland China still believe that Tokyo maintains control over the islands illegally. VILNIUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite on Sunday started her working visit to China where she would attend the opening of the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), Grybauskaite's press office said. "The President will visit Lithuanian pavilions and meet with Lithuanian business people. Eighteen enterprises from Lithuania will display their products in two pavilions at the Expo," the press office said in a statement. China is Lithuania's key trade partner in Asia. Last year, their bilateral trade amounted to 1 billion Euros ($1.1 billion), according to the statement. The CIIE, hosted by the Chinese Commerce Ministry and Shanghai Municipal People's Government, will open on November 5 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai and will last through November 10. The event will be attended by government officials, business officials, exhibitors and professional buyers from across the world. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th November, 2018) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will start his three-day official visit to China on Monday, during which he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and attend the opening of the first China International Import Expo (CIIE). "Dmitry Medvedev will pay an official visit to China on November 5-7 ... The Russian prime minister will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 5 in Shanghai and take part in the opening of the first China International Import Expo," the Russian government said in a statement. On November 7, Medvedev will hold talks with Chinese Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang and sign a number of cooperation documents. The two officials are expected to discuss China-Russia trade, cooperation in such areas as energy, investment, humanitarian field, as well as touch upon joint projects in transportation, agriculture and scientific research. Medvedev and Li are set to exchange views on interlinking the Eurasian Economic Union, which Russia is a part of, with China's Belt and Road Initiative. On July 4, 2017, Medvedev and Xi met in Moscow, and discussed, among other things, the Belt and Road Initiative, announced by the Chinese president in 2013 and aimed at promoting investment in infrastructure projects that link dozens of countries across Africa, Asia and Europe. The next meeting between Medvedev and Xi took place on November 1, 2017, in Beijing. Xi welcomed Medvedev's visit and stressed that Russia was China's largest neighboring country and comprehensive strategic partner, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Medvedev, in turn, stressed that Moscow was willing to intensify cooperation with Beijing in various areas as well as strengthen coordination in international and regional affairs. CHINA INTERNATIONAL IMPORT EXPO The CIIE, hosted by the Chinese Commerce Ministry and Shanghai Municipal People's Government, will open on November 5 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai and will last through November 10. The plans to open the exhibition, aimed at promoting trade liberalization and strengthening international economic cooperation, were announced by Xi at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in May 2017. The expo will be attended by government officials, business officials, exhibitors and professional buyers from across the world. According to the exhibition's official website, enterprises from more than 100 countries and regions are expected to participate in the first CIIE. Supporting activities such as seminars, supply-demand matchmaking meetings and product releases would also be held during the expo. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th November, 2018) The Russian military has delivered nearly 2 tonnes of humanitarian assistance to Marrat settlement in Syria's Deir ez-Zor province, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian Reconciliation said in a statement on Sunday. "People received 450 food sets weighting 1.95 tonnes in Marrat [settlement], Deir ez-Zor province. The Russian Center for Reconciliation ... held 1,982 humanitarian operations since the start of settlement process," the statement read. Over the past 24 hours, militants attacked Jubb Mgara settlement in the province of Latakia and Sukkari district of Aleppo city, according to the statement. Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with the government forces fighting against numerous opposition groups and terrorist organizations. Russia along with Turkey and Iran are guarantors of the ceasefire regime in Syria. DAMASCUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) Damascus will cooperate with Geir Pedersen, new UN special envoy for Syria, if he does not use the methods that outgoing envoy Staffan de Mistura did, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said in an interview for local Al Watan newspaper. "We will cooperate with the new special envoy, Geir Pedersen, the way we did with two previous special envoys, if he refrains from using the methods of his predecessor," Mekdad said. He went on to cite other conditions for Damascus' cooperation with Pedersen. "He must declare his commitment to Syrian territorial integrity and to the people of the Syrian Arab Republic; he cannot take the side of the terrorists like his predecessor did; he should stand for the ideals and the superior values enshrined in the UN Charter, which aim at ensuring people's freedom within the framework of the terrorism fight," Mekdad said, On October 31, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that he had appointed the Norwegian diplomat to serve as his Special Envoy for Syria, replacing outgoing envoy de Mistura. Pedersen has significant diplomatic experience, including serving as Norway's Representative to the Palestinian Authority from 1998 to 2003, as ambassador to the United Nations from 2012 to 2017 and ambassador to China since. At the United Nations, Pedersen served in various roles, including as Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for Southern Lebanon and as Director of the Asia and Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th November, 2018) US authorities are confident that Tehran will not restart its nuclear program after the remaining sanctions against Tehran come into force next week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday. "We're confident that Iranians will not make that decision," Pompeo said on CBS News's "Face the Nation," asked what the US authorities would do if Tehran restarted their nuclear program. The state secretary stressed that the European companies "will not be permitted to do business with both the United States and with Iran," adding that the sanctions apply only to those who make sanctionable transactions. Speaking on "Fox news Sunday," Pompeo said he was sure the US sanctions will "have the intended effect" to change Tehran's "maligned" behavior. On November 5, the United States will reimpose sanctions targeting Iran's oil sector. As part of this action, the US Department of the Treasury will add more than 700 Names to its list of blocked Iranian entities. The first round of renewed US sanctions on Iran entered into effect in August. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom said in a joint statement on Friday that as parties to the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), they would continue to work with Russia, China and third countries to preserve effective financial channels with Iran. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) US forces killed four militants of al-Shabaab group, which has sworn allegiance to the Al-Qaeda terrorist group (banned in Russia), in an airstrike near the community of Araara, located in Lower Juba region in the south of Somalia, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a press release on Sunday. "In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. forces conducted a collective self-defense airstrike targeting al-Shabaab militants in the vicinity of Araara, Somalia, on November 3, 2018. We currently assess this airstrike killed four terrorists," the statement read. AFRICOM said no civilians were killed or injured during the airstrike. Somalia has been engulfed in violence since the eruption of a civil war between clan-based armed factions in the early 1990s. Al-Shabaab has been staging numerous attacks across the country in an attempt to impose a radical version of Sharia law. (@ChaudhryMAli88) WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2018) The United States will have to face consequences of withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, as the decision sets a precedent for other states to step away from their international commitments, Robert Malley, a former aide of ex-President Barack Obama and Washington's chief negotiator on the JCPOA, told RIA Novosti in an interview. "Whatever the goal towards Iran, this is not the way to achieve that - walking away from the deal was not the way to treat any of the goals that the administration may have towards Iran. I think it was a profound mistake ... Therefore, the US will pay a price for walking away from a deal that's more isolated internationally than it was before," Malley, who is currently the CEO of the International Crisis Group, said. According to the former aide, by taking the decision to leave the agreement, the administration has "set a precedent," giving other states a reason to believe that they can also quit any deal that was previously sealed. "I think most of administrations coming to office in the US and other countries, even if they disagree with a decision that was entered by their predecessor or predecessors to reach some kind of international deal, there are somewhat respect for a deal, because they understand that they set a precedent ... If [US President Donald] Trump tomorrow enters into deal with whatever country, does this mean that their success could [be] treated just like an episode that they can quickly turn back?" Malley added. The expert said that the remaining parties to the deal would not be able to compensate Iran for the losses it would suffer due to the US withdrawal. "It's not possible to compensate entirely and I don't think it's possible to compensate in the majority of ways. In other words, Iran is going to be worse off because of the US withdrawal. Despite what Europe does, despite what Russia does, despite what China does, it will be worse off than if the US had not withdrawn," Malley said. Despite Tehran's claims that it wanted full compensations, the Iranian officials understood that it could not happen, the former aide said. "The US is too powerful an actor, the threat of sanctions is too great, too many companies are walking away," Malley said. At the same time, majority of states cannot cut imports of Iranian oil to zero, so the United States will have to provide waivers from the sanctions, which apart from Tehran will also target third parties doing business with Iranian companies, Malley said. "I know India has told that we can't go down to zero. It's simply impossible. Some of their refineries are built to only deal with Iranian oil. The cheapest oil they get is from Iran. Is the United States prepared, or other countries prepared, to compensate at that rate, and how they are gonna do for those refineries that only deal with Iranian oil?" the former aide said, adding that China and Turkey were also not ready to eliminate imports of Iranian oil entirely, while Japan and South Korea would suffer big economic losses if granted no waivers. According to Malley, there are indicators that Saudi Arabia, which has recently been under fire over its alleged role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, will be more cooperative and increase oil output to make up for the Iranian export shortages, thus helping the United States in cracking down on Tehran. "Because [the Saudi Arabian authorities] are under greater pressure and because they feel more vulnerable as a result of the Khashoggi assassination, I think they are more likely to try to satisfy US demand ... They are already somewhat cooperative. They are likely to be more cooperative because the Saudi leadership just can't afford right now a fight with the US," Malley explained. Trump announced Washington's withdrawal from the JCPOA in May. The sanctions on Iranian oil imports, re-imposed after the pullout, will enter into effect on November 5. Protests in Pakistan following the acquittal of Asia Bibi (ANSA) The husband of Asia Bibi - whose case has horrified much of the world and has been a source of violent division within Pakistan - has appealed to the United States, United Kingdom and Canada for help. By Nathan Morley His wife, Bibi, 47, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. But, in a landmark judgement last week, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Bibi who was facing execution for blasphemy. That decision sparked protests across Pakistan. An ultra-right party blocked major transport hubs across the country for three days, calling for the murder of the Supreme Court judges. As for Bibi, she has always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years locked in solitary confinement. Separately, on Sunday, Pakistani police have arrested nearly 250 people from across the country on charges of arson, vandalism and violence. Pope Francis expresses his sorrow at the terrorist attack that struck the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt on Friday. In words following the Angelus prayer to the faithful in St Peters Square on Sunday, the Pope prayed for the victims; pilgrims killed, he said, for the mere fact of being Christians. Seven pilgrims were killed and a number of others injured in the attack on two buses carrying Coptic Christians near to the monastery of St Samuel the Confessor in Minya. It was the latest in a series of attacks by extremists on this Christian minority in the country. In May of last year, gunmen fired at a bus carrying Christians to the same monastery, killing at least 28 people. Pope Francis recited the Hail Mary and asked Mary Most Holy to console the families and the entire community in the wake of this latest terrorist attack. Blessed Clelia Merloni The Pontiff, during his address also remembered Mother Clelia Merloni, who was beatified on Saturday in Romes Basilica of St John Lateran. He spoke of the founder of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as a woman who fully abandoned herself to the will of God, who was zealous in charity, patient in adversity and heroic in forgiveness. Let us give thanks, to God the Pope said, for the luminous evangelical witness of this new Blessed and let us follow her example of goodness and mercy. Repsol Honda rider Marc Marquez celebrates winning the Malaysia MotoGP at the Sepang International Circuit. (Photo: AFP/Mohd Rasfan) Suzuki's Alex Rins came in second after overtaking Yamaha rider Johann Zarco, who finished third, in the final stage of the race at Sepang. Italian star Rossi finished 18th after tumbling off his bike on the 16th lap and losing the lead to Marquez, who was crowned world champion last month in Japan. Nine-time world champion Rossi, second on the grid, looked to be heading for his first win in Malaysia since 2010 as he dominated the early stages. However Marquez, who qualified in pole position but was hit with a six-place grid penalty for impeding another rider, slowly worked his way through the pack. The Spaniard reached second place and was slowly closing the gap on Rossi, 39, when the Italian fell off his bike as he leaned into a corner. He got up and continued but by that point victory had already slipped out of his grasp. Marquez, 25, was dominant in the final stages of the race and opened up a big gap to the rest of the field. "The start was not perfect but then I started to take out the riders step-by-step," said Marquez. "I started to feel better and better, and I started to see I was catching (Rossi)." Marquez also lost his pole position in the Grand Prix of the Americas in Texas in April and was dropped to fourth on the starting grid after being penalised for disturbing Maverick Vinales in qualifying. He went on to win that race for the sixth consecutive time. Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso, the winner in Malaysia in 2016 and 2017, could only manage sixth but retains second place in the overall standings, with Rossi's crash leaving the Italian in third with one race remaining. The rain stayed away after organisers shifted the start of the MotoGP two hours earlier in a bid to avoid tropical downpours, which usually occur in the late afternoon in Malaysia. The decision came after Saturday's qualifying session was delayed by more than an hour due to heavy rain. Humidity and tropical rain are a constant challenge for riders at the Sepang circuit. The 2016 and 2017 editions of the MotoGP took place during heavy downpours. Activists called for U.N. member states to pressure China this week to account for alleged human rights violations, including the suspected mass detention of one million Muslim Uighurs in far-western Xinjiang province. Chinas record will be examined by the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday, the first time since 2013, in a regular review expected to focus on its treatment of ethnic minorities, especially Uighurs and Tibetans. China says Xinjiang faces a threat from Islamist militants and separatists. It rejects all accusations of mistreatment in an area where hundreds have been killed in unrest between Uighurs and members of the ethnic Han Chinese majority. While denying the allegations of arbitrary detentions and political re-education across a network of secret camps, however, officials have recently said some citizens guilty of minor offences were being sent to vocational centers to provide employment opportunities. Activists sharply criticized Beijings rights record. In the last five years, generally the human rights situation in China has been getting worse, particularly in east Turkestan (Xinjiang) and Tibet, there has been an unimaginable deterioration, said Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uighur Congress.Thats why we expect that the countries should be speaking loudly and strongly, he told Reuters in an interview at an activist forum on China held in Geneva on Friday. Xinjiang has become a police state where his mother died in a concentration camp in May, Isa said, adding: We have never heard of people coming out from the camps. Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, told Reuters at the event: The detention of over a million ethnic Uighurs is a tipping point for the international community. They really cant look the other way now... Le Yucheng, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, will lead Chinas delegation to the session. UNEQUIVOCAL MESSAGE The Human Rights Council must send an unequivocal message to the Chinese government that their campaign of systematic repression in the XUAR (Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region), including the arbitrary detention of up to one million people, must end, Patrick Poon, China researcher at Amnesty International, said in a statement. Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government in exile, took a swipe at Chinese President Xi Jinpings mantra of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Socialism with Chinese characteristics means no democracy, one party dictatorship and essentially no human rights, Sangay said in a keynote speech at the Geneva event. If the U.N. Human Rights Council cannot make China accountable for human rights violations, then who will?Golog Jigme, a Tibetan monk dressed in crimson robes, gave testimony about three jail terms he served before escaping and gaining political asylum in Switzerland in 2015. I still have scars on my hands and feet from torture sustained in prison, he told the forum. Please review the human rights situation in China carefully, critically. If the UN fails to make China accountable this time, it failed all humanity. China denies accusations of human rights abuses in Tibet. New Caledonia, a French archipelago in the South Pacific, votes Sunday on whether to become the world's newest state in a referendum on independence that is the result of a 30-year decolonization process. It is the first auto-determination vote to be held in a French territory since Djibouti in the Horn of Africa voted for independence in 1977. Tensions have long run deep between pro-independence indigenous Kanaks and descendants of colonial settlers who remain loyal to Paris. A "yes" vote would not only dent the pride of France, once a colonial power whose reach spanned the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific Ocean, but it also would deprive Paris of a foothold in the Indo-Pacific region where China is expanding its presence. Voters will be asked the question "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent?" During a visit to the archipelago in May, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the "pains of colonization" and saluted the "dignified" campaign for autonomy led by the Kanaks. He and his administration have sought to strike a neutral tone on the vote. The latest polls show that the islands are expected to vote to remain a French territory. New Caledonia's economy is underpinned by French annual subsidies of 1.3 billion euros ($1.48 billion), nickel deposits that are estimated to represent 25 percent of the world's total, and tourism. The archipelago and its population of 280,000 already enjoy a large degree of autonomy but depend heavily on France for matters such as defense and education. First discovered by the British explorer James Cook, the New Caledonia archipelago lies more than 16,700 kilometers (10,377 miles) from metropolitan France. It became a French colony in 1853. Under colonial rule the Kanaks were confined to reserves and excluded from much of the islands' economy. The first revolt erupted in 1878, not long after the discovery of large nickel deposits that are today exploited by French miner Eramet's subsidiary SLN. More than 100 years later, in the mid-1980s, fighting broke out between supporters of independence and those who wanted to remain French, amid festering anger over poverty and poor job opportunities. A 1988 massacre in a cave on the island of Ouvea left 19 indigenous separatists and two French soldiers dead and intensified talks on the island's future. A 1998 deal provided for a referendum on independence to be held by the end of 2018. Under the terms of the deal, in the event of a no vote, two further referenda can be held before 2022. Armed groups in Cameroon's restive English speaking regions have been attacking and chopping off fingers of workers of the country's second largest employer, the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), in what has been described as renewed efforts to destabilize the central African state ahead of the Tuesday inauguration of President-elect Paul Biya, who has been in power for 36 years. Four men and two women were rushed to a government hospital Saturday in the English speaking southwestern town of Tiko. Nurse on duty Stephanie Ako said she is waiting for directives on what should be done. 'What we have to do now is to clean their wounds and stop blood from oozing out while waiting for doctors and laboratory technicians. They are the ones to decide if the fingers have to be amputated or not, but their lives are not in danger even though some of them have completely fractured phalanges, metacarpal and carpal bones," she said. The six are workers on a rubber plantation near Tiko owned by the Cameroon Development Corporation. 27-year old Christopher Ongene said armed men attacked them Saturday evening. "The people arrived when we were packing our bags and farm tools to leave. One of them shouted, how many times have we asked you not to work here again. Then one of them ordered us to put our hands on tree trunks and they started cutting. Some of our colleagues who wanted to escape were shot," he said. Ongene said they were accused of defying instructions from the separatists not to go to work on the farms to protest President Biya's reelection and his expected inauguration on November 6. The CDC runs banana, palm oil, and rubber plantations in Cameroon's troubled southwest and northwest regions. In August the agro-industry said that more than 6,000 of its 20,000 workers had fled sporadic attacks, killings and kidnappings from armed separatists seeking an independent English-speaking state. Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai of the southwest region said the armed groups aim to create social tension. He said the military has been deployed to stop the terrorists from attacking workers as part of their strategy to create tension and destroy the regions two main agro-industries, the Cameroon Development Corporation and the Palm Oil Plantations Company. He said besides inflicting wounds and suffering, some workers have been killed, others kidnapped and held hostage and some plantations have been completely destroyed. Separatist groups had vowed on social media to make the English speaking regions of Cameroon ungovernable. They consider the state-run CDC a legitimate target. Conflict began in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon in 2016 when teachers and lawyers complained of discrimination from the French-speaking majority in education and the justice system. The government responded with a crackdown and separatists fought back. Facing a blizzard of trade complaints, China is throwing an "open for business'' import fair hosted by President Xi Jinping to rebrand itself as a welcoming market and positive global force. More than 3,000 companies from 130 countries selling everything from Egyptian dates to factory machinery are attending the China International Import Expo, opening Monday in the commercial hub of Shanghai. Its VIP guest list includes prime ministers and other leaders from Russia, Pakistan and Vietnam. The United States, fighting a tariff war with Beijing, has no plans to send a high-level envoy. Xi's government is emphasizing the promise of China's growing consumer market to help defuse complaints Beijing abuses the global trading system by reneging on promises to open its industries. "This says, look, we're not a global parasite that is creating massive deficits, we are buying goods,'' said Kerry Brown, a Chinese politics specialist at King's College London. The event also is part of efforts to develop a trading network centered on China and increase its influence in a Western-dominated global system. President Donald Trump and his "America First'' trade policies that threaten to raise import barriers to the world's biggest consumer market loom in the background. Exporters, especially developing countries, want closer relations with China to help "insulate themselves from what is happening with Trump and the U.S.,'' said Gareth Leather of Capital Economics. China has cut tariffs and announced other measures this year to boost imports, which rose 15.9 percent in 2017 to $1.8 trillion. But none addresses the U.S. complaints about its technology policy that prompted Trump to impose penalty tariffs of up to 25 percent on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports. Beijing has responded with tariff hikes on $110 billion worth of American imports. Chinese ambitions Chinese leaders have rejected pressure to roll back plans such as "Made in China 2025,'' which calls for state-led creation of global champions in robotics and other fields, ambitions that some American officials worry will undermine U.S. industrial leadership. To keep the economy growing, China needs to nurture its consumer market, and that requires more imports. But foreign companies say regulators are still trying to squeeze them out of promising industries and that they face pressure to hand over technology. The Shanghai expo "will be of little consequence to U.S. and other companies unless its pageantry is matched by meaningful and measurable changes in China trade practices,'' Kenneth Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, said in an email. Some companies might get a brief sales boost, "but its long-run impact will be defined by China's willingness to end many of its unfair trade practices,'' said Jarrett. Europe, Japan and other trading partners have been leery of Trump's tactics but echo U.S. complaints. They say Beijing improperly hampers access to finance, logistics and other service industries. European leaders are frustrated that Beijing bars foreign acquisitions of most assets while its own companies are on a global buying spree. Writing in a Chinese business magazine, the French and German ambassadors to Beijing appealed for changes including an end to requirements that foreign companies operate in joint ventures with state-owned partners. They called for an overhaul of rules they say hinder companies from profiting from and protecting their technology. "We encourage China to address these issues through concrete and systematic measures that go beyond tariff adjustments,'' Ambassadors Jean-Maurice Ripert of France and Clemens von Goetze of Germany wrote in the magazine Caixin. China already is the No. 1 trading partner for all its Asian neighbors, though a big share of the iron ore, industrial components and other goods it buys are turned into smartphones, TV sets and other goods for export. Better access to some goods Tariff cuts announced over the past year were aimed at giving Chinese consumers better access to foreign goods. Chinese leaders emphasize those include anti-cancer drugs and other medical products. But many are specialty goods such as high-end baby strollers, avocados and mineral water that don't compete with Chinese suppliers. The Shanghai expo also gives Beijing a chance to repair its image following complaints about its "Belt and Road Initiative to expand trade by building ports, railways and other infrastructure across a vast arc of 65 countries from the South Pacific through Asia to Africa and Europe. Governments including Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand have scrapped or scaled back projects because of high costs or complaints that too little work goes to local companies. Sri Lanka, Kenya and other nations have run into trouble repaying Chinese loans. "It's become too associated with debt and China getting what it wants,'' said Brown. "They are trying to get out this more positive message that China is open for business.'' The Pakistani attorney who helped a Christian woman overturn her death sentence for blasphemy charges against Islam's holy prophet said Saturday that he fled Pakistan because he feared for his life after her acquittal earlier this week caused widespread protests by Islamists. Members of the militant Islamist group Tehreek e-Labbaik ya Rasool Allah (TLYR) blocked main roads in Pakistan's largest cites for three days, demanding the deaths of the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi on Wednesday. Saiful Mulook represented the mother of five, who has been on death row since 2010. Two politicians who had tried to help her were assassinated. Mulook told Reuters in a WhatsApp message he had gone to another country "just to save [my] life from [an] angry mob" and because of fears for the safety of his family. "I consulted and everybody is of this opinion [that I should leave]." He added that he would return to the country to continue his work on the case if he was given protection by security forces. Mulook's departure from Pakistan came after a Pakistan government team negotiated a deal late Friday with Islamist groups, ending the crippling protests. The government agreed under the deal to take "legal measures" to prevent the woman from leaving the country while the court hears a petition against the verdict. The protests started Wednesday morning after the highest court in the country upheld Bibi's appeal against a guilty verdict. She was convicted in 2010 under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws. According to Bibi, she was falsely accused after a heated argument with other women who refused to drink water she had given them because she was Christian. Other religious groups also held demonstrations Friday, albeit peacefully. The government banned television coverage of protests linked to the issue and suspended cellphone service in several cities throughout the day to contain the crowds. Schools across the country were closed and many workers stayed home. Traffic was light and unpredictable, with roads blocked either by TLYR members or the police in some places. People were forced to turn to Twitter, Facebook and other social media forums as news on Pakistan's dozens of television channels was scant, leading to rumors and unconfirmed reports that caused anxiety among those who had relatives or friends traveling or were stuck away from home. Media, including foreign journalists, often used cellphones rather than cameras to acquire footage of the demonstrations after several instances of TLYR members beating up cameramen or breaking their equipment. Egypt said Sunday it has killed 19 militants suspected of being connected with the jihadists who killed seven Coptic Christians Friday who were traveling to a remote monastery in central Minya province. The Interior Ministry said the militants were killed in a shootout in the desert west of Minya province. It did not say when the firefight took place. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Christians, but has not provided any evidence. Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 100 million people. They have long complained of discrimination. Information in this article is confirmed with other sources and may be used without attribution to the Associated Press in broadcasts -- websites still must use the attribution. The News Center has no plans at this time to match it. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, a prolific player who provided his jazz sound to records across a vast range of styles and won two Grammys, has died at age 49, his manager said Saturday. Hargrove died in New York on Friday of cardiac arrest stemming from a longtime fight with kidney disease, longtime manager Larry Clothier said in a statement. Clothier said Hargrove "was known just as intensely for his brimming fire and fury as he was for his gorgeous, signature balladry. Over and over, his sound attested to and sanctified his deep love for music. His unselfish timbre covered the waterfront of every musical landscape.'' Many of Hargrove's peers regarded him as the greatest trumpeter of his generation. Through his own bands and as a sideman, Hargrove brewed his jazz with African and Latin sounds, R&B, soul, pop, funk and hip-hop. He led the progressive, genre-melding group The RH Factor, played in sessions for Common, Erykah Badu and D'Angelo, and collaborated with jazz giants including Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis. "He is literally the one-man horn section I hear in my head when I think about music,'' Questlove, drummer and leader of the Roots, said Saturday on Instagram. "Love to the immortal timeless genius that will forever be Roy Hargrove y'all.'' 'Young master' A native of Waco, Texas, Hargrove was discovered by his fellow trumpeter Marsalis while Hargrove was playing at a performing arts high school in Dallas. He went on to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and then transferred to the New School in New York, where he joined in jam sessions at jazz clubs in the evening. One of those clubs, the Blue Note, said on its Twitter account Saturday that Hargrove was a "young master and friend gone too soon.'' Hargrove released his first solo album, Diamond in the Rough, in 1990. He won his first Grammy in 1998 with his Afro-Cuban band Crisol for its album Habana. He then won another in 2002 for Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall, featuring a band he led with pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Michael Brecker. Questlove, who worked with Hargrove on several projects, said his improvisational skills were astonishing. "I can't properly document how crucial and spot on Roy was with his craft, man,'' he said. "We NEVER gave him instructions: just played the song and watched him go.'' Other tributes flowed from the musical community as word spread of Hargrove's death. "I have no words over the loss of my dear brother of 31 years,'' bass player Christian McBride said on Twitter. "We played on a lot of sessions together, traveled a lot of miles together, laughed a lot together, bickered on occasion and I wouldn't change our relationship for anything in the world. Bless you, Roy Hargrove.'' Trumpet player and composer Keyon Harrold called Hargrove the "trumpeter jazz king'' on Instagram. "The spirit that radiated from the bell of his horn was always a force of youth enthralled with the wisdom of old,'' Harrold said. Hargrove is survived by his wife, Aida, daughter, Kamala, mother, Jacklyn, and brother, Brian. Memorial plans are in the works, but no details have been announced yet. The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted after spending eight years on death row on blasphemy charges is appealing to U.S. President Donald Trump for refuge, according to Reuters news agency. In a video recorded by the British Pakistani Christian Association and seen Sunday by Reuters, Ashiq Masih, the husband of Asia Bibi whose case has outraged Christians worldwide, also appealed to the United Kingdom and Canada for assistance, citing danger to family members' lives. Reuters said the U.S. Embassy and British and Canadian High Commissions in Islamabad did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the appeal. Saturday, Attorney Saiful Mulook, who represented Bibi, said he fled Pakistan because he fears for his life after her acquittal earlier this week caused widespread protests by Islamists. Members of the militant Islamist group Tehreek e-Labbaik ya Rasool Allah, blocked main roads in Pakistan's largest cites for three days, demanding the murder of the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi on Wednesday. Mulook told Reuters in a WhatsApp message he had gone to another country "just to save (my) life from angry mob" and because of fears for the safety of his family. "I consulted and everybody is of this opinion (that I should leave)." He added that he would return to the country to continue his work on the case if he was given protection by security forces. Mulook's departure from Pakistan comes after a Pakistan government team negotiated a deal late Friday with Islamist groups, ending the crippling protests. The government agreed to take legal measures to prevent the woman from leaving the country while the court hears a petition against the verdict. Bibi appealed her 2010 conviction under Pakistans controversial blasphemy laws. According to Bibi, she was falsely accused after a heated argument with other women who refused to drink water she had given them because she was Christian. Other religious groups also held demonstrations Friday, albeit peacefully. The government banned television coverage of protests linked to the issue and suspended cell phone service in several cities throughout the day to contain the crowds. U.N. officials and volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are vaccinating children and distributing desperately needed aid for the first time in a remote camp for the displaced on Syria's border with Jordan Residents said international organizations entered Rukban Camp for the first time since it was set up more than three years ago and where nearly 50,000 people have been stranded. Before January, aid only reached the camp from Jordan and aid workers were barred from accessing the camp for security concerns. A U.N. spokesperson said Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomes the delivery of humanitarian aid to Rukban, and is calling for continued, full, safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to ... and to all people in need throughout the country. Fadwa Baroud of the U.N. Office of the Resident Coordinator said it was the first time a U.N. aid convoy had accessed Rukban camp from inside Syria. Before January, aid only reached the camp from Jordan and aid workers were barred from accessing the camp out of security concerns. A convoy of 78 trucks reached the camp late Saturday and residents posed with the aid trucks driving through the desolate camp, where 10,000 children are expected to be vaccinated. The U.S.-led coalition fighting against Islamic State militants said its local allies, a Syrian armed group known as Maghawir al-Thawra, provided security for the aid convoys. Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, blames the United States for the deterioration of the situation in Rukban, which is within a 55-square kilometer "deconfliction zone" set up by U.S. forces. The U.S.-led coalition has denied such allegations and blamed Russia and the Syrian government instead. "We continue to stand ready to enable future delivery of U.N. humanitarian relief to the people of Rukban until they are able to return home as we pursue our mission of an enduring defeat of [IS],'' said Maj. Gen. (UK) Christopher Ghika, a deputy commander for the U.S.-led Coalition. The U.N. said aid deliveries would continue for up to four days, describing the condition in the camp as "critical" with reported shortages of basic commodities, protection concerns, and increasing violence. LGBTQ activists in Iowa say they are encouraged by the progress in their fight for equality despite occasional setbacks in the Midwestern state. The shifting and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward that community are keenly felt by Zach Wahls, an LGBTQ advocate and candidate for a seat in the Iowa Legislature. Wahls made national headlines in 2011 when he spoke about being raised by a lesbian couple during a public hearing of a legislative committee on whether to ban gay marriage. A video of that speech went viral. Like many LGBTQ activists, who note President Donald Trump's efforts to bar transgender individuals from serving in the military and his appointments of judges with a record of ruling against LGBTQ rights, Wahls feels that the administration "has put transgender people in the crosshairs." But when he repeats the story he told in 2011 on the campaign trail, he finds people "energized" by it. "Even if they disagree with same-sex marriage, or have some views in terms of LGBT identity that I would disagree with, most people have the 'live and let live' perspective," he said. That doesn't mean everyone is on board. Last month, to protest the second annual pride festival parade in the town of Orange City, a Christian activist live-streamed himself burning four library books. The titles included Two Boys Kissing and Families, Families, Families! about non-traditional families. Orange City is part of Sioux County, which is among the most conservative counties in the state. The condemnation from several groups was immediate. Since then, GoFundMe pages have raised more than enough money for the Orange City public library to replace the books. When asked to respond to the book burning, Daniel Hoffman-Zinnel, executive director of One Iowa, an organization that promotes LGBTQ equality, focused instead on the progress his community has made in a largely rural state with strong religious ties. More than 200 people attended the pride festival parade, Hoffman-Zinnel said. "So, having pride happen in this area is amazing." While careful not to diminish the negative experiences of some people, Mark Stringer, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Iowa, pointed to the state's record of passing legislation promoting justice for women, members of the LGBTQ community and people of color. "If you look at our history as a state, you'll see that we are ahead of the curve," said Stringer, whose group has opposed infringements on civil liberties from both the right and the left. "I've seen a lot of movement in a greater understanding of the challenges and discrimination that transgender people face." Stringer and Hoffman-Zinnel pointed to state laws in Iowa that would block some proposed federal efforts to roll back protections for LGBTQ individuals. In 2007, the state legislature passed a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Two years later, Iowa became one of the first states to allow gay marriage. "In Iowa, we have some of the best policies on the books. That being said, the emotional damage that has already happened should not be overlooked," Hoffman-Zinnel said. Freddi Funnell of Ames, a college town that leans liberal, founded a support group last year with his teenage child, who is agender. While there are several support groups in town especially on the campuses of Iowa State University, the high school, and even the middle school Funnell said there was still a gap in supporting trans and non-binary people. On a good day, Funnell said, around 15 people, ranging in age from elementary students to senior citizens, attend the group's meetings. "So, it just goes to show that a community group was needed," Funnell said. After coming out as gay two decades ago he said he wanted to come out as transgender but feared losing friendships Funnell was frequently targeted. "My senior year of high school, I bought 16 new tires because they just kept slashing them," he said. At 25, he was diagnosed with cancer and had a near-death experience. It spurred him to come out as transgender. "I was like, I have a second chance at life, I can't be unhappy. I can't hide who I am. It's time to let go of the idea that I have to stick to one label,'" Funnell said. He was surprised by the reaction. "Just that 10 years had changed enough in society, in social media and everything, that I didn't get any pushback like I had prior," he said. Funnell generally credits Ames residents and businesses with being supportive of the transgender community. He said area physicians are good about getting training to provide appropriate health care for transgender people, something that residents in other parts of the state say they lack. However, statements and actions from the Trump administration have led to fear of backlash within the transgender community. "I do know in some of the rural communities, it's not as nice where they've reached out to me, or they've moved, because it's too bigoted, and they don't feel safe," Funnell said. Several transgender people living in rural areas declined to speak to VOA for this article, or did not respond to requests to be interviewed. Rather than retreat, Funnell said now is the time to promote education and give more exposure to the LGBTQ community. "A lot of people are fed up right now, but we're not going to stop fighting," he said. Iranians chanting "Death to America" rallied on Sunday to mark both the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran's key oil sector. Thousands of students in the government-organized rally in the capital Tehran, broadcast live by state television, burned the Stars and Stripes, an effigy of Uncle Sam and pictures of President Donald Trump outside the leafy downtown compound that once housed the U.S. mission. Hardline students stormed the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979 soon after the fall of the U.S.-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days. The two countries have been enemies, on opposite sides of Middle East conflict, ever since. Iranian state media said millions turned out for rallies in most cities and towns around the country, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and its hardline top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The turnout figure could not be independently confirmed by Reuters. Rallies replete with "Death to America" chants are staged on the embassy takeover anniversary every year. But U.S.-Iranian rancor is especially strong this time round following Trump's decision in May to withdraw the United States from world powers' 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. The deal brought about the lifting of most international financial and economic sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran curbing its disputed nuclear activity under U.N. surveillance. Among events held on the embassy anniversary was a cartoon exhibit called "Donald Salman" - a reference to the close ties between the U.S. president and King Salman, ruler of Iran's arch-rival for regional predominance, Saudi Arabia. "My cartoons are focused on three themes: the Zionist regime (Israel), Al Salman (Saudi royal family) and America's government," artist Masoud Shojaei Tabatabai told state television in Tehran. "It's black humor but the audience can also be brought to reflect on the contradictions in the behavior of Trump and Al Saud," he said, standing in front of a cartoon showing an old wheelchair-bound figure dressed like a comic-book superhero. The restoration of U.S. sanctions on Monday targeting Iran's oil sales and banking sectors is part of a wider effort by Trump to force Tehran to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile programs outright as well as support for proxy forces in conflicts across the Middle East. The top commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said at the Tehran rally that Iran would resist and defeat a U.S. "psychological war" and the return of U.S. sanctions, meant to cripple the Islamic Republic's oil exports and financial institutions. "America has launched an economic and psychological war as a last resort ... But America's plots and its plans for sanctions will be defeated through continued resistance," said Jafari. In a speech on Saturday, Khamenei said Trump's policies faced opposition around the world. "America's goal has been to re-establish the domination it had (before 1979) but it has failed. America has been defeated by the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years," he said. When Paul Davis heard earlier this year that the complete remains of two Civil War soldiers had been uncovered recently at Manassas National Battlefield, mixed among severed limbs in a surgeon's pit, he immediately wondered: Could that be his Great-Great Uncle William, who died at the Second Battle of Bull Run, but whose bones had been lost to history? From what he knew of his ancestor's death, it seemed possible. Davis had read letters that said William a color sergeant in the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, part of the Union Army's famed Iron Brigade died after being taken by ambulance for treatment. Unfortunately for Davis, he may never find out. Army officials rejected requests from several families to conduct DNA testing that might have enabled their identification before reburying the remains as unknown soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery in September. "The Army made the decision that the costs associated with obtaining, storing and testing of the DNA from these two unknown U.S. soldiers was not justified due to the significant passage of time, as the possibility of identifying comparator DNA is extremely unlikely,'' a statement from Army officials at the cemetery says. Insulted Davis said he found the Army's stance insulting. "Don't put someone in a box for eternity without their name if you have the ability to identify that person,'' said Davis, 64, of Fort Myers, Fla. Davis noted that the U.S. military has an entire department working to identify remains of service members, but the agency investigates only those cases going back to World War II. He said he didn't understand why the military's commitment came with an apparent expiration date on older conflicts. "There's a covenant that exists between our country and our soldiers: If they're lost, our country will try to find them, and if they're found, our country will try to identify them,'' Davis said. "When a soldier makes the ultimate sacrifice in battle for his country, when does the commitment to bring him home end?'' This discovery was unusual, and accidental. Countless unidentified soldiers were buried where they fell during the Civil War. National Park Service policy is to leave their remains in place, considering battlefields to be hallowed ground. These bodies were discovered in 2014 when workers digging to install a pipeline uncovered human bones. Researchers eventually found nearly a dozen severed limbs, along with two full sets of remains. They were able to conclude the soldiers were members of the Union Army, based on uniform buttons found in the pit and a bullet lodged in the one man's femur, fired from a Confederate Enfield rifle. The location corresponds with work done by surgeons in the battle's aftermath, as the Union medical corps sent ambulances to collect the wounded and treat those left lying on the battlefield who could be saved, said Douglas Owsley, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution who examined the remains. Owsley said he did not dispute the Army's contention that DNA testing would be unlikely to identify the two individuals, because there could be many potential candidates with plausible claims like those put forward by Davis, given the large number of casualties at Second Bull Run. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency already has a $144 million budget and 600 staffers working to identify tens of thousands of remains, and typically identifies about 200 service members a year. Making an exception in Davis' case could open the door to an even larger caseload by violating its firm rule against investigating pre-World War II conflicts. Owsley said some consideration was given to developing DNA profiles of the remains before they were reburied, but the Army opted against that as well, noting that Arlington was founded as a place to honor the Civil War dead, both known and unidentified. "The Army feels strongly that the dignified burial of these two sets of remains is in keeping with the over 2,000 Civil War unknowns who were killed in action near the national capital region and are buried at Arlington National Cemetery,'' the Army said in its statement. Sampling from limbs Owsley said it may be easier to identify the severed limbs. Surgeons were under orders to document amputations so that Army pensions could be issued to these wounded soldiers, and there are fairly extensive records of surgeries from the battle. Owsley said he hoped to preserve samples from the limbs, which are stored at the Smithsonian, but the Army has not yet agreed to such testing. Davis said every detail he learns about the case seems to jibe with his ancestor's story. He said no one at the Army was willing to look at his documents and other evidence corroborating the possibility that his ancestor had been unearthed. For instance, Park Service officials said Davis' ancestor couldn't have been connected because he served in a Wisconsin regiment, and isotope testing which can be done less expensively and more easily than DNA testing indicated the two soldiers were likely from New England. But Davis said his great-great uncle lived in Maine before moving to the Midwest for work as a lumberjack. Indeed, a headstone in a Maine cemetery bears William Garcelon Davis' name, marking an empty gravesite. That's why Paul Davis wants his ancestor buried in Maine, even though he recognizes the honor of burial at Arlington. "The ones who loved him, that's where they thought he belonged,'' Davis said. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he is resuming denuclearization talks with North Korea this week in New York, meeting with Pyongyang's second in command, Kim Yong Chol. Progress on ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs has slowed in the months since the Singapore summit in June between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, when the two leaders signed a general statement calling for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. But Pompeo called the coming talks "a good opportunity" to move toward specifics of when and how North Korea might end its nuclear weapons program. The United States is seeking to finalize a deal by the end of Trump's first term in office in January 2021. Pyongyang said Friday it would "seriously" consider resuming its nuclear testing if U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea are not lifted, but Pompeo, in an interview on Fox News Sunday, dismissed the threat. "I'm not worried about that," the top U.S. diplomat said Sunday. "We are very focused. We know with whom we are negotiating, we know what their positions (are) and President Trump has made his position very clear" Pompeo said there would be "no economic relief until we have achieved our ultimate objective," the end of North Korea's nuclear program. The United States has said it would maintain the sanctions against North Korea until it has reached "final, fully verified denuclearization," although Pyongyang has described the demands as "gangster-like." The North Korean foreign ministry, in its latest statement, said, "The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible." Despite the slow pace of the talks, Pompeo cited favorable signs in the U.S.-North Korean relationship. "We haven't had any missile tests," he said. "There've been no nuclear tests, We've had the returns of American remains (from the Korean War of the early 1950s). These are all good steps." Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic predecessor, former President Barack Obama, are staging dueling rallies Sunday to push their political party faithful to the polls in Tuesday's national congressional elections. Trump is not on any ballot Tuesday, but has often said his policies and assessment of his 22-month White House performance are at stake, as U.S. voters elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and a third of the 100-member Senate. Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, but political analysts are predicting the opposition Democrats are poised to take control of the House, while Republicans are likely to retain their narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate, perhaps even adding a seat or two. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to win the House majority. Real Clear Politics, a U.S. political website, projects the Democrats as winning an additional 26 seats, while one pollster, Nate Silver, is predicting a 38-seat pickup. A Democratic takeover of one chamber of Congress could significantly impact Trump. Some Democrats, if they take control, are already vowing to open investigations of his business finances and policies his administration has adopted, and possibly start impeachment hearings based on the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller, who for a year and a half has been investigating Trump's 2016 campaign's links to Russia and whether, as president, Trump has tried to thwart the probe and obstruct justice. Trump, is barnstorming through 11 rallies in the last six days before the election. At a West Virginia rally Friday, a defiant Trump dismissed the prospect of a Democratic House takeover. "It could happen," he said, adding, "don't worry about it. I'll just figure it out." In the closing days of the campaign, the U.S. leader has stoked fears of undocumented immigrants, claiming the caravans of Central Americans moving slowly through Mexico are set on "invading" the southern U.S. border. Obama, reticent to attack his successor during much of his post-presidency, has reversed course in recent weeks, sharply condemning Trump's White House tenure. At one recent rally, Obama said, "We have seen repeated attempts to divide us with rhetoric designed to make us angry and make us fearful, that's designed to exploit our history of racial and ethnic and religious division." When pro-Trump hecklers started heckling him, Obama said, "You know what, it's an old playbook. It's one that the powerful and privileged turn to whenever control starts slipping away. They'll get folks riled up just to protect their power and their privilege, even when it hurts the country, even when it puts people at risk." Obama is holding a get-out-the-vote rally in his hometown of Chicago on Sunday, supporting wealthy Democratic businessman J.B. Pritzker in his bid to oust incumbent Illinois Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Obama then heads to the neighboring state of Indiana for a rally in Gary for embattled first-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is engaged in a tight contest with Republican businessman Mike Braun for a new six-year term. Trump campaigned for Braun on Friday and is heading back to the midwestern state for another Braun rally on Monday. Trump appears Sunday in the southern city of Macon, Georgia. He is supporting Republican Brian Kemp, the Georgia secretary of state, who is locked in a tight contest with Democrat Stacey Abrams, a state lawmaker, in their race for the Georgia governorship. Trump then heads to neighboring Tennessee to campaign for Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who polls say has edged ahead of Democrat Phil Bredesen, a former governor, in their contest for an open Senate seat. A big group of migrants from Central American countries traveling mostly on foot toward the United States, voted to continue their journey from Cordoba to reach Mexico City on Monday. They have decided to hitchhike and walk to cover the shortest route from Cordoba, which is more than 280 kilometers south of Mexicos capital. The vote Sunday came after exhausted caravan participants arrived in Cordoba after a 200-kilometre trek through Veracruz, a state which has been life threatening for hundreds of migrants in recent years, because of kidnappers looking for ransom payments. The caravan with an estimated 4,000 migrants is still in Veracruz, still hundreds of kilometers from the nearest U.S. border crossing. Meanwhile, the Central American migrant caravans were on the minds of President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama on the last Sunday of campaigning before Tuesday's mid-term election. Trump came out for a rally in Macon, Georgia for Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor. He gave what he called message to the migrants hoping to cross the border from Mexico. "Turn back now because you're not coming into the United States unless you go through the process." Trump again said the caravans are full of criminals and "rough people," although reporters who have traveled with the migrants say they have primarily seen women and children. The president said deploying U.S. soldiers to the border shows the United States is "not playing games." Just before Trump spoke, his predecessor, President Barack Obama, campaigned in Gary, Indiana for Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly. In a voice hoarse from several days of campaign speeches, Obama criticized Trump's belief that the migrants are an invasion and a threat. He said the men and women in the military deserve better than to be used for what he called a "political stunt." Earlier Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops to the Mexican border has nothing to do with boosting Republicans days before the election. "I've been involved in scores of conversations about stopping illegal immigration from Mexico and never once has there been a discussion of the political impact in U.S. domestic politics," he told CBS's Face the Nation. The main migrant caravan that left San Pedro Sula, Honduras about three weeks ago is still about 1,600 kilometers from the U.S.-Mexican border. The majority say they still hope to be able to get into the U.S. and work, while others have accepted Mexico's offer of asylum and jobs. Two other smaller caravans are also slowly making their way north. In response to an upsurge of Venezuelan asylum seekers, the U.N. refugee agency has scaled up protection and assistance at crucial border points in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The impetus behind this move was the deadline of October 31 set by Peru for Venezuelans to apply for a Temporary Stay Permit. That triggered a mad rush by people fleeing poverty and violence in Venezuela to get to Peru before the deadline expired. The U.N. refugee agency reports more than 100,000 Venezuelans so far have obtained the Temporary Stay Permit. Spokesman, Babar Baloch said the UNHCR was on hand to help Venezuelans fill out the required border formalities, including immigration procedures and mandatory vaccinations. He said people anxiously waited in line for two to three days early last week to make sure they completed all the necessary forms and other border procedures ahead of the deadline. "Thousands of people were sleeping in the open and many required medical assistance and food. The Peruvian authorities, UNHCR and its partners worked to quickly scale-up our response. In addition, strong coordination is in place between UNHCR and offices in Peru and Ecuador to respond to the urgent needs of the Venezuelans." Baloch said UNHCR also has reinforced its presence inside Peru in Tumbes, which is the main border crossing from Ecuador. He said UNHCR will increase protection coverage and assist people with specific needs, such as unaccompanied and separated children. Baloch said UNHCR teams are present at Ecuador's northern and southern borders to help orient arriving Venezuelan families and refer people with special protection needs to state services for assistance. In Colombia, he said UNHCR and partners are aiding an increasing number of Venezuelans departing for Ecuador. He said staff members at the border are providing hot meals, blankets and kits for children to speed them on their way. The United States and South Korea will begin small-scale military drills on Monday that were delayed during talks with North Korea, days after Pyongyang threatened to restart work on its nuclear program if international pressure does not ease. The Korean Marine Exchange Program was among the training drills that were indefinitely suspended in June after U.S. President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore and promised to end joint, U.S.-South Korea military exercises often criticized by the North. A spokesman for South Korea's Ministry of Defense confirmed a round of training would begin near the southern city of Pohang, with no media access expected. About 500 American and South Korean marines will participate in the manoeuvres, the Yonhap news agency reported. In Washington last week, South Korea's defense minister said Washington and Seoul would make a decision by December on major joint military exercises for 2019. Vigilant Ace, suspended earlier this month, is one of several such exercises that have been halted to encourage dialogue with Pyongyang. The biggest combat-readiness war game ever staged in and around Japan has gone ahead, however, with nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan joining Japanese destroyers and a Canadian warship in the ocean off Japan -- another key player in the effort to pressure North Korea. North Korea warned on Friday that it could restart development of its nuclear program if the United States does not drop its campaign of "maximum pressure" and sanctions. "The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible," a foreign ministry official said in a statement released through state-run KCNA news agency. "The U.S. thinks that its oft-repeated 'sanctions and pressure' lead to 'denuclearization.' We cannot help laughing at such a foolish idea." North Korea has not tested a ballistic missile or nuclear weapon for nearly a year, and has said it has shuttered its main nuclear test site with plans to dismantle several more facilities. In recent weeks, North Korea has pressed more sharply for what it sees as reciprocal concessions by the United States and other countries. "As shown, the U.S. is totally to blame for all the problems on the Korean peninsula including the nuclear issue and therefore, the very one that caused all those must untie the knot it made," Friday's statement said. American officials have remained skeptical of Kim's commitment to give up the nuclear arsenal he has already amassed, however, and Washington says it won't support easing international sanctions until more verified progress is made. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, meanwhile, has forged ahead with efforts to engage with North Korea in recent months, raising U.S. concerns that Seoul could weaken pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. As Americans prepare for another election, Russian troublemakers have again tried to divide U.S. voters and discredit democracy. The activity appears focused on abuse of social media, through American-looking posts and sites, instead of big cyberattacks or disrupting voting systems. So far, it's more modest than the influence campaign Russia is accused of carrying out in 2016, and Russia is not alone - it's just one source of online manipulation ahead of Tuesday's election. Russia denies interference, and may not be able to affect the outcome anyway, but has reason to be interested in the election result. U.S. officials and tech companies are trying to improve election security and fight disinformation campaigns online. Here's what they say the Russians have been up to: Funding trolls One Russian has been charged so far by U.S. officials of interference in 2018 election campaign: Elena Khusyaynova, a bookkeeper with the Internet Research Agency, the "troll factory" accused of manipulating the 2016 U.S. campaign. Khusyaynova is accused of a covert social media campaign for both the 2016 and 2018 votes in the United States. The criminal complaint says she began buying social media ads in 2015, including on Facebook and Instagram, and spent on internet services including VPNs, which help mask online activity. Khusyaynova also purchased social media analytics products, which gauge the performance of online postings, and paid bloggers and U.S.-based activists. The proposed operating budget she oversaw was more than $35 million from January 2016 through June 2018 - including $10 million for the first half of this year, the complaint says. It is unclear how many Americans saw postings financed by Khusyaynova's activity. Faux-American sites The Russian troll factory's owners, the Federal News Agency, registered three domain names in April aimed at the U.S. market, according to the SPARK-Interfax database. The websites all lead readers to a site called USAReally, aimed at showing American audiences news that has been "hushed up" by the mainstream media. Its Russian roots aren't hard to find. Its Russian chief editor, Alexander Malkevich, is openly critical of Democrats and says "America won" when Donald Trump became president. Its readership remains small, in the tens of thousands, which Malkevich blames on "censorship" by Facebook and Twitter. It is trying to amplify its voice via links on other media. In recent days, its focus has been on the migrant caravan weaving through Latin America, on tight congressional races - and on an effort to recruit Megyn Kelly, whose show on NBC was canceled amid controversy over her comments on blackface Halloween costumes. Tricky tweets Even after the February indictment by U.S. authorities of a dozen Russians linked to the Internet Research Agency, it continued to work on tricking U.S. audiences - including seeking to mobilize activists to participate in street demonstrations. Twitter last month released millions of tweets and other content targeting Americans that it said came from the IRA, both from the 2016 race and continuing through the summer of 2018, well into the U.S. midterm campaign. Examples of tweets include those from the account @TEN_GOP, which pretended to be Tennessee's Republican party, and posted a photo of then-FBI Director James Comey with the words "resign now." It's unclear how many people saw the content, which is no longer available on Twitter itself. In August, Facebook and security firm FireEye revealed influence campaigns on the social network originating in Russia and Iran. Experts say Russia's alleged actions in the 2016 U.S. election may have encouraged Iran to follow suit. Probing candidates Microsoft executives said recently that the company had detected attempts by Russia's GRU military intelligence agency to hack into the campaigns of two senators, and disabled Russian-launched websites disguised as U.S. think tanks and Senate sites. One attempt involved Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who is seeking re-election in a state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016. Microsoft identified an attempt to steal the password of at least one McCaskill staffer through a fake Senate login website, in the most notable instance of attempted campaign meddling by Russia made public this year. It's not clear whether Russians are again targeting U.S. voting systems. U.S. officials have said that before the 2016 general election, Russian agents probed at least 21 state election systems. 150 Army Reserve soldiers from Huntsville are leaving for deployment Sunday morning. The last time the 375th engineer company were deployed was in 2009. Many of the Army reserve soldiers told WAAY 31 this is what they signed up for. For some, this is their second deployment, but it's always hard leaving their family before the holidays. Sgt. Justin Pyle and his wife Brianna Pyle have only been married for two months. "The closer to time is hitting really hard," said Brianna. "Actually realizing that he's not going to be here for a year." "She actually threw a party for me and did every holiday that I'll miss." Justin Pyle said. "She did Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday and New Years. We got it all taken care of." First Sgt. Kevin Brown said that 150 soldiers were leaving for Kuwait Sunday morning. The Army needed more carpenters, plumbers and electricians. "At that point, we'll be moving forward to other locations as told to conduct construction missions and to help out the operation inherit resolve" Sgt. Brown said. This is Brown's sixth deployment and his wife has been a huge support. He says now the 375th Engineer company are ready for their mission. Lots of hugs, prayers and last memories before the deployment, including Sgt. Pyle's son handing him a card he made for his father. "Proud, very proud. He told me it took him three days. His first chapter book, but I'm going to miss him. We'll stay in contact." These soldiers have been training for deployment for about a year. They didn't know they were being deployed until about six months ago. Monday, warrants will be issued for the suspect police have yet to name. Moulton police and other law enforcement agencies are searching for the man they say led them on a chase Saturday. When the pursuit ended, the suspect fled the scene. Police found money, meth and marijuana. Saturday afternoon's chase started in Moulton and ended on County Road 345 near Trinity. Police say the man crashed the Chevy Tahoe in someones yard. The suspect then ran away, escaping into the woods. The same man was allegedly involved in another chase with police and got away on Wednesday, October 31. When police spotted the black Tahoe Saturday, that's when the second pursuit began. After the chase, police say they recovered an amount of meth described as exceeding the weight classified as trafficking, an undisclosed amount of marijuana and $17,000 in cash. Alabama State Troopers assisted in the pursuit. That threat has brought together an international team that includes scientists from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and poor coffee farmers in Venezuela, all set on rescuing it from extinction. The plan is to entice farmers to plant organic coffee groves with layers of thick branches that are inviting to the endangered songbird, which has lost a lot of its habitat. For one, Axioss story and headline Exclusive: Trump to terminate birthright citizenship failed to note that Trump cant just override the Constitution with the stroke of a pen (the story and headline were later amended to reflect this). For another, a clip of Swans encounter with Trump drew an angry backlash on social media for Swans failure to push back on Trumps claim that other countries dont have birthright citizenship (in fact, dozens do) or the notion that the proposal might just be a stunt by Trump to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment days before an election. Besides Muhammad, who terrorized the Washington area during a 2002 shooting rampage, Paul Warner Powell was perhaps the most heinous murderer in Eberts history. Powell stabbed Stacie Reed, a 16-year-old girl, to death in her heart and waited for Kristie Reed, her 14-year-old sister, to come home, before raping her and slitting her throat. Powell got the death sentence, but the Virginia Supreme Court threw it out on a technicality. But then, Powell wrote a bragging letter to Ebert later published in Harpers Magazine admitting that he had tried to coerce Stacie to have sex with him before killing her. David I. Stephenson, 44, was found on the floor of his cell at the Jessup Correctional Institution around 3 a.m. suffering obvious trauma, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. She graduated from Benjamin Banneker High School and then from Temple University in Philadelphia, where she studied communications and business. After college, Smith worked at a radio station in Philadelphia and then returned to the District, where she got a job as an events planner. In 2004, she spent Sept. 6, the Labor Day holiday, attending cookouts and visiting relatives and friends. Evans-Bailey said Aiken called Smith and asked her to go out that night. Smith agreed. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Email address By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy The legal dispute spins off into directions as unexpected as finding uranium on an old Virginia plantation. It pits a states right to regulate industry against the federal governments power to oversee matters of national interest. The Trump administration has sided with the company, and against the state exercising what it considers its sovereignty. The case also hinges on trying to intuit the true motives of Virginia legislators more than 30 years ago when they enacted the moratorium. No one wanted any part of us when the crime was high here, and thats what is also frustrating about all this new interest, said Mahoni, who intends to leave the home to his seven children. I tell people only sell if you have to, that you have the character not to sell your soul to the devil. But for some people its just too much money not to. But that trend has been reversed in dramatic fashion in one state: California. The state Department of Public Health calculates that between 2006 and 2013, California lowered its maternal mortality rate by 55 percent from 16.9 to 7.3 deaths for every 100,000 live births, which translates to saving about one life in every 10,000 live births. The California rate is in line with those in Western Europe. During that same period, according to federal data, the U.S. rate rose from 13.3 to 22. Every Democratic candidate in the country has been looking for a moment this year . . . to tap into that national small-dollar fundraising army that exists for Democrats, said Tyler Jones, a general consultant for Cunninghams campaign. When we started to see an influx of fundraising, it made us all look at each other and say, We can do this. Language like this has become a defining trait of Donnellys in this reelection campaign as he runs against Mike Braun, a businessman who has aligned himself with the president. Donnelly is one of five Senate Democrats running in a state that Trump won by double digits in 2016 a 19-point victory here. Donnelly is trying to re-create the coalition of blue-collar workers and moderate Republicans in the doughnut counties surrounding Indianapolis that fueled his victory in 2012 and Trumps four years later. Bloomberg has been traveling to wealthy and highly educated suburban areas outside of Philadelphia and other cities to speak to Democratic audiences. It has been, in part, a charm offensive to Democrats skeptical of him and a political past that has been at times out of step with the partys base, from his defense of stop-and-frisk policing that civil rights groups denounce as racist to his tangles with labor unions over pensions. Georgias gubernatorial race took center stage Sunday, as Kemps office announced a hacking investigation of the Georgia Democratic Party and his campaign condemned the criminal behavior he allegedly discovered. Kemp, who as secretary of state oversees Georgias elections, did not provide any evidence, and his announcement was criticized by voting rights lawyers as well as Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams (D), who suggested that the investigation was nothing more than a pathetic attempt to cover up for his failures. Control of the House and Senate, along with 36 governorships, is at stake in Tuesdays elections. The House majority will be determined in dozens of suburban districts across the country, while the future of the Senate is up for grabs in Republican-leaning states where Trump won in 2016 and his support is solid among rural voters. Were working with the Turkish government, with the Saudi government and with anyone else who has relevant facts for us to be able to determine all of those who were responsible for this atrocious murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which the Saudis themselves have acknowledged was premeditated, he said. We need to get to the bottom of it. We need to find out who was responsible, hold them accountable. Garcia said more space should also cut the need for families to sleep on the Mexican side of the bridge as they wait to apply for asylum in the United States. Customs and Border Protection officers have been regularly denying entry to would-be asylum seekers since spring, claiming ports of entry lack the capacity to process more people. The number of people camping on the bridge, however, has started to rise only over the past couple of weeks. I think the administration, when they know all the facts, are going to have to decide, how can they on the one hand make clear that this action is unacceptable, but also not throw out the prince with the bathwater, lets put it that way. An Aussie tech startup with global ambitions to become the 'bible' for the music industry through its a database of music credits and liner notes has seen through the recent share market turmoils and is pushing ahead with its float on the Australian Securities Exchange. Jaxsta intends to close off its initial public offering this Tuesday with plans to raise up to $7 million and reverse list on the ASX as early as next week. Its ambition is to become the central database of music credits, and liner notes, for the music industry globally. In its words, it wants to be a cross between Bloomberg and LinkedIn, a trusted source for the music industry when it comes to finding out who played what role on your favourite songs. Jaxsta aims to become the trusted source when it comes to working out who helped create your favourite songs. Credit:Chris Pizzello It has been a glaring weakness in the digital music industry that Jaxsta founder, Jacqui Louez Schoorl, first noticed in 2006 when she moved from the movie production business to the music industry. Ms Malone said a key problem in the franchising system was the lack of remedy for franchisees when a franchisor did not act in good faith beyond extremely expensive legal action. Her case fell apart with proceedings dismissed in March 2018. Ms Malone was ordered to pay Granite Transformation's costs. Ms Malone said she expected she would have to file for bankruptcy. "It becomes a question of how much justice you can afford, and the franchisor had deeper pockets - as most franchisors would," she said. "I havent slept properly in 12 months but I persist in fighting for my sons," she said in her submission. "I bitterly regret my decision to have anything to do with a franchise in general, and Granite Transformations specifically." I havent slept properly in 12 months but I persist in fighting for my sons. Sophie Malone Mr Gilbert said most of the allegations levelled at Granite Transformations by Ms Malone were the subject of court proceedings initiated by her. "Granite Transformations regrets that it had to take the actions that it did and regrets any personal hardship that has been suffered by Ms Malone," Mr Gilbert said. "Granite Transformations only took the action that it did reluctantly, and to protect the businesses and goodwill of all of its franchisees." Quality issues Granite Transformations franchisees have also spoken out about the quality of the product supplied by the franchise. Over the last two years, the quality of the product has deteriorated with the Trascenda range [a marble-look engineered stone] discolouring in daylight," Granite Transformations distributor Sam Burton said in a submission to the inquiry. "We were still encouraged to sell this product knowing full well it was faulty. We chose not to. Other colours in the range were also arriving in poor condition and wastage increased. We decided at this point to offer alternatives products to keep our business afloat." Mr Burton said as a result of this, his distribution agreement was terminated in 2017 and he was told to remove everything associated with the Granite Transformations' name. "So far, 11 Granite Transformation franchisees have left the group, with another being sent into liquidation by their bullying tactics," he said. Sophie Malone's business was liquidated and she is worried she will have to file for bankruptcy. Credit:Peter Braig "They are also taking another franchise to court, costing that franchise over $100k for a case based on [hearsay], and for which they are completely innocent. The judicial system in Australia makes it impossible to defend oneself when a company has access to unlimited funds and a desire to make an example of you." Granite Transformations confirmed some franchisees had left the system but a spokesman said "the number is less than suggested by Mr Burton". Current franchisee Joseph Lowe said he also experienced issues with the quality of the product supplied by Granite Transformations. "It came to one point where we just couldn't get the stock they promised and they don't deliver, the product we are getting is just not good enough, there is far too much wastage," he said. "I am losing about 28 per cent of my stock going to waste, which is costing me a lot of money. If they can't supply me stock what will I do, close the door?" Mr Lowe said Granite Transformations' Transcenda range had issues. "It goes green, so therefore it oxidises, and I dont know what chemical comes out of the stone, it is used in benchtops and it should not be used," he said. "The quality has got worse over the last few years, it hasnt got any better." Granite Transformations agreed there were issues with the Transcenda range when it came onto the market in 2015 but that they were "quickly rectified". "All 'faulty' benchtops were replaced under Granite Transformations' manufacturers warranty. The Transcenda range continues to be popular in the Australian market and overseas." Shaynna Blaze is an ambassador for Granite Transformations. Credit:NINE Celebrity ambassadors Granite Transformations markets its products through celebrity ambassadors, including Shaynna Blaze. A spokesman for Ms Blaze told Fairfax Media she was not aware of any issues with Granite Transformations' products including the Transcenda range of bench tops. "Her enquiry of Granite Transformations on this issue indicates that whilst there were some issues with this product in 2015, they have been resolved," the spokesman said. "Shaynna endorses Granite Transformations because they have a great product backed by a lifetime warranty." The spokesman for Ms Blaze said she intended to continue her role as an ambassador for Granite Transformations. "As far as Shaynna is aware ... there is no evidence and there have been no findings of unethical behaviour on the part of Granite Transformations towards its franchisees, including bullying." Good faith Mr Gilbert said Granite Transformations does not charge its franchisees ongoing franchise fees and only makes money by selling its product to its franchisees. "There is no incentive for Granite Transformations to act in a manner which is oppressive or likely to lead to the failure of any franchised business," Mr Gilbert said. "Granite Transformations has always acted in good faith in its dealings with its franchisees and rejects any assertion that it has acted otherwise." I dont know what this will lead to - it hurts us either way, she says. Issues with the scheme Digivizer is not alone. A number of voices across the small business and start-up community have taken issue with the reviews process of the research and development tax incentive scheme in recent months. The scheme, which allows businesses to claim a refund or offset for projects which build on new areas of knowledge, is self-assessing. This means businesses put in their claims with documentation, but the onus falls on them to prove they qualify for the cash they receive. The federal government has signalled measures to tighten the claims process, including introducing legislation to Parliament earlier this year to cap the concessions that can be made. But businesses like Digivizer are critical of how the scheme is operating because reviews and audits, conducted by either AusIndustry or the tax office, can occur after cash has been given to companies. The result is they may have to prove, in retrospect, their claims are genuine. There is the possibility they will having to repay the research money they have been given in previous financial years. Loading Eligible R&D projects need to show they are creating new knowledge, and require a strict outline including a hypothesis and research process. A range of start-up organisations, including the 2018 Start-up Muster report and the 2018 EY Fintech Census, called for the R&D scheme to be more encouraging of businesses to invest in uncovering techniques and knowledge. Another business in the IT space has told Fairfax Media it is under review from AusIndustry for its claims, in an extremely onerous and frustrating reviews process. The review, which is still under way, is for small amounts of about $100,000 which were approved in previous financial years for research projects. The company says its clear that when the research incentives program changed in 2011, the level of complexity in how to go about the claim extended significantly. The intent of the scheme The office of the assistant treasurer, Stuart Robb, told Fairfax Media businesses are ultimately eligible for making sure they're able to make an R&D claim. A spokesman said reviews of past claims were conducted using a "risk-based approach", but those businesses keeping detailed records need not worry about proving the legitimacy of their claims. BDO R&D tax partner Nicola Purser says reviews of R&D claims are tough for business. "Companies that have in place the appropriate systems and processes to effectively identify, evaluate and record eligible R&D activities and their associated expenditure should be able demonstrate that they are complying with the programs requirements," a spokesman for the office said. 'Aggressive stance' But accounting experts working with businesses in the field question whether the scheme is working to its intended purpose. "The ATO are now taking quite an aggressive stance," R&D tax partner at BDO, Nicola Purser, says. Purser says she has seen recent client cases where businesses' claims have been under review by the tax office, even though they have considerable documented evidence they are adhering to the scheme. She says companies are nervous about these review processes and are tempted to give away legitimate incentives because they are worried about the time it takes to object to a review. "A lot of the time, companies are just rolling over and giving away expenditure, because they dont want to have that fight," Purser says. Eryn Jean Norvill wasnt in court on Thursday, to hear the argument about her breast. Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush is suing The Daily Telegraph over stories claiming he behaved inappropriately towards a cast member while acting in King Lear at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2015-16. Eryn Jean Norvill and lawyer Leon Zwier arrive at the Federal Court on Friday. Credit:AAP Norvill did not speak to the Telegraph for its stories, but she was later named as the cast member. All Norvill did was tell company manager Annelies Crowe what she says happened to her, over a drink at an Annandale pub. She didnt want it relayed to Rush, but eventually it was, via the front page of a tabloid. The young actresss version is so heavily disputed that its easy to forget that it is a newspaper being sued, not Norvill, and it is a piece of journalism that is under attack, not her. Daniel Price. Credit:WA Police A missing man has been found in tragic circumstances after his motorcycle became bogged and, despite being well prepared, died as a result of dehydration. Daniel Price is the second man to die within a week from dehydration and heat exposure in outback Western Australia. A body was found on Saturday believed to be that of the experienced motorcyclist Mr Price who went missing last week while on a solo expedition from Darwin to Karratha. London: Prince Charles taught his children the importance of the environment by taking his teenage sons out to pick up rubbish, Prince Harry has revealed. "We were in Norfolk on school holidays, and went out litter-picking with him ... Both of us thought, 'This is perfectly normal, everyone must do it.' We're there with our, basically, spikes, stabbing the rubbish into black plastic bags," recalls Harry in a BBC film made to commemorate Charles' 70th birthday on November 14. Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, arrive at the Commonwealth War Grave Yard in Accra, Ghana, on Friday. Credit:AP Harry added that he was "programmed" to pick up rubbish by his father, who in the past was criticised for his environmentalism. Charles is an organic farmer and an advocate for climate protection and threatened species. BRIDGEPORT Former Kennedy Center CEO and President Marty Schwartz has been named the 2019 ringmaster of the Barnum Festival, and he said he hopes to make the festivities even more inclusive. I was very honored and surprised, Schwartz said of his appointment as the festivals 71st ringmaster. The plan is to just continue to provide a lot of enjoyable activities for people of all ages that really bring our entire community together. The theme Schwartz chose for the 2019 festival is Everyone Counts, a tribute to his time at The Kennedy Center, a nonprofit organization that provides services and programs for those with intellectual disabilities. He spent 39 years there before retiring in 2017. Schwartz, a longtime Trumbull resident who now lives in Fairfield, said the Barnum Festival highlights the best of the community, showcasing diversity and talents. He said the 2019 theme will put a spotlight on the idea that everyone deserves to be involved in the festival and its activities. All people, including people with special needs, should get to enjoy the festival, Schwartz said. I want to re-enforce that feeling that, beyond the surface, were all human beings and were all a valued part of our society. He said he hopes the theme will get more people involved with the festival and more people aware of the importance of including everyone in area-wide events. We are happy to have Martin Schwartz as the 2019 Barnum Festival Ringmaster, said Armando Goncalves, market president of Peoples United Bank and president of the Barnum Festival Board of Directors. We are looking forward to building on this years theme Everyone Counts, which aligns with P.T. Barnums legacy to bring fun and laughter to everyone. The 2019 festival will feature traditional events and some new ones, Schwartz said. We just hope the community is going to participate in the festival and support it to the best of their ability, Schwartz said. The kickoff event for the festival, Meet the Ringmaster Dinner, will be at 6 p.m. Nov. 27 at Testos Restaurant in Bridgeport. Call 203-367-8495 for tickets to the dinner, which cost $40 per person. The Barnum Festival started as a show of support for local businesses and to honor world-renowned showman and city leader P.T. Barnum. The first festival was held in 1949. The weekend-long festivities include parades, concerts, fireworks and various family-friendly activities. For more information, visit barnumfestival.com. Theres really something for people of all ages, Schwartz said. There are a lot of enjoyable things that brings our entire community together. Its really unique to our area. Im looking forward to the support of the entire community. Connecticuts election for governor, General Assembly and top-of-the-ticket races is refracted through a prism of aggressive national politics in which a United States president stokes his base into a frenzy, in many cases by appealing to its fears. Meanwhile, a challenge has risen, particularly from minorities and women among Democrats who sense that this year they can regain at least one chamber of Congress. While Connecticuts reputation as a blue state may be at-stake Tuesday, in fact, the state had 16 years of Republican governors prior to Gov. Dannel P. Malloys election in 2010, in the depths of the international Great Recession. With the Connecticut Senate now tied at 18 Republicans and 18 Democrats, both parties are hoping that President Donald Trumps national momentum, or opposition, will translate Tuesday among the states 857,056 unaffiliated voters, as well as the 451,869 registered Republicans and 769,414 Democrats. The state House of Representatives narrow Democratic majority is also at stake, at a time when Republicans have been making steady gains every two years. In 2012, Democrats held a 98-53 majority, which has now dwindled to 79-72. While national political observers predict re-election victories for U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, the four incumbent Democratic congressmen, as well as 5th District Democratic candidate Jahana Hayes over Republican Manny Santos, control of the House, Senate and governors office are highly competitive. In the governors race, the campaign between Republican Bob Stefanowski and Democrat Ned Lamont can be seen as a proxy fight in the national political uproar. Stefanowski has praised Trump, who has endorsed the former corporate executives first run for elective office, providing campaign talking points for Lamont and state Democrats banking on the presidents unpopularity. Stefanowski, in turn, has tried to tie Lamont to Malloy, despite the little contact they have had since the 2010 Democratic primary for governor that Malloy won. Indeed, Stefanowskis favorite label for Lamont is Ned Malloy, who if elected would keep raising taxes. Lamont calls his Republican opponent Trumpanowski. Lamont charges that Stefanowskis centerpiece a tax-cutting plan would fail to generate economic activity and lead to huge local property tax increases, while giving massive tax breaks to Connecticuts wealthiest. Nationally, Trump is spending this weekend finishing up a 44-city midterm blitz, but The Associated Press reported Saturday that the America hes seen at airport arrivals and from his armored limousine is not representative of the nation. The AP reported that Trump mostly traveled to counties that have lower incomes, less education and are whiter that the rest of the country, according to Census Bureau data that indicates he is trying to galvanize the base he rode to victory in 2016. The U.S. population is 73.3 percent white, but almost three-fourths of the places where the president has stumped for midterms are above that average. In the county surrounding Council Bluffs, Iowa, 88.7 percent of the population is non-Hispanic whites. Trump told the crowd at his rally that Democrats would allow Central American gangs such as MS-13 to immigrate freely into the United States, a claim disputed by Democratic lawmakers. They want to turn America, these Democrats and thats what they want into a giant sanctuary for criminal aliens and the MS-13 killers, Trump said. Nearly three-quarters of Trumps rallies are in counties with median incomes below the national average. While avoiding the big cities, the president has visited Tampa, Nashville, Cleveland and Houston, but also smaller spots like Elko, Nev. (population 20,078), in a county where just 18.1 percent of the adults hold a college degree, compared to 30.3 percent nationwide. Of the 43 places Trump is visiting, 28 have a below-average share of college graduates. Hes also made stops in Mosinee, Wis. (population 4,023), and Belgrade, Mont. (population 7,874), where in 2009, Barack Obama held a town hall event to promote the Affordable Care Act, which has been in jeopardy ever since Trump took office in January 2018. While Stefanowski has declined to say whether he would disrupt Connecticuts version of the ACA, Connecticut Democrats have warned that a Republican takeover of the governor and General Assembly could likely result in the dismantling of Access Health CT, which has 114,000 beneficiaries. he continuing or unfolding Political-cum-Constitutional drama, which commenced with President Sirisenas abrupt appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, even before letting the then sitting incumbent know of his dismissal, smells of petty one-upmanship. It has left the country in turmoil and its citizens polarised. The tension arising between supporters of the two claimants to the seat of PM has spilt over into the streets. Already one individual has been fatally shot and two others injured by Police shooting -victims to the vagaries of politicians reckless behaviour. Unruly elements have surrounded Government institutions and prevented state officials carrying out their legitimate functions. While violence has been minimal except for the fatal shooting of an individual and the wounding of two others in the shooting incident, we cannot be happy with the way and manner events are unfolding. It is common knowledge that horse-trading is taking place even while this editorial is being writ. The going price we are told, by the very politicians who are being bought and sold like chunks of beef at a butcher shop is rupees five-hundred million per member. Ordinary Sri Lankans are beginning to view politicians as the scum of the earth and this is bad for democracy as a whole, as it erodes, especially, young peoples faith in the Democratic and Parliamentary System. There is, therefore, an increasing need to end the worsening situation within the Parliamentary System. If the ongoing imbroglio is allowed to spiral out of control it could once again lead young people to contemplate extra-Parliamentary means to bring about change. While to date acts of physical violence have been minimal, the international community led by the UK and the US have taken umbrage at ongoing events. The US, the UK and the EU have issued travel advisories to their citizens planning to visit Sri Lanka, warning of the dangerous situation prevailing. It is also rather strange and downright hypocritical, to hear and see these countries issuing travel warnings on Sri Lanka when the atmospheres in the UK, EU and the US are volatile and toxic. It was only last week we read in the media and saw images of US-styled Klansmen surrounding a Bangladeshi house of prayer and worship in the UK demanding it is closed or else. During the past year according to the Guardian, in 2018 alone there have been over 50 killings of main ly people of non-white skin and/or from a foreign background in London! In the period March 2017 and February 2018, 35 people died and 267 others were injured in the UK from terrorist attacks. In the US, no lesser person than President Trump himself is inflaming racial hatred, raising the bogeyman of persons he refers to as aliens. That is people not his colour and not US-born. Just two days ago the US President called on US military personnel to open fire on an -immigrant caravan-crowds of people from the Latin American countries, who are seeking asylum in the US if they attempt to forcibly cross the border or throw stones at US military personnel blocking their entry into the US. This even though the US Constitution clearly forbids US Governments from refusing entry to asylum seekers. Violence in the US is also on the rise. According to the Business Insider of 29 October 2018, there have been 297 mass shootings in the US this year alone! But no travel warnings have been issued by the UK, EU or NATO countries on travel to the US. While the double standards of the West are unethical and condemnable, we call on our politicians -none of whom can be referred to as statesman- to bring an end to the internal turmoil now wracking our country and endangering the incipient tourist and export-oriented industries. Pundits are already predicting Sri Lanka stands in danger of losing many trading benefits -including the GSP benefits. The current impasse is of our own making. It is time our politicians if they have even a smattering of care for the country they claim to give leadership to; to for once, put country before self, and stop misquoting the Constitution to fulfil personal agendas. The actions of one person can spark change in the world, former Winnipeg police chief Devon Clunis told a gathering of local Winnipeg business community members Saturday morning at the Jubilee Fund Champagne Breakfast. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 4/11/2018 (1112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The actions of one person can spark change in the world, former Winnipeg police chief Devon Clunis told a gathering of local Winnipeg business community members Saturday morning at the Jubilee Fund Champagne Breakfast. Clunis, the Winnipeg Police Service's chief from 2012-2016, told a gathering of about 80 people in the Assiniboine Park Pavilion atrium that a middle years teacher, Ruby Hanna, who volunteered her time to tutor him each morning before school after he failed Grade 6, changed his life. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Former Winnipeg police chief Devon Clunis speaks at the Jubilee Fund Champagne Brunch at the Assiniboine Park Pavilion Saturday. "If not for one teacher, all those years ago, I would not be where I am today," said Clunis, who became Canada's first black police chief when he was appointed in 2012, about two months after he had visited Miss Hanna to thank her and she told him she was praying that he would become chief. She died three weeks after their visit, he said. "When I go to schools and speak to kids, I see a lot of little Devons who just require a little investment of money, our time...Poverty is one of the determinants of health and crime...It's so easy for us to correct that. It doesn't mean spending oodles of money. It requires what Miss Hanna did. I'm going to change one life and watch what the ripple effects of that will be." Clunis asked the assembled brunch guests, who paid $100 per ticket to attend, if they wanted to change the world and asked them to help the Jubilee Fund continue its work on that path. "The Jubilee Fund is building hope," Clunis said. "If we're going to achieve a healthy future, we have to ensure that every citizen, regardless of what we look like, where where we're coming from, how we identify ourselves, how others choose to categorize us, that every single one of us sees potential." He said Winnipeg is the right size of city where everyone still knows each other and "care deeply and want to do something that really matters." The Jubilee Fund, a registered charity, was founded in 2000 and works to reduce poverty in Winnipeg by helping to finance projects that impact those who aren't able to access traditional financial resources due to lack of credit. It's called a social finance approach organizations that have faced financial barriers can establish credit by borrowing from the Jubilee Fund to help pay for projects and build a credit relationship with a financial institution. Companies and individuals invest in the fund by purchasing Jubilee Investment Certificates in three- and five-year terms through the Assiniboine Credit Union. At the brunch, a five-year investment matching program with the Winnipeg Foundation was announced. The matching program will provide the Jubilee Fund with approximately $1 million in additional funds to help fund poverty-reduction projects in Manitoba. The North End Housing Project Inc., Tall Grass Prairies Bread company, Spence Neighbourhood Association, Pollock's Hardware Co-op and more than 40 other organizations have received funding support from the Jubilee Fund. Jubilee Fund chairman Mark Adams said for every $1,000 in Jubilee Investment Certificates sold, the Winnipeg Foundation will contribute an additional $1,000 to "double the amount available for lending and doubling the impact in the community." "It's all about expanding our opportunities for the Jubilee Fund to have more of an influence on the community. This (matching program) give us an opportunity to expand our funding, which allows us to finance more projects. The Winnipeg Foundation is truly a leader in this community," said Adams. He said it was the first time for the champagne brunch format to encourage new investors in the Jubilee Fund. "We're trying to expand our reach in a couple of different ways. One is to raise awareness of our existence because so many organizations are grant-oriented (in seeking funding assistance) and they're not aware that we have this facility to be able to help them," Adams said. "With that awareness, we need money to finance more projects. Our vision is that we will get bigger and have a wider impact in the city." The Winnipeg Foundation, which began in 1921 as Canada's first community foundation, last year gave more than $38 million to about 900 charitable organizations, a Jubilee Fund press release stated. For more information on the Jubilee Fund or to invest in the fund, go to jubileefund.ca. ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca An incident that began with a suspect, who was wielding a knife, yelling racial slurs at a man on a Winnipeg Transit bus, resulted in one of two Good Samaritans being stabbed when they intervened. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 4/11/2018 (1112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. An incident that began with a suspect, who was wielding a knife, yelling racial slurs at a man on a Winnipeg Transit bus, resulted in one of two Good Samaritans being stabbed when they intervened. Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Jay Murray said on Sunday that the pair were on the bus, just after midnight near Graham Avenue and Donald Street, when the racial incident occurred. Murray said the man with the knife yelled racial slurs at a black man and threatened to stab him. When the black man got off the bus and was being followed off by the suspect, the pair stopped the suspect. Murray said a struggle broke out and one of the Good Samaritans was stabbed in the lower body. He was taken to hospital. Murray said it appeared the man just needed stitches, but it could have been worse. "Most people would have done a similar thing, but as always our advice is to contact police. You should never put yourself into something unsafe. But they did prevent this (other) individual from being hurt." Murray said officers arrested the suspect a short time after the incident and the investigation continues. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Aleem Chaudhary, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union that represents City of Winnipeg Transit drivers, has raised concerns about the safety of drivers and passengers on Transit buses. The Amalgamated Transit Union has repeatedly called on management to beef up security on buses following the February 2014 death of driver Irvine (Jubal) Fraser. He was stabbed to death by a passenger at the end of his route at the University of Manitoba. Aleem Chaudhary, president of Local 1505, called the incident "unfortunate. "It's sad our society is getting the way it is... with the new council being sworn in this week I hope they make (safety on buses) a No. 1 priority. "Although sometimes our operators are not involved verbally or physically, they are affected. They didn't sign up to be in a war zone." The incident also occured just days after the union expressed frustration with transit management for only letting it know about violent incidents involving bus drivers and not passengers. But Chaudhary said Sunday was different. "They did give me a call on this one," he said. "I appreciated it. Our drivers need to know what's happening on other buses." Meanwhile, Murray said that shortly before this incident, the suspect attacked a man who was waiting for a bus at Graham Avenue and Edmonton Street. He allegedly put a knife up to the victim's neck and stole a mobile phone and wallet before fleeing. That victim was not injured. Devon Evan Charles Henderson, 23, of Winnipeg, has been charged with assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon, robbery, and uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm. He was detained in custody. kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca The bell rings and hallways clear out at Sargent Park School as kids scurry to first period. In teacher Sue Macfarlane Penners class, a group of Grade 1, 2, and 3 students are preparing to sit in a circle and hold hands. This article was published 4/11/2018 (1112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The bell rings and hallways clear out at Sargent Park School as kids scurry to first period. In teacher Sue Macfarlane Penners class, a group of Grade 1, 2, and 3 students are preparing to sit in a circle and hold hands. The students offer each other what Macfarlane Penner calls a "mindful moment": the chance to begin their day with a quiet, calm awareness and say one thing theyre grateful for. "At the beginning they were grateful for what theyre supposed to be grateful for, but then it turned into things like, Im grateful for my mom putting mitts in my bag today because its cold at recess," Macfarlane Penner says. Macfarlane Penner believes mindfulness should be a "natural part of taking care of yourself," like brushing your teeth or getting enough sleep. "It gets kids calmer and more focused," she says. "Kids are busy; we just dont see it as the same busy as us. Sometimes what they didnt have time for might have been something important to them, so lets just slow down and take a moment." Sargent Park teacher Sue Macfarlane Penner guides students through a mindfulness exercise. The Winnipeg School Division has been incorporating mindfulness into their daily teachings since 2013. After conducting a divisional survey they noticed the number of students identifying symptoms of anxiety and depression were above Canadian norms. Jon Olafson has been running the divisions mental health strategic plan, Healthy Minds, for the last four years. He says mindfulness was introduced so students could learn to self-regulate and cope with their emotions. "We concretely teach it as a skill, almost as when youre learning how to do mathematics," Olafson says. "We made a connection to Grade 5 and Grade 8 because our data showed us that not only were symptoms above the national average, but they were at those specific ages." Mindfulness strategies in school counsellor Cristina Almeidas office. 'We concretely teach it as a skill, almost as when you're learning how to do mathematics. We made a connection to Grade 5 and Grade 8 because our data showed us that not only were symptoms above the national average, but they were at those specific ages' Jon Olafson, who runs the Winnipeg School Division's mental health strategic plan Six to eight weeks after mindfulness was adopted in all of the divisions schools, testing showed increased senses of calm and safety in classrooms, according to Olafson. "In the last five years the conversation around mental health has significantly changed, and I think thats part of some of the work were seeing happening in schools. Students are talking more," Olafson says. Over 1,200 Manitoba kids were hospitalized for mental health issues between 2016 and 2017, according to a report released by Children First Canada and the OBrien Institute for Public Health. Thats a 55 per cent increase for those aged five to 24 over the last decade. Mindfulness strategies in Sue Macfarlane Penners classroom. In Canada, an estimated 10 to 20 per cent of children are affected by a mental illness or disorder, according to Youth Mental Health Canada. They are also among the highest risk populations for suicide, and only one out of five Canadian children who need mental health services receive them. Jarylle Santos, 13, and Mikayla Seculles, 10, are both students at Sargent Park School. Aside from practicing mindfulness, they also learn about mental disorders and how to support one another. "It can be really important since if a classmate has mental illness we can ask them to get help," Jarylle says. "Sometimes it can be hard for them to open up." Sargent Park School students Jarylle Santos, 13 (left), and Mikayla Seculles, 10. Mindfulness can really help you calm down and learn better, Mikayla says. Mikayla admits to sometimes feeling stressed at school, and says mindfulness has helped. "It can really help you calm down and learn better," she says. Sargent Park School guidance counsellor Cristina Almeida believes anxiety levels are higher than when she was in school. Mindfulness exercises help kids calm and focus themselves, says teacher Sue Macfarlane Penner. "Even during my first few years as a teacher I dont remember it being so prevalent," Almeida says. "Starting off your day with calm breathing or yoga can set the pace for the rest of the day and open up the conversation with kids." Mandatory school curriculums address mental health at early, middle and senior years throughout a variety of subject areas. The provincial health initiative, Healthy Schools, uses workshops, activities and lesson plans to promote mental well-being in classrooms. The goal is also to develop coping skills, empathy and decrease bullying. Anxiety levels among students are greater than in years past, says guidance counsellor Cristina Almeida. Pembina Trails School Division school psychologists work with students, school teams, and parents or guardians to provide a range of psychological services, according to their website. While the school division follows the same compulsory curriculum areas other divisions do, schools are also tackling mental wellness in their own ways. At Vincent Massey Collegiate, students can de-stress at a drop-in lunch hour colouring club on Fridays or a mindfulness group every Monday. Grade 1-3 students at Sargent Park School begin their day by sharing one thing theyre grateful for. Teacher Nicole Rosever created both groups after recognizing the need for a relaxing space. She says the colouring club has been running for approximately four years while the mindfulness group started in 2017. "Theres lots of opportunities in education to do things that are extroverted and less things that are more introverted or quiet," Rosever says. "Its a place to recognize part of being human is not the doing, but the being." Lily Hadfield, 14, Emma Hadfield, 17, and Ireland Moore, 16, all attend Rosevers lunch hour clubs when they need to unwind. Mindfulness strategies in school counsellor Cristina Almeidas office. "If you dont want to be in a loud, crowded space like the cafeteria you can just come and eat lunch there," Lily says. After moving to Winnipeg from Pilot Mound, Ireland lost her main stress relief outlet: competitive swimming. "I felt really anxious all the time," she says. "When it was hard to get going in the mornings Id meditate for about five minutes, then it would be a lot easier to manage throughout the day." Mindfulness activities hang on the wall in Sue Macfarlane Penners classroom. The three girls agree it has become more commonplace to discuss mental health in the classroom. "Even in health classes your teacher says, We didnt talk about this when I was a kid," Emma says. "For us, we just grew up talking about it. Its a normal thing you can share." Louis Riel School Division partnered with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority three years ago to promote mental health education in all schools. "We have clinicians, school psychologists and social workers teaching in the classroom about understanding the difference between well-being and mental illness," Murray says. Students in Grade 9 and 10 receive mental health literacy education. Thats the time when many young people with a mental disorder start exhibiting symptoms, Murray says. Schools also connect with divisional clinicians or outside agencies if a student needs further support. "The earlier were able to identify it the better the outcome is," Murray says. "We work hard to be part of a pathway to care for young people whose mental health problems are leading to substantive difficulties." At the end of first period, Sue Macfarlane Penners students once again gather in a circle and hold hands before offering each other another "mindful moment." "The gifts of mindfulness are daily," Macfarlane Penner says. "If they can learn how to make themselves mindful for even a few minutes maybe that would help." Mikaela MacKenzie Photojournalist Mikaela MacKenzie loves meeting people, experiencing new things, and learning something every day. That's what drove her to pursue a career as a visual journalist photographers get a hands-on, boots-on-the-ground look at the world. Read full biography Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 4/11/2018 (1112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Moose on the loose There will be moose at the Assiniboine Park Zoo this afternoon, but the human variety. Members of the Manitoba Moose will present the zoo with the money raised from the auction of last seasons polar bear jerseys at 1:30 p.m., then be at the Journey to Churchill until 3:30 p.m. to greet fans and sign autographs. Fans can also participate in a scavenger hunt for a chance to win an autographed jersey and tickets to an upcoming game. A Soup-er lunch Chilly November days call for piping hot bowls of soup. Fill your belly and help Winnipeg Harvest at the same time by chowing down at the 9th Annual Empty Bowls Soup-er Lunch, Monday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Bell MTS Place. Tickets are $10, available through Ticketmaster or at Winnipeg Harvest (1085 Winnipeg Ave.). JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Members of the Manitoba Moose will present the zoo with the money raised from the auction of last seasons polar bear jerseys. An indulgent fundraiser If youre a chocoholic, youll want to be at Hilton Winnipeg Airport Suites (1800 Wellington Ave.) decadent Friday fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. Everything Chocolate brings together bakeries, restaurants, and other local businesses in a celebration of the sweet treat. Sample all the chocolate-stuffed goods your heart desires, check out a cooking demonstration, and roam a chocolate market. Tickets are $75, available through Eventbrite. A Happy play Prairie Theatre Exchanges (third floor of Portage Place) latest offering, Happy Place, opens Thursday. Written by Winnipeg-born Pamela Mala Sinha, the dramatic comedy tells the story of seven women living in an in-patient care facility. Happy Place runs through Nov. 25; for tickets and showtimes, visit pte.mb.ca. Harlequin returns Dont be guilty of missing Innocence, You Are the Light, Superstitious Feeling, and other favourites Friday when Winnipeg rockers Harlequin hit the stage at Nashvilles (826 Regent Ave. W). The show starts at 8 p.m.; tickets are $19.95, available at tickets.canadinns.com. One-night wizard Dorothy has come to Winnipeg but is staying just one day before clicking her heels and going back to Kansas. Join Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion, and all the rest Saturday at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People (2 Forks Market Rd.) for Theatre Dance Centres production of The Wizard of Oz. Performances are at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.; tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for kids. Dont be denied Gaga for the Godfather of Grunge? Check out NEILFEST Saturday at Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club (234 Main St.) where a trio of local bands will pay tribute to favourite musical son Neil Young and keep you rockin in the free world. The show starts at 10 p.m.; tickets are $20, available through Ticketfly. The head of the union that represents thousands of provincial civil servants said it will continue spending its money on political ads even though Premier Brian Pallister is slamming them for doing it. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 4/11/2018 (1112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. CHELSEA KEMP / THE BRANDON SUN Premier Brian Pallister attacked union advertising during a speech to party faithful in Brandon on the weekend. The head of the union that represents thousands of provincial civil servants said it will continue spending its money on political ads even though Premier Brian Pallister is slamming them for doing it. Michelle Gawronsky, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union, said in a statement Sunday that "our members will not be bullied or intimidated by the premier into not speaking up for our public services." "Our internal surveys show our campaigns enjoy overwhelming support from our members..." "Our campaigns simply call on the premier to keep the election commitment he made to Manitobans and to our members: to protect public services and the people who deliver them. He, obviously, has noticed our campaigns. Hopefully, he will consider keeping his promises on public services." MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Michelle Gawronsky, president of Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union, says the union's membership supports its advertising campaign. On Saturday, in a speech at the Progressive Conservative partys annual meeting in Brandon, Pallister said front-line civil servants "should vote Conservative" in the next election because the government is acting in their best interests. Pallister didnt mention the MGEU by name, but he suggested its membership dues were higher than they needed to be because it spends money on political advertising that attacks his government. "This is not rocket science. If you want your union to lower union dues, then you ask them whats the value in running those attack ads on Pallister and his government all the time," he told the more than 400 party delegates during an hour-long speech. "Union members have every right to ask, Am I getting value for all those attack ads on the radio, TV, in the mailbox? I would say, Probably not when as you run those... our popularity rises. " But Gawronsky said the union asks its members annually about which campaigns the union should undertake. "Our internal surveys show our campaigns enjoy overwhelming support from our members, not to mention the content of our campaigns is driven by the issues our members are experiencing on the front lines of Manitobas public services," she said. "Our members expect us to run these campaigns and we do it at the lowest dues rate in Manitoba." The MGEU represents 40,000 civil servants who work in all facets of government including health care, community services, colleges, direct government services and Crown corporations. At the partys third AGM since winning power in 2016, Pallister departed from the interview format he had employed to address delegates in which a staffer lobbed friendly questions at him for a traditional speech, which was at times folksy, stressing his humble rural roots, and at other times fiery and passionate. Pointing to recent polling that shows PC support is on the rise, with 44 per cent of the decided vote in Manitoba, compared with 25 per cent for the NDP and 20 per cent for the Liberals, Pallister contended the partys base is growing because of its accomplishments. kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca Kevin Rollason Reporter Kevin Rollason is one of the more versatile reporters at the Winnipeg Free Press. Whether it is covering city hall, the law courts, or general reporting, Rollason can be counted on to not only answer the 5 Ws Who, What, When, Where and Why but to do it in an interesting and accessible way for readers. Read full biography MP Dinesh Gunawardena has been appointed as the Minister of Megapolis and Western Development and MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara appointed as Minister of National Integration, Reconciliation, and Official Languages. Meanwhile, MP Keheliya Rambukwella appointed as State Minister of Mass Media and Digital Infrastructure. CEMEX SAB de CV engages in the production, distribution, marketing, and sale of cement, ready-mix concrete, and aggregates. It operates though the following geographical segments: Mexico; United States; Europe; South, Central America and the Caribbean (SCA&C); Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA); and Others. The Europe segment covers United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, and Czech Republic, Poland and Latvia, as well as trading activities in Scandinavia, and Finland. The SCA&C segment includes Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Caribbean TCL, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Jamaica, the Caribbean, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The EMEA segment comprises of Egypt, Israel, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates. The Others segment refers to the cement trade maritime operations, information technology solutions business, and other corporate entities as well as other minor subsidiaries with different lines of business. The company was founded by Lorenzo Zambrano Gutierrez in 1906 and is headquartered in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico. Read More he power grab and subsequent events over the last ten days are but the culmination of a plan of action that Mahinda Rajapaksa put into place following his defeat at the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of 2015. The strategy was one of disruption of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government and power consolidation through mobilisation and elections, including a major victory at the local government elections in February this year. The success of Rajapaksas strategy is also, thanks to the failures of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government, within a political environment susceptible to and set up for disruption. From the outset, and including after the Parliamentary Elections of August 2015, the Unity Government has disregarded its promises to the public. Over the last four years, the trade and financial liberalisation policies carried forward by the Rajapaksa regime were accelerated, placing the national economy and working peoples lives in a precarious situation. Instead of putting forward a coherent political vision towards strengthening the democratic body politic of State and society by, for example through Constitutional reform, the political bickering between the Wickremesinghe led UNP and Sirisenas faction of the SLFP led to rising political instability. The economic troubles and the political instability constituting the crisis facing the country today has many aspects. I focus here on three facets of this crisis, particularly shrinking democratic space, ethnic polarisation and economic dispossession. Democratic space Regardless of the criticisms, one may have of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government from 2015 to its recent collapse, one undeniable characteristic of this period was the tremendous opening of democratic space. The decades of war and the authoritarian post-war years under Rajapaksa undermined freedoms of expression and association. Protests were brutally suppressed, dissent was silenced and the media came under attack, all amidst a climate of fear. Although student and trade union protests continued to be dealt with harshly by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government, the fear of extrajudicial means of repression had, for the most part, receded in recent years. By democratic space, I mean the political environment that is conducive and enabling of peoples direct participation and action, including struggles and protests. In the North and East, the opening of democratic space in January 2015 was akin to night and day. From militarised surveillance where people felt wary to even speak in small meetings, the climate of fear dramatically lifted and protests and struggles emerged on a range of issues. While the Government may not have addressed the demands of such struggles, the right to protest has contributed greatly to the security and dignity of the minorities in the country. The question is whether another period of Rajapaksa rule may lead to the shutting down of this democratic space. Inter-ethnic relations It was the Tamil communities in the war-torn regions and the Muslim communities throughout the country that faced the brunt of repression under the Rajapaksa regime. A Constitutional political solution was dismissed by the Rajapaksas claiming that mega development was the answer to the grievances of the minorities. State power was usurped by the Executive Presidency with the passing of the 18th Amendment even as the militarization of civil administration, particularly governance of the war-torn regions and urban development throughout the country came under the security apparatuses. Instead of fostering co-existence in the post-war environment, communities were polarised to consolidate the power of the Rajapaksa regime. An ideological war was initiated against the Muslim community making them the scapegoats for economic woes. Violence including riots was instigated against Muslim shops and businesses. Drawing on global and regional Islamophobia, the crass attacks placed the Muslim community in a terrible state of fear. While the regime change in 2015 did not succeed in addressing the grievances of the minorities and did not mean an end towards the violence against Muslims, at the very least there was recognition of addressing such concerns at the policy level. The efforts towards drafting a new Constitution and the various reconciliation mechanisms set a trajectory conducive for dialogue. In this context, the stalling Constitutional reform process and meagre progress in addressing the legacy of war-time abuses as well as the failure to prevent more recent anti-Muslim violence, have been both causes and symptoms of increasing ethnic polarisation over the last two years. The Joint Opposition led by Rajapaksa in no small measure contributed to such polarisation, and the logical question to ask is how their divisive nationalist politics will impact minorities if they consolidate state power. Economic problems The political crisis that we face today is very much linked to the economic instability and crisis that has troubled the country over recent months but has a longer trajectory spanning a few decades. The broader economic policies taken forward by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government were not very different from the Rajapaksa Government. Urban development concentrated in Colombo, plans for an international financial centre, financialised sovereign loans, mega development projects with Chinese support and even free trade agreements, particularly with India, were all initiated under the Rajapaksa Government. Rising indebtedness as a result of financialisation, ruined livelihoods due to neglect of agriculture and fisheries, investment in large infrastructure over small industries, have all contributed to the dispossession of the working people. Their cost of living has been rising while incomes have fallen with many out of work. In the past, both Governments have sought the support of voters through populist measures prior to elections. As we approach a year of elections, the UNPs Colombo-centred view of the economy and the anti-incumbent mood among the population are likely to translate into greater support for Rajapaksa who is pledging to solve the economic problems of the people. "The economy, which should be critically debated in the run-up to the next round of elections, will once again be displaced by the recent manoeuvre, where the upcoming provincial, general and presidential elections, are likely to focus on personalities, betrayal and corruption" iShares Global Industrials ETF's stock was trading at $77.51 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EXI shares have increased by 59.8% and is now trading at $123.83. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. There is not enough analysis data for BlueRock Diamonds. 4.8 Community Rank Outperform Votes BlueRock Diamonds has received 123 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes BlueRock Diamonds has received 46 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment BlueRock Diamonds has received 72.78% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about BlueRock Diamonds and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe BRD will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe BRD will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next Drax Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the generation and supply of electricity in the United Kingdom. The company operates through three segments: Generation, Customers, and, Pellet Production. It produces low carbon and renewable electricity; and provides system support services to the electricity grid. The company owns and operates Drax Power Station that produces electricity from biomass and coal with an installed capacity of 3,906 megawatts (MW) located in Selby, North Yorkshire; Cruachan Power Station, a pumped hydro storage station, with an installed capacity of 440 MW located in Argyll and Bute, western Scotland; and Lanark and Galloway hydro-electric power stations with an installed capacity of 126 MW located in southwest Scotland. It also owns and operates combined cycle gas turbine power stations, including Damhead Creek power station with an installed capacity of 805 MW; Rye House power station with an installed capacity of 715 MW; Shoreham power station with an installed capacity of 420 MW; and Blackburn power station with an installed capacity of 60 MW located in England. In addition, the company owns and operates Daldowie fuel plant that processes sludge from a wastewater treatment plant and converts it into dry and low-odour fuel pellets. Further, it manufactures and sells compressed wood pellets for use in electricity production; supplies and manages electricity and gas for large industrial and commercial sector customers, as well as small businesses; and provides debt recovery services. Drax Group plc was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Selby, the United Kingdom. Read More The government today disputed the No-confidence motion handed over by the United National Party (UNP) against Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and said it could not be taken up for debate on November 16 when Parliament meets. Addressing the media at the Prime Ministers Office, former Minister G. L. Peiris said the motion had to be placed on the Order Paper of Parliament first, according to the due procedure. Afterwards, he said the party leaders should assign a date for debate on the motion. Prof. Peiris said there was confusion created by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya saying that Parliament would be re-convened on November 7 based on verbal assurances by the President. The Speaker cannot act on verbal assurances. There has to be proclamation by the President to reconvene Parliament before the end of prorogation if he wants. It is entirely in the hands of the President to prorogue Parliament according to Article 70(1) of the Constitution, he said. Asked as to why Mr. Rajapaksa assumed office as the Prime Minister at such a time, he said though a new government could have been formed after the Presidential Polls in ten months time for sure, the current predicament of the country compelled him to act in advance. The former Minister said people were in dire need of economic relief, and therefore the new government announced relief measures in terms of reduction of fuel prices and tax cuts. Also, he said the UNP-led government would have sold off more and more national assets had it stayed in power for another ten months or so. It will be irrepressible then, he said. He cited the need to reverse the Constitution making process and the process of signing certain Free Trade Agreements adverse to the country as reason for early moves to take over governmental power. (Kelum Bandara) There is not enough analysis data for CEMATRIX. 4.9 Community Rank Outperform Votes CEMATRIX has received 57 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes CEMATRIX has received 20 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment CEMATRIX has received 74.03% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about CEMATRIX and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe CVX will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe CVX will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next The Boeing Co. is an aerospace company, which engages in the manufacture of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space and Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment includes the development, production, and market of commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, principally to the commercial airline industry worldwide. The Defense, Space and Security segment refers to the research, development, production and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems for global strike, including fighter and combat rotorcraft aircraft and missile systems; global mobility, including tanker, rotorcraft and tilt-rotor aircraft; and airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, including command and control, battle management and airborne anti-submarine aircraft. The Global Services segment provides services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment seeks to ensure that Boeing customers have the financing they need to buy and take delivery of their Boeing product and manages overall financing exposure. T Read More Beiersdorf Aktiengesellschaft engages in the manufacture and distribution of consumer goods in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. It operates in two segments, Consumer Business and Tesa Business. The Consumer Business Segment offers skin and body care products. The Tesa Business segment provides self-adhesive system and product solutions for industries, craft businesses, and consumers. This segment offers its system solutions to the automotive, electronics, printing and paper, and building and construction industries. The company offers its products under the NIVEA, Eucerin, La Prairie, Elastoplast, Labello, Hansaplast, 8x4, FLORENA, Coppertone, HIDROFUGAL, GAMMON, SKIN STORIES, FLORENA FERMENTED SKINCARE, STOP THE WATER WHILE USING ME, CHAUL, and TESA brands. Beiersdorf Aktiengesellschaft was founded in 1882 and is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. Beiersdorf Aktiengesellschaft is a subsidiary of maxingvest ag. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan. The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. 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LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Benext, Bionic, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Cloudworks, Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Entropia, Epylon, Ethica Consulting Group, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Exton Consulting, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Gevity, Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. 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Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH. SPDR S&P MidCap 400 ETF Trust's stock was trading at $288.91 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, MDY shares have increased by 81.2% and is now trading at $523.58. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. triggered a new phase in Western meddling? Maithripala Sirisena is not exactly a type of politician described as charismatic or revolutionary. But in the space of three and a half years he has pulled off two dramatic political reversals in the countrys electoral history. The first was in 2014 when he broke ranks with the ruling UPFA coalition to be the UNP-led Oppositions common candidate in the 2015 election. Now hes unceremoniously dumped his UNP coalition partner, pulling the UPFA along with him to appoint his one-time bete noireMahinda Rajapaksa as his Prime Minister. With the UPFA having to prove a majority in the House in the days ahead in order to crystallise the move, the situation has parallels with that which prevailed when the UNP-led coalition that failed to garner a clear majority in 2015, and multiple cross-overs helped to consolidate power. "UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a phone call with President Sirisena on Nov.1 echoed the call of the western powers, urging the president to revert to Parliamentary procedures and allow the Parliament to vote as soon as possible" There has been furious debate on the legality/constitutionality or otherwise of the presidents actions, by loyalists on either side. This discussion related to the 19th Amendment that redefined the presidential powers. The main point of contention is that the Sinhala version of the Constitution is said to include removal by the president as one of the circumstances in which the prime minister ceases to hold office, whereas this condition is missing in the English version. It is the Sinhala version that prevails when there is a dispute, according to lawyers. A Supreme Court determination, if sought, would no doubt, help settle the legal question. Meanwhile a closer look at the social context might help understand the forces at work in this drama. While constitutional experts split hairs over the interpretation of Article 48 subsection (1), or the meaning of Article 46 subsection (2), the reality is that these events come at a time of deep discontent among ordinary people across the country. The mood was best summed up by the chief prelate of a Colombo temple. In rough translation what he said was Voters, when these things happened, did not cry, lament, light lamps, or curse. There was not a sound. Ven. Galaboda Gnanissara Thera told reporters: The people were hard-pressed, trampled upon, saddened and living in fear. In any other country if a government elected by a majority was toppled, people would rise up. But here nobody lost any sleep. I too slept well. As the monk suggested, it has been business as usual for the most part - in fact, stocks hit a six-week high. The mainstream media has not gone into overdrive, and service chiefs called on the new PM within days of his appointment. Interestingly, those who rushed to Ranil Wickremesinghes side were western diplomats, who went into a huddle with him at Temple Trees and then came out with almost identical statements calling on the President to reconvene parliament immediately. This call reflected the demand of the UNP camp, for the government to prove its majority on the floor of the House immediately, without waiting for the assigned date; Nov.16. It is the Presidents prerogative to prorogue parliament, and the inordinate concern expressed by these ambassadors and high commissioners in what is essentially an internal problem, could be seen as unwarranted meddling. The meeting as well as subsequent declarations can be construed as a concerted and deliberate act against the Head of State, openly challenging the authority vested in the President by the people, interfering in internal political processes, and violating Sri Lankas sovereignty, said Tamara Kunanayakam, Sri Lankas former Ambassador to the UN, addressing an Eliya briefing. She drew attention to the hypocrisy of these statements made by those who had nothing to say when Wickremesinghe was made prime minister in 2015 with the UNP in a minority while the UPFA held a two thirds majority in parliament, and when local and provincial council elections were endlessly postponed. How do you explain that the same indignation was missing when Germany was unable to form a government for five months, when Belgium had no government for almost two years (541 days) and Northern Ireland was without government for even longer? she asked. In a more respectful response, the Chinese ambassador called on both MR and RW, while a spokesman in Beijing said What is going on in Sri Lanka is their domestic affairs. It should be mentioned that when Wickremesinghe was asked in an interview with NDTV if he saw a Chinese hand behind what was going on, his categorically reply was I dont see a Chinese hand. In a development that could raise some eyebrows, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a phone call with President Sirisena on Nov.1 echoed the call of the western powers, urging the president to revert to Parliamentary procedures and allow the Parliament to vote as soon as possible, according to a readout of the conversation on the UN website. He encouraged the Government to uphold its earlier commitments to human rights, justice and reconciliation, in line with UNHRC resolutions, the statement dated Nov.2, said. In a previous statement of Oct.28, however, the UNSG had only said he was following the latest developments with great concern and calling on the government to respect democratic values and constitutional process, uphold rule of law and ensure the safety of all Sri Lankans. The reference to UNHRC resolutions raises the question as to whether the UNSGs second thoughts on the matter were influenced by those same western powers that led the 2015 GenevaResolution against Sri Lanka. The other question is whether the western powers concerns for Sri Lanka have more to do with their own vested interests, than peace and stability in the island nation. "In a more respectful response, the Chinese ambassador called on both MR and RW, while a spokesman in Beijing said What is going on in Sri Lanka is their domestic affairs. The UNSGs revised remarks come on the heels of a visit to the Speaker of Parliament on Oct. 30 by a delegation of Ambassadors and High Commissioners from the EU,Canada, UK and Germany along with the UN Resident Representative. At this meeting they reportedly warned of inimical consequences of the power transition. Its relevant to recall here how, during the 2014 CIA-backed coup in Ukraine, the US roped in a UN representative to help legitimize its actions. Or in other words glue the thing together as a US official famously said in a leaked phone call with the US ambassador in Ukraine at the time. The sequence of events in Sri Lanka would suggest western powers have gone into high-gear over the current political impasse, presumably with a view to influencing the outcome. These developments serve as a pointer to intense underlying geopolitical tensions in the region. Western powers alarmed at a rising Chinas expanding footprint in this small but strategically located state, had counted on RW to bring the country within the western sphere of influence. The prospect of that project being undermined has rung alarm bells. The new government will have more to deal with than revelations of an assassination plot targeting the President and former Defence Secretary. It will also have to navigate the threat of possible interventions by western powers alarmed by the prospect of further inroads by China. Such interventions will no doubt come packaged in the guise of a concern for democracy and human rights. Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG provides commercial real estate and public investment finance products. Its commercial real estate financing activities include financing instruments, such as financing investment projects, development finance, cross-border portfolio financing, investment bridge finance facilities, standby/backup facilities, and derivatives. 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Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG is headquartered in Garching, Germany. Read More ctober 26, 2018 is a date that will be marked in the notorious political history of Sri Lanka. A country that has once dealt with insurrections, civil wars and minority clashes has now ended up in a confusing political crisis once again. The onset of events which followed since this date has been rather obnoxious. Obnoxious because people had no say in any of the events that transpired. Democracy was at a standstill. While the President himself claimed he had powers to sack a Prime Minister and appoint a purported one it could have been better if he went in for a vote. Or so claims several pro and anti-factions observing the existing crisis. Justifying the turn of events as another coup detat the President doesnt seem to be re-convening the Parliament till November 16. Whether the proroguing took place to gain more majority votes for the MR clan or whether it is actually to table the On Account of budget isnt quite clear at this point. Quite interestingly, several UNP stalwarts were also offered inducements to join the newly formed purported government and one or two of them were brave enough to expose the staggering offers. While all this is going on, where do the people stand? Those who believe that democracy shouldnt be at a standstill are continuing to protest to restore it. Hence the Daily Mirror spoke to several factions including the public to find out what they felt about the existing political crisis. We shouldnt forget that when half of the country voted for Maithripala back in 2015, half of those votes were also against MR. It was a move to bring back good governance and to end abuse of power. He also had an election promise that he would abolish the executive presidency and few years later he does a 180 U-turn. If people dont stand up for democracy it will die. Its important for people to understand that when people come into power they try to abuse it. Even if the President feels that MR would now command the Parliament, theres a way in which things could have been done. In fact in a more civilized manner. You dont have a leader who would suddenly wake up to change the countrys Prime Minister. He should have thought of the repercussions and its trickle-down effect on the masses. Dilumi further said that the President should have acted more responsibly. People should continuously cry out for democracy. When looking at social media we see that people have started to voice out their opinions. People need to move on and put pressure so that the Parliament would be convened so that they could take a vote. The Presidents decision to appoint MR as PM in this manner is a violation of our constitution and democratic processes. It is a violation of our democratic rights. People need to stand up and resist this violation. A key principle of democracy is that the people have a say in who our leaders are; we get to play a major part in that process. This is in complete violation of that. In fact, the President has betrayed all those who voted for him in a grave manner, she continued. It is unacceptable and unforgivable. But this is not the moment to feel defeated or hopeless either, for us - in a sense this violation of our trust should give us all the more reason to be active, vocal and stand up. The civil society stands by democratic process. We are not interested in protecting any one party or any one person. This appointment of MR was unconstitutional and undemocratic and we need it to be resolved immediately. Parliament needs to be reconvened so our elected leaders can decide. Furthermore, we maintain our critique of all political actors and parties; we remember that this government did not deliver on many of its promises to the people. Many people feel let down by this government too and this is very legitimate. But that does not mean illegal appointments can be made in violation of democratic process. She further said that everyone should use whatever platform available to them to resist this. This is a major crisis for us politically and socially. If we allow this to happen without resistance, we will go down in history for that -- for letting down a country. Use social media. Join with other groups to get involved. Read and inform yourself of what is going on and help inform others, to battle misinformation. Clergy should use their powers of influence to talk to people about the erosion of democracy and human rights and how very dangerous that is. Everyone needs to get involved. Airing his views regarding the prevailing political crisis said that even the Soulbury Constitution was manipulated to overthrow hill country Tamils. Hence there was no attempt to include all segments of people. The latter Constitution also mainly protects Sinhalese-nationalist orientations of the State. But we only have the present Constitution to move on. The manner in which the President manipulated the present Constitution is unhealthy and he was crude about it as well. The only way to restore some sanity is to speak on the spirit of the 19A where the President cannot dismiss the PM. He further said that the TNAs stance is correct and that being neutral in this situation is once again unhealthy. Speaking on how various groups could add pressure to move in the right direction, Dr. Hoole suggested that trade unions could be actively involved in bringing some pressure on the government. Even civil society groups can be involved. I wont approve of riotous mobs taking to the streets but everybody should do what they can do within peaceful and legal constraints. We live in a democratic country with democratic principles. But the process that has taken place is undemocratic. It wouldnt have been so if it was done in Parliament. There have been several crossovers starting from the time of C.P. de Silva. Any other method would be described as coup. Hence, this is an equivalent of a coup. Attacks on minority groups are one of the fears that we have and we saw how the culprits involved in the Digana, Teldeniya incidents were also released. Therefore it is not a good sign for Sri Lanka. Leave aside this constitutional issue and ask the most important question: who commands the majority support among the MPs in the current Parliament? This cannot be a matter of opinion as it can be easily tested. Simply convene the Parliament and take a vote. The present political developments are not just what happened over the last week or so, but in fact, what happened last week was the culmination of developments since 2015. The government that came to power in 2015 was not exactly what people voted for. Instead of a government committed to the key elements of the mandate given to the newly elected leaders, namely, to pursue a programme of work covering good governance, national reconciliation, strengthening of rule of law, lean government, adoption of evidence based development and other policies, stamping out corruption, de-politicisation of state machinery, professionalisation of foreign service, criminal justice, etc, the newly elected leaders by and large continued to rule the country in the usual manner. The appointment of a large cabinet and giving all kinds of privileges to them at public expense, increasing evidence of corrupt practices, refusal to adopt sound public policies and strengthen state institutions. It is these developments that led to the poor showing of the government at the local government elections. The bond scam was a major factor that contributed to the electoral debacle of the government at the LG elections. Yet, the leaders did not respond to the growing public disenchantment in a decisive and constructive manner. President has appointed the former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa as the PM, without giving the MPs the opportunity to cast their vote for him or any other contender including the incumbent PM. This has led to the present crisis and even anger and frustration among many people in the country. It is true that the party under his de facto leadership of MR did well at the last LG elections but people there did not vote to elect a national leader. The change of the PM, if we do now, should be the responsibility of the present parliament. Most importantly, the last regime was defeated in 2015 due to its serious weaknesses and diverse allegations against it ranging from abuse of power, corruption, nepotism, politicisation of state institutions , etc. People have not seen any effort on the part of the leaders and other activists connected with the last regime to say that such misdeeds will not be repeated if and when they come to power again. This is a serious matter for people who voted in 2015 for a cleaner and leaner government and do not want a government that would continue with poor governance practices, corruption and abuse of power. It is against this background that the right thinking people in this country worry about change of regime without any assurance that the change is going to make the situation in the country better in terms of governance practices and improved public welfare. Many people in this country have been disenchanted with the past leaders as well as the present ones. They naturally want a change for the better, certainly not want to bring back poor governance practices that they witnessed in the country in the recent past. What they very much hope for is a better situation for themselves and their children, not a much worse situation in the years to come. The political leaders need to reassure people that the governance situation in the country is going to be better than what it has been in the recent past and over the last few years. They have to show how they are going to bring about that kind of positive change in the country, to make the life chances better for the wider public, not just to those who are in power and their retinue. As is well known, it is politicians, their families and supporters who did well in recent times, often at the expense of the hapless masses. To improve the economic and social conditions in the country, it is necessary to rationalise the government machinery, get the most competent and qualified people to take policy decisions, and adopt evidence based policies, rather than to rule the country with a group of self-seeking friends, acquaintances and political loyalists as many leaders have done over the years, making the economic and social conditions intolerable for the vast majority of people. "Its not a matter of being constitutionally right or wrong its a matter of basic human values, basic political ethics and morals that many people have lost. Looking at the political drama that reached a climax on October 26, one can only wonder what happened to our social value system, he said. The President has let down the whole nation by this most unethical and immoral act. And who would bear the cost other than the ordinary masses of this Country and speaking on the probable economic losses that the country had to endure, he said if one could calculate the cumulative foreign exchange loss for the nation just from the cancellations of hotel rooms during the past few days that will give us a glimpse of the economic catastrophe of this political drama. Adding to that, he asked when the nation was bleeding already especially having an external debt repayment commitment of over US$ 15 billion in 2019 how can the politicians behave so irresponsibly very well knowing the economic cost of their action. The king coconut suppliers, poultry suppliers to hotels; people at the bottom of the pyramid suffer the most the consequences of this political drama. Arent our leaders at least compassionate towards the common man of this country? Do they have a moral right to come before the public to seek a mandate? The authorities should investigate into the sources of the colossal amounts of money which are being used to do Horse trading. The politicians are gradually conditioning the minds of the people to accept and live with corruption and its the time we should rethink and liberate ourselves from the vicious clutches of these political ruffians. The Daily Mirror also spoke to the public and this is what they had to say: Every regime is the same - Sanath, a private company employee Every regime is the same. The cost of living is eternally high. They have reduced the prices of essential items but they would continue to fill their pockets. We have to earn to live and they are not going to look after us although they make big promises. Price reduction is an eyewash - Shashika, student Whoever are in power ultimately considers their personal benefit above any other concern. They will reduce prices for now and as they continue, they will increase these prices again. Changes should happen constitutionally - Rasangi, student As a country that works according to a Constitutional process, these things shouldnt happen. We dont care about whos in power but it should happen according to the Constitution and public opinion. In the case of electing the PM it would have been better if they went in for a vote rather than acting according to their own will. We hope democracy would prevail - Stefan, Law student We cant say whether the existing situation is fair or unfair. But we hope that democracy will prevail. RW should be sent into exile - Vihanga, Law student It was only at this point that RW thought its unfair to overthrow a PM in this manner. What was he thinking all this time? But the President was finally able to reveal who was involved in the bond scam. So I believe that RW should be sent into exile. They should have acted in a democratic manner - Nihal, three - wheeler owner Reducing three wheel fares is alright but if they did this aiming at an election then its unfair. There seems to be instability in the government and its better if they could summon Parliament and go for a vote instead. People are also stranded because of this crisis, and if they really think about the people they should act in a democratic manner. Pics by Waruna Wanniarachchi Unum Group is engaged in providing financial protection benefits. It operates through the following segments: Unum US, Unum International, Colonial Life, Closed Block and Corporate. The Unum US segment comprises of group long-term and short-term disability insurance, group life and accidental death and dismemberment products, and supplemental and voluntary lines of business. 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Communities VI LLC, LNC Communities VII LLC, LNC Communities VIII LLC, LNC Pennsylvania Realty Inc., LNC at Meadowbrook LLC, LNC at Ravenna LLC, LS College Park LLC, LS Terracina LLC, LV Opendoor Investor LLC, LV Opendoor JV LLC, LW D'Andrea LLC, Lagoon Valley Residential LLC, Lakelands at Easton L.L.C., Legends Club LLC, Legends Golf Club LLC, Len - Little Harbor LLC, Len FW Investor LLC, Len Paradise LLC, Len-Angeline LLC, Len-Hawks Point LLC, Len-Land LLC, Len-Land West LLC, Len-MN LLC, Len-Verandahs LLP, LenCom LLC, LenFive LLC, LenFive Opco GP LLC, LenFive Sub III LLC, LenFive Sub LLC, LenFive Sub Opco GP LLC, Lenalto CMBS LLC, Lencraft LLC, Lennar Aircraft I LLC, Lennar Arizona Construction Inc., Lennar Arizona Inc., Lennar Associates Management Holding Company, Lennar Associates Management LLC, Lennar Avenue One LLC, Lennar Berkeley LLC, Lennar Bevard LLC, Lennar Bridges LLC, Lennar Buffington Colorado Crossing L.P., Lennar Buffington Zachary Scott L.P., Lennar Carolinas LLC, Lennar Central Park LLC, Lennar Central Region Sweep Inc., Lennar Chicago Inc., Lennar Cobra LLC, Lennar Colgate Urban Renewal Development LLC, Lennar Colorado LLC, Lennar Colorado Minerals LLC, Lennar Commercial LLC, Lennar Communities Development Inc., Lennar Communities Inc., Lennar Communities Nevada LLC, Lennar Communities of Chicago L.L.C., Lennar Concord LLC, Lennar Construction Inc., Lennar Cory Road LLC, Lennar Courts LLC, Lennar Developers Inc., Lennar Ewing LLC, Lennar Financial Services LLC, Lennar Flamingo LLC, Lennar Fresno Inc., Lennar Gardens LLC, Lennar Georgia Inc., Lennar Greer Ranch Venture LLC, Lennar Heritage Fields LLC, Lennar Hingham Holdings LLC, Lennar Hingham JV LLC, Lennar Homes Holding LLC, Lennar Homes LLC, Lennar Homes NJ LLC, Lennar Homes of Arizona Inc., Lennar Homes of California Inc., Lennar Homes of Indiana Inc., Lennar Homes of Texas Land and Construction Ltd., Lennar Homes of Texas Sales and Marketing Ltd., Lennar Homes of Utah Inc., Lennar International Holding LLC, Lennar International LLC, Lennar Lakeside Investor LLC, Lennar Layton LLC, Lennar Living LLC, Lennar Lytle LLC, Lennar MF Holdings LLC, Lennar MPA LLC, Lennar MPA WIP LLC, Lennar Mare Island LLC, Lennar Marina A Funding LLC, Lennar Massachusetts Properties Inc., Lennar Middletown LLC, Lennar Monmouth Redevelopers LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture GP LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture GP Subsidiary LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture GP Victory Block G Mezz LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture II GP LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture II GP Subsidiary LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture II LP LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture II Manager LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture LP LLC, Lennar Multifamily BTC Venture Manager LLC, Lennar Multifamily Builders LLC, Lennar Multifamily Communities LLC, Lennar Multifamily Venture DC LP, Lennar New Jersey Holdings LLC, Lennar New Jersey Properties Inc., Lennar New York LLC, Lennar Northeast Properties LLC, Lennar Northwest Inc., Lennar OHB LLC, Lennar PI Acquisition LLC, Lennar PI Property Acquisition LLC, Lennar PIS Management Company LLC, Lennar Pacific Inc., Lennar Pacific Properties Inc., Lennar Pacific Properties Management Inc., Lennar Plumsted Urban Renewal LLC, Lennar Point LLC, Lennar QR Build to Core GP LLC, Lennar QR Build to Core LP LLC, Lennar Realty Inc., Lennar Reno LLC, Lennar Riverwalk LLC, Lennar Sacramento Inc., Lennar Sales Corp., Lennar Sierra Sunrise LLC, Lennar Spencer's Crossing LLC, Lennar Sun Ridge LLC, Lennar Texas Holding LLC, Lennar Ventures LLC, Lennar West Valley LLC, Lennar Winncrest LLC, Lennar at Franklin LLC, Lennar at Jackson LLC, Lennar at Marlboro 79 LLC, Lennar at Monroe LLC, Lennar.com Inc., Longleaf Acquisition LLC, Lori Gardens Associates II LLC, Lori Gardens Associates III LLC, Lori Gardens Associates L.L.C., Lorton Station LLC, Lyons Lennar Farms LLC, Madrona Ridge L.L.C., Madrona Village L.L.C., Madrona Village Mews L.L.C., Majestic Woods LLC, Maple and Broadway Holdings LLC, Menifee Development LLC, Mid-County Utilities Inc., Miralago West Lennar LLC, Mission Viejo 12S Venture LP, Mission Viejo Holdings Inc., Motomic Diagnostics LLC, Multibank 2009-1 CML-ADC Venture LLC, Multibank 2009-1 RES-ADC Venture LLC, NC Properties I LLC, NC Properties II LLC, North American Asset Development LLC, Northbridge L.L.C., OHC/Ascot Belle Meade LLC, One SR L.P., PD-Len Boca Raton LLC, PG Properties Holding LLC, POMAC LLC, PT Metro LLC, Pace Drive Holdings LLC, Palm Gardens At Doral Clubhouse LLC, Palm Gardens at Doral LLC, Palm Springs Classic LLC, Palm Vista Preserve LLC, Patuxent Infrastructure Inc., Pioneer Meadows Development LLC, Pioneer Meadows Investments LLC, Plaza Condominium Ventures LLC, Portside Marina Developers L.L.C., Portside SM Associates L.L.C., Portside SM Holdings L.L.C., Portside Shipyard Developers L.L.C., Prestonfield L.L.C., Quail Roost Lennar LLC, RCCF GP II LLC, RCCF GP III LLC, RCCF GP IV LLC, RCCF GP LLC, RES-FL EIGHT LLC, RES-FL SEVEN LLC, RES-FL VISION ONE LLC, RES-FL VISION TWO LLC, RES-GA CASCADE LLC, RES-GA DIAMOND MEADOWS LLC, RES-GA KAP LLC, RES-GA SOUTHERN PLANTATION LLC, RES-GA THIRTEEN LLC, RES-GA TWELVE LLC, RES-GA WEST LLC, RES-IL ONE LLC, RES-NC ONE LLC, RES-PA LSJ LLC, RES-PA POM LLC, RES-TX BOULEVARD LLC, RH Insurance Company Inc., RH MOA BBCMS 2017-C1 LLC, RH MOA CF 2017-C8 LLC, RH MOA LLC, RH MOA U 2017-C4 LLC, RH MOA U 2017-C6 LLC, RIAL 2014-LT5 CLASS B LLC, RIAL 2014-LT5 LLC, RL BB FINANCIAL LLC, RL BB INACTIVE LLC, RL BB-AL LLC, RL BB-FL ALHI LLC, RL BB-GA LLC, RL BB-GA RMH LLC, RL BB-IL LLC, RL BB-IN AA LLC, RL BB-IN KRE LLC, RL BB-IN KRE OP LLC, RL BB-IN KRE RE LLC, RL BB-MS LLC, RL BB-NC LLC, RL BB-OH LLC, RL BB-SC BROOKSA LLC, RL BB-SC CLR II LLC, RL BB-SC CLR III LLC, RL BB-SC CLR IV LLC, RL BB-SC CLR LLC, RL BB-SC CRRC LLC, RL BB-SC RACEDAY LLC, RL BB-TN BRISTOL LLC, RL BB-TN LLC, RL BB-TN RACEDAY TOWER LLC, RL BB-TX LLC, RL BB-WV LLC, RL CMBS Holdings LLC, RL CML 2009-1 Investments LLC, RL REGI ARKANSAS LLC, RL REGI Alabama LLC, RL REGI FINANCIAL LLC, RL REGI Florida LLC, RL REGI GEORGIA LLC, RL REGI INACTIVE LLC, RL REGI KANSAS LLC, RL REGI MISSISSIPPI LLC, RL REGI MISSOURI LLC, RL REGI NORTH CAROLINA LLC, RL REGI SOUTH CAROLINA LLC, RL REGI TENNESSEE LLC, RL REGI VIRGINIA LLC, RL REGI-AL HP LLC, RL REGI-AL VRC LLC, RL REGI-FL CRC LLC, RL REGI-FL ESH LLC, RL REGI-FL FT. PIERCE LLC, RL REGI-FL GDL LLC, RL REGI-FL ITALIA LLC, RL REGI-FL MRED LLC, RL REGI-FL RDI LLC, RL REGI-FL SARASOTA LLC, RL REGI-FL TPL LLC, RL REGI-FL VARC LLC, RL REGI-GA DRAD LLC, RL REGI-GA HAY DB LLC, RL REGI-GA MHU LLC, RL REGI-GA MPD LLC, RL REGI-GA RLR LLC, RL REGI-MO GMB LLC, RL REGI-MO MOSCOW MILLS LLC, RL REGI-MS Double H LLC, RL REGI-MS OCEAN SPRINGS LLC, RL REGI-NC CIL LLC, RL REGI-NC LITTLE WING LLC, RL REGI-NC MLD LLC, RL REGI-NC Mland LLC, RL REGI-NC RALEIGH LLC, RL REGI-NC SUGARM LLC, RL REGI-NM LLC, RL REGI-SC CTL LLC, RL REGI-SC LAKE E LLC, RL REGI-SC TDG LLC, RL REGI-SC TIG LLC, RL REGI-TN OAK LLC, RL REGI-TN SEVIERVILLE LLC, RL RES 2009-1 Investments LLC, RMF Alliance LLC, RMF Commercial LLC, RMF PR New York LLC, RMF Partner LLC, RMF SUB 1 LLC, RMF SUB 2 LLC, RMF SUB 3 LLC, RMF SUB 4 LLC, RMF SUB 5 LLC, RMV LLC, Raintree Village II L.L.C., Raintree Village L.L.C., Ral-Len BM LLC, Ral-Len LLC, Rannel Capital WeWork Series D LLC, Rannel Holdings LLC, Rannel Interests LLC, Rannel Investments LLC, Rannel Mortgage Investments LLC, Rannel Proprietary Investments LLC, Renaissance Joint Venture, Reserve @ Pleasant Grove II LLC, Reserve @ Pleasant Grove LLC, Reserve at River Park LLC, Reserve at South Harrison LLC, Rialto Commercial Mortgage Securities LLC, Rialto Credit Partnership GP LLC, Rialto Mezz Partners GP LLC, Rialto Mortgage Finance LLC, Rialto Partners GP II LLC, Rialto Partners GP III - Debt LLC, Rialto Partners GP III - Property LLC, Rialto Partners GP LLC, Rialto RSSF GP LLC, Riverwalk at Lago Mar LLC, Rocking Horse Minerals LLC, Rutenberg Homes Inc. (Florida), Rutenberg Homes of Texas Inc., Rye Hill Company LLC, Ryland Homes Nevada Holdings LLC, Ryland Homes Nevada LLC, Ryland Homes of California Inc., S. Florida Construction II LLC, S. Florida Construction III LLC, S. Florida Construction LLC, SC 521 Indian Land Reserve LLC, SC 521 Indian Land Reserve South LLC, SPIC CPCO Inc., SPIC CPDB Inc., SPIC CPRB Inc., SPIC Del Sur LLC, SPIC Dublin LLC, SPIC Mesa LLC, SPIC NC Fremont LLC, SPIC Otay LLC, SPIC Springs LLC, San Felipe Indemnity Co. Ltd., San Lucia LLC, San Simeon Lennar LLC, Schulz Ranch Developers LLC, Seminole/70th LLC, Siena at Old Orchard L.L.C., Sierra Vista Communities LLC, Silver Springs Lennar LLC, South Development LLC, Southbank Holding LLC, Spanish Springs Development LLC, St. Charles Active Adult Community LLC, St. Charles Community LLC, Standard Pacific 1 Inc., Standard Pacific Investment Corp., Standard Pacific of Colorado Inc., Standard Pacific of Florida, Standard Pacific of Florida GP Inc., Standard Pacific of Las Vegas Inc., Standard Pacific of Orange County Inc., Standard Pacific of Tampa GP, Standard Pacific of Tampa GP Inc., Standard Pacific of Tonner Hills LLC, Standard Pacific of Walnut Hills Inc., Standard Pacific of the Carolinas LLC, Stoney Holdings LLC, Storey Lake Club LLC, Storey Park Club LLC, Strategic Holdings Inc., Strategic Technologies LLC, Summerfield Venture L.L.C., SunStreet Energy Group LLC, SunStreet Manager LLC, TCO QVI LLC, TICD Hold Co. LLC, TIH Hold Co. LLC, Talega Associates LLC, Temecula Valley LLC, Terra Division LLC, Terra/Winding Creek LLC, The Baywinds Land Trust, The Bridges Club at Rancho Santa Fe Inc., The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe Sales Company Inc., The LNC Northeast Group Inc., The Oasis Club at LEN-CG South LLC, The Preserve at Coconut Creek LLC, The Vistas Club at LEN-CG South LLC, Titlezoom Company, Treasure Island Holdings LLC, Treasure Island Member LLC, Treviso Holding LLC, Two Lakes Lennar LLC, U.S. Home Corporation, U.S. Home Realty Inc., U.S. Home of Arizona Construction Co., U.S. Insurors Inc., U.S.H. Realty Inc., UAMC Holding Company LLC, UB 2018C14 MOA LLC, USH - Flag LLC, USH Equity Corporation, USH LEE LLC, USH Leasing II LLC, USH Leasing LLC, UST Lennar HW Scala SF Joint Venture, VII Crown Farm Investor LLC, Venetian Lennar LLC, Vineyard Land LLC, Vineyard Point 2009 LLC, Vista Palms Clubhouse LLC, WCI Communities, WCI Communities Inc., WCI Communities LLC, WCI Towers Northeast USA Inc., WCI Westshore LLC, WCP LLC, WIP Lennar OHB LLC, Waterview at Hanover LLC, West Lake Village LLC, West Seattle Project X LLC, West Van Buren L.L.C., Westchase Inc., Westchase Ltd., Westfield Homes USA Inc., White Course Lennar LLC, Wild Plum JV LLC, Willowbrook Investors LLC, Winncrest Natomas LLC, Woodbridge Multifamily Developer I LLC, Wright Farm L.L.C., and YLRichards4Acres 2015 LLC. Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF's stock was trading at $46.36 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, VGK stock has increased by 47.6% and is now trading at $68.42. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. UNP cannot give its support for the dissolution of Parliament till the mistake of appointing former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister is rectified by the President, UNP MP Vajira Abeywardene said today. Mr. Abeywardene said this in response to a question raised by the journalists at a media briefing as whether UNP is ready to support a motion to dissolve the House. Dissolution of Parliament is not a solution to the present crisis as the mistake of appointing Mr. Rajapaksa has to be rectified first. Dissolution could be looked into after rectifying the mistake, he said. Earlier, he said the House could be dissolved if two thirds of the MPs approve such a move as per Section 70 (1) of the Constitution. Statements are made that Parliament could be dissolved but it could be done under section 70 (1) of the Constitution, the MP said. He also said Section 14 (e) of the Interpretation Ordinance is not relevant for todays situation as a person could be removed from a high post only under Section 107(1) of the Constitution. (Yohan Perera) The following companies are subsidiares of Boston Scientific: 34 Biomedical Merger Corp., 9357-1867 Quebec Inc., Acurate Industria e Comercio Ltda., Advanced Bionics, Advanced Stent Technologies, American Medical Systems, American Medical Systems Europe B.V., Apama Medical, Apama Medical Inc., Asthmatx, Atritech, Augmenix, Augmenix Inc., Augmenix K.K., BSC International Medical Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BSC Medical Device Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BTG, BTG Australasia Pty Ltd, BTG Europe B.V., BTG IM Holdings Ltd., BTG International (Holdings) Limited, BTG International Asia Limited, BTG International Canada Inc., BTG International Germany GmbH, BTG International Healthcare Inc., BTG International Healthcare LLC, BTG International Healthcare Limited, BTG International Inc., BTG International Limited, BTG Limited, BTG Management Services Limited, BTG Medikal Limited Sirketi, Bard Electrophysiology, Barosense, Biocompatibles Inc., Biocompatibles International Limited, Biocompatibles UK Limited, Boston Scientific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Boston Scientific (South Africa) Proprietary Limited, Boston Scientific (Thailand) Ltd., Boston Scientific (UK) Limited, Boston Scientific AG, Boston Scientific Argentina S.A., Boston Scientific Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Boston Scientific Benelux NV, Boston Scientific Canada Limited, Boston Scientific Ceska republika s.r.o., Boston Scientific Chile SpA, Boston Scientific Colombia Limitada, Boston Scientific Comercial de Costa Rica BSCR S.R.L., Boston Scientific Far East B.V., Boston Scientific Gesellschaft m.b.H., Boston Scientific Group plc, Boston Scientific Hellas S.A., Boston Scientific Hong Kong Limited, Boston Scientific Iberica S.A., Boston Scientific India Private Limited, Boston Scientific International B.V., Boston Scientific International Finance Limited, Boston Scientific International S.A., Boston Scientific Israel Ltd., Boston Scientific Japan K.K., Boston Scientific Korea Co. Ltd., Boston Scientific Lebanon SAL, Boston Scientific Limited, Boston Scientific Ltd., Boston Scientific Medical Device, Boston Scientific Medical Device Limited, Boston Scientific Medizintechnik GmbH, Boston Scientific Middle East FZ-LLC, Boston Scientific Middle East SAL, Boston Scientific Nederland B.V., Boston Scientific Neuromodulation Corporation, Boston Scientific New Zealand Limited, Boston Scientific Nordic AB, Boston Scientific Peru S.A.C., Boston Scientific Philippines Inc., Boston Scientific Polska Sp. z o.o., Boston Scientific Portugal - Dispositivos Medicos Lda, Boston Scientific Pty Ltd, Boston Scientific Romania S.R.L., Boston Scientific S.A.S., Boston Scientific S.p.A., Boston Scientific Scimed, Boston Scientific Scimed Inc., Boston Scientific Services Private Limited, Boston Scientific TIP Gerecleri Limited Sirketi, Boston Scientific Technology & Engineering Services Private Limited, Boston Scientific Uruguay S.A., Boston Scientific Vietnam Company Limited, Boston Scientific de Costa Rica S.R.L., Boston Scientific de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Boston Scientific del Caribe Inc., Boston Scientific do Brasil Ltda., Bravo Bidco Limited, BridgePoint Medical, Cameron Health, Cardiac Pacemakers Inc., Cardiac Pathways Corp, Catheter Innovations, Claret Medical, Claret Medical Inc., Cosman Medical, Cosman Medical LLC, CryoCor, Cryterion Medical, Cryterion Medical Inc., Cryterion Medical Ireland Limited, EKOS LLC, EMcision, EMcision International Inc., EP Technologies, EP Technologies Inc., Electron Acquisition Corporation, EndoChoice, EndoChoice Holdings Inc., EndoChoice Inc., EndoChoice Innovation Center Ltd., EndoChoice Israel Ltd., Endotex, Enteric Medical Technologies, Galil Medical Inc., Galil Medical Ltd., Galil Medical UK Limited, Guidant, Guidant Delaware Holding Corporation, Guidant Europe NV, Guidant Puerto Rico B.V., Hong Kong Medtech Trading Limited, Intelect Medical, Millipede, Millipede Inc., NXT Merger Corp., Notebook Merger Sub Ltd., Novate Medical Limited, NxThera, NxThera Inc., PT Boston Scientific Indonesia, PneumRx GmbH, PneumRx LLC, PneumRx Liimited, Protherics Medicines Development B.V., Protherics Medicines Development Limited, Protherics UK Limited, Provensis Limited, RMI Acquisition Corp., Remon Medical Technologies, Rhythmia Medical, Robert S. Smith M.D. Inc., Roxwood Medical Inc., SNS Merger Corp, Sadra Medical, Sadra Medical Inc., Securus Medical Group, Securus Medical Group Inc., Special K Merger Corp., StarMedTec, Stream Enterprises LLC, Symetis, Symetis SA, Target Therapeutics, Target Therapeutics Inc., The LumenR Tissue Retractor System, Veniti, Veniti Inc., VertiFlex, Vertiflex Inc., Vessix Vascular, Xlumena, Zuma Investment Pty Ltd, iogyn, nVision Medical, and nVision Medical Corporation. The following companies are subsidiares of Kroger: 84.51 HQ Building Company LLC, 84.51 LLC, Alpha Beta Company, Ansonborough Square Investors I LLC, Ansonborough Square Retail LLC, Ardrey Kell Investments LLC, Bay Area Warehouse Stores Inc., Beech Tree Holdings LLC, Bell Markets Inc., Bleecker Ventures LLC, Bluefield Beverage Company, Box Cutter Inc., Brier Creek Arbors Drive Retail LLC, CB&S Advertising Agency Inc., Cala Co., Cala Foods Inc., Cheeses of All Nations Inc., Country Oven Inc., Crawford Stores Inc., Creedmoor Retail LLC, Dillon Companies LLC, Dillon Real Estate Co. Inc., Dillons, Distribution Trucking Company, Dotto Inc., Edgewood Plaza Holdings LLC, Embassy International Inc., FM Inc., FMJ Inc., Farmacia Doral Inc., Food 4 Less GM Inc., Food 4 Less Holdings Inc., Food 4 Less Merchandising Inc., Food 4 Less of California Inc., Food 4 Less of Southern California Inc., Fred Meyer, Fred Meyer Inc., Fred Meyer Jewelers Inc., Fred Meyer Stores Inc., Glasswing Labs LLC, Glendale/Goodwin Realty I LLC, Grubstake Investments LLC, HT Fuel DE LLC, HT Fuel NC LLC, HT Fuel SC LLC, HT Fuel VA LLC, HTGBD LLC, HTP Bluffton LLC, HTP Plaza LLC, HTP Relo LLC, HTPS LLC, HTTAH LLC, Harris Teeter, Harris Teeter LLC, Henpil Inc., Home Chef, Hood-Clayton Logistics LLC, Hughes Markets Inc., Hughes Realty Inc., I.T.A. Inc., IRP LLC, ITAC 119 LLC, ITAC 265 LLC, Inter-American Foods Inc., Inter-American Products Inc., J.V. Distributing Inc., Jondex Corp., Jubilee Carolina LLC, KCDE 2012 LLC, KCDE 2013 LLC, KCDE-2 LLC, KCDE-3 LLC, KCDE-4 LLC, KCDE-5 LLC, KGO LLC, KPF LLC, KPS LLC, KRGP LLC, KRLP Inc., KV Anderson LLC, Kee Trans Inc., Kessel FP, Kiosk Medicine Kentucky LLC, Kirkpatrick West Retail LLC, Kroger Community Development Entity LLC, Kroger Dedicated Logistics Co., Kroger Fulfillment Network LLC, Kroger G.O. LLC, Kroger LM Real Estate Holdings LLC, Kroger Limited Partnership I, Kroger Limited Partnership II, Kroger MC Holdings LLC, Kroger MTL Management LLC, Kroger Management Co., Kroger Management Corryville LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Athens I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Champaign I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Champaign II LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Cincinnati I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Dallas I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Danville I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Logansport I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Missouri I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Oak Ridge I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Olney I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Omaha I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Portsmouth I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Starkville I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Topeka I LLC, Kroger Management NMTC Warrenton I LLC, Kroger NMTC Fremont I LLC, Kroger OZ1 Inc., Kroger OZ1 LLC, Kroger OZ2 Inc., Kroger OZ2 LLC, Kroger OZ3 Inc., Kroger OZ3 LLC, Kroger Opportunity Fund I Inc., Kroger Prescription Plans Inc., Kroger Specialty Infusion AL LLC, Kroger Specialty Infusion CA LLC, Kroger Specialty Infusion Holdings Inc., Kroger Specialty Infusion TX LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy CA 2 LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy CA LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy FL 2 LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings 2 Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings 3 Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings I Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy LA LLC, Kroger Texas L.P., LCGP3 Home Cooking Inc., Latta Village LLC, Local Mkt LLC, Main & Vine LLC, Matthews Property 1 LLC, Mega Marts LLC, Michigan Dairy L.L.C., ModernHealth LTC, Murrays Cheese LLC, Murrays LIC LLC, Murrays Table LLC, Pace Dairy Foods Company, Paramount Logistics LLC, Pay Less Super Markets Inc., Peyton's-Southeastern Inc., Plum Labs LLC, Pontiac Foods Inc., Queen City Assurance Inc., RBF LLC, RGC Southeast Properties LLC, Ralphs Grocery Company, Relish Labs LLC, Rocket Newco Inc., Roundy's, Roundys Acquisition Corp., Roundys Illinois LLC, Roundys Inc., Roundys Supermarkets Inc., Second Story Inc., Shop-Rite LLC, Smiths Beverage of Wyoming Inc., Smiths Food & Drug Centers Inc., Southern Ice Cream Specialties Inc., Stallings Investors I LLC, Sunrise R&D Holdings LLC, Sunrise Technology LLC, TLC Corporate Services LLC, TLC Immunization Clinic LLC, TLC of Georgia LLC, The Kroger Co. of Michigan, The Little Clinic LLC, The Little Clinic Management Services LLC, The Little Clinic of Arizona LLC, The Little Clinic of Colorado LLC, The Little Clinic of IN LLC, The Little Clinic of Kansas LLC, The Little Clinic of Mississippi LLC, The Little Clinic of Ohio LLC, The Little Clinic of TX LLC, The Little Clinic of Tennessee LLC, The Little Clinic of VA LLC, Topvalco Inc., Ultimate Mart LLC, Ultra Mart Foods LLC, Vine Court Assurance Incorporated, Vitacost, Vitacost.com Inc., Woodmont Holdings LLC, and YOU Technology. The Williams Cos., Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company, which explores, produces, transports, sells and processes natural gas and petroleum products. It operates through the following segments: Transmission and Gulf of Mexico; Northeast G&P; and West. The Transmission and Gulf of Mexico segment comprises of interstate natural gas pipelines, Transco and Northwest Pipeline, as well as natural gas gathering and processing and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region. The Northeast G&P segment includes midstream gathering, processing, and fractionation businesses in the Marcellus Shale region primarily in Pennsylvania and New York, and the Utica Shale region of eastern Ohio. The West segment consists of gas gathering, processing, and treating operations in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado and Wyoming, the Barnett Shale region of north-central Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale region of south Texas, the Haynesville Shale region of northwest Louisiana, and the Mid-Continent region which includes the Anadarko, Arkoma, and Permian basins. The company was founded by David Williams and Miller Williams in 1908 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Read More The following companies are subsidiares of BP: 200 PS Overseas Holdings Inc., 563916 Alberta Ltd., ACP (Malaysia) Inc., AE Cedar Creek Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Wind Farm LLC, AE Power Services LLC, AE Wind PartsCo LLC, AM/PM International Inc., ARCO, ARCO British International, ARCO British Limited, ARCO Coal Australia Inc., ARCO El-Djazair Holdings Inc., ARCO Environmental Remediation L.L.C., ARCO Exploration Inc., ARCO Gaviota Company, ARCO International Investments Inc., ARCO International Services Inc., ARCO Midcon LLC, ARCO Oil Company Nigeria Unlimited, ARCO Oman Inc, ARCO Resources Limited, ARCO Trinidad Exploration and Production Company Limited, ARCO Unimar Holdings LLC, Actomat B.V., Advance Petroleum Holdings Pty Ltd, Advance Petroleum Pty Ltd, Air BP Albania SHA, Air BP Brasil Ltda., Air BP Canada LLC, Air BP Croatia d.o.o., Air BP Finland Oy, Air BP Iceland, Air BP Limited, Air BP Norway AS, Air BP Sales Romania S.R.L., Air BP Sweden AB, Air Refuel Pty Ltd, Allgreen Pty Ltd, AmProp Finance Company, American Oil Company, Amoco (Fiddich) Limited, Amoco (U.K.) Exploration Company LLC., Amoco Bolivia Petroleum Company, Amoco Bolivia Services Company Inc., Amoco Canada International Holdings B.V., Amoco Capline Pipeline Company, Amoco Chemical (Europe) S.A., Amoco Chemicals (FSC) B.V., Amoco Cypress Pipeline Company, Amoco Destin Pipeline Company, Amoco Environmental Services Company, Amoco Exploration Holdings B.V., Amoco Guatemala Petroleum Company, Amoco International Finance Corporation, Amoco International Petroleum Company, Amoco Leasing Corporation, Amoco Louisiana Fractionator Company, Amoco MB Fractionation Company, Amoco MBF Company, Amoco Main Pass Gathering Company, Amoco Marketing Environmental Services Company, Amoco Netherlands Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Exploration Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Oil Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company Limited, Amoco Norway Oil Company, Amoco Oil Holding Company, Amoco Olefins Corporation, Amoco Overseas Exploration Company, Amoco Pipeline Asset Company, Amoco Pipeline Holding Company, Amoco Properties Incorporated, Amoco Remediation Management Services Corporation, Amoco Research Operating Company, Amoco Rio Grande Pipeline Company, Amoco Somalia Petroleum Company, Amoco Sulfur Recovery Company, Amoco Tri-States NGL Pipeline Company, Amoco Trinidad Gas B.V., Amoco U.K. Petroleum Limited, Amprop Illinois I Limited, Amprop Inc., Anaconda Arizona Inc., Arabian Production And Marketing Lubricants, Aral Aktiengesellschaft, Aral Luxembourg S.A., Aral Services Luxembourg Sarl, Aral Tankstellen Services Sarl, Arco Mediterraneo Inversiones S.L., Areas Noriega S.L., Areas Singulares Reyes S.L., Aspac Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Atlantic 2/3 UK Holdings Limited, Atlantic Richfield Company, Atlantic Richfield Companyd, Autino Holdings Limited, Autino Limited, Auwahi Wind Energy Holdings LLC, B2Mobility GmbH, BASS Management Pty Ltd, BP (Abu Dhabi) Limited, BP (Barbados) Holding SRL, BP (Barbican) Limited, BP (China) Holdings Limited, BP (China) Industrial Lubricants Limited, BP (GTA Mauritania) Finance Limited, BP (GTA Senegal) Finance Limited, BP (Gibraltar) Limited, BP (Guangzhou) Advanced Mobility Limited, BP (Hunan) Petroleum Company Limited, BP (Indian Agencies) Limited, BP (Shandong) Petroleum Co. Ltd, BP (Shanghai) Trading Limited, BP - Castrol (Thailand) Limited, BP AMI Leasing Inc., BP Absheron Limited, BP Advanced Mobility Limited, BP Africa Limited, BP Africa Oil Limited, BP Akaryakit Ortakligi, BP Alaska LNG LLC, BP Alternative Energy Holdings Limited, BP Alternative Energy Investments Limited, BP Alternative Energy North America Inc., BP Alternative Energy Trinidad and Tobago Limited, BP America Chembel Holding LLC, BP America Chemicals Company, BP America Foreign Investments Inc., BP America Inc, BP America Inc., BP America Limited, BP America Production Company, BP Amoco Chemical Company, BP Amoco Chemical Holding Company, BP Amoco Chemical Indonesia Limited, BP Amoco Chemical Malaysia Holding Company, BP Amoco Exploration (Faroes) Limited, BP Amoco Exploration (In Amenas) Limited, BP Andaman II Ltd, BP Angola (Block 18) B.V., BP Argentina Exploration Company, BP Argentina Holdings LLC, BP Aromatics Holdings Limited, BP Aromatics Limited, BP Asia Limited, BP Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Asia Pacific Holdings Limited, BP Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, BP Australia Capital Markets Limited, BP Australia Employee Share Plan Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Group Pty Ltde, BP Australia Investments Pty Ltd, BP Australia Nominees Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Pty Ltd, BP Australia Shipping Pty Ltd, BP Australia Swaps Management Limited, BP Aviation A/S, BP Benevolent Fund Trustees Limited, BP Berau Ltd., BP Biocombustiveis S.A., BP Bioenergia Campina Verde Ltda., BP Bioenergia Ituiutaba Ltda., BP Bioenergia Itumbiara S.A., BP Bioenergia Tropical S.A., BP Biofuels Advanced Technology Inc., BP Biofuels Brazil Investments Limited, BP Biofuels Louisiana LLC, BP Biofuels North America LLC, BP Biofuels Trading Comercio Exportacao Ltda., BP Bomberai Ltd., BP Brasil Ltda., BP Brazil Tracking L.L.C., BP Bulwer Island Pty Ltd, BP Business Service Centre Asia Sdn Bhd, BP Business Service Centre KFT, BP CIV Pty Ltd, BP Canada Energy Development Company, BP Canada Energy Group ULC, BP Canada Energy Marketing Corp., BP Canada International Holdings B.V., BP Canada Investments Inc., BP Capellen Sarl, BP Capital Markets, BP Capital Markets America, BP Capital Markets America Inc., BP Capital Markets p.l.c., BP Car Fleet Limited, BP Caribbean Company, BP Castrol KK, BP Castrol Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Central Pipelines LLC, BP Chembel, BP Chemicals (Korea) Limited, BP Chemicals East China Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Limited, BP China Exploration and Production Company, BP Comercializadora de Energia Ltda., BP Commodities Trading Limited, BP Commodity Supply B.V., BP Company North America, BP Company North America Inc., BP Containment Response Limited, BP Containment Response System Holdings LLC, BP Continental Holdings Limited, BP Corporate Holdings, BP Corporate Holdings Limited, BP Corporation North America, BP Corporation North America Inc., BP D-B Pipeline Company LLC, BP D230 Limited, BP Danmark A/S, BP Developments Australia Pty. Ltd., BP Dogal Gaz Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, BP East Kalimantan CBM Limited, BP Eastern Mediterranean Limited, BP Egypt Company, BP Egypt East Delta Marine Corporation, BP Egypt East Tanka B.V., BP Egypt Production B.V., BP Egypt Ras El Barr B.V., BP Egypt West Mediterranean (Block B) B.V., BP Energy Asia Pte. Limited, BP Energy Colombia Limited, BP Energy Company, BP Energy Europe Limited, BP Energy Solutions B.V., BP Energy do Brasil Ltda., BP Energia Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., BP Espana S.A. Unipersonal, BP Estaciones y Servicios Energeticos Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, BP Europa SE, BP Exploracion de Venezuela S.A., BP Exploration & Production Inc., BP Exploration (Absheron) Limited, BP Exploration (Alaska), BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., BP Exploration (Algeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Alpha), BP Exploration (Alpha) Limited, BP Exploration (Angola), BP Exploration (Angola) Limited, BP Exploration (Azerbaijan), BP Exploration (Azerbaijan) Limited, BP Exploration (Canada) Limited, BP Exploration (Caspian Sea), BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited, BP Exploration (D230) Limited, BP Exploration (Delta), BP Exploration (Delta) Limited, BP Exploration (El Djazair) Limited, BP Exploration (Epsilon) Limited, BP Exploration (Gambia) Limited, BP Exploration (Greenland) Limited, BP Exploration (Madagascar) Limited, BP Exploration (Morocco) Limited, BP Exploration (Namibia) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria Finance) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Psi) Limited, BP Exploration (STP) Limited, BP Exploration (Shafag-Asiman) Limited, BP Exploration (Shah Deniz) Limited, BP Exploration (South Atlantic) Limited, BP Exploration (Xazar) Pte. Ltd., BP Exploration Angola (Kwanza Benguela) Limited, BP Exploration Argentina Limited, BP Exploration Australia Pty Ltd Level 15, BP Exploration Beta Limited, BP Exploration China Limited, BP Exploration Company (Middle East) Limited, BP Exploration Company Limited, BP Exploration Indonesia Limited, BP Exploration Libya Limited, BP Exploration Mexico Limited, BP Exploration Mexico S.A. De C.V., BP Exploration North Africa Limited, BP Exploration Operating Company, BP Exploration Operating Company Limited, BP Exploration Orinoco Limited, BP Exploration Personnel Company Limited, BP Exploration Peru Limited, BP Express Shopping Limited, BP Finance Australia Pty Ltd, BP Finance p.l.c., BP Foundation Incorporated, BP France, BP Fuels & Lubricants AS, BP Fuels Deutschland GmbH, BP GOM Logistics LLC, BP Gas & Power Investments Limited, BP Gas Europe S.A.U., BP Gas Marketing Limited, BP Gas Supply (Angola) LLC, BP Ghana Limited, BP Global Investments, BP Global Investments Limited, BP Global Investments Salalah & Co LLC, BP Global West Africa Limited, BP Greece Limited, BP Guangdong Limited, BP High Density Polyethylene - France, BP Holdings (Thailand) Limited, BP Holdings B.V., BP Holdings Canada, BP Holdings Canada Limited, BP Holdings International B.V., BP Holdings North America, BP Holdings North America Limited, BP Hong Kong Limited, BP India Private Limited, BP Indonesia Investment Limited, BP International, BP International Limited, BP International Services Company, BP Investment Management Limited, BP Investments Asia Limited, BP Iran Limited, BP Iraq N.V., BP Italia SpA, BP Japan K.K., BP Korea Limited, BP Kuwait Limited, BP LNG Shipping Limited, BP Latin America LLC, BP Latin America Upstream Services Inc., BP Lubricants KK, BP Lubricants USA Inc., BP Luxembourg S.A., BP Malaysia Holdings Sdn. Bhd., BP Management International B.V., BP Management Netherlands B.V., BP Marine Limited, BP Mariner Holding Company LLC, BP Maritime Services (Singapore) Pte. Limited, BP Marketing Egypt LLC, BP Mauritania Investments Limited, BP Mauritius Limited (in liquidation), BP Middle East Enterprises Corporation, BP Middle East LLC, BP Middle East Limited, BP Midstream Partners GP LLC, BP Midstream Partners Holdings LLC, BP Midstream Partners LP, BP Midwest Product Pipelines Holdings LLC, BP Mocambique Limitada, BP Mocambique Limited, BP Muturi Holdings B.V., BP Nederland Holdings BV, BP Netherlands Upstream B.V., BP New Ventures Middle East Limited, BP New Zealand Holdings Limited, BP New Zealand Share Scheme Limited, BP Nutrition Inc., BP Offshore Gathering Systems Inc., BP Offshore Pipelines Company LLC, BP Offshore Response Company LLC, BP Oil (Thailand) Limited, BP Oil Australia Pty Ltd, BP Oil Espana S.A., BP Oil Hellenic S.A., BP Oil International, BP Oil International Limited, BP Oil Kent Refinery Limited (in liquidation), BP Oil Llandarcy Refinery Limited, BP Oil Logistics UK Limited, BP Oil New Zealand Limited, BP Oil Pipeline Company, BP Oil Senegal S.A., BP Oil Shipping Company, BP Oil UK Limited, BP Oil Venezuela Limited, BP Oil Vietnam Limited, BP Oil Yemen Limited, BP Olex Fanal Mineralol GmbH, BP One Pipeline Company LLC, BP Pacific Investments Ltd, BP Pakistan (Badin) Inc., BP Pakistan Exploration and Production Inc., BP Pension Escrow Limited, BP Pension Trustees Limited, BP Pensions (Overseas) Limited, BP Pensions Limited, BP Petrochemicals India Investments Limited, BP Petroleo y Gas S.A., BP Petrolleri Anonim Sirketi, BP Pipelines (Alaska) Inc., BP Pipelines (BTC) Limited, BP Pipelines (North America) Inc., BP Pipelines (SCP) Limited, BP Pipelines (TANAP) Limited, BP Pipelines TAP Limited, BP Polska Services Sp. z o.o. Ul., BP Portugal -Comercio de Combustiveis e Lubrificantes SA, BP Poseidon Limited, BP Products North America, BP Products North America Inc., BP Properties Limited, BP Raffinaderij Rotterdam B.V., BP Refinery (Kwinana) Proprietary Limited, BP Regional Australasia Holdings Pty Ltd, BP River Rouge Pipeline Company LLC, BP Russian Investments Limited, BP Russian Ventures Limited, BP SC Holdings LLC, BP Scale Up Factory Limited, BP Senegal Investments Limited, BP Services International Limited, BP Servicios de Combustibles S.A. de C.V., BP Servicios territoriales S.A., BP Shafag-Asiman Limited, BP Shipping Limited, BP Singapore Pte. Limited, BP Solar Energy North America LLC, BP Solar Espana S.A., BP Solar International Inc., BP Solar Pty Ltd, BP South America Holdings Ltd, BP Southern Africa Proprietary Limited, BP Southern Cone Company, BP Subsea Well Response (Brazil) Limited, BP Subsea Well Response Limited, BP Taiwan Marketing Limited, BP Technology Ventures Inc., BP Technology Ventures Limited, BP Train 2/3 Holding SRL, BP Transportation (Alaska) Inc., BP Trinidad Processing Limited, BP Trinidad and Tobago, BP Trinidad and Tobago LLC, BP Turkey Refining Limited, BP Two Pipeline Company LLC, BP UK Retained Holdings Limited, BP Venezuela Investments B.V., BP West Aru I Limited, BP West Aru II Limited, BP West Papua I Limited, BP West Papua III Limited, BP Wind Energy North America Inc., BP Wiriagar Ltd., BP World-Wide Technical Services Limited, BP Zhuhai Chemical Company Limited, BP+Amoco International Limited, BP-AIOC Exploration (TISA) LLC, BPA Investment Holding Company, BPNE International B.V., BPRY Caribbean Ventures LLC, BPX (Eagle Ford) Gathering LLC, BPX (KCS Resources) LLC, BPX (Karnes) Gathering LLC, BPX (Permian) Gathering LLC, BPX (WSF Operating) Inc., BPX Energy Inc., BPX Midstream LLC, BPX Operating Company, BPX Production Company, BPX Properties (GP) LLC, BPX Properties (LP) LLC, BPX Properties (NA) LP, BTC Pipeline Holding Company Limited, BXL Plastics Limitedv, Bahia de Bizkaia Electridad S.L., Baltimore Ennis Land Company Inc., Black Lake Pipe Line Company, Brian Jasper Nominees Pty Ltd, Britannic Energy Trading Limited, Britannic Investments Iraq Limited, Britannic Marketing Limited, Britannic Strategies Limited, Britannic Trading Limited, Britoil Limited, Burmah Castrol, Burmah Castrol Australia Pty Ltd, Burmah Castrol Holdings Inc., Burmah Castrol PLC, Burmah Castrol South Africa (Pty) Limited, Burmah Chile SpA, Butamax Advanced Biofuels, CASTROL Austria GmbHb, CH-Twenty Inc., CNAA, Cadman DBP Limited, Casitas Pipeline Company, Castrol (China) Limited, Castrol (Ireland) Limited, Castrol (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Castrol (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Castrol (Tianjin) Lubricants Co. Ltd., Castrol (U.K.) Limited, Castrol Australia Pty. Limited, Castrol B.V., Castrol BP Petco Limited Liability Company, Castrol Brasil Ltda., Castrol Caribbean & Central America Inc., Castrol Colombia Ltda., Castrol Del Peru S.A., Castrol Egypt Lubricants S.A.E., Castrol India Limited, Castrol Industrie und Service GmbH, Castrol KK, Castrol Limited, Castrol Lubricants RO S.R.L, Castrol Mexico S.A., Castrol Namibia (Pty) Limited, Castrol Offshore Limited, Castrol Pakistan (Private) Limited, Castrol Philippines Inc., Castrol Servicos Ltda., Castrol Ukraine LLC, Castrol Zimbabwe (Private) Limited, Centrel Pty Ltd, Charge Your Car Limitedc, Chargemaster, Chargemaster (Europe) GmbH, Chargemaster Limited, Charging Solutions Limited, Clarisse Holdings Pty Ltd, Coastwise Trading Company Inc., Consolidada de Energia y Lubricantes (CENERLUB) C.A., Conti Cross Keys Inn Inc., Coro Trading NZ Limited, Cuyama Pipeline Company, DHC Solvent Chemie GmbH, Dermody Developments Pty Ltd, Dermody Holdings Pty Ltd, Dermody Investments Pty Ltd, Dermody Petroleum Pty. Ltd., Dome Beaufort Petroleum Limited, Dome Wallis (1980) Limited Partnership, ECM Markets SA (Pty) Ltd, Elektromotive Limited, Elite Customer Solutions Pty Ltd, Elm Holdings Inc., Energy Global Investments (USA) Inc., Enstar LLC, Estacion de Servicio Alto Campoo S.L., Estacion de Servicio Ganzo 10 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Reocin 9 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Santillana II S.L., Estacion de Servicio Sardinero S.L., Estonian Aviation Fuelling Services, Europa Oil NZ Limited, Exomet Inc., Expandite Contract Services Limited, Exploration (Luderitz Basin) Limited, Exploration Service Company Limited, FWK (2017) Limited, FWK Holdings (2017) LTD, Finite Carbon, Flat Ridge 2 Holdings LLC, Flat Ridge Wind Energy LLC, Foseco Holding Inc., Foseco Holding International B.V., Foseco Inc., Fosroc Expandite Limited, Fotech Solutions Ltd, Fowler Ridge Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge I Land Investments LLC, Fowler Ridge II Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge III Wind Farm LLC, FreeBees B.V., Fuel & Retail Aviat ion Sweden AB, Fuelplane- Sociedade Abastecedora De Aeronaves Unipessoal Lda, GOAM 1 C.I S. A .S, Gardena Holdings Inc., Gelsenkirchen Raffinerie Netz GmbH, Grampian Aviation Fuelling Services Limited, Guangdong Investments Limited, Highlands Ethanol LLC, Hosteleria Noriega S.L., IGI Resources Inc., Insight Analytics Solutions Holdings Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions USA Inc., International Bunker Supplies Pty Ltd, Iraq Petroleum Company Limited, Jupiter Insurance Limited, Ken-Chas Reserve Company, Kenilworth Oil Company Limited, Kingbook Inversiones Socimi S.A., Latin Energy Argentina S.A., Lebanese Aviation Technical Services S.A.L., Limited Liability Company BP Toplivnaya Kompania, Limited liability company Setra Lubricants, Lubricants UK Limited, Lytt Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 1) Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 2) Limited, Manormaker GP Limited (99.90%) 11 Black Horse Lane, Mardi Gras Transportation System Company LLC, Markoil S.A., Masana Petroleum Solutions (Pty) Ltd, Mayaro Initiative for Private Enterprise Development, Mehoopany Holdings LLC, Mes Tecnologia En Servicios Y Energia S.A., Minza Pty. Ltd., Mountain City Remediation LLC, No. 1 Riverside Quay Proprietary Limited, Nordic Lubricants A/S, Nordic Lubricants AB, North America Funding Company, OMD87 Inc., OOO BP STL, Omega Oil Company, OnSight Analytics Solutions India Private Ltd., Orion Delaware Mountain Wind Farm LP, Orion Energy Holdings LLC, Orion Energy L.L.C.b, Orion Post Land Investments LLC, Oyambre 1 S.L., PRODUITS METALLURGIE DOITTAU, PT BP Petrochemicals, PT Castrol Indonesia, PT Castrol Manufacturing Indonesia, PT Jasatama Petroindo, Pacroy (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Peaks America Inc., Pearl River Delta Investments Limited, Petrocorner Retail S.L.U., Phoenix Petroleum Services Limited, Pozuelo 4 S.L., Prospect International C.A. (In liquidation), Puente Arce 4 S.L., Remediation Management Services Company, Richfield Oil Corporation, Rio Corvo 2 S.L., Rolling Thunder I Power Partners LLC, Romax Insight Korea Ltd., Ropemaker Deansgate Limited, Ropemaker Properties Limited, Ruhr Oel GmbH, Rusdene GSS Limited, SOFAST Limited, SRHP, Saturn Insurance Inc., Sherbino I Holdings LLC, Sherbino Mesa I Land Investments LLC, Sociedade de Promocao Imobiliaria Quinta do Loureiro SA, Societe de Gestion de Depots d'Hydrocarbures - GDH, South Texas Shale LLC, Southeast Texas Biofuels LLC, Southern Ridge Pipeline Holding Company, Southern Ridge Pipeline LP LLC, Sp/f Decision3 (GreenSteam) Company, Standard Oil Company, Standard Oil Company Inc., Standard Oil of Ohio, Stryde Limited, Sunrise Oil Sands Partnership, TISA Education Complex LLC, TJKK, Taradadis Pty. Ltd., Telcom General Corporation, Terre de Grace Partnership, The Anaconda Company, The BP Share Plans Trustees Limited, The Burmah Oil Company (Pakistan Trading) Limited, The Standard Oil Company, Toledo Refinery Holding Company LLC, Torrelavega 7 S.L., Union Texas International Corporation, Vastar Pipeline LLC, Veba Oel AG Veba Oel, Verenium, Viceroy Investments Limited, Villacarriedo 8 S.L., Warrenville Development Limited, Water Way Trading and Petroleum Services LLC, Welchem Inc., West Kimberley Fuels Pty Ltd, Westlake Houston Development LLC, Whiting Clean Energy Inc., Windpark Energy Nederland B.V., and Winwell Resources L.L.C. Oasis Petroleum Inc., an independent exploration and production company, focuses on the acquisition and development of onshore unconventional oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates through Exploration and Production(E&P), and Midstream segments. The E&P segment engages in the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties. The Midstream segment offers midstream services, such as natural gas gathering, compression, processing and, gas lift supply; crude oil gathering, terminaling, and transportation; produced and flowback water gathering, and disposal; and water distribution. As of December 31, 2020, the company had 401,766 net leasehold acres in the Williston Basin; and 24,396 net leasehold acres in the Permian Basin, as well as approximately 152.2 million barrels of oil equivalent of estimated net proved reserves. The company sells its crude oil and natural gas to refiners, marketers, and other purchasers that have access to pipeline and rail facilities. Oasis Petroleum Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Quest Diagnostics: AmeriPath, AmeriPath Cincinnati Inc. (OH), AmeriPath Cleveland Inc. (OH), AmeriPath Consolidated Labs Inc. (FL), AmeriPath Florida LLC (DE), AmeriPath Hospital Services Florida LLC (DE), AmeriPath Inc. (DE), AmeriPath Indianapolis PC (IN), AmeriPath Kentucky Inc. (KY), AmeriPath Lubbock 5.01(A) Corporation (TX), AmeriPath New York LLC (DE), AmeriPath Texas Inc. (DE), AmeriPath Tucson Inc. (AZ), American Medical Laboratories, American Medical Laboratories Incorporated (DE), Associated Clinical Laboratories L.P. (PA), Associated Clinical Laboratories of Pennsylvania L.L.C. (PA), Athena Diagnostics, Athena Diagnostics Inc. (DE), Blueprint Genetics, Blueprint Genetics FZ-LLC (UAE), Blueprint Genetics Inc. (DE), Blueprint Genetics Oy (Finland), California Laboratory Associates, Cape Cod Healthcare - Business, Celera, ClearPoint Diagnostic, Clearpoint Diagnostic Laboratories LLC (TX), Cleveland HeartLab, Cleveland HeartLab Inc. (DE), Clinical Laboratory Partners, Colorado Pathology Consultants P.C. (CO), ConVerge Diagnostic Services, Consolidated DermPath Inc. (DE), DFW 5.01(a) Corporation (TX), DGXWMT JV LLC (DE), Dermatopathology of Wisconsin S.C. (WI), Diagnostic Laboratory of Oklahoma LLC (OK), Diagnostic Pathology Services Inc. (OK), Diagnostic Reference Services Inc. (MD), ExamOne Canada Inc. (New Brunswick), ExamOne LLC (DE), ExamOne World Wide Inc. (PA), ExamOne World Wide of NJ Inc. (NJ), Focus Diagnostics, HemoCue, Hoffman M.D. Associated Pathologists Chartered (NV), Institute for Dermatopathology Inc. (PA), Isabella Street Urban Renewal LLC (NJ), Kailash B. Sharma M.D. Inc. (GA), Kilpatrick Pathology P.A. (NC), LabOne, LabOne LLC (MO), LabOne of Ohio Inc. (DE), Laboratorio de Analisis Biomedicos S.A. (Mexico), Lancet Labs, MACL, Med Fusion LLC (TX), Med fusion, MedPlus, Mid America Clinical Laboratories LLC (IN), Nomad Massachusetts Inc. (MA), Nuclear Medicine and Pathology Associates (GA), Ocmulgee Medical Pathology Association Inc. (GA), Pathology Building Partnership (MD) (gen. ptnrshp.), PeaceHealth Laboratories, PhenoPath Laboratories, PhenoPath Laboratories PLLC (WA), Q Squared Solutions Holdings LLC (DE), Q Squared Solutions Holdings Limited (UK), Quest Diagnostics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (China), Quest Diagnostics Brasil Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics Clinical Laboratories, Quest Diagnostics Clinical Laboratories Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics Domestic Holder LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics HTAS India Private Limited (India), Quest Diagnostics Health & Wellness LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Holdings Incorporated (DE), Quest Diagnostics Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (MD), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NV), Quest Diagnostics India Private Limited (India), Quest Diagnostics Infectious Disease Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics International Holdings Limited (UK), Quest Diagnostics International LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Investments LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Ireland Limited (Ireland), Quest Diagnostics LLC (CT), Quest Diagnostics LLC (IL), Quest Diagnostics LLC (MA), Quest Diagnostics Massachusetts LLC (MA), Quest Diagnostics Mexico Holding Company Trust (Mexico), Quest Diagnostics Mexico S de RL de CV (Mexico), Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute (CA), Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute Inc. (VA), Quest Diagnostics Receivables Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics Subsidiary Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics TB LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Terracotta LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Venture LLC (PA), Quest Diagnostics Ventures LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics do Brasil Ltda. (Brazil), Quest Diagnostics of Pennsylvania Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics of Puerto Rico Inc. (PR), Quest HealthConnect LLC (CA), ReproSource, Reprosource Fertility Diagnostics Inc. (MA), Solstas Lab Partners, Sonora Quest Laboratories LLC (AZ), Specialty Laboratories Inc. (CA), Summit Health, UMass Memorial Medical Center - Anatomic Pathology Outreach Laboratory Business, Unilab Corporation, and Unilab Corporation (DE). iShares North American Tech-Software ETF's stock was trading at $211.67 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, IGV shares have increased by 107.6% and is now trading at $439.36. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Randgold Resources Limited is engaged in gold mining, exploration and related activities. The Company's activities are focused on West and Central Africa. The Company operates through the gold mining segment. The Company operates various mines, such as Morila, Loulo, Gounkoto, Tongon and Kibali. The Company is exploring in African countries, such as Mali, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Company also holds an interest in the Massawa project. The Company holds Morila Limited, which holds interests in the Morila mine in Mali. As of December 31, 2016, Morila mine has produced 122,370 ounces (oz) of gold. The Company holds a controlling interest in the Loulo mine, located in Mali, through Societe des Mines de Loulo SA (Loulo). The Loulo mine is mining from over two underground mines. As of December 31, 2016, Loulo mine has produced 350,604 oz of gold. It has a controlling interest in the Gounkoto mine through Societe des Mines de Gounkoto SA. Read More Serengeti Resources Inc. acquires and explores for mineral properties in Canada. It company explores for gold, copper, and silver deposits. The company's flagship property is the Kwanika project that covers an area of 25,928 hectares located in the northern Quesnel Trough, British Columbia. It also has an option to acquire 100% interest in Top Cat project covering an area of approximately 21,600 hectares situated in central British Columbia. The company was formerly known as Serengeti Minerals Ltd. and changed its name to Serengeti Resources Inc. in 2001. Serengeti Resources Inc. was incorporated in 1973 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Read More Xcel Energy, Inc. operates as a holding company, which engages in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity. It operates through the following three segments: Regulated Electric Utility, Regulated Natural Gas Utility and All Others. The Regulated Electric Utility segment generates, transmits and distributes electricity primarily in portions of generates, transmits and distributes electricity in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. In addition, this segment includes sales for resale and provides wholesale transmission service to various entities in the United States. It also includes commodity trading operations. The Regulated Natural Gas Utility segment transports, stores, and distributes natural gas primarily in portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Michigan and Colorado. The All Others segment engages in steam, appliance repair services, nonutility real estate activities, processing solid waste into refuse-derived fuel and investments in rental housing projects that qualify for low-income housing tax credits. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of General Dynamics: 42SIX LLC, ARMA Global Corporation, Advanced Technical Products, Aeromil (Australia) Pty Ltd, Aeromil Aircraft Engineering Pty Ltd, Aeromil Aviation Services Pty Ltd, Aeromil IT Services Pty Ltd, Aeromil Marine Pty Ltd, Aeromil Pacific Pty Ltd, American Overseas Marine Company LLC, Anteon International Corporation, Applied Physical Sciences, Applied Physical Sciences Corp., Ascend Intelligence, Australian Avionics Pty Ltd, Autonomic Resources LLC, Avion Logistics Limited, Avjet Corporation, AxleTech International, Axsys, BATH IRON WORKS CORPORATION, BP-HP Pte Limited, Bath Iron Works, Bath Iron Works Australia Corporation, Bath Iron Works Canada LLC, Bluefin Robotics Corporation, Blueprint Technologies Inc., Braintree I Maritime Corp., Braintree II Maritime Corp., Braintree III Maritime Corp., Braintree IV Maritime Corp., Braintree V Maritime Corp., Buccaneer Computer Systems & Service Inc., CSC Computer Sciences Venezuela S.A., CSRA, CSRA (Costa Rica) S.A., CSRA (Guyana) Inc., CSRA (Middle East) LLC, CSRA Argentina S.R.L., CSRA BH d.o.o., CSRA Bahamas Limited, CSRA Bahrain S.P.C., CSRA Belgium SPRL, CSRA Bolivia S.R.L., CSRA Brazil Servicos de Tecnologia Ltda., CSRA Canada Inc., CSRA Caribbean Inc., CSRA Chile SpA, CSRA Colombia SAS, CSRA Commerce 2010 LLC, CSRA Consular Services Holding Company LLC, CSRA Consular Services Inc., CSRA France SARL, CSRA Guatemala Solutions Sociedad Anonima, CSRA Honduras Sociedad Anonima, CSRA Inc., CSRA Information Systems LLC, CSRA Information Technology Spain SL, CSRA Ireland Limited, CSRA Italy S.R.L, CSRA Kosovo L.L.C., CSRA LATAM LLC, CSRA LLC, CSRA Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., CSRA Netherlands B.V., CSRA Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CSRA Panama Inc., CSRA Peru S.R.L., CSRA Senegal SARL, CSRA South Africa (Pty) Ltd, CSRA State and Local Solutions LLC, CSRA Systems & Solutions LLC, CSRA Trinidad & Tobago Limited, CSRA Turkey Bilisim Teknolojileri Limited Sirketi, CSRA Uruguay S.R.L, CSRA Visa Services Israel Ltd., CSRAIT - Information Services Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Centauri Solutions LLC, Command System, Computing Devices International, Concord I Maritime Corporation, Concord II Maritime Corporation, Concord III Maritime Corporation, Concord IV Maritime Corporation, Concord V Maritime Corporation, Convair Aircraft Corporation, Convair Corporation, Creative Technology, Customer Services Ecuador CSRA S.A., Devcor, Diamond Fortress Technologies, DynPort Vaccine Company LLC, EB Groton Engineering Inc., EBV Explosives Environmental, ELCS-CZ s.r.o., Eagle Enterprise Inc., Earl Industries - Ship Repair and Coatings Division, Ebv Explosives Environmental Company, Electric Boat - Australia LLC, Electric Boat - UK LLC, Electric Boat Canada LLC, Electric Boat Corporation, Electric Boat France LLC, Electrocom Inc., Engineering Technology, Expro Finance Inc., FBD Fahrzeug und Bremsendienst GmbH, FC Business Systems, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Force Protection, Force Protection Europe Limited, Force Protection Inc., ForeSight Technology Services LLC, Freeman United Coal Mining Company LLC, GD Brazil Holdings LLC, GD European Land Systems - Steyr GmbH, GD European Land Systems Holding GmbH, GDOTS Services Corporation, GM GDLS Defense Group L.L.C., GPS Source Inc., GTE Government Systems, GWA-Datatrac FAST LLC, Galaxy Aerospace Company, Gayston Corporation - Defense Operations, General Dynamics - OTS (Global) Inc., General Dynamics AIS Australia Pty Ltd, General Dynamics Canadian Finance Inc., General Dynamics Canadian Holdings Inc., General Dynamics Commercial Cyber Services LLC, General Dynamics European Finance Limited, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Austria GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Bridge Systems GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Czech s.r.o., General Dynamics European Land Systems - Denmark ApS, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Deutschland GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - FWW GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Mowag GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems Romania S.R.L., General Dynamics European Land Systems S.L., General Dynamics Global Force LLC, General Dynamics Global Holdings Limited, General Dynamics Global Imaging Technologies Inc., General Dynamics Government Satellite Services LLC, General Dynamics Government Systems Corporation, General Dynamics Government Systems Overseas Corporation, General Dynamics Information Technology Canada Limited, General Dynamics Information Technology Inc., General Dynamics Information Technology Limited, General Dynamics Installation Services LLC, General Dynamics International Corporation, General Dynamics Itronix LLC, General Dynamics Land Systems - Australia Pty. Ltd., General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada Corporation, General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada Services Inc., General Dynamics Land Systems - Canadian Services Limited, General Dynamics Land Systems - Force Protection Inc., General Dynamics Land Systems Customer Service & Support Company, General Dynamics Land Systems Inc., General Dynamics Limited, General Dynamics Marine Systems Inc., General Dynamics Mission Systems Inc., General Dynamics Mission Systems International Limited, General Dynamics Mission Systems Overseas Company LLC, General Dynamics Motion Control LLC, General Dynamics OTS (Aerospace) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (California) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (DRI) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (Niceville) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (Pennsylvania) Inc., General Dynamics One Source LLC, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada Inc., General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada Valleyfield Inc., General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Simunition Operations Inc., General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc., General Dynamics Overseas Systems and Services Corporation, General Dynamics Properties Inc., General Dynamics Robotic Systems Inc., General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies Inc., General Dynamics Satcom Technologies Asia Private Limited, General Dynamics Satellite Communication Services LLC, General Dynamics Saudi Holdings S.L., General Dynamics Shared Resources LLC, General Dynamics Support Services Company, General Dynamics Swiss Financial Management Limited, General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited, General Dynamics Worldwide Holdings Inc., General Dynamics-OTS Inc., General Motors Defense, Gulfstream 100 Holdings LLC, Gulfstream Aerospace, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (CA), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (DE), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (GA), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (OK), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation of Texas, Gulfstream Aerospace Hong Kong Limited, Gulfstream Aerospace LLC, Gulfstream Aerospace LP, Gulfstream Aerospace Ltd., Gulfstream Aerospace Services Corporation, Gulfstream Aerospace Sociedad de Responssabilidad Limitada de CapitalVariable (S. de R.L. de C.V.), Gulfstream Do Brasil Servicos De Suporte E Manutencao A Aeronaves Ltda., Gulfstream International Corporation, Gulfstream Leasing LLC, Gulfstream Product Support Corporation, Gulfstream Services Corporation, Gulfstream Tennessee Corporation, Gulfstream-California Inc., Hawker Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Hawker Pacific Aircraft Management Pte Ltd, Hawker Pacific Airservices Limited, Hawker Pacific Airservices Pvt Ltd, Hawker Pacific Asia Holdings Pte Ltd, Hawker Pacific Asia Pte Ltd, Hawker Pacific Australia Pty Ltd, Hawker Pacific Aviation Services Pty Ltd, Hawker Pacific NZ Limited, Hawker Pacific Pty Ltd, IPWireless, IPWireless PTE. Limited, Information Services Consulting Limited, Interiores Aereos S.A. de C.V., International Manufacturing Technologies Inc., Itronix, Janteq Australia PTY Limited, Janteq Corp., Jet Aviation, Jet Aviation (Asia Pacific) Pte. Ltd., Jet Aviation (Bermuda) Ltd., Jet Aviation (Hong Kong) Ltd., Jet Aviation (Malaysia) SDN BHD, Jet Aviation 125 Services LLC, Jet Aviation AG, Jet Aviation Brazil Holdings Inc., Jet Aviation Business Jets (Hong Kong) Limited, Jet Aviation Business Jets AG, Jet Aviation Business Jets FZCO, Jet Aviation California LLC, Jet Aviation Dulles LLC, Jet Aviation Flight Services Inc., Jet Aviation France SAS, Jet Aviation Holding GmbH, Jet Aviation Holdings USA Inc., Jet Aviation Houston Inc., Jet Aviation International Inc., Jet Aviation Malaga SA, Jet Aviation Management AG, Jet Aviation Netherlands B.V., Jet Aviation Savannah Holding LLC, Jet Aviation Services GmbH, Jet Aviation St. Louis Inc., Jet Aviation Teterboro LP, Jet Aviation Texas Inc., Jet Aviation of America Inc., Jet Aviation/Palm Beach Inc., Jet Professionals LLC, Kylmar, Longreach Energy LLC, MAYA Viz, Maricom Systems Incorporated, Material Service Resources Company LLC, Matthews Land Company, Mediaware International, Mediaware International Pty Ltd, Metro Machine, Metro Machine co, Midwest Properties Sales LLC, NASSCO, NASSCO Holdings Incorporated, NES Associates LLC, National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, Network Connectivity Solutions Corp., Newberry Holdings LLC, OOO Jet Aviation Vnukovo, Open Kernel Labs, Page Europa Srl, Patriot I Shipping Corp., Patriot II Shipping Corp., Patriot IV Shipping Corp., Plane 79 LLC, Praxis Engineering Technologies LLC, PrimeX Technologies, Prodelin India Private Limited, Proyectos Prohumane Mexico S.A. de C.V., Quincy Maritime Corporation III, Raven Acquisitions LLC, SENTECH INC., SRA International Inc., Saco Defense, Santa Barbara Sistemas S.A., Savannah Air Center LLC, Signal Solutions LLC, Southern Illinois Recovery Inc., Spectrum Astro, St. Marks Powder Inc., Stabilo Pty Ltd, Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug AG & Co KG, Sydney Jet Charter Pty Ltd, Tadpole Computer, Tecnologias Internacionales de Manufactura S.A. de C.V., Tenacity Solutions Incorporated, The Depth of Ideas for General Trading LLC, TriPoint Global Communications, Vangent, Vangent Servicios de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Veridian, Vertex Antennentechnik GmbH, ViPS, Vulnerability Research Labs LLC, and Weco LLC. Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. engages in the management of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It operates through the following segments: Asset Management, Real Estate, Renewable Power, Infrastructure, Private Equity, Residential Development, and Corporate Activities. The Asset Management segment includes the management of its listed partnerships, private funds and public securities. The Real Estate segment is comprised of the ownership, operation and development of core office, core retail, LP investments and other properties. The Renewable Power segment encompasses the ownership, operation and development of hydroelectric, wind, solar, storage and other power generating facilities. The Infrastructure segment consists of the ownership, operation and development of utilities, transport, energy, data infrastructure and sustainable resource assets. The Private Equity segment refers to the broad range of industries, and is mostly focused on business services, infrastructure services and industrials. The Residential Development segment represents homebuilding, condominium development and land development. The Corporate Activiti Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Ingersoll Rand: 211 E. Russell Road LLC, Air-Relief, Belliss & Morcom Brasil, Belliss and Morcom, Boardwalk Enterprises, Charm Merger Sub Inc., CompAir, CompAir (Hankook) Korea Co. Ltd., CompAir Acquisition (No. 2) Ltd., CompAir Acquisition Ltd., CompAir BroomWade Ltd., CompAir Canada, CompAir Finance Ltd., CompAir GmbH, CompAir Holdings Limited, CompAir Holman Ltd, CompAir International Trading (Shanghai) Co Ltd, CompAir Korea Ltd, CompAir South Africa (SA) (Pty) Ltd., CompAir UK Ltd, CompAir USA, Consolidated Distribution Holdings Ltd., DV Systems Inc., Emco Wheaton, Emco Wheaton GmbH Branch, Emco Wheaton Gmbh, Emco Wheaton UK, Emco Wheaton USA Inc, Enza Air Propriety Limited (South Africa), GD Aria Holdings #2 Limited, GD Aria Holdings Limited, GD Aria Investments Limited, GD First UK Ltd, GD German Holdings GmbH, GD German Holdings I Gmbh, GD German Holdings II GmbH, GD German Investments GmbH, GD Global Holdings, GD Global Holdings II, GD Global Holdings UK II Ltd., GD Global Ventures I B.V., GD Global Ventures II B.V., GD Global Ventures III B.V., GD Industrial Products Malaysia SDN. BHD., GD Investment KY, GD UK Finance Ltd., Gardner Denver (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Gardner Denver Austria GmbH, Gardner Denver Bad Neustadt Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Belgium NV, Gardner Denver Brasil Industria E Comercio de Maquinas Ltda., Gardner Denver CZ + SK sro, Gardner Denver Canada Corp, Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments II Ltd., Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments II Ltd. - US Branch, Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments Ltd., Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments Ltd. - US Branch, Gardner Denver Deutschland GmbH, Gardner Denver Engineered Products India Private Limited, Gardner Denver FZE, Gardner Denver Finance II LLC, Gardner Denver Finance Inc & Co KG, Gardner Denver France SA, Gardner Denver France SAS, Gardner Denver Group Services Ltd, Gardner Denver Group Svcs Ltd, Gardner Denver Hoffman, Gardner Denver Holdings, Gardner Denver Holdings Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Investments Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Ltd, Gardner Denver Iberica, Gardner Denver Industries Ltd., Gardner Denver Industries Pty Ltd., Gardner Denver Industries Pty Ltd. 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Branch (Ireland), Gardner Denver Machinery (Shanghai) Co, Gardner Denver Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Gardner Denver Nash Brasil Industria E Comercio De Bombas Ltda, Gardner Denver Nash Deutschland GmbH, Gardner Denver Nash LLC, Gardner Denver Nash Machinery Ltd, Gardner Denver Nash Machinery Ltd., Gardner Denver Nederland BV, Gardner Denver Nederland Investments B.V., Gardner Denver Oberdorfer Pumps, Gardner Denver Oy, Gardner Denver Petroleum Pumps, Gardner Denver Polska Sp z.o.o., Gardner Denver Pte Ltd., Gardner Denver S.r.l., Gardner Denver Schopfheim GmbH, Gardner Denver Schopfheim Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Schweiz AG, Gardner Denver Slovakia, Gardner Denver SudAmerica S.r.l., Gardner Denver Sweden AB, Gardner Denver Taiwan Ltd., Gardner Denver Thomas, Gardner Denver Thomas GmbH, Gardner Denver Thomas Pneumatic Systems (Wuxi) Co., Gardner Denver Thomas Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver UK, Gardner Denver Water Jetting Systems, Garo Dott. Ing. Roberto Gabbioneta S.r.l., Hamworthy Belliss & Morcom, ILMVAC (UK) Ltd., ILS Innovative Labor Systeme, ILS Inovative Laborsysteme GmbH, Indonesia Foreign Trade Representative Office, LeROI, LeRoi International Inc, MP Pumps Inc., Mako Compressors, Nash, Nash Elmo, Oina VV, Oina VV Aktiebolag, Robuschi, Rotary Compression Technologies, Runtech Systems, Runtech Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Runtech Systems Inc., Runtech Systems OY, Shanghai CompAir Compressors Co Ltd, Shanghai Compressors & Blowers Ltd., Syltone, TCM Investments, TIWR Real Estate GmbH & Co. KG, TODO AB, Tamrotor Marine Compressors AS, Thomas Industries, Thomas Industries Inc., Tri-Continent Scientific, Welch Vacuum Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zinsser Analytic, Zinsser Analytik GmbH, and Zinsser NA. There is not enough analysis data for El Paso Electric. 3.9 Community Rank Outperform Votes El Paso Electric has received 256 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes El Paso Electric has received 192 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment El Paso Electric has received 57.14% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about El Paso Electric and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe EE will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe EE will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next Vanguard Total World Stock ETF's stock was trading at $67.27 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, VT shares have increased by 60.9% and is now trading at $108.22. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Versum Materials, Inc. develops, manufactures, transports, and handles specialty materials for the semiconductor and display industries in the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Europe, and rest of Asia. The company operates through two segments, Materials, and Delivery Systems and Services (DS&S). The Materials segment provides specialty chemicals and materials used in semiconductors, as well as specialty gases used in the semiconductor manufacturing process, including high purity process materials for deposition, metallization, chamber cleaning, and etching; chemicals mechanical planarization slurries; organosilanes; organometallics and liquid dopants for thin film deposition; and formulated chemical products for post-etch cleaning primarily for the manufacture of silicon and compound semiconductors, and thin film transistor liquid crystal displays. The DS&S segment develops, designs, manufactures, and sells bulk gas, specialty gas, and specialty chemical cabinets and systems, which are used to manage the delivery of key materials into the semiconductor manufacturing process; and flow and temperature control systems and analytical systems to capture data. It is also involved in the project management for installation and startup of the gas and chemical delivery systems, and inventory management; and provision of spare parts, equipment upgrades, equipment maintenance, and training services. In addition, this segment offers on-site services to assist customers in managing the inventory of gases and chemicals comprising ordering, product changes and monitoring, quality assurance, operation of delivery systems, and managing the bulk gas and specialty gas operations. Versum Materials, Inc. was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. Read More Franklin Covey Co. engages in consulting and training in the areas of strategy execution, customer loyalty, leadership, and individual effectiveness. It operates through the following three segments: Direct Offices, Education Practice, International Licensees and Corporate and Other. The Direct Offices segment includes sales personnel that serve the United States and Canada; international sales offices located in Japan, China, the United Kingdom, and Australia; governmental sales channel; and public program operations. The Education Practice segment includes domestic and international Education practice operations, which are focused on sales to educational institutions such as elementary schools, high schools, and colleges and universities. The International Licensees segment primarily comprised of royalty revenues received from these licensees. The Corporate and Other segment includes leasing operations, shipping and handling revenues, and certain corporate administrative expenses. The company was founded by Brent L. Bishop, Stephen R. Covey and Hyrum Wayne Smith in 1983 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT. Read More It's the final push to election day. Both congressional candidates are trying to rally undecided voters in the area, along with making sure people know where they vote. One way they are doing that is by manning the phones. Volunteer's from Anthony Brindisi's campaign gathered in the De Sales Center auditorium on Genesee St. to man the phones. Each caller had a list of voters to call in front of them. They reminded voters about election day and where they can go in their area to vote. They also pushed through the bad weather and went door to door trying to secure those last few votes. Brindisi stopped by to thank his volunteers for all of their hard work. "The weather is not very nice outside, but our volunteers are like the post office. They go out in the wind, rain, knocking on people's doors and that is what is going to win for us because this is a really people powered campaign." said Brindisi. When asked about his feelings of election day, he responded, "We are getting alot of positive feedback. I've been making phone calls to people throughout the area trying to get people to vote. Trying to get thoe last few undecided voters out there to come to our side. But i'm very optimistc to where things stand as of right now." Election day is this Tuesday, November 6th. Polls open bright and early at 6am and go to 9pm that night. ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - In New York political news, Cynthia Nixon is backing her former Democratic primary foe Andrew Cuomo - without mentioning him by name. The former "Sex and the City" star and political activist urged supporters to back candidates running on the Working Families Party "from top to bottom." Cuomo won the liberal third-party's nomination for governor after defeating Nixon in a bruising Democratic primary. Republican challenger Marc Molinaro, meanwhile, interrupted his campaign schedule last week to help a man suffering an apparent stroke on a sidewalk in Poughkeepsie. The Dutchess County executive, a longtime volunteer firefighter, then directed traffic once paramedics arrived. In other stories, supporters of legislation to authorize physician-assisted suicide held a Day of the Dead vigil for advocates who succumbed to terminal illness while pushing for the bill. (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) The mayor of a small Utah city was killed Saturday in Kabul, Afghanistan in small arms fire while serving in the Army National Guard. On Sunday, the Pentagon confirmed the identity of Brent Taylor of North Ogden. Afghanistan Afghanistan war Asia Conflicts and wars Continents and regions Middle East Middle East and North Africa Military Military casualties North America South Asia The Americas United States Unrest, conflicts and war War casualties Armed forces Misc organizations Taliban Southwestern United States Utah Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Heads of government Mayors Politics Reports indicated the attacker was a member of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and was immediately killed by other Afghan forces, the NATO-led Resolute Support coalition said. The Defense Department said the incident is under investigation. Taylor was elected to the city council of North Ogden, about 45 miles north of Salt Lake City, in 2009 and became mayor in 2013, according to the city council website. His death was earlier confirmed in a Facebook post by North Ogden City Councilman Phillip Swanson. "We are devastated by the loss of our Mayor and friend, Brent Taylor," the city said on its Facebook page. "Brent had a profound influence on this community. He was the best of men with the ability to see potential and possibility in everything around him." Taylor temporarily stepped down as mayor to deploy to Afghanistan with the Utah Army National Guard, according to his biography on North Ogden's website. He served 12 years as an officer in the United States Army National Guard, including seven years on active duty. Taylor also served two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another servicemember, who has not been identified, was also wounded in the attack. The service members were evacuated to Bagram Airfield. The wounded servicemember is undergoing medical treatment and is in stable condition, authorities said. It comes a little more than two weeks after US Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Smiley, who oversees the NATO military advisory mission in southern Afghanistan, was wounded in an insider attack in Kandahar province. The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, US Army Gen. Scott Miller, was also present but escaped uninjured. Two Afghan officials, including the southern province's powerful police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq Achakzai, were killed. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. A report released this week by the US government's own ombudsman of the war set out how the Taliban have strengthened their grip in Afghanistan over the past three years, now controlling more territory than at any time since 2001. The Afghan government currently controls or influences 55.5% of the country's districts, marking the lowest level recorded since the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction began tracking district control in November 2015, the report said. The official figures offer a glimpse into the Afghan army's loosening grip in the face of a determined, sustained Taliban insurgency and a bleak outlook for America's involvement in the war -- now in its 17th year. Meanwhile, civilian deaths in Afghanistan keep rising. An escalation in insurgent attacks and fighting between the Taliban and government forces has helped drive the number of civilian deaths this year to its highest point on record, according to UN figures released last month. Total civilian deaths across Afghanistan -- due to various violent attacks -- stood at 2,798 for the first nine months of 2018, slightly up from the same period last year, according to the United Nations. TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Folks can enjoy a hundred new trees that were planted Saturday morning in Terre Haute. TREES, Inc. and the city parks department worked with volunteers to plant along South Harding Avenue and South 6th Street Boulevard. This is north of Margaret Avenue. Several types of trees were planted. Brian Conley of TREES, Inc. explains teams planted Red Maples, River Birch, Northern Catalpas, Sycamores, Swamp White Oaks, Bur Oaks, Pin Oaks and Bald Cypress trees. Students from several local colleges, and even some high schoolers, helped with the project. Rose-Hulman student and volunteer Marissa Perez says, "I think it's really important actually. It's really important to give back to where you came from and build upon it especially things like planting trees that gives back to the Earth." Conley says the program was made possible thanks to a grant from the Indiana Community and Urban Forestry Assistance Grant administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry. Over two floors of Der Spiegel's glasshouse building, walls bearing seven decades of the magazine's covers serve as a colorful chronology of modern history. On one wall are cartoons of an angry yellow-haired man that are so provocative they're impossible to miss. US President Donald Trump is, on one cover, depicted as an ape-like species in the March of Progress. The well-known image, usually used to show the theory of human evolution, is reversed with Trump last in line, his back hunched and hands hanging by his knees. Continents and regions Donald Trump Europe Germany Political Figures - US Western Europe Angela Merkel Business and industry sectors Business, economy and trade Demographic groups Elections (by type) Elections and campaigns Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Immigration Immigration politics Immigration, citizenship and displacement International relations and national security Magazines Media industry Midterm elections Muslim people North America Political Figures - Intl Political platforms and issues Politics Population and demographics Publishing industry Refugees Society The Americas Trump travel ban United States US federal government White House Journalism and news media Barack Obama Conferences and conventions Economy and economic indicators World Economic Forum US Federal elections Another depicts the president as a screaming finger puppet on a hand giving the middle finger next to the words "Goodbye, Europe!," published as Trump clashed with European leaders over his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. A series of Trump covers drawn by Cuban-American artist Edel Rodriguez for Der Spiegel has gone viral and given the weekly magazine's profile a boost beyond its European base. The daily drama of the Trump administration has triggered a surge of news consumption in the United States, but European media like Der Spiegel are experiencing a "Trump bump" as well. "It's been a 24/7 news cycle regarding Trump. He is dominating Twitter, he is dominating the news. And he has, of course, dominated our Spiegel Online news website," the magazine's deputy foreign editor, Mathieu von Rohr, told CNN "Trump still clicks, people are interested in those stories and the same applies to our magazine stories and covers." At Der Spiegel headquarters in Hamburg on Monday, journalists were working out how to cover the breaking news that longtime German Chancellor Angela Merkel was standing down as party chair after 18 years and would not seek re-election in 2021. It is likely to be Germany's biggest political news story of the year, but on the foreign desk, von Rohr was looking to the US midterms elections next week. Der Spiegel is beefing up its staffing to support its six full-time correspondents in the United States for the vote. That wasn't considered during previous midterms, a biennial event in which Americans elect a new House of Representatives, as well as some senators and governors. But these midterms are different. The elections are seen as a referendum on Trump that could strengthen or weaken his vision for a new world order. Germans love to hate Trump The midterms are also a reminder that the president has been in power for nearly two years, and while interest in Trump spiked in Europe around his election, it has remained robust across the continent. Unlike in the United States, where Trump is a divisive figure, Germans overwhelmingly disapprove of the US president. The Pew Center for Research's spring survey on global attitudes found a dramatic drop in confidence that Trump would do the right thing for the world in most European countries, when compared with Barack Obama. At the end of Obama's presidency, Germany's confidence in the US president was 86%. Now German confidence in Trump is 10%. France went from 84% in Obama's final months to 9% now, while the United Kingdom dipped from 79% to 28%. Yet the volume of online searches for Trump in the same countries is huge, according to data from analytics company SimilarWeb, which shows that Trump was by far the most searched-for person in the world over the past 12 months. In the United Kingdom, more people searched for the American President than their own prime minister, Theresa May, or even Brexit, Google Trends data shows. Back in Germany, Trump was also more searched for than Merkel over the past year, according to SimilarWeb. This combination of disapproval and enormous interest in the president suggests an interesting dynamic Germans love to hate Trump. He has been the lead story in Der Spiegel many times. In one of the magazine's May editions - with the cover of Trump as a middle finger Der Spiegel devoted 16 pages to Trump stories, mostly related to the Iran deal. The landmark agreement was brokered by the Obama administration and European leaders, who took Trump's announcement as an affront. Der Spiegel's deputy chief editor, Susanne Beyer, makes no apologies for the magazine's attention to Trump, nor its unflattering cartoons. She defended Der Spiegel's most controversial cover, which depicted Trump wielding a knife and holding the bleeding head of the Statue of Liberty, as if he had just decapitated the powerful symbol of American freedom. That image, next to the words "America First," was published in February 2017 as Trump signed an executive order that barred people from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States. Several politicians and newspapers in Germany criticized the cartoon as tasteless and violent. "We stand by that cover. It's tough, but we believe that one has to be tough against Trump," Beyer said from her office, which looks out on the regenerated port area of Hamburg. "That cover was done at the time after the Muslim ban and it is such an outrage to prevent people from entering the freest country in the world, ultimately because of their religion. So we thought, 'as tough as possible, as clear as possible.' After all, that is the language he speaks." A media 'obsession' with Trump Trump's travel ban and that cover seem like a lifetime ago, and a dizzying number of political developments have unfolded since. An investigation into the Trump campaign team's possible ties to Russia has produced indictments of former Trump campaign advisers. Several senior White House officials have lost their jobs or quit. Adult film star Stormy Daniels publicly announced in 2018 that she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and was paid off by his lawyer to keep quiet before the 2016 election. There are plenty more chapters to the Trump saga that haven't closed and the foreign media are covering them all. Roland Schatz, founder and CEO of the Zurich-based analytics company Media Tenor International, points to the media's "obsession" with the Trump story as part of the reason for his rise and his continued prominence, even in Europe. His company analyzed coverage from 100 global media organizations reporting on this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, and found that Trump received 15,000 of the nearly 76,000 mentions of people in relation to the conference. In second place was the forum's chairman, Klaus Schwab, with just 1,900. He was followed by French President Emmanuel Macron, Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Trump got almost all the visibility, and that was at the expense of a lot of great leaders," said Schatz. "No one believed someone like Trump would win [the US election], and his actions now continue to give him a lot of visibility in the media." For Rodriguez, the artist behind Der Spiegel's provocative cartoons, his work on Trump is no obsession. He says he will continue to satirize the president until "he is no longer a danger" to the country. ''There is nothing I like drawing about him. If he disappears tomorrow I would go back to drawing other things," he said. He explained he was inspired to draw the cartoon of Trump decapitating the Statue of Liberty because the president had destroyed his personal American dream. He went to the United States as a boy on a boat fleeing Cuba, and the statue represented a land that welcomed outsiders. ''I don't think the US is the same in the world's eyes anymore to what we used to be. That is the saddest part of the Trump administration and how he kind of destroyed that. That's what I wanted to show him cutting off the head of a dream.'' TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy visited Tupelo to urge people to vote on November 6. Espy was in Fairpark at a fish fry. The event included live music, free lunch and speeches. Espy, who is running to fill the unexpired term of Senator Thad Cochran, formerly represented Mississippi's 2nd Congressional District and later served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He also made stops in Hinds, DeSoto, Madison and Warren counties. Update 11/05/18 11:05 a.m. Larry Settles has been charged with DUI. He's accused of crashing into the Refrigeration Supply Company building. Larry Settles | Photo: Lowndes County Jail Larry Settles | Photo: Lowndes County Jail See the original post below. COLUMBUS, Miss. (WTVA) - A driver is now behind bars in Lowndes County after authorities say the person drove into the front of Refrigeration Supply Company. The car caught on fire along with the building. The incident happened around 2:30 Sunday morning at the intersection of Tuscaloosa Road and Gardner Boulevard. We are working to learn the charges the driver is facing and the condition of the building. When Beto ORourke was little he wanted to be a Beatle when he grew up. Not a musician. Not a rockstar. But very specifically: a member of the biggest, most beloved rock band of all time. He told me that back in May of 2017, about a month and a half after he kicked off his Senate campaign, but I was reminded of it a few weeks ago, in Austin, as 55,000 people chanted his name. On the outskirts of Auditorium Shores park, where Willie Nelson was headlining a free concert to promote ORourkes bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, vendors were selling knock-off Beto For Texas gear alongside Its Mueller Time trucker hats. A few hours earlier, fans had packed the 2,400-seat concert hall across the street to listen to ORourke be quizzed in granular detail about Medicaid expansion and immigration policy. (One shuttle bus to the event, filled with mostly older, white women, erupted in screams when a passenger spotted ORourke in a nearby car, and it didnt let up until the driver pulled up so they could ask for autographs.) I could say a lot has changed in the year and a half ORourke has spent on the trail, but that wouldnt be entirely true. From the start of the campaign, hes inspired this kind of reaction in people hes met along the way theres just a lot more of them now. Which is to say: Everything has gone to plan. ORourkes strategy, which he outlined 17 months ago as we drove to the first of two campaign stops one in a supporters backyard, the other in a church, both in map-dot towns typically neglected by politicians campaigning statewide in Texas was to spend the better part of the next two years putting his face in front of as many voters as he could, in as many cities as he could travel to, in each of the 254 counties in the state. Beto For Texass campaign infrastructure at that time almost a full year before Cruz officially declared his bid for re-election consisted of ORourke and two aides, both old friends from El Paso, in a rented sedan. It was clear even then that something special was happening: Not only were dozens, sometimes hundreds of people turning out to see him in deep-red corners of the state more than a year before the election, they were showing up with signs and buttons and T-shirts bearing the campaigns stark black-and-white logo and the campaign didnt have merchandise yet. It was all homemade. Story continues Since then, ORourke has vaporized fundraising records, criss-crossed the state several times over and that day in Austin held the the biggest political rally since Barack Obama ran for president. (At an event earlier that day, ORourke was asked how much money he thought the campaign had raised in the third quarter. He just smiled. Its going to be a lot, he said. It was a typical understatement: The campaign would announce a few days later that it had raised $38 million a U.S. Senate-race record. The campaigns total haul now stands at $69 million and counting.) It wouldnt be much of an overstatement to say this race has turned ORourke into the political equivalent of the Beatles. And even if that was his dream as a kid, he squirms a bit at the analogy. Theyre not coming out to see me, ORourke says backstage in Austin, minutes before hes set to address the crowd and introduce Willie Nelson. Theyre coming out to see Willie; to see Leon Bridges. Theyre coming out to see Carrie [Rodriguez] some of these other great performers. And theyre coming out because they know there are going to be other great people around them. I think thats what it is: Its just this energy and excitement about people right now. For the record, that isnt what it is. And if you want proof, Ill point you to the fact that dozens of folks start streaming away from the venue the moment Nelson strums the first notes of his first song, shortly after ORourke wrapped up his remarks. Theres isnt a lot of mystery left around why people in Texas are showing up at events like this or pouring millions of dollars into Beto ORourkes campaign. Its him. Hes captured the imagination of Democrats across the state and around the country, convinced them that he really does have a shot of flipping the Texas seat and maybe the whole Senate with it. The entire nation is afflicted with BetoMania. Everything seems to be going in his favor. Now its just a question of whether he can manage to not fuck it up. IN THE DAYS leading up to the 2016 election, multiple polls showed Hillary Clinton with a shot of capturing the Lone Star states 38 electoral votes. In late October, Trump had an edge of just three points in one survey, two in another. Statistically, as analyst Nate Silver wrote at the time, Clinton had a better chance of winning Texas than Trump did of winning the entire election. (Silvers model this year puts ORourkes chances as better than either of those outcomes between 16 and 20 percent, depending on which factors you weigh.) Clintons hopes were pinned to the idea that Hispanic voters (almost 40 percent of the states population, as of 2014) would be so galvanized by Trumps campaign rhetoric they would rise up and march to the polls in unprecedented numbers, delivering a knockout blow to the virulent strain of xenophobia Trump had made as the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. That didnt happen. Hispanic turnout rose just two percent in 2016 compared with 2012 from 17 percent to 19. In the end, Trump easily dispatched Clinton in Texas, winning by close to 10 points. ORourke has talked on the campaign trail about the muted horror with which he and his wife, Amy, watched the returns on election night. You know how we felt because you felt the same way, hes said. The immigrants vilified and denigrated. The lies told boldly and openly and without shame. The promise to ban Muslims and refugees and asylum seekers from our country. Mocking people with disabilities, or who are vulnerable. Making people, or trying to make people, ashamed of who they are and whether or not they fit into this, their country. All of that came to a head as the results came in. ORourkes bid for Senate, for all intents and purposes, began that night. His first informal Meet and Greet, in McAllen, Texas, came in February, followed by the official campaign kick-off in March 2017. From the very beginning, ORourke has based his candidacy around the idea that Texas is neither a red or a blue state, its a non-voting state. That last part is true: Only about half of the states eligible voters cast a ballot in 2016, placing Texas next to last in voter turnout nationally. For ORourke to win, he has to lock up the Democratic strongholds in Texass big cities and along the border, peel off a healthy slice of persuadable Republicans, and get a whole lot of new voters and non-voters out to the polls too. With all the enthusiasm swirling around his candidacy, all of the money flowing in, all of the new voters getting registered, with ORourkes deep ties to Texass border region, where much of the states Hispanic population resides, and with the president doubling down on his 2016 playbook, floating the ideas of ending birthright citizenship and refusing asylum to refugees, deploying thousands of troops to the border, stoking fears about a caravan of migrants still hundreds of miles away from the U.S. at the southernmost tip of Mexico with all of that, making sure Democrats show up for ORourke shouldnt be the hard part. It was a warning sign, then, when in September, Democrats lost a state legislature seat in one of the deepest blue pockets of the state, not far from the Congressional district ORourke has represented since 2013. A week and a half before the Austin rally, Republican Pete Flores defeated Democrat Pete Gallego by six points in a special election to represent state senate district 19, a broad swath of Southwest Texas encompassing more than 400 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. The district, which is two-thirds Hispanic, has been represented by a Democrat for more than 139 years and in 2016, it went for Hillary Clinton by 12 points. With the loss, Democratic representation in the Texas state senate fell to its lowest level ever. It also all but guaranteed Republicans would maintain a two-thirds supermajority enough votes to bring legislation to the floor without Democrats approval in the new legislative session. All this talk about a blue wave? Well, the tide is out, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick chuckled at Flores election night party. Backstage in Austin, when I ask ORourke about the race, a serious look flickers across his face. It surprised me, he says. I really expected Pete [Gallego] to win. I know Pete. I love Pete. Hes beloved in that area. Hes represented part of it for decades in the statehouse, and for a little while in Congress. But he quickly brushes the possible implications away. Weve been well-served by not trying to read the tea leaves or listen to the pollsters or identify trends and analyze numbers. Weve just been trying to make this about, and have made this about, people. And Im going to continue to do that. I was disappointed to see Pete Gallego not pull this off, but I dont know that it portends anything larger. He shrugs, somewhat unconvincingly. Then ORourke tells me to look out at the sea of 55,000 people at Auditorium Shores. The crowd is dotted with large, glowing balloons. Standing below each one, ORourke tells me, is a deputized voter registrar, some 250 of them, qualified to register voters in any of 25 surrounding counties. I dont know what they did not do, he says of the Democrat in senate district 19. But I can tell you what we are doing is the bar-none largest grassroots registration, and contact, and conversation, and turnout operation that youve seen in the state of Texas. Ever. Thats something that were doing right. MORE THAN 1.6 million voters have been added to the Texas voter rolls since the last midterm election, in 2014. The race will hinge on whether or not he can persuade those new voters, and registered non-voters, to actually get to the polls in a state where Republicans routinely route their Democratic rivals with one million votes to spare. By the end of early voting last week, according to the campaign, its volunteers had knocked on close to 2 million doors in Texas and placed more than 8.5 million phone calls to voters numbers that Democratic strategists unaffiliated with ORourke speculated made it the largest operation for a statewide campaign, ever. The size and scope of the ORourke campaigns undertaking has dwarfed efforts by Ted Cruz For Senate, which reportedly outsourced its own turnout operation to the team working on behalf of Republican Gov. Greg Abbotts re-election. That was news to Dave Carney, the political consultant coordinating turnout for Abbott. Yeah, I heard that last week, Carney chuckles when Rolling Stone asks him about the report. The joke is that Abbott actually has a field operation, and Cruzdoesnt. Weve got 120 field staff, they have, like, five, Carney says, still laughing. On a weekend, we talk to 35,000 people and they talk to 400. Carney did, however, confirm that Cruz For Senate was using the same organizing tools and data set that Abbotts team has made available to all Republican campaigns in Texas. We give them our field app for free and access to our data for free, Carney says. For what its worth, Carney isnt all that worried about the ORourke campaigns claim to have knocked on nearly 2 million doors. You know what we call that in Texas? We call that a good start, says Carney (who, for the record, is based in New Hampshire). Weve had 2.7 million conversations with voters. We dont count door-knocks because thats really just dropping off a piece of literature, and if you want to do that the postal service is a lot better, more effective, cheaper. Carney concedes that while voter turnout has hit record highs, it hasnt, according to his calculations, strongly favored either side. One week out from the election, Carneys model, which assigns each voter a score guessing how likely they are to cast a ballot for either party, estimated the Republican ticket had a 10-point lead over the Democratic one. Carney downplayed the impact of the record number of voters added to the rolls since the last midterm election. Even the new voters since Bee-to or whatever his name got all this momentum and all these new voters, as of last week, only 48,700 [of them] had voted, and we were definitely holding our own, he says. Unless ORourke can muster at least three-quarters of the Hispanic vote, according to Carney, Hes toast. Ambar Calvillo-Rivera, vice president of campaigns for the non-partisan voter registration group Voto Latino, says shes feeling encouraged by the level of enthusiasm shes seeing in Texas, where the organization held one of its largest registration drives earlier this year. Speaking less than a week before the election, Calvillo-Rivera noted the large early-vote numbers in areas like Harris County and Fort Bend. Of El Paso, she says, in previous years, its had unfortunate turnout rates. But just in the first couple of days of early voting, they have been exceeding total numbers of voting in 2014 and 2012 and this is for a midterm election. According to the Texas secretary of state, 123,588 had voted in ORourkes hometown of El Paso heading into the last day of early voting, nearly as many as voted in 2016, but still just 27 percent of the countys total registered voters. ORourke will have to far surpass that if he wants to win, and hell have to run up the margins in all of Texass large cities, where 75 percent of the states population now lives. Republicans are still confident, but Carney says, cautiously so. Theres nothing were taking for granted. Were not sleeping well, were not chilling the champagne, he says. Until the polls close in El Paso at 8 oclock Central Time, were not going to take the foot off the pedal. Neither campaign is, and its driving turnout on both sides. All across the state, record shares of registered voters were showing up at the polls: 32.3 percent in Houstons Harris County, double the 15.5 percent that voted early in 2014; 35.1 percent in Dallas County, up from 15.2 percent in the last midterm election. In Austins Travis County, 42 percent voted early, surpassing the number that voted early in 2014 and in 2012, and approaching 2016 levels. And in Tarrant County home of Fort Worth, and the most conservative of Texass large urban areas nearly 37 percent had already voted, double the number that voted in the last midterm. According to one analyst, the percentage of young people 18 to 30 year olds was up more than 500 percent compared to the last midterm election. Those are encouraging numbers for ORourke; they could point to victory, and not just for him because if you ask ORourke, Betomania has never been all about him. I carry with me everything that everyone has told me about what theyre counting on, he tells me backstage in Austin. About why this election is important, why weve got to do this. But I also am being carried by everybody Ive ever met who feels just as urgently as I do about making sure that we deliver for this country right now. Any moment that I ever am like, Can I do this? Am I strong enough? Do I have the gas? Am I going to make it? If I take a breath and I take a step back and I see all of the people who are with me that I am doing this with, then I feel good. I feel confident. I feel strong. I feel encouraged. I feel as hopeful as I have ever been. I think that thats the key: You cannot put this on a person, because no one person can do this. Its got to be on all of us. And if I can just remember that, were going to be good. While President Trump took shots at Democrats in conservative Pensacola, Florida on Saturday, Jimmy Buffett hurled musical insults at Republicans in West Palm Beach during a Democratic campaign rally for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and gubernatorial candidate and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. While singing his hit Come Monday at the Get Out the Vote rally, Buffett tweaked its lyrics to make a dig at Trump changing Come Monday to Come Tuesday, things will change. Come Tuesday, were making a change. Its been two insane years and its time to really switch gears. The musicians show at the Meyer Amphitheatre took place just three miles from Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort. Jimmy Buffett changes his tune singing his support for Democrats at a campaign concert in Florida pic.twitter.com/yRRpPZJPff FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) November 4, 2018 Buffett didnt stop there: During his performance of Margaritaville, he called out Scott for the states environmental issues: Some people say that theres a red tide to blame, but I know that its all Rick Scotts fault. During the last several months, red tide algae have killed millions of fish off the southern Florida coasts, which happens naturally but worsens from pollution. Its not surprising that Buffett, who resides in Palm Beach, spoke out about the subject as he is a longtime environmentalist, founding his charity Save the Manatee in 1981. In August, Buffett hosted a free concert just before the Florida Democratic primary after backing gubernatorial hopeful Gwen Graham, who placed second to Gillum in the race. On Sunday, Georgia Secretary of State and Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp announced he has opened an investigation into what he claimed was a failed attempt to hack the states voter registration system by the Democratic party. Kemp provided no evidence to support his claim, nor did he specify exactly what crime was committed. Kemps Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams first heard about the allegations during an interview with Jake Tapper on CNNs State of the Union. My reaction would be this is a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people from the fact that two different federal judges found him derelict in his duties, Abrams said. He is desperate to turn the conversation away from his failures, from his refusal to honor his commitments and from the fact that hes part of a nationwide system of voter suppression that will not work in this election because were going to outwork him, were going to out-vote him and were going to win. Stacey Abrams on the Kemp investigation: "This is a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people." (via CNN) pic.twitter.com/eyG03ZP2tt Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 4, 2018 Abrams was referring to recent judgments striking down Kemps blatant attempts to disenfranchise voters in the state who are likely to support his opponent. Most recently, on Friday, a judge granted an emergency injunction to allow more than 3,000 newly-naturalized citizens, who were flagged in government computers as non-citizens, to vote with a regular ballot. While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes, Kemps press secretary, Candice Broce, said in a statement. We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure. Story continues Rebecca DeHart, executive director of the Georgia Democratic Party, characterized the investigation as yet another example of abuse of power by an unethical Secretary of State. To be very clear, Brian Kemps scurrilous claims are 100 percent false, and this so-called investigation was unknown to the Democratic Party of Georgia until a campaign operative in Kemps official office released a statement this morning, DeHart said in a statement. This political stunt from Kemp just days before the election is yet another example of why he cannot be trusted and should not be overseeing an election in which he is also a candidate for governor. In a separate statement, DeHart added: Brian Kemp has a long and well documented history of failing to protect the security of Georgias elections system Georgians of all political stripes are very concerned about election security and the security of Georgians personal information. The Democratic Party of Georgia shares that concern, but we did not create, discover, or attempt to take advantage of the deeply vulnerable system used by the Secretary of States office. The Georgia governors race has been among the most-watched in the country. An Abrams victory would make her the first female African American governor in United States history. Recent polls show the two candidates are neck-and-neck, and the election could go to a runoff if neither candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote. Nigerian Army appears to use Trumps words to defend its killing of rock-throwing protesters originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Nigeria's largest military arm on Friday appeared to use the words of U.S. President Donald Trump to defend its shooting of protesters over the past week. The official Twitter account of the Nigerian Army, one of three service branches within the Nigerian Armed Forces, posted a video showing a clip of Trump's speech at the White House on Thursday regarding illegal immigration and border security, in which the U.S. president said that throwing stones and rocks at American troops would be considered as firearms. "We're not going to put up with that. If they want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back," Trump says in the video. "I told them, consider it a rifle." The White House did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment Saturday. The tweet was posted just days after clashes between Nigerian soldiers and Shia Muslims once again turned deadly. Since earlier this year, protesters have frequently flooded the streets of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, to demand the release of Ibrahim Zakzaky, the jailed leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN). The movement, which is headquartered in the northern city of Zaria, has become an outspoken advocate for Shiite Muslims in a country dominated by its Sunni counterparts. Zakzaky has been in federal custody since December 2015, when Nigerian security forces killed hundreds of his followers. The Shiite cleric was held without charge until April and now remains detained as he's accused of murder relating to the 2015 violence, sparking an uproar among his followers. Last weekend and on Monday, security forces sprayed bullets and tear gas at supporters of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria as the group marched on the outskirts of Abuja. Nigeria's defense spokesman, Brigade General John Agim, said in a statement that the demonstrators wounded soldiers with rocks, damaged military vehicles, blocked traffic and tried to overrun a military checkpoint that leads into the federal capital territory. Story continues Six protesters were killed, according to Agim, who said troops came under "unprovoked attacks" that were "planned and premeditated" by demonstrators. "In all these attacks, the IMN was the aggressor while the military only acted in self-defense," Agim said in the statement Thursday. PHOTO: Bodies of members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, who were killed after security forces opened fire during the Shi'ite group's protests in Abuja, are pictured before their burial in Mararaba, Nigeria, Oct. 31, 2018. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters) However, an investigation by Amnesty International found the body count to have been much higher. At least 45 supporters of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria were killed by security forces on Saturday and Monday, as the group held two days of "peaceful gatherings" around Abuja, according to the London-based international human rights watchdog. "We have seen a shocking and unconscionable use of deadly force by soldiers and police against IMN members. Video footage and eyewitness testimonies consistently show that the Nigerian military dispersed peaceful gatherings by firing live ammunition without warning, in clear violation of Nigerian and international law," Osai Ojigho, executive director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said in a statement Wednesday. "Those injured were shot in different parts of the body head, neck, back, chest, shoulder, legs, arms and some of them had multiple gunshot wounds. This pattern clearly shows soldiers and police approached IMN processions not to restore public order, but to kill." Amnesty International lambasted the Nigerian military's "horrific use of excessive force" and said researchers have "strong evidence" that security forces wielded automatic firearms during Monday's protest. "It seems the Nigerian military are deliberately using tactics designed to kill when dealing with IMN gatherings. Many of these shootings clearly amount to extrajudicial executions," Osai Ojigho said. "This violent crackdown on IMN protesters is unjustified and unacceptable. They were perfectly within their rights to hold a religious procession and protest and there was no evidence they posed an imminent threat to life." The U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria issued a statement Thursday expressing concern about the "deaths resulting from clashes between Nigerian security forces and members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria." "We urge Government of Nigeria authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the events and to take appropriate action to hold accountable those responsible for violations of Nigerian law," the embassy said. "We urge restraint on all sides." (MORE: Trump claims crackdown coming on asylum seekers, says troops could fire on migrants if rocks thrown) PHOTO: Bodies of members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, who were killed after security forces opened fire during the Shi'ite group's protests in Abuja, are pictured before their burial in Mararaba, Nigeria, Oct. 31, 2018. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters) On Friday morning, the Nigerian Army appeared to react to Amnesty International's allegations by tweeting the video of Trump's remarks, along with the caption, "Please Watch and Make Your Deductions." The Nigerian Army later deleted the tweet, but not before various news outlets and U.S. officials had seen it. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power tweeted an image of the Nigerian Army's tweet with the video of Trump, and called the tweet "sickening." Trump later walked back his comments, saying troops "don't have to fire." "I didn't say shoot," the president told reporters on Friday, when pressed on his remarks the previous day. "But they do that with us, they're going to be arrested for a long time." (MORE: President Trump says US troops 'don't have to fire' at migrants throwing rocks) PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks about immigration in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, Nov. 1, 2018. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images) Nigerian Army spokesman Brigadier General Texas Chukwu did not respond to ABC News' requests Friday for comment on the tweet and why it was taken down. Nigeria's defense spokesman, Agim, told ABC News he believes the army was responding to Amnesty International's criticism by "using Mr. Trump's video to justify the shooting." "What did the biblical David use to kill Goliath? I believe you know that he uses stone," Agim said. "I don't think you expect soldiers to fold their hands and watch the protesters run over them." In response to the Nigerian Army's since-deleted tweet, Osai Ojigho of Amnesty International Nigeria said the West African nation's government "must hold its security forces accountable" rather than engage in "preposterous competition over who does a better job of violating human rights." "Basic human rights are not subject to whims of the worlds leaders," Osai Ojigho said in a statement Saturday. ABC News' Meridith McGraw contributed to this report. Is it a womans world? Maybe not yet, but that doesnt mean we arent trying. The new books in this weeks book club are all about women negotiating their place and status in the world, whether its the entire globe, the world within, or the world of business. Go broaden your own horizons, and check them out. The Womans Atlas (5th Edition) by Joni Seager 1. The Womens Atlas (5th Edition) by Joni Seager ($25): Seager has already released four editions of her comprehensive guide to the status of women across the globe; this updated fifth edition shares the most recent statistics, rendered textually and in easily interpretable graphics. Chapters cover everything from body politics to property and policy, and connections are drawn in surprising and often disturbing ways for anyone who may have constructed a complacent or simple narrative about how the world works for women. In the world of women, there are few developed nations. Looking at the world through the experiences of women raises questions about the validity of conventional distinctions between developed and underdeveloped countries: women hold virtually the same proportion of representation in elected governments in Madagascar, Kyrgyzstan, and the USA; the indifference of the state to the murder of indigenous women in Canada, Yazidi women in Iraq, and maquiladora women in Mexico offers a sharp rebuke to the notion of the modern state; married women in South Korea, the UAE, and Malawi all need their husbands approval for an abortion. These may seem to be cheap shots glib comparisons that dont acknowledge the real advances in womens lives. But for the women living under these realities, it is glib to say that things are getting better for women somewhere else. A rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats. Women do not automatically share in broad social advances unless there is a commitment to ensure social equity. Seager takes us through how discrimination is measured, and which countries have segregated workforces and marry-your-rapist laws. She deals with equity and intersectionality in all its forms, going beyond the binary and trying not to create a monolithic message. If you want to remain informed for yourself or find material for the most hard-hitting debate, The Womens Atlas will provide it in spades. Story continues I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and other Stuff by Abbi Jacobson 2. I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff by Abbi Jacobson ($28): Before I make a decision, I tend to think about all the possible outcomes. I like to be prepared. This tendency unfortunately mainly includes obsessing over the ways in which things could go terribly off course, but its better to be informed. So, before embarking on a solo cross-country drive that I would then write about in a book, I made a list of possible worst-case scenarios. The road trip alone was terrifying, but writing about it afterward? A lot could go wrong. So, whats the worst that could happen? No one buys the book! If no one buys the book, the publisher could make me buy all the copies and Ill have to fill my apartment with books. I guess I could create furniture out of the books, piling them up like a soda. I could throw pillows on top. Ive had some time to think about this, and I could really make it work. Maybe my home, with its furniture completely built from my failed, unbought books, would make it into Architectural Digest? Theyd come and take pictures and run a whole article about it. Who knows what could happen then? Broad City star Jacobson writes and illustrates this book, a semi-chronicle of a cross-country road trip quest sparked by the idea of an old letter. The love letter, from a WWII soldier to his wife, was somehow delivered 70 years late by the Postal Service to her apartment. Jacobson became obsessed with the intimacy in the letter, deciding to track the couple down the old-fashioned way instead of via internet crowdsourcing. In the end, though, the road trip turned out to be time for Jacobson to spend alone with her thoughts, exploring her own world. On her road trip, between social media updates, Jacobson kept a journal that served as the basis for the book. Expanding moments from this journal muses on her shows journey and her friendship with costar Ilana Glazer, bagels, breakups, and the minor and major anxieties that plague us. She talks about falling in love for the first time with a woman (Jacobson came out as bisexual earlier this year) and the ramifications of that relationship as it grew and crumbled. She tells us about the best road trip snacks and lists all the things she thought about on her way. Which is a lot of things all relatable. How to Be Successful Without Hurting Mens Feelings: Non-threatening Leadership Strategies for Women by Sarah Cooper ($17) 3. How to Be Successful Without Hurting Mens Feelings: Non-Threatening Leadership Strategies for Women by Sarah Cooper ($17): Whats the worst part of being a woman in business? Weve asked these three men what they think. This headline, blurring satire with reality, graces Coopers advice manuals inner covers. Getting ahead in a mans world can be difficult for a woman. Its a veritable minefield: There are all sorts of things you can say and do that, instead of rightly proving your supreme competence, are interpreted as too aggressive. Things like, say, pointing out an error, confidently presenting an idea instead of confirming someone elses, or expecting recognition for your work. As a woman in the business world, I kept seeing other women make the same mistakes over and over again, Cooper writes. Telling their coworkers they wanted to be promoted. Asking their managers for more money. Bringing visibility to their work, leading meetings, talking in meetings, looking around in meetings, and breathing in meetings. Seeing this, I knew my calling was to write a book that would stop the frustration born out of making an effort. I learned many of these tips while I was working in the male-dominated world of tech. Although I still messed up and was threatening every once in a while, I generally held fast to these rules and they probably definitely helped me get somewhere, I think. How to Be Successful Without Hurting Mens Feelings is the non-threatening leadership guide women must follow if we are to be taken seriously in the workplace. And by seriously, of course, I mean not seriously, which is how we should always strive to be taken. And by strive, of course, I mean accept. Cooper shows you how to gender-neutralize your resume, when to wear a wedding ring during a job interview (if its in person, dont, or you might be dismissed as a pregnancy risk), and how much to smile to avoid looking too flirty or too bitchy. Chapters include How to Relax While Still Completely Stressing Yourself Out, How to be Harassed Without Hurting His Career, and Gaslighting for Beginners. For a more extreme tactic, the book also helpfully includes mustaches for those who feel the need to give their colleagues an increased false sense of security that a woman isnt trying to climb the corporate ladder. And if you feel the satire is just a little too close to home or biting? Well, you can rest assured, as the disclaimer reads, that No feelings were harmed in the writing of this book. What books turn your globe? Tag us in your next worldly read @BritandCo. Brit + Co may at times use affiliate links to promote products sold by others, but always offers genuine editorial recommendations. Despite court rulings striking down efforts to throw out ballots of thousands of US citizens in Georgia, the home of the civil rights movement, Emory University professor Dr Carol Anderson said there is still a blatant push for minority voter suppression in the state ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. What looks really simple, really isn't and that is how voter [identification] has basically snaked its tentacles into the American psyche and become voter suppression, the author of One Person, No Vote, told The Independent. Democrat Stacey Abrams faces off with Republican Brian Kemp in a bid to become the first African-American female governor in the US and that is what has shed light on a problem allowed to fester because it has been operating in virtual darkness, Ms Anderson said. She noted we wouldnt notice it as much if another white man or even a white woman had been running against Mr Kemp. In recent days, federal judges have ruled against efforts like the exact match policy for voter registrations in the state which had originally resulted in 50,000 rejected absentee ballots in Gwinnett County just north of Atlanta and around 3,600 new US citizens being barred from voting because exact match relied on outdated records from the motor vehicles registration department of the state. However, Ms Anderson said it is still a troubling trend since these efforts disproportionately target the poor and people of colour and the court rulings have largely been shrugged off by Mr Kemp, his official government office, and his campaign. Candice Broce, press secretary and staff attorney at the Georgia secretary of states office, called it "a minor change to the current system." Ms Anderson noted the main issue is Republicans veiling these efforts as being reasonable - Mr Kemp has repeatedly said on the campaign trail he is simply enforcing state law. Fallon McClure, the Georgia state director for advocacy group Spread the Vote, said technically Mr Kemp is not incorrect in his assessment. Story continues Spread the Vote works not just register voters in the state but also help them obtain proper IDs, targeting populations who frequent shelters and food banks. She noted that as of 2006, the last time a comprehensive study was done in the state, at least 675,000 people lacked proper government-issued identification. The [US] Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and...Georgia was ahead of the curve on requiring identification at the voting booth, Ms Clure explained to The Independent. But there's this idea that just because something is law doesn't necessarily make it right, she said, adding the exact match policy targets those populations who do not follow traditional white naming conventions. In fact, Ms Anderson said 80 per cent of those affected were African-Americans, Latinx, or Asian while 10 per cent are white. It does not take into account apostrophes, hyphens, outdated records on marriage and divorce, or even just human error for names with non-traditional spellings - what Ms Clure said is an obvious aim at African-American and Asian populations. Beyond the exact match policy, even the process of obtaining a voter registration or any kind of state-issued identification has built-in racial disparity according to Ms Anderson, also a professor at Atlantas Emory University. Among the three forms of documentation needed in order to obtain even the states specific free voter identification card, a Georgia resident must present a birth certificate or your passport. If you're working class or your poor a passport is...probably not in your wheelhouse, Ms Anderson explained. If you are poor and born in a rural area you probably don't have a birth certificate because you weren't born in a hospital, she added. Ms McClure said this is especially true for the elderly African-American population in the mostly-rural state. The state does allow for a substitute document from the US Social Security office, however, Spread the Vote has found the process of obtaining the documents to be several weeks long and only applies to those born before 1940. Rural Georgia was still incredibly segregated in terms of hospital access through the 1960s Civil Rights movement and even now, Ms McClure said. The second document required is a Social Security card or a tax form called the W-2, which employers issue employees. However, having a W-2 requires steady employment, on a non-contract basis and Ms Anderson pointed out the state still has a great disparity in employment rates between certain minority and White populations. Ms McClure also argued the requirement effectively erases the voices of the homeless and those in transition from incarceration back into society. In Georgia, former felons are allowed to register a vote but it is not a widely publicised fact. Ms McClure explained often what happens with Spread The Votes clients are that they are in jail for quality of life offences like loitering or trespassing, requiring them to store possessions in unsecured locations. Often when they return to society all of their possessions are gone, including any identification or papers. The third document required is proof of a bank account with an address or a utility bill in the individuals name. Again, Ms Anderson argued it is a racist policy. Only 25 per cent of the African-American population has a bank account, she explained. According to the Washington, DC-based Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than 135,000 households in the state receive some sort of federal aid to live in public housing, the overwhelming majority of whom are people of colour. People living in public housing will not have separate utility bills in their names for basics like water, electricity, or gas, and likely would not be able to afford utilities like cable or internet. She noted though, the issue also applies to multi-generational homes which African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians are more likely to live in than whites. Those types of households often only have one family members name on bills. However, voter suppression is not just limited to identification issues. Phi Nguyen, the Litigation Director for the Atlanta-based Asian American Advancing Justice said poll worker training was a sticking point in the case of the 3,600 newly-minted US citizens having their voter registrations blocked. Though a judge required the state to issue a press release announcing the decision voters can cast ballots by showing proof of their new citizenship, we don't think that poll workers have been sufficiently trained on the policies that the Secretary of State has put in place that allows individuals improperly flagged for non-citizenship to "cure" the issue, Ms Nguyen told The Independent. The worry now extends to the exact match court decision. Poll workers may not realise exact match only applies to identity not residency, Ms McClure said, noting there is a danger of some voters already turned away or possibly being denied a ballot if the address listed on their ID card does not match what is listed on voter rolls for that particular district. There is also the matter of the location of polling places, rooted in the systemic and historic racism of the American South according to Ms Anderson. Mr Kemp, as secretary of state, has shut down 214 polling stations, or 8 per cent of polling places in the state. What we know from the data...for every 1/10th of a mile that a polling place is moved, black voter turnout goes down by .5%, Ms Anderson explained, adding civil society groups like the ACLU and NAACP have remained vigilant on such matters. For instance in Sparta, Georgia, county authorities attempted to move a black neighbourhoods polling place 17 miles away which would have wiped out that entire demographic of voters in the city, Ms Anderson said. In Macon, Georgia, the board of elections attempted to move a polling place into the sheriffs department, what could have been a major deterrent for minority populations already worried about their lives at the hands of police Ms Anderson noted. Lucky for those voters, the efforts were stopped and on 6 November the state will head to the ballot box. However, one issue still persists: Mr Kemps position in the office tasked with monitoring state elections while he is running in one. Many Democrats including former Georgia governor and US president Jimmy Carter have asked him to resign because, as Ms Anderson put it, we really do realize democracy is at stake. Per state rules, if neither Mr Kemp or Ms Abrams get 50 per cent of the vote there will be a runoff election which is monitored by the secretary of states office. In a letter to Mr Kemp, the 94-year-old cited his vast experience watching elections around the world through the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based human rights organisation: One of the key requirements for a fair and trusted process is that there be a nonbiased supervision of the electoral process. He added he was writing less as a partisan who has endorsed [Ms] Abrams and more as the former president who's spent the decades since he left the Oval Office monitoring elections around the world. BAGHDAD (AP) Baghdad police say four people have been killed in four bomb blasts in the Iraqi capital, including two inside commuter minivans. The blasts occurred after Sunday's evening rush hour and appeared to target Shiite districts around Baghdad, including Sadr City and Kadhimiya. Police officials say the individual blasts were relatively small. They say about 20 people were wounded. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with police regulations. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement posted by its Amaq News Agency and circulated on social media. The militant group continues to terrorize Iraqis with kidnappings and bombings despite losing nearly all its territories to Iraqi forces last year. The group promotes violence against Shiites across the Islamic world. Oxygen The brutal murder of a nine-year-old girl in 1959 has finally been solved, marking an end to one of Washington states oldest cold cases. Candice Candy Rogers disappeared while selling Camp Fire Mints a fundraiser for the Camp Fire Girls, a Girl Scout-like organization in her Spokane neighborhood on March 6, 1959, according to a press release issued by the Spokane City Police Department. Searchers found boxes of mints strewn along the street; it was the only indication of which direction s Saturday Night Live pulled out all the stops in its cold open to mega-hype a tongue-in-cheek PANIC over the CARAVAN! Dozens, maybe millions of illegal immigrants are headed straight for you and your grandchildren, warns Kate McKinnon, playing Fox News Laura Ingraham. Whos in the caravan heading north to the U.S. border? Everyone youve ever seen in your nightmares, Cecily Strongs Jeanine Pirro tells McKinnon. Its got Guatemalans, Mexicans, ISIS, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos and several Babadooks. It also has hella Middle Eastern Aladdins. They took the very common direct flight from Iran to Guatemala, claimed their elephants as service animals, and then rode them straight into Mexico, warns Strong. It makes almost too much sense. The horrifying scramble of migrants looks surprisingly like a zombie horde straight from a scene in the film World War Z with Brad Pitt. We believe hes actually dating the caravan, which people are labeling the Brad-avan, says Pirro. McKinnon launched the cold open with a dig at President Donald Trump. Except for his words and actions throughout his life, how is he racist? McKinnon-as-Ingraham asks. She also bemoans the fact that the phrase white nationalist is now considered bad. Alec Baldwin, the frequent Rump impersonator on SNL who was arrested for assault on Friday, did not escape ribbing. McKinnon touted an update on disgraced former actor Alec Baldwin, seen here molesting a young Boy Scout. A photo showed a scene from an infamous 1994 SNL sketch with Baldwins Boy Scout troop leader hitting on Adam Sandlers Canteen Boy. Check out the clip up top. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Beirut (AFP) - The Islamic State group killed 12 US-backed fighters in a surprise attack Sunday from the jihadists' holdout in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border, a Britain-based monitor said. Twelve fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide car bombing and subsequent clashes in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. An SDF spokesman, however, denied any members of his Kurdish-led alliance had been killed. "There are counter-attacks every day and the clashes are ongoing, but the talk of martyrs among our ranks is not true," Mustefa Bali said. According to Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman, Sunday's attack "started with a car bomb driven by a suicide attacker against an SDF position between Hajin and Al-Bahra". The attack allowed IS to advance towards Al-Bahra from its holdout around Hajin, and push back the first lines of defence of the SDF, which is backed by the US-led coalition, the Observatory said. The monitor said 14 civilians and nine IS jihadists were killed Saturday in coalition air strikes in Hajin and the nearby towns of Sousa and Al-Shaafa. A coalition spokesman said those strikes targeted IS positions. "The strikes killed ISIS terrorists and destroyed three operational facilities critical to ISIS's operations," Sean Ryan told AFP, using an alternative acronym for IS. The SDF, with the support of coalition air strikes, in September launched an offensive to wrest the Deir Ezzor pocket including Hajin from IS, making slow advances. But the alliance suffered a major setback as they retreated last week from the entire pocket after IS suicide bombings and low visibility due to sand storms. Last Wednesday, the SDF suspended its fight against the jihadists after Turkish forces fired on the group's positions in northern Syria. The coalition estimates 2,000 IS fighters remain in the Hajin pocket near the border with Iraq, which has reinforced military positions near its Al-Qaim crossing to prevent a spillover of clashes. Story continues IS overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" across land it controlled. But the jihadist group has since lost most of that territory to various offensives in both countries. In Syria, its presence has been reduced to parts of the vast Badia desert and Hajin. A total of more than 360,000 people have been killed since Syria's multi-front war erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests Dubai (AFP) - Bahrain's appeals court sentenced the head of the country's Shiite opposition movement to jail for life Sunday over charges of spying for rival Gulf state Qatar, a judicial source said. Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-outlawed Al-Wefaq movement, had been acquitted by the high criminal court in June, a verdit the public prosecution appealed. The latest ruling on Sunday can also be appealed. Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, severed all ties with Qatar in 2017, banning their citizens from travel to or communication with the emirate over what they say are Doha's ties to both Iran and radical Islamist groups. Salman is currently serving a four-year sentence in a separate case -- "inciting hatred" in the kingdom, which has seen mainly Shiite protests against the Sunni monarchy since 2011. In November, Salman and two other members of Al-Wefaq were charged with working for Qatari intelligence with the aim of overthrowing the Bahraini government. King Hamad has announced parliamentary elections on November 24 in Bahrain. Members of dissolved opposition parties, including Al-Wefaq and the secular Al-Waad group, are banned from running. The Sunni-ruled Gulf state has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shiite-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. Opposition movements have been outlawed and hundreds of dissidents have been imprisoned -- with many stripped of their nationality. Bahrain last year ratified a constitutional amendment granting military courts the authority to try civilians charged with terrorism, a term that is loosely defined by the Bahraini penal code. In June, the kingdom amended its law on political rights, prohibiting "leaders and members of political associations dissolved for violating the kingdom's constitution or its laws" from running in legislative elections. Story continues Bahrain, a key ally of the United States and home to the US Fifth Fleet, accuses Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom. Iran denies the allegations. The United Nations and rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticised the Bahraini monarchy over its treatment of protesters. Amnesty and HRW categorise Salman and other jailed opposition leaders prisoners of conscience. Dubai (AFP) - Bahrain sentenced the head of the country's Shiite opposition movement to life in prison Sunday for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar in a ruling rights groups have called a travesty. Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-banned Al-Wefaq movement, and two of his aides had been acquitted by the high criminal court in June, a verdict the public prosecution appealed. The public prosecutor said in a statement that the three had been unanimously sentenced by the appeals court for "acts of hostility" against Bahrain and "communicating with Qatari officials... to overthrow constitutional order". Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, severed all ties with Qatar in 2017, banning their citizens from travel to or communication with the emirate over its alleged ties to both Iran and radical Islamist groups. Sunday's verdict against the charismatic Shiite cleric can still be appealed. Ruled for more than two centuries by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty, Bahrain has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shiite-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. - 'Unlawful verdict' - Opposition movements, both religious and secular, have been outlawed since 2011 and hundreds of dissidents imprisoned -- many of them stripped of their citizenship in the process. Salman's Al-Wefaq was dissolved by court order in 2016. The cleric is currently serving a four-year sentence in a separate case -- "inciting hatred" in the kingdom. The leftist opposition National Democratic Action Society, or Al-Waad, was banned the following year over allegations of links to terrorists. Human rights groups have said cases against activists in Bahrain -- men and women, religious and secular -- fail to meet the basic standards of fair trials. Amnesty and HRW categorise Salman and other jailed opposition leaders prisoners of conscience. Story continues Advocacy groups, including Amnesty, slammed Sunday's ruling against the 53-year-old Salman and his aides, Hassan Sultan and Ali al-Aswad as political reprisal. "This verdict is a travesty of justice that demonstrates the Bahraini authorities' relentless and unlawful efforts to silence any form of dissent," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director. "Sheikh Ali Salman is a prisoner of conscience who is being held solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression." Bahraini activists said Sunday's verdict highlighted a broader regional policy towards freedom -- the same policy that saw Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered this month. "Despite the ongoing scrutiny on the Gulf region, with Saudi Arabia being under the spotlight for its brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Bahrain has made a decision that reeks of arrogance," said Sayed AlWadaei, head of advocacy for the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. - Upcoming election - The verdict comes ahead of controversial parliamentary elections that Bahrain's King Hamad has called for November 24. Dissolved opposition parties, including Al-Wefaq and the secular Al-Waad, do not have the right to put forward their own candidates in the vote. Bahrain last year ratified an amendment to the constitution granting military courts the authority to try civilians charged with terrorism, a term loosely defined by the country's penal code. In June, Bahrain amended its law on political rights, prohibiting "leaders and members of political associations dissolved for violating the kingdom's constitution or its laws" from running in legislative elections. Bahrain is a key ally of the United States and home to the US Fifth Fleet. The archipelago is also home to a permanent British military base. US President Donald Trump has eased restrictions on arms sales to Bahrain since taking office. Washington had urged Bahraini authorities not to overturn Salman's acquittal. Alistair Burt, the British Foreign Office's minister responsible for Middle East affairs, said he was "very concerned" by the life sentence, in a statement released Sunday. Bahraini authorities accuses Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom. Iran denies the allegations. Kumasi (Ghana) (AFP) - Taking tea with Osei Tutu II, the Asantahene or king of Ghana's Asante people, and a reception with paramount rulers is all in a day's work for the Prince of Wales. As heir to a throne occupied by his mother Queen Elizabeth II for almost as long as he has been alive, Prince Charles, who turns 70 this month, has spent his life at such occasions. But while his more recent overseas trips have attracted little interest at home, his latest -- and those of other senior royals -- are being watched more closely as Britain's departure from the European Union looms. London is scrambling for a deal before March 29 and Britain's most recognisable and trusted brand -- the House of Windsor -- is helping to prepare for life after Brexit. Charles and his second wife, Camilla, began their tour of The Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria on Wednesday, just as youngest son Harry and new wife Meghan returned from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. Not long after the referendum on EU membership in 2016, Charles' eldest son, William, toured Canada, then Europe, in what was seen as a bridge-building exercise. The countries chosen are no accident and closely mirror the wider political and economic agenda, according to royal watchers and analysts. "The choice of place will be because that's what the Foreign Office has requested," Penny Junor, who has written several biographies on the prince, told AFP. - 'Soft power' - The royals' closely choreographed movements at home and abroad are mainly prestigious photo opportunities, where invitations are highly sought after. The prince, as the most senior travelling royal and representative of his 92-year-old mother, has diplomatic obligations meeting all three countries' presidents. There are ceremonies to attend, notably paying tribute to West African soldiers killed in two world wars before the annual Armistice Day on November 11. Sunday's spectacular "durbar" with traditional chiefs in Ghana's second city celebrate cultural links within the Commonwealth that Charles will one day lead. Story continues But it's hard not to join the dots with politics and see the royals being used as a steady hand to help steer Britannia through turbulent waters. Even the Asantahene recognised it, telling Charles: "To make sense of our history and the bonds that tie us together, we must have the courage to develop our economies, even more so when we have Brexit in front of us." Elizabeth Donnelly, from the Chatham House international affairs think-tank, said Charles' current tour was the "soft-power follow-up" to Prime Minister Theresa's May's visit to South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya in August. "This is about post-Brexit 'Global Britain' and strengthening Commonwealth ties and bolstering influence," she added. The prince, who is well known for his strong views on subjects from the environment to architecture, "will be aware of the wider context", added Junor. - Quid pro quo - The Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria are Commonwealth members, just like South Africa and Kenya, the countries visited "Down Under" by Harry, and William's trip to Canada. Boosting trade with the 52 other Commonwealth countries has been seen as a way of offsetting losses from Britain's largest trading partner, the EU. The Commonwealth is potentially a huge market, with 2.4 billion people on nearly a quarter of the world's land mass on all five continents. Nineteen of those countries are in Africa, where Prime Minister May wants Britain to be the G7's largest foreign direct investor by 2022. In Ghana, British support has meant A2.0 billion in development funding in the last 20 years. As in Nigeria -- Africa's most populous country -- there has been a push for more trade and investment, support for job creation and promotion economic development. At the same time there is an emphasis on Britain's strong cultural and social links, particularly the sizeable diaspora, with the obvious hope of economic payback. - Trade not aid - Isaac Arthur, an international trade policy analyst in Ghana, said the economic backdrop made sense given President Nana Akufo-Addo's "trade not aid" policy. Pushing the two countries' "shared history" alone may not be enough in a place like Ghana, whose economy is predicted to grow at a rate of more than 8.0 percent next year. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron are among a growing list of potential suitors to have visited recently. But in countries where traditional royalty play a huge part in life, "this is where a royal visit can differentiate", said Donnelly. Eight children were injured after an inflatable slide collapsed at a funfair at a fireworks display in Woking (Picture: PA) An investigation is underway after an inflatable slide at a fireworks funfair collapsed, hospitalising eight children. The children were rushed to hospital after the giant inflatable slide collapsed at a firework display in Woking, Surrey, on Saturday evening. Surrey Police declared a major incident at Woking Fireworks after multiple children fell from the slide at about 7.30pm on Saturday. They were taken to major trauma centres by the South Easy Coast Ambulance Service, helped by the air ambulance. On Sunday, Surrey Police said seven of the eight children involved all under 16 had been discharged from hospital, while another boy was kept in for overnight observations but suffered injuries not thought to be significant. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive is now underway. In a statement on Sunday, Surrey Police said: Following last nights evacuation of Woking Park after children fell from an inflatable slide during fireworks night celebrations, we are pleased to update that seven of the eight victims were discharged overnight. The eighth victim was kept in overnight for observations, but his injuries are not thought to be significant. The investigation will now sit with the Health and Safety Executive. MORE: Paraplegic man forced to drag himself through Luton Airport MORE: Fishermen rescue entangled whale off California coast Police have appealed for anyone with footage of what happened to contact them. Fireworks organiser Michael Holden, of Woking District Rotary, said it appeared the children had fallen to the ground from the top of the slide. Flimsy one witness said he was concerned that the slide looked unsafe (Picture: PA) Mr Holden, who estimated around 5,000 people were in the park when it happened, said: We dont still know yet what exactly happened but eight children appear to have come off near the top of the slide and landed on the floor alongside it. The funfair remained under police cordon on Sunday and the collapsed slide had been completely deflated. Police investigators with cameras inspected other attractions, including the crooked house and the Ferris wheel, while HSE inspectors were also in attendance. Story continues On Sunday the funfair remained cordoned off as investigations began (Picture: PA) Witness Andy Datson, 23, told how he had seen up to 40 children playing on the slide, which he estimated was about 30-foot tall, before its collapse. We had been walking past the slide earlier in the night and said it looked unsafe. It looked pretty flimsy to say the least, he said. There were far too many kids on it. It didnt look like it could hold that many people. He said as soon as he saw the flashing lights of emergency services he thought it would be connected to the slide. It looked like there were too many children on it and the side area had given way. If, heaven forbid, they fell from the top I would say its at least 25 to 30 feet tall. Investigation the Health and Safety Executive has been informed, police said (Picture: PA) Oliver Trimble told the BBC that the evacuation was announced over the events loudspeakers just before 8pm, when the fireworks were due to begin. He said he saw victims being treated by medics, adding: It was quite a horrendous sight to see. Woking District Rotary Club, the events organisers, said it was shocked and distressed by the collapse. The park will remain closed into Sunday as police investigate the cause of the incident, the club added. A Health and Safety Executive spokeswoman said initial enquiries were being made. A Woking Borough Council spokesman said: We will be working with the police and relevant authorities to understand and explain what happened. By John Ruwitch and Chen Aizhu SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China, dubbed 'the workshop of the world' for its sprawling supply chains and huge export capacity, is hoping to manufacture something new next week at a huge trade fair in Shanghai next week: import orders. The Nov. 5-10 China International Import Expo, or CIIE, is an attempt by Beijing to counter mounting criticism of its trade and business practices by bringing thousands of foreign companies together with Chinese buyers to demonstrate the importing potential of the world's no.2 economy. At its core, the event is symbolic. When Chinese President Xi Jinping opens the expo with a speech on Monday morning, few expect him to announce bold new policies of the kind that many foreign governments and businesses have been seeking. Instead, people involved in planning meetings have said they expect state-owned companies to arrive with orders to do deals, possibly even with quotas, so that the expo will end with China something to show the world. No officials from the United States -- China's top trading partner -- will be present as their trade dispute rages, but over 100 U.S. firms will be exhibiting their wares. With political pressure to deliver, some deals are likely to be toothless memoranda while others will re-hash previous orders, executives and diplomats say. Qatargas and China's CNPC, for example, are expected to sign a supply contract that formalizes a billion deal agreed in September, according to an energy executive with direct knowledge of the matter. "It's a protocol signing, to show support to the trade fair," said the executive. The long-term contract is worth roughly $39 billion based on current spot market prices. CNPC is also expected to sign at the expo an oil supply deal for 2019 with Saudi Aramco, a regular deal the parties normally review and renew annually around November, said the executive. Both CNPC and Qatargas did not immediately respond to request for comment. A similar agreement is likely from state-owned China National Chemicals Corp, or ChemChina, for one of its annual crude oil and refined fuel agreements, said a separate trading executive with knowledge of the matter. BIG DEAL Presidents or prime ministers from 18 countries are traveling to Shanghai for the event, ranging from Russia and Pakistan to the Cook Islands, though none from major Western nations. Government ministers from several other countries are also coming. The European Union, meanwhile, pressed China to take concrete steps to further open its market to foreign firms and provide a level playing field. Several roads in Shanghai have been repaved ahead of the event, and security has been beefed up. Some Western diplomats and businesses have been quietly critical of whole idea of the expo, which they see as a propaganda stunt. "Here are all of these foreigners bringing their spices for the emperor," said one person. But Xu Bin, a professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, said he thinks China's leaders have come to realize this year they may ultimately be unable to appease all concerns. "I think Xi Jinping would not expect any positive reaction from Western countries this time, or in the near future," he said. "But he still wants to do it to show the relatively poor countries and even rich countries that, look, you know, we are going to buy these things from the world. Do you want a share?" Exhibitors from around 140 countries and regions will be on hand, including 404 from Japan, the most of any country. From the United States, some 136 exhibitors will attend, including Google, Dell Inc, Ford and General Electric . A handful of countries are being represented by a single exhibitor selling one product. For Iraq, it's crude oil. Iran, saffron. Jamaica will be marketing it's famed blue mountain coffee and Chad is selling bauxite. Tiny Sao Tome is selling package holidays. The expo may symbolize China's willingness to import more, but at a practical level, companies that don't have China experience may be in for a shock, said a Latin American diplomat. "People think they are going to come here with meat or chicken and start importing it tomorrow. That's not going to happen," he said. "It doesn't work like that here." (Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Kim Coghill) Jerusalem (AFP) - Senior Catholic clerics in Jerusalem called Sunday for Israel to repeal a controversial law giving Jews a "unique" right to self-determination in the country. "We must draw the attention of the authorities to a simple fact," bishops and archbishops of the Roman Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic and Greek Melkite churches said in a joint statement. "Our faithful, the Christians, our fellow citizens, Muslim, Druze and Bahai, all of us who are Arabs, are no less citizens of this country than our Jewish brothers and sisters." The nation-state act was passed by parliament in July and forms part of Israel's basic laws -- a de facto constitution. It speaks of Israel as the historic homeland of the Jews and demotes Arabic from its former status as an official language. Because it omits any reference to equality or the country's democratic nature, Israeli Arabs say it will legalise discrimination. There were widespread Arab protests after it passed into law and some Jewish politicians said it should be amended. President Reuven Rivlin said the act "in its current version is bad for the state of Israel and bad for the Jews". Arabs account for some 17.5 percent of Israel's nearly nine million population. "Christians, Muslims, Druze, Bahai and Jews demand to be treated as equal citizens," said the letter which was also signed by the Maronite archbishop of Cyprus and the Greek Melkite archbishop of Petra, in Jordan. "We, as the religious leaders of the Catholic Churches, call on the authorities to rescind this basic law and assure one and all that the state of Israel seeks to promote and protect the welfare and the safety of all its citizens." Its almost time to fall back! Daylight saving time ends this Sunday, November 4 at 2:00 a.m. And yes, this is the one where you gain an hour of sleep. (Unless youre a parent, because your child does not observe daylight saving time no matter how much youd like them to.) So dont forget to set any clocks that arent on a smart device behind one hour before heading to bed on Saturday night, and get ready to have your microwave or oven display the wrong time for the next eight months because you dont want to break out the instruction manual. RELATED: The Best Places to See Fall Foliage Across America and Exactly When to Visit Each While the idea of getting an extra hour of sleep is exciting, daylight saving time ending may not be the most thrilling day on your calendar. However, the practice is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. It was first enacted by the federal government as a way to save coal (by adjusting clocks to accommodate for more daytime and thus needing less energy for light) during World War I in the spring of 1918, and was only meant to exist during wartime. The practice was technically ended later that same year, but many regions continued to follow it, until eventually the government put the measure back in place in 1966. The next major change came in 2007, when the Department of Transportation (DOT), which is surprisingly in charge of the practice, expanded daylight saving time to officially encompass about eight months of the year. WATCH THIS: This Map Will Tell You Exactly When Fall Foliage Will Peak This Year The DOT was assigned the responsibility because the switch affects so many modes of transportation. The agency continues to observe the twice-yearly time swap because it reportedly saves energy, cuts down on traffic accidents and reduces crime. States have the final say on if they participate, though. Hawaii and most of Arizona do not the latter because it receives so much sunlight already. The islands of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands abstain as well. Story continues RELATED: Break Out the Pumpkin Spice and Flannels! These Celebs Love Fall Just As Much As You Do According USA Today, 26 states are considering making daylight saving time permanent, starting with Florida, but this change would require approval by Congress. Research varies as to whether or not the practice actually satisfies its reasonings as it turns out, its not actually saving as much energy as intended, especially with the advent of air conditioning but at the very least, the extra hour encourages more time outside. And whether you spend that working out or sipping cocktails on the patio, a little more sunshine is never a bad thing. Even Chip Gaines weighed in on the clock drama during spring forward back in March. I didnt know #DaylightSavingTime was so controversialI love it. All the things I love to do, or have to do, but now with an extra hour of sunlight, the HGTV star tweeted. So until your state can come to a conclusion about whether to abolish spring forward and fall back, enjoy your extra hour of sleep until next year. Hodeida (Yemen) (AFP) - Dozens of Yemeni rebels have been killed in battles and air strikes in Hodeida, medics said Sunday, as pro-government forces advanced in the insurgent-held Red Sea port city. The bloodshed comes despite growing international pressure to end a years-long conflict that has left thousands dead. Fifty-three Huthi rebels were killed and dozens were injured over the past 24 hours, medical sources in Hodeida told AFP. Clashes intensified in the city and centred around its university on Saturday and Sunday morning, a pro-government military official said. Huthi media reported air strikes in Hodeida on Sunday but did not give a fighter casualty toll. Military officials said Saudi-led coalition warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes to support pro-government forces in the fighting which began on Thursday evening. Thirteen pro-government troops were killed, medical sources in Aden and Mokha -- where the fighters were transported -- told AFP. The clashes erupted just hours after the government said Thursday it was ready to restart peace talks with the Iran-backed Huthis. The offer followed a surprise call by the United States for an end to the Yemen war, including air strikes by the coalition. Hodeida port is the entry point for more than 70 percent of imports into the impoverished country, which is teetering on the edge of famine. - 'Shamefully slow to act' - Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, a special envoy for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), appealed for an immediate ceasefire. "As an international community we have been shamefully slow to act to end the crisis in Yemen," she said in a statement during a trip to South Korea. "We have watched the situation deteriorate to the point that Yemen is now on the brink of man-made famine, and facing the worst cholera epidemic in the world in decades," Jolie added. "The only way to enable refugees to return home, and to bring down the overall numbers worldwide, is to end conflicts themselves." Story continues UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday had called for a halt to violence to pull Yemen back from the "precipice". After UN-backed peace talks collapsed in September, the coalition announced it was relaunching an assault on Hodeida. Yemeni government officials said Tuesday that the coalition had sent more than 10,000 new troops towards the battleground city. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the war in 2015 to bolster Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the rebels took over the capital Sanaa and drove the government further south to Aden. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 10,000 people have since been killed. Some rights groups estimate the toll could be five times higher. Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) (AFP) - Equatorial Guinea's ruling party has expelled 42 of its members for their alleged role in a coup bid late last year, party sources told AFP Sunday. The ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) decided to expel them for their role in the failed December 24 coup, said a resolution passed by the party's disciplinary committee on Friday. Those expelled included a former ambassador, at least two former judges and the former head of security for President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader. They had collaborated with "a group of terrorists and mercenaries", the party resolution said. In March, the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), Equatorial Guinea's second largest opposition party, said the coup bid had been organised from within the ruling party. It was, it argued, a sign of the general discontent with the government. The authorities in the West African country announced in January that they had foiled the coup bid. They blamed the plot on militants from "certain radical opposition parties with the support of certain powers". Around 30 mercenaries from Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan were detained in neighbouring Cameroon at the time. A trial of those involved in the coup plot was due to begin next February, sources close to the regime said, but talks to extradite the mercenaries from Cameroon have not yet been settled. Equatorial Guinea is one of sub-Sahara's biggest oil producers but a large proportion of its 1.2 million population still lives in poverty. Obiang seized power in a coup on August 3, 1979, ousting his own uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, who was shot by firing squad. He survived a coup bid in 2004 when mercenaries thought to have been backed by British financiers tried to oust him. Last year, a French court handed down a three-year suspended jail sentence to Obiang's son, Teodorin, who is also vice president, for siphoning off public money to fund his jet-set lifestyle. Cairo (AFP) - Nineteen suspected jihadists linked to a deadly attack on Coptic Christians in central Egypt have been killed in a shootout with police, the interior ministry said Sunday. Those killed in the exchange of fire were part of a cell that left dead seven pilgrims in Friday's attack in Minya province, a statement by the ministry said. "The terrorist elements opened fire on the (security) forces who responded," the statement said. The 19 suspected jihadists were found "as part of a pursuit of terrorist elements involved in carrying out hostile operations in the country, including the last armed attack which targeted citizens returning from the Saint Samuel monastery", the ministry said. The Islamic State group claimed Friday's attack -- which killed six Copts and one Anglican -- in a message via its propaganda agency Amaq. Raids were undertaken in the mountainous western desert of Minya province to track down the "fugitive terrorist elements", the interior ministry said. Several Egyptian TV stations broadcast images provided by the interior ministry, which showed the bodies of armed men strewn across desert sand. The television images also displayed a tent alleged to have been used by the suspected jihadist cell, and a black IS flag. Pope Francis on Sunday spoke of his pain over the attack. "I express my pain after the terrorist attack which two days ago hit the Coptic Orthodox church in Egypt," Francis said at Saint Peter's in the Vatican City. "I pray for the victims, pilgrims killed just because they were Christian," he added. Copts, a Christian minority that make up 10 percent of Egypt's 97 million people, have in recent years been repeatedly targeted by IS jihadists. In May 2017, masked gunmen ordered Christians travelling to Saint Samuel to get off their buses and recant their faith. The group refused and were shot one by one, leaving 28 people dead in that IS-claimed attack. Story continues IS also killed more than 40 people in twin church bombings in April 2017, and an IS gunman last December killed nine people in an attack on a church in a south Cairo suburb. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for citizens to battle against religious discrimination. "When an Egyptian falls in a terrorist attack, we suffer and all the people of Egypt suffer", Sisi said in an address to a youth forum in Sharm el-Sheikh. Copts have long complained of discrimination in Egypt and IS is not the only group to have launched sectarian attacks against the community. In December 2017, hundreds of Muslims attacked a church south of Cairo that had been operating without a permit for more than a dozen years. The man who police say walked into a Tallahassee, Florida, yoga studio and opened fire on Friday evening was a self-identified misogynist who ranted against women and spewed racist beliefs in videos and songs posted online. Tallahassee police say Scott Beierle, 40, shot six people, killing two of them, and struck another with his gun after posing as a patron of the studio. The women killed were Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, and Maura Binkley, 21. Some at the studio attempted to stop the shooter as he fired, police say. Beierle posted several videos to a YouTube channel in 2014 that painted him as the victim of treachery by many of the females he has wanted to court. BuzzFeed News was first to report on the shooters social media presence Saturday. Those who engage in treachery will ultimately be the victims of it, Beierle said in a video titled The Rebirth of My Misogynism. At other points, he names girls and women he has known since eighth grade, complaining about their collective treachery and saying they can justify anything if you offend their sensibilities. Beierle lamented in a video titled The Dangers of Diversity what he viewed as the rise of foreigners in the U.S. and praised nations that maintain one ethnic character. In a video he dubbed The American Whore, Beierle said interracial relationships were a betrayal of blood, and that women in them have a mental illness. It was unclear Saturday evening whether YouTube had suspended the account. Beierle also had a SoundCloud account that is still active. On it, he posted songs with lyrics describing violence against women, with one song, complaining about the girl I cant get in the sack, posted just hours before the shooting. The gunman took his own life at the yoga studio before police arrived. Police have yet to officially disclose a motive in Fridays shooting. Court records viewed by The Associated Press show that Beierle had previously been arrested for groping women from behind, and was once banned from Florida State Universitys campus. Story continues Through his videos, he appeared to identify as an incel, shorthand for involuntarily celibate, a misogynistic label used primarily on the internet to describe men who cannot convince women to have sex with them. In one video viewed by BuzzFeed, Beierle reportedly said he related to Elliot Rodger, the man who wrote a manifesto detailing his hatred of women before embarking on a shooting rampage in California, where he killed six people. In the Misogynism video, he spoke about a woman who kept canceling and rescheduling dates, saying he could have ripped her head off. Beierle, a military veteran, also spoke angrily about the idea that women can press charges for his being aggressive in his pursuit of women, which he considered a typical male characteristic. Can I press charges for being evasive? he asked. Beierle also spoke of another series of women who turned down his invitation to a concert, acting as though he were entitled to romantic attention. Im trying to live my life here. Youre not helping, he said of the women. The Tallahassee incident appears to be the second incel-related mass murder in 2018, after a man killed 10 people in Toronto by driving a van into a crowd in April. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) Floridians will choose between one of President Donald Trump's most vocal supporters and an unabashed liberal when they elect a new governor Tuesday. The contrast couldn't be greater between Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis and Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who would be Florida's first black governor and the first Democrat elected to the office since 1994. The two are opposites on issues, background, campaign style and message in a politically divisive year. The contest is essentially a referendum on Trump and votes may be cast as much, if not more, on emotion than issues. About the only thing they have in common is they both have preschool children and they were born a year apart. "He's for Trump," Marc Grizzard, 51-year-old church pastor from Live Oak, said when asked the most important reason he is supporting DeSantis. "There ain't no need to get somebody in there, even if they are Republican, if they aren't going to support the president." Toni Pentecouteau, a 72-year-old retiree from Destin, is supporting Gillum and cites, in part, DeSantis' close relationship with Trump. "I can't vote for someone who has to ask Trump first if it's OK," she said. "We have a president who violated federal and state housing laws, who has bankrupted many times, who has been sued, who doesn't pay his creditors." When the year began, few would have predicted a showdown between DeSantis and Gillum. DeSantis was the underdog in the Republican primary until Trump endorsed him and Gillum shocked political observers when he won a crowded primary despite spending far less money, largely on grassroots support of Democrats who call themselves progressives. DeSantis, 40, was educated at Yale and Harvard universities before becoming a Navy officer. He won his House seat in 2012 running as a political outsider, but he clearly had larger ambitions. He ran for U.S. Senate in 2016, dropping out when Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio decided to seek re-election. Story continues Gillum, 39, was a 23-year-old Florida A&M University student when he became the youngest person elected to Tallahassee's city council. He was elected the city's mayor in 2014. He tells a story about a poor upbringing in Miami, and the lessons he learned about getting a good education from his mother and grandmother. At campaign events, DeSantis has unleashed a largely negative message about Gillum and sometimes comes across as angry, while Gillum barely mentions DeSantis and has an upbeat, positive style. During a rally in Destin, Gillum mentioned pipe bombs that were mailed to Democratic leaders, allegedly by a Trump supporter, in talking about political division. "The beauty is, I believe there are more of us than there are of them. There are more of us who believe in decency," Gillum said to loud applause. "We can win these races not by dividing people, but by bringing folks together to give them something to vote for, and not just against." The event ended with the crowd chanting Gillum's campaign slogan, "Bring it home!" That same night, DeSantis was giving thousands gathered at a rally with Trump several reasons to vote against Gillum, citing an FBI investigation into corruption at Tallahassee City Hall among other issues. "I'm proud to say that of the candidates running for governor, I'm the only one that has worn the uniform and served in our military, I'm the only candidate that ain't going to raise your taxes here in Florida and I'm the only guy who can credibly say that I'm not under investigation for corruption by the FBI," DeSantis said to cheers. DeSantis used more than half of his speech to attack Gillum. At one point the crowd began chanting, "Lock him up!" Gillum has said he's not a target of the investigation. Racial division has also been an issue in the campaign. The day after the primary, DeSantis said on Fox News that Florida voters shouldn't "monkey this up" by electing Gillum. DeSantis spent weeks explaining the remark, saying it had nothing to do with race, but rather his belief that Gillum will hurt Florida's economy. The Gillum campaign, in the final week, cut ties with a campaign volunteer caught on video calling Florida a "cracker" state and saying the campaign was taking advantage of "white guilt." Gillum is taking a nontraditional route in the general election. He's seeking out young voters and minorities who tend to have lower turnout in a midterm election. He's also going to areas Democrats have traditionally ignored, like Okaloosa County in the western Panhandle, which Republican Gov. Rick Scott carried in 2014 with more than 75 percent of the vote in a year he didn't receive 50 percent of the statewide vote. Trump carried the county with 71 percent of the vote in 2016. "They told me this was a red county!" Gillum said after being greeted with thunderous applause from an overflow Okaloosa crowd. "I see a sea of blue. In fact, I see a tsunami of blue about to slip over this area." DeSantis largely focused his campaign on the Interstate 4 corridor that runs from Daytona Beach to through Orlando to Tampa Bay and the large urban areas south of the highway. If DeSantis wins, he can give Trump credit for exciting the party's base. When DeSantis wrapped up his speech at Wednesday's Trump rally, he turned to the president and shook his hand. "I appreciate it. Thanks," DeSantis told Trump. He then laughed and added, "This is crazy. This is awesome." ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics France does not "sweep anything under a rug" when it comes to the issue of human rights in Vietnam, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe insisted on Sunday, after sidestepping questions over the Asian country's dismal record on dissent. His comments came on the final day of a state visit to Vietnam, that was largely aimed at drumming up business deals with one of Asia's fastest-growing economies as both sides signed contracts worth a total of nearly $12 billion. But the French premier would not be drawn on the Communist government's handling of dissent, which includes jailing people for posting their opinions about hot-button issues on Facebook. More than 50 activists, rights campaigners and bloggers have been put behind bars in 2018, one of the harshest crackdowns in recent years. When questioned by reporters in Ho Chi Minh City, Philippe insisted, "we do not sweep anything under the rug, but we have discussions with the Vietnamese authorities that do not go through the press". "We do it in forums that are going well, the way we have always done," Philippe said after inaugurating a French medical centre in the city. A source familiar with the meetings between the two governments told AFP human rights was brought up during talks on Friday, the day of Philippe's arrival. "The human rights issue was addressed in the talks. The Vietnamese authorities' attention has been drawn to a list of individual cases," said the source. The French premier's visit coincides with the recent release of a draft cybersecurity decree, which outlines how the draconian bill would be implemented. It is expected to come into effect in January, and observers say that it mimics China's repressive web control tools. It would require tech companies to store data in the country, remove "toxic content" from websites, and hand over user information if requested by the government. Critics of the bill say it will serve as a chokehold on dissent in the one-party state, where activists are routinely jailed and all independent media are banned. Philippe will host a business forum with French tech entrepreneurs before departing in the evening for New Caledonia. The jam-packed three-day visit also included a stop at Dien Bien Phu on Saturday, the site of an epic battle between France and Vietnam in 1954 that would spell the end of France's colonial empire in Indochina. Judge Billy Ray, Georgia Court of Appeals (Photo: John Disney/ALM) Judge Billy Ray, Georgia Court of Appeals (Photo: John Disney/ALM) The Georgia Court of Appeals posted a fond goodbye note to Judge William Billy Ray II, who left last week for a new job. Ray mentioned in oral arguments for a U-Haul case Oct. 25 that he likely would not be voting on the opinion because this is probably my last day. He told lawyers not to worry if he didnt seem to agree with them. John Salter of the Barnes Law Group said during his argument, By the way, congratulations on not having to stick around to decide this. Ray has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as President Donald Trumps nominee for a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. The Court of Appeals website notice did the math on the long wait for confirmation: 15 months. But Ray is now on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta and, as the Court of Appeals put it, has returned to the trial court bench. It has been more than six years since Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Ray to the Court of Appeals of Georgia, filling the position left when Deal moved Justice Keith Blackwell to the Georgia Supreme Court. Ray had already served nearly a decade as a Gwinnett Judicial Circuit Superior Court judge. The Court of Appeals noted that Ray is the son of a farmer, born in Macon and raised in Peach and Crawford counties. He said he always wanted to be a lawyer, having grown up in a family that was involved in government and politics. He practiced law in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and served six years in the state Senate. In Gwinnett, Ray founded one of the first drug treatment courts in the state and presided over it for seven years. He also served as the chair of the Legislation Committee of the Council of Superior Court Judges and as secretary-treasurer of the statewide governing council of the 200-plus superior court judges. Judge Ray served the Court of Appeals of Georgia with honor and distinction for the past six years, Chief Judge Stephen Dillard said in the note. We are all grateful for his dedicated service and friendship, and we wish him the very best in this next phase of his already exemplary judicial career. He will be dearly missed. By Brendan O'Brien and Alex Dobuzinskis (Reuters) - A gunman who killed two women at a Florida yoga studio and wounded five other people before taking his own life had previously been accused of harassing young women, police said on Saturday. Authorities said they do not know why Scott Beierle, 40, opened fire on Friday afternoon after posing as a customer to join the class at the Hot Yoga studio in Tallahassee. Detectives are searching for links between him and the victims. The two women who died were identified as a student and a faculty member from Florida State University. Police said Beierle was a graduate of FSU who served in the military, and that he had been the subject of calls to authorities in the Tallahassee area "related to harassment of young women." In a statement, police said Beierle was staying in a local hotel at the time of the attack, and that investigators were also searching his home in Deltona, Florida, more than 200 miles (322 km) southeast of Tallahassee. Police records showed he was arrested in 2012 and 2016 on charges of grabbing women's buttocks. Both cases were dismissed, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported. An attorney who previously represented Beierle could not be reached for comment. Two women who were wounded in the shooting remained hospitalized in stable condition on Saturday, police said. Two other shooting victims and a man who was pistol-whipped by Beierle were treated and released. "There were indications that several people not only fought back but tried to save other people," Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo said at a news conference. DOCTOR AND STUDENT One of the women killed was identified as Nancy Van Vessem, 61, a doctor specializing in internal medicine who was a member of the faculty at Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee. The other was named as Maura Binkley, a 21-year-old student at FSU. Their deaths were "just devastating to the FSU family," said the university's president, John Thrasher. Van Vessem also worked as chief medical director for Capital Health Plan, which described her in a statement as a "guiding, visionary force" and "one of the most respected, inspiring, and accomplished medical professionals in the state and country." Binkley had attended Dunwoody High School in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, and was a senior at FSU with an English and German double major. The U.S. Army said Beierle had been a second lieutenant and served as a field artilleryman. He was on active duty from 2008 to 2010. Beierle posted several YouTube videos in 2014 in which he expressed racist and misogynist views and identified with "involuntary celibates" or "incels," a loose social media movement of men who blame women for their celibacy, Buzzfeed News reported. In April, a 25-year-old Canadian who said he was a soldier in an "incel" rebellion used a rented van to kill 10 people in Toronto. Friday's bloodshed prompted Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is also Florida's Democratic candidate for governor, to halt his campaign temporarily. Ahead of Tuesday's election, the city's murder rate has been an issue in the governor's race, with Gillum's opponent, Republican former U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis, accusing him of being weak on crime. Gillum said on Twitter that no act of gun violence was acceptable. DeSantis said the shooting was heartbreaking. Dozens of yoga practitioners gathered on Saturday morning for an open-air session in front of the State Capitol. Called "Yoga For A Cause", the event was in support of people affected by Hurricane Michael. The Tallahassee Police Department posted a photo of the gathering on Facebook with the quote "It holds so much meaning" and the hashtags #TallyStrong and #OurCityOurHome. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Matthew Lewis and Dan Grebler) Gwyneth Paltrow has talked about the changes she has experienced during the perimenopause - Getty Images Europe Gwyneth Paltrow has been praised for speaking out about how her body is changing as part of an effort to "rebrand" the social stigma around menopause. Experts said the Oscar-winning actress's decision to talk candidly about entering the perimenopause would help other women. The perimenopause is a transition stage before the menopause that can last several years. "I think when you get into perimenopause, you notice a lot of changes," Paltrow, 46, said. "I can feel the hormonal shifts happening - the sweating, the moods. "Youre just like all of a sudden furious for no reason." Paltrow wants to "rebrand" the menopause It is usual for the perimenopause, when ovaries start producing less oestrogen, to begin for women in their 40s, and sometimes in their 30s. The stage usually lasts about four years. It can be as little as a few months, or as long as 10 years. Paltrow said it had made her determined to "rebrand" the menopause itself. She said: "I think menopause gets a really bad rap and needs a bit of a rebranding. I dont think we have in our society a great example of an aspirational menopausal woman." Paltrow said changes she had made included tweaking her fitness routine recently to include more weight-lifting, for building bone density. Symptoms of the perimenopause can include fatigue, hot flushes, night sweats, palpitations, headaches, memory problems, low mood and joint pains. Dr Louise Newson, who runs a menopause and wellness clinic in Stratford-upon-Avon, said it was "really good" that the actress had publicised the fact she was in the perimenopause. "Good for her," she said. "Every day I hear stories about women suffering, relationships breaking up, because of the impact of symptoms. "When you know you're in your perimenopause it's a good time to start managing those symptoms. It's a really good time to take stock about your future health. Anything that reduces the risk of heart disease and osteoporosis is good." Story continues She said a lot of women have anti-depressants prescribed because doctors don't realise their symptoms are to do with the perimenopause. "It's important for men to know what's going on too," she added. As part of her bid to "rebrand" the menopause Paltrow has also launched a line of vitamin supplements called Madame Ovary, aimed at combating symptoms. "There arent a lot of products being made for us to really help us through that phase," she said. "I feel like I have fewer days now when I feel cranky or emotional for no apparent reason." In August, Dr Andrea Davies of the University of Leicester, suggested male academics should say the word menopause at least three times daily in a show of solidarity with their female colleagues. Democrat Andrew Gillum is bidding to become Floridas first black governor. Ron DeSantis is a Trump-style Republican. And the topic of race has been impossible to ignore Andrew Gillum said: I would conclude that the president is in some ways complicit in the deteriorated rhetoric that is leading people to resort to political violence. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images It was an immediate viral moment. Andrew Gillum, a Democrat seeking to become the first black governor in Floridas history, turned to his Republican opponent, Ron DeSantis, with a blistering critique amid an unusually contentious debate. Im not calling Mr DeSantis a racist, Gillum declared. Im simply saying the racists believe hes a racist. Probably a defining moment in the race to be Floridas governor, the exchange epitomized the sharp and increasingly personal tone that has engulfed American politics under Donald Trump. Florida, one of the countrys largest battlegrounds, ranks among the most competitive and closely watched contests. On one side is Gillum, the mayor of the state capital, Tallahassee, who mounted an improbable bid to become the first Democrat in 24 years to be elected to Floridas highest office. He has campaigned on a decidedly progressive agenda that includes raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and a Medicare-for-All, single-payer-style healthcare system. DeSantis, by contrast, is a former navy prosecutor and ex-congressman who rose to prominence as a Trump acolyte. He favors cutting taxes for business and appointing conservatives to the state supreme court, and has labeled his opponent a socialist. But the policy differences have largely been overshadowed by the persistence of racial politics, culminating in one of the most dramatic buildups to the 6 November election. Tensions were further enflamed in recent weeks after a series of packages containing explosive devices were sent to several top Democrats and Trump critics. The suspect, Cesar Sayoc, was a resident of Florida. Days later, 11 people were killed at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The events all but ensured that the final days going into the midterm elections would be defined not by local issues, but a hyper-partisan battle for the countrys identity. Story continues As political violence continued to dominate the news, the crowd awaiting Gillum outside the African American Research Library in Fort Lauderdale was almost in a trance. Gathered in the buildings parking lot, the roughly 200 people who had braved south Floridas sweltering heat rocked back and forth to the soothing sounds of We Are the World, the famous 1985 charity song intended to emphasize global unity. But the atmosphere was short-lived as Eric Holder, the attorney general under Barack Obama, took the stage. He had barely uttered a few words when a heckler, clutching a megaphone, asked: Why wont you condemn mob violence? Holder, who was among those mailed a pipe bomb last week, retorted: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why dont you cut out the fake outrage, my man? Another heckler raised his voice. Within minutes, a minor scuffle broke out in the crowd forcing the swift intervention of police officers. Urging the crowd to channel their emotions into action at the ballot box, Gillum told attendees to vote like your lives depend on it. Florida voters for Gillum at a rally in Orlando earlier this week. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images If elected, Gillum vowed to expand Medicaid, raise salaries for teachers, enact stricter gun laws and combat climate change. But the moment, as Gillum described it, was about much more than his own prospects. I am eager to send a message to the president of the United States, Gillum said, that his kind of politics, that his brand of politics, his brand of hatred, his brand of division, his brand of attempting to turn Americans against Americans, citizen against citizen, humanity against humanity, has come to an end in the state of Florida. Trump carried Florida in 2016 by a 1.6% margin over Hillary Clinton. The state, which had elected Obama twice before, is often referred to by Trump as his second home. The president often spends weekends at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Although he condemned the pipe bombs, Trump was also defensive. He blamed the media for perpetuating anger and chafed at the notion that his own rhetoric might have been a factor. Sayoc, the suspect, frequently tweeted about Gillum. Gillum said Trump and DeSantis bore some responsibility for using extremely charged rhetoric that hit at a deep emotion for their supporters. Those same supporters then begin to take license from that to then take it to another extreme, Gillum told the Guardian. Now, did Donald Trump put the gun in the hand of somebody? No. But did he help to sow seeds of discord, did he help to give cover for that kind of thinking, under the shelter of his words? Then, yes, I would conclude that the president is in some ways complicit in the deteriorated rhetoric that is leading people to resort to political violence. With his wife, Casey, at his side, DeSantis warmed the crowd with an anecdote about being a father to young children. One particular morning was so chaotic, he noted, that he failed to notice when brushing his teeth that his daughter, Madison, had replaced the toothpaste with diaper rash cream. The crowd packed inside Leroys Southern Kitchen, a downtown restaurant in the red-leaning city of Punta Gorda, laughed heartily. But the conversation soon took a more ominous tone. We have a generational opportunity with this election to protect the rule of law, DeSantis warned. Law enforcement looks at Andrew Gillum, and they dont see someone they can work with. They see an enemy. They see someone who is hostile to their mission and hostile to their purpose, he added. DeSantis, who rolled out several endorsements from police unions, has sought to make Gillums relationship with law enforcement a focal point in the closing days of the election. DeSantis in his televised debate with Gillum in October. Photograph: POOL/Reuters It appeared an unmistakable attempt to talk about police brutality a conversation that has stemmed from several high-profile killings of unarmed black men. Gillum has said he favors police accountability and believes officers must restore trust in the communities they serve. The mood grew somber inside Leroys. Attendees quietly nodded as DeSantis suggested Gillum would usher in the most radical anti-police elements inside the governors office. DeSantis decried Gillum as favoring the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), a law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security. (Gillum wants Ice to be abolished in its current form and replaced with a more compassionate and focused agency.) How is that keeping our communities safe? an incredulous DeSantis asked the crowd, comprising mostly older white men and women. Pledging to lower taxes, DeSantis dismissed Gillums campaign platform as free this, free that. Jonathan Hughes, a 19-year-old student at South Florida State College, said he was supporting DeSantis because he believed Gillums rhetoric toward toward our law enforcement is very worrisome. Hughes also took issue with Gillum having received campaign funds from liberal mega-donor George Soros, who has been at the center of right-wing conspiracy theories and was a target of last weeks suspicious packages. Gillums close relationship with George Soros concerns me a lot, said Hughes. Hes doing a lot that is anti-American and hes trying to further a goal of globalism. DeSantiss ascent to the Republican nomination in August, much like Trumps in 2016, was the result of an insurgent campaign that defied the wishes of the party establishment. He defeated Adam Putnam, Floridas incumbent commissioner of agriculture, long regarded as the successor to the outgoing Republican governor, Rick Scott. A regular on Fox News, DeSantis positioned himself as a close ally of the presidents and has repeatedly attacked Robert Muellers credibility. DeSantis garnered Trumps endorsement in the primary despite the White Houses insistence that Trump would not get involved in the Florida governors race. DeSantis wasted little time fashioning himself in Trumps image, running a television ad in which he encouraged his two-year-old to build the wall with her toy blocks. In the same spot, DeSantis read Trumps book, The Art of the Deal, and attempted to teach his infant daughter how to talk by saying Make America Great Again. In the Democratic primary, Gillum pulled off his own stunning victory over Gwen Graham, a north Florida congresswoman who had been comfortably ahead in the polls. In doing so, Gillum became the first African American major-party candidate for governor in Floridas history. The contrast became apparent: a progressive, Bernie-Sanders backed Democrat against a Republican torchbearer for the Trumpian brand of politics. But the dust had barely settled when the topic of race swiftly reared its head. On Fox News the day after the primary, DeSantis urged Floridians not to monkey this up by voting for his opponent. His remark was derided as a dog whistle. DeSantis refused to apologize, insisting he meant no racial intent, even as Fox News distanced itself from the remarks. Gillum said the language was nothing short of coded and, in fact, a tactical move by DeSantis to appeal to a certain faction. As both candidates looked to refocus attention on policy, it became clear the controversy had only just begun. Days later, a white supremacist group released a robocall referring to Gillum as a negro and a monkey. The same group released a second robocall last week, featuring a man claiming to be Gillum, stating in a caricature of a black dialect: I is the negro Andrew Gillum, and I be asking you to make me governor of this here state of Florida. DeSantiss campaign denounced the ads, but Gillum said the rhetoric had emboldened such voices and condemned the Republican for holding ties to neo-Nazis. As evidence, Gillum has cited DeSantiss refusal to return funds from a donor who referred to Barack Obama as a Muslim n and his appearance at a conference with a host of alt-right figures, including the former White House chief strategist Steven Bannon. Gego Payne, a resident of Fort Lauderdale who voted early for Gillum, said the racial politics were impossible for black voters to ignore. He comes out racist right off the bat, calling [Gillum] a monkey, Payne, a retired construction worker, said of DeSantis. What it said is that he and Trump are the same person. The president was greeted by a sea of red in south-west Florida, where more than 7,000 supporters donning Make America Great Again caps and pro-Trump shirts packed the Hertz Arena after queueing for hours under the beaming sun. Stumping on behalf of DeSantis and others in Fort Myers, a Republican stronghold, Trump hit all the usual notes. He spoke mostly of his own success and how the media had treated him unfairly, and sounded the alarm over a group of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras and bound for the US-Mexico border. Were getting prepared for the caravan, folks, you dont have to worry about that, Trump told the crowd. A vote for Democrats is a vote to liquidate Americas borders. As he took the stage midway through the presidents rally, DeSantis didnt hesitate to relish in the potential Trump effect. Is south-west Florida Trump country or what? he yelled. As DeSantis railed against Gillum, chants of Lock him up! reverberated echoing the lock her up cries long a staple of Trump rallies in reference to Hillary Clinton. Trump shakes DeSantis warmly by the hand. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images DeSantis and his allies have pounced on a federal inquiry into Tallahassees city government and drawn attention to a ticket Gillum received in 2016 to see the Broadway musical Hamilton from a group that included an undercover FBI agent. There is no evidence Gillum is being personally investigated and he has not been charged with a crime. Trump nonetheless escalated the matter two days before his arrival in Florida, stating on Twitter that Gillum was a thief. In Florida there is a choice between a Harvard/Yale educated man named RonDeSantis who has been a great Congressman and will be a great Governor and a Dem who is a thief and who is Mayor of poorly run Tallahassee, said to be one of the most corrupt cities in the Country! Trump tweeted. The White House could not substantiate the presidents characterization of Gillum, who often opens up on the campaign trail about his humble beginnings, and how he was the first in his family to graduate high school and attend college. Gillum told the Guardian the comments were another example of the president failing to show restraint. I think the president should grow up, he said. These kinds of attacks are baseless, but mostly unfortunate, because I think this is the kind of stuff that gives rise to people. I think the president should demonstrate much more maturity and restraint. Polling has shown a tight race in Florida, with Gillum marginally ahead, according to some averages. His fate will probably be determined by whether he can corral a coalition of minority and progressive voters, although that has not stopped him from seeking support in Republican-leaning counties. DeSantis, by contrast, told the Guardian he believed Trump had the power to persuade tens of thousands of people to go to the polls who may not otherwise have been willing to do it. In the final stretch, he has kept little distance between himself and Trump throwing his support behind the presidents call to end birthright citizenship. But while hugging Trump helped propel DeSantis to become a contender for the governors office, its unclear how Trump will factor on Tuesday. DeSantis has been snake-bitten from the minute he did that Trump ad. That made it a base-only contest, said Rick Wilson, a Republican operative in Florida and the author of Everything Trump Touches Dies. If youre a Donald Trump guy, you probably like DeSantis just fine. But thats only 35% in Florida, and last time I checked you have to get to 51. Tehran (AFP) - Iran's powerful Guardian Council on Sunday rejected a bill on joining the UN convention against terrorist financing seen as crucial to maintaining trade and banking ties with the world. The conservative-dominated council, which oversees legislation passed by the parliament, said aspects of the bill were against Islamic law and the constitution and sent it back to lawmakers for revision. "The Guardian Council has in several sessions reviewed the bill... and it has considered it to have flaws and ambiguities," wrote spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaie on Twitter. The bill, narrowly passed by parliament on October 7, is one of four put forward by the government of President Hassan Rouhani in order to meet demands set by the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which monitors countries' efforts to tackle money-laundering and terrorist financing. Many hawks in Iran say the laws would limit the country's ability to support "resistance groups" such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas by bringing greater transparency to its accounts. But Rouhani's government argues it is particularly vital after the United States walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions. The other parties to the deal -- Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia -- have sought to salvage the agreement and maintain trade with Iran, but have demanded that it accede to the FATF. Iran is alone with North Korea on the FATF, although the Paris-based organisation has suspended counter-measures since June 2017 while Iran works on reforms. Last month, the FATF gave Iran another extension to February to update its laws. "Neither I nor the president can guarantee that all problems will go away if we join (the UN convention), but I guarantee that not joining will provide the US with more excuses to increase our problems," said Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the parliament debate last month. Story continues A previous bill on the mechanics of monitoring and preventing terrorist financing was signed into law in August. But two others -- on money-laundering and organised crime -- have also been delayed by higher authorities, including the Guardian Council, after being approved by parliament. The council is made up of six clerics appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and six lawyers appointed by the judiciary. DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran called on Saturday for European assurances of support in the face of Washington's intent to reimpose sanctions on vital Iranian oil sales to force Tehran to curb its nuclear, missile and regional activities. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke by telephone with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and his counterparts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark about European measures to counter the U.S. sanctions, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. "Mogherini and the European ministers ... highlighted the importance of the finance ministers' commitment to Europe's financial mechanism to save the Iran nuclear deal and said the mechanism will be operational in the coming days," IRNA said. Washington will reapply far-reaching sanctions on Iran's petroleum and banking sectors starting on Monday. Diplomats told Reuters last week that the new EU mechanism to facilitate payments for Iranian exports should be legally in place by Nov. 4, when the next phase of U.S. sanctions hit, but will not be operational until early next year. The EU, France, Germany and Britain, said in a joint statement on Friday they regretted U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to restore sanctions on Iran, the world's No. 3 oil exporter. "Our aim is to protect European economic actors who have legitimate commercial exchanges with Iran, in line with European legislation and the United Nations' Security Council resolution 2231," Mogherini and the foreign ministers and finance ministers of the three countries said in their statement. The three biggest European powers are co-signatories, along with Russia and China, to an international 2015 deal with Iran that reined in its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of most international sanctions on Tehran. With the sanctions clampdown, Trump is seeking to push Iran into stricter curbs on its nuclear program and a halt to its missile development activity and support for proxy forces in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. Trump denounced the nuclear deal, signed before he took office, as flawed in Iran's favor and withdrew Washington from the pact in May. Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported that the Islamic Republic had started production of the locally-designed Kowsar fighter plane for use in its air force. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Israeli forces raided the offices of the Palestinian governor of Jerusalem on Sunday, authorities said, after reports of an investigation related to a land sale. Israeli authorities confirmed the raid in Al-Ram, just on the other side of Israel's separation wall from Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, but provided few details. It came after Israel's detention of the Palestinian governor, Adnan Gheith, on October 20. He was released two days later. The Palestinian Authority's (PA) Jerusalem affairs minister, Adnan al-Husseini, told AFP that Israeli forces confiscated documents and material during the raid. The same building houses his ministry and the governor's office, both of which he said were raided in the first such Israeli action. Palestinian government spokesman Yusuf Mahmud said it was a "dangerous escalation of the occupation and a flagrant violation of all international laws and agreements". Israel's Shin Bet domestic security agency said in a statement a joint raid with police and the army was over "illegal activity by the PA in Jerusalem". It said "various materials were seized which will be examined by security bodies." Asked to specify which illegal activity, the Shin Bet said only that all PA activity in Jerusalem was illegal. Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community. It considers the entire city its capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state. The PA has a minister for Jerusalem affairs and a Jerusalem governor located in Al-Ram, with Palestinian Authority activities barred in Jerusalem itself. Israeli media reported that the investigation follows the PA's arrest of a man last month accused of selling property in east Jerusalem to a Jewish buyer. Such sales are highly controversial among Palestinians concerned with Israeli settlers buying property in east Jerusalem. But among Israelis, there have been calls for authorities to free the man arrested by the PA over the sale. Neither the PA nor Israeli authorities commented on the alleged arrest of the property seller, who Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported was a Palestinian with US citizenship. Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a memorial event for her fiance at the Insitution of Mechanical Engineers in London: John Stillwell/PA The fiance of Jamal Khashoggi has launched a scathing attack on the US government over its handling of her partners killing by Saudi Arabian officials, branding the Trump administration devoid of moral foundation. Hatice Cengiz, in a column for the Washington Post, called on the international community to bring her partners killers to justice and to find his missing body, which Turkish authorities say was dissolved in acid. Ms Cengizs op-ed was published exactly a month after Mr Khashoggi failed to reappear from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. Turkey alleges he was murdered by a hit squad authorised by the highest levels of the Saudi government. Istanbul's chief prosecutor announced on Wednesday that Mr Khashoggi was strangled immediately after he entered, before his body was dismembered and removed from the consulate. The Saudi government initially insisted Khashoggi had left the consulate, later saying he died in an unplanned "rogue operation". Last week, the kingdom's public prosecutor, Saud Al Mojeb, said the attack was premeditated. It is now up to the international community to bring the perpetrators to justice, Ms Cengiz wrote. Of all nations, the United States should be leading the way. The country was founded on the ideals of liberty and justice for all, the First Amendment enshrining the ideals personified by Jamal. But the Trump administration has taken a position that is devoid of moral foundation. Some have approached this through the cynical prism of self-interest statements framed by fear and cowardice; by the fear of upsetting deals or economic ties. Some in Washington are hoping this matter will be forgotten with simple delaying tactics. But we will continue to push the Trump administration to help find justice for Jamal. There will be no cover-up. Donald Trump has condemned the killing, but has also defended US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which is the biggest foreign customer for American weaponry. Story continues He has also provided mixed messages about Saudi Arabias culpability over the murder, initially appearing to accept the royal familys denials before describing the countrys handling of the case as the worst cover-up in the history of cover-ups. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 suspects, including 15 members of the alleged Saudi hit squad sent to kill Mr Khashoggi, who lived in exile in the US and had written critically of Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Some of those implicated are close to the prince, whose condemnation of the killing has failed to ease suspicions he was involved. In a video message to a memorial in Washington for the murdered journalist, Ms Cengiz urged Mr Trump to support Turkeys request for Saudi Arabia to extradite those it has detained in connection with the killing. "I would like him to support Turkey's efforts in trying to bring light to this situation and to discover the whereabouts of his body," Ms Cengiz said, adding: "Our pain is still as fresh as the first day." On Thursday, US state department spokesman Robert Palladino told reporters Mr Khashoggi's remains should be located and returned for a proper burial. Additional reporting by agencies KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Vice President Mike Pence rallied several hundred fellow Republican conservatives Friday in hopes of pushing Senate candidate Josh Hawley in Missouri and governor candidate Kris Kobach in Kansas to narrow victories in states that President Donald Trump won handily two years ago. Pence and other speakers highlighted low national unemployment and said the United States is stronger economically and militarily under Trump's leadership, as several others suggested that a Democrat-controlled Congress would seek to impeach Trump. They also portrayed Democrats as unwilling to fight illegal immigration, with Kobach saying that Democrats suffered from "open borders psychosis." The rally came on the day the U.S. government released figures for October showing strong job growth, higher wages and low unemployment. Hawley, the Missouri attorney general, has wedded himself to Trump and the president's agenda in trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of the nation's most vulnerable Senate incumbents this year. Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, is Trump's closest ally in his state and is in toss-up race with veteran Democratic state Sen. Laura Kelly. The rally at a Kansas City, Missouri arena was sponsored by the American Conservative Union and the Family Research Council. It also was designed to boost congressional candidates, especially in Kansas, where Democrats hope to oust Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder in the Kansas City-area and flip another seat in eastern Kansas held by retiring Rep. Lynn Jenkins. "You look around this country and you can just feel it, can't you? Confidence is back. Jobs are coming back. In a word: America is back," Pence said. Later, he added, "Really, it's a choice between resistance and results, and just like two years ago, we need Missouri and Kansas to vote for results." Touching on an issue that fires up conservatives, Hawley and other speakers criticized McCaskill for voting against the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. His confirmation was nearly derailed when California college professor Christine Blasey Ford alleged that Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were both teenagers, which he strongly denied. Story continues Hawley called McCaskill "part of the smear campaign" against Kavanaugh, though the Missouri senator does not serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee and cited reasons other than Blasey Ford's allegations in voting against him. The issue resonates with Shauna Hasek, a 40-year-old social worker and Republican whose husband is the mayor of Harrisonville, Missouri. She wore elephant earrings and a shirt with a quote attributed to Ronald Reagan: "Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid." Laughing, she said, "So I should say, Claire is powerless if Josh is not afraid." She called McCaskill's vote against Kavanaugh "a big deal" as she waited in line to get into the arena. "As a woman, yes, I support women and their movement, if something really did happen to them, but you also, again, have to have evidence," Hasek said. Immigration also was on the minds of rally participants. The crowd chanted "Build the Wall!" at one point in reference to Trump's proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Kobach has built a national profile as an advocate of tough immigration laws, has advised Trump's campaign and the White House on homeland security issues and has made enacting state policies against illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaign for governor. He drew noticeably louder applause and cheers at the rally than Hawley. "The Democrats, I've said, are in the third stage of open borders psychosis," Kobach said. "They're not content to cheer for the illegal aliens already here. They're cheering for more illegal aliens to come into the country." Kelly has said combatting illegal immigration requires comprehensive legislation from Congress and contends Kobach's policies would hurt the state's agricultural economy, particularly in western Kansas. But Kobach has ramped up his focus on immigration at the end of his campaign, expressing his concern about a caravan of several thousand migrants moving slowly through Mexico. So has Trump, and in his rally speech, Pence called the caravan "nothing more than an assault on our country" and suggested that it had been organized by "leftist groups" in Central America, as well as human traffickers. The rally opened with prayers in remembrance of the 11 people gunned down at a Pittsburgh synagogue last week, the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Pence called the attack "unspeakable," adding, "It was evil." ___ Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna . BEIJING (AP) Authorities in China say at least 14 people have been killed and 27 injured in a highway pile-up. The accident Saturday night happened after a heavy truck lost control and crashed into a line of vehicles waiting at a toll station in the northwestern province of Gansu. Last week, 15 people were killed after a bus to plunged off a high bridge into China's Yangtze River in the western city of Chongqing. In that previous crash, an eight-second surveillance video released by police showed the driver and a passenger arguing and grappling with each other in the moments before the bus suddenly veered across oncoming traffic and off the bridge. LTL Attorneys has hired Vincent Pollmeier, a former rocket scientist at NASA who spent roughly 14 years at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, as a partner in Los Angeles. Pollmeier joins LTL, formerly known as Lee Tran & Liang, from Karish & Bjorgum, an intellectual property boutique in Pasadena, California, which he joined nearly three years ago after leaving Quinn Emanuel. For me personally, Quinn Emanuel had become larger and bigger than I ideally was looking for, so I wanted someplace smaller and went to Karish & Bjorgum, Pollmeier said. Karish & Bjorgum is a great firm, but I realized that after being there for a couple of years that I need someplace more focused on litigation. Pollmeier said he found LTL to be a good fit because of the firms size and focus on complex litigation. According to the LTLs website, the minority-owned firm has 18 lawyers working on commercial litigation, employment defense and intellectual property matters. (In October, Boies Schiller Flexner hired LTL co-founder K. Luan Tran as a partner.) LTL focuses on a broad range of business litigation, said Pollmeier, adding that he was drawn to the firms emphasis in using the latest technology to make legal services more efficient. As you can tell from my resume, one thing I dont like to do is do the same thing over and over again. Vincent Pollmeier Before shifting career gears into the legal world, Pollmeier was an aerospace engineer at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for nearly a dozen years. Despite the prominent position as a principal system engineer at the world-renowned facility, Pollmeier said he always harbored dreams of becoming a lawyer. By the mid-90s, I was managing a research and development program for the space network, and I was finding myself having to deal with a lot of IP, contracting and other issues, he explained. So I became interested in a lot of legal issues. In 1996, while still working full-time at NASA, Pollmeier started attending Loyola Law School in Los Angles in the evenings. Upon earning his law degree, Pollmeier began working as an associate at Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear. After about two years, he left the IP-focused firm to join Quinn Emanuel, where he was named the latter's chief technology counsel in 2009. Litigation isnt rocket science, its more difficult than that, Pollmeier said. As a lawyer, Pollmeier has focused his practice on representing both plaintiffs and defendants in disputes involving a myriad of technological sectors, such as aerospace, communications, computers and electronics. He has handled breach of contract, government investigations, insurance, patent infringement and white-collar defense matters. Vincents experience with patent and technology litigation will be a boon to our IP practice and to our technology clients. His deep knowledge of technical materials and systems, gained via his education and experiences at NASA, allows him to explain these complex concepts clearly to courts and juries, said a statement from LTL Attorneys managing partner David Ammons, who joined the firm in 2016. Vincents addition, along with a steady influx of associates in recent months, supplements our existing team of talented attorneys and allows us to continue to advance our results-driven, client-first mission. Donald Trumps former attorney is relating shocking racist and disparaging comments he says the president made about black people. Michael Cohen tells Vanity Fair that the presidents recent tirades have compelled him to reveal details from his tenure at the Trump Organization that he says show Trumps real character. Cohen says he once remarked to Trump that the crowd at a presidential campaign rally was overwhelmingly Caucasian and that Trump responded, Thats because black people are too stupid to vote for me. He also claims that after the death of South African leader Nelson Mandela, Trump challenged him to name one country run by a black person thats not a shithole, before adding, Name one city. But one of the most shocking allegations involved the first season of The Apprentice, which came down to two male contestants: eventual winner Bill Rancic and Kwame Jackson, an African-American investment manager who had graduated from Harvard Business School. He said, Theres no way I can let this black f-g win, Cohen is quoted as saying in Vanity Fair. Jackson confirmed he had heard that Trump made comments like that but replied to the magazine with a reference to Black Panther: My response to President Trump is simple and Wakandan. Not today, colonizer! Cohen says he wishes he had been a bigger person and quit the Trump Organization but says he forgave his boss and figured hed grow into the presidency, something he now says hasnt happened. Cohen pleaded guilty in August to illegally interfering in the 2016 election at Trumps direction. He admitted to eight criminal charges: five counts of tax evasion, two counts related to an illegal campaign contribution and one count of making a false statement. Also on HuffPost A black protester at Trump's rally today in Alabama was shoved, tackled, punched & kicked: https://t.co/Aq0wuaAtax pic.twitter.com/cTRDMtjuBl Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) November 21, 2015 Immigration activists disrupt Trump rally. He gamely continues, but crowd raged. One spit on protestors @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/82T2s845Eu Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) October 14, 2015 Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Hencer Naun Manchame Garcia and his eight-year-old son arrive at the Greyhound bus station in San Antonio holding a sign: Please help me. I do not speak English. What bus do I take? Thank you for your help. They are refugees from Honduras. Their boots are worn and tattered. The little boy, who appears emaciated, is sick with a cough. It was a very difficult trip, Mr Garcia tells The Independent of his month-long journey to the US-Mexico border, where he and his son legally applied for asylum before being bussed to San Antonio with more than 20 other migrant families. We spent many days without any food, starving. It was hard to keep my son calm during some of the hard times. But we had to keep walking. Within minutes of their arrival, the two are escorted to a corner of the crowded bus station, where dozens of migrant families are waiting in limbo. Fortunately, theyre not alone. If it werent for humanitarian volunteers like Mariela Jasso, who awaits arrivals like these on a daily basis, migrant families would be left at the station without a clue of how to get to their next destination, or what steps they need to take in order to receive asylum. The young volunteers eyes dart across the station as we speak. Shes scoping out possible migrants who are lost and confused. Migrants like Hencer and his son. These are the people coming here legally, but people dont see them like that, she says. We want to make sure we provide them a pathway to success, rather than leaving them stranded at a bus stop with no direction. Ms Jasso is the post release specialist for RAICES, a Texas-based immigrants rights group that has found itself at the heart of a battle against Donald Trumps hardline immigration policies. Along with the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, RAICES has a constant presence at the San Antonio bus station, providing migrant families backpacks that contain food and water, as well as legal resources and an itinerary for their travels. Story continues A nun provides Mr Garcias son with cough syrup while the father tells Ms Jasso hes headed to Kansas to be with family. As she explains what buses he needs to take in order to complete the final leg of his trek, Mr Garcia notices another father opening up a backpack for his own son. The two men smile at each other. Its a scene that occurs on a daily basis: migrant families arriving at the station after embarking on trips that average three days and in some cases extend for months. RAICES says its committed to helping these asylum seekers because, despite the presidents claims about criminals in a migrant caravan heading towards the border, the vast majority of people they see arriving to the United States each day are not gang members or rapists. Instead, they are folks who have made the most difficult decision of their lives, typically with a common reason in mind: providing a better life for their children. But the next generation isnt just one of the main causes for family migration to the United States. In order for the US to overhaul its immigration laws and provide a safe alternative for Latin American refugees, RAICES believes the movement must also be led and shaped by the youth. The group has existed for decades, and yet it only became known nationally under Mr Trump. Dave and Charlotte Willner, a California couple, launched a public fundraising campaign on Facebook titled Reunite an immigrant parent with their child, shortly after the White House administration implemented a zero tolerance policy in May, which began the systematic separation of families legally seeking asylum at ports of entry along the border. The campaign went viral, raising $4,000 a minute and surpassing its goal of $20m in under a month. All of that money has since gone directly to RAICES, which has used the donations entirely for family separations, paying bonds for migrants and ensuring family members can be swiftly reunited once released. It also raised awareness about the work being done by activists along the border, causing a surge in volunteers offering their time and assistance. Before the zero tolerance policy was announced earlier this year, RAICES had nearly a thousand volunteers mainly based in Texas. By November, the group has swelled to over 9,000 volunteers nationwide. Armed with national recognition, bankrolled by the anti-Trump resistance and flooded with an ever-increasing team of volunteers, RAICES is now beginning its next phase: influencing US immigration policy with the help of young immigrants and activists across the country. The RAICES headquarters are located just a few minutes away from the bus station, in an old, Victorian-styled house that served as a former orphanage. The interior decor includes old couches, plastic chairs and vintage artwork, along with stickers on the wall reading: Families belong together. The majority of folks coming in and out of the building are in their early 20s, along with Geovanie Ordonez, the manager of volunteers for RAICES. She tells The Independent that the groups leadership has convened on several occasions in recent weeks to focus on youth engagement surrounding the issue of immigration reform. It cant just be the older generation that fixes this issue, she says. It has to be a collective of the youth; of people who are just registering to vote for the first time and being more politically active. Their plan is multi-faceted and targets a range of younger demographics, including children. The day we spoke, Ms Ordonez was preparing to head out for a RAICES-sponsored donation drive with 90 local sixth graders (11-12-year-olds). The organisation hopes to teach local youth in the rather conservative region about the importance of activism and immigrants rights. We want them not to just collect items, but to understand why theyre collecting these items and why it is they need to be aware of immigration, Ms Ordonez says. RAICES is also expanding its presence on college campuses nationwide, working with local student groups to throw fundraisers and awareness events that ultimately benefit immigrants attending university. We thought that instead of having them come in and reorganise our donation room or print papers, lets have them do something on their own campuses and have all that money go back to their campus community, Ms Ordonez continues. For example, we have a student group right now that is working on doing a fundraiser for [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival] recipients. That money they come up with will go directly to DACA recipients at that university who may need assistance paying the application fee, which is over $400. She adds, Its about doing the most we can to have an immediate impact on young immigrants, while providing a new, long-term perspective to other students about what it means to be a DACA recipient or immigrant in this country. RAICES is also considering ways to engage with and speak to young conservatives, attempting to reach across the aisle for folks who may be willing to have their opinions changed on immigration. One of those ideas includes hosting community conversations on campuses throughout the US to bring liberal and conservative perspectives together, while RAICES facilitates the conversation. Its a method youth activism groups have found success with in recent years, including student survivors of the Parkland massacre, who launched the March For Our Lives group to combat gun violence and have since embarked on a nationwide college campus tour. Were beginning to see a spectrum of youth; not just youth who have been impacted by immigration, but youth who are second generation, youth whose parents may have been immigrants; youth who wants to bring about change, Ms Ordonez says. The current administration has really fired up a lot of young people who are starting to become more aware of whats going on. More than one-third of the seats in the US Senate are at stake on November 6, as the country heads to the polls for the 2018 midterm elections. Republicans want to hold onto their majority in the Senate and maybe add to their ranks. Claire McCaskill is a senator from Missouri, who is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats this year. Warning: Contains spoilers for the movie Peterloo On a warm day in August of 1819, 60,000 English people descended on St. Peters Fields, a town square in the northern city of Manchester, to demand a voice in parliament. At the time, only two percent of people in Britain had the vote, and the governing classes were overseeing ever-more-desperate living conditions. The industrial revolution had driven down wages and a 12-year-long war against Napoleon had hobbled the British economy, leading to mass lay-offs. To make matters worse, restrictions on imported grain, designed to protect British producers, had the consequence of making food extremely expensive. Local authorities had learned of the demonstration in advance and decided to shut it down. They did so with violence, sending the yeomanry an armed team of voluntary cavalrymen into the square. Fifteen civilians died and hundreds more were injured, making it at that point the bloodiest political clash in Britains modern history. The bloodshed was dubbed the Peterloo Massacre and it became a defining moment for the countrys working-class reformers. It galvanized a movement for voting rights, which were gradually extended after 1832, and inspired cotton merchant John Edward Taylor to start the Manchester Guardian newspaper (now, The Guardian) in 1821. A new movie from filmmaker Mike Leigh, out Friday in the U.K., takes on the story of the Peterloo Massacre but how much does the movie stick to the complicated history? Heres what to know: Was Henry Hunt a real person? Yes. Much of Leighs film hinges on a group of reformers in Manchester trying to persuade famed orator Henry Hunt to address their protest. Played by Rory Kinnear as a brilliant but conceited jerk, Hunt was indeed at St. Peters Fields; Britains National Archives still hold the letter inviting him to speak. Hunt wasnt hurt in the massacre, but the white top hat he wore on the day was skewered by a sword and became a symbol for the reform movement. Story continues After a spell in prison for his radical views, he became a member of the British parliament. His political agitation helped usher in the Reform Act of 1832, which expanded voting rights to 18% of Britons. Ironically, he was then voted out of office. Did someone really throw a potato at the Prince Regent? Possibly. Leigh depicts a disgruntled old man taking a potato from his wifes basket and lobbing it at the elegant carriage of George IV, who was at the time Prince Regent, due to the illness of his father King George III. When news of the attack breaks in parliament, Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth uses it as an excuse to suspend civil liberties and repress political meetings. That chain of events did happen but in real life, the Prince Regent was hit two years before the events of Peterloo. And historians are pretty sure the projectile was a rock or a bullet, not a potato. Did the yeomanry really get drunk before shutting down the protest? We dont know. Rumors handed down over generations claim that the yeomanry, put on standby ahead of the protest, had hung out in taverns getting riled up to take on the protesters. Hunt later referred to drunken, infuriated yeomanry at his trial. But there is no hard evidence for the claim. Did one yeoman really speak up for the people? We think so. Historians quote a resident who said he heard a yeoman shout For shame! For shame, gentlemen! What are you about? The people cannot get away! Did a baby really get trampled by a horse? Sadly, yes. The youngest victim in the massacre was 2-year-old William Fildes. His mother was carrying him across a road when a yeoman struck her and William fell into the horses path. Authorities later blamed his mother. A pregnant woman, Mary Heyes, died in the same way. Did journalists really make up the name Peterloo right after the massacre? Yes. Local journalist and political radical James Wroe, editor of the Manchester Observer at the time, coined the name as a pun combining the location of the event (St. Peters Fields) and Waterloo, the battle against Napoleon that the British government was fiercely proud of winning just a few years earlier. In the film Leigh shows two journalists putting the name together as they wander St. Peters Fields on the evening of the massacre, but in reality Wroe published the name in a series of pamphlets, the first coming out a week and a half after the demonstration. They were called Peterloo Massacre: A Faithful Narrative of the Events. He was later arrested for promoting sedition. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel was due in Pyongyang on Sunday, North Korea's state media reported, describing the visit as a "historic event" highlighting the "invincible friendship" of the two allies. The visit comes amid stalled talks between North Korea and the United States and only days after Washington imposed fresh economic restrictions on Cuba. Washington's ties with Havana were fully restored in 2015 after more than half a century of enmity, but have deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office. Communist Cuba is one of North Korea's few remaining allies. "The Korean people warmly welcome the visit to Pyongyang by Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez," said an editorial carried by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper. "His current visit... is a historic event which powerfully demonstrates invincible friendship and unity and comradely friendship," it added. The paper featured a separate profile and photo of Diaz-Canel, who took office in April in a historic transition of power on the Caribbean island, succeeding Raul Castro, who took over from his elder brother Fidel, father of the 1959 revolution. No further details were given on the itinerary of his visit. Fidel Castro visited North Korea in 1986 to meet founder-leader Kim Il-Sung, and Pyongyang held three days of official mourning when Castro died in November 2016. North Korea sent a delegation led by Choe Ryong-Hae, a senior aide to its leader Kim Jong Un, to Havana for Castro's funeral. Cuba in the past has flouted international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme. In 2013 Panama seized a North Korean ship carrying an undeclared Cuban arms shipment of Soviet-era weapons and fighter jets hidden under sacks of sugar. North Korea insisted the weapons were being shipped for repair, prior to their return. Fighting with Trump with what he hates most women, weed and democracy Michigan finally has a ballot we deserve and Michiganders are rushing to vote, possibly at record numbers. To be fair, Florida probably has the best ballot in the nation, in a year that offers so many fine choices in contrast to so many terrible alternatives. And Floridas ballot isnt stellar just because Andrew Gillum, a proven progressive who cares about the changing climate that threatens his states survival, could become the states first black governor. With 60 percent voter support of one ballot measure Amendment 4 Floridians can approve the biggest increase of new voters since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Overturning this Klan-era restriction on people with felony records and restoring voting rights to 1.4 million Americans wouldnt be an unabashed rebuke to a racist president cheers on voting suppression. It would signal a new era in the nations most important swing state a state where the modern era of voter suppression began after cronies of Governor Jeb Bush help steal the state for his brother George W., with the help of the Supreme Court. At just 537 votes or 0.009%, the margin of victory in Florida in 2000 was the closest for any state in presidential election history (and dont forget that 22 times that number of Florida voters were improperly purged from the roles by state Republicans). But heres why Michigan is a close second to Florida. Trumps 2016 10,704-vote or 0.23% win in Michigan may be the second narrowest win in modern presidential history. While Floridians took almost two decades to fight back against Republicans assaults on democracy with even more democracy, the Mitten through a variety of separate but like-minded efforts has come together to avenge one most shameful days in our history in less than two years. The idea that Republican efforts to subvert the truth and public need to be countered with reforms that expand and enhance the power of voting is at the core of Greg Sargents great new book An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics. A pair of the key solutions he suggests are on the ballot on November 6. And if these proposals win, Michigan not only has a chance to mostly keep the Trumps out of our state in 2020 but to take this state back from the DeVoses and other rich conservatives whose rotting polices would never survive democracy that actually works for the people and not the donors. 1. Expanding democracy and ballot access. Sargent talked to us on the GOTMFV show about how automatic voter registration isnt just a key reform because registration deadlines are fundamentally and unnecessarily suppressive. It also frees up campaigns to do what campaigns should do activate and persuade voters. Proposal 3 in Michigan institute automatic registration, same-day voter registration an absentee ballot for any voter who wants one. Necessary reforms in the state with the 6th highest cost of voting in the nation. 2. Stopping politicians from picking their voters. Proposal 2 creates an independent gerrymandering commission as Sargent recommends in a state Republicans gerrymandered for their pleasure and electoral dominance despite a 50/50 voter turnout at best. And watching this entire process from signatures to likely victory has been one of the most reassuring civic events Ive witnesses in my lifetime. Volunteer support is everywhere and the billionaire-led opposition is comical. As Chris notes, Gerrymandering isnt just unfair, it is anathema to democracy and harmful to our country. You cant have a representative democracy when your representatives know their districts have been designed so their re-election doesnt depend on their representation. 3. Women leading the charge. Michigan Democrats have fielded, by happy accident, a ticket that is all-women with the welcome exceptions of Garlin Gilchrist, nominee for Litenaunuet Governor, and Sam Bagenstos, an extraordinarily qualified or given our current court overqualified candidate for Michigan Supreme Court. This is a record year for women who have outvoted men since the 1960s and just the appearance of a Democratic woman on the ballot is often seen as a rebuke to Trump, who bragged about his penchant for sexual assault. If there is a pink wave, as our Susan J. Demas named it, it will crest in Michigan. 4. Taking our back the Supreme Court. A Republican-controlled Michigan Supreme Court is the GOPs ace in the hole. It can overturn the actions of a Democratic Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General, as well as block access to the ballot for proposals and undermine proposals which the voters adopt, former Michigan Democratic Party Chair and badass progressive attorney Mark Brewer told us. Republicans have controlled our court for decades. And workers and the environment have paid. We need to elect Megan K. Cavanaugh and Sam Bagenstos because without them on our Supreme Court to apply justice, all our victories could be meaningless. 5. Filling potholes with pot. Its an idea whose time as come in 1977. Thats when John Sinclair, a Michigander sentenced to ten years for selling two joints in 1969, expected pot to be legal. Though it will still be federally banned, Michiganders will have a chance to sell marijuana if Proposal 1 passes. Our schools, cities and roads will benefit. And most importantly we can reduce or eliminate 20,000-cannabis related arrests a year and let these people live productive lives while the authorities focus on preventing violence. Former President Barack Obama spoke out Friday against President Donald Trumps continued claims that he can end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents who arent citizens. A president doesnt get to decide on his own whos an American citizen and whos not, Obama told a crowd in Florida while stumping for two Democratic candidates there: Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee who is running for governor, and Sen. Bill Nelson, who is seeking a fourth term. Thats not how the Constitution of the United States works, added Obama, who once taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Thats not how the Bill of Rights works. Thats not how our democracy works. Obama is the latest person to strike down Trumps repeated claims that he can end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined under the 14th Amendment. The Constitution does not I say that to the media does not require it. Read it. Because illegal aliens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, Trump insisted Wednesday at a rally in Florida, doubling down on comments he made to Axios earlier in the week. We will keep the criminals, the drug dealers, we will keep them all out of our country, he added. We will get rid of all of this. We will end finally birthright citizenship. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has also challenged Trumps claims, telling Kentuckys WVLK radio station on Tuesday that the president obviously cannot do that. You know, as a conservative, Im a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, Ryan said, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process. Related Coverage Paul Ryan Rejects Trump's Claim He Can End Birthright Citizenship This Little-Known Case Is Why Trump Can't Easily End Birthright Citizenship Trump Doubles Down On Vow To End 'Crazy' Birthright Citizenship Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. MIDDLETON, Idaho (AP) Idaho school district officials are apologizing after several teachers and staffers at an elementary school donned offensive Halloween costumes, one group in caricatured outfits depicting Mexican people and another group dressed as a border wall emblazoned with "Make America Great Again." The Middleton School District Administration is investigating after learning of the costumes, which were worn during class. Photos were posted to the district's Facebook page Thursday night. The photos were later removed, though not before some had captured screenshots . Superintendent Josh Middleton said in a Facebook live video Friday morning that he was alerted to the issue by a parent who called to express concern. He apologized on behalf of the district and said he was deeply troubled that employees made the decision to wear what he called "clearly insensitive and inappropriate" costumes. "On behalf of the Middleton School District, I share sincerest apologies for these insensitive actions and offending our families and patrons," he said. "Again, we are better than this." Middleton also said he didn't think the staffers donned the costumes maliciously, but reiterated that it was "poor judgment." One of the photos showed a group of adults wearing brightly colored ponchos, sombreros and fake mustaches while holding maracas. Another photo showed adults holding a cardboard cutout of a wall, wearing various Americana symbols including one person in an eagle costume and another dressed like the statue of liberty. Elizabeth Almanza, a member of a group called PODER that advocates for undocumented people and immigrants, said she hopes the district takes action and doesn't just acknowledge the issue on social media. "ALL children should have the right to a learning environment that celebrates all backgrounds," Almanza wrote in a Facebook post. "Imagine how some of the students felt when they walked into their classrooms on Halloween and saw their teachers (people they look up to) dressed like this? This is NOT funny. This is heartbreaking. Students deserve better." Middleton is about 34 miles (55 kilometers) west of Boise, with 7,500 residents. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, nearly 10 percent of Middleton's population are Hispanic, and the school district offers a migrant education program. Aviva Lubowski does not usually attend weekly Shabbat services at her local synagogue in Pittsburgh. But one week after 11 people were killed at the Tree of Life temple, the mother to two young girls felt she had to seek community and show her daughters that they can still pray without fear. Theres no way I wouldnt be here, says Lubowski, a lifelong resident of Squirrel Hill, the Pittsburgh neighborhood where the shooting occurred. It is home to at least half the citys Jewish population. We live in a country where we have the freedom to go to shul, to pray, to be who we are. Sadly, there was a man who hated us for this. But despite him, we still have this right. Lubowski, who went with her family to services at the Beth Shalom Congregation on Saturday, was one of hundreds around Pittsburgh who attended the first Shabbat services offered over the weekend since the shooting one week ago. Eleven people died and six were injured after Robert Bowers, fueled by hateful anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, allegedly opened fire at Tree of Life. He has been indicted on 44 counts, including hate crimes. This week, with Tree of Life still cordoned off by police, Beth Shalom hosted congregation members affected in shooting, and offered them a chance to participate in Saturdays services. Beth Shalom saw more worshippers than the temple would typically see on a regular Saturday, including those from the Tree of Life congregation and people of all different faiths. To Gary Friedman, a Beth Shalom congregant and Squirrel Hill resident, the sight of a full synagogue on Saturday gives him hope that more people will continue to show up in the coming weeks. He says that as the older Jewish population dies or relocates to warmer climates, the temples tend to stay empty; younger people, he says, dont rely on the synagogue as much for a sense of community. Still, hes heartened by seeing the high Shabbat turnout. It was important for us to heal, Friedman says. I wonder how long the momentum will go so that people will feel compelled to come to services. Story continues A Shabbat morning service led by a former Rabbi at Tree of Life Synagogue. Rabbi Chuck Diamond is held outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Nov. 3, 2018, a week after 11 people were killed and six wound when their worship was interrupted by a gunman's bullets on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018 Seats were also full Friday night at Rodef Shalom Congregation where the entire community, Jewish or not, was invited to reflect following a week of mourning in the city. Local officials, including Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, were present. So was the leader of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, Wasi Mohamed, who received a standing ovation before he even addressed the congregation after he helped raise more than $200,000 in the wake of the shooting. Joanne Rogers, the widow of beloved childrens television icon Fred Rogers, who made his home in Squirrel Hill, attended the Friday night service and spoke at Rodef Shalom. I have had trouble dealing with the fact that this happened, but I dont want to give credit to the fact that it happened, she said, adding: The most important thing is the love and the care that came out of that from the people here. The desire to extend interfaith support to the Jewish community brought Margaret Campbell, a Squirrel Hill resident who attends the Catholic St. John Fisher Church, to the temple on Saturday. The community will be stronger as a result of this atrocity, says Campbell, sharing that her church choir last week sang Shalom, which means peace, as a show of unity. Its that community strength that Pittsburgh residents will rely on in the coming weeks as the city moves forward and tries to heal from the tragedy. Politicians in the area plan to stay involved with their constituents and help them recover, according to Erika Strassburger, a council member for Pittsburghs 8th district, where Tree of Life is located. Strassburger says she plans to attend Shabbat services and potluck dinners throughout the Jewish community in the coming days and work with local groups and businesses to mobilize against hate crimes and hate speech. Its going to be months, possibly years, of recovery mentally if not physically, Strassburger says. My focus is on those who are most directly affected, which includes rabbis and the congregants who knew these people really well as pillars of the community. Local organizations have also come up with events to help the city move forward in the shootings aftermath. The Pittsburgh chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America organized a workshop Saturday to inform people about the causes of white nationalism and teach them how to fight against it. Organizers with the progressive Jewish movement Bend the Arc, which this week protested President Donald Trump visiting Pittsburgh, will continue to collaborate with other organizations in the city to mobilize against white supremacists as well, says Josh Friedman, one of Bend the Arcs leaders. Before the attack, Bend the Arc frequently led protests in the city against matters such as children being separated from their parents at U.S.-Mexico border, trained people to intervene when they witness harassment and fought for rights for immigrants and refugees. Following the attack, members resolve has only strengthened. Why would we stop? Friedman asks. These are our people. Others are banding together over food. Michal Schachter, who lost a friend in the shooting and lives in Squirrel Hill, says she plans to distribute challah bread to the families of the victims. A kindergarten teacher at the local Community Day School, Schachter says she will also facilitate memorial services so the children understand the impact of incident. Were going to bake challah and were going to spread them between the shiva houses, Schachter says. This is one thing. Its so fresh, but slowly, slowly we are going to start to do things. CB Chernomorets, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh who lives in a Jewish communal home in Squirrel Hill called Moishe House, said people have been coming in and out all week just to seek friends or a bite to eat. Ive flipped more grilled cheeses and made more pots of soup in the last three days than ever before, Chernomorets says. Weve been feeding everyone. Thats what Jews do best in times of trauma. DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar named new heads to its giant state-run energy firm and deep-pocketed sovereign wealth fund on Sunday while appointing the CEO of its largest bank as its new trade minister. It was the first government shuffle in Qatar, the world's top liquefied natural gas producer, since early 2016, but diplomats and analysts said the changes did not represent a significant shift in power. The wealthy country has been subject to a diplomatic and economic boycott by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt since June 2017. They accuse Qatar of backing terrorism and cozying up to Iran. Doha denies the charges and says the boycott aims to impinge on its sovereignty. Qatar's ruler issued decrees outlining changes to the boards of state gas giant Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the world's ninth largest sovereign wealth fund with about $300 billion in assets. Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was named chairman of QIA, which injected billions of dollars into Qatari banks last year to offset foreign outflows just after the Arab boycott began. Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani, the 30-year-old deputy and brother of the emir, was named chairman of Qatar Petroleum, which expects to ramp up gas production by some 43 percent over the next five to six years. Though limited, the cabinet shuffle pulled in business heavyweights like Qatar National Bank (QNB) CEO Ali Ahmed al-Kuwari, who was appointed to a new portfolio combining commerce and industry under one ministry. Saad al-Kaabi, the chief executive of QP, was named minister of state for energy affairs. New ministers were appointed to head the departments of justice, of labor and social affairs, and of municipality and environment. Western diplomats and analysts did not see the shake-up as indicative of a shift in policy nearly 18 months since the start of the regional rift, which Qatar has weathered with new trade routes and higher oil prices that have helped it swing to a budgetary surplus this year. "The cabinet shuffle was expected to come earlier, but was apparently on hold as the country dealt with the blockade and now as the ramifications have been successfully dealt with, it was time," said Majed al-Ansari, an analyst and professor of political sociology at Qatar University. "It does not signal a change in policy or power shift in the government," he said. It was not clear whether Kuwari would retain his post at QNB, the Middle East's largest lender by assets. The bank, which is 50 percent owned by the country's sovereign wealth fund, did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. QP's Al-Kaabi, a U.S.-educated engineer, rose through the ranks to become chief executive in 2014 and also sits on the board of the Qatar Investment Authority. He has gained a reputation among executives of the world's energy majors, such as Exxon , Shell and Total , as a reliable counterpart for energy projects that have made the tiny nation of 2.6 million people the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Abdulla Abdulaziz Al Subaie was appointed minister of municipality and environment, a post seen as key to preparations for the country's 2022 World Cup. Subaie has served as managing director and CEO of Qatar Rail, which expects to launch Doha's first metro line this year. A separate decree on Sunday appointed Mohammed Bin Hamad Al-Thani chairman of the Qatar Financial Markets Authority as part of a shuffle of its board of directors. (Reporting by Eric Knecht in Doha and Rania El Gamal, Asma Alsharif, and Tom Arnold in Dubai; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Adrian Croft) President Donald Trump holds a An automated call to voters by a white supremacist group has highlighted the increasingly bitter rhetoric in the US midterms as the campaign enters its final stages. Voters in Georgia were targeted with the message that impersonated Oprah Winfrey, a prominent supporter of Stacey Abrams, who is running to become the first black female governor in the US. It compared the Democratic candidate to "a poor man's Aunt Jemima" who "white women can be tricked into voting for, especially the fat ones," and mocked Ms Winfrey as a "magical negro". Aunt Jemima refers to a brand of US pancake mix that became linked to southern plantation racism. The message was reportedly funded by TheRoadToPower.com, a video streaming site that has been described as white supremacist by campaign groups. It is unclear how many people received the automated call, but the run-up to Tuesday's vote has been marred by aggression. A series of pipebombs was last month sent to prominent critics of US president Donald Trump - including Bill and Hillary Clinton - and a massacre in a synagogue in Pennsylvania left 11 dead, for which a white supremacist was arrested and charged. Oprah Winfrey takes part in a town hall meeting with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams Credit: REUTERS/Chris Aluka Berry The outrage over the racist phone message came as Mr Trump campaigned in Georgia as part of his whirlwind tour of the US. He has visited 20 states since the start of October in an attempt to shore up support for "at risk" Republicans in key areas. Over the weekend, Mr Trump tweeted "If you want to protect criminal aliens - vote Democrat. If you want to protect law-abiding Americans - vote Republican!" Anti-migrant sentiment has grown during the campaign, with Mr Trump repeatedly targeting a group of Central Americans attempting to reach the US border. The caravan of some 4,000 migrants - made up of people from violence-stricken Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua - was yesterday making its way up through Mexico in the hope of being given asylum in the US. Story continues Mr Trump has ordered US soldiers to the Mexican border in response, with more than 7,000 active duty troops told to deploy to Texas, Arizona and California. Early-voting figures for the midterms, which are widely viewed as a referendum on the Trump presidency, show record-breaking numbers in the tightly fought states of Tennessee, Texas and Florida. In one of the country's most closely watched and divisive races, Ms Abrams is vying to become the country's first African American woman governor. Her opponent, Brian Kemp, the current Secretary of State for Georgia, condemned the call as "absolutely disgusting" and a message of "unbridled hate and unapologetic bigotry." Similarly racist "robocalls" targeted voters in Florida, where black Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum is running for governor. It featured a man speaking in minstrel-style voice as monkeys screeched in the background. Meanwhile Mr Kemp - who holds a slight lead over Ms Abrams - has been accused of orchestrating his own dirty tricks campaign. A total of 53,000 people, around 70 per cent of them black, had their voter registration applications suspended by his office. The voter suspension came about after Georgia's Republican general assembly passed a so-called "exact match" law last year, requiring personal information on applications to perfectly match that held by the state's driving licence authority or social security administration. On Friday, a judge ruled that Mr Kemp must unblock more than 3,000 of those flagged as ineligible to vote, allowing them to cast their ballot if they can bring documentation to the polls that proves their American citizenship. US district judge Eleanor Ross said the requirements raised "grave concerns about the differential treatment inflicted on a group of individuals who are predominantly minorities. "The election scheme here places a severe burden on these individuals," she added. Voter registration rows have featured heavily in other key states. The US Supreme Court upheld a law passed in North Dakota, opposed by Democrats, which requires voters to produce ID showing their current address at polling stations. Democrats said the rule could in particular stop Native Americans from voting, as they often live on reservations and don't have an address. Heidi Heitkamp, the incumbent Democrat US senator from North Dakota, has strong backing from many Native American groups, but is now trailing in polls to her Republican opponent. In Arkansas the state high court backed a law requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls. An Ohio court also backed the state's procedure of purging people from electoral rolls if they do not vote for six years. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Saturday that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had agreed to send a group of senior politicians to peace talks in Moscow, at which a delegation representing the Taliban would be present. Russia in August proposed holding multilateral peace talks in Moscow, and invited 12 countries and the Taliban to attend a summit the following month. But the meeting was postponed after Ghani rejected the invitation on the grounds that talks with the Taliban should be led by the Afghan government. In a statement on Saturday, Russia's foreign ministry said the talks were now confirmed to be held on Nov. 9. "It will be the first time that a delegation from the Taliban's political office in Doha will attend such a high-level international meeting," the foreign ministry said. The ministry has invited several other countries to send representatives, including India, Iran, Pakistan, China and the United States. (Reporting by Polina Ivanova; Editing by Alexander Smith) Stacey Abrams, Georgias Democratic nominee for governor, lashed out against Republican challenger Brian Kemp on Sunday over his offices 11th-hour claim that Democrats had attempted to hack into the states voter registration system. The office of Georgias secretary of state announced Sunday just two days before the midterm elections that it had opened an investigation a day earlier into the Democratic Party of Georgia over an unspecified alleged cyber attack. But Abrams brushed off the probe as Kemps desperate attempt to turn the conversation away from his failures as Georgias secretary of state in the lead up to the gubernatorial election on Tuesday. Ive heard nothing about it, Abrams told CNNs State Of The Union when asked about the investigation. My reaction would be that this is a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people from the fact that two different federal judges found him derelict in his duties and forced him to allow absentee ballots to be counted and those who are being held captive by the exact match system be allowed to vote. She continued: He is desperate to turn the conversation away from his failures, from his refusal to honor his commitments, and from the fact that he is part of a nationwide system of voter suppression that will not work in this election because were going to outwork him, were going to outvote him, and we are going to win. Stacey Abrams on Georgia Secretary of States office opening an investigation into the Democratic party of Georgia for possible alleged cyber crimes: This is a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/CzVrwqTKkB CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) November 4, 2018 Kemps office said Sunday that it had alerted the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation, but did not provide details about the alleged hacking attempt in its press release. Story continues While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes, Candice Broce, Kemps press secretary, said in a statement. We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure. Representatives for both Kemps office and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Democratic Party of Georgia vehemently denied the accusation in a statement on Sunday, calling the probe yet another example of abuse of power by an unethical Secretary of State. To be very clear, Brian Kemps scurrilous claims are 100 percent false, and this so-called investigation was unknown to the Democratic Party of Georgia until a campaign operative in Kemps official office released a statement this morning, Rebecca DeHart, executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a statement. In a subsequent statement, DeHart noted that the Democratic Party of Georgia is concerned about election security, but did not create, discover, or attempt to take advantage of the deeply vulnerable system used by the Secretary of States office. Brian Kemp has a long and well documented history of failing to protect the security of Georgias elections system. In 2016, Kemp was one of the only secretaries of state in the country to refuse help from the Department of Homeland Security to improve election security, leaving Georgians vulnerable to foreign cyber attacks. On two occasions, Kemps office leaked personal information including the social security numbers of six million Georgians, forcing Georgia taxpayers to foot the bill for credit monitoring because Brian Kemps office made Georgians vulnerable to identity theft. ... As Kemp aims to deflect blame for his failures, the questions everyone must be asking is: Why was the system vulnerable in the first place? Why has Brian Kemp still not taken basic steps to secure Georgians personal information? Later Sunday, Kemps office released an additional statement on the probe, contending they opened an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia after receiving information from our legal team about failed efforts to breach the voter registration system. The statement did not address the numerous vulnerabilities within the system as outlined by the Democratic organization. NEW statement from Georgia Secretary of States office about investigation into @GeorgiaDemocrat Party for failed cyberattack. @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/wy2OcKzeQn Aaron Diamant (@AaronDiamantWSB) November 4, 2018 Investigative journalism website WhoWhatWhy reported Sunday that they had received an email and document, sent from the Democratic Party of Georgia to election security experts, that highlights massive vulnerabilities within the states online voter registration system. Cybersecurity experts examined the code used to build My Voter Page, Georgias online voter registration site, and told WhoWhatWhy that they determined data of voters could easily be accessed, changed or even cancelled. Bruce Brown, lawyer for the nonprofit Coalition for Good Governance, told WhoWhatWhy that the security vulnerabilities suggested Kemp had failed in protecting the security of voter information as Georgias secretary of state. That Kemp would turn this around and blame other people for his failures is reflective of his complete failure as Secretary of State, Brown told the outlet. Putting his own political agenda over the security of the election, Kemp is ignoring his responsibility to the people of Georgia. Polls currently show a tight race between Abrams and Kemp. If elected, Abrams would be the first black woman governor in the country. Igor Bobic contributed reporting. This article has been updated to include additional comments from Kemps office. Related... Will Ferrell Seen Knocking On Doors In Georgia While Campaigning For Stacey Abrams Barack Obama Urges People In Georgia To Vote Despite Suppression Efforts Stacey Abrams, Oprah Winfrey Targets Of Racist Robocall Funded By Neo-Nazi Group Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Photo credit: Win McNamee - Getty Images From ELLE After a group of young Americans filed a lawsuit that would force the U.S. Government to take action against climate change, the Trump Administration filed a request for the Supreme Court to halt the lawsuit before it reached trial. But according to the Washington Post, the Supreme Court moved in favor of the activists on Friday night, refusing to block the legal process. Per the WaPo's report, the lawsuit was filed in 2015 by 21 "young people" who argue that their Constitutional right to a clean environment has been violated by the current administration's failure to address climate change. The suit-which sits before a judge in Oregon-was temporarily delayed while the Supreme Court evaluated the U.S. Government's request. It will now proceed, with the next logical step being the Trump Administration's appeal of the decision (which would send the suit to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit). Photo credit: Win McNamee - Getty Images Per the court's three-page-order, the U.S. Government argued that the "suit is based on an assortment of unprecedented legal theories, such as a substantive due process right to certain climate conditions, and an equal protection right to live in the same climate as enjoyed by prior generations." Weve been confident throughout this case that we would get to trial, and I believe we will get to trial, Julia Olson, the attorney for the youth activists told the Washington Post on the night of the Supreme Court's decision. We have overcome everything the government has thrown at us. It is not luck. It is the strength of the case and the strength of the evidence and the strength of the legal arguments we are making. Olson is also the executive director of Our Children's Trust, a youth empowerment group that has been actively protesting outside of the U.S. Supreme Court this past week. According to Olson, the youth activists plan to file a request to Oregon's district court for a a highly anticipated hearing soon. ('You Might Also Like',) (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS) The Supreme Court has refused a Trump administration application to halt an intriguing climate change lawsuit filed by a group of young people against the U.S. government. The suit, filed in 2015 by 21 plaintiffs now ages 11 to 22, argues that the failure of government leaders to battle climate change violates their constitutional right to life, liberty, property and to a stable climate system that will sustain human life. The Trump administration moved for an emergency ruling to block a hearing of the case that had been scheduled to begin Monday in an Oregon federal court. The lawsuit calls on the federal government to devise a plan to phase out fossil fuels and carbon emissions, and to stabilize the Earths climate. The Trump administration argued that the suit was misguided and a radical invasion of the separation of powers because environmental decisions should be left up to political policy. The Supreme Court refused Friday to halt the case. But it said that the government could present arguments against the case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the future. The top courts ruling acknowledged that the suit involves a number of unprecedented legal theories including a due process right to certain climate conditions and an equal protection right to live in the same climate as enjoyed by prior generations. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch said they would have blocked the suit. Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel of the nonprofit Our Childrens Trust, one of the organizations supporting the suit, hailed the ruling. The youth of our nation won an important decision today from the Supreme Court that shows even the most powerful government in the world must follow the rules and process of litigation in our democracy, she said in a statement. Attorneys are already taking steps to get Juliana v. U.S. back on track for trial in the next week, said Olson. The Supreme Court in July shot down an earlier attempt by the Trump administration to block the case, calling that action premature. Story continues The Obama administration also tried to have the case thrown out. In the latest argument, Solicitor General Noel Francisco complained in a brief to the Supreme Court that the plaintiffs seek nothing less than a complete transformation of the American energy system including the abandonment of fossil fuels ordered by a single district court at the behest of a group of young people. Such an action has no place in federal court, the brief argued. Also on HuffPost Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Surgeons have trialled a fluorescent marker that can help them remove dangerous brain tumour cells more accurately (Picture: Getty) A fluorescent chemical that glows pink when a light is shone on it could help surgeons remove dangerous brain tumour cells more accurately. Surgeons have trialled the fluorescent market, called 5-aminolevulinic acid or 5-ALA, to see if it can help show cancerous cells in the brain so they can remove them. The research was carried out with patients who had suspected glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer. Treatment usually involves surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible, but it can be difficult for surgeons to identify all of the cancer cells while avoiding healthy brain tissue. Previous research shows that, when consumed, 5-ALA accumulates in fast growing cancer cells and this means it can act as a fluorescent marker of high-grade cells. The latest study saw 99 patients with suspected high-grade gliomas given a drink containing 5-ALA. MORE: Investigation underway after children hospitalised when inflatable slide at fireworks display collapsed MORE: Paraplegic man forced to drag himself through Luton Airport Surgeons then used operating microscopes to help them look for fluorescent tissue while removing tumours from the patients brains. The tissue they removed was sent to the pathology lab where scientists could confirm the accuracy of the surgeons work. Marker the fluorescent marker glows pink when light is shone on it (Stock Picture: Getty) During their operations, surgeons reported seeing fluorescence in 85 patients and 81 of these were subsequently confirmed by pathologists to have high-grade disease. One was found to have low-grade disease and three could not be assessed. In the 14 patients where surgeons did not see any fluorescence, only seven tumours could be subsequently evaluated by pathology but in all these cases, low-grade disease was confirmed. Colin Watts, professor of neurosurgery and chairman of the Brain Cancer Programme at the University of Birmingham, who led the study, said: Neurosurgeons need to be able to distinguish tumour tissue from other brain tissue, especially when the tumour contains fast-growing, high-grade cancer cells. Story continues The advantage of this technique is that it may highlight more quickly high-grade disease within a tumour during neurosurgery. What this means is that more of the tumour can be removed more safely and with fewer complications, and thats better for the patient. The trial is being presented at the 2018 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Glasgow. The vote is the last step in a three-decades-long decolonisation effort - AP Escalating tension in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia ahead of an independence referendum on Sunday has prompted the authorities to ban the sale of alcohol and the carrying of firearms this weekend. The vote in the archipelago east of Australia has polarised its nearly 270,000 inhabitants along ethnic lines, pitting indigenous Kanaks who mostly favour independence against white and south-east Asian settlers. The vote was a condition of a 1988 agreement between separatists and the government that ended four years of violent unrest culminating in the killings of 25 people during a hostage crisis. Opinion polls indicate that a majority is likely to vote to remain French. About 40 per cent of the population are indigenous and 27 per cent are ethnic European. The rest is of mostly Polynesian and Indonesian origin. Kanak flags flew everywhere on the predominantly Kanak island of Ouvea, where separatists killed four gendarmes and took 27 others hostage in 1988. Macky Wea, one of the hostage-takers, called for a boycott of the fake and illegitimate referendum, who argued that only the colonised people, the Kanaks, should have the right to vote. A flag from the FLNKS, Front de liberation nationale kanak socialiste (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) flutters in a former settler's property of Poindimie Credit: Theo Rouby / AFP Nevertheless, some Kanaks will vote to stay in France. Simon Loueckhote, a former senator, has been touring Ouvea, personally putting up posters bearing the slogan, La France est une chance, which roughly translates as France is our good fortune. Mr Loueckhote, 61, pointed out that the state pumps about 1.15 billion per year into New Caledonia. The islanders are 100 per cent aided, supported and maintained by the public authorities. So when people talk to me about colonisation, I dont really understand. What would become of Kanak dignity if these funds stopped coming and we had to go begging? The descendants of European settlers generally enjoy a higher quality of life than the Kanaks, who once suffered from strict segregation policies. More than 1,000 gendarmes have been deployed to maintain order over the weekend and shops are banned from selling liquor. Story continues Officially the government is neutral, offering no guidance on how to vote. Some 250 French officials and a dozen UN observers will monitor the poll. President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation on television Sunday after the result is announced. His refusal to join the campaign for New Caledonia to remain part of France was criticised by Laurent Wauquiez, leader of the conservative party, the Republicans, and Marine Le Pen of the far-Right National Rally. PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel both hoping to get out from under U.S. economic sanctions have agreed to expand and strengthen their strategic relations, North Korea's state media reported Monday. Diaz-Canel, who is in Asia on his first international tour since assuming office in April, arrived in Pyongyang with his wife on Sunday. He was met at the airport by Kim, who joined him on the ride into the city past flower-waving and cheering crowds. North Korea's state media reported the two held talks at the Paekhwawon State Guest House and stressed their shared socialist history and vowed continued solidarity. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) China and India are closely watching the constitutional crisis in Sri Lanka, which has been a battleground in their struggle for geopolitical supremacy in South Asia. Chinese and Indian diplomats have been careful not to overtly take sides in the political turmoil, which has seen President Maithripala Sirisena oust Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, replace him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, and suspend Parliament. Wickremesinghe, meanwhile, has holed up at the prime minister's residence and insisted he is Sri Lanka's rightful leader. The caution exercised by the Asian giants stands in contrast to calls from Western diplomats for Parliament to immediately be summoned for a floor vote on Rajapaksa's appointment and underscores the economic and military importance the countries place on the Indian Ocean island nation. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) Malaysia's anti-graft agency says the former leader of a timber-rich eastern state has been arrested and will face corruption charges as it widens its crackdown on graft. The agency said Musa Aman, the former chief minister of Sabah state on Borneo island, has been detained at its office and will be brought to court later Monday to face several corruption charges. It didn't give details. Local media said the charges against Musa involved millions of dollars related to timber concessions. Musa is the latest former high-ranking official to be prosecuted following the shocking ouster of scandal-tainted Prime Minister Najib Razak's government in May's elections. Story continues CANBERRA, Australia (AP) A newly elected independent lawmaker said on Monday a tough policy toward asylum seekers was a major reason Australia's conservative government lost its parliamentary majority. Kerryn Phelps on Monday was declared the winner of an Oct. 20 by-election forced when former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull quit parliament after his conservative coalition turned against him. The high-profile medical doctor and gay rights advocate will take her seat when Parliament resumes on Nov. 26. The government now holds half of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and may need to negotiate with independent lawmakers such as Phelps to pass its legislative agenda. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) Sri Lanka's president issued an order Sunday for Parliament to reconvene on Nov. 14, when lawmakers will get the chance to hold a confidence vote on the nation's former strongman who has been named prime minister. The announcement made in a decree comes amid a political crisis in the South Asian island nation sparked when President Maithripala Sirisena dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his Cabinet and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa last month. Sirisena suspended Parliament in an apparent attempt to give Rajapaksa time to muster support to survive any no-confidence vote. Political opponents, rights groups and foreign governments including the United States and European Union have urged Sirisena to summon Parliament immediately and end the crisis. NOUMEA, New Caledonia (AP) A majority of voters in the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia chose to remain part of France instead of backing independence Sunday, a watershed moment that led French President Emmanuel Macron to promise a full dialogue on the archipelago's future. Final results had 56.4 percent of the voters who participated in the referendum deciding to maintain ties with the country that has ruled New Caledonia since the mid-19th century and 43.6 percent supporting independence, the high commissioner's office said. "I'm asking everyone to turn toward the future to build tomorrow's New Caledonia," Macron said, speaking from the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris. SHANGHAI (AP) President Xi Jinping promised Monday to open China wider to imports as he opened a high-profile trade fair meant to rebrand the country as a global customer. But he offered no response to U.S. and European complaints about technology policy and curbs on foreign business. The China International Import Expo is part of official efforts to defuse trade tension while resisting pressure to roll back industry plans that Washington, Europe, Japan and other governments say violate its market-opening obligations. "It is our sincere commitment to open the Chinese market," Xi said in a speech to a VIP audience that included Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) Investigators succeeded in retrieving hours of data from a crashed Lion Air jet's flight recorder as Indonesian authorities on Sunday extended the search at sea for victims and debris. National Transportation Safety Committee deputy chairman Haryo Satmiko told a news conference that 69 hours of flight data was downloaded from the recorder including its fatal flight. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta on Oct. 29, killing all 189 people on board in the country's worst airline disaster since 1997. The flight data recorder was recovered by divers on Thursday in damaged condition and investigators said it required special handling to retrieve its information. SINGAPORE (AP) Asian markets tumbled Monday as traders feared that President Donald Trump only reported progress in trade talks with China to score political points as the U.S. midterm elections draw near. KEEPING SCORE: Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 1.2 percent at 21,985.05 and South Korea's Kospi dropped 1.6 percent to 2,059.60. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slipped 2.4 percent to 25,891.48. The Shanghai Composite index shed 1 percent to 2,649.21. The S&P ASX/200 in Australia fell 0.1 percent to 5,841.70. Shares fell in Taiwan and Singapore but rose in the Philippines. WALL STREET: Technology stocks slumped on Friday as Apple reported poor earnings and said it would stop disclosing quarterly iPhone sales. TOKYO (AP) Haruki Murakami is planning an archive at his Japanese alma mater that will include drafts of his best-selling novels, his translation work and his massive collection of music, a personal passion that has been a key part of his stories. "I'm more than happy if those materials can contribute in any way for those who want to study my works," the Japanese writer said at a news conference with officials at Waseda University, where the library and archive will be housed. "I hope it would be a place for cultural exchanges with positive and open atmosphere," Murakami said. For Donald Trump, his path to the White House in 2016 was simple: promise action on immigration, the economy and repealing his predecessor's flagship healthcare policy, Obamacare. The playbook for the midterms despite the White House not being at stake is the same. Mr Trump knows what the type of promises and rhetoric that he believes will bring his supporters to the polls and he has been hitting it hard over the past few weeks. With Mr Trumps Republican Party currently holding both sides of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, his administration should be in the best position to push through his agenda. The president knows that if the Democrats take control of one of the chambers and he has recently admitted that they could take the House in the midterms it will make the second half of his presidency harder. By Friday night, more than 32 million people had cast their votes for the midterms early according to The Election Project at the University of Florida, which tracks turnout. That is up more than 50 per cent from the 20.5 million early votes cast in all of the 2014 midterms. Mr Trumps words have power, and his plan is for his supporters to spearhead a high turnout, whether that is voting early or on election day on 6 November. The president rhetoric this week has concentrated on immigration, and it has brought out the worst traits. The caravans of thousands of refugees and migrants many of them fleeing violence in Central America currently making their way slowly through Mexico towards the US border have been the main target. Without citing any evidence, Mr Trump has claimed the caravans are full of Middle Easterners and criminals. The language is similar to what he used in 2016, which allows him to push his hardline agenda on immigration. Alongside that rhetoric, repeated at "Make America Great Again" rallies across the country, the president has also tweeted a video described as one of the most racist political adverts in recent years and an attempt to rally his base by portraying Central American migrants as police killers set to overrun the country. Story continues The advert which Mr Trump tweeted with the message it is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our country. Vote Republican now focusses on Luis Bracamontes, an illegal immigrant twice previously deported, who in 2014 shot and killed two California police officers, and injured a third. The advert shows Bracamontes, who has been sentenced to death, laughing in court and vowing to kill more officers. Words across the screen read: Democrats let him into our country. Democrats let him stay. It then shows migrants pulling on what appears to be a border fence. The advert, which many have likened to the notorious Willie Horton attack advert that was used by Republicans to undermine and derail the 1988 presidential run of Democrat Michael Dukakis, has been widely denounced as racist, seeking as it does, to compare all migrants to a police killer. The president has announced that he will send up to 15,000 troops to the border to meet the migrant caravans as they arrive even suggesting on Thursday that any migrants illegally crossing the border and throwing stones at the military would be treated as if that stone was a rifle, and potentially being shot. Mr Trump has also claimed that he will put out new executive orders next week aimed at ending birthright citizenship the right for all babies born in the US to be called US citizens regardless of parentage, which is enshrined in the Constitution and some rights of asylum seekers. No doubt both of these will be challenged in the courts if they arrive as it is unclear if Mr Trump has the legal basis for changing them without it going through Congress. These statements are part of more than 1,000 potentially misleading, false or exaggerated statements that Mr Trump has made in the past seven weeks, according to an analysis from The Washington Post. Leading Democrats have picked up on this, with former president Barack Obama lamenting the fact at a rally of his own on Friday. When words dont mean anything, when truth doesnt matter, when people can just lie with abandon, democracy cant work, Mr Obama said. His former vice president, Joe Biden, picked up the baton in Ohio on Saturday. We're in a battle for America's soul, Mr Biden told a crowd at a high school south of Cleveland. We Democrats have to make it clear who we are. We choose hope over fear, we choose unity over division, we choose our allies over our enemies and we choose truth over lies. It appears that even Mr Trump's team has realised he may be going too far, with some Republicans preferring that the president concentrates on the positive news about the economy rather than immigration. First Mr Trump walked back his remarks about using force against migrants on Friday, and later he appeared to try to explain why he had not been touting US economic success so heavily recently. Sometimes it's not as exciting to talk about the economy because we have a lot of other things to talk about, Mr Trump said during a rally in West Virginia. He then said America was booming at a rally in Montana. Mr Trump's rally schedule ahead of Tuesday's midterms will take in Montana, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri, and he is focusing on rural areas where his supporters are concentrated. However, his hardline, nationalist America First agenda that plays so well to his supporters does not do the same in suburban areas where Republicans are in tough House races. Pivoting back to lead on the economy is a message that could bring out those voters turned off by the hardline rhetoric, which could be crucial come Tuesday. But even with the late economic push, Mr Trump seems to have made the decision that his strategy to invoke all the traits that helped propel him to the White House will be the thing that gives the Republicans the best chance to keep hold of Congress. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue made the racially tinged remark during a campaign rally for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis. (Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images) A Trump administration official on Saturday called the Florida gubernatorial race, in which the Democratic candidate is seeking to become the states first black governor, cotton-pickin important. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue used the racially charged phrase while campaigning for Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidiate, in Lakeland, Florida. American Bridge, a Democratic super political action committee, obtained an audio recording of Perdues speech. Public policy matters. Leadership matters, Perdue can be heard saying. And that is why this election is so cotton-pickin important to the state of Florida. I hope you all dont mess it up. The Agriculture Department did not immediately respond to HuffPosts request for comment. A DeSantis spokesman told Politico that the candidate was happy to have Perdue, the former GOP governor of Georgia, campaign for him. The spokesman and told the news site to contact Perdue directly to comment on his remarks. Wow: While campaigning for racist Ron DeSantis, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue manages to use the phrase cotton picking when making the argument against electing the first black governor in Floridas history. #FLGov pic.twitter.com/zDmbqB50ua American Bridge (@American_Bridge) November 3, 2018 Merrian-Websters defines cotton-picking as another way of saying damned, but the phrase evokes race and the cotton plantations in Southern states that used slave labor. David Bossie, a former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, was temporarily suspended from his role as a Fox News contributor after using the phrase in June. On air, Bossie told Joel Payne, a black Democratic strategist, that he was out of his cotton-picking mind. Story continues Payne rebuked Bossies racist remark, telling him, I have some relatives who picked cotton, and Im not going to sit back and let you attack me on TV like that. Fox News later issued a statement calling Bossies comments deeply offensive and wholly inappropriate. Racial overtones have marked the closely contested race between DeSantis, who is white, and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is black, In late August, DeSantis faced a backlash after he said during an interview on Fox News that Florida shouldnt monkey this up by electing Gillum. The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state, DeSantis told the conservative news network. Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo equated DeSantis choice of words to racist dog whistles. In DeSantis defense, campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said the GOP candidate was talking about voters embracing Gillums socialist policies. To characterize it as anything else is absurd, Lawson told HuffPost. Later in the campaign, voters started getting robocalls from a person pretending to be Gillum who spoke in an exaggerated dialect. Drums and jungle noises played in the background during the call. Black people done made mud huts while white folk waste a bunch of time making their home out of wood an stone, the speaker said. The robocalls were funded by a neo-Nazi website based in Idaho. Related... Andrew Gillum Wants Ron DeSantis To Show Him Some Respect Ron DeSantis Rose By Trafficking In Racist, Islamophobic Conspiracy Theories Trump Made Ron DeSantis The GOP Nominee In Florida. He's Pushing Him Again For Governor. Trump May Jump Into Florida's Governor Primary With A Rally For Ron DeSantis Andrew Gillum Condemns Ron DeSantis For Negative Ads Aired Before Hurricane Michael Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Donald Trump said Iran was on a Donald Trump said Saturday he was still open to negotiating a new, more comprehensive deal with Iran even as he ordered a severe new round of sanctions to come into force at midnight on Sunday. The US president, who pulled America out of the Iran nuclear agreement, said he would lift sanctions if Iran agreed to a broader deal that restricted not only its nuclear programme but also its policies across the Middle East. Our objective is to force the regime into a clear choice: either abandon its destructive behavior or continue down the path toward economic disaster, Mr Trump said in a statement. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Irans supreme leader, voiced defiance of the US president and said the world opposes every decision made by Trump. "America's goal has been to re-establish the domination it had [before 1979] but it has failed. America has been defeated by the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years, the ayatollah said. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei voiced defiance of the US Credit: AFP/Getty Images Britain, France, Germany and the EU said in a joint statement that they deeply regret Mr Trumps decision to reimpose sanctions and remained committed to the nuclear agreement. They said they would try to shield European firms dealing with Iran from the threat of US sanctions. Many Western companies have fled the Iranian market out of fear of being put on an American blacklist but the EU has set up a financial mechanism designed to let them continue doing business. The mechanism is not yet operational and it remains to be seen if many firms will take the risk. Iran announced Saturday that it would begin building its own fighter planes to get around US sanctions on the import of airplane parts. Iran has an ageing air force and many analysts believe the Kowsar fighter jet is an ineffective copy of the American F-5 jet, which was developed in the 1960s. Meanwhile, both sides continued a social media war which began when Mr Trump tweeted Sanctions Are Coming in the style of a Game of Thrones poster. Story continues Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Irans elite Quds force, posted an image of himself in the same style with the message I Will Stand Against You. He also denounced Mr Trump as a gambler, an insult in Iran where gambling is forbidden. #Irans General Soleimani responded to gambler#US President Donald Trumps announcement: Come! We are waiting, I will stand against you. Quds Force will stand against you. You start this war, but we will finish it, Major-General Soleimani, wrote on Instagram in Farsi on Friday pic.twitter.com/fPkcMRIy4s Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_EN) November 3, 2018 HBO, the US broadcaster behind Game of Thrones, watched the exchange with bemusement. How do you say trademark misuse in Dothraki? it tweeted, referring to a fictional language from the show. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) President Donald Trump accused Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly of "trying to steal the election" by running ads touting the Libertarian candidate in an effort to peel away votes from Republican challenger Mike Braun in a close contest. In a tweet Saturday , Trump said the rumor is Donnelly paid for the Facebook ads. The Indiana Democratic Party confirmed that it paid for them and a line at the top of the ads says that they are "authorized by Donnelly for Indiana." The ad is among several on Facebook saying that Braun used to be a Democrat and has voted for tax increases as a member of the state Legislature. It urges Hoosier conservatives to "vote your values." "Libertarian Lucy Brenton is the true Anti-tax conservative," the ad says. Braun says he is a fiscal conservative. Republicans hope to knock off Donnelly in a state Trump won easily in 2016 to expand their 51-49 majority in the Senate. Trump visits Fort Wayne, Indiana, Monday to rally for Braun. By Jeff Mason and Maria Caspani PENSACOLA, Fl./ATLANTA (Reuters) - President Donald Trump touted U.S. economic growth and painted a grim picture on immigration in rallies with Republican candidates before Tuesday's elections as Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden urged voters to reject division. In the latest injection of racial tensions into the campaigns, a wave of automated calls using racist and anti-Semitic language went out to voters in Georgia, where a Democratic candidate is vying to become the first black female governor in the United States. Control of both houses of the U.S. Congress, currently dominated by Republicans, and 36 governors' offices will be at stake when Americans vote on Tuesday. Interest has been unusually high for a non-presidential election year, with early voting running well ahead of past cycles. Opinion polls and nonpartisan forecasters generally show Democrats with a strong chance of taking the 23 additional seats they would need for a majority in the House of Representatives, which they could use to launch investigations into Trump's administration and block his legislative agenda. Republicans are favored to retain control of the Senate, whose powers include confirming Trump's nominations to lifetime seats on the Supreme Court. "America is booming. Republicans passed a massive tax cut for working families and we will soon follow it up with another 10 percent tax cut for the middle class," Trump said, standing in a Belgrade, Montana, airfield with Air Force One as a backdrop. Last December, Trump signed into law the largest tax overhaul since the 1980s, which slashed the corporate rate to 21 percent from 35 percent and temporarily reduced the tax burden for most individuals as well. The appearance was intended to boost the campaign of Matt Rosendale, the Republican state auditor challenging Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Tester. Trump called out Tester for his vote against his most recent Supreme Court nominee, saying "what he did was terrible." Story continues Republicans in many competitive suburban districts have tried to focus their campaign messages on the robust economic growth, though in his campaign appearances Trump has also focused on his hard-line immigration stance as he looks to stem the illegal and legal flow of people into the United States. "The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan to flood your communities, depleting our resources and flooding our nation," Trump told the Montana crowd. "We don't want that." Biden campaigned in Ohio on Saturday in support of Democrats U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray. "We're in a battle for America's soul," Biden, his voice faint and scratchy, told a crowd at a high school south of Cleveland. "We Democrats have to make it clear who we are. We choose hope over fear, we choose unity over division, we choose our allies over our enemies and we choose truth over lies." RACIST ROBOCALLS A wave of robocalls using racist language went out in Georgia in recent days apparently targeted at undermining the campaign of former state lawmaker Stacey Abrams, who is running to become the first black female governor in the United States, according to her and her rival's campaign. The calls impersonated media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who earlier this week campaigned with Abrams, and also featured anti-Semitic language, according to audio of the call heard by Reuters. Both Abrams and her rival, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, denounced the calls, with the Republican calling them "absolutely disgusting." "It just shows the desperation," said Ivory Watts, a 36-year-old activist who formerly lived in Georgia who received one of the calls. The issue of voter suppression has been central to the race in Georgia, where Kemp is the state's top election overseer. Two federal courts on Friday issued rulings ordering the state to allow some 3,000 naturalized U.S. citizens to vote in Tuesday's elections and prevent the state from throwing out some absentee ballots. A similarly racist round of calls went out in August in Florida, targeting Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum, who is black. As of Friday night, almost 32.4 million people had cast ballots early across the United States, according to The Election Project at the University of Florida, which tracks turnout. That is up more than 50 percent from the 20.5 million early votes cast in all of 2014, the last federal election when the White House was not at stake. Trump on Friday appeared in West Virginia with Patrick Morrisey, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. They marked his third campaign appearance in West Virginia and fourth in Montana. In Florida, Trump campaigned for Governor Rick Scott, who is trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, and U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis, who is running for governor against Gillum, the Tallahassee mayor. If the Democrats won, Trump told the crowd at an aircraft hangar in Pensacola, they would impose socialism on Florida. "Welcome to Venezuela," he said. "And they'll erase America's border. We have to have a border if we are going to have a great country." (For a graphic on 'Can Democrats regain control of the House?' click https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ELECTION-BLUEWAVE/010080J912P/index.html) (For a graphic on 'battleground states' click https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ELECTION-TOSSUP-SEATS/010080SV1K9/index.html) For all Reuters election coverage, click: https://www.reuters.com/politics/election2018 (Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by James Dalgleish and Grant McCool) Miami (AFP) - A gunman killed two people and wounded five others at a yoga studio in Florida's state capital Tallahassee before taking his own life, police said Saturday. At approximately 5:47 pm on Friday, 40-year-old Scott Beierle "entered the business posing as a customer and began shooting patrons with a handgun without warning," the Tallahassee Police Department said in a statement. "Patrons fought the assailant to prevent him from harming themselves and others. The assailant then turned the gun on himself and died on scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound." It said two women, Nancy Van Vessem and Maura Binkley, aged 61 and 21 respectively, were killed. Two other women were in "stable condition," while two more women and a man were treated and release from hospital. Beierle, a graduate of Florida State University with prior military service, had previously been the subject of police calls for harassing young women, according to the statement. The investigation is ongoing, and police have yet to establish a link between the shooter and the victims and yoga business. The gunman had posted on YouTube videos of himself giving violent racist and misogynistic speeches, according to BuzzFeed. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is running for governor of Florida and cut short a campaign event to return to the city, tweeted: "I'm deeply appreciative of law enforcement's quick response to the shooting at the yoga facility in Tallahassee today." "No act of gun violence is acceptable. I'm in close communication with law enforcement officials and will be returning to Tallahassee tonight," Gillum added. The yoga studio's Facebook page received dozens of messages of support, including from elsewhere in Florida, the US and abroad. "Sending prayers, love and peace for healing the Tallahassee yoga community," read a comment by Facebook user Melissa Gregory. "May blessings be restored in this studio and all yogis who share this space. Namaste!" On October 17th-20th, the Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition met in Boston for the third time. Enthusiasm emanated from every corner as the tide slowly turns toward marijuana being accepted across America. Whats exciting, in a sense, is that yes, there is money to be made, Giadha Aguirre de Carcer, Founder of New Frontier Data, told Yahoo Finance. But there is also that great double bottom line, meaning we can make money in this industry, and candidly, still do good. To be at the forefront of seeing how this plant is [seeing] not just recreational use, which is great, but [also] true medical impact. Leaders from nascent blockchain companies, pharmaceuticals companies, and hemp manufacturers showcased both new cannabis products and a total rise in industry output explaining that cannabis legalization is creating an emerging public market that is taking root in the finance industry. In 2018 in the United States, we project retail sales to reach about $7 billion, Carcer said. And we also expect by 2025 that number will go up to almost $25 billion. (Photo: Yahoo Finance) The legal U.S. cannabis market is projected to reach more than $20 billion by 2022, according to the The State of Legal Marijuana Markets, Sixth Edition (SOLMM6) released by Arcview Market Research in partnership with BDS Analytics. This growth has the potential to generate more than 467,000 full-time equivalent jobs in 2022. And despite federal prohibition, the SOLMM6 asserted that the U.S. legal cannabis industry experienced 31% growth in 2017. Arcview forecasts that the continuing state-by-state roll-out of medical-use programs and then adult-use legalization will bring a 22% compound annual growth rate to the market over that five-year forecast period Ive been in the business about ten years and so Ive seen it develop, Arby Barroso, Co-Founder of Green Roads World, said in an interview. And from about five years ago to today, the market share the cannabis or CBD business is getting into is just extraordinary. WATCH MORE: The cannabis tech boom is only beginning By Nuzulack Dausen DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - The United States has warned its citizens in Tanzania to be cautious after the commercial capital Dar es Salaam announced a crackdown on homosexuality, a criminal offense in the country. In an alert on its website late on Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania advised Americans to review their social media profiles and internet footprints. "Remove or protect images and language that may run afoul of Tanzanian laws regarding homosexual practices and explicit sexual activity," it said. The alert said any U.S. citizen who was detained or arrested should ensure the Tanzanian authorities informed the embassy. Dar es Salaam's administrative chief Paul Makonda said on Wednesday that a special committee would seek to identify and punish homosexuals, prostitutes and online fraudsters in the city from this week. The foreign ministry said Makonda was voicing his own opinion and the planned crackdown did not have national government support. "The government of the United Republic of Tanzania would like to clarify that those are his own views and not the government position," the ministry said in a statement. Last October, at least 12 men were arrested at a Dar es Salaam hotel in a raid on a gathering which authorities said was to promote same-sex relationships. President John Magufuli has cracked down on homosexuality since winning power in 2015, and a conviction for having "carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature" could lead to a sentence of up to 30 years in jail. Homosexuality remains taboo across much of Africa and gay people face discrimination or persecution, with rights groups often reluctant to speak publicly in defense of gay rights. In 2016, Tanzania banned non-governmental organizations from distributing free lubricants to gays as part of efforts to control the spread of HIV/AIDS, even though some health experts warn that shutting down such outreach programs could put the wider population at higher risk of infection. (Additional reporting and writing by George Obulutsa in Nairobi; Editing by Catherine Evans and Adrian Croft) Al-Darbasiyah (Syria) (AFP) - US forces on Sunday patrolled an area in northeastern Syria bordering Turkey after renewed tensions between Ankara and Syrian Kurds, a spokesman and an AFP reporter said. Three armoured vehicles carrying soldiers wearing the US flag on their uniform arrived in the Kurdish-held northeastern border town of Al-Darbasiyah, the correspondent said. Turkey last week raised threats against Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, shelling their positions and flagging a possible new offensive. The Kurds spearhead the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, backed by the US-led coalition, that has been fighting the Islamic State group in Syria. Coalition spokesman Sean Ryan said Sunday's patrol was the second in a week, after a first one by US forces on Friday. "The US forces' assurance patrols enable us to maintain safety and security in the region," he said, but are not carried out "on a regular basis". An SDF spokesman said the US patrols, in coordination with the SDF, were directly linked to recent tensions between the Kurds and Ankara. "They are not routine patrols. They are directly linked to these threats. The objective is to call on Turkey to stop its aggression," Mustefa Bali said. Sunday's patrols were headed towards Ras al-Ain, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) to the west of Al-Darbasiyah along the frontier, he said. The US State Department has said it had been in touch with both the SDF and Turkey to push for de-escalation. Turkey accuses Syria's Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) -- which form the backbone of the SDF -- of being "terrorists". In what appeared to be an attempt by Washington to appease Turkey, US and Turkish troops on Thursday launched joint patrols on the outskirts of the northern city of Manbij. Although the YPG claim to have pulled out of the city after the SDF seized it from IS in 2016, Ankara has recently complained that the group still has a presence there, repeatedly threatening military action. Story continues On Wednesday, Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions in the Kobane sector of northern Syria killed four fighters, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency. On Tuesday, two days after another round of shelling of Kurdish posts in northern Syria, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had completed preparations for a new operation to "destroy" Kurdish fighters. Since 2016, Turkey has carried out two operations against Kurdish forces in Syria, the last of which saw Ankara-backed Syrian rebels take the border city of Afrin in March. Donald Trump has said Republicans could lose control of the US House as the 2018 midterm elections are just four days away. At a "Make America Great Again" political rally in Iowa the president said: "It could happen. Could happen. And you know what you do? My whole life, you know what I say? 'Don't worry about it, I'll just figure it out.' Does that make sense? I'll figure it out." It was an uncharacteristic lack of confidence from the usually bombastic leader but experts have predicted Democrats could win the 24 seats it needs to gain control of the lower house of Congress for the first time since 2010. The polling data shows, however, the Senate will still likely be controlled by conservatives. This year's election will break all manner of records in terms of spending as well. According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, approximately $5.2bn will be spent in this year's midterms. In one race alone $93m has been spent to get the Senate seat from Texas. Democrat and current US House Democrat Beto O'Rourke and Republican incumbent Ted Cruz have been trading barbs as poll numbers show a tight race. In Georgia, Democratic governor candidate Stacey Abrams looks to make history as the first female African-American governor in the country's history. Controversy abounds as opponent Republican Brian Kemp is also the Georgia secretary of state who would be in charge of a possible runoff election should neither candidate receives 50 per cent of the vote. Barack Obama and Oprah have joined Ms Abrams on the campaign trail and former president Jimmy Carter has even asked Mr Kemp to resign from his current position in light of his candidacy. In Florida, Andrew Gillum, the current Democratic Mayor of Tallahassee, squares off with Republican Ron DeSantis in an important race for the president as he begins campaigning for his 2020 re-election bid. Amid the debates on healthcare policy and taxes, a migrant caravan of approximately 7,000 people still 1,000 miles away from the US-Mexico border has been in the headlines on the campaign trail. Story continues Mr Trump a video he tweeted showing a Mexican migrant smiling and boasting about killing police officers is tough but correct. The US president shared the video ahead of the midterm elections on 6 November. Both Democrats and Republicans have denounced the video as a racist campaign tactic. To see how the day unfolded follow our coverage below Please allow a moment for the live blog to load President Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally in Columbia on November 1 - REUTERS Next week's midterm election will mark two years since Donald Trump was elected President, and its results will be a barometer of how the people of the US think he is faring. In recent weeks birthright citizenship, the migrant caravan and the mail bomber have overshadowed debates and may spell trouble for the Republican party. The midterm elections, which involve a combination of elections for the US Congress, governorships and local races, take place every two years. Republicans currently control the House of Representatives and the Senate the two chambers which make up the US Congress. But pundits are suggesting the Democrats might take control. With all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 out of the Senates 100 seats up for election, as well as 36 state governors, there are a lot of races to keep an eye on. And with Trump's approval rating hovering around a low 40 per cent, a lot could change. Here is our guide on the seats to watch and when we can expect to see results from them. When does voting start and end? People will take to the polls across the 50 states from 1pm GMT on Tuesday November 6, with polls closing from midnight GMT onwards. Below are the last polling times for each state. 19:00 EST (midnight GMT): Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia 19:30 EST (00:30 GMT): North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia 20:00 EST (01:00 GMT): Alabama, Conneticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massacheutts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee 20:30 EST (01:30 GMT): Arkansas 21:00 EST (02:00 GMT): Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming 22:00 EST (03:00 GMT): Iowa, Montana, Nevada, Utah 23:00 EST (04:00 GMT): California, Hawaii, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington 01:00 EST (06:00 GMT): Alaska When will we know the results? Story continues The votes will start to be counted as soon as the each polling station closes, which means results will trickle in over the early hours of the morning. We can expect a clear picture on what the elections mean for the country by 8am GMT. Which are the seats to watch for the House of Representatives? The number of seats each US state receives depends on its population size. California, the most populous state, has 53 representatives while seven states - Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming have just one representative. The Republican Party currently controls the chamber with a 43-seat majority, but it is widely expected that the Democrats will gain control in the upcoming election. The current House has 236 Republicans and 193 Democrats, with six vacant seats. The Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to win a majority, which is no small accomplishment, but the president's low approval ratings have given the party reason to hope. West Virginia Donald Trump won West Virginia's 3rd district by 30 points. But it is the Democratic candidate running in the district, which has a long history of coal mining, that is gaining national attention. Richard Ojeda says he voted for Donald Trump in 2016, opposes universal background checks for gun buyers, and is pro-coal. Mr Ojeda is running against Republican Carol Miller in the open-seat race after the incumbent Republican Evan Jenkins vacated the seat to run for the Senate. Polling suggests it will be a tight race between the two candidates, but analysts are keeping a close watch to see if a populist Democrat in a pro-Trump area is a winning formula. Last polls for West Virginia close at 19:30 EST (00:30 GMT). California Republican Representative Mimi Walters is battling to keep hold of her seat against Democrat Katie Porter in the state's 45th district, Orange County. The number of registered Republicans in the county has consistently declined as its population becomes more diverse. Ms Walters is one of seven Republicans representing districts in California which Hillary Clinton won in 2016. The Democrats need to take several of these in order to have a chance of regaining a majority in the House. Pundits are viewing a win in this race as a sign they will do well across Southern California - picking up crucial Republican-held seats. Professor Larry Sabato from the University of Virginias Center for Politics has changed his prediction from 'leaning Republican' to a 'toss-up'. Last polls for California close at 23:00 EST (04:00 GMT). Minnesota Minnesota's 8th district is considered one of the Democrats' most at-risk seats in November. It is a traditionally Democrat area - former president Barack Obama won the district twice but it swung heavily to Donald Trump in the 2016 election. The seat is currently held by Democrat Rick Nolan but the 74-year-old is not seeking re-election. The party's candidate Joe Radinovich, a former state legislator, is facing a tough battle against Republican Pete Stauber, a county commissioner. Last polls for Minnesota close at 21:00 EST (02:00 GMT). Texas The race in Texas' 23rd district will largely focus on one of the Trump administration's main concerns - immigration. The district contains a third of the US-Mexico border and has the second highest population of 'Dreamers' - the term given to undocumented migrants who arrived in America as children and have been granted temporary protection. The incumbent, Republican Will Hurd, is a former CIA agent who has chosen to distance himself from Mr Trump. His Democratic rival, Gina Ortiz Jones, is a Filipina-American, openly LGBTQ and an Iraq veteran. Mr Hurd, who became the first African-American elected to Congress from Texas when he was elected in 2015, is tipped to win by a narrow margin in the swing district. He has distanced himself from the national Republican party and even wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in July stating that the president had been manipulated by Russian intelligence. Last polls for Texas close at 21:00 EST (02:00 GMT). Florida Moderate Republicans will be looking to Florida's 26th district to see whether they can keep hold of a largely Hispanic area in the Trump era. The incumbent, Carlos Curbelo, is well-liked but Republicans still fear his Democrat opponent, Latin immigrant Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, could sweep to a surprise victory. Hillary Clinton won the district by 16 points in 2015. Last polls for Florida close at 20:00 EST (01:00 GMT). What about the Senate? The US Senate is the upper chamber on Capitol Hill. There are 100 Senators, two from each state, and Republicans currently hold a razor thin majority with 51 seats. The US Senate writes and passes laws but has a number of other powers and responsibilities, from ratifying treaties with other countries to overseeing investigations of officials and public bodies. Senators have six-year terms and just 35 seats are up for re-election. Most of these are currently held by Democrats, making it hard for them to make gains. Nevada Senator Dean Heller's election fight is an interesting one to watch. He is the only Republican senator up for re-election in a state that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Senator Heller's Democratic opponent, Congresswoman Jacky Rosen, has also support from anti-Trump female voters. She is also hoping Nevada's growing Hispanic population will help her to victory in November. However she faces an uphill battle in encouraging voter turnout, and Republicans are relying on white rural voters to come out to support Mr Heller. Last polls for Nevada close at 22:00 EST (03:00 GMT). North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp, who is facing re-election in a state Mr Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2016, is considered the most endangered Democrat in the Senate. Ms Heitkamp will face pressure from conservative voters if she votes against Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, as she has suggested she will. However Ms Heitkamp has touted her previous support for Mr Trump's first Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, last year. Her opponent, Kevin Crammer, also has the backing of the president. Mr Trump headlined a fundraiser for the Republican in early September which brought in more than $1 million in donations to his campaign. Last polls for North Dakota close at 23:00 EST (04:00 GMT). Florida The race between Democratic Senator Bill Nelson and his Republican challenger Rick Scott is one of the most expensive of the year. Mr Scott, Florida's governor, has challenged Mr Nelson's record in Washington and distanced himself from the president so as not to lose out on Puerto Rican voters. Republicans see the seat as one of their most promising chances of picking up an extra Senate seat and have spent heavily in the race. Polls show the two almost neck and neck - an interesting race to tune into on election night. Last polls for Florida close at 20:00 EST (01:00 GMT). Texas Despite being a presidential candidate in 2016, Republican Senator Ted Cruz is now fighting for his political life in Texas. His Democratic challenger - Bete O'Rourke - has brought Mr Cruz's lead in the deeply red state down to single digits, shocking political pundits. Mr Trump has overcome his previous animosity with the Senator to lend his support to his campaign. Donald Jnr has already been deployed to campaign for Mr Cruz and the president himself may make an appearance in a bid to bolster support. Mr O'Rourke, a 45-year-old congressman, has campaigned on a platform of inclusion and optimism, particularly on issues such as immigration. It is a message that chimes with the state's growing Hispanic population, which currently stands at 39 per cent. Pollsters still predict a Cruz victory but Mr O'Rourke's popularity and upbeat campaign rallies have left Republican operatives deeply troubled. Last polls for Texas close at 21:00 EST (02:00 GMT). The Department of Defense said troops helped US Customs and Border Protection agents to lay barbed wire along the Mexico border at Hidalgo, Texas, on November 2, ahead of the expected arrival of a migrant caravan from Central America. Some 300 meters of barbed wire was laid around the port of entry in Hidalgo as part of Operation Faithful Patriot, the department said. The operation includes plans to deploy more than 5,000 active-duty personnel to aid the Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection at the border. Credit: Department of Defense via Storyful PARIS (AP) Sweeping accusations that the Kremlin tried to sway the 2016 U.S. election haven't chastened Russian trolls, hackers and spies and might even have emboldened them. U.S. officials and tech companies say Russians have continued online activity targeted at American voters during the campaign for Tuesday's election, masquerading as U.S. institutions and creating faux-American social media posts to aggravate tensions around issues like migration and gun control. Russia denies any interference. So far U.S. authorities haven't announced any huge hacks or the kind of multipronged campaign suspected in the 2016 election, and it's hard to judge whether the more recent Russian actions have any link to the Kremlin or will have any electoral impact. But why do they appear to be at it again? Dozens of Russians suspected of meddling in 2016 have been hit with U.S. charges or sanctions, including well-placed magnates. Moscow's ties with the West have deteriorated badly amid ever-more-shocking allegations of Russian interference abroad. And some argue that Russian meddlers don't need to mess with the U.S. midterms this year because they got what they wanted in 2016: Donald Trump in the White House and mass disillusionment with the democratic process. The Kremlin likes Trump because he's one of the rare Western leaders to embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin, but its hoped-for Russian-American rapprochement hasn't really materialized. A Democratic House or Senate after Tuesday's U.S. election would make that an even more distant prospect. "Russians have a preference and they will do what they can to swing (the result) in their favor, especially if margins are tight," said James Nixey, head of the Russia and Eurasia program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. He cautions, however, that "Russia is not responsible for all of America's problems. America has splits and fissures like all of us, and Russia puts in a lever and pries them open." Story continues Some Russians, meanwhile, wear the U.S. accusations as a badge of honor, a sign that their country is a fearsome world power again. The first person charged with foreign interference in the 2018 midterms, Elena Khusyaynova, said "my heart filled with pride" at the news. Speaking last week on Russian TV after being accused in the United States of a covert social media campaign for both the 2016 and 2018 votes, she added, "It turns out that a simple Russian woman could help citizens of a superpower elect their president." Pavel Koshkin of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies called accusations of meddling "a gift to Russian propaganda and Russian politicians," who can use U.S. anti-Russian sentiment "as a tool in stirring anti-Americanism and increasing their approval ratings." The 2016 U.S. election thrust Russian foreign interference into the spotlight, but it wasn't an isolated project. It fit into a yearslong effort by Putin's Kremlin to take revenge over what's seen as the U.S.-led humiliation of post-Soviet Russia, through crippling loan programs and NATO's post-Cold War expansion. The Kremlin also resents what it considers U.S. interference in the politics of countries once under Moscow's sphere of influence, from Ukraine to the Caucasus. To many Russians, what's happening now in the U.S. is just payback. The resulting U.S. sanctions have damaged the Russian economy, but if the goal was changing Russian foreign policy, "this goal certainly hasn't been achieved," said analyst Masha Lipman. "In fact, the opposite is true. The more pressure (on Russia), the lower the desire or willingness to concede." As special counsel Robert Mueller has investigated possible Russian collusion with Trump's 2016 campaign, Moscow has increased efforts to make its mark elsewhere in Syria, Libya, and in political debates across Europe. So far in 2018, Russian agents have been accused of a nerve agent attack in Britain, trying to hack the world's chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands, and seeking to derail a referendum in Macedonia to stop the country from joining NATO and the European Union. Even after Mueller's team in February indicted a dozen Russians linked to the Internet Research Agency, the so-called troll farm in St. Petersburg, its sponsors openly continued to target U.S. audiences. One of its projects, a news site called USAReally, covers tight U.S. congressional races and is closely following the migrant caravan heading north from Latin America. "Yes, we are a Russian site. We talk to Americans about America. But is that forbidden?" its chief editor Alexander Malkevich, an avowed Trump fan, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Influence readers? Every media wants to do that. ... and so what?" He acknowledged that Russian-American relations are unlikely to improve quickly no matter the outcome Tuesday and expressed interest in the 2020 U.S. presidential race. Malkevich also assails what he calls the myth of American democracy. That's one more way that alleged Russian manipulation of U.S. social media serves the Kremlin's interests: By discrediting Western democracy, that strengthens Putin's argument to his own voters that his authoritarian model of governance is best. "The growing confrontation with the West and a focus on it on national television channels probably helped consolidate this effect of a fortress under siege," one of Putin's metaphors for modern Russia, Lipman said. "And pledging allegiance to the leader is a matter not only of loyalty but even of national security and national identity. " Many of the Russians accused of interference in the 2016 U.S. campaign have moved underground or moved on. Some shut down their social media presence. Some have changed jobs. One of the indicted troll factory workers, Sergei Polozov, announced on the Russian social network VKontakte that he was "using his notoriety for a good cause" and had persuaded Russian censors to block four Ukrainian news sites. He vowed to continue fighting those who "try to drag Russia through the mud" and thanked "those who want to join me in the fight against informational enemies." The troll factory, meanwhile, has moved to bigger offices in St. Petersburg, just 2.5 kilometers (a mile and a half) across town. ___ Associated Press writer Iuliia Subbotovska in Moscow contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the name of the Russian body is the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies. Paris (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday kicks off a week of commemorations for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, which is set to mix remembrance of the past and warnings about the present surge in nationalism around the globe. Some 70 to 80 world leaders including US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are preparing to fly to the French capital next weekend for a ceremony marking a century since the guns fell silent. This Sunday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined Macron in the border city of Strasbourg to attend a concert in the city's towering Gothic Cathedral celebrating the friendship between former wartime enemies France and Germany. The 40-year-old French leader will next embark on a week-long tour during which he will criss-cross war-hit areas in northern and eastern France and attend individual ceremonies with the leaders of Germany, Britain and Mali. The centrist president is expected to use the international spotlight to issue a rallying cry against nationalism, having recently warned that the world risked forgetting the lessons of the 20th century's great conflicts. "I am struck by similarities between the times we live in and those of between the two world wars," he told a French newspaper last week, adding that nationalism was a "leprosy" spreading worldwide. Trump, who has made "America First" his rallying cry, will be among the leaders gathered for the main ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, 100 years to the day since the armistice. The commemorations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the Champs-Elysees avenue will be held under tight security following a string of deadly jihadist attacks in France over the past three years. Macron is to visit Western Front battlefields from Verdun to the Somme. On Tuesday, in honour of the "black army" of former colonial troops who fought alongside the French, he and Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will visit Reims, a city defended by the African soldiers. Story continues Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May will join Macron at the Somme on Friday, while on Saturday he heads to the village of Rethondes, where the armistice was signed, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. - Peace forum - War commemorations aside, Macron is set to use his tour of northern France to visit areas hit hard by industrial decline, where far-right leader Marine Le Pen performed strongly in last year's presidential election. "After paying homage to those who died for their country it will be back to dealing with social and economic problems," said Bruno Cautres of political think-tank CEVIPOF. The former investment banker -- who has struggled to shake off an image as a "president of the rich" -- will zip through 17 towns, holding Wednesday's weekly cabinet meeting in the Ardennes where the German army had its headquarters for four years. "Each stop will be an opportunity to speak about the current concerns in those areas, which are trying to bounce back from de-industrialisation or major changes in agriculture," an aide to Macron said last week. The president, whose approval rating is languishing in the low 20s, has dismissed rumours that he is suffering from burnout. He sparked rampant speculation by taking a few days off ahead of the tour, which aides have insisted were to gather his energy before an intense week of diplomacy. This week is an opportunity for Macron to "reflect a strong presidential image" both at home and abroad, Cautres said. Macron is attempting to position himself as a champion of centrist politics and multilateralism in the run-up to European parliamentary elections in May, saying he expects the duel to be one between "progressives" and "nationalists". After next Sunday's ceremony, world leaders are set to attend a three-day peace forum opened by Merkel, an event which France wants to turn into an annual multilateral peace conference. The residents of the Gaza border region demonstrated Sunday at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in protest of the security situation in the region. The protesters prevented the entry of trucks carrying goods from Israel into the strip. Thousands of Iranians have staged a rally in Tehran marking the anniversary of the 1979 US Embassy takeover as Washington restores all sanctions lifted under the nuclear deal. The crowd chanted "Down with US" and "Death to Israel" during Sunday's rally in the capital, and state TV says similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns. Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi was booed loudly at the memorial rally for slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, which drew a crowd of tens of thousands of people. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The booing, which lasted throughout Hangebi's entire speech, was accompanied by calls of "Get off (the stage), apologize!" Hanegni, a member of the ruling Likud party and a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Ynet afterwards that he "attached no importance" to the booing. "I was speaking to people at home, for whom it was important to hear my remarks." Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi speaking at the Rabin memorial rally (Photo: Motti Kimchi) The audience at the rally demanded Hanegbi to apologize for a 1995 rally against the Oslo Accords, which was held at Zion Square in Jerusalem a month prior to Rabin's murder and featured speeches from the heads of the right-wing at the time, including Netanyahu, former prime minister Ariel Sharon, disgraced former president Moshe Katsav, and slain minister Rehavam Ze'evi. Rally participants called to oust Rabin and cancel the Oslo Accords, while photos of Rabin in Nazi uniforms were held up by some in the crowd. The audience at the Rabin memorial rally holding up signs calling for peace (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Hanegbi rejected the demands to apologize, saying "I wasn't on that balcony; I wasn't at that rally with the incitement speeches. I'm proud of the struggle I conducted against the Oslo Accords. It was legitimate." "The attempt to attribute the actions of one zealot man to half of the people was unsuccessful," Hanegbi added, referring to Rabin's murderer, Yigal Amir. "It's a fact the public elected Netanyahu several months later." Banner at the Rabin memorial rally with the demand: 'Tzachi, apologize!' "I spoke to the people, and to the people's hearts. It was very important that the things I believe in would be heard on this stage, without trying to pander to the audience," Hanegbi went on to say. "As you saw, my speech was about us being one people, and that message was important." "It's important for the voice of the right-wing, the national camp, to be heard here," he added. "We won't leave the sadness and the longing we have to the other side of the political map. Our pain is the same, and therefore I'm glad I came. I was sorry I was the only one who agreed to come." Members of the audience at the Rabin rally booing Hanegbi (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Netanyahu himself criticized the treatment Hanegbi received, writing on Twitter: "It's regretful that the memorial rally for prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was turned into a political conference. Those who herald the freedom of speech are trying to silence anyone who disagrees with them." Banners at the Rabin memorial rally saying 'Peace belongs to everyone' (left) and '23 years, the same inciters, the same incitement!' (center) (Photo: Motti Kimchi) "A disgraceful left-wing protest; the booing against Hanegbi," Bayit Yehudi leader Education Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on his own Twitter page. "It wasn't the right-wing that murdered Rabin, it was Yigal Amir," Bennett added. "As a right-wing leader who opposes a Palestinian state, I'm tired of the false accusations made yearly by the left-wing. Right-wingers don't need to come to a protest meant to denunciate the right wing. The conclusion of the radical leftthe right wing is to blame. My conclusionno more violence and no to civil war. You pick." The stage at the Rabin memorial rally with the writing: 'The moderate majority stands at the square against the division and incitement' (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Former prime minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, slammed the right-wing: "This story of incitement on both side is a tale that allows Netanyahu to hide his inability to face the public and say: 'I made a mistake, we incited. We didn't shoot, Rabbi Dov Lior was the one behind the murderer'... Reconciliation will only come after those responsible for the incitement are able to look the public in the eyes and say 'We made a mistake.'" Hanegbi: Oslo a bitter mistake, I would've taken a bullet for Rabin During his speech at the rally, which marked 23 years to the murder, Hanegbi said that "We must never forget why Jerusalem came to ruin, why the Second Temple came to ruinbecause of hatred. The murderer of Yitzhak Rabin was willing to bring another ruin on us. He wanted to control history, control us the citizens. He wanted to murder a soul in order to murder a policy, even at the cost of murdering democracy and even at the cost of a civil war." Tens of thousands of people at the Rabin memorial rally (Photo: Motti Kimchi) While criticizing the Oslo Accords as a "bitter mistake," Hanegbi condemned the murder. "When the killer took the prime minister, me and everyone else, my partners in that political struggle, felt exactly the same as the Israelis on the other side of the ideological divideimmense pain and sorrow," he said. "Had I been there, I would've taken the bullet for Rabin." "We must always remember we are all brothers. That is the way to preserve our country together, the country Rabin fought for its protection and existence, and was murdered because he acted based on his beliefswhich I did not agree with, but it were his beliefs," Hanegbi went on to say. Banner at the Rabin memorial rally saying 'Yes, it's possible' with a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shaking hands at the Israel-Egypt peace treaty signing, with US President Bill Clinton looking on. (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Hanegbi's invitation to speak by the Darkenu movement, which organized the rally, drew criticism in the days leading up to the event. A sign held up at the rally demanded "Tzachi, apologize," while the minister came protected by a security guard. "I wouldn't have invited Hanegbi to the rally," Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg said. "The Likud Party led the incitement then. Moreover, it is leading the incitement against the peace camp today as well." Warning against incitement In previous years, rally organizers chose to steer away from politicians, but this year politicians from across the political spectrum were invited. Hanegbi was the only one from the right-wing who agreed to attend and speak. Members of the opposition who spoke at the rally all warned against what they see as ongoing incitement. "We're in a struggle for our country," said Labor leader Avi Gabbay. "From this square, which is drenched in the blood of Rabin, we will say loudly: We've grown tired of the politics of pitting brother against brother; we've grown tired of the ongoing intimidation; we've grown tired of the incitement against the police and the IDF chief, against the president, the media and the Supreme Court; we've grown tired of the search for someone to blame and marking traitors." Avi Gabbay speaking at the Rabin memorial rally (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Gabbay asserted that "when Rabin was the defense minister, we knew Rabin would never mix politics with our security." "I watch our young soldiers lying on mounds of dirt in front of Gaza, I watch in pain as anxious parents run to shelters. They know Rabin chose peace and fought Hamas. Netanyahu gave up on peace and surrendered to Hamas," he added. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who along with Gabbay heads the Zionist Union, warned that "History is repeating itself. It's enough to read the posts made by the prime minister of Israel, to see the videos, to listen to the speeches, to read the violent talkbacks this evil wind is bringing with it: the one that accuses anyone who thinks different of treason and endangering the state. We say that anyone acting for peace is not a traitor." Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said that "what happened here in the square (where Rabin was murdered) should have made us better people... that didn't happen. We're not better. The murder didn't bring us closer together. The incitement is once again a tool; paranoia once again rules us. Rabin's murder was not just murder; it was also a threat for the next murder. Because when the prime minister is murdered, it becomes an option." Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid speaking at the Rabin memorial rally (Photo: Motti Kimchi) "Precisely because I'm not in the left-wing," Lapid said, getting booed from the audience, "precisely because I have an argument with the left-wing, I feel the obligation to warn: When a government says that anyone who thinks differently is a traitor and a collaborator with the enemy, it is leading us on a dangerous path, and it must stop. There are margins on the Right and the Left. We have an obligation to stand against them. But not everyone who thinks differently is an extremist and poses an existential threat; not everyone who thinks differently is the enemy. Not the entire right-wing murdered Rabin; not the entire left-wing is to blame for terror attacks and terrorism." Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg asserted that "incitement is not like a heat wave in Novembera bothersome phenomenon that cannot be controlled. We can't ignore the fact that what in 1995 was considered extremist margins is today the main work planorganized and fundedof the government. When Netanyahu rode the wave of incitement in 1995, he thought maybe he could control it. Perhaps he didn't care. But today, today he has made incitement into a main tool to keep the peace camp submissive, under control, shattered. He's using incitement to ensure the legacy of the murder remainsmeaning, for the legacy of peace to remain buried deep underground." IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot reportedly told the parents of Lt. Hadar Goldin, whose body has been held captive by Hamas since 2014, that if the political leadership was prepared to bring him and Israel's other POWs and MIAs back, it could have been done within a week. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The statement was apparently made on Friday during a private meeting between Eisenkot and Leah and Simcha Goldin, which was held amid reports that a ceasefire deal might be reached soon between Israel and Hamas. The parents claim that Eisenkot assured them that once the political leadership decides definitively on bringing the captives homeit could be done within a week. Hadar Goldin's parents (: AFP) All the projects currently in development in Gaza must be halted until the soldiers and citizens held captive by Hamas are freed, stressed Eisenkot according to Goldins parents, and emphasized that the supply of everything apart from water, food and medicine to the strip should be suspended. The IDF Spokespersons Office confirmed the meeting, but added that the comments made by the Goldin family presented the chief of staffs words out of context. "The quotes from the meeting are partial and do not fully represent what was actually said," the IDF said. During the meeting, the chief of staff presented the position of the IDF, which has been made clear to the political leadership in private meetings and has not changed in recent years. The IDF is working tirelessly to secure the release of POWs and MIAs and will continue to do so," said the statement. On Sunday, the parents responded to the IDFs statement, insisting there is no battle of interpretations" between them and the chief of staff. We have been in constant contact with the chief of staff for four years, we have never invented anything. This is what we understood from the conversation," the family said, adding that their statements had been taken out of context. In additon, Goldin's parents said that the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue was made clear to them during the meeting. "The prime minister does not want to bring the soldiers back to Israel, and he once again played with the families' feelings and tricked us. Netanyahu agrees to pay salaries to Hamas's terror apparatus without demanding the release of the soldiers, bemoaned the parents. We are asking the Israeli people to demand the prime minister and the defense minister keep their promise that no arrangement will be reached without the soldiers return, the Goldin family added. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot (Photo: Amit Hoover) Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday, as part of Egyptian efforts to reach an arrangement in Gaza. Neither of the parties elaborated on what had been discussed during the meeting. However, according to Palestinian sources, Sisi is working to thwart Abbass attempts to sabotage the agreement. The meeting was also attended by Egyptian Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Kamel, who is in charge of promoting the possible Israel-Hamas deal. Over the weekend, the Hamas-affiliated Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar published an initial draft of the ceasefire deal, which included ten steps, with each step conditional upon the implementation of the previous one. The draft is yet to be finalized, since both sides are still conducting indirect talks on the subject. The parents of the fallen soldier Hadar Goldin, responded Sunday to the criticism from the IDF Spokesperson's Unit regarding the family's statement that Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot allegedly told them their sons body could be brought back from Gaza within a week once the political echelon makes a decision on the issue. We have been in constant contact with the chief of staff for four years, we have never invented anything. This is what we understood from the conversation," the parents said, adding that their statements had been taken out of context. Khalil Nimri, a resident of east Jerusalem who was acquitted in 2017 of planning to plant a bomb in a hotel in Eilat, is suing for NIS 80,000 in damages over his unjust arrest and to cover his defense expenses. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter "The court's ruling speaks for itself," according to Nimri's request for compensation, which was submitted to the Be'er Sheva District Court judges who acquitted him. Nimri, now 24, was arrested in 2015 after he was identified by the hotel's receptionist as the person who came to tour the hotel and asked suspicious questions about the rooms. Khalil Nimri in court (Photo: Barel Efraim) He was taken in for interrogation by the Shin Bet, during which he confessed to have planned to carry out an attack at the hotel. But a short time later, the same receptionist spotted the person who actually took the tour of the hotelAshraf Salameh, 25. The receptionist called the police and admitted his mistake, and Ashraf was taken in for questioning as well. Instead of admitting the mistake and releasing Nimri, the Shin Bet formulated a theory according to which the twoboth residents of east Jerusalem who were working in Eilat at the timeplanned to carry out the attack together. In their reasoning, which was released some time after the acquittal, judges Ariel Vago, Aylon Infeld and Ariel Hazak noted the defendant was arrested under the Shin Bet's mistaken belief that he was behind the plot to bomb the hotel and may have been falsely jailed. "The Shin Bet's investigation methods are unknown to us," the judges wrote. "It can be assumed that when given appropriate intelligence, the Shin Bet knows how to carry out an investigation to thwart the threat in the most effective manner. However, in this case, at least based on the evidence presented before us, there is concrete concern that the defendant (Nimri) was arrested and spent two years in detainment while innocent of any crime." Khalil Nimri in court (Photo: Barel Efraim) In his claim, Nimri demands to be reimbursed for his defense expenses and to be compensated for his unjust detention, in accordance with Article 80 of the criminal law. Nimri's lawyers, Ester Bar-Zion and Victor Uzan, filed the suit, in which it was claimed that Nimri's good name, as well as his livelihood, have been damaged as a result. "There is no dispute that his confession was a false one A reasonable prosecutor is supposed to act as a public emissary and have a duty to examine the evidence, to locate and correct investigation failures and to ensure that the suspect's rights are not violatedwhich did not happen in our case," Bar-Zion said. In response to the suit, the State Attorney's Office said there was sufficient evidence to indict Nimri. "In the evidence that was available to the prosecution at the time the indictment was filed, there was sufficient evidence for any prosecutor to do so. "The defendants lies caused an extraordinary extension of the trial, and therefore there is no justified reason to require the state to provide compensation under these circumstances," the prosecutions statement read. Former MK Basel Ghattas filed Sunday a petition to the Administrative Court in Be'er Sheva against Israel Prison Service over the conditions of his detention. Ghattas was sentenced to 24 months in prison in 2017 for smuggling mobile phones to Palestinian security prisoners. Over 100 students left the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council high school on Sunday morning to make their way to Jerusalem as part of a march to raise awareness for the ongoing high tensions on the Gaza border. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The studentssophomores, juniors and seniorswill walk to the capital, some 90 kilometers away, over the course of five days. The teenagers, who will be joined by their peers from other areas of the country, will walk about 15 kilometers on Sunday and spend the night at Kibbutz Ruhama, which is in the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council and under constant rocket fire threat. High school students from Gaza border towns leave on protest march to Jerusalem (Photo: Roee Idan) This is the biggest protest since the "March of Return" campaign began in late March and brought with it a new threat to their communities: arson terrorism in the form of balloons and kites being flown across the border from the strip into Israel, with an incendiary or explosive device tied to them. During the weekend, protest leaders worked on planning the march: mapping out the route, figuring out the time it would take to reach each stop, and making sure they have the proper equipment and food. The teens have the full support of their parentssome of whom will meet them at different stops along the wayas well as organizations and private individuals who will help with necessary equipment. High school students from Gaza border towns march past an Iron Dome battery on their way to Jerusalem. (Photo: Roee Idan) The schools themselves will not take part in the protest, as the Education Ministry cannot, by law, encourage such a march at the expense of school time. But the teachers and school principals have already told the students they have no intention of stopping them. "This is a protest that came from them, a move they initiated. We can't stop them," said one of the teachers. The students prepared signs and flags for the march as well as T-shirts with the slogan "Let us grow up in peace." High school students from Gaza border towns leave on protest march to Jerusalem with sign that says 'Let us grow up in peace.' (Photo: Roee Idan) "Our message is that we want change. Enough of the current security situation," said Roei Rahaf from Kibbutz Mefalsim, a senior at the Shaar HaNegev regional high school. "Since we were born, we've been living from one war to the next. We want to grow up on the Gaza border in peace. The change is in the hands of the leadership in Israel, and that is why we are marching to the Knesset. This is a journey to raise awareness of what's going on here, on the Gaza border; to tell our story, of the teenagers who deal with the difficult security situation." Much like any modern protest, the teens will provide updates in real time on the protest's Instagram and Facebook pages, where they will post photos and videos from the march. Meanwhile, students from the Nofei HaBsor High School at the Eshkol Regional Council protested at the entrance to the educational facility as a sign of solidarity with the marchers. Several adult protesters blocked the Kerem Shalom border crossing on Sunday morning, preventing trucks from entering the Gaza Strip. Large police and border police forces raided Sunday the headquarters of the governor of Jerusalem in the Palestinian Authority in Al-Ram, a Palestinian town located north of Jerusalem. The police confiscated computers and documents. Rainstorms lashing Sicily have killed at least 10 people, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said before heading Sunday for the stricken Mediterranean island. State radio said nine of those victims were in a home that was flooded by a rapidly swelling river in the countryside near Palermo. The radio report said one man survived the house flood late Saturday night by clinging to a tree. The survivor used his cellphone to call for help but it was too late for the others, including a one-year-old baby and a three-year-old child. The victims were from two families who had gathered in the country villa for the weekend. Another confirmed fatality was a man whose body was found on a guardrail along a Palermo-area road after floodwaters swept away his car, Italian news reports said. State TV also said two people were killed by the storm in the outskirts of Agrigento, a Sicilian tourist town famed for its ancient Greek temples. If confirmed, those deaths would raise the overall death toll in Sicily to 12. "Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba," read the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazettethe largest and most popular newspapers in the region which was devoted entirely to marking the one-week anniversary of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The quote, written in Hebrew, is the first line of the Kaddish mourners' prayer, and in English translates to: "May His great name be exalted and sanctified..." The unusual story inspired other national media outlets. NBC News, for example, finished its Friday news edition with a special gesturethe Kaddish prayer, read in full, and accompanied by pictures of the victims. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette front page "The last part of our broadcast is inspired by the powerful Post-Gazette headline this morning ... On the first Saturday since the attack, we asked cantor Azi Schwartz of Park Avenue Synagogue here in New York, to help us honor (the victims) by reciting the prayer," said the NBC news anchor. NBC Nightly News 'Remembering the lives lost in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting' X American public learning Kaddish CNN's digital edition also addressed the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's gesture, by explaining the prayer's meanings and laws for a public unfamiliar with the Jewish prayer book. "The prayer is in Aramaic, which is similar to Hebrew, and shows up in different versions, including the Burial Kaddish, which is recited during funerals," CNN's site noted. CNN homepage "However, the prayer doesn't even mention death. Instead, it celebrates two of the hardest things to remember during times of grief: the existence of God and the power of community," the article read. Pittsburgh Post Gazette's executive editor and vice-president David M. Shribma devoted his editor's column to explaining the Jewish mourners' prayer. "When you conclude there are no words to express a communitys feelings, then maybe you are thinking in the wrong language. Thats what prompted me to consider whether an excerpt from a 10th century prayer might be the appropriate gestureof respect, of condolencefor a 21st century audience mourning its dead, whether family, friend, congregant, neighbor or, simply, Pittsburgher, the executive editor explained. Liron Nagler-Cohen, Eli Mendelbaum, and Yaniv Pohoryles contributed to this story. Newly-appointed Police Commissioner Moshe "Chico" Edri will be returning to the force after almost a year of civilian life. During his time out of uniform, Edri served as the director-general of the Public Security Ministry. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Edri's close work with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan was what gave him the advantage over Jerusalem District Commander Yoram HaLevy, long considered the favorite for the commissioner role. While Erdan held HaLevy in high regard, he chose Edri due to his easy-going nature and the belief he would have an easier time working with him down the line. Edri retired from the police in February 2018 after 28 years in the force, during which he served in a number of key positions, with the most recent being the head of the Police Traffic Department, the commander of the Jerusalem District and later the commander of the Tel Aviv District. Moshe Edri, the newly appointed police commissioner (file photo) (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg) After his retirement from the police, Edri sought to run for the role of the head of the Israel Witness Protection Authority, but the Erdan asked Edri to withdraw his candidacy and instead appointed Avi Noiman. The fact Edri accepted Erdan's request to pull his candidacy scored him quite a few points. But Erdi's real test came when he agreed to serve as the director-general of the Public Security Ministry. Erdan and Edri became close during the latter's time at the ministry, and the former cop served as an advisor to the minister on police matters. Erdan discussed the major issues concerning the police with Edri, and often adopted his position. Edri also helped the minister set goals for the next police commissioner, including: dealing with crimes and violence in the Arab sector; increasing enforcement on Israel's roads as part of the effort to reduce car accidents and fight road rage; bolstering protection to children and teens from online dangers; fighting violence within the family, including the murder of women; introducing and integrating advanced technologies in the police; improving the service to the common citizen; and increasing discipline in the Israel Police ranks. Moshe Edri, right, with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, center, and outgoing Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh (file photo) (Photo: Motti Kimchi) The fact Edri has gone through a variety of different roles in the policefrom the commander of the Tiberias and Tayibe stations to heading the two biggest districtsalso worked in his benefit. The 51-year-old Haifa native now lives in Kfar HaOranim, near Modi'in, with his wife Aliza and their three children. He has a BA in Israel Studies and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies. Moshe Edri, the newly appointed police commissioner, this weekend (Photo: Yariv Katz) Much like his predecessors Yohanan Danino and Roni Alsheikh, Edri studied at a Bnei Akiva yeshiva high school in Haifa. His last role in the IDF was the deputy Golani reconnaissance platoon. Edri's year book picture at the yeshiva (the top left photo) (Photo: Bnei Akiva) During his time as the commander of the Police's Jerusalem District, Edri successfully contended with the wave of lone wolf terror attacks (44 terror attacks took place in Jerusalem during his tenure), but his career was also stained by the failure in the security of the 2015 Pride Parade in the city, when one of the participants, Shira Banki , was murdered by an ultra-Orthodox extremist. Yishai Schlissel was able to enter the closed-off parade route and stab Banki to death , only three weeks after being released from prison, where he served a 10-year sentence for a similar hate crime at the pride parade in 2005. Members of the LGBT community were furious at Edri's appointment, as they hold him responsible for Banki's death. Shira Banki, who was murdered at the Jerusalem Pride Parade in 2015 "We're very disappointed with Minister Erdan, who chose to ignore the police failure that cost Shira Banki her life, and appoint Edri as police commissioner," said Chen Arieli, the head of the Aguda Israel's LGBT Task Force. "The LGBT community and its members deserve personal security just like all other Israeli citizens. It's hard to say Edri, in his previous role, protected our security, and it would've been more appropriate to choose another candidate." The Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance threatened to take steps against Edri's appointment. "We're bothered by the announcement about Edri's appointment to police commissioner in light of the serious failures that happened under his command at the Jerusalem Pride Parade," said Eran Globus, the chairman of the Open House. Edri only received a rebuke in his personnel file, but the police committee examining the case did not recommend his ouster over the stabbing at the Pride Parade. A 69-year-old bus driver was stabbed Sunday by a cyclist in Ramat Gan following a dispute that has arisen between them. A MDA team evacuated the driver in a moderate condition to the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer. The suspect, a 19-year-old male, was arrested by the police. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been waging a fierce campaign against Palestinians selling real estate and lands in east Jerusalem to Jews. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The campaign began several months ago when the PA decided to launch an all-out-war against east Jerusalem residents, who sold lands to Jews and right-wing NGOs, which the authority deemed as treason. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: AFP) The investigations against east Jerusalem residents suspected of making real estate deals with Jewish citizens are led by PA officials in cooperation with the Palestinian defense establishment, which at times illegally operates from within east Jerusalem. Meetings with the attendance of extended Palestinian families from east Jerusalem villages took place over the past month, during which discussions were held how to eradicate the selling of lands to Jews. The pressure applied by the PA senior officials in east Jerusalem prompt the families to hold the meetings. Issam Akel, 53, an east Jerusalem resident, who holds a blue card (which grants all residential rights in Israel except for the right to vote for the Knesset), was detained by the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence at the beginning of October. Security forces raid on Rit's office building in east Jerusalem Akel's wife told Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth that while being in Ramallah, her husband was asked to immediately arrive at the General Intelligence's offices on the pretext he needs to sign a document. She added a week went by without anybody knowing Akel's whereabouts. Following that time, the General intelligence confirmed the 53-year-old man had been detained. However, his wife was not allowed to meet or speak with him. Since Akel is an American citizen, his wife turned to the US consulate in Jerusalem, and only then she was allowed to meet her husband. "His mental state is bad. He wanted to be examined in the hospital, but they did not let him go," she explained. In response, the police detained Adnan Rit, the Governor of the Jerusalem District of the Palestinian Authority and Jihad Al-Faqeeh, the head of Palestinian intelligence in the city. Confiscated documents Both Rit and Al-Faqeeh were released shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, Akel remains in detention in Ramallah. On Thursday evening, Rit was detained for further questioning after the police raided a conference held by the PA in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud in east Jerusalem. He was released several hours later. Two Palestinians were wounded on Sunday while trying to prevent the security forces from entering Rit's office to search it. Computers and documents, which were confiscated during the search, were taken for examination. A car bomb exploded near a military position in Syria's Raqqa on Sunday, local authorities and a war monitor said, and Islamic State group said it was behind the blast. The blast came a day after the assassination of a local council leader in the city, the former Syrian capital of the militant group's self-declared caliphate, which was seized a year ago by US-backed Kurdish-led fighters. According to data published by the Ministry of Interior, voting rates in the Arab and Druze sectors were significantly higher than in the Jewish sector for the municipal elections held on Tuesday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The data, which is yet to be finalized, also shows that citizens whose socio-economic status is low vote in higher rates than citizens whose socio-economic status is high, people residing in small municipalities cast their vote in the ballot box more than those living in big municipalities, and that the voting percentages in the periphery are higher than those in the center of the country. 2018 municipal elections Some 3,840,000 people voted in the municipal elections last week, with the national voting rate being 58%, a 7% increase in comparison to the previous municipal elections five years ago. In the Arab and Druze sectors, the voting rate was 84%, as opposed to 55% in the Jewish sector. Studies show that the Arab citizens are interested in local politics, since they consider it the only framework for their political, social and economic development. However, most of the Arabs residing in east Jerusalem, who are permanent residents and not citizens, therefore have the right to only vote in the municipal elections and not for the Knesset, regularly boycott local elections, and this time was not any different. In addition, the voting rate was 64% in municipalities rated 1-3 according to the Socio-Economic Index, while 57.5% voted in municipalities rated 4-6. In the municipalities rated 7-10, whose socio-economic status is considered the highest in the country, the voting rate was merely 55%. Furthermore, voting percentages were higher in small municipalities, in comparison to big ones. A possible explanation for that is the fact each voice has bigger influence in small municipalities, instilling motivation in its residents to go out and vote. Seventy-three percent voted in municipalities with up to 30,000 residents, while 65% cast their vote in municipalities with 30,000-60,000 residents, and 61% voted in municipalities with 60,000-100,000 residents. The lowest voting rate of 48% was noted in the biggest municipalities in Israel. Moreover, the data indicates that more people vote in councils than in municipalities; in local councils the voting rate was 77%, while only 66% voted in the regional councils and 54% fulfilled their civic duty in the cities. The voter turnout in the northern district was the highest, with 73% casting a ballot. In the West Bank, some 70% voted, 62% in the southern district, 59% in the central district, 57% in the Haifa district, 49% in the Tel Aviv district, and the lowest voting rate was noted in the Jerusalem district. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz will travel to Oman overnight Sunday. During the diplomatic visit, Katz will present his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's joint initiative, Tracks for Regional Peace," meant to reinforce ties with the Gulf Arab states. News Dallas, Texas - A federal jury found two home health owners and two employees guilty Tuesday for their roles in a scheme to bill Medicare and Medicaid for over $3.7 million in charges when the owners had previously been excluded from participating in federal health care benefit programs. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox of the Northern District of Texas, Special Agent in Charge C.J. Porter of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector Generals (HHS-OIG) Dallas Region, Special Agent in Charge Eric Jackson of the FBIs Dallas Field Office and Director of Law Enforcement David Maxwell of the Texas Attorney Generals Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) made the announcement. After a six-day trial, Celestine Tony Okwilagwe, 50, of Dallas County, Texas; Paul Emordi, 52, of Collin County, Texas; Adetutu Etti, 60, also of Dallas County; and Loveth Isidaehomen, 49, also of Dallas County, were each convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. In addition, Okwilagwe and Etti were each convicted of two counts of false statement in connection with a health care benefit program. Sentencing before U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle of the Northern District of Texas, who presided over the trial, has not yet been scheduled. According to evidence presented at trial, Okwilagwe and Emordi owned and operated Elder Care, a Medicare and Medicaid provider in Garland, Texas, when both were previously excluded from participating in any federal health care benefit program. Etti, the administrator of Elder Care, concealed Okwilagwes ownership and Okwilagwe and Emordis exclusions from Medicare and Medicaid. Etti signed false documents that indicated that no one associated with Elder Care was excluded and that another individual owned Elder Care, the evidence showed. The evidence further established that Isidaehomen signed bank documents and wrote employee paychecks to conceal the involvement of her husband, Okwilagwe. The defendants also engaged in a scheme to submit false and fraudulent bills to Medicare for services that were not needed, the evidence showed. Evidence at trial demonstrated that Elder Care billed Medicare and Medicaid for over $3.7 million for claim reimbursements to which it was not entitled because Okwilagwe and Emordi were excluded from Medicare. This case was investigated by HHS-OIG, the FBI, and MFCU. Assistant Deputy Chief Adrienne Frazior and Trial Attorney Catherine Wagner of the Criminal Divisions Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Fusco of the Northern District of Texas are prosecuting the case. The Fraud Section leads the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which is part of a joint initiative between the Department of Justice and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country. Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which maintains 14 strike forces operating in 23 districts, has charged nearly 4,000 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $14 billion. News Baltimore, Maryland - A federal jury Wednesday convicted eight Baltimore, Maryland men for conspiring to participate in a violent racketeering enterprise known as Trained To Go (TTG), a subset of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) gang, including nine murders, drug trafficking, and witness intimidation, as well as on conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin, marijuana, and cocaine. Several of the defendants were also convicted of related drug and firearms charges. The defendants convicted today are: Montana Barronette, aka Tana, and Tanner, 23; Terrell Sivells, aka Rell, 27; John Harrison, aka Binkie, 28; Taurus Tillman, aka Tash, 29; Linton Broughton, aka Marty, 25; Dennis Pulley, aka Denmo, 31; Brandon Wilson, aka Ali, 24; and Timothy Floyd, aka Tim Rod, 28. The convictions were announced by Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur for the District of Maryland; Special Agent in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the FBI Baltimore Field Office; Interim Commissioner Gary Tuggle of the Baltimore Police Department; Special Agent in Charge Rob Cekada of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Baltimore Field Division; Assistant Special Agent in Charge Don A. Hibbert of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Baltimore District Office and Anne Arundel County Police Chief Tim Altomare. For six years, Trained To Go terrorized the Sandtown neighborhood, committing murders, robberies, and other violence as they sold their poison on the streets of Baltimore, said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. Todays convictions ensure that Montana Barronette and the other seven defendants in this vicious gang now will be held accountable for their horrible crimes. Federal, state and local law enforcement joined together to target the leaders and key members of one of the most violent gangs operating in Baltimore City, said U.S. Attorney Hur. Todays convictions prove our continuing commitment to removing armed, violent criminals from our neighborhoods and bringing them to justice in the federal system, which has no paroleever. This investigation represents the epitome of law enforcement agencies working together to target and dismantle violent street gangs that threaten the safety and stability of our neighborhoods, said FBI Baltimore Special Agent in Charge Johnson. The citizens of Baltimore City and Maryland have the FBIs commitment that we will work with our local, state and federal partners to attack these dealers and remove violent criminals from their neighborhoods. According to the evidence presented at their 24-day trial, the defendants are all members of TTG, a criminal organization and subset of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) gang that operated in the Sandtown neighborhood of West Baltimore, whose members engaged in drug distribution and acts of violence including murder, armed robbery, and witness intimidation. Members and associates of TTG sold heroin, cocaine, and marijuana, and worked to defend their exclusive right to control who sold narcotics in TTG territory. As part of the conspiracy, each defendant agreed that a conspirator would commit at least two acts of racketeering activity for TTG. Specifically, the evidence proved that between May 20, 2010 and May 25, 2016, the defendants and other members of TTG committed acts of violence, including nine murders, shootings, armed robbery, and witness intimidation. The violent acts were intended to further the gangs activities, protect the gangs drug territory, and maintain and increase a members position within the organization. Murders were committed in retaliation for individuals robbing TTG members of drugs and drug proceeds, or while TTG members robbed others of their drugs and drug proceeds, as well as in murder-for-hire schemes. Further, the defendants engaged in witness intimidation through violence or threats of violence, to prevent individuals from cooperating with law enforcement. The defendants all face a maximum sentence of life in prison on the racketeering and drug conspiracies. Pulley and Wilson each also face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for being felons in possession of a firearm; and a mandatory minimum of five years, consecutive to any other sentence imposed, and up to life in prison for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Tillman and Sivells also face up to 20 years in prison for distribution and possession with intent to distribute heroin. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake has scheduled sentencing. The defendants remain detained. Three other TTG members, all of Baltimore, previously pleaded guilty. Brandon Bazemore, aka Man Man, 25, pleaded guilty to the racketeering conspiracy, including three murders and an attempted murder, as well as to the drug conspiracy. Bazemore and the government have agreed that if the Court accepts the plea, Bazemore will be sentenced to 25 years in federal prison at his sentencing on Nov. 13. Co-defendants Hisaun Chatman, 31, and James Woodfolk, 20, pleaded guilty to the drug conspiracy and were each sentenced to five years in prison, to be served concurrent to the state sentence each is currently serving. Co-defendant Roger Taylor, of Baltimore, is still a fugitive, and the charges against him are pending. Anyone who may have information on the whereabouts of Roger Taylor is asked to contact the FBI Baltimore Field office at (410) 265-8080. The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the Baltimore Police Department, the ATF, the DEA and the Anne Arundel County Police Department, including the FBI Baltimore Safe Streets Violent Gang Task Force, which includes FBI special agents and task force officers from the Baltimore, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County Police Departments. FBI Baltimore Safe Streets Violent Gang Task Force is responsible for identifying and targeting the most violent gangs in the Baltimore metropolitan area, to address gang violence and the associated homicides in Baltimore. The vision of the program is to use federal racketeering statutes to disrupt and dismantle significant violent criminal threats and criminal enterprises affecting the safety and well-being of our citizens and our communities. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Hanley of the Justice Departments Organized Crime and Gang Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher J. Romano and Daniel Gardner of the District of Maryland prosecuting the case. News Washington, DC - Attorney General Jeff Sessions Delivers Remarks at the 37th Annual U.S. Marshals Service Directors Honorary Awards Ceremony: Thank you, Rod, for that kind introduction and thank you for your outstanding leadership as Deputy Attorney General and your nearly 30 years of service to this Department. Thank you also to Acting Deputy Director David Anderson for your 21 years of service to the Marshals Service, and ATF Acting Director Tom Brandon. Thank you all for being here. Thank you also to Sgt. Smith for that stirring rendition of the National Anthem. I also want to thank Monsignor Criscuolo for the invocationand thank you for saying the Blue Mass every year. Its important to pause and consider the really important things in life. But above all, thank you to the stars of the show: our award winners. I have been all around the world, and I firmly believe that no nation has a finer group of law officers than the United States of America. And of all of our law enforcement agencies, the Marshals are the most versatile and the oldest federal agency in American law enforcement. Marshals and their deputies arenow and 24 hours a day in every corner of America, working courageously and faithfully to protect this nation and our people. You have the broadest mandate and the broadest authority of any federal law enforcement agency. Im told thats why theres an old saying in Marshals training: if it hasnt been done by federal law enforcement beforethen its your job. In fact, for much of our nations history, federal law enforcement in most parts of the country was represented by two people: the U.S. Attorney and the U.S. Marshal, which was the most important. That was it. Marshals were the face of federal law enforcement. Marshals brought peace and order to the Wild Westand they stood guard during the Civil Rights Movement. And from the beginning of this country till today, Marshals and their deputies have been catching fugitives on the run and keeping our courthouses, our judges, and our witnesses safe. It has often been said that the independent judiciary protects the rule of law in this country. That is truebut the Marshals Service protects the independent judiciary. In some countries, judges can be threatened or intimidated into changing their rulings. Witnesses and prisoners can be kidnapped or disappeared. The rule of law descends into the rule of the mob. Not in this country. Our judges know that they can follow the law wherever it leadsbecause theyve got the Marshals keeping them safe. And today youre more effective than ever. Just in the last decade, U.S. Marshals have arrested more than one million violent fugitives. You have recovered hundreds of missing children. You have safely transported more than 2.5 million detainees and inmates, and protected our communities by completing more than 400,000 compliance checks on registered sex offenders. You respond to any challenge. The President emphasized border enforcement, and we determined to increase prosecutions of illegal entrants. The increase was 86 percent. That meant more court appearances for more defendants. I called David Anderson to tell him that we would need many more deputies at the border. He replied that he had thought about it, and that the Marshalls had not fallen behind and would not fall behind. You have fully met that challenge. Youre a force-multiplier for our state and local partners, especially in our Fugitive Task Forces. In 2017, U.S. Marshals Service-led fugitive task forces arrested more than 80,000 fugitives across America. That is incredible work. And you do these things at great risk at the risk even of your lives. You know its dangerous. You and your families know that only too well. It takes courage to wear a badge for even one day. It takes courage to chase a fugitive down, to seize a building from a drug dealer, or be prepared to take a bullet for the person youre guarding. Fugitives are generally not fleeing unpaid parking tickets or littering charges. The kind of criminal who is likely to be a fugitive from justice and get on the Marshals list is often violent and desperate. And yet you chase them down every single day. The Marshals arrest more fugitives than all other agencies combined. It is the honor of a lifetime to work for an agency like that. I hope that you never take it for granted. Never lose a sense of wonder about your high and moral calling. It is an honor for me to have a leadership responsibility for your Service. Yours is a storied law enforcement agencybut lets remember something. The historic badge alone is not magic. The reason the Marshals Service has been so effective is youthe people who step forward to serve. Nearly 3,800 Deputy U.S. Marshals and over 1,400 administrative staff, do exemplary work every day. And youour award winnersare the best of the best. This Department is proud of you. The President is proud of you. And this nation is proud of you. And so I want to thank you all for the exemplary service that we are honoring today. Know this: you have our thanks and we have your back. News St. Louis, Missouri - Four alleged members or associates of the Aryan Circle (AC) have been indicted and three arrested for their alleged roles in a November 9, 2013 aggravated assault in Jefferson County, Missouri. The indictments were announced by Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey B. Jensen of the Eastern District of Missouri. Thomas B. Wilson, 43, of Villa Ridge, Missouri; Daniel B. Jerome, 31, of Wentzville, Missouri; Thomas Tisher, 34, of St Louis, Missouri; and Dustin M. Haney, 28, of Hermann, Missouri are charged in an indictment, returned by a federal grand jury on October 31, and unsealed Thursday, with aggravated assault in aid of racketeering. Daniel B. Jerome remains at large. These four defendants are alleged to have brutally assaulted their victim in order to establish or maintain their own status in the Aryan Circle gang, said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. Gangs like the Aryan Circle threaten the safety and security of all Americans, and the Criminal Division will target and aggressively prosecute any individual who commits acts of violence on behalf of a gang. According to the indictment, the AC is a powerful race-based, multi-state organization that operates inside and outside of state and federal prisons throughout the United States, and particularly in Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. The AC was established in the mid-1980s within the Texas prison system (TDCJ). Recently, the ACs structure and influence expanded to rural and suburban areas throughout Missouri, Texas, and Louisiana. The AC emerged as an independent organization during a period of turmoil within the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). The AC was relatively small in comparison to other prison-based gangs, but grew in stature and influence within TDCJ in the 1990s, largely through violent conflict with other gangs, white and non-white alike. The indictment further alleges that the AC enforces its rules and promotes discipline among its members, prospects and associates through murder, attempted murder, assault, robbery and threats against those who violate the rules or pose a threat to the organization. Members, and often, associates, are required to follow the orders of higher-ranking members without question. An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. This case is being investigated by an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force consisting of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; Federal Bureau of Prisons; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations; FBI; Texas Department of Public Safety; Houston Police Department-Gang Division; Texas Department of Criminal Justice; New Jersey Department of Corrections-Special Investigations Division; Arnold (MO) Police Department; Jefferson County (MO) Sheriffs Department; St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department; St. Louis County (MO) Police Department; Montgomery County (TX) Precinct 1 Constables Office; Louisiana State Police; Indiana State Police; Indiana Department of Corrections; Carrollton (TX) Police Department; Waller (TX) Police Department; Montgomery County (TX) Sheriffs Office; Travis County (TX) Sheriffs Office and the Tarrant County (TX) Sheriffs Office. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney David Karpel of the Criminal Divisions Organized Crime and Gang Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Angie Danis of the Eastern District of Missouri, in cooperation with the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Western District of Louisiana and the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Eastern District of Texas. News Washington, DC - A Fairfax, Virginia man was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for downloading child pornography, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger of the Eastern District of Virginia and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBIs Washington Field Office announced. Christopher James Tator, 31, a newspaper carrier, was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia. In August, Tator pleaded guilty to one count of receipt of child pornography by a person with a prior conviction relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor. According to court documents, Tator was discovered by the FBI making child pornography files available over an Internet file-sharing network. A computer forensic examination of devices seized from Tators residence during a search warrant revealed that he had used a computer to download child pornography videos from a Dropbox cloud storage account. Tators devices also contained hundreds of thumbnail images of children being sexually abused, many of which depicted the sexual abuse of infants. Tator is a registered sex offender as a result of a 2010 Prince William County conviction of attempting to take indecent liberties with children. The case was investigated by the FBI Washington Field Offices Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, with assistance from the High Technology Investigative Unit (HTIU) of the Criminal Divisions Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS). CEOS Trial Attorney Kyle P. Reynolds prosecuted the case. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. Arizona News Window Rock, Arizona - Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against Scott Tomlinson, President of the Window Rock Unified School District Governing Board, to remove him from office for allegedly violating an Arizona law that requires an individual running for office as a school governing board member, be a registered voter at the time of their election. The quo warranto lawsuit alleges that in 2016, Tomlinson filed papers with the State attesting he was qualified to run for office. He was subsequently elected to the Window Rock Unified School District Governing Board that same year. However, attorneys say Tomlinson was not qualified for office because he was not a registered voter at the time of the election as required by Arizona law. Tomlinson was not registered to vote in Arizona until June 28, 2018, according to the lawsuit. This case is ongoing. Arizona News Sun City, Arizona - Tuesday Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced the filing of a Do Not Call and Consumer Fraud lawsuit against Sun City-based Bright & Shiny Cleaning Company (Bright & Shiny) and its owner Donald Burkhardt. The lawsuit alleges Bright & Shiny called tens of thousands of Arizonans registered on the federal Do Not Call list, repeatedly called consumers who asked the company to stop calling, and used a deceptive scheme to gain access to consumers homes in order to subject them to high-pressure sales presentations for Kirby vacuums. According to the allegations, Bright & Shiny called over 28,000 phone numbers of Arizonans that were on the federal Do Not Call list, on just one phone line in an eight-month span between September 2017 and April 2018. The complaint alleges that Bright & Shiny called 49,000 phone numbers on that line during that time, meaning that one out of every two calls the company made violated the Do Not Call laws. During the calls, investigators say company representatives told consumers they had been selected to receive a complimentary carpet cleaning or a free gift, but did not disclose that the true purpose of the calls was to gain access to consumers homes in order to make sales presentations for Kirby vacuum cleaners. Additionally, the complaint alleges that despite telling consumers the carpet cleaning would take approximately an hour, Bright & Shiny salespeople would often stay in consumers homes attempting to sell the vacuum cleaners for unreasonably long periods of time. Reportedly, some sales presentations lasted for three hours or longer. Investigators say the defendants used these deceptive practices and illegal telemarketing tactics to sell over $12 million in Kirby Vacuums from approximately January 2014 to the present. The States lawsuit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, seeks consumer restitution, attorneys fees, a fine of up to $1,000 for each call Bright & Shiny made to a consumer on the federal Do Not Call Registry, and a fine of up to $10,000 for each violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act. Assistant Attorney General Bryce Clark of the Consumer Protection and Advocacy Section is handling the case. If you believe you have been the victim of consumer fraud, you can file a consumer complaint by contacting the Attorney Generals Office in Phoenix at (602) 542-5763, in Tucson at (520) 628-6648, or outside the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas at (800) 352-8431. Consumers can also file complaints online by visiting the Attorney Generals website. Arizona News Sahuarita, Arizona - Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced 67-year-old Karen Hartwell of Sahuarita, pleaded guilty to Attempted Fraudulent Schemes & Practices in connection with her work as a certified water operator. Between September 5, 2016, and June 30, 2017, Hartwell altered 13 drinking water test results for six different southern Arizona water districts that were clients of her company, YL Tech. Hartwell then submitted the altered results to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). In each of the 13 altered test results, Hartwell modified the testing paperwork with a computer program to replace a positive coliform test result with a negative result. Drinking water quality rules require testing for coliform bacteria on a monthly basis. "The actions by this individual put the public at risk and now she's going to jail for it," said Attorney General Mark Brnovich. "Health and safety are top priorities of the government and this case sends a strong message to all individuals entrusted with checking and maintaining the quality of our critical resources." As part of her plea agreement, Hartwell will serve eight months in jail and will pay a fine of $10,000. Sentencing is scheduled for January 3, 2019, in Pima County Superior Court. ADEQ revoked Hartwells water operator certification in January of 2018 and notified all water systems that were customers of YL Tech of the issue. Assistant Attorney General Adam J Schwartz is prosecuting this case. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. Modern African print dresses were not accorded the right attention until recently when Africas fashion industry begun to blossom. Most of the African print styles are made from African print fabrics that are distinctively unique to specific tribes of Africa. Such prints include Kente fabric from Ghana, Kitenge fabric famous in East, Central and West Africa, Ankara and Kaba fabrics. What makes African prints a darling to many is their unique patterns and ability to complement almost all body types quite well. This includes modern African prints dresses for wedding. However, it is also important to find the right tailor to work on your specific piece to make a masterpiece for your body type. Looking at different dress styles for African prints, it is easy to see why people continue to appreciate the African wear. Arguably, the world's fashion scene today is at its peak in view of the known times. A lot of competition characterizes it in creativity, prices, and market share. It is more challenging to build a brand now compared to two decades ago. This has prompted drastic measures from top brands and mushrooming designers to ensure they gain and maintain their edge in the market. To many, African print fabric has offered the perfect safe haven. They are unique, less explored and goes with literally any body type. This has resulted to creation of many dress styles for African prints in the market. Some of these styles are improved version of traditional styles, while others are newly developed styles to fit the current fashion world. Below is a detailed view of the different African print styles available in the market today. READ ALSO: History of fashion in Ghana Fashionable African dresses The joining together of two individuals in a wedding ceremony is always a defining moment. The ceremony is always a joyous moment; marked by singing, dancing, and most importantly dressing to kill. The importance of the day cannot be emphasized more than the attendees in their sophisticated wedding attires, and the brides wedding regalia do it. In Africa, things are a little bit more colourful as the invites come dressed in their African dresses, well designed to snatch everyones attention from the brides, however impossible. Below are some of the fashionable African dresses you are likely to find in a wedding today. Feel free to find one that you will rock in your next wedding. African wear long dresses Decency is at the backbone of every African culture. Decency in African fashion is defined by minimum exposure of the body, something that has been changing gradually with modernization. This change however has done very little to minimize the presence of African wear long dresses. Below is a list of latest African styles that are long, decent and trendy. 1. Thin strap, bear back long African dress Fair skin needs to be celebrated, at least, this is an opinion held by the current popular culture. A black, smooth and oily skin deserves nothing less than continuous appreciation, just as much as any other type of skin. This dress does exactly that. Its long and thin straps firmly hold the rest of the dress in place, exposing just enough of the back and the cleavage; keeping everything interesting and decent. The dress converges slightly below the hip curve, exposing all the curves of a woman, and immediately diverges as it approaches the ground. Needless to say, the dress is both decent, trendy, and downright gorgeous. 2. Sleeveless African print maxi dress with brass front zip Beautiful would be an understatement for this piece. This sleeveless dress is perfect for all body types. However, it will look good on someone with a defined waistline. The dress has a full skirt graduating from the waistline, giving it simplicity and elegance that can be summed up as ingenious. The colour code and detail pattern of the fabric makes its beauty more pronounced. This dress will definitely give any bride competition for attention. 3. High slit long dashiki dress When counting latest African styles, it is almost impossible not to include this dress. Slit has been in the fashion world for a long time now, and it has never disappointed. This high long dashiki dress has much of the top body covered. The lower part of the dress is characterized by a long slit, which gives it a daring edge. The dress is elegant, edgy and decent. 4. Long African print mermaid dress Mermaid dress has always been a better choice for the curvy woman. Identified by its body-hugging ability from the knee up, and an outward blown bottom, mermaid dress is surely a better choice. The dress gives you a queens pride at the same time reserving a street vibe; which is sophisticated. The fact that this dress has been made out of multi-patterned Ankara fabric makes it a killer and surely must have dress for a friends wedding. 5. Formal long African print dress The modern woman is a working woman, thus the need to find her the best attire for office and other formal occasions. Luckily, formal African wear for women today has been available in the market by different designers. This particular dress is simple and beautiful. What makes it more beautiful is the floral pattern well distributed all over the dress. Its bright colour makes it well suited for a Monday morning office day. This dress can be worn by working women of different sizes. READ ALSO: Latest Nigerian Kaba styles Short African dresses Short dresses come in different shapes and sizes, and for different occasions. Lately, ladies African wear in the market have been as diverse as the modern human population, making short African dresses some of the highly sought after dresses. These dresses are well suited for a sassy, confident and well-articulated woman. In addition to this, they are the best pieces for you to show off your beautiful legs. If these dresses are foreign to yo, do not despair. This article will outline some of the best short African dresses that you can try out. Dare to wear one to your friends wedding or to a joint. 1. Short sleeved dashiki dress with pockets This short dress is well suited for both formal and informal occasions. Designed to fit, the black dress is detailed with blue and orange patterned dashiki fabric giving it an elegant look. It also has a slight gap on its upper part, revealing enough of the womans skin to keep things interesting. The dress converges slightly above the knee, where it also ends; exposing the womans curves and legs. It is decent, lively and beautiful. To fit for a wedding dress, you will have to accompany it with a flat-heeled black shoe, with a little detail of blue, whereas to make it formal attire, you can wear it with black high heels. In both cases, the results will be wonderful for the eyes. 2. Short dashiki straight dress African wear Modern African dresses have a touch of class and glam. This short dashiki dress is no different. The design keeps everything inside on the upper side while revealing much of the lower side, especially the legs. This is a definite must-have dress for the daring woman. In addition to this, if you have nice legs and wouldnt feel shy to show it off then this is the dress for you. It is definitely not a formal dress. The dress is well suited for casual events. Make sure you complement it with the right accessories, to give it a detailed look that is out of the ordinary. 3. Short V-neck dress What is more beautiful than seeing a woman for her true self? This dress reveals a woman for who she physically is. It hugs the body all the way from the top to the bottom, revealing every detail of her curvy body. The V-neck reveals much of her chest exposing her beautiful skin, but keeping everything private out of sight. At the bottom, the dress reveals part of her above the knee skin and all of her leg. It will definitely work as a wedding dress provided there is wine to be poured and laughter to be exchanged. 4. Off-shoulder Ankara dress Its bare top that exposes the entire shoulder and neck characterizes this dress. The diverse pattern of the fabric makes it more interesting by allowing you to stand out. The pattern is diverse but in harmony with each other, making the dress a jewel. It can be accessorized with a simple necklace, and wristband, or just left as it is. Either options projects the best from the dress and ultimately you. This will definitely work for both a formal and casual event. 5. Mid-sleeved short Ankara dress This short dress is well suited for the thick African woman. It covers the upper body including the neck, except for the hands. This dress is perfect for a typical African wedding. It reveals nothing that is supposed to be kept private without being so much traditional. READ ALSO: Woodin styles for men African dress styles for young women Below are some of the notable pictures of African dresses for young women. 1. A-line Ankara dress This dress is defined with its gradual widening from the top to the bottom. When looked at closely, one gets a letter-A like impression from the design. It is best suited for different body sizes, preferable the plus size women. Yo can also have it as a maxi or mini depending on what your preference is. 2. Wrap up Ankara dress Wedding invitations can be very scary especially if you do not have the right outfit to put on. However, this particular dress can solve all your outfit problems. This wrap up dress is designed to fit any body type. The fabric has been properly selected to fit the design. It only reveals what you want to reveal but keeps everything else out of sight, keeping you comfortable and formal. 3. African print midi dress The detailed colour of this dress makes it outstanding. The upper body of this dress has been designed to hug the body perfectly well, which later spreads outwards from the waist down. The brown colour of the fabric and the pattern gives it a sense of simplicity and elegance it projects. This dress can be worn to a formal event or to any wedding. 4. African pencil dress This dress hugs the body all the way to the end. It bulges at the hips, in response to the natural outward bulge of the body and slowly reduces in size as it approaches the legs. This is best suited for petite women. It can be worn to a formal occasion. 5. Ankara dress with a coat This is a simple midi-dress accompanied by a yellow coat. The entire outfit looks official, making it good for formal occasions. However, it can be worn to casual events when you lose the coat and put on flat shoes. The dress spreads out from the waist down giving the whole dress code a fancy touch of sophistication. Latest African wear 1. African print playsuit This is a dress with shorts at the bottom. The design at the top can be of your choosing, like off shoulder or turtleneck. However, below the waist is a pair of short attached to the upper part of the dress. 2. Aso ebi style Aso Ebi style is common in most wet African weddings. It is a uniform cloth worn by women to identify themselves with their age groups, family or relatives. This style comes in different designs. 3. African print tulle dress above knee This dress has a distinctive extension lining from the inside, thus making it elegant. It is not too revealing and has an official touch to it, making it well suited for a formal occasion. 4. African print flare dress This is a simple dress with a sophisticated feel. It is appropriate for formal and casual occasion depending on the shoes you wear. 5. African print peplum pencil skirt with a white top Women of different size can wear this beautiful dress, but it is preferably best suited for petite body. Most interesting African clothing designs 2018 1. African print maxi wedding dress 2. Multi colour fluffy African print dress The multiple colours in this dress makes it a must have piece in your clad collection. The details on the sleeves make it even more interesting. This is a perfect dress for a wedding or a casual day out. 3. Blue and orange, front cut out African print This design is outstanding. It is simple and beautiful. The dress is best suited for formal occasions. The front cut out adds a fine touch of elegance to the dress. 4. Mel string African print dress This is a classy yet simple dress that can be worn during the weekends as well as for a special event. 5. Dera Dera is a loosely held dress covering the whole body. It is interestingly revealing yet surprisingly large. Any woman can wear a Dera. With the above modern African print dresses as examples of what you can wear to a wedding, women have a lot to choose from. In addition to that, you can also decide to choose a colour and style variation that works or you. The important thing is to ensure that you have an attire that works for you. READ ALSO: Latest Nigerian clothing for men Source: Yen Ghana Every lady needs a few casual dresses in her closet for when she needs to step out with friends or when she must attend a party that is out of the office. Just because their is not formality in these gatherings, does not mean that you can attend without considering your sense of style. Always have a few dresses that are our go to dresses for such events. You need to look presentable at all times. Check out the following fashion dresses that can pass as perfect ladies casual dresses. You should have at least three of these casual nice dresses in your wardrobe. With parties, weddings and celebrations to grace, you need to attend in style. You must have a few coloured African print dresses that will fit the occasion. The pride of every African woman is to stand out and have every person admire them when they attend a function. If you want to achieve this therefore choosing attires that befit occasion and place is crucial. Here are a few that you can consider when looking for casual African print dresses. READ ALSO: Nigerian ankara prom dresses African print casual dresses With designers working round the clock, it is only reasonable that there will be so much to look out for. Here are a few examples that you can use as motivation for your next attire. Casual lace dresses Lace has a way of adding a sense of sophistication in an attire. If you want your African print dress to appear more sexy then adding a little lace her and there will do the tick. Check out the perfection of the following lace dresses that can be worn to causal events. Here you will also find your favourite casual lace dresses with sleeves 1. Green lacey dress Are you a woman that loves to look modern and stylish? Is it your goal to always stand out and command respect in a crowd? Well, this is the perfect dress for your next social gathering. If you want the ladies in your next meeting to wonder where you get your ideas and inspiration then this dress will work wonders for you. The green lace on top almost gives the dress a royal appeal. Make sure that the colour combinations blend well with each other to avoid looking out of place. You can add a headgear to complete the African look that you are probably aiming to achieve. 2. Lacey ends This can make it to the collection of your perfect casual office dresses. It is decent and simple. The colours make the dress pop. It appears modern with its off shoulder style while the lace at the end of the dress bring in a sexy finish. You can as well wear this dress on a dinner date with your man and look exquisite. 3. Decency at its best If you are a woman that factors in decency when choosing an attire then this lace detailed African print dress will be perfect. It can work for many occasions including wearing it to church. You can always visit your in-laws and elders in this dress. Your sense of style is not betrayed all the same. This is the dress that proves that women do not have to be under dressed for them to look great. This is a win-win for any self-respecting lady. It can also make it to the list of casual dresses for graduation you settle for. 4. Full lace This black dress is one that every woman needs to have. It is the ideal dress for a romantic date or dinner with the man in your life. It is excellent as it flaunts your figure and shows off the African beauty that you are. The details at the bottom helps to make it decent and the long sleeves help cover up. Wearing this will make your date curious about the woman that you are. In fact, the black colour makes it even more mysterious for him and others. 5. African lace dress African print lace dresses are good for different occasions including weddings. You can choose different colours that will match your theme. READ ALSO: African dresses with lace designs Casual chiffon dresses Chiffon dresses are loved by many African women because they are comfortable and easy to wear. They tend to look great on any occasion. In fact they make perfect causal attires. Here are examples you need to explore. 1. Printed red chiffon dress The creativity of African designers has seen a lot of great pieces hit the market. This perfect piece is an example. The top part of the dress is made of a fancy checked black and white chiffon material whereas the skirt part is made of a beautiful red Ankara fabric. The combination leads to a chic dress that will be a stunner when worn to any social gathering. It can also be great for the office. 2. Long African chiffon dress This is one of the long casual dresses that every African woman should own. The dress has both chiffon and African fabric. In this case, the skirt is made of the chiffon giving it a flowing look. The Africa blouse part makes the dress authentic. This simple dress will make you stand out. Choose colours that will work for your skin texture. 3. Bright orange and green What makes most African dresses sand out is the great fabric and colour combinations. This is a perfect example of such great designer work. This dress will be suited for any evening party especially if gowns are the dress code. You will be unique not only because of the colours but also because of the one shoulder style that enhances the beauty of the gown even more. 4. Short and chic The versatility of the African fabric is amazing. The above short dress made of chiffon and African print makes a perfect dress for a sassy girl. If you want to go out to the fields for a stroll or hang out with your friends on an easy weekend then this dress will be awesome. Wear you short boots to complete the look. 5. Perfect chiffon dress This chiffon African print dress is excellent for women that want to get the very best of both materials.Make sure that your designers picks colours that blend well with each other. READ ALSO: African bridesmaid dress styles in Ghana Plus size casual dresses 1. Cover it up Plus size African women are beautiful and curvy. You can always find a casual outfit that works to flatter your body. This long sleeved maxi dress with a v-shaped neck is perfect for a reserved plus sized woman. Wear it with your favourite flip flops and a simple neck piece and you are good to attend your wedding. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication even when it comes to dressing. 2. Long maxis with round necks These are ideal attires for women that are round and curvy. The long sleeves bring in a stylish appeal to the dress. These dresses are great for when you are going for a long road trip or visiting family members with elders present. 3. Summer dress This dress is ideal for the African woman that loves the sun. If you are considering a walk on the beach on weekends then this is the dress that you should go for. You can have it short sleeved or long sleeved depending on what you prefer. The length of the dress will also be based strictly on personal preference. 4. Mixed print plus size dress This is a mixture of the African print and cotton fabrics. It is ideal for the plus size woman since it offers both comfort and style. You can choose this for the office as well especially on casual office days. 5. Simple maxi Any African woman will look perfect in this multi colored plus size dress. The dress will make you look slimmer and enhance your best features. READ ALSO: Modern African print dresses for graduation Casual dresses maternity Just because you are pregnant does not mean that you forget about being stylish. Women of an African decent are beautiful regardless of whether they are pregnant or not. This can only mean that you maximize on your attires to look even more stunning. Take advantage of your pregnancy glow and wear the best outfits during that period. Here are a few dresses to inspire you. 1. Printed free dress Pregnancy is a beautiful thing because you are carrying a new life. You need to enjoy the process as much as possible. Consider wearing this free dress that is stylish and chic. It will be perfect when you are taking long walks enjoying the sun. 2. Red high-low dress This is an excellent dress for a pregnant woman. It is comfortable and free enough giving you the breathing space that you need. The colour is flattering and popping. It can make one of your best casual maternity dresses for work. 3. Ankara for maternity Ankara lovers will definitely be looking for something stylish to wear when pregnant. This is an example of a stylish Ankara dress that you can opt for. The medium sleeved dress is perfect for a casual gathering like a wedding. You can always remove the belt whenever you feel it getting to tight. 4. Maxi maternity dress This is an excellent choice for most pregnant women. The long dress is decent and comfortable enough to allow her to sit in whatever manner she feel most comfortable in. This is a must have maternity dress in your wardrobe. 5. Pink maternity This perfect maternity dress will make you glow even more. You will definitely look the best as you welcome your guests to your house. READ ALSO: African print shirt dress styles Kids casual dresses When mothers get to look fabulous and fancy, their daughters should not be left behind. Fortunately, there are many designers that have taken it upon themselves to dress both mothers and children. Here are a few inspiring dresses for your baby girl. You can now attend that wedding like the fashion stars you both are. 1. Cute flowered sleeveless dress This is an excellent casual dress for your girl. She can wear it when you take her out to playgroup over the weekends. It is most ideal for when the sun shines bright and she can enjoy some time outside. 2. Off shoulder printed dress This is an excellent choice of dress for when you have to attend a function with your baby girl. You can have the dress made just like your own so that you look like twins. 3. African queen You baby can also slay as you do. Make her this fancy Ankara print dress and she will be happy representing her mama in the crowd. You can choose colours that will complement your babys natural look. 4. Cute baby dress This baby dress will make people understand that your child stand out. She will be the one that looks perfect as everyone dolls around her. 5. Safari dress Are you going for a safari with your baby. Let her dress the part in this beautiful safari dress with different animals.You can be sure that your baby will blend in. The best casual dresses for African ladies are not those that appear complicated in style and colour. In fact, the simple dresses are what capture the attention of most people. work with your tailor to come up with your own perfect causal dresses. Source: Yen Ghana Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Elsie Awadzi, has revealed that 20 banks have so far met the Central Banks minimum capital. Earlier this year, the BoG announced a new GH400 million minimum capital requirement which all banks must meet by the end of December. As the institution mandated to supervise and regulate the operations of all financial institutions in the country, the Central Bank went on to publish a list of banks that are duly licenced and of good standing in the country. Elsie Awadzi, second deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana. Source: B&FT Source: UGC READ ALSO: Baffour Gyan wanted by police for seizing passport of Asamaoh Gyans wife According to the BoG, only 31 banks are duly licensed to operate in the country, as of August 2018. However, the Second Deputy Governor of the Central Bank has now disclosed that 20 of the banks have so far met its GH400 million minimum capital requirement. What the Central Bank is doing is just to build a strong financial industry for the Ghanaian economy. So far there are about some 20 of the commercial banks that have already provided the new capital requirement and have been satisfied by the Bank of Ghana, Mrs. Awadzi said. She warned that all banks that fail to meet the BoGs minimum capital by the 31st December deadline will have their licenses revoked. We have made this known to the various banks from the beginning of our engagements that whichever banks that will not be able to meet the requirement wont be allowed to operate, she noted. Banking is a business that requires capital so if you cant meet the required capital then we have no option. This is a painful pill we have to take to ensure it is resilient in the sector. READ ALSO: GHc1.5 million Omnibank loan causes confusion in a church Two months ago, the Central Bank dissolved five insolvent indigenous banks to form the Consolidated Bank of Ghana Limited. These were the Royal Bank, Sovereign Bank, The Construction Bank, uniBank and Beige Bank. The BoG explained that the five banks were merged in order to ensure that the banking sector maintains a strong indigenous presence. Xandy Kamel Interview on Star Gist: 'Benedicta Gafah Has No Womb' Xandy Drops Bombshell| #Yencomgh READ ALSO: Minister flown to Accra after a car crash Want to be featured on YEN.com.gh? Send us a message on our Facebook page or on Instagram with your stories, photos or videos. Source: Yen.com.gh Deputy Communications Minister, George Andah, was involved in a near-fatal accident while travelling on Saturday morning. Accra-based Citi FM reports that the accident happened on the Bawjiase road in Kasoa, while he and his entourage were travelling to Loye, a village near Gomoa Buduburam The Deputy Minister was reportedly travelling to a funeral in the company of three other persons when the accident occurred. Mr. Andah was airlifted to the 37 Military hospital after his car collided with a truck. Source: Citinewsroom.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: 20 banks meet new minimum capital requirement - Elsie Awadzi He was subsequently rushed to the 37 Military Hospital, where he is currently receiving medical attention. Mr. Andah has been responding to treatment and is currently stable, one of his aides said. I have seen him. He is in a stable condition. Thankfully I came here to meet the family. They are here with him. They are supporting him, the aide is quoted as saying. Meanwhile, photos from the accident scene show Mr. Andahs car severely damaged from the front. The vehicle is reported to have collided head on with a speeding articulated truck, leaving all four members on board with various injuries. The Deputy Minister was in his car together with his driver, a bodyguard and a constituency executive from Awutu Senya West. It is also believed that the driver of the said articulated trucked has since been arrested and detained at the Buduburam police station. READ ALSO: GHc1.5 million Omnibank loan causes confusion in a church Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via Instagram or on YENs official Facebook page. Source: Yen The 2018 Miss Malaika pageantry was finally brought to a close on Saturday, November 3, 2018, at the National Theatre in Accra. In what was a keenly contested competition, Mariam Owusu-Poku emerged as the enviable winner in this years contest. Mariam, who is a Business Administration student at the University of Ghana, beat of stiff competition from nine other contestants to emerge winner. Mariam Owusu-Poku emerges winner of Miss Malaika 2018 Source: UGC READ ALSO: Photo of George Andahs mangled V8 after accident The 2018 Miss Malaika final had a star-studded cast as judges, with Joselyn Dumas, Jackie Appiah, Naa Ashorkor. James Gardiner and Lexis Bill constituting the judging panel. All 10 finalists of the competition took turns to perform, gave various speeches and cat-walked gorgeously in their elegant apparels in a bid to impress the judges. However, it was Mariam who shined brightest at the end of it all as she was crowned the new queen of the pageantry. Winners of 2018 Miss Malaika contest Source: UGC Evelyn also emerged as the 1st runner-up, while Rosetta came in third-place at the 2018 Miss Malaika contest. Meanwhile, the event was also graced by some of the best performers, including Mzvee, Kuami Eugene, Kidi and Wendy Shay. READ ALSO: Top entertainers, celebs storm DJ Mensah's 'All White' party Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: Yen Kumawood actress, who is called Purfcie Conna on social media has proven to Moesha Boduong that she is the best. Moesha is regarded as the best when it comes to Ghanaian actresses with shapely body. But that is not the case as Purfcie Conna has showed that you cant talk about celebrities with endowed body without mentioning her. READ ALSO: Salma Mumin drops wild bikini photo YEN.com.gh has sighted a photo of Purfcie Conna and Moesha as the duo posed for the camera. In the photo, Purfcie Conna and Moesha looked gorgeous but former murdered the latter with her fitting dress Due to the nature of Purfcie Connas dress, one can see her endowed body. As expected the photo drew lots of reactions as social media users admired the the beauty of Purfcie Conna and Moesha. READ ALSO: Nikki Samonas wows fans in new photos A fan with the handle @kenneth3762 took off his hat for the two actress. He wrote: Gorgeous looking women. @david.virgo.967 commented: I love this big things in leather jacket. @agulehi couldnt hide his admiration as he heaped praises on the duo. He stressed: beautiful Love you are so beautiful for me to Love. @snypa_dis simply wrote: Curves. READ ALSO: 7 wild photos as Mariam Owusu-Poku wins Miss Malaika 2018 In other news: Mariam Owusu-Poku has emerged as the winner of this years Miss Malaika which came off on Saturday, November 3, 2018 at the National Theatre in Accra. Mariam, who is a Business Administration student at the University of Ghana, beat of stiff competition from nine other contestants to emerge winner. Xandy Kamel Interview on Star Gist: 'Benedicta Gafah Has No Womb' Xandy Drops Bombshell| #Yencomgh: Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via YEN's official Facebook page. Source: Yen A funeral poster revealing details for the one-week observance of social media slay queen Charlotte Abena Woodey has surfaced online. According to the poster which has been sighted by YEN.com.gh, the one-week observance rites will be held on Sunday, November 4. The ceremony will be held at Arena in Accra Central. Charlotte Abena Woodey (Photo: Charlotte Abena Woodey) Source: Instagram Apart from the funeral details, the poster revealed that Abena Woodey died at the very young age of 22. READ ALSO: Lady caught making love with pastor in leaked video causes his arrest It also revealed Abena Woodey's real name to be Charlotte Aryee. Charlotte Abena Woodey's funeral poster (Photo: Facebook/Nana Yaw Agyapong) Source: Facebook It will be recalled that YEN.com.gh reported the mysterious death of Charlotte Abena Woodey, who was widely known on social media. READ ALSO: Photo of ministers mangled vehicle after Kasoa accident According to the report, Woodey died after a long battle with an illness, which is yet to be disclosed. The news of her death went viral on social media with many people who knew her both in real life and virtually, sending in words of condolence to the bereaved family. Although the actual cause of death is currently not known, there have been theories on some social media suggesting possible causes of her death. READ ALSO: Lady kills herself after killing husband and 3 kids (Photo) One of the theories, as earlier reported by YEN.com.gh, stated that the young lady died as a result of a curse placed on her by a woman for snatching her husband. The other theory has it that Abena Woodey had been used for money rituals by 'sakawa' boys (internet fraudsters). Meanwhile, a social media user who claims to have been very close to the late Abena Woodey has deepened the later rumour in a Facebook live video with his claim that Woodey was trapped with an iPhone 7+ by one 'sakawa' boy. In a video earlier shared by YEN.com.gh, the young stated that though he did all he could to get her away from the said 'sakawa' guy, Woodey was soo into the material things he was providing for her. READ ALSO: Ghanaians weep as handsome soldier who died one month to his wedding is buried (Photo) Xandy Kamel Interview on Star Gist: 'Benedicta Gafah Has No Womb' Xandy Drops Bombshell| #Yencomgh: Share your views on this with us in the comments section below. Do you have a story to share with us? Inbox us on our Facebook/Instagram page and we could feature your story. To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play today Source: Yen A young woman, whose name has been withheld has released on social media, naked photos of her ex-boyfriend after she did not take kindly to him breaking up with her. What Ghanaians are used to is the situation of young women being victims of ex-male lovers who leak intimate videos and photos on to the internet. So it would seem this is a surprise turnaround. The man in the centre of the matter has only been identified by the name of Kwaku Pro. He is reported to have first written on Facebook that he was dumping the young woman after "using" her. YEN.com.gh sources have not indicated that he has had anything to say after the photos made their way on to the internet. His Facebook page is no more available. READ ALSO: Nigerian lady allegedly kills her husband, 3 kids and herself What Ghanaians are used to is men releasing naughty information on exes. Photo credit: Google Photos Source: UGC But Mynewsgh.com reports that the photos were were accompanied by a message from a woman who seemed scorned by what she feels is betrayal of her affections. The scorned woman is quoted as writing on Facebook: This dog proposed to me and from that time...I gave him one-night stand and he gave me a tick gorno paahhhh As at now i cant overcome it, then later left me for a different girl. so i decided to pay him back." YEN.com.gh cannot publish the photos because of their explicit nature. READ ALSO: 7 wild photos as Mariam Owusu-Poku wins Miss Malaika 2018 Meanwhile, a funeral poster revealing details for the one-week observance of social media slay queen Charlotte Abena Woodey has surfaced online. According to the poster which has been sighted by YEN.com.gh, the one-week observance rites will be held on Sunday, November 4. The ceremony will be held at Arena at Accra Central. Xandy Kamel Interview on Star Gist: 'Benedicta Gafah Has No Womb' Xandy Drops Bombshell| #Yencomgh: Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via YEN's official Facebook page. Source: Yen Former Foreign Affairs Minister, Hannah Tetteh, was Friday sworn in as the Director-General of the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya. Earlier this year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that Mrs. Tetteh has been appointed as Head of the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON). However, the lawyer was officially sworn into office on Friday November 2, 2018 following a ceremony coordinated by Mr. Guterres. READ ALSO: Photo of George Andahs mangled V8 after accident Mrs. Tetteh replaces Ethiopian Sahle-Work Zewde, who occupied the position until this year. Currently, Mrs. Sahle-Work Zewde serves as Special Representative to the African Union and Head of the United Nations Office to the African Union (UNOAU). Speaking after she was sworn in, Hanna Tetteh said she is very honoured to be appointed to such a high office. In a Twitter post, the former Foreign Affairs Minister said: It was my honour to be sworn in yesterday by the Secretary General @antonioguterres as the Director General of the United Nations Office, Nairobi. Mrs. Tetteh was one of the prominent Ministers under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration. She first served as Minister for Trade and Industry between February 2009 and January 2013. She was then reshuffled to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, where she served from January 2013 to January 2017. READ ALSO: 20 banks meet new minimum capital requirement - Elsie Awadzi The lawyer was also appointed as Chairperson of the Council of Ministers of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2014. She also served as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for the Awutu Senya Constituency from 2001 to 2005, before later returning to Parliament again in January 2013 until January 2017 when she was defeated in the elections. READ ALSO: Mariam Owusu-Poku emerges winner of Miss Malaika 2018 Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: Yen Deputy Communications Minister George Andah has dismissed claims on social media that he has been flown outside the country for treatment following Saturdays accident involving him and two others. YEN.com.gh reported earlier on Sunday that George Andah, was involved in a near-fatal accident while travelling on Saturday morning. Accra-based Citi FM reported that the accident happened on the Bawjiase road in Kasoa. Andah was reportedly travelling to a funeral in the company of three other persons when the accident occurred. But shortly after the news of his accident came through, rumours began on social media that George Andah was going to be flown outside the country for attention. READ ALSO: Photo of George Andahs mangled V8 after accident The Awutu Senya West MP is currently on admission at the 37 military hospital. Through an aide, this message was written on Facebook: "Weve just felt the pressing need to come out and emphatically state that, Hon. Nenyi George Andah, has not been flown to the U.K, South Africa or anywhere out of Ghana." He is receiving and responding to treatment along with the other victims, right here. Lets keep our hopes high and our thoughts genuine. God bless us, as we pray - Aide He was flown from the Kasoa hospital where he was first taken to after a refer. READ ALSO: I seduced my boss by not wearing pants to the office for 3 weeks - NSS girl confesses Andah has carved a niche for himself as an outspoken politician since becoming a Member of Parliamnet in 2017. Xandy Kamel Interview on Star Gist: 'Benedicta Gafah Has No Womb' Xandy Drops Bombshell| #Yencomgh: Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via YEN's official Facebook page. Source: Yen Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Trump, who has made Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process a rallying cry for supporters on the campaign trail, slammed a woman for making up an accusation against Kavanaugh during his investigation. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the Justice Department to investigate a woman who admitted she made claims against Brett Kavanaugh during the committee investigation as a "ploy." The president responded on Twitter writing, "A vicious accuser of Justice Kavanough has just admitted that she was lying, her story was totally made up, or FAKE! Can you imagine if he didnt become a Justice of the Supreme Court because of her disgusting False Statements. What about the others? Where are the Dems on this?" The allegation made by a woman named Judy Munro-Leighton was not considered serious by Senate investigators and contrasts to the allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, who were both interviewed by the FBI. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations of misconduct. Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote in a letter to the Justice Department that Sen. Kamala Harris' office received an anonymous letter from a Jane Doe alleging rape. The committee questioned Kavanaugh on the allegation and read him the letter during the course of the investigation, Grassley writes. The committee then published a transcript of the interview, which included the letter's contents. A woman named Munro- Leighton came forward and said she was the author of that Jane Doe letter. Grassley wrote, "Given her relatively unique name, Committee investigators were able to use open-source research to locate Ms. Munro-Leighton and determine that she: (1) is a left-wing activist; (2) is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh; and (3) lives in neither the Washington DC area nor California, but in Kentucky." When the committee investigators reached Munro-Leighton by phone on November 1, the woman admitted she just wanted to get attention," it was a tactic," and "that was just a ploy" during the confirmation process. "The Committee is grateful to citizens who come forward with relevant information in good faith, even if they are not one hundred percent sure about what they know," Grassley wrote. "But when individuals intentionally mislead the Committee, they divert Committee resources during time-sensitive investigations and materially impede our work. Such acts are not only unfair; they are potentially illegal." "It is illegal to make materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements to Congressional investigators. It is illegal to obstruct Committee investigations." Grassley recently referred Michael Avenatti and Julie Swetnick to the Justice Department alleging they made "materially false" statements to the committee during their investigation. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. "Let me tell you a story," said Leonel Hincapie, the proprietor and staff of the Magic Scissors Barber Shop in Northbrook. He stopped cutting, and settled himself in a chair across from me.This was unusual. Not just unusual, unprecedented.Typically, our conversation begins with my entering the shop, several blocks from my home."Hello Leo," I'll say.Sometimes there will be a customer, usually a man far older than myself. Sometimes not. Sometimes the barber will be in his chair, almost dozing."Do you feel like a bit of business, Leo?" I'll say. Or something like that. Then I take my place in the seat, and tell him how I want my hair cut: same as always. That's about it. I'll close my eyes. WFMT plays soft classical music. Occasionally, I will ruminatively pick up a clump of cut hair and blankly examine it. He will say something about the gray. I will chuckle and cast the clump away. The haircut takes a long time, a half hour at least. The warm lather on the back of my neck signals we're reaching the end. Afterward, I thank him."Thank you for your art," I'll say.But this was something different. Leo was sitting across from me, in the customers' chairs. I paid close attention."I am from Colombia..." he beganI knew that. What I didn't know is that he grew up on a farm. A coffee farm. He left the farm, he said, and came to America, many years ago."Ten years ago, I went back," he continued. To his father's old farm."Did you meet anyone you knew?" I asked.No. But the coffee trees were still there. And he carefully collected 20 beans from the trees located on his father's old farm.Back in Northbrook, he planted the beans."Nineteen of those 20 beans died," he recalled.But one lived. He showed off a tree in the corner of the shop, lush and dark green, maybe five feet high.That was it. I got up, still wearing the barber's drape, admired the tree, and congratulated him on it. Then I sat back down. He continued with my haircut.Not much of a story, I suppose, as far as stories go. Not heavy on plot. But I have thought about it since then, maybe because it is so simple, so enigmatic.And it does have a point, and the point is this:The tree lived. The 19 others didn't. But this one did. Not only that, but it was a coffee tree in the corner of a sleepy barber shop in Northbrook. How many times over the years have I sat next to that tree, thumbing throughmagazine, waiting my turn? Never realizing that the plant next to me was a precious memento of a South American boyhood, long ago.Now I know. And so do you. : 700 000 , . - , , , , 300 000 - 400 000 . . , - . , , 1 , . : - , , 700 . , ? : - . 1 . 700 , . . ? 6,8 , 5,8 , 5,7 . . , , . , . - . : ? ? : , . . . , , , . : ? : - . : . , 300 - 400 , , ? : , . , , - - 700 . . `90- . , . , , , , . - , - , - - . . . , . , . . : ? : , , . , - , , , . - , - . . 50 %- 3,4 , 3 . . . - 6 , . 6 . , , . . : , , . , ? : , . . . . , . . - , . , . , , , . , ? , . . , . This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices. GA English on Sunday : News in Brief from Bonn and the region 120 Rettungskrafte probten am Samstag in der Rheinaue fur den Ernstfall. Foto: Stefan Knopp Bonn The Bonn Rheinaue was turned into a disaster area on Saturday, Bonn shines amazed thousands of people, a man from Meckenheim has gone missing and an old Beueler railway jetty emerges in the Rhine again - here is our news in brief on Sunday. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Island in flames: 120 rescue workers rehearse in Bonn's Rheinaue for emergencies BONN. The Rheinaue in Bonn turned into a disaster area on Saturday: Around 120 rescue workers took part in a large-scale disaster control exercise. The exercise lasted several hours. The organisers of the disaster control exercise, which took place from late Saturday afternoon into the evening in the Rheinaue in Bonn, had devised an extremely difficult task for the auxiliary troops called in. Katastrophenschutzubung in der Rheinaue Bonn It was a joint exercise of the fire brigade with the Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs Gesellschaft (DLRG), the German Red Cross (DRK), the Johanniter Unfall-Hilfe, the Malteser Hilfsdienst, the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB) and the Technische Hilfswerk (THW). In any case, the number of emergency vehicles on the lake shore was impressive. The lake was crossed by boats, with which the injured were also transferred for treatment. (Original text: Stefan Knopp) Bonn shines: Fireworks for the senses BONN. "Bonn shines" appealed to all the senses this year. In addition to the colourfully illuminated buildings, visitors will be offered a musical and culinary spectacle. The events will continue on Sunday. Then the shops in the city centre will also open from 1 pm to 6 pm. There were no attempts by Verdi to prevent the Sunday opening for business. Most recently, the service union had brought an action against the opening of the shops in Bornheim before the Administrative Court of Cologne. (Original text: Sophia Rogalla) Police ask for help: 58-year-old from Meckenheim is missing MECKENHEIM. Since Friday afternoon, 58-year-old Jurgen D. from the Meckenheim area has been missing. Investigation and search measures have so far been unsuccessful. According to the investigations carried out so far, it cannot be ruled out that the missing person may be at risk of his own life, said the police. With the consent of the relatives, the Bonn police have now published a photo of the 58-year-old missing man. Jurgen D. is about 1.80 meters tall, has a very slender, lean stature and light gray, short hair. He has a dark moustache. He wears glasses and has a conspicuous gait, which is described as "storklike". Besides, his hands tremble conspicuously. The missing person was last dressed in blue jeans, a blue jacket with knitted sleeves and possibly a blue-black checked shirt. Witnesses who have currently seen the missing person or have any information on his current whereabouts are requested to contact the Criminal Investigation Department at 0228-150. (Original text: Michael Wrobel) Traces of times long past: Beueler railway jetty emerges in the Rhine again BONN. The low level of the Rhine reveals the remains of the railway projection in the south of Beuel - and not a Roman port. A relic from a bygone era. It was only a few days ago that the Rhine had reached its lowest point near Bonn with a water level of just over 80 centimetres, thus uncovering hidden treasures that kept not only the explosive ordnance clearance services and treasure hunters busy, but also the archaeologists from the Rhineland Landscape Association (LVR) and Bonn University on their toes. Many an attentive walker reported his observations. So also Peter Schachtschabel, who turned to the General-Anzeiger with a photo. His first thought: the wooden pillars that suddenly rose out of the water just above the southern bridge could be the remains of Roman artefacts. Between Rhine kilometre 652 and the southern bridge, the formation of wooden posts appeared at low tide. Years ago, a dispute between scholars had broken out over a supposed Roman harbour below the Drachenfels in neighbouring Konigswinter - but it was to the detriment of the ancient building. According to experts, his photo shows the last remaining traces of an old railway line that crossed the Rhine. In 1856, the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was granted permission to build a railway line on the left bank of the Rhine from Bonn to Bingerbruck. Because the locomotives were too heavy to cross the river, they pushed the trains onto the ferries and remained on the shore. The ferry service was discontinued in 1919. On the right bank of the Rhine, the railway line is still visible in the terrain. Trajektkopf, which was used as a shipyard at the end of the 1950s, can be seen in the semicircular basalt bank lining. The pier on the left bank of the Rhine will only be open to the public again at the next extreme low tide. (Original text: Stefan Hermes) Foto: Repro Stefan Hermes Um 1900: Eine Dampflokomotive zieht einen Personenzug vom Trajekt im Bonner Fahrhafen. Foto: Barbara Frommann Die Bonner Brassband "Druckluft" sorgte bei "Bonn leuchtet" fur beste Stimmung in der Bonner City. zuruck weiter If you encountered an elephant bird today, it would be hard to miss. Measuring in at over 10 feet tall, the extinct avian is the largest bird known to science. However, while you looked up in awe, its likely that the big bird would not be looking back. According to brain reconstruction research led by The University of Texas at Austin, the part of the elephant bird brain that processed vision was tiny, a trait that indicates they were nocturnal and possibly blind. The findings were published Oct. 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. A nocturnal lifestyle is a trait shared by the elephant birds closest living relative, the kiwi a practically blind, chicken-size denizen of New Zealand and a clue that is helping scientists learn more about the elephant birds behavior and habitat, said Christopher Torres, a Ph.D. candidate who led the research. Studying brain shape is a really useful way of connecting ecology the relationship between the bird and the environment and anatomy, Torres said. Discoveries like these give us tremendous insights into the lives of these bizarre and poorly understood birds. Julia Clarke, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences and Torres Ph.D. adviser, co-authored the study. Torres is a student in UTs Department of Integrative Biology in the College of Natural Sciences. Elephant birds were large, flightless and lived in what is now Madagascar until a mixture of habitat loss and potential human meddling led to their demise between 500 and 1,000 years ago. Humans lived alongside, and even hunted, elephant birds for thousands of years, Torres said. But we still know practically nothing about their lives. We dont even really know exactly when or why they went extinct. Scientists had previously assumed that elephant birds were similar to other big, flightless birds, like emus and ostriches both of which are active during the day and have good eyesight. But Torres and Clarke revealed that elephant birds had distinctly different lifestyles through reconstructions of their brains. Bird skulls wrap tightly around their brains, with the turns and curves of the bone corresponding to brain structures. The researchers studied the skulls of two species of elephant birds. By using CT-imaging data of the two elephant bird skulls, the researchers were able to create digital brain reconstructions called endocasts. In addition to the elephant bird skulls, the researchers also created endocasts for close relatives of the elephant bird, both living and extinct. In both elephant bird skulls, the optic lobe a bundle of brain nerves that controls eyesight was very small, with the structure almost absent in the larger species. The lobe had the most in common with that of a kiwi, which Torres said came as a total shock because of the kiwis poor vision and nocturnal behavior. No one has ever suspected that elephant birds were nocturnal, Torres said. The few studies that speculated on what their behavior was like explicitly assumed they were active during the day. Andrew Iwaniuk, an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge and an expert on brain evolution in birds who was not involved with the research, said that he had a similar reaction to the findings. I was surprised that the visual system is so small in a bird this big, he said. For a bird this large to evolve a nocturnal lifestyle is truly bizarre and speaks to an ecology unlike that of their closest relatives or any other bird species that we know of. In addition to vision, the endocasts rendering of the olfactory bulb the part of the brain that processes the sense of smell helped shed light on the habitats where elephant birds lived. The larger of the two species of elephant bird had a large olfactory bulb, a trait associated with forest dwelling. In contrast, the smaller elephant bird species had a smaller olfactory bulb, possibly indicating that it lived in grasslands. The smaller species also appears to have somewhat keener vision, which means it may have been more active at dusk than during the pitch black of night. Details like these not only tell us about what the lives of elephant birds were like, but also what life in general was like on Madagascar in the distant past, Clarke said. As recently as 500 years ago, very nearly blind, giant flightless birds were crashing around the forests of Madagascar in the dark. No one ever expected that. This work was funded by a National Science Foundation grant and the Jackson School of Geosciences. Reference: Christopher R. Torres, Julia A. Clarke. Nocturnal giants: evolution of the sensory ecology in elephant birds and other palaeognaths inferred from digital brain reconstructions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2018; 285 (1890): 20181540 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1540 Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin. bohlah at 4-11-2018 05:50 PM (3 years ago) (m) The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Paul Arkwright, announced in Abuja on Sunday that Prince Charles would engage in peace-building activities, including addressing the persistent attacks of herdsmen on farming communities in Nigeria. The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Paul Arkwright, announced in Abuja on Sunday that Prince Charles would engage in peace-building activities, including addressing the persistent attacks of herdsmen on farming communities in Nigeria. The Prince of Wales and his wife, Princess Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall are expected in Nigeria from Nov. 6 to Nov. 8 in a high profile visit during which the royals would also have audience with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa. Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) ahead of the visit, Arkwright said that one of the events on the agenda was for Prince Charles to discuss practical solutions to alleviating the tensions, arising from the activities of herdsmen. Herdsmen have launched a deadly onslaught on farming communities in Nigeria in recent years, raising concerns over the future of agriculture in a nation, having majority of its populace engaged in subsistence agriculture. People do want to come together and if we can provide that kind of environment then hopefully, we can come up with some ideas and solutions to resolving some of these conflicts. Some of the issues like the farmers/herders crisis are deep-rooted and are about the economy, land resource, climate change and cultural issues. The Prince of Wales will be looking at the causes, talking to people who are working in this area and together, seeing if we can find solutions and move on. Arkwright said that addressing the root causes of conflicts would lead to a peaceful and more prosperous Nigeria and also become beneficial to the relations between Nigeria and Britain. He noted that the visit was also aimed at strengthening the existing ties between Nigeria and Britain as members of the Commonwealth. Prince Charles, who took over as the Head of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations last April, succeeding his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, has already visited 44 African nations. Prince Charles has not been here since the past 12 years. 2006 was the last time he was here and the Duchess of Cornwall, has never been to Nigeria. So it is about strengthening ties, particularly people-to-people ties. We want to ensure that through the Commonwealth, which is another theme of the princes visit, we develop links to develop relationships whether in trade, environment or in education, all of which are important to the future of the Commonwealth and to the future of Nigeria. The top diplomat said that other events lined up on the agenda of the visit would focus on culture, music, fashion, among others. Prince Charles will be talking about rural livelihoods, agriculture, the environment, some of the passions that he has which is so relevant to Nigeria today and to young people and the importance of getting young people into jobs. One of his passions as well is how do we build the skills of young people so that they will be equipped for the world. There is a whole range of interests that he has and I think Nigeria is a wonderful place to come to because it brings together all of these interests. The duchess is also to engage in literary activities with children and some Nigerian authors, while the prince would meet with traditional rulers and hold peace-building meeting with Nigerian youth ambassadors The Prince of Wales and his wife, Princess Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall are expected in Nigeria from Nov. 6 to Nov. 8 in a high profile visit during which the royals would also have audience with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) ahead of the visit, Arkwright said that one of the events on the agenda was for Prince Charles to discuss practical solutions to alleviating the tensions, arising from the activities of herdsmen.Herdsmen have launched a deadly onslaught on farming communities in Nigeria in recent years, raising concerns over the future of agriculture in a nation, having majority of its populace engaged in subsistence agriculture.Arkwright said that addressing the root causes of conflicts would lead to a peaceful and more prosperous Nigeria and also become beneficial to the relations between Nigeria and Britain.He noted that the visit was also aimed at strengthening the existing ties between Nigeria and Britain as members of the Commonwealth.Prince Charles, who took over as the Head of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations last April, succeeding his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, has already visited 44 African nations.The top diplomat said that other events lined up on the agenda of the visit would focus on culture, music, fashion, among others.The duchess is also to engage in literary activities with children and some Nigerian authors, while the prince would meet with traditional rulers and hold peace-building meeting with Nigerian youth ambassadors Post Reply I have been reporting on latest news from Nigeria for almost 10 years now. I report on every possible news area I come across, but always ensure my reports are compiled with dignity and fact to uphold my personal values and duty as a journalist Posted: at 4-11-2018 05:50 PM (3 years ago) | Addicted Hero Lord Mayor of Port Vila, Albert Daniel with a trophy and a certificate, witnessed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ralph Regenvanu, and the Minister of Internal Affairs Andrew Napuat. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Team Vanuatu nurses and Dr. Andy Ilo attended the South Pacific Nurses Forum in the Cook Islands from October 15-18, 2018. They are pictured here with Ms. Elizabeth Iro, the newly appointed Head of Nursing, World Health Organization, Geneva As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. An opening ceremony of the Park of Honor was held on Saturday. PreviousNext Flags Carried During Iraq Missions Fly in Pittsfield Park of Honor Stacia Bissell shared the story of the two flags she sponsored last year. PITTSFIELD, Mass. Stacia Bissell's parents always made a family camping trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Some 16 years ago, a neighbor, Dan Doyle, asked her father where they went every year. It didn't take long before both families combined their camping trips and the tradition continued. When Bissell's daughter Jackie was 15 years old, she met Doyle's nephew Erik Twombly on the family trip and fell in love. In 2016, the two were married in Pittsfield. "Before their first anniversary occurred last year in September of 2017, he was deployed to Iraq," Bissell said. In November, Bissell sponsored flags at Park Square in honor of Twombly and her own son Dylan. For five years the Kiwanis Club of Pittsfield has been filling Park Square with flags in the month of November. Each flag is sponsored by area residents in honor of veterans and each flag bears the name of that person. The money raised from the sponsorships goes to college scholarships for children and grandchildren of veterans. When the flags came down at the end of November last year, Bissell asked if she could take the two she sponsored and send them to Twombly in Iraq. "This spring Erik safety returned to Fort Campbell to resume he duties and he took the time this spring to send the flags back to Pittsfield," Bissell said. When he returned, he mailed the flags back to Pittsfield to once again be part of the impressive display of flags in the city's downtown. He attached a note: "I am Capt. Eric Twombly, an Apache helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army. Last year I was deployed to Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division to help fight ISIS and liberate Iraq. While there my mother-in-law sent me two U.S. flags. The flags traveled all the way to Iraq where I first met them at CampTaji, a small base just north of downtown Baghdad. When I received the flags I immediately put them in a small backpack that I had with me on every flight I flew. I also took this backpack with me when I traveled all over Northern Iraq visiting my soldiers at the various bases at which they served. I am proud to share that during my employment our unit helped liberate over 30 Iraqi cities from ISIS but I am even more proud that I had these flags by my side every step of the way. It gives me great joy to know that these flags that had been on the front lines in the fight against ISIS will now fly over the city of Pittsfield once again. I want to thank the organization for letting Stacia send them to me. I wish you all the best. God bless America." The Kiwanis Club held an opening ceremony of the Park of Honor project on Saturday, though it was nearly canceled for the second time. The weather had forced a cancellation of the event's first scheduled day last Saturday and it was rescheduled for this Saturday. The crowd wasn't as big as in years past because of the weather. "I'm really glad we decided to go ahead with this ceremony because we have something very special this year. We beautiful flags each one represents someone very near and dear to our hearts, who kept us safe and free. But we also have a flag that has been flying a lot of missions in Iraq," Cheryl Tripp-Cleveland of the Kiwanis Club said. Tripp-Cleveland and her fellow Kiwanis Club members were at Park Square Saturday morning placing the names of the veterans on each flag. But around 10 a.m., a downpour began and the wind was gusting hard. It had all the makings of a cancellation. But at the scheduled time of 1 in the afternoon, people were showing up in Park Square. Tripp-Cleveland was still uncertain about the event. In previous years there were an array of speakers and performances in front of a park full of people. The group decided to go forward. There were no microphones and maybe only two dozen people. Bissell took to a small stage and the crowd moved in close together to hear the story described above. There was a short invocation from Ralph Howe, the singing of the national anthem and Amazing Grace, and a rifle salute. Tripp-Cleveland apologized that the ceremony may not have been as big as in years past and she apologized that all of the names weren't attached yet. But those who were there didn't have any complaints because the small, intimate, ceremony provided an extra special feel to the event. And less than an hour after it concluded, the sun came out. The growing popularity of caving methods around the world is largely due to the very low production cost and the intrinsic safety associated with the mining approach. It is often the only viable mining method for some of the lower grade massive orebodies that are becoming too deep for open pit mining. Strategically, most medium and large mining companies are operating or planning to operate a caving mine. Codelcos El Teniente Mine in Chile and the LKABs Kiirunavaara Mine in Sweden are among the largest and most famous caving operations in the world. Canadas lead caving operations include New Golds New Afton underground block caving mine which seeks to produce an annual average of 75 million pounds of copper and 80,000 ounces of gold over a 12 year mine life. Source: http://www.newgold.com/careers/new-afton-project/ careers/default.aspx Cave mining has become one of the most research intensive areas of mining engineering in recent times. Mining companies need to be kept informed of the latest technological developments from caving research, and researchers require a regular platform to present their results and interact with industry practitioners. The Australian Centre for Geomechanics looks forward to hosting the Fourth International Symposium on Block and Sublevel Caving in Vancouver in September/October 2018. This follows previous symposia held in Santiago in 2014; Perth, 2010 and Cape Town, 2007 SYMPOSIUM THEMES Draw control/ material flow Caving mechanics Ground support Geotechnical monitoring Fragmentation Mine equipment Numerical modelling Planning and design of caving mines Preconditioning Seismic monitoring of caving mines Subsidence Caving mine closure Nacogdoches, TX (75965) Today Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 57F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 57F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Barcelona travel to San Siro on Tuesday to take on Inter Milan in their first second round group match. The Spanish champions dispatched the San Siro outfit by putting two unreplied goals past them at Camp Nou in the first leg to move top of their group with the Nerrazurri in second. The Italian outfit need at least a draw in the encounter to keep their hope of making it to the next round alive as they still have Tottenham who have a solitary point from three matches to face. The encounter would be a tightly contested affair as we expect Inter to sit deep in their half own hoping to catch the Spanish champions on the break or hope to nip a draw out of the contest. As a result of this, we back the encounter to produce few amount of goals. See below for what we expect to happen in the tie. 1. We back the match to produce under 3.5 goals which is priced at 1 5 6odds. 2. We also tip Barcelona at win or draw and under 3.5 which is priced at a whooping 1.78odds. 3. Equally, we back the encounter to produce draw in the first 15 minutes which is priced at 1.52odds. Which do you think is best??? Vanguard The controversy over the governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Ogun and Imo States continued, yesterday, as Governor Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun) and Mr Uche Nwosu, an in-law of Governor Rochas Okorocha (Imo), attacked the National Chairman of the ruling party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. The Nation Stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State yesterday removed former Governor Ayo Fayose as the leader of the party in the state while affirming the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Biodun Olujimi, as PDPs new leader in Ekiti State and Southwest region. Olujimi is the partys highest ranking political office holder in the southwest geo-political zone.They asked for the immediate dissolution of the present State Working Committee (SWC) led by the state PDP Chairman ThisDay Hes not our member as his expulsion still stands, says PDP Bayo Akinloye The national chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus, and other members of the partys national leadership must respect the rule of law or risk going to jail, Senator Buruji Kashamu has said. Kashamu, the senator representing Ogun East senatorial district Guardian Despite the Federal Governments claim of undertaking various road projects worth N2.8t across the country, 69 of which it claimed are in the South East, lost man hours, missed delivery deadlines and multiple deaths are still a daily reoccurrence on federal roads as revealed by this second batch of our report on federal roads. The Sun Sokoto Emir of Gunmi, Zamfara State and former Chief Judge, Justice Hassan Lawal Gunmi, has highlighted the disrespect for rule of law and not non-obedience to court orders as some of the factors threatening Nigerias democratic stability. The Emir stated this, in Sokoto, on Saturday, while speaking as a Guest Speaker at the Daily Times The Presidency and the West African Examinations Council, on Saturday, disagreed on the reason for the issuance of an Attestation of Results to President Muhammadu Daily Trust The remains of late Maj.-Gen. Idris Alkali, which was found by a team of Nigerian Army on Search and Rescue Operation, was buried at Gudu Cemetery in Abuja on Saturday. The burial, which was concluded at around 3 p.m., was attended by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, former Military Administrator of Lagos Leadership The Buhari Campaign Organization (BCO) has described as fake, a purported letter credited to it as soliciting for contracts from the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing even as it demanded of an apology from the Director, Strategic Communications, President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr Festus Keyamo for linking the said letter to the Tribune Erstwhile chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Shehu Sani, represents Kaduna Central in the Senate. The chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, who recently dumped the APC for the Peoples Redemption uk-budget-hammond-320x215 The UK is set to join a growing list of countries to introduce unilateral tax rules for online platforms. Hammond has justified the decision by saying the big tech companies need to pay their fair share at a time when the country needs more tax revenue to fund its public services. The budget also included some welcome news for businesses as Hammond announced a delay to the off-payroll working rules, known as IR35, until April 2020. In addition, changes to the diverted profits tax rules, permanent establishment definition, VAT registration threshold and VAT group rules were unveiled in accompanying budget documents, as well as a proposal to transpose the EU Anti-tax Avoidance Directive into domestic law. There was also a sigh of relief among those operating in the North Sea oil industry as the chancellor did not pick their pockets to pay for the planned corporate tax rate cut to 17% by 2020, which is still planned to go ahead and received mixed reactions. The UKs digital services tax The UKs digital tax plan is to introduce a levy of 2% from April 2020 to raise an estimated 440 million ($560 million) a year. It will apply to organisations with a global turnover of more than 500 million a year and be designed to exclude start-ups. A safe harbour to exempt lossmaking companies and reduce the effective tax rate for businesses with very low-profit margins. The safe harbour is important given the high-tech sector has given rise to a number of high-revenue, lossmaking platforms. For example, Airbnb has only just marked its first profitable year and its unclear if the 2% tax will push the company back into a lossmaking position. Meanwhile, apps like Uber and Deliveroo have yet to turn a profit at all. However, the UKs proposal is less than the EUs interim proposal of a 3% tax on turnover. Nevertheless, the chancellor was quick to clarify that the UKs DST would not function as a tax on goods sold online, but rather a tax on the gross revenue of the biggest tech companies. Wendy Nicholls, partner at Grant Thornton, described the decision as a big shift from all the international tax standards, whereby corporate taxes are based on profits. Richard Asquith, global VP of indirect tax at Avalara, warned of the pitfalls of the proposal. A DST will be difficult to implement practically, he said. In taxing turnover instead of profits, its economically uncompetitive. It would also require heavy and intrusive data reporting and measurement its not clear if that would get past the new EU GDPR data protection rules. The bigger risk is retaliation from the US which could use tariffs or similar taxes on UK businesses to greater effect, he added. Hammond stressed, however, that the UK will continue to work with the OECD and the G20 to reach a global agreement on digital tax. If the OECD comes up with a proposal, the UK will repeal its DST in favour of the global standard. Catherine Hall, partner at Mazars, observed that the UK has set itself the task of trying to address an international dilemma with local fiscal measures. The first step will be to consult businesses on the fine print of the proposal. It will be interesting to see the detail of the consultation document and the proposals put forward and, in particular, whether the tax will hit the targeted digital platform giants or, as with recent anti-avoidance legislation, be far wider reaching with the associated accidental implication, Hall said. However, its an issue that is not going away, and there is a strong economic and social case for developing a fair and practical solution for all parties, she added. Every country may want a global agreement on digital tax, but clearly not every country can wait for such a global consensus to be established. As Hammond said in his speech to Parliament, the progress on finding such an agreement is painfully slow. Putting IR35 on hold One piece of good news for businesses was that the postponement of the IR35 changes until April 2020. The government will be holding a consultation with companies and other stakeholders in the meantime. The decision to extend the IR35 rules to the private sector was not a surprise to Chris Sanger, head of tax policy at EY, who suggested the new timeline gave businesses some reprieve over having to deal with these new rules right at the time the UK was leaving the EU. Its also better for the government. The period between now and April 2020 allows it to address the problems that are present in the current scheme that applies to the public sector, before the new rules are implemented across the UK economy. Without this, there is a strong risk that the implementation will be problematic and potentially undermine the availability of the UKs flexible workforce, Sanger said. Meanwhile, others saw the budget as an attempt to buy-off core constituents. Positive announcements aimed at swing voters were everywhere, said Jonathan Riley, head of tax at Grant Thornton. And, where tax is being raised the measures were aimed at larger companies whether in respect to off payroll workers or even the new digital services tax. Cutting corporate tax One of Hammonds silent announcements was that the UK will continue to cut its corporate tax rate. The budget document confirms that the UK will reduce the rate from 19% to 17% in 2020. This is after months of speculation that the chancellor was planning to scrap the tax cut in preparation for Brexit. Heather Self, partner at Blick Rothenberg, was slightly surprised to find that the rate cut was not dropped. The dog that didnt bark [the] biggest corporate tax measure is the one that wasnt announced, she tweeted. [Corporation tax] to fall to 17% from 2020 will go ahead. The surprise continues a decade of tax cuts. The country had a headline rate of 28% in 2010, and a 17% rate comes at a cost to the Exchequer. Scrapping the rate cut could save an estimated 5 billion a year after 2021. As Bill Dodwell, senior adviser at the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), told ITR in the run up to the budget: Removing the corporation tax cut to 17% and reinvesting some of that money in supporting business investment would still leave the UK as the most competitive G20 economy, whilst raising some much-needed cash. At the same time, Hammond made a point of announcing that the oil and gas tax regime would remain unchanged. Before the budget, there was speculation that the UK government might raid North Sea oil to cover the losses of a corporate tax cut. Diverted profits tax Much like corporate tax, Hammond did not mention the diverted profits tax (DPT) in his speech, yet his plan includes amendments to the measure. With effect from October 29 2018, Part 3 of the Finance Act 2015 will be amend to: Close opportunities to amend corporate tax returns after the review period has ended and the DPT time limits have expired (sections 82 to 85, 88 and 93); Clarify that diverted profits will only be taxed under either the diverted profits tax or corporation tax rules, but not both (section 100A); Extend the review period that HMRC and taxpayers have to work collaboratively to determine the extent of diverted profits from 12 to 15 months (section 101); Extend a companys right to amend their corporation tax return during the first 12 months of the extended 15 month review period, but only for the purposes of including the diverted profits into a corporation tax charge; and Clarify that diverted profits liable to the diverted profits tax can be reduced by amending to the companys corporation tax return during the first 12 months of the review period. This is just as the UK government sets about implementing the EUs Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD) and reforming its definition of permanent establishment. The chancellor was keen to talk up the UKs role in cracking down on international tax avoidance. Even with the digital services tax, the UK may be ready to see more on-shoring as the country continues the race to the bottom in corporate tax and looks to reduce the opportunities for abusive practices. Photo credit: UK Treasury The material on this site is for financial institutions, professional investors and their professional advisers. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws. 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQ. Share this article Opinion Policies Editorials are longer opinion pieces that are written by a group of community members recruited across campus who address relevant issues on a local, national and international level. Editorials are research-based. The purpose of the Editorial Board is to promote discussion concerning relevant issues in the community while advising on possible solutions. Topics are chosen via relevancy and interests of the members, which are then discussed by the Editorial Board in order to reach a general consensus concerning the topic or issue. Feedback policy If you have a grievance concerning the content or argument of the Editorial Board, please contact either Opinion Editor Peyton Hamel (peyton.hamel@iowastatedaily.com) or the Editorial Board as a whole (editorialboard@iowastatedaily.com). 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Emails must be tied to the submitted guest column or it will not be accepted or published. Pseudonyms are prohibited and the writer will be banned from submissions. Read our full Opinion Policies here. Updated on 10/7/2020 Lameness prevention: it's all in the head An understanding of how cows think, how they see the world and how they move is essential for lameness prevention. By Ko Dong-hwan American actress Angelina Jolie visited Seoul with her sons, surprising fans who spotted them at Seoul tourism hotspots in Jongno-gu and at Yonsei University on Friday and Saturday. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reportedly came to Korea with her eldest son Maddox, 17, and second son Pax, 14. The star, 43, adopted Maddox from Cambodia and Pax from Vietnam. She and Maddox were seen at the Yonsei University campus on Saturday. Later that day, they dined at the three Michelin star Korean restaurant Gaon in Sinsa-dong, Seoul. Gaon's president and head chef took a picture with the pair, which was released by the restaurant's head office. On Friday, Jolie was seen touring Samcheong-dong and Insa-dong in Seoul, which are popular with tourists wanting to experience traditional Korean culture, including food, clothes and hanok houses. People posted photos of the pair on social networks dining at a barbecue restaurant and visiting a coffee shop. A Twitter post said the restaurant was "Maple Tree House." The pair did not appear to have security guards, which surprised many people. Public reaction was that Maddox, who, according to American media outlet People, was visiting Korea for the first time, might attend Yonsei University. He is known to be interested in K-pop, Korean language and other aspects of Korean culture. Jolie's other children are , 12, , 13, and twins , 10. In October, Jolie visited Peru as UNHCR special envoy to meet Venezuelans who had fled their country because of a worsening economic depression. Yang Bang-ean, a composer and pianist, speaks about his upcoming concert "Yang Bang-ean Utopia 2018" during a press conference at a restaurant in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of PRM By Park Jin-hai Yang Bang-ean, a composer and pianist who delivered a message of peace in the opening and closing ceremonies of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics earlier this year, said his heart raced with excitement when the two Koreas announced an agreement to connect their railways in April. "A new era has opened. It seems like the Gyeongui Line linking Seoul through Sinuiju of North Korea all the way to Europe lies in front of my eyes," Yang said during a press conference last Thursday. "My father came from Jeju Island, my mother from Sinuiju and I was born and raised in Tokyo. When I heard the railroad will be reconnected, I was so much moved by the news. I thought that now is the right time to perform my 2012 music 'Dream Railroad.'" Yang will hold his fourth "Yang Bang-ean Utopia 2018" concert later this month. The ethnic Korean, born to a South Korean father and North Korean mother who migrated to Japan, performed an introductory presentation for the PyeongChang Olympics during the handover at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and later was appointed as music director for the PyeongChang Games. "The part I was supposed to perform was for the torch carrying," he said. "Initially only a South Korean athlete was supposed to go up the ski slope and pass the torch to the final lighter, but two days prior to the event it was decided that two athletes from South and North Korea would come up the slope. Now the inter-Korean railroad I imagined looks like a possible dream." Yang's other project is creating music for the upcoming KBS documentary "Arirang Road," which visits the ethnic Korean minorities overseas who were displaced from their home country during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation and the 1950-53 Korean War and finds the traces of "Arirang," Korea's most popular folk song, in them. He created its theme music "Diaspora" and will perform it along with "Dream Railroad" during his concert slated for Nov. 21 at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. "Technically, I'm in a sense a diaspora. So I felt close to the stories of those ethnic Koreans in Russia and Kazakhstan living away from their homelands," said Yang, who confessed he had his own identity crisis as a marginal man, wondering where he truly belongs. "I think Arirang is the song that brings together all those displaced ethnic Koreans." The medical doctor-turned-musician, who has been busy performing going between Korea and Japan for the past 22 years since his 1996 debut, crisscrosses freely between pop, traditional Korean folk music, new-age and rock. His music starts with the sounds of taepyeongso (a Korean double reed wind instrument) and wraps up grandiose with piano and orchestra sounds joining. He composes music for films, commercials and games. He says he always "leaves the window open." "I wish I could let in many things and fresh wind always breezing inside of me," Yang said. "As one on a mountain peak sees another peak around, I go to rock and EDM festivals. In a sense, I've left my window open." He says his utopia is the stage. "Music is an art of time. I write music and do the rehearsals, but I cannot predict what will go on at the stage. Those things like on-stage communication and live reaction from audiences at the moment make the stage my utopia." A memorial hall for the late actor Shin Sung-il is set up at the Asan Medical Center in Seoul, Sunday, following his death from lung cancer. Korea Times By Kang Aa-young Actor Shin Sung-il died of lung cancer Sunday. He was 81. Widely regarded as the "godfather" of Korea film, he was considered a legendary figure in the Korean film industry as he witnessed the rise of the industry and played a key role in it. He also served as a national legislator in the early 2000s, in his efforts to support the Korean movie industry. He was diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer in June 2017 and had been undergoing chemotherapy at a hospital located in South Jeolla Province. According to local media reports, he died at 2:25 a.m. Sunday. It is not publicly known where Shin died, but it is believed to be the hospital where he had been staying. "If there is Toshiro Mifune in Japan, Marcello Mastroianni in Italy, Gregory Peck in America and Alain Delon in France, we have Shin Seong-il here," star director Park Chan-wook recalled in a book published by the Busan International Film Festival to honor Shin. "Without understanding Shin Seong-il, it is hard to get a grasp of film history or modern culture of Korea." Shin, an undeniably top actor here, appeared in total of 530 movies, starring in 506 of them. Shin Sung-il, right, in a scene from 1970 file "Two Woman in the Rain" Korea Times file Debuting in director Shin Sang-ok's 1960 comedy film "Romantic Papa," Shin soon rose to stardom with "Only for You" in 1962. Then drama films such as "The Barefooted Young" in 1964, "Keep Silent When Leaving" in 1964, "Dangerous Youth" in 1966 and "A Burning Youth" in 1966 made him a major star. He also gained attention after marrying renowned actress Um Aing-ran in 1964. In the same year alone, the couple starred in 26 movies, dominating Korea's film industry. The two remained one of the most notable married couples among Korean celebrities. In addition to his wife, Shin partnered with different top actresses like Kim Ji-mee, Yoon Jeong-hee, and Moon Hee in a variety of movies. He appeared in 51 movies in 1967. Shin's career reached its peak when he starred in movies made by renowned directors of the 1960s, including Kim Kee-duk, Lee Man-hee, Kim Soo-yong, Chung Jin Woo and Lee Seong-gu His solid career continued through the 1970s. Movies such as "Heavenly Homecoming to Stars" in 1974, "Winter Woman" in 1977 and "Gilsoddeum" in 1985 well presented his appealing and diverse acting skills. Shin's last film was "Door to the Night" in 2013. He is survived by his wife Um, 82, one son and two daughters. The memorial service will be held at the Asan Medical Center in Seoul. According to The Korea Film Actors Association, a special funeral will be held to honor him but they are still discussing details with his family. KEB Hana Bank CEO Ham Young-joo, third from left, holds a letter of appreciation with the lender's customers who were selected for their ideas helping improve the bank's customer experiences at the bank's head office in Seoul, Friday. Courtesy of KEB Hana Bank Overseas fashion critics say K-fashion lacks identity By Kang Aa-young Anders Christian Madsen Global fashion houses have one thing in common they do have an identity. This critical element is missing in Korean fashion, an overseas fashion insider laments. However, time is on local fashion designers' side because there's a Korean culture boom overseas which was sparked by K-pop's global expansion. If the local designers want to ride the boom, Vogue's fashion critic Anders Christian Madsen says they should do more and work harder to find their own identity and build their own strength that can differentiate themselves from Western fashion houses just as K-pop successfully did for its global expansion. "Korea needs to do with fashion what it did with the K-pop," Madsen told The Korea Times during his recent visit to Seoul, for 2019 Spring/Summer Hera Seoul Fashion Week (SFW). The 31-year-old fashion expert has visited Korea every year for the past four years with hopes to find "diamonds in the rough." His efforts, however, have so far been in vain. Madsen said he tried hard to find the unique identity of Korean fashion culture, but he still thinks he does not know enough. He urged Korean designers to focus more on building their "own fashion identity" to compete against influential Western fashion houses. There's no doubt that Seoul is emerging as Asia's fashion hub following the rise of hallyu, or the Korean Wave. But Madsen says Korean designers in general have yet to live up to such hype due to a lack of originality. Madsen shares his fashion insight across the globe, so it was necessary for him to learn Korea's cultural context upon his visits here. But it took "a considerable amount of time" for him to come up with a clear image representing the local fashion. Chances are that "K-fashion" can win a reputation and fame on the global stage by following in the footsteps of the success of K-pop, as Korean fashion has in recent years received more attention across the globe thanks to hallyu, according to Madsen. Backed by the government's support of the local fashion industry, many will agree SFW is one of the most powerful fashion platforms in Asia, he said, adding the local fashion show is on industry insiders' "radar" and fashion critics in non-Korean territories talk a lot about it. Even if the SFW successfully becomes a key fashion event in Asia, he said it would be extremely hard for SFW to build up its identity to compete against the so-called "big four" fashion weeks_ namely Milan, London, New York and Paris. "Especially because of all the money that's obviously being put into by the city, (SFW) got a massive part," he said. He underlined the need for Korean brands to keep enhancing their originality with a focus on the cultural background, rather than trying to making changes. "We (fashion industry insiders) want a new perspective specialist. We are in desperate need of this, always," he said. It was when he found the brand Blindness in Seoul that he saw the possibility of a breakthrough here in the near future. After discovering them, he did in-depth research about the brand's context to understand where their inspirations came from. He ended up learning their cultural backgrounds, including designer Shin Kyu-yong and Park Ji-sun's life behind the scenes. Both based in Korea, lived a normal life just like other ordinary people here. "They've had one season in London, which is really important," he added. The brand, with its leading designer duo, has successfully taken its first important footstep, showcasing their work in London. Nominated for the LVMH Prize, the designer duo successfully made an international debut through their cross-cultural and hyper-historicist work. Madsen "witnessed firsthand" the rise of the brand from the 2016 Spring/Summer show in Seoul. Designer Shin Kyu-yong,left, and Park Ji-sun "It's statements like these that make us understand the bigger picture of K-fashion in terms of South Korean culture, tradition and mentality, and that is key if the nation wants a major stake in the international fashion industry," he explained. According to Madsen, so many brands in Korea have no "unique point of view." He said he was sad to see derivative designs during everywhere the SFW, which he thinks is a "shame." "Like they did with K-pop, South Korea's challenge is to steer its designers in a direction sufficiently original for a global audience now more focused on authenticity than ever," he added. Attending the latest SFW, Madsen said it is neither hard to catch the overall idea of South Korea's fashion identity, nor how it's cultural codes and conduct are expressed creatively through K-Fashion. "Going forward, this is where Seoul Fashion Week needs to focus its efforts." he said. Another industry insider, who visited SFW for the third consecutive time, also shared similar view on Seoul being a perfect platform for promoting its designers, though missing its originality. Alex Chirgadze In this June. 12, 2018, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Sentosa Island, in Singapore. North Korea has warned on Friday it could revive a state policy aimed at strengthening its nuclear arsenal if the United States does not lift economic sanctions against the country. AP North Korea has warned it could revive a state policy aimed at strengthening its nuclear arsenal if the United States does not lift economic sanctions against the country. The statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Friday evening said North Korea could bring back its ''pyongjin'' policy of simultaneously advancing its nuclear force and economic development if the United States doesn't change its stance. The North sopped short of threatening to abandon ongoing nuclear negotiations with Washington. Still, it accused Washington of derailing commitments made by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump at their June summit in Singapore to work toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. It was the first time the North said it could potentially resume weapons tests and other development activities since Kim signaled a new state policy in April. In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he plans to talk next week with his North Korean counterpart, apparently referring to senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol. Pompeo did not provide the location and date for the meeting, which will likely be focused on persuading North Korea to take firmer steps toward denuclearization and setting up a second summit between their leaders. ''A lot of work remains, but I'm confident that we will keep the economic pressure in place until such time as Chairman Kim fulfills the commitment he made to President Trump back in June in Singapore,'' Pompeo said. The North Korean Foreign Ministry statement, released under the name of the director of the ministry's Institute for American Studies, said the ''improvement of relations and sanctions is incompatible.'' ''The U.S. thinks that its oft-repeated 'sanctions and pressure' leads to 'denuclearization.' We cannot help laughing at such a foolish idea,'' it said. The ministry described the lifting of U.S.-led sanctions as corresponding action to the North's ''proactive and good-will measures,'' apparently referring to its unilateral suspension of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and closure of a nuclear testing ground. Following a series of provocative nuclear and missile tests last year, Kim shifted to diplomacy when he met with Trump between three summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who lobbied hard to revive nuclear diplomacy. However, the North has been playing hardball since the summits, insisting that sanctions should be lifted before any progress in nuclear talks, which fueled doubts about whether Kim would ever deal away a nuclear program he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival. Ahead of his first summit with Moon in April, Kim said the country should shift its focus to economic development as the ''pyongjin'' policy had achieved a ''great victory.'' He also declared that the North would stop nuclear and long-range missile tests. The North dismantled its nuclear testing ground in May, but didn't invite experts to observe and verify the event. ''If the U.S. keeps behaving arrogantly without showing any change in its stand, while failing to properly understand our repeated demand, the DPRK may add one thing to the state policy for directing all efforts to the economic construction adopted in April and as a result, the word 'pyongjin' may appear again,'' Friday's statement said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. ''Pyongjin'' means ''dual advancement.'' Moon has described inter-Korean engagement as crucial to resolving the nuclear standoff. A large number of South Korean CEOs accompanied Moon in his September visit to Pyongyang, when he and Kim agreed to normalize operations at a jointly run factory park and resume South Korean visitors' travel to the North when possible, voicing optimism the international sanctions could end and allow such projects. But South Korea's enthusiasm for engagement with its rival has also created discomfort in the United States amid growing concerns that the North is dragging its feet with its promise to denuclearize. South Korea last month walked back on a proposal to lift some of its unilateral sanctions against North Korea to create diplomatic space following Trump's blunt retort that Seoul could ''do nothing'' without Washington's approval. (AP) FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA Members of civic groups stage a protest at Gwanghwamun in Seoul, Saturday, urging the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Korea on the occasion of Student Day. in the back ground can be seen people who participated in a 'Taegeukgi rally' calling for the enhancement of the Korea-U.S. alliance. Yonhap By Kim Jae-heun A total of 886 foreigners were apprehended for violence and illegal gambling among other crimes during a 100-day crackdown that started mid-July, with 89 being detained, according to police, Sunday. The crackdown _ between July 16 and Oct. 23 _ targeted foreign nationals involved in violent organized crime as well as those smuggling drugs and offering gambling. According to the National Police Agency, out of 402 cases, assault and violent crime ranked top with 115, followed by gambling at 89, drug trafficking with 81 cases and counterfeiting fourth with 53. Most of the violence involved physical fights between foreigners, alongside acts of vandalism, while intoxicated. Police enforced organized crime laws on foreigners engaged in sex trafficking and loan-sharking at local casinos. Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said they arrested nine foreigners and detained one, for loaning gambling money to Chinese tourists at a hotel casino in July and assaulting those who failed to pay them back. They also arrested 23 Chinese for smuggling methamphetamine into Korea in October. In foreigner-concentrated-districts, police raided private gambling houses and illegal arcades. Foreigners illegally reproducing bankbooks and distributing unregistered cars were also arrested. A group of foreigners bought a burnout imported car for 500,000 won and sold it to a customer in Russia illegally. Fifteen have been arrested and two were detained. "We maximized our crackdown in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice and police agencies overseas. We will continue to control crimes by foreigners to secure the peace and safety of the nation," an officer said. According to the police agency, the number of crimes committed by foreigners between January and October of this year decreased by 5.3 percent, compared to the same period last year. In particular, murder declined by 22.7 percent and robbery by 31.9 percent. In this video spread online, people claim a man known as Heminem threw 50,000 won bills into the air at Club Arena in Gangnam district, Seoul, in June. Screen capture from YouTube By Ko Dong-hwan Heminem showed up in a red jacket at Busan Arena in Haeundae, Busan. A minor but heated performance at the popular Gangnam, Seoul, venue Club Arena in June grabbed the attention of clubbers when money started raining down, online video shows. A man calling himself "Heminem" stood among the crowd with Eminem's "Without Me" playing in the background. All clubbers' eyes were fixed on the performer dressed in a black shirt and black jacket. At the back of the venue a sign read: "Korea No.1 heminem_king." "Heminem_king" is the name of Heminem's Instagram page . The page says he was "reluctantly made the president of club scenes," rejects all interviews with journalists, and will "live like himself the most and die" and will "earn like a dog and donate like a minister." It also contains a phrase from the hip-hop number "Feel so empty 'without me'." As the music continues at the club, the man seemingly enjoys the scene, from time to time mumbling the song, bobbing his head to the beat and rhythmically dancing to the tune. He also hands out what appears to be liquor bottles to some of the crowd. The music changes to rock band Bon Jovi's "It's My Life." Then the man gets a giant liquor bottle and lifts it up and down like a trophy. When the song reaches the chorus for the first time, he pulls out a bundle of bills from his pocket and throws them into the air. During his flamboyant performance to Eminem's "Without Me" and Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" at Club Arena, Heminem shows liquor bottles to the crowd, one of which he later pours on himself. He then pours liquor over his neck and body and holds even a bigger liquor bottle and air-guitars it. Some who saw the scene on YouTube said the man was "crazy enough to pour Dom Perignon worth 700,000 won ($630) to waste." At the end of the song, he flings another bundle of bills from his pocket, causing mayhem. There are claims online that Heminem has often thrown out money at clubs. Most recently, around 2 a.m. during Club Arena's Halloween party on Oct. 27-28, he reportedly gave out 100 million won. Some people were injured rushing to grab the cash and taken to hospital. Police also were called. Some say Heminem started dropping money at clubs in Busan and Seoul in late 2017. One witness said Heminem was spotted at the Burning Sun in Gangnam in April where he ordered the "Mansour set," multiple liquors all worth around 100 million won. Dong-A Ilbo reported that it was the first time anyone had purchased the set in Korea. Clubbers at Club Arena rush to pick up money thrown by Heminem as "It's My Life" nears its end. Rally participants seeking the cancelation of the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye wave South Korean and U.S. flags in central Seoul on March 9, 2017, one day before the impeachment decision. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk By Park Ji-won Struggling to gain public trust after the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, the largest opposition Liberty Korea Party's (LKP) move to welcome far-right voices into the party casts doubts over the effectiveness of the move. Jun Won-tchack, who assumed a post with the LKP's reform committee last week, made it clear he will embrace the Taegeukgi protesters who carry out flag-waving rallies, meaning inviting those people to join the party. "The Taegeukgi protesters are not extreme far rightists but eager supporters of former President Park Geun-hye," Jun said during a radio interview after his appointment to the committee last month. "I won't eliminate them from conservative forces." The group is known to oppose the current government for being too supportive of North Korea, and advocate for Park and her father Park Chung-hee, claiming the two were good leaders and not guilty of any crimes. Those people are not led by a single organization but headed by about five, according to sources. They normally hold street protests in central Seoul Gwangwhamun and Seoul Station for example almost every week. Criticism has arisen over their romanticizing of the rule of the impeached Park, who is in jail on corruption charges. "The candlelit rallies at Gwanghwamun showed the characteristics of the citizens, while the Taegeukgi rallies showed those of subjects," Jun Tae-guk, an honorary professor at Kangwon University, has been quoted as saying. "(The Taegeukgi rally) support Park Geun-hye's incompetent government without question. It is a pre-modern characteristic." Tension rises between LKP members Tension between LKP lawmakers over the acceptance of the protesters into the party has escalated as members divide into factions showing signs of a leadership battle. Kim Byoung-joon, center, interim leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, speaks during a reform committee meeting at the National Assembly, Monday. Yonhap By Park Ji-won Key policymakers from Cheong Wa Dae, the government and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) have committed to passing the government's budget plan for next year. Jang Ha-sung, presidential chief of staff for policy, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon and Reps. Lee Hae-chan and Hong Young-pyo, leaders of the DPK, met at the National Assembly Sunday to discuss ways to create more jobs and other possible measures to revive the country's stalled economy. "The most important task is to create jobs in next year's budget," said DPK Chairman Lee Hae-chan in remarks at the start of the meeting. Prime Minister Lee proposed the need for three key polices to boost the economy by easing regulations. "We need to discuss ways to raise the tax deduction rate on investment in the industrial sector," he said. Lee also suggested introducing ways to cut local taxes on debt-ridden industries to create more jobs while eliminating uncertainties that have had a large impact on business investment. Recent data showed that the number of long-term unemployed reached 150,000 between January and September, the highest in 18 years. Regarding the main opposition Liberty Korea Party's (LKP) suggestion to expand allowances for children to overcome the low birthrate, Hong said: "We thank the LKP for its efforts on the allowance. The Assembly should come up with effective policies by forming a special committee on dealing with the low birthrate." Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono speaks to media after a meeting with South Korean ambassador to Japan Lee Su-hoon (not pictured) at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, last week. Retuers-Yonhap By Kim Bo-eun Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono claimed the South Korean government is responsible to compensate the victims of forced labor during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula, as the two countries signed a bilateral treaty in 1965 to settle colonial era issues. "Japan cannot accept (the South Korean Supreme Court's) ruling because it goes against the treaty," Kono said Saturday. The response came after the Supreme Court ordered a Japanese steelmaker last week to compensate South Korean victims during the period. The final ruling calls for Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal to pay each of the four plaintiffs 100 million won ($89,445). It retained the adjudication of the ruling in 2012, that the 1965 bilateral treaty does not terminate individuals' rights to claim damages. Referring to the treaty, Kono said, "Japan provided the Korean government with funds, and the South Korean government pledged to take charge of compensating its people." Under the treaty, Tokyo provided Seoul $500 million in compensation. Based on Japan's stance on the issue, it appears the process for the victims to receive compensation will be tough. Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation (NSSMC) could voluntarily provide the court-ordered compensation, but the companies issued their own statement following the ruling last week that it goes against the 1965 treaty and the Japanese government's stance on the matter. As voluntary compensation by the steelmaker appears unlikely, another way would be for the plaintiffs to force compensation from the company through seizing assets it holds in Japan. However, this will likely be difficult because to take such an action, the plaintiff would need a ruling by a Japanese court supporting the asset seizure. On the business front, the Japanese steelmaker has shares in South Korean steelmaker POSCO, but the U.S. holds jurisdiction over these assets, which means trials would need to take place in the U.S. Trials would need to be concluded within the timeframe that the plaintiff's right to claim compensation remains valid. Based on existing regulations, the right to claim compensation is terminated three years after losses are recognized. This would mean the right would expire in October 2021. Regarding Kono's statement, an official from the foreign ministry said the government would refrain from commenting on each and every move of the Japanese administration and media until it comes up with a coordinated response. Following the ruling last week, the Prime Minister's Office issued a statement, saying the government respects the judiciary's ruling and it would review matters related to it to come up with steps to take in the future At the same time, it stated it hopes "to develop bilateral relations with Japan in a future-oriented way." The prospect of the United States providing North Korea with some sanctions relief for its initial steps toward denuclearization will be among the main issues discussed at a high-level meeting between Pyongyang and Washington next week. Setting a timeline for possible inspections of a former nuclear-testing site would also be discussed. The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart Kim Yong-chol is set to take place in New York Nov. 7 and 8, a Cheong Wa Dae official said, Sunday. North Korea is preparing its Punggye-ri nuclear test site for international inspectors for the first time, following a thaw in tensions this year. Specifically, the meeting is set to discuss who will participate in the inspections whether it will be another country or international organization besides the U.S., how many inspectors will be involved and how the inspections will take place. The meeting will cover ways to dismantle the North's Yongbyon nuclear facility and what type of relief the North would receive. North Korea has repeatedly demanded that the U.S. drop sanctions in return for the freezing of its nuclear program. In 2017, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), with prodding from the U.S. and approval from China, passed a series of sanctions against the North. The high-level talks will also discuss plans for a second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump. A schedule for the summit will materialize once progress is made on the other points of contention. The U.S. has stated that the summit will take place early next year. It is yet to be seen how this will affect the plan for Kim to visit Seoul this year. Cheong Wa Dae said it was still hoping to see Kim come, but recent media reports claimed that a visit by year's end could be difficult. Early expectations were that a formal declaration on ending the 1950-53 Korean War could be reached at the second summit between Kim and Trump this year, and that Kim would meet President Moon Jae-in in Seoul in December. Sexual abuse by officials in positions of authority in North Korea appears to be widespread, according to Human Rights Watch Executive Director, Kenneth Roth. Sexual violence - so common that it's become an ordinary part of life. That's what more than sixty North Koreans told human rights investigators about the wide spread sex abuse by officials in the country. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch say the isolated state's human rights record is being intentionally ignored in an international effort to improve relations. They presented their findings on Thursday (November 1), and while the survey's limited in numbers, they said some of the women interviewed didn't understand that coercive sex shouldn't be a part of almost everyday life. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH'S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, KENNETH ROTH, SAYING: "Many North Koreans told Human Rights Watch that when an official or person in power picks a woman, she has no choice but to comply. She has to do whatever he demands whether it's for sex, money, or other favors." As Seoul and Washington focus on diplomatic outreach to North Korea, a series of reports this year have showed similarly disturbing findings. U.N. investigators have reported the use of political prison camps, starvation and executions in the country, saying security chiefs and possibly even Kim Jong Un himself should face international justice. (Reuters) By Sandip Kumar Mishra In a changing Asia-Pacific, there are two undeniable powerful narratives that have overshadowed most of the other developments in regional politics. They are the rise of an "assertive China" and the emergence of a quadrilateral network (QUAD) among the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, in the form of an Indo-Pacific strategy. These meta-narratives are works in progress that are informed and placed in the context of each other and it would be a euphemism to believe official statements of the involved states that they are disconnected from each other. It would also be futile to ascertain which comes first and which follows the other. Since the 2008 global financial crisis and becoming the world's second-largest economy in 2010, and more specifically since the coming of President Xi Jinping in 2013, China has overtly behaved as if it has "arrived" on the global stage. Xi has indicated that the old dictum of Deng Xiaoping in "build your strength and hide your capabilities" is no longer relevant. He seeks to show off Chinese strength and its role in global politics. He demands "Asia for Asians," as well as "great-power relations" with the U.S. in the format of the G2. China does not only seek to revise the economic architecture of the region through the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but has also become more "assertive" in the security domain. China's changed posture is quite evident when it took a tough stance in its disputes with Japan on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, unilaterally declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, refused to accept the verdict of the International Tribunal on the South China Sea dispute, built artificial islands in the South China Sea and overreacted on the installation of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea. On the other hand, after a relative decline in U.S. capacity in the regional economic and political landscapes of the Asia-Pacific, Washington is still insistent on being a resident power in the region. It is not ready to give up its position and has been trying to remain the prime mover in regional politics through its allies. First, it articulated its policy for the region in the form of "pivot to Asia" during the Barack Obama period and now it has been encouraging the formation of QUAD. The network has its sprouts in the Malabar naval exercises, which happen annually among the U.S., India and Japan. Australia has also been involved occasionally. To bring India more into the Asia-Pacific, a deliberate attempt by the U.S. and Japan is also visible in the use of "Indo-Pacific" instead of Asia-Pacific to describe the region. The U.S. seeks to maintain a "free and open Indo-Pacific" (FOIP) with QUAD. The Indo-Pacific strategy does not name China as an opponent but it would be naive not to see the writing on the wall. Bilaterally, the U.S. has been in a "trade war" with China, which is being largely fought through tariffs or restrictions on each other's exports. Amid these two powerful trends in the Asia-Pacific, it's important for concerned countries to explore a possible "third way" for the region. Actually, the Asia-Pacific is the world's fastest growing region and any disruption caused by the China-U.S. contest would negatively affect most of the regional countries. For the same reason, countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and others are uncomfortable about a lack of inclusiveness or say in both the powerful alternatives presented to them. It's important to ensure stability of the Asia-Pacific in both economic and security domains through an open multi-polar regional system where inter-state relations are rule based, norm based and institutionalized. Even India, which is considered part of QUAD, is not entirely in agreement with it. In June 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized inclusiveness in the FOIP at the Shangri-La Dialogue. Actually, it's interesting to note that many regional countries have been trying to avoid these two meta-narratives by proclaiming their own middle-range models for regional politics. India's Act East Policy, South Korea's New Northern and Southern Policy and Taiwan's New Southbound Policy are examples of such attempts to explore possibilities of a "third way." Here it's important to underline that a "third way" does not mean discarding the two powerful trends. It only intends their moderation. The "third way" would be in agreement with the AIIB and BRI but would like to avoid China's desire to dominate the region. Similarly, it would support the OFIP in the security domain but would insist inclusiveness in it and also keep it open for China if Beijing is ready to work for the common objective. Though it would not be easy for such articulation of the "third way" to create its place amid these two big trends, the idea must be given a good hearing, as well as serious consideration, by the region's countries for a better future for the Asia-Pacific. The author is associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He can be reached at By Philippe Legrain LONDON She has been dubbed the Queen of Europe and, since U.S. President Donald Trump's election, the leader of the free world. As the European Union has lurched from crisis to crisis over the past decade, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's steady hand has helped hold the bloc together. According to the conventional wisdom, when she hands over the chancellorship after Germany's next federal election in 2021 and perhaps much sooner if her grand coalition collapses she will be sorely missed. However, this will hardly be the case. Merkel's 13 years in office have involved domestic drift and European decay. She has complacently coasted along, failing to address Germany's mounting economic and security challenges, and allowing Europe's many crises to fester. Her lethargic managerialism would be tolerable for a small country in quiet times; it is catastrophic for Europe's dominant power in an era of upheaval. Unlike many European countries, Germany has enjoyed solid economic growth over the past decade. But Merkel can scarcely take credit for that. Her four governments have enacted no significant growth-enhancing reforms. And in their obsession with running a budget surplus, they have failed to invest in the country's crumbling infrastructure and education system. Merkel has done nothing to prepare Germany for the digital disruption that threatens to do to its manufacturing heartland notably its car industry what Apple's iPhone did to Nokia. Germany will regret not fixing its roof while the sun was still shining. The eurozone crisis greatly enhanced Germany's financial clout within the currency union. That gave Merkel massive political power, which she could have put to good use. Instead she put Germany's narrow near-term interests as a creditor first, leading her to make decisions that exacerbated the eurozone crisis, shifted its costs to others, and prevented any long-term resolution. Merkel is ultimately responsible for the EU's refusal to restructure Greece's debts in 2010. She was behind the lending of European taxpayers' money to stricken governments to bail out German banks. And her governments responded to financial panic by demanding extreme austerity and painful adjustments in debtor countries, even as Germany's current-account surplus swelled. By eventually green-lighting European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's pledge to do "whatever it takes" to hold the euro together, Merkel did just enough to save the single currency, while leaving in place all of the flaws of a dysfunctional, incomplete monetary union. To be sure, with Trump demolishing the liberal international order and swivel-eyed nationalists running amok in Britain, Hungary, Poland, Italy, and elsewhere, Merkel deserves credit for offering a calm, reassuring voice of moderation. Her decision to welcome more than one million refugees was an uncharacteristically bold humanitarian gesture. And whereas British Prime Minister Theresa May has humiliated herself by kowtowing to Trump, Merkel has spoken up for liberal, internationalist values. Likewise, unlike many senior politicians in Germany, she has stood up to Russian President Vladimir Putin's bullying and aggressive behavior. Still, Merkel's tepid leadership has left Germany exceptionally vulnerable to today's nationalist backlash. The country's economic, political, and geopolitical security rest on precisely the three things that nationalists want to destroy: dynamic open markets for German exports; an integrated EU that anchors Germany's position in Europe and the world; and the U.S. nuclear umbrella that ensures its defense. Germany is not a trade cheat, as the Trump administration has claimed. And yet, under Merkel, it certainly has pursued a beggar-thy-neighbor mercantilist growth strategy that suppresses wages and boosts exports at all costs. Yes, protectionism is misguided; but mercantilism encourages it. German, European, and global interests would all be served if Germany were to do more to stimulate domestic demand. Similarly, Merkel cannot be blamed for Brexit or for many of Italy's travails, which are of its own making. And yet her eurozone policies are a big reason why Italy now has a populist government vowing to block future EU trade deals, inflaming the refugee crisis, and threatening another eurozone panic. The eurozone will not be secure until Germany and Italy can both happily share a monetary union. This may ultimately prove to be impossible. But if there is a workable arrangement, it will require significant reforms, as French President Emmanuel Macron proposed last year. Merkel's spurning of Macron's reform effort thus represents a tragic missed opportunity. With respect to security, even as Merkel has acknowledged that Germany can no longer rely wholly on the U.S. for its defense, she has done little to bolster German or European military capabilities. German defense spending remains inadequate, giving Trump a pretext to undermine NATO. The country's ramshackle military has tanks that don't drive, submarines that don't dive, and planes that don't fly. And there has scarcely been any debate about the need for a nuclear deterrent, whether German or European. Far from a tragedy, then, Merkel's departure represents an opportunity for European reformers. Macron and his European allies are right to focus their campaign for the European Parliament election next May on the threat posed by far-right populism. But in his desire not to upset a powerful partner, Macron has so far failed to challenge Merkel's flawed European leadership. With Merkel on the way out, he and other reformers have a fresh chance to campaign for a different Europe that works for everyone. If they don't take advantage of her exit, the charlatans of the far right certainly will. Philippe Legrain, a former economic adviser to the president of the European Commission, is a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics' European Institute and the author of "European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess and How to Put Them Right." Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org). Mid-Term Elections Could Reverse Trump Policies The Arab Spring spread through Saudi Arabia and continued for years in the mostly Shia Muslim, eastern part of the country. When the current Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman came to power, he escalated the war in Yemen and cracked down on dissent at home. Photo by Reese Erlich by Reese Erlich The murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has backfired on the Saudi royal family by focusing new attention on its vicious war on Yemen. The last few weeks have seen startling new reports on civilian atrocities and growing support for a House of Representative resolution invoking the War Powers Act to stop the war. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-San Jose) now has 73 cosponsors for a resolution that would stop U.S. participation in the Yemen slaughter. The Khashoggi murder has fundamentally shifted opinions on Capitol Hill about U.S.-Saudi relations, Rep. Khanna told me in a phone interview. He likened it to one partner in a marriage having an affair. The marriage may last but it will never be the same, he said. Its opened peoples eyes. Murder expressly in the Orient On October 2, the Saudi regime, headed by Mohammad bin Salman, murdered opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. Saudi officials had a premeditated plan to kill Khashoggi , dress a Saudi operative in his clothes and then have him walk around the city to leave the impression he was still alive. In reality, Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered with a bone saw, according to Turkish government sources. While tens of thousands of Yemenis have died as a result of the Saudi invasion of Yemen, it took the death of one man to focus world attention on Saudi atrocities. Partially in response to the Khashoggi scandal, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis called for all sides in the Yemen War to begin UN-sponsored peace talks within 30 days. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that the Houthi movement, which is fighting Saudi Arabia, begin the ceasefire first. Past United States calls for ceasefires and peace talks went nowhere because the Trump administration is determined not to disrupt relations with Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration provides intelligence to the Saudi military fighting in Yemen and helps refuel its fighter jets. The United States currently has dozens of soldiers deployed in Yemen, ostensibly to combat terrorism. Earlier this year the New York Times revealed that about a dozen Green Beret commandos were stationed in Saudi Arabia along the Yemen border to train the Saudi military in interdicting Houthi missile attacks. As Ive reported previously , the Trump administration could end the war within days. US technicians fuel and maintain Saudi fighter planes manufactured by Boeing. Trump could order the technicians to stop work, as provided in the Boeing contract. If the United States stopped fueling the planes, the war would end, noted Khanna. Whos fighting and why? Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) invaded Yemen in 2015 claiming to support the legitimate government of Yemens Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. In reality, Hadi was installed by the United States after an Arab Spring uprising and today acts as a Saudi puppet. He lives in Saudi Arabia, not Yemen. The Houthis, a conservative political Islamic movement, control the northern part of Yemen. Iran supports but does not control the Houthis. The Houthis havekilled civilians by firing artillery indiscriminately into Yemeni cities and launching rockets into southern Saudi Arabia, according to Human Rights Watch But the Saudi/UAE coalition is responsible for far more death and destruction. In an online interview from the Yemeni capital Sanaa, radio reporter Ali Alshahari told me coalition planes have destroyed massive amounts of infrastructure and caused the deaths of tens of thousands. The two occupying powers have blocked access to the countrys ports, which stops even humanitarian aid such as food and medicine. The people here are suffering from malnutrition due to the imposed blockade, Shahari said. This is a catastrophe. The United States, UK and France provide the deadly munitions responsible for civilian deaths. Lockheed-Martin sold the guided missiles to Saudi Arabia that caused the deaths of 40 children and 11 adults in the infamous August attack on a school bus Most of the mainstream media say some 10,000 Yemenis have died in the war, but that figure comes from a two-year-old UN estimate. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a research institution funded in part by the US State Department, indicates that from 2016 to the present, some 56,000 Yemeni civilians and combatants have died. The total since the beginning of the war will likely be 70-80,000, according to a ACLED spokesperson. A new report by the World Peace Foundation shows that the Royal Saudi Air Force intentionally attacks food storage facilities. Report author and Tufts Professor Martha Mundy explained, There is strong evidence that Coalition strategy has aimed to destroy food production and distribution in the areas under the control of Sanaa. Bump from Trump Obama and now Trump have supported the Yemen occupation to defend US so-called national interests, part of the larger fight against Iran. The United States accuses Iran of seeking to militarily dominate the region from Lebanon, through Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen. My-- how the kettle calls the pot black. The United States has dominated the Middle East in the post-World-War II era and seeks to maintain its power in an alliance with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. It has massive military bases in Bahrain and Qatar. The US Navy keeps the sea lanes open for US and allied oil corporations. And, by sheer coincidence, oil and munitions companies make billions of dollars in profits. Funny how national interests are of great interest to the rich but not to the nation. The Saudis had predicted a quick victory in Yemen but are now bogged down in a never-ending war that costs at least $5-6 billion a month. Fallout from the Khashoggi murder has made the war even more problematic. Neither Obama nor Trump ever formally declared war in Yemen, and the fighting there has nothing to do with combating terrorism. Even the Republican-dominated House in November 2017 voted by a whopping 366-30 margin to stop United States participation in the Yemen war. In March a similar measure failed in the Senate by a vote of only 55-44. If the Democrats win the House, and particularly the Senate, they could put tremendous pressure on Trump to reverse his disastrous Mideast policies. Rep. Khanna emphasized that his War Powers Act measure has significance beyond the Yemen war. The bill is a reassertion of Congresss role in foreign policy, he said. Its a reorientation of US policy away from interventionism. It's unclear how serious President Trump is about issuing an executive order to abolish so-called "birthright citizenship." Perhaps he will abandon the idea once it has served the purpose of riling up his anti-immigrant base in this week's midterm elections. But perhaps not and that would be a terrible mistake. Frankly, it's outrageous that Trump would even broach the possibility. His proposed order would violate an overwhelming legal consensus dating back many decades that the Constitution grants citizenship to persons born in the United States regardless of their parents' immigration status. Not only would such an order be unconstitutional, but it would be wrong as a matter of principle. Birthright citizenship is an important emblem of equality and inclusion, and an affirmation that being an American doesn't depend on bloodlines. That's a concept that suits a nation of immigrants. As a candidate, Trump proposed doing away with birthright citizenship, which he wrongly called the "biggest magnet for illegal immigration." He has not followed through, but in an interview with Axios last weekend, the president confirmed to a reporter that he plans to issue an order to that effect. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment," Trump said. "Guess what? You don't." He added: "You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." Guess what? "They" are wrong. The 14th Amendment, added to the Constitution after the Civil War, says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." In the 1898 decision in United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court ruled that a child born to Chinese-citizen parents legally residing in this country was a U.S. citizen. The court wrote: "To hold that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of other countries, would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German or other European parentage, who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States." It's widely accepted that the same is also true of children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents. Before he was appointed by Trump to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the conservative constitutional scholar James C. Ho wrote that the sweeping language of the 1898 decision "reaches all aliens regardless of immigration status." So Trump is wrong on the law. And he's wrong on the merits. It's not surprising that a president who has relentlessly demonized immigrants and immigration doesn't understand the issue. But he shouldn't be able to act on that ignorance. The above editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times. It was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By Carlos Lopes CAPE TOWN China's use of trade and investment links to expand its influence in Africa is fueling growing concern in some European capitals. But, instead of complaining about China's activities, the European Union should be deepening its own engagement with the continent. In recent years, the EU has been actively seeking to secure new trade and investment opportunities around the world. As of July 2018, the EU was engaged in negotiations for 21 free-trade agreements. This includes talks initiated in the last seven years with six ASEAN countries Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam which could pave the way for a future deal with the entire region. The EU has also initiated talks with New Zealand and Australia. And it recently concluded comprehensive free-trade agreements with Armenia, Canada, Japan, and Vietnam, as well as a standalone investment agreement with China. But what about Africa? The continent's trade with the EU is already massive: Together, African countries represent the EU's third-largest trading partner, after the United States and China, accounting for nearly 7 percent of total extra-EU trade in goods, including 7 percent of imports and 8 percent of exports. And though the EU ran a persistent trade deficit with Africa in 2000-2014, it ran a 22-billion-euro ($25.5 billion) surplus in 2015 and a 22.7-billion-euro surplus in 2016. Africa's trade with the EU is triple that of, say, Canada, which amounted to 94.7 billion euro in 2016. With the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, annual EU-Canada trade is expected to increase by at least 8 percent, or some 12 billion euro. But that is still the equivalent of just half the EU's trade volume with Egypt alone. Similarly, the EU's future free-trade agreement with New Zealand could increase bilateral trade by about 36 percent, yet that increase would still amount to less than half the volume of goods that the EU now trades with Tunisia. In the case of Australia, the expected increase of around one-third in trade volume represents the bulk of trade with Egypt. Africa's share of EU trade could increase even further, given the continent's impressive economic prospects. In 2000-2010, Africa achieved real annual GDP growth of 5.4 percent; that rate held strong at 3.3 percent in 2010-2015. Today, Africa remains the world's second-fastest growing region, after emerging and developing Asia. For Europe, Africa's economic potential remains far from tapped. Spending by households and businesses, estimated at $4 trillion in 2015, is projected to reach $5.6 trillion by 2025, reflecting 3.5 percent annual growth. Moreover, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, investment opportunities stemming from infrastructure demand in Africa will amount to at least $150 billion annually over the next decade. Africa is also home to strategic natural resources for emerging low-carbon industries, and is well positioned to play a key role in renewable energy. Africa's value as a trade and investment partner is not news to Europe. Over the last five years, the EU has been negotiating with each of Africa's sub-regions under the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) framework, with the goal of eventually producing a free-trade agreement between the EU and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States. Yet, so far, only one EPA (with Southern Africa) has been ratified. Progress on the others has stagnated, owing largely to a lack of political enthusiasm. Africans have serious concerns about how the EPAs would affect their industrial development and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), signed by almost all African countries last March. Uncertainty arising from Brexit has not helped matters. African leaders are right to be concerned. Though the EU claims that the EPAs will buttress the AfCFTA, preliminary research indicates that the trade gains brought by the EPAs, as negotiated, are likely to be concentrated on a few agricultural products and to exclude the least-developed countries. In most areas, the EPAs will actually hurt intra-African trade, weakening trade revenues and undermining trade-driven industrialization in Africa. Some argue that the problem is more about timing, because the losses are likely to materialize immediately, and the possible benefits brought by increased access to the EU market will take longer to emerge. Given this, EPA proponents argue, a special fund should be established to compensate for some of the short-term losses. But research suggests that the best way for Africa to avoid losses is to focus on strengthening the AfCFTA and let the EPAs die. To be sure, the EU is also taking steps to help strengthen the AfCFTA. It recently announced a sevenfold increase in assistance from 7 million euro in 2014-2017 to 50 million euro in 2018-2020 for institutional and technical support, as well as for data collection and analysis. But, as African Union leaders confirmed at the AU-EU Summit in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, last November, they are eager for the relationship to mature beyond the traditional dependency model. Though progress has been made in this regard, the EU still largely sets the agenda and provides financial assistance to implement it. If the EU is to seize the opportunities that Africa offers in a way that is mutually beneficial, it will need to work with the continent's leaders to build a new kind of partnership that treats African countries as equals. Simply put, the new EU-Africa relationship must be based on trade, not aid. Carlos Lopes is a professor at the Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town and high representative of the African Union for partnerships with Europe post-2020. Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org). New economic team should focus on growth recovery It appears to be imminent for President Moon Jae-in to replace the finance minister and the presidential economic policy chief. Although the presidential office denied any reshuffle plans, it is necessary to form a new economic team in a bid to tackle the worsening economic situation and create more jobs. Lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) are accepting media reports about the impending reshuffle as a fait accompli. They seem to believe Cheong Wa Dae has already decided to replace the two officials; and say it is time to change the economic lineup to inject fresh air into Moon's presidency which was inaugurated in May 2017. There are many reasons to replace Economy and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon and presidential economic policy chief Jang Ha-sung. The two have frequently clashed over how to manage the economy. Before becoming President Moon's economic policy adviser, Jang was a business professor and civic activist who advocated for equal distribution of wealth. He helped Moon shape his inclusive growth model. Jang has stuck firmly to the President's much-avowed income-led growth policy, despite its ill effects. However, Minister Kim, a career economic bureaucrat, has focused on reviving the economy by stimulating innovation and pushing for deregulation. But he has not produced successful results because Moon has so far preferred the income-driven growth policy to a market-oriented formula. Against this backdrop, the conflict between Kim and Jang has often been seen as a power game over who leads and what policy to implement. This feud has inevitably dealt a severe blow to the economy. So Moon should no longer delay filling the two important economic posts with new figures, holding Kim and Jang accountable for the current economic woes. What's disappointing is that Moon is trying not to give the impression that Kim and Jang should be replaced for their failure to stimulate job creation, bring higher wages to the working class and reinvigorate the economy. This is certainly because the President ultimately does not want to admit his policy failure. Even though the economy keeps suffering a decline in production, consumption and investment, President Moon made clear in a speech at the National Assembly last week that he will continue his drive for income-led growth. So we have to ask: How can the government achieve economic recovery without changing course? It would be naive to believe only a change in policymakers will solve the problem. Sources close to Cheong Wa Dae speculated that Minister Kim is likely to be replaced by Hong Nam-ki, chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination under the prime minister. They also said Kim Su-hyun, senior presidential secretary for social affairs, is on the list of candidates to succeed Jang. Whoever becomes the next top economic policymakers, they cannot reverse the looming recession as long as Moon is obsessed with his ill-timed and half-baked policy experiment. Let the new economic team adopt a new policy to push for structural reform, promote innovation and entrepreneurship, and strengthen the competitiveness of Korea Inc. Time to allow alternative service for conscientious objectors The Supreme Court made a landmark ruling Thursday that recognizes religious and conscientious beliefs as valid reasons for refusing mandatory military service, overturning its 2004 decision. In a 9-4 vote in favor of a conscientious objector, the court sent his case back to an appellate court which previously found him guilty of violating the Military Service Act. He will be cleared of the charge. This is the first time the top court has fully respected freedom of conscience for those refusing to serve in the military. The ruling followed a June 28 decision by the Constitutional Court to recognize the need for alternative service for conscientious objectors. The latest ruling states that punishing conscientious objectors for refusing military conscription is deemed an excessive constraint to an individual's freedom of conscience. It added such punishment goes against democratic values, and it is time for the state to tolerate and embrace those objectors. The decision carries significant meaning as the highest court broke the long-held rule that has put military obligation before individual freedom of conscience in the face of security threats from North Korea. In other words, the court has now begun to honor conscientious objection as a constitutional right. Therefore it is urgent to change the Military Service Act to institutionalize alternative service for conscientious objectors whose numbers are estimated at around 1,000. At trials they have claimed they were not guilty of draft-dodging. About 19,000 conscientious objectors -- many of them Jehovah's Witnesses -- have had to serve time, mostly 18 months in prison, since the 1950s. Most of all, policymakers and lawmakers should define the concept and scope of conscience objection to prevent any able-bodied men from abusing it to avoid military duty. Equally important is to decide which alternative service should be available for rightful objectors. The Ministry of National Defense is considering allowing conscientious objectors to serve in prisons and correctional facilities for 36 months, twice the service period of enlisted servicemen in the Army. Before making a final decision, the government should reflect various opinions in society because many are raising their voices against the ruling and the introduction of alternative service. By Tong Kim The defense ministers of South Korea and the United States concluded their annual security consultative meeting (SCM) in Washington, Oct. 31, with an agreement to provide military support for the diplomatic efforts to achieve "a final, fully verified denuclearization" and to establish lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Military support requires U.S. endorsement of the inter-Korean military agreement of Sept. 29 and continued suspension of large-scale Korea-U.S. military exercises, which the North views as a rehearsal for an invasion on them. Defense secretary James Mattis told reporters that the Pentagon supports the inter-Korean military accord. Since President Trump single-handedly cancelled such full-scale allied exercises in Singapore, there have been no ROK-U.S. air force drills, employing B-1B Lancer bombers. No plan of allied exercises has been announced for the future. The alliance is working on other ways of joint training, essential to the maintenance of combat readiness. Last week's SCM also paved the way for "a conditions-based transfer of the wartime operational control" of the combined forces to the South Korean military. The timing of transition will be determined when the South Koreans are ready to meet the conditions. But, the command structure will remain the same with a switching of roles between U.S. and Korean commanders. Upon the transition of operational control, a South Korean general will become the commander and a U.S. general will be the deputy commander of the combined forces command, which is currently led by a U.S. general. The two countries also agreed to maintain the current level of 28,500 U.S. troops in Korea, beyond the transfer of operational control. This will place U.S. troops under the command of a foreign general for the first time in history. On the Korean peninsula, the North and the South ceased hostile military exercises against each other Nov. 1, as agreed in the September military agreement. They will not conduct military exercises along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on land, air and sea. There will be no live-fire artillery drills or field training exercises at the regiment level or higher within 3 miles of the MDL. There will be no naval or coastal exercises in an established buffer zone at the seas on both west and east of the peninsula. The barrels of coastal artillery and ship guns have been covered, to ensure a safe fishing zone. "No fly zones" have been designated for combat aircraft to stay away from the MDL. This arrangement has been controversial, as it has little benefit for the South in light of the fact that the North carries out only a few hours of flight training due to a shortage of aircraft fuel. To prevent any type of accidental clash, the parties are withdrawing guard posts, removing landmines, and demilitarizing the joint security area, with the goal of turning the DMZ into a peace zone. Through direct lines of communication, the two sides will prevent any type of accidental clash in the DMZ. On the nuclear front, Kim Jong-un may still visit the South within this year, whereas a second U.S.-North Korea summit may not take place until sometime early next year. It appears that Kim will probably meet with the leaders of Russia and China, before he will meet with the U.S. president, who still speaks well of Kim and has an interest in meeting with him again. Right now, it is not clear what the U.S. wants the North to do next. The latter clearly rejected and showed no interest in reconsidering the U.S. request for a nuclear declaration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that he would meet with a North Korean representative to discuss the expert verifications of the nuclear testing and missile launching sites that the North had dismantled irreversibly. He did not say with whom or where the meeting would take place. In the meantime, North Korea policy representative Stephen Biegun set up a working group with South Korea, presumably to coordinate the pace of the denuclearization process with sanctions lifting. On Oct. 7, Pompeo and Kim Jong-un also agreed to operate a working group to expedite the denuclearization of North Korea, but no such meeting has taken place so far. It has been more than a month since the North shifted its interest in a symbolic war ending declaration to tangible sanction relief, as Kim focuses on the still crippled North Korean economy. While the military support for denuclearization is conducive to making progress in denuclearization, the North does not seem ready to take the next step as long as the sanctions remain intact. Tong Kim (tong.kim8@yahoo.com) is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Corean-American Studies. A Russian military adviser with Korean soldiers. Photograph by Isabella Bird Bishop, circa 1897. By Robert Neff At the end of the 19th century, Korea found itself in a wild vortex of modernization often inspired and frustrated by internal and external political pressure. The Korean military was no exception. In the 1880s and early 1890s, Chinese, Japanese, American and British advisers had trained the Korean military using modern methods but each was short-lived and ultimately failed. In the summer of 1896, it was Russia's turn. A core group of cadets and officers were chosen and, through the assistance of 10 Korean-Russian interpreters, trained by a handful of Russian officers and NCOs (non-commissioned officers). The commands were all given in Russian and the cadets learned very quickly and garnered much praise not only from their superiors but also from the public. Isabella Bird Bishop, an English traveler and writer, encountered them in the streets of Seoul and wrote: "A novelty, too, was the sight of the Korean cadet corps of 37 young men of good families and seven officers marching twice daily between the drill-ground of the Korean troops close to the [Gyeongbok] Palace and their own barracks behind the Russian Legation, with drums beating and colors flying." She was quick to note that the earlier American military advisers had failed and that the soldiers trained by Japanese advisers "were mutinous and rapacious." Somehow she forgot to mention the failed British-advised naval academy at Ganghwa Island. But she wasn't the only one to heap disdain on these earlier attempts. Russian military officers. Photograph by Isabella Bird Bishop, circa 1897. The Russian newspaper Novoye Vremya summed up the earlier attempts by the American and Japanese advisers as having "no interest in raising [the Korean military's] efficiency. They were satisfied to draw their pay, and glad that the Koreans did not ask them to do more." Despite Bird's praise for the Russian advisers' success, she also noted that the Russians were not doing this only for the good of Korea: "It is most probable that a force drilled and armed by Russia, accustomed to obey Russian orders and animated by an intense hereditary hatred of Japan, would prove a valuable corps d'armee to Russia in the event of war with that ambitious and restless empire." Three months later, after the initial cadets were trained, an additional 800 men the royal bodyguard were selected. The selection was not easy, as many of the men were afraid of the dour Russians and feigned sickness, lameness and lied about their ages some even broke ranks and ran away. Once the units were formed, the Korean soldiers were given new uniforms. The enlisted men wore blue serge frock trousers, low shoes, white gaiters and blue felt hats with narrow red bands for ornamentation while the officers wore blue-braided patrol jackets with blue trousers and Wellington boots, worn outside the trousers. These uniforms had a lot of gold lace as ornamentation that appealed to their military vanity. The Korean Army circa 1904. Reuters By Choi Sun-min By Baek Byung-yeul Dongwha Enterprise is known as a hidden champion for job applicants. The firm is lesser known as it has focused on business-to-business market, but it is Korea's leading wood materials manufacturer. Since 2000, Dongwha Enterprise has extended its reach into the global market and enhanced its presence as a global provider of wood panels such as medium-density fiberboard (MDF). Currently, it operates manufacturing plants in Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Finland and sales companies in the United States, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India. As Dongwha is operating businesses in many countries, it has been actively recruiting international students annually. For this year's recruitment, the company is currently receiving applications until Nov. 9. To offer advice and job seeking stories for international students, The Korea Times interviewed three Malaysians, who were newly recruited to Dongwha Malaysia this March. They said Dongwha would be a great choice for job applicants as it offers opportunities to become a global player and various kinds of career development support. Q: Please introduce yourself. Luqman Hafiz Bin Md Hazani Luqman Hafiz Bin Md Hazani (Hafiz): I am going to work on Dongwha Malaysia's Nilai Plant production management team. I am currently in on-the-job training at Dongwha Enterprise's production management team. The team monitors and analyzes daily, monthly and annual production output, cost of production and key performance index of production. Koah Kien Yii (Yii): I am scheduled to work for Dongwha Malaysia's finance accounting team. Currently I am in on-the-job training at Dongwha Enterprise's international accounting and tax team and doing financial analysis for Dongwha's Malaysian and Australian units. Gan Jing Xiang (Neo): I will be working at Dongwha Malaysia Nilai Plant Production team. I am currently in on-the-job training at Dongwha Enterprise's MDF manufacturing team in Asan, South Chungcheong Province. Q: Tell us the reason why you applied to Dongwha. Hafiz: I applied to the company because I thought I can be a specialist in the MDF business if I work at Dongwha. I researched a lot of companies for job opportunities, and I could never find one like Dongwha that saw huge growth in only one business sector during the past 70 years. Dongwha is the first Korean company to produce MDF products and now it produces the largest amounts of MDF in Asia. Also, I chose Dongwha because I thought I could have a chance to learn Dongwha's years-long knowhow and new technologies in MDF production as the company provides the on-the-job training program for 10 months in Korea. Gan Jing Xiang (Neo) Yii: I chose Dongwha because of its systematic on-the-job training program. If I went back to Malaysia right after graduating university in Korea, I thought I would lose my chance to utilize the knowledge and experience that I earned here. Unlike other Korean companies, Dongwha provides an opportunity for international students to work in Korea so they can gain practical work experience. I thought I could make progress if I work for Dongwha. Neo: At first, I learned about Dongwha thanks to my university seniors. Before graduating, I got interested with Dongwha as the company receives positive responses about its employee welfare programs and working environment. For me, the biggest appeal of Dongwha was it provided an opportunity to work in Korea during the job training period. Q: What are the positive aspects of working at Dongwha? Hafiz: The greatest advantage of working at Dongwha is employees can develop their capacities as global players. While working with my Dongwha colleagues from other countries, I have learned about their ways of working and cultures. I believe these experiences will help job applicants to develop globally competitive talents. Koah Kien Yii Yii: I think a flexible corporate culture is Dongwha's biggest strength. My university seniors from Malaysia have told me Korean companies are conservative compared to Malaysian companies. But after working at Dongwha, I could realize I had prejudiced views. Perhaps many Malaysian students have heard from their seniors that employees in Korean companies cannot leave work early even though they don't have any reason to stay because their bosses don't want them to. In Dongwha, we can get off work early so employees can enjoy their hobbies or dinner with their family. I am satisfied with Dongwha's flexible corporate culture that puts emphasis on making a horizontal organizational culture and having balance between work and life. Neo: Dongwha has been investing greatly in education for its new employees. The company is highly interesting with its on-the-job training program for Malaysian international students and the program is well organized. I have about two more months left to complete the job training program and I can feel I have already made huge progress. I was educated together with Korean new employees and we visited Dongwha's Vietnamese unit for job training in the early phase of the program. Those memories will still remain in my heart. Q: If you had to pick a junior person for your team, what would you look for in them? Hafiz: I would like to choose an applicant with data analysis ability. The production management team analyzes a lot of data related with production. The team also processes the data to produce beneficial results on the production line. If you are good at data analysis and are able to emphasize that ability in your resume or job interview, I think you can have a good result. Yii: You have to be passionate if you try to work in a division that is unrelated to your university major. I felt interested in working at a tax accounting team because I have paid attention to this part. But I also had hard times because I don't have enough basic knowledge about taxes and accounting compared to my Korean colleagues. If you really want to survive in a part that is not related with your university major, you need to be more passionate about your job than others. Neo: If you want to work on the production team, you need to have basic engineering knowledge. Also, you need to have passion and a challenging spirit to grow together with your company. I think what makes the difference between success and failure is the person's attitude rather than his or her knowledge or talent. I would like to work together with people who are active and have a challenging spirit. Q: Please give some advice to Malaysian international students in Korea seeking jobs at Dongwha. Hafiz: When you write a self-introduction letter, you need to take time to think about your own specialty and strength you could learn from your experience in Korea. If you can write your own story with sincerity, I believe you can produce good results. Yii: You can leave strong impressions on interviewers if you are prepared with recent news stories related to Dongwha or what kinds of products Dongwha produces. Neo: You will have job interviews in Korean. You will need to be prepared so you can express your thoughts smoothly in Korean. Q: Please give job applicants the last word. Hafiz: Dongwha's vision is "creating happiness, respecting people and building partnership." As seen in this vision, Dongwha has a wonderful working environment for its employees. I hope we can work together at Dongwha. Yii: As Dongwha is a Korean company, it is essential for you to have a basic command of the Korean language. You don't need to worry about how perfectly you can speak Korean but you need to have some conversation skills so you can communicate with Korean employees smoothly. Neo: If you become a member of a global firm, Dongwha, you can have the chance to work in different countries such as Korea, Australia, Vietnam and Finland. I hope I can see you at Dongwha. Foreign employees of Dongwha Enterprise's overseas units pose during a Korean cultural experience program at Deoksu Palace in central Seoul, Sept. 11. / Courtesy of Dongwha Enterprise "This is a weblog that is truly welcome in blogtopia a new blog doesn't seem to be frantically trying to score points for any party. That does NOT mean it's afraid to take a stand or be critical....You really can't predict exactly where The Debate Link will come down on all issues. It's not chanting anyone's mantra." -- The Moderate Voice "[A]n emerging genius in legal scholarship and commentary." -- Jim Chen "It's on my 1st cup of coffee rss feed." -- Hanno Kaiser "I heart this blog.... he referenced Wittgenstein, and it was entirely appropriate and non-pretentious." -- kath.A.rine "[F]unny, thoughtful, acclaimed ...." -- The Core CJ Logistics CEO Park Keun-tae By Park Jae-hyuk CJ Logistics, which has been grappling with a public relations crisis in recent months after a series of fatal accidents that led to the deaths of workers, is facing a government investigation, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor Sunday. The minor opposition Justice Party also plans to refer CJ Logistics CEO Park Keun-tae to prosecutors after holding a press conference in front of the company's headquarters in Seoul, Monday. Over the past three months, three workers have died while working for the logistics arm of CJ Group. According to Daejeon Daedeok Police Station, a 33-year-old subcontracted worker surnamed Yoo was hit by a reversing truck at a logistics center run by its subcontractor in Daejeon, Oct. 29, while loading parcels into a trailer. He was immediately moved to a nearby hospital, but died the next day. The logistics center is also the place where a 23-year-old part-timer surnamed Kim was killed after sustaining an electric shock in August. The worker, who was preparing to return to college in the city after fulfilling his military duty in May, was rendered unconscious Aug. 6, after getting shocked under a conveyor belt. Rescue workers took him immediately to a nearby hospital, but he died Aug. 9. In addition to the two fatal accidents in Daejeon, a 53-year-old temporary worker surnamed Lee also died Aug. 30, after collapsing while working a night shift at the firm's logistics center in Okcheon, South Chungcheong Province. CJ Logistics headquarters in Seoul / Yonhap A man-eating tiger that claimed more than a dozen victims in two years has been shot dead in India, sparking controversy over the legality of its killing. One of India's most high-profile tiger hunts in decades ended Friday night when the mother of two 10-month old cubs -- known to hunters as T1 but Avni to wildlife lovers -- was shot dead in the jungles of Maharashtra state. A team of more than 150 people had spent months searching for T1, using a paraglider and dozens of infrared cameras while sharpshooters had ridden on the backs of elephants. However disputes quickly erupted after the killing as media reports said the tiger was shot in Yavatmal forest with no attempt to tranquilize her. India's Supreme Court had issued a hunting order for T1 -- blamed for 13 deaths since June 2016 -- in September, ruling that she could be killed if tranquilizers failed. Several appeals were made against the death sentence. The tiger was killed at night, when tranquilizers are not allowed to be used, according to the Times of India and other media outlets. T1 is said to have been shot dead by Ashgar Ali Khan, son of India's most famous hunter Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, who was meant to be leading the hunt but was not present Friday night. Forestry officials and the hunter did not answer calls to give details of the hunt. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests A.K. Mishra told The Indian Express newspaper that a forest staffer had managed to dart the tiger with a tranquilizer at around 11.00 pm. "But she charged at the team, forcing Ashgar to shoot in self-defence," he said. "The tigress lay dead in a single shot." Self-defence or 'murder?' However Mishra's account was contradicted by other reports, while many groups condemned the way the killing was conducted. The Times of India quoted sources involved in the hunt as saying it looked as though a tranquilizer dart had been put into the tiger's corpse after the killing. The sources said the dart had not been fired. Forestry officials acknowledged to Indian media that no vet was present during the hunt, as required by the Supreme Court order. Jerryl Banait, a vet and activist in Karnataka state who had launched appeals against the order, described the shooting as "cold-blooded murder". "Avni was killed illegally satisfying a hunter's lust for blood," said the Indian branch of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) group. It said India's Wildlife Protection Act and National Tiger Conservation Authority rules had been flouted, calling for the matter to be "investigated and treated as a wildlife crime". The tiger's body has been taken to a zoo in the city of Nagpur for a post-mortem. Despite the disputed circumstances, villages around the town of Pandharkawda celebrated the death with relief. T1 claimed her first victim, a woman whose body was found in a cotton field, in June 2016. Since then most of the dead were male herders. India has launched a major campaign to boost tiger numbers. At the last tiger census in 2014 the number had risen to more than 2,200 from a low of less than 1,500. But urban spread as the population of 1.25 billion grows has increasingly eaten into the territory of wild animals. Endangered elephants and tigers kill on average one person a day, according to government figures. (AFP) Con Howe, 68, is a managing director of real estate company Cityview, which develops apartments and mixed-use projects in high-growth markets such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver. Howe, who spent 13 years as planning director for the city of Los Angeles, oversees the companys developments in Los Angeles County, where his team has built or renovated 21 projects with a combined 2,500 units. Early brush with fame Howe grew up in Pittsburgh, where as a high school student in the late 1960s he met local legend Fred Rogers, star of the childrens television show Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Rogers had costumed students including Howe, who wasnt an actor, join him in performances at Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh to entertain the young patients. Advertisement I was the owl, Howe said. The owl only had to say, Hoo-hoo He decided that Rogers was genuine in his kindness and warmth. It wasnt a stage presence. That was what he was really like. Catching the bug While attending Yale as a political science major, Howe took time off between his junior and senior years to do a fellowship in New York Mayor John Lindsays office, where he helped with city planning functions. The job helped him decide which career to pursue, and 1970s New York gave him a hard lesson about how far a city can fall. I lived in the South Bronx, he said, and learned what it was like to live in a neighborhood that was burning down. Serious about planning After earning a graduate degree in planning from MIT, Howe stayed in Boston to work in Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis office on economic development projects. In 1978, he headed back to the New York Department of City Planning. He rose to director of the Manhattan office and then landed in charge of the department as executive director. During his 12 years with the department he visited all 59 community planning boards and worked with the citys big-personality developers, including Donald Trump. Art of the Deal? The future president mentioned Howe in his book Trump: The Art of the Deal in a passage about Howe visiting his office in the mid 1980s to view Trumps proposal for a massive office and housing development on former rail yards on the west side of Manhattan that would include the tallest building in the world. He said I was overwhelmed by his plans, Howe recalled. He mistook politeness and professionalism for approval. Moving west In 1991, Howe was invited to appear on a panel in Los Angeles to discuss city planning issues. A year later, L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley offered Howe the position of planning director. Like Bradley, Howe said, I really believed in economic development. And planning is a tool for economic development. Troubled times Howe became L.A.s planning director in 1992, three weeks before the devastating civil disturbance that followed the acquittal of four policemen on trial for beating fleeing motorist Rodney King. The region was suffering from an economic downturn, and two years later the Northridge earthquake hit. It was a challenging time for the city, Howe said. Silver lining The upheaval and introspection provoked by the riots got city leaders thinking about city planning in a new way, Howe said, because rehabilitating existing neighborhoods wasnt widely viewed as a department function. Previously, planning was always perceived in L.A. as dealing with new construction, he said. The civil disturbances gave us an opportunity to try to focus work of the department toward underserved communities. Reviving the city The new focus on rehabilitation helped lead Howe and others to create the adaptive reuse ordinance of 1999, which made it easier to repurpose historic buildings and contributed to the current renaissance of downtown. I was paid to be a believer in downtown but I actually believed in downtown. Today I go downtown and am amazed. Its great to see whats happened. As a planning leader, he also learned to recognize others contributions, especially in a political environment. Its always important to give or share credit, Howe said. Almost nothing is done by one person. Moving on Howe left to join the private sector in 2005 as a developer after 13 years as planning director. You get your chance to make as many changes or solve as many problems as you can, he said. If you havent overcome problems in 13 years, its unlikely youre going to find the magic answer in the next two. Building anew At Cityview, Howe has guided development of new housing in the Los Angeles area, including apartments in Carson and Wilmington. The companys latest projects include the Pearl in Koreatown and the Baker Block in Costa Mesa. New apartments typically have high rents, he said, so its important for cities to hang on to older housing, which tends to rent for less. Its expensive building new housing. Thats just insurmountable, he said. Preservation of existing housing and its maintenance is important. Howe also serves on the board of Path Ventures, which builds supportive housing for homeless people. Family ties Howe and his wife, Katherine Welch Howe, live in Westwood. They have two adult children. Dear Liz: Is it true that no credit is as bad as bad credit? I recently paid off my house and have no car loans. I use four credit cards every month, including one for automatic monthly bills. All are paid in full as soon as I get the bills. So practically speaking, I have zero debt. Am I making a credit history if I dont have debt? I had excellent credit scores before I paid off my house. Answer: You still do. You dont have to carry debt to have good credit scores. The myth that you do that the only people with good credit are the ones in debt is unfortunately a persistent one, typically spread by people who dont understand how credit scores work. Rest assured that using your credit cards lightly but regularly, and paying the balances in full every month, is the right thing for both your scores and your finances in general. Your paid-off mortgage should remain on your credit report for years to come, and it will continue to help your scores. Scoring formulas typically reward evidence that you can handle a variety of credit, including installment loans such as mortgages and revolving debt such as credit cards. Even after the mortgage disappears from your credit reports, however, your consistent and responsible use of your credit cards should keep your scores high. Advertisement The value of a special needs trust Dear Liz: You recently answered an inquiry from a lady who was furious about the lack of estate planning provided by her brother-in-law for his disabled daughter. As the father of a special needs child, I read the synopsis hoping that a special needs trust was created and maybe was just not known by the sister-in-law. This would explain why the father had, in essence, disowned his own daughter. I hope you will make an addendum to your answer highlighting this very important tool for others like us to ensure our loved ones are cared for after our passing. Answer: A special needs trust is an estate planning tool that can help disabled people continue to qualify for government benefits such as Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid. The money cant be given directly to the disabled person but can be spent on her behalf in a variety of ways such as paying out-of-pocket medical expenses or providing vacations. Anyone thinking of leaving a bequest to a disabled person should be aware that the money could disqualify the recipient from essential resources and consider a special needs trust instead. If the attorneys were aware of the fathers disabled daughter, as the writer suggested, they most likely would have mentioned the possibility of creating such a trust. The sister-in-law said everything had been left to the surviving spouse, so presumably she had seen a copy of the will or trust. If not, she could ask the attorneys for the document on behalf of the daughter. Remember, though, that the 29-year-old daughter hadnt been signed up for disability or medical benefits until the sister-in-law intervened. The young woman had not seen a doctor since her mother died more than a decade earlier. She also was kicked out of her childhood home by the mans surviving spouse. This does not paint a picture of a caring father who wanted to provide for his daughter. Providing for a disabled child Dear Liz: The letter about the disabled daughter was horrifying, but the father isnt the only villain here. Surely the mother knew what kind of man she married. Shouldnt she have made provisions for her daughter in her own estate plans? Answer: Ideally, yes. No parent should assume a spouse will do the right thing for their kids. Even if the surviving spouse doesnt marry the proverbial wicked stepparent who walks off with the whole estate, the survivor could be defrauded or compromised by dementia or other cognitive problems. Estate planning attorneys phrase it this way: You may trust your spouse, but do you trust your spouses next spouse? Parents who have disabled children, or who hope to preserve a portion of their estate for their kids, should discuss their situation with a qualified estate planning attorney and make the appropriate provisions in their wills or living trusts. Liz Weston, certified financial planner, is a personal finance columnist for NerdWallet. Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the Contact form at asklizweston.com. Distributed by No More Red Inc. President Trump prefers sweeping superlatives when he talks about his record on the economy. The Republican tax law has the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history (theyre not). The new trade pact with Mexico and Canada is the most important trade deal weve ever made by far (the changes are more modest). And the unemployment rate has fallen to the lowest level in more than 50 years (its 49 and the continuation of a nine-year trend). Then theres Trumps most grandiose claim: His administration has produced the greatest economy in the history of our country (it hasnt; the combination of fast growth and low unemployment was better in at least three other periods since World War II). But Trump sometimes gets more specific. In recent months, hes been boasting about five industries: steel, agriculture, autos, energy and manufacturing. With the congressional midterm elections Tuesday and many Republicans running on Trumps record, here are his claims and the facts about them. Advertisement Steel The claims: I came into office, steel was a dead business, Trump said at an Oct. 12 rally in Lebanon, Ohio. Now theyre opening up plants, U.S. Steel, Nucor. Theyre opening up plants all over the country, big ones, new ones. Specifically, he said U.S. Steel Corp. is opening up a minimum of eight plants as a result of a 25% tariff his administration placed on billions of dollars of imported steel starting in March. On Oct. 18, he said it could be as many as nine plants, with the company spending billions of dollars doing it. Nucor Corp. just announced a billion-dollar plant. Brand-new. Already started construction, Trump said on Oct. 1. Rolls of steel await shipment at the NUCOR Steel Gallatin plant in Ghent, Ky., in July. (Timothy D. Easley / Associated Press) The facts: The steel industry is generally healthier today than it was in 2016 before Trump took office, said Lisa Reisman, executive editor of MetalMiner, an online market intelligence platform that does industry forecasting. What youre generally seeing is a stronger economy today and thats partially policy tax reform, regulatory reform and that has created a lot of [steel] demand, she said. But Trump cant claim all the credit and is exaggerating the state of the industry when he took office as well as the effect of tariffs. The U.S. industry wasnt dead in 2016, but prices for oil, industrial metals and other commodities started crashing in 2014. Commodity price swings are cyclical, driven by global forces, and the pendulum swung the other way about a year or so ago. The commodity bull market started happening in July 2017. We didnt have any tariffs in place, tax reform hadnt been passed yet, Reisman said. Commodity prices were going up before those things happened and then the policies came into play. The tax cuts that took effect on Jan. 1 including slashing the corporate rate to 21% from 35% ongoing reductions in federal regulations and the tariffs have boosted the steel industry, she said. But the industry would be better off now than in 2016 regardless of U.S. government policies. As for the eight new plants, U.S. Steel is not opening them, according to company announcements. Rather, U.S. Steel said this year that it is restarting two blast furnaces at its existing Granite City, Ill., plant and would spend $750 million to revitalize its existing Gary, Ind., plant. And Nucor has not announced a new, $1-billion plant. The company said in September that it would spend $650 million to expand production at its plant in Ghent, Ky. The company also said in March that it was spending $240 million to build a rebar plant in Frostproof, Fla. And Nucor is spending $250 million to build a rebar plant in Sedalia, Mo., an investment announced in November 2017. Agriculture The claims: Our farmers have gone through a lot over the last 15 years. Theyve been taken advantage of by everybody. Prices have gone way down, Trump said on Oct. 1 in announcing a revised North American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement will give our farmers and ranchers far greater access to sell American-grown produce in Mexico and in Canada. Farmer Terry Davidson walks through his soy fields in Harvard, Ill., in July. (Derek R. Henkle / AFP/Getty Images) The facts: U.S. agriculture industry boomed from 2011 to 2014 because of strong commodity prices, boosted by exports, said the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. During what it called a golden period, net farm income hit a record high of $123.7 billion in 2013, but its down 47% since then. Those years leading up to 2013 were very good in agriculture, said Nathan Kaufman, an expert on agricultural economics at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Strong demand domestically and from a fast-growing China led farmers to increase production. Trade has been a boost for agriculture, until recently. We did see a pretty significant increase in agricultural exports following passage of NAFTA in the mid-1990s, Kaufman said. Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization also triggered a lot of demand, he said. But larger harvests, fueled by good growing conditions, led to a drop in prices. And now the trade war is becoming a problem for farmers. U.S. crops have been hit with new tariffs from China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union in retaliation for tariffs put in place by Trump. China is the largest purchaser of U.S. soybeans, and those imports now face a 25% tariff there. Whats more, exports are dropping just as a bumper U.S. crop is coming in. Those soybean exports from U.S. to China have ground to a halt at a time when they typically pick up dramatically, Kaufman said. The new trade deal with Mexico and Canada might help on the margins because of increased access to Canada for U.S. dairy farmers, he said. Autos The claims: Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States something we have not seen for decades, Trump said in his State of the Union address in January. For many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back. Among his specific claims are that Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. will build a new plant in Alabama, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is moving a major manufacturing plant back to Michigan from Mexico, and many more new auto plants are coming. Theyre going into Michigan and Ohio and all over. Theyre coming into Illinois theyre going North, South Carolina. Theyre coming into Florida, Trump said at an Oct. 27 rally in Murphysboro, Ill. At an Oct. 4 rally in Rochester, Minn., Trump said auto plants would be coming to that state and Pennsylvania too. Imani Long works at a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plant in Warren, Mich., in 2016. (Bill Pugliano / Getty Images) The facts: Toyota and Mazda announced in August 2017 that they would jointly build a $1.6-billion assembly plant in the United States and in January said the factory would be in Huntsville, Ala. That is the only new U.S. factory announced by any of the major automakers, said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit research organization in Ann Arbor, Mich. That partly reflects the excess production capacity in U.S. factories. Plants here can produce 14 million vehicles a year but in 2017 produced only 11.2 million, Dziczek said. Auto sales hit a record 17.55 million in 2016 but have since plateaued, she said. Fiat Chrysler said in January that it would move some of its pickup truck production back to an existing plant in Warren, Mich., from Mexico, citing the lower corporate tax rates that took effect this year in the Republican tax overhaul. But new Chief Executive Mike Manley told Reuters last month that he was reconsidering that move. Dziczek said that made sense. She originally thought the move back to Michigan was less about tax changes and more about fear that Trump would pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. They didnt want their trucks on the wrong side of the border if there was no free-trade deal because truck imports from Mexico would have faced tariffs, she said. Now that a revised NAFTA has been agreed to, there is less of a need to build in the U.S. Ford Chief Executive Jim Hackett told Bloomberg in September that tariffs have cost the company $1 billion in profits. Ford reportedly is looking at layoffs as part of a cost-cutting reorganization. Meanwhile, the 25% tariffs Trump has imposed on steel and aluminum are a big financial hit for automakers. The tariffs have added $400 to $600 to the cost of each vehicle produced in the U.S., Dziczek said. And tariffs on many Chinese imports have raised the prices of auto parts from that country. There are so many risk factors across the board for the auto industry right now, Dziczek said. Energy The claims: Think of it: Were the single largest producer of energy in the world. Did you ever think you were going to hear that? This all happened very quickly, Trump said Oct. 2 in a speech to the National Electrical Contractors Assn.s convention in Philadelphia. Hes also said the U.S. is the No. 1 producer of crude oil and natural gas. The oil drilling rig Polar Pioneer is towed toward a dock in Seattles Elliott Bay in 2015. (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press) The facts: The U.S. is not the largest producer of energy in the world, according to the most recent data. In 2015, China produced 2,958 million tons of oil equivalent, a measure for primary energy supply that includes oil, natural gas, coal and biofuels, according to a report from the International Energy Agency. The U.S. was second with 2,167 million tons of oil equivalent. White House officials have said Trump is talking about crude oil when he references energy. In that case, the U.S. has just become the worlds No. 1 producer of crude oil, at 11.3 million barrels per day in August, compared with Russias estimated 11.2 million barrels a day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday. That announcement predated Trumps boasts about energy production. But he had a reason to jump the gun. The EIA said in September that the U.S. probably had become the worlds largest crude oil producer earlier this year, based on preliminary estimates. In February, the U.S. topped Saudi Arabia for No. 2. The growth in crude oil production is the result of a revolution in fracking technology that has revived old fields and opened up new ones long before Trump took office. The U.S. has been the worlds largest producer of natural gas since 2009, according to the EIA, which forecast in 2012 that the U.S. would become the worlds largest oil producer by 2017. Manufacturing The claims: The last administration, without mentioning names, the last administration said manufacturing jobs, theyre dead. Theyre gone, Trump said at an Oct. 9 rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa. We have 600,000 [that] have come back since the election. Jose Hernandez operates a turret press at a commercial refrigeration manufacturing facility in Philadelphia in October. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) The facts: Data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics show there were 410,000 manufacturing jobs added from November 2016 to September 2018, the latest figures available when Trump made his claim in Iowa. (The Labor Department reported Friday that an additional 36,000 manufacturing jobs were added in September and in revisions from previous months.) The sector was hit hard by the Great Recession, which accelerated a downward trend that had begun in 2000. Manufacturers shed about 2.8 million jobs from early 2006 to early 2010. Employment bottomed out at 11.453 million jobs in March 2010. The sector began recovering with the rest of the job market and had added more than 900,000 jobs by early 2016. A slump based on global forces hit in 2015, but manufacturing began recovering in late 2016, said Ned Hill, an Ohio State professor who is on the faculty at the schools Ohio Manufacturing Institute. Trumps promises of tax cuts, improved trade deals and reduced regulations fueled a big jump in optimism among manufacturers, mirroring similar upbeat reactions from consumers and the broader business community. In conversations with manufacturers, the one thing that did increase the optimism of small and mid-sized manufacturers was regulatory relief, Hill said. Manufacturing hiring accelerated and in July the year-over-year gain of 300,000 was the best since 1998, but the Trump administration policies have been a mixed bag, Hill said. The Trump tax cuts have had an impact on manufacturing and offset some of the impact of the tariffs, said Hill, who noted manufacturers are big users of steel and aluminum, among other products made more expensive by the tariffs. As for the Obama administration comment, Trump appears to be referring to a June 2016 town hall forum in Elkhart, Ind., during which President Obama discussed how technological change has both added and eliminated jobs. Obama said that there are entire new industries that are starting to pop up and youre actually seeing some manufacturers coming back to the United States. He went on to say that because of changing technology, some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back. jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera Hello! Im Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies. This weekend the LAT is publishing our 2018 holiday movie preview. Jen Yamato speaks to Emily Blunt and Rob Marshall about their joybomb with Mary Poppins Returns. Yamato also speaks to Christina Hodson about how she became a go-to franchise screenwriter, including Bumblebee and Birds of Prey. Emily Zemler take a look at both The Girl In the Spiders Web and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Advertisement Trevell Anderson talks to Octavia Spencer about acting in Instant Family and producing Green Book. And Glenn Whipp takes a look at holiday releases effect on the Oscar race, including Widows, Roma, Green Book and others. This coming week will see the kickoff of this years AFI Fest, which is always a highlight of the annual movie year here in L.A. Among the festivals program are world premieres of Mimi Leders On the Basis of Sex, Josie Rourkes Mary Queen of Scots and Susanne Biers Bird Box, plus local premieres of many anticipated titles, including the Coen brothers The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Yorgos Lanthimos The Favourite, Alfonso Cuarons Roma, Brady Corbets Vox Lux, Mia Hansen-Loves Maya, Olivier Assayas Non-Fiction and David Robert Mitchells Under the Silver Lake. However, this past week also saw the news that the recently concluded L.A. Film Festival will be no more, as Film Independent will shut down the festival to put the staff and resources to different use within the organization. Justin Chang and myself each took a look at what that means for the festival landscape in the city. For awards season, upcoming L.A. Times events include screenings and Q&As for Private Life and Capernaum, plus a panel conversation featuring the costume designers behind titles such as A Star Is Born, Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk and more. For info on all these events, go to events.latimes.com/screenings Burning, with, from left, Yoo Ah-in, Jeon Jong-seo and Steven Yeun. (WellGo USA) Burning Lee Chang-dongs Burning has been selected as South Koreas submission for the foreign language Oscar, which could possibly be the first film from the country to receive a nomination. An enigmatic mystery-thriller adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami, the film is about Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), a lonely young man who becomes involved with Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), a young woman who says they knew each other when they were kids. As they become closer, she is suddenly whisked off her feet by the mysterious Ben (Steven Yeun) and their triangle becomes increasingly complicated. In his review for The Times, Justin Chang wrote: At any given moment you can be nearly certain of what story is being told a romantic triangle, a crime thriller, a dark comedy of class rage, a parable for a divided nation only for the shape of the picture to suddenly bend, morph and slip once more through your fingers. Remarkably, Lee achieves this ambiguity not by coyly withholding information, but by etching his characters and their environments with a startling richness of detail. Sonaiya Kelley spoke to Yeun about the film for a story that will be publishing soon. There is a central, unexplained mystery at the center of the film in which Yeuns character is possibly implicated. As for his thoughts on his characters guilt or innocence he said, Director Lee was, like, Youll be the only person that knows, and you will make that decision for yourself. And then he asked me at the end of the shoot which one I chose. I told him that I wasnt going to tell him either. So Im the only one that knows. At Slate, Inkoo Kang wrote As Burning unfolds, it reveals new thematic layers until the film brims with allegorical potential. The portrayal of the main trio comprises a threnody for a lost generation, and the conflicts between them an indictment of class divides and a lament for a traditional Asia thats being bulldozed in favor of a bland, anonymous cosmopolitanism. The world will tolerate many more destroyers than dreamers. Things are all too easy to demolish. Sometimes people are, too. From left: Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Gary Graver, Cybill Shepherd, Bill Shepherd and Frank Marshall at work on The Other Side of the Wind. (Jose Maria Castellvi / Netflix) The Other Side of the Wind A movie that has been the stuff of legend and myth for more than 40 years, Orson Welles final film, The Other Side of the Wind, remained unfinished following the filmmakers death in 1985. Now, over 100 hours of footage have been edited into a stylistically bold, emotionally rhapsodic saga of an aging film director, played by John Huston, struggling to complete one final project. Reviewing the movie for The Times, Justin Chang wrote Whatever else it may be a wrecked, towering monument to its own incompletion, a howl of rage at the industry that Welles helped build and forever define The Other Side of the Wind increasingly comes to resemble a shattered cinematic hall of mirrors. What would Welles have made of this posthumous assemblage? Would he have minded its undeniable lapses into tedium? How much of it are we meant to read as thinly veiled auto-critique versus a wickedly funny jape? Frankly, Im not sure Welles drew much of a distinction: Every time you sense him veering toward the confessional, you can hear his cackle booming loudly right behind it. The Other Side of the Wind also arrives with its own making-of doc, Theyll Love Me When Im Dead, courtesy of Morgan Neville, the prolific filmmaker behind this years Mr. Rogers movie Wont You Be My Neighbor? The Times Josh Rottenberg met with Neville to talk about his version of Welles vision. As Neville said of the overall project to restore and reclaim Welles lost final work, I guess I would just say that, like with Orson and most of his art, theres no one way to see it. I think how I feel about the film changes with the day and the mood and the temperature. In a way, I think The Other Side of the Wind is still a mystery. What would Orson have done? Should it even have been attempted to finish it? These are sort of unanswerable questions. For the New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote: In time, a vision of a film artist worn down by life or fame or disappointment emerges, though it would be a mistake to assume that Welles was making a self-portrait. His traces are scattered throughout, inviting you to chase bread crumbs here or there. For the New Yorker, Richard Brody wrote: Incompletion, frustration, desolation the ruins of grand schemes and grand schemers were his lifelong themes; theyre at the center of The Other Side of the Wind, and they nearly swallowed it up. It is a belated work of his colossal artistry, and one of the great last dramatic features by any director. A Private War actors Jamie Dornan, left, and Rosamund Pike with director Matthew Heineman at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) A Private War The fiction feature debut for Oscar-nominated documentarian Matthew Heineman, A Private War is nevertheless grounded in reality and truth, telling the story of award-winning war correspondent Marie Colvin. In the lead role, actress Rosamund Pike gives a rich, multifaceted performance that has brought her wild praise. In his review for The Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, this impressive film pulls few punches in unflinchingly detailing from the inside graphic nightmares included the complexity of the effect war had on Colvin and the world surrounding her. Emily Zemler spoke to Pike for an article that will be publishing soon. The actress said of the role, Modern warfare is a very, very scary place to be. There are images Ive now seen I will never, ever forget. That I will never be able to un-see. Thats a tiny fraction of what Marie would have been exposed to. But Marie was amazing. She was such a romantic, she was such an optimist. She saw all that and she remained such an optimist, in such a lovely way. At Vulture, Emily Yoshida declared Pikes turn in the film one of her best performances to date, before adding that, Heinemans film is, in many ways, the movie so many people say they want: a portrait of a deeply complex, flawed, but brilliant and forceful woman. But as tempting as it is to think of Pikes Colvin, with her eyepatch and sailors mouth, as a badass, theres not much thats aspirational about the film. Its wise enough to see both the courage and the immense value in her work, and the tremendous toll it took on her life, all the way to the end. Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus. SIGN UP for the free Indie Focus movies newsletter This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going. Grace Vallejo is the mayor of Delano, the farming community along Highway 99 that is the birthplace of the United Farm Workers movement. Vallejos parents, first-generation Americans, were migrant farmworkers in the Central Valley who took their kids with them to pick grapes, potatoes and cotton around Delano and fruit crops such as peaches and plums in the north. It was an era when there were no toilets in the fields, no breaks, and farmworkers had to pay a nickel for a cup of water. It was also a time when teachers felt free to rap children on the head for speaking Spanish on the playground. At the time it was the rule, Vallejo said as we sat in the living room of her modest home. You know, we followed the rules. On Wednesday, Vallejo, 72, was home, working on her latest campaign. She is running for supervisor in one of Kern Countys newly configured districts, drawn after a federal court decision meant to correct years of discrimination against Latino voters. Advertisement Instead of one majority-Latino supervisorial district, Kern County now has two. Vallejo is running against incumbent Supervisor David Couch, a financial advisor, whose previous district would probably have led him to a comfortable reelection. Instead, because of the new map, 68% of the citizen-voting-age population of this new district, the 4th, has Latino surnames. For years, the Kern board has consisted of four white Republican men and one Latino, or more recently, one Latina Democrat, Leticia Perez. Perez is regularly outvoted 4 to 1. If Vallejo wins, there will be a record two Latina supervisors. For the first time ever, the board might look a little more like its constituents. Delano Mayor Grace Vallejo picked and packed grapes in her youth. (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) There are many ways to deny voting rights in present-day America. You can knock people off the voter rolls because the name on their legal ID is not an exact match with their voter registration. You can limit the number of polling places, forcing people to travel long distances or wait in long lines. Or you can redraw the lines of their political districts in order to dilute, say, the Latino vote, and keep power in the hands of whites. As the Latino population of Kern County has exploded, it just didnt seem right that Latinos had only one representative on the five-member Board of Supervisors. Yet when the supervisors redrew their districts to accommodate demographic changes confirmed by the 2010 census, they managed to approve a map that would preserve, for lack of a better phrase, their white hegemony. It was about the power of the incumbents who wanted to keep their job, said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF, the countrys leading Latino legal and civil rights group, which sued Kern County for violating the federal Voting Rights Act. But the consequence was to step on the rights of a minority group. It should not have taken a federal lawsuit to force Kern County to do the right thing, but like a lot of places, Kern has a pernicious history of racial discrimination. Perhaps it should not have come as a surprise that the Board of Supervisors decided to fight the lawsuit, but the move turned out to be as foolish as it was costly. Because the county lost, it had to pay not just its own legal costs, but MALDEFs, bringing the total bill to about $6 million. What an indefensible waste of money at a moment when many county employees have not received a raise in a decade, streets in unincorporated areas are unpaved, roads are unlighted and stray dogs roam the streets. Last March, the supervisors considered an appeal. They heard from numerous constituents, almost all of whom urged them to stop fighting. Latina civil rights activist Dolores Huerta speaks at a rally for Katie Hill, Democratic candidate in Californias 25th Congressional District. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Near the end of the meeting, Dolores Huerta, 89, cofounder of the United Farm Workers, rapped the board for lack of transparency when it created illegal boundaries in 2011. There has been racial bias on this board, she said. This is a chance to correct it. The supervisors gave up the fight. A new map was drawn. :: Huertas youngest daughter, Camila Chavez, 42, whose father was Richard Chavez, brother of Cesar, is executive director of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. The general feeling has been that we are not being represented, Chavez told me at the foundations Bakersfield headquarters. Over 50% of the county is Latino. On May Day last year, she said, there was a march for immigrants rights. Two days later, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood introduced a resolution asking supervisors to name Kern an anti-sanctuary city. That was voted down. But a week later, he asked the board to go on record opposing the Sacramento bill to make California a sanctuary state, and the board approved it, 4 to 1. Supervisor Couch voted yes on both anti-sanctuary measures. It feels awful, Chavez said. Like a slap in the face. Also, in 2007, when he was a Bakersfield city councilman, Couch proposed making English the official language of Bakersfield, that Bakersfield declare itself a non-sanctuary city and that city staff try to figure out a way to cut off undocumented immigrants from municipal services. Davids never walked any of that stuff back, said Mark Martinez, chairman of the political science department at Cal State Bakersfield, who led a mostly successful effort to clear the field of other Latino contenders so that Vallejo would have a clear shot. When I was taking to Grace, I said, you have to hit him over the head with that every single day, but thats not who Grace is. Couch has been working hard to get to know the new areas of his district, said longtime Kern political observer Mark Salvaggio, and has the endorsement of many local Latino elected officials. There is no magic to it, Couch told me. You just show up. You extend your hand, meet people and work with them. And he may very well win. The winner of this seat will need only a plurality of the vote, and at the last minute, a third candidate decided to run. Jose Gonzalez of Bakersfield manages a credit union in Lamont, a run-down little town southeast of Bakersfield. He is a political neophyte, with hardly any money. But with a Latino surname, he may act as a spoiler, splitting the Latino vote. Obviously, we hope the candidate that is elected next week is the candidate favored by the Latino community, Saenz said. But ultimately, this is going to be an enduring Latino-majority seat. Grace Vallejo, the current mayor of Delano, is running against a longtime white incumbent for supervisor, David Couch. (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) I wanted to see some of the more challenged parts of Kern County, which happen to be part of the newly created 4th District. So just before children started trick-or-treating on Wednesday, I drove to Weedpatch, an impoverished neighborhood next door to Lamont with a rich claim on the states agricultural history. In a dusty frontyard on Harold Street, I chatted with Leticia Prado. She and her husband, Timoteo, are Mexican immigrants, American citizens and community activists. Leticia is a member of the public utility district and school board. Her street is only half paved blacktop on one side, plain dirt on the other. The dirt side gets muddy when it rains and is pocked with holes. I sweep the street, she said, and put dirt in the holes. Leticia Prado is a local activists and live in Lamont. (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) She wishes she could get more help from the county. Nobody cares, she said. They just dont care about this area. This is not strictly true; until redistricting, the area was represented by successive Latino supervisors who have overseen many improvements over the last few years. There are blocks in Weedpatch and Lamont that have only recently gotten paved sidewalks and curbs. But so much work remains. It doesnt matter who lives there or what language they speak, said Couch, who inherited this part of the 4th District a little over three months ago when the new map went into effect. The conditions are abysmal. I dont know why this area has been so neglected. A block and a half away, on a busy corner, an empty dumpster perched on the curb, flies swarming in the warm evening light. A few stray dogs trotted along sidewalks, looking as if they knew exactly where they were headed. The next supervisor, regardless of ethnicity or last name, has got to do better by outposts like Weedpatch. Id be happy to have you hold our feet to the fire, Couch said. I view that area as a huge opportunity. I cant screw it up. robin.abcarian@latimes.com Twitter: @AbcarianLAT An injured border-crosser left behind by a group on Otay Mountain in San Diego County lit a signal fire for help that burned into the brush on Saturday, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital while aircraft and firefighters on the ground doused the blaze, which charred about one-third of an acre off Minnewawa Truck Trail, an official with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention said. The 25-year-old Mexican citizen told authorities that he was part of a group that crossed into the United States illegally. He was left behind after he injured his ankle, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Eduardo Olmos said. Olmos was not sure when the group entered the U.S., but he said its common for foot guides to stop for a night or two on the mountain to try to elude authorities. Advertisement He said Cal Fire took custody of the man and then transferred him to the Border Patrol. When the man is released from the hospital, agents will take him to a Border Patrol station and process him for immediate removal from the U.S., Olmos said. People in the area of Otay Lakes Road, near Pio Pico RV Resort and Campground, called 911 about 11:20 a.m. to report smelling smoke. Two air tankers and two helicopters were sent, along with several fire rigs, Cal Fire Capt. Issac Sanchez said. It took about an hour to stop the blaze from spreading, he said. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Preston Fouts told OnScene TV a traveler who was injured set the fire as a signal to get help. One firefighter suffered an ankle injury, Fouts said. Video showed a Cal Fire investigator helping a handcuffed man out of a Cal Fire pickup before medics placed him in an ambulance. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com With only 65 members, Congregation BNai David is so small that it doesnt have a full-time rabbi. Once a month, a student rabbi drives up from Los Angeles, but more often than not members of the community lead the services, make sure the lights stay on and the buildings dont fall into disrepair. Members of the congregations executive board gathered in the temples library Wednesday to set the agenda for the next meeting. Vice President Norm Goldstrom led the discussion that was mostly devoted to who would be responsible for bringing food to future gatherings. Then the conversation turned to a subject that had suddenly gained new relevance and urgency: security. Advertisement Days earlier, a gunman had killed 11 worshipers in a synagogue in Pittsburghs Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the historic hub of the citys Jewish community. The mass killing is believed to be the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. This guy walked in there with a couple of pistols, Treasurer Phil Appelbaum said. The suspect, Robert Bowers, pleaded not guilty last week to multiple counts of murder, hate crimes and other federal charges that could put him on death row. What could it hurt to have an extra pair of eyes? Appelbaum said. Goldstrom had already been planning a larger discussion about security and was even considering applying for a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. With the events of the last week, a vigil planned for Saturday and some already jittery congregants, the board after some debate agreed to temporarily hire an unarmed guard. By some estimates about a quarter of the worlds Jews live in the New York, Los Angeles and Miami metropolitan areas. But many live in somewhat isolated towns like Visalia or Fresno here in the rural and conservative Central Valley. Unlike the vibrant Jewish community of Squirrel Hill, members of Temple BNai David describe moving through the world as an oddity. Though some say that safety has never been a paramount concern, others said they have begun to feel more vulnerable in the current political climate and are concerned about their ability to maintain a vibrant Jewish community in a place with so few people like them. Were in a time where Im more fearful, said board President Alex Lechtman, a local plastic surgeon. Unlike L.A. or Pittsburgh, we are the target. There are not a number of targets. For the anti-Semites of Tulare County, we are the target. BNai David has been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti twice through the years. On Friday, an FBI agent from the Fresno field office toured their buildings and urged them to buy security cameras. But for a small congregation, with one part-time staff member, the cost might be difficult to cover. Alex Lechtman shows off the intricately designed donor wall at the Congregation Bnai David synagogue in Visalia, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. (Gary Kazanjian / For The Times) Rabbi Laura Novak Winer works at the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles but lives in Fresno, where her husband is the rabbi of that citys largest congregation, which is also the largest in the Central Valley. Last week, the word Israel was torn off the synagogues sign an act of vandalism that was being investigated as a hate crime. A San Fernando Valley native, Winer described how it was important to teach her two kids how to respectfully stand up for their beliefs. Its really, really important for the leaders in these types of communities to educate about the experience of being a Jew in America, and that takes a lot of time and patience and it takes a lot of relationship building, she said, noting that she and her husband have cultivated strong ties with clergy from other faiths in service of this mission. Still, she said she has felt more vulnerable since 2015, when Donald Trump began running for president. I think that his rhetoric has opened up and given permission for more hate to be more visible and expressed publicly, she said. Thats how I feel. I did not feel this vulnerable prior. Even though her kids are some of the only Jews in their school, she also jokingly relayed an adage a teacher of hers once told during class: Wherever you think youre the first Jew youre not. Jews in this region date back to the mid-1800s. They were recent immigrants from Eastern Europe who became merchants, and one of the local cemeteries even had a Hebrew Section, according to a history that was commissioned by the Visalia temple. BNai Davids roots date back to the 1950s and 60s, when services were held in congregants homes. Despite the poverty of Jewish resources and the hardship of adapting to an alien environment, the situation was a cementing factor and brought us together to a common goal to maintain continuity and raise our children in the Jewish tradition, said Nate Unikel, according to this history. The temple acquired and dedicated its first Torah in 1967. It had been squired out of Czechoslovakia shortly before the Holocaust and for several years was housed in a retrofitted gun case with glass sides. BNai David moved into its current home in 1985 and has gradually expanded to include three buildings. Barry Sommer had been a member for several years at the time of the move. When the psychologist and school district administrator first moved here from New York City, there were around 40,000 people living in Visalia and he was the first Jew many of his early friends and colleagues met in a region often referred to as the Bible Belt of the West Coast. Theres another, smaller temple, but BNai David is essentially the only Jewish house of worship in Tulare and King counties. Sommer described how gratifying its been to build a Jewish community from the ground up. When I first got here I never felt anything but a lack of awareness or understanding, he said. I never felt unaccepted. I felt embraced and welcomed in the community. Still, there were some awkward interactions. For many years, Sommer worked for one of the local school districts. One day, he and the superintendent, who had worked with him for 27 years, were walking down the hall when Sommers colleague put his arm over his shoulder and said he was worried. He was concerned because I wasnt saved, Sommer said. He was worried about my soul. It was a lovely moment. I looked him in the eyes and put my hands on his shoulder. I said I appreciated his concern and let him know I was fine. But its been more difficult for his two daughters. There was the time someone wrote on ones textbook cover: This book belongs to Shonna Sommer the [expletive] jew. And the time when the mother of a boy wouldnt let her son go on a date with one of Sommers daughters because she wasnt Christian. Or when one of his daughters was running for student body president and the elections were held on Yom Kippur the holiest holiday on the Jewish calendar. He said these incidents made his kids stronger and more connected with the basic tenets of Judaism. Sommer also stressed these were isolated incidents, but even if this was not hate, its pure ignorance and being aimed at teenagers, it was very hurtful. Leon Adler, center, chants prayers with Robert Hart standing behind during a celebration of the Sabbath at the Congregation BNai David synagogue in Visalia, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. (Gary Kazanjian / For The Times) On Friday night, Appelbaum, the treasurer who landed here in the 1980s, was an early arrival at the temple. He poured wine into thimble-sized glasses and made sure to cover the challahs with a special cloth. Keren Friedman blessed candles and straightened tablecloths. They were expecting a bigger crowd. Both are among the temples earliest members. Friedman was born in the nearby small town of Woodlake to an Israeli father who helped found the temple. She spent more than a decade living in Israel then finally made her way back to Visalia. She now teaches Hebrew at the Sunday school. Appelbaum eagerly introduced Lechtman, the board president, to a couple who were interested in joining the congregation so the husband could convert. Lechtman hopes that they can raise enough money to hire a full-time rabbi soon. The room swelled with people. So much so that they had to pull out more chairs. After the Lecha Dodi, which is the prayer to welcome in Shabbat, the student rabbi asked that the congregants turn and introduce themselves to one another, which is standard. It was a mix of longtime members and newcomers seeking comfort after a tough week. Strangers greeted each other warmly as restless children ran through the aisles. A local Episcopal deacon attended to show her support. In all, about 40 people filled the sanctuary almost double the turnout on a normal Friday night. Ten-month-old Nahuel Adler crawled across the carpeted floor as his mother Valeria looked on. The Adlers moved to the United States six years ago from a small desert town in Israel. They landed in Visalia four months ago after living in Madera, Calif. At the end of the services as Nahuel tore up and spit out challah, his father Dov described how the community had welcomed them. Along with Keren he teaches Hebrew on Sundays. His new colleagues and neighbors share a common understanding of agriculture. He works in research and development for a small fruit grower, and some of the greatest innovations in irrigation and farming originated in Israel. We all speak the language of agriculture of growing stuff, he said as Nahuel threw some more challah on the floor. I feel very welcomed as a Jew in the valley. I feel proud to be one. benjamin.oreskes@latimes.com @boreskes The National Weather Service confirmed Saturday that a tornado struck Baltimore, resulting in the partial collapse of an Amazon warehouse where two men were killed and causing heavy damage at a nearby apartment complex. The two died at the Amazon distribution center in southeast Baltimore when a wall collapsed during the storm Friday. Weather service officials rated the storm EF-1 a somewhat low-level tornado but still serious enough to cause significant damage. It brought winds of up to 105 mph along its 2.5-mile path, officials said. It was the first fatal tornado in Maryland since 2002. Advertisement Baltimore Fire Chief Roman Clark said a 50-foot wall collapsed at the Amazon fulfillment center. One victim was found under debris Friday night, and firefighters used heavy equipment to remove debris to locate the second victim Saturday. An Amazon spokeswoman said the two killed were not employees of the online retail giant but worked for outside companies as contractors. One man worked for real estate consulting firm JLL, and the other was a driver who delivered orders to Amazon customers. The victims names were being withheld until their families could be notified. According to the weather service, the tornado first blew over a tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 before moving east and blasting through garage doors at a van rental facility. Officials said the storm became most severe as it reached the Amazon building, pulling off part of the roof including iron rafters. Once the roof came off, concrete panels collapsed. The storm also moved a dozen truck trailers and picked up debris that smashed car windows. Images taken from outside the facility showed a badly damaged truck and a downed light pole, among other damage. Roads around the facility were filled with debris. Weather service officials said the storm continued east before touching down again at the Holabird East apartment complex in Dundalk, pulling the roof off one building completely. Baltimore County officials said there were no reports of injuries there, but several tenants were displaced. At the Twin Arch Shopping Center in Mount Airy, sections of ceiling collapsed, a spokesman for Mount Airy Volunteer Fire Co. said. The warehouse deaths were the first tornado-related fatalities in Maryland since 2002, when three people were killed in a twister that hit the town of La Plata, south of Washington. Duncan and Anderson write for the Baltimore Sun At recent campaign rallies, President Trump has said that law and order is a key issue in Tuesdays midterm election, declaring to his fervent supporters that his administration is tough on crime. But Trumps rhetoric doesnt necessarily match the type of referendum questions that will be on ballots. In states across the U.S., major criminal justice reform will be up for votes, with several that polls show have a high chance of passing. The proposals include measures that would restore voting rights of ex-felons in Florida, eliminate non-unanimous criminal juries in Louisiana and make it easier to prosecute police shootings in Washington state. Many races, including those for governor in Florida and Georgia, have also pitted pro- and anti-criminal-justice-reform candidates against each other. There is really a dissonance between the rhetoric on the federal level and what is actually happening in the states, said American Civil Liberties Union deputy national political director Udi Ofer. What we are seeing is a buildup from many years of criminal justice reform making a breakthrough locally. Advertisement Here are a few of the major criminal justice measures due to be decided Tuesday, mainly through ballot initiatives. Florida Florida is one of three states where nearly all people convicted of felonies lose the right to vote even after they have completed parole or probation. In most other states, those convicted of felonies have voting rights restored after leaving prison or completing periods of parole and probation. Floridas Amendment 4, which needs 60% of votes to pass, would give voting rights to as many as 1.5 million ex-felons in the state. The law would not apply to people convicted of murder or sex crimes. Polls indicate it will pass. Louisiana In federal courts and 48 states, juries in felony cases must reach unanimous verdicts. Not in Louisiana, where criminal juries can come to non-unanimous decisions. The state enacted the law in 1880 after the passage of the 14th Amendment, which gave freed slaves the right to vote and serve on juries. At the states 1898 constitutional convention, lawmakers wrote the rule into the state constitution to perpetuate the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race in Louisiana. If Amendment 2 passes, it will leave Oregon as the only state in the country that allows split juries in criminal trials. The amendment has drawn wide support from Democrats and Republicans. Washington Washington is one of the hardest states in which to prosecute police officers in deadly shootings. Current law says police can not be found liable for using deadly force if they did it without malice and with a good faith belief that deadly force is justifiable. If Initiative 940 passes Tuesday, the 1986 laws malice standard would be removed. It would be replaced with a test that asks whether a reasonable officer would use deadly force and whether the officer in good faith believed that the use of deadly force was warranted. The potential new law would mandate that shootings and other deadly uses of force go under independent investigation by people outside the police departments in question. It would also make police receive training in de-escalation and mental health issues in regard to crime suspects. Colorado Similar to the U.S. Constitution, the states constitution bans slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime. Amendment A would take away that exception. Ohio Up for vote is Issue 1, which would make all drug possession a misdemeanor instead of a felony. Supporters say it would decriminalize addiction and allow the state to use its budget to treat addicts instead of sending them to prison. Opponents say its too lax on drugs. They say the possibility of a felony conviction is a good deterrent for drug use. Marsys Law This victims rights proposal will be voted on in Nevada, Oklahoma, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia and North Carolina. The law would expand the definition of a victim to include any spouse, parent, grandparent, child, sibling, grandchild or guardian of a person targeted by a crime. Proponents say it would improve the treatment of victims families by allowing them to receive fuller information on criminal proceedings. Opponents say it would take away resources from criminal investigations and victims more directly affected by crimes. Marijuana The national trend of marijuana legalization could continue Tuesday, as voters in Michigan, North Dakota, Utah and Missouri decide on marijuana-related measures. In Michigan and North Dakota, recreational legalization is on the ballot. Utah and Missouri voters will decide on legalization for medical uses. More national headlines It was less than a decade ago when street signs with names such as Buffalo Avenue began sprouting in reservation communities across North Dakota like Fort Yates, where Terry Yellow Fat lives. Yellow Fat, a great-grandfather who has raised his family on the trust lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, never had a reason to identify his government-issued home by what he considered colonized standards, a distinction spelled out with numeric addresses. When his mail arrives, its delivered to a post office box about a mile down the road, a circumstance typical of reservation life. Now, with election day nearing, thats become problematic for many reservation-based Native American voters in North Dakota. Advertisement Under a law the Supreme Court allowed to take effect last month, voters here cannot vote without a residential address. A post office box once good enough to secure a ballot in this state just wont cut it anymore. Election officials and tribal governments are scrambling to figure out a workaround for a voter ID law that critics say is untested and unplanned. One last-minute solution involves so-called 911 coordinators who have been quickly assigning addresses to would-be voters based simply on a physical description of where they live. But tribal members said that fix has been uneven at best and that election officials fail to appreciate the day-to-day realities of life on a reservation, where people dont need addresses to find neighbors and those without cars see no need to go through the bureaucratic hassle of getting a drivers license. On Thursday, a North Dakota federal judge denied a challenge of the voter ID law by the Spirit Lake Nation and six individuals, including Yellow Fat. The judge said that, while the suit raised serious questions about the law, it would only create greater confusion to grant an injunction this close to the election. The lawsuit argued that many Native Americans living on reservation lands do not have addresses or were assigned invalid addresses, while some streets have been given multiple names and sometimes multiple ZIP Codes. This problem threatens hundreds if not thousands more on election day, the suit said. The litigation argued that the voter ID law, introduced by Republican legislators in the name of preventing voter fraud, is actually aimed at disenfranchising Native American voters. It is among a handful of cases unfolding in the U.S. from a rigid voter ID law in Georgia to a tough-to-reach polling station in Kansas in which marginalized communities claim their votes are at risk. Standing Rock Sioux tribal citizens Elizabeth Standing Crow, left, and Phyllis Young are among those concerned their votes will not be counted. (Jenni Monet / For The Times) North Dakota Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger denies that the law was intended to deprive any person of the right to vote. Even before the law was upheld by federal courts, Jaeger said he sent a memo to tribal leaders directing voters to contact the 911 coordinators in each of North Dakotas 53 counties to obtain an assigned residential street address. He said it would be a quick and easy process. However, it has been anything but easy for some would-be voters. For Yellow Fat, the process has been, in a word, confusing. Less than a week before election day, he was issued not one, but two different addresses. The first one came from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The second from the state. Neither, however, reflects where he actually lives. What have they done to us? said Yellow Fat. It makes me not even want to vote. The voter measure was first introduced after Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamps 2012 victory in a tight race determined by roughly 3,000 votes. Many ballots for Heitkamp were cast by Native Americans. When the voter ID law took effect in 2013, critics saw it as an attempt to suppress the Native American vote and filed a lawsuit, which ultimately was rejected in the courts. The North Dakota Legislature was debating the issue again in early 2017 when President Trump was preparing to sign an executive order to resume construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, the controversial oil project that tribal members and others had protested. According to committee minutes, legislators raised questions at the time about suspected voter fraud in the 2016 general election by those living on the other side of the bridge a reference to the months-long road blockade enforced by a militarized police force guarding the pipeline construction. In the final weeks ahead of the election, the states five federally recognized tribal nations have been utilizing the 911 coordinator system to print their own ID cards with addresses for tribal citizens at no cost, while the state has offered free IDs to eligible voters provided by the states Department of Transportation. But verifying the addresses so that every vote counts may be difficult. Calls made to county auditors supervising midterm elections in reservation-based precincts say they have been trained to verify addresses at the polls using a system different from the 911 list that Native American voters were encouraged to use by the secretary of state. Auditors in three of the counties Benson, Rolette and Sioux said they will use state databases, or printed poll books, that list past voters whose residential street addresses match those from the North Dakota Department of Transportation. Addresses that do not appear in the file will be added as write-ins, according to auditors. If required, they said, verification could also include cross-referencing with the states 911 coordination system. Ballots requiring further address verification will be placed in a set aside pile, and it will be up to voters to validate their ballot by presenting supplementary documentation such as utility bills, bank statements or employment pay stubs. But the problem for tribal citizens, once again, is that many of these documents wont reveal addresses because they use postal boxes. Its a silent war, Phyllis Young said of the process. A former tribal councilwoman of the Standing Rock Sioux, Young said she does not have a drivers license or a state-issued ID. The election law, she said, was not implemented with people like her in mind. Parked outside a get-out-the-vote command center down the street from where Yellow Fat lives is a bright yellow school bus that will be used to transport Standing Rock citizens to the polls. Painted on one side is an image of one of the tribes most revered resisters, Sitting Bull a symbol of the kind of duty that voters say they feel to turn out to the polls. We have been challenged, Young said. And yes, we are going to vote like never before. Monet is a special correspondent. Two immigrant sisters from Saudi Arabia whose bodies washed up on the New York City waterfront, bound together with duct tape, had told people that they would rather harm themselves than go back to their home country, according to investigators. The bodies of Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 23, were discovered Oct. 24 near the Hudson River, two months after they were last seen in Fairfax, Va., where they had been living in a shelter amid allegations that they were abused at home. Police said the sisters had been in Manhattan since Sept. 1, staying at expensive hotels and ordering in their meals until a credit card they were using maxed out. A jogger said he saw them praying at a playground near the river, sitting about 30 feet apart with their heads in their hands, hours before their bodies were found, police said. New York Police Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said people who knew the Farea sisters in Virginia told investigators that they made statements within the last year indicating that they would rather inflict harm on themselves commit suicide than return to Saudi Arabia. Advertisement Shea stopped short Friday of saying that the sisters had killed themselves but said police have no credible information that any crime took place. The medical examiner has yet to rule on their death and the case remains under investigation, he said. The sisters bodies were taped together, facing each other and fully clothed, police said. There were no obvious signs of trauma and it appeared that they were alive when they went into the water, police said. The mysterious deaths of the Farea sisters have drawn worldwide attention and fueled rampant speculation and online conspiracy theories in the wake of the Oct. 2 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The sisters mother told detectives that the day before their bodies were discovered, she received a call from an official at the Saudi Embassy ordering the family to leave the U.S. because her daughters had applied for asylum. The embassy has denied talking to the family about any asylum request. The Associated Press has not been able to make contact with the parents of the sisters. The Farea sisters moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia with their mother in 2015, settling in Fairfax, a suburb of Washington, police said. They left their family home and were placed in a shelter-like facility after an earlier disappearance, in December 2017. At the time, Shea said, it was raised that they were the subject of abuse. Rotana was enrolled at George Mason University in Fairfax, but left in the spring. The sisters were last seen in Virginia on Aug. 24. They were reported missing Sept. 12. Police, citing credit card records, an Uber receipt and other evidence, said they arrived in New York City on Sept. 1 after making stops in Washington and Philadelphia. They appeared in good health on security video police located from about a week before their bodies were found, Shea said. Police initially struggled to identify the bodies as much of the city and the country was transfixed by other news, such as the series of package bombs sent to prominent Democrats and other critics of President Trump. Police released sketches of the sisters faces and posted repeated calls for the publics help in identifying them on social media. Once they were identified, police sent detectives to Virginia to piece together the last months of their lives. The jogger who said he saw the sisters praying went to the police on Wednesday. He told detectives it had been haunting him, Shea said. A certain gracefully aging man is earning millions from various media ventures. His most recent book, a thriller co-written with the publishing titan James Patterson, spent weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list over the summer. More than a million copies were sold in North America within two months. Showtime is set to turn the novel into a TV series. Soon, this famous man and his equally famous wife will embark on a 13-city tour across the country. The eminence grise in question is, of course, former President Bill Clinton. And you might say he is on a roll, except for one nagging concern: He faces several credible allegations of sexual assault. The stories may be decades old, but they are newly relevant in the #MeToo reckoning. As a rising tide of assault and harassment accusations engulfs an ever-longer list of powerful men, more media outlets are revisiting the longstanding allegations against Clinton. His behavior toward women was recently the subject of an entire season of Slates hit podcast Slow Burn. There are signs that Democrats may be distancing themselves from the former president. He hasnt campaigned for candidates running in the midterm elections, and the New Hampshire Democratic Party dropped his name from their annual fall gala. Advertisement But the revived speculation hasnt turned Clinton into persona non grata, either. The top ticket price to An Evening With the Clintons? $750. Democrats need to stop looking the other way simply because Bill Clinton was once a popular president. Perhaps one reason the renewed scrutiny of 42 hasnt gained more traction is that a large segment of the American public seems to be under the misconception that all the allegations against Clinton were long ago determined to be false. Both he and Hillary Clinton have suggested as much. The former first lady, senator and secretary of state told CNNs Christiane Amanpour that her husband survived an intense, long-lasting, partisan investigation that was conducted in the 90s. But the investigation led by Kenneth W. Starr focused on just one set of allegations: the sexual harassment lawsuit brought by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones. And Starr was concerned primarily with whether Clinton had committed perjury and obstruction of justice in defending himself in that case. Two other allegations were made public in the 1990s as a result of the Starr investigation and impeachment proceedings. Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer, went public in 1998 with her allegations that Clinton assaulted her in the Oval Office in 1993. And Juanita Broaddrick, a former nursing home administrator, went public in 1999 accusing Clinton of raping her in a hotel room in 1978, when he was attorney general of Arkansas. (Though accounts of Broaddricks claims were initially reported in 1992, during Clintons first run for president, she was not identified at that time.) But for the most part, Broaddricks and Willeys allegations remained outside of Starrs purview. Broaddrick appeared in the Starr report only as a footnote in an appendix, where she was referred to as Jane Doe No. 5. A fourth accuser, Leslie Millwee, a former television reporter, came forward in 2016 saying Clinton assaulted her three times in 1980 during his first term as governor of Arkansas. The news media has aired these four allegations repeatedly. There are a number of other allegations that never got much of a media airing. Peter Baker, in his impeachment saga The Breach relayed that additional unwelcome advances were described in Starrs files. Clinton has adamantly denied all the allegations. And no prominent Democrat has gone on the record calling for a reconsideration. Politicians such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii have complained that President Trump hasnt faced repercussions for the allegations of sexual assault brought against him by at least 19 women. How can Democrats expect Republicans to find the will to hold Trump accountable when Democratic leaders never pushed for a thorough consideration of the allegations against Clinton? Trump has gotten plenty of mileage out of this double standard. Its why he invited Broaddrick, Willey and Jones to sit in the audience during his second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton. Trump has even employed the Clinton playbook. Bob Woodward reported in Fear that Trumps mantra in dealing with the allegations against him is deny, deny, deny. That phrase reportedly came straight from Clintons mouth. Like Trump, Clinton relied on staffers to slime his alleged victims. As Clinton was revving up his 1992 campaign, his aide Betsey Wright oversaw the defusing of what she termed bimbo eruptions. Wright used a law firm to retain San Francisco private investigator and attorney Jack Palladino to discredit women. (Two decades later, Harvey Weinstein used this same fixer to compile dossiers on his accusers.) Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion About the only crack in the Democratic support for Clinton has been New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has made sexual abuse and harassment a crucial part of her legacy. She remarked about a year ago that Clinton should have resigned from the presidency but her reasoning was based solely on a consensual affair, albeit one with a much younger subordinate, White House intern Monica Lewinsky. For more than a year, the public has seen men toppled from their perches of power on the basis of allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Leslie Moonves, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer and many others have yet to find a way back to anything like the positions they held in the past. Bill Clinton may no longer be president, but the #MeToo movement has taught us that we should have no tolerance for unrepentant predators in positions of power in media or politics. The companies that do business with Clinton should care if they are collaborating with a man who may well be a serial predator. And Democrats need to stop looking the other way simply because he was once a popular president. By holding Clinton to the standard they want Republicans to impose on Trump, Democrats would have a much stronger case for a congressional investigation into the allegations against our current president, should they retake control of the House in the midterm elections. Joshua Kendall is the author of First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama. He is writing a book about how the #MeToo movement will affect our view of presidential history. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook Eighty years ago this week, Nazi leaders unleashed an unprecedented wave of violence against Jews in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. The pogrom of Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, came to be known as Kristallnacht, or night of broken glass. Ostensibly in response to the assassination of a Nazi diplomat by a young Polish Jew, frenzied mobs armed with sledgehammers and other weapons demolished Jewish homes, hospitals, synagogues, schools and businesses. They beat, raped or killed anyone who got in the way. By the time order was restored, the wave of terror had left nearly 100 dead, 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed and hundreds of synagogues burned to the ground. Over the two days of rioting, some 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Kristallnacht had an impact in the United States, too, but not in the way you might think. Nazis in Los Angeles were emboldened by the attacks and the tepid response of the American government. Advertisement Kristallnacht had an impact in the United States, too, but not in the way you might think. On Nov. 16, Hermann Schwinn, the West Coast leader of the German American Bund, addressed an excited crowd that had gathered to celebrate Kristallnacht at Deutsches Haus, a clubhouse for the German American Bund that was housed in a building on 15th Street near Figueroa. (The site is now a parking lot for the Los Angeles Convention Center.) Surrounded by storm troopers dressed in full uniform, Schwinn blamed Jews for causing the massacre. American Christians were finally waking up to the Jewish menace, Schwinn said. Within less than five years we will see Jews dangling from telephone posts and trees, Schwinn predicted. Inspired by Kristallnacht, Schwinn and his cohort began working toward Der Tag, the day when Nazis and their supporters would seize control of the American government, either through force or the ballot box. The Bunds storm trooper unit began secretly learning hand-to-hand combat in the Hollywood Hills. Training a military force was only part of Schwinns strategy. Bundists also created a network of secret cells made up of sympathetic Americans, each no larger than 10 men, to lay the groundwork for a Nazi revolution. Within a month, the Los Angeles Bund had 18 local cells and anticipated more. Nazis were not the only ones mobilized by Kristallnacht. So was an existing anti-Nazi spy ring led by Leon Lewis, a Los Angeles attorney whom the Nazis referred to as the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles. A founding member of the Anti-Defamation League and veteran of World War I, Lewis had begun organizing the spy network in August 1933, starting with four other veterans and their wives. These men and women infiltrated Nazi and fascist groups in Los Angeles and reported on their activities. After Kristallnacht, Lewis and his fellow spymaster Joseph Roos stepped up their efforts, expanding the undercover operation and launching a public relations campaign to alert Americans to the Nazi threat. Lewis and Roos placed three new spies inside Nazi headquarters and recruited a series of informants to report on Nazi plots to sabotage local military installations and aircraft factories. They collated the information they received from their operatives and sent reports to local FBI, Army and Naval Intelligence offices. Roos also began publishing a weekly newsletter, turning his spy reports into a read as gripping as any detective thriller. Over the next three years, he sent copies to government agencies, newspapers, popular magazines and influential political columnists, including the team of Robert Allen and Drew Pearson, whose syndicated columns reached millions each week. With the local FBI, police chief and county sheriff showing little interest in monitoring anyone other than communists, Lewis and Roos worked to persuade federal authorities to deport Schwinn. A month after Kristallnacht, an assistant U.S. district attorney in Los Angeles, armed with information provided by the two spymasters, filed charges in federal court claiming that Schwinns citizenship had been illegally procured. Schwinn downplayed the charges, explaining, It was merely a mistake which I made while filling out my application of citizenship papers. Mistake or not, Schwinn had to shift his attention away from Der Tag and focus instead on remaining in the United States. In June 1939, federal prosecutors, assisted by Lewis and Roos, persuaded Judge Ralph Jenney to revoke Schwinns citizenship. Schwinns reign effectively came to an end. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion Perhaps the most significant legacy of Kristallnacht in Los Angeles would come the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Local FBI agents moved with incredible speed and efficiency to round up suspected German, Italian and Japanese spies. How did authorities know whom to arrest? From the mountain of detailed information that Lewis and Roos had sent to the Justice Department. Intelligence agencies simply retyped the data provided by Lewis and Roos. As Roos would later reflect, the local FBI had scant security information of their own. Americans must not forget the lessons of Kristallnacht, especially after the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Hate festers and turns violent when good people remain silent. All but one of the citizen-spies who aided Lewis and Roos were Christian. They did not see themselves as protecting Jews. They saw themselves as protecting Americans. Steven J. Ross is a professor of history at the University of Southern California. His book Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in history. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook To the editor: John McKinney does a good job of underscoring the risks of hiking in the wilderness. However, he misses the mark in referencing the danger of entering waters above waterfalls in Yosemite. Referring to the deaths of three people at Yosemites Vernal Fall, McKinney writes that his head cannot comprehend the decision of the three hikers to step past the guardrail at the top of the falls and into the raging waters. Unfortunately, those waters often do not appear to be anywhere near raging. In fact, the waters can appear to be remarkably still and calm on the surface, but there is a strong undercurrent that can sweep a person off slippery rocks and over the falls. As a Sierra Club hike leader who has been to Vernal Fall several times, I know that its highly unlikely a hiker would step past guardrails and enter raging waters above the falls. Advertisement Bill Simpson, Santa Monica Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: The Times Editorial Board neglects to tell readers about the demographic consequences of U.S. immigration policy. Right now, we admit between 1 million and 2 million immigrants per year, the most among world nations. This immigration will yield rapid population growth for the United States in the 21st century. The U.S. is the third most populous country on the planet, behind China and India. The United Nations projects a figure of 400 million Americans by 2050 and 470 million by 2100, up from 280 million in 2000. The Pew Research Center projects that 88% of all U.S. population growth between 2015 and 2065 will be driven by immigrants and their children. Put in perspective, a child born today will grow up in a country adding around 150 million people in her lifetime. If the country continues a long-term policy to ensure a youthful high-fertility workforce through high rates of immigration, the U.S. will easily top a population of 500 million shortly after 2100 and embed forces that ensure indefinite population growth. Advertisement Jim Valentine, Woodland Hills .. To the editor: Immigrants are not the problem; people who enter this country illegally are. Were certainly a stronger nation because of our immigrant roots, but that fact is not in question. The crux of the matter and whats truly driving the nation apart is the influx of undocumented individuals and the host of problems they bring with them. Most of them are poor, have little or no English skills and put a severe strain on our social services. These people break the law when they enter this country, and they should be prevented from doing so. Simply put, we either have borders or we dont. You accuse Trump of fearmongering, but in reality hes merely enforcing the law. Charles Reilly, Manhattan Beach .. To the editor: Trumps outrageous conduct in sending thousands of troops to our southern border, then implying they may shoot if immigrants throw rocks at them, recalls the 1970 Kent State massacre in Ohio. Students were protesting President Nixons secret bombing of Cambodia, and the governor of Ohio, suffering from the same megalomania personality disorder affecting Trump, ordered National Guard troops to the campus with live ammunition in their rifles. Four students were killed that day, but no one was held responsible for the deaths. It looks like were set for something like that to happen again in America. Kevin Park, Mission Hills Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Allies balk at Trump administration bid to block Chinese firm from cutting-edge telecom markets By David S. Cloud Britain and Germany are balking at the Trump administrations call for a ban on equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, threatening a global U.S. campaign to thwart Chinas involvement in future mobile networks. Both countries are expected to limit Huawei and other Chinese companies from providing core components including routers. But other types of Chinese equipment for next-generation, high-speed communications could still be installed on British and German networks, officials and analysts say. The U.S. push to ban Huawei has provoked a global dispute in recent weeks, with senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, publicly urging NATO allies in Europe to exclude the company and warning that the United States might limit its military presence in countries that did not do so. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Confucius Institutes: Do they improve U.S.-China ties or harbor spies? By Don Lee Hanging red lanterns welcome visitors to the University of Marylands Confucius Institute, the oldest of about 100 Chinese language and cultural centers that have popped up over the last 15 years on American campuses, subsidized by millions of dollars from Chinas central government. But last fall, when four U.S. Senate investigators walked into the Confucius offices in Maryland and spent hours questioning staff, they werent looking for an educational exchange. The committee has been seeking detailed information from the university about the program, including contracts, email exchanges and financial arrangements that school administrators have kept under wraps since it started in 2004. American colleges once viewed these jointly funded institutes as an economical way to expand their language offerings one that could also bring warmer ties with China and, importantly, an influx of Chinese international students paying full tuition. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Watch Live: White House holds surprise news briefing amid government shutdown Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement U.S. policy toward China shifts from engagement to confrontation By David S. Cloud For decades, China had no closer American friend than Dianne Feinstein. As San Francisco mayor in the 1970s, she forged a sister-city relationship with Shanghai, the first between American and Chinese communities. As U.S. senator, she dined with Chinese leaders at Mao Tse-tungs old Beijing residence. And in the 1990s, she championed a trade policy change that opened a floodgate of Western investment into China. Today the Democratic senator sees China as a growing threat, joining a broad array of Trump administration officials, national security strategists and business executives who once favored engagement with Beijing and now advocate a confrontational approach instead. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Mnuchins attempt to calm markets backfires as Trump takes another shot at the Federal Reserve By Jim Puzzanghera An attempt by Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin to calm plunging financial markets backfired Monday, further rattling investors with new fears about whether major U.S. banks have enough cash on top of worries about interest rates, political instability in Washington and a slowing global economy. Adding to the volatile mix was a fresh attack on the Federal Reserve by President Trump, who declared that the central bank was the U.S. economys only problem and that it didnt have a feel for the market. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who cant score because he has no touch -- he cant putt! Trump said on Twitter. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print He speaks to Democratic hearts. But is Beto ORourke a serious White House contender? By Mark Z. Barabak Hes a failed U.S. Senate candidate with an undistinguished congressional record who, for the moment, is a blazing-hot 2020 presidential prospect despite the fact that he may not run and faces long odds if he does. Beto ORourke suggests the will-he-or-wont-he speculation is something he himself cant quite fathom. I think thats a great question, he responded in a Dallas Morning News interview when asked whether his unsuccessful November Senate bid merited a promotion to the White House. I ask that question myself. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate By Craig Timberg, Tony Romm, Elizabeth Dwoskin Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. (Associated Press) Months after President Trump took office, Russias disinformation teams trained their sites on a new target: special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Having worked to help get Trump into the White House, they now worked to neutralize the biggest threat to his staying there. The Russian operatives unloaded on Mueller through fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and beyond, falsely claiming that the former FBI director was corrupt and that the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election were crackpot conspiracies. One post on Instagram which emerged as an especially potent weapon in the Russian social media arsenal claimed that Mueller had worked in the past with radical Islamic groups. Such tactics exemplified how Russian teams ranged nimbly across social media platforms in a shrewd online influence operation aimed squarely at American voters. The effort started earlier than commonly understood and lasted longer while relying on the strengths of different sites to manipulate distinct slices of the electorate, according to a pair of comprehensive new reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee and released Monday. Read more Timberg, Romm and Dwoskin report for the Washington Post. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement President Trump announces Mick Mulvaney as acting White House chief of staff By Associated Press President Trump says budget director Mick Mulvaney will serve as acting chief of staff, replacing John F. Kelly in the new year. I am pleased to announce that Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management & Budget, will be named Acting White House Chief of Staff, replacing General John Kelly, who has served our Country with distinction. Mick has done an outstanding job while in the Administration.... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 14, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print It aint over when its over: In Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere, losers seek to undermine election results By Mark Z. Barabak Democrat Gavin Newsom has yet to become California governor, but already a candidate for state Republican Party chairman is promoting a recall effort. In Michigan and Wisconsin, GOP lawmakers have rushed through legislation to thwart their incoming Democratic governors and hamper others in the opposing party from doing the jobs voters chose them to do. In Congress, GOP leaders have echoed President Trump and sought to undermine the legitimacy of Democrats strong midterm performance, raising unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and political malfeasance. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print New CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger says she wont be a puppet of Mick Mulvaney By Jim Puzzanghera On her first full day leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Kathy Kraninger said she wont be a puppet of Mick Mulvaney, the controversial acting director whom she replaced in the powerful regulatory position. To underscore that point, the former White House aide said she would even reconsider a Mulvaney action that critics saw as a gratuitous jab at Democrats who championed the agencys creation: changing its name to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Kraningers declaration during a meeting with reporters Tuesday addressed one of the main criticisms of her selection. She is considered a protege of Mulvaney, her boss at the White House Office of Management and Budget who has executed a dramatic, industry-friendly shift at the watchdog agency. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trumps pick for chief of staff, Nick Ayers, out of running By Associated Press Nick Ayers, right, with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, at the funeral service for George H.W. Bush on Dec. 3. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Associated Press) President Trumps top pick to replace John F. Kelly as chief of staff, Nick Ayers, is no longer expected to fill that role. Thats according to a White House official who is not authorized to discuss the personnel issue by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Ayers is Vice President Mike Pences chief of staff. The official says that Trump and Ayers could not agree on Ayers length of service. The father of young children, Ayers had agreed to serve in an interim capacity though the spring, but Trump wanted a two-year commitment. The official says that Ayers will instead assist the president from outside the administration. Trump announced Saturday that Kelly would be departing the White House around the end of the year. Thank you @realDonaldTrump, @VP, and my great colleagues for the honor to serve our Nation at The White House. I will be departing at the end of the year but will work with the #MAGA team to advance the cause. #Georgia Nick Ayers (@nick_ayers) December 9, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement U.S. hiring slows to 155,000 jobs, unemployment rate holds at 3.7% By Jim Puzzanghera Job growth slowed significantly in November but still was solid, indicating the economy remains in good shape but not expanding so quickly that it will lead to sharply higher interest rates. U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs last month, well below analyst expectations and a steep decline from Octobers strong 237,000 figure, the Labor Department reported Friday. Still, monthly job gains are averaging 206,000 this year, the best since 2015. Even the slower pace of 170,000 over the last three months is close to last years average of 182,000 and well above the amount needed to keep up with population growth. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump is expected to pick State Department spokeswoman for U.N. ambassador By Associated Press Heather Nauert at a briefing at the State Department on Aug. 9, 2017. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump is expected to nominate State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Two administration officials confirmed Trumps plans. A Republican congressional aide said the president was expected to announce his decision by tweet on Friday morning. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly before Trumps announcement. Trump has previously said Nauert was under serious consideration to replace Nikki Haley, who announced in October that she would step down at the end of this year. Trump has been known to change course on staffing decisions in the past. Nauert was a reporter for Fox News Channel before she became State Department spokeswoman under former Secretary Rex Tillerson. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Senate confirms new consumer financial protection chief: Kathy Kraninger, protege of industry-friendly Mick Mulvaney By Jim Puzzanghera The Senate, in a party-line vote Thursday, confirmed White House aide Kathy Kraninger to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and experts predicted a continuation of the industry-friendly shift it has taken since President Trump installed an acting director last year. Kraninger is a protege of acting director and White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, an outspoken critic of the agency that was created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to prevent predatory lending and other abuses that led to it. Democrats and consumer advocates have denounced him for sharply departing from the aggressive watchdog role the bureau had pursued under its first director, Obama-appointee Richard Cordray, including scaling back enforcement and moving to reassess tough new rules on payday loans and narrow the definition of abusive practices by banks and other firms. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Shutdown postponed by two weeks under plan approved by Congress By Erik Wasson Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), shown at the Capitol on Tuesday, says President Trumps border wall is a waste of money. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Congress passed a two-week stopgap spending bill that will delay the chance of a partial government shutdown until Dec. 22 as lawmakers and President Donald Trump negotiate over his demands to pay for a wall on the southern border. The House and Senate passed the measure Thursday without dissent, and Trump has indicated hell sign the bill before the current shutdown deadline of midnight Friday. Negotiations were delayed by memorial services this week for former President George H.W. Bush. The temporary measure gives Democrats and Republicans more time to find a resolution to their biggest hurdle: funding a wall on the U.S. Mexico border wall. Trump says he wants $5 billion for parts of a concrete wall on the southern border and is willing to shut down the government if he doesnt get it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has said Democrats will provide no more than $1.6 billion for border security, because the wall is a waste of money. The presidents demands for wall funding from Congress come after he said during the campaign that Mexico would pay for it. This week he said on Twitter that a $25 billion border wall would pay for itself in two months, without providing evidence. Most of the U.S. governments $1.2 trillion discretionary budget has been appropriated already by Congress for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. Departments at a risk of a partial shutdown late this month include the departments of State, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Treasury and Homeland Security. Talks to resolve the differences have been on hold since a meeting among Trump, Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California originally slated for Dec. 4 was postponed due to Bush memorial events. The three are scheduled to meet on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby of Alabama told reporters the rest of the seven-bill spending package being negotiated is basically done. Shelby in recent weeks had tried to broker a compromise in which Trumps $5 billion request would be split over two years, but Schumer has rejected that. Some Democrats have been willing to trade border wall funding for deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants. Pelosi ruled out such a deal in remarks to reporters Thursday. The stopgap government funding measure also would extend the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides subsidized coverage for homes in flood-prone areas, to Dec. 21. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Bipartisan Senate group wants to formally blame Saudi crown prince for journalists killing By Karoun Demirjian Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires. (Associated Press) A bipartisan group of senators filed a resolution Wednesday condemning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, directly challenging President Trump to do the same. This resolution -- without equivocation -- definitively states that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia was complicit in the murder of Mr. [Jamal] Khashoggi and has been a wrecking ball to the region jeopardizing our national security interests on multiple fronts, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement accompanying the release of the resolution. It will be up to Saudi Arabia as to how to deal with this matter. But it is up to the United States to firmly stand for who we are and what we believe. The resolution put forward by Graham and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who are expected to lead the Judiciary Committee together next year, comes just one day after CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed leading senators about the details of the agencys assessment that Mohammed ordered and monitored the killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Senators emerged from that closed-door briefing furious not only with Saudi Arabia, but Trump as well for dismissing the heft of the CIAs findings. You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organized by people under the command of MBS and that he was intricately involved in the demise of Mr. Khashoggi, Graham said following the briefing, referring to Mohammed by his initials. He added that Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, who briefed senators last week, were at best being good soldiers and at worst were in the pocket of Saudi Arabia for presenting the evidence of Mohammeds involvement as inconclusive. The release of the resolution condemning Mohammed also comes as the Senate is preparing to move ahead with debate on a resolution to curtail U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. Though the Yemen resolution does not directly address Khashoggis murder, its popularity is a sign of how strained the United States patience with Saudi Arabia is on multiple fronts, including its role in worsening the civilian cost of the war in Yemen, cited by the United Nations as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. Last week, the Senate voted 63 to 37 to advance the Yemen resolution past an opening procedural hurdle. But Graham and Feinsteins resolution on the crown prince has the potential of drawing broader support, especially from Republicans, who are deeply divided about how fiercely to punish Saudi Arabia over Khashoggis killing. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been an outspoken advocate for human rights and is seen as one of the more influential foreign policy voices in the GOP, did not vote for the Yemen resolution last week or sign on to a bipartisan measure last month to sanction Saudi officials and cease weapons transfers to the kingdom. But he is an original co-sponsor of the resolution condemning Mohammed over Khashoggis death. So is Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who represents the other end of the GOP spectrum in terms of recent Saudi-related votes and endorsements. Young was an initial co-sponsor of the bill Graham wrote with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to sanction Saudi officials deemed responsible for Khashoggis killing and stop the sale of anything but exclusively defensive weapons to the kingdom until it ceased hostilities in Yemen. Young also voted to advance the Yemen resolution something Graham did as well, though Graham has signaled he will not be lending any similar support to the measure, fearing it may establish a precedent of invoking the War Powers Act too broadly. Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) are listed as original co-sponsors of the resolution condemning Mohammed, which also urges Saudi Arabia to negotiate with Houthi rebels to end the Yemen war, work out a political solution to its standoff with Qatar and release political prisoners. But how much sway the resolution has probably comes down to how forcefully the administration decides to heed it -- and thus far, Trump has not shown any interest in condemning the crown prince the way the senators hope he will. Demirjian reports for the Washington Post. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Los Angeles County offices and U.S. Postal Service closed Wednesday in honor of George H.W. Bush By Brian Park The Honor Guard carries the casket of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush following his funeral on Dec. 5 in Washington, DC. (Doug Mills - Pool/Getty Images) The U.S. Postal Service will suspend regular mail delivery Wednesday, which President Trump has declared a national day of mourning in honor of former President George H.W. Bush. All retail postal outlets will be closed, and package delivery will be limited. In Los Angeles, all nonessential county departments, offices and libraries will be closed for the day, L.A. County officials said. The Los Angeles County Library said no overdue fines will be assessed for books, and due dates will be moved forward one week. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health offices also are closed Wednesday. The Sheriffs Department, Fire Department, clinics and hospitals will continue to operate, the county said. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health clinics are being operated with reduced staffing, and the department asked patients to confirm or reschedule any appointments. All county courts and the disaster recovery centers for the Woolsey fire in Malibu and Agoura Hills will remain open. Larger federal government operations will be closed Wednesday. To honor the life and legacy of President Bush, the Postal Service will observe the National Day of Mourning. Learn how Postal operations will be affected. https://t.co/Mffch7bPCh pic.twitter.com/vG46BsIOpm U.S. Postal Service (@USPS) December 4, 2018 L.A. County offices and libraries will be closed tomorrow (Dec 5) in observance of the #NationalDayOfMourning for President George H. W. Bush. The Countys Disaster Recovery Centers in Malibu & Agoura Hills will remain open from 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. pic.twitter.com/Sv1J7GoJ7T Los Angeles County (@CountyofLA) December 4, 2018 @LAPublicHealth offices will be closed tomorrow December 5 in observance of the national Day of Mourning for President George H. W. Bush. Essential Services including clinics and other services will remain open: https://t.co/tZGoGGHRlg pic.twitter.com/ypXsV6vlYY LA Public Health (@lapublichealth) December 4, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to skip 2020 White House race, sources say By Associated Press Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick speaks during an interview in Boston on Dec. 15, 2014. (Elise Amendola / Associated Press) Former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts will soon announce he wont launch a 2020 presidential campaign, according to three sources familiar with his plans. They did not say why the Democrat decided against a run. A formal announcement was delayed as the country observed a day of mourning for President George H.W. Bush, one source said. News of Patricks plans was first reported by Politico. Patrick, 62, served two terms as governor, from 2007 to 2015, was assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration and since leaving the governors office has been a managing director for Bain Capital. Patrick traveled the country in support of Democratic candidates in the recent midterm election. Earlier this year, some of Patricks supporters and close advisors started the Reason to Believe political action committee, a grassroots organization dedicated to advancing a positive, progressive vision for our nation in 2018 and 2020. Reason to Believe PAC had been holding meetups across the country, including in early presidential primary states. While Patrick is opting against a 2020 run, dozens of Democrats are considering jumping in, including nearly a half-dozen members of the Senate, several House members, and other Massachusetts politicians. On Tuesday, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels and a vocal critic of President Trump, said in a statement that he would run. Patrick had previously expressed some concerns about breaking through if he sought the nomination, telling David Axelrod, a former advisor to President Obama, that he wasnt sure he could stand out in such a large field. Its hard to see how you even get noticed in such a big, broad field without being shrill, sensational or a celebrity, and Im none of those things and Im never going to be any of those things, Patrick said in a September interview with Axelrod. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Former Trump adviser Roger Stone invokes 5th Amendment right and wont testify before Senate Judiciary Committee By Associated Press Roger Stone in 2017. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) Roger Stone, an associate of President Trump, says he wont provide testimony or documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. An attorney for Stone said in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committees top Democrat, that Stone was invoking his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to produce documents or appear for an interview. Stone has been entangled in investigations by Congress and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about whether Trump aides had advance knowledge of Democratic emails published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election. Stone has not been charged and has said he had no knowledge of the timing or specifics of WikiLeaks plans. In the letter to Feinstein, Stone said the committees requests were far too overbroad, far too overreaching and far too wide-ranging. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Watch live: Vice President Pence and lawmakers honor George H.W. Bush at the U.S. Capitol before he lies in state Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rebuilding crumbling infrastructure has bipartisan support. But who gets to pay for it? By Jim Puzzanghera The grades for major U.S. infrastructure would give any parent indigestion if they were on a childs report card. Roads: D; bridges: C+; dams: D; ports: C+: railways: B; airports: D; schools: D+; public transit: D-. The nations overall grade: D+, which translates to being in fair to poor condition and mostly below standards with significant deterioration and a strong risk of failure, according to an evaluation last year by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump calls former lawyer Michael Cohen a weak person who is lying By Associated Press President Trump says his former lawyer Michael Cohen is lying to get a reduced sentence. The president is reacting to Cohens guilty plea Thursday to lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate project in Russia. During a surprise court hearing, Cohen admitted to lying in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen in his guilty plea said he made the false statements to be consistent with Trumps political message. Cohens lawyer says he continues to cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print As California Republicans confront a congressional wipeout, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy faces a reckoning By Mark Z. Barabak When the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Kevin McCarthy trooped with other Republican lawmakers to a splashy Rose Garden celebration, smiling alongside President Trump as they celebrated the moment. As majority leader, McCarthy had helped round up the votes to narrowly pass the hard-fought legislation, convincing 13 other California Republicans to go along, even though several faced tough reelection fights. Fewer than half will be returning in January. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print As California Republicans confront a congressional wipeout, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy faces a reckoning By Sarah D. Wire When the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Kevin McCarthy trooped with other Republican lawmakers to a splashy Rose Garden celebration, smiling alongside President Trump as they celebrated the moment. As majority leader, McCarthy had helped round up the votes to narrowly pass the hard-fought legislation, convincing 13 other California Republicans to go along, even though several faced tough reelection fights. Fewer than half will be returning in January. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Michael Cohen, President Trumps ex-lawyer, pleads guilty to lying to Congress about Trump real estate project in Russia By Associated Press Michael Cohen, President Trumps former personal lawyer, pursued a Russian real estate project on candidate Trumps behalf well into the 2016 campaign, he said Thursday while pleading guilty to lying to Congress. Cohen had previously said that the project was abandoned in January 2016, but he now admits he continued to pursue a deal and says he updated Trump and members of his family about the negotiations, according to a new court document. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement James Comey says acting Atty. Gen. Whitaker may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer By John Wagner Acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker speaks at the Justice Department in Washington on Nov. 14. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) Former FBI Director James B. Comey apparently isnt too impressed with the mental prowess of President Trumps acting attorney general. Matthew Whitaker may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer, Comey said during a radio interview on Monday night in which he sized up the man Trump installed this month to replace ousted Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. Comey was asked by WGBH News in Boston if he thinks Whitaker could derail the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Whitaker has spoken critically of the probe, and Trump as recently as Tuesday continues to call it a witch hunt. I think its a worry, but to my mind not a serious worry, Comey said. The institution is too strong, and [Whitaker], frankly, is not strong enough to have that kind of impact. He may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer, but he can see his future and knows that if he acted in an extralegal way, he would go down in history for the wrong reasons, and Im sure he doesnt want that, added Comey, who was fired by Trump last year and later wrote a book that portrays the president as an ego-driven congenital liar. Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney in Iowa, was Sessions chief of staff before being picked by Trump to lead the Justice Department. Trump has called Whitaker a very smart man. Earlier this year, Trump called Comey an untruthful slime ball. Wagner writes for the Washington Post. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Interior Department watchdog clears Zinke in investigation of Utah national monument By Juliet Eilperin Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, third from the left, and Gov. Jerry Brown tour fire damage in Paradise, Calif., on Nov. 14. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The Interior Departments Office of Inspector General has cleared Secretary Ryan Zinke in a probe of whether he redrew boundaries of a national monument in Utah to aid the financial interests of a Republican state lawmaker and stalwart supporter of President Trump. In a Nov. 21 letter to Zinkes deputy, David Bernhardt, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote that her office found no evidence that the secretary or his aides changed the boundaries of Utahs Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in an effort to help former Utah state representative Mike Noel, who serves as executive director of the Kane County Water Conservancy District. Last December, Trump shrank the monument, first established by President Clinton in 1996, by 46% based on Zinkes recommendation. Noel owns 40 acres that had been surrounded by the monument, but now lies outside its boundaries. The new boundaries also would make it easier to construct the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline, which would deliver water to sites in Kane County that include Noels property. Earlier this year, the Interior Department had proposed selling off 120 acres of federal land from the former monument that lay adjacent to some of Noels land holdings, but later reversed the plan. We found no evidence that Noel influenced the DOIs proposed revisions to the [monuments] boundaries, that Zinke or other DOI staff involved in the project were aware of Noels financial interest in the revised boundaries, or that they gave Noel any preferential treatment in the resulting proposed boundaries, Kendall wrote. Neither the Interior Department nor the inspector generals office would release the actual investigative report. In the letter, Kendall writes that her office will provide the report to Congress no sooner than 31 days from Nov. 21, when it is provided it to Zinkes office. The Associated Press first reported the inspector generals conclusions Monday night, but did not provide details from the report itself. Noel emailed Zinke about the effort to alter Grand Staircase-Escalante, according to emails released by Interior under the Freedom of Informational Act. But those emails do not make references to Noels land holdings. Noel also pushed to rename a Utah highway in honor of Trump, but abandoned that effort in March after some of his fellow Republicans objected to the idea. Noel did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. The inspector generals office still has at least two ongoing probes of the secretary, including one focused on his real estate dealings in Whitefish, Mont., and another regarding his decision to deny a permit to two Connecticut tribes who were hoping to jointly run a casino after MGM Resorts International lobbied against it. Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift welcomed the watchdogs conclusions. The report shows exactly what the secretarys office has known all along that the monument boundaries were adjusted in accordance with all rules, regulations and laws, she said in an email. This report is also the latest example of opponents and special interest groups ginning up fake and misleading stories, only to be proven false after expensive and time consuming inquiries by the IGs office. But Kendalls spokeswoman, Nancy DiPaolo, defended the inquiry, even though she said the report has not been publicly released and we will not be speaking specifically about the matter at this time. The OIG opens investigations based on credible allegations and reports our findings objectively and independently, DiPaolo added. Any time or resources spent investigating conduct or activity that may be a violation of law, regulation or policy is a service to the public, Congress and the Department. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that he still intended to investigate the way Zinke and his colleague redrew the boundaries for Grand Staircase-Escalante and another Utah national monument, Bears Ears, next year. I have great respect for the inspector general, and I accept these findings, but Secretary Zinke should have known the people he listened to while destroying our national monuments had disqualifying conflicts of interest, he said. Should I chair the Natural Resources Committee in the next Congress, the process he and President Trump used to destroy Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will be front and center in our oversight and investigations efforts. We need to know why they ignored overwhelming public expressions of support for both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, why they ignored Native American tribes throughout their decision-making, and why they removed protections on parcels of land with known mineral deposits. Eilperin and Rein report for the Washington Post. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump advisor Larry Kudlow says China must do more to end trade war By Jim Puzzanghera Larry Kudlow, President Trumps top economic advisor, said Tuesday that Chinas response to U.S. efforts to rework the two economic superpowers trade relationship has been extremely disappointing but the planned meeting this weekend between the nations leaders is an opportunity for a breakthrough. They have to do more. They must do more, Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters ahead of a Saturday dinner between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 Summit in Argentina. I think the president is exactly right to show strong backbone when prior administrations did not, to break through these Chinese walls, Kudlow said. Theyre so resistant to change. We have to protect the country. We have to protect our technology, our inventiveness, our innovation. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Watch live: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds a media briefing amid tensions at the border By Los Angeles Times Staff Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Democrat TJ Cox grabs lead over Republican David Valadao in nations last remaining undecided House race By Maya Sweedler Democrat TJ Cox slipped past Republican incumbent David Valadao on Monday to take the lead in the countrys sole remaining undecided congressional race, positioning Democrats to pick up their seventh House seat in California and 40th nationwide. Cox, who trailed by nearly 4,400 votes on election night, has steadily gained as ballot counting continues nearly three weeks after the Nov. 6 election, a pattern consistent with the states recent voting history. On Monday, he pulled ahead by 438 votes after Kern County updated its results. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Former CIA director Michael Hayden hospitalized after suffering a stroke By Deanna Paul Then-CIA Director Michael Hayden testifies before a Senate committee in 2008. (Saul Loeb / Getty Images) Former CIA Director and retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, his family said Friday. He is receiving expert medical care for which the family is grateful, according to a statement issued by his namesake organization. The General and his family greatly appreciate the warm wishes and prayers of his friends, colleagues, and supporters. Hayden, 73, served as director of the CIA and National Security Agency during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. He retired from the CIA in 2009. Hayden has been a vocal critic of Donald Trumps campaign and presidency. Earlier this year, after Trump decided to revoke the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, Hayden was one of several former intelligence leaders who signed a statement in opposition. Criticizing the president for crossing a line, he quickly became one of the individuals whose security clearance Trump threatened to review. Deanna Paul writes for the Washington Post. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump tells troops hes thankful for what hes done for the U.S. and rails against courts and migrants By Associated Press President Trump talks with troops via teleconference from his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thanksgiving. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) President Trump used his Thanksgiving Day call to troops deployed overseas to pat himself on the back and air grievances about the courts, trade and migrants heading to the U.S.-Mexico border. Trumps call, made from his opulent private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., struck an unusually political tone as he spoke with members of all five branches of the military to wish them happy holidays. Its a disgrace, Trump said of judges who have blocked his attempts to overhaul U.S. immigration law, as he linked his efforts to secure the border with military missions overseas. Trump later threatened to close the U.S. border with Mexico for an undisclosed period of time if his administration determines Mexico has lost control on its side. The call was a uniquely Trump blend of boasting, peppered questions and off-the-cuff observations as his comments veered from venting about slights to praising troops You really are our heroes, he said as club waiters worked to set Thanksgiving dinner tables on the outdoor terrace behind him. It was yet another show of how Trump has dramatically transformed the presidency, erasing the traditional divisions between domestic policy and military matters and efforts to keep the troops clear of politics. You probably see over the news whats happening on our southern border, Trump told one Air Force brigadier general stationed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, adding: I dont have to even ask you. I know what you want to do, you want to make sure that you know who were letting in. Later, Trump asked a U.S. Coast Guard commander about trade, which he noted was a very big subject for him personally. Weve been taken advantage of for many, many years by bad trade deals, Trump told the commander, who sheepishly replied, Mr. President, from our perspective on the water we dont see any issues in terms of trade right now. And throughout, Trump congratulated himself, telling the officers that the country is doing exceptionally well on his watch. I hope that youll take solace in knowing that all of the American families you hold so close to your heart are all doing well, he said. The nations doing well economically, better than anybody in the world. He later told reporters, Nobodys done more for the military than me. Indeed, asked what he was thankful for this Thanksgiving, Trump cited his great family as well as himself. I made a tremendous difference in this country, he said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump contradicts CIA assessment that Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi killing By Josh Dawsey | Washington Post (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) President Trump on Thursday contradicted the CIAs assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, insisting that the agency had feelings but did not firmly place blame for the death. Trump, in defiant remarks to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, defended his continued support for Mohammed in the face of a CIA assessment that the crown prince had ordered the killing. He denies it vehemently, Trump said. He said his own conclusion was that maybe he did, maybe he didnt. I hate the crime .... I hate the cover-up. I will tell you this: The crown prince hates it more than I do, Trump said. Asked who should be held accountable for the death of Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, Trump refused to place blame. Maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a very, very vicious place, the president said. He also seemed to suggest that all U.S. allies were guilty of the same behavior, declaring that if the others were held to the standard that critics have held Saudi Arabia to in recent days, we wouldnt be able to have anyone for an ally. Trumps remarks came after he held a conference call with U.S. military officers overseas, during which he repeatedly praised his administration and sought to draw the officers into discussions of domestic policy. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Former FBI Director James Comey gets subpoena from House Republicans By Bloomberg Former FBI Director James B. Comey said he has received a subpoena from House Republicans, according to a Twitter post on Thursday. Bloomberg News reported last week that Comey would be receiving a subpoena alongside former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch as part of continuing probes into their handling of investigations into Hillary Clinton and Russian election meddling, according to a top House Democrat. Happy Thanksgiving. Got a subpoena from House Republicans. Im still happy to sit in the light and answer all questions. But I will resist a closed door thing because Ive seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion. Lets have a hearing and invite everyone to see. James Comey (@Comey) November 22, 2018 Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Republican David Valadaos lead slips to 447 votes over Democrat TJ Cox in still-undecided Central Valley House race By Mark Z. Barabak Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), right, finds himself in an increasingly harrowing cliffhanger against Democrat TJ Cox. (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call) On election night, it looked like Rep. David Valadao had survived a close shave and was destined to return to Washington for his fourth term. But on Wednesday, when Fresno County announced its latest vote totals, the Hanford Republican found himself in an increasingly harrowing cliffhanger against Democrat TJ Cox, with his lead in the Central Valley district shrunken to 447 votes. Thousands remain to be counted. Valadao, a repeated Democratic target, finished election night with a lead of nearly 4,440 votes. Cox, an engineer and a business owner who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2006, has steadily gained ground in the 21st Congressional District ever since. The trend is consistent with historic patterns showing Republicans in California tend to vote early and Democrats later, meaning their mail ballots continue to stream in past election day. Under California law, ballots postmarked up to midnight on Nov. 6 will be counted. Democrats have already picked up six House seats in California. They ousted Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, Mimi Walters, Steve Knight and Jeff Denham and won the seats of retiring Reps. Ed Royce and Darrell Issa. All six represented districts that backed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. Valadao was the seventh California Republican in a district Clinton won, though his previous successes he last won reelection by a 14-point margin suggested his ouster was a longer shot for Democrats. If Cox prevails, it would give Democrats a 40-seat gain nationwide, far more than the 23 seats needed to take control when Congress reconvenes in January. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump says no new punishments against Saudi Arabia in Jamal Khashoggi murder By Eli Stokols In this Oct. 25 photo, candles are lit in front of a photo of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (Lefteris Pitarakis) President Trump made it clear on Tuesday that he does not intend to punish Saudi Arabia or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident killed by Saudi officials in Turkey in October. In a remarkable statement replete with exclamation points, Trump cast doubt on the CIAs reported conclusions that it has a high degree of confidence that the crown prince ordered Khashoggis murder and sent his closest allies to Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul to carry it out. Read MoreThis article has been updated with staff. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Sixteen House Democrats vow to oppose Nancy Pelosi as next speaker By Mike DeBonis | Washington Post House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Sixteen House Democrats said Monday that they will vote to deny Rep. Nancy Pelosi another stint as House speaker, a show of defiance that puts her opponents on the cusp of forcing a seismic leadership shake-up as their party prepares to take the majority. Their pledge to oppose Pelosi (D-San Francisco), both in an internal caucus election and a Jan. 3 floor vote, delivered in a letter sent to Democratic colleagues, comes as Pelosi has marshaled a legion of supporters on and off Capitol Hill to make her case. But her opponents said Monday they are convinced it is time to select a new leader. We are thankful to Leader Pelosi for her years of service to our Country and to our Caucus, they wrote. However, we also recognize that in this recent election, Democrats ran on and won on a message of change. Pelosi has expressed complete confidence that she will retake the speakers gavel in January eight years after she lost it following massive Republican gains in the 2010 midterms and 16 years after she was first elevated to the top Democratic leadership post in the House. Come on in, the waters fine, she said Friday about a potential leadership challenge. The signers might not be able to force Pelosi out themselves. The size of the Democratic majority remains in flux, but Democrats have already won 232 seats, according to the Associated Press, with five races still undecided. All those races have Republican incumbents, but the Democratic challenger is ahead in only one of them. If the leads hold in the uncalled races, Democrats would have won 233 seats, a 16-seat majority. That means Pelosi could lose as many as 15 Democratic votes when she stands for election as speaker on Jan. 3. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democratic senators sue over Whitakers appointment as acting attorney general By Associated Press Acting U.S. Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) Three Senate Democrats filed a lawsuit Monday arguing that Acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitakers appointment is unconstitutional and asking a federal judge to remove him. The suit, filed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, argues that Whitakers appointment violates the Constitution because he has not been confirmed by the Senate. Whitaker was chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and was elevated to the top job after Sessions was ousted by President Trump on Nov. 7. The Constitutions Appointments Clause requires that the Senate confirm all principal officials before they can serve in their office. The Justice Department released a legal opinion last week that said Whitakers appointment would not violate the clause because he is serving in an acting capacity. The opinion concluded that Whitaker, even without Senate confirmation, may serve in an acting capacity because he has been at the department for more than a year at a sufficiently senior pay level. President Trump is denying senators our constitutional obligation and opportunity to do our job: scrutinizing the nomination of our nations top law enforcement official, Blumenthal said in a statement. The reason is simple: Whitaker would never pass the advice and consent test. In selecting a so-called constitutional nobody and thwarting every senators constitutional duty, Trump leaves us no choice but to seek recourse through the courts. The lawsuit comes days after a Washington lawyer challenged Whitakers appointment in a pending Supreme Court case dealing with gun rights. The attorney, Thomas Goldstein, asked the high court to find that Whitakers appointment is unconstitutional and replace him with Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein, the second-ranking Justice Department official, has been confirmed by the Senate and had been overseeing special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation. Whitaker is now overseeing the investigation. The Justice Department issued a statement Monday defending Whitakers appointment as lawful and said it comports with the Appointments Clause, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and legal precedent. There are over 160 instances in American history in which non-Senate confirmed persons performed, on a temporary basis, the duties of a Senate-confirmed position, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. To suggest otherwise is to ignore centuries of practice and precedent. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Gov. Rick Scott says Sen. Bill Nelson concedes Florida Senate race By Associated Press Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott speaks with his wife, Ann, by his side at an election watch party in Naples, Fla., on Nov. 7. (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Floridas Republican Gov. Rick Scott says incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson called him to concede defeat in their extremely tight race. Scott issued a statement Sunday saying Nelson graciously conceded their Senate race shortly after the states recount ended. The final results show Scott defeated Nelson by just over 10,000 votes out of 8 million cast. Nelson is scheduled to release a videotaped statement later Sunday. The defeat ends Nelsons lengthy political career. The three-term incumbent was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000. Before that he served six terms in the U.S. House and as state treasurer and insurance commissioner for six years. Scott spent more than $60 million of his own money on ads that portrayed Nelson as out-of-touch and ineffective. Nelson responded by questioning Scotts ethics and saying he would be under the sway of President Trump. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Orange County goes blue, as Democrats complete historic sweep of its seven congressional seats By Michael Finnegan Gil Cisneros defeated Republican Young Kim on Saturday in the last of Orange Countys undecided House races, giving Democrats a clean sweep of the states six most fiercely fought congressional contests and marking an epochal shift in a region long synonymous with political conservatism. With Cisneros victory, Democrats will constitute the entirety of Orange Countys seven-member congressional delegation, the first time since the 1930s that the birthplace of Richard Nixon, home of John Wayne and spiritual center of the Republican Party will have no GOP representative in the House. Sitting back in the 1960s, I would never have believed this would happen, said Stuart K. Spencer, a party strategist who spent more than half a century ushering Republicans, including President Reagan, into office. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Going, going ... with midterm wipeout, California Republican Party drifts closer to irrelevance By Michael Finnegan For a party in freefall the last two decades, California Republicans learned that its possible to plunge even further. The GOP not only lost every statewide office in the midterm election again, in blowout fashion but Democrats reestablished their supermajority in Sacramento, allowing them to legislate however they see fit After major defeats in Orange County and the Central Valley, two longtime strongholds, Republicans will have a significantly smaller footprint on Capitol Hill. (Democrats hold both Senate seats.) When the vote-counting is finished, the GOP may not even have enough lawmakers in Californias 53-member House delegation to field a nine-person softball team. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Congresswoman-elect Katie Porter says she will support Rep. Nancy Pelosi for speaker By Maya Sweedler Democratic Rep.-elect Katie Porter is congratulated by volunteers at her campaign headquarters in Irvine. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Congresswoman-elect Katie Porter said she plans to support Rep. Nancy Pelosis bid for speaker of the House and will make campaign finance reform her top priority when she enters the chamber in January. Im going to continue to have conversations, but so far I feel like Leader Pelosi is definitely making the things that were a priority to the families that elected me her priorities, including announcing her support for campaign finance reform and anti-corruption as HR1, Porter said in her first public appearance since being declared the winner in Californias 45th Congressional District on Thursday evening. It means a lot to me that she is a Californian. She understands our state, Porter added. When we talk about environmental protections, this is a person who understands as a Californian how fragile our environment is and whats at risk in things like drilling off our coasts. Porter, a law professor at UC Irvine, defeated two-term Republican Rep. Mimi Walters. The 45th District, covering inland Orange County, has never been represented by a Democrat. Porter became the third Democrat to claim a Republican-held seat in Orange County, following the victories of Harley Rouda in the 48th District and Mike Levin in the 49th. A fourth, Gil Cisneros, is running slightly ahead of his Republican opponent in the race for the open seat in the 39th District, which extends into Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Porter attributed the massive political shift in the county, for decades a conservative stronghold, to increased levels of political engagement. Folks here care about education, they care about the environment, they believe climate change is real, they want healthcare that protects preexisting conditions, they want a tax system that doesnt punish California, they want our schools and places of worship to be safe from gun violence, she said. Those are the issues we campaigned on, and to the extent that Donald Trump and Mimi Walters were on the wrong side of those issues, the voters have made clear what direction they want us to go. Porter was flying back from the East Coast when her race was called, she said. She turned on her phone to find 167 text messages from friends and supporters. Among them was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who was one of Porters teachers in law school and with whom she has remained close. The pair spoke via FaceTime this morning, she said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Bitter battle for Senate seat in Florida goes to hand recount By Associated Press Employees look through damaged ballots during a recount Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Floridas acrimonious battle for the U.S. Senate headed Thursday to a legally required hand recount after an initial review by ballot-counting machines showed Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson separated by less than 13,000 votes. But the highly watched contest for governor between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum appeared to be over, with a machine recount showing DeSantis with a large enough advantage over Gillum to avoid a hand recount in that race. Gillum, who conceded the contest on election night only to retract his concession later, said in a statement that it is not over until every legally casted vote is counted. The recount so far has been fraught with problems. One large Democratic stronghold in South Florida was unable to finish its machine recount by the Thursday deadline due to machines breaking down. A federal judge rejected a request to extend the recount deadline. We gave a heroic effort, said Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. If the county had three or four more hours, it would have made the deadline to recount ballots in the Senate race, she said. Meanwhile, election officials in another urban county in the Tampa Bay area decided against turning in the results of their machine recount, which came up with 846 fewer votes than originally counted. Media in South Florida reported that Broward County finished its machine recount but missed the deadline by a few minutes. Counties were ordered last weekend to do a machine recount of three statewide races because the margins were so tight. The next stage is a manual review of ballots that were not counted by machines to see whether there is a way to figure out voter intent. Scott called on Nelson to end the recount battle. Its time for Nelson to respect the will of the voters and graciously bring this process to an end rather than proceed with yet another count of the votes which will yield the same result and bring more embarrassment to the state that we both love and have served, the governor said in a statement. The recount has triggered multiple lawsuits, many of them filed by Nelson and Democrats. The legal battles drew the ire of U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker, who slammed the state for repeatedly failing to anticipate election problems. He also said the state law on recounts appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that decided the presidency in 2000. We have been the laughingstock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this, Walker said during a morning hearing. Walker vented his anger at state lawmakers and Palm Beach County officials, saying they should have made sure they had enough equipment in place to handle this kind of a recount. But he said he could not extend the recount deadline because he did not know when Palm Beach County would finish its work. This court must be able to craft a remedy with knowledge that it will not prove futile, Walker wrote in his ruling turning down the request from Democrats. It cannot do so on this record. This court does not and will not fashion a remedy in the dark. The overarching problem was created by the Florida Legislature, which Walker said passed a recount law that appears to run afoul of the 2000 Bush vs. Gore decision by locking in procedures that do not allow for potential problems. A total of six election-related lawsuits are pending in federal court in Tallahassee as well at least one lawsuit filed in state court. Walker also ordered that voters be given until 5 p.m. Saturday to show a valid identification and fix their ballots if they have not been counted due to mismatched signatures. Republicans appealed the ruling, but an appeals court turned down the request. State officials testified that nearly 4,000 mailed-in ballots were set aside because local officials decided the signatures on the envelopes did not match the signatures on file. If those voters can prove their identity, their votes will be counted and included in final official returns due from each county by noon Sunday. Walker was asked by Democrats to require local officials to provide a list of people whose ballots were rejected. But the judge appointed by President Obama refused the request, calling it inappropriate. Under state law, a hand review is required with races that have a margin of 0.25 percentage points or less. A state website put the unofficial results showing Scott ahead of Nelson by 0.15 percentage points. The margin between DeSantis and Gillum was at 0.41 points. The margin between Scott and Nelson had not changed much in the last few days, conceded Marc Elias, an attorney working for Nelsons campaign. But he said that he expected the vote tally to shrink due to the hand recount and the ruling on signatures. The developments fueled frustrations among Democrats and Republicans alike. Democrats want state officials to do whatever it takes to make sure every eligible vote is counted. Republicans, including President Trump, have argued without evidence that voter fraud threatens to steal races from the GOP. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democrat Gil Cisneros pulls ahead of Republican Young Kim as more votes are tallied in Orange and San Bernardino counties By Michael Finnegan Congressional candidate Gil Cisneros (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Democrat Gil Cisneros pulled ahead of Republican Young Kim in one of Californias undecided congressional races Thursday, an ominous sign for a GOP already reeling from its loss of four House seats in the state. In updated vote counts released by the registrars for Orange and San Bernardino counties, Kim fell 941 votes behind Cisneros in the contest to succeed Republican Rep. Ed Royce in Californias 39th Congressional District. The 39th straddles Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange counties. In another unresolved House race, Democrat Katie Porter pulled further ahead of Republican incumbent Mimi Walters in the 45th District, which includes Mission Viejo, Tustin, Irvine, Rancho Santa Margarita and Laguna Hills. Porter, a consumer attorney and UC Irvine law professor, is now 6,203 votes ahead. The Nov. 6 midterm election has been devastating to Republicans in California. If Cisneros and Porter win, the party will have lost six of its 14 House seats in the state, essentially a wipeout in every contest that both parties spent heavily to win. The three Republicans already bounced from Congress are Reps. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa, Steve Knight of Palmdale and Jeff Denham of Turlock in the San Joaquin Valley. Democrat Mike Levin won the seat of retiring GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista in the fourth district flipped so far. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Florida Senate race likely headed to second recount By Associated Press A Palm Beach County Sheriffs deputy walks past boxes of ballots before a recount on Nov. 15 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee) Unofficial Florida election results show that the governors race seems to be settled after a machine recount but the U.S. Senate race is likely headed to a hand recount. Republican Ron DeSantis is virtually assured of winning the nationally watched governors race over Democrat Andrew Gillum. Florida finished a machine recount Thursday that showed Gillum without enough votes to force a manual recount. Unofficial results posted on a state website show the margin between U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott is still thin enough to trigger a second review. State law requires a hand recount of races with a margin of 0.25 percentage point or less. Counties have until Sunday to inspect the ballots that did not record a vote when put through the machines. Those ballots are re-examined to see whether the voter skipped the race or marked the ballot in a way that the machines cannot read but can be deciphered. The election will be certified Tuesday. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Pelosi says she has the votes to become the next House speaker By John Wagner Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi speaks during a news conference in Washington on Nov. 14. (Susan Walsh) House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi insisted Thursday that she has the votes to become the chambers speaker despite solid opposition from more than a dozen Democrats who want fresh leadership when the party takes control next year. I have overwhelming support in my caucus to be speaker of the House, the San Francisco lawmaker told reporters. I happen to think at this point, Im the best person for that. A vote within the Democratic caucus is scheduled for Nov. 28. The full House votes on Jan. 3 to elect a new speaker. During her remarks, Pelosi touted the size of the Democratic victory in the midterms, which she called almost a tsunami. With a few races still to be decided, Democrats are poised to pick up close to 40 seats in the chamber. Pelosi called that the biggest victory for the Democrats since 1974, when the Watergate babies came in. Pelosis comments come as she faces solid opposition from at least 17 Democrats, setting the stage for a battle over who will ascend to one of the most powerful positions in Washington. After a campaign in which some Democrats prevailed in competitive districts by promising to oppose her, a coalition of incumbents and newly elected members has denied her a smooth path to the speakership. The defections, if they stand, would leave Pelosi, who has led the Democrats for more than 15 years, several votes short of the 218 she would need when the full House votes for speaker Jan. 3. However, no Democrat has stepped forward to run against her for a job she held from 2007 through 2010. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) told reporters Wednesday that shes being encouraged to stand for speaker if Pelosi doesnt have the votes. In an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday, she said she has been overwhelmed by the support from many of her colleagues for her possible entry into the race for House speaker. Over the last 12 hours, Ive been overwhelmed by the amount of support Ive received, Fudge said, adding that there are probably closer to 30" Democrats who have privately signaled that they are willing to oppose Pelosi. Things could change rapidly, Fudge said. Fudge, 66, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said she is building a diverse coalition as she mulls a speaker run, talking with allies in the caucus, moderate Democrats and newly elected members. To this point, Pelosi has enjoyed the strong backing of the Congressional Black Caucus. On Thursday, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), one of its members, wrote a letter to colleagues praising her insight, fortitude and strategic thinking and urging support for her speakership bid. Former Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., an African American who is contemplating a 2020 presidential bid, also voiced support for Pelosi, praising her in a tweet as an architect of the recent midterm success. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a leader of the resistance to Pelosi, said during an interview on CNN on Thursday that Fudge is the kind of new leader that we need in this party. Shes in touch with middle America. She understands what the American people want. Shes a next-generation leader that people will look to and say, Thats the future of our party, thats the future of our country, and thats exactly the kind of leader that I want to see as our next speaker. Wagner reports for the Washington Post. The Posts Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis, Paul Kane and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement GOP Rep. Jeff Denham concedes to Democrat Josh Harder in Central Valley race By Maya Sweedler Rep. Jeff Denham (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call) Republican Rep. Jeff Denham has conceded to Democrat Josh Harder in the race to represent Californias 10th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley. It has been an absolute honor to serve our community and represent the Central Valley in Congress over the past eight years, the 51-year-old congressman said. The enormity of the responsibility was never lost on me. My wife Sonia and I look forward to starting the next chapter of our lives. Harder said he had spoken with Denham and the two were committed to a productive transition. Denham, an Air Force veteran, previously represented the region in the state Senate for eight years and founded a company specializing in plastic packaging used in agriculture. While a member of Congress, he sat on the Transportation and Infrastructure, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture committees. First-time candidate Harder was born and raised in the district. After graduating from Stanford University, he served as vice president of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Since moving back, he has been teaching at Modesto Junior College. Denhams House seat is one of four in California that Republicans lost in the Nov. 6 election, with two contests in Orange County still undecided as of Thursday morning. Jeff Denham called me this morning and we had a very productive conversation. I'm honored that I've been chosen to serve our community in Congress, and we're both looking forward to a productive transition that best serves the people of District 10. Josh Harder (@JoshHarder) November 14, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democrat Katie Porter now nearly 3,800 votes ahead of GOP Rep. Mimi Walters By Maya Sweedler Rep. Mimi Walters thanks all of her supporters as she watches election results in Irvine on Nov. 7, 2018. (Alex Gallardo / Associated Press) Democrat Katie Porter opened a 3,797-vote lead Wednesday over Republican Rep. Mimi Walters in Orange Countys 45th Congressional District. In the neighboring 39th, Democrat Gil Cisneros has nearly tied the race against Republican Young Kim. Cisneros now trails Kim by a razor-thin margin of 122 votes. The 39th District straddles Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties; Wednesdays updated ballot counts came from the latter two. There are more than 202,000 ballots left to count in Orange County, which includes parts of seven congressional districts. The 45th is entirely in inland Orange County. In California, the ballots counted first tend to lean Republican and those tallied later skew Democratic. In the Central Valleys 21st Congressional District, Democratic challenger TJ Cox has pulled within 2 percentage points of Rep. David Valadao, who is serving his third term. The Associated Press had projected a win for Valadao on election night, but his 4,839-vote advantage has shrunk to 2,090. Back in CA-21, Valadao (R) wins a batch of ballots from his stronghold in Kings Co., but by a considerably smaller margin (14 points) than his previous ~30-point margin in the county. We're moving to Lean R from Likely R; today a bit scary for Valadao.https://t.co/WqJVUVkqGW Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 15, 2018 A spokesman for Valadao told the Fresno Bee that the changes were expected and that [s]tatistically, David Valadao has won this race. Democrats in California have already flipped four House seats, defeating three Republican incumbents and claiming an open seat previously held by the GOP. Reps. Steve Knight of Palmdale, Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa and Jeff Denham of Turlock have already lost their races, and retiring Rep. Darrell Issas San Diego County seat was claimed by Democrat Mike Levin. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump aide departs West Wing after rebuke from Melania Trump By Associated Press First Lady Melania Trump. (Alain Jocard / AFP-Getty Images) Deputy national security advisor Mira Ricardel is leaving the White House, one day after First Lady Melania Trumps office issued an extraordinary statement calling for her dismissal. No replacement was named. Aides said Ricardel clashed with the first ladys staff over her visit to Africa last month. Yet it is highly unusual for a first lady or her office to weigh in on personnel matters, especially the presidents national security staff. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Ricardel would have a new role in the administration. On Tuesday, Stephanie Grisham, the first ladys spokeswoman, released a statement saying, It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House. President Trumps White House has set records for administration turnover. Ricardel was the third person to hold the post under Trump. An ally of national security advisor John Bolton, Ricardel began her service in the Trump administration as associate director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, then moved to the Commerce Department last year. Bolton brought her into the West Wing shortly after taking the job in April. He is traveling in Asia this week alongside Vice President Mike Pence. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Race for House Minority Leader is Kevin McCarthys to lose By Associated Press (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is running to take over next years shrunken caucus in closed-door elections that will set the tone for the new Congress. The race for minority leader is McCarthys to lose Wednesday. But the California Republican, who is an ally of President Trump, must fend off a challenge from conservative Jim Jordan of Ohio. Jordan is a leader of the House Freedom Caucus. The two encountered questions and finger-pointing during a private meeting with lawmakers Tuesday night as the GOP sorted through the midterm defeat that put Democrats in the majority next year. Elections Wednesday will also determine party leadership in the Senate. Voting for the biggest race, Nancy Pelosis bid to return as the Democrats nominee for speaker, is later this month. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Melania Trump calls for the firing of deputy national security advisor By Justin Sink First Lady Melania Trump arrives at the Chateau de Versailles outside Paris on Nov. 11. (Alain Jocard / AFP/Getty Images ) First Lady Melania Trumps office said she wants Mira Ricardel, the deputy national security advisor, ousted from the White House. It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House, Trumps spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement in response to a question about reports the first lady had sought Ricardels removal. Ricardel is the top deputy to national security advisor John Bolton. She drew the first ladys wrath after threatening to withhold National Security Council resources during Melania Trumps trip to Africa last month unless Ricardel was included in her entourage, one person familiar with the matter said. Grishams statement comes as several media outlets have reported that President Trump is considering a broader shakeup of his administration, including ousting Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Sink and Jacobs report for Bloomberg. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print CNN sues Trump over the suspension of Jim Acostas White House press credentials By Jim Puzzanghera CNN said Tuesday that it is suing President Trump and other administration officials over the decision to suspend the White House press credentials of correspondent Jim Acosta after a conflict at a news conference last week. The suit, to be filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, escalates an ongoing battle between Trump and the cable news outlet that he frequently accuses of disseminating fake news for its aggressive coverage of him and his administration. The wrongful revocation of these credentials violates CNN and Acostas 1st Amendment rights of freedom of the press, and their 5th Amendment rights to due process, CNN said in a written statement. If left unchallenged, the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Maxine Waters to take aim at Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank as new head of House Financial Services Committee By Jim Puzzanghera Rep. Maxine Waters plans to zero in on two big banks Wells Fargo & Co. and Deutsche Bank when she becomes head of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. The Los Angeles congresswoman, now the committees top Democrat, is widely expected to gain the gavel after her party won control of the House in last weeks elections. While Waters has outlined a wide-ranging agenda, she said her focus on bank oversight will target two large institutions she has been tangling with for a while including one, Deutsche Bank, that spills into her bitter feud with President Trump. With Trump in the White House, I know that our fight for Americas consumers and investors will continue to be challenging. But I am more than up to that fight, Waters wrote in a letter last week to her Democratic colleagues on the committee that was obtained by The Times. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Heres how a controversial voting system will decide a congressional race in Maine By Kurtis Lee For the first time in U.S. history, a controversial voting system known as ranked choice is being used to decide a federal election. Its happening in Maine, which adopted the system in 2016. Rather than marking a single candidate, each voter ranks them all, assigning a first-place vote, a second-place vote and so on down the ballot. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print ACLU files suit to stop Trumps new asylum limits By Associated Press A group of Central American migrants march to the office of the U.N.'s humans rights body in Mexico City on Nov. 8. (Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press) The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a legal challenge to President Trumps order denying asylum to migrants if they cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco and argues the new rules are against the law. Attorney Lee Gelernt said the regulations will put families in danger. The suit seeks to declare the regulations invalid and wants a judge to stop the rules from going into effect while the litigation is pending. The new rules were spurred in part by caravans of Central American migrants slowly moving north on foot, but officials say they will apply to anyone caught crossing illegally. Officials say about 70,000 people who enter the country illegally claim asylum. The order invoked the same national security powers Trump used to push through his travel ban. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump on new acting AG: I dont know Matt Whitaker By Associated Press President Trump talks with reporters before departing for France on the South Lawn of the White House on Nov. 9. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) President Trump is moving to distance himself from Matthew Whitaker as he faces criticism over his choice for acting attorney general. Trump told reporters Friday that I dont know Matt Whitaker and said he didnt speak with Whitaker about special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation. Whitaker has made public comments critical of Muellers investigation, and critics have called on Whitaker to recuse himself from oversight of the inquiry. Under former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the investigation was overseen by Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein. Of the scrutiny Whitaker is facing, Trump said: Its a shame that no matter who I put in they go after. He also called Whitaker a very highly respected man. Whitaker was Sessions chief of staff before Trump made him Sessions interim replacement. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg out of hospital after fall By Associated Press The Supreme Court says 85-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is home after being released from the hospital. She had been admitted for treatment and observation after fracturing three ribs in a fall. The court said Ginsburg was released Friday. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg says she is doing well and working from home. The court had previously said the justice fell in her office at the court on Wednesday evening and went to George Washington University Hospital in Washington early Thursday after experiencing discomfort overnight. Ginsburg broke two ribs in a fall in 2012. She had two prior bouts with cancer and had a stent implanted to open a blocked artery in 2014. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gun-control activist Lucy McBath defeats GOP Rep. Karen Handel in Georgia By Associated Press Lucy McBath speaks during a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on Nov. 2 at Morehouse College in Atlanta. (Alyssa Pointer / Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Democratic gun-control activist Lucy McBath has defeated Republican Rep. Karen Handel of Georgia in a suburban congressional district long considered safe for the GOP. Handel had to seek reelection after winning her seat last year in a close special election race against Democrat Jon Ossoff. McBath became an advocate for stricter gun laws after her son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot at a Florida gas station in 2012 by a man angry over loud music the teenager and his friends were playing in a car. McBaths margin of victory was narrow enough for Handel to have requested a recount. The Associated Press declared McBath the winner Thursday after Handel conceded. Handel conceded in a statement Thursday morning, stating that after reviewing all of the election data, its clear she came up a bit short in Tuesdays vote. Handel congratulated McBath, offering good thoughts and much prayer for the journey that lies ahead for her. McBath, who is African American, declared victory Wednesday. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hospitalized after fracturing 3 ribs in fall By Associated Press Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press) The Supreme Court says 85-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fractured three ribs in a fall in her office at the court and is in the hospital. The court says the justice went to George Washington University Hospital in Washington early Thursday after experiencing discomfort overnight. The court says the fall occurred Wednesday evening. Ginsburg was admitted to the hospital for treatment and observation after tests showed she fractured three ribs. Ginsburg broke two ribs in a fall in 2012. She has had two prior bouts with cancer and had a stent implanted to open a blocked artery in 2014. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print White House suspends press pass of CNNs Jim Acosta after heated exchange with Trump By Associated Press The White House on Wednesday suspended the press pass of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after he and President Trump had a heated confrontation during a news conference. They began sparring after Acosta asked Trump about the caravan of migrants heading from Latin America to the southern U.S. border. When Acosta tried to follow up with another question, Trump said, Thats enough! and a female White House aide unsuccessfully tried to grab the microphone from Acosta. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement accusing Acosta of placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern, calling it absolutely unacceptable. The interaction between Acosta and the intern was brief, and Acosta appeared to brush her arm as she reached for the microphone and he tried to hold onto it. Pardon me, maam, he told her. Acosta tweeted that Sanders statement that he put his hands on the aide was a lie. CNN said in a statement that the White House revoked Acostas press pass in retaliation for his challenging questions Wednesday, and the network accused Sanders of lying about Acostas actions. This conduct is absolutely unacceptable. It is also completely disrespectful to the reporters colleagues not to allow them an opportunity to ask a question. President Trump has given the press more access than any President in history. Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) November 8, 2018 Contrary to CNNs assertions there is no greater demonstration of the Presidents support for a free press than the event he held today. Only they would attack the President for not supporting a free press in the midst of him taking 68 questions from 35 different reporters... Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) November 8, 2018 As a result of todays incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice. Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) November 8, 2018 Sanders provided fraudulent accusations and cited an incident that never happened. This unprecedented decision is a threat to our democracy and the country deserves better, CNN said. Jim Acosta has our full support. Journalists assigned to cover the White House apply for passes that allow them daily access to press areas in the West Wing. White House staffers decide whether journalists are eligible, though the Secret Service determines whether their applications are approved. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump spars with reporters at post-election news briefing, ordering several to sit down By Associated Press President Trump assails CNNs Jim Acosta at a White House news conference. President Trump sparred with reporters at his post-election news conference, ordering several to sit down and telling another hes a rude, terrible person. He told another reporter hes not a fan of yours, either. The presidents mood turned sour Wednesday after reporters pressed him on why he referred to a migrant caravan making its way to the U.S. on foot through Mexico as an invasion. Trump ramped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric against the caravan in the final days of the midterm elections. Trump was also pressed on why his campaign aired an ad featuring a Mexican immigrant convicted of killing American police officers and linking the mans actions to the caravan. Several television networks pulled the ad after airing it or declined to air it at all. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Im living one hour at a time at this point By Christine Mai-Duc Republican congressional candidate Young Kim and gubernatorial candidate John Cox campaign in Rowland Heights. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Republican congressional candidate Young Kim greeted gubernatorial candidate John Coxs giant campaign bus, the words HELP IS ON THE WAY emblazoned across it, as it rolled into the parking lot outside her Rowland Heights field office. Standing beside Cox on Saturday, Kim predicted that a string of GOP victories Tuesday would start with voters repealing the gas tax hike. Can you imagine Gavin Newsom being our governor? Can you imagine Gil Cisneros being your representative? Kim asked the crowd, to loud boos and cries of Nooo! The former state assemblywoman who worked for retiring Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) is vying for his seat with Democrat Gil Cisneros. She led the crowd in chants of Enough is enough! and, though short-lived, Drain the swamp! Ive served you in Sacramento and Ive seen dysfunction personally, Kim continued. We cannot continue that route. She urged her supporters to stay and help make phone calls or walk neighborhoods. Lets get out there the 72 hours is really critical. Its all going to come down to a few votes, it could be your vote, she said pointing to her left, then pivoting right, it could be your vote. So dont sit back and do nothing. Every night I go to sleep thinking, OK, how many more votes can I get or how many more people can I call tomorrow? Kim said. It can be physically exhausting but Im mentally, emotionally very energized. She listed off her events so far that day and the next one she was heading to. Thats just what I can remember, she said. Im living one hour at a time at this point. Kims campaign invited press to two of her events on Saturday. After she was whisked away to her next event a high tea fundraiser in Walnut, a couple dozen volunteers remained. John Freeman, a statewide field manager for the state Republican Party, tried to pump them up. This is the Super Bowl. Were not in an NFL stadium, were not getting paid millions of dollars, but you know what? Freeman said. Were walking on the field right now. This is that high-stakes-level game. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Its going to be tough out there Democratic candidate Katie Porter speaks to volunteers in Mission Viejo. Jon Bauman, Bowzer from the band Sha Na Na, is in the background. (Victoria Kim / Los Angeles Times ) Judging from the cheers in the crowd, about half those assembled at Katie Porters campaign headquarters in Mission Viejo Sunday morning were old enough to remember 70s rock n roll star Bowzer from the band Sha Na Na. Jon Bauman, as Bowzer is known off stage, said it was her position on senior issues including retirement and social security that has him out supporting Porter over her opponent, incumbent Rep. Mimi Walters. I want you to make sure every phone is called and every door is knocked, he told the crowd of about 80 volunteers. There has never been a more important election. Both Bauman and his nephew, California Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman, were interrupted by yells from Trump supporters coming from an adjoining hillside. We love Trump, the voice cried out. We love him too, he makes great fodder, the younger Bauman retorted, before introducing Porter. Porter, a UC Irvine law professor and first-time candidate, acknowledged the uphill battle some of her canvassers might face in this more conservative end of the long-red Orange County district. I know its going to be tough out there, she said, motioning to the hillside. But she said the attacks meant the other side viewed her campaign as a significant threat. This election is going to be close, she said. If we dont fight all the way to the finish line, until 8 oclock on Tuesday, this could slip away. Bowzer then took to a keyboard piano to lead the crowd in a reworded rendition of the song Good Night Sweetheart: Good night, Mimi Walters, he crooned. A woman in a black tank top, jeans and flip flops holding a cup of coffee later joined the crowd with her two sons, 17 and 14, the younger one wearing a Trump 2016 T-shirt. She declined to give her name, saying she was concerned about being attacked, but said she lived up the hill and said she had been the one yelling. She said she was encouraging her sons to talk to people on both sides and make up their own minds. We need to have a government that runs the way government teachers are telling kids its supposed to be run, said the woman, a retired registered dental assistant who voted early for Mimi Walters. Referring to Democrats, she said: Theyve had control over all these years and Californias gone to crap. Among those canvassing was Stacie Campbell, 37, who was at the launch with her husband Jerome and three children, the youngest of whom was 2 months old. Campbell, a Mission Viejo resident who runs a business, had never canvassed or volunteered for campaigns before, and her husband is a French citizen and unable to vote. She said they had been talking to their children the older ones are 5 and 2 about the presidency and the government since Trumps election. Together, they worked on homemade Katie Porter lawn signs and put them up around town. This is the first time its felt like a big deal and there isnt a president up for election, she said. Because her city is a mix of conservatives and liberals her next-door neighbor is an NRA-supporting Republican she the race felt m Swamped by a tidal wave of Democratic cash, Republicans entered the final 72 hours of the midterm campaign scrambling to preserve their slim Senate majority as a bulwark against the increasing prospect of a Democrat-run House. Needing to gain 23 House seats for control, Democrats were burrowing deep into once-safe Republican territory, from the suburbs of Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Houston to Californias historically conservative bastions of Orange County and the Central Valley. The most optimistic GOP scenarios had the party hanging on to its majority in the 435-member chamber by a whisper-thin margin. In the battle for the Senate, it was Democrats who were on the defensive, fighting to protect besieged incumbents in half a dozen states Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia that Donald Trump carried in 2016, in some cases by commanding double-digit margins. Republicans hold a 51-49 Senate majority; 35 of the seats are on Tuesdays ballot. Two years after sending Trump to the White House, Americans were rendering their first electoral verdict on his performance, with the early returns in many states suggesting keen voter interest and a significantly higher-than-normal turnout for a midterm election. By late Saturday, more than 33 million Americans had already cast their ballots. Advertisement Signs pointed to a harsh judgment. The truth is people arent in love with either party, said Mark Mellman, a veteran Democratic pollster working with candidates in more than a dozen races across the country. But they see the Republicans in power, and theyre not satisfied with the way Republicans are running Congress. Theyre not satisfied with the way Trump is running the presidency, and that helps Democrats. Ignoring voices within his own party, Trump has used his presidential megaphone to end the campaign on a dark and sinister note, skipping past good economic news and summoning the xenophobic and nativist themes wall off Mexico, end birthright citizenship that have been his political hallmark. I can only go for four or five minutes with that stuff, and then the crowd says I love you and they start dwindling off, Trump said at an airport rally Saturday in Montana, referring to Fridays strong employment report. But what I do is I talk about some problems that we have. We have a problem at the border. We have a problem with illegal immigration. Along with gains in the House, which they last controlled in 2010, Democrats were counting on winning a number of governors offices, narrowing a significant GOP edge, and replenishing their ranks in state legislatures after years of devastating losses under President Obama. In California, the fulcrum in the fight for control of the House, both sides agreed that the most hotly contested races in the San Joaquin Valley, the high desert north of Los Angeles and the Orange County suburbs were too close to call. At least half a dozen of Californias 53 House seats appeared to be in play in the final weekend of the campaign, thanks in no small part to an unprecedented torrent of campaign contributions. In all six competitive races, Democratic challengers have out-raised their Republican opponents, some of them sitting members of Congress, by margins of 2 to 1 or a great deal more. 1 / 15 Actress Kristen Bell speaks to volunteers for Democratic congressional candidate Katie Hill on Sunday in Simi Valley. (Michael Finnegan / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 15 Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, center, poses for a photo with supporters Emma Macias, left, and husband Humberto Macias, right during a thank-you event for campaign volunteers. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 15 Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts makes his last pitch to the citys largest black congregation Sunday on why they should reelect him. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 15 Comedian Chelsea Handler speaks during a Vote for Our Lives rally at the UC Irvine Student Center on Sunday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 15 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom joined more than 100 members of over a dozen local unions including, nurses, janitors, grocery store workers and security officers at a get-out-the-vote rally Sunday. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 15 Michele Reed, left, cheers for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom at a Sunday get-out-the-vote rally in Los Angeles attended by more than 100 members of over a dozen local unions. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 15 Supporters of Congressional candidate Katie Porter cheer at a rally attended by Sen. Kamala Harris and Chelsea Handler. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 15 Congressional candidate Young Kim, left, attends rally with gubernatorial candidate John Coxin Rowland Heights. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 15 Sen. Kamala Harris attends a rally for congressional candidate Katie Porter. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 15 Supporters of Proposition 6, which would repeal the gas tax increase, rally outside GOP Rep. Mimi Walters campaign headquarters in Irvine. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 15 Sen. Kamala Harris, left, and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom bring pizzas to the campaign office of Democratic congressional candidate Harley Rouda and greet his wife, Kaira Rouda. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 15 Ione Kauser of La Habra campaigns for gubernatorial candidate John Cox, who stopped in Rowland Heights on his statewide bus tour for a rally with congressional candidate Young Kim. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 15 Supporters attend a rally for Democratic congressional candidate Gil Cisneros. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 15 Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Beach) mingles with volunteers working the phones at her campaign office in Newport Beach. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 15 Democratic congressional candidate Katie Hill greets supporters as she arrives at the Newhall Family Theatre in Santa Clarita for a rally. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) If you had told me a year ago this is how much money Democrats had, I would have laughed at you and told you that you dont know what youre talking about, said Corry Bliss, executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee aligned with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). The organization, the largest outside group supporting Republican candidates, has collected close to $160 million a huge increase in its fundraising performance and is still being outspent in 45 of 51 contests, Bliss said, including the six it targeted in California with $25 million. In all, candidates and their partisan allies are expected to spend more than $5 billion nationwide, an increase of more than $1 billion from the 2014 midterm, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the flow of campaign cash. Democrats nationally have far out-raised Republicans, a remarkable feat for a party out of power in Washington and a financial testament to the fervor of the anti-Trump opposition. Though raking in vast sums of money is no guarantee of victory, the cash advantage has allowed Democrats to greatly expand their target list, forcing the GOP to abandon candidates among them Diane Harkey in northern San Diego County while scrambling to save incumbents in Kentucky, North Carolina and other red redoubts that once seemed beyond Democratic reach. Still, burned by Trumps victory and their crushing disappointment in 2016, Democrats were wary of overconfidence. Almost all of these races in the swing districts, or even the slightly Republican districts, they are all very, very close, said Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, a member of the Democratic House leadership. The key, she said, would be the effort candidates expend to make sure their supporters cast their votes: Do we have a good enough ground game? The truth is people arent in love with either party. But they see the Republicans in power, and theyre not satisfied. Mark Mellman, veteran Democratic pollster Elections at the midpoint of a presidents four-year term have historically been a referendum on the incumbent, and Trump has made this one all the more so, in both word and deed. I am on the ticket, he routinely proclaims at political rallies, stating his import as party leader more explicitly than any of his recent predecessors. Trumps schedule in the final days of the campaign 11 rallies in eight states he carried in 2016 was entirely consistent with his approach to the presidency, which has focused on stoking his base of support with very little effort to broaden his appeal. Indeed, the president seemed mostly interested in hanging on to the Senate, even at the expense of losing the GOP majority in the House, which he acknowledged is possible. Were doing really well in the Senate, but [it] could happen, he told supporters Friday night in Huntington, W.Va. You know what I say? Dont worry about it. Ill just figure it out. The fight for the Senate has always favored Republicans. The GOP is defending just nine seats, compared with 26 for the Democrats, and the most competitive contests save in Florida are in the heavily rural, conservative-leaning states that are the foundation of Trumps political support. The fight for the House, by contrast, is being waged largely in cities and their surrounding suburbs, which teem with legions of angry and exasperated women, young people and the comfortably-off college graduates who constitute the heart of the anti-Trump resistance. The presidents closing argument in the campaign seemed unlikely to narrow the countrys wide chasm. In his tweets and raucous appearances on the stump, Trump has turned the focus away from the robust economy on which many Republicans would prefer to campaign to an invented immigration crisis and phantom menaces. Making his closing pitch, Trump has vowed to repeal the birthright citizenship guaranteed in the Constitution, pledged to deploy thousands of troops along the border with Mexico and released a misleading ad featuring an immigrant who killed two California sheriffs deputies in 2014 while living in the U.S. illegally. (Though the ad blames Democrats, the immigrant, Luis Bracamontes, last entered the country when Republican George W. Bush was president.) While Trumps ominous exhortations may electrify core supporters, they seem less likely to resonate with independents and other swing voters who worry more about the cost of groceries and gasoline than a bedraggled procession of immigrants hundreds of miles away. The question, said David Winston, who does polling for the Republican leadership in the House and Senate, is whether undecided and still-persuadable voters are thinking tweets or are they thinking policy as they mark their ballots. Winston would prefer the latter, but, like so much else this election season, the atmospherics of these final campaign days revolve around Trump, his actions and his rhetoric. Times staff writers Jennifer Haberkorn and Eli Stokols in Washington contributed to this report. mark.barabak@latimes.com Twitter: @markzbarabak Times staff writers Jennifer Haberkorn and Eli Stokols in Washington contributed to this report. The contest between two Newport-Mesa Unified School District board candidates is becoming increasingly heated and personal in the elections final days. Area 4 incumbent Karen Yelsey, a board member for 12 years, is being challenged by Gina Nick, who owns a medical practice. While Yelsey has made public statements calling out Nicks history of personal bankruptcies, Nick has lodged claims of her own, including that Yelsey is breaking a promise to limit her terms on the board and is somehow connected to the online publication of her daughters personal information. Documents show Nick filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2009 and again in 2017. The first, which was jointly filed with her ex-husband, showed more than $785,000 of general unsecured debt, while last years showed more than $185,000 filed under her name alone. Yelsey calls this a red flag for voters, arguing Nick would not be fiscally responsible in dealing with NMUSDs $300 million operating budget. But Nick says she was advised by legal counsel to file for bankruptcy during divorce proceedings to provide a clean break from her ex-husband. I have been the sole breadwinner for many years and was involved in a complicated financial divorce, Nick told the Daily Pilot via text message. It is disappointing that my opponent has chosen to engage in a low-level smear campaign to redirect our voters attention away from her promise to only serve 12 years. Though Yelsey admitted that during her first campaign in 2006 she advocated for 12-year term limits, she said she never made a promise to leave after three terms. The longer Ive been on the board, the less enamored I am by the idea of term limits, Yelsey said, adding that shed be happy to mentor someone to take over her seat, but that no one has approached her with interest. Nicks bankruptcy filings were passed onto Yelsey by one of her supporters, Suzanne Gauntlet, a heavily involved Parent-Teacher Assn. member. Gauntlet said she conducted a web search on Nick to learn who she was after seeing one of her campaign ads on Facebook. I have deep roots in this community, and like everybody else, if you are involved in the schools, youre pretty passionate about it, Gauntlet said. This passion also led Gauntlet to peruse Nicks social media pages, where she found information on where she lived and where her 6-year-old daughter attended school. She said she shared this information with other parents via an email, which then ended up on a community news website without her consent. The information was later redacted. Nick, however, said she believes Yelsey was behind the release of the information about her daughter, and rejects the notion that it was found online, arguing that a school official had to have accessed her daughters records. The school district looked into the claim after an attorney brought it forward during the Sept. 11 board meeting. After researching this matter, our findings have determined that no NMUSD employee or official disclosed private student information, district spokeswoman Annette Franco wrote in a Sept. 13 email. Nick said she has since contacted officials with the California Department of Education, who have expressed concern. Attorney Steve Baric, Nicks spokesman, raised a separate concern about Yelsey Thursday, claiming that video endorsements from teachers posted on her candidate Facebook violate a government code that prohibits the use of public resources for campaign activity. A complaint on the matter was filed with the Orange County district attorneys office, Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokeswoman for the D.A., confirmed Friday. No filing decision has been made at this point, Van Der Linden said. According to Yelsey, the videos were taken during non-school hours, when no students were on campus. Attorney Dan Shinoff, who has served as legal counsel for school districts in San Diego and Orange counties, said that Yelseys videos dont contain anything even close to a violation. I dont know how youd put a monetary value on being inside a school building, Shinoff said. Yelsey, whose top campaign priorities are academic excellence, safety and fiscal responsibility, said that she has to take Nick as a serious threat in this race. When I do something, whether it be as a school board member or something else, I put my whole self into it, she said. Nick said she hopes to bring leadership, mentorship, honesty and collaboration to the school board, if elected. In a text message she said she had no other comments that could be used to promote more unnecessary divisiveness. I have no problem with Karen. I am sure she has done great things, Nick wrote. I am simply here to take the seat with additional fresh ideas after her 12-year term. charity.lindsey@latimes.com Twitter @CharityNLindsey Chris Weidman vs. Ronaldo Jacare Souza live round-by-round coverage Chris Weidman is one of the most accomplished middleweight fighters in the sports history. The former UFC middleweight champion ended the historic run of Anderson Silva and is looking to recapture that gold. He was originally scheduled to take on Luke Rockhold, who defeated him for that title. An injury forced Rockhold to pull out so now Weidman will take another of the worlds elite middleweights in Jacare Souza. Souza is a jiu jitsu master who over time has added excellent striking as well and he is looking for his shot at the UFC middleweight title. This is one of the top middleweight bouts of the year. Round 1. Weidman connects with a jab early. Weidman briefly has a Thai plum and lands a knee before Souza backs away. Weidman knocks Souza back with a right hand at the end of a combination. Weidman doesnt pursue all that aggressively, a measure of his respect for Souza. Souza is throwing low kicks regularly but not many higher kicks. Weidman is more active with his boxing and is generally getting off first. Souza lands a couple of stiff punches to the body and follows with a punch to the head that appears to stagger Weidman a little. Good, competitive round. 10-9 Weidman. Round 2. Weidman lands a strong two punch combination early. Souza continues to mix in low strikes but Weidman is attacking the head much more. Souza decides to really pursue a minute or so in and he opens up with power punches from close range. Weidman is firing back but Souza is generally landing the better shots and it feels like Souza could be one big blow away from having Weidman in trouble. Weidman answers back and hurts Souza with some punches. Souza attacks with some uppercuts that land solidly. Weidman gets Souza down briefly. Souza nearly reverses and gets top position and they end up back on their feet. 10-9 Souza. Round 3. Both men come out swinging in the third, attacking at different levels. This has been an excellent bout. Weidman is pawing at Souza with his jab and preventing Souza from getting going by just continuously pushing the pace. Souza drops Weidman with a right hand. Weidman is in deep trouble and eventually the fight is stopped. Winner: Ronaldo Jacare Souza, TKO, round 3. Its been a long pursuit for Souza looking for that elusive UFC middleweight title shot and he may finally get it after that win. It was an excellent fight and a highlight reel finish over a big name opponent who was competing very well. For Weidman, its surely a very disappointing setback near his hometown in a fight he might have been on his way to winning. Hello, my name is John Cherwa and welcome back to our horse racing newsletter as we get ready for the final day of the Santa Anita fall meeting. Filly & Mare Sprint: With five Southern California horses in this race, including the two favorites, you would have thought the chance of a win was pretty good. But it wasnt. Shamrock Rose, breaking from the 14, just got a head up in a blanket finish of four horses to win the seven-furlong race. She paid $53.80 to win and was followed over the line by Chalon, Anonymity ( Richard Mandella ), Marleys Freedom ( Bob Baffert ) and Golden Mischief. Selcourt, for John Sadler , went to the lead early but faded badly in the stretch to finish 12 th . Skye Diamonds ( Bill Spawr ) was 10 th and Miss Sunset ( Jeff Bonde ) was 14 th. Was I surprised we won? asked winning trainer Mark Casse . It was a tough race, but shes a good horse. I told [jockey] Irad [ Ortiz Jr. ] I don't know if she's good enough, but she'll give you everything she has. And, she's good. It goes back to Allen Jerkins , who always said run them when they're good' so we came back in two weeks. She just didn't get away like she can, Baffert said. I am pretty disappointed. And she was pretty wide the whole way. She tried but she was just not good enough today. You have to be real good today and she was not real good. Didn't bring her A game. Turf Sprint : In a stirring stretch duel, Drayden Van Dyke was able to get Stormy Liberal a neck in front of World of Trouble at the wire to win the 5 furlong race. Stormy Liberal, trained by Peter Miller , was the first repeat winner of a Breeders Cup race this year. The pair separated themselves from the field with the third-place horse, Disco Partner, more than seven lengths behind them. The 6-year-old paid $16.00 to win. The emotions and the highs and lows I have gone through in this past year are indescribable, Miller said. I am just thankful to be back here. It is amazing to win this race two years in a row with this horse. Dirt Mile : If it wasnt for bad luck (at least for now), Sadler would have no luck at all as he failed to win his first Breeders Cup race in 43 tries. Catalina Cruiser was expected to be his best shot of the four horses entered on Saturday and went off at less than even money. But it was City of Light who dominated, winning by 2 lengths over Seeking the Soul. Catalina Cruiser was sixth. It was the first Breeders Cup win for Santa Anita based trainer Michael McCarthy , who used to be an assistant for Todd Pletcher . City of Light paid $7.20 to win. Seeking the Soul was second followed by Bravazo, Firenze Fire and Giant Expectations ( Peter Eurton ). Isotherm ( Phil DAmato ) finished ninth. I cant tell you how long Ive been waiting for this, McCarthy said. I always thought this would be a mismatch. I thought he would love this racetrack. Backing up to one turn is where his best races were. I thought he would run away and hide and he did just that. Filly & Mare Turf: Chad Brown had five horses in this 1 3/8 mile race so it is little surprise that one of them, Sister Charlie would be the winner. But it was close. Sister Charlie came late to beat Wild Illusion by a neck. The interesting part of this race was the couple minutes it took for the gate crew to get Wild Illusion, making her first U.S. start after racing in England and France, in the gate. They even resorted to blindfolding the filly, a practice I personally find as just wrong. How would you liked to be pushed and pulled when you cant see? But, it appeared that scratching wasnt an option because the horse was 5-2 and, as it turned out, almost won. Sprint : Miller did the double again, winning his second race, the second year in a row, with the same horse. Roy H was dominant, winning by 3 lengths. It was also the first Breeders Cup win for jockey Paco Lopez . Roy H paid $7.40 to win. Whitmore was second and Imperial Hint was third. Hes really training good and doing good, Miller said. I just cant say enough about this horse. Paco Lopez gave him a great ride. Just unbelievable. I cant believe it. Too good to be true. I loved my position early, Lopez said. I let him go a little early and he started a big move. I knew they were going fast up front. I just had a really good ride from him. Mile : Sadler almost broke his now zero for 44 winless streak as Catapult just got passed at the wire in this grass race. Expert Eye won by a half-length over Catapult, while Analyze It was third. Expert Eye paid $13.80 to win and gave Frankie Dettori his 13 th Breeders Cup win. Hes run a great race, Stoute said. Last time at Chantilly, he did not get the rub of the green. I thought down the back straight that Frankie [Dettori] may have had him two slots behind, but he was in control. We love coming to the Breeders Cup. Its always great coming here. He broke sharp and put me in a good spot on the first turn, Van Dyke said. I had a clear trip from there on out. He gave me a good kick on the far turn, passed (Analyze It) late but couldnt hold off the one on the outside in the last couple jumps. Distaff : No question that Monomoy Girl was the best horse in this 1 1/8-mile race, but the bigger question is what has happened to Abel Tasman, who finished 11 th in the 11-horse race. The Eclipse Award winning filly has now run two terrible races in a row. It wouldnt be surprising to see her retired soon. She ran the way she was training, winning trainer Brad Cox said. She was training like a monster and she ran like a monster. She is a special filly, one of a kind, an unbelievable filly. Baffert didnt parse words about Abel Tasmans performance. She just quit, Baffert said. She just quit running. Sometimes they do that. I thought she was in a good spot, he ( Mike Smith ) got aggressive with her, but she just doesnt want to run anymore it looks like. Smith was ever so slightly more hopeful. I wish I knew what was wrong with her, Smith said. I wish it was something I can tell you so I can fix it. Turf : There were only two fillies in the $4 million Turf and they came up one-two. Enable, who has won nine-of-10 lifetime, fought hard to pass Magical in deep stretch to win by of a length. It was Enables first race in the United States. In fact, seven of the 13 horses are based outside the U.S. Enable is coming off a second win in the prestigious Arc de Triomphe in France. She did have to work to get to the front, but in the end the 1 -mile distance proved just right for her. She became the first Arc winner to win a Breeders Cup race. Enables next move is up in the air. Theres no great hurry [to make a decision], said Teddy Grimthorpe , the racing manager for Juddmonte Farms. Shes going back to Newmarket [England]. Well make sure shes all right and then think about the future. Classic : Let the horse of the year talk begin. Sadler finally broke his long Breeders Cup losing streak with a win in the Classic with Accelerate. No doubt, Accelerate has shown sustained excellence over the entire year. But, Justify won the Triple Crown. Accelerate had the outside post (14) on Saturday and broke cleanly as Mendelssohn went to the front. The Baffert pair of McKinzie and West Coast were in a good position off the pace. Accelerate was content to be fifth on the outside. Just shy of a mile, jockey Joel Rosario moved Accelerate to the front as the Baffert horses fell back. Heading into the stretch Accelerate pulled even. At the top of the stretch, he was in front by a length as Mendelssohn started to fade. From there, he withstood a challenge from Thunder Snow between horses and by the finish line held off the hard-charging Gunnevera to win by a length. This horse is special, said Kosta Hronis , who along with his brother Pete own the horse. Hes shown up every time. Hes danced every dance. Hes been solid. This is horse of the year. Its a body of work and what hes done in the last 12 months. I think hes well deserved to get that honor. Theres no doubt. A decent card was certainly overshadowed by the Breeders Cup, but lets quickly get to the stakes winners. In the $200,000 Golden State Juvenile, for 2-year-olds going seven furlongs, Cruel Intention topped Galilean by a neck to win the race. In the other stakes, the Grade 3 $100,000 Sen. Ken Maddy Stakes for fillies and mares going 6 furlongs down the hillside turf course, Storm the Hill pulled off a 1 3/4-length victory for trainer DAmato and jockey Rafael Bejarano . She was much the best, Bejarano said. Her best performance is at 6 . She won at the distance and won again [Saturday]. She had a good turn of foot in the stretch, especially with that pace. Also, cant say enough about the field sizes, as seven of the 10 races have at least 10 horses. And, there are five turf races and two graded stakes. One more thing, post time is 11 a.m., which will be noon if you dont forget to reset your clocks as we go off daylight saving time. Its a great way to end its short fall season before Del Mar picks up on Friday. The first stakes is the Grade 2 $200,000 Goldikova Stakes for fillies and mares going a mile on the turf. The deserved 9-5 is Vasilika, who is one of the best stories of the year. She was claimed for $40,000 by Jerry Hollendorfer and has won eight of nine during that stretch and seven in a row including the Grade 1 Rodeo Drive. Flavien Prat continues as the regular rider. The second favorite is Cambodia at 5-2. She lost her last two races to Vasilika including a third-place finish in the Rodeo. Van Dyke rides for Tom Proctor . Post time is around 12:30 p.m. The Grade 2 $200,000 Twilight Derby is the other stakes or horses going 1 1/8 miles on the turf. River Boyne is the 5-2 favorite for Jeff Mullins and Prat. He has won five of his last seven, although he was third last out in the Del Mar Derby. Have At It, a shipper from New York, and Platinum Warrior, who is running his second race in the U.S. after starting in Ireland, are both second favorites at 4-1. Post will be about 2:50 p.m. Late-running sprinter from the Richard Baltas stable has been freshened since Aug. 24 but gets back on his favorite downhill turf layout and might be able to run these down at a solid price. Three of his four lifetime wins have come down the hill and he gets Rosario, who is in town to ride after a big Breeders' Cup weekend. Making only her third career start, this 2-year-old filly has much upside and improved sharply when scoring a one-length trial victory in her second outing. She took advantage of bad gate antics by the two favorites in her trial victory but looked smooth throughout. She showed promise in prior neck debut loss at shorter distance when breaking slow. I also fear Tamura, a three-time winner who was claimed for $20,000 by Charles Treece from his last troubled nose win. I suggest a win bet on Seaduction and make a 3-6 exacta box. Always looking to add more subscribers to this newsletter. Cant beat the price. If you like it, tell someone. If you dont like it, then youre probably not reading this. Either way, send to a friend and just have them click here and sign up . Remember, its free, and all we need is your email, nothing more. Santa Anita Charts Results for Saturday, November 3. Copyright 2018 by Equibase Company. Reproduction prohibited. Santa Anita, Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California. 21st day of a 22-day meet. Clear & Fast FIRST RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $30,000. Maiden Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $50,000-$40,000. Time 21.64 45.28 58.61 1:12.46 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 1 All I Can Say 123 1 6 53 4hd 32 11 Quinonez 2.50 6 According to Buddy 113 6 3 41 57 42 2hd Fuentes 21.70 8 Bless His Heart 115 8 4 2hd 23 1hd 32 Figueroa 2.60 2 Lil Milo 120 2 5 1hd 1hd 2 45 Bejarano 3.60 7 Astonishing Tweet 113 7 1 34 31 56 52 Espinoza 2.30 5 Levi's Saint James 118 5 2 72 8 8 6nk Fuentes 61.80 3 Icouldonlyimagine 120 3 7 62 63 62 73 Jimenez 29.40 4 Drops in the Ocean 118 4 8 8 72 71 8 Payeras 38.80 1 ALL I CAN SAY 7.00 4.20 2.60 6 ACCORDING TO BUDDY 13.60 4.80 8 BLESS HIS HEART 3.00 $1 EXACTA (1-6) $36.10 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (1-6-8-2) $44.26 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (1-6-8-2-7) $308.40 50-CENT TRIFECTA (1-6-8) $53.35 WinnerAll I Can Say Ch.g.4 by Old Topper out of Say Touche, by Touch Gold. Bred by Anthony Crump (CA). Trainer: Val Brinkerhoff. Owner: Brinkerhoff, Val and Kelly. Mutuel Pool $228,679 Exacta Pool $130,459 Superfecta Pool $58,185 Super High Five Pool $3,136 Trifecta Pool $88,203. Scratchednone. ALL I CAN SAY stalked a bit off the rail then inside on the turn, split horses leaving the turn and into the stretch, bid three deep under urging in midstretch, gained the advantage a sixteenth out and inched away late. ACCORDING TO BUDDY stalked off the rail then outside a rival into and on the turn, came three deep into the stretch, angled out in upper stretch and just got the place. BLESS HIS HEART dueled three deep then outside a rival on the turn, took a short lead into the stretch, fought back between foes in midstretch, could not match the winner late and just lost second. LIL MILO went up inside to duel for the lead, fought back into the stretch and past midstretch and weakened late. ASTONISHING TWEET angled in and dueled between horses, stalked on the turn, angled to the inside entering the stretch and weakened. LEVI'S SAINT JAMES broke in a bit, settled off the rail, dropped back on the turn, came three wide into the stretch and was not a threat. ICOULDONLYIMAGINE saved ground chasing the pace, came a bit off the rail in the stretch and lacked a further response. DROPS IN THE OCEAN squeezed some at the start then bobbled early, settled just off the rail then angled in and saved ground but failed to menace. SECOND RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $30,000. Maiden Claiming. Fillies. 2 year olds. Claiming Prices $50,000-$40,000. Time 22.57 46.76 59.69 1:13.34 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 8 Staythirstymyamigo 120 7 2 1hd 11 12 11 Fuentes 2.00 7 Discrete Stevie B 114 6 4 5hd 2hd 21 22 Fuentes 32.00 3 Sass Machine 122 2 7 4hd 31 33 32 Conner 13.00 4 Disco Tale 122 3 8 8 72 52 4nk Flores 11.30 6 Cash for Cass 122 5 3 31 4hd 41 57 Mn Garcia 1.70 9 Depende de Ti 120 8 1 63 61 77 6ns Quinonez 47.20 5 Palm d'Oro 122 4 5 21 51 6hd 723 Elliott 9.50 1 La Dolfina 120 1 6 72 8 8 8 Cruz 4.20 8 STAYTHIRSTYMYAMIGO 6.00 3.60 3.20 7 DISCRETE STEVIE B 24.60 10.40 3 SASS MACHINE 6.60 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (1-8) $22.20 $1 EXACTA (8-7) $60.30 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (8-7-3-4) $302.24 50-CENT TRIFECTA (8-7-3) $278.45 $1 X-5 SUPER HIGH FIVE (8-7-3-4-6) Carryover $656 WinnerStaythirstymyamigo Ch.f.2 by Stay Thirsty out of Michael's Rose, by Rahy. Bred by Stephen Wigmore & Spruce Lane Farm (KY). Trainer: Edward R. Freeman. Owner: Albert, Darren, Freeman, Edward R. and Tovar, Luis O.. Mutuel Pool $170,884 Daily Double Pool $37,539 Exacta Pool $105,587 Superfecta Pool $38,817 Trifecta Pool $67,054 X-5 Super High Five Pool $859. ScratchedMa Bella. STAYTHIRSTYMYAMIGO dueled three deep then outside a rival, inched away and angled in on the turn and won clear under urging. DISCRETE STEVIE B stalked between horses then three deep into and on the turn, angled in outside a rival into the stretch and was clearly second best. SASS MACHINE angled in early and chased inside, split rivals on the turn, found the fence again into the stretch and bested the others. DISCO TALE stumbled in a slow start, saved ground off the pace, came out into the stretch and lacked the needed rally. CASH FOR CASS had speed between horses then stalked between rivals on the backstretch and most of the turn, continued outside a foe into the stretch and weakened. DEPENDE DE TI stalked four wide on the backstretch and into the turn, continued off the rail on the turn and three wide into the stretch and also weakened. PALM D'ORO broke in a bit, angled in and dueled inside, stalked along the rail on the turn and had little left for the stretch. LA DOLFINA in tight early, settled a bit off the rail, dropped back outside a rival on the turn, gave way and was eased late. THIRD RACE. 5 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $51,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $40,000. Time 21.58 44.32 55.86 Pgm Horse Wt PP St 3/16 3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 4 Nine Point Nine 125 3 5 62 11 12 12 Stevens 6.10 1 Naughty Sophie 113 1 4 11 21 2 2hd Figueroa 3.00 7 A Little Bit Me 125 5 6 73 73 31 31 Roman 3.80 10 Helen's Tiger 122 8 3 4hd 6hd 51 4 Bejarano 2.50 3 Believe Indeed 125 2 8 8 8 8 5 Mn Garcia 29.80 5 Chatty 120 4 7 5hd 41 4 62 Quinonez 8.40 8 Tizanillusion 121 6 2 2hd 5hd 6hd 78 Hernandez 6.30 9 Favorite Trip 120 7 1 31 3hd 71 8 Conner 27.00 4 NINE POINT NINE 14.20 5.40 4.00 1 NAUGHTY SOPHIE 5.00 3.80 7 A LITTLE BIT ME 3.40 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (8-4) $39.00 $1 EXACTA (4-1) $34.50 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (4-1-7-10) $30.17 50-CENT TRIFECTA (4-1-7) $62.60 $1 X-5 SUPER HIGH FIVE (4-1-7-10-3) Carryover $3,591 $2 CONSOLATION DOUBLE (8-6) $6.40 WinnerNine Point Nine B.m.5 by Tribal Rule out of Cielo Dulce, by Cahill Road. Bred by Stormy B. Hull & Ginger A. Samples (CA). Trainer: Vladimir Cerin. Owner: Wilson, Holly and David. Mutuel Pool $452,299 Daily Double Pool $16,576 Exacta Pool $251,592 Superfecta Pool $102,410 Trifecta Pool $169,618 X-5 Super High Five Pool $3,847. ClaimedA Little Bit Me by Edward M. Tannenbaum Stable LLC, Scott, Michael, Seymour, Lauri and Pellman, H. Trainer: Vladimir Cerin. ScratchedHappiness, Time and Chance. 50-Cent Pick Three (1-8-4) paid $53.25. Pick Three Pool $41,517. 50-Cent Consolation Pick Three (1-8-6) paid $6.75. NINE POINT NINE stalked the pace inside, bid along the rail to gain the lead leaving the turn, came a bit off the fence in the stretch and won clear under a strong hand ride. NAUGHTY SOPHIE had speed inside then inched away and set the pace a bit off the rail, lugged out on the turn to come four wide into the stretch, angled in outside a rival in the drive and held second. A LITTLE BIT ME chased off the rail, angled to the inside on the turn, continued along the fence in the stretch and was edged for the place. HELEN'S TIGER stalked three deep, was forced out on the turn and fanned six wide into the stretch and lacked the needed rally. BELIEVE INDEED a step slow to begin, settled inside, swung out leaving the turn and three deep into the stretch and could not quite summon the necessary late kick. CHATTY stalked between horses, was in tight early on the turn, continued a bit off the rail, came out some for room in midstretch and did not rally. TIZANILLUSION close up stalking the pace a bit off the rail, steadied in tight early on the turn and was forced out on the bend, came three deep into the stretch and weakened. FAVORITE TRIP had speed three deep then stalked outside a rival, was forced wide on the turn and fanned six wide into the stretch and also weakened. FOURTH RACE. 5 Furlongs. Purse: $51,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $40,000. Time 21.61 44.90 57.13 1:03.71 Pgm Horse Wt PP St 3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 6 Allaboutaction 125 6 4 44 1hd 11 1nk Conner 6.70 1 Microrithms 123 1 2 1hd 2hd 23 24 Roman 2.70 4 Junior Gilliam 125 4 7 7 7 42 33 Bejarano 3.50 3 Best Two Minutes 125 3 6 62 6 5hd 4 Cruz 5.10 7 Montmartre 115 7 5 53 52 61 51 Espinoza 3.80 5 Aristocratic 120 5 3 2hd 31 31 67 Figueroa 4.70 2 Rough Passage 125 2 1 3 44 7 7 Aragon 47.10 6 ALLABOUTACTION 15.40 5.60 3.80 1 MICRORITHMS 5.20 3.20 4 JUNIOR GILLIAM 3.00 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (4-6) $138.60 $1 EXACTA (6-1) $31.80 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (6-1-4-3) $41.05 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (6-1-4-3-7) $1,077.70 50-CENT TRIFECTA (6-1-4) $54.50 WinnerAllaboutaction Dbb.g.5 by Candy Ride (ARG) out of Coolwind, by Forest Wildcat. Bred by Carhue Investments & Paget Bloodstock (KY). Trainer: Javier Jose Sierra. Owner: Frank Reynoso, Jr.. Mutuel Pool $407,672 Daily Double Pool $30,929 Exacta Pool $217,496 Superfecta Pool $92,433 Super High Five Pool $13,317 Trifecta Pool $150,366. Scratchednone. 50-Cent Pick Three (8-4-6) paid $108.60. Pick Three Pool $17,344. 50-Cent Consolation Pick Three (8-6-6) paid $15.15. ALLABOUTACTION pressed the pace four wide on the backstretch then dueled three deep on the turn and into the stretch, inched away under urging in midstretch and just held. MICRORITHMS had good early speed and dueled inside, fought back on the turn, had the winner slip away briefly in midstretch then came back on along the fence. JUNIOR GILLIAM dropped back a bit off the rail then angled in, came a bit off the fence leaving the backstretch, went outside a rival on the turn and three deep into the stretch, drifted in and bested the others. BEST TWO MINUTES broke out a bit and steadied while being straightened, settled inside, came out in the stretch and lacked a rally. MONTMARTRE chased off the rail then outside leaving the turn and four wide into the stretch and lacked a further response. ARISTOCRATIC dueled three deep between horses on the backstretch and between foes on the turn and into the stretch, drifted to the inside in the drive and weakened. ROUGH PASSAGE had speed between horses to duel for the lead, fell back on the turn and into the stretch and gave way. FIFTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $25,000. Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $25,000-$22,500. Time 21.81 45.07 1:10.25 1:17.06 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 8 Heartfullofstars 120 7 7 6 3 2 1hd Bejarano 4.30 9 Ride to the Wire 120 8 5 31 22 11 21 Mn Garcia 1.50 7 Earnednevergiven 120 6 8 8 5hd 48 33 Quinonez 5.10 3 Facts Matter 115 3 2 1hd 1hd 32 412 Espinoza 4.60 1 Son of War 121 1 6 51 61 53 55 Pedroza 18.00 2 Hoss Cartwright 120 2 1 21 41 66 611 Roman 12.70 6 Stylistics United 123 5 4 7hd 8 714 740 Martinez 94.80 5 Older Brother 120 4 3 4 74 8 8 Conner 6.90 8 HEARTFULLOFSTARS 10.60 4.20 2.80 9 RIDE TO THE WIRE 3.00 2.40 7 EARNEDNEVERGIVEN 3.40 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (6-8) $85.20 $1 EXACTA (8-9) $14.90 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (8-9-7-3) $13.65 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (8-9-7-3-1) $322.80 50-CENT TRIFECTA (8-9-7) $22.15 WinnerHeartfullofstars Dbb.g.3 by Astrology out of Nothing But Heart, by Officer. Bred by Terrazas Thoroughbreds, LLC (KY). Trainer: Gary Sherlock. Owner: Warren, Craig and Deanne and Sherlock, Gary. Mutuel Pool $397,479 Daily Double Pool $33,188 Exacta Pool $240,617 Superfecta Pool $105,472 Super High Five Pool $4,552 Trifecta Pool $175,067. ClaimedRide to the Wire by Daniel Ray. Trainer: Charles Treece. ClaimedEarnednevergiven by Paymaster Racing LLC. Trainer: Jack Carava. ScratchedCreative Hit. 50-Cent Pick Three (4-6-8) paid $120.15. Pick Three Pool $49,917. 50-Cent Pick Four (8-4-6-8) 163 tickets with 4 correct paid $511.30. Pick Four Pool $109,004. 50-Cent Pick Five (1-8-4-6-8) 100 tickets with 5 correct paid $2,908.10. Pick Five Pool $337,263. HEARTFULLOFSTARS bobbled slightly at the start, chased outside then alongside a rival on the turn, came three deep into the stretch and rallied under left handed urging to get up on the line. RIDE TO THE WIRE had speed outside then stalked off the rail, bid three deep into the turn then outside a foe, took the lead into the stretch while drifting out a bit, inched away in midstretch and was caught in the final stride. EARNEDNEVERGIVEN chased a bit off the rail, went up three deep early on the turn, angled in some leaving the turn, came out past midstretch and finished willingly. FACTS MATTER had speed between foes then dueled outside a rival, battled inside on the turn and into the stretch and weakened in the final furlong. SON OF WAR saved ground chasing the pace, went outside a rival leaving the turn, came out into the stretch and weakened. HOSS CARTWRIGHT dueled inside, dropped back on the turn and gave way. STYLISTICS UNITED settled off the rail then briefly between foes midway on the backstretch, angled in on the turn and had little left for the stretch. OLDER BROTHER between foes early, stalked a bit off the rail, dropped back on the turn, gave way and was eased in the stretch. SIXTH RACE. 5 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $51,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $40,000. Time 21.58 44.26 55.80 Pgm Horse Wt PP St 3/16 3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 3 Moon Kitty 121 3 4 3hd 2hd 22 12 Roman 5.10 1 Kentan Road 120 1 9 11 11 11 21 Fuentes 10.30 6 Tyfosha 120 6 3 9 8 6 31 Maldonado 7.30 2 Easy Grader 125 2 2 41 71 3hd 4 Stevens 4.30 4 Family Girl 117 4 1 7 6hd 5hd 52 Figueroa 13.30 9 Snow Cloud 125 8 5 61 5 7hd 6 Cruz 6.10 7 Jest a Princess 118 7 8 8hd 9 9 7ns Espinoza 15.50 10 Dhafeera 123 9 6 2 31 41 81 Blanc 22.60 5 Dis Smart Cat 125 5 7 5hd 4hd 82 9 Bejarano 2.10 3 MOON KITTY 12.20 7.40 5.20 1 KENTAN ROAD 11.80 7.80 6 TYFOSHA 5.80 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (8-3) $100.20 $1 EXACTA (3-1) $57.50 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (3-1-6-2) $382.31 50-CENT TRIFECTA (3-1-6) $388.80 $1 X-5 SUPER HIGH FIVE (3-1-6-2-4) Carryover $1,086 $2 CONSOLATION DOUBLE (8-8) $8.60 WinnerMoon Kitty B.f.4 by Wildcat Heir out of Moonshot, by Grand Slam. Bred by Cheryl Janine McGuire & James P. McGuire (FL). Trainer: Jack Carava. Owner: Chris Curtis. Mutuel Pool $357,535 Daily Double Pool $28,842 Exacta Pool $206,260 Superfecta Pool $70,813 Trifecta Pool $122,398 X-5 Super High Five Pool $1,423. ScratchedQueen Bee to You. 50-Cent Pick Three (6-8-3) paid $117.80. Pick Three Pool $54,974. 50-Cent Consolation Pick Three (6-8-8) paid $15.95. MOON KITTY stalked between horses then inside on the turn, came out into the stretch, bid outside the runner-up under urging past midstretch, gained the advantage in deep stretch and inched clear late. KENTAN ROAD broke a bit slowly, quickly sped to the early lead, set the pace along the inside, fought back from the rail in deep stretch, could not match the winner late but held second. TYFOSHA chased between horses then a bit off the rail, came out leaving the turn and four wide into the stretch and gained the show. EASY GRADER stalked the pace inside, was in tight along the rail into the turn to fall back, continued inside in the stretch and went on willingly late. FAMILY GIRL had speed between horses then stalked a bit off the rail, split horses early on the turn and again leaving the turn and lacked the needed rally. SNOW CLOUD (IRE) was in a good position stalking the pace outside then four wide into and on the turn and into the stretch, drifted out some past midstretch and could not offer the necessary response. JEST A PRINCESS wide early, stalked three deep then a bit off the rail or outside a rival on the turn and into the stretch and weakened in the final furlong. chased outside, came four wide into the stretch, was in a bit tight off heels in deep stretch and did not rally. DHAFEERA (GB) wide early, stalked three deep then outside a rival leaving the turn and into the stretch and weakened. DIS SMART CAT stalked the pace between rivals on the backstretch and turn, came three deep into the stretch and also weakened. SEVENTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $50,000. Maiden Special Weight. 2 year olds. Time 21.71 45.16 57.92 1:10.76 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 11 Count Di Luna 117 11 2 3hd 1hd 11 11 Espinoza 10.40 12 Stretford End 122 12 6 5 53 23 27 Mn Garcia 0.70 2 Railman 122 2 10 8 81 61 3nk Quinonez 61.40 9 My Mandate 122 9 4 42 3 42 42 Roman 21.50 10 Mutineer 122 10 7 94 6hd 72 5 Bejarano 31.80 5 Damiano 117 5 3 2hd 4 5 61 Figueroa 43.30 4 Street Image 122 4 1 1hd 2 3hd 7 Pedroza 4.90 6 Da Kine 122 6 12 12 102 81 8hd Cruz 24.10 8 Anothertwistafate 122 8 5 6 9 111 91 Hernandez 14.20 1 Ack 122 1 9 11 11hd 10 101 Maldonado 56.80 3 Taos 122 3 11 71 7hd 91 114 Elliott 10.10 7 Drink to That 122 7 8 10hd 12 12 12 Fuentes 65.10 11 COUNT DI LUNA 22.80 6.60 5.00 12 STRETFORD END 2.60 2.40 2 RAILMAN 17.40 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (3-11) $176.60 $1 EXACTA (11-12) $24.90 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (11-12-2-9) $724.19 50-CENT TRIFECTA (11-12-2) $290.15 $1 X-5 SUPER HIGH FIVE (11-12-2-9-10) Carryover $3,821 WinnerCount Di Luna B.c.2 by Liaison out of House of Fortune, by Free House. Bred by Arnold Zetcher LLC (KY). Trainer: Bob Baffert. Owner: Arnold Zetcher LLC. Mutuel Pool $609,790 Daily Double Pool $30,601 Exacta Pool $369,040 Superfecta Pool $166,333 Trifecta Pool $249,888 X-5 Super High Five Pool $3,584. Scratchednone. 50-Cent Pick Three (8-3-11) paid $194.20. Pick Three Pool $63,345. 50-Cent Consolation Pick Three (8-8-11) paid $19.75. COUNT DI LUNA dueled four wide on the backstretch and turn, took a short lead leaving the turn, inched away three deep into the stretch and held gamely under urging. STRETFORD END stalked four wide then off the rail on the turn, ranged up four wide into the stretch to loom a threat, could not catch the winner but clearly bested the others. RAILMAN a step slot into stride, saved ground chasing the pace, cut the corner into the stretch and edged a rival for third inside. MY MANDATE dueled between horses, fought back leaving the turn, fell back in the stretch and was edged for the show. MUTINEER chased off the rail, went up three deep on the turn and into the stretch and lacked a rally. DAMIANO had good early speed and dueled between horses, fell back leaving the turn and into the stretch and weakened. STREET IMAGE went up inside to duel for the lead, fought back leaving the turn, came a bit off the rail in the stretch and also weakened. DA KINE hopped in a bit of a slow start, settled off the rail, continued outside on the turn and four wide into the stretch and lacked a rally. ANOTHERTWISTAFATE chased between horses then outside a rival, split foes on the turn, came three deep into the stretch and did not rally. ACK a step slow to begin, saved ground off the pace, cut the corner into the stretch and was not a threat. TAOS hopped in a bit of a slow start, stalked between horses then just of the rail on the turn, dropped back between foes into the stretch and weakened. DRINK TO THAT settled outside a rival then briefly between foes leaving the backstretch, continued alongside a foe on the turn and failed to menace. EIGHTH RACE. About 6 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $100,000. 'Senator Ken Maddy Stakes'. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Time 20.92 42.39 1:05.97 1:12.13 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 2 Storm the Hill 126 2 8 83 6 22 11 Bejarano 2.40 6 Painting Corners 124 6 1 1 14 13 21 Roman 1.60 10 Poster Girl 122 9 5 7hd 81 4hd 3 Conner 10.00 3 Bernina Star 122 3 9 9 9 7 4 Elliott 28.70 1 Out of The Flames 122 1 3 41 51 31 51 Mn Garcia 26.10 5 Rubilinda 122 5 7 61 4hd 8 6 Stevens 4.60 9 Miss Southern Miss 122 8 6 5 71 9 73 Espinoza 25.60 7 Travieza 122 7 4 31 2hd 6hd 81 Hernandez 10.40 4 Go On Mary 126 4 2 21 32 5hd 9 Quinonez 17.40 2 STORM THE HILL 6.80 3.40 2.40 6 PAINTING CORNERS 3.00 2.60 10 POSTER GIRL (GB) 4.00 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (11-2) $76.60 $1 EXACTA (2-6) $8.40 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (2-6-10-3) $36.64 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (2-6-10-3-1) $3,496.60 50-CENT TRIFECTA (2-6-10) $26.20 WinnerStorm the Hill B.f.4 by Get Stormy out of Thornhill, by Good and Tough. Bred by Kimberly S. Bradley & William B. Bradley (KY). Trainer: Philip D'Amato. Owner: Alastar Thoroughbred Company LLC and Valdes, Michael. Mutuel Pool $626,511 Daily Double Pool $49,479 Exacta Pool $378,859 Superfecta Pool $161,587 Super High Five Pool $8,740 Trifecta Pool $258,484. ScratchedI'm Betty G. 50-Cent Pick Three (3-11-2) paid $131.05. Pick Three Pool $53,842. STORM THE HILL settled a bit off the rail, split horses leaving the hill, came out four wide into the stretch, rallied under some left handed urging to gain the lead while drifting inward in deep stretch and proved best. PAINTING CORNERS sped to the early lead, dueled outside a rival then kicked clear and set the pace inside, held on well to deep stretch, could not contain the winner but saved the place. POSTER GIRL (GB) settled three deep then angled in a bit off the rail, found the inside leaving the hill and into and through the stretch and edged a rival for third. BERNINA STAR dropped back and settled a bit off the rail, came out in midstretch and was edged for the show. OUT OF THE FLAMES (GB) chased inside then a bit off the rail, came out three deep into the stretch, drifted in late and was outfinished for a minor award. RUBILINDA settled a bit off the rail then chased inside, went outside a rival into the stretch and lacked the needed rally. MISS SOUTHERN MISS chased outside, came four wide into the stretch, was under left handed urging in upper stretch then had the rider lose the whip in midstretch and did not rally. TRAVIEZA stalked off the rail then outside a rival leaving the hill, continued between foes in midstretch and weakened. GO ON MARY pressed the pace inside then stalked along the rail, also was between horses in midstretch and also weakened. Rail on hill at zero. NINTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $18,000. Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $8,000. Time 22.16 45.45 58.15 1:11.38 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 11 Gemini Journey 123 9 8 3hd 3 1hd 11 Elliott 2.80 2 Hero for Hire 123 1 3 1 11 21 22 Maldonado 8.00 10 Sought More Pep 118 8 2 21 2 31 31 Espinoza 6.60 6 Honor Maker 123 4 1 51 42 43 4hd Pena 53.80 9 Majestic Diva 123 7 7 83 71 6hd 5hd Mn Garcia 22.80 7 Miz Tianjin 123 5 9 9 82 71 62 Fuentes 3.60 5 Generous Pour 118 3 4 61 52 51 71 Payeras 4.50 3 Kristie's Heart 123 2 6 7hd 9 9 81 Bejarano 3.80 8 Lovely Linda 116 6 5 4 6hd 81 9 Fuentes 42.60 11 GEMINI JOURNEY 7.60 4.00 2.80 2 HERO FOR HIRE 8.60 5.80 10 SOUGHT MORE PEP 4.40 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (2-11) $29.00 $1 EXACTA (11-2) $25.10 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (11-2-10-6) $257.68 50-CENT TRIFECTA (11-2-10) $101.05 $1 X-5 SUPER HIGH FIVE (11-2-10-6-9) Carryover $4,031 WinnerGemini Journey Dbb.f.4 by Phantom Wildcat out of Back Door Girl, by Charismatic. Bred by Legacy Ranch (CA). Trainer: Charles S. Treece. Owner: Chris Fosselman. Mutuel Pool $365,202 Daily Double Pool $45,491 Exacta Pool $229,356 Superfecta Pool $116,892 Trifecta Pool $157,245 X-5 Super High Five Pool $5,284. ClaimedGemini Journey by Charles Garvey. Trainer: Genaro Vallejo. ScratchedCioppino Pasadino, Easter Dream, She Began Again. 50-Cent Pick Three (11-2-11) paid $71.45. Pick Three Pool $64,684. GEMINI JOURNEY stalked the pace outside, came three deep into the stretch, took the lead under urging outside the runner-up in midstretch and inched away late under urging. HERO FOR HIRE went up inside to duel for the lead, edged away on the turn, fought back inside in the stretch, could not match the winner late but bested t he others. SOUGHT MORE PEP sped to the early lead and angled in off the rail, dueled outside the runner-up then stalked a bit off the fence on the turn and into the stretch and held third. HONOR MAKER stalked a bit off the rail then inside leaving the turn, came out in midstretch and lacked the needed rally. MAJESTIC DIVA settled off the inside, went outside a rival on the turn and three wide into the stretch and could not offer the necessary response. MIZ TIANJIN broke a bit slowly, dropped back off the rail, came out on the turn and four wide into the stretch and also lacked a rally. GENEROUS POUR stalked outside a rival then inside on the turn and into the stretch and weakened. KRISTIE'S HEART saved ground off the pace, came out leaving the turn and into the stretch and lacked a further response. LOVELY LINDA stalked between horses, dropped back outside a rival on the turn and weakened. TENTH RACE. 7 Furlongs. Purse: $200,000. 'Golden State Juvenile Stakes'. Colts and Geldings. 2 year olds. Time 22.17 44.90 1:09.47 1:22.82 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 8 Cruel Intention 122 7 2 2hd 3 28 1nk Roman 0.80 4 Galilean 122 3 3 1hd 1hd 1hd 216 Bejarano 1.90 2 Luck's Royal Flush 122 2 5 41 2hd 33 31 Stevens 13.00 5 I Belong to Becky 122 4 7 31 41 41 42 Flores 71.30 7 Listing 122 6 4 5hd 5hd 52 51 Mn Garcia 7.50 1 Oliver 122 1 6 7 6hd 65 619 Figueroa 24.30 6 Whooping Jay 122 5 1 6hd 7 7 7 Cruz 21.30 8 CRUEL INTENTION 3.60 2.20 2.10 4 GALILEAN 2.80 2.40 2 LUCK'S ROYAL FLUSH 3.80 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (11-8) $11.80 $1 EXACTA (8-4) $3.70 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (8-4-2-5) $17.64 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (8-4-2-5-7) $456.10 50-CENT TRIFECTA (8-4-2) $11.40 $2 CONSOLATION DOUBLE (11-3) $6.40 WinnerCruel Intention B.c.2 by Smiling Tiger out of Perfect Feat, by Pleasantly Perfect. Bred by Premier Thoroughbreds LLC (CA). Trainer: Bob Baffert. Owner: Jungle Racing LLC, LNJ Foxwoods and Nexus Racing Club. Mutuel Pool $475,415 Daily Double Pool $39,873 Exacta Pool $223,448 Superfecta Pool $127,201 Super High Five Pool $28,285 Trifecta Pool $176,939. ScratchedOur Silver Oak. 50-Cent Pick Three (2-11-8) paid $12.70. Pick Three Pool $55,624. 50-Cent Consolation Pick Three (2-11-3) paid $6.45. CRUEL INTENTION dueled three deep then four wide into the turn, battled three wide on the turn and outside the runner-up into and through the stretch, gained a slim advantage under urging in deep stretch and gamely prevailed. GALILEAN had good early speed and dueled a bit off the rail then between foes leaving the backstretch and into the turn, battled just off the inside leaving the turn and into the stretch, fought back along the rail through a long drive and continued gamely to the wire. LUCK'S ROYAL FLUSH stalked outside a rival then bid inside leaving the backstretch and on the turn, fell back some leaving the turn and weakened but held third. I BELONG TO BECKY vied for command between horses, fell back and angled in on the turn and also weakened. LISTING chased three deep on the backstretch and into the turn, continued outside a rival into the stretch and had little left for the drive. OLIVER sent inside early, saved ground stalking the pace, fell back into the stretch, came out in midstretch and lacked a further response. WHOOPING JAY stalked between horses, dropped back on the turn and into the stretch, gave way and was eased in the drive. ELEVENTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $50,000. Maiden Special Weight. 2 year olds. Time 22.33 46.25 1:11.71 1:24.65 1:37.07 Pgm Horse Wt PP St Str Fin Jockey $1 9 Irish Heatwave 117 9 7 7hd 81 7 31 1 Espinoza 2.20 8 Offshore Affair 117 8 3 62 61 2hd 1hd 21 Figueroa 3.30 1 Unusual Rider 122 1 1 11 11 11 2hd 3hd Bejarano 3.60 4 Unusual Angel 122 4 10 11 9hd 5hd 41 42 Blanc 26.50 11 DQOpus Won 119 11 8 81 71 8hd 73 5 Cruz 4.90 3 Cyprus Souljah 122 3 5 4 4hd 3hd 52 6 Martinez 86.60 6 Peedie 122 6 6 5hd 5hd 91 6hd 73 Mn Garcia 15.10 5 Poppy's C Note 122 5 9 91 11 11 8hd 86 Hernandez 36.40 2 Nice Haircut 122 2 2 2hd 2hd 41 91 9 Roman 10.60 10 Smokey Pirate 122 10 11 102 101 10 104 107 Conner 38.70 7 Concord Jet 122 7 4 31 31 6hd 11 11 Fuentes 46.30 9 IRISH HEATWAVE 6.40 4.40 3.20 8 OFFSHORE AFFAIR 4.40 2.80 1 UNUSUAL RIDER 3.00 $2 DAILY DOUBLE (8-9) $17.40 $1 EXACTA (9-8) $12.10 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (9-8-1-4) $70.06 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (9-8-1-4-3) $16,707.60 50-CENT TRIFECTA (9-8-1) $28.40 WinnerIrish Heatwave B.c.2 by Unusual Heat out of Irish Winnie, by Broken Vow. Bred by Moger Inc. & Neary Racing Inc. (CA). Trainer: J. Keith Desormeaux. Owner: Calumet Farm. Mutuel Pool $472,229 Daily Double Pool $127,411 Exacta Pool $274,642 Superfecta Pool $182,551 Super High Five Pool $21,892 Trifecta Pool $215,061. Scratchednone. DQ#11 Opus Wonfinished 5th, disqualified, placed 7th. 50-Cent Pick Three (11-8-9) paid $19.70. Pick Three Pool $151,836. 50-Cent Consolation Pick Three (11-3-9) paid $10.35. 50-Cent Pick Four (8-1/4/11/12-3/8-9) 9151 tickets with 4 correct paid $68.15. Pick Four Pool $817,626. 50-Cent Pick Five (11-8-1/4/11/12-3/8-9) 578 tickets with 5 correct paid $707.65. Pick Five Pool $535,395. 20-Cent Pick Six (3-11-8-1/4/11/12-3/8-9) 142 tickets with 6 correct paid $1,321.64. Pick Six Pool $351,020. Pick Six Carryover $1,143,194. IRISH HEATWAVE three deep into the first turn, chased outside a rival, went up four wide on the second turn and into the stretch, bid three deep in midstretch, gained the advantage under left handed urging in deep stretch and gamely prevailed. OFFSHORE AFFAIR pulled four wide into the first turn, stalked three deep to the stretch, bid alongside the pacesetter and took a short between foes in midstretch, fought back inside the winner and continued willingly to the end. UNUSUAL RIDER sped to the early lead, set the pace inside, came a bit off the rail in the stretch, fought back inside the top pair in the drive and just held third. UNUSUAL ANGEL saved ground off the pace, steadied in tight into the second turn, moved up along the rail nearing and into the stretch, came out past midstretch and was edged for the show. OPUS WON angled in and chased a bit off the rail then between foes on the second turn, came out and bumped a rival then steadied into the stretch, angled in and lacked the needed rally. CYPRUS SOULJAH saved ground stalking the pace, came out a bit into the stretch and could not summon the necessary response. PEEDIE pulled between foes and was in tight into the first turn, chased between rivals, was bumped and forced out four wide into the stretch and did not rally. POPPY'S C NOTE settled inside then briefly between foes on the backstretch, came out on the second turn then angled back in entering the stretch, came out again in midstretch and lacked a rally. NICE HAIRCUT had speed between foes then stalked a bit off the rail, continued between horses leaving the second turn and into the stretch and weakened. SMOKEY PIRATE angled in and settled outside a rival, came out on the second turn and five wide into the stretch and lacked the necessary response. CONCORD JET three deep between foes early, stalked outside a rival, drifted out and dropped back between foes leaving the second turn, came four wide into the stretch, drifted in through the drive and weakened. Following a stewards' inquiry, OPUS WON was disqualified and placed seventh for interference entering the stretch. Bummer. You know summers really over when Pacific Standard Time bops you over the head with 4:30 sunsets and pitch-dark streets at 5:15 p.m. I like to pretend its still summer long after the calendar says otherwise. Its not difficult in Southern California, where 90-degree days are common in the fall. This year I decided not to give in to shorter days. Advertisement I contacted some of my favorite beach hotels to see whether they were offering winter specials for about $200 or less so I could create my own Endless Summer. I was asking a lot; some hotels charge upward of $800 a night during the summer. But 12 hopped on board right away. I found more than enough to share with readers. Our beach bonanza hotels stretch from San Diego to Pismo Beach. Some high-end hotels, such as the Balboa Bay Resort, Pasea Huntington Beach and the Santa Barbara Hilton, are offering fabulous savings. But smaller places are great buys too, giving families a chance to enjoy surf and sand in the off-season for as low as $139 per night. Some are offering bonuses; the Pavilion Hotel on Catalina Island, for instance, is throwing in two tours, breakfast and a wine-and-cheese hour. The best deals are midweek, but youll find some on weekends too. Taxes and resort fees arent included. Dont wait too long to book; these specials may get snapped up quickly. Happy endless summer. Cowabunga! SAN DIEGO Paradise Point Resort & Spa Paradise Point Resort and Spa. (Paradise Point Resort and Spa) Everybody needs a taste of San Diego once in a while, and Mission Bays Paradise Point Resort & Spa offers the best of both worlds: It has the tranquillity of a private island, and it is centrally located. This 44-acre Southern California icon, which was recently renovated, has five pools, beach bonfire pits, a marina, five dining venues, a spa and lots of recreation options. The deal: November and December rates as low as $139. Info: 1404 Vacation Road, San Diego; (800) 344-2626, (858) 240-4913 DOHENY BEACH DoubleTree Suites Doheny Beach DoubleTree Suites Doheny Beach in Dana Point. (Hilton) Surfer wannabes and true surfers all love Doheny, which gained fame decades ago when it popped up in Surfer Joe, by the Surfaris, and Surfin U.S.A., by the Beach Boys. Today you can sit on the rooftop lounge at theDoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Doheny Beach-Dana Point and watch the waves roll in, or take a five-minute walk to the beach. The deal: This all-suite hotel has rooms from $144 if you join the Hilton Honors club (no charge). And many weekends cost less than $200. Free cookies and complimentary breakfast too, if you join Hilton Honors. Info: 34402 Pacific Coast Highway, Dana Point; (949) 661-1100 LAGUNA BEACH Laguna Beach House The pool and a view of the coast from the Laguna Beach House. (Laguna Beach House) Hey, dude, grab a board and make some waves in Laguna, where the Laguna Beach House offers a laid-back retreat for folks on a budget. The ocean-view hotel, which opened in April 2015, is about a three-minute walk to the beach and has the look of a vintage beach cottage. Dont miss the complimentary light breakfast, wine hour at sunset or the cookies and milk before bedtime. The deal: From $169 a night weekdays; less than $200 most weekends. Rates will remain low through early April, except for busy periods and holidays. Info: 475 N. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach; (800) 297-0007 or (949) 497-6645 NEWPORT BEACH Balboa Bay Resort The Balboa Bay Resort and its marina. (Balboa Bay Resort) Whenever I want to pretend Im part of the Orange County glitterati, I zip down to the Balboa Bay Resort for drinks and tapas at its waterfront A&O gastropub. The hotel complex faces the bay and has an assortment of multimillion-dollar yachts tied up in front. Now I can afford to stay at the hotel, which is Newports only waterfront resort and is one of the regions swankiest. The deal: From $199 per night from November through January, based upon availability. Promo code to book: EndlessSummer Info: 1221 W. Coast Highway, Newport Beach; (949) 645-5000 HUNTINGTON BEACH Pasea Hotel & Spa The Dawn Pool with a view of the coast at the Pasea Hotel and Spa in Huntington Beach. (Mark Compton / Pasea Hotel & Spa) This 2-year-old high-rise, perched at the edge of the sea, offers laid-back luxury, a fun-in-the-sun vibe and is a great place to catch some rays or a wave. Pasea has a rockin rooftop bar and pool and is an anchor for Pacific City, a new mall where youll find oh-so-cool boutiques and trendy restaurants. The deal: Rates for the hotels SoCal Locals special offer start at $195 per night. Youll get a partial ocean-view room, with breakfast for two, through Dec. 30. Info: 21080 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach; (866) 478-9702. Use the link to access the Locals Offer Kimpton Shorebreak Resort A room with an ocean view at the Kimpton Shorebreak Resort in Huntington Beach. (Shorebreak Kimpton Resort) Climb the stairs or take the elevator to the Kimpton Shorebreak, which rises over a series of ground-floor shops on Pacific Coast Highway. You wont find a beach here its just across the street but ocean-view rooms are available. Youll find beachy decor throughout; a daily wine hour and smores around the courtyard firepit. The deal: Kimptons Outlaw the Inlaws package is designed to keep peace in the family during the holidays, but you can take advantage of it too. Rates from $189 per night from Nov. 15 through Jan. 13; includes a bottle of wine. Info: 500 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach; (714) 861-4470 CATALINA ISLAND Pavilion Hotel, Avalon A view of the coast at the Pavilion Hotel on Santa Catalina. (Catalina Island Company) Lucky us. We have a tropical island thats only an hour away. One of my faves on Catalina is the Pavilion Hotel, overlooking the Green Pier and Avalon Bay. Besides the great location and plush room decor and bedding, the hotel offers guests a free hot breakfast, complete with an omelet bar, and an evening wine-and-cheese hour. The deal: Youll stay busy with the hotels Best of Autumn & Winter special, with midweek rates from $175. The Avalon Scenic Drive excursion and the Glass Bottom Boat tour are included as part of the hotel stapy. The package is available Nov. 5 to March 28. Info: 513 Crescent Ave., Avalon; (877) 778-8322 LONG BEACH Hotel Maya, a DoubleTree by Hilton Fuego restaurant at Hotel Maya in Long Beach. (Hotel Maya, a Doubletree by Hilton) How about mixing beach time with shopping or sightseeing? Long Beach has a lot to offer, and the Hotel Maya gives visitors a panoramic view of it all. The Maya, on 11 landscaped acres, is on the waterfront across the harbor from downtown Long Beach. It offers great views and is a short walk from the Queen Mary. Take a bike ride to the beach, the Long Beach Aquarium or downtown. The deal: I found $175 rates in November and as low as $147 in December at the Hotel Maya by booking the Winter Warmerland package. It will also give you prices at less than $200 at the tony Waterfront Beach Resort, a Hilton Hotel, and several other Southern California hotels. Info: 700 Queensway Drive, Long Beach; (562) 435-7676 SANTA BARBARA Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort The Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort. (Hilton) This expansive ocean-view hotel, formerly the Fess Parker Resort, completed a $16-million renovation in April when it became the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort, with new colors, flooring, room decor and a lighter look. It has a great location facing East Beach and is close to the citys historic Stearns Wharf. The deal: From $169 in November and December. The hotel also has an Explore Santa Barbara package, starting at $234 a night, that includes a $50 dining credit per night, plus parking, a reduced resort fee and other perks. Info: 633 E. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara; (805) 564-4333 CAMBRIA Oceanpoint Ranch & Fireside Inn Oceanpoint Ranch in Cambria, Calif. (Oceanpoint) Lush rolling hills, Monterey pines and crashing waves set off the town of Cambria, north of San Luis Obispo. Pacifica Hotels has several motels and inns in the area, all offering 20% off winter deals. Some of the best rates are at Oceanpoint Ranch and Fireside Inn. The Ranch stretches across nine acres and was recently renovated. Fireside Inn offers great views and fireplaces in every room. Both have picturesque Moonstone Beach in common, one of Central Californias most beautiful stretches of oceanfront. The deal: The Oceanpoint Ranch special, called 20%-Off Fall Adventure, is valid through the end of the year. I found midweek prices as low as $127 per night. The Fireside Inn special, also called 20%-Off Fall Adventure, is valid through the end of the year. I found midweek prices as low as $148 per night and weekends as low as $150. Info: Oceanpoint Ranch, 7200 Moonstone Beach Drive, Cambria; (805) 927-4648. Fireside Inn, 6700 Moonstone Beach Drive, Cambria; (805) 927-8661 PISMO BEACH Cottage Inn by the Sea Cottage Inn by the Sea in Pismo Beach, Calif. (Cottage Inn by the Sea) Watch the sea from a clifftop vantage point at the 80-room Cottage Inn on Pismo Beach. It may be a bit chilly this far north, but the pool and spa are heated, and you can always snuggle up by the fireplace in your room. Continental breakfast, plus a fridge and microwave in your room, add to the package. The deal: The 20%-Off Fall Adventure is valid through the end of the year. I found midweek prices as low as $127 per night. You might want to splurge for an ocean-view patio room at $195. By the way, non-view rooms are usually less than $200 on the weekends. Info: 2351 Price St., Pismo Beach; (805) 773-4617 Storm-related floods killed at least 12 people in Sicily, Italian authorities said Sunday, including nine members of two families who were spending a long weekend together when water and mud from a swollen river overran their rented villa. After surveying the stricken Mediterranean island by helicopter, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte identified two more of the victims as a German couple whose car was swept away by flood waters near Agrigento, a tourist town known for its ancient Greek temples. Italian news reports said a 1-year--old, a 3-year-old and a teenager were among the flood victims from the family get-together in Casteldaccia. A survivor, Giuseppe Giordano, lost his wife, two of his children, his parents and a brother, Italian news agency ANSA said. State broadcaster RaiNews24 said Giordano was stepping outside on Saturday night when the torrent rushed in. The broadcaster described him as the sole person to make it out alive. Advertisement When he opened the door, there was a river of water, I was knocked down and grabbed hold of a tree, Giordano told reporters between sobs. I was yelling, Help, help. My son Federico tried to save his little sister, but both died, Giordano said, telling reporters he heard his son call out, I handle, about the girls rescue. Then I saw the windows go dark, the light go out, a layer of mud was moving across the floor, Giordano said. Then, he said, he was swept away from the house by the force of the water. The two families had gathered in the villa during Italys long weekend centering on the Nov. 1 All Saints Day national holiday. Although Italian news reports originally described him as the houses owner, Giordano said he was renting the villa. Casteldaccia Mayor Giovanni Di Giacinto told Sky TG24 that the flood water reached more than 6 feet high inside the home. Rescuers retrieved the bodies from the home. A Sicilian prosecutor opened an investigation to determine if neglect, such as possible inadequate drainage of the river, played a role in the deaths or if the home was built illegally close to the river. The latter might be the case. Pino Virga, the mayor of the neighboring town of Altavilla Milicia, told SkyTG24 TV that other local authorities told him the house was slated for demolition because it stood too near the river. Separately, Di Giacinto told reporters the homeowner had blocked the demolition by challenging it in a local tribunal. A nursing home up the road was spared any damage, ANSA reported. Only days earlier, other storms battered much of northern Italy, killing at least 15 people, uprooting millions of trees near Alpine valleys and leaving several Italian villages without electricity or road access for days. Conte said a special Cabinet meeting could be held in the coming days to deliberate aid for storm-ravaged communities, as well as to approve 1 billion euros ($1.15 billion) to ensure safe hydrogeological conditions in Italy, including proper cleaning of riverbeds. The other known casualty in Sicily was a man whose body was also found on a guardrail along a Palermo-area road after floodwaters swept away his car, Italian news reports said. Across the island, in the town of Cammarata, near Agrigento, the fire department said its divers worked to recover the bodies of the couple whose car was caught in the flooding waters of the Saraceno River. Also in Agrigento province, firefighters rescued 14 people from a hotel in the town of Montevago, which was threatened by floodwaters from the Belice River. Elsewhere in Sicily, at least two other people were missing Sunday after floodwaters swept away their cars, including a doctor heading to the hospital in the hill town of Corleone. UPDATES: 1:00 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details and reaction by Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte. 4:30 a.m.: Updated to raise the death toll from 10 to 12. This article was first published at 2:40 a.m. Gold Price Sets Up For A November 2018 Rally To Near $1300 Todays upside price move in gold, already up over $18 (+1.5%), sets up a real potential for a move to near $1300 before the end of November. We have been advising our followers that a strong potential for an upside move in the precious metals markets was likely and that a potential move to above $1300 was in the works prior to the end of 2018. Global economic concerns and the fact that global central banks are accumulating physical gold are putting pricing pressures on Gold and many of the other precious metals. This is a sleeper trade in many ways, the US equity markets and the US Dollar are much stronger than many expected. A true capital shift is taking place throughout the globe at the moment and many foreign nations and central banks are hedging risk by accumulating physical gold. When the price of Gold does really start to move higher, it could be an explosive move to the upside just like what happened back in 2005~2008 and 2009~2012. Our predictive modeling systems are suggesting Gold could rally to above $1500 /oz in 2019 and we believe the current price levels are a gift for traders. Sub $1300 price levels may be the lowest prices we see for quite a while dont miss this opportunity to position your portfolio for this next move. Take a few minutes to read our most recent research posts about Gold, Oil, the Global Markets and the US Stock Market by visiting www.TheTechnicalTraders.com/FreeResearch/ . Learn how we can help you find, execute and plan for greater trading success with our videos, books, proprietary research, and trading signals. Dont be surprised to see the US stock market rally as Gold and Precious Metals rally as well. The current global economic environment is vastly different than what most traders are used to experiencing which makes it even more opportunistic for skilled investors/traders. Learn how we can help you find greater success, visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com . Chris Vermeulen www.TheTechnicalTraders.com Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better. His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility. He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect. Chris Vermeulen Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Over the past five years, the Israeli author and historian Yuval Noah Harari has quietly emerged as a bona fide pop-intellectual. His 2014 book "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" is a sprawling account of human history from the Stone Age to the 21st century; Ridley Scott, who directed "Alien," is co-leading its screen adaptation. Mr. Hararis latest book, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century," is an equally ambitious look at key issues shaping contemporary global conversations from immigration to nationalism, climate change to artificial intelligence. Mr. Harari recently spoke about the benefits and dangers of A.I. and its potential to upend the ways we live, learn and work. The conversation has been edited and condensed. 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Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu. Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu. Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events: International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu. EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu. Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets June Homecoming: Participant $18 per person; Sustainer $25 per person; Benefactor $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events: SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available for information call 610-275-1960 Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above) SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m. Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. 4 p.m. computers are available during those hours. Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m. Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863. Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376. Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com. The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes: Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020. CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313. The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events: Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m. Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m. Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30. Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m. The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301. For Kids & Families The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443. Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950. Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required. The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950. Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus. Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage. Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun. Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train. Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world! Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class. Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org. Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583. Community Events at the Ambler Y: -YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register. Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org. Health Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot. The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net. The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863. The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information. Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245. Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net. Spring Aquatic Programs UDHS Pool: -Summer is just around the corner Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required. Shallow Water Aerobics Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR. Adult Swim Instructions Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR -Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21. -Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m. -Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons. -Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates. Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994. SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com. Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org. Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs: FITNESS CLASSES Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month. Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30 9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly. SUPPORT GROUPS Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000. Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30 7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047. New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m. 12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30 4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931. Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325. Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes. Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com. Librarytalk Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744 www.upperdublinlibrary.org APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS: Storytimes: Please register in the library. o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m. o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m. o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6. APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS: North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS: NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org. One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register contact info above. Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744. o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register. Meetings: Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m. Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m. Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org. For children and teens at Blue Bell: * Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian. * Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages. * Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m. * May 14 Despicable Me * June 11 Alpha and Omega * Special Events * April watch for date of spring/Easter events * April 14 at 4:30 p.m. Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children. * April 14 at 7 p.m. Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided. * April 16 at 1 p.m. Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King. * April 16 at 1:30 p.m. Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes? * April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button. * April 30 through May 3 Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults. * May sign up for Science in the Summer * June sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children * June sign up for Summer Reading, all ages For adults at Blue Bell: * Daytime Book Discussion Group fourth Tuesday, Jan April at 1:30 p.m. * April 26 The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester * Night-time Book Discussion Group third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. o April 19 The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester * Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked? *Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs * Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class. * Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class. * Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m. * Giant Book Sale, April 29 May 3 o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults! o Held during library hours. o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m. o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join. * Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series o May 11 at 1 p.m. Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society * Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room. * Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read. * Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome. * Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome. *Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older. * Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours * Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours * Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday! Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library. * Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian. * Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages. * For adults: * Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn. * Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net * Special Events: * April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian. * April 19 at 7 p.m. Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m. * April 21 at 7 p.m. Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades. *May 2 at 6:30 p.m. Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time. *May 10 Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m. *May 12 at 1:30p.m. Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. *May 17 Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m. *June 13 at 6:30 p.m. Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time. Meetings and Lectures The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833. The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313. Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200. The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/. LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings. Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment. The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org. Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org. The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org) -Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them. The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter. For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps. Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin. Special Events The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County. The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065. Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org. The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org. The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members. Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex. The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com. The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348. The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org. Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163. The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu. The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com. The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net. Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd. The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages. 13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries. Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler. The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family. The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler. JPRN Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike. Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies. Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately. Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways. Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table. Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443. Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday Friday from 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday Friday from 9 a.m. 4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374 Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall: -Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store. Music and Theater The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html. Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free. The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org Religious News The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276. Reunions St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net. Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572. Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779. Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411. Support New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149. PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931. The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296. Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656. Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group every other Wednesday, 7 8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information. CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7 8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided. The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich, By By: Dr. Francis R. Souder, 85, formerly of Telford, died Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007 in the skilled nursing unit of Peter Becker Community, Franconia Township. He and his wife Marion R. (Parker) Souder celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary in July. Born in Souderton, he was a son of the late Elvin B. and Mary (Rittenhouse) Souder. A 1938 graduate of Souderton High School, he received his undergraduate degree in 1941 from the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Souder went on to receive his medical degree from Hahnemann Medical College in 1944 and completed his internship at Hahnemann Hospital from Oct. 1944 July, 1945. He served with the U.S. Navy Medical Corps for 30 months in San Diego and Long Beach, Calif. during WW II and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant prior to his discharge. He entered his second tour of duty during the Korean War where he served in Panama City, Fla. as the medical officer for the Panama City Naval Air Station and the Tyndal Air Force Base. Dr. Souder owned and operated his family practice on Main Street in Telford from 1947-1989. He served on the staff of Grand View Hospital, and as its president, and taught at the Grand View Hospital Nursing School. He was a member of the Pa. Medical Society, the Bucks County Medical Society, Diplomat American Academy of Family Practices, and served on the board of trustees at Grand View Hospital, Sellersville. He was a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Telford, where he sang in the church choir. He was also a member of the MacCalla Lodge #596 in Souderton, the Raja Shrine, and Lehigh Consistory. In addition to his widow, he is survived by a son, Dr. Ronald L. Souder, and his wife Susan L. of Green Lane; a daughter, Susan J. Souder, and her husband Stephan Russo of New York, N.Y.; five grandchildren: Jennifer A. Souder of Philadelphia; Emily E. Souder of Philadelphia; Kathryn A. Souder of Washington, D.C.; Noah Russo of New York, N.Y., and Rebekah Russo of New York, N.Y., and two brothers: Attorney Elvin B. Souder of Souderton and Dr. Lawrence Souder of Souderton. Memorial services will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10 at 12 p.m. in Trinity United Church of Christ, 101 S. Main St., Telford, with calling hours following the service. Interment will be private in Trinity UCC Cemetery Telford. Memorial contributions may be made to Grand View Hospital, 700 Lawn Ave., Sellersville, Pa. 18960. Arrangements are by Sadler-Suess Funeral Home, Telford. Pennsylvania Horticulture Societys Harvest program ends season with almost 19,000 pounds of produce donated and $30K raised to fight food insecurity Anuradha Shukla By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a host of measures to boost the ailing Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector. While the industry has welcomed these measures, they feel that it is too little and too late and that the sectors revival would depend on combined efforts from both the government and the banks. One of the second largest sectors in terms of employment roughly 11 crore jobs MSMEs contribute to 32 per cent of the economy. However, the past two years, in particular, have been very challenging for the sector in India. The GST rollout has visibly hurt businesses. According to a survey conducted in July by All India Trade Union Congress, one-fifth of Indias 6.3 crore small businesses had seen a 20 per cent fall in profits since the rollout. More than the erosion in profits, there has been increased harassment by officials who would treat us like criminals even for small errors in IT returns filing. I am glad the PM has talked about licensing raj, said a Surat-based textile manufacturer. Despite the governments strong push for loans to MSMEs, the credit crunch was a major problem since banks were reluctant to lend to certain sectors such as textiles and gems and jewellery, amid increasing cases of frauds and rising NPAs. Smaller businesses were the worst-hit. The crisis heightened post-IL&FS fiasco. Rather than showing growth, the outstanding bank credit to MSMEs came down from Rs 4.73 lakh crore in September 2016 to Rs 4.69 lakh crore by September end this year. One of the reasons we were pushing for the RBIs relaxing of Prompt Corrective Action norms was the MSME sector. When 11 out of 21 scheduled commercial banks are under PCA, who will lend to them? This NBFC crisis has accentuated the problem, a senior Finance Ministry official told The Sunday Standard. According to Ganesh Kumar Gupta, president, Federation of Indian Export Organisations, said that the announcement must be matched with proactive lending by banks. Banks should move proactively to increase the flow of credit as there is about 50 per cent drop in export credit in August 2018 as compared to August 2017, Gupta opined. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: In an unprecedented order, the Central Information Commission (CIC) issued a show cause notice to RBI Governor Urijit Patel asking why maximum penalty under the RTI Act should not be slapped on him for withholding the list of big loan defaulters in spite of a three-year old Supreme Court order for its disclosure. In its November 2 order, the CIC also asked the Prime Ministers Office, the Finance Ministry and the RBI to make public former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajans letter on bad loans.The CIC, which is the highest appellate authority in RTI matters, pinned the prima facie blame on the RBI Governor as it felt that the Central Information Commission could not have defied the Supreme Courts orders issued in 2015 without the consent of the leadership of the bankers bank.Under the RTI Act, penalty is imposed by the CIC on the Central Public Information Officer, which is a personal liability on the officer. The maximum penalty under the Act is Rs 25,000. The Commission considers the Governor as deemed PIO responsible for non-disclosure and defiance of SC orders and CIC orders and directs him to show cause why maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for these reasons, before November 16, Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu said. The case pertains to RTI applicant Sandeep Singh, who had sought data on wilful defaulters of bank loans of Rs 50 crore and above from the Ministry of Labour and Employment, which was not provided to him. In its last hearing on June 25, the CIC had issued notice to officers of Finance Ministry, RBI, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to provide the information to Singh or give explanation if it cannot be done. On September 19, RBIs Santosh Kumar Panigrahy wrote back citing various internal provisions, court orders and the RBI Act to deny the data.Rejecting Panigrahys argument, the CIC said: His contention that unless the above referred enactments were repealed, RBI cannot disclose the details of defaulters is also absurd. Put out names of the biggest fish first The RBI shall disclose the bad debt details of defaulters worth more than Rs 1,000 crore at the beginning, of Rs 500 crore or less at a later stage within five days and collect such information from the banks in due course to update their voluntary disclosures from time to time as a practice under Section 4(1)(b) of RTI Act, Sridhar Acharyulu said Rs 25,000 Maximum penalty under RTI act Under the RTI Act, penalty can be imposed by the CIC on the Central Public Information Officer, which is a personal liability on the officer. The maximum penalty under the Act is Rs 25,000 Kiranmai Tutika By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: Vijayawada may have made it to the top 10 list of Indias most liveable cities, but some of its residents feel otherwise, thanks to the silt-filled overflowing side drains near Siddhartha Nagar of Moghalrajpuram and the pungent smell it emanates. Not just to those living in the area, but even the passersby and motorists are subjected to face this troublesome situation. Drains in the area have been blocked and overflowing for a long time.Even though the residents have complained about the issue to the municipal officials on numerous occasions, their grievances have gone in vain. In their opinion, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is least bothered with the situation. Moghalrajpuram connects some of the prime locations of the city and Siddhartha College along with other educational institutions. V Kishore, a resident of Siddhartha Nagar, says: Pungent smell due to choked drains is a problem here. This situation is persisting for the past three months. Though it is a busy area with colleges, food courts and key commercial establishments, the scenario has not improved. Many of us are scared to send our children out alone fearing they may fall in the drains as, sometimes, it is difficult to even spot them. In recent times, some accidents have also taken place in the area during night time. Not only the accidents, but people living here are worried about spread of viral fevers. The roads are in a pathetic condition. On top of it, silt-filled overflowing drains have made them slippery which causes accidents. The officials should pay attention to this issue immediately and resolve them immediately, T Srinivas, who regularly commutes through the area, says. By PTI HYDERABAD: Election authorities have asked the Telangana government to initiate necessary action into allegations that public relations officers (PROs) working with caretaker ministers were allegedly involved in 'canvassing' for the TRS on social media ahead of the assembly elections next month. In his October 31 letter to the state General Administration Principal Secretary, Additional Chief Electoral Officer V Saida drew his attention to the complaint made by some journalists at a recent press meet that PROs were allegedly posting party programmes in social media groups, particularly WhatsApp. The letter requested the government to accord top priroity to the matter and take necessary action keeping in view of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and to furnish a compliance report. The matter was raised by some journalits at a press meet on October 27. Assembly elections in Telangana are scheduled to be held on December 7. By Associated Press LOS ANGELES: The spirit of Francis Underwood and misdeeds past haunt the sixth season of "House of Cards" and its new U.S. president, the widowed Claire Underwood. Francis is very much dead when the Netflix series opens its final, eight-episode run Friday, as an image of Claire bending tenderly over his coffin makes clear. But there's no suggestion from the producers or cast that killing off Francis after the Me Too-triggered firing of star Kevin Spacey took a storytelling toll on Netflix's political satire. It's following the path of Claire's rise signaled at the end of season five, this despite the upheaval that halted production a year ago when Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct. "Ultimately, the only response that we could have was the one that we had," said executive producer Frank Pugliese. "Which is the cast and crew and everyone involved decided to put their heads down and respond by telling the best story that we possibly could. It was the only way that we could answer anything, any circumstance." At least 24 men have accused Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner and a five-time Emmy nominee for his portrayal of Francis, of sexual misconduct or assault. In response to the first claim, from an actor who alleged that Spacey made inappropriate advances toward him when he was 14, Spacey said he didn't recall the alleged encounter but said it would have been "deeply inappropriate drunken behavior." Robin Wright, now flying solo as Claire, says it required a group effort to rebound after losing Spacey and his character. (Photo | AP) "We all really collaborated well and wanted the best for the show. So I think it was a reunion of, 'Come on, let's pull up our bootstraps and forge ahead,'" said Wright, who declined to comment on whether Spacey was missed on set (Wright has also received five Emmy nominations for her work on the show). When Netflix and the studio OK'd the show's resumption without him, it avoided an unresolved end for the drama that put Netflix on the map as a destination for original fare. "House of Cards" also heralded the rise of streaming platforms and more such acclaimed shows, including Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black" and Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale." That Francis would be gone but not forgotten was inevitable, said Pugliese: "To deny the weight or the importance of Francis Underwood, you can't do it so easily. It was such a big part of the story for so many seasons, and at the core of whatever Claire is going through and whatever the series is about." Last season ended with Francis out of the Oval Office and Vice President Claire Underwood in, wielding both power and Francis' direct pipeline to viewers through the camera. "My turn," she told the audience. What preceded it was her husband "basically telling her that he was going to be controlling her presidency from behind the scenes," said executive producer Melissa James Gibson. "It was clear at the end of season five that no matter what, season six was going to be an exploration of who owns the White House," said Pugliese. Added James Gibson: "Who owns the White House, who owns the narrative. And those things continue to be true. She's just grappling with them in a different way, and not just with the legacy of Francis but also the characters to whom he made promises." The final season begins with Claire ready for battle, as demonstrated by her military-inspired fashion choices and steely demeanor. When told insults and claims of intended violence are flooding in against the first female president, she insists on hearing the ugly details. "Lots of threats involving the c-word, ma'am. Lots and lots of the c-word, unfortunately," she's told. Her reply, coolly delivered: "You mean 'Claire'?" But there's more afoot than misogyny, starting with an eerie tapping coming from the walls of the White House. There's also something found on Francis' former bed that, although it falls short of the bloody horse's head of "The Godfather," has its own menacing shock value. Claire's frenemies include the billionaire brother-and-sister power team Annette and Bill Shepherd (Diane Lane, Greg Kinner). They expect her to toe the policy line they dictate and abandon any post-Francis illusions of independence. The new president has other ideas. And there's staunch Francis loyalist and fixer Doug Stamper, who took the fall for a murder Francis committed and is awaiting his fate, psychiatric and legal. "This is obviously the biggest thing he's had to deal with," said Michael Kelly, who plays Stamper. "At the beginning of season six, you see for the first time an incredibly lost man." Whether he finds himself in the post-Francis Underwood world remains to be seen. That is not an issue for the show itself, say its makers. Pugliese said Francis' absence "provided an opportunity" to see what characters fill the void as Claire's rival or ally or both, while James Gibson calls it a chance for the new president to "explore bargains, compromises, how she arrived where she is." "Claire's a complicated figure," she said. "That was really important to us, that she got to be just as contradictory and layered and complex and as much of an anti-hero as her dead husband." By Online Desk Citing promotion of 'love jihad' in the upcoming Hindi film 'Kedarnath', priests of Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand have demanded that a ban be imposed on the movie. We will launch an agitation if the movie is released as we have been told that it hurts the Hindu religious sentiments, said Vinod Shukla, chairman of Kedar Sabha, an organization of Kedarnath priests. Kedarnath priests had strongly protested against the film, claiming that 'vulgar dance sequences' were being shot around the shrine. Locals too have started protesting against the release of the movie. A New Yorker article has described 'love jihad' as a supposed form of religious warfare by which Muslim men lure Hindu women away from the faith. While there is no proof of any such 'organized' practice, many social and political organizations believe so. On Thursday, a day after a poster and teaser of the movie were released; a group of people at the district headquarters town of Rudraprayag organized a protest against the film. A similar demonstration was also held at Kotdwar, said Ajendra Ajay, a state BJP leader. In a social media post, Ajay has also urged the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, Prasoon Joshi, to ban the film. It shows bold scenes of the lead pair in the background of the floods in which thousands were killed, Ajay claimed. He also raised objections to the films poster that shows a Muslim boy carrying a Hindu girl in a palanquin with the Kedarnath shrine in the background. That is factually incorrect because you will never see a Muslim ferrying pilgrim to the shrine, he said, adding, the tagline of the movie Love is Pilgrimage is also offensive. The BJP leader also said that the heroine Sara Ali Khan went a step further while posting the films poster on social media with the caption reading:No Tragedy, No Wrath of Nature, No Act of God Can Defeat the Power of Love. Speaking to the New Indian Express, Ajay Bhatt, president of Uttarakhand BJP, said he cant comment on the issue as the movie hasnt yet been released. "If it is true that Hindu sentiments are hurt in the movie, then it should be banned as such content can't be associated with a shrine like Kedarnath," said Bhatt. Though many filmmakers have refused to comment on the objections raised by the BJP and the priests, Sudarshan Shah, a film director and producer based in Nainital, stated that storylines influenced by religion would always create controversy. Having said that I am also of the view that every filmmaker is entitled to some cinematic liberty without which it becomes difficult to tell stories, especially fictional ones, he said. While Sushant Singh Rajput plays the role of a Muslim pithoo in the movie, Sara Ali Khan portrays a pilgrim. The calamitous floods that struck Kedarnath in 2013 forms the background of the film directed by Abhishek Kapoor which is scheduled to release on December 17 this year. By ANI MUMBAI: Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who turned a year older on November 2, celebrated his birthday with family, close friends, and B-town celebrities. However, the curtain had to be drawn on the late-night bash after the Mumbai Police knocked the doors of the venue. The 'Zero' actor hosted a party for his close friends from Bollywood at a popular Mumbai restaurant named 'Arth' in Bandra. The party was attended by Swara Bhasker, Nikhil Advani, music maestros Ajay-Atul, Anand L Rai and choreographers Bosco-Caeser, among others. Restaurants usually don't stay open till wee hours on a Friday in Mumbai. However, SRK's party in 'Arth' was going on till 3 am with loud music. While the restaurant shut for the general public at 1 am, it remained open for a private party held by King Khan for his friends. The party went on until the Mumbai Police interrupted the celebration and asked the owners to shut the party. Fed cake to wife...Met my family of fans outside Mannat...now playing Mono Deal with my lil girl gang! Having a Happy Birthday. Thank u all...for this amazing love. pic.twitter.com/8IthQY3cxQ Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) November 1, 2018 Soon after the cops stopped the celebration, the party was cut-short and SRK was seen coming out with his friends Anand L Rai and Nikhil Advani, among others. WATCH Zero Trailer | Shah Rukh Khan is a runaway groom? The music at SRK's party comprised of his popular dance numbers, including 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' from his film 'Dil Se'. The party was hosted after the launch of the trailer of his much-anticipated film, 'Zero'. I believe ownership makes one very small. I believe I am the luckiest man that I no longer own my Birthday also...it belongs to all these beautiful ppl who love me and my family so much. Thank you God. pic.twitter.com/YP1d7TGJ3a Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) November 2, 2018 King Khan ringed in his 53rd birthday with his family members and took to his official Twitter handle to share sneak peeks from his birthday celebration. He also greeted thousands of fans outside his residence at midnight and thanked them for their love and wishes. By Online Desk More than a year after their wedding, Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Akkineni will be seen together on screen. The two have signed a movie with director Shiva Nirvana and it will be the fourth time that the real life couple will be acting together, after the films 'Ye Maya Chesave', 'Autonagar Surya', and 'Manam'. Naga Chaitanya told Tollywood.net, they would be playing husband and wife, and the film would deal with different stages in a marriage. The actor also revealed that it's "a pleasant experience to play husband-wife on screen." The film is tentatively titled 'Majili' and most of its shooting will take place in Hyderabad. Naga Chaitanya is currently enjoying the success of 'Savyasachi' which also stars Madhavan, Bhumika and Nidhhi Agerwal. 'Savyasachi' movie review: A novel premise ruined by conventional narration On the other hand, Samantha was last seen in the bilingual thriller 'U-turn' helmed by Pawan Kumar, which was released in Tamil and Telugu. The film was a remake of Shraddha Srinath-starrer Kannada film of the same name. 'U Turn' movie review: A fairly engaging thriller with forgivable flaws Mata Amritanandamayi By Since the beginning of the world, there has been conflict. Saying that its impossible to totally eradicate it causes a lot of anxiety. But its the truth. The reason being that good and evil will always exist in the world. In our struggle to accept the good and reject the bad, the possibility of conflict cannot be completely ruled out. Such conflict has manifested in nearly all countries in forms such as internal strife, war and strikes. Although most wars are generally aimed at protecting vested interests, there have been rare circumstances where the needs of the people were taken into consideration and a greater good was achieved. Unfortunately, the majority of wars waged by man have not been fought to uphold truth and justice but have been motivated by selfishness. From approximately 5,000 years ago until the rule of the great Indian king Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Dynasty, truth and dharma played a central role in all wars fought in India. Even back then, defeating and, if need be, destroying the enemy was a part of war. However, there were clear rules that had to be followed on the battlefield and during combat. For example, foot soldiers were only allowed to fight with foot soldiers and horsemen could only fight with horsemen. Warriors riding elephants or in chariots could only fight with similarly mounted opponents. The same rules applied to those fighting with maces, swords, spears and bow and arrows.Soldier was not allowed to attack injured or unarmed soldiers, nor would he harm women, children, the elderly or the sick. Battles began at dawn with the blowing of a conch and ended exactly at sunset, with the soldiers of both sides forgetting their mutual enmity and dining together as one. Battle would then resume the next morning at sunrise. There were even incidents of victorious kings happily returning the entire kingdom and all the riches they had won to the king they had defeated, or his rightful heir. Such was the great tradition of dharmic wars, in which the enemy was considered with respect and kindness, both on and off the battlefield. The sentiments and the culture of the citizens of the enemy kingdom were also respected. Such was the courageous outlook of the people living then. These days, to prevent terrorist attacks, strict security measures are implemented at airports and other establishments. While such measures are necessary for our physical safety, they are not a final solution. In fact, there is one explosive in particular that is the most destructive of all. No machine can detect it. It is the hatred, loathing and vengeance found in the human mind. In wars today, the enemys country is destroyed in every possible way. Conquerors plunder and monopolise the land, natural resources and wealth of the defeated country and use them for their own selfish enjoyment. The culture and traditions that have been passed down for generations are uprooted, and innocent people are killed without mercy. Furthermore, we cannot begin to fathom the amount of toxic fumes emitted by bombs and other weapons of war, filling the atmosphere and polluting the soil. How many generations are forced to suffer physically and mentally as a consequence. In the wake of war, all that is left are death, poverty, starvation and epidemics. Such are wars gifts to humanity. No matter what action we perform, even if it be war, the goal should be the protection of truth and dharma. Ammas not saying that war is unavoidable. In principle, there is never a time when war is necessary. But will we ever be able to completely eradicate war from the external world as long as conflict remains in the minds of man? This is something we really should contemplate. The writer is a world-renowned spiritual leader manik sharma By Two decades ago, in 1997, the first-ever social media website, SixDegrees.com, came into existence. But today, social media is a world in itself, almost inseparable if not in control of our realities. Though it is recent, the founding principle behind this juggernaut dates back to centuries and is reflected in the prodigal rise of the picture postcards in early 20th century. The exhibition, Globetrotters, at the Art Heritage Gallery at Triveni Kala Sangam in Delhi till November 17, has brought together 250 postcards, which offer a unique insight into the pre-Independence India, leading up to the emergence of a new social network. The exhibition, divided into various segments has four sections dedicated to the four metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Delhi. It features 125 postcards each from the collection of deltiologist Omar Khan and the photography collection of the Alkazi Foundation for the Artsfounded by Ebrahim Alkazi. These postcards tell the tales of how the cities were anchored in identities, be it imperial, industrial or coastal, in their own way. Mumbai, for example, is represented by the photos and paintings of the Shivaji terminus, Delhi by its Mughal structures and Chennai through its docks. San-Francisco-based Omar Khan, who has been collecting postcards since 1995, has over 15,000 of them between the period of 1892 and 1947. Though, he says, he never had the chance to count them, I intend to work on it further so that it can be turned into an archive that offers valuable historical insight. The postcard made its first estimated appearance in India in 1897. Reminiscing how Omar Khan acquired his first postcard, he says, It was at a Paper and Postcard Fair in Concord, outside San Francisco in 1995. I had seen an advertisement for the show, and being a photograph collector, I went to the show. To my surprise I found a lot of India cards, and this one was special, as it transported me right back to my grandmothers house at 5 Queens Road in Lahore, when I was a little boy, and she sat on the verandah shelling peas or rolling chapati dough with a servant girl. For an exhibition that charts a period through colonial rule, it is natural there will be oriental narratives and counter-narratives, the battle between local and exotic. Rahaab Allana, curatorial adviser for Alkazi Foundation, says, The postcard wasnt just a personal token then, it had a social and political consciousness as well. If you look at postcards of the Bengal famine circulated in the Kolkata region, you can see them as agents of information about the serious issues. Similarly, there were the things that channelled the independence movement. And the reason we wanted to display this collection in the age of new popular media was to enable a journey back into an era of ubiquitous networks. The last portion of the exhibition takes one through the independence movement, with beautiful, grainy prints of the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose. Intriguingly, it is also flanked by a section of cards that were circulated in the North West Frontier (now Pakistan) at that time. It was important for us to have that section, to be able to cross a frontier of sorts ourselves. Postcards can offer you a dictionary that helps you think of a world without borders. And it is crucial for a time when culture is being deployed as politics, says Allana. Omar, whose last exhibition was in Mumbai, says his search to gather more postcards is on. I continue to collect a few each week. The collection covers India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, with some from Bangladesh, which sadly lacks in postcards in the pre-1947 period. I plan to restore them and put them online as a free, properly categorised resource for scholars, historians, and artists, he adds. With such small, but significant efforts, Omar wants to keep the art of postcard collection alive and people connected to their past. At the border marker salute ceremony (Source: VNA) The event aimed to foster solidarity and cooperation among the three countries as well as the Lao provinces of Sekong and Attapeu, the Cambodian province of Rattanakiri and Vietnams Kon Tum province.Leaders from Kon Tum province and the Vietnam Border Guard held dialogues with senior officials from Sekong and Attapeu provinces, the Sekong provincial Military High Command, and public security forces from Attapeu and Ratanakiri provinces.They pledged to stand side by side in protecting the peaceful shared border and promoting the tradition friendship among the three countries.Films about friendship among three Indochinese countries were also screened on the occasion.At present, three Kon Tum-based firms have been licensed to carry out four projects with a total registered capital of more than VND1 trillion (USD43.47 million) in Cambodia. Two other local enterprises are operating in Laos with combined registered capital of about VND747 billion, mostly in agriculture, industry and forestry.Over the past five years, Kon Tum has assisted Sekong, Attapeu and Ratanakiri in building schools, hospitals and welfare facilities worth over VND16 billion.With the support of neighbouring countries, Kon Tums K53 Group found and repatriated 1,259 sets of remains of soldiers, including 872 in Laos and the remaining in Cambodia.On November 3rd morning, a border marker salute ceremony and a joint patrol among the three countries were held at the Vietnam Laos Cambodia border intersection, as part of the border friendship exchange./. Namita Bajpai By Express News Service LUCKNOW: At a time when the voices for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya through an ordinance are getting shriller following the Supreme Court's order to defer the issue by another three months till January next year, former Bharatiya Janata Party MP and senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ram Vilas Vedanti has created a flutter by claiming on Saturday that Ram temple construction would commence next month in Ayodhya by "mutual consensus" and not by any ordinance or legislation. Vedanti said that he would start construction of temple in December while the mosque could be built in state capital Lucknow in the name of Allah. Vedanti was expressing his views on the issue on the second day of the two-day 'Dharmadesh' organised by Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti in New Delhi. The idea behind this meeting was to mount pressure on the Centre to bring an ordinance or an executive order to facilitate construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Empathising with the BJP leadership, Vedanti said that though PM Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, party ministers, MPs and MLAs, all wanted the temple in Ayodhya but if legislation would be brought over the issue, the country would be pushed into a worst ever communal catastrophe which "no one will be able to stop." The VHP leader, also an accused in the case over abatement of demolition of Babri masjid, added that no one wanted violence. "We do not want violence. We want peace," he maintained. Significantly, Vedanti's statement has come a day after UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey claimed that CM Yogi had a mega plan for Ayodhya and it would be revealed by the CM himself around Diwali. Meanwhile, pitching in for the temple, Union Home Minister Rajanth Singh said in Varanasi on Saturday that everyone would be happy if temple was constructed at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya. On the other, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya also observed on Saturday in Lucknow that the title issue of the disputed land in Ayodhya may be sub-judice and the hands of the authorities were tied but "no one can stop us from installing a grand statue of 'Ram Lalla' in the temple town." He added that no one could stop the government from developing Ayodhya.Maurya was referring to a prestigious project pertaining to installation of a 151-metre tall statue of Lord Ram in Ayodhya. The official announcement regarding the proposed project is likely to be made by UP CM Yogi Adityanath during the three-day Diwali extravaganza Deepostsav-planned by the UP government in the temple town from November 4 to 6. Notably, earlier this week, the Supreme Court had fixed the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case for the first week of January 2019 before an appropriate bench, which would decide the schedule of hearing. As many as 14 appeals have been filed against the high court judgment, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77 acres of land be trifurcated equally among the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. Reacting to the apex court's October 29 order, UP CM Yogi Adityanath had expressed his dismay by saying that the sentiments of the majority community should be respected while proceeding in the case. He had even claimed that if justice was delayed, it amounted to injustice. "The Hindus have been disappointed as they had pinned all their hopes on Supreme Court which deferred the vexed issue by another three months," the CM had said. Yogi also favoured a solution through consensus to the vexed issue as the best option. "Otherwise other options are also there," he had stated. Following the SC's October 29 order the VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders had started mounting pressure on the Centre for an ordinance to acquire land for the temple in Ayodhya. The RSS has already made its opinion over the Supreme Court's latest stand public when one of its ideologue Bhaiyyaji Joshi said Hindus were feeling -"insulted-" by the Supreme Court's declaration that it had priorities other than the Ayodhya issue. "We respect the Supreme Court and urge it to take into consideration sentiments of Hindus,-" Joshi had said. The RSS leaders have also observed in the last couple of days that they will not hesitate to launch an agitation similar to 1992 for Ram temple at Ayodhya if required. According to highly placed sources, the Sunni Waqf board is also planning to have an important meeting in Delhi to decide its strategy in the case. The Babri Masjid, built by Mughal emperor Babur in Ayodhya in 1528, was, on December 6, 1992, razed to the ground allegedly by Hindu activists, claiming that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a Ram temple that originally stood there. By PTI BANIHAL: Over 300 passengers, including dozens of security personnel, were rescued Saturday night after they were caught in heavy snowfall near the Jawahar tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, police said. Senior Superintendent of Police (Ramban) Anita Sharma said the 270-km highway, connecting Kashmir with rest of the country, was closed for traffic tonight after heavy snowfall and multiple landslides rendered it unsafe. "A rescue operation was launched after information was received that a large number of passenger vehicles were stranded in avalanche prone areas on the other side of the Jawahar tunnel," Sharma told PTI. She said so far about 300 Jammu-bound passengers have been rescued from the Kashmir side of the Jawahar tunnel and the Verinag Zing area, where more than one feet of snow had accumulated on the ground. All the rescued passengers were brought to Banihal and provided accommodation inside shelter sheds, hotels, sarais and religious places, she said. Four buses, a tempo traveller and a number of private vehicles were pressed into service to evacuate the stranded passengers to safety, Sharma said. The SSP said the food was provided to all of them. She said fresh landslides had occurred at multiple places between Ramban and Banihal sector and it was not possible to allow stranded passengers to move towards Jammu. Officials said dozens of soldiers were among those rescued during the operation. The soldiers were heading for Jammu and their convoy got struck on the highway, they said, adding they were shifted to an Army camp in Banihal town. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service A four-member delegation of lawmakers from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Sunday visited Kherbari-Bisonibari village in Assam's Dhola where five people, all Bengalis, were gunned down by unidentified gunmen. The TMC team, comprising MPs Derek O' Brien, Mamata Bala Thakur, Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra, spent over an hour with the bereaved families before travelling back to Dibrugarh to catch a flight to Kolkata. O' Brien told reporters it was a humanitarian visit to stand by the grieving families. "What has happened is dastardly. We have come to be by the side of the bereaved families and give them all support. Some poor Bengalis, who were Hindus, were called out of their homes and shot dead in cold blood. We cannot accept this," O' Brien said. READ: Assam killings: Gunmen came in two groups to attack at Kheronibari village, says survivor Moitra said the nine crore people of West Bengal were by the side of the affected families. "Just as people from other states are living peacefully in West Bengal, we also expect migrants in Assam to live in peace. The incident in which five people were picked up and killed shouldn't have happened," she said. Without naming the BJP or Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she alleged that that the country had been in the grip of a "toxic atmosphere" since 2014. "There has been an increasing division among people in the country since 2014. People are being divided on the lines of religion. Just because you speak a language that is different from mine, you might be seen as different. If your religion is different from mine, you might be seen as different. The killings are a result of this mentality and divisive agenda," Moitra said. The incident took place in the evening of Thursday when masked gunmen on motorcycles called out the people, took them to a place under a bridge and fired a barrage of shots. Sumi Sukanya dutta By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Realizing that the existing infrastructure is insufficient to effectively implement the Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PMJAY), the government has prepared a draft policy to facilitate opening of private hospitals in tier II and tier III cities across the country. In an advisory note sent to all states, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has asked them to ensure easy and fast availability of land for the opening of hospitals, and facilitate various clearances and permissions under various statutory provisions/departments with specified timelines. The Centre has also asked the states to sanction soft loans at agricultural rates for new hospitals and provide services such as uninterrupted electricity at residential rates. India has a huge and growing population but relative to that fewer number of hospitals. The country has one hospital bed for 879 people. This is far below the world average of 30 hospitals per 10,000 population, said the note seeking inputs from the states. With the launch of the PMJAY and 500 million beneficiaries, there will be a requirement of 0.64 million additional beds required over the next 10 years, said the draft policy, for which inputs have been provided by the Niti Aayog. We now need three times more growth but it should be primarily focused on Tier II and III cities. Private players (both for-profit and not-for-profit) have a key role to play in bridging the supply-demand gap in health infrastructure while advancing the standards of care, the draft policy said. A senior health ministry official said three business models had been suggested to the states: the first, in which the doctor owns one or two specialities and the hospital could have 30-40 beds; the second, in which a doctor partners a businessman with multi-speciality services and sets up a 100-bed hospital; and the third will be hospitals with more than 100 beds and funded by corporates or existing hospital chains. However, all three would have to have doctors owning a majority stake. Girdhar J Gyani, director general of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India, welcomed the private hospital-friendly policy. When the government has launched a mega scheme... it will have to ensure they reach smaller towns, he said. By PTI PALANPUR: The Gujarat CID has filed a charge sheet against former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and three others in connection with a 22-year-old case of alleged planting of drugs to frame a person. The investigating agency filed the charge sheet Friday in the court of additional sessions judge P S Brahmbhatt. Sanjiv Bhatt is currently in judicial custody. In the charge sheet, the CID has accused Bhatt of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his subordinate officers. Apart from the offence of criminal conspiracy under the IPC, the accused have also been charge-sheeted under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Then police inspector I B Vyas and head constable Malabhai Desai are co-accused in the case which dates back to 1996 when Bhatt was superintendent of police of Banaskantha district. He was arrested on September 5 this year on the order of the Gujarat High Court. According to the CID, Banaskantha police arrested Sumersingh Rajpurohit, a lawyer, in 1996 on the charges of possessing around one kg of opium. The drug was found in a hotel room in Palanpur town where he was staying, police said. However, a probe by Rajasthan Police found that Rajpurohit was allegedly falsely implicated by Banaskantha Police to compel him to transfer a disputed property in Pali, Rajasthan. It was also found that Rajpurohit was allegedly abducted by Banaskantha Police from his house in Pali. Vyas, the former police inspector from Banaskantha moved the Gujarat High Court in 1999, demanding a thorough inquiry into the matter. In June this year, the HC handed over the probe to the CID, asking it to complete the probe in three months. Bhatt was sacked by the Union Home Ministry in August 2015 for "unauthorised absence" from service. He had had several run-ins with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat over the 2002 post-Godhra riots. He had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming that he attended a meeting at then chief minister Narendra Modi's residence in Gandhinagar on February 27, 2002, where Modi allegedly instructed top police officers to allow Hindus to "vent their anger" after the Godhra train burning incident. Bhatt's claim was rejected by the apex court-appointed Special Investigation Team. The Palanpur court will be hearing Bhatt's bail plea on November 6. Ramananda Sengupta By Express News Service NEW DELHI: In a statement that is unlikely to go down well in New Delhi, China on Sunday endorsed Pakistans efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries. The statement follows Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khans trip to Beijing November 2-5, where he met top Chinese leaders. Noting that Chinas relationship with Pakistan is always a matter of highest priority in its foreign policy, China hailed Pakistans attempts to get into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, another sore point with India given that Beijing has been constantly blocking Indias membership bid at the UN. ALSO READ: China vows 'support' to cash-strapped Pakistan, 16 pacts signed In return, Pakistan pledged its full support for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, and reaffirmed its support to the Chinese side in safeguarding its sovereignty and security, and combating separatism, terrorism and extremism including East Turkistan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang, where China has launched a massive crackdown on Uighur Muslims. It also reiterated support for Chinas entry into SAARC, which has been dead in the water due to the India-Pakistan dispute. The post-Wuhan honeymoon of India and China had actually started unravelling before that. Last month, days before Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe came to India, he had cancelled a housing contract given to Chinese firms and re-allocated them to India. When he returned, President Maithripala Sirisena deposed him and appointed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, known for his pro-China position, as PM. Last week, at a conference on regional connectivity in New Delhi, foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale, in a veiled reference to CPEC and Belt and Road Initiative, said connectivity should build trade, not tension. Flanking him on the dais were the Japanese Ambassador to India Kenji Hiramatsu and US envoy Kenneth Juster. Perhaps in a sign that the meeting had hit a nerve, the joint statement in Beijing also declared that both sides dismissed the growing negative propaganda against CPEC and expressed determination to safeguard the CPEC projects from all threats By PTI NEW DELHI: A Kolkata-bound A320 neo plane of IndiGo returned to Lucknow on Friday, with initial inspection showing that the aircraft suffered bird strike, according to the airline. An IndiGo spokesperson said the aircraft that was involved in the air turn back to Lucknow airport was powered by PW1100G-JM engines. ALSO READ: Near mid-air collision: IndiGo says separation between both planes was within regulatory requirements "Initial inspection observed evidence of a bird strike and the engine performed as expected in this situation. Further investigation is currently in progress," the spokesperson said. The number of passengers on the flight could not be immediately ascertained. A P&W spokesperson also said that initial inspection observed evidence of a bird strike and the engine performed as expected in this situation. "We continue to work closely with our customer to support their operations and minimise any disruption," he said. According to him, the PW1100G-JM powers a fleet of more than 280 A320neo aircraft worldwide, which have achieved more than 1.3 million engine flight hours of operation. In recent times, there have been engine issues with P&W engines-powered A320 neo planes operated by IndiGo and GoAir. By PTI AHMEDABAD: A senior faculty member of the National Institute of Design (NID) here has been expelled after a group of students accused him of sexual harassment, the institute said Saturday. Krishnesh Mehta, who had been teaching at the NID since 1995, resigned last month after the institute sought to terminate his services, it said in a statement. The development comes amid the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment which has gained momentum in India in recent weeks. Mehta could not be contacted for his reaction. According to the NID statement, a group of students had alleged that Mehta made "undesirable and out-of-syllabus references to sexuality and sexual relations and behaviour," and his conduct amounted to "sexual harassment". This was the second time the institute had received a complaint against him, it added. A few years ago his increment was stopped following similar complaints and he had tendered a written apology then, it said. After the latest allegations, the NID set up an internal inquiry committee which found the complaint to be genuine, it said. Mehta apologised and submitted his resignation, and was relieved from services from October 5, the institute added. He has also been barred from entering the NID campus and involvement in any academic or other programs of the institute. By PTI SILCHAR: Two unidentified men, who were assaulted by a mob at Assam's Cachar district after they were found carrying arms and ammunition, have succumbed to injuries, a police officer said on Sunday. The men, suspected to be militants, were rescued by the police on Saturday evening and taken into custody from a bus stop at Harinagar in Lakhipur sub-division of the district, he said. They were then admitted to Silchar Medical College Hospital in a serious condition. "As the two men are yet to be identified, we could not inform their family members. They were badly beaten up by the mob at the bus stop and were taken to the hospital in a critical condition," the officer said, adding that the duo succumbed to the injuries on Saturday night. Cachar Superintendent of Police Rakesh Roshan had earlier told PTI that three AK-56 rifles, one Chinese-make LMG, one 12 bore single barrel and one 5.56 mm rifles were seized from the possession of the two men. Roshan also credited local people for the apprehension and said the duo had come from Dima Hasao district. The incident comes three days after five Bengali-speaking individuals were gunned down by a group of assailants at Tinsukia district. By PTI TINSUKIA: Assam government Sunday handed over cheques of Rs 5 lakh as compensation to families of each of the five persons, three days after they were killed by unidentified gunmen in the district. BJP MLA from Sadiya, Bolin Chetia, visited the victims' houses and gave the cheques. "I have handed over the cheques that the state government had announced after the massacre," Chetia told reporters after meeting the victim families. The Assam government had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh and a job for the next of the kin of the deceased. Three members of a family were among five people shot dead by suspected ULFA (Independent) gunmen while two others were injured at Kheroni in the district Thursday night, police said. Photo taken on Oct. 16, 2018 shows Haixing 6000, one of China's underwater robots, ready for diving during a research expedition. Haixing 6000 set a national depth record for a Chinese remotely operated vehicle, by diving 6,001 meters below sea surface during its first research expedition, scientists told Xinhua Sunday. Haixing 6000 was developed by a team at the Shenyang Institute of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is the first remotely operated underwater vehicle built by China that is capable of diving 6,000 meters, said Li Zhigang, chief scientist of the team. It reached a maximum depth of 6,001 meters, and completed a series of underwater tasks in three hours, including deep-sea observation, biological research, soil and water sample collection, and a simulative black box search. (Xinhua) SHENYANG, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- One of China's underwater robots, the Haixing 6000, recently set a national depth record for a Chinese remotely operated vehicle, by diving 6,001 meters below sea surface during its first research expedition, scientists told Xinhua Sunday. Haixing 6000 was developed by a team at the Shenyang Institute of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is the first remotely operated underwater vehicle built by China that is capable of diving 6,000 meters, said Li Zhigang, chief scientist of the team. It reached a maximum depth of 6,001 meters, and completed a series of underwater tasks in three hours, including deep-sea observation, biological research, soil and water sample collection, and a simulative black box search. At 2,000 meters, the underwater robot completed three sample collections in different sea areas in a single day, obtaining a total of nearly 400 kilograms of rocks, of which the largest single rock weighed 61 kilograms. Such an operation also verified the robot's capabilities and reliability. The name "Haixing" is Chinese for "starfish." According to scientists, the Haixing 6000 has conducted nine dives at different depths during the research expedition, which finished on Friday, showing that China has made progress in the development of underwater vehicle and deep-sea exploration. 4 1 [ Editor: WPY ] Pushkar Banakar By Express News Service IMPHAL: Apart from tackling insurgents in Manipur, security forces in the northeastern state are dealing with the problem of drugs. Acknowledging the situation, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said over 600 drug peddlers are arrested in the state each year. "The situation, however, is better now as the people's involvement is more. Also, after coming to power, I set up fast-track courts to break the peddlers' backs," he said. One of the worst affected areas is Lilong. The All Lilong Anti-Drug Association (ALADA) claims that drugs are smuggled into India through Myanmar. "Drugs like Heroin number 4 and World's Yours come into Indian territory through Myanmar," the tribe secretary of ALADA Abid Hussain said. Lilong is the Muslim majority area of Manipur with a population of about 3 lakh of which 80-90 per cent of the people belong to the minority community. Hussain said the security forces stationed in the state have been instrumental in solving the drug problem. "We have around 2,000 identified users and the forces help us seize the drugs and apprehend the users. They take them to police stations and also help in their rehabilitation," he said. The ALADA tribe secretary expected more help from the government for the successful tackling of the drug problem. "Though security forces are doing their best, the government has provided us with only one rehabilitation centre. If we are given a few more rehabilitation centres, the drug problem could be solved more easily," he said, adding that most of the people who shift their focus to being insurgents are drug addicts. By Express News Service GUWAHATI: Fed up with extortion, a mob in southern Assam's Barak Valley killed two suspected militants. The incident occurred near a bazaar in Harinagar in Lakhipur sub-division of Cachar district on Saturday. Seeing a group of six gunmen heading to the bazaar, a resident alerted fellow locals. When the armed men reached a bus stop, they were nabbed by a sizeable mob. The mob seized the weapons from them before unleashing an attack. The attack left two of them grievously injured, while four others managed to escape. Soon, the police arrived at the scene and rescued the duo. The police said the two men were admitted to the Silchar Medical College and Hospital, but succumbed to their injuries at night. They are yet to be identified. Cachar Superintendent of Police, Rakesh Roshan, said three AK-56 rifles, one Chinese LMG, one 12 bore single barrel and one 5.56 mm rifle were seized from the slain duo. He suspected that the gunmen had come from the hill district of Assam's Dima Hasao. Naga rebels are active in the district that shares a border with Nagaland. The locals said members of some militant organisations had unleashed a reign of terror in parts of Cachar by carrying out extortion. By ANI AMARAVATI: Launching a scathing attack at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said the Prime Minister is an 'Anaconda' who is swallowing up institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), among others. "Who is a bigger Anaconda than (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi. He himself is the Anaconda, who swallowed all the institutions. He is swallowing up institutions like CBI, RBI etc. Andhra Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders should know this," he claimed. Ramakrishnudu further asserted that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will fight dictatorship, hegemony, and pride- three qualities, he claimed, the BJP possesses. "Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is speaking of past politics. Past cannot be present or future. But present and future will become past. The critics of TDP should understand this truth. TDP was not established against any single party. It was found against the system. Late NTR had founded TDP to fight dictatorship and hegemony. TDP was found for the security of marginal and downtrodden and for empowring minorities," he added. Reiterating TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu's stance, Ramakrishnudu said the party's primary responsibility is to save the nation, democracy, and constitutional values. "BJP leaders, Narendra Modi, and Amit Shah are violating the constitution and democracy. In such a situation is it not the responsibility of all of us as the citizens of India to face BJP and counter Modi's dictatorial policies? Instead of that why YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and Jai Samaikyandhra Party (JSP) are criticising TDP in the same tune? Is it not irresponsibility and anti-constitutional?" he asked. The Andhra Pradesh minister further claimed that the TDP has been playing a key role in national politics whenever needed from day one of its formation. "We did the same in National Front and United Front. TDP has a greater responsibility towards the nation. That's why it cannot sit idle as a mute spectator when the safety of the nation is in trouble, democracy is in problems and constitution is in crises. YSRCP and JSP want to grab power but have no responsibilities towards the nation. For the same, they are supporting Narendra Modi, who is demolishing the systems and killing democracy," he said. "TDP was formed for the interests of the state of Andhra Pradesh. It was founded for creating a new political era by encouraging youth, educated and truthful people into politics. TDP has been working in the same direction since last 36 years. Our call for self-respect brought worldwide identity for us. People stopped calling us 'Madrasis' and started identifying as Telugu people," added Ramakrishnudu. In response to the state finance minister's comments, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi asserted that Prime Minister Modi's critics do not have the courage to review the work done by him. "There is a competition going on in abusing popular and hardworking Prime Minister like Narendra Modi. People are not feeling ashamed of using bad words. However, if we see the history, Prime Minister Modi has always stood strong whenever somebody attacked him. These people, who are abusing him, also know this. They don't have the courage to review the works done by Prime Minister Modi," he told ANI. Ties between the TDP and BJP have been strained ever since the Chandrababu Naidu-led party pulled out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) alleging that the BJP-led central government had betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh by not granting special category status to the state. Anusha Ravi By Express News Service BENGALURU: Polling for the three Lok Sabha and two assembly seats in Karnataka is now over and parties, workers and voters alike have to sit tight till November 6 when the results will be announced. While Ballari, Mandya, Shivamogga and Ramanagara constituencies followed convention in registering lower voter turnout in a bypoll than a general election, Jamkhandi stood out by registering a polling percentage even higher than the May 2018 elections. Analysts believe that the numbers point to a tough and intense fight in the seat. If the heavy campaigning by BJP on on side and JD(S)-Congress combine on the other was anything to go by in the Jamkhandi seat, and the sympathy factor working in favour of both candidates, November 6 is likely to be a nail-biter. Mandya, with just 53.93% voter turnout as opposed to 71.47% that it registered in 2014, held a mirror to the infighting between JD(S) and Congress workers at the grassroots level despite BJP has no significant presence there. A drop of close to 20% polling in a seat where BJP has no significant presence shows that that alliance may not have been able to get their voters together because of infighting. This, however, does not mean the BJP will benefit, said political scientist Sandeep Shastry. The BJP, while acknowledging behind closed doors that the seat is a sure shot win for JD(S), is hoping to improve its vote share. Ballari, which has become a battle of prestige between Sriramulu and Water Resources minister D K Shivakumar who are fighting a proxy war with their candidates, recorded 7% lesser polling than in 2014. The number, analysts believe, may not negatively impact the incumbent in this case, the BJP. Even as Sriramulu told the media in Ballari on Saturday that his party will win, albeit a thin margin, experts believe that it could be status quo since other factors seem to favour BJP. Ramanagara was a lost cause for the BJP the moment its candidate withdrew from the contest and announced his decision to join Congress. While L Chandrashekhars name appeared next to the Lotus symbol on the EVMs, JD(S) is hoping to win with a landslide margin in an election that wasnt. The constituency that had polled 82.98% in May this year, recorded 71.88% voter turnout on Saturday. Shivamogga, analysts believe, is perhaps another case of hardcore Congress supporters refusing to come out and vote. With 61.05% voter turnout, a sharp decline from 72.36% in 2014, BJPs B Y Raghavendra is still confident of a victory. Our party leaders and workers have been working hard for a month now. I am confident of a victory in every booth, said Raghavendra. The JD(S)-Congress common candidate too exudes equal confidence, albeit for other reasons. Voters want to come out of the BJP clutches, from their brand of politics like Hindutva. People have hopes in the coalition government, claimed Madhu Bangarappa. Analysts, however, believe that the drop in polling percentage could reflect on the coalitions inability to galvanise support. It only means JD(S) hasnt managed to galvanise enough support to vote out BJP. A lot of hardcore supporters may have refused to vote, Dr Shastry observed. By Express News Service RAMANAGARA: Elections turned out to be a one-sided affair at the Ramanagara assembly constituency, where BJP candidate L Chandrashekar extended his support to the coalition candidate and Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamys wife Anitha Kumaraswamy at the last moment. With no serious competition left for Anitha, her victory is almost assured as voting was brisk in several areas with strong Vokkaliga presence. Recent political surprises in the constituency ensured that there was little bustle outside polling booths on an overcast day in Ramanagara. Only JD(S) party workers were present around most of the polling booths. Despite the deserted look at the BJPs office on poll day, several workers were seen encouraging voters to vote for their party in front of a few polling booths in Ramanagara city. Defiant supporters Despite the decision by Chandrashekar, several defiant BJP workers urged workers to vote for the party. He is a national party candidate and people were expecting the party to win. So, we are seeking votes, said Srinivas, a BJP party worker. In Hunsenahalli village, a traditional JD(S) bastion, there were allegations that Congress voters had not cast their votes as there was no candidate from the party. According to JD(S) worker Nagegowda, almost 80 per cent of the villagers were JD(S) voters and there was a good turnout of voters till noon. With no one urging them to vote for another party at the last minute, almost all will vote for us, he claimed. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Lakshmi, the wife of late musician Balabhaskar, told the police it was driver Arjun, and not her husband, who was behind the wheel. Her revelation is contrary to the statement of the driver, who said Balabhaskar drove the car after reaching Kollam. According to the Attingal police, Lakshmi said Balabhaskar was taking a nap in the back seat. Balabhaskar never used to drive the vehicle during long-distance journeys. Lakshmi said she was sitting in the front seat with their child Thejaswini on her lap. Lakshmi was discharged from the hospital two days ago. ALSO READ: Late violinist Balabhaskars unfinished projects The police had earlier recorded the statement of Arjun and he had said Balabhaskar started driving the car when they reached Kollam. The accident took place on the national highway at Pallipuram on September 25 when the family was returning home after visiting a temple in Thrissur. The kid died soon after the accident and Balabhaskar succumbed to injuries on October 1. By Express News Service BHUBANESHWAR: The Supreme Court collegium has recommended to the Centre the name of a judicial officer for his elevation as a judge of Orissa High Court. The collegium, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, cleared the proposal for appointment of judicial officer Dr Akshaya Kumar Mishra as a judge of High Court. Other members of the collegium comprised senior judges Justice B Lokur and Kurian Joseph. Sources said apart from Mishra, the names of three other judicial officers - Bibhu Prasad Routray, Gautam Sharma and Satyanarayan Mishra were also sent for consideration. The proposal made by the then Chief Justice of Orissa High Court on May 18 has the concurrence of the Chief Minister and Governor. The Collegium is said to have carefully scrutinised the materials placed on record, including the observations made by the Department of Justice, for assessing merit and suitability of the proposed recommended for elevation to the High Court. As Bibhu Prasad, Gautam and Satyanarayan did not qualify the prevailing norms of eligibility, the collegium was of the considered view that the proposal in respect of the three recommenders deserved to be sent back to the Chief Justice of the High Court for reconsideration by the present HC collegium at the appropriate time. After a thorough interaction and verification of all relevant documents and factors in respect to Mishra, the collegium resolved that he is suitable for elevation for appointment as a judge of the Orissa High Court. "Judicial officer Mishra be appointed as a judge of Orissa High Court against the service vacancy that occurred on January 23, 2015," it stated. In another proposal, names of Rudra Prasad Kar, Pranaya Kishore Harichandan, Kali Prasanna Mishra, Bimbisar Dash, Narasingha V, Tushar Kanti Satpathy, Bishnu Prasad Pradhan and Sameer Kumar Das were sent for consideration. The SC collegium, however, resolved that the proposal in respect of Mishra deserved to be deferred and taken up after some time for consideration while the proposal for Narasingha be sent back to the HC for reconsideration by the HC collegium. The proposal for the rest, however, be remitted since they do not qualify the existing norms, it added. Names of three other judicial officers - Bibhu Prasad Routray, Gautam Sharma and Satyanarayan Mishra were also sent for consideration Namita Bajpai By LUCKNOW: Plush bungalows with beautiful lawns that look like green carpet are the stuff of dreams. However, such palatial properties can be more than useful in winning over allies. Look no further than the BJP which is using bungalow diplomacy for obliging political leaders, who, it thinks, can be useful in curtailing the impact of a possible SP-BSP alliance. Former senior Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav was the first to benefit from the ruling partys largesse in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Shivpal made a Samajwadi Secular Morcha within the SP and then floated his own Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia. Soon, the UP government allotted him the 6, Lal Bahadur Shatri Marg bungalow vacated by BSP chief Mayawati. One reason which comes to mind is that the BJP wants to keep Shivpal pleased in order to widen the rift in the Yadav family ahead of the elections, said a senior SP leader. Deputy CM Keshav Maurya had suggested Shivpal recently to merge his party with the BJP. Political scientists feel Shivpal falling apart from the SP leadership will help the BJP in 2019. But, political observer Ashutosh Mishra feels otherwise. He was relevant till he was with the SP, he said. Another beneficiary is Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya, who was a minister in both BJP and SP regimes. The five-time Independent MLA from Kunda got a bungalow vacated by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. Once, a close aide of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Raja Bhaiyya did not go along well with Akhilesh. He went on to vote in favour of the BJP candidate during the Rajya Sabha election. The bonhomie of Akhilesh and Mayawati was the last nail in the coffin, as the BSP supremo had sent him to jail. Closed to prominent Thakur leaders of the BJP, Raghuraj is on way to launch his Jansatta Party. Moreover, the UP government allotted the bungalow vacated by former chief minister late ND Tiwari in Mall Avenue to Apna Dal national president Ashish Singh Patel. Singh is the husband of Union minister of state for health and family welfare Anupriya Patel. The Apna Dal, a BJP ally, has considerable influence over Kurmi voters in Varanasi and its adjoining districts. Earlier this year, former CMs ND Tiwari, Rajnath Singh, Kalyan Singh, Mayawati, Akhilesh and Mulayam had vacated their government accommodations in compliance with a Supreme Court order. On the contrary, the estate department is cracking down onthe likes of the Nationalist Congress Party, the Communist Party of India and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, asking them to vacate the bungalows and premises allotted to run their party offices. According to a senior officer, some of these beneficiaries had not paid rent for years. Fishing for friends ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls Former minister Raja Bhaiyya (top) got a bungalow, which was vacated by ex-CM Akhilesh Yadav. Senior Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav (left), who floated a new party after his bitter split with the SP, was allotted a bungalow by the UP goverment at 6, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg. The bungalow was recently vacated by former chief minister and BSP chief Mayawati The delegation, comprising nearly 50 leading entrepreneurs, came to inquire into investment opportunities in Vietnam on the occasion of the official visit by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. Deputy PM Hue said the business delegations visit creates a chance for the two sides to listen to each others opinions and work together to further increase investment cooperation between the two countries. He noted that while the Vietnam-France political relation are growing well, economic and commercial ties remain modest, with two-way trade accounting for just 1% of Vietnams total foreign trade in 2017. Thierry Mathou said Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, during his visit to France in early 2018 had agreed to increase Frances presence in Vietnam, which is the reason why the French Prime Minister and businesses have come to Vietnam. Firms operating in various fields such as energy, infrastructure, health care, information technology and also startups want to work with Vietnamese counterparts for mutual development, Mathou said. Representatives from French businesses said bilateral economic partnership can further grow, adding that France has sufficient experience in fighting fake goods, intellectual property, health care, digital technology and smart city to cooperate with and invest in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Deputy PM welcomed the intention to invest in Vietnam of French businesses. He informed them that Vietnam has recently reviewed 30 years of implementing the policy on attracting foreign investment and is making strategic adjustments to the policy, with the aim to draw investors with modern and environmentally-friendly technology, who are ready to connect with Vietnamese businesses to create global production chains. Vietnam wants to learn from Frances experience and cooperate with the French Government and business community, Deputy PM Hue said, stressing that the success of French firms in Vietnam is also Vietnams success in economic development. The Government official also asked the French business community to use its influence to advocate the early approval of the Vietnam-EU free trade agreement. Ayesha Singh By Modernisation is a good thing until it begins to wipe away history. In a far away land, surrounding the Omo river in Southern Ethiopia, are a group of lost tribes that are scurrying for survival. The river that helped them flourish since eternity is now floundering in support because of the hydroelectric Gibe III dam project feeding commercial modern plantations. The primitive way of life faces threat. The construction of the dam has altered the course of tribal existence. Also, with tourism sinking its venomous fangs into their centurys old habitation, the traditional life is endangered. Thousands of miles away, taking these things into congnisance was wildlife biologists Dr Latika Nath. As she was searching for the Ethiopian wolf, the rarest of its kind in the world, she became equally interested in the Omo way of life. Nath became hungry to know more. She immediately drowned herself into research and committed herself to unravelling their mysteries. Omo- Where Time Stood Still, is an exhibition of photographs that she took during her visits to the Omo valley, bringing an ancient civilization closer to our modern one. Her works capture an important moment in history. The transition from tradition to new age escapes. The tribes are dying out. There are less than 20,00,00 in all, while some are down to a few thousand. Youngsters are getting integrated into the main stream. Development is changing their world, says Nath. Besides the threat of the dam, brazen intrusion of tourism into their private space is a huge challenge. Extensive usage of artificial lights, encouraging photos in exchange of money, insensitivity towards cultural systems, and disrespect for fragile ecosystems, has begun to change the behaviour of the tribal communities. The show is supported by The Embassy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, New Delhi. Through her 150 images, one gets a glimpse into the eccentricities and peculiarities of a culture that needs understanding for long-term survival. I have learnt that there are many worlds on this one earth. Our world in Delhi is our reality and has nothing to with the world the Omo tribes live in. Yet, in mysterious ways, the worlds affect each other, and humans impact the earth in unbelievable ways, she says. Studying tribes such as Hamer, Bana, Mursi, Suri, Kara, Dassanech, Arbore and Nyangatom, Nath made their land her home. Her time their resulted in 60,000 images that served as a bank for images that one doesnt ordinarily see. Body scarification and decoration, lip and ear plates, blood drinking men, anomalous rituals and ceremonies, and unique architecture, Nath captured it all. In fact, she also chronicled the relevance of AK 47 rifle and other guns in their lives. Guns are used to hunt, to protect cattle and to settle scores. The price of a bride today can be 35 cattle and one AK 47. The conflict in Sudan and Somalia have created a trade in guns. Bullets are so common that many tribals wear jewellery designed from empty bullet casings, she says. She recalls how during a donga (stick fight), while she was photographing, a member of the local militia saw someone he thought had stolen his cattle and started shooting randomly. Nath was shot during this furious encounter but she escaped. A collection of her imageries will be included in a five volume book series scheduled for launch at the Jaipur Literary Book Festival 2019. She is fully aware that while photographs serve an important role, they cannot capture reality in its entirety. However, the things she experiencedwomen being whipped, genital mutilation, body scarring, men drinking blood as a source of proteinall of it finds a mention. It was also fascinating to see their homes made of grass, wood and lined with skins, with some built on stilts. Each tribe designs its village differently. The Dassanech group of people use scrap metal sheets and plastic. The Nyangatom build elaborate double story homes on stilts and make a maze of fences around the houses to deter attacks from invaders. The architecture in Konso was also incredible and constitutes a spectacular example of a living cultural tradition stretching back 21 generations, adapted to its hostile environment, comprising of terraces and stone walls, says Nath, who has after her documentation of the Omo people, understood one thing: the impermanence of life. And when everything is bound to change, photos make them permanent, at least in the moment they were captured. Till November 12: 10.30 am to 6.30 pm, at Bikaner House, Pandara Road, India Gate. Whats in it? The photos in the exhibit serve as a bank of images that one doesnt ordinarily see. These include body scarification, lip and ear plates, blood drinking men, anomalous rituals, unique architecture, relevance of AK 47 rifle and other guns in their tribal lives. Sana Shakil By NEW DELHI: In a week from now, Chhattisgarh, the state most affected by Naxal violence, is about to go to first phase of Assembly polls. Massive security preparations have been in the works for months. But, the death of Doordarshan cameraman Achyutanand Sahu in a recent Naxal attack on security forces has shown that civilians continue to remain in the crosshairs of the Red extremists. Statistics on Naxal violence in the poll-bound state shows that civilian casualties have risen here to a five-year high. This, despite two months remaining for this year to finish. Security experts say that the Maoists are desperate to get noticed and want to instill fear among locals in order to stop them from casting their votes. According to the latest data compiled by South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), 43 civilians were killed in the state till September 23, this year. In 2013, when the last Assembly elections were held in Chhattisgarh, the state saw killings of 48 civilians, including the murder of former state minister Mahendra Karma and then state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel. With two months left for the year to end, sources say that 2018 may even set a dubious record of highest civilian casualties in the last eight years. Prior to 2013, the maximum civilian killing 72 were recorded in the year 2010, which also saw one of the deadliest Maoist attacks in the Dantewada district, when 74 security men were killed. The influence areas of Maoists are dwindling, their leadership is getting old and they are hardly able to get educated people to lend credibility to their ideology. So, they are desperate to get attention and that is why there has been an increase in civilian casualties. And because they are against elections, one will always notice a jump in Maoist attacks in the election year, said a retired director general of CRPF, the paramilitary force which is deployed to combat the Maoists. Achyutanand Candidates of political parties contesting from the 12 seats of the Bastar, the region worst hit by Maoist violence, have largely kept out of Maoist pockets of influence while campaigning. The government, however, has been claiming a decline in Maoist violence. Earlier this year, 44 districts in the country were removed from the list of Maoist-hit regions and there were only 30 districts on the worst-hit list. While there has been an increase in civilian casualties, killings of security personnel have seen a slight dip compared to last year. From 59 last year, the figure of casualty of security men has come down to 44. Since 2005, a total of 815 civilians and 1,009 security personnel have been killed by Maoists, according to SATP. Ramananda Sengupta By NEW DELHI: IN June 2018, a joint venture between Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp. and Indias Larsen & Toubro won a contract Dhaka MRT Line 6, Bangladeshs first mass rapid transit system. Financed with aid from the Japanese government, the 20 km long line with 16 stations from Uttara North to Motijheel is expected to alleviate congestion and air pollution in Dhaka, which has a population of over 15 million. Marubeni, already involved in several railway projects in Bangladesh, including a 2011 contract to supply 11 diesel locomotive carriages to the state-backed Bangladesh Railway, said the joint venture will not only strive to participate in more urban railway projects, but also in other infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. This was the first Indo-Japanese venture to build a rail system in another country. But earlier, Marubeni and L&T also tied up to build two power plants in Bangladesh. Earlier, it was announced that India and Japan will join hands to set up a $250 million LNG import terminal in Sri Lanka, the first collaboration to counter Chinas growing influence. And the two nations also set up a massive project to jointly fund and build hospitals, roads, and other infrastructure in several African nations. In an obvious pushback against Chinas massive belt and road initiative, India, Japan and lately the US have ramped up initiatives of their own to offer an alternative to President Xi Jinpings grand plan to connect China with Europe and Africa by road and by sea. India is trying for while to connect its northeastern states with Southeast Asia as part of the Act East policy, which calls for growing economic and cultural connectivity between northeastern states with the ASEAN region through a grid of connected roads, ports, airports, and power and telecommunication projects. But different political and economic priorities of the countries involved have ensured erratic progress at best. But things appear likely to change. At the first South Asia Regional Connectivity Conference in New Delhi, Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale spelt out Indias vision for the region, and caustically remarked that trade, not tension should be the mantra for regional prosperity. Attended by over 300 stakeholders, the conference was also addressed by US and Japanese ambassadors. For the belt and road, its pushback time. By PTI ISLAMABAD: Pakistan police on Sunday arrested nearly 250 people from across the country on charges of arson, vandalism and violence during the three-day mass protests following the acquittal of Christian woman Aasia Bibi. A day after striking a deal with the radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), the government swung into action as it started a crackdown against the people who vandalised public properties during the protests. Asia Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. READ| Fearing for life, Aasia Bibi's lawyer flees Pakistan; requests government to protect family In a landmark judgement last Wednesday, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar overturned the conviction of Aasia Bibi facing execution for blasphemy, sparking protests led by the TLP and other groups across Pakistan. The protestors led by the TLP and other groups blocked major highways and roads in different parts of the country. The interior ministry has initiated criminal proceedings against the rioters and booked 5,000 people, including TLP chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi and senior leader Afzal Qadri, on charges of rioting and disrupting peace during the demonstrations In Lahore, the police registered 11 cases against 1,500 persons, including the TLP leaders for blocking roads and creating law and order situation. The FIRs against Qadri and Rizvi have been sealed, The Express Tribune reported. In Faisalabad, the police registered 29 cases against 3,000 protestors and arrested 218 persons. In Chiniot, 3 cases were registered and 13 persons were arrested; in Sargodha 2 cases were registered against 300 persons and in Jhang two cases were registered against 150 persons. Twelve of these people were arrested, the report said. In Okara, FIR was registered against 200 people. Twenty people later got bails and released. The Rawalpindi police also registered 18 cases against hundreds of TLP workers while 16 workers were released on Saturday. In Islamabad, two cases were registered against more than 100 accused, including 20 workers of a religious party. In Karachi's Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Pehlwan Goth areas, three persons were arrested for firing and forcing people to shut down their businesses. Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is currently on an official trip to China, reportedly expressed his anger over damage to public and private properties during the three-day-long protests. Khan ordered the arrest of the people who were engaged in vandalism and directed the federal government to work in collaboration with the provincial governments, the report added. By AFP BEIRUT: The Islamic State group on Sunday killed at least 12 US-backed fighters as the jihadists launched an attack from their holdout in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border, a Britain-based monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces fighters where killed in a car bombing and subsequent clashes between Al-Bahra and Hajin in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. (More details awaited) By PTI SEOUL: Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel was due in Pyongyang on Sunday, North Korea's state media reported, describing the visit as a "historic event" highlighting the "invincible friendship" of the two allies. The visit comes amid stalled talks between North Korea and the United States and only days after Washington imposed fresh economic restrictions on Cuba. Washington's ties with Havana were fully restored in 2015 after more than half a century of enmity, but have deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office. Communist Cuba is one of North Korea's few remaining allies. "The Korean people warmly welcome the visit to Pyongyang by Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez," said an editorial carried by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper. "His current visit... is a historic event which powerfully demonstrates invincible friendship and unity and comradely friendship," it added. The paper featured a separate profile and photo of Diaz-Canel, who took office in April in a historic transition of power on the Caribbean island, succeeding Raul Castro, who took over from his elder brother Fidel, father of the 1959 revolution. No further details were given on the itinerary of his visit. Fidel Castro visited North Korea in 1986 to meet founder-leader Kim Il-Sung, and Pyongyang held three days of official mourning when Castro died in November 2016. North Korea sent a delegation led by Choe Ryong-Hae, a senior aide to its leader Kim Jong Un, to Havana for Castro's funeral. Cuba in the past has flouted international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme. In 2013 Panama seized a North Korean ship carrying an undeclared Cuban arms shipment of Soviet-era weapons and fighter jets hidden under sacks of sugar. North Korea insisted the weapons were being shipped for repair, prior to their return. The Chinese people have gained considerable achievements in the cause of national development while maintaining political and social stability over the past few years. Chinas economy has maintained a high average growth rate and the national gross domestic product (GDP) jumped from US$8.13 trillion in 2012 to US$12 trillion in 2017, ranking second in the world and contributing over 30% to global GDP growth. The economic structure has been constantly improved with the strong development of emerging industries in addition to the massive construction of infrastructure, including high-speed rail, roads, bridges, seaports, airports, and others. Chinas science and technology sector has also seen tremendous growth, particularly in the areas of aerospace, information technology, new materials, oceanography and military technology. Regarding external relations, China attaches significant importance to developing relations with powerful and neighbouring countries, while playing the leading role in cooperative mechanisms established by China. The relationship between Vietnam and China continues to develop positively. The two countries regularly maintain high-level bilateral meetings and exchanges in order to enhance the political trust between the two sides. High-ranking leaders of the two countries have reached a common perception of continuing to promote the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between Vietnam and China in a sustainable and healthy manner. The bilateral economic and trade cooperation has also made remarkable progress with strong and stable growth in two-way trade revenues. The bilateral trade revenue reached US$66 billion in the first eight months of 2018. China is currently the largest trading partner, the largest import market and the second largest export market of Vietnam. Vietnam continues to be China's largest trading partner in ASEAN and China's eighth largest trading partner in the world. CIIE 2018, the first of its kind, will be held in Shanghai from November 5-10. The expo will be organised annually and be an important trade promotion event of the Chinese government with the aim of opening the Chinese market and creating opportunities for countries to access the large market of China. The fair includes exhibition areas of national pavilions and corporate exhibitions with the participation of businesses from more than 130 countries and territories worldwide. Vietnam's participation in CIIE 2018 is expected to promote the brands and images of Vietnamese enterprises to China and other countries in the world, as well as attracting foreign investment and creating conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to seek and expand their business markets. The presence of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the CIIE 2018 affirms Vietnam's interest in this event and expresses Vietnams appreciation of developing a stable and healthy relationship with China. Vietnam also wishes to work with China to promote sustainable economic and trade cooperation and encourage ministries, sectors and localities of the two countries to foster cooperation for mutual benefit, as well as for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Cloudy with rain developing after midnight. Low 39F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Cloudy with rain developing after midnight. Low 39F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Columnist Tom Kacich is a columnist and the author of Tom's Mailbag at The News-Gazette. His column appears Sundays. His email is tkacich@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@tkacich). Reporter/Columnist Julie Wurth is a reporter covering the University of Illinois at The News-Gazette. Her email is jwurth@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@jawurth). He made the statement at a meeting with Chinese Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping in Shanghai on November 4 as part of his trip to China to attend the first International Import Expo of China (CIIE 2018) on November 4-5. PM Phuc called for joint efforts to maintain high-level visits and meetings, increase mutual political trust, promote important cooperation mechanisms between the two Parties and countries, further utilise potential of each side and boost cooperation in areas that make practical progress. The guest congratulated China on achievements the country has recorded after 40 years of reform and opening-up, and expressed his wish that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China led by Xi Jinping, the Chinese people will soon turn China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, democratic, civilised, harmonious and beautiful. He also lauded Chinas initiatives to contribute to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world, as well as its Belt and Road Initiative. Vietnam backs the Mekong-Lancang cooperation in combination with the framework of the Greater Mekong Sub-region collaboration, for effective use and management of water resources and sustainable development of countries, he noted. PM Phuc expressed his belief that the CIIE 2018 will open up new cooperation channels for goods distribution, helping promote official trade activities and brand building so that more and more Vietnamese commodities can be consumed in the Chinese market. He suggested the Chinese side make it easy for Vietnamese goods to enter its market, and devise practical policies and measures to reduce Vietnams big trade deficit, towards promoting stable and sustainable growth of bilateral trade. Vietnam always welcomes Chinese firms to invest in the country, he affirmed. Regarding the sea-related issue, the Vietnamese Government leader applauded positive results of negotiation and cooperation mechanisms in less sensitive areas at sea between the two countries, as well as initial progresses in pragmatic negotiation for the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) between ASEAN and China recently. He suggested the two sides respect legitimate interests of each other, seriously realise the common perception of the two countries' high-ranking leaders and the agreement on the basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues between Vietnam and China, and patiently solve disputes by peaceful measures in line with international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), in order to maintain peace and stability in the East Sea and the region. For his part, Chinese Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping affirmed that PM Phucs participation in the expo reflects the Vietnamese Governments respect for the bilateral relations. He stressed that the Chinese Party and State always treasure ties with Vietnam, and agree to maintain high-level contacts to bolster political understanding and foster all-round cooperation in a practical manner with the Southeast Asian country. He added that both sides will work together to enhance people-to-people exchanges and consolidate traditional friendship while maintaining peace and sustainability at sea and creating favourable conditions for the bilateral ties to thrive. Regarding economic-trade collaboration, Xi stated that China will import more goods from Vietnam to sustainably balance trade with the neighbouring country. In the past time, China has carry out various measures to increase imports from Vietnam. In 2017, Vietnams shipments to China rose 36.8% and China will continue to promote the trend in the coming time. He would pay part of the money to the client and pocket the difference or he would request for cash from the petty cash account alleging that it was money for transport or other ancillaries on behalf of a client when a client had not given him such instructions. (Newser) The Supreme Court has refused to block a lawsuit by young Americans seeking to combat climate change, the Washington Post reports. With a trial date approaching in Oregon, the Trump administration asked the high court to intervenebut justices issued a three-page order Friday saying the government could try seeking relief with the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which has already turned them down. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch backed Trump's case, while other votes weren't revealed. "We've been confident throughout this case that we would get to trial, and I believe we will get to trial," says Julia Olson, attorney for the 21 young people who filed suit in 2015. "We have overcome everything the government has thrown at us. It is not luck." story continues below Plaintiffs say the failure to address climate change is depriving them of their right to life, liberty, and property, and leaving essential resources unprotected, per CNN. A Trump administration legal brief calls the suit an "invasion of the separation of powers" and questions any "fundamental right" to "a climate system capable of sustaining human life." But with the Supreme Court punting on the issueat least for nowplaintiffs for Juliana v. United States will likely ask that the case proceed in a federal district court in Eugene, Oregon. Similar lawsuits have failed worldwide, but Nature notes that one succeeded in the Netherlands, forcing the Dutch government to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020. (An ocean study has horrific implications for the climate change fight.) (Newser) The Washington Post thinks it might have figured out where Amazon will locate its second headquarters: Crystal City, Virginia. The locale is in the DC metro area, and the newspaper reports that Amazon and local officials are in "advanced discussions" about the company setting up shop there with an anticipated 50,000 jobs. After the report surfaced, CNBC confirmed that the two sides had a "very productive" and long conference call on Friday. Among other things, Crystal City was reportedly coming up with ways to ease Amazon's concern about DC traffic. But CNBC adds that Austin, Texas, appears to be a finalist as well. story continues below The Post adds plenty of caveats to its story about Crystal City, noting that Amazon might very well be holding similar discussions with other cities on a short list. In addition to Austin, cities previously mentioned include Chicago, New York City, and Newark, New Jersey. But the apparent scoop clearly caught the attention of Amazon, as evidenced by a not-so diplomatic tweet issued by an exec. "Memo to the genius leaking info about Crystal City, VA as #HQ2 selection," wrote Mike Grella, Amazon's director of economic development. "Youre not doing Crystal City, VA any favors. And stop treating the NDA you signed like a used napkin." (An Amazon warehouse in Baltimore just had deadly trouble.) (Newser) With Alec Baldwin busy with legal trouble, Saturday Night Live used its final episode before the midterm elections to poke fun at Fox News and its coverage of the migrant caravan, with Kate McKinnon worrying as host Laura Ingraham about "a vicious caravan of dozens, maybe millions of illegal immigrants." She later swiped Baldwin, reports USA Today, saying, "When we come back, an update from disgraced former actor Alec Baldwinseen here molesting a young Boy Scout," showing a picture of the classic "Canteen Boy" sketch with Adam Sandler. story continues below The show didn't exactly steer clear of its stars' woes, with Pete Davidson addressing his breakup with Ariana Grande on Weekend Update, initially joking that he'd had to move back in with his mom before calling her "a wonderful, strong person, and I genuinely wish her all the happiness in the world. Now please, vote on Tuesday." In the segment, Davidson also controversially mocked Republican congressional candidate Dan Crenshaw, who lost an eye while serving as a Navy SEAL. Jonah Hill guest-hosted the show, joining the Five-Timer Club, while Maggie Rogers was musical guest. (Read more Saturday Night Live stories.) (Newser) A woman who claims she was raped on an overnight flight and got little help from attendants is suing American Airlines, the Guardian reports. In a complaint filed Wednesday, 32-year-old Aubrey Lane says she was flying from Phoenix to New York in June 2017 when the man beside her ordered multiple drinks, noisily came on to her, and followed her to the bathroomwhere he sexually assaulted her. "I started hearing him say how pretty she was, how lucky her husband was to have such a 'bangin' wife' and how 'what happens on vacation stays on vacation,'" another passenger is quoted as saying in the court papers. The man allegedly grabbed Lane's face, tried kissing her, told her he loved her, and the two got in an argument about whether he could fall in love that fast. story continues below "This drew a lot of attention, but when I alerted the flight attendant as he walked by, he shrugged and said: 'Well they are drinking ' and walked away," says the passenger. Lane tells the Dallas Morning News that when she informed staff about the assault, they just moved her to another seat. "I was feeling overwhelmed all of a sudden, I was thrown in a middle seat, bawling," she says. Lane accuses flight staff of failing to protect her by giving the man up to six alcoholic drinks, and claims he simply left when they reached JFK Airport. In December, the airline responded by calling Lane's allegation a "nuisance claim" and offering her $5,000. The FBI is apparently investigating. Meanwhile, a 2017 survey says 20% of flight attendants have had a sexual assault reported during a flight. (Submitting to rape is described as a "necessity" in North Korea.) (Newser) The word is out in Seal Beach: If you want doughnuts at Donut City, get there early. The Southern California shop is usually sold out and closed by noon, sometimes by 10. But as the Orange County Register explains, it's not because of some exotic new flavor. It's because longtime patrons learned that the woman who has run the place with her husband for nearly 30 years is illand they're buying in bulk so her husband can spend more time with her. "Oh, I feel warm, very appreciative," says John Chhan, whose 63-year-old wife, Stella, suffered a brain aneurysm in September and is recuperating in a rehab facility. story continues below The customers began organizing after longtime patron Dawn Caviola learned about Stella's illness on a recent visit. "I went home and I just couldn't get it out of my head," Caviola tells NBC News. "I have never done anything like that before, but I just thought if everyone can just buy a dozen doughnuts, it might help him out." She blogged about her idea on the community network site Nextdoor, and it took off. John Chhan actually turned down the idea of a GoFundMe site on the couple's behalfhe'd prefer the extra time with his wife rather than donations. (A woman couldn't shake her worries about a fellow hiker, and that turned out to be a great thing.) (Newser) The mayor of a Utah city was killed during an attack in Afghanistan while he was serving with the state's National Guard, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor died Saturday in an apparent "insider attack" in Kabul. Another US service member is being treated for wounds sustained in the attack, US military officials said. Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer J. Cox confirmed on Facebook that Taylor, 39, was killed, adds the AP. "Devastating news," Cox wrote. "I hate this. I'm struggling for words. I love Mayor Taylor, his amazing wife Jennie and his seven sweet kids. Utah weeps for them today. This war has once again cost us the best blood of a generation." Sen. Orrin Hatch tweeted that, "Brent was a hero, a patriot, a wonderful father, and a dear friend. News of his death in Afghanistan is devastating." story continues below Taylor was deployed to Afghanistan in January with the Utah National Guard for what was to be a 12-month tour of duty. Taylor, an officer in the National Guard, previously served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. At the time of his deployment, Taylor told local media that, as an intelligence officer, he will be assigned to serve on an advisory team training the staff of an Afghan commando battalion. "Right now there is a need for my experience and skills to serve in our nation's long-lasting war in Afghanistan," he said. "President Trump has ordered an increase in troops, and part of the new strategy focuses on expanding the capabilities of the Afghan commando units." Taylor became mayor of North Ogden, a city of about 17,000, in 2013. On the day of his deployment, North Ogden police escorted Taylor and his family around town as hundreds of residents lined the streets to see him off. (Read more Utah stories.) (Newser) If you thought the race for Georgia governor had gotten testy enough, welcome to an even testier Sunday: The office of Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate, announced overnight that it is investigating a "failed attempt to hack the state's voter registration system," specifically, "the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes." The party in question, which has accused Kemp of voter suppression and using his office to further his gubernatorial aspirations, dismissed the "scurrilous claims" as "100 percent false" and another "abuse of power," reports CNN. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the move "explosive," and notes that Kemp's office did not proffer any evidence. story continues below Both sides are pounding the pavement for their candidates, with VP Mike Pence stumping for Kemp and President Trump dismissing Democrat Stacey Abrams as "not qualified" for the state's top job. Abrams, appearing Sunday on CNN, scoffed at both Trump and Kemp's investigation. "He's wrong," she said of Trump. "As President (Barack) Obama pointed out, I am the most qualified candidate running." Of Kemp she called it "a desperate attempt ... to distract people from the fact that two different federal judges found him derelict in his duties." The AJC notes that the two are in a dead heat ahead of Tuesday's vote. (Read more Election 2018 stories.) (Newser) Troops headed for the US-Mexico border aren't just aiming to help prevent migrant entrythey have unregulated militias and criminal organizations on their minds, too. According to planning documents obtained by Newsweek, the Department of Defense is aware of nearly 200 armed militias already operating along the southwest border. "Reported incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments," reads an intelligence assessment for the Pentagon by the Joint Force Land Component Commander Threat Working Group. "They operate under the guise of citizen patrols supporting CBP [Customs and Border Protection] primarily between POEs [Points of Entry]." The documents analyze four points of entry including one in Brownsville, Texas, and another in the San Ysidro district of San Diego, Calif. story continues below The assessment jibes with media reports that militia members are already heading for the border, the Washington Post reports. They include the Texas Minutemen, who apparently have 100 armed volunteers going to the Rio Grande. "I cant put a number on it," says Shannon McGauley, who leads the group. "My phones been ringing nonstop for the last seven days." Meanwhile, members of another groupthe Patriots of the Constitution militiaarrived last week in Columbus, New Mexico, per the Albuquerque Journal. Yet the military planners expect the migrant caravan to reduce in size and contain "no terrorist infiltration," per the documents. They also say the migrants could trigger a "balloon effect" on smuggling if traffickers take advantage of the diversion. (While providing troops, the Pentagon refused one request from Trump.) He made the statement while hosting a reception for leaders of major Chinese groups operating in finance, construction and infrastructure development on November 4 as part of his visit to China to attend the first International Import Expo of China (CIIE 2018) on November 4-5. PM Phuc spoke highly of the Chinese corporations business achievements in China and many foreign countries. The Chinese businessmen lauded Vietnams socio-economic development while affirming that they will continue investment and business expansion in finance, insurance, banking, energy and transport infrastructure in Vietnam. They expressed their hope that the Vietnamese Government and relevant authorities will create favourable conditions for them to participate in large projects in the country. Vice Chairman of Ping An Trust Song Chengli said that his corporation holds strengths in finance, insurance, banking and investment with total asset of 6 trillion yuan (US$870 billion). The group is in the worlds top 500 enterprises and ranks 7th among the global leading financial giants, he said, adding that he is interested in Vietnams mechanisms in protecting foreign financial firms who join Vietnamese market, especially those investing in local credit organisations. Chairman of China Greenland Zhang Yuliang expressed his pleasure to meet PM Phuc in Shanghai, saying that his firm has cooperated with many great groups in the world and it has a total asset worth US$150 billion. He said that Vietnam is a potential market with great cooperation opportunities, especially in agriculture, adding Vietnamese farm produce and food are also positively welcomed in the Chinese market. For his part, PM Phuc spoke highly of these groups plans to invest and expand investment in Vietnam. He applauded the fields that Chinese firms want to pour cash into Vietnam, including agriculture, food production, finance and transport infrastructure development. The PM asked representatives from Vietnamese ministries and sectors to collect opinions and proposals from Chinese firms and then arranging working sessions to discuss how to realise their business ideas. With its current development pace, from now to 2020, Vietnam needs US$25 billion per year for infrastructure development, PM Phuc said, noting that this is a promising land for international investors, including China, to cultivate, as it is one of Vietnams priorities in the countrys socio-economic development. He expressed his hope that Chinese firms will further promote imports of Vietnamese agro-forestry-fishery products in the coming time. European media sources said that the EU has announced a special plan to set up a payment system that will allow its continuous trade and business ties with Iran. Maja Kocijancic, spokesperson for the EUs foreign affairs and security policy, stated that the bloc was in the process of putting forward the necessary measures. The new payment mechanism has received support from the five remaining countries that have patrionised the Iranian nuclear deal, including the UK, China, France, Russia and Germany. Earlier, in his speech on national television, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Abdolreza Hemmati, revealed that Iran and the EU will soon finalise a monetary transaction mechanism in early November. The new payment mechanism is aimed at facilitating the businesses of both sides to maintain cooperation despite the US sanctions, as businessmen will be able to use the channel to transfer money. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani last week claimed that the US has been abandoned by its traditional allies in the confrontation with Iran and even the EU is also on the side of Teheran against Washingtons reimposition of sanctions. In a speech at parliament, the Iranian leader emphasised that a year ago no one would have believed that Europe would stand with Iran and against the US. In fact, even though Washington wants to ban countries from buying Tehranian oil, three EU nations and signatories to the Iranian nuclear deal, France, the UK and Germany, as well as certain other countries, wish to continue buying Iranian oil via a payment regulation that can dodge the US sanctions. In the past few months, after the US withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group (five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany), officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the European governments have pledged to maintain their economic ties with Teheran, especially in the banking sector. The EU also expressed its view that the USs unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA was contrary to the requirement for states in the issue of complying with international agreements. Therefore, the European countries need to respect their commitments to the cooperation with Iran. Accordingly, the EU will observe the JCPOA and support companies of its member countries to operate in Teheran. The refusal to impose economic sanctions against Iran is in line with the interests of the EU as the EU is Tehrans leading trading partner with two-way trade reaching tens of billions of dollars. The EU companies poured tens of billions of dollars into Iran in 2017 after Tehran signed a nuclear deal with the P5+1 group. For example, Airbus has invested 25 billion in Iran, while Peugeot made investments worth millions of euros. As the US announced its sanctions, Iran was also negotiating a US$600 million deal with Hemla Group and a multi-billion dollar deal with the Shell Group. However, analysts have stated that the implementation of the aforementioned special payment system will not be easy at all, especially as the EU countries maintain economic cooperation with Iran, but still want to avoid a direct confrontation with the US. The European media cited several EU officials as admitting that the application will be difficult and that the new mechanism will not be able to work immediately on November 5. Although Iran has repeatedly urged the EU to raise a stronger voice to protect the JCPOA and stand on Teherans side in the confrontation with the US, the EU officials seem to be dealing with all the affairs in an irresolute manner. At present, the EUs plans concerning the Iran issue have been supported by the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, but are proceeding very slowly. Thus, the plan to set up a payment system that allows continued trade and business relations with Iran has been announced, but its still a risky option. The survival of this plan depends entirely on whether the EU is determined to bypass the narrow gate to overcome US financial embargo barriers and foster economic cooperation with Iran or not. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has created a Central Electronic Register, containing texts of all conventions, agreements and memoranda of understanding that Bahrain has inked with all world countries and regional and international organizations. It also classified them in Arabic and other foreign languages according to the geographical location of the country, the date of signature and the period of validity. The move comes in implementation of the directives of His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the Prime Minister in this regard. On this occasion, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr Shaikha Rana bint Isa bin Daij Al Khalifa, stressed the keenness of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote government work in line with the vision of the Kingdom of Bahrain 2030, guided by the principles of the reform project of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. She pointed out the importance of boosting the level of cooperation between the kingdoms ministries as the preservation of such texts in accordance with the highest standards of preservation and confidentiality would benefit all competent authorities in the Kingdom. The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the establishment of this register was in line with the policy adopted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enhance the use of technology in the services it provides to the citizens and government agencies alike. This achievement, she added, is one of the objectives set by the Ministry in view of maximizing the use of technology to keep up with government aspirations and guidance in relation to the shift towards digital work that would raise the efficiency of government work and speed up services delivery. Dr. Shaikha Rana noted that the Central Electronic Register, which includes a record of agreements dating back to over half a century, chronicles the Kingdom of Bahrains relations of cooperation and friendship with brotherly and friendly countries. She pointed out the classification of more than 800 agreements and memorandums of understanding so far in this record according to the latest standards of conservation and follow-up. Sixteen privately-owned hospitals have undergone overall assessed to measure their performance. National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) Chief Executive Officer Dr. Mariam Al Jalahma announced the completion of the assessment of private hospitals, for the first time in the Kingdom. She announced that four hospitals and 170 medical centers would be assessed as part of a strategy to ensure world-standard health services and meet the quality. Receiving the accreditation team, Dr. Al Jalahma took pride in the award which was conferred on the health regulatory authority for best practices during the Government Forum 2018. The forum was held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, at the initiative of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier. Bahrain will host the second edition of Bahrain Franchise and Dine Expo from November 7th to 9th under the theme Expand Your Global Footprints in the Middle East Market. The event will be held under the patronage of Capital Governor Shaikh Hisham bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa. The expo, which is organised by the Middle East and North Africa Franchise Association (MENAFA) and Star Event Management in partnership with the Capital Governorate, Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industries (BCCI), Bahrain Development of Small and Medium entrepreneurs Society (BDSMES), Tamkeen (the official strategic partner) and Bahrain Society for Exhibition and Conferences has attracted the attention of local, Arab and international exhibitors and brands. The third edition of the Government Forum under the Patronage of HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Prime Minister celebrating the initiative of HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister brings along a great sense of pride and unity. Under one roof, government officials came together to share and discuss on a transparent platform various policies, practices and procedures. An annual assessment of goals and performances are addressed to ensure best qualities are met to achieve the required goals and objectives. This annual gathering allows for dialogue and discussion, questions to be raised with a positive boost of energy to see various government initiatives being highlighted and awarded. Its a dynamic platform to hear different topics being addressed, ministers discussing their initiatives, future plans and projects in a panel discussion setting, which can shed a lot of light on various topics that have an immediate effect on growth and prosperity of our beautiful land. The Kingdom of Bahrain and its growth is a shared responsibility of everyone living on this land. We are blessed each of us in his/her own field of work to foster and evolve towards achieving our national goals and meet our 2030 vision. Ensuring growth and new possibilities under one unified goal towards our national vision, new programs and initiatives have been announced under the umbrella of the Government Forum. One particular initiative had a great impact on me personally, which opens a door for all government employees to share a dream and an idea. Under the title of Fikra which is the Arabic word for Idea, its a digital platform expending public sector employees contributions towards government services innovation. This particular incentive brings a great deal of excitement, and a sense of direct involvement in future projects and planning. Its a simple online questioner, which allows promoting excellence and innovation across various sectors. It offers a chance to share a dream. There is a great deal of excitement to hear from HRH The Crown Prince, that more than 500 applications with various ideas were submitted for review. This incredible response towards the competition is extremely exciting. I believe that opening this door to share new ideas can play a positive and active role towards future planning. Its a time to praise our Team Bahrain spirit, to contribute towards the development of our beautiful country. Japanese government sources have told NHK the United States will allow Japan to temporarily continue importing crude oil from Iran, after the reinstatement of US sanctions. Washington will reintroduce sanctions against Tehran on Monday. The US has unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and 6 world powers. It has also been urging other nations to stop importing Iranian oil. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Friday that the US will issue temporary waivers to 8 countries, so they can continue oil imports. Iran accounts for about 5 percent of Japan's oil purchases. Oil wholesalers have halted imports from Iran to prepare for the US sanctions. The Japanese government intends to notify the wholesalers of the waiver once the US makes it official. Japanese officials had been requesting since June that the US exempt their country from the import ban. In September, Foreign Minister Taro Kono told Pompeo the ban would deal a blow to Japanese businesses. It is a pleasant but busy Friday afternoon in the village of Tunis in Fayoum. The village, which has developed a hallmark association in the art and business of pottery, is getting ready for the annual Tunis Fair for Pottery and Traditional Crafts that starts on 1 November. We have over 100 pottery-makers who take part in this fair. They display their works and their talent as they actually make pottery during the days of the fair, said Mahmoud Al-Sherif, a pottery-maker and organiser of the annual event. The three-day event was launched in 2011 and for the last three years has been held in cooperation with AlexBank. It is a highlight in the life of the village, which for decades has been a destination for pottery-lovers. A Swiss artist whose fascination with the pottery industry that was always part of the cultural heritage of this otherwise poor governorate prompted the creation of a creativity hub that allowed the scaling up of the industry and its passing on to new generations of keen learners. People go to the Tunis Village page on Facebook, where they learn about the fair, the hotels where they can stay and the transport they need to come to Fayoum. For us, however, the story of the fair cannot be properly told without going back to the story of Evelynne whose initiative helped give the tradition of pottery-making a whole new life and prospects, Al-Sherif said. Evelynne, the Swiss artist, not only helped keep an ongoing tradition alive, but she also helped improve skills and advance the craft as she brought in modern know-how to scale up the art of pottery-making. Indeed, she also helped keep the tradition alive at a time when some were embracing modernisation as an excuse to give up old traditions. Today, Al-Sherif suggested, there has been a strong return to this traditional craft as part of a growing interest in traditional culture. It was also for this reason that the annual Fair was allowing room for the display of traditional dance and music throughout its three consecutive days. Ibrahim Abla, a visual artist and co-director of the Fayoum Centre for the Arts, a gallery space, argued that there is a large and growing appetite for the consumption of art in general, with traditional art being the thing now. In the centre that his father, artist Mohamed Abla, established in the village with his Swiss spouse in the 1980s to build on the growing association the village was making with art, Ibrahim organises annual art camps that bring in artists from all over the world to share experiences. While these are more about sculpture, drawing and photography, they are also another opportunity to boost the established trend of promoting the traditional crafts, especially pottery-making, because when you have so many people coming to the village you allow a wider exposure of the craft and more sales. The camp is also an opportunity for local artisans to learn new techniques and acquire new skills, he said. Cairo-based potter Magdi Gomaa is a keen advocate of exposure and shared experience. This is what makes an artisan capable of developing, not just in terms of skills but also in terms of creating networks for sales, he said. Having chosen to be a potter rather than opting for a university degree that would have meant little in terms of income generation, Gomaa started in the 1980s when he took up the craft he had learned during summer jobs at school, seeing that it had become part of a vibrant tourism industry that used to bring the world to Egypt. When the flow of tourism suffered a decline with the political challenges that followed the 25 January Revolution, Gomaa resorted to the world of social media to connect to the world and attract the interest of potential buyers. It is true that during the last 10 years or so, the local market has expanded, essentially due to the growing awareness that social media has created of the beauty of this traditional craft. But still we need to consider exports because without sustainable income we cannot keep a sustainable business, he said. Preservation and Renewal Usama Ghazali is the founder of Yadaweya, an initiative launched in 2012 to help keep old traditions from dying. A self-trained anthropologist who had been working around the Red Sea villages in Egypt, Ghazali was amazed to see crafts there that had never been heard of in Cairo or other big cities.It was clear that the artisans who mastered these crafts were becoming fewer, essentially because they were not being passed from one generation to the next as they were no longer being seen as a financially profitable business, he said. Unlike pottery-making, which had survived a decline due to many initiatives, other crafts like silver and golden embroidery and handmade palm-leaf mats, were verging on extinction. The trouble was that there was no real awareness of the diversity of crafts that there are all across the country, especially if we talk of the rarely trodden areas of the Red Sea zones and the scattered presence of the Nubian culture, Ghazali said. The scarcity of attention that Ghazali found certain zones of the country to be receiving prompted him to start an initiative to document traditional crafts in the Red Sea governorates of Qena, Sohag and Al-Wadi Al-Gadid. We do meticulous surveys. We investigate the crafts. We locate the villages and towns associated with these, and then we detail the resources used for making these crafts. We put all this information on the Facebook page we have created for this purpose, he explained. Throughout the past six years of exploring, documenting and uploading, Ghazali said, Yadaweya has not just been serving the cause of craft-promotion, but also that of cultural preservation, at least by documentation. The government has been unable to provide the necessary protection for these traditional crafts, so the least we can do is to try to raise awareness of these arts to try to keep them alive, he argued. In a parallel activity, Yadaweya has established a permanent showroom in Cairo for crafts gathered from all over the country. It has also held exhibitions all over the country to allow for higher sales of crafts from remote zones in the countrys main cities. In August, artist Amna Ali joined a group of artisans from Halayeb and Shalateen in Alexandria to display their work. She said she was so happy with the attention that our crafts received in Alexandria, from the citizens of the city and the foreigners living or passing through who came to the exhibition held for a week in the Jesuit Cultural Centre. The products Ali was displaying were all 100 per cent handmade from 100 per cent local natural resources. Proudly showing off a pot made to brew coffee in the traditional way in Halayeb and Shalateen and a traditional basket for homemade bread, Ali received many questions from visitors to the exhibition and at the end of each added the little phrase that you can learn more about our products and the history beyond them from our page on Facebook. Social media, she said, had been crucial in connecting artisans with exhibitions and giving us the attention we need to keep going with our crafts. In Ismailia, Mohamed Salem, owner of Kadem Al-Saad, a showroom for traditional crafts, uses his Facebook page to monitor reactions from visitors to most-liked items and to get requests for special orders. Of course, social media has helped give people who work in this field a big boost, especially after the decline of tourism over the past five or six years, he said. Having started his business in parallel in Ismailia and Sharm El-Sheikh, the latter having been a major tourist attraction for two consecutive decades, Salem had suffered a considerable decline in his revenues over the past few years. It is true that the local market has expanded, due to the growing trend to which we have the social media to thank and also the economic challenges that were forcing more people to abandon their preference to buy imported items. However, we still need the outside market if we are to seriously expand the business in order to keep the tradition alive and to create more job opportunities, Salem argued. This, he said, had been made possible due to initiatives of the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the Projects Development Authority (PDA) to hold exhibitions outside Egypt for the producers of traditional crafts. In September, Salem was in Cairo to take part in a PDA-sponsored exhibition called Torathna (Our Heritage), a 10-day event that brought together artisans from all over the country with many diverse crafts. By the end of the event, Salem had almost sold all the items he had on display, essentially pottery, wooden kitchenware, and home-decor items. Tarek Sabbour, head of the exhibition department at the PDA, called the first Torathna a true success. Most of the 140 participants made very good sales and connected well with visitors, particularly those coming from Bahrain, which was the guest of honour for our first exhibition that will now be held on an annual basis with a new guest of honour every year. The PDA, Sabbour said, is committed to holding more exhibitions because while networking through social media allows for establishing connections, investors and artisans need direct communication to allow for more business deals. This is precisely the reason behind the growing attention that the Ministry of Social Solidarity has been dedicating to holding such exhibitions, according to Amany Ghoneim, head of the Central Department for Social Development. We are holding exhibitions across the country to allow for the participation of artisans who cannot move around. We have permanent exhibitions in most of the large governorates, and we have several annual fairs across the year, she said. Promotion Efforts In October, artisans joined another first-time exhibition dedicated to traditional crafts, this time called Graffiti. Organised by the Egyptian Chamber of Handicrafts (ECH) under the auspices of the ministry, the exhibition, according to Hisham Al-Gazzar, head of the EHC, has added to the efforts the government is making to promote the export of handmade crafts that depend on natural resources. According to Ghazali, the founder of Yadaweya whose artisans were present at the event, the exhibition gave a boost to those who want to expand their businesses with some actually making their very first export deals. Dyarna, a twice-yearly exhibition that is held in Cairo in the Easter and Christmas seasons, Ghoneim said, is perhaps the best business occasion for the over 200 participants who take part in it. Later this month, she added, Cairo will also host the third round of the International Handicraft Show (IHS), another opportunity for more artisans to get wider exposure, expand their businesses, and recruit more workers, she argued. Hala Ashour, founder and director of a crochet line called Handmade, has found the growing interest in handicrafts, both traditional and non-traditional, a potential business branding space that Egypt could make greater use of. Of course, this depends on high quality and good materials, but I am confident we have a space that we could gain more of, she said. Improving the skills of artisans is something undertaken at many levels. Al-Sherif in Tunis, Ghazali in the Red Sea governorates and Ghoneim from her office in Cairo are all working on skills-development projects. It is part of expanding the business and taking it to wider horizons, Ghoneim said. In an art studio in Maadi outside Cairo, Nelly Rizkallah has been holding workshops for those who wish to improve their skills. Pottery and crocheting are in high demand because such products are in high demand, but we also do classes for wooden crafts, glass-drawing and others, she said. Most of those attending Rizkallahs classes at her Khan Laila studio are artists who wish to go into business. We have those who just come for fun, but it is essentially about acquiring or improving skills to start a business, she said. With a view to helping girls to secure an income-generating profession, the Banati Foundation, an NGO that cares for homeless and orphaned girls, has been helping interested girls to develop crafts skills and to take part in some of the many exhibitions sponsored by the ministry. In last years HIS, according to Iman Moetaz who headed the Banati stand, the good sales encouraged the girls to work more. They were very happy to post their work on Facebook and Instagram, and they were getting a lot of attention which was also encouraging, she said. It is really about creating avenues and creating hope, as well as about celebrating and preserving cultural identity. It is about the producer families and the small projects, as well as about embroidery and colourful rugs and pots.It is about business and culture. This is what efforts to promote handicrafts, especially the traditional ones, is all about, Ghoneim concluded. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Pottery, rugs, and Facebook Search Keywords: Short link: 18:00 Ahram Online is concluding its live updates here. The forum will continue tomorrow, and close on Tuesday. 15:45 A session on rebuilding post-conflict societies and states is also taking place; speakers include Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, UN Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura, and UN Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame. Speaking about the Syrian crisis, De Mistura said "there is a proxy war in Syria with five countries militarily involved, in addition to ISIS; this contributed to a complex situation in the country making terrorism the most beneficial party from this situation. "It is very easy to start a war but very hard difficult to achieve peace, he commented. Shoukry identified terrorism as a core characteristic of conflicts in the region, stressing the need to fully eliminate this phenomenon. The Egyptian foreign minister said his country's foreign policy is based on non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states, but it cooperates with the UN in the context of international law to seek lasting settlements to conflicts in the region. "Egypt strongly believes in strengthening state institutions to resolve the conflicts facing the region," Shoukry added. Salame affirmed that the United Nations mission in Libya is working on freeing the country's national institutions from the control of armed groups, and on restructuring the police. "We are gradually moving toward empowering Libyan uniformed services to maintain security, but this might need more time," he said. "The upcoming hours will see resignations and assigning new names to some Libyan national sovereign institutes," he announced. In light of the restructuring of the Libyan police, after they were controlled for several years by armed groups, Salame said that a new security committee involving police officers who were not members of armed groups is to be formed, and police officers and personnel are to be retrained. 14:30 At the end of the panel on the African Unions 2063 agenda, El-Sisi commented on officials talks highlighting the challenges facing the African country, importance of women, issue of refugees among other issues. Here in Egypt we have special care programmes for women; they constitute 50 percent of the community and we are keen to integrate them within Egyptian society, he said. Speaking of the challenges in Africa, El-Sisi commented: Africa faces very large challenges, but that it is rich with resources, although they are mismanaged. We must highlight all the challenges and determine our priorities to be able to attain development, said the president, stressing the importance of security and stability, which he said must be achieved first. This has been the political path that Egypt has been following to calm the situation in Africa, such as the efforts exerted in South Sudan, but without interference in the countrys affairs. He also hailed all developmental efforts that have een implemented in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia. We shall not only work on security and stability but also on the impression we leave as Africans on European countries, he said. El-Sisi said Egypt has pressed on with national development plans in parallel with efforts to restore stability in the country. Bringing "safety and stability" to Africa is key to developing the continent, he said, stressing the need for a comprehensive infrastructure development programme in all African countries. It is worth mentioning that infrastructure projects in Egypt have helped us provide job opportunities for almost 5 million Egyptian citizens, said El-Sisi. He called for developing an effective system of governance to fight corruption in African countries, saying that the continent is notorious for insufficient anti-corruption measures. He added that digitalisation and building efficient databases in African countries is another key measure on the path to development. El-Sisi also spoke about the fact that Egypt has refused to build refugee camps, to allow all other nationalities be merged within the Egyptian. 14:00 The President of the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) Benedict Okey Oramah speaks about the importance of youth to the future of Africa, as they make up 68 percent of the population. 13:30 Speaking at the session on 2063 Agenda: Africa that we want, Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry affirmed that the agenda aims at eliminating poverty and achieving the development, security and prosperity of the African continent. The African Unions 2063 Agenda is a strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent over the next 50 years according to the African Unions website. The agenda is not only limited to empowering the youth of the continent but also to teaching them to bear responsibility, Shoukry says. He also urges the activation of the African Free Trade Agreement to maximise the benefit from the continent's resources. "We consider the importance given by President El-Sisi in the G20 meetings in Berlin to developing the infrastructure of the continent and we have ambitious projects in this regard like the railway link project between Djibouti and Senegal, as well the electricity power link project," the minister said. "In Egypt we have achieved we have achieved the level of exporting electricity in addition to entering the nuclear power era, he added. 13:10 In parallel to the first session on the role of world leaders in building and sustaining peace, another session was taking place, on the role of social media and the digital world's impact on the real world. The panellists included Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat, as well as American digital analyst and author Brian Solis, American activist Timmy Sullivan, and French humanitarian and influencer Jerome Jarre. Talaat spoke about the need to put in laws in place that would protect people while they experience their cyber-lives. The minister also spoke about digital literacy in Egypt. "Going to the people in the rural areas where most people are not literate but can use digital devices shows that they have seen the value in digital literacy in life currently" he commented. Digital analyst and author Brian Solis spoke about how the public exchanged "creativity for vanity." "We think getting more likes is better than creating something that will change the world," he commented. French humanitarian and influencer Jerome Jarre said that the public did not fully understand the power of social media, while US activist Timmy Sullivan spoke on how the digital world was parallel to the real world but also a much integrated world. 13:00 The second panel Agenda 2063: The Africa we want has started; nine officials are participating, including Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. 12:30 Tegegnework Gettu, under secretary-general of the UN and associate administrator of UNDP tells attendees that we need to address the root cause of conflicts. In conclusion, peace cannot have a fragmented approach, it must be complex and multilateral." At the end of the panel discussion, El-Sisi commented that establishing and maintaining peace is related to the vision of the political leaders of each country. He cited Egyptian president Anwar Sadats vision as the Egyptian model. Sadats vision on peace was a unilateral action which was implemented more than fifty years ago, he said, adding that although the late presidents vision for peace could have been rejected by other countries in the region it was not. The price of this experience I would not say was his assassination, but the great effort Sadat exerted to maintain peace, he said. He has also commented on the terrorist attack by armed gunmen on a bus carrying Egyptian Christians on Friday, which left seven Copts dead and dozens injured. We in Egypt dont discriminate, we dont say this is Muslim and this is Christian; we say we are Egyptians. He added that the terrorist attack is an act which has saddened the hearts of all Egyptians. He said that Egypt has recently passed a long-awaited law regulating the building of religious buildings, especially churches. The country has been concerned with the building of churches in new cities as well as in old ones, and even for other religions, for Jewish citizens, he said. A citizen who worships or even one who does not worship; everyone is free and the state should not interfere in this. The Egyptian president has also highlighted the importance of correcting religious discourse, which he said is one of the most important demands of Egypt and the world. 11:45 Majdouline Cherni, the Tunisian minister of youth and sports affairs, shares her countrys experience in maintaining peace, and stressed that hope and trust helps humanity in the dream of establishing and maintaining peace. The legacy of a culture of peace is not a final structure but rather a dynamic one, in which institutions of civil society needs to work on, says Cherni. Kazakhstans Deputy Minister of Social Development Birkik Arian notes that the goal of peace is to ensure prosperity in the 21st century for all humans, who aspire to peaceful settlement of disputes. The deputy minister explains that his country has just launched a new initiative to promote peace through dialogue and harmony within society, despite ideological and cultural differences. Kazakhstan also held a conference on different religions last year. The Rwandan minister Rosemary Mbabazi stresses that establishing peace requires young people. Establishing peace is a great means to the establishment of nations but this will not be complete without the integration of the youth. 11:30 During the panel, Sheikh Al-Khalifa highlighted three elements of youth ideology to maintain peace and fight extremism: Security, the national story, and establishing credible hope. He explained that each nation should focus on the security of its country from all kinds of threats that have been penetrating our homes through new technologies. He also said each nation should have its own national story, with its own national projects, which would serve the needs of its people. Commenting on Al-Khalifas second idea, El-Sisi said that Egypts national story is concerned with establishing peace within the society. Establishing societal peace allows the nation to avoid possible conflicts, said El-Sisi. 11:00 There have been six speakers at this first session. First, Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, a member of the Bahraini royal family, the commander of Bahrain's Royal Guard, and president of the Bahrain Olympic Committee. The second was Tunisian Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs Majdouline Cherni. The third was Kazakhstans Deputy Minister of Social Development Birkik Arian. The fourth was Rwandas Minister of Youth Rosemary Mbabazi. The fifth was United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme Tegegnework Gettu. The sixth speaker was Ahmad Alhendawi, the secretary-general of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, and a Jordanian national. During the one-hour panel, all six speakers were asked to give examples from their countries on means to establish, enhance and maintain peace, as well as their recommendations. 10:40 The first session, on the role of world leaders in building and sustaining peace, has started, with speakers from Tunisia, Rwanda, Bahrain, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. 10:15 This morning, President El-Sisi, along with around 5,000 young people from all over the world, have arrived to attend the first day of events. The first session will be titled "The role of world leaders in building and sustaining peace." Today's agenda also includes sessions entitled Agenda 2063: the Africa we want, E-sports and games, and Euro-Mediterranean co-operation: a strategic partnership, among others. 10:00 Welcome to Ahram Online's live updates for the first day of events at the Second World Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh. Yesterday saw the inauguration of the event by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, under whose auspices the forum is taking place. The president inaugurated the forum "in the name of humanity, and to a world full of hope and peace." There were also speeches from a number of young leaders, including Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad and Nelson Mandelas grandson Zondwa Mandela. This year, the forums events will revolve around a vision inspired by The Seven Pillars of the Egyptian Identity, a book by Milad Hanna written for the purpose of emphasising the unity and harmony of Egyptian society despite divergences and differences, according to the official website of the forum. This year's event runs until Tuesday. The first World Youth Forum took place last year, also in Sharm El-Sheikh. Search Keywords: Short link: The joint Arab Shield-1 military drills kicked off on Sunday at Egypt's Mohamed Naguib Military Base and air and navy drills areas in the Mediterranean. The military exercises will last until November 16. Forces from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan flocked over the past few days to several air bases and navy zones to take part in the drills. The drills fall within the framework of promoting military cooperation between Egypt and the sisterly Arab states to enhance the combat potentials of the Armed Forces and promote military relations to support security and stability efforts in the region. Search Keywords: Short link: Egyptian police have killed 19 gunmen involved in an ambush that killed seven Coptic Christians south of Cairo two days ago, the interior ministry said. Security forces tracked the "terrorists" who belong to a cell that carried out the attack to a hideout in a mountainous region west of Minya governorate, where Friday's attack took place, the ministry said in a statement published on its official Facebook page on Sunday. The men were killed in a shootout after they opened fire on security forces as they approached them, the statement added. The ministry published photos of bloodied bodies with their faces concealed and assault rifles and shotguns lying beside them. Gunmen on Friday opened fire on two buses carrying Christians near the Monastery of St Samuel the Confessor in Minya, some 260 km south of Cairo, killing seven and wounding 18 others. Six of those killed were of the same family. The attack, the latest in a series of assaults targeting the country's Christian minority, was claimed by the Islamic State group, according to the groups Amaq news agency. The group was also behind another attack that killed 28 people in almost the same spot in May 2017. Christians make up around 10 percent of Egypt's 97 million predominantly Muslim population. Search Keywords: Short link: Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said on Sunday at the World Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh that there is no discrimination between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. We in Egypt do not discriminate, we do not say this is a Muslim and this is a Christian; we say we are Egyptians, the president said in a speech. On Friday, gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians on their way back from visiting a monastery in Minya, leaving seven dead and at least 10 injured. El-Sisi said that the terrorist attack has saddened the hearts of all Egyptians. The president also highlighted the importance of reforming religious discourse, which he said is one of the most important demands of Egypt and the world." El-Sisi also highlighted that Egypt passed a long-awaited law in 2016 easing regulations on building churches, and stressed the importance of freedom of belief for all citizens in Egypt. The country has been keen on building churches in new and old cities, and even [places of worship] for other religions, for Jewish citizens, he said. A citizen is free to worship or not worship; everyone is free, and the state does not interfere in this. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi spoke about the necessity of reforming religious discourse and other challenges facing the country on the first day of the World Youth Forum 2018 in Sharm El-Sheikh. In a talk during a morning session discussing the role of world leaders in building and sustaining peace, El-Sisi spoke about reforming religious discourse; which comes a few days after a terrorist attack that killed seven Copts and injured others in Upper Egypt's Minya. "Regarding the Minya terror attack and the assault on Egyptian citizens, we don't discriminate based on religion and whether a person is Muslim or Christian. We say he's Egyptian, and we suffer for the death of any Egyptian due to a terror attack," El-Sisi said. The issue of reforming religious discourse has often been discussed by the president in the past few years at public forums. El-Sisi said the issue is "one of the most important demands of Egypt and the world. He also highlighted the right to worship for all Egyptians, pointing out that the state is involved in building a church in new neighbourhoods. He said that Egypt has recently passed a long-awaited law regulating the building of religious buildings, especially churches. Egypt passed a law easing regulations on church building in 2016, which has contributed to legalising 340 churches that were previously unlicensed. The country has been concerned with the building of churches in new cities as well as in old ones, and even for other religions, for Jewish citizens, he said. A citizen who worships or even one who does not worship; everyone is free and the state should not interfere in this," the president said. 'Establishing and maintaining peace by world leaders' The Egyptian president also spoke during the same session on establishing and maintaining peace, saying that it depends on the vision of the political leaders of each country. He cited late Egyptian president Anwar El-Sadats vision as the Egyptian model to accomplish peace through the Camp David Accord signed with Israel. El-Sadats vision on peace was a unilateral action which was implemented more than 50 years ago, he said, adding that although the late presidents vision for peace could have been rejected by other countries in the region, it was not. 'Forced change opens the doors of hell' The president said that Egypt has foiled plans by foreign countries to interfere in its domestic affairs, and that an ill-advised move in recent years had opened the doors of hell in the country. He also warned of attempts to change by force. "A forced change makes us open the doors of hell," he said, adding that Egypt was among countries that were facing national suicide. He stressed that the power of mobilising the youth and public opinion to change societies by force could get out of hand, creating a vacuum that would lead domestic and foreign forces to interfering in domestic affairs and toppling state institutions. Challenges facing the African Continent El-Sisi also spoke about challenges facing Africa, which he said is a continent rich with resources yet not administered probably. Africa faces very large challenges... We must highlight all the challenges and determine our priorities to be able to attain development, the president said, stressing the importance of security and stability, which he said must be achieved first. This has been the political path that Egypt has been following to calm the situation in Africa, such as the efforts exerted in South Sudan, but without interference in the countrys affairs. He also hailed all development efforts that have been implemented in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia. We shall not only work on security and stability but also on the impression we leave as Africans on European countries, he said. He also spoke about national developmental plans by Egypt in line with efforts to restore stability in the country. Bringing "safety and stability" to Africa is key to developing the continent, he said, stressing the need for a comprehensive infrastructure development programme in all African countries. It is worth mentioning that infrastructure projects in Egypt have helped us provide job opportunities for almost 5 million Egyptian citizens, said El-Sisi. He called for developing an effective system of governance to fight corruption in African countries, saying that the continent is notorious for insufficient anti-corruption measures. He added that digitalisation and building efficient databases in African countries is another key measure on the path to development. El-Sisi also spoke about the fact that Egypt has refused to build refugee camps to allow all other nationalities be merged within the Egyptian. The first day of the forum also saw discussions on the Syrian and Libyan crises and efforts to rebuild communities facing crisis in the attendance of Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and UN Envoy to Syria Steffan de Mistura, and UN Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame. Another session on the role of social media and the digital world's impact on the real world was also held with Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat speaking about digital literacy in Egypt. Yesterday saw the inauguration of the event by President El-Sisi, under whose auspices the forum is taking place. The president inaugurated the forum "in the name of humanity, and to a world full of hope and peace." There were also speeches from a number of young leaders, including Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad and Nelson Mandelas grandson Zondwa Mandela. This year, the forums events will revolve around a vision inspired by The Seven Pillars of the Egyptian Identity, a book by Milad Hanna written for the purpose of emphasising the unity and harmony of Egyptian society despite divergences and differences, according to the official website of the forum. WYF 2018 runs till Tuesday 6 November in the attendance of 5,000 youth participants. The first World Youth Forum took place last year, also in Sharm El-Sheikh, which has been described by officials as the city of peace. Search Keywords: Short link: We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Roman Catholic Pope Francis prayed for the victims killed in a Friday terrorist attack in Upper Egypt's Minya, Vatican News reported on Sunday. The pope decried the attack, which killed seven Copts and injured at least 12 others, saying that they were killed "for the mere fact of being Christians." Following the Angelus prayer to the faithful in Saint Peter's Square, he recited the Hail Mary and asked Mary Most Holy to console the families and the entire community. On Friday, gunmen attacked a group of Christians returning home by bus from the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor in Upper Egypt's Minya. The terrorist group Daesh has claimed responsibility for the attack, which is the first major attack on Christians who make up 10 to 15 percent of Egypt's 104 million people since the May 2017 attack on pilgrims travelling to the same Minya monastery. Following the Friday attack, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi vowed to continue the war against dark terrorism. On Sunday, Egyptian police said that 19 gunmen involved in the Friday attack were killed in a shootout with security forces. Search Keywords: Short link: In the past week, Ariana Grande's been sending some very cryptic messages out into the Twitter-verse. While her ex Pete Davidson has chosen to stay quiet, save his recent promo for this week's episode of SNL, the songstress has been busy tweeting. And today, she revealed that all those tweets are actually in reference to what she's been cooking up in the studio lately. Not just one song, but an entire album. Over the past week, Ari's tweeted what's looks to be lyrics to a new song, or what could just as easily be poetic shade towards her former fiance. But on Saturday, she reveals that it is, without a doubt, a song. And in a reply to a fan who asks whether it's just a song, or an album, she replied, "issa song and an album .... you'll get the song first." Ari also revealed in a reply to another fan that the upcoming single is going to be the "exact opposite" of her 2016 hit, "Knew Better." Instead of taking the bitter, vengeful route, she says "thank u, next" is about "a new chapter gratitude, growth, embracing our path bumps n all." No release date, or details on other tracks have been made public just yet. But after the work of art that is Sweetener, we can't wait to hear more bops from Queen Ari! An amount of $1 million is expected to be spent monthly in a desperate attempt to protect the brand of embattled gold collectibles firm, Menzgold Ghana Limited. In recent times, many disgruntled customers have besieged the offices of Menzgold to demand their monies. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in September directed Menzgold to suspend its gold trading operations. According to SEC, Menzgold had been dealing in the purchase and deposit of gold collectibles from the public and issuing contracts with guaranteed returns for clients without a valid licence from the Commission. The move, SEC explained, was in contravention of Section 109 of Act 929 with consequences under section 2016 (I) of the same Act. The company was, however, allowed to continue its other businesses of assaying, purchasing gold from small-scale miners and export of gold. After more than a month of shut down, Menzgold announced on Friday, October 26, 2018 that it would resume its activities on November 5, this year. But DAILY GUIDE understands that the company is planning to inject $1 million monthly into its operations, as management takes the necessary steps to protect the brand and trust of the company. The decision was made over the weekend when Menzgold reportedly held a meeting with about nine stakeholders groups in Accra to discuss among other things, payments to customers. Corporate Affairs Manager of Menzgold Gold Ghana Limited Nana Offei, who chaired the said meeting, is quoted as saying that the company would inject the $1 million monthly in a desperate attempt to save its operations and regain customers trust. Customers Protest Meanwhile, an angry client of Menzgold created a scene at its Dzorwulu Office on Tuesday when she refused to leave the place after working hours because she had not received her principal investment. Margaret Ofori, a mother of three, who has allegedly invested GHC60,000 with Menzgold, said the money is everything she had toiled for while in Bahrain. According to her, she returned to Ghana a few months ago and a friend advised her to invest in Menzgold, which she did. She has not received any extra value payment on her investment and wants her principal paid back to her in full. Ms Ofori told Accra FM that she visited the office of Menzgold at 6 am to request the management of the gold-trading firm to, at least, rent a place for her to live if they cannot refund her full investment. According to her, after waiting till 6 pm, she was told there was no money and that clients would be paid 15 percent of their principal investment from November 9, 2018. The angry client was asked to leave for the office to be closed but she refused. She said the branch manager ordered the security to allow her to pass the night at the office with her sister if she insisted on remaining there until she has been paid. Im coming from Kasoa and have nowhere to stay. I asked them to rent a place for me to live, but that has also fallen on deaf ears, Im disturbed and dont know what to do, she added. Source: Daily Guide Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Paul Elie / The Atlantic: What Oscar Romero's canonization says about Pope Francis Boris Pelcer Reassessing the Catholic Church's dubious history in Latin America " I implore you, I beg you, I order you, in the name of God: stop the repression! When the archbishop denounced the military government for its campaign of violence against its opponentsand called on soldiers carrying out the violence to disobey orderssome men in the military decided that it was time to kill him. El Salvador was on the brink of civil warit was March of 1980and the archbishop had made his plea in a Sunday homily broadcast nationwide on the radio. He was asking for trouble; he deserved to be killed. The killing itself was easy. The next day's newspaper named the chapel where the archbishop would be saying Mass that evening. The archbishop disregarded advice to stay home. The assassins drew lots to determine who would be the gunman. As the archbishop read the Gospel, the assassins pulled up to the chapel. As he raised the consecrated bread and wine, the gunman fired a shot to the heart. Nearly four decades later, Pope Francis has declared Oscar Romero a saint. An archbishop murdered at the altar, in the manner of England's Thomas Becket, would seem a simple case. But Romero's path to canonizationat an October ceremony at Saint Peter's Basilica, in Romehas been tortuous. More than 100,000 people thronged the cathedral plaza in San Salvador for Romero's funeral, and yet the papal representative to El Salvador and all but one of the country's remaining bishops stayed away, cowed by the regime and the Vatican alike. As the murdered man became the face of a people's Catholicism in Latin Americaa saint by acclamationPope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI slow-walked the official canonization process, precisely because of what the archbishop represented. To celebrate Romero, the Church has to address unholy episodes in its pastepisodes as troubling, in their own way, as the current sexual-abuse scandal. For the Catholic left, Romero's assassination is as epochal as Martin Luther King Jr.'s, and his canonizationlong awaitedis apt. At a moment when bishops in the United States and around the world are being called to account for their criminal cover-up of priestly sexual abuse, Oscar Romero stands in stark contrast as a bishop who strove to be holy by being accountablea voice for the voiceless rather than for the Church and its patrons. To celebrate Romero, the Church has to address unholy episodes in its pastepisodes as troubling, in their own way, as the current sexual-abuse scandal. The canonization also forces us to consider Francis in a different lightas a figure scarred by Latin American politics and his own encounter with fear and violence, compromise and complicity. The pope francis depicted in the North American media since his 2013 election is largely a figure in the culture wars conflicts fought over issues such as divorce , homosexuality , gay marriage , and the Church in a diverse society. The issues are different in Latin America. As the first pope from the region, the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio has inherited the Catholic Church's 500-year history as handmaiden to local oligarchs, dictators, and military strongmen. In Latin America, in his lifetime, the Church and its leaders have figured directly not just in the culture wars but in actual wars: in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, and Nicaragua; in Argentina, the pope's native land, whose so-called Dirty War ensnared Bergoglio and his fellow Jesuits; and in El Salvador. The role of archbishop of San Salvador in the mid-1970s was all but impossible. The archbishop was expected to serve the interests of the people, the ruling oligarchy of landowning families, the local Church, the Vatican, and even the United States, which funded El Salvador's military. Romero's appointment, in February 1977, coincided with troubled times: The country faced a growing concentration of power in the military; torture and threats of torture against campesinos who sought concessions from landowners; and a government-backed campaign against activist clergy. In a country named for Jesus El Salvador means The Saviorfliers were passed out urging, Be a patriot. Kill a priest. Romero did not start out as a leftist reformer. Born in 1917, the second of eight children, he entered a seminary in El Salvador when he was 13 and was eventually ordained in Rome, at the age of 24. To the people in his parishes, he was a down-to-earth pastor; to his fellow priests, he was an organization mana stickler, one associate recalled. When the Second Vatican Council relaxed the dress code for priests, he continued to wear a long cassock (and disdained priests who did not). As the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, he was an episcopal bureaucrat, consumed with paperwork. He shifted the content of the weekly archdiocesan newspaper from calls for social justice to calls for personal improvement, honing in on drug use, promiscuity, and alcoholism. He faulted the Jesuits at Central American University for promoting political theology and defended the government's armed occupation of the University of El Salvador on the grounds that the school was a hotbed of Marxism. He made his weekly confession to a priest who was a member of the secretive traditionalist movement Opus Dei. But for all that, he was not doctrinaire. In 1968, an epochal conference of Latin American bishops held in Medellin, Colombia, dramatically sharpened the Church's commitment to social justice; Romero sought a middle ground between the Medellinistas and the Salvadoran oligarchy. The Vatican, noting his moderation, installed him as archbishopafter the oligarchy signed off. Three weeks later, a Jesuit priest named Rutilio Grande and two companions were murdered in Aguilares, a village outside the capital, where Grande had been organizing sugarcane workers. Grande was a friend of Romero'sthey had lived in the same seminary in the early 1970s, often taking meals together. The new archbishop went to Aguilares to pray over Grande's bullet-riddled body. Romero, one priest would recall, had previously been reluctant to go through the door of history God was opening up for himbut now he did. He returned to San Salvador a changed man, vowing that he and the Church would not take part in any official government ceremony until the killing was dealt with. He canceled all scheduled Masses the following Sunday, replacing them with a single misa unica in the cathedral in memory of the slain men. That morning, 100,000 Catholics gathered outside the cathedral. Romero lived modestly. For his quarters he took a bungalow on the grounds of a hospital. He declined to make use of a luxury car and driver. He opened the chancery to poor people, who came to him with their problems. As the military regime's repression escalatedpriests murdered, campesinos disappeared, protesters massacredhe condemned from within the Church the social sin perpetuated by the government and the ruling class, whom he accused of paying to kill the voice that speaks out. He used his Sunday homilies to report on people murdered or kidnapped, identifying each by name. He made the archdiocese's radio station, YSAX, an alternative to state-controlled media. Once an organization man, Romero now found his brother bishops writing to Rome to complain about him. In February 1978, Georgetown University, a Jesuit institution in Washington, D.C., decided to give Romero an honorary degree. The Vatican sought to stop it, but the university stood its ground. Bettmann / Getty May 1979: Less than a year before his murder, Archbishop Oscar Romero appeals to the international community for help in ending government repression in El Salvador. Karol Wojtyla was elected pope that fall. As the archbishop of Krakow, he had set the Church against Communism in the Soviet bloc; as Pope John Paul II, he set the Church against Latin America's liberation theology, which mounted a wide-ranging critique of entrenched social structures in the region and called upon the Church to cast its lot, in word and in deed, with the poor and the powerless. Romero had not read much liberation theology, but he made common cause with its advocates. The Vatican sent a bishop from Argentina to check on Romero. It began planning for his removal. When threatened campesinos occupied churches to protect themselves, he supported them. When the president of El Salvador failed to stop the murders of priests and laity, Romero excommunicated him. Washington was watching, too. Under President Jimmy Carter, the State Department and the Pentagon were working with the Salvadoran government. When the Marx-inspired Sandinista rebels came to power in neighboring Nicaragua (and appointed four priests to the cabinet), many in official Washington feared that El Salvador was next. The Carter administration pursued a quixotic policy toward the country: denouncing the government's human-rights violations while funding its lawless military. The undersecretary of state for the region derided Romero as a weak archbishop strongly influenced by an idealistic but naive Jesuit cadre. After a so-called bloodless coup by the military in 1979, the government's war on its opponents grew even more brutal. Campesinos were murdered at the rate of more than 300 a month. Priests continued to be killed. Romero had observed that his role was to tend the wounds pick up the bodies; now he presided over funeral after funeral. With the U.S. Congress set to renew funding for the Salvadoran military, he wrote a letter to Carter imploring him to end the funding. Romero read the letter aloud in the cathedral and over YSAX, whose facilities were soon bombed. He refused to hire a bodyguard or wear a bulletproof vest. Why should he be protected when the campesinos were not? Romero's letter to Carter circulated among the president's staff. The national-security adviser, Zbigniew BrzezinskiPolish-born, anti-Communistreached out to John Paul, asking him to compel Romero to tone things down. The new U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, saw things differently. White described the military regime as a right-wing Murder Incorporated. In a State Department communique he remarked, Probably the most serious threat to a moderate solution would be the assassination of Archbishop Romero, the most important political figure in El Salvador. YSAX's transmitter was eventually repaired, and on Sunday, March 23, 1980, in an hour-long homily broadcast across Central America, Romero begged the military regime to stop the repression! The next day he was dead. Pope francis has had Romero in mind ever since his election. After taking the name of a saint who served the poorFrancis of Assisihe spurned the papal palace, opting to live in a guesthouse. He rides in a Fiat, not a luxury car. He is open, bold, improvisatory. He has likened the Church to a field hospital after battle, called in to bind up the wounds left by society. But he was not always this way. In Argentina he was known as dour and cautious, a loner, sometimes a scold. Two decades younger than Romero, Bergoglio made his final vows as a Jesuit in Buenos Aires in April 1973, at age 36. Two months later, he was named the provincial, or regional leader, of the Jesuits in Argentinaa young conservative appointed to counter the surging progressivism of the order. His profile then was strikingly akin to Romero's at the same moment: making priests wear clerical collars (and wearing a collar and a cassock himself), favoring traditional devotions over Vatican II innovations, standing against liberation theology, and staying on gracious good terms with the authoritarian Catholics who ran the country. He didn't vote. He sometimes wore gold-embroidered vestments when celebrating Mass, explaining that ordinary people liked a touch of Evita in their liturgy. Some of his fellow Jesuits wrote to Rome to complain about him. Sainthood for the archbishop forces us to consider Francis in a different lightas a figure scarred by Latin American politics and his own encounter with fear and violence, compromise and complicity. In 1976 he faced a test of his leadership. Inspired by the Medellin declaration on social justice, two other Jesuits had founded a community in a shantytown of Buenos Aires, living among the poor and among Marxist guerrillas, which some interpreted as tantamount to supporting terrorists. Bergoglio had been their student. Now he was their superior. Following an order, he said, from Pedro Arrupe, the leader of the Jesuits in Rome, he told the two Jesuits that they had to choose between the community, with its politically provocative agenda, and the Jesuit order. They refused to give up their work. He invited them to stay at the Jesuit house in Buenos Aires. They declined. Bergoglio warned them to be very careful. The coup came five days later. The Jesuits were hauled from their dwelling in the shantytowntwo of some 150 priests taken in the Dirty War that followed. The men were stripped, shackled, hooded, and tortured for five days, then relocated and kept blindfolded. They became convinced that Bergoglio had either turned them in or acquiesced to their abduction. Had he? Almost certainly not. But he had been careless. Carrying out the dismissal, he had left the priests without institutional protection. In the flurry of paperwork and consultation, he had somehow drawn the regime's attention to the two men. In any case, once they were taken, he worked for their release. The priests were eventually let godrugged and dumped on a remote stretch outside of Buenos Aires, but alive after a five-month ordeal. Bergoglio's efforts likely helped secure their release. In the terrifying period that followed, as the Dirty War escalated, Bergoglio arranged protection for other people threatened by the regime. He got them passage out of the country on flights to Brazil. He put them up at the Colegio Maximo, claiming that they were there to undergo the Jesuits' famous long retreat. On one occasion he gave a man his own government ID, and the man escaped as Padre Bergoglio, in a black suit and clerical collar. That is what Jorge Bergoglio did. What he did not do was openly oppose or denounce the repressive government in Argentina in the late 1970sthe very time when Oscar Romero was opposing and denouncing the repressive government in El Salvador, a stand he paid for with his life. The Dirty War in Argentina went on until 1983. Up to 30,000 civilians were killed or disappeared. Bergoglio, after two terms as provincial, was named the rector of the Jesuit seminary. He remained fundamentally conservative, and as a result proved divisive. He was sent on sabbaticals to Ireland and West Germany and eventually posted to the Argentine mountain town of Cordobaa move intended as informal exileuntil he was called back to Buenos Aires in 1992, where he became an auxiliary bishop and then the archbishop. The archbishop who called him back was the same man the Vatican had sent to El Salvador to check on Romero. After Bergoglio's election as pope, some Argentines revived the accusations that he had betrayed the two Jesuits and had ignored the entreaties of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group devoted to reuniting children whose parents had been disappeared during the Dirty War with their blood relatives. In a lengthy interview published soon after he became pope, Francis spoke remorsefully about his efforts in the 1970s. My style of government as a Jesuit at the beginning had many faults, he said. I found myself provincial when I was still very young. I was only 36 years old. That was crazy. I had to deal with difficult situations, and I made my decisions abruptly and by myself My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems. He had changed in the decades since then. The change had begun during the Dirty War and it had deepened during his time in Cordoba. He returned to Buenos Aires a humbler man, and one squarely on the side of the poor. He lived in spartan quarters. He took the subway and bus. He walked the slums. When the bishops of Latin America convened in Brazil in 2007, Bergoglio, entrusted to write the official statement about the meeting, called for the Church to become a traveling companion of our poorest brothers and sisters, even as far as martyrdom. In the years after Romero's death, the murdered archbishop of San Salvador had become an inspiration to the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Bergoglio said of Romero in 2007, If I were pope, I would have already canonized him. It was the future pope's rebuke to his two predecessors, who felt that Romeroin death as in lifeneeded to be restrained. Pope john paul ii visited El Salvador in 1983. That he went at all took courage: The region was in a state of war. He had just visited Nicaraguawhere he bellowed Silencio! after he was heckled during an open-air Massand tensions were high. Terror threats called into question his plan to pray at Oscar Romero's tomb, in the crypt below the cathedral. He went and prayed anyway. Robert White, the U.S. ambassador, had seen Romero as essential to any peaceful way forward in El Salvador. He proved prophetic. The assassination of Romero presaged a civil war that would last 12 years and leave up to 80,000 dead and 8,000 disappeared. Progressive Catholics were targets. Four American churchwomen were raped and murdered. Six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter were shot point-blank by members of a paramilitary group, who also trained their guns on a poster of Archbishop Romero that was hanging on the wall. John Paul visited El Salvador again, in 1996. He again knelt at Romero's tomb. But he declined to visit the chapel where Romero had been murdered, and he was not eager to see Romero canonized: Better to wait a couple of decades, he believed, until the war was over and Romero's political charisma had dimmed. John Paul's go-slow approach gave cover to subordinates who opposed Romero's canonization on theological and political grounds. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the rigorist prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sought to suppress liberation theology, and Romero was seen as implicated by association. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, of Colombia, another archconservative, stated that Romero was not a true martyr, because he had been killed for political reasons, not religious ones. The ties between the Church and Latin American elites proved hard to break. Rodrigo Arangua / AFP May 2015: Thousands gather in El Salvador's capital to celebrate Romero's beatificationa key step on the way to official canonization. El Salvador's civil war ended in 1992 with a rough-and-ready peace accord, and five years later John Paul and Ratzinger allowed the cause for Romero to be opened in Rome. A youngish Italian monsignor was made postulatorthe man with the job of seeing the matter through. It would not be easy. The process was held up at every stageby the bishops in El Salvador, and in Rome by the bishops' office, by the clergy office, and, in 1998, by Ratzinger and the doctrinal office, which wanted to review Romero's homilies for traces of Marxism. Six years passed. Then Ratzinger announced another delay, so that Vatican clerics could delve deeper into Romero's writings. Pope John Paul II died. Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI. Seven more years passed. John Paul was canonized. At last, after meeting with the postulatorwho by now was a white-haired bishopBenedict approved the cause. Then he resigned. Bergoglio was elected pope. Three weeks later, Oscar Romero was authorized for canonization. On one level, the canonization represents a wrong finally righted. On another, it is an occasion for Francis to confront the darkness of the late 1970sthe struggles he faced, the decisions he made. There is no one right way for religious leaders to challenge repressive governments in every circumstance. Francis is now taking a conciliatory approach with China, for example, remaining quiet on human rights in order to gain space for the Church to operate there. And outspokenness, for its part, is not guaranteed to bring results. But this canonization marks a real change: After centuries of cozying up to strongmen, the Vatican has legitimated Romero's way of denunciation and confrontation, recognizing that it is not the path of a reckless maverick. Pope Francis, greeting pilgrims from El Salvador in the fall of 2015, went off script to speak candidly about Romero's posthumous ordeal, making clear that he laid the blame for the long delay not on Central American despots but on princes of the Church, whom he placed among Romero's persecutors: He was defamed, slandered, soiledthat is, his martyrdom continued even by his brothers in the priesthood and in the episcopate. He went on to lament that the same posthumous fate had been suffered by Rutilio Grande, the Jesuit organizer of poor agricultural workers whose murder in 1977 prompted Romero to commit his life to social justice. Asked once about prospects for Romero's canonization, Francis had said, Yes, yes, yes And right after that comes Rutilio Grande. Typically, a candidate for sainthood must be associated with miracles. Francis responded to that notion in a brief encounter with Grande's biographer two years later. He said, Rutilio Grande's great miracle is Oscar Romero. Paul Elie , a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, is the author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Reinventing Bach . Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views. Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by The Atlantic on November 2018. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Petroleumworld and its owners. Link to original article. Editor's Note: All comments posted and published on Petroleumworld, do not reflect either for or against the opinion expressed in the comment as an endorsement of Petroleumworld and are expressed are private comments and do not necessary reflect the view of this website. Petroleumworld.com Hit your target - Advertise with us All comments are posted and published without liability to Petroleumworld. 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Petroleumworld welcomes your feedback and comments, share your thoughts on this article, your feedback is important to us! Petroleumworld News 10 /29/2018 We invite all our readers to share with us their views and comments about this article. MBALE On June 26, 2006, Mbale town, located in Mbale District, and a number of other towns in Uganda, marked 100 years since their declaration as townships by the colonial government. According to The Official Gazette of the East Africa and Uganda Protectorate Vol. VIII No 161, Mr H. Hesketh Bell, then His Majestys Commissioner, signed a declaration on June 26, 1906, that declared: By virtue of the powers conferred upon me by the Uganda Township Ordinance 1903, I hereby declare the following places within limits hereinafter set forth to be townships for the purposes of the aforesaid Ordinance. By 1951, the town had built modern offices on what is now called Republic Street and after independence in 1962, the Mbale Municipal Council was the first town to be granted official status of an urban authority. Most of the people who have lived since then especially the now grey-haired generation will tell you with nostalgia the days when Mbale was the cleanest town on East and central Africa. In the days Mbale gained a reputation as the cleanest town in East Africa. The Late President Apollo Milton Obote referred to it as the Jewel of East Africa. Mbale rotary club then described it as the town with the best and well-designed roads. According to Mbale historians, the town developed along a low ridge running from East to West at the foothills of Mt Nkokonjeru, currently known as Wanale hill. Visible from all parts of the town with its picturesque cliffs, cascading waterfalls and green cultivated slopes, the Wanale ridge supplements the towns allure; the white rocks along the hills are spread like a white sheet on the hills, no wonder the late colonial agent Mr Semei Kakunguru called it a white cock due to the white rocks that appear from a distance like a white cock. Mr James Kutosi, the municipality spokesperson says that Late Obote had hinted on elevating the municipality to a city status and that he had started building a hotel on Wanale ridge before he was toppled by the NRA in 1986. And for us historically, the City status has been delayed long and so when it comes we receive it with both hands because we merit it, said Mr Kutosi. He explained that a walk through Mbale municipality today shows that there is very little difference between it and Kampala city save for a few more skyscrapers which are expected to be in a city anyway. What is a city? According to the functional definition a city is not distinguished by size alone, but also by the role it plays within a larger political context. Cities serve as administrative, commercial, religious, and cultural hubs for their larger surrounding areas. People all across the world are working to push the boundaries on what it means to become one of the most modern cities and they are using their forward-thinking and innovative efforts in technology, architecture, city planning, and social issues to become models of modernity. In Vision 2040, government proposed four regional cities to be established and these include Arua, Gulu, Mbale, and Mbarara and five strategic cities which include Hoima (oil), Nakasongola (industrial), Fort Portal (tourism), Moroto (mining), and Jinja (industrial). But does Mbale municipality fall into what is called a city? -In the first case for an area to qualify to be a city, it should have a population of 350,000 people. It used to be 500, 000 but government of Uganda reduced to 350,000 people after discovering that few municipalities could measure to this. -The municipality should have a master plan for land use and that such a plan could from time to time be reviewed to address emerging issues. -The municipality to be granted city status must have office space large enough to provide administrative and commercial functions. -It should also have water sources and be able to meet the cost of providing social services for its people. A city should be able to rise upwards of 50 per cent of the revenue it needs for its projects but with the scrapping of Graduated tax ahead of the 2006 general election, many municipalities earmarked for cities rely heavily on central government transfers. Why the demand for cities? The National Development Plan II, the second of six fiveyear plans aimed at achieving Vision 2040, provides for the creation of four cities. It proposes the establishment of cities in Gulu, Mbale, Mbarara and Arua and five strategic cities and the strategic cities would be established in Hoima (oil), Nakasongola (industrial), Fort Portal (tourism), Moroto (mining) and Jinja (as an industrial city). While addressing the 20th National Technology Conference in Kampala, the Commissioner for Urban Development in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Mr Joseph Walter Paddy, said the move to create cities is aimed at decongesting Kampala City and addressing the impact of urbanisation. Mr Paddy explained that the government, working together with the World Bank, has injected $150 m (Shs448.8 trillion) to train the local governments in the proposed municipalities to prepare them to become regional cities. Under the Municipalities Infrastructure Development Project financed by the World Bank, we have been preparing the municipalities to build capacity to render services and support their financial processes, he said. Mr Davies Mwaule, speaker emeritus [Mbale municipality] says the reasons for wanting an upgrade from municipal to city status range from creating job opportunities to getting more funds from the central government. It is more about employment and Investors would want to establish business. Many will set up shops in the new cities as industrialists because people in cities have purchasing power, said Mr Mwaule. Some of the respondents interviewed by PML Daily, Mbale wants a city status because it is running out of land for expansion and that by merging with the outlying, landrich areas, they would be able to get land. Population issue in Mbale According to Ugandas National Population and Housing Census 2014, the population of Mbale municipality is 96,190 which on the population criterion, the municipality is short of the numbers. Mr Mutwalib Zandya, the mayor Mbale municipality says that besides population, Mbale is home to multiple higher learning institutes and financial institution branches that qualify it for a city status. He added that it is about more resources from the central government to the newly created cities and that elevation to city status means additional funding from central government for service delivery. Mr Zandya explained that the argument that some requirements are not met should not even arise because the proponents have absolutely no moral basis to judge Mbale because Mbale stands at a vantage point in a region that boasts of burgeoning trade with southern Sudan and thriving commerce with neighbouring Kenya. Mr Mutwalibi added that the functioning street lights, drainage system, and the beautification is a sign that the town is ready for a city and that with improved infrastructural growth by USMID, I can assure you that we are soon becoming a city. He revealed that under the World Bank-funded Uganda Support to Municipality Infrastructure Development (USMID programme], a total of 3.14km road network, which include Republic Street, Nabuyoga rise, Pallisa and Mugisu Hill have been constructed at a cost of Shs10 billion. Mr Francis Kooko, a councillor representing Nkoma Ward to Mbale municipality says Mbale boasts of over five top-end hotels, over 10 mid-range ones with the possibility of more springing up when city status is granted. Shopping malls and arcades are now a common sight. These may not be crucial prerequisites for a city status but unfortunately the only city we have has only these as its dominant features, said Mr Kooko. Mr Paul Butanda, the Town clerk, Mbale municipal council said a City status comes with the heavy responsibility of keeping up to international standards which Mbale needs for revival adding that this will decongest the now irritating and over-populated Kampala city. And do you know that a shining and promising Mbale city may pile pressure on the capital city to style up to international standards, said Mr Butanda. He said the council already has plans to embark on Phase Two of the USMID project beginning in December, which include tarmacking of Naboa and cathedral Avenue roads, among others which will further beautify the town in preparation for a city status. The Mbale Municipal Council spokesperson, Mr James Kutosi, says the town has a lot to boast about now than ever before, we have first-class hotels our and five-star hotels, good schools, Universities, industries, health facilities, hangout places and business entities, among others. Ms Rhoda Nyaribi, the municipal environment officer said with the construction and renovation of roads and installation of street lights, the town is steadily regaining its former glory and people can now do business up to anytime since security has improved. She said the municipality boasts of an effective way to manage its waste funded by World Bank through the National Environment Management Authority that has seen establishment of a garbage composite site and that this would serve as a garbage management plant when a city is granted. Records indicate that Mbale municipal council passed a resolution for elevation to a city status on November 29, 2008. However, since then, nothing has been done. Mr Bernard Mujasi, the LCV chairman for Mbale district local government explained that urbanization will also help to resettle people in landslide-prone areas and bring services closer to residents. He revealed that the population of Mbale Municipality is multi-ethnic comprising the Basoga, Bagwere, Baganda, Banyankole, Langis and Iteso, as well as the Indian Community and a semblance of Swahili people from Tanzania and the coast of Kenya. However, the majority are the Bamasaba ethnic group (the Bagisu). According to the National Population and Housing Census 2014 provisional results, Mbale town is among the 20 largest urban Centres in the country in terms of population. It has been growing at the rate of 2.5 annually. Mr Kutosi says that currently the town is inhabitant to 96,190 while 10 years ago it was a resident for 71,130 people and a decade earlier it was a home for 53,990 people. This is how in terms of population the town has since changed, with the majority being in their youthful age. He added that the municipality has a master plan that involves convincing some of the outlying areas to merge with like the sub-counties of Namanyonyi, Nakaloke, Nawuyo town council and Mutoto sub-county to increase on the area and insufficient revenue streams. Requirements The Local Government Act 1997 considers a city to be equivalent to a district, which is bigger than a municipality The Local Government Act under Chapter 243 requires that a municipality seeking to gain a city status must have a population of 500,000 inhabitants although government recently revised it to 300,000 since it is hard for most towns to reach a population of 500,000 people currently. Ends About MBALE Mbale Municipality is one of the most competitive and attractive business centres in eastern Uganda. It is on the foot of Wanale ridge of Mountain Elgon, which is 8,000 feet above sea level. Geographically, it covers 2,435 hectares. Mbale is among the towns being targeted as regional cities, along with Jinja, Arua, Mbarara and Gulu. Related Numerous news events have shaped the past week and the start of the new month with the probe to unearth the rot at Bank of Uganda (BoU), closure of commercial banks take centre stage. The BoU, Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile and his deputy Dr Louis Kasekende early this week faced the wrath as lawmakers on the Parliamentary committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) investigated irregularities in the closure of the said banks. The duo, accompanied by a team of top management from the Central Bank and the MPs inquiry focuses on the mismanagement of closed banks and dealings with external lawyers as unearthed by the Auditor General in his special audit report to Parliament. Mr Mutebile and Mr Kasekende answered the queries raised by the Auditor General, Mr John Muwanga, as new evidence indicates that BoU officials wrote off Crane Bank Ltd loans amounting to Shs600b through unclear circumstances. COSASE late this week dismissed the notion that its probe into Bank of Ugandas (BoU) closure of seven commercial banks is coined around the defunct Crane Bank. In 2016, the central bank took over management of Crane Bank Limited over significant under capitaliSation of the institution and possession of a risk to the stability of the financial sector. In the subsequent year after the takeover, BoU citing continued insolvency transferred Crane Bank to dfcu Bank. But according to the committee chairperson Abdul Katuntu (Bugweri County), the probe that kicked off Wednesday is also about six other commercial banks that have been taken over since 1993. The banks include Teefe Bank (1993), International Credit Bank Ltd (1998), Greenland Bank (1999), The Co-operative Bank (1999), National Bank of Commerce (2012) and Global Trust Bank (2014). Parliament last year tasked Muwanga to carry out a special audit following a whistleblower that claimed irregularities during the closures but in their submitted responses, the central bank denies any wrongdoing. During the interface, Katuntu said that although the BoU officials have filed their responses, they sound more like a monologue unless backed with documentary evidence to back up the claims. On his part, Kasekende warned that not all documents will be furnished to the committee because some such as the loans schedule are subject to confidentiality clauses provided for in the countrys legal framework. Mutebile has asked the committee up to close of business on Monday to avail the needed documents, but the lawmakers will not convene until Friday after reading and internalising the documents. In the same week, former police Chief Gen. Kale Kayihuras lawyers put the Vision Group on notice over defamatory stories linking him to the death of his former ally AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi. Kayihura wants New Vision to immediately cease publication of Kaweesi murder series, issue an apology and pay him at least 300M for each story or they face legal action. Gen Kayihura, in a November 2 letter through his lawyers, Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA), he claims all the published stories by the same paper are aimed at tarnishing his name and that he has taken note of deliberate and sustained campaign that is riddled with publishing false, malicious and defamatory articles against him. Kayihuras legal notice to New Vision came hours after another local daily; the Daily Monitor reported that Kayihura could be exonerated of all the charges including arming criminal gangs in the city. Other charges against Kayihura include failure to supervise and ensure accountability for the arms and ammunition issued to specialized units under his office as the IGP, including the Flying Squad, Special Operations Unit, witness protection unit and the Crime Intelligence Directorate of the police force. Although, the army leadership is yet to confirm the reports carried by Daily Monitor. However, could the reports be true, New Vision will be in a difficult position given the looming legal actions. New Vision in a number of stories claims Kayihura is guilty of a number of heinous crimes including the brutal murder of former Police spokesperson AIGP Felix Kaweesi in March last year. Still on legal battles, Telecom giant, MTN Uganda, is headed for yet another bigger trouble as its former senior manager in charge of public access Richard Mwami dragged them to court over malicious prosecution. Mr. Mwami, who was in 2013, prosecuted by the company at the anti-corruption court on key among others charges corruption, neglect of duty, conspiracy to defraud MTN of Shs8 billion mobile money wants the Telecom together with government to pay him damages amounting to Shs2.8 billion. Just like many other legal battles where MTN Uganda has lost to a number of its former staff, Justice Lawrence Gidudu, in 2015, dismissed the charges against Mwami saying all charges were brought in bad faith. Now Mwami claims that he received negative press coverage in several newspapers and online news sites for having defrauded MTN, a prosecution that damaged his reputation and continued to cause him to suffer stigma over negative press exposure. He also alleges that all charges levelled against him that also included embezzling company funds were in bad faith and therefore MTN Uganda and government should pay him over malice. Also, Makerere University researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi was this week arrested on allegations that she abused President Yoweri Museveni and his deceased mother. The Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters Kibuli arrested Dr Nyanzi on Friday to Special Investigations Division headquarters at Kireka where she still detained by press time. She was holding a silent strike at Makerere after the university management failed to restore to her office despite the court ruling. The CID spokesperson, Superintendent of Police Vincent Ssekatte confirmed the arrest of Dr Nyanzi. We have her and detectives are yet to interrogate her, SP Ssekatte said. It is alleged that Dr Nyanzi abused President Museveni and his deceased mother on September 16 on her Facebook page. SP Ssekatte says she committed the offence of cyber harassment and offensive communication. Leaving the controversial don alone, Police in Kampala on Sunday morning confirmed arresting another key suspect in connection to the murder of Arch Rwego, a businessman murdered recently in front of his family in Wakiso district The suspect whose identities were withheld by police was picked up from Kamwokya on Thursday following a confession by one of the suspects picked up earlier. The arrest of the suspect brings to four the number of suspects in police custody in connection to gruesome murder. Police had earlier arrested three other suspects with the help of sniff dogs. The Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson, Luke Owoyesigyire confirmed the arrest of the fourth and major suspect. We have another suspect in our custody. We are soon taking them to court, Owoyesgyire confirmed. In the neighboring South Sudan, the two rival wings agreed to work together for the sake of peace in the war-ravaged country. The agreement also saw rebel leader Riek Machar return to Juba more than two years after he fled the youngest country in the world following the collapse of a 2016 peace deal. Dr Machar, the former vice president, fled to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016 after fierce fighting broke out in Juba, killing hundreds of people while others crossed to borders as refugees. Museveni together with President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of crime against humanity and war crimes, guaranteed the peace deal. The president said war should never be used again to solve political arguments between brothers and sisters, saying war is wasteful and this was an unnecessary conflict adding that political arguments can be solved through discussions or free and fair elections. However, the week ended to a sad note as, Ms Eleneor Kembabazi of Kembabazi catering service owner died at Entebbe Airport as she returned home from specialised treatment in India. According to a family member, Julius Muchunguzi, Kembabazi fought all the odds and build Kembabazi Catering Centre from a humble eating place to a brand name that moved ahead of her. Kembabazi has been battling with Colon cancer. Ms Kembabazi has been popular since 1983 for her Kembabazi Catering Centre Limited located in Naguru Kampala. Related Iraq may have a new government, but its ministers are not the ones who are really calling the shots After five months of a serious political impasse and painstaking negotiations to form a new government, many Iraqis would have been content to be governed by a government that had some regard for what they really want to stop the progressive deterioration of their nation. Instead, Iraqis last week got as their new ministers people who are widely seen as nothing more than hirelings employed by the ruling parties and political elites that continue to demonstrate their arrogance and contempt in the face of peoples mounting discontent. Iraqs new parliament convened on 24 October to confirm Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdis new government in office, a last step to end the political stalemate that emerged from the inconclusive 12 May general elections. However, after a chaotic session that extended beyond midnight, the legislature failed to vote on key appointments, including the ministers of defence, justice and the interior, underscoring the discord plaguing Iraqi politics. The session started with a quorum of 220 lawmakers, leaving more than 100 seats empty in the 329-seat body. Those who remained after the row over the ministers voted to confirm 14 of Abdul-Mahdis 22 cabinet nominees. It was not clear what triggered the controversy, but Abdul-Mahdi seemed to have violated under-the-table deals reached by the parliaments main blocs and political leaders to distribute the cabinet seats. Abdul-Mahdi was a compromise candidate for the premiership, and the political jockeying involved in appointing him included political and financial horse-trading laying the foundations for a future fight over who will be in the new government. Lawmakers who opposed some of the candidates complained that they were not given enough time to review the nominees, named only hours before the vote. Some MPs objected that some of the nominees for the cabinet had links to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Others claimed that some of the nominees had criminal records, including for graft and connections with either Sunni terrorist groups or Iran-backed Shia militias. Among those who were rejected were Falih Al-Fayadh, head of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) nominee for the interior portfolio, and Faisal Al-Jarba, nominated as the defence minister in the new cabinet. Lawmakers accused Al-Fayadh of being close to Iran-backed militias and Al-Jarba of being a former crony of Saddam. Abdul-Mahdis proposed communications minister was also accused of being a Saddam stalwart in a document leaked during the session. His nominee for the culture portfolio, a Shia militia leader, was perceived as being a threat to the countrys culture. Abdul-Mahdi made a political blunder when he failed to make good on his promise to launch a government Website allowing ordinary Iraqis to apply for ministerial jobs online. His office said later that more than 30,000 Iraqis had submitted their CVs through the governmental portal, but none was chosen for any ministerial job. In his four years as prime minister, Abdul-Mahdi will likely face many big-ticket decisions, including fighting chronic corruption in the government and providing basic services that have been largely eclipsed over the past 15 years because of mismanagement and graft. Protests over the lack of services such as power and drinking water rumbled through the southern city of Basra throughout the summer and led to clashes with the security forces and dozens of casualties and arrests. Among the plethora of challenges faced by Abdul-Mahdi is the rising power of the Shia militias, which many Iraqis blame for mounting lawlessness, violence and crime. The Shia militias have seen a rapid rise in power since June 2014 after the government established the PMF to support the security forces to battle a large-scale insurgency by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. The PMF, which evolved as a loose assortment of militias, rose up in response to the IS drive through the country. While the PMF itself remains loosely under government control, some of the most powerful and influential militias operating across the country are really calling the shots. The countrys next government also faces tough economic decisions after the failure of post-Saddam governments in Iraq to jump-start economic reforms, eliminate inefficiency and dismantle corrupt patronage networks that stifle development. One of Abdul-Mahdis toughest challenges will be to end the ruinous policy of having people depend on the state as the sole jobs provider and to solve the countrys high unemployment by encouraging investment in the private sector. Among other key challenges that Abdul-Mahdi must face is grappling with the balance between the US and Iran, two rivals which have been vying for influence in Iraq since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam in 2003. The nature of Iraqs political makeup and its geopolitical position dictate that Abdul-Mahdi should work to contain the US and Iranian influence in the country while balancing these against Iraqs own interests. Another main challenge that Abdul-Mahdi will face as Iraq prepares for the future after the war with IS is maintaining stability and bringing about the reconstruction of areas wrecked by the war against the militants. Meanwhile, Abdul-Mahdi still has a list of disputes with the countrys Kurdistan Region in the wake of the 2017 referendum on independence. Resolving these disputes will be key to stabilising Iraq in the future and ensuring workable relations with the autonomous region. Abdul-Mahdi made a number of promises in his manifesto for the 2018-2022 term. He pledged to make necessary changes in the government and to end poverty and unemployment and provide security, water and electricity for all Iraqis during his term. However, whether he will be able to deliver on such promises remains to be seen. Indeed, there are doubts that Abdul-Mahdi will be able to keep his promises. One main constraint is that he is not backed by any parliamentary bloc of his own, with most of his cabinet ministers being imposed on him by the main political groups. Many Iraqis have mocked Abdul-Mahdis acknowledgement that his governments manifesto was based on a draft programme that former prime minister Haider Al-Abadi had prepared for his own government should he have won another term. Abdul-Mahdi also presented the 2019 state budget drafted by Al-Abadis government to the parliament without any cabinet discussion and named the former prime minister right hand man for the same post as cabinet chief of staff. For these Iraqis, relying on a programme, budget and officials associated with another failed government is a bad commencement for a new one. Unlike the praise which the Western powers, Iraqs neighbours and the United Nations expressed at the appointment of Al-Abadi as Iraqs prime minister in 2014, Abdul-Mahdis appointment has been met with scepticism. In a statement read by his spokesperson Heather Nauert, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged to work closely wit hAbdul-Mahdi, but he underlined that US support for the new government was to help his government deliver stability, security and prosperity for all Iraqis. UN Representative in Iraq Serg Kubis underscored that Abdul-Mahdis government should work in full respect of Iraqs constitution that guarantees the rights and equality of all Iraqi citizens and provides for a stable and prosperous future for Iraq. With its strategic location, vast natural wealth and educated and enterprising population, Iraq is poised to re-emerge as a regional and global player. Yet, it has missed many chances to rebuild after the US-led invasion in 2003, which gave it the deserved title of the land of missed opportunities. Maybe it is too early to judge Abdul-Mahdi, and the next few weeks and months will give better insight into his policy vision and performance. But with a government half full of cronies and political novices, one could argue that his starting point does not augur well for Iraqs future. * A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Has Iraq missed its chance? Search Keywords: Short link: If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here Al Jazeera, October 29, 2018 By Jennifer Glasse A suicide bomber detonated explosives near Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) headquarters in Kabul on Monday, injuring at least six people, officials said. The IEC spokesman says a staff vehicle was targeted and left at least four election officials and two policemen wounded. Last weekend, there was a string of similar attacks during the country's parliamentary elections. Voting was suspended by a week in Kandahar province after the Taliban killed a prominent police chief. Various meetings on the Syrian crisis took place in October, but with few if any results, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus Many international meetings on Syria took place in the second half of October, and there was much activity on the regional and global stages to jumpstart the stalled Syrian peace track before UN Envoy to Syria Steffan de Mistura leaves office at the end of November. De Mistura visited Syria, perhaps for the last time, for just a few hours late in the month due to a dispute with the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on a new Constituent Assembly. During a briefing to the UN Security Council some days later, de Mistura said the regime did not want to see the UN play a role in drafting a new constitution. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem understands the role of the UN differently, de Mistura said, adding that he had refused a UN role in choosing the names of members of the Constituent Assembly, preferring to see this handled by Russia. The Constituent Assembly is expected to include 150 members, one third from the opposition represented by the Higher Negotiations Committee (HNC), one third nominated by the regime and one third chosen by de Mistura. The Assembly will be in charge of drafting a new constitution. Russia has been trying to override UN Security Council Resolutions on Syria, and it has supported regime efforts to sideline de Misturas contribution to the Constituent Assembly in order to remove the UN from the equation. Russia wants to see the Syrian crisis dealt with under the umbrella of the Russian-sponsored Astana Process, while strengthening its negotiating hand against Washington and the EU. A delegation from the HNC, the umbrella body of the Syrian opposition, has visited Moscow and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the Constituent Assembly and the situation in Idlib in northern Syria. It was not optimistic about the possibility of changing the Russian position. Head of the HNC delegation Nasr Al-Hariri said after the meeting that there had been no change in Russias position except to put more pressure on the opposition to join the Astana Process and ignore the UN Resolutions. He said that any credible political process should be balanced and compliant with UN Security Council Resolutions and the Geneva Declaration, meaning that it should be under UN auspices and not Russian sponsorship. He urged those involved to decide a timeline for the formation and programme of the Constituent Assembly. De Mistura is slated to give a final briefing on the matter on 19 November, his last before leaving his post. Russia wants to play a role in appointing his successor, and it has objected to four candidates suggested by the UN secretary-general. Meanwhile, on 26 October Turkey hosted a four-way summit meeting in Istanbul attended by the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Germany and France to discuss the Syrian crisis with a view to finding common ground. However, it seems clear that the US will never agree to any leading Russian role. At a news conference after the Istanbul meeting, leaders Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel highlighted their differences on the Syrian crisis. Putin championed fighting terrorism, while Erdogan focused on fighting terrorist Kurdish elements in northern Syria. Macron and Merkel emphasised the need to hold free and fair elections in which all Syrian nationals could vote, including those overseas. On 28 October, the International Syria Group met in London attended by representatives of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Washington sent an invitation to the opposition to attend the meeting in a sign of its renewed support for the opposition on the global stage. The meeting aimed to support UN pressure to announce the launch of the Constituent Assembly in Syria, with its programme being seen as a victory for the opposition and a defeat for the regime. At the same time, US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis said that Russia through its support of Al-Assad in Syria will not be able to replace the US in the Middle East. Speaking at the Manama Dialogue Conference in Bahrain, Mattis added that Russias opportunism and willingness to overlook Al-Assads crimes against his own people were evidence of its lack of commitment to essential moral principles. Russias presence in the region cannot replace the long-standing, enduring and transparent US commitment to the Middle East, he said. The Syrian crisis continues to be determined by two basic positions. Russia supports the regime and its control of all Syrian territory, and it has called for the return of the refugees and the start of the reconstruction process. It wants to see a new constitution similar to the current one and the exit of all foreign forces in Syria except its own. The US supports a political transition in Syria based on UN Resolutions and a new constitution that guarantees the rotation of power and paves the way for the removal of Al-Assad from power. It wants to see Iran-backed militias excluded from Syria and clear boundaries on the Russian presence. Mohamed Al-Hamza, a Syrian opposition analyst, said that all these meetings and summits are futile unless the US participates effectively. While the US is present in many of the gatherings and Washington will agree to the decisions taken, Iran and the regime will not. The meetings are intended to pave the way to an international position that complies with UN Security Council Resolutions on political change, because Russia cannot continue the same agenda as it has over the past seven years of whitewashing Al-Assad of his crimes. Russias position is more fragile than that of the US. Moscow relies on the co-sponsors of the Astana Conference, Turkey and Iran, while Europe and the Arab countries back the US. Turkey has been swaying between Russia and the US, apparently uncertain about where its strategic interests lie. Iran is largely shunned by the international community, and its alliance with Russia is void of real trust since the two countries have few interests in common and their ideologies clash. The US alliance is more stable, and it will be hard to make political progress, no matter how many meetings are held, without the blessing of the US. This is not likely to be forthcoming soon, at least not until after the upcoming midterm elections in the US. * A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Many summits, modest results Search Keywords: Short link: AFP, October 31, 2018 A suicide bomber targeting a bus carrying employees of Afghanistan's biggest prison killed at least seven people on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest militant attack in the war-torn country. Another five were wounded in the blast near the facility in Kabul, which police spokesman Basir Mujahid said had hit a vehicle that staff of Pul-e-Charkhi prison were travelling in. The attacker was on foot, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said. He struck as the bus was entering the jail in the east of the Afghan capital. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, but the Islamic State group (IS) has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul in recent months. The attack comes days after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding six. A wave of election-related violence has killed or wounded hundreds across the country in recent months as the Taliban and IS step up attacks on Afghan security forces and government workers. Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary election, which was held over three days this month, was marred by chaos and deadly attacks. Two days before voting began on October 20, a Taliban-claimed shooting killed a powerful police chief in the southern province of Kandahar. General Abdul Raziq was among three people killed in the brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting in the provincial capital that was attended by General Scott Miller, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Miller escaped unhurt, but US Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting, which the Taliban said had targeted Miller and Raziq. US officials and NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan were adamant that Miller had not been a target. Several days later another Taliban-claimed assault killed a NATO soldier and and wounded two others -- all from the Czech Republic -- in the western province of Herat. The attacks came amid a flurry of US-led diplomatic activity to convince the Taliban, Afghanistan's largest militant group, to negotiate an end to the 17-year war. Earlier this month, newly appointed US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Taliban representatives in Qatar. Less than two weeks later a top Taliban commander held in Pakistani detention for more than eight years was freed. A senior Taliban leader told AFP the group had requested the release of Abdul Ghani Baradar and several others at the meeting with Khalilzad. The Washington Post, November 1, 2018 By Pamela Constable KABUL A new report by a U.S. government watchdog paints a discouraging portrait of Afghanistan in recent months, detailing continued Taliban gains, record civilian casualties by pro-government airstrikes and insurgent attacks, a disappointing performance by U.S.-funded anti-corruption agencies and soaring drug production and addiction. In a tense political season, when hopes for change have inspired millions of Afghans to vote for a new parliament and hopes for peace have spurred new efforts at dialogue with Taliban insurgents, the report released Thursday by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) casts a sobering eye on persistent setbacks in the fight against the Taliban and cumulative failures in the wars on corruption and drugs. The report stressed that Taliban control and influence continued to expand nationwide in recent months, while Afghan government control or influence over national territory has reached the lowest level since late 2015, declining slightly to 55 percent of 407 districts. It said government forces made minimal or no progress in pressuring the Taliban in the past three months and failed to gain greater control or influence over districts, population and territory. The report also highlighted the sustained high rate of war-related deaths and injuries among both civilians and security forces: a record 2,798 civilians were killed and 5,252 injured between May and September. It also said the average monthly number of casualties among Afghan military and police forces, while not officially released, was the greatest it has ever been in similar periods during the conflict, probably between 30 to 40 killed per day. The report found that during the first nine months of 2018, suicide attacks by insurgents increased dramatically, rising by 38 percent over the same period last year. Casualties caused by airstrikes by Afghan and coalition forces also climbed sharply, increasing by 46 percent to 313 deaths and 336 injuries, the report said. It noted that U.S. and coalition officials have disputed the latter set of figures, reporting that far fewer civilians were killed or injured. The SIGAR report also described a number of discouraging developments in the past several months, including a four-day Taliban siege of Ghazni city in August and the insurgents rejection of a second truce offered by President Ashraf Ghani the same month. Also on that list was an Oct. 18 shooting attack in Kandahar at a meeting of U.S. and regional officials that killed the regional police and intelligence chiefs. The top U.S. military commander in the country, Gen. Austin Scott Miller, was unharmed in the attack, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility. In an especially critical look at U.S.-funded efforts to combat narcotics, the report described a rapidly escalating problem of opium production and drug addiction that has defied years of expensive programs and investment. These efforts have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $8 billion since 2002, yet Afghanistans opium crisis is worse than ever, John F. Sopko, the special inspector general, wrote in an introduction to the 250-page document. The report said that Afghan opium poppy cultivation has reached an unprecedented high of about 820,000 acres, and that opium accounts for 19 to 32 percent of the countrys gross domestic product and provides half a million jobs, representing a backbone of the Afghan economy. It also noted that addiction to opioids among Afghans has skyrocketed, reaching several million people. Overall, it said, the drug trade has become an existential threat to the Afghan state by fueling corruption and crime and by financially benefiting the insurgency. Despite these alarming developments and the large sums spent by U.S. agencies to combat drugs in Afghanistan since 2002, the report found that U.S. officials have played down the narcotics problem in recent years and no longer see it as a mission objective or a priority. The inspector general called for a deep review of U.S. anti-drug policies and efforts in the country. A more surprising aspect of the SIGAR report was its sharp criticism of the Afghan attorney generals office and its highly touted foreign-funded initiatives to combat corruption and crime in Afghan civilian government and military sectors. The report blasted the attorney general, a respected former human rights advocate, saying he has a poor record of prosecuting powerful and influential corrupt actors and has failed to cooperate with U.S. officials. The report cited criticism by the U.S. Justice Department that the Afghan attorney generals office is unproductive, corrupt and patronage-laden. Washington Examine, November 3, 2018 We have failed in Afghanistan, and our government is beginning to admit it. Numbers from the 41st quarterly report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, SIGAR, offer a clear and bleak assessment, reaffirming what the public and lawmakers have long known, which is that President George W. Bush's ambitious project to build a nation-state in that remote tribal territory was flawed and unrealistic. It has failed spectacularly. Despite thousands of American lives, billions of dollars, and more than 17 years of American military operations there, the Kabul government is losing, not gaining, control of territory, the Taliban fights on, corruption is endemic and rampant, elections are violent, democracy is incapable of taking hold, and the war on drugs is a failure. The government in Kabul, which we prop up, controls just over 55 percent of the country, lower than at any time since the inspector general began keeping track at the district level in 2015. Even in districts considered under control, Kabuls influence has declined. The inspector general counted 56 attacks this year on Afghan national defense and security forces from within their own ranks. Although Americans advise and train Afghan forces, the report indicates that the Pentagon cannot track progress if any. So, despite years of massive expenditure, we cant even figure out how poorly we're doing at getting Afghan troops up to snuff. Key state-building measures such as efforts to end or reduce corruption are also a tale of failure. The Department of Justice notes that the Afghan attorney general has a poor record of prosecuting powerful and influential corrupt actors and DOJ concludes that the attorney generals performance is deficient, his accomplishments are lacking, and he fails to cooperate with the U.S. Embassy on anti-corruption matters. The Anti-Corruption Justice Center, established in 2016 by President Ashraf Ghani, is described by DOJ as lacking a mission and riven by frets, stews over slights, snipes at other colleagues, and has a perpetual sense of entitlement. Despite spending more than $1.5 million a day to kill the opium trade, poppy cultivation is now four times what it was in 2002. Civilian casualties have risen. The United National Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, reported that between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, this year, there were 8,500 civilian casualties, including 2,798 killed. Thats the highest since 2014. Many of those casualties, 649 according to UNAMA data, were due to pro-government airstrikes, a 39 percent increase over those reported in 2017. And the financial cost of all this abject failure? The report reads, The United States has appropriated approximately $132.07 billion for reconstruction and related actives in Afghanistan. That includes $4.93 billion appropriated through the Defense Appropriations Act, 2019 toward reconstruction. Thats the money allocated merely for reconstruction, a fraction of the total spent on the war which was estimated by the Pentagon in 2018 to be $45 billion per year. It is well past time for Washington to reconsider its policy of throwing money at Afghanistan in the far-fetched hope that a few more billions will buy peace and, even more unlikely, democracy. We should limit our role there to keeping an eye on mortal enemies such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and using overwhelming force to eradicate terrorist footholds. Dreams of building a stable and peaceful state should be abandoned as fantasy. A Border Security Force jawan was arrested for allegedly sharing secret information such as photographs of border fencing and roads with a Pakistani agent, police said on Sunday. The accused, Sheikh Riazuddin, was under the scanner of the BSF intelligence wing for his suspicious activities for the last few months, they said. He is a resident of Renpura village in Maharashtra's Latur district and was posted with the BSF's 29th Battalion in the Ferozepur Sector in Punjab. Two mobile-phones and seven SIM cards were seized from him, police said. Riazuddin allegedly shared photographs of fencing and border roads, contact numbers of senior BSF officials and some other secret information with Mirja Faisal, an agent of Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence, they said. The accused shared the information from his mobile-phone, police said. A case under relevant sections of the Official Secrets Act and National Security Act was registered against him at the Mamdot police station following a complaint by the deputy commandant of the 29th Battalion, they said. Ranjit Singh, the investigation officer, on Sunday said the jawan will be produced in a court for police remand. Image only for representation. IMAGE: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, left, and China's Premier Li Keqiang attend a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on Saturday. Photograph: Jason Lee/Pool/Reuters China on Sunday said it supported Pakistan's 'quest for peace through dialogue' to settle the outstanding disputes with India as it backed Islamabad's 'engagement' with the Nuclear Suppliers group. A joint statement, issued here after Prime Minister Imran Khan's talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, said that China backed Pakistan's efforts to improve ties with India to settle 'outstanding disputes', without directly mentioning the Kashmir issue. "China appreciates Pakistan's quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan's efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries," the joint statement said. The ties between India and Pakistan had strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016 and India's surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In recent years, China has refrained from taking a public stance on the India-Pakistan ties, expressing hope for resolution of the disputes through dialogue. On the Kashmir issue, China's oft repeated stand was that it should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. India too supports dialogue as the way to resolve the issue with Pakistan but maintains that the talks and terrorism cannot go together. For its part, Pakistan supported active participation of China at the platform of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Also significantly, China tacitly expressed its backing for Pakistan's efforts to secure the NSG membership. India has also been seeking entry into the 48-member elite nuclear club, which controls nuclear trade, but China has repeatedly stonewalled its bid. While India, which is backed by the US and a number of western countries has garnered the support of a majority of the group's members, China has stuck to its stand that new members should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making India's entry difficult as the group is guided by the consensus principle. India is not a signatory to the NPT. China's repeated stonewalling on India's membership bid in the NSG has become a major stumbling block in bilateral relations. "The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to multilateral, non-discriminatory arms control and non-proliferation endeavours," the joint statement said. "They noted with concern the continued pursuit of double standards in the application of non-proliferation norms and procedures and called for policies upholding rule of law and long-standing rules," it added. China appreciates and supports steps taken by Pakistan for strengthening the global non-proliferation regime, the statement said. China also heaped praise on Pakistan for its efforts to counter terrorism and said it recognised Islamabad's efforts in actively strengthening financial regulations to combat terrorism financing, and called on all relevant parties to view Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts in an objective and fair manner. But at the same time China is pressing Pakistan to crackdown on Uygur Islamic militants crossing in and out of the volatile Muslim-majority Xinjiang province bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. "The Pakistani side reaffirmed its support to the Chinese side in safeguarding its sovereignty and security, and combating separatism, terrorism and extremism including East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)," the statement said. China blames the separatist ETIM, an al-Qaeda linked group, for the violent attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the country. Both China and Pakistan agreed to further enhance cooperation against 'three evils of extremism, terrorism and separatism', the statement said. Both sides, however, underscored the need for all states to avoid 'politicisation' of the UN sanctions regime and the work of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF has placed Pakistan in its grey list for not doing enough to counter terror financing. All-weather friends, China and Pakistan also agreed to enhance their defence cooperation. Both sides have agreed to make full use of the China-Pakistan Defence and Security Consultation mechanism, deepen cooperation in areas such as military exercises, training cooperation, personnel exchanges, and equipment and technology cooperation, it said. On the controversial $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor over which India has raised objection as it passes through PoK, the statement said China and Pakistan have 'complete consensus' ruling out differences. "The two sides reaffirmed their complete consensus on the future trajectory of the CPEC, timely completion of its ongoing projects and joint efforts for realisation of its full potential with a focus on socio-economic development the statement said. On the debt concerns over the CPEC projects, it said 'both sides dismissed the growing negative propaganda against CPEC and expressed determination to safeguard the projects from all threats'. The CPEC is the flagship project of China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative and includes a maze of roads and port projects. Once completed, it aims to connect China's largest province Xinjiang with Pakistan's Gwadar port in Balochistan, allowing Beijing access to the Arabian Sea. IMAGE: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with Baba Ramdev at Gyan Kumbh 2018 at Patanjali Yogpeeth, Haridwar, on Sunday. Photograph: PTI Photo Asserting that a Ram temple will be built in Ayodhya soon, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Sunday a piece of good news regarding this awaited devotees all over the country. He said a South Korean delegation was coming to Ayodhya to celebrate Diwali on Nov 6 when the festival of lights would be celebrated at Lord Ram's birthplace on a grand scale. Speaking at the concluding ceremony of Gyankumbh, a two-day meet at Patanjali Yogpeeth here on improvements of the higher education standards, Adityanath said the Lord Ram's devotees all over the country will not have to wait for long for a piece of good news on the construction of a grand temple in Ayodhya. He also appealed to everyone to light a lamp this Diwali in the name of Lord Ram. On improvement of the higher education standards in the country, the UP CM said the use of unfair means at examinations must be stopped and teachers should be made accountable for it. Noting that these measures will lead to major changes, he said it has been done in Uttar Pradesh. Yoga guru Ramdev said Yogi Adityanath was the country's future and the BJP MPs should bring a legislation in Parliament to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya. "Parliament is the highest institution in a democracy," Ramdev said. Technical sessions of Gyankumbh were out of bounds for the media and the suggestions made by academicians and educationists at the event will be forwarded to the Union Ministry for Human Resources. ***** Talk of building mosque close to Ram temple can make Hindus intolerant: Uma Bharti Union minister Uma Bharti said on Sunday that while Hindus were the 'most tolerant' people in the world, any talk of constructing a mosque on the periphery of a Ram temple in Ayodhya could make them 'intolerant'. The minister also invited Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to lay the foundation stone of the temple in Ayodhya with her, saying he would 'atone for the sins' of his party by doing so. "Hindus are the most tolerant community in the world. I will appeal to all politicians: please don't make Hindus intolerant by talking about building a mosque on the outer periphery of the birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya," Bharti told PTI in an interview. She said when there could not be a temple in the holy town of Medina or a mosque in the Vatican City, it would be 'unfair' to talk about a mosque in Ayodhya. Describing the Ayodhya dispute as one of land and not faith, the firebrand Hindu leader said, "This is now only a matter of dispute of land, not dispute of faith. It has been resolved that Ayodhya is the birth place of Lord Ram." She also stressed the need for an out-of-court settlement of the contentious issue, and urged all political leaders -- including Gandhi, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee -- to support this. "We need support of all political parties on this issue. I invite all leaders including, Rahul Gandhiji, come let's lay the foundation stone of the Ram temple with me," Bharti said. By doing so, the Gandhi-scion could atone for the past sins of the Congress, which always created 'hurdles' in building the temple in Ayodhya, she said. SP supremo Mulayam Singh, Banerjee, Mayawati and the Left parties should support the BJP on this issue as it is of national interest, she said. "But they aren't letting the matter get resolved. The Congress will have to quit the habit of dividing the country in the name of religion," Bharti said, reiterating that all political parties should unite on this issue. Bharti, who had participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s, said she was fully committed to the construction of Ram temple. "If they tell me that Ram Mandir will be built only over my dead body, then so be it," she said. ***** 'No power can stop construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya' Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said in Lakhimpur Kheri on Sunday that no power can stop construction of grand Ram temple at Ayodhya. He said, the Bharatiya Janata Party 'was, is and will always' favour construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. "The issue is pending with the Supreme Court, hence, I cannot comment," he said. Maurya, however, hastened to add,"We can tell for certain in one line that a grand Ram temple would be constructed whenever time comes." He was responding to queries about congregation of religious seers in Delhi to press for Ram temple construction through an ordinance by the Union government. Maurya said he respected the sentiments of honourable seers regarding the temple. He along with party organisation secretary Sunil Bansal was here to attend an event. The deputy chief minister reiterated his party's stand on the issue and said, "No power can stop construction of grand Ram temple at the birthplace of Ramlala." "As on date, the matter is pending with the Supreme Court and its verdict is awaited," he said, adding, "What we can firmly assure (people) is that not even a brick in the name of Babar would be laid or allowed to be laid at the birthplace of Ramlala". Taking a jibe at the Congress president without naming him, Maurya said "The people are realising the 'asaliyat' and 'nakaliyat' (what is genuine and what is fake) of those who are attempting to cheat the Hindu community by putting on 'janeu' (sacred thread)." "The Congress must explain as to why it intended hearing (of Ayodhya issue) in 2019," he added. ***** Build Ram in your heart: Tharoor Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said no Hindu text condones the use of violence to get one's way and scriptures say people should build Ram in their hearts. "In fact, if anything, there is a scripture that says build Ram in your heart. And if Ram is built in our heart it should little matter where else he is or he is not, because he is everywhere," Tharoor said in an exclusive interview to PTI. The Congress MP was responding to a question about his recent remark that no good Hindu would want a temple at the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site. Tharoor reiterated his point asking if a good Hindu would want to build a Ram Temple at the expense of an act of violence. "My only point is, would a Hindu have wanted to build such a precious place at the expense of conducting an act of violence. A good Hindu is a law-abiding Hindu. A good Hindu is someone who has 'insaaniyat'," the Congress leader asked. He went on to argue that while a good Hindu was also obviously somebody who worshipped and believed in his worship, Hindu scriptures do not allow the use of violence to have one's way. "A good Hindu is also obviously somebody who worships and believes in his worship. But where have we been told in our Hindu texts and our Hindu teachings which, in fact since the days of Adi Shankaracharya, have emphasised much more on ahimsa. Where have we been told that we should conduct violence against other people to have our way," questioned Tharoor. The Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram also wondered what about his remarks had 'shocked the BJP so much'. He said, "Most good Hindus I know would want a Ram Temple at the place where they believe he was born. But most good Hindus would not have wanted it by demolishing other people's place of worship. And this is more or less what Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani also said." The Congress leader quoted Advani as having called the day of demolition of Babri Masjid as the 'saddest day of his life'. "Advani said he would have respectfully wanted to relocate the site and Vajpayee had also hinted at all sorts of compromises provided the Ram Temple could also be built, it could even be a joint wall between a mosque and a temple. "Who knows what Vajpayee would have wanted? He is not here to tell us but no, neither of them ever spoke in terms of demolishing the mosque and when it happened they both condemned it. So what am I saying that is so shocking for the BJP?" asked Tharoor. On the perception that majority Hindus want a Ram Temple at the site where evidence also suggests that a temple existed, Tharoor said this was an academic argument. "A temple really did exist. Whether it was the Ram Temple we don't know. Definitely there were pillars underneath. But given the experiences of that period so many temples were destroyed and mosques built in their places. I am not challenging the historical veracity of this belief, that debate is over. That's totally academic now," said the Congress MP. The Congress leader acknowledged that 'the important thing is that an overwhelming majority of Hindus particularly in north India believe this was where Lord Ram was born and where there should be a mandir', but went on to add, 'to my mind arguing that point is academic'. He then asked if a Hindu would ever want to build such a precious place, a temple, at the expense of conducting an act of violence. To a pointed query on whether he personally wanted a Ram Temple at the stated site, Tharoor said, "I have said as much as I wanted to say." IMAGE: Post-mortem of the mortal remains of T1, aka Avni, a five-year-old tigress that was shot dead in the forests of Pandharkawda, being performed at the Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur, on Saturday. T1 was declared a man-eater by the Maharashtra Forest Department earlier. Photograph: PTI Photo Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Maharashtra government over the 'ghastly murder' of man-eating tigress Avni, calling it a 'straight case of crime'. Tigress Avni, who is believed to be responsible for the deaths of 13 people in the past two years, was killed in Maharashtra's Yavatmal on Friday as part of an operation. Avni is survived by her two cubs who are 10 months old. She was shot dead by sharp-shooter Asgar Ali, son of famous sharp-shooter Nawab Shafat Ali, at compartment no 149 of Borati forest under the jurisdiction of the Ralegaon police station. Reacting to the killing of Avni, Gandhi in a series of tweets lashed out at the Maharashtra government for giving the orders to kill her despite opposition from several stakeholders. 'I am deeply saddened by the way tigress Avni has been brutally murdered in Yavatmal,' she said in a tweet. 'It is nothing but a straight case of crime. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, (Sudhir) Mungantiwar, Minister for Forests, Maharashtra, gave orders for the killing,' she said in another tweet. She said she is going to take up the matter 'very strongly' with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. 'I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case. Legally, criminally as well as politically,' she said. She also came down heavily on Mungantiwar for giving order to private marksman Shafat Ali Khan's son to carry out the hunting operation. 'Every time he has used Hyderabad-based shooter Shafat Ali Khan, and this time his son has also appeared in the scene illegally to murder the tigress,' she said in a tweet. 'His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilise, capture and qurantine the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under orders of Mungantiwar,' she tweeted. 'Shafat Ali Khan has killed 3 tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad,' she said in another tweet. She questioned Maharastra government's decision to take services of Khan and his son. 'I fail to understand why a state government should even bother about such a man let alone hire his services for illegal and inhuman acts,' she said. Gandhi also expressed concern over the well being of the two cubs left behind after the killing of their mother. 'This ghastly murder has put two cubs at the edge of a sad death in the absence of their mother,' she said. Meanwhile, Mungantiwar on Sunday said, Avni was shot dead as a last resort when all attempts to tranquilise her failed and she attacked officials. Speaking to PTI, Mungantiwar said nobody in the Forest Department wanted to kill the tigress and, thus, hundreds of personnel from the department were trying to capture her alive since the last 3 months. In September this year, the Supreme Court had said Avni could be shot at sight, which prompted a flurry of online petitions seeking pardon for the tigress. -- PTI IMAGE: Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari along with his supporters in a scuffle with the police during the inauguration of the Signature Bridge over Yamuna River at Wazirabad in New Delhi on Sunday. Photograph: PTI Photo The Signature Bridge over the Yamuna was inaugurated amid a surcharged atmosphere on Sunday with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal attacking Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the country needs bridges, schools and hospitals not temples and statues for progress. High drama prevailed before the inauguration of the bridge with Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari and scores of supporters staging a protest for allegedly not being invited to inaugural event of the newly-built city landmark. They also had a 'scuffle' with some Aam Aadmi Party workers. "Four days ago the 182 metre tallest statue of the world was unveiled and today this 154 metre high bridge is being inaugurated. The country has to decide if it needs statues and temples or bridges, schools and hospitals," Kejriwal said inaugurating the bridge. He said the thought of Signature bridge reminded him of the first Prime Minister of the country Jawahar Lal Nehru. "If Nehru had chosen to build temples and statues instead of institutions like BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited) and SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited), then the country would not have progressed. The country would languish in 15th century if temples and mosques are given preferences over science, technology and research," Kejriwal said. He alleged that in order to stop his government from completing the bridge, the officials and engineers were issued threats of CBI raids against them. "The Signature bridge has been completed only because there is an honest government in Delhi," Kejriwal asserted. Deputy CM Manish Sisodia also alleged that 'obstacles' were raised by the Modi government so that the Signature bridge was not completed in the rule of AAP government in Delhi. "If Modi government had contributed one inch to this bridge, I would myself chant Modi-Modi like those who are showing black flags," he said referring to BJP supporters who were camped nearby along with Manoj Tiwari. In a direct attack on Tiwari, Sisodia said if he was 'so fond of' going to inaugurals then he should work constructively. "It is Modi government's rule that the CM of elected government in Delhi will not be invited to any inaugural function. We deliberately did not invite (Tiwari)," Sisodia said claiming no one from Delhi government was invited at inauguration of Skywalk at ITO. Earlier in the evening, Tiwari and his supporters allegedly entered into a scuffle with AAP members and staged a protest for not being invited to inaugural event. Speaking to the media following the tussle, Tiwari said, "I am a Member of Parliament from this area. I got the work for this bridge restarted and this is how Arvind Kejriwal is treating me." "I was invited to the inauguration event. So what is the problem? Am I a criminal? Why have the police surrounded me? I'm here to welcome him (Arvind Kejriwal). The AAP and police have misbehaved with me," he further said, while lashing out at the AAP government. Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were not present when the protest took place. Tiwari, however, said that AAP leader Amantullah Khan used abusive language and pushed him. "Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan pushed me. The whole incident took place in the presence of Delhi CM. I am going to file an FIR over the incident. Khan's bail should be cancelled immediately," Tiwari said. Tiwari also said, "I have identified the police officials who pushed me in connivance with AAP workers and I will show them within four days what police is." Meanwhile, Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police, eastern range, said the main function was held smoothly without any disturbance. "Our staff on duty at the place of function performed their task with utmost restraint and diligence. Though there was slogan shouting but police segregated the groups and did not allow any clash or violence to take place," he said. "The situation was handled very professionally by Delhi Police and not allowed to take an ugly turn," Yadav added. Tiwari is MP from North East Delhi and the bridge comes in his constituency. With ANI inputs IMAGE: Trinamool Congress leaders MP Derek O'Brien and Mamata Bala Thakur meet the family members of those who were killed by suspected United Liberation Front of Assam terrorists, at Dhola in Tinsukia district, on Sunday. Photograph: PTI Photo A four-member Trinamool Congress delegation on Sunday met the family members of the five people killed by suspected terrorists in Tinsukia district of Assam, and demanded that the perpetrators of 'hate crimes' be immediately brought to book. Led by Derek O'Brien, the TMC parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha, the team comprises Lok Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra, which went to Kheronibari village in the district to meet the family members. "We spoke to the family members and assured them of all assistance. We want justice for these families and will not stop our fight until and unless the perpetrators of hate crimes are punished," O'Brien told PTI. According to TMC sources, the party has given Rs 1 lakh to each family as aid. "This is a humanitarian visit. This is a visit to stand with the grieving families," the TMC leader had told reporters earlier Sunday outside the airport in Tinsukia. Unidentified gunmen in battle fatigue shot dead five Bengali-speaking people, including three members of a family, near Kheronibari village on Thursday night. Strongly condemning the incident, O'Brien said, "What has happened is a dastardly killing of the most deprived and poorest Indian citizens... They have been murdered in cold blood." On Friday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed anguish over the killings and said an 'environment of violence' was prevailing in the country. A TMC delegation of six MPs had gone to Silchar on August 2 to assess the situation in Assam in the wake of the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on July 30, but was stopped at the airport. They were not allowed to leave the airport and were sent back the next day. Assam govt hands over Rs 5 lakh each to kin of deceased Assam government on Sunday handed over cheques of Rs 5 lakh as compensation to the families of each of the five persons killed in Tinsukia. Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Sadiya, Bolin Chetia, visited the victims' houses and gave the cheques. "I have handed over the cheques that the state government had announced after the massacre," Chetia told reporters after meeting the victim families. The Assam government had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh and a job for the next of the kin of the deceased. US Special Envoy to Syria Joel Rayburn explains the main lines of US policy on Syria Joel Rayburn, US deputy assistant secretary of state for the Levant and special envoy for Syria, explains in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly the American strategy towards Syria, emphasising that the presence of the US military in Syria is based on completing the enduring defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group. Rayburn, appointed last July and previously senior director for Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at the US National Security Council, is a retired US army officer. He described the Russian accusation that the US is moving terrorists from Syria to Iraq and Afghanistan and wants to set up an independent Kurdistan as absolutely absurd and based on Cold War suspicions. Of the summit that was held on 27 October between Russia, France, Turkey and Germany, he said that the US sees the UN-based Geneva Process as the proper political path to finding a solution to the Syrian crisis and that any arrangements made about the future of Syria must be done under the auspices of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. He said he hoped a constitutional committee could be convened in Geneva in November to draft a new constitution for Syria. What is the aim of your current visit to Egypt? This is my first visit to Egypt since being appointed in July as the US envoy to Syria. The aim to come here is because the US team working on Syria has been working very closely with its Egyptian counterpart, and it is very important that the US and Egypt work jointly for a solution in Syria. We believe, with Egypt as well as our partners in the Gulf region, that there is a need to find a political solution in Syria and that it is very important for the rest of the Arab world to be involved in helping to ease the suffering of the Syrian people and getting to a peaceful end to the crisis. Egypt and the United States are both members of the group for Syria that includes the US, Egypt, Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. We have been working very closely together to reinvigorate the political process to find a solution to the Syrian crisis. So thats why I am here: I am meeting my counterparts from among the Egyptian officials and from the Arab League to find ways to work together to give a push and momentum to the political process. What is the American strategy on Syria? Its very clear to us, and we have very clear guidance from the president and the secretary of state and other US leaders that the United States strategy is to work towards three mutually reinforcing objectives in Syria that include the defeat of the Islamic State group, in other words completing the campaign to eject it from Syrian territory and then act in such a way that makes sure it cannot return to territories that have been liberated by the coalition and its partners. The US has also made it very clear that we see it as necessary to bring about the withdrawal of all Iranian-commanded forces from all Syrian territory because the role that they have played in Syria and elsewhere has been so destabilising and has cost so much in terms of violence and conflict. In order for us to see a stable outcome to the Syrian situation the Iranian-commanded forces have to leave. The third element is that we need to see a political settlement of the conflict under the auspices of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the political process supported by the UN in Geneva. These are the main elements of our Syria strategy, though there are other elements that are important as well, such as the importance of preventing the spread of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction in the region. Is there a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Syria? No, its condition-based: the presence of US military forces in Syria is part of the campaign against the Islamic State, and the condition for the US forces to leave is completing the enduring defeat of this group, so the US forces will stay in Syria until that happens. Only the defeat of Islamic State? Only the defeat of Islamic State. The US approach more generally also focuses on getting Iranian-commanded forces out of Syria and finding a political solution, but the operational military mission is focused on defeating Islamic State. Will the US have a role to play in reconstructing Syria, especially after US President Donald Trump cut $230 million in assistance? The US position is that there will be no US assistance for reconstruction and the US will not support other assistance from elsewhere for reconstruction until there is irreversible progress in the political process to solve the conflict under UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Thats different from stabilisation funding, however, and the review that the president instructed us to do of our stabilisation funding funding being used to stabilise territories liberated from the Islamic State or needing to be reinforced against the Islamic State was to ensure that there were contributions from the rest of the region and the international community to carry out that task. The US has a substantial military role as part of the International Coalition in Iraq and Syria, and so our leadership wanted to see full contributions in terms of resources from other partners and allies, and we are beginning to see that. We have projects from our partners and allies that actually exceed the amount of stabilisation funding that the US had original forecast would be needed. Stabilisation is different from reconstruction, since we are talking here about the removal of mines placed by Islamic State. For example, Raqqa is one of the most heavily mined areas we have seen, and the mines have been placed there to prevent the city from coming back to life. Stabilisation also means removing rubble from the streets so that people can move and trying to restore basic services like electricity and sewage. Thats different from reconstruction. The Russian foreign minister has accused the US of moving some terrorists from Syria to Iraq and Afghanistan to create a new Kurdistan. How do you reply to such accusations? Both these accusations are false. The first one is absolutely absurd, and the United States has done no such thing. The US is conducting a campaign against the terrorists in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is absolutely preposterous to make this kind of claim. We are seeing a lot of disinformation owing to the Soviet model and the Cold War model to produce such disinformation in a constant drip-drip of propaganda. On the Kurdish issue, I would just say that the US position is that we support the idea of one Syria and we support the territorial integrity of Syria. We are not trying to create separate states inside Syria. We believe all Syrians should have their civil and human rights guaranteed, but that does not mean that we support the separatism of any group inside Syria. The Jamal Khashoggi affair has led to the US again cooperating with Turkey. Could it impact positively on cooperation on Syria? Let me say that the Khashoggi issue is not in my portfolio, but clearly Turkey is an important partner with the US and an important ally, so we absolutely want to work together towards our shared interests in Syria. The three aims that I mentioned for the US in Syria we think Turkey shares in seeing the defeat of Islamic State, getting all Iranian forces out of Syria, and finding a political solution to the conflict. When we talk to our Turkish counterparts, they agree with us that this is the right set of goals for Syria, so there is a basis of shared goals to work together and also to de-escalate the conflict and to reduce the level of the conflict. We can work together with Turkey in key places. Thats why we are working so hard right now to create a mechanism to stabilise the territory around Manbij in northern Syria, and we actually have a joint military effort right now to train patrols that are actually patrolling the line of demarcation around Manbij together in order to make sure that that line cant be crossed by terrorists and to keep the situation calm. Thats something that has been very productive. Both sides have very strong interests in working together along those lines. How do you view the summit that was held on 27 October in Istanbul between Russia, Turkey, France and Germany? The US was not involved in that summit. Our position is that the proper political process in Syria is the Geneva Process, so we support the UN political process and hold that any arrangements made about the political future of Syria must be done under the auspices of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the UN road map. Turkey wants to keep an area of 40 km inside Syria under its control. How does the US view this goal? First of all, Turkey is our NATO ally, and we want to see Turkish legitimate security concerns met. In the long run, the US wants to see all foreign forces out of Syria, including the American forces, so we dont support the military occupation of any territory in Syria. The United States is not there on that basis: we are there to carry out a specific military mission. The end goal in Syria, if we get to a political settlement, if the Iranian forces are gone, if there is the enduring defeat of the Islamic State, is to see all the foreign forces leave, and there should be a return to the amount of foreign involvement in Syria that there was before 2011. Iran was able to exercise deep influence in Iraq after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Has the US learned its lesson, and will it be able to avoid making the same mistakes in Syria? I dont agree that the Iranians control Iraq. There is a lot of resentment inside Iraq at the Iranian involvement, including at the militias that the Iranian regime supports inside Iraq, so many Iraqis are really tired of the high-handed attitudes of some of these groups, many of which the US considers to be terrorist groups. I think the bigger picture is that the Iranian regime has increasingly over the past few years caused destabilisation across the Arab world. We have seen military intervention by the Iranian regime in various countries to an unprecedented level, and the Iranians are fuelling civil wars and conflicts, including by trying to polarise local populations along sectarian lines in many countries. This appear to be their strategy to destabilise these countries and to take advantage of the internal conflicts that they help to create in the Arab world to further create military intervention points that they can use to threaten other countries in the region. We have seen this pattern repeating itself in Yemen and Lebanon and now in Syria. This is why ensuring that the Iranian forces and militias leave all of Syria is so important to US strategy. It will not be easy, but it is not impossible, and it is necessary. Some people think that the American insistence on getting the Iranians out is only in order to protect Israel. It is not only to protect Israel. Obviously, the Iranian regime is trying to set up a military capability inside Syria to threaten Israel, but that same military capability is a threat to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and it could be a threat to Iraq, Egypt and the Gulf countries. I dont think Iranian ambitions extend only to Israel. My own view is that they have ambitions to control the whole region. Did the US speak to the Russians concerning the decision to provide Syria with new S-300 air-defence missiles? The US position, and that is the message that we gave to our partners and to other parties involved, is that the introduction of this kind of weapons system into Syria will be a dangerous step. It has the potential to create more conflict, and this is the time that we need to be working together to try to deescalate the conflict. So, we viewed it and still view it as something that could escalate the conflict and make the situation worse. We definitely advise all the parties involved that its a step that shouldnt be taken. But it has been taken already? We will see how it turns out on the ground. Just because a step has been taken doesnt mean it cant be taken back. The Russian president said lately that his country had fulfilled its goals in Syria and that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assads troops now control 90 per cent of the country. Is this true? No, the Syrian regime forces are relatively weak, and to be honest with you they control maybe half of Syrias territory, maybe a little over half, and they control less than half of the population. The control they have comes from the presence of the Russian military and the Iranian-commanded forces. Even with this military support, the Al-Assad regime still controls only around half of the countrys territory. This means that there can be no military solution to the conflict. There has to be a political solution to the conflict. Thats why the US supports the de-escalation of the conflict, a freeze in the fighting in places like Idlib, and moving the issue to the political track. Stop the issue on the military track and move it to the political track this is the only way. There was supposed to be a new constitution and elections in Syria, but this process has been late. Are you optimistic that these things could take place in the coming months? I am optimistic about the political track, and the reason is that the whole world can see that a military solution is not in reach. Thats why a small group of foreign ministers, including the Egyptian foreign minister, met in New York on 27 September to push for a political solution, and we are optimistic as a group that there is a window of opportunity because the fighting has stalled in most of Syria, and yet the country is still divided and the political causes of the war have not been solved. This means there is a window to move to a political process. We are flexible on the time line: the point is right now to get the political process restarted and moving. Once you have that established, then people will turn away from the battlefield and try to solve their issues and I think move to the political process. What is Egypts role in this political process? First of all, the Syrian problem is a problem that affects the whole region. If the fighting wont stop, it will continue to burn, and there is no reason why it wont spread and become a danger to the rest of the region. Thats why Syrias neighbours have a vital task in trying to help the Syrians solve the conflict, so absolutely Egypt has a role to play. There is a problem from the Iranian regimes military, there is the problem of the refugees, and there is the problem of terrorism, in addition to the danger of conflict between states in the region. These are all dangerous for countries that surround Syria, including Egypt. They are things that we have to solve together. Do you think the resignation of UN envoy Staffan de Mistura is a sign of anything? His main reasons were personal reasons. I have known him for a long time, and I have a great deal of confidence and trust in him. I have seen him work in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. He has been doing his work in Syria for almost four and a half years. We need to focus our attention on the window of opportunity he himself helped to create. We are in a position now where we really have a chance to create a constitutional committee in the very near future in Geneva that can begin to work through the elements of the constitution that need to be redrafted or revised to change the arrangements of the government in Syria. Can the Idlib agreement between Russia and Turkey help decrease the impact of terrorist groups in Syria? Let me say something at the beginning: there are a small number of terrorists inside Idlib. From the US perspective and from those of others in the region, Hizbullah is a terrorist organisation, and there are other terrorist organisations as well. So Idlib is not the only place where there is a terrorist problem, including in the north-east of Syria where we have the problem of the Islamic State that we are trying to solve. We think the agreement that Russia and Turkey made in Sochi on 17 September on Idlib regarding a ceasefire was a positive step. We were cautiously optimistic about it, and we are now more than a month on and it looks as if the agreement is holding. The level of violence has really decreased along that line, and it is a window of opportunity to turn to the political process. We are still concerned that there are groups that will try to undo the ceasefire agreement in Idlib and that includes Al-Assad regime troops. We dont trust them or the Iranian regime, both of which may try to spoil the agreement. We hope steps can be taken to ensure that this ceasefire is permanent. Is this distrust the reason why the US has not pulled out allied Kurdish troops from Idlib, as Turkey has alleged? I dont know what Kurdish troops there are in Idlib. That is not something that we have thought about, and it is certainly not what we are trying to do. We 100 per cent support the idea of a ceasefire around Idlib. Is there a timetable to start a political track? We believe the constitutional committee should be convened in Geneva in November, and we think it should be done as quickly as possible. We had hopes that it could be done even sooner. We see no reason why the constitutional committee cant convene in the very near future. It is time to go ahead and to invite delegates to Geneva and begin the constitutional work. How do you view the US-Egypt relationship at this stage? The broader relationship is beyond my portfolio, but what I can say is that on the issue of Syria I find that our relationship is very strong, that we share goals together, and that it has been very useful to the US to be able to consult with our Egyptian counterparts because they are very skilled diplomats and their advice has been very useful for us. Being able to get the small group together on a joint programme and to push for a political process [has also been very useful]. We also have a very strong relationship with our counterparts at the Egyptian Embassy in Washington. * A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: We need a political settlement of the conflict Search Keywords: Short link: The top commander of Irans Revolutionary Guards, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said on Sunday Iran would resist and defeat a U.S. psychological war and sanctions against its vital oil sector. America has launched an economic and psychological war as a last resort ... But Americas plots and its plans for sanctions will be defeated through continued resistance, Jafari said at a rally marking the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, which was broadcast live on state television. Search Keywords: Short link: Government officials from the regions Small Islands Development States (SIDS) and development partners met in Apia recently for the Inter-Regional Preparatory Meeting on the Mid-Term review of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway. Among the priorities in the SAMOA Pathway are gender equality and womens empowerment, social development, health, economic growth with decent work for all, climate change, sustainable energy, disaster risk reduction, oceans and seas, water and sanitation and implementation of durable and sustainable partnerships. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) convened a side-event on ICPD Implementation in the Pacific: SAMOA Pathway Partnership Actions in Health, Gender, Youth and Climate Change. The participants shared key actions for implementing national priorities in the areas of reproductive health, gender, youth and climate change. The side-event was moderated by Bruce Campbell, the UNFPAs Pacific Sub-Regional Office director. The panellists included Vaitoa Toelupe (technical adviser, Samoa Faafafine Association), Loukinikini Vili, (director human rights, Samoa National Human Rights Institution) and Maria Sapatu (programme officer, Conservation International, Samoa). The event generated discussions on the role of culture in improving gender equality, offered an avenue to voice the concerns of the SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity or Expression) and LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Intersex) community and discussed the ever-increasing concerns on human rights and family violence, particularly in the Pacific region. The side event provided a unique opportunity to demonstrate how national efforts, investments and interventions in these priority areas have progressed in the context of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action and the Sustainable Development Goals from the perspective of civil society through young women working in climate change, the LGBTQI+ community and human rights institutions. The ICPD Programme of Action, adopted in 1994, took a human rights approach to addressing population and development dynamics. The ICPD goals focused on reduction of infant, child and maternal mortality and the achievement of universal access to reproductive health services, including family planning. The dialogue at the side event reiterated the ICPD as relevant, timeless and foundational to the 2030 SDG agenda and its aspiration to leave no one behind. The ICPD was instrumental in recognising that reproductive health is a basic human right and universal access to sexual and reproductive health is fundamental to sustainable development of Small Island Development States. During the closing remarks, Mr. Campbell said their work strives to empower individuals, families and the communities. All the work that we support, prior to and during pregnancy through childhood and adolescence to adulthood, aims to ensure that individuals, families and communities are empowered to make key life choices from a rights-based perspective. When young people, and particularly young women, can make these choices on an informed basis, we lay the foundation for attaining the sustainable development goals, he said in a statement. A side event at the recent Interregional Preparatory Meeting of the S.A.M.O.A. Pathway Mid-Term Review featured Samoas most successful marine protected area. The Savaia Marine Conservation Project is a village-based and run protected area in the south-western region of Upolu, which was established by the Savaia village council in 2001, and was fully funded by GEF-SGP with co-financing from NZ Aid or NZ PEF (Pacific Environment Fund). It is a community-based fisheries programme and implemented by fisheries division in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Lemalama Taaloga, community champion and high chief of the Savaia Lefaga Village, did a presentation on the project. It is now funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) with importance stressed on youth engagement and gender mainstreaming, He highlighted the significance of community involvement in the project and said it gave Savaians a sense of pride due to its success over the years. In terms of project sustainability, Mr. Taaloga said it was his plan to expand the footprint of the valuable skills gained and lessons learnt throughout the entire Lefaga district, to ensure that all those who inhabit that area can lead sustainable livelihoods. UN Resident Coordinator, Simona Marinescu, led discussions among panelists and participants on the role of civic engagement for development impact, following feedback on a review titled titled Empowered Civil Society for Sustainable Development: Best Practices from CSO-Government Dialogues. Representing the Samoa Umbrella for Non-Governmental Organisations (SUNGO), Chief Executive Officer Fuimaono Falefa Lima shared a video presentation (funded by GEF-SGP) to highlight SUNGOs success stories as well as lessons learnt since the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), held in Apia back in August 2014. He highlighted the success SUNGO has had in representing the region-wide initiative to develop a network of NGOs, which can be represented in both national and international forums, while pointing out the importance of capacity building for their numerous member organisations. Conference delegates were also given insights on Samoas first carbon offset initiative by the Samoa Conservation Society (SCS) president James Atherton. The initiative has seen over 10,000 native trees planted in the South Pacifics oldest National Park, O le Pupu Pue. Also funded by the GEF-SGP, this project supports an existing partnership between the SCS and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE), addressing a range of problems in a holistic fashion under the broad themes of environment and socio-economics. Trees are 50 per cent carbon, proving one of the most efficient carbon sinks on our planet, he said, while warning that deforestation along with the increased rates of air travel are two of multiple factors that have pushed humanity into a pivotal third revolution the Sustainable Development Revolution. Wrapping up his discussion, Mr Atherton added that the effort should be stepped up - but only if each and every human assumes their responsibility - current species decline and land degradation within the natural environment can be reversed. To close the presentations, Toleafoa Fetoloai Yandall-Alama, the Assistant Chief Executive Officer CEO from the MNRE, touched on the document that aims to assist villages and communities to better manage their natural environment and infrastructure so that they can be more resilient to climate change and its adverse impacts. After eight months of consultations, the initiative was signed by 41 districts in Samoa, covering 253 villages, to produce a genuine partnership between villages and governments in the integrated management of infrastructure, livelihoods and food security, natural environment and resources, and importantly village governance. For Small Island Developing States, a strong partnership among State and non-State actors is a prerequisite for development progress in a context where resources are scarce, needs are mounting, and time pressure is critical. For SIDS, 2030 is too far away for SDG completion given the time pressures they are facing to strengthen resilience to national hazards and various forms of insecurity. UNDP and the GEF SGP teams are inspired by the high quality of engagement between the Government of Samoa, the NGOs and various community actors towards common goals. We wish to nurture that through everything we do, Ms. Marinescu said. She is the UN Resident Coordinator for Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau. The principal of the Apia Harvest Center Bible College, Reverend Faafetai Fata has urged their graduates to serve Gods will without fear or embarrassment. Speaking to 19 students who graduated with certificates, diplomas and bachelors of arts in theology last Friday evening, the principal told them to be strong in their work of evangelism. According to 2 Timothy chapter 4: 1-5 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but they will gather to themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, having itching ears, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn to myths. But be self-controlled in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, and prove your ministry. I convey that you all be good examples in gathering the people of our church instead of driving them away, he said. Minister of Works, Transport and Infrastructure, Papaliitele Niko Lee Hang - a senior congregation member of the Apia Harvest Center - congratulated the graduates and added that their achievements confirmed that you are never too old to learn. Seven graduates received certificate II in Theology. They were Atlanta Sola, Maiava Visekota Peteru, Makerita Faatuuala Sioa, Mose Aitaufetuli Moeala, Peseta Mulinuu Sua, Terava Faatuala Loia, Stuart Charlie Taulapapa. Five graduated with diplomas in theology, namely: Vitilevu Aiga Johnson, Simea Avei-Meafou, Magele Timothy Reinsford Fata, Annie Groves, Suetena Faatuuala Loia. Three received diplomas in ministry: Tagaloa Jerome Sapolu, Luisa Falaniko Pua Alosio, and Faafetai Vaevaina and four got bachelors of arts in theology. They were Esther Soti-Fiaui, Suzanne Fereti-Laban, Aumua Eric Poe, and Tuiloma Lemalu Sina Retzlaff. MATAAFA KENI LESA In Salt Lake City, Utah And so the saga involving the Chief Executive Officer of Ministry of Works, Transport and Infrastructure, Afamasaga Sua Pou Onesemo, has taken another turn. Since the allegations of corruption leveled against the C.E.O. by a former Member of Parliament of the Government of India, Sh.P.K. Bansal, surfaced at the beginning of the year, this matter has taken several interesting twists leading up to the newest development. Revealed by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi last week, it has now been confirmed that the Government has moved to terminate Afamasagas services. Pronto. For the uninitiated, all this started when Mr. Bansal had written to the chairman of the Public Service Commission on 28 May 2018 alleging corrupt and illegal practices by the Chief Executive Officer. The Samoa Observer was copied. For transparency, we the board of directors of the Ascent Navals Company, through our Director General Capt Suniel K. Sharma, applied to become a recognised organisation (RO) when M.W.T.I. advertised last year, Mr. Bansal wrote. Up until now, all I am receiving from this C.E.O. is lies and excuses without a proper update of my application. I know we have been betrayed by Mr. Onesemo and more (sic) worse, he has been asking favour and use us in many ways on pretext of authorising us as R.O. Afamasaga has maintained his innocence all along. He had argued that his decision to remove Ascent Navals from the recruitment process to be engaged as a recognised organisation in Samoa led to them making false allegations against him. He also accused Mr. Bansal and Ascent Navals of being corrupt themselves. Listen to Afamasaga again: These allegations is due to their frustration from numerous visits to Samoa and offers to myself and the Ministry that I continued to deny. He even offered a proposal to Samoa Shipping Corporation, which was also denied. These people are so demanding and the approach of bribing officials that I never accepted. Had there been any offers accepted, I would have been hesitant to remove them from the selection process. According to Afamasaga, the Indian company approached the Samoan Government in 2014 to establish Samoa International Maritime Authority (S.I.M.A.) that will do vessel registry for Samoa. In 2015, the company was declared fraud by Samoa M.W.T.I., as this was done without the knowledge of the C.E.O. at the time, Vaaelua Nofo. Internal investigation was conducted and Vaaelua at the time ceased everything with regards to S.I.M.A. In January 2016, when I was just appointed C.E.O. internal (A.C.E.O. Maritime) advise was given to me to consider starting a vessel registry. Without prior knowledge, I directed to seek approval from Cabinet (P.K.) for vessel registry as there are economic benefit for Samoa with registry fees and job opportunities on locally registered vessels. Two companies were nominated and proposed for approval including Ascent Naval, Thailand. With appropriate approvals in November 2016, authority was given to Ascent Naval and another company and the Philippines to proceed with the registry and related works. But there was a problem. Two months later (February 2017) this company, Ascent Naval was brought to my attention by our overseas mission in New York that was declared fraud by Samoa in 2015. Immediately after, I revoked the authority given to Ascent Naval and investigated internally. I retrieved all documents from officials who conducted the investigation in 2015 including the notice to I.M.O. and the people who were involved. Two people from the Ministry were identified to be involved but denied any knowledge and involvement. Matter was discussed with the A.G. at the time, but it did not proceed to any conclusion. Now one of the interesting twists in this saga involved a former Assistant Chief Executive Officer for the Maritime Division of the Ministry of Works, Transport and Infrastructure (M.W.T.I.). See soon after Afamasaga was suspended and investigated, the P.S.C. terminated the services of Fepuleai Mark Alesana who had apparently attempted to resign after the allegations surfaced. That was in June this year. There was a long pause in between until September when the Minister of Works, Transport and Infrastructure (M.W.T.I.), Papalii Niko Lee Hang, admitted making a mistake prematurely when he told the Samoa Observer at the time the P.S.C. had terminated the services of the C.E.O. I was wrong, Minister Papalii said. I was under the assumption the contract has been terminated. Today we can say that perhaps Papalii at the time knew something we didnt. He probably had every reason to say what he said then except it was a little premature - given that today, the decision to terminate Afamasagas contract has now been officially endorsed by Cabinet and announced by Prime Minister Tuilaepa. We have validated the recommendation submitted by the Public Service Commission (P.S.C.) yesterday (Wednesday) after their lengthy and thorough investigation into allegations leveled against the C.E.O, Tuilaepa said. We decided to terminate his employment contract following the recommendation. He was also given the opportunity to respond to the allegations leveled against him. Tuilaepa added that the decision by the P.S.C Commissioner follows results that he breached his contract and breached values of honesty; hence the decision by the P.S.C. to terminate his contract. It will be interesting to see if Afamasaga would pursue the matter. The only other avenue he has to clear his name if he wants - would be a lawsuit. So lets wait and see. But in the interest of justice, honesty and consistency, Prime Minister Tuilaepa should do the same to other similar cases of alleged corruption and abuse highlighted countless times by the Audit Office in their report to Parliament. These instances have been highlighted on the pages of this newspaper involving misuse of Government properties, sometime monies and other incidents of wrongdoing. P.S.C. should do the same. They cannot sack Afamasaga and ignore everything else thats going on in Government. Thats what we think anyway, what about you? Have a wonderful week Samoa, God bless! An autopsy has been done on the body of senior bureaucrat Sa'u Fiapaipai Justina Sa'u Lam and a report is yet to be released on the results. The Unit Trust of Samoa Chief Executive Officer died last month with the Police launching an investigation to determine the cause of death. To date no one has been arrested and the Police have not ruled out foul play. The autopsy was done last Friday and the pathologist flew out of the country on Saturday night. This has been confirmed by the Police. Sa'u had been the Chief Executive Officer of Unit Trust of Samoa since 2011 and was only reappointed last year to another three-year term in office. The organisation was established three years ago and she was its founding C.E.O. She has also worked in the Samoa Ministry of Finance and was also a lecturer and tutor at the National University of Samoa and the University of Auckland in the past years. Sa'u is from the villages of Apolima, Faala Palauli and Ululoloa and was a member of the Catholic Church at Malotau Manono. Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr Sailele Malielegaoi has declared this Wednesday a public holiday. November 7 falls this Wednesday and will mark 100 years since the arrival of New Zealand passenger and cargo ship Talune in Apia from Auckland. The ship had passengers suffering from the highly infectious pneumonic influenza, and they spread the disease to the local population, killing approximately 8500 people back then. The Prime Minister said in commemoration of that day and the tragic turn of events in 1918, he is declaring this Wednesday a public holiday. A special service will be held in Vaimoso where the massive grave is located as a result of the epidemic. Also this day the Government along with the New Zealand Government will break ground on a project to make these graves a landmark. He said there are other graves across Samoa as a result of the epidemic. However, the gravesite in Vaimoso stands out hence the decision of the Government to have the ceremony there. At the time of the influenza Samoas population in 1918 was around 38,000 and a quarter of the population was wiped out. We estimated that its close to 10,000. However, I know there are unrecorded deaths and I believe it is much more than 10,000 people that were affected and died from this epidemic, he said. The Prime Minister used the occasion to caution against having sick pets around humans, as he said the flu viruses that cause pandemics originated from animal infection. Usual process is that sick people should have been quarantined, and be treated in an isolated area, hence the importance of having the hospital in Faleolo. Three years ago, a passenger from Australia arrived in Samoa and we were informed the passenger had Ebola, he was treated in an isolated area and as soon as the passenger was able to travel, he was on his merry way back to Australia, he added. The Prime Minister said the colonial administration back in those days did not follow procedures, as the passengers of the ship could have been quarantined. John Boya of the U.S. Navy also offered medication to cure the flu at the time, given at the time there was no medication in Samoa, due to the stupid move by the administration then - who refused to accept assistance from neighboring island, he said. According to a 1947 United Nations report, pneumonic influenza that was spread to Samoa in 1918 was ranked one of the most disastrous epidemics recorded anywhere in the world during the present century, so far as the proportion of deaths to the population is concerned. Miss Samoa Sonia Piva has begun preparations for the 2018 Miss Pacific Islands Pageant which is scheduled for November 23 in Tonga. The reigning Miss Samoa leaves Samoa for Tonga three days before the regional pageant, which will see her coming up against peers from throughout the Pacific. Sonia said the pageant will be held over three days and each day will feature a different category for the contestants. We have the pre-pageant interviews which start it off, and there will be categories of sarong, stage interview, talent and the traditional wear. It is quite exciting and a great first time experience which I am looking forward for in Tonga as I have not been there before, said. Sonia said her preparations are going well and it will get busier for her closer to the event. But its what comes with the pageant and definitely what we signed up for so we are just hanging in there, it will be all worth it in the end. The only challenges I face are just trying to get over the nerves. And then a matter of getting mentally ready as well as physically ready which is the biggest challenge I have at the moment but its coming along well. The sponsors, the committee, my family and everyone have been always behind me and I feel so much support and really blessed to have everyone with me throughout my journey, she added. The 21-year-old from the villages of Fagalii and Salelesi said there will always be nerves as she is carrying the weight of the whole country into the regional competition. I know that they are supporting me which is why there is absolutely nothing that I cannot do at the moment. They are the reason why I push myself to be the best person I can be in representing Samoa. We had a lot of practices with the music we are going to use for the talent, a lot of dancing and a lot of people are helping me with my dancing routine. And then there are so many fittings for our costumes and what we are going to wear for the sarong and different categories, she said. But the favourite part of her preparations to the regional pageant is representing Samoa in front of many people. I believe that the essence of a Tamaitai Samoa (Samoan lady) is someone who can carry themselves gracefully, definitely a good role model and also someone committed in helping the people of our community. Samoas culture and its people make us unique from the rest of the world. Our culture is our identity which identifies and distinguishes us from other people; it is with this distinctive culture that I am so proud to represent to the rest of the world especially the pacific, she added. NOUMEA, New Caledonia (AP) A majority of voters in the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia chose to remain part of France instead of backing independence Sunday, a watershed moment that led French President Emmanuel Macron to promise a full dialogue on the archipelago's future. Final results had 56.4 percent of the voters who participated in the referendum deciding to maintain ties with the country that has ruled New Caledonia since the mid-19th century and 43.6 percent supporting independence, the high commissioner's office said. "I'm asking everyone to turn toward the future to build tomorrow's New Caledonia," Macron said, speaking from the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris. "The spirit of dialogue is the sole winner." More than 174,000 registered voters were invited to answer the question: "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent?" The referendum attracted record-high turnout of 80.6 percent so many voters that some polling stations in the capital, Noumea, had to stay open about an hour longer than planned to handle the crush. The vote itself was a milestone in New Caledonia's three decades of decolonization, a process prompted by the ill treatment Europeans inflicted on the region's indigenous Kanak people. New Caledonia, an archipelago east of Australia, has a nickel mining industry as well as sun-kissed lagoons. The high commissioner's office reported limited outbreaks of unrest in Noumea as votes were counted, with seven cars set ablaze, some roads closed and two instances of stone-throwing. But otherwise the vote was overwhelmingly peaceful. Praising both sides for their "responsible" campaigns, Macron said "contempt and violence" were the only losers in the historic poll. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is set to meet with New Caledonian officials Monday to discuss the political future of the territory of 270,000 people. New Caledonia receives about 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in French state subsidies every year, and many had feared the economy would suffer if ties were severed. Residents of the region include the native Kanaks, who represent about 40 percent of the population, people of European descent, which make up about 27 percent and others from Asian countries and Pacific islands. Voter Monette Saihulinwa said she opposed independence. "I don't necessarily want our lives to change," the 50-year-old said. Others hailed the ballot as historic. "We've been waiting for 30 years for this vote," said Mariola Bouyer, 34. "This vote must demonstrate that we want to live in peace, no matter our race, our roots. It's building a country together." The referendum was the result of a process that started 30 years ago to end years of violence between independence supporters and opponents that had overall claimed more than 70 lives. The two sides agreed upon a 1988 deal and another agreement a decade later included plans for an independence referendum. The New Caledonia archipelago became French in 1853 under Emperor Napoleon III Napoleon's nephew and heir and was used for decades as a prison colony. It became an overseas territory after World War II, with French citizenship granted to all Kanaks in 1957. Under French colonial rule, the Kanaks faced strict segregation policies and suffered discrimination. BEIJING (AP) Facing a blizzard of trade complaints, China is throwing an "open for business" import fair hosted by President Xi Jinping to rebrand itself as a welcoming market and positive global force. More than 3,000 companies from 130 countries selling everything from Egyptian dates to factory machinery are attending the China International Import Expo , opening Monday in the commercial hub of Shanghai. Its VIP guest list includes prime ministers and other leaders from Russia, Pakistan and Vietnam. The United States, fighting a tariff war with Beijing, has no plans to send a high-level envoy. Xi's government is emphasizing the promise of China's growing consumer market to help defuse complaints Beijing abuses the global trading system by reneging on promises to open its industries. "This says, look, we're not a global parasite that is creating massive deficits, we are buying goods," said Kerry Brown, a Chinese politics specialist at King's College London. The event also is part of efforts to develop a trading network centered on China and increase its influence in a Western-dominated global system. President Donald Trump and his "American first" trade policies that threaten to raise import barriers to the world's biggest consumer market loom in the background. Exporters, especially developing countries, want closer relations with China to help "insulate themselves from what is happening with Trump and the U.S.," said Gareth Leather of Capital Economics. China has cut tariffs and announced other measures this year to boost imports, which rose 15.9 percent in 2017 to $1.8 trillion. But none address the U.S. complaints about its technology policy that prompted Trump to impose penalty tariffs of up to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese imports. Beijing has responded with tariff hikes on $110 billion of American imports. Chinese leaders have rejected pressure to roll back plans such as "Made in China 2025," which calls for state-led creation of global champions in robotics and other fields, ambitions that some American officials worry will undermine U.S. industrial leadership. To keep the economy growing, China needs to nurture its consumer market and that requires more imports. But foreign companies say regulators are still trying to squeeze them out of promising industries and that they face pressure to hand over technology. The Shanghai expo "will be of little consequence to U.S. and other companies unless its pageantry is matched by meaningful and measurable changes in China trade practices," Kenneth Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, said in an email. Some companies might get a brief sales boost, "but its long-run impact will be defined by China's willingness to end many of its unfair trade practices," said Jarrett. Europe, Japan and other trading partners have been leery of Trump's tactics but echo U.S. complaints. They say Beijing improperly hampers access to finance, logistics and other service industries. European leaders are frustrated that Beijing bars foreign acquisitions of most assets while its own companies are on a global buying spree. Writing in a Chinese business magazine, the French and German ambassadors to Beijing appealed for changes including an end to requirements that foreign companies operate in joint ventures with state-owned partners. They called for an overhaul of rules they say hinder companies from profiting from and protecting their technology. "We encourage China to address these issues through concrete and systematic measures that go beyond tariff adjustments," Ambassadors Jean-Maurice Ripert of France and Clemens von Goetze of Germany wrote in the magazine Caixin. China already is the No. 1 trading partner for all its Asian neighbors, though a big share of the iron ore, industrial components and other goods it buys are turned into smartphones, TV sets and other goods for export. Tariff cuts announced over the past year were aimed at giving Chinese consumers better access to foreign goods. Chinese leaders emphasize those include anti-cancer drugs and other medical products. But many are specialty goods such as high-end baby strollers, avocados and mineral water that don't compete with Chinese suppliers. The Shanghai expo also gives Beijing a chance to repair its image following complaints about its "Belt and Road" initiative to expand trade by building ports, railways and other infrastructure across a vast arc of 65 countries from the South Pacific through Asia to Africa and Europe. Governments including Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand have scrapped or scaled back projects due to high costs or complaints too little work goes to local companies. Sri Lanka, Kenya and other nations have run into trouble repaying Chinese loans. "It's become too associated with debt and China getting what it wants," said Brown. "They are trying to get out this more positive message that China is open for business." Bahrain sentenced the head of the country's Shia opposition movement to life in prison Sunday for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar. Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-banned Al-Wefaq movement, and two of his aides had been acquitted by the high criminal court in June, a verdict the public prosecution appealed. The public prosecutor said in a statement that the three had been unanimously sentenced by the appeals court for "acts of hostility" against Bahrain and "communicating with Qatari officials... to overthrow constitutional order". Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, severed all ties with Qatar in 2017, banning their citizens from travel to or communication with the emirate over its alleged ties to both Iran and radical Islamist groups. Sunday's verdict against the Shia cleric can still be appealed. *This story was edited by Ahram Online. Search Keywords: Short link: JERUSALEM (AP) President Donald Trump's recent assertion that U.S. troops should respond to rock-throwing migrants a hypothetical scenario as if they were armed has sparked a debate about the appropriate use of force. Nigerian troops swiftly used Trump's comments about the migrants as justification for a deadly crackdown on demonstrators over the weekend. From the Gaza Strip to Africa and Europe, security forces have faced stone throwers in very different ways, from firing live rounds to limiting themselves to non-lethal means. A 1990 U.N. document calls on law enforcement officials to show maximum restraint and to use firearms only in cases in which an "imminent threat of death or serious injury" is identified. These standards have been interpreted differently around the world. Last week, Trump called attention to a migrant caravan of several thousand Central Americans making their way toward the U.S. border. It is a largely peaceful procession, though some migrants in one caravan clashed with Mexico police, hurling stones. Although the caravan is still some 1,200 kilometers (800 miles) from the border, Trump has mobilized troops and declared that if U.S. soldiers face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were "rifles." Trump later said he was merely calling for the arrests of stone throwers. But following Trump's comments, Nigeria's military sent out a tweet that appeared to use his words as justification for shooting and killing Shiite protesters. It later removed the tweet. Omar Shakir, the Israel-Palestine director of the international group Human Rights Watch, said he fears Trump's comments could encourage other forces to loosen their rules of engagement. "Trump's brazen, inflammatory statements, days before U.S. midterm elections, have already been seized on by rights abusers to justify more expansive open fire standards," he said. Here is a look at how countries around the world respond to stone throwers. ISRAEL/PALESTINIANS: Israeli forces have been confronting Palestinian stone throwers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for decades. Israeli tactics have evolved over the years, particularly with the increased use of what are presented as non-lethal crowd-dispersal tools such as tear gas and rubber bullets. Israeli officials say that live fire is used only as a last resort, when soldiers' lives are threatened. But critics accuse Israel of unnecessarily, and perhaps illegally, using deadly force. In recent months, for instance, over 160 Palestinians have been killed during mass protests along Gaza's border with Israel. Many have been unarmed. Israel says threats go beyond stone throwing, and that protesters throw grenades and firebombs, or try to break through the border to attack Israeli civilians. David Tzur, a former commander of Israel's paramilitary Border Police, said non-lethal force is sufficient in most cases, but that troops could be justified using live fire in more chaotic situations, if a moving vehicle is pelted with stones in a tense locale, for instance. GREECE: In Greece, firebombs and stone-throwing are routine occurrences at anarchist demonstrations held on most weekends. Police typically respond with tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the crowds. In 2008, a policeman fired his gun at a group of youths in central Athens, killing a 15-year-old protester. The death sparked two weeks of riots in major cities across Greece, and the policeman was jailed for murder. MIGRANTS IN EUROPE: Migrants making their way to Europe have clashed with security forces in various countries. In Spain, migrants from Africa have on several occasions stormed across the border, assaulting police officers with acid, skin irritants and other objects. But police are not permitted to use live ammunition and have not even used rubber bullets against migrants since a much-criticized crackdown in 2014. Spanish police did use rubber bullets last year in clashes with Catalan separatists. Hungary, which takes one of the hardest lines against migrants, used only tear gas and water cannons in a major clash with migrants three years ago. One Syrian migrant, however, was sentenced to five years in prison on terrorism charges for entering the country illegally and throwing stones at police. KASHMIR: In Indian-administered Kashmir, a disputed territory divided between India and Pakistan, protesters have long viewed stone throwing as legitimate protest against Indian rule. India has often responded with tough measures, including live fire and metal pellets that have killed, maimed or blinded hundreds of people over the last decade. India says its troops are in life-threatening situations that justify the heavy use of force. Protesters caught throwing stones at soldiers and police often identified through video recordings of demonstrations are usually accused of attempting to murder government officials, a charge that carries long imprisonment. Many stone throwers have been shot dead by soldiers. Rebels have been fighting Indian control since 1989. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown. Vistans with a sweet tooth or caffeine craving could have an additional option if the citys Planning Commission this week approves a new Dunkin, the eatery formerly known as Dunkin Donuts. On Tuesday, the commission will vote whether to approve a development plan for Vista Terrace Marketplace that would include the Dunkin shop. If approved, it would be one of just 11 Dunkin stores in San Diego County, and the first on the state Route 78 corridor. This is a great addition to our city, especially in this part of town thats seeing some renaissance and revitalization, Vista Economic Development Director Kevin Ham said. The development plan would expand the center on the northwest corner of E. Vista Way and E. Bobier Drive near Vista Civic Center, with a 5,000-square-foot commercial building, a 4,000-square-foot building with a drive-through, and an additional drive-through for an existing 3,520-square-foot structure. Advertisement The Dunkin shop would occupy half of the 4,000-square-foot building, including the drive-through. The plan also includes a face-lift for the centers facade, featuring an earth-toned contemporary/rustic design, with aluminum storefronts, metal canopies, wood panels and corrugated metal. Its just providing more services for the surrounding area and the community at large, said John Conley, the citys director of community development and engineering. File photo of Dunkin Donuts (Courtesy photo) With 12,600 restaurants worldwide, Dunkin launched its first shop in Massachusetts around 1950, and has grown into an iconic brand in the U.S. Its known for creative doughnut flavors, breakfast sandwiches and robust coffee, including straight-up brew and a variety of espresso drinks. The Vista location will provide additional options for coffee and tea lovers, or those who like those craft beverages, Ham said. There are many people from the East Coast who are replants here, who absolutely love Dunkin Donuts and have asked for that here, Ham said. The doughnut franchise is so ubiquitous on the East Coast that its shops were referenced as navigation landmarks in the classic Saturday Night Live skit on Yankee driving, Whats the Best Way. a game show by New Englanders, for New Englanders. In California, however, its a novel treat, with just 80 stores throughout the state, according to the company. Those shops opened over the past few years, after a decades-long retrenchment from the West Coast. The first recent San Diego location opened to media fanfare and pre-dawn lines at the Embassy Suites San Diego Bay Downtown in San Diego in 2014. The regions military presence makes it an ideal place to expand the brand, Tali Burton, a San Diego Dunkin franchisee, said in a statement provided by the company. For many who grew up on the East Coast, Dunkin means something bigger than just a donut and coffee shop, Burton said. San Diego is home to many military servicemen and women who have been displaced from their homes to serve their country, so Dunkin provides a taste of home and a reminder of the friends and family they are working to protect. Since 2014, additional Dunkin shops have opened in San Diego, National City, El Cajon, Ramona and Camp Pendeton. And the company has rebranded with the single moniker of Dunkin, dropping the doughnuts from its name, but not its store counters. It plans to open another 30 new stores throughout the county, and its famous sweets and caffeinated beverages could be available to North County customers in Vista next year. With its avid customer base, Ham said the shop should draw shoppers, and other businesses, to the shopping center. The site will also include a Sprouts market, which is expected to open toward the end of 2019. Together, the two stores should create a retail base for the center. It provides an anchor in that shopping center that will help them attract new tenants that want to be co-located near those high-volume locations, Ham said. It brings in the additional foot traffic for the other retailers that will be in the shopping center as well. deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan I saw an ad in Sundays real estate section with the headline: What you can buy in the $2,000,000s. Below that banner were photos and descriptions of a number of homes for sale in that price range. I had to take a second look to see if I counted the zeros correctly, and yes, they were referring to millions. The implication of such a headline, at least in my mind, is yes, you can still find a bargain for $2 million. Sadly, although thats not yet considered the lower end of the spectrum, prices here are excessive and affordability continues to be a growing issue. Advertisement But if $2 million isnt quite the median, if you want something a little more than ordinary in San Diego, a million dollar price is becoming increasingly commonplace. According to the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, as of Nov. 1, out of the 8,182 homes for sale in San Diego County, 2,034, or 25 percent, are priced at $1 million or more. I sent that ad with the $2 million homes to my friend in New York hoping hed see something he liked. Hed love to move here because he hates the weather there. Theres rarely any sunshine, he whines. The winters are grueling, hes tired of shoveling snow, and hes always moaning about the cold. The temperature is often freezing, he cries, and with the wind-chill factor, it frequently sinks below zero! Here, as I write this, the temperature is 82 degrees. But with the wind-chill factor, its still 82. But its not just the weather he laments. His house is over 100 years old, it needs an upgrade, its exactly 18 feet wide, attached on both sides, has a tiny yard, is located on a busy street, and it has no garage. He could spend a half hour looking for parking. More often than not, he has to settle for a space a half mile away. Sometimes he takes an Uber to his car. So with all the drawbacks, whats his house worth? It was recently appraised for $3 million. And this is not a house on Park Avenue or Central Park West. Its a typical home in an average Brooklyn neighborhood. So affordability isnt the issue in considering a move to San Diego. Its the IRS. According to his accountant, his capital gains taxes would come to nearly $1 million. (He purchased the house for $115,000 in 1972.) Still, he would net over $2 million. Im not giving the IRS a million bucks, he scowls. Pigheadedness, its what separates him from paradise. Ironically, if I had asked him 10 years ago if he would accept a sale where he would net $2 million, he would have taken it in a heartbeat. And despite that newspaper headline, he can still get quite a lovely home in San Diego for $2 million. One that would be more than 18 feet wide, come with a large yard, and guaranteed to have a garage. And for no extra charge, the sun would be included. Contact humor columnist Irv Erdos at IrvErdos@aol.com. CITY COUNCILS CARLSBAD The Carlsbad City Council met Tuesday for a park planning update on the 3.1-acre Buena Vista Reservoir site. The council approved support of a League of California Cities resolution relating to local government control. Staff was asked to bring back policy updates relating to the legislative platform and budgetary options. DEL MAR Advertisement The Del Mar City Council met in closed session Monday to discuss property negotiation, litigation and evaluation of the city manager. In regular session, the council gave final approval, 5-0, to an ordinance amending the Floodway Zone, Floodplain Overlay Zone, and Coastal Bluff Overlay Zone related to the citys plan to address sea level rise. The council voted 3-2 against sending a letter to the 22nd Agricultural District opposing the proposed Good Life Festival on cannabis. A construction contract was awarded for $5.15 million to Tri-Group Construction and Development Inc. for the Camino del Mar Streetscape Project, segment 1, and a revised total project budget of $6.764 million was approved. SCHOOL DISTRICTS SAN DIEGUITO The San Dieguito Union High School District board met in closed session Thursday to discuss litigation and student discipline. In regular session, the board approved agreements with various vendors, including a free program by Sandy Hook Promise Foundation to educate middle and high school students about their Say Something Anonymous Reporting System from 2019-2022, and with the North County LGBTQ Resource Center, to provide a free LGBTQ student support group one day a week at Sunset High School now through June 2019. The board also agreed to apply for a Proposition 51 Career Technical Education Grant to help update the culinary arts facility in the hospitality program at La Costa Canyon High School. SOLANA BEACH The Solana Beach School District board met in special session Tuesday to change the location of its Thursday meeting to Solana Ranch Elementary School, 13605 Pacific Highlands Ranch Parkway, San Diego. laura.groch@sduniontribune.com Whats past is prologue, as Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest. And when people from across the San Diego theater community first began gathering last spring for a series of summits on the topic of diversity, it was in part to find a way forward by seeing where things stood. As it turned out, not every artist or organization here knew a whole lot about what others were doing to address whats called in the business EDI for equity, diversity and inclusion. So what has since come out of those meetings which originally were spurred by a diversity-related casting controversy at a local theater has been something more positive: a first effort to compile ideas and strategies that have been put in play by theater companies around the county. There had to be a sense of pride in the work that we as a community had already done, says Kim Heil, whos the associate producer and casting director at San Diego Rep and has helped coordinate the community-wide EDI efforts that began with a town-hall meeting at the Old Globe in May. (Subsequent gatherings took place at the Rep and Cygnet Theatre, with a future meeting planned for La Jolla Playhouse.) Advertisement From talking to theater people with expertise in EDI, adds Heil, it became clear that including in the conversation a sense of ownership and pride in the good that weve already done was integral to continuing to do the work. Because its so difficult if you start off saying: Man, we all suck! Were not doing anything. Then theres maybe a little bit of maybe self-blame youre looking around, youre pointing fingers at each other. We didnt want that. We wanted this to start off with a sense of community like, Hey, look at all the good work our community has done or is doing, and plans to do. Those efforts come at a time not only when topics of racial and gender identity, immigration and discrimination have become the focus of an often heated national conversation, but also when diversity in its many aspects has moved toward center stage in the theater world. Locally, there have been efforts across the theater spectrum to address EDI, including the Old Globes high-profile launching of an Arts Engagement department whose projects take in Globe for All, the annual mobile production that tours Shakespeare to underserved communities. (The latest edition is now under way.) But the initiative to collect EDI statements from San Diego-area theaters was meant to provide a broader idea of whats being tried, planned or dreamed of out there. Heil says the idea came from Rep artistic director Sam Woodhouse, a longtime champion of diversity here, who said after the first EDI meeting that we are doing a disservice to the community by not sharing with them the good things that have already been done countywide. So an invitation went out to theaters large and small, new and established, inviting each to submit a one-page document describing any programs, efforts and initiatives taken by your theater company in recent history toward achieving EDI at your institution. (Heil says the request was a broad one and was meant to make clear that the Rep was not serving as the EDI police.) In all, 15 theaters responded, ranging from the citys two regional heavyweights the Globe and La Jolla Playhouse, which likewise has been focusing on diversity in earnest to those who havent even started producing their own shows yet, such as the soon-to-launch TuYo Theatre Co. Teresa Eyring, CEO and executive director of the Theatre Communications Group -- the top national advocacy organization for nonprofit theater says that from what she knows of the San Diego theater community, theres a commitment there when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion. And that dovetails with whats been happening around the country recently. More and more were seeing organizational leaders, and their boards as well, saying, We want to be an equitable and inclusive space, Eyring says. Theres definitely a lot of work happening on a national scale, noting that TCG has taken considerable leadership in this space. And locally, its exciting to hear about communities that are addressing these issues organizationally, but then also realizing that when an organization begins to address EDI and really take it seriously, it begins to affect a local ecology and beyond. Because the people who work at the Old Globe (for example) are also working at other places, or interacting in other community spaces. When there starts to be that critical mass of a lot of theaters and arts organizations coming together and saying, OK, were devoted to this, lets really work together, thats exciting. For Kristianne Kurner, co-founder and executive artistic director of New Village Arts Theatre, the chance to spotlight the Carlsbad companys EDI initiatives comes at a time when those efforts have expanded rapidly and into numerous areas. Earlier this year, NVA launched its Teatro Pueblo Nuevo bilingual and bicultural outreach project; the company also has launched a Mindful Theatre program to address seniors, and offers inclusion programs for young people with special needs. And the recently announced cast for the companys holiday production of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, a kind of sequel to Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice, is made up predominantly of actors of color. I think thats the most important thing in this whole experience, is creating an environment where people feel comfortable to teach, and to share, she says of the recent EDI efforts. And where people are willing to learn. Were talking about a lot of history here, and a lot of ingrained behavior. So it takes a lot of communication. It takes a lot of willingness to learn and a lot of being willing to say what you believe. How San Diego theater does diversity Some excerpts of mission statements, ideas and projects from area theaters EDI statements: La Jolla Playhouse As an institution that focuses on producing and developing almost entirely new work, we feel uniquely placed to support the artists and stories of today, seeking out those with multiple identities that reflect the complex realities of living in America in 2018. EDI is part of every conversation we have about the art, from playwrights to the designers, director, actors and types of stories those artists are creating. Additionally, we think of EDI in terms of a full inclusive experience for our staff as well as our patron base, with the understanding that we must always lead with the art. Old Globe Theatre In 2017, The Old Globe adopted a statement of our values which expresses a vision of a truly inclusive institution, providing theater as a public good. Now, we affirm that we will foster a culture of equity, diversity, and inclusion in all areas of our operation. With consciousness and intention, we commit to respect and acknowledge the range of human difference across categories of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression, religion, age, socioeconomic status, education level, language, physical appearance, physical/ mental ability, beliefs, perspectives, and values; create welcoming and accessible spaces for all people regardless of difference; (and) provide opportunities for participation in our institution and its programs by all individuals and groups, in particular by ensuring fairness in the procedures, processes, and systems that drive our work, and by identifying and eliminating barriers that exclude. Cygnet Theatre Four years ago we began a mandate that we continue today, that every season will provide: roles, teaching opportunities, outreach initiatives, design work, playwrights (commissioned and produced in our season) for minority voices. The past four seasons at Cygnet have included: More union contracts for women than men; over one-third of the union contracts have gone to minorities; of the seven shows we have commissioned, three have been by people of color and four by women. Intrepid Theatre People we employ: 80 percent of Intrepids full-time staff is female, as are the majority of our teaching artists and interns. Intrepid hires at least 50 percent female designers per production and prioritizes LGBTQ+ and ethnic diversity in our hiring practices, both onstage, in our staff and behind the scenes. Community outreach: In order to encourage equity and inclusion in our city, Intrepid partners with SAY San Diego, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the refugee community in San Diego. Moxie Theatre Moxie produces 100 percent female playwrights and pushes to exceed the ratio of 50 percent female playwrights of color every season. In addition, Moxie actively seeks to produce plays by queer, lesbian and bisexual playwrights. Moxies 2018-2019 season, for example, is written entirely by women of color and/or lesbian and queer women, and focuses on stories and characters that reflect the life experience of our diverse audience. San Diego Rep San Diego Rep began producing plays by Latino writers in 1988, and has now produced 53 mainstage productions by Latino playwrights. Amigos del REP, founded in 2012 by playwright in residence Herbert Siguenza, is an artist collective that gathers Latinx theater artists to read and present readings of Latinx plays and host other community events. Currently led by Latinx producer in residence Patrice Amon, Amigos has hosted and produced an average of six readings and events every season. Four of the six plays in the Reps 2018-19 season are written by women. Actors of color have been or will be cast in five of the six plays. Other Rep projects include the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival, which celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this year; and Kuumba Fest, at 26 years old the longest-running African and African-American performing arts festival west of the Mississippi. Delivering diversity San Diego-area theater and performance companies that have submitted EDI statements so far: Backyard Renaissance Theatre Blindspot Collective Cygnet Theatre Diversionary Theatre Intrepid Theatre La Jolla Playhouse MaArte Theatre Collective Moxie Theatre New Village Arts Theatre Old Globe Theatre Oracle Performing Arts Roustabouts Theatre San Diego Musical Theatre San Diego Repertory Theatre TuYo Theatre jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @jimhebert Corie De Anda meets young adult Latinas all over North County, and when she does, they all tell her the same thing: They wish a program like MANA de North County San Diego had been available to them as middle and high school students. Before joining the local chapter of this national organization, De Anda worked for 34 years in schools in North County as a bilingual speech and language specialist, teaching English as a Second Language. She joined MANA because she saw a need that she wanted to help address. Working with primarily Spanish-speaking, immigrant students in the schools in North County for years, I saw a huge need for a program specifically designed to challenge and encourage Latina teens to move ahead in life, she says. They were not participating in class discussions, they didnt see a career in their future, so they were not motivated to apply for college, and they didnt self-advocate, either. I needed to step in and advocate for them. Part of advocating for Latina teens has been as a board member and director of the organizations Hermanitas mentoring program for girls 12 to 18 years old, holding weekly seminars, planning field trips, and providing resources to help students navigate the transition from tween to teen to young adult. Advertisement De Anda, 65, lives in north Escondido with her husband and has five godchildren and 14 grand-godchildren. She took some time to talk about her work with young Latinas and why its important to her. Q: Tell us about MANA de North County San Diego. A: Founded in 2009, MANA de North County San Diego is a local chapter of the national non-profit organization MANA, a national Latina organization, which was founded in 1974. MANA is short for hermana, (which means sister), so we are a dynamic sisterhood of Latinas serving the community. Our chapter is coming up on our 10th anniversary. When the group North County Latinas ceased operations, there was a definite need for another group to challenge, guide, and encourage Latina teens in North County to pursue higher goals for themselves, so our chapter was founded at just the right time, in the right place. Our mission is to empower Latinas through leadership development, community service and advocacy. Our signature program is the Hermanitas mentoring program for Latina teens in seventh through 12th grades. Q: What are your responsibilities in this role? A: To write the curriculum and teach the weekly seminars to the girls at their schools, as well as bring in guest speakers and arrange field trips. The curriculum needs to be whole person, designed to meet the social and emotional needs of the girls as well as cover academic life skills. The lessons also need to be culturally appropriate so the girls can relate to the topics and incorporate the concepts into their lives. I communicate with each mentee and their parents weekly, and the girls also meet in small groups with a mentor, usually a staff member from their school. Q: What does MANA do to empower young Latinas? A: The girls rarely see successful Latina role models in their schools or in other fields outside of celebrities, but there are many, many successful Latinas in a wide range of career fields. To empower the girls, we bring in Latina speakers in different careers and plan a She-roes in STEM conference for the girls each spring. They meet six women from different career fields in a small group setting so that they can get to know them and understand how to enter into that type of job. During the seminars, we match the seventh-grade girls with a successful Latina woman in their chosen field, after doing a career survey with the girls to identify which careers would be a good fit for them. Once theyre matched, we give the girls a bio and photo of the woman, and they make a poster highlighting her education, her career, and what obstacles she overcame in her life. With the high school girls, we do our best to personally introduce them to a Latina in their chosen career field. We also take our mentees to STEM and leadership conferences for girls. We further empower all of our girls by designing lessons and activities to increase their self-confidence and public speaking skills, and by giving older girls a leadership role to lead groups of younger girls in discussions and activities. What I love about north Escondido ... We have sunny skies and beautiful weather about 360 days a year, and its quiet and peaceful. Q: Why is this kind of work important to you? A: I think being in the business of transforming lives is what I do well and what is critically needed now. More than ever before, teens are surrounded by negative and harmful messages in social media and via the lyrics in the popular music where many popular songs denigrate women. That makes them feel that they arent worth anything, demeaning them so they lose whatever sense of self-respect they may have. Q: What have you found challenging about this work? A: Working with teens is frustrating because their frontal lobes that control decision-making are still developing, so they sometimes say and do things without thinking first. They do disappoint us because they dont always step up to the plate to take advantage of the great opportunities we offer them. Sometimes they cancel on a field trip at the last minute and miss out, stuff like that. Sometimes there is girl drama among the seventh-graders because they are young and immature, and thats common for that age. Q: Whats been rewarding about this work? A: Many things! Seeing the significant transformation in the lives of the seventh-grade girls by the end of the school year, seeing the eighth-graders leading the seventh-graders, seeing the high school girls setting high goals for themselves, applying to college and all being accepted. Basically, watching them grow and mature through the years. Q: What has it taught you about yourself? A: I have learned that showing love and care to people is more important than completing tasks. I tend to be a little too task-oriented. I have also learned how important it is to really listen to teens. Q: What is the best advice youve ever received? A: Probably the advice that my favorite principal gave me one day: Corie, just breathe! I was taking on too many things, trying to help too many people, and I was getting a bit frazzled. Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you? A: Nothing, really. Im an open book. Q: Describe your ideal San Diego weekend. A: I spend my Saturday mornings with my Route 78 Rotary Club family at the Cocina del Charro in San Marcos, and I spend my Sunday mornings with my husband and friends at Primera Iglesia Cristiana de Vista (First Christian Church of Vista). On weekends, I enjoy attending Hispanic-themed events around North County, like plays, concerts and cultural events. Email: lisa.deaderick@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @lisadeaderick Say so long to the color show in the Eastern Sierra for this year and hello to an autumnal palette in the the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains. Thats the word from CaliforniaFallColor.com, whose motto is, Dude, autumn happens here too. Lower elevations of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains, around the 5,000-foot mark, are lighting up with yellows, golds and oranges. Lake Arrowhead, Grass Valley Lake, Lake Gregory and Oak Glen will be the hot tickets in the San Bernardinos; look to Idyllwild and Lake Hemet for color thrills in the San Jacintos. Fremont cottonwood in the Sespe Wilderness. (Lance Pifer) Advertisement The Piedra Blanca Trail in the Sespe Wilderness in Los Padres National Forest near Ojai also is nearing peak, the color report said. The leaf spectacular in the Eastern Sierra is over. The splashiest hues can be found now in the Western and Northern Sierra and in the Cascades. Big leaf maples and black oak are showing their best stuff in Yosemite Valley, and the color report predicts, will continue to do so for a couple of weeks, if the weather holds. Info: CaliforniaFallColor.com travel@latimes.com @latimestravel